Visy submission to the Government's emissions trading green paper:  "Visy's first-mover status in environmental performance puts it at a disadvantage compared with other Australian industries, including its competitors,'' the submission says. "The CPRS Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) does not recognise the carbon benefits from recycling, leading to severe collateral impacts on Australia's domestic recycling/remanufacturing industries.  "Full action of permits will unnecessarily damage the economy and constrain businesses' capacity to invest in reducing emissions.''   And more: "The proposed EITE (emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries) compensation does not protect against carbon leakage, carbon magnification and loss of jobs and investment.''

The new website called GROCERYchoice is now live,  just one day after report into grocery prices, which found there was not enough competition among supermarkets. Would you say that after investing many dollars into this project, it is a useful source of information?  The government's website is at www.GROCERYchoice.gov.au.

Why am I not surprised that petrol commissioner can't stop rip-offs.  The petrol watchdog has admitted he can't force fuel companies to pass on price drops to drivers.  The current goverment main purpose is to make big government even bigger.  And it creates useless bureaucracy which only contributes to waste of money and time.

No one would want for their books to end up here:

This project at University of Fine Arts in Budapest is supervised by Janos Huebler and Nemere Kerezsi entitled 'The Concrete' that involves as many as some twelve thousand books embedded in concrete, in the Centralis Gallery of Budapest. The politically outdated books were donated by the Research Institute of Radio Free Europe, the once active American-sponsored channel that spearheaded fighting Communism before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The communication lines were very inefficient in Howard government. Mr Hockey said that he rang Mr Howard to urge him to quit, saying voters had stopped listening to him.  "I said: 'They don't think you're going to be around in the future and therefore when you talk about the future they stop listening'," Mr Hockey said.  "I was disappointed, very disappointed that the prime minister had always said that he would stay only so long as it was in the best interest of the Liberal Party and whilst his colleagues wanted him and the formula changed and he changed the formula." But "knifing" Mr Howard would have backfired on the Liberals, Mr Hockey said. "Our core voters would've gone and voted for Labor, outraged at the way that we had treated Australia's most successful prime minister," he said.

I had a chance to meet today one of many Australia Day Ambassador - Mike Bailey who was ABC's television weather presenter. This program is sponsored by Woolworths, but at the same time Labour Party has been wasting so much time investigating and blaming Woolworths about increasing retail prices for food and petrol.

More info about: The Australia Day Ambassador Program, sponsored by Woolworths, sends high achieving Australians to community Australia Day celebrations all over NSW. Australia Day Ambassadors are invited as guests of honour at celebrations around the state and are often part of the activities and events on the day. As part of the celebrations, Ambassadors are asked to deliver the keynote address which captures the true spirit of being Australian. The Program commenced in 1990 with 9 Ambassadors which has steadily grown over the years. In 2005, more than 170 Ambassadors took part in celebrations across the state from Auburn and Albury to Burwood and Broken Hill to Wyong, Yass and Young. The one thing that Ambassadors have in common is their love for Australia Day and their generosity in giving up their time. As Australia Day Ambassadors they get to experience the warmth and charm of communities across NSW as they celebrate Australia Day.

With Labour govenment, don't be surprised to see this number keep going up over next few years: The unemployment rate rose for a second consecutive month in November to 4.5 per cent, easing the immediate need for another rise in interest rates. The time may come when people will like to have a job even it it means pay cut. 

Last week everyone was so excited about Kevin Rudd signing Kyoto but now it is the same old story:  Rich-poor divide on climate. A road map on climate change has revealed key divisions between rich and poor countries over who should bear the cost of cutting greenhouse emissions.  Just as I was saying it does not matter who is PM in Australia. The reality and challenges did not change a bit.

John Howard biographer Peter van Onselen and political commentator Gerard Henderson have agreed on ABC Lateline 27/11/2007 that even though Liberals have lost the election they have won the battle of ideas.  The Labour party under Kevin Rudd had never been so close with the plans for the future to Liberal Party. That is way John Howard could not have won with his younger version.

"PETER VAN ONSELEN: I was going to say I agree in they in many ways won the battle ideas between Labor and Liberal but then they didn't win the election and that's the problem for them now in Opposition trying to define what they stand for separate from Labor. It is somewhat ironic that they won the battle yet lost the election and therefore have trouble defining what they are in going forward."

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2103035.htm

PM not to blame for rates rise.

An exclusive poll has found most voters would not blame John Howard if interest rates rise this week as expected, as Kevin Rudd accused the Prime Minister of giving up the fight to help people with mortgages.

Kevin Rudd forces Peter Garrett into Kyoto backflip. From The Courier-Mail Kevin Rudd has said it is "absolutely fundamental" that developing nations sign up to Kyoto emissions targets as he tries to limit the fallout after forcing ...

www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22671641-5013650,00.html

 The difference between Kevin and John is getting smaller every day.

It looks that things are very dicey for John Howard. But anyway Australia will not be much different under Howard or Kevin. Example, they all talk about child care crises but have a listen to this ABC Radio program on pets:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing

"Already households spend more on pets than on childcare. Reporter Wendy Carlisle."

The good thing is that under Kevin the kids will get one more laptop. But will this make them any better students? I doubt. Anyway there are not many household in Australia where families would not have a computer.  And once the future government will run out of money I wonder where they will get more money from. Hopefully we have enough coal in the ground. But digging more coal will only accelerate Global Warming. The only solution is to plan for lower consumption of goods.