Federal Liberal Party publishes Facebook profiles of parliamentary members

The Federal Liberal Party has published details of the Facebook profiles of members within the Parliamentary wing, which are as follows:

The Hon Bob Baldwin

The Hon Chris Pearce

The Hon Christopher Pyne

Senator David Bushby

The Hon Joe Hockey

Senator The Hon Judith Troeth

The Hon Julie Bishop

The Hon Kevin Andrews

The Hon Malcolm Turnbull

Senator Mathias Cormann

Mr Stuart Robert

The politics of stupidity: Cyber Safety likely to go the way of FuelWatch

The government requires the support of all 7 cross-benchers in the Senate to pass a bill opposed by the Coalition. A vote of no by any one of these senators can sink the government's bill, which puts them in a powerful position. This is how the FuelWatch scheme was killed off.

The cross-benchers are as follows:

Australian Greens

• Bob Brown - Senator for Tasmania
• Christine Milne - Senator for Tasmania
• Rachel Siewert - Senator for Western Australia
• Sarah Hanson-Young - Senator for South Australia
• Scott Ludlam - Senator for Western Australia

Family First Party

• Steve Fielding - Senator for Victoria

Independent

• Nick Xenophon - Senator for South Australia

The Greens, who have described the plan as "daft", will almost certainly vote against this legislation.

The positions of Senator Fielding and Senator Xenophon are unclear, but they support the idea of Internet censorship. Senator Fielding is the most likely to vote in favour of the filter because of his party's socially conservative values.

Links

• Conroy's internet filtering trials must not remain secret—Liberal Party of Australia
• Cory's Comment - ISP Filtering—Cory Bernardi, Liberal Senator for South Australia

The fastest way to drain your mobile battery

I burned through two batteries with my HTC Touch Diamond within about 12 hours while I was at my friend's place. The second battery was a spare that I keep in my wallet. I browsed the Web a little but didn't make any calls.

There is one thing that can rapidly drain the battery of your mobile which you don't hear about: poor network coverage. To overcome the path loss due to factors such as distance or obstructions, the phone has to ramp up the transmitter power output to improve the strength of the signal that reaches the mobile station.

The three stooges: culprits behind WA's antiquated trading hours

John Cummings
President of the WA Independent Grocers Association
Chairman of the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia

• Lead a misleading fear campaign in the lead up to the 2005 referendum on retail trading hours
• Lobbies against deregulation

Joe Bullock
Head of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association

• Powerful right-wing powerbroker within the ALP who has lobbied against deregulation
• Links with Brian Burke

Brian Burke
Former premier of Western Australia
Lobbyist

• Orchestrated No campaign for small retailers

The chart that IGA doesn't want you to see

Below is a chart that John Cummings, president of the WA Independent Grocers Association (WAIGA) and chairman of the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia (NARGA), doesn't want you to see. He, along with disgraced former premier Brian Burke, campaigned against liberalisation in the lead up to the 2005 referendum on retail trading hours.

The No campaign was misleading to say the least. For example, IGA made the absurd claim that extending trading hours threatened 15,000 jobs. Data from the ABS, however, suggests otherwise. The chart shows that with the exception of South Australia, the average annual employment increased in all states and territories in the 12 months that followed liberalisation. South Australia was experiencing a slowdown in retail turnover before trading hours were liberalised in 2003.

Media

The West Australian

• Burke switches sides on shopping hours
• Factions rule in Premier’s backflip on shop hours

PerthNow

• Joe Bullock, union leader who want to run shop hours
• Trade hours to drive us stupid

The Australian

• Carpenter dumps deregulation plan

3rd Degree

• WA's booming economy being left behind

Institute of Public Affairs

• Case is overwhelming to extend shop hours

LaborWaste.com

Now here's a website that provides the public with more worthwhile information than all those conceived by the Rudd Labor government combined at just a fraction of the cost: LaborWaste.com. It provides the Australian people with something that has been conspicuously absent from this government: accountability.

The website doesn't just document the monumental waste that has characterised the Rudd Labor government, such as GroceryChoice, an epic $13 million fiasco, and Rudd's bureaucratic compulsiveness that has so far led to 168 reviews, committees and enquiries—it accepts tip-offs from the public of any observed waste, inefficiency or mismanagement, allowing individuals to take action in making this government accountable.

Information submitted via the website goes to the Coalition Labor Waste Committee.

The US government's role in the global financial crisis

Even the most determined lending institution will have difficulty cultivating business from minority customers if its underwriting standards contain arbitrary or unreasonable measures of creditworthiness. Consistency in evaluating loan applications is also critical to ensuring fair treatment. Since many mortgage applicants who are approved do not meet every underwriting guideline, lending policies should have mechanisms that define and monitor the use of compensating factors to ensure that they are applied consistently, without regard to race or ethnicity.

—{Closing The Gap:} A Guide To Equal Opportunity Lending, The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

People immediately point the finger of blame at bankers and corporate executives in the search for answers to the unfolding global economic disaster. This is not surprising, given the attention the media has given to lenders offering loans to people who were clearly in no position to afford the repayments. Many would have heard of so-called NINJA loans, where NINJA stands for No Income, No Job and no Assets. There were option ARMs that allowed the borrower to select monthly repayments that would increase their debt. Finally, lenders made it easy for borrowers to avoid making a down payment by giving out a second piggyback mortgage to pay off the down payment required by the first mortgage. Clearly there had been a decline in lending standards that fuelled the housing bubble, which eventually bursted and created financial misery for millions. The question that remains unanswered is why were lending standards loosened to such an extent that lenders became virtual mortgage vending machines. Stan J. Liebowitz at The Independent Institute has released a report explaining how the government intervened in the mortgage market with good intentions, but created greater problems than those it was attempting to solve.

In Anatomy of a Train Wreck: Causes of the Mortgage Meltdown, Liebowitz explains how a push by the US government to increase home ownership, especially among the poor and ethnic minorities, led to a weakening of lending standards. There was a perception that minorities were being discriminated against in mortgage applications. As a result, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was passed, forcing banks to provide loans to applicants from all neighbourhoods within the areas they operate. It was aimed at preventing redlining, where banks refused to offer services to residents in certain designated areas. The US government also passed the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), which required lenders to provide detailed data about their mortgage applications. Data obtained via the HMDA allowed lenders to be named and shamed in the media for apparent discrimination by comparing the rejection rates of applicants by race.

Liebowitz concludes that the mortgage meltdown was caused by adjustable-rate mortgages—both prime and subprime—given out under lax lending standards. He disputes the widely held view that the housing bubble and subsequent burst was driven by subprime loans given by unscrupulous lenders to vulnerable clients. Foreclosures for both prime and subprime loans began to soar in the third quarter of 2006, but the main contributors to the rise in each were the adjustable-rate mortgages.

PETA campaign to save "sea kittens"

Animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has launched a campaign called Save the Sea Kittens. The aim of this campaign is to create more sympathy for fish by juxtaposing them with kittens. PETA believes that killing animals for eating is inhumane.

A bit of creative work went into the website. There is even a page where the visitor can conjure up their own sea kitten, adding features such as lipstick, dress, whiskers, mohawk or a litter box.

The following rationale is given for their campaign:

People don't seem to like fish. They're slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you're swimming, and the big ones—well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.

Many would beg to differ, especially those who keep fish as pets.

The petition tally stands at 2690.

Rudd's bullying of WA

It appears Prime Minister Kevin Rudd believes Western Australia is less deserving because it is the only state in Australia with a Liberal government.

The treasurer for Western Australia was the only treasurer of any state or territory to be excluded from a pre-COAG strategy meeting held last year, which shows that Rudd's rhetoric on cooperative federalism falls far short of reality. During Senate Question Time on November 26, 2008, Senator Mathias Cormann said:

Senator CORMANN (Western Australia) (3:29 PM) —If there was any further proof required, today we got conclusive evidence that cooperative federalism is nothing more than a political slogan—there is no substance to it; there is no commitment to it—when you listened to the partisan political response by the Leader of the Government in the Senate and he essentially attacked the Treasurer of the state of Western Australia. I asked the Leader of the Government in the Senate today whether there had been any discussions or any representations to the Commonwealth in preparation for the COAG meeting on Saturday as a result of the pre-COAG strategy meeting of Labor state and territory treasurers. The answer he gave me was, ‘Of course; I don’t really understand the question—that is what normally happens.’ And when I asked him, ‘What is the Commonwealth’s view? Does the Commonwealth believe that it was appropriate that the Treasurer of Western Australia was excluded just because he is a Liberal?’, what did the minister say? The minister said, ‘He probably wasn’t excluded because he was a Liberal,’ and in not so many words—I know we are going to get a ruling from the President—the minister essentially said that the Treasurer of Western Australia was excluded not because he is a Liberal but because he is a bad bloke. I happen to think Troy Buswell is a good bloke, but that is not why he should be invited to a pre-COAG strategy meeting. Troy Buswell is the duly elected member for Vasse in Western Australia. He is the duly appointed Treasurer of the state of Western Australia. If there was any substance to ‘the spirit of cooperative federalism’, if the Prime Minister was serious in his commitment to cooperative federalism, he would discipline and reprimand his minister in this chamber for the statements he has made today.

It has now come to light that while Rudd has increased the total number of AFP officers available, he has cut the number provided for WA and been more than generous to his home state of Queensland. Senator Cormann states:

Despite Western Australia having the fastest growing population, the Rudd Government is cutting federal resources to WA, even when increasing them elsewhere.

In early December, I generated a story in relation to the Rudd Government’s decision to cut in half the number of WA based Crime Analysts at the Australian Crime Commission. This was an outrageously ill-conceived measure that rightly attracted significant criticism from senior law enforcement circles across WA.

I have now received answers to some further questions I put on notice in the Senate in relation to Rudd Labor Government funding cuts to Australian Federal police resources in WA.

And don’t think that these cuts are part of a uniform trend across Australia. Federal Labor has cut the number of AFP officers in WA by nearly 10% (the biggest cut in any State), while they were increased by more than 30% in the Prime Minister’s home State of Queensland (the biggest increase of any State).

Google fails Chinese government: not all 1 trillion pages clean

It appears Google has failed to meet the expectations of the Chinese government. Indeed, the search engine's results still contain links to pornographic material.

Filtering out the pages that violate China's online policy from the 1 trillion that have been indexed by their search engine is no trivial task. Maybe the government of China thinks that Google employs lots of little men who surf the Internet around the clock and check the appropriateness of the content of each page as they index them.

It is difficult to imagine how Google will be able to sustain its business in China. Presently, technology for automatically distinguishing between pornographic material and non-pornographic material is at best highly unreliable and slow.