Mr Rudd is making bald faced claims regarding shopping prices. Statistics expose the lie.
Mr Rudd releases statement claiming he never smoked Pot. There now is no adequate explanation for his poor judgement.
'Sorry' campaign is exposed in a propaganda role
Poor state water management and excess
ALP philosophy and guns. Why do ALP supporters prove the greatest risk?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Rudd Targets Shoppers
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Kevin Rudd to take on Coles, Woolworths over prices
From News.com.au By staff writers and wires
KEVIN Rudd is sharpening his hip-pocket election attack with a plan to take on the big supermarket players, Woolworths and Coles, over rising prices and lack of competition.
Following Labor's assault on the big petrol companies, the Opposition will today announce it wants the competition watchdog to launch an inquiry into the prices charged by supermarkets.
With fruit and vegetable prices spiking by 15 per cent in the past three months, Labor is attempting to capitalise on what it believes is the underlying anxiety of voters who feel they are not sharing in the benefits of a buoyant national economy.
The Labor push on groceries follows campaigns on a range of hip-pocket themes, including the high costs of fuel and childcare.
The Opposition Leader will promise that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be given extra powers to monitor prices and publish regular surveys of grocery costs for a typical shopping basket, including staples such as biscuits, bread and milk.
A National Grocery Pricing Inquiry would report to the incoming Labor government within six months, after consultation with individuals, consumer groups, retailers and businesses along the supply chain.
"When families fill up their baskets and trolleys at the local supermarket, they should not have to worry if they are getting a raw deal by inflated grocery prices," Mr Rudd said.
The Labor Leader said families in Adelaide were paying 35 per cent more for fruit and vegetables than five years ago, while in Melbourne the prices had increased by about three times the rate of inflation.
Mr Rudd acknowledged that monitoring prices would not necessarily bring them down, but would at least ensure the reasons for price changes were made public, allowing consumers more ammunition in deciding where to shop.
"If you make all that subject to transparency and the nation (is) able to look carefully at what is going on, I think over time it produces downward pressure on prices," he said on Channel Nine.
He said there was no evidence that the two big supermarkets were colluding on prices.
Giants nervous
The announcement is likely to alarm the retailing giants.
Woolworths yesterday unveiled record sales, while Coles, soon to be bought by Wesfarmers, is keen to restore its profit margins after an expensive takeover and years of standing in the shadow of its competitor.
Woolworths is now tipping a record net profit of up to $1.3 billion. Woolworths chief executive Michael Luscombe yesterday said net profit was expected to surge by up to 27 per cent this financial year, on the back of $42.477 billion in sales.
Labor has long campaigned on grocery prices. Opposition Treasury spokesman Wayne Swan pioneered the "price watch" campaign, which targeted the prices of an average basket of goods in supermarkets.
But Labor's election-year assault on supermarket prices follows a decision by the Howard Government to beef up the trade practices protection for small business dealing with the larger firms - a key demand of the Nationals.
Peter Costello maintained the Coalition's big picture economic attack yesterday, using a lift in John Howard's standing in the Newspoll survey to argue that voters were ultimately interested in the management credentials of the two parties.
"I think the issue of the election will be whether or not you have proven economic managers who can ensure there are job opportunities for young people, that interest rates are kept low and the economy grows," the Treasurer said.
Optimism on living standards
Mr Costello's push is backed by a Newspoll published today showing that the proportion of Coalition voters who think their living standards will improve has risen since the Budget.
The Budget, which produced tax cuts for all voters over the next two years, saw optimism among Coalition voters move from 19 per cent to 25 per cent, the highest rating since before the 2004 election.
The proportion of all voters who think their living standards will stay the same remains largely constant at 61 per cent.
But Mr Swan said the Coalition's economic strategy could not be divorced from its industrial relations policy, which he claimed was designed to create "a growing number of working poor".
Labor has already promised to appoint a specialist petrol commissioner within the ACCC with responsibility for monitoring and investigating price gouging and collusion.
The Government last month announced an ACCC inquiry into petrol prices after commission chair Graeme Samuel highlighted unexplained differences between movements in the international refined oil price and the cost at the bowser.
- The Australian with AAP
Rudd 'never, never, never' smoked pot
From news.com.au
LABOR MP Peter Garrett smoked it when he was in his 20s and former US president Bill Clinton said he "did not inhale", but for Labor leader Kevin Rudd marijuana has never been part of his scene.
Former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett came under the spotlight this week after Silverchair singer Daniel Johns said he had smoked joints with the MP and U2 rocker Bono.
Johns later retracted the comment, saying it was a joke and Mr Garrett released a statement admitting he smoked marijuana when he was in his 20s.
When asked today if he had ever smoked marijuana, Mr Rudd said it has never been part of his scene.
"Never, never, never, not a part of my scene," Mr Rudd told the Nine Network.
"I've always had a very tough line on this stuff, really, really hard line.
"I'm in John Howard's camp on this one, we have a unity ticket."
Students taught to sing apology
By Kate Sikora
CHILDREN as young as eight are being taught to sing sorry to Aborigines, sparking concerns that NSW students are being "politically indoctrinated".
A widely distributed song book, which has been used in NSW for 40 years, has included Sorry Song about the Stolen Generation in its recent editions.
Kiama Public School students were taught the song for Naidoc Week.
When one eight-year-old boy arrived home confused about the issue, his father labelled the song's inclusion a "political stunt".
Hamish East, of Kiama, said he had to explain the meaning of the song to his son Brian when he believed he had done something wrong.
"(He) arrived home from school and asked 'How come I have to say sorry for stealing the Aborigines' children?'," he said.
Nexus
"I have raised each of my children to apologise for their actions ... central to this is an understanding of the nexus between poor behaviour and an apology."
The song by West Australian composer Kerry Fletcher was written in 1998 for Sorry Day festivities and included in the ABC Song Book, distributed to NSW primary schools by Scholastic.
It is used by teachers in addition to the official curriculum.
The song features the words: "If we can say sorry to the people from this land, sing, sing loud, break through the silence, sing sorry across this land. We cry, we cry, their children were stolen, now no one knows why."
Mr East, a Kiama councillor, said he was not against reconciliation but "these are all emotive, controversial political issues and matters in which personal views should not be forced down the throats of our children".
School principal Jenny Maude told Mr East children didn't listen to the words and since Mr East made a complaint they have stopped singing the song.
Call for consultancy
Australian Council of State School Organisations said teachers needed to be sensitive when it came to teaching values.
"When schools get into values they need to talk through with the community what they are proposing to do," projects manager Rupert Macgregor said.
Song author Ms Fletcher, 38, who is not Aboriginal, said she was disappointed people had misread the song.
"I believe children under eight could understand how other children their age would feel to be separated from their parents," she said.
"I think if more people had first-hand experience of personal friends who were taken away as children we might see this for the personal tragedy that it is."
Teachers Federation deputy president Angelo Gavrielatos defended the song, saying exploitation of Aboriginal culture needed to be recognised.
"We have to take some responsibility for our past," he said.
Opposition education spokesman Andrew Stoner said: "Any discussion of Australia's history must include the indigenous perspective but controversial political issues should be left to parents."
Education Minister John Della Bosca defended the school's actions and said although he did not subscribe to the "black armband version" of history he thought it was important to be frank about Australia's history.
Brisbane home using 37,358 litres of water a day
By Tuck Thompson
A BRISBANE household has guzzled 2.7 million litres of water since a crackdown in March but no one has bothered to ask them to stop.
Infrastructure Minister Anna Bligh yesterday announced tougher fines for repeat water offenders but neither Ms Bligh, the Water Commission nor the Brisbane City Council could explain why nothing had been done to curb the wasteful ways of Brisbane's biggest water users.
According to the Water Commission, more than 3000 households in southeast Queensland are using more than 2000 litres each per day.
The Courier-Mail reported in March that a household in Acacia Ridge was using 37,358 litres a day, a home in Mackenzie 21,307, a home in Wacol 14,822 and a home in Richlands 14,343.
The council has refused to disclose the identities of the water guzzlers, citing privacy reasons.
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman was forced yesterday to defend why nothing had been done to counsel the households.
"We've got hundreds of thousands of water customers in southeast Queensland and the Water Commission has determined an approach for dealing with high-water users," he said.
"A letter has gone out to people who would consume more than 800 litres a day on average.
"Now, I can't comprehend how somebody can justify the sort of usage that we've heard about and that is why it is being investigated."
The commission recently mailed heavy-water users a questionnaire but council figures showed many households continued to use more than 10,000 litres a day.
Deputy Mayor David Hinchliffe on Monday said Brisbane's worst 100 water wasters were using an average of 8000 litres a day and the council was working out a plan to telephone each residence.
Cr Hinchliffe said some of the high users could be businesses in disguise and benefiting from cheaper residential water rates.
However, the commission said councils had the evidence to act against high-water users and could have enforced restrictions earlier.
The revelations came as Ms Bligh announced higher fines for repeat violators of water restrictions, who face penalties of $450 for a second offence and $1050 for a third offence.
But she conceded there had been few convictions, with enforcement proving to be tough.
Figures show fewer than three in 100 water-guzzlers dobbed in by their neighbours are fined by SEQ councils.
Queensland doctor had 43 weapons
By Padraic Murphy
A NORTH Queensland doctor who kept an arsenal of weapons, including an Uzi and a bulletproof vest, hidden beneath his chook pen has escaped jail after pleading guilty to serious firearm offences but could still lose his licence to practise.
John Di Palma was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, suspended for five years, at the Innisfail District Court yesterday after police raided his property in 2005 and seized 43 weapons, including shotguns, semi-automatic rifles, hand guns and a sub-machinegun.
The weapons, mostly fully assembled, were found alongside 100,000 rounds of ammunition.
In sentencing Dr Di Palma to a suspended jail term, judge Sarah Bradley said the obstetrician, who had worked in Innisfail since 1981, did not collect the arsenal for any sinister reason.
"It may be difficult for Australians who have not been brought up in a rural setting or on farms to understand how someone could have such a passion and a fascination for firearms as you clearly do," Ms Bradley said.
"I accept, though, that that is your background, that you did grow up in rural Australia and on a farm, and I accept that you have had a deep and almost lifelong interest in firearms."
The judge acknowledged Dr Di Palma was a valued member of the Innisfail community and had lost more than $100,000 after forfeiting the firearms, but she recorded a conviction, saying community attitudes to powerful firearms had changed.
Events such as the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania and the more recent threats of international terrorism had led to strict and restrictive laws being enacted with respect to firearms, and had also led to the possession of firearms being treated with very real suspicion, Ms Bradley said.
"The presence of such weapons in our community is of real concern, and it is a threat to public safety in that there is always a danger they could fall into the wrong hands," she said.
Dr Di Palma has 30 days to report the conviction to the Queensland Medical Board, which will then decide whether he should keep his practising certificate.
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