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Talking Headlines - by Bill Green

 

RUDD DENIES A HERO AND A COUNTRY

August 26th 2008 06:46
Rudd has rejected Xanana Gusmao's request to hire East Timorese workers in Australia. Gusmao happens to be a hero who fought the Indonesian invasion of his country for over twenty years. During that time he didn't do what usually happens; rebels turn to communist country for training and arms. He was captured though and was held in jail for years, a regular Mandela, except Gusmao took on the might of the Indonesia military.

Australia on the other hand slavered over the oil in the Timor Sea and so supported the Indonesian invasion while close to 250,000 East Timorese were slaughtered. For a time it was the only country on the planet that had a falling population (from murder).


The UN were against the invasion, as were the rest of the world, although America backed it for a while. The invasion was held up for a day while an American president (Ford was accompanied by Kissinger) flew out of Indonesia's air space.

WE OWED EAST TIMOR FOR THE HELP THEY GAVE OUR SOLDIERS AGAINST THE JAPANESE but that poignant reminder of our inhumanity was forgotten. So, from Gough through to Howard there were no complaints to Indonesia, until it was understood that East Timor would stand up against Indonesia forever. Then we gave the Indonesian military our "invasion" date and they murdered dissidents and destroyed the country's infrastructure.

Gee, Rudd says we're building them an embassy in Canberra for under a million, isn't that an equaliser?
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WATER WARS ABOUT TO BEGIN

August 24th 2008 03:03
The water wars between the states are about to begin. So far the need for water has been totally underestimated by city people but they will feel the lack of it when water is rationed. This may be as early as the approaching summer.

Queensland farmers have stolen 1.6 million megalitres this year. This is the highest level of theft since reporting under the Murray Darling Water audit began in 1994-95. The Murray-Darling basin states signed a cap on such activity (water diversions) in 1995. The previous biggest theft was 910,000 megalitres in 2003-4.

How has it happened? Simple. There is no monitoring process built into the reporting system. Governments are so out of touch with water shortages that they didn't conceive that monitoring and water theft would be a problem


For an illustration of exactly how much 1.6 megalitres represents it should be understood that it is the equivalent of the water entitlement held in the Victorian Goulburn Murray Irrigation District. However Victoria has also been accused of water theft (diversion) of a similar amount, which will mean South Australia will be somewhat bereft of water - for saving their lake system and even for drinking. It already has the vilest tasting water in the nation.

Our PM is concerned, and his response to save the South Australian problem, reflects his abysmal understanding of the water problem. He advised last week that he will buy out not only irrigation properties but whole irrigation communities in the Murray darling Basin. It sounds fine but the success of such a scheme depends on rain in considerably larger quantities than has been falling over past years. The grimness of the situation is shown by this one fact: the irrigation season began last week with another zero opening allocation for farmers in the Goulburn and Murray systems.

This lack is caused by the continuing climate change that decison makers imagine will be solved somehow by rain. Rain is not forecast for this spring. If there is not large amounts Melbourne and Adelaid will be without water this summer. This is not news, as it has been reported for the past six months. However what people will do to survive is an other thing altogether. We should recognise that the first water war was between Israel and Syria and was called the six day war. Syria had planned to take the water flowing into Israel.

The bottom line is what would we do for a glass of water? Maybe go to war? Not necessarily officially but irrigation banks have been altered to change the flows of ones neighbors.
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It would be tragic to have Peter Costello as leader of the opposition. The world has changed since he left the treasurer's job. You wouldn't know it if he was your only informer. Most of us have accepted climate change in one form or other. Costello has not clarified his views on climate change, nor carbon emissions trading. In this regard he is a dunce. Nor has he any idea of political timing. His utterances on everything from budgets to ...yeah what else has he ever commented on. Tampa? No; immigration? no, East Timor? no; Zimbabwe? no; climate change? no; and on and on no.

Please enlighten me if he has, for I guess he may have made private or casual comments, but there have been no clarifying announcements.

So this lurker from the halls of pretence just wants to remain there, doing something, anything, so he can hide from the scorching exposure that the rest of us are subject to from time to time.
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ABE SAFFRON'S ABATTOIR MURDERS

July 29th 2008 07:16
Abe Saffron a man of many parts, murderer, patron of poetry and the arts, pimp and wildlife smuggler, was a true bastard.

Nevertheless he looked after those who were prepared to hang out with him (if they were recognised as up and coming talents).

Investigating wildlife smuggling in the nineties he became, for me, the quintessential evil smuggler. A Senate inquiry into that industry accused him of killing five competitors in the game, and one game warden. Their bodies were never found but were believed to have been put through the dog food machine in a Queensland abattoir.

My brother was drinking in a Sydney pub with a man’s boutique fashion shop when the fashion marketeer was approached by his landlord. “How’s business?” the landlord asked.

“Not too good was the reply.”

“Burn it,” was the order from Saffron.

I’m so tempted to name the poet and the film critic and screenwriter who lived in an apartment (free) belonging to Abe. But they were naive then and it would unfair. However I remember naming them in a fictionalised true account of my investigation into Abe’s abattoir murders ( Dying for Paradise - Hodder 96).
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BRUMBY IS A POLITICAL SOOK

July 25th 2008 05:47
Love the way Premier Brumby is hiding behind his wife's complaint about protesters advising they will protest at the Premier's country property. Brumby's wife explains she feels insecure, fearful and as if the property in the country is no longer her private world. That's fine she's not in politics and shouldn't necessarily be hounded for her husbands decision to take water out of the mouths of Murray farmers and pipe it to the mouths of the urban population.

It's only when Brumby complains that his wife is being hounded and that she has every right to complain about the threatened treatment. We know that Premier, but you should come out in your true colours as a sook and whine about protesters coming to your property as well.

I'm threatening you, and your government - not your wife or children - with legal action under the UN legislation, that states that if a government and corporation knowingly decides to create carbon emissions that lead to extreme weather conditions then you and your government is liable. The charge before the international criminal court is to be criminal negligence (as I understand it) and I will supply them with all the information on the Port Phillip Bay dredging ( my doco, The Last Good Summer, shown on nine and channel 31 has all the relevant info, and has been seen by your public servants and a former Premier. Have witnesses to the purchase of the DVD and the showing of it to Bracksy's electoral office). The former Premier didn't make the decision to go ahead, you did and you're going to wear it. There is no estimate on carbon emissions for the project. That's negligent, wouldn't you say? And you were also warned of an Exxon Valdez scenario. Not "if" but "when" warns former harbour master, Captain Frank Hart.

And if you feel your rights have been trodden on, remember that you have trodden on the rights of all Victorians who love the bay. My memories are of growing up there, in those waters, and they belong to the people of Victoria, the creatures that inhabit the sea, and not interstate and wealthy businesspeople (Melbourne Club confreres in particular). Many of them are so dumb they don't realise the Portsea waters have already been contaminated and their real estate has become fragile.




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HOW THE BANKS HAVE ROBBED US AGAIN

July 15th 2008 02:21

I like the pure effrontery of our major banks. This time they have taken around $30 billion dollars from the government's Future Fund to keep themselves looking good to investors/ shareholders. That $30 billion is our money (come in handy for climate change action) but because the banks made poor investments in the subprime mortgage market they cried and pleaded with the government, without our knowledge.

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So you thought governments were doing something about climate change? Well they are; they're nurturing it.

Just so you know where the Victorian government stands


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So you thought governments were doing something about climate change? Well they are; they're nurturing it.

Just so you know where the Victorian government stands


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After Four Corners exposed Halliburton for fraudulently taking $US23 billion out of the re-build Iraq budget, it's probably tardy to mention they also built the railway line from Adelaide to Darwin and ripped us off as well.

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Why isn't Kevin Rudd running a scare campaign on climate change? A scare campaign is all that will motivate us to do those things to avoid the catastrophe that is building. Not that the opposition has any idea about the devastation climate change is going to inflict on us either. But for Kevin Rudd to think that he can win points by accusing his opponents of being scared of climate change shows the abysmal ignorance of his government.

For him to imagine that a scare campaign on climate change is a dishonorable thing is close to pathetic. But it does alert the rest of us that we are being led by a government of the blind. Haven't they looked at the physical evidence haven't they read the reports and the research? As an example no one disputes that all the ice in the Arctic will have disappeared by 2013. Apparently that isn't enough to frighten our venerable leaders


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Australian horseracing is like the game all over the planet – it’s totally corrupt.

Note that the media never break corruption stories (as in the Tony Mokbel scandals) they only cover the stories that are uncovered by police or those in the industry. I always claim that if racing writers covered politics we would be living in a fascist state right now. They are simply not motivated to expose the habits of trainers, jockeys and big gamblers; they are only prepared to listen to the rumours on a horse’s chances in a particular race


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The resources industries should pay for their own inflation boom. They created it and they should pay. Why do they and the reserve bank feel the responsibility of controlling inflation should be placed on the poorer Australians? The middle-class and above (those who own unmortgaged houses) aren't going to be much effected by rises in prices for essential products like food and fuel, but those families who are struggling with mortgage payments and rising rents certainly do. .

So why do we have to cocoon those great, booming industries, and the greedy people who own and run them


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The moves for Australia to be the nuclear waste dump for the world are rapidly being slotted into place.

On a public holiday, and with the pm Rudd on his Japanese trip - no doubt talking up a deal to take Japanese waste - Martin Ferguson, our esteemed Resources and Energy Minister shows his scheming attitude to this outrageous project that will turn Australia internationally into a total pariah, agriculturally, culturally, and into an example of how to turn a country from being one of the freest to one of total lock down. It is the reason the Rudd government has not even begun looking at the oppressive laws on so called terrorism


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The Queen of the Netherlands, the Port Phillip Bay dredge, is two months ahead of its schedule. It's ahead because it's various captains and crews have worked quickly and roughly and without thought for the bay's condition. The crew is in for huge bonuses for avoiding the ignorant eyes of those that monitor its methods.

My informant says that there have been several near misses by ships negotiating the bay waters because the pilots appear not to be able to use the new computer systems. The most dangerous incident occurred when a ship came within ten metres of the dredge. The accident was avoided because the Netherlands has fins of steel it can lock in to the surrounding sands and rocks and bring it to a shuddering halt


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Moderated by Bill Green
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