November 7, 2012

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Politicians To Get $20 Million Pay Rise

December 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By SkyNews.com.au

Taxpayers will fork out an extra $20 million a year to cover a pay rise for politicians but will save on the MPs’ loss of some often-rorted travel perks.

The independent Remuneration Tribunal on Thursday released the findings of the first major review of politician and senior public servant pay in more than two decades.

The review found that politicians effectively had two jobs - their electorate and parliamentary work - and backbenchers deserved a base pay of $185,000 (up from $141,000).

The prime minister’s pay will rise from $366,000 to $481,000 - seven times average weekly earnings - while her department’s boss will take home $661,000, rising to $825,000 by mid-2014 under a new system to reward top public servants.

Special Minister of State Gary Gray said the government would support a tribunal recommendation to end the gold pass system for ex-politicians and abolish the overseas study leave program for current MPs.

‘The lurks and the perks have been taken away and what replaces that is a transparent methodology,’ Mr Gray told reporters in Canberra.

‘You won’t again have the appearance of members of parliament going on overseas study tours to look at wine-making in Latin American countries … (or) travelling to Las Vegas to look at gambling.’

The latest example was controversial NSW Labor MP Craig Thomson plagiarising Wikipedia and news reports to justify a recent study trip.

Under the gold pass system, around 300 ex-MPs get free domestic travel costing taxpayers $4 million a year.

It will be abolished from the next election and existing holders of the pass will have their entitlement cut from 25 to 10 domestic trips a year.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said he would seek to have the gold pass system ended immediately for all past, present and future MPs.

Senator Brown said MPs should take a pay cut if they continued to sack hard-working public servants.

‘There’s a very strong argument politicians should be paid the average wage of Australians,’ Senator Brown said in Hobart.

The annual cost of the new senior public servant pay system hasn’t been calculated.

Mr Gray said he accepted an idea suggested by independent Senator Nick Xenophon that there should be public hearings before the parliament legislated the rises early next year.

Tribunal president John Conde told reporters in Sydney the prime minister’s new salary was ‘not unreasonable’ given the workload.

BHP Billiton chief Marius Kloppers earns $11.26 million and Westpac chief Gail Kelly takes home $9.6 million.

Mr Conde said there was ‘never a right time’ for politician pay rises, but they deserved better pay given that they worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

‘With this level of base salary for a backbencher, the backbencher would continue to set an example of restraint compared to the work they do,’ Mr Conde said.

The tribunal said changes to politicians’ pensions and superannuation since 2004 also had to be accounted for in the pay rise.

Also under the new plan, opposition frontbenchers will for the first time get additional salaries for their extra duties, hiking a shadow minister’s pay by more than $90,340 to $231,450.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said he didn’t need a pay rise, but accepted the tribunal made an independent decision.

‘I actually think my ministerial salary is pretty good,’ he said.

Independent MP Tony Windsor said MPs with young families would welcome the rise.

But he said study leave was a ‘positive thing’ and should be retained.

 

Source: http://www.skynews.com.au/businessnews/article.aspx?id=696973&vId

Filed Under: Money, Politicians Tagged With:

Land Council Calls For Fracking Halt

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BY NIGEL ADLAM

(AUSTRALIA) THE Central Land Council has called for a freeze on fracking, the technique used to extract oil and gas from layers of shale underground.

Council director David Ross said the halt on permit applications should last until environmental assessments had been carried out and strict regulations drawn up.

He said the potential impact of fracking - where water and sand are blasted down a well to force shale apart - was “enormous“.

 

Source: http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2011/12/13/278075_ntnews.html

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Australia Embraces Technocracy with Biometric Employee Time and Attendance System

December 12, 2011 By 1 Comment

In the global race to see which industrialized nation will lead the way in the implementation of the most oppressive police state the world has ever known, Australia has been making silent but steady gains for years. With those aware of the march toward totalitarianism usually preoccupied with the developments in the United States and the UK, Australia can often go overlooked. Yet, not to be outdone, the land down under has managed to enact carbon taxes, militarize police, end gun ownership, and rival even England in terms of forced political correctness. Although Australia might not be the leader of the pack, it refuses to be left out.

Every now and then, there are signs that Australia is attempting to take a brief lead over both of its fascist national comrades. For instance, in an article published in the Sunday Telegraph on December 4, 2011, Rosie Squires describes how many Australian employers are introducing a fingerprinting program in order to monitor employees and “save costs.”

The new fingerprint scanners will be taking the place of time clocks, trust, responsible hiring, and, apparently, competent supervisors. No longer will the employees of companies such as Qantas, Dan Murphy’s, Breville, and Unomedical be able to clock in and out of work in the traditional manner. In order to prevent employees from “arriving late or slacking off,” the workers will now be forced to render some of their most private information to their employer via the new scanners.

The new technology, PeopleKey, will be used not only to clock employees on their way in and out, but also to monitor their progress over the course of the workday, as well as other potential incidents of “slacking off” like using the bathroom or daring to engage a fellow employee in conversation.

A spokesman for Dan Murphy’s, a chain of liquor stores, stated, “Like many major retailers, Dan Murphy’s has found electronic clocking in and out to be a reliable method of recording staff hours, as well as enabling store managers to know which team members are on site for health and safety purposes.”

He continues, saying, “Staff who are significantly late may have the time deducted from their pay or, at the manager’s discretion, can choose to make up the time.”

RailCorp, another company who is implementing PeopleKey, has actually achieved an agreement with employees (more likely “representatives” of the employees) for the use of the new program in exchange for a pay raise.

In the case of RailCorp, another spokesman stated,

When it is in place, staff will verify their attendance by way of a swipe card and finger scan. The scans themselves are stored as mathematical algorithms rather than images.

This initiative will streamline and simplify our time and attendance processes, eventually eliminating the need for staff to manually record their time at work on paper timesheets or in attendance books.

This will result in reduced administration requirements and more accurate payments to staff.

Frank Bruce, the CEO of PeopleKey, is quoted by Rosie Squires as saying that many of his clients have purchased the finger scanning system as a way to crack down on “buddy punching,” a situation where workers clock in for their fellow employees.

Bruce said, “In some instances employees are not honest and some businesses have problems monitoring attendance.” He also indicated that PeopleKey has “about 1500 installations in Australia” although he did not disclose any of the locations or clients.

Of course, the employees shouldn’t worry. After all, private companies would never share, sell, or otherwise use private information that could be worth vast amounts of money. They never have in the past, right?

Not only that, but, if the employees have nothing to hide, why should they be concerned about the scanners? They shouldn’t be slacking off or coming in late to begin with, right?

There’s nothing wrong or illegal about private companies forcing their employees to give this information over to them on condition of employment — if they don’t want to give it up, they can always work for someone else. They can let the free market handle the issue, right?

Unfortunately, this is the attitude that is held by a great many Australians, British, and Americans who are being constantly reminded through their media and their government that they, too, will soon be scanning their fingerprints in order to access basic services or necessities . . . like food.

The ability to rationalize oppression using the arguments about having nothing to hide, free markets, and corporate morality should never be underestimated.

I have written numerous articles dealing with the technocratic society being ushered in gradually with each passing day. I have recently written about the introduction of vein scanners already popular in Japan and awaiting introduction to the United States, as well as the Google Wallet smartphone app being used by New Jersey Transit.

Indeed, the technologically enhanced police state has been covered at length not just by my own work, but that of many others. What hasn’t been covered, however, is the resistance to such a society.

Unfortunately, although it is growing, the resistance to the technocratic control system is still terribly small when compared to the vast amount of people who are willing to accept it.

Regardless, the resistance must begin to take shape quickly. Dissenting voices need to speak up and they need to do it now. These voices need to be heard, and in order for that to happen they are going to have to speak loudly and forcefully. If they don’t, there might not be much hope left. Time is running out and the scientific dictatorship is gaining steam with every day that we remain silent.

 

Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/australia-embraces-technocracy-with.html#more

Filed Under: Employment, Rights, Science, Surveillance, Tyranny Tagged With:

Platypus Death Demonstrates Danger Of Discarding Rubbish Thoughtlessly

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

THE adult platypus lying on veterinarian Robert Johnson’s operating table looks serene and perfectly formed.

But the plastic noose that hangs around her neck provides a clue to her untimely demise.

She was found in a small creek by a Richmond resident, the second platypus to be discovered dead in the western Sydney local catchment area in recent weeks.


aX-rays showed no broken bones. Photo: Kate Geraghty

The egg-laying animals are rarely seen by humans, which made the two deaths concerning, Dr Johnson, a platypus expert, said.

Scientists and veterinarians suspect the cause is pollution, mainly plastics bottle tops, plastic bags and other rubbish that have made their way through the city’s stormwater system into local waterways, where they are easily ingested by or entangle the aquatic mammals.

But all possible explanations must be explored, and the smell is overwhelming as Dr Johnson begins a post-mortem at his south Penrith clinic.

He first makes a deep incision from under the creature’s bill down its chest to the base of the tail, before using a pair of pliers to pry open the rib cage.

Inside, among a mish-mash of organs, he can find nothing unusual. X-rays have already confirmed the animal had no broken bones. But he does notice the creature had not eaten for some time before it died.

”It is a process of exclusion,” Dr Johnson said, of determining a cause of death.

He finally concludes that the plastic ring around the animal’s neck reduced its ability to care for itself and hunt, enough for it to starve to death or drown.

”Platypus use their bills to probe in and around small crevices, and [the plastic ring] probably got stuck,” he said. ”It’s how they search for food.”

An ecologist from the University of NSW, Tom Grant, said that until recently these types of human-induced platypus deaths were rare in Sydney.

Around Melbourne’s waterways, however, 10 per cent of platypuses captured by scientists had been found with some form of rubbish attached to them.

”Sometimes it has drowned them, sometimes it has strangled them, sometimes it has just cut them,” Dr Grant said.

Dr Johnson said the public needed to understand the effect rubbish, especially plastic, could have not just on platypuses, but on sea creatures including green turtles and on seabirds.

”All this crap that people throw away ends up somewhere and it is not biodegradable,” he said.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/platypus-death-demonstrates-danger-of-discarding-rubbish-thoughtlessly-20111211-1opmf.html#ixzz1gH6eUob3

Filed Under: Ocean, Pollution Tagged With: , , ,

NSW Government “Censored” Inconvenient Sea Level Data

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A report on Channel 7′s news at 6pm this evening alleges that sea level data, showing rates of rise far lower than those projected, were censored to avoid conflicting with government policy on climate change.

Sea levels at Fort Denison are rising at only 1mm per year or less, flatly contradicting the apocalyptic projections of the state and federal governments. Doug Lord, a global warming believer and coastal manager at the climate change department until February 2010, said “Both papers were accepted and at the last minute both were withdrawn on instructions from the department.”

Angus Gordon, a coastal engineer, accused the department of a cover-up, and of suppressing the data in order to support the federal government’s position on climate change.

If the allegations are true, none of this should come as any surprise, especially after the release last week of Climategate 2.0. It is the modus operandi of governments and alarmist scientists the world over, namely to censor or suppress dissent, or in this case data, which contradicts their pre-conceived agenda of dangerous global warming, and thereby giving them the freedom they need to mislead the electorate into accepting draconian and extreme climate change policies.

There is little reason to doubt that these kind of practices are commonplace, given the federal government’s desperation to convince the public of the “reality of climate change” and the need to take urgent action – hence the carbon tax.

Once again, the integrity of climate science and its associated disciplines has been tarnished by political motivations and politically correct environmental agendas.

Filed Under: Climate Change, Environment, Money, Ocean, Politicians, Politics, Science Tagged With: ,

Immunize Your Child or Lose Benefits, Parents Told

November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Starting July 1 of 2012, Australian parents will be stripped of family tax benefits if their child is not fully immunized.

Once the immunization alterations take effect next year, families who refuse vaccinations will also be refusing up to $2,100 per child in benefits.

It seems that this is just one attempt by the Australian government to force vaccinations on children before potentially making it a federal law.

Forced Vaccinations Should be Illegal

Vaccinations are surrounded with quite a bit of negative history. The flu vaccine alone has been tied to convulsions, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and a number of other negative health effects. Gardasil is also a heavy hitter when it comes to serious health problems, with the vaccine leading to many deaths and thousands of hospitalizations. With that being said, how can a government penalize your for not subjecting yourself to these potential dangers?

This tactic executed by the government is simply a way to push vaccines on the population without making full immunization mandatory by law. Being told you must be fully immunized to receive a benefit is not so different from being told you won’t receive any benefits if you have high cholesterol and don’t take Lipitor. The withholding of benefits tactic is pushed by the idea that not only will millions of kids be protected, but a massive amount of money will be saved in healthcare costs. So why not make pharmaceutical drugs mandatory to keep people “healthy”? The truth is the last thing that Australia and most other nations need is more government regulation.

What is Full Immunization?

You may be wondering what full immunization even is, especially if you are planning to have a child. Here is a schedule provided by the Australian government which shows the vaccination requirements for attaining the Family Tax Benefit Part A Supplement. In order for parents and families to experience various childcare benefits, this schedule should be followed – as far as the government is concerned.

According to the schedule, 5-7 vaccines should be administered at the 2, 4, 6, and 12 month mark as well as at 4 years. One vaccine which is administered almost every immunization period is the hepatitis B vaccine. Unfortunately this vaccine has been tied to infant death, multiple sclerosis, and autoimmune disorders.

It is also important to note that the Cochrane Database Review, the gold standard within the evidence-based medical model for determining the effectiveness of common medical interventions, does not lend clear scientific support to the theory that flu vaccines are safe or effective.

Shockingly, these authoritative reviews reveal that there is actually a severe lack of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of influenza vaccines in children under 2, healthy adults, the elderly, and healthcare workers who care for the elderly.

Some other changes should be known regarding future vaccine immunization changes. Starting July of next year, the immunization check will be changed from two and five years of age to one year of age. In addition, children will be required to be vaccinated against meningococcal C, pneumococcal, and chicken pox, all for the first time starting in July of 2013.

Taking a Stand

This government incentive to get vaccinated is only one small move in the game. It is only until enough people stand up and refuse injection for themselves and their children when the next move will be made. If injection becomes federal law, we will undoubtedly see great opposition. Just as no pharmaceutical drugs should be mandatory for the “health and safety” of the population, no vaccinations should be mandatory either. Everyone should always possess the freedom of choice.

Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/immunize-your-child-or-lose-benefits.html

Filed Under: Health, Welfare Benefits Tagged With: , ,