Vale, Vile Mark Vaile

Vale to the vile and valueless Mark Vaile MP, (former) Minister for Trade who delivered Australia into the waiting arms of American corporations. He has today declared that he will resign from the seat of Lyne, in NSW.When working on the campaign to oppose the pumping of the Kangaloon Aquifer, I have realised that there are no less than 4 multinational companies who have been swarming around this project, like blowflies around a road-killed Wombat. Why? It is a tiny borefield.

The answer is,. because Mark Vaile made it possible for them to do so.
Water is included in the Australia:America Free Trade Agreement.

Veolia/Vivendi already have their hooks into the Desal Plant in Sydney.
Parsons Brinkerhoff, have their own man positioned within the Sydney Catchment Authority, where he has had principal carriage of this proposal.
Coffey International did the early modelling for the proposed borefield.
URS have done the drilling log reading, and measured all the bores and springs of the local farmers.
And KBR have suddenly appeared at the end of the proposal, and put to together the Environment Assessment which has been submitted to Frank Sartor for approval.

The three largest of these companies could buy and sell the entire economy of NSW. And that is not to mention the generous donations to Party Funds which have already been made by some of them.

This is Kangaloon - a tiny district in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.
And here we are, a tiny local lobby group, up against companies which by and sell countries (and if they don't like you, they will run a little war against you!
That is the contribution to Australian life delivered by one Mark Vaile MP.
Good riddance to him.

Another one bites the dust.

According to the ABC Radio News on Friday evening, the National Party Leader in the Senate, Ron Boswell has announced he will also step down. Actually, he has been dumped by his State Executive (Nationals, Queensland)

The reason? He was apparently too close the Liberals (indeed he was).

It also means that Barnaby Joyce might be promoted. He says so, anyway.

• "Senator Joyce says he is hoping to be promoted.
  "That is for my colleagues to decide and I look forward to their support if I can get it," he said.
  "I am certainly standing for Senate leader, I make no qualms about that."
• (source: ABC News - Brisbane Regional bulletin).

As the caption says: Another one bites the dust.
The shock-waves of the election results keep on rolling along.

By the way, Costello said today that the Liberal Party missed the chance to present a fresh face (his, of course). He also said what we all knew he would say, sooner of later. He is not going to serve out the full term. What a shock?

The most interesting statement is by Senator Judith Troeth.

Who?

Apparently she has been a Senator for Victoria since 1993. Amazing how some people can have been around that long, but not ever be heard from. Anyway, I digress. The ABC's News site reports:

• "Meanwhile, senior Liberal Senator Judith Troeth has accused several colleagues of hijacking the party in a failed effort to make Mr Costello the next prime minister.

• "Senator Troeth has served as a Victorian Senator since 1993.

• "She has told the ABC's Stateline program that a small group in Victoria over the past decade ensured candidates were preselected because they supported Mr Costello's bid for the Lodge.

• "She says it lead to the Coalition's downfall at the recent election."

It just keeps on getting "interestinger and interestinger"

Government funded the late Kerry Packer.

Thanks again to Crikey.com.au for this revelation of the abuse of power by the Liberal and National Party coalition which we ironically call a "Government".

The Auditor-General's report on the abuses of the Regional Partnerships Scheme is very revealing (if only you have the energy to wade through the 3 volumes of abuses of procedure):

• Buried in Volume 3 of the 1000+ page report are details of some of the companies that received public money in the form of Regional Partnerships funding.

• One of the least - on the face of it - deserving recipients was applicant RP00908, Teys Bros, operators of network of abattoirs and a feedlot. While the Teys Bros group has an annual turnover in excess of $A1 billion, their Rockhampton plant had been closed since 2002 after extended industrial disputation rendered it unprofitable. In March 2004, the Rockhampton business sought $A660,000 of regional partnerships (including GST) to upgrade and reopen the meatworks.

• The ANAO report indicates that at the time the Teys Bros' Rocky meatworks was cap in hand seeking public funding, it was a company ultimately controlled by Consolidated Press International Holdings Pty Ltd, a company at the time controlled by Mr Kerry Packer (RIP).

That's right two thirds of a million dollars granted to Kerry packer, who was Australia's richest man.

It gets worse. The funds were not recommended by the Department, as the plan did not meet the criteria. When funds were aproved there were conditions attached (an external review was required). But when the Parliamentary Secretary advised the Packer company of the grant, she forgot/omitted/did not bother (take your pick of verbs) to include this condition in the terms of the approval.

An existing company with a financial interest objected to the grant (as it was outside the criteria to award a grant when it would disadvantage an existing business). That letter was ignored.

The litany of abuses of correct procedures just goes on and on and on.

In normal circumstances, criminal charged might be considered warranted.

Let us hope that the people of Australia cast their own verdict next Saturday.

NSW has a weird view of land rights.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a poorly written piece today. Are all SMH journalists as uncritical as Andrew Clennell? His piece was entitled "Native title deal after 11 years". Look at the whole article before proceeding.

*****

Here is an annotated version of this article - which I was sent by a friend. I think it warrants being published in its own right. (The comments in red are not from the original published article - but that will be self-evident.)

*****

Native title deal after 11 years

TWO native title deals - including the biggest ever settled in NSW - are to be announced by the State Government before the election in March.

Depending on your point of view:- this is an announcement so you will be ready and waiting when we do make an announcement, or - the more likely reason - we want two bites at the PR cherry, the now and the photo opportunity later when everyone is back from the beach/Thailand/Bali/New York

The Government confirmed yesterday that it would approve the biggest native title claim, with the Githabul people in an area north of Tenterfield, next month.

We want every blackfella in NSW and all members of ANTAR to recognise what we are doing for Aboriginal people

It is also about to settle a claim with the Arakwal people, near Byron Bay.

Ditto

The native title claimants gave up the fight for freehold title to make the deals possible.

We didn't teach the A Team to negotiate like Keating did, so if they don't like the deal they only have themselves to blame.

The Premier, Morris Iemma, is expected to attend a ceremony at Toonumbar dam in the state's north-east on February 28 to settle the Githabul people's 11-year-old claim.

We have looked up the SOI and consulted Phil Koperberg and decided that there will be neither rain nor bushfire in the vicinity so have decided that this will be the best day and the best light for the aforesaid photo opportunity. The date is probably as close as we can get to Election Day and still allow time for the good news of our good deed to sink in and to allow the voting public to study Morrie's picture so they can identify him.

Settling the claim will give the local Aboriginal corporation about 120 hectares of land, allow Aborigines to hunt for turtles and give them a say over the handling of national parks and state forests. It should also provide job opportunities for Aboriginal people with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Read aforesaid comments on negotiating skills and techniques. Haven't checked to see if there are turtles there. EPA keeping its fingers crossed that turtles do better in the vicinity of Toonumbar dam than Sydney Rock Oyster farms have done. And, yeah, the blackfellas will get a say over how to open the gates to the national parks and state forests but we'll decide how much money and to whom the money flows from aforesaid national parks and state forests. For job opportunities for Aboriginal people with the National Parks and Wildlife Service see aforesaid sentence.

The deal is largely restricted to 70,000 hectares of national park and state forest land and will not affect farmland.

We are not putting up with the aggravation from all those rural whingers in the Western Division like the Feds did with Mabo. And of course, we - the government, ahem, the people of NSW actually control the national parks and the state forests so no one will notice anything different. All photo opps and no aggravation.

The director-general of the NSW Department of Lands, Warwick Watkins, said yesterday a final settlement was also expected before March with the Arakwal people. In 2001, the Government announced that it would negotiate with them about how the national park there would be used, but there has been a further claim, which is about to be settled.

Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.

Trevor Close, the native title claimant for the Githabul land, which extends from Tenterfield to Kyogle, said Aboriginal people got "very little" out of the deal other than the right to hunt turtles and a say in how the national parks were run.

Please note above.

However, he was happy to see it resolved after 11 years of negotiations.

Wasn't getting anywhere anyway, so we are trying to walk away from the lack of negotiating table with some dignity still intact.

"A lot of people think it's a great deal," he said, "but they don't actually see how much the Githabul gave up - we moved a hell of a lot to get this deal."

Some of us thought some sort of deal signed, sealed and delivered to-day would be better than nothing and might let us have an opportunity to try again another day.

Mr Watkins agreed the deal was largely symbolic, but said it was important spiritually to Aboriginal people and similar to a native title agreement reached over Crown land covering Perth several years ago.

See above and ditto. We don't really believe in this spiritual stuff but they reckon they do so there's nothing in it for us and doesn't cost us much so we're letting 'em, have a bit of a dreamtime.

The National Party leader, Andrew Stoner, said that the native title agreement was an "obvious vote-buying exercise in the lead-up to the March state election".

How dare they pinch our template for doing deals with blackfellas if and when we get to government.

He said greater involvement of Aboriginal people in the management of the areas was "likely to result in a more commonsense approach than the extreme green approach taken by the NSW Labor Government".

And you say I'm colour blind if I think Morrie Iemma and the socialists are extreme green. I'll have you know that green is my favourite colour but only the green on the National Party website and election posters and advertising - and, of course, when we are wearing it with our Irish Catholic neighbours at the various St Pat's Day races around country NSW.

PS: Just remember this is democracy in action - there are plenty of dictatorships and one party governments that you can live under where this doesn't happen at all, and some of them are at war or killing their own!