Did you know that Western Australia, Victoria, NSW and Queensland are talking about recommissioning or refurbishing old coal fired power stations, or even building new ones?

All they are waiting for is for the Rudd Government’s emissions trading bill, with its woeful targets and weak carbon price, to pass and they’ll have the signal they need.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, legal advice to the Greens from two senior barristers shows that, if this bill passes, the Government won’t be able to turn it around without paying even more billions in compensation to the polluters.

This puts paid to the flimsy notion that we can pass this failure of a scheme now and easily improve it down the track.

You can read more about how the CPRS locks in climate failure here. Source.

I believe that there should be no compensation for any business because of carbon trading. Let the companies raise their prices to cover the extra costs. Then compensate the consumers who can’t afford it, the pensioners and the low income earners.

There are lots of other comments on the Green’s site.

“Australia has tonnes of land to put solar plants [on] for all the cars in Australia. If you think about it, over a period of 10 years, Australia could build a 50 gigawatt solar plant in a heartbeat, all made by Australians, all installed by Australians. There’s nothing in science or technology that’s missing. It’s a question of will and a question of financials.” (from SMH)

Let’s stimulate the economy by spending on something like this. Let’s make non-polluting transport a reality.

Dear Honourable Members,

First let me say thank you for the reforms that have recently come into force giving my same-sex partner and myself most of the rights available to other couples. We are both in our forties and have been out as gay men for over 20 years. We have been together for over 16 years and are out to our families, friends and workmates.

I am writing on behalf of older same-sex couples who have not declared their relationships and may be forced to by the reforms.

Until 25 years ago it was illegal to have homosexual sex in NSW. In other states the reforms have been more recent. Only 30 years ago the police were regularly being violent towards gay men and lesbians at Mardi Gras parades and in many other places. Fortunately I am too young to have experienced much of this, but those of our community who are now in their retirement would have had many such experiences in their formative years.

I ask you to imagine a same-sex couple who have been together for 40 years. If they were an opposite sex they would be happily married and everyone would know them as a couple. Being a same-sex they initially would have hidden their relationship from everyone but their closest friends. They may still choose to do so.

That their relationship was not recognised back then was the least of their concerns. Even the act of making love was illegal for them. Many were victims of discrimination and violence, including from the police. Their clubs were regularly raided and so had to operate “underground”, often by organised crime. Coming out was only something done by the bravest. Many others chose to remain in the closet.

This particular couple would have had to hide their relationship from officialdom, from family, from workmates, and from all but the closest friends. They would have set up separate bedrooms and created other elaborate facades to protect themselves and their love for each other. If they were prominent or in certain occupations they would have had to be even more careful, possibly with only their partner to confide in.

While the same-sex reform legislation is great for the majority of our community, it has the potential to destroy the lives of these older same-sex couples.

Imagine that someone from Centrelink decides to investigate two aged pensioners living at the same address to determine if they should be receiving couple benefits. The investigator has the right to interview friends and relatives, etc. If this is a closeted couple then such an investigation has the potential to destroy their life. Being outed after such a long time hiding their relationship would have profound psychological effects, including suicide. Being investigated will prompt questions from friends and relatives leading to destruction of relationships, of families and friendships, yes, even in our enlightened age.

I urge you to find a way to exempt such elderly couples from either investigation by Centrelink, or from relevant parts of the act. If a couple over, say age 65, chooses not to disclose their same-sex relationship, then they should not be forced to do so. Not to family. Not to friends. And definitely not to a government that treated them as criminals in their earlier years.

Refusing to acknowledge the effects of forcibly outing such a couple is as bad as refusing to acknowledge the effects of the forcible removal of children from their indigenous parents. I, along with many many other Australians, rejoiced at the apology to the Stolen Generation delivered by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd just under a year ago. I am sure you will continue this compassion by addressing this issue.

Since this legislation comes into force in July this year I urge you to treat this as a matter of urgency.

I just did one of those online tests (thanks to Robguy 4.0) and got this result:

I am proud to be somewhere between Nelson Mandela and The Dalai Lama.

Emissions trading, though flawed, is a vital step in the fight against climate change. The cost of delay far outweighs the cost of such a light start to the scheme.

The emissions trading scheme must start as soon as possible.

Replace the word politician with homosexual and the word dishonest with paedophile and you get the gist of what Jeff Kennett, former Victorian premier, is reputed to have said. (Source)

It’s the same if you have a pedophile there as a masseur, right?

This was said in defence of the sacking of veteran football trainer Ken Campagnolo after it found out he was gay.

I have just found some Victorian crime figures. (Source) This is from the section on the crime rape:

Victoria Police recorded 1,270 rape victims during 2006/2007, an increase of 11.3% on the 1,141 recorded in 2005/2006. There were 1,161 female victims (up 12.3% compared with last year) and 107 male victims (up 5.9%). Nearly a third (403 or 31.7%) of all victims of rape recorded during 2006/2007 was under the age of 18 years.

Lets examine these figures and see if we can guess about victims of paedophilia. I will assume that all the victims of rape under age 18 were victims of paedophilia. If we the assume that equal numbers of males and females made up the under 18 victims as the total then there would be 368 female victims and 35 male victims.

So females under 18 are 10 times more likely to be raped than males. But if homosexuals are paedophiles, then who raped these 368 female victims?

Even if all the male victims were under 18 then females under 18 are still 3 times more likely to be raped.

I wonder if Jeff Kennett can answer why these homosexual paedophiles are raping girls and young women.

Rather, he has just shown himself as a homophobe.

This event has been causing annoyance to Sydneysiders for the past six months. Our building is going to be cut off on two sides by the pilgrimage. How dare they introduce such draconian laws.

This is the straw that is going to break this particular camel’s back.

Last year the HROEC identfied 58 laws that discriminated against us. When you were part of the government your party refused to even consider reform. Since Labor has come to power they have identified more discriminatory laws, bringing the total to around 100.

Still you seem to believe that we are second class citizens. Still you plan to deny us benefits that all other couples in Australia have.

This does not need to go to committee. It is a simple question of making sure all legitimate couples get the same rights. I urge you to reconsider your stance and allow this bill to pass the Senate.

On the first call after answering all the questions the computer asked I was connected almost immediately, but there was no one on the other end. So I hung up and tried again.

Second call, I answered all the questions again, but when it went to connect I was told I had dialled the wrong number. It was a number their system had dialled.

I was rather frustrated by this time, so I dialled again but tried to tell the computer it was a complaint. The computer kept asking questions which I was not enthusiastic about answering. Eventually I got put through to a person. They were sympathetic, but after asking lots if identifying questions advised were unable to help me. They (hopefully) recorded my complaint about the voice response system and then put me through to someone else. They also gave me a “direct” number.

Second person I spoke to asked me the same questions. She was also unable to help me and put me through to yet another person. She gave me a different “direct” number.

As you can imagine, by this time I was incredibly frustrated. So when, for the 5th or 6th time I was asked “Why do you want to cancel this service?” I exploded. “No I am not going to tell you why. I have just told that 5 times.” Eventually I said, “OK. Say that I am dissatisfied with the service.”

So hopefully there ends my story with Optus.

I must say all the people were professional. It is their systems that let them down.

It is time to start a shame file. Below are details of employment agencies who persist in contacting me despite being told not to:

• BSI People – I never sent my details to this company, so they must have changed their name or bought another company. I first received something from them in April 2007, then in March 2008. Each time I asked them to unsubscribe me. I received another one today (April 2008). They are a Seek Annual Recruitment Awards winner too. SHAME! And another email in May 2008.