CANdo - Australia's Voice's posts

Lady Thatcher (1925-2013), who has just passed away in London, made a particular point of attending the central event of the Australia Week celebrations in 2000. It is said of Lady Thatcher, that she of all politicians was known for exactly what she believed in and that moreover that she unswervingly followed those beliefs. Her attendance indicated her strong belief and appreciation of our country, our traditions, our values, our institutions and our successes, as well as our great contributions to the Commonwealth, the English speaking countries and indeed, to freedom itself. This is short anecdote concerning the event relayed to 2GB's Alan Jones.

On Foxtel's Sky News programme "Richo" on 3 April 2013 Opposition leader Tony Abbott faced tough questioning from Graham Richardson and 2GB's Alan Jones, ranging over renewable energy and CSG mining on prime agricultural land as well as superannuation changes.

Why is NSW Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell siding with the Gillard government and Attorney General Nicola Roxon in proposing further restrictions on free speech? Why is Alan Jones to be called before the inquiry Premier O’Farrell set up? To find the answers, Andrew Moore interviewed Alan Jones on 2GB on 16 January 2012.

In an interview with Alan Jones broadcast on 2GB on 12 December 2012 the NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, the Premier said he was bound by coal seam gas (CSG) licences and exploration rights on prime agricultural and urban land and even near major dam catchment areas granted by the previous Labor government. If he did, he says, the government would be liable to pay massive compensation. Now in this interview broadcast on 14 December 2012 Alan Jones speaks to CANdo’s Professor David Flint. Flint argues that there is no constitutional or legal barrier to stop the Premier from acting in the way the voters at the last election expected. Parliament, he says, could stop these activities. Indeed he wonders why Parliament did not enact immediately after the last election a Protection of Prime Agricultural and Urban Land (including Water Catchments) Act, 2011 It will be said that if such a law empowered the government to act acts, investors would lose confidence. Some CSG miners who are lusting after prime agricultural land and urban land will. But this is only because the land is close to infrastructure. Infrastructure funded by the taxpayers. Do we really need them? The country is sitting on a sea of CSG – so why don’t they leave prime agricultural land to future generations? Governments –especially in NSW and Queensland – will be more and more on the nose if they don’t do what they were elected for. More evidence – if there need be – for the people to be empowered with the tools of direct democracy.

You think you own the dream property you scrimped to buy? That if it has to be taken for some public purpose, at least you will get fair compensation. Only Marxist, communist states take property without compensation. And that doesn’t happen in Australia . Not in our democracy. Well it does. Beware – governments can effectively steal your property, and give you nothing in return. Not only can they do this, they are doing it now along the New South Wales coast. Another reason why the people must be empowered to make our politicians accountable more than only once in every three or four years. They have to be made accountable on every day, of every week, and of every month. As they are in some other countries. All this is happening in the twenty first century in New South Wales as local councils rezone land as E2 and E3 zones under Local Environmental Plans (LEP’s)authorised by the NSW Parliament under previous Labor governments. The Coalition government has not been in a hurry to reverse this. The agenda is not to protect pristine undeveloped land. It’s to sterilize existing agricultural or developed land, eventually to remove all human activity,including farming and tourism. And who is to pay? It’s the landowners – they’re to lose the use of their property, and there will be no compensation on just terms. And as vast tracts of privately owned land are frozen, governments have decided to cram even more people into high rise developments in our overcrowded cities. Urban consolidation led by big developers is being encouraged. It’s an alliance we have seen in the United States – politicians, often claiming to be on the left, enriching themselves and working with wealthy forces against farmers and small business people, forcing them into overcrowded cities. In New South Wales, some farmers have found that if they leave a field fallow, they have to spend thousands of dollars to seek bureaucratic approval just to use their land again. Property values have been slashed, banks refuse to lend and nobody will buy. You can’t clear regrowth to minimize bushfire risks. Take one example. Bernard and Rikki Grinberg’s Ballina Beach Village is a small business and small businesses are the biggest source of employment in the country. But the politicians have targeted small business like these, limiting their plans to employ young people, and threatening their viability. As Rikki Grinberg explains here, the Ballina Beach Village was inexplicably rezoned E2 and although there is an existing use exemption, “every time they want to change anything, whether it is to use crockery at their kiosk, hire a singer to play in their piano bar, renovate the interior of an old shed to turn it into a yoga studio, even trim a branch off a termite-infested tree that might fall on a tent, they have to submit a development application and prove to Ballina Shire Council they are not “intensifying” the use of their land.” ( Miranda Devine in The Daily Telegraph 28 July 2012) They have spent enormous sums on lawyers and town planners just to keep their business. It's wrong. It's undemocratic. It’s un-Australian. And it's happening now. We must stop it. All of us - or we will suffer too.

Caught out trying to stop the funding of troops flying home for Christmas – while ministers fly the world first class going to nothing more than photo opportunities - the Gillard Government has worked out a new way to run down our defences. Now they’re putting the boot into those patriotic school boys and school girls who have volunteered as cadets. There are around 14,000 of them. Now among the core functions of government are the defence of the realm and securing our borders. On both counts this Gillard government has failed. They’ve reduced defence spending to the disastrous levels which prevailed when we went, unprepared, into the Second World War. They’ve thrown the borders open to illegal immigrants who are housed by the taxpayer, who invite in their relatives and most of whom are unemployed and on welfare even after five years here. Among some groups the employment rate is less than 10%. The Gillard government has showered the world with so called “aid” to buy a next to useless seat on the United Nations Security Council so Julia Gillard, Bob Carr and even Kevin Rudd can grandstand in New York. They are cutting by almost one third the allowances for supervising staff, the cadets exchange program has been cancelled, and funding for national and regional activities dropped. This is an unbelievably petty attack on the youth of our country. It's not as bad as the Whitlam government’s arrogant decision to disband the cadets but it's coming close to it. And this from a government which throws around billions of dollars, losing, for example, several billion dollars on the so-called Building the Education Revolution.

Four polls came out today and Labor is celebrating. Prematurely I think. Of the four, Newspoll alone gives Labor any comfort. Perhaps Mr. O’Shaughnessy should have run it again. Newpoll puts the two parties equal at 50:50. This is an improbable - but not impossible jump from last time. This result was 45: 50 in favour of the Coalition. What makes it look like a rogue poll is that all the other polls say the Coalition would win at least comfortably, although there is a warning in one aspect of Morgan. Newspoll says Julia Gillard is easily preferred as prime minister, rising from 39:38 to 46:32. Her disapproval rating fell 5 points from 57 to 52, and her approval rating rose similarly from 31 to to 36. Tony Abbott’s hardly changed – falling one point to an approval rating of 30% and rising up one on his disapproval rating to 60%. Nielsen says the Coalition prevails comfortably in the two party preferred 53:47. Worse for the government, Labor friendly Essential agrees but at 55:45. Roy Morgan comes in with a finding in favour of the Coalition at 53.5-46.5. Unlike the other polls Morgan is face-to face. Also Morgan actually asks people how they would apply their preferences. Everybody else applies them as in the last election. If Morgan did this, the coalition lead would fall to 50.5:49.5, closer to Newspoll. Neilson also found that if Kevin Rudd replaced Julia Gillard, Labor would prevail over the coalition, 53: 47. This result is unlikely to be followed in an election. Were the ALP to overthrow Julia Gillard and return to Kevin Rudd, the Coalition would campaign on the many very vicious attacks on the public record made on Kevin Rudd by his own front bench during his last challenge. He would become the issue in any election. Neilson also found that Malcolm Turnbull, who is by far Labor voters preferred Liberal, is now also preferred by Liberal voters 53: 45. In the last poll Tony Abbott was preferred by Liberal voters by a close 50:49. It’s unlikely this will affect the Liberal backbench - unless the polls indicate, over time, that Labor would win. And the crucial measure is the two party preferred, not who is the most popular leader. This is not America. These polls probably entrench Ms. Gillard in the Labor leadership. The caucus would have to be desperate to change leaders now, and Newspoll gives them hope. In the unlikely event that Newspoll’s conclusions hold and are followed in the other polls - and this continues over a few months - an early election is on the cards.

Congratulations. People power - including the petition many of you signed on this site - has worked. The government has taken notice of your message to stop kicking our soldiers, sailors and airmen in the guts. They've given in – they've reinstated free flights home for single defence personnel over 21. Opposition spokesman Stuart Robinson MP says it's an embarrassing back flip for the government. He moved a motion in the House to disallow the regulations, and the government caved in. Now, he says, Australian sailors, soldiers and airmen and women can plan their leave While the budget measure was aimed at single defence personnel over 21, it was clear from what was being said that the Gillard government had younger and married personnel in their sights. This was decided while ministers and bureaucrats were happy to fly the world in first or business class, staying in five-star accommodation for talkfests, the communiqués for which have been written in advance. These important meetings are too often no more than photo opportunities for government propaganda. And the Gillard government is still kicking our defenders in the guts. Plans to properly equip and upgrade the service have been set aside – the Gillard government has slashed defence spending down to the levels applying before the Second World War. Surely it's time that the Australian people were given the right to petition for a recall election government which is failing them

I might expect my accountant, my lawyer, or even my web hosting company to refer to me as a client. Why? Well, they all have one thing in common - they are professionals for whose services I have paid. So what's with politicians, bureaucrats and now even the media elites referring to asylum seekers as "clients". Remember, doesn't a client pay you? Since when do you pay your clients? In my confusion, I sought clarification from the dictionary. But you could have knocked me over with a feather when I discovered that a client now includes "a person being dealt with by social services". I know that dictionaries must reflect the usage of a word, but surely not when it's only by the political class? This is an entirely new phenomenon, certainly not reflected in earlier editions of The Oxford English Dictionary. However, I shouldn't discriminate, this isn't restricted to asylum seekers - even Centrelink refers to its new breed of welfare dependants as clients! This is a transparent device used by politicians, bureaucrats and media elite to disguise their plans to create a welfare dependant class, redistribute income, spend other peoples money, and steal their property. My message to the bearcats and politicians is to stop this Orwellian 1984 newspeak and to use English honestly. Worse, will the mainstream media give up reproducing the spin the politicians dish out - instead do you jobs properly and report the news objectively. Australians are sick and tired of listening to your drivel and spin.

Christians are subject to shocking persecution in Muslim countries, as the following report from Raymond Ibrahim of the New York based Gatestone Institute reveals. At the same time Muslims are paying criminal people smugglers to come here from a safe Muslim country, Indonesia, claiming refugee status. Most hide their papers presumably to make misrepresentations to the Australian authorities. So why is the Gillard government still so half hearted in taking the necessary measures to stop illegal immigration? Raymond Ibrahim says that several reports appearing in July indicate that Christian minorities all around the Muslim world—especially women and children—are being abducted, tortured, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and/or enslaved. . In Egypt, at least 550 such cases have been documented in the last five years. They have increased since the revolution. He says Christians who manage to escape back to their families often find the government siding with the Muslim abductors. One young mother who recently testified before the Helsinki Commission explained how she was snatched in broad daylight, as her abductor shouted to bystanders while dragging her to a waiting taxi, "No one interfere! She is an enemy of Islam." Mr Ibrahim says that identical reports are emerging from Pakistan, where "persecution, kidnapping and abduction of Christian women and girls," including many married women with children, are on the rise. Last year the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that 1800 Christian and Hindu girls were forcibly converted to Islam. Most recently, the under age sister of a pastor was "kidnapped raped and forcibly converted to Islam." She "was kidnapped around a month ago by some Muslim men while returning home from college. She was held for days, suffered sexual abuse, threats and violence. In such a state of terror and exhaustion, first she was coerced into converting to Islam, and then marriage. Her family reported the incident to the police station in Chunian, but no investigations have been conducted and instead her abductors have presented a report to the court attesting to the girl now being Muslim and legally married. He says that the tiny Palestinian Christian community in the Hamas-run Gaza strip is also under siege, and charges that five Christians were abducted and pressured into converting to Islam. Because they made this forced conversion charge known, "members of the Christian community now fear reprisal attacks by Muslim extremists." One said that if the West continues to turn a blind eye to their tragedy, “in a few months there will be no Christians left in Palestine. Today it's happening in the Gaza Strip, tomorrow it will take place in Bethlehem." While this is going on in Muslim countries, the Gillard government is still, as they say, ” intercepting” boats loaded with illegal immigrants. Intercepting? Make that welcoming. Read more: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3318/muslim-persecution-of-christians-july-2012

The Australian Building and Construction Commission, the ABCC, was well armed and tough. This was especially so for the bully-boy unions in Victoria and Western Australia, where builders had to pay for peace, says Andrew Bolt. KPMG says that as a result the community was $5.9 billion a year better off. Labor promised to get rid of it in the 2007. Kevin Rudd didn’t move fast enough for the union bosses. Money talks. At the last election the Electrical Trades Union gave a $325,000, not to Labor, but to the Greens. You see, the Greens had opportunistically promised to help abolish the ABCC. Its failure? It had brought peace to the construction industry. The union bosses - and the Greens - didn’t like that. Presumably the ABCC was doing terrible things to the environment. Or do the Greens support thugs punching police horses? As Andrew Bolt says, Julia Gillard understood this unsubtle message. She delivered.. The powerful ABCC was wound up . Almost as soon as this happened, the thugs were out on the streets. Just as the people smugglers took their cue from Rudd and Gillard winding up the Pacific solution. The ABCC was replaced with the Fair Work Building and Construction agency. There’s that word “fair” again. It means weak and useless. This is the tactic of the Gillard and Rudd governments. They create powerless agencies like Fair Work Australia. Remeber Fair Work Australia took over three years to investigate Craig Thomson and the Health Services Union. Even then they didn't produce a brief on evidence the prosecutors could use. Remember too, the powerless Corgill inquiry into the five or so billion dollars BER rort. Compare that with the open powerful Royal Commission into the Australian Wheat Board under a respected judge which John Howard established. He also agreed that if the judge needed additional terms of reference these would be given. The hearings gave Kevin Rudd an evening TV platform to attack the government. But John Howard did the right thing Is it the government doesn’t know what it is doing? Or are open borders, thugs on the streets and thugs ruling the construction industry part of the Gillard government agenda? To read Andrew Bolt's comment go to: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/union-thugs-free-rein-to-punch-police-horses/story-e6frezz0-1226461084986

Is what has happened in Sydney the same across the country? As an example – just one example - of the absence of law and order on the streets of Sydney, you’re not even safe on the footpaths in the CBD broad daylight. When a correspondent complained in the Sydney Morning Herald that despite extreme caution, she and her dog nearly became “road kill” cyclist when crossing the infamous Bourke Street, Surry Hills, cycleway, one of the cyclist associations quoted statistics suggesting bicycle pedestrian collisions were extremely rare. But as Donald Urquhart of Rozelle replied (27/8) “many pedestrians have simply given up on reporting such incidents....” He says “.. the chances of identifying the offender are almost nil in light of the lack of ways of readily identifying the cyclist” . He says the bicycle apologists “.. should spend some time in Sydney's CBD on any weekday...” He complains about cyclists “riding through red lights, riding the wrong way on one-way streets and, most annoying and dangerous of all, riding illegally on footpaths.” He concludes “It really is time that some protection is afforded to pedestrians.” “While most cyclists behave sensibly, the small but growing number that do not must eventually lead to consideration of registration for all cyclists.” Well most Sydney pedestrians would agree. It seemed better to me when I was in Melbourne recently. Is it just that Sydney’s authorities can’t be bothered doing their jobs?

Australians will be amazed that taxpayers are actually spending $150 million dollars a year on a veritable battalion of government spin doctors – about 1600, according to The Australian (14/8). But that’s not all. There are also more spin doctors in the parallel public service that governments now surround themselves with, the so-called ministerial advisors. Among the Prime Minister’s, there is her chief spin doctor, John McTernan. He was imported -no doubt at great expense from the UK. He had gained -shall we say - certain notoriety when he spun for the Blair government. He became better known here when he phoned 2GB’s financial commentator, Ross Greenwood, who described the call as an ''absolute tirade'' laced with incessant use of the ''F bomb.'' And you the taxpayer are paying every cent of this. But not content with this, and with a curious readiness of some in the media to report these spin doctored press releases as fact, the Prime Minister and her Communications Minister Senator Conroy are now threatening to gag those journalists who try as best they can to report the facts rather than the government spin. We are going down a dangerous path indeed.

There are still hard questions to be answered to put the AWU scandal to rest. As Michael Smith has explained on a series of videos on www.cando.org.au , a sham AWU non-profit entity was set up in the nineties. Its purpose was to siphon funds to two AWU organisers, Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt. Bruce Wilson was romantically involved with Julia Gillard, then a partner in a Melbourne law firm. Vast sums were withdrawn in cash. The sham entity was even used buy a house. Ms. Gillard’s firm acted without charge. They even arranged a first mortgage. And when the solicitors asked for a bank cheque to pay for the balance, this was actually paid by a cheque on the sham entity. But when the fraud was exposed, Ms Gillard denied knowing anything about Wilson and Blewitt’s illegal activities. She said that she was young and naive. Although she had said that she was not going anywhere, she soon left the law firm. When she is asked about this, she says her answers are on the public record. They aren’t. Robert McClelland, who subsequently became Kevin Rudd's Attorney General, called for a Royal Commission but there was no enquiry into the fraud. When she became PM he was replaced as Attorney General.. The affair has resulted in some significant collateral damage, as the Americans say. This is the law firm Slater and Gordon. They have one of the largest and widest networks of law offices in the country specialising in insurance claims, commercial, family and asbestos-related law. Slater and Gordon's managing director, Andrew Grech, put out a press release last Friday. They are asking their former clients permission to reveal details of the transactions. You see communications between lawyers and their clients are privileged. Only the client can waive this Understandably, the present partners of Slater and Gordon are tired of being dragged into the mud by this scandal in which they are no way personally involved . And isn’t it time there was a Royal Commission into the financial affairs of the AWU, the HSU and other unions? The public is sick and tired of these powerless enquiries that cannot compel the production of documents or the sworn testimony of witnesses. Only a Royal Commission can get the answers to the “hard questions” which Australians are demanding be answered. CANdo, on a tiny budget and using volunteers has done what the mainstream media cannot or will not do. Once Julia Gillard huffed and puffed, they all went to water.

Is there anything the Gillard government cannot handle competently? That socialist monopoly, the NBN, was born on the back of an envelope when communications minister Stephen Conroy managed to obtain an audience with Kevin Rudd on the prime ministerial jet . There is no cost benefit study and the billions - over $40 billion - are all off budget. They could pour $100 billion into the NBN and it wouldn't appear in the budget. It would have no effect on the surplus or deficit. What an appalling scam. The initial NBN plan was released in December 2010 by Julia Gillard. Kevin Morgan, who was the ACTU member Kim Beazley's advisory committee on telecommunications, says that plan is now in tatters. At the time, corporate advisers Greenhill Caliburn reported that “that, taken as a whole, the corporate plan for the development of the NBN is reasonable." That report cost $1.1 million. But the NBN has achieved only 9 per cent of its rollout target for homes passed by fibre and 3 per cent of the planned connections where customers are hooked up to broadband. Based on its initial estimates, by June this year 317,000 households should have been passed with fibre and 137,000 homes actually connected to a broadband service. Writing in The Australian on 7 August 2012 Kevin Morgan points out that fewer than 25,000 homes had been passed and fewer than 4000 connected. He says this is not just a debacle. Its an abject failure by NBN Co, especially in new (greenfield) housing estates. Lessr than 20 months after predicting that 172,000 greenfield premises would be passed and 132,000 connected, 0.6 per cent of the coverage target and less than 0.2 per cent of the active service target have been met. Kevin Morgan says many homeowners will have a long wait for new telephone services. But if NBN Co is failing dismally on delivering the fibre promised to 93 per cent of homes, he says it is at least making progress on its wireless and satellite services for the other 7 per cent. That's because NBN Co has little active involvement in building either. These have been fully contracted out, albeit at considerable cost. The average capital cost of the wireless and satellite services will be about $14,000. Given each service will yield less than $300 a year in revenues; these rural services will require ongoing annual subsidies of at least $3000 a year per service. In contrast, Optus and Telstra are building far faster new-generation mobile networks at a cost in the hundreds of dollars, not thousands, for each customer. To repeat, is there anything the Gillard government cannot handle competently?

Intercepted? The people smugglers boats are not intercepted. They are welcomed. With open arms. According to the Encarta dictionary, to intercept is “to prevent people or objects from reaching their destination or target by stopping, diverting, or seizing them.” Encarta gives this example “The contraband was intercepted by police at the dock.” The Gillard government doesn’t intercept smugglers’ boats. The smugglers clients are welcomed, given government homes and put on welfare. So far 1278 clients have been welcomed this month, 6535 this year. Ms. Gillard and her ministers have welcomed 91 boats this year. The government’s spin doctors won’t tell us, but 2GB’s Ray Hadley revealed on 24 July that once again, smugglers’ clients at the Villawood detention centre have jammed blankets into smoke alarms and set their more than ample taxpayer funded accommodation on fire. Meanwhile, moving smugglers’ clients from the crowded facility on Christmas Island to the mainland is costing up to $180,000 a flight, according to Gemma Jones in The Daily Telegraph (24/7)

Something strange and rather ominous is happening in Australia. The Gillard government plans to do something no democratic government should. It's trying to work out how to gag the media. They are especially targeting one newspaper-The Australian. Now for most of history, a national daily newspaper was a pipe dream for such a large country. But back in ‘64, Rupert Murdoch decided to start a national newspaper - even before the technology was ready. He kept the newspaper going at a loss for decades. The Australian took on causes even before they were fashionable. Such as aboriginal disadvantage. They ran with others, like the republic, which turned out to be a dead loss. Most importantly The Australian has given both sides a go. And thrashed each side when they believed they deserved it. But the Gillard government can't take it. Just as they can't take the daily exposure of their failings by talkback radio - especially by 2GB’s Alan Jones and Ray Hadley. This is dangerous stuff. The government is now working out ways to control the media, to make it more compliant. They talking about a star chamber- called a media council -to do the controlling. Then there's to be a a special law to deal with Gina Rinehart. We haven't had special laws against individuals since the bills of attainder. They were used to declare someone guilty of a crime, often treason. Without a trial. And then they were executed. They were declared unconstitutional in the US. This bill of attainder against Gina Rinehart is to stop her acquiring Fairfax. The camouflage is to be a so-called public interest test. It will be a political interest test. Is this acquisition in the political interests of the Gillard government? And now we have the extraordinary news that Fairfax’s chief executive,Greg Hywood, has refused to sign a letter of protest from media organisations to the government. He told The Australian “We're not about to sign a form letter penned by News Limited to deal with the problem it created for the media industry in this country.” The problem The Australian created for the media? What does he mean? The media doing theirs job – exposing government failings and not just publishing government press releases -creates a problem? Isn’t this the clearest reason for Fairfax to grab the help that Gina Rinehart is offering. Fairfax is in a mess because the ownership that is the board long ago abandoned its responsibility. It handed over control of its once proud journals of record - the Herald and The Age - to left-wing journalist collectives. And in their now dire financial position Fairfax is panicking. Fairfax is desperately screaming out for leadership. Leadership of the sort that Murdoch offers News Limited. Isn’t it time to give Gina Rinehart a go?

They are intent on stealing your property. But they don’t have to actually take it. But the politicians can- at the stroke of a pen- make your property worthless. And they are doing it. In so many ways. That’s why we are campaigning to ensure the politicians become the servants of the people. And not the masters. We say this people’s power should be in the constitution. In the meantime here’s one example of the people winning over our politicians. Gosford City Council on Monday night agreed to withdraw a message on planning certificates saying: "This land has been identified as being potentially affected by sea level rise of up to 0.9m by the year 2100''. And now Jacques Laxale of the Consumer and Taxpayer Association has called a rally this Saturday at 2pm against the nearby Wyong Council. It’s at the Frank Ballance Memorial Park 20a Margaret St Wyong. This rally will highlight the issues of sea level rises and the carbon dioxide tax. According to the Daily Telegraph the Gosford decision means thousands of coastal property owners have been given relief after their council dumped the controversial clause on planning documents which labelled their homes as in danger of sea level rise. Coastal Residents Incorporated secretary Pat Aitken said home owners had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on the values of their homes, and insurance premiums had risen up to 1000 per cent. Councillor Jim Macfadyen said there were 56 NSW councils affected but only 16 had put the message on planning certificates. "There has been a lot of concern and angst, of property prices falling because of that certificate, concern of insurance companies increasing their premiums, all for a report that looks at an event that may happen in 100 years,'' he said. Not that “may happen”. “May happen” according to a computer projection based on some disputed theory. That rally against Wyong Council is on Saturday 7 July at the Frank Ballance Memorial Park 20a Margaret St Wyong And let’s make our politicians accountable on every day of every week of every month every year. The politicians should be the servants of the people the masters.

Industry super funds are the new rivers of gold for the union bosses. The question must be why won’t the government insist they be properly run. If they go bust it will be the workers w ho will lose. Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten won't lose a cent. And this is a Labor government. Employers will soon be paying 12% of wages by way of superannuation. By 2025, industry funds are expected to control assets of $1.5 trillion. Despite a massive fall in membership there are now twice as many union bosses as in 1975. The ratio of bosses to members is five times that of Britain’s. They are very well rewarded, these bosses. And not just in their wages. They can look forward to being life-time beneficiaries of that well known rort, “jobs for the boys”. You name it, jobs on government boards, jobs on commissions, seats in parliament, with of course, generous taxpayer funded superannuation - their political friends, the party machines and the factions will ensure these generous benefits will be accessible. In the meantime we’ve seen complaints that union funds are being diverted to pay for such things as holidays for friends and relatives, private school fees and even for prostitutes. There are claims that contracts have been awarded in return for massive secret commissions. And as Jeffrey Babb says in Newsweekly (7/7/12), most workers don’t know that unlike public servants and politicians , their superannuation is not guaranteed. If there aren't lucky enough to be in an industry fund that goes bust they lose their retirement savings. He says one of the best performing super funds almost collapsed following the global financial crisis. The problem is the union bosses are being supported by their mates in the Gillard government. A Labor government is actually refusing to accept standards that apply to everybody else in the financial sector. And why has Minister Bill Shorten rejected a proposal that one third of trustees on industry funds be independent? Is he just looking after the interests of his union mates? In America this scandal would be before a grand jury. In Britain a Royal Commission. But in this country, the government has given us Fair Work Australia. Stop the union bosses rorts. Sign the petition on our site www.cando.org . And join us in demanding a convention to change the constitution to make the politicians accountable on every day in every week of every month and in every year. Not just every three or four years.

On his first programme since the introduction of the contentious carbon-dioxide tax, Alan Jones speaks with Professor David Flint about CANdo's proposal to ensure that our politicians remain our servants and not our masters.

Stopping the boats is not a pipedream, as too many in the commentariat claim. And far too much is made of the constraints imposed by the Refugee Convention. It is for us, the nation state, to interpret this and not interested lobbies. Not only should John Howard’s Pacific solution be restored, but asylum should only be considered for those coming direct from a place of alleged persecution. Further, those coming without papers from Indonesia or any other safe third country should be presumed to be acting in bad faith, and refused further consideration. In summary the government must stop outsourcing this part of the refugee programme to criminal people smugglers. If a government can’t govern, its leader should hand in her commission. The palliative of substantially increasing the refugee programme would be a serious mistake if this were to be as mismanaged as it has been in the last few years. It is essential that those chosen be likely to be contributors to Australia. There are, for example, Christian communities in the Arab world who live in fear for the property their persons and even their lives. On all experience they make excellent immigrants. The Rev Fred Nile persuaded the Howard government to give particular recognition to the plight of the Egyptian Copts, but this was subsequently abandoned.

Why doesn't the federal government just do its job? Why doesn’t it just concentrate on its core functions? Defence for example. The government is now spending proportionately less on defence than in the Thirties. It's even put off replacing the hopeless Collins class submarines that another Labor government foisted on us . This is the government that turned $70 billion in the bank into something approaching $200 billion in debt. They’ve s even raised their ‘credit card’ limit to 300 billion. This government is always working out new ways to waste money. Particularly in areas which have nothing to do with the federal government. They’ve just announced a $25 million deal with a number of sporting associations. This is against binge drinking. It's to promote safe alcohol consumption to adults, alcohol-free sporting environments for minors and to reduce alcohol promotion in their codes. The bigger sports - Australian rules and rugby league -are not part of the deal. Of course the other sports have taken the money. Why wouldn't they? It's like this dopey idea of putting warnings on bottles of wine. When will governments realise that their job is to govern in relation to core areas. When will they stop poking their noses into areas which have absolutely nothing to do with the politicians? By the way, guess where the $25 million is coming from? The federal government is borrowing it. They borrow about $100 million a day. So they crowd out the mortgage market. Borrowing rates would be lower if the federal government weren’t borrowing. And guess who pays the interest? (Apart from an election, there may well be some hope. That comes from a very sensible decision of the High Court. This says that apart from grants to the states federal government can’t give money away without supporting legislation. And it can’t pass legislation outside of its powers.) In the meantime, it's about time politicians were made accountable. Not just every three or four years. The politicians should be accountable on every day of every week of every month of every year

It is extraordinary that the Gillard government - which finds it difficult to handle its core functions - should engage in something which has nothing to do with them. Worse, experts say is a potentially dangerous social engineering project. This is not about adults. It’s about little children. Three year olds – yes 27, 000 three year olds - are to be screened. They’re to be for early signs of mental illness. The misnamed ''Healthy Kids Check'' programme seeks out children who show troubling behaviour. This apparently relies on such things as sleeping with the light on, having temper tantrums or extreme shyness as signs of possible psychological problems. The program is expected to identify more than 27,000 children. But some mental health experts fear children may be misdiagnosed or given psychiatric drugs unnecessarily. Dr Alan Frances, a professor from the prestigious psychiatric and behavioural science department at America’s Duke University says accurately predicting mental illness in three years old is simply impossible. He warns that that any effort to pick out the one truly high-risk child will doubtless mislabel a dozen or two who aren't. He slams this as intrusive, stigmatising and worrying. I will distort parenting and may lead to harmful interventions. And on top of this there is a total waste of scarce resources. These could be better reserved for the currently underserved mentally ill. He says changes to the psychiatrist bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders are partly responsible for the epidemics of autism and attention deficit disorder. There was a 40 fold increase in the diagnosis of childhood bipolar disorder. This has led to a consequent wild over use of harmful and intrusive medications. Dr Francis says Australians taking the risky step of giving its experts free rein in devising wasteful and possibly risky social engineering prospects

“Jet setting bureaucrats have been slammed by Tim Andrews of the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance for raking up millions of kilometres in luxury air travel. While Aussie families are struggling, bureaucrats are living the high life and travelling to exotic destinations while we foot the bill," he said adding that it was "an utter disgrace.” Officials from the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency spent $3.274 million last year , travelling the world to speak about the perils of a warming planet, he told Barclay Crawford of The Sunday Telegraph (17/6). Their carbon emissions were equivalent to those from the electricity needed to power 113 homes for a year. Their staff took in some of the world's premier holiday destinations, including Cancun in Mexico, the Maldives, Vanuatu, Miami and Grenada and Guyana in the Caribbean as well as the usual destinations - London, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo. More than 42 flights cost more than $10,000, -$10,000. One flight from Sydney to Bali on March 23 cost $15,311. Another to Seoul from Canberra on October 25 cost $15,688.. Tim Andrews, who obtained the figures under FOI, said it was hypocrisy for the government to be slugging airlines with the carbon tax while racking up their own substantial carbon footprint. "While Aussie families are struggling, bureaucrats are living the high life and travelling to exotic destinations while we foot the bill," he added. "There is no justification for $3m on flights in one year, and the federal government ought to be ashamed.” The department defended the expenditure to the Telegraph. It was critical they represent Australia at crucial climate change negotiations. Negotiations which rarely achieve anything, but agreements to meet in yet another exotic locale. A spokesman said the department purchases 100 per cent "Green Power" offsets. These carbon credit schemes are a speculators delight. They are a licence to pollute, often involving short changing people in the third world. In 2007, the carbon dioxide market was worth $60 billion. No wonder the merchant banks are rubbing their hands. In the meantime the politicians and bureaucrats salve their consciences about wasting your money - flying luxury class around the world to useless gabfests in luxury hotels in holiday destinations. What a rort.

Wasn't it enough to reduce funding to the Armed Forces so that we are virtually defenceless? The government seems now determined to undermine morale in the defence forces. We had the case last year when SAS men were subject to an outrageous prosecution for doing no more than their duty in Afghanistan. Now there's talk of a Royal commission into past abuse in the Armed Forces. So every day the media will be filled with detailed allegations before these are tested properly in a court of law. We just learned that a firm of lawyers has produced a report for the government which says there are allegations of sexual and other abuse in the defence forces going back many years. Unsurprisingly, they say that compensation should be paid. The lawyers had no power to compel witnesses neither to appear before them nor to produce documents. The allegations made have not been tested in court where the accused would have the important and crucial right of cross-examination. There was no jury to decide whether the claims were proven. So why was such a report commissioned at great expense by the government? It was because the defence Minister Stephen Smith was upset when a case of sexual abuse was reported that the Australian defence forces Academy. A female cadet was videoed while engaging in sexual intercourse with another cadet. When she became aware of this and the matter was being investigated, another case proceeded against her for some offence. The Minister was outraged by this and forced the commandant to stand down. He instituted multiple enquiries even about whether women should engage in combat operations. What the commandant alone was found to be not at all improper and he was eventually reinstated without an apology it seems. We're told that some of the alleged abusers now have high positions in the defence forces. There is talk of a Royal commission where all sorts of allegations will be made daily and publicly. If there were cases of abuse in the past, wouldn't the correct course of action be to refer the matter to the investigating authorities to determine whether a prosecution should take place.

A few years ago an acquaintance told me he had put solar panels on his houses and how profitable it was. I said you realise that pensioners are paying for this in their increased electricity bills. He said he knew that but when the government made the offer he realised that there would be a lot of money in it. If the government was silly enough to do this he was going to take it. And that is the problem when politicians get a bright idea. In broad terms electricity bills are likely to rise by about 20% over the next year. About 10% relates to the carbon dioxide tax which the Gillard government introduced in breach of a clear and specific election promise by Prime Minister Gillard and Treasure Wayne Swan that they would not. This is on top of the increases over the last few years. In NSW prices increased by 70% over the past 6 years.- The remainder of the 20% increase after the new CO2 tax relates to another politicians’ folly. This is the RET, that is renewable energy targets. Labour and the coalition are to blame for this. They decided that coal power which Australians is a very cheap source of electricity should be replaced by renewable energy. But the only renewable energy sources our bright politicians allow are precisely those ones which are abject failures. One is wind farming, the other is solar energy. Incidentally most of the profits from wind farming don’t even stay in Australia - but that's another story. The two forms of renewable energy which work -the ones which are not allowed –are nuclear and hydroelectric power. Hydroelectricity is now I'd banned because the Greens and Labour won't allow it. This is usually because of some spotted toad or something like that which they believe has to be protected. In addition, Labor in New South Wales police decided that the infrastructure had to be reliable – gold plated as Simon Bensen puts it in the Telgraph (15/6)f. That is power had to be assured at the times of overwhelming demand. For example if there were a heatwave of the severe modern air conditioning would be put on and you couldn't have a breakdown then. So we spent a massive amount of money to take into account unusual periods of peak demand – at most a few days in a year – in some years not at all. Also some state governments had been raiding the profits of electricity companies effectively denying them funds for reinvestment We should have some of the cheapest electricity in the world. Instead we're sending out coal to China and other countries so that they can have cheap electricity. With the Labor’s CO2 tax, and both sides RET – as well as gold plating- we look as though we will soon have one of the world’s dearest. Such is the wisdom of our politicians. Irrefutable evidence of a glaring need to make the politicians accountable to the people not every three or four years in too often contrived elections. They need to be accountable on everyday in every week and of every month.

Has the federal government gone stark raving mad? They have already put the live cattle export on its knees. They completely ignored departmental advice. Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd didn't bother to go to Jakarta. Prime Minister Julia Gillard didn't bother to pick up the telephone to speak to the Indonesian president. But within a few days of the Four Corners program showing terrible cruelty in one particular abattoir, they panicked. MinisterJoe Ludwig suspended the trade for six months. Six months. And including exporters with access to good abattoirs in Indonesia. And now the Indonesians have decided, understandably, that we are not a reliable partner. So they are looking to other sources and they significantly reduced the number of cattle that can be imported. Thousands of jobs are at risk, businesses and property made worthless, and the taxpayers will have to pay the massive damages which the cattle producers are obviously entitled to under any system of decent justice. If that wasn’t enough the Gillard government has decided – to satisfy their green allies -, to create the world's biggest marine park reserves. They are endangering another industry – fishing . And they couldn’t care less. We are talking of an industry with over 36,000 jobs and $4 billion in revenue for the Australian fishing industry. Yes we will still be able to buy fish. But it will be fish imported from Asia. Or perhaps caught by foreign fishermen in Australian waters. You see the government has so run down our defence forces the chances of our being able to protect this new marine reserves is rather limited. And anyway their hands are full, welcoming so-called welcoming the clients of the people smugglers most of whom have deceitfully destroyed were hidden their passports. And by the way who asked for the creation of these reserves? Piers Ackerman points out the government website admits it received almost half a million submissions. “The largest proportion of the submissions received (99.8 per cent) were campaign submissions received via email and post, the majority of which were from overseas. These submissions were generated through organised campaigns and contained various standardized text provided through templates or postcards." So Greens overseas just coincidentally flooded the government with submissions. As a result the Gillard government is prepared to destroy another industry and ensure Australians have to eat expensive imported fish. But it can be sure of continued support from its green allies. And the Prime Minister will be able to go to Rio de Janeiro next week where 50,000 are going on carbon dioxide emitting planes to stay in air-conditioned hotels to hear why Australians will have to pay the highest carbon dioxide tax in the world. Representative democracy has been totally compromised by the politicians. The only way to ensure this never happens again is to empower the people to make the politicians accountable and every day of every week and of every month between elections.

The Syrian situation is worsening. Over 40,000 have fled, around 20,000 have been killed. This includes 500 children. 600 people died under torture. There is only one answer - the overthrow of the evil regime of the dictator, President Bashar al-Aassad. He inherited this from his father - who was even worse than he is. The Western powers, exhausted from their interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, are little inclined to send forces in. The Arab league does nothing. Israel is understandably wary – she quite legitimately fears that the Baathist regime could be replaced by something worse. The UN Security Council is completely impotent. Russia and China have made it clear they will veto any sanctions against the regime. And Australia? There's not much a middle power can do. This is especially so given that the government has completely run down our defence forces. But the government is doing something. They're pursuing their useless exercise in international vanity. They trying to win an election to get a temporary seat on the UN Security Council. They admit to spending about $23 million of your money for this. They've actually spent billions. Your billions. When our foreign ministers Kevin Rudd and Bob Carr should have been working with the Indonesians to stop people smugglers, and to keep the live cattle export trade alive, they were going round the world campaigning for this temporary seat. We've spent billions in foreign aid to governments in parts of the world where we have few interests. All in vain attempt to purchase votes. But it's likely that tiny Luxembourg will get the seat that where aiming for. Luxembourg has the support of the European Union. With virtually bottomless funds, they can easily outbid Australia. So why is Australia engaging in this corrupt chase for a seat on the Security Council? The Security Council is completely impotent. Unless the five great powers are unanimous it can’t act. A temporary seat is worthless. And we’re paying billions to try and get one. Why? It's just to feed the vanity of our politicians. Kevin Rudd wanted to strut the world stage. Now it's the former premier New South Wales Bob Carr. One of his first acts as Foreign Minister was to threaten sanctions against a friend, Papua New Guinea. It was about a purely internal Papua New Guinea question, the timing of their general election. He did this on television talking to Labour veteran Graeme Richardson. It's about time Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Bob Carr stopped wasting money in these useless activities Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

Australia's live export industry and the many businesses dependent on it are still suffering from the severe blow inflicted on them by the Gillard government in June 2011. Some fear it may yet prove fatal. A year ago the ABC’s Four Corners screened a story showing appalling cruelty to a small number of Australian cattle sent to Indonesian abattoirs. The Gillard government took just six days to respond with a six months total ban on the live export trade with Indonesia. The minister did not go to Indonesia. Nor did Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. Prime Minister Gillard did not even pick up the phone to speak to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono . The government ignored advice from the department not to do this. They warned that farmers would be overstocked and would have inadequate feed. Animals could starve and the industry damaged. Acting against this advice the Minister, Joe Ludwig, clearly panicked. This has been ruinous for the industry. The Indonesian government has clearly have decided Australia is unreliable and they will go elsewhere for much of their food. In “Farmers feeling hung out to dry”(2/6) “ The Australian’s Hedley Thomas reports on a likely legal action. This will probably result in taxpayers paying enormous damages for the government's negligence to farmers whose businesses are ruined and whose property cannot be sold. My tip is the government is so embarrassed it will settle this and try to gag those damaged. Lawyer and former jackaroo Trent Thorne has obtained documentary evidence establishing that "the exercise of the minister's power in making the order was so unreasonable that no reasonable person could so exercise the power". You can hear Trent Thorne and his brother cattleman James Thorne interviewed on 8 June by 2GB’s Alan Jones by following the link below. Isn't this scandal justification for demanding the right to recall governments to an election if the majority of Australians want that? Read more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/farmers-feeling-hung-out-to-dry/story-e6frg8zx-1226380925999 Listen: http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=13141

We have long been saying that any asylum seeker coming from a safe third country – Indonesia Malaysia – without a passport should be assumed to be acting in bad faith. They should not be allowed to seek asylum here. It's good to see the coalition has adopted our proposal. In the meantime Australians are outraged by the case of Capt Emad. The ABC’s Four Corners had tracked him down. A people smuggler, he entered Australia as an asylum seeker. The Gillard government process found him to be a refugee. He and members of his family were given government housing. Some were on welfare. As soon as the program aired, he fled the country. And the police let him go. They said they'd been watching him but didn't have admissible evidence. Australians are concerned about the timidity of our police. Just recall the Australia Day riot. Instead of warning and if necessary then arresting the rioters, they engaged in the farce of carrying the Prime Minister out bodily to escape a few demonstrators. And by the way the police have decided not to prosecute anybody over that riot. Just as some years ago, after the Cronulla Beach riots, the police refrained from even approaching a motorcade of heavily armed men who engaged in a vicious revenge mission across Sydney's southern suburbs. There were quite happy to restrain the young rioters who were using their fists on Cronulla Beach. But they wouldn't touch the revenge motorcade armed to the teeth with knives and machetes and other weapons – and who used them. Meanwhile, the people smugglers have delivered 18,500 clients to Australia since Labor changed John Howard’s solution. Each one approved for asylum brings in three or four under the Gillard government’s “chain immigration” policy. Most are still on welfare years after arriving. How many are themselves people smugglers who have to set up business here operating even from government housing while they are on welfare? We are told the government has toughened up approving people as refugees and lowered this to about 50 or 60%. But on reviews and appeals, about 75 to 80% of the rejections are overruled. And who pays for these reviews and appeals? And who set up the system or has not changed it? Captain Emad no doubt left the country laughing. Is our federal government just incompetent? Or is this similar to policies advanced by the left in Europe? The new French president promised in the election to give the vote to non- citizens in France, and an amnesty to almost half a million illegal immigrants. Has the Gillard government – and the previous Rudd government - adopted a boats for votes policy? Governments should be accountable 24/7. Not just every three or four years.

Our government has been surreptitiously bringing in foreign soldiers sailors and airmen. And they're giving them bonuses. Up to $200,000. Meanwhile single Australian soldiers are to lose being reunited with their families at Christmas. A once a year reunion. And unlike government ministers and top bureaucrats, they had to fly economy class. This is a government which has left the country next to defenceless. As a proportion of the Gross National product, we're back to spending about the same as we were in the 1930s. Before the disastrous Collins class submarines are replaced there's going to be another enquiry. This has the advantage of taking any replacement out of the budget for this year. You get it- a saving. And where are the new fighters for the RAAF and the modern artillery for the Army? In the meantime military prosecutions are still centralised Canberra. They are in the hands of a person who has never been under fire. This led to the appalling prosecution of our SAS soldiers who were doing no more than their duty in Afghanistan. The Daily Telegraph's Alex Devics reports (9/6) that 726 foreign soldiers, sailors and air force personnel have come to Australia since 2006. This has cost taxpayers about $100 million. War Graves campaigner John Saddington says “it’s an absolute disgrace. We’re hiring mercenaries.” Foreign soldiers are coming from Britain United States New Zealand Canada South Africa Italy Singapore Poland Greece and Germany. Why incidentally, aren't there any from Fiji? More proof that our politicians should not be just accountable every three or four years with candidates provided to us from the political parties. The politicians should be accountable every day of every month every year. As they would be under Direct Democracy.

This is a massive government scam. It involves governments effectively stealing your property by making it useless and uninhabitable. At least some of it is part of the scheme to enrich trade union superannuation funds. It all relies on the questionable theory that man is the principal cause of global warming. Or as they now say climate change. This scam involves putting wind farms across the country They’re planning 10,000 of these monstrosities. The Australian’s environment editor Graham Lloyd has written of the tremendous damage being caused by a wind farm to one small community. (“Where eagles dare not fly” The Weekend Australian 21 April 2012) This is Waterloo, north of Adelaide. He interviewed a number of victims whose lives had been ruined by the vast, swooshing wind towers looking over their homes. The people of found sleep almost impossible; they couldn't concentrate; they had night sweats, headaches, palpitations, heart trouble. Their chickens were laying eggs without yolks; their ewes were giving birth to deformed lambs; their once-active dogs spent their days staring blankly at the wall. The damage, it seems, is caused not so much by the noise you can hear but by what you can't hear: the infrasonic waves that attack the balance mechanism in the ear and against which not even home insulation can defend you. Its effects can be felt more than 10km away. Now takes a lot of courage for an environmental journalist to dare to go against the theory about global warming. You can hear an interview with Grahame Lloyd at http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=12985 Inspired by Lloyd's article, the British journalist James Delingpole went out to see the community himself. He says Waterloo felt like a ghost town: shuttered houses and a dust-blown aura of sinister unease, as in a horror movie when something dreadful has happened to a previously ordinary, happy settlement and at first you're not sure what. Then you look up on to the horizon and see them, turning slowly in the breeze . . . Even more shocking than this, though, were his discoveries about the finance arrangements and behaviour of the wind farm companies. He says it is one the biggest and most outrageous public affairs scandal of the 21st century. One in which the Gillard government is implicated .and that far exceeds in seriousness and scope of the Slipper or Thomson sideshows. You see, the wind turbines produce very little power. The wind doesn’t blow all the time. So a 3MW wind turbine generates at most only $150,000 worth of electricity a year. Through REC’s (Renewable Energy Certificates) it attracts guaranteed subsidies of $500,000 a year. If the unions were merely exploiting government environmental legislation to milk the taxpayer it would be bad enough. But what makes the wind farm scam so scandalous are the public health issues. James Delingpole asks why we are not more aware of these. The answer is in cover-ups on an epic scale. The wind farm industry. A government created cash cow. For some. Based on the questionable theory of manmade CO2 induced global warming. A scam paid by you in your taxes and your increased electricity bills. It’s about time the people were empowered to control their politicians.

In a speech to the Minerals Council Prime Minister Julia Gillard has told the miners something they already know – they don't own the minerals. On the "Governments only sell you the right to mine the resource.” "A resource we hold in trust for a sovereign people.” "They own it and they deserve their share.” The Prime Minister has muddied the facts. This is to justify Canberra's outrageous move into yet another area reserved to the states for their income. The federal government already takes 80% of the all taxes. Canberra doles out money to the states so that it can control precisely what they do. This is not how the Federation was supposed to work. It’s the result of years of the federal government moving into areas of state taxation. It is to allow Canberra to control matters and do things which are completely beyond their understanding. The Prime Minister says “we” hold the minerals in trust for sovereign people. Who is “we”? Obviously she means her government. The answer to the question who owns the minerals is simple. You just look at the original crown grant. That's the grant of land by the colony or state concerned. It's a document usually issued under the signature of and the seal of the governor. In most instances you will find a reservation of minerals to the crown. That mean, as the lawyers say, the crown “in the right of the state”. So it's the state government which is the trustee of the minerals for the people. Sometimes the crown grant has not reserved the minerals so the land holder owns them. If the minerals belong to the people, they belong to the people of the state concerned. So the minerals in Western Australia belong legally to the crown in the right of Western Australia and are therefore held in trust for the people of Western Australia. The same is true of every other state. So the federal government should butt out of trying to move into yet another area of getting more taxes. The federal government should get its hands off the mineral resources of Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. Canberra’s greed seems to be beyond control. That’s why the people should be able to recall their governments.

About 22,000 unmarried soldiers will lose their annual flight home due to Gillard government Budget cuts. This is while healthy young men of military age claiming to be Afghans - usually without the passports they used to fly into Indonesia - are welcomed to Australia often to be flown around the country and housed in accommodation not available to many Australians. This is while ministers fly luxury class around the country and the world staying in the best hotels. The annual flight home has been in place for decades and allows singles based in places far from home, such as Darwin or Townsville, to be with their family at Christmas. Even flights for married troops posted away from their families are also under review. "The world's changed since that was introduced. You get cheaper airfares, communications are different, the town is not so isolated anymore," Defence Chief General Hurley told the Herald Sun’s Ian McPhedran ( 25/5). "Do we really need to subsidise 30 or 40-year-olds for a trip home each year?" “Airfares might be cheap on a general's salary, but the cut was another example of "picking the low-hanging fruit", one soldier said. Defence funding was cut by $5.5 billion in this month's Budget, adding to previous cuts. Some experts say the country is now virtually defenceless, as defenceless as the politicians left us in the thirties. The defence of the nation is the very first duty of any government. If the government can't do that then it doesn't deserve to be in office.

She is now the largest shareholder in Fairfax. But for some reason Gina Rinehart is being denied the two seats on the board to which she is clearly entitled As if it were an amoeba, the board is duplicating itself. Appointing grey directors who have no experience in running newspapers and who are certainly not entrepreneurs. For years people have been telling me how they have stopped buying The Sydney Morning Herald or The Age. What turns them off is the obvious left-wing bias the newspapers display This stands out especially in the selection of letters to the editor. In the editorial pages - and only there - these once proud journals of record were in past times the voice of what Menzies called the forgotten people. Too often today they mix news and comment into a boring and predictable left wing cocktail. (Not that there aren’t some very fine journalists still there) The present leadership of Fairfax has resulted in the loss of 60% of share value. The circulations of all the mastheads fallen significantly. They've increased the subscription price - without telling some subscribers they are losing valuable discounts. They are even thinking of closing down the Mondays to Fridays print versions of the newspapers. Going digital Monday to Friday Of course proprietors should have a say in the running of newspapers. The best newspapers were usually those where the strong proprietor – just think of the great Fairfax, Packer, Murdoch families. Fleet Street in its heyday was replete with strong opinionated media proprietors – press lords. Strong proprietors are a very effective check and balance in the complicated world that is the production of a newspaper. But of course just as journalists must behave ethically, so must proprietors. And most did. The board needs flesh blood. Desperately. Gina Rinehart is obviously that person.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the Gillard government has quietly enlisted, at Australian taxpayers expense, a $5500-a-day international public relations and crisis management firm to help ease backlash expected when the carbon tax comes into effect in July. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/we-pay-for-spin-to-sell-us-a-tax/story-e6freuy9-1226367791201 This follows the controversial $36million Carbon Tax advertising campaign, which has been labelled “dishonest” for its focus on how much Australians will pocket, and without actually referring to increased costs-of-living under the contentious Carbon Tax. It’s ridiculous that Australians are not only being forced to fork out for a Carbon Tax, which will have next to no effect on global emissions, but must also pay a flash PR firm to tell them about it. A friend recently showed me a letter from the Hon. Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families – full of spin – informing them about the wonderful increase in assistance they are to receive. The positive, uplifting letter told them of how easy it would be and that there was no action required on their part. They subsequently received a letter informing them of the measly $86 they had been provided – far lower than projected increases in costs-of-living. This is a government entirely reliant on spin, which is more and more transparent. But of course the Australian people will severely punish them at the first available opportunity.

The first duty of a government is to defend the nation. Not only has the Gillard government lost control of our borders - unless of course this is a deliberate boats for votes policy. It is, as the Australian Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Director Hugh White says, in the process of downgrading Australia from being a middle power to a small power with all the loss of influence that entails. Worse, is not admitting to the Australian people how it is betraying those who defended and built this country. Because the government carelessly wasted the vast assets left to it by the Howard government, and is now bound to borrow enormous sums overseas, it has taken the axe to the defence budget. Hugh White sees no evidence that the Gillard government has a defence strategy at all or even realises the damage it is doing. This is made worse by the ideological obsessions and political deals of this government. Just as the previous Labor governments gave us the virtually useless and massively expensive Collins class submarines, the Gillard government is tied down by the political deal that you submarines have to be assembled here. Then there is the silly ideological decision that we must not have nuclear powered submarines which are ideal for Australia.

There is an agenda by left wing European parties to use the Muslim vote to gain and to keep power. A pattern is emerging of encouraging Muslim immigration. In France and Spain, socialist parties have even proposed allowing Muslim residents to vote even when they are not citizens. In Australia until now we’ve assumed the Gillard and Rudd government were just hopelessly incompetent when they lost control of our borders. For all we know, there could well be a deliberate “boats for votes” agenda here in Australia. For the first – but certainly not the last time – Muslims have decided who should govern in a European country. A poll taken for the Paris newspaper Le Figaro reveals 93% of Muslims voted for socialist François Hollande. This means that about 1.7 million Muslims voted for Hollande. He defeated President Nicolas Sarkozy only 1.1 million votes. No wonder Muslims voted for Hollande. He promised to allow Muslim residents to vote even if they were not citizens. He also promised an amnesty for about 400,000 illegal Muslim immigrants. With up to six million Muslims,France already has the largest Muslim population in the European Union. According to one senior analyst (Soeren Kern from the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos Group) this is conservatively projected to exceed 10% of the overall French population within the next decade-and-a-half. France is not the only country in which Muslims are changing the political dynamic. There are similar developments in many European countries. Brussels, the EU capital, is now the most Islamic city in Europe. By 2030, Muslims will be in the majority. Is this what is being planned here in Australia?

You won't believe this. Whether it’s letting queue jumpers come into the country –“intercepting” them as the spin doctors put it - or granting citizenship, the Gillard government is a push over. It seems they are letting anyone in. They don’t even check them properly. Instead of a full ASIO assessment the government has admitted the assessment is” lighter touch” That’s it. Lighter touch. We know nothing about these people except that they entered Indonesia, a safe country. Presumably as tourists. Then most of them seem to "lose" their passports. In other words they come in deceiving the government and the Australian people. After five years most of them are still on welfare. How do we know there are not terrorists among them ? With a lighter touch assessment, which taxpayer funded lawyers are challenging in the High Court, our incompetent government doesn't know. And it seems once you’re in, Australian citizenship – more precious than gold – is virtually assured. Is this about votes for boats? A federal tribunal has just ruled a convicted foreign paedophile is of good character and should be granted citizenship. Notwithstanding an FBI warning about him. The NSW police were refused a search warrant by another magistrate to investigate that. Too many politicians , too many members of the judiciary are out of touch. With direct democracy, the Australian people would be in charge.

Yesterday I was far richer for attending The State of the Nation – a quarterly report delivered by Australia’s largest and only Australian owned pollster – Roy Morgan Research. This quarter’s report had a focus on Rural Australia. I encourage you to read the entire report at roymorgan.com.au, but I want to share with you a nugget from this goldmine of information. Roy Morgan Research places the unemployment rate at an average of 9.3%. That’s 8.6% in our Capital Cities and 10.7% in Rural Australia. This figure is double that of the ABS, which places unemployment at an average of 4.9%. This figure excludes anyone who works even 1 hour per week – even if it was unpaid. The ABS uses an international standard developed at a time when consultancies and part-time work were scarce, and women rarely worked. Roy Morgan Research does the sensible thing. Morgan just asks people whether they are looking for work! The real level is unemployment is roughly twice that declared by the government. The Reserve Bank takes the ABS statistics as gospel. If they took note of the real unemployment rate, interest rates would have to be lower. This in turn would lower the exchange rate, helping our exporters – our farmers and our miners. We would become more competitive. But the politicians hide behind unemployment rates they know are completely wrong. It’s about time the government admitted almost 10% of Australians are unemployed or 17.5% if we include the underemployed. That’s almost 1 in 5. The government should be basing their assumptions on Roy Morgan Research, who have their finger on the nation’s pulse, and not the ABS.

The Craig Thompson affair should be referred to his ultimate judges, the people of his electorate. This case demonstrates the need for a right of recall of any MP. Or indeed the whole government. Wading through the spin about his succes in pork barrelling for his electorate, and unbelievably, imposing financial transparency on his union, his case is that he’s the victim of identity theft. So why didn’t he go to the police? He claims Channel 7 reporters were lurking under his bathroom window while his pregnant wife was taking a shower. Channel 7 that says that's the first time they heard of that. Why didn't he go to the police? Why didn't he complain to the broadcasting regulator? He claimed his defamation case was settled. It wasn’t. He - actually the Labor Party - even had to pay the newspaper’s costs. His defence yesterday was implausible at best. The people should be able to recall him. Now.

The federal government has no greater responsibility than defending the nation. That's what the then defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon declared in 2009. Few would disagree. He was introducing the Rudd government’s Defence White Paper. But the Gillard government has torn up the White Paper. While China is becoming a major military power, and throwing her weight around, Labor has left us defenceless. Just on this failure, the government should go. The people should have the power to recall a government - any government - which fails in its very first duty -defending the nation.

Gag the press. Silence the critics. That was the Gillard government’s agenda when they established the recent press enquiry -the Finkelstein- Ricketson enquiry. Now why do some politicians think that they have any role to play in the regulating press ethics? Don't they realise that this offends a fundamental constitutional principle? These politicians should be looking at their own ethical standards. But the really extraordinary thing is that there are some journalism academics who agree with a government authority regulating the press. Perhaps they’re eyeing jobs on the authority? Rather than supporting government regulating press ethics, it seems some academics should be looking at their own ethical standards. And why did the well paid consultants let the enquiry get it so wrong about the Press Council?

The Australian’s Hedley Thomas has revealed that a leading unionist was paid tens of thousands of dollars by a property development fund and major Labor Party donor, Austcorp. Wally Curran was union secretary for years and then trustee of the Meatworkers Union superannuation fund. The fund invested $30 million in Austcorp. But Austcorp collapsed in2009’ Its liabilities were around $900 million. The meatworkers were one of the biggest losers. So do sign our petition, Stop the Union Bosses Rorts at http://bit.ly/Jocsye

So the man who murdered that great heart surgeon Dr Victor Chang is to be paroled. As was his accomplice.. Unsupervised, he went off to a luxury our island resort with his girlfriend. Why should he ever be released?

Multiculturalism has never worked in Australia. People often mistake multiracialism, a definite success story, with multiculturalism, a dismal failure. Migrants to Australia should integrate with Australian society and culture - as did have many other groups like the Italians. And they were able to achieve this without dropping their heritage and customs.

After almost 10 years it seems as though the Reserve Bank is finally going to do something about the rip-off it created. In 2003 they allowed merchants to charge you for using your credit card. They said was to encourage competition. The only competition seemed to be between merchants to charge you the highest fees, some as high as 10%. Apparently three quarters of a billion dollarsare being gouged from you for this rort. Why has it taken the Reserve Bank almost a decade to move to try to fix up the mess it created? It's time that the people of Australia were empowered to overrule this sort of silly decision. .

What is this presumption of innocence Julia Gillard is going on about? It only applies criminal trials. It means the Crown has to prove its case. Beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn't apply in relation to Fair Work Australia. The onus there is on the employer. And who was responsible for this? Julia Gillard. And it was Julia Gillard’s Fair Work Australia which spent over three years investigating Craig Thomson.. They found 167 breaches. Approximately half $1 million taken from the union. By Craig Thompson, they said Julia Gillard told the ACTU that this distressed her. It dismayed her. It disgusted her. When she came back from Europe she said the line had been crossed. So Craig Thomson was suspended from the ALP. So why is she should talking about a presumption of innocence? A principle which only applies in criminal trials. There was no presumption of innocence against the commandant Of the Australian Defence Forces Academy when Minister Stephen Smith objected to the prosecution of a female cadet going ahead. A process subsequently found to be proper. There was no presumption of innocence by Labor when they joined in a witch-hunt against former Governor- General Peter Hollingworth. There was no presumption of innocence when allegations were made against ministers in the Howard government over the so-called "children overboard" affair and the wheat board scandal. It is ridiculous to use a principle which applies only in the criminal law to the legitimate discussion of the standards of performance standards of performance of our politicians. The parties and factions have taken a stranglehold on our political life. By doing so they have minimised the role and function of the people - as envisaged in our constitution. The proper answer is for a process to be established to allow the people by petition to recall any or all members of Parliament. This would have to be done by a vote triggered by a petition supported by an adequate number of electors. The good sense of the Australian people will of course ensure that this is not abused. After all it was the people of the several states who, as the preamble says, “ relying upon the blessings of Almighty God “ agreed to unite in our indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the crown . It's the people's Commonwealth. The people’s country. It doesn't belong to Julia Gillard or the politicians. Give us back our country!

The Craig Thompson affair has highlighted one fundamental problem with the way our system of government has deteriorated. If Australia is a democracy, why are the people powerless between elections? But since Federation the political parties- with smaller and smaller memberships - have gained a stranglehold on the system. They have given themselves privileges and advantages never dreamt of by our founders. Taxpayers even fund their campaign expenses. And far from representing the people who elected them, too many politicians take orders from their party and even their factional bosses. They represent their party bosses. Not the people. Even at elections, the effective choice has been predetermined by a small clique. The Craig Thomson affair is the result. And not the only one. The only way to counter this undemocratic stranglehold is to give the people the right to recall any elected reserved representative or a whole Parliament to an election. This could be effected by a constitutional amendment. The only way to clean up the mess that we are in – a mess created by the politicians – is to empower the people to act as a check and balance on the politicians. Do sign our Petition calling on the parliaments to act.