=== Todays Toon ===
Margaret Thatcher's arms. The admiral represents the Falklands War, the image of Sir Isaac Newton her background as a chemist and her birth town Grantham.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925) served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She is the only woman to have held either post. - possibly UK's greatest PM - ed.=== Bible Quote ===
“so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”- Hebrews 9:28=== Headlines ===
N.Y. seventh-grader Raymond Hosier proudly wears his rosary beads after a federal judge ordered that he could not be suspended from school for wearing them.Israeli PM Defends Raid
Prime Minister Netanyahu says international community is rushing to judgment about measures Israeli naval forces were forced to undertake in deadly raid - that despicable Obama should have supported Israel too - ed.
US Navy brings down drone with LaWS raygun
THE US Navy has a raygun - and it's a big one. In a red-letter week for the US military, its Naval Sea Systems command "successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed” several unmanned aircraft with its Laser Weapon System, otherwise known as LaWS. On the ground, iRobot unveiled its gift to the Pentagon - the 710 Warrior designed to clear an entire 45 square metre minefield in one blow.L.A. Schools Join in Arizona Bashing
City's school district wants its students to be taught that Arizona's new immigration law is un-American
Holloway Suspect Hunted in Peru Case
Joran Van der Sloot, previously arrested in the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway, is the prime suspect in the death of a Peruvian woman
Former President George W. Bush Gets a Facebook Page
Former President George W. Bush launched a Facebook page Wednesday earning 11,000 fans and counting in its first few hours. "President Bush has remained active," the first post on his profile page said.
At least 12 people are dead and 25 wounded in northern England after a "quiet" taxi driver flips and shoots victims point-blank in the head following a row with colleagues.Mini-tornado 'sounded like a jet'
A TWISTER has ripped off roofs and left people trapped in cars amid rising floodwaters in NSW.
Aussie photographer Tasered during raid
A WOMAN Tasered by Israeli soldiers when they stormed an aid boat says it made her feel sick.
Patient sent out in rain for own food
NURSES tell man with a needle still in his arm to go and find his own food after a hospital ran out.
Beware, Big Brother is watching you
GOVERNMENT quietly compiling a mathematical map of almost every adult's face for police.
Woman fired from bank 'for being too hot'
WORKER apparently forced out of a job because colleagues found her figure "too distracting".
Man 'slashed wife, threw petrol on her'
WOMAN escapes being set on fire after being doused in petrol and slashed with a Stanley knife.
Knives are out for ALP powerbreaker Joe Tripodi
LABOR'S head office machine wants to oust controversial MP Joe Tripodi from Parliament at the next election in an attempt to clean up the image of Kristina Keneally's Government. The push is being led by general secretary Sam Dastyari and left-wing assistant secretary Luke Foley, senior party sources said. Labor's head office wants Ms Keneally to pressure Mr Tripodi to retire from his Fairfield seat at the election but is concerned her loyalty to the powerbroker who has guided her career may stand in the way. "Joe is a massive liability to the Government and to Kristina," a senior Labor source said. "It's no secret the rank and file members and union officials want him out. It's Kristina's call." There is talk of a private sector job in exchange for retirement. One very bloody option would be to have Mr Tripodi disendorsed by the national executive, risking an all-out war within the Labor Party at a time when, in recent battles between head office and Mr Tripodi and fellow powerbroker Eddie Obeid, the two politicians have come out in front. - Mr Greiner was rolled for far less, Kenneally should note that. Maybe Tripodi should be dismissed for being corrupt? - ed.
=== Comments ===
President Obama, Israel and American Public OpinionBy Bill O'Reilly
The consensus among intelligence people is that Israel was baited into confronting a pro-Palestinian flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea. The ships were on their way to Gaza with so-called relief supplies. The Israelis were worried that contraband was on board.
Obviously Israel acted aggressively here, and now bad things are happening.
The conflict began on Monday. Israeli commandos killed at least nine people on board the flotilla. Israel says they were acting in self-defense, and video shows the commandos were attacked, at least one thrown overboard.
To be fair, if soldiers jump onto your ship, you might resist as well.
Stratfor.com has the best analysis as far as foreign policy is concerned. You can access that on BillOReilly.com.
But it is the impact on the Obama administration that "Talking Points" wants to address. So far, the president has been quiet; the administration saying it is studying the situation.
Meantime, the U.N. has condemned Israel as usual, and the anti-Jewish lobby is out in force.
In New York City, hundreds of protesters, who apparently know everything that happened, couldn't wait to vent in Times Square:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GROUP: Obama, it's about time, stop Israeli war crimes.
GROUP: Hey, hey, ho, ho, the occupation has got to go.
GROUP: Free, free Palestine. Free, free Palestine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
In San Francisco, the scene was similar: anti-Israel protesters taking to the streets:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GROUP: Free, free Palestine. Free, free Palestine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No more killing innocent civilians. No more killing innocent activists.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are a criminal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
So who are these anti-Israel people?
Well, most of them are committed liberals who believe Israel is persecuting the Palestinian people. The right-wing in American generally supports Israel and is sympathetic to their ongoing struggle to protect themselves against people who have hated them for thousands of years.
President Obama, of course, is a left-wing guy, and his relationship with Israel is tense. That's ironic because 78 percent of Jewish-Americans voted for Mr. Obama in 2008. It will be fascinating to see if that support continues.
The polls say Mr. Obama cannot afford many more defections. The oil spill is definitely hurting him. Tuesday's Rasmussen daily tracking poll says just 46 percent of likely voters like the job the president is doing.
So once again, there is no rest for Barack Obama. It seems every time he turns around, there's another problem, and this Israeli business is certainly another problem.
===
Obama Abandons Israel to UN Feeding Frenzy
By Anne Bayefsky
n the past twenty-four hours United Nations bodies have engaged in a frenzied attack on Israel over the Turkish-facilitated effort to end the naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. In the process, the Obama administration’s Israel policy has been outed.
With virtually unprecedented speed and only hours to go before the Lebanese presidency of the UN Security Council expired at midnight on May 31st the Council unanimously agreed on a Presidential Statement – with American approval. And in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) unanimously decided to invent new procedural rules and hold its first-ever “urgent debate”, with no objection from the United States.
The Obama administration had options. In the past, the United States has avoided efforts to railroad presidential statements or resolutions through the Security Council by allowing only so-called “press statements” made on behalf of just some of its members.
It also could have put its toe in the water and waited until 12:01 a.m. when the presidency would have been transferred to Mexico, thereby slowing the campaign for a middle-of-the-night UN grenade lobbed without time for informed consideration.
Or the administration might have pointed out that the Council could spend its time dealing with international peace and security items constantly delayed or ignored, like an Iranian bomb or the torpedoing of a South Korean naval ship by North Korea. (More at the link)
===
Kagan's Troubling Record on the First Amendment
By Horace Cooper
Early this month President Obama selected Solicitor General Elena Kagan as his replacement for retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court.
Some analysts lament that Kagan’s paper trail is thin.
Overall this may be true, but in one area, her record is clear – on issues involving the First Amendment, where, her views are, to say the least, troublesome.
First Amendment litigation activity, covering as it does issues ranging from religious liberty, free speech, lobbying to freedom of the press, continues to be significant. Many Americans may not realize how frequently issues involving the First Amendment come before the high court. There certainly are no signs that this is a waning trend. In the last session alone no fewer than 10 cases involving First Amendment claims made it to the Court’s docket.
Kagan will have a critical role to play in these future cases, making her opinions such as we know them important. An examination of several of the law review articles she has written and the First Amendment cases in which she has involved herself as solicitor general reveals a consistent and inexplicable hostility toward free speech.
It is axiomatic that the First Amendment provides an almost absolute bar on restrictions against political speech; yet, whether in the name of ethics, national security or preventing prurience, Kagan presses for substantially lower treatment of this type of speech.
Moreover, she doesn’t appear to give much credence to other forms of expression either. (more at the link)
===
JUST IN TIME
Tim Blair
About to be flown out of Australia to be married against her will in Lebanon, a quick-thinking teen phoned the Australian Federal Police and had her name placed on an airport watch list.
Marriage avoided.
===
SEAS DEFEATED
Tim Blair
So much for the problem of climate refugees:
Climate scientists have expressed surprise at findings that many low-lying Pacific islands are growing, not sinking.Poley bears are thriving, the Himalayas aren’t melting and now Pacific islands are defiantly buoyant. Do the warmies have anything left? Anything at all?
Islands in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia are among those which have grown, largely due to coral debris, land reclamation and sediment …
Auckland University’s Associate Professor Paul Kench, a member of the team of scientists, says the results challenge the view that Pacific islands are sinking due to rising sea levels associated with climate change.
“Eighty per cent of the islands we’ve looked at have either remained about the same or, in fact, gotten larger,” he said …
“We’ve now got evidence the physical foundations of these islands will still be there in 100 years.”
Adelaide University climate scientist Professor Barry Brook says he is surprised by the findings.So might be Al Gore, among others.
(Via Liam B.)
===
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
Tim Blair
Reviewing recent crime data, the Washington Post‘s Richard Cohen is struck by a blinding revelation:
It could be, as conservatives have insisted all along, that crime is committed by criminals. For liberals, this is bad news indeed.Those who connect criminality to poverty, writes Cohen, now have “some strenuous rethinking to do.”
(Via KP)
===
SPARE CHANGE
Tim Blair
The global warming movement is out of money:
Already fraught international climate change negotiations are facing a fresh challenge after Yvo de Boer, the outgoing head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, revealed that the secretariat does not have sufficient funds to host two additional meetings ahead of the Cancun summit in November.Al Gore could always sell a house or two.
(Via Benny Peiser)
===
THE GERMAN WHATEVER
Tim Blair
Students for Palestine announce their support for the Global BDS Movement. Of course they do. They suffer from advanced BDS themselves. Meanwhile, in LA, a high school student stands against shrieking Pally protesters:
Move ahead to 6:52 for a powerful statement from one of the kid’s pro-Islam opponents:
The only reason Israel is doing this is because they got kicked out from the German whatever.The German whatever? Islamic protesters in Melbourne last year were a little more explicit. In the latest peace boat developments, three Australian women who were aboard the fauxtilla are set to be deported from Israel. Among them is Sydney Morning Herald photographer Kate Geraghty:
She doesn’t look very happy. Andrew Bolt has further protest videos, plus an earlier overview of the situation.(Via Nilk)
UPDATE. Bob Ellis:
Bibi thinks it will be over quickly but it will not. He has arrested Paul McGeough and silenced him but Paul will speak of what he saw if he is not killed. If he is killed, or tortured, and his video images confiscated it will prove a diplomatic difficulty. And if Paul comes home he will write of it.Keep bringing us the quality journalism, ABC.
===
SHE BROUGHT A NOTE PAD
Tim Blair
James Cameron and Pamela Anderson are already involved, and now:
Scarlett Johansson and husband Ryan Reynolds arrived in Louisiana today to inspect the damage caused by an ongoing oil spill.There’s no hurry. Every Hollywood identity will have their chance to visit, considering how long it’ll take to stop Mt Gushmore. Boston’s Howie Carr wonders why the President isn’t using his magical powers:
The couple headed off with a team of officials to survey the devastation around the state’s coastline that is the result of the massive BP environmental disaster.
The Iron Man star came armed and ready with a note-pad as she prepared to board a boat.
Tomorrow is the second anniversary of one of the messiah’s greatest speeches, on the day after his final victory over Hillary Clinton: “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that ... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”Perhaps Joe Biden, with his extensive plug experience, should take charge. At the very least, it might stop oiled citizens – tragically neither Pamela or Scarlett – attaching themselves to the White House fence.
Now we find out he can’t even plug a leak in the Gulf of Mexico?
UPDATE. Some perspective on oil spills, via Instapundit.
===
SYNERGY
Tim Blair
Noting that “no industry in living memory has collapsed faster than daily print journalism”, P. J. O’Rourke proposes a wild print-rescuing innovation: the pre-obituary, “official notices that certain people aren’t dead yet accompanied by brief summaries of their lives indicating why we wish they were.”
(Via Andrew R.)
===
CARGO NO-GO
Tim Blair
It’s all about getting aid to suffering Gazans. Yeah, right:
Israel has attempted to deliver humanitarian aid from an international flotilla to Gaza, but Hamas – which controls the territory – has refused to accept the cargo, the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday.Maybe they should deliver it via tunnels. Hamas won’t have a problem with that.
Palestinian sources confirmed that trucks that arrived from Israel at the Rafah terminal at the Israel-Gaza border were barred from delivering the aid.
(Via Brat)
===
MAYBE IT WAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE BOOK HE WAS WRITING
Tim Blair
The first version of how author Joe McGinniss came to be living next to Sarah Palin was offered by the author’s son, Joe Jr.:
A woman was renting her house and sought out the author because the Palins had crossed her (owed her money for renovations she had done at their request and never paid her for). So she knew McGinniss was writing the book and found him and offered him the house.But the rental-revenge angle disappeared in the second version, from McGinniss himself, who claimed he’d been invited to stay at the property because a “mutual friend” of the landlord recommended him as someone deeply concerned about the Palins’ privacy:
“She was talking to this mutual friend of ours and said, ‘I’ve got to find someone we’re comfortable with. My biggest concern is the Palins’ privacy, especially the children,’ “ McGinniss said ... “So this mutual friend said, ‘Well, you know, I think you’re in luck. Joe McGinniss is going to be coming back here, and you couldn’t find a better guy, just the right sort of person to move in and guarantee their privacy.’ ”And now we have a third version from stalker Joe:
I wanted a place that I could afford to stay, that my family could come out. My wife is coming out the day after tomorrow and my daughter, one of my daughters and my three grandchildren, are coming out the first week in July. I wanted a place where they could enjoy a little relaxation while I was doing my work.So it’s just a holiday house now. The full interview with pervo Joe:
His best lines are towards the end:
It’s a lesson for the American people of the power Palin has to incite hatred and her willingness and readiness to do it. She has pushed a button and unleashed the hounds of hell and now they’re out there slavering and barking and growling. And that’s the same kind of tactic – and I’m not calling her a Nazi – but that’s the same kind of tactic that the Nazi troopers used in Germany in the thirties and I don’t think there’s any place for it in America.The Nazis had Facebook. Who knew?
(Via Spiny Norman)
UPDATE. Coincidence, or something far more sinister:
Facebook has a new member – former US president George W Bush.
===
Great tax, shame about our income
Andrew Bolt
The price of Kevin Rudd’s super profits tax just went up again:
Global miner Xstrata has suspended almost $1.2 billion in coal and copper mining projects in Australia, blaming Canberra’s new mining tax.Won’t be much left to tax by the time it comes in.
Xstrata, which last month halted some copper exploration in the country’s north, said it was now suspending $586 million of spending on its Wandoan thermal coal project and also a $600 million project to expand its Ernest Henry copper mine.
UPDATE
Rudd’s response is to say Xstrata is just bluffing:
ANGLO-SWISS miner Xstrata has upped the stakes in the mining industry?s fight against Kevin Rudd?s resources tax, halting $586 million of development spending on two Queensland projects that were expected to cost a combined $6.6 billion and employ 3250 workers.(Thanks to readers Rudderless and Mark.)
Xstrata chief Mick Davis said a review of Australian operations found the $6bn Wandoan coal project and the $600m Ernest Henry copper mine underground shaft project would not be viable under the Rudd government’s planned Resource Super Profits Tax.
“The impact of the tax eliminates the net present value of the Wandoan coal project almost entirely and substantially reduces the value of the Ernest Henry underground shaft project,” Mr Davis said…
But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did not waiver on his commitment to introduce the tax.
“On the question of Xstrata, I said at the very beginning of this debate on the future of the resource super-profits tax there’d be claims by mining companies...there’d be threats of project closures, there’d be projects also threatened to be frozen,” Mr Rudd told reporters.
===
This works
Andrew Bolt
New Zealand’s Telecom had a disaster with its first attempt to roll out a new mobile phone network. Here Telecom CEO Paul Reynolds fronts up to ask consumers for another chance in an ad that I think is very clever - and brave. Sincerity sells.
===
What’s drowning is not Tuvalu but the alarmists
Andrew Bolt
Remember this great scare, which turned Tuvalu into the poster island of the global warming faith?
More than 75 million people living on Pacific islands will have to relocate by 2050 because of the effects of climate change, Oxfam has warned.It was a scare whipped up by Al Gore, of course, in his Oscar-winning “documentary” An Inconvenient Truth:
That’s why the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New ZealandTuvalu amped up its victim status, which was its best chance of winning not just foreign aid but permission to settle in Western countries. So it’s Prime Minister in 2003 told the United Nations;
The threat is real and serious, and is of no difference to a slow and insidious form of terrorism against us.Whole institutions were devoted to preaching - especially to children - this scare that poor islanders were being drowned by our emissions:
At an exhibition launched at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum this week, an environment expert, Rob Gell, says it is virtually a foregone conclusion that Tuvalu will be uninhabitable within the next 50 years.Foregone conclusion is right. Professor Mohammed Dore, an environmental economist from Dore University, couldn’t wait for warming and declared Tuvalu uninhabited already, much to the surprise of its residents:
In fact, there is an island called Tuvalu, which was completely evacuated and New Zealand accepted all the residents because of sea level rising.All of which culminated in this much-applauded tearful plea at the great warmist gathering at Copenhagen from Tuvalu’s delegate, Ian Fry, who wept for his tiny island country despite actually being an Australian National University student from Queanbeyan, 144km from any beach:
Naturally, Labor bought the scare completely, and in 2006 promised in its “Pacific climate change plan” to take in these “climate change refugees”:
Australia must prepare to take in a new class of environmental refugees from the Pacific if the worst fears of climate change are realised, federal Labor says…Stop! Hold the scare right there. The farce has gone on long enough.
Low-lying Pacific island states such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu - which sit just a few metres above sea level - are at risk of being swamped as global warming forces sea levels to rise.
“We should be part of an international coalition which is prepared to do our fair share,” Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said.
“The alternative to that is to say, and I don’t think any Australian would accept this, that we’re going to sit by while people literally drown.”
Here’s the latest study, just in:
Climate scientists have expressed surprise at findings that many low-lying Pacific islands are growing, not sinking.(Thanks to a dozen readers already.)
Islands in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia are among those which have grown, largely due to coral debris, land reclamation and sediment.
The findings, published in the magazine New Scientist, were gathered by comparing changes to 27 Pacific islands over the last 20 to 60 years using historical aerial photos and satellite images.
Auckland University’s Associate Professor Paul Kench, a member of the team of scientists, says the results challenge the view that Pacific islands are sinking due to rising sea levels associated with climate change.
“Eighty per cent of the islands we’ve looked at have either remained about the same or, in fact, gotten larger,” he said.
UPDATE
As for that terrible sea rise at Tuvalu, the Bureau of Meteorology can’t detect much to panic about from the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project:
UPDATE 2Reader Mike D asks:
Given we’re discussing Tuvalu, there can be no question they went through some rigorous efforts to ensure their findings were pier reviewed?(Thanks to reader George.)
===
So how is Rudd “kinder”?
Andrew Bolt
Here we go again, needlessly revisiting the suffering and the moral blackmail that John Howard ended but Kevin Rudd has revived:
ASYLUM seekers are once again resorting to self-harm in detention centres amid overcrowding and stalled refugee claims.
The Herald Sun has learned at least 17 immigration detainees injured themselves or attempted suicide in the past 11 months - almost twice the number of incidents of the previous year…
Self-harm by detainees sparked concerns over mandatory detention under the Howard government, and Kevin Rudd’s pledge to be “tough but humane” in his own treatment of asylum seekers.
Catholic priest Jim Carty, who recently returned from nine weeks on Christmas Island, said he knew of at least one detainee who tried to hang himself there… The Herald Sun has also heard of detainees cutting themselves, and of a man destined for deportation who drank bleach and shampoo.
===
“Peace protesters” and “humanitarian activists” at work
Andrew Bolt
The “peace protesters” on board the Mavi Marmara prepare to welcome Israeli soldiers.
The “humanitarian activists” stun the soldiers with their kindness.
But, oddly enough, the “aid” they were bringing to the starving of Gaza seems not wanted by those victims of Zionist oppression:
Israel has attempted to deliver humanitarian aid from an international flotilla to Gaza, but Hamas – which controls the territory – has refused to accept the cargo, the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday.And perhaps there’s more to the “peace activists” on the Mavi Marmara, too, as I explained yesterday:
Palestinian sources confirmed that trucks that arrived from Israel at the Rafah terminal at the Israel-Gaza border were barred from delivering the aid.
Media reports in Ankara on Wednesday revealed that three out of the four Turkish citizens that were killed during the raid declared their wishes to become shahids (martyrs). Another Dutch report claimed a Dutch activist, who was arrested by the IDF is suspected of being a senior Hamas operative.(Thanks to readers TQS and Loz.)
In an interview with Turkish newspaper Haber, the family members of Ali Khaider Benginin (39), resident of east Turkey’s Kurdistan region, revealed their relative’s true intentions.
“I am going to be a shahid; I dreamt I will become a shahid – I saw in a dream that I will be killed,” Benginin told his family before leaving for the sail.
UPDATE
A ”who’s who” of the Islamists on board the “peace” flotilla - from Muslim Brotherhood officials to this Islamist MP:
(Thanks to reader Jill.)===
Bureaucrats insist we have brothels
Andrew Bolt
“Must”?:
The Hills Shire Council, home of the Hillsong church and one of the fastest-growing regions of Sydney, is pushing for a change in state planning laws to allow it to ban brothels… Brothels were declared legal in NSW in 1995. Councils must provide at least one zone where they can exist.UPDATE
What business is it of the State Government’s (anti) moral police anyway?
A DATING agency has been given permission to ban married people from using its services in a blow to philandering spouses.(Thanks to the other JS.)
The Dinner at Eight dating agency has won an exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act allowing it to bar wandering husbands from signing up to its singles events.
===
If we paid Combet $38 million, would he speak?
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government will spend $38.5 million of your money on an “urgent” campaign to sell its tax plan, but won’t even speak for free to warn people about the lethal danger in their roofs:
AFTER 12 home fires in as many days caused by badly installed insulation, the Minister responsible for the botched $2.45 billion program yesterday refused to answer questions about the government’s promised home safety inspections.We at MTR asked Combet to come on to talk about what people who have the Government’s free insulation must do to ensure their house doesn’t burn down this winter, but he refused. Instead, he had a bureaucrat email us to tell us about those plans to inspect 150,000 of the 1 million homes with Rudd’s insulation.
Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has said the government would inspect at least 150,000 homes fitted with ceiling batts or other non-foil insulation.
But more than three months since the troubled insulation scheme was suspended in February, the government has still not hired a contractor to ramp up the home safety inspection program.
Oddly enough, the email came from the Department of Climate Change, which has had so little to do since Kevin Rudd shelved his emission trading scheme that its staff now work on the insulation bungle instead.
(Thanks to reader CA.)
===
Business unites against Rudd’s tax
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government was hoping to divide and conquer big business over its new super tax, but....:
The government had been banking on the support of the business and industry lobbies, especially as the resources tax is budgeted to fund a 2 percentage point cut in company tax. But the Business Council of Australia has rallied to the miners’ side, claiming the downsides for business outweighed any benefits.UPDATE
The head of the council’s tax taskforce, Robert Milliner, said: ‘’Of most concern to the BCA is the failure of the [super-profits tax] to meet the principle that the taxation framework be characterised by stability and predictability, with any change prospective so as not to adversely affect existing investments or create perceptions of sovereign risk.
‘’The growing perception of sovereign risk has extended well beyond the resources sector to affect the business environment in Australia more widely. This is harming our international standing, and if not addressed will reduce investment and impede our growth prospects.’’
The revolt grows:
KEVIN Rudd’s chief adviser on major building projects has told the government to restart its proposed resource super-profits tax from scratch and engage in proper consultation with the mining industry.UPDATE 2
Rod Eddington, the head of Infrastructure Australia and a board member of mining giant Rio Tinto, said last night good policy process had been absent in the debate about the new tax....
One of Australia’s most respected economists, Chris Richardson of Access Economics, also rejected the modelling behind the RSPT, effectively telling Treasury it got it badly wrong…
Leigh Clifford, the chairman of Qantas and a former Rio chief, (said) there was room for a profit-based tax on the industry but what had been put forward was “not good policy . . . was ill-considered and poorly implemented”.
The Government embezzled $38.5 million of public money to pay for party advertising for its new mining tax, claiming the ads were just an “information” campaign. But when you ring the 1800 number given in the ads to get that information..:
When The Australian called the 1800 hotline (which operates only in business hours) to ask about basic details of the tax, we were first told, “We are solely to do with the Henry review. I am sorry; you need to call the tax department.”UPDATE 3
But wasn’t the super-profits tax the government’s version of the resource rent tax contained in the Henry review? “Please hold,” said the phone operator, who, after a pause, said she could send me a copy of the Henry review but “we aren’t trained to elaborate on the review details”....
The supervisor wasn’t any help either. Why couldn’t we get information about the mining tax by calling the number that appears at the bottom of the print ads? “Unfortunately it does,” the supervisor said. ”It’s a misrepresentation in the ad.”
So were many people calling and being turned away? “Yes indeed.”
It is industry-commissioned research, yet...:
KEVIN Rudd’s proposed resource super-profits tax would make $2 billion of planned gold and copper projects financially unviable and would cost more than 1800 proposed construction and mining jobs, if analysis commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia proves true.(Thanks to reader CA.)
It could also result in $7bn of nickel projects hatched during the previous boom remaining on the shelf, even if markets recover enough to make the projects economically viable under the current tax regime.
A KPMG report released on Tuesday says the 40 per cent resource super-profit tax will limit investment in projects, especially gold, copper and nickel mines.
===
NSW today
Andrew Bolt
It’s had to compehend how far NSW has fallen - and how far has fallen that caring instinct, too:
A PATIENT at one of Sydney’s biggest teaching hospitals was told that it had run out of food and he should walk to the 7-Eleven or McDonald’s if he wanted to eat.(Thanks to reader CA.)
Malcolm Jorgensen, who was being treated at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for a serious staph infection, was sent out by nurses in the rain with a needle and cannula in his arm at 11pm.
===
Daniel rises
Andrew Bolt
(Thanks to reader Marie.)
No comments:
Post a Comment