This is no surprise!!!

Teddles Ballyhoo’s government has been all about massive funding cuts to;
Hospitals
Police Forces
Education
Lollipop People
CFA (Country Fire Authority)
Emergency Systems’ development
SES (State Emergency Services)
Nurses
Mental Health Services
and many more!!!

Make no mistake! Cuts to all of the above services have been HUGE, while the inept, incompetent, and uncaring government of Teddles Ballyhoo, has been busy applying these cuts to feather the nests of his cronies! Ted Bailleu should be charged for criminal activity!!!
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‘Jobs for mates’ crosses Parliament

Date

February 3, 2013    Farrah Tomazin

Illustration: Matt Golding.

THE state government has appointed dozens of Coalition backers and former MPs – including one of Ted Baillieu’s relatives – to plum positions on boards and agencies around the state.

Despite Mr Baillieu slamming the former Labor government every time a so-called ”jobs for mates” scandal emerged, little appears to have changed since the Coalition came to office two years ago.

An analysis of appointments in health – where Victoria and Canberra continue to trade blows over hospital funding – shows many positions have been given to former ministers, MPs, political staffers and party officials.

For instance, Kennett government minister Mark Birrell was made the deputy chairman of VicHealth, former health minister Robert Knowles was appointed to the Royal Children’s Hospital board, former Caulfield MP Helen Shardey was made chairwoman of The Alfred hospital, and former Nationals MP Noel Maughan was appointed chairman of Goulburn Valley Health.

The water industry is similar. Former Kennett government treasurer Alan Stockdale is chairman of City West Water, former minister Geoff Coleman is on the board of Westernport Water, and former upper house MP John Vogels is on the Wannon Water board.

Mr Baillieu’s brother-in-law Graeme Stoney – a former MP – was granted a role on the board of VicForests, while some of the Premier’s former top aides have also received government roles.

They include Michael Kapel, Mr Baillieu’s friend and former chief of staff, who is now based in San Francisco as the Commissioner for the Americas, and Di Rule, who was a key adviser to Mr Baillieu in his early years as opposition leader, and is now on the board of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority.

The appointments are among dozens in the past two years given to government associates. Mr Baillieu’s spokeswoman Kate Walshe insisted that all were made after an ”extensive selection process to identify qualified, skilled and experienced individuals for the position, unlike the previous Labor government who unashamedly made partisan appointments without regard to their ability or experience to perform the duties of the role”.

Opposition scrutiny of government spokesman Martin Pakula rejected this claim, accusing the government of blatant hypocrisy. ”Having once been horrified by jobs for the boys, Mr Baillieu has now made an art form of it,” he said. ”If you have ever been a Liberal MP, candidate or staffer, you’re pretty much home and hosed for a cushy government gig.”

Appointing party ”mates” has long been an issue at Spring Street. Former Labor premier Steve Bracks came under fire early in his first term for appointing an old friend, Jim Reeves, to head the Urban and Regional Land Authority.

Mr Baillieu was then opposition planning spokesman and a vociferous critic of the decision, citing it as an example of ”special access” for government mates. A decade later, his government picked Liberal Party stalwart Peter Clarke – Mr Baillieu’s close friend – to lead planning authority Places Victoria.

■ftomazin@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/jobs-for-mates-crosses-parliament-20130202-2drfb.html#ixzz2Jkgz419o

Gun Laws and death!

I have the most profound feelings of sympathy, and condolences, for the families of those whose loved ones met an untimely death in the recent school massacre. I know, from personal experience, what it is like, to feel the pain, of a loved one’s death.

But it was not the guns that killed those beautiful people. It was society’s inability to recognise a violent and disturbed individual that was the cause of these sad deaths.

But to ban guns, that are a cause for less deaths, than any other diseases or events, including traffic accidents, and gangland shootings, is simply a way, to ensure that the only people that will have them, are the criminals in our societies.

We must not let emotional issues, override, the reality of letting a society have the capability to defend its people and its homes, against unlawful actions. 

I know I will find much opposition to my comments, but I will stand by them.

One thing that is never recorded, is how many burglaries, and murders, have been prevented, simply because criminals have known, that that the occupants of certain premises, or households, have access to firearms, for defensive purposes.

Our society will never, in my lifetime, at least, know when a misfit will cause terrible death or deaths.

But when only two or three massacres have happened in a population of over 300 million people in a decade, is it really such a reason to ban guns?

Each day, more people die, from so many other causes. Let’s not knee jerk to conclusions that will cause even more murders in the future, when the only people to have guns, will be the criminals!

It is embarrassing that these people ask for such a little thing!!!

It is unfair, to condemn people who qualify for public housing to be treated like this!

Most, if not all, these people have worked all their lives, and contributed to the Australian community, which these days, is supporting, more and more drug users, and losers, where whole families have never had paid employment, and therefore, never paid taxes, for three or even more generations.

This is a disgrace! These people are being treated worse than dole bludgers!

Seems this is the message of our times.
Do the right thing, work for a living, pay your taxes, and when you retire, live in squalor like this.
vs
Be a no count dole bludger where no one has for three, or maybe even more, generations had any paid employment, where they may have provided a benefit to the community through personal exertion. And instead, just taken of the largesse of those who have done the right thing all their lives. And these dole bludgers, the scum of the earth, live better than those that have always done the right thing!

I believe that the first thing a responsible society needs to do, is to make, everyone, until patterns are established, take drug tests each fortnight. Nothing else,…, just this. And if a person has been found to test positive to drug use, for three consecutive tests, to stop paying social service benefits to these people, until they once again have three consecutive negative tests!
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Public housing tenants want a shed as relief from flats

Date   October 31, 2012

On edge: John Russell, a residents at 482 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne. Photo: Joe Armao

SUMMER can be unbearable for the residents of 482 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne.

One hot day a few years ago, an elderly woman living on the top floor of the decrepit public housing units apparently died of natural causes in her flat.

Although no one suggests the building, or the Victorian government department responsible for maintaining it, caused the woman’s death, the stifling heat and inadequate cooling system would have made her final hours deeply uncomfortable.

Jacob Hapeta: ‘Unbelievable.’ Photo: Joe Armao

Jacob Hapeta, a founding member of the 482 Williamstown Road tenants committee, recalls how the undertakers sent by the government lugged the old woman’s body down three flights of stairs.

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He felt it was symbolic of how he and the other residents of the 24 bedsits have been treated by the government in recent years.

”They put her at the top of the stairs and a bloke grabbed her by the feet and pulled her down the steps with her head hitting each step. It was unbelievable,” Mr Hapeta said.

A few years ago, the residents had high hopes as their units had been earmarked for a complete renovation. Then funding was suddenly withdrawn without explanation.

Mr Hapeta and his neighbours are now resigned to more hot summers and freezing winters, more sewage seeping up through their sinks and drains and more water leaking through roofs.

“These units are well passed their used-by date but no one seems to care,” he said.

The story of the residents of 482 Williamstown Road is just one of many the thousands of Victorians living in decrepit, out-of-date public housing could tell.

Victoria has never had a minimum standard of public housing, according to Auditor-General Des Pearson who, in March, said 10,000 Victorian public housing properties were nearing obsolescence.

Another problem was the changing profile of those seeking public housing, with demand for one or two-bedroom units growing at the same time when 41 per cent of Victoria’s public housing stock were three-bedroom homes.

In response, the Baillieu government is preparing an overhaul of the public housing sector to improve conditions for the tens of thousands of Victorians who depend on it.

Whether the new policy direction will do anything to improve the fortune of Mr Hapeta and his fellow Port Melbourne residents is yet to be seen.

Also in March the Labor MLA for Albert Park, Martin Foley, raised their plight in Parliament with Housing Minister Wendy Lovell. He highlighted the extreme heat in summer, the death of the elderly woman and sewage appearing in showers. He has yet to receive a reply to his question.

He said 482 Williamstown Road had ”outlived its use-by date. It doesn’t fit the standards of either a civilised society or the dignity of those who live there.”

But Ms Lovell has responded to a letter from a Port Phillip community worker who also brought the dire condition of the 482 Williamstown Road units to her attention this year.

Ms Lovell replied: ”The Department of Human Services has advised me that the medium-term plan for this property is to redevelop it. This is subject to funding and future budget commitments. As a result of this intent, there is no current plan to upgrade these units … ”

The tenants have resolved to do what they can to improve their lot.

One year ago they formed a committee and built a communal garden where they now meet each Wednesday and hold a barbecue.

Mr Hapeta said the residents were lobbying for a $10,000 grant to buy a communal shed as a refuge from the summer heat and winter cold of their tiny one-bedroom units and to reduce their high energy bills.

”If we can get a communal shed with heating and cooling it will save a fortune. My last gas bill was $181 and my electricity $151 and I live in a five-metre-by-four-metre room with a kitchen tacked on,” he said.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/public-housing-tenants-want-a-shed-as-relief-from-flats-20121030-28hqn.html#ixzz2AnNYLdVS

This is not Racist! This is Preserving the Australian Way of Life!

I totally agree with the comments of the article below,…, And it was not only the nationalities that this man mentions in his article,…,

There were also many other nations that went through this exact same process, as they arrived in Australia. I KNOW, BECAUSE MY PARENTS, AND I, WERE THERE TOO. I was born, in a displaced persons’ camp in the British sector of Germany just after the second world war!

We arrived, the Estonians, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, (the three countries referred to as the Balts), and the Poles, the Slavs, and all the others whose countries were so generously ceded to the Russians by the Americans, the British, and the French!  Eisenhower, Churchill, and De Gaulle? How did they acquire the right, to send so many millions to their deaths, by their generous concessions to the Russians?

And there were no handouts when my parents arrived in Australia. We were sent to a camp in Bonegilla, and from there, individuals, and families, were sent to the various parts of the country where labour was needed. Some were sent to work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme, some were sent, to the farms in the western district of Victoria, and others to other areas where labour was needed in this vast land. 

My parents were expected to work for a living. There was no social welfare for them. 

And they did not ask for anything to be changed. They were so grateful that a free country had accepted them. They blended in with the Australian way of life. Sure, they had their own communities too. What else could you do, when you arrived in a new country, where the customs, and the language were completely unknown.

I can only speak, from my experience from the ‘Balts’ point of view. But I do know this! That not one single cent, or penny, as it was then, was ever asked for by a Balt, that he did not earn! There were no demonstrations. The Balts, as did the refugees from so many nations of Europe, got on with making new lives for themselves in a new land. And in short order, were embraced by communities all over Australia as people who had embraced the Australian way of life, whilst still trying to survive in a strange land, so very far removed, from the climates of their own countries, and the way of life they had always known. And these new immigrants, refugees, came to be respected by the people of Australia.

Initially, in my professional life, I was amazed at how many people knew I was Latvian, because they recognised my ‘Namejs’ ring. Latvian’s because of their parents, and my peers, had assimilated into Australian professions, and were influential in their chosen professions. As my own professional life progressed, I stopped being amazed, that I was recognised as being Latvian, as it happened so often.

And just as an aside, when my father received his Australian Citizenship at a ceremony in the Williamstown Town Hall, you could not wipe the smile off his face. He never gave up on Latvia, but Australia was his home.

So don’t you fucking Arabs, come into this country complaining, and demanding, that Australians change their behaviour to emulate the procedures and customs of the cesspools and cesspits that are the countries that you left. You should be lucky to be granted access to live in a free country, something most of you would never have known. 

By all means, gather in your enclaves, and keep your customs alive, BUT DO NOT TRY TO FORCE YOUR WAY OF LIFE ON THOSE WHO DO NOT VOLUNTARILY CHOOSE TO LIVE THAT WAY! 

People of Islam. Your enemies are not the native Australian people. Your enemies are those refugees, immigrants, that came to this country in search of a better life. And who know how to respect what it has given them. They will not stand by, and see a stupid, ignorant, primeval, people create here, what they left behind, all those decades ago.

I will be there on the 2nd of December 2012, to show my support, for the Australian way of life.
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3rd December 2012 – Protest · 817 like this.

13 September at 21:38 · 

• Australia 2012- How sad!

  FROM A BLOODY GREEK BASTARD WHO MIGRATED TO AUSTRALIA IN THE LATE 1940s.
  This is not a funny ….. its what all of us are thinking but not saying
  …..keep sharing
  Nik Ziogopoulos states what is fact and what we all believe.
  Nik would be in his 70’s at least.

  A GREAT PERSPECTIVE FROM A ‘NEW’ AUSTRALIAN –

  I emigrated to Australia over 60 years ago – On the ship there were Poms,Italians (Spags), Germans (Huns), Yugoslavs (Yuges), Poles, Ducchys, Ukes (Ukrainians) and Greeks. (Note – All European people!!) all looking forward to starting a new life in Australia . I arrived with 30 quid in my pocket and that’s all I had to my name Did I put my hand out?? Of course not – I got a job and paid my way just like everyone else who came to this country back then.
  Now, it’s my taxes that subsidize these people who think they have Gods given right (read Allah) to come here and criticize those of us who have worked for the country we now call home.
  If I didn’t like what I saw when I got here I would have gone home – they have the same option.
  If they don’t want to become an Australian,

  they can GO BACK TO WHERE THEY CAME FROM

  – WE DON’T NEED THEM HERE!!!

  When will this stop?
  They want 2 of their own public holidays, because Christians have Christmas, Easter & Good Friday.

  They force our children to eat Halal Meat Pies and Sausage Rolls from the school canteens, so the Muslim kids can feel more Aussie. We were not consulted about this change – they went ahead and just did it.

  Our foods are slowly all becoming Halal foods, our cheeses, chocolates & even good old Sanitarium foods

  Our Government is ALLOWING this to happen. It has to stop now, while we still have some power to be able to stop it.

  Regarding Our National Anthem –

  I am sorry, but after hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Arabic – enough is enough. Nowhere or at no other time in our nation’s history, did they sing it in Italian, Japanese, Polish, Irish (Gaelic), German, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Greek, or any other language because of immigration.
  It was written in English, and should be sung word for word the way it was written.

  The news broadcasts even gave the translation — not even close.
  I am not sorry if this offends anyone, this is MY COUNTRY
  IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY SPEAK UP – please pass this along

  I am not against immigration, just come through like everyone else. Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes, live by the rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past – and LONG LIVE Australia!!!
  PART OF THE PROBLEM
  Think about this:
  If you don’t want to forward this for fear of offending someone
  YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!!
  Will we still be the Country of Choice and still be Australia if we continue
  to make the changes forced on us by the people from other countries
  who have come to live in Australia because it is their Country of Choice??
  Think about it!

  IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT.

  It is Time for Australia to Speak up!
  If you agree – pass this along. If you don’t agree – delete it!
  That’s your choice