But the forum says only one-third of that is recovered through fares and the rest is subsidised by governments.
TTF chief executive Chris Brown will today launch a new report which makes several revenue-raising and cost-cutting suggestions to deal with Australia’s growing population.
Mr Brown says one of those would be allowing concession holders cheaper fares on public transport only during off-peak hours.
“You can’t sustain a system where concession pensioner rates are clogging up peak-hour transport,” he said.
The report also suggests congestion charging, franchising different modes of transport and raising revenue through better advertising.
Clogging up peak-hour transport! Yep, that’s what TTF’s Chris Brown said.
Obviously, all those socially subsidised pensioners on their way to their 1st and 2nd jobs are bludging up all the facilities. Those poor people… they’re so POOR and… unprofitable.
I expect Mr Brown to do two things; 1) come up with some hard numbers on how many pensioners actually ride public transport in peak hour and 2) stand on train platforms checking that blind folks have bought tickets for those seeing-eye dogs. Oh, and… explain to his own aged parents or relatives why they should get the hell off his gravy train and WALK.
What Mr Brown is suffering from is called ‘downward envy.’ It’s the irrational belief that aged and disabled pensioners somehow have it too good.
NEWSFLASH, Mr B: It’s not easy living with disabilities and the diminished capacity to earn that comes with advanced age. Australia is a wealthy country and we as a society afford certain consideration to those who are not as well-off as those in the earning mainstream.
Fairfax reporter Adam Turner made the grave error of referring to Tony the Abbott in rather foul terms while livetweeting the Mad Monk’s post-election speech- and found himself the subject of a segment on MediaWatch. This indiscretion got Turner reprimanded by his boss.
[Adam Turner] has received an official first and final warning.
— Statement from Paul Ramadge (Editor in Chief, The Age) to Media Watch, 26th August, 2010
Well, okay.
Doubtless, working journos damage their credibility when they make such crude commentary about politicians who are the subject of their reportage. Does nothing for the credibility of the reporter nor the news op they work for. Turner deserved to be upbraided.
Now… if the person who dobbed Turner in to MediaWatch had been Helen Lovejoy, who in pureness of heart and filled with innocent desires, both to improve the standard of Australian journalism and to protect the virgin eyes of her Twittering 9 year old daughter, alerted MW, that’d be one thing.
But the dobber wasn’t Helen Lovejoy.
The MediaWatch informant was one Robert Candelori, an out-n-proud right-wing nutjob who simply wanted to cause trouble for a journo who made an untoward comment about his favourite politician.
@guru_kscope I’ve got nothing to be afraid of because I’m not in the habit of using vulgar expletives to describe politicians or others.
…Candelori is about as squeaky clean as a dunny brush as regards his use of colourful language in political discussions:
RobertCandelori swears like a Scottish Comedian
Ranked: 174,376th worldwide Swears: 93 Score: 95 of 100
Consequently, Candelori’s complaint about the shocking, SHOCKING, I TELL YOU language used by Adam Turner stinks of utter partisan hypocrisy and mean high-school girl tattletale politics.
When called out, Candelori put on his very best nonchalant act…
@renailemay @weezmgk I’m quite enjoying the wet lettuce twitspit #mediawatch
Before gloating over dobbing in Turner, Candelori’s Twitter profile proudly told us all about his ‘family biz,’ Candelori’s Ristorante + Bar on The Horseley Dr in Smithfield NSW:
But after Candelori was called on the carpet by Renai Lemay and myself, Big Rob’s Twitter profile suddenly changed:
Wow, where did the reference to the ‘family biz’ go? So much for that nonchalant act, eh? Maybe an elder Candelori advised young Rob that foul-mouthed bitchy political commentary isn’t so good for the ‘family biz.’
Huh, maybe it’s not just journalists who need to mind their civility in public political discourse.
Rob, let me tell you what you are: you’re a hypocritical bitch. You make Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan look positively macho. There’s a picture of you in the dictionary next to the definition for ‘catty.’
MediaWatch can’t necessarily be faulted for being used to drive some Liberal douchebag’s political agenda… but MW certainly should be mindful of the possibility. Moreover, at the end of the day, just how newsworthy was this little snit? Was it as good as David Marr’s keelhauling of Alan Jones and John Laws over ‘Cash for Comment’?
I don’t think there’s any Walkleys in this one, dearest MediaWatch.
Some 500 people have since signed a petition objecting to the tower and have put candidates on notice it will influence their decision come election day - a threat the major parties are not likely to ignore considering the seat is tipped to be decided by a handful of votes
Proof that there’s at least 500 nongs in the Bennelong electorate who haven’t got clue number one about science and the utter lack of hazard from mobile telephone towers.
How much do you want to bet that each one has a microwave oven? Microwave ovens are 1000-1200 watt radio transmitters which operate slightly above the frequency of mobile phones. Mobile phones themselves max out at about 600mW (0.6W) and 3G base stations sear the sky with a blazing 3-10 watts.
There’s no scientific evidence that humans are in any way affected by radio signals, but the crazies are fearful anyway.
Why are there no petitions to ban microwave ovens?
Family Fist’s Steve Fielding had indicated his support for the scheme (and also thinks global warming is a hoax). However, Fielding will almost certainly lose his seat to the Greens in the upcoming election. As such, the Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate… and Labor will not be able to assemble the numbers to push internet censorship through Parliament.
Conroy appears shocked- shocked, I tell you- that the Coalition have put the nail in the mandatory filter’s coffin.
Conroy has derided citizen filtering opponents as being pro-kiddie porn on numerous occasions. Anyone taking bets on how long it will take for Labor/Conroy to label the Coalition and the Greens as paedophiles as well?
However, the retort from the Australian Christian Lobby’s Jim Wallace regarding the death of the filter is probably the most astounding (if predictable):
Posted by Glynis Quinlan, PR Manager on August 6th, 2010
The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) described as incomprehensible Joe Hockey’s announcement that the Coalition would do away with ISP level filtering of the internet.
“This announcement is incomprehensible on a number of levels”, said Mr Wallace. “Firstly to say it doesn’t work is to deny the trials that show it does. Secondly to have a system that orders takedown notices for Australian sites carrying Refused Classification (RC) material, but allow it to come in unhindered from overseas sites is simply illogical. And finally to imply that parents rather than the ISPs are best equipped to manage the technology by presumably introducing the discredited Net Nanny system, again simply defies technological reality.”
Mr Wallace said the anti-filter proponents have run a well funded scare campaign on the issue, beginning with claims it would slow down the internet by up to 87%, only to be proven it was less than 1/70th of the blink of an eye, and conspiracy theories that saw us all becoming like China and North Korea.
“On every level arguments against ISP level blocking of RC material have been disproved or shown to be illogical,” said Mr Wallace. “Even the much publicised statement by the US Ambassador that he was against it because he wanted to see the internet free “as the oceans have to be free”, conveniently overlooked the fact that the US blocks drugs been brought by boat from Central America to the US because of their harm to US society. ISP level filtering does the same with harmful internet product, and offends the freedom of the internet no more than the US does that of the sea in drug control,” he said.
Important to understand in the Government’s plan is that ISP filtering is only part of the solution to the problem of RC material on the internet, that it includes in particular additional funding of police efforts to intercept illegal peer to peer material and find the perpetrators of it.
“The Govt is absolutely right to retain its resolve on this issue,” said Mr Wallace, “and it is extremely disappointing to see the Coalition adopt a policy that, as the civil libertarians behind it intend, will establish a principle where this medium is beyond regulation – quite unlike the supposedly free seas.”
If Jim Wallace thinks the Liberals’ stance against mandatory ISP level filtering is incomprehensible, he is only indicating his limited ability to comprehend.
Joe Hockey gave a fully adequate and accurate description of why the Coalition opposes the filter, based in the results of the Enex test.
The Enex test did NOT indicate that the filter would work. It indicated that it could be circumvented by any 12-year-old, using web proxies, the Tor online anonymity program, peer-to-peer file sharing and VPNs- and ISPs can do nothing at all about circumvention. As such, the Enex test declared that the filter was a failure, right out of the box.
The ‘87% slowdown’ figure was also arrived at by the Enex test and describes the performance of the filter scheme that most correctly identified material to filter- yet even that filter would be easily circumventable.
The nut is that the filter would be ineffective, in any iteration. Filtering at the ISP level won’t stop children from accessing age-inappropriate material. Joe Hockey correctly observed that claiming the ineffective filtering regime would prevent children from accessing inappropriate material would deceive parents into thinking that children were actually insulated from net nasties, when this is demonstrably false.
Comparing the proposed- and now quite dead- internet filter to similar censorship regimes in totalitarian countries is not a conspiracy theory- it’s a wholly valid comparison. Conroy was asking for a filter that was based upon a secret, unappealable blacklist. Only in totalitarian nations is secret evidence, lack of transparency and lack of governmental accountability to the people considered normal. If that’s the sort of government Jim Wallace and the ACL find desirable, there’s nations in this world where they can get it- like China, Iran, North Korea and so on.
“1/70th of the blink of an eye” is not a scientific measurement. What is the SI standard measurement for an eye blink? This is the silliest excuse for evidence I have yet to see in the entire debate.
So, opposition to filtering is ‘well-funded?’ Really? By whom? Your evidence, please, Mr Wallace? Or is this just a conspiracy theory to explain that the Australian people, en masse, don’t want censorship?
Parents are indeed best placed to supervise and moderate their children’s internet use- not ISPs, not governments and DEFINITELY NOT the Australian Christian Lobby.
It’s indeed dead, Jim- and the ACL have cemented themselves to their irrelevancy. Will Labor choose to wear that cement overcoat going into the 21 August election?
For the benefit of non-Australian readers, Australia has a preferential voting system, which facilitates participation of small and special interest parties. This arrangement has ups and downs. Read on.
There’s a couple of ways to vote on our ‘bedsheet’ ballots. You can vote above the line, for a party. Just a ‘1′ in the box for the party you choose. If that party doesn’t win, they can then allocate your vote according to the party’s preference.
If you don’t like the way any party has allocated preferences, you can vote below the line, numbering each individual candidate in your order of preference. In a Federal Election, this means sequentially numbering about 80 individual squares. If you make errors in your sequencing, your ballot can be declared ‘informal’ or invalid.
Few people can memorise everything about every candidate; It’s difficult to make an informed below-the-line vote while standing at the voting booth. Of course, this prompts a lot of voters to use the above-the-line method.
However, unprincipled preference distributions by parties have had unimaginably bad consequences on occasion, most notably with the election of Family Fist’s (no typo) Steve Fielding, who has been an enormous pain in the ass for the last three years. At very least, Fielding’s bigotry, buffoonery and gaffery has inspired some stellar parody and wit, notably from Twitter’s @FakeFielding.
A new website has been set up to help voters build their below-the-line preferences at home, when they’ve got time and easy access to the internet to research their choices. Naturally, it’s called belowtheline.org.au. It allows you to drag-n-drop candidates to tweak your vote and to print a copy of your selections to make voting day quick and easy.
Some good advice for Labor, who are now struggling in the polls: Dump the internet filtering policy- BEFORE 21 August. I’ll put Labor dead last if you don’t. Please don’t help Tony Abbott drive us to theocracy.
On July 25, 1990 at 12:34:40AM, I was riding a motorcycle in Indianapolis, southbound on Meridian St, on my way to see a gal I was dating, in her downtown high-rise apartment.
At the same time, one Mary V. Slafkosky, who was loaded up with quite a lot more than the (then) legal blood alcohol limit of .10% BAC, was travelling eastbound on 21st St in her white Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
Mary was too drunk to judge that the green signal for eastbound 21st St was ’stale.’
10 seconds later, at 12:34:50AM, the signal for traffic eastbound on 21st St turned yellow.
The signal I was approaching, for southbound Meridian St, had been red, so I was decelerating. About a city block north of the intersection, I had downshifted into 4th, closed the throttle and was covering the front brake lever with my right index and middle fingers, preparing to stop.
Mary was also too drunk to judge the length of the yellow signal.
6 seconds later, at 12:34:56AM, the signal for eastbound 21st St turned red.
Mary didn’t stop- she didn’t even slow down. Mary barrelled right on into the intersection, against the red signal.
At the same time, when I was about 150 feet north of the intersection, then moving at about 25mph, the signal for southbound Meridian turned green. I released the front brake lever and rolled on a small amount of throttle to return to the 35mph speed limit.
The 4-story apartment building on the northwest corner of the intersection of 21st and Meridian completely blocks the view of traffic approaching on 21st St from the west for drivers proceeding south on Meridian.
I had less than 1 second to react to Mary’s car entering the intersection while the signal was green for me.
Processing.
Cognitive dissonance for 1/3 of a second.
…why is there a car entering the intersection from my right, when the signal is green for me?
Processing.
Another 1/3 of a second passes.
Reaction.
I managed to get my fingers back on the front brake lever and mashed the rear brake pedal.
Too late.
With eyes the size of dinner plates, I saw the white left front fender of Mary’s car, with chrome Cutlass Supreme insignia, looming ever larger, larger and larger, like being viewed through a zoom lens advancing at top speed into a focal point.
And then…
The SOUND.
I can still hear it, even now, 20 years later.
WHOOOMP.
My front wheel squarely hit Mary’s left front wheel, crushing her left front suspension. The forks of the bike folded to the left and the remaining mass of the bike collapsed the Cutlass’ left front fender.
The bike and I went airborne, both flying over Mary’s car. I flew about 50-60 feet, rolling and tumbling through the air.
A witness following me said the bike was on its side while airborne, spinning. He first mistook it for a lawnmower spinning through the air.
Not being terribly good at flying, I returned to earth.
My first contact with the Meridian St pavement was on my full-face helmet’s chin bar and on my chest. The chest impact caused my heart to go into fibrillation, stopping efficient blood flow to my brain.
I bounced and rolled several more times, fracturing my right knee’s tibial plateau, tearing my left knee’s anterior cruciate ligament and injuring my spine in three places. Both ankles were fractured, as was my left wrist. Despite the thickness of a leather jacket over a down-filled jacket (it was a rather cool night for July in Indianapolis), the point of the ulna bone near my left elbow, tore through the skin, leaving an inch-long gash which required several butterfly bandages to close.
I finally stopped rolling, about 75 feet from the point of impact, lying on my back. The lack of blood flow to the brain caused me to be semi-conscious at the time and ultimately caused a temporary stroke-like condition, where my entire left side was paralyzed for several weeks.
The chin strap of the helmet was tight across my neck, partially cutting off my airway. Some amazingly prescient nearby person almost immediately came to my aid, loosening the strap, but not removing my helmet in case I had broken my neck.
While all this was happening, not knowing her car was fatally wounded, Mary panicked and decided to flee the scene- and leave me for dead. Despite the crushed left front suspension, Mary mashed the throttle. The front-wheel-drive Cutlass dragged its left front wheel while the right front spun and smoked, while Mary struggled through her drunken stupor and with the nearly inoperable steering. She managed to get the car, on three operable wheels, about a block away from the scene. 5 witnesses came forward, one describing Mary’s hasty, semi-controlled exit from the scene as ‘like something out of the Dukes of Hazzard.’
If you’re going to have one, downtown Indianapolis is a pretty good place to sustain severe injuries in an auto accident, given its close proximity to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where quite a lot of that sort of thing tends to happen. I was only 2 minutes by ambulance away from Methodist Hospital, a Level 1 trauma care center. Since witnesses saw the whole thing happen, police and ambulance were summoned almost immediately and were on scene scant minutes after the collision. Paramedics defibrillated my heart, stabilised me and transported me to Methodist, where I remained for many months afterward.
While in hospital, I had several knee surgeries. A band of tissue was grafted from the center of my left patellar tendon to repair the torn ACL in my left knee. A piece of bone from my right hip was grafted out and used to repair the flaked bone on my right knee’s tibial plateau, along with the installation of 8 very nice stainless steel screws and an equally pretty 4″ long stainless steel plate. The hardware was removed about a year later as it was causing severe pain when I encountered large changes in air temperature.
Despite her escape, Mary was located and arrested about 2 hours after the fact. She was charged with ‘operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing serious bodily harm,’ a felony, as well as ‘leaving the scene of a serious bodily injury accident,’ another felony. This was Mary’s first drunk driving offense- but you can’t convince me for a nanosecond that anyone who can find their car keys, much less semi-successfully drive a car, with nearly double the legal BAC, isn’t a ‘pro drinker’ who has driven home drunk many times before. I just was unlucky enough to be her first victim.
Mary got herself a good attorney, who did precisely what criminal defense lawyers do. This attorney attempted to use traffic signal sequencing information to pin the fault for the collision on me and tried to persuade witnesses to describe my very ordinary 1981 Suzuki GS450 commuter bike as a ’souped-up racing motorcycle’- and managed to get the charge reduced to ‘operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated,’ a misdemeanor, presumably because Mary had not previously been convicted of any DUI offenses. Mary at the time was employed by the Indiana Department of Motor Vehicles. No word on whether Mary kept that job after being convicted, but she did eventually (about a year later) plead guilty, but only to the misdemeanor OMVWI charge.
Despite all the injuries and surgery, one of the the most painful things about the whole mess to me was that during the court session where she was convicted, Mary never even looked me in the eye to apologize. She just snuffled and blubbered and stared at her shoes. Mary was given a year’s suspension from driving and a nominal fine, about $100. I’m quite sure the attorney cost her several thousand dollars, but it was nothing compared to the loss of income I have suffered in the last 20 years. I received a paltry $36,000 settlement in the early 1990s for pain and suffering, about half a year’s worth of pay for me. I did manage to return to work about a year after the accident and was able to struggle through for the ensuing 11 years, but in 2002, my knees absolutely failed me and I have been unable to work since. I live on a disability pension of about $15,000 per year.
I am in constant pain to one degree or another, every single day. I constantly struggle with effective pain control with my three spinal and bilateral knee injuries. I presently need more surgery- the left knee is totally shot and I need a total knee joint replacement. The problem being that at age 48, I’m too young to have the work done- artificial knee joints only last about 20 years before a revision surgery is required. The mechanical joints simply wear out and must be replaced. However, replacing an artificial joint is difficult and risky, particularly when the patient is in their 70s. It’s best to wait as long as possible for the surgery so that one doesn’t outlive the usefulness of the mechanical joint.
If you drink and own a car, think carefully about this story. If you’re a thoughtless, self-centred drunk who can’t be bothered to get a cab home, provided you don’t kill your victim/s outright, you stand a very high likelihood of leaving them to live in poverty with lifelong disabilities.
BEN GRUBB
July 23, 2010
The federal government has censored approximately 90 per cent of a secret document outlining its controversial plans to snoop on Australians’ web surfing, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, out of fear the document could cause “premature unnecessary debate”.
The government has been consulting with the internet industry over the proposal, which would require ISPs to store certain internet activities of all Australians - regardless of whether they have been suspected of wrongdoing - for law-enforcement agencies to access.
All parties to the consultations have been sworn to secrecy.
Um, no. Not in a liberal democracy.
Would like McClelland to tell me exactly what sort of debate is ‘unnecessary.’ I’ll suggest that it’s only the sort that criticises such repugnant and unnecessary schemes.
The Australian ran a story on 21 July in which ‘Bob Brown’ was quoted, regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks in the USA:
“The 9/11 commission was not conclusive that al-Qa’ida was responsible,” the Western Port News quotes Mr Brown as saying.
“There are huge questions that need to be asked — one building came down without being hit, architects say the building looked like they were brought down by controlled explosions. What happened to the bodies and plane at the Pentagon?”
However, these conspiracy nutter comments are NOT from Senator Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens.
The statements were made by a different person, also named ‘Bob Brown,’ who is the Greens candidate for the Victorian seat of Flinders.
The Australian Greens advise:
At 11:32 AM 23/07/2010 +1000, Dodd, John (Office of Senator Bob Brown) wrote:
This response has taken a somewhat convoluted route to get to you but the unfortunate quotations to which you refers are indeed from Bob Brown, but not Senator Bob Brown. They were made by another Bob Brown who is the Greens’ candidate in the Victorian seat of Flinders and obviously do not reflect Senator Brown’s opinion on this issue.
Regards
John Dodd
Office of Senator Bob Brown
These comments were actually made by a Greens candidate for Flinders who also has the name Bob Brown (as opposed to the Senator for Tasmania). Mr Brown (of Flinders) has issued an apology and retracted the statement about his comments on 911.
Kind regards,
Anna Sildever
Electorate Officer
Office of Bob Brown
Australian Greens Senator for Tasmania
Whew.
I thought for a moment that Senator Bob Brown had lost his mind.
Mind, that Meryl doesn’t really have to care, given that she can safely ignore the HCCC’s ‘request‘ that AVN place a disclaimer on their website:
Recommendation:
The Australian Vaccination Network should include an appropriate statement in a prominent place on its website which states:
1. The Australian Vaccination Network’s purpose is to provide information against vaccination in order to balance what it believes is the substantial amount of pro-vaccination information available elsewhere;
2. The information should not be read as medical advice; and
3. The decision about whether or not to vaccinate should be made in consultation with a health care provider.
Should include? Well, I guess… if they want to…
If HCCC is treating AVN as a ‘healthcare provider/educator’ (educator? ha!), doesn’t that qualify AVN to present whatever anti-vaccination pseudoscience they make up to fearful, underinformed parents?
HCCC has no balls and no teeth. Dear Kristina Keneally, isn’t it long past due time to slap a $50,000/day fine on these liars who lay on the anti-vaccination manure thick and heavy?
Fairfax reporter Adam Turner made the grave error of referring to Tony the Abbott in rather foul terms while livetweeting the Mad Monk’s post-election speech- and found himself 
limit of .10% BAC, was travelling eastbound on 21st St in her white Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
image:ARNnet.com.au