We’ve been staying in this hotel in one of the busiest parts of Cairns for three days now and a few things about the place are really striking, when compared to NZ.
People are better dressed, more relaxed and polite and friendly. No cars with noisy exhausts and boom-boxes doing endless circuits around town, even though the police presence is very light indeed. Harleys parked casually, unattended and not chained up. Almost no litter. No footpaths blocked by swaggering brown simians wearing gang patches….   oh, and lower prices for almost everything, especially food.

‘Julia Gillard confirms she will levy taxpayers to help rebuild Queensland:
A levy of 0.5 per cent will be applied on taxable income between $50,001 and $100,000 and a levy of one per cent will be applied on taxable income above $100,000… “A person earning $100,000 per year will pay just under an extra $5 per week,” she said.
This will raise $1.8 billion – or less than the $2.7 billion the Rudd Government so lightly threw away on the disastrously rorted “free” insulation scheme.  It is less than double the $1.1 billion the Government frittered away on its subsidies for largely useless solar roof panels.  It is only just over three times more than what the Rudd Government so lightly promised to give car makers under its $500 million Green Car Innovation Fund. It is only four times more than what Gillard herself promised to waste on her preposterous $400 million ”cash for clunkers” scheme.
Those are just some of the green follies that this Government splahsed cash on that it now struggles to find for real work in Queensland.
And then there’s the other waste, like Gillard’s own “Building the Education Revolution”, the rort-ridden school halls program that wasted much of the $16.2 billion that Labor casually lavished on it. That one program alone alone cost eight times more than what Gillard hopes now to raise with a flood levy for Queensland – or, in truth, a levy to help her meet her politically-decreed deadline of returning the Budget to surplus by 2012-13. That should tell you how criminally profligate Labor has been with the money it now so desperately needs.’     Andrew Bolt

‘VICTIM of crime advocates have called on the Victorian Government to make child killer Derek Percy pay his own legal fees after a pensioner was ordered to pay them instead.
Victoria’s Supreme Court has ordered that Jean Priest, 72, must pay Percy’s legal bill after she lost the first stage of her fight to force him to give evidence about his suspected part in the killing of her daughter, seven-year-old Linda Stilwell, in 1968.
But Steve Medcraft of People Against Lenient Sentencing says the situation is a disgrace.
“You have got to ask how criminals can use the legal system and the taxpayer pick up the bill, but when a member of the public, a victim of serious crime wants some sort of justice they are subjected to serious costs for asking for it,” Mr Medcraft said.            source

Happy Australia Day everybody!

But of course, the usual suspects use it as an opportunity to tell us peasants what we need:

‘Tony Hughes is Ray Martin’s nightmare: a republican firmly in favour of dumping the Queen, but not the symbol of her power that sits at the top left of the Australian flag.
Martin, the millionaire television journalist and presenter whose face is among the most recognisable in the country, reopened the debate over changing the flag on Australia Day, waving an almost identical set of reasons as those now being flown by New Zealanders who believe it is time to get rid of the Union Jack.
But Martin and other advocates of change in Australia have a huge job ahead of them.
Twenty years of opinion polling and the backlash every time a new flag is proposed show a deeply entrenched resistance to replacing the 109-year-old national standard.
Mr Hughes, a 40-year-old tree-lopper from southern New South Wales is typical of many of Martin’s opponents.
“I don’t have an issue with getting rid of the Queen because I think she doesn’t do much for us anyway,” he said. “We’re not Poms. We’ve got our own identity.”

“However, the flag is a different story. It’s what my grandfather fought under and if it’s good enough for him to fight for our country under, it’s good enough for me to be proud of.”          source

Gecko pic     (click for full size)

These are at a very remote community in the far north of Australia. Beautifully kept, in grateful memory of our friends.  (click on the pic for full size)

source

for three days of debauchery. (well, three days of lounging around with a view of the harbour, and fresh pizza at least) Back online just as soon as the plane finishes its tour of half of Cape York–about five hours.

‘A new initiative to repair and insulate houses in Ratana township will significantly improve the quality of life for residents, and act as a showcase for the benefits of energy efficiency initiatives for other Maori communities.
The project, announced today by Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee, Minister of Maori Affairs Dr Pita Sharples, and Housing Minister Phil Heatley, allocates $2.7 million to provide basic essential repairs, insulation and efficient heating for around 100 homes.
Dr Sharples said Ratana was a place of great spiritual significance to many in Maoridom.
“This project will make Ratana homes warmer, healthier and much more affordable to heat properly,” he said.
“It will also show other Maori communities the benefits of these improvements, and we hope it will inspire communities to invest in similar projects.”         source

“Invest”?  INVEST???? What this bastard won’t mention, of course is that this initiative is funded by the (largely white) Kiwi taxpayers. Despite the billions of dollars maori have gouged from hardworking Kiwis, maoris won’t be paying for this.  So bear this in mind when you’re struggling to find the money for that next mortgage payment, for new shoes for the kids and for increasingly expensive groceries and fuel courtesy Nick Smith’s carbon tax–brown welfare comes before yours.