Reading it can give you a sense of hopelessness, a sense of powerlessness that is very similar to the experience people feel after talking to Peter Garrett’s office. People in the solar cell industry, people with “illegal” e-bikes who send in submissions that are never even acknowledged and writers like myself have all felt this. We know that real change needs micro steps as well as macro plans but Labor “environmentalists” are so glued to “the big picture” they can’t see how they are not only going backwards and disappointing us but also taking incentive away from real people to give to big corporations who will not deliver anything but profits to themselves. As the Oils once sang “Brave faces… fall silent… got those tears in their eyes”. Does it make sense to you, Peter?  . . read more

Economic efficiency requires a smooth constant increase in demand so that local suppliers and distributors can scale up gradually, cost effectively. When cheaper production methods become available we want our suppliers and distributors in place ready to increase sales (not in bankruptcy proceedings - that only helps the multinationals who of course might give the Labor Party big donations). Your lack of foresight and/or ability to make Labor think about it's micro actions makes us have such cynical thoughts.

You now have a chance to change our impressions of you. In NSW a country magistrate has fined somebody $500 for riding a non-polluting e-bike without it being registered because the Road & Transport Authority classifies it as a pedal bike which it is. There are maybe 10,000 of these across Australia all reducing CO2 pollution day in day out. They've now been ordered off the roads. A State matter?  Peter, you know the NSW Labor government is a bad joke in freefall that can't save itself much less do something good for the environment. And we all know that you know that. Step in, save all the e-bikes and start to save your own reputation.  

Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

Now another controversial development threatens Tasmania's wildness and its clean, green image - Gunns Ltd's $1.9bn pulp mill. The Howard government has given approval for the mill with what it describes as "the world's toughest environmental conditions". But it did not consider the greenhouse impact, nor the impact on human health or forests in its approval. Labor's shadow environment minister, Peter Garrett, has given unqualified support for the mill to proceed.

At this year's election Australians will have a chance not just to cast a vote on the desirability of this polluting pulp mill, but on the future direction of Australia. As the scientific evidence of global warming mounts, it is time to change the way major development decisions are made. If Tasmania were to build a truly "world's best practice" pulp mill it could create jobs and protect the environment. This pulp mill provides a litmus test of how seriously political parties are taking climate change and the environment. The Labor party and the Liberal-National coalition have failed at the first hurdle. . . read more

The choice you face on the 24th of November has become more intense and more urgent because of some of the stormclouds that are gathering on our economy both domestically and internationally. With the right leadership, the skill that people like Peter Costello have displayed over the last eleven-and-a-half years, we can continue to see it grow. We can reach that great goal of full employment. We can once again walk the shopping malls and the streets of this nation and meet enthusiastic young people bubbling with hope and pride and confidence about their future job prospects. But if we get it wrong, if we hand it over to inexperienced people, a government dominated by 70% of former trade union officials, if we have a nation for the first time in its history with a Labor Government at every level, coast to coast, wall to wall without lead or hindrance, isn’t that a huge risk – isn’t that taking too big a risk with the prosperity that we have worked so hard to build?  . . read more

we are still able to help each other
without producing invoice
or lawyer
as seen in our response
to national emergencies

Yet on the edge of awareness
a ghostly predator gnaws
at our self confidence
and tradition of tolerance

On Australia Day
too many citizens
flew too many flags

"We're full!" was a slogan on t-shirts,
meaning, "Muslims piss off".

A high profile social commentator
And climate-change denier
said "greenies" were responsible
for the ferocity of the bushfires
and deserved to be
"strung up on lamp posts".

What is it that makes
hate-mongers
and war mongers so angry?

A subliminal awareness
that their enthusiasm for invasions,
aerial bombardment,
assassinations and torture ....

has helped to accelerate
the decline of the West. . . read more

There is another view, another vision — and it is our vision — which says that this nation and this people are at their best when we are a people and a nation committed to building a prosperous nation while at the same time not jettisoning our vision for a fair Australia and a fair society. In an absolute nutshell that is the divide between us — a view of the world which says it is about me, myself and I, and an alternative view which says that we are about an Australia which, sure, recognises that individual hard work, achievement and success are to be encouraged and rewarded but, at the same time, that we cannot turn a blind eye to the interests of our fellow human beings who are not doing well.

That has been the divide between us for a century and remains the divide between us today. Ideas in politics are important. They in fact affect everything that we do. They shape our vision of what is possible for the government to do for the nation. . . read more