'It's not about the source, it's about the numbers, stupid'
Professor Carr was the longest serving Premiere of NSW from 1995 to 2005. He also served as Federal minister for Foreign Affairs from 2012 - 2013.
Growth lobbyists outnumbered environment and democracy proponents three to two on Last Monday's Q and A on ABC 1, with Jane Fitzgerald (Property Council of Australia), Jonathan Daley (Grattan Institute) and Dr Jay Song (Immigration professional who arrived here two years ago) and Tony Jones (Compere) vs Tim Flannery
Contrary to the expectations of many people living outside of New South Wales, on 23 March 2015 the Opposition Labor Party led by Luke Foley lost the state elections to incumbent Liberal Premier Mike Baird. This was in spite of Labor Party's opposition to privatisation and a grass roots trade union and community campaign against privatisation. 1
In part, the Liberal Party's victory was due to Michael Baird being able to convince some voters that his proposed sale of 99 year leases of the state's electricity network to the private sector was somehow different to privatisation. In her speech of 2/6/15 to the NSW Legislative Council (Upper House), Greens member Dr Mehreen Faruqi, shows that for corporations intending to buy the 99 year leases, as well as the consumers and current owners of the NSW electricity network, there is little practical difference. The Youtube of Dr Faruqi's speech is embedded below and the transcript of the speech from the NSW Legislative Council Hansard is also included. 2
Watch an old reporter turned politician do a few rounds in the ring with skilled Russian interviewer, Oksana Boyko of RT. Oksana gives him his head initially and he struts predictably, but things get interesting later, particularly on the issue of Australia's role and responsibility for the mess in the Middle East and Syria. (Bob Carr was a recent foreign affairs minister for Australia.) For me, it was fascinating listening to Carr's 'justifications'. Could a grown-up really believe this stuff? Who knows when Western leaders may really be called to account for their removal of order and warmongering in the Middle East. I wonder if this troubles them, if they lie awake at night going over their stories.
See also: Mark Latham, who opposed "Your Rights at Work" campaign and supported Howard in 2007, says Albanese shouldn't be Labor leader of 9 Oct 2013; Labor Leadership Contenders' Views on East West Link - Albo opposes it! of 6 Oct 2013.
Update, 28 Nov 2013: No mention was made of Syria by Albanese, Shorten or the audience in the leadership debate of 24 September. (Whilst this could have been because of time constraints, it seems a surprising omission.)
On 20 April, 2013, Anthony Albanese, a candidate for the national leadership of the Labor Party by membership ballot,1 expressed 2 his support for Syria3. This is contrary to how much of the senior leadership of the Labor Party has acted. 4 For two and a half years they supported the United States as Syria has tried to defend itself against invasion by proxy terrorists armed, paid for and supplied by the United States. This war has, so far, since March 2011, cost 100,000 lives.
This coming Saturday 7 September, most Australians will be forced to make the unpalatable choice between, on the one hand, the Opposition Liberal Party and the ruling Labor Party. The Liberal Party is resolved to destroy 7,000 public service jobs, remove the right of trade unions to enter workplaces and give the Green light to destructive and horrifically expensive projects such as the East-West Link and the Phillip Island industrialisation project. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as well as promoting rampant population growth and section 457 visas has, on the international stage, facilitated military aggression against Libya in 2011 and has done his utmost to repeat the exercise with Syria. Fortunately for Syria and the rest of the world, President Obama's war plans against Syria have been defeated by international and domestic opposition as described in the included article of 30 Aug 2013 by Paul Craig Roberts. It is vital, if peace and democracy are to survive that Kevin Rudd, Bob Carr and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott be held to account for their support for the U.S. Government's criminal actions.
Breaking news : (30 August, 11:30AM GMT+10) UK Parliament votes against war
(Originally posted: Mon, 26 Aug 2013, 01:20:28 +1000) See also: Syria 'Chemical Weapons' Crisis: Live Updates on RT, Appendix 1: Links to factual reporting on Syria, Appendix 2: Mainstream media war propaganda.
Unlike Syria, Australia has participated in several unjust wars since the end of the Second World War.1 As a result of two of those wars, 1,300,000 Iraqis, fled to Syria. The illegal wars, in which Australia participated include: The Korean War,2 the Vietnam War, the Gulf War of 1991, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In its "demographics" section The Wikipedia Syria article, states:
According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Syria hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers number approximately 1,852,300. The vast majority of this population was from Iraq (1,300,000), but sizeable populations from the former Palestine (543,400) and Somalia (5,200) also lived in the country.[106]
In an interview on the 4 Corners program, The Battle For Syria, on 4 October 2012, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said to Kerry O'Brien, "... perhaps an assassination ... is what is required ... ."
Carr's support for the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is consistent with allegations that for 40 years he was an agent of the United States Government within the Australian Labor Party. His relationship with the CIA is the subject of Bob Carr: Washington's man in Australia in the Melbourne Age of 8 April 2013 and the article, by Murray Hunter, Is Bob Carr a spy? of 11 April 2013 in the Independent Australian, which cites evidence from the Age article and which we republish below. The US, which Carr uncritically supports, has used assassins, and worse, against the people of Korea, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. A number of its own Presidents including JFK and a number of popular American political leaders have also fallen to the bullets of assassins.
See also: Assange slams Carr as a 'well-known liar' in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 May 2013.
We wonder if Bob Carr, Australia's Foreign Minister, has any idea of the utter distress he has given to wildlife carers all over Australia in his endorsement of the kangaroo-meat industry for export?
Those who want to know the truth about the recent Houla massacre, blamed by the corporate newsmedia on the Syrian government, should consider these chilling words said in 2005 by Ziad Abdel Nour, a corporate-financier and founder of "Blackhawk Partners" as well as chairman of the Neo-Conservative run
4.1 Carr’s leadership ethos
Chapter 3: Carr’s policy pendulum had reached its apex
The rise to effective control of NSW Labor, by its then Centre Unity faction, emanated from the days of uncertainty and a power vacuum created when Premier Bob Carr suddenly quit mid-way through a stable NSW Labor’s third consecutive term in office. A political vacuum is a dangerous situation, one just shy of relative anarchy, and a magnet for Machiavellians; a vulnerable time for governance.
"Should I not be Premier by the end of this day, let there be no doubt in the community's mind, no doubt, that any challenger will be a puppet of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi." ...and with those prophetic words on 3rd December 2009, the next day New South Wales’ second puppet premier Nathan Rees bowed from the public limelight.
Panel discussion on population, Radio National Breakfast program
Friday 9 April 2010, 8.10am – 8.23am
Interviewer: Fran Kelly
Panel Members: John Coulter (SPA), Bob Carr, Nick Minchin
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Article by Geoff Brown
Delfin Lend Lease, the developer of the ADI Site, is now promoting its new suburb. It has the appalling name of Jordan Springs (another generic Delfin project with Springs in the name).
First it was Kelvin Thomson MP and now Bob Carr former Premier of NSW speaking out strongly about the increase of population being forced on us by Federal and State. Will this strike a chord and open Pandora's box for the government?. Will the silent majority finally speak out?
In the ABC 7.30 Report of October 13th, which dealt with the absolutely critical matter of Australia's rapid population growth, Channel 2 viewers were served up with the usual homogenised glop of current journalism. Opinions were sought rather than facts and impacts researched and reported. Vested interests were glossed over in the promotion of questionable 'authorities'.
It seems that the people who have managed to get into power in this country simply cannot take seriously the importance of the natural world to climate, aesthetics, society and human survival. Money eclipses everything in their Growth Lobby paradigm, including democracy.
This article was first posted as a comment to an article by Tim Murray, but I decide to turn it into my own blog entry after it was pointed out that the size of this comment caused Tim's article to be dwarfed.
A short article in the The Australian Financial Review of 24 September 2008 leaves the reader wondering what exactly was the point of NSW's extensive program of privatisations going back to the 1980's.
The article, "Bits and pieces won't fetch $1 billion" by Tracey Ong purports to show what options are available to the NSW government in its planned mini-budget to cover the claimed $1 billion-plus shortfall in its budget.
Contents: #OFarrellPilloried">O'Farrell pilloried,
Comment posted to
Those who have read "The Latham Diaries" will have found startling confirmation of the fact the State Labor Premiers are cynical enough to deliberately damage the electoral prospects of their Federal counterparts in order to better ensure their own survival at the state level.Adapted from an article cross-posted to Online Opinion.
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