gdp's Comments

Agmates Rural News : Agmates Community News Forum Wednesday 18th February 2009

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:02:07 +0000

It's an ill wind if it blows nobody any good... Reading the headlines almost puts a smile on your face, if it wasn't so tragic! The fires tragedy has highlighted so much stupidity, such as the guys fined for clearing roadsides, doing their own hazard reduction burning, piling rocks for CFA access, now vindicated. In the future, their court defence may go better for them. The international carbon price collapsed, forcing a rethink of the ETS, perhaps a carbon tax and a debate. Maybe they'll realise Carbon is not the problem! Now we find that pastures are a better method of sequestration if carbon was the problem, but if it was, then pastures are a great way to do it. It's amazing that when upheavals such as this occur, it provides the opportunity for a rethink of the craziness and "sacred cows" that have matured into a load of old "bull". Now, it is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure the changes actually happen. As one news report said, the status quo will be back within 5 years if we let it! And all those people will have died in vain... Now that WOULD be a crime...

Agmates Rural News : A Storm in the financial weather

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:26:47 +0000

In the news today: "The founders of Storm Financial are trying to regain partial control of the financial advisory firm to pursue the Commonwealth Bank through the courts. Emmanuel and Julie Cassimatis confirmed in a statement on Tuesday they would pursue a Deed of Company Arrangement (DOCA)." So the folks at the head of Storm are trying to do the right thing by investors by taking back control, and forcing the banks to be made accountable for their part in it. Lots of legal wrangling to come. But wait, what's this, at the end of the SAME article? "Meanwhile, a bid by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to freeze $2 million the couple paid to themselves days before the north Queensland firm went into administration will return to the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday." I wonder what is REALLY going on there? Like I said previously, the posturing and arguing will go on for years and the investors will watch, wonder and weep!

Agmates Rural News : Agmates Community News Forum Weekend 14 / 15th February 2009

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:16:35 +0000

If ever there was a time for a new broom to sweep clean, this is IT! However, the ones pushing the broom haven't changed...

Agmates Rural News : Agmates Community News Forum Weekend 14 / 15th February 2009

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:27:47 +0000

Thank you JeffT, I read your tinyurl, and comments after the article. I was disappointed in Tim Flannery's comments also. I thought better of him. However, I have to concede that man HAS had an effect. I looked at everything in coming to this conclusion and realised that in the last twenty years or so, man's effect was not on temperatures, droughts, or anything but the vegetation that was allowed to accumulate. I based this on my own research, feedback from my Dad, a 60 (SIXTY) year and still active veteran of the NSW Rural FB, and a lot of studies in recent days of past bushfire research and Govt enquiries. The ONLY man-made difference is in the amount of vegetation fuel available. And a recurring fact is that EVERY TIME this amount of vegetation builds up and coincides with hot weather, drought and winds, bushfires appear and destroy everything in their path. That is also verified by the enquiries, which make all the same recommendations. I can't wait til the next round starts - will they just change the addresses and victim's names? Or will they look at the previous ones and say "OK, we have seen enough, LET US DO SOMETHING NOW!"

Agmates Rural News : Agmates Community News Forum Weekend 14 / 15th February 2009

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:21:23 +0000

I watched Channel 7 "Sunday Night" program also, and found it hard to believe what I was hearing. Like the older gentleman on TV, I wanted to get up and walk out, but it was my own loungeroom! I listened to a guy living in a concrete jungle tell the CFA bush residents what the problem was.. And he didn't think it was the fuel problem either... Couldn't specify exactly what the cause was, or a solution for the bushfire problem, but still got airtime! And therein lies the problem. Seems that if you are a greenie you can get the airtime and the audience, but if you have a commonsense solution, anything that suggests removing a tree or creating a firebreak, there's an endanged plant or animal that will be threatened by it... Funny thing, those endanged flora and fauna are very scarce over almost a million acres of Victorian bush right now!

Agmates Rural News : Katter, Windsor, Oakeshott, Cast Their Political Futures With Kevin Rudd & Labor

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 07:59:40 +0000

We know that people have short memories, and voters even shorter memories, but with the wounds from the economic stimulus package likely to be open and festering sores around the time of the next election, I know of 3 at least independants that should probably start forward planning a new career any time from now.. Disappointed I am, surprised, I'm not. That's why I created www.politicalguts.com - there are too many politically expedient decisions made with short term thinking. This island we live on is one of the oldest continents on the planet - the audacity of those who think a three year term ahead at a time! The inhumanity of what they surely must know they are inflicting on our children... People of Australia, we can do better. WE MUST!

Agmates Rural News : What The Greenies are saying about The Victorian Bush fires and Us Idiots.

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:22:58 +0000

There is a slightly larger picture emerging from this whole debacle... That of the vacuum of leadership, and our amazement at how low someone can stoop to when the carrot is big enough. It began with the talk of arson being a cause of the deadly fires and now there is someone in custody. The claim is that the person is 'mentally fragile' but regardless, he is safer in custody than out in the community. I thought this was as low as human nature could go. However, it went even lower with the Rudd team linking disaster relief with the economic stimulus package. As if that wasn't bad enough, all we saw from Turnbull and Co was grandstanding. In times of leadership vacuum, there is the opportunity for true leadership to step up and be counted. However, we have failed! We have failed to elect anyone with the moral fibre, the political guts, to take charge in this situation. The leadership vacuum is our own responsibility. We need to be more proactive in selecting those who would represent us in parliament, to ensure that we get what we need. Instead, by allowing anyone who can afford the fee to stand and can hoodwink the party, we get what we deserve!

Agmates Rural News : A Storm in the financial weather

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:11:22 +0000

Susan, my heart goes out to you. I am one of those "financial advisors". However, for 20 years, I have been a business advisor and was involved in corporate rescue for folks like yourself from as far back as the 1987 market crash. It's only in the last two years I relented and got my qualification as a "licensed financial planner" so that I could legally continue to give the strategic and business advice that my clients required. There are two types of financial planners, one the career planner/insurance sales person, and the other the person with a strategic eye to the client's wellbeing. Just as there are accountant bookkeepers and management consultants with the same qualification. Unfortunately, in situations like this, the greed and "protect my butt" philosophy is the way of the organisations with the resources of corporate lawyers and time to wait until folks like you cannot afford to fight back. I don't know the answer afterwards, but I hope the average investor realises they need more education before they invest in the future. I have daily requests from this type of organisation to lure my clients into their investments, but I refuse!

Agmates Rural News : Senate Rejects Stimulus Package - Change Of Attitude Needed

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:47:50 +0000

Funny, as someone who has never "had a job" and always been self employed, taking personal responsibility has been my way of life. It's interesting to rub shoulders with those who have this belief of 'entitlement' and eagerly await the next handout. In an ABC radio interview, the guy who set up the "Micro Loans" concept recently said that the handouts in Africa after the BANDAID concerts probably set the country back decades, because the people learnt to wait for the next handout, rather than learning how to create the next opportunity, and to take responsibility for their lives. It's happening here too. We rely on "Guvmint" to look after us, but there are many people now who are finding out the futility of that strategy. What will it take to get people to realise that it's time to start thinking for themselves, and to stand up against the bureaucratic thinking imposed on them from afar?

Agmates Rural News : 10 years of run away Green controls / legislations contributed most to Vic Disaster

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:39:42 +0000

I think it says it all quite well! That picture exceeded the word limit by 5 times!

Agmates Rural News : The Tragedy In Victoria Should Have Been Prevented

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:22:58 +0000

After reading everything, including links posted (thank you all for the amazing research from as far back as the 1939 fires), I find it inconceivable that this problem still exists, but it does. My Dad and I fought fires through NSW South West Slopes, and he is now a veteran with a 60 year long service medal for membership of the NSW Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade. He tells us that on active duty, much of the time down around Moruya NSW South Coast, they are telling people to evacuate, as they are not prepared to endanger their lives by going into bush havens to protect property which has been carefully inserted into the bush between gum trees! The local council regulations protect trees at the expense of population and prosecute anyone who removes a single tree! The vegetation is as thick as in Victoria, as it is just over the ranges on the north side, so the real situation exists that it can happen again and again, all over Eastern Australia. My question is: what it will take for the solution, which we all recognise, to be enacted? How bad does it have to get? Lets play the blame game later, but act now to save the country from more tragedy!

Agmates Rural News : Victorian Bushfires, QLD Floods, Dam It

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:45:06 +0000

I note that NSW is now 56% in drought, while 66% of Queensland is under flood water... Wouldn't it be a good idea if an enterprising young engineer like Mr Bradfield came up with an idea to turn the floodwaters south, and stop it going to waste and smothering our tropical coral reefs with silt....? Just a wild idea out of the blue.... What's that term? Common sense? Just not in common use...!

Agmates Rural News : Senate Rejects Stimulus Package - Change Of Attitude Needed

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:15:53 +0000

I note Mr Swan's comments tonight that Australia is now the only nation on the planet to reject an economic stimulus package. That would suggest that all economic stimulus packages are wonderful creatures and we should all have one as a pet. Perhaps a closer look into the package and its ultimate costs would give an objective observer a better view of Mr Swan's real objectives. We CAN provide an economic stimulus, we can package it, it can be good, but it's just not THIS package... If it's done right, I'm sure Senators Fielding, Xenophon, Joyce and the other senators could be conviced to support it. However, at the moment, they are doing what the senate is elected to do, reviewing legislation to make sure it is appropriate for the nation, and blind Freddy can see that this lot isn't! Start again, Mr Swan! Read the letters I sent you, look on my website at http://www.politicalguts.com/id50.html. There's an interesting template there, dated September 24, 2008!

Agmates Rural News : Victorian Bushfires, QLD Floods, Dam It

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:07:42 +0000

Hi Natalie, I have to agree, in it's entirety, your comment(s) echo what I have been saying for some time on my website www.politicalguts.com and I have personally invited Messrs Rudd, Turnbull, and ministers plus the media to peruse the multiple policies I have proposed there, including a taxation reform package that could immediately provide a stimulus far beyond what this supposed $42B package is claiming to do, but actually not cost us a cracker! Included in the concept is all the infrastructure you are suggesting, along with the funding methods and I don't mention deficit anywhere! I invite you to take a look, and spread the word. Most stimulus packages as we are seeing are reactionary. My proposal is proactive, in that it suggests coming in and cleaning up before the problems arise... It's still not too late, but if this stimuls package, and the ETS get up, then it may be!

Agmates Rural News : Victorian Bushfires, QLD Floods, Dam It

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:36:48 +0000

How appropriate! This is one of the strategies I have also proposed on the Political Guts website at http://www.politicalguts.com/id13.html and it does indeed serve the multi-purpose role that any new investment will have demanded of it today. It could ease the flood situations in the north, mitigating floods, but also prolong river flows to the south, sustain grazing and agriculture over longer periods, maintain river health, but also provide infrastructure investment that meets every criteria demanded of it in the year 2009. I didn't see any mention of it in the $42B proposed spending package, yet under the current natural disaster situations we have, my mind immediately jumped to it! I wonder if this one will make its way into the shopping basket!

Agmates Rural News : Rudds $200b Borrowing Will Devastate Rural Australia For Decades To Come.

Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:07:22 +0000

Is there another way? Malcolm Turnbull argued against this package, but now appears to be crumbling. Rudd seems hellbent on driving our economy into terminal debt problems with firstly his ETS proposal, then with this one! The ETS was going to bankrupt us, but with this on top? I proposed alternatives to Rudd, Turnbull, Ken Henry and the media back in September and November 2008, strategies that would eliminate the need for consideration of this economically suicidal path, but no word yet. Check out the submissions at http://www.politicalguts.com/id50.html to read them from my website. Also check the TAXATION page link. Do they want a place in history? Or a solution? I provided a solution, they can make history by having the Political Guts to implement it! Ray Jamieson

Agmates Rural News : Allan Yeomans Writes - Global Warming: Trees or Soil

Sun, 8 Feb 2009 09:59:45 +0000

I implemented Keyline onto my Kingaroy property in 1980. The effects on profits were incredible! I continued my study into soil and water conservation, ETS, greenhouse gases and posted my own research on it at http://www.politicalguts.com/id6.html __To continually improve and utilise the soil by harvesting meat and grain food crops is the most reasonable, sensible way forward, rather than an ETS which at best is useless, and at worst can bankrupt the economy - that's before we go heavily into debt with the "economic stimulus package". __P A Yoemans lobbied Keyline nationally for many years. Had he been successful and the governments of the day implemented his strategies, there is a probability that the acid and salt soils problems would not now exist and our rivers and soils would be much healthier. While it's not too late, the eleventh hour comes to mind! For those who have not read "Keyline: Water for every Farm", do so. Become informed before passing judgement! This technology can change the world except that the world appears to have passed it by in favour of high tech solutions that may benefit more consultants, corporations and others, off farm!__Ray Jamieson__