For those who came in late..
For those of you living under a rock there’s been an incredibly nasty, sensationalist and flat-out deceitful campaign by the Liberal/National Parties (and the big polluters that pay their campaign funds). Abbott as leader has staked his reputation on killing this legislation in favour of a scheme that would tax everyone and give extra tax cuts to big polluters while spending tax dollars planting trees to offset emissions that would continue to be free for polluters. Yep, doesn’t make any sense and only a brave economist would be lining up to sing the praises of Abbott’s alternative.

CO2 price Concepts
Anyhow, the basic concept is that CO2 is no longer to be treated as unlimited free pollution as it has been so far throughout history. The first step is a rather small one really (despite the amount of apocalyptic predictions of LNP supporters pissed off that the NBN didn’t kill the country): top 500 polluters will be tracked and made to pay (to varying degrees) $23/tonne of CO2 (Abbott seemed to think that CO2 was weightless, gives you an idea what kind of twit we are but one or two parliamentarians away from running the country).

Handouts.. some needed, others not
The bit that comes with an attempt to soften the impact is a whole bunch of compensation, not only for end consumers (more than compensating majority of households) but also for a bunch of industries that might be impacted by it. This sparked a whole bunch of the Plasma Proletariat and just plain ignorant people thinking that they would be worse off when in fact they would be making money. I’m one of the people who will not be compensated, although as a 100% green power user I’d expect my major costs to have already been taken care of by my energy plan being from wind power. But that didn’t stop a bunch of low income people from insisting they’d be broke when the calculator showed they would be making money. This loud complaining was partnered with a rather scary anti-science climate change denial stance by masses of people.

The 7 stages of Climate Science Denial

Cars continue to pollute for free

Petrol was for some insane reason (perhaps thanks to short sighted campaigning by organisations like the NRMA) excluded.. So no end in sight for the rise of the car and petrol fumes on the street. The sooner we get rid of fossil fuels from our vehicle transport the better. Can you imagine how many places would be infinitely more liveable with less traffic noise and fumes? How many respiratory issues would go away. It would certainly be nice to be able to breathe deeply in CBD areas during lunchtime.

Seems likely to work

I think the notion that pollution that was free now costing something will immediately result in businesses looking to reduce costs. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea whatsoever about how businesses work. Cost is about the only language that you can speak to businesses that have legal obligation to put profit above all else if you expect them to pay attention. End consumers can exercise their choice by taking their money where the lower cost from pollution efficiency results in a competitive advantage. Businesses will start working groups to examine how they can improve efficiency and we take a step toward a leaner, less polluting industry.

Hell, they might even figure out a way to make that snake oil clean coal work?

So let’s hope that it makes it through.. So what if we’re wrong about it all? Well, we all win.

“If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated.”

- George Orwell in the novel 1984.

Well, it appears the struggling, lowest level of society has now been exposed a number of times by front page exposure. Most recently it’s been the apocalyptic carbon tax that will bankrupt everyone. Though a while back I wrote a draft (that I am now publishing) about the “poor well off” after a budget plan to HOLD STEADY FOR TWO YEARS the cut off for certain welfare at AUD$150K. Note: that’s not “cut” anything as is reported, just decided not to raise it with inflation/CPI etc. Very similar to the carbon tax that includes generous payouts for poorer families which trail off so that those earning plenty have to pay a bit.

Well, they finally got to a small part of it.

Every time this happens we see papers queue the pictures of concerned looking families (with their cars conspicuously not in shot lest we see two urban 4WDs sitting in a McMansion driveway) and bleating like Stephen Boyle did in the SMH letters:
“I’m just a wage slave to the ungrateful masses“:

I am one of those people who earn just over $150,000 a year. My wife has decided to stay at home this year and look after our new baby while I continue my work designing internet infrastructure in Third World countries.
Because I have worked very hard and diligently and contribute to society in a specialist way that few others can – but am not greedy and amoral enough to be truly rich – I end up paying for every one else’s welfare.
When our little one was born, we missed out on the baby bonus because my income was just above the $150,000 threshold. I pay $44,450 a year in tax and the Medicare levy, which I do not begrudge. By contrast, if my wife and I both earned $75,000 a year, we would collectively pay, in raw terms, $32,700 a year in tax between us. Upon that, we would not pay a Medicare surcharge.

As a result of Wayne Swan’s budget, I don’t get the dependant spouse rebate, which would have partially redressed the imbalance that my family pays in tax compared with a couple of $75,000 earners. Yet I am not wealthy enough to avoid this tax burden.
I now look at my child with sadness. I tried to do my best for her, but the government parasites got the better of me.
She shall have to attend public school and be treated at public hospitals while I contemplate the folly of working hard for the ungrateful masses.
Stephen Boyle, Gosford

It could almost be a piss take.. But not quite.

The Struggling Proles and their Plasma TV scraps of society
I’d like to suggest a term for “slaves” like Stephen Boyle who complain when they don’t get as many unnecessary handouts: “The Plasma Proletariat”. These are the well off types who think they are on Struggle Street or hard done by when they are denied another handout for a bigger plasma TV or mortgage repayments they decided to over-commit to.

Where do the taxes go?
For your information Stephen your $44.5K of tax pays for the following: Social security & welfare: $14,085, general govt. services: $11,377, health: $6,969, education: $4,043, defence: $2,573, industry & workforce: $1,804, infrastructure, transport & energy: $1,536 and community services & culture: $1,063 (From www.wheredomytaxesgo.com.au ).

Ungrateful or just stupid?
Ungrateful would be someone who thinks they (or their children) don’t benefit from that list in any significant way, particularly when they mention schools and hospitals in the same breath. Not to mention the massive amount of investment from every taxpayer back to the dawn of the nation who paid for things like the snowy river hydro scheme, highways, airports, hospitals, schools etc.

I don’t have kids, so can Mr Boyle send me a cheque for the money he is sponging relative to me by having a kid (education, hospital, DOCS funding, medical research, swimming pools, playground equipment, baby changing rooms, time spent by politicians kissing said babies)? I don’t see that kid earning its keep like they do in developing nations where they’d be stitching together our shoes/clothes and sticking apple logos to iPhones.

Happy to refund it if/when I have kids but in the meantime I don’t see why I should be a slave to the breeding masses like Mr Boyle when I’m not doing the same.

Why stop there: what about my parents generation: “lazy” buggers are starting to retire after (only) working their entire lives, paying for us to be fed/clothed/educated/housed and now they’ll be wanting healthcare, kids off their lawns and a bit of time to travel and relax.. Oh the gall of them to make “slaves” of us all by daring to retire!

Prediction time
Quite why we give out baby bonuses as a reward for adding to the global population problem I’m not sure. The bonus should be to anyone who helps REDUCE or HOLD STEADY the population by having 2 or less kids. Mark my words they’ll be looking back in the future when the population is double today (and our planet completely stripped bare) and scratching their heads.

Impact of the baby bonus

Some facts please
You watch, I’ll bugger up something in these.. But here goes.

Contrary to the assertions in articles on this $150K thing that it affects a big chunk of people it doesn’t really. Some articles do a bit more homework but still make it sound like it affects more people than it does e.g. this one says at the start the measures affect 17% of the population but this measure would only affect the portion of the 17% of community that (in year 1 of the freeze) earn between $150K and $154K (assuming 3% inflation). In year 2 anyone who is earning between $150K and $159K. It might also include people who get a pay cut and would have earned those amounts or ones who get a pay rise. Under the old system the cut off would be $154K at the end of the 1st year.

So if for the 2 years you always earn $160K and above then this whole thing is irrelevant, if you earn $150K and below likewise.

I can haz moar handout?

Just how many could that be that might fit in this $150-160K over two years transition?

Small number really and majority of the articles I’ve read appear to have not done their homework or else made little real attempt at highlighting the facts as they try to make a storm in a teacup.

Saying that because 17% of households or 3% of individuals earn over $150K is like saying that if the USA lowered the drinking age to 18 that affects the ability to drink of everyone over age of 18.
No, it only affects anyone falling between ages of 18 and 21. Well aside from extra queues at the bar.. But anyone already able to drink can still do it, anyone younger than 18 still can’t drink anyhow. Politicians seem to realise this quite well when it comes to retrospectively punishing younger generations by removing the things that they enjoyed or made use of to get to where they are today (e.g. Federal Liberals gutting public education and in particular universities and their funding cuts/HECS fee increases under Howard).

More facts.. MOAAAR!
How does $150K compare to the average wage? I won’t compare it to say poorer nations to really show how well off that is.. Let’s stick to Australia only:

A salary of $150K/year is around 105K AFTER TAX. That’s $8,750/month or $2020/week AFTER TAX or $287/day if you need to go that far down.

According to most recent ABS stats on average weekly earnings Public & Private sector

So the $150K salary is 2.26 times the average before tax.
If we make it completely skewed: $2020/week after tax is still multiples of the before tax rates that mere average people earn.
So even with just stephen working and his wife earning nothing: his household income is still 2.26 times that of a household with just one average earner. There’s that .26 hanging around as a nice buffer as well, so he could hire someone on an average wage for a quarter of the working week to just hang around the house and it’d still be as if the house had two average earners in the house.
So $150K is not a bad household income, there’s little need for complaining about “missing out”.

Glass houses and all that..
I’ll take a moment to be clear that I’m not intending to give the misleading impression I’m on a low income by comparing these. I could, quite rightly, be one of the low income people in the country that are having a genuinely tough time. Stuck in poorly paid jobs or unemployment/underemployment.
But I’m not one of those people and I’m well aware of my stable job, good wage, literate, tertiary educated, no debt, high savings, no kids, quick commute, no mortgage existence in a safe, modern, civilised country called Australia. I do things like volunteer to teach kids and donate to charity because I’m in that nice stable position where I can afford to do so. Someone actually struggling to afford to eat and the like is the type of person who really needs access to govt assistance, but not me and not people like Stephen (who I think tried slyly to dismiss his high paying job as some sort of charity effort he was doing for the developing world rather than the reality of a well paying IT job that is most likely something to do with outsourcing so that a company can do away with hiring as many people in Australia).

I’m complaining about people in a comfortably high wage bracket (like me) who really are in no state of “struggle” other than that which they manufacture out of greed and desire to keep up with the neighbours. I might think I had an expensive weekend because I went out drinking or to an expensive dinner a few times. I don’t for an instant look to the govt to make up my drinking money shortfall: it did plenty in supplying me with the stable environment in which to get educated and grow up healthy (yes, mum and dad probably had a teeny bit to do with that too). I don’t look to the govt to pay my rent in the same way these people seem to want the govt to pony up money for their mortgage payments or new car loan.

Unlike these greedy insatiable sods I am very aware that I did grow up in a great country with great education, health, incredibly high quality of life, extremely high literary rate, safetynets etc that makes us VERY fortunate. So fortunate that even with paying a wheelbarrow of tax and without getting lump sums thrown at me: I seem to be doing ok. Perhaps I’m just not rich enough to be struggling like BHP and Gina Rinehart who seem perpetually about to shut up shop forever if they paid anywhere near my tax rate. Gina: I’ve also read Ayn Rand and she’s wrong: selfishness is not a virtue unless you’re a sociopath.

One needs assistance, the other is probably ok

There’s no need for me to pursue a selfish desire to get as much raw cash handout from the tax system as possible as I think the churches and billionaires do enough of that for all of us.

Solution for the Plasma Proletariat
I have a solution for these poor downtrodden over-mortgaged upper class welfare struggle street proles: charity. They should be used to the concept from a receiving end as they hold their moisturised hands out for a slice of the tax cake (that’s after the First Home Owner’s Grant rort, baby bonuses, Ruddmoney and so on on top of everything else in society).
Stephen or anyone else for that matter is free to donate to charity to reduce his taxable income, but like taxation, charity requires thinking of more than just yourself and your family.
If you get a pay rise (heavens!) that bumps you over $150K and you’d rather not pay your own way but rather rort an unnecessary handout: just give the excess away to a charity like Oxfam or perhaps the Red Cross can heal their bleeding hearts.

Although anyone that blinded by a desire to grab at govt handouts should probably donate to Fred Hollows.

Perhaps this whole $150K freeze will remove the barrier that was forcing these people to turn down any pay rises that would have pushed them over the $150K limit.
*PHEW*
What a relief huh?

Dear Prime Minister Gillard,

Currently you have taken away parents’ and kids’ choice of a secular education by violating our secular constitution and funding the establishment of Christianity in schools.

Preachers preach, teachers teach.
If Chaplains are not there to preach/proselytise or convert (as they themselves have admitted in the past.. see: here for how they defined it and recent comments by the head of one of the organisations that hire almost all Chaplains in Victoria): then why are they religious?
If they are not there (or qualified) to counsel kids then why are they boasting about saving lives and saving suicidal kids?

Would you hire on the cheap?
If a lack of qualified counsellors is the problem: then I suggest you fund more of them. Would you advocate funding Chaplains with a first aid course to fill a gap in brain surgeon skills? Absolutely not. Would you fund Chaplains that know how to turn on a laptop if you found the NBN’s technical staff hiring was a bit hard to find? No. So why risk it with our children.

Religion less and less relevant to more and more people
At a time when church attendance is as low as it has ever been and dropping, when “No Religion” is the fastest growing category and when protecting secular institutions is of paramount importance for a society based concepts of not only on freedom of religion but freedom of religion: why on Earth are you trying to buy votes from religious fundamentalists like the Australian Christian Lobby.

Vocal religious lobby groups protecting their taxpayer handouts
I’m sure your inbox is under assault from a lobbying effort by Scripture Union Qld Chaplains that you for some strange reason decided to give another $222m to in the last budget.

Money wasted
I’d point out that the money could have been spent on many more useful things, like qualified counsellors or more teachers in public schools for instance. Or just general increase in public education funding (as a large chunk of the money for chaplains is going to fund proselytising in private religious schools for some reason.. making it yet another drain on the public purse to fund private education)..

No ability to opt out
You have given parents no opportunity to opt out and the NSCP Chaplains are proselytising by stealth in a number of documented cases (most recently on the 730 report). If there have not been widespread complaints: it is likely because (as I found) complaints go missing (e.g. the official NSCP complaint inbox lost one of mine and Scripture Union Qld didn’t bother answering a question about a predatory chaplain that they had hired who appeared to be grooming a child).

Ban chaplains from schools
This program needs to stop. You need to listen to the people saying the program is not suitable for our schools and not let their voices be drowned out by religious lobby groups who already send their kids to private religious schools.
Let the schools spend the money on real counsellors and real staff not these missionaries in schools with a promise to spread the word of Jesus as far as possible.

Please restore our schools to their secular former selves
If people want religious education then they have that option. Where does a parent go if they want an education that does not include the risk of religious indoctrination.
You have followed Howard’s lead and taken away secular free public education for many to replace it with on-site proselytising/amateur counsellor filled schools.

It is a horrible thing to have done, particularly given the dire funding situation for public health and I hope you will come to your senses.

regards,
Nathan Lee

Note: if you would like to donate to the High Court challenge underway you can do so via here or here.

My response:

Dear NRMA,
Your promise to “seek assurances from the Australian Government that the Carbon Tax would not force up the cost of fuel” is absolutely ridiculous! I’m a member and I strongly object to any attempt by the NRMA to campaign against what will be a minuscule rise in petrol prices. You are also ignorant of the current proposal to more than adequately compensate low income earners for any increase caused by such a price on CO2 emissions. For you to ignore this and insist that petrol prices remain the same is attempting to negate any benefit of such a policy.

I didn’t see the survey to take part in it, but rest assured if you do go down this path you will not get another year of membership out of me. I don’t want to belong to and fund any organisation that digs in on climate action, I’ve got a reliable enough vehicle that I don’t need your services.

Where was the NRMA voicing its concern on the gulf war when it resulted in a massive increase in petrol prices? The whole idea of a price on emissions is to drive (no pun intended) people toward less polluting ways.. How does that happen if you succeed and the CO2 price is matched by a reduction in other taxes. The poor/low income earners will be compensated, so you’re going in to bat for people who can well afford any small increase in petrol prices.

How about you lobby the petrol companies as they seem to have forgotten that our dollar is up and that the hikes they jacked up during the last instability in oil prices seem to have stayed high.

The NRMA should be exercising some social conscience and supporting the price on CO2 emissions, something which excessive car use and failure to invest in public transport, electric cars etc.

Arguing that price at the petrol pump is the only thing that matters is the trademark of a sociopath. It’d be like going back a few decades and arguing that removing lead from petrol was too expensive and that kids getting lead poisoning wasn’t an important factor. Transport emissions are a significant slice of the overall green house emissions and you are arguing that they be ignored.

A bit of advice: take your feigned outrage over a tiny rise in petrol prices and instead use your lobbying effort to campaign for charging stations, commitment to electric vehicle research and roll out.

To argue for the govt to make sure it reduces tax by exactly the same amount that the CO2 price puts on is missing the whole point. Yes, it will cost more, that’s so that people reduce their emissions to keep their costs down. Low income earners will be compensated, so you aren’t doing this for poor people who can’t afford it.

Perhaps spend the time to look at what you’re asking and to consider the environment a bit more. You seem to be pushing for some good quality greener outcomes elsewhere, so just try a bit of consistency. The CO2 price/tax/whatever rise is nothing compared to the middle eastern oil price rises.
If we can get on to electric: we can rely on Australian sunshine rather than scamming oil company petrol prices.

regards,
Nathan Lee

I would urge other members to tell NRMA what you think of their attempts to sabotage action on climate change in this way. Reduction in emissions from driving would also reduce a slew of other pollution that our obsession with cars has given us. We need to move to electric cars, widespread public transport (filling existing black hole areas and people getting out of cars) and fund renewable energy. The NRMA demanding petrol be taken out of the equation is not helping any of that.

Funnily enough though I have something that clarifies what this organisation means by “evangelise”.

But we aren’t preaching

We’ve had the promise made that ”We are not there to preach to them, we are just there to teach them and give them facts”. I’ve talked to religious people and their definition of “fact” is rather different from normal requirements for proof. e.g. I was discussing with an SRE scripture teacher only last week and he was talking of the “historic fact of Jesus calming a lake”. That’s why they are a poor choice for religious education because speaking with such certainties is indoctrination, not education.

But on with the trip down memory lane to when Access Ministries was CCES and a peek at their core values.

Core values – conversion..  I mean.. evangelising.. Yes. Evangelising!

Access Minstries have a core values page up today which has the following:

ACCESS ministries affirms:
its faith in God, as One-in-Three-Persons, whose redemptive purpose for the world is revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ
that the Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed in word and deed the presence of the Kingdom of God through mission and evangelism—a calling of people to repentance and a declaration of God’s love in practical ministry to others by enabling reconciliation, peace, wholeness and justice

Access Ministries statement of belief today

But if, via the magical powers that be I take a look back in time to when the organisation was called CCES, here’s that same couple of bits from 2001 at least:

The CCES affirms its faith in God, as One-in-Three-Persons, whose redemptive purpose for the world is revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ.
The CCES affirms that the Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed in word and deed the presence of the Kingdom of God through mission and evangelism – a calling of people to repentance (conversion) and a declaration of God’s love in practical ministry to others by enabling reconciliation, peace, wholeness and justice.

CCES's clear definition.

What’s the difference?

I’ll use my nerd skills and show you the complete two bits of text via a “diff” tool and a bit of ugly purple underlining. I’ve added a couple of full stops and changed a dash in order to eliminate the noise, but these are their texts.

Pretty much identical.. Oh, except they edited out a crucial word clarifying what "evangelising" means.

There’s a few changes in how they worded it, an apostrophe change, “her/his” vs “his or her” (I guess couldn’t have women being mentioned first?) and the name change of the organisation.

Oh I almost forgot: there’s the word “conversion” in brackets in the sentence about what evangelism is in order to clarify what this means if people don’t know what the word “evangelise” means. As an aside I love it when religious people throw in stuff in brackets in their texts, like Qur’an 4:34 where by men are informed they can beat their wives which some people realised was bad and inserted (lightly)  as in “(lightly) beat them”.

So when we hear religious types defending the program as being “evangelising rather than proselytising” we now know they mean EXACTLY the same thing: converting souls.. Access Ministries clarified that for us before they did a quick editing job on their core values.

Somewhere between 2001 and today we either had a redefinition of a core value of an organisation or else someone thought it was better if they had another word they could fall back on that meant the same thing, but which was defined on the website with absolute clarity.

Well Access Ministries: we’re on to your stupid word games, thanks for more evidence you’re out to convert all the kids you can like all the other monopoly Christian chaplaincy groups elsewhere in the country. This NSCP program has to stop and secular education needs to be restored.

Here’s some things the recent funding expansion could have been spent on that don’t violate parental right to a free, secular education in our public schools.

Qualified (Real) School Counsellors

Apparently the reason we need chaplains is because we don’t have enough counsellors to go round. Well, in 2010, across Australia, there were 6,743 government schools and as far as I can see from the salary figures for Australian school counsellors that would get us 3083 school counsellors or 2658 senior counsellors.
Let me do the division: that would be around 1 new counsellor to every 2 schools. Just the new counsellors alone would be a 1 to 751 ratio. If you look at the figures for 2008 ratios they’re:

• ACT 1: 850 (1 Assistant Manager, 5 Senior Counsellors, 45 FTE positions for School Counsellors)
• NSW 1 : 1,050 (678 Counsellors 113 DGOs 1 PEOs ie 1 per region across the state)
• NT: 1:2500 when all positions are full  (19 School Counsellors, 2 Senior. School Psychologists, 8 School Psychologists – however, rarely are all positions filled)
• Qld: 1:1,300 in secondary schools (about 350 combined GO and SGO positions)
• SA: 1:3779 for GO,  1:1944 for ECP (GO – 43.4 FTE in the field in 2008, with 3.1 FTE in specialist positions. ECP – 8.9 FTE in the field)
• Tas: 1 :1,800 (36 school psychologists, 8 senior school psychologists)
• WA: 1:1200 to 1:2000
• VIC: no data.

So you can see that those numbers are all blown out of the water (in a good way) if the money had gone to that. Of course the money could go toward the Northern Territory’s problem with hiring staff or to address the states with most urgent need. Or, hell, it could just go to paying the existing ones better pay so more staff are easily found and retained. For a government supposedly concerned about mental health it would surely make sense to hire qualified counsellors with that money rather than preachers who are only really there for a small percentage of the kids who are genuinely religious enough to need to talk to a religious ear.. and even then: only for certain types of advice (e.g. “I think I like my best friend in a sexual way” might not go down too well with an evangelist who thinks gays are sinful or unnatural).

Teachers

Despite Access Ministries actively trying to turn kids against teachers and toward Chaplains via propaganda teachers are the lifeblood of the school and are the real educators.

Teacher ratios in public schools are a problem thanks to the decade or so of the Liberal government under Howard systematically dismantling public education in favour of private education. You remember that right? Back when Abbott was just a RU486 hoarding health minister who couldn’t separate his faith from his ministerial responsibility.

Anyhow, $222m of wasted chaplaincy money could pay for 2220 teachers on a pretty healthy old $100k a year. Or let’s say we pay for a bunch of teachers on $70k, that would get public schools an extra 3,171 teachers.

As of 2010′s ABS figures there are 183,725 teachers.

So we could give them all a $1200 bonus for putting up with the less than desirable funding arrangement that neglects them in favour of funding for extra indoor swimming pools for private schools.

Renewable Energy for Schools

I’ve talked in the past about my view that government buildings should all have solar installations on the roof.

Divided amongst all the schools you could prepare a “renewable energy for schools” programme which would be a lump sum payment of $33k to purchase solar panels for the rooftops of the new school halls. This would help in many ways: it would reduce the electricity bill.

Solar panels could be on school halls

According to Origin energy’s FAQ a 1.5kW system starts at $4k. So let’s say $1k worth of extra cost. So every school could be a 9-10kW solar installation.

So that’s 6743x10kW = 67430kW = 6.7 MW distributed power station. Sure the real yield would be lower that that and you only generate for X hours per day.. But it’s a definite start toward freeing us from fossil fuel dependency.

School Gardens

Instead of learning the “historic fact” from a Christian Chaplain about how all of mankind was forever cursed and kicked out of the garden of Eden each school could get a $33k grant toward creating and maintaining a school garden. The garden could be used to encourage healthy eating or used as an ongoing fund raising device. The added advantage would be education going home via the kids as to what is actually in season, leading to better choices at the super market. With $33K you’d be able to do some serious gardening.

Simply planting some trees might also be a good use of the funding which would offset some of the emissions for heating/cooling the school.

Meals

The money could be used to supply a free apple or orange to every kid in the public school system every day for 20 weeks.

Apples for the students instead! No stories about snakes and gardens needed.

Or perhaps a decent sized fruit salad for half that time.

That’d surely help with the obesity rates and encourage healthy eating.

Books or Technology

Public schools, having to make do with giving away 2/3 of the federal funding to private schools, are lagging behind in adoption of technology like smart boards and computing facilities.  Schools could have $95 worth of extra spend per student on books or technology. So for every 10 students you could fund a laptop. So that’s two extra computers for every classroom. For a small school of 200 students that would be a computer lab. For every 50 students you could have a brand new smart board put into a classroom.

For the price of funding one god fearing chaplain at a school (at $20k of tax dollars) you could give an entire classroom of 20 kids a set of laptops for the year.

If you wanted to splash cash around you could pay a commercial IT consultant, Engineer or Scientist to come in once a week at consulting rates for 20-30 weeks to teach kids about technology rather than bronze age mythology. Which type of inspiration is likely to lead to a career that isn’t complete nonsense and sponging off Govt public schools violating our (supposed to be) secular education system?

Could hire a bunch of roaming consultants to educate the teachers in the technology they have as I know first hand just how little assistance teachers are given. Hell, I was the school technology expert all the way through my schooling from about year 3 onwards (I used to get called up from class in primary school by the high-school teachers to go help fix the clunky Microbee network). Although that was a useful life skill, I now do that with enterprise integration architecture problems.

Disadvantaged students

There are lots of kids in financial, emotional, physical or other disadvantage. I don’t have figures for these, but I guess I’ve touched on the special schools funding.

Let’s assume we can assist students via hiring people at $25/hour (minimum wage is lower, but let’s not be cheap with our chappy cash bonanza). That would pay for 1,184,000 days of paid helper time. So spread over the schools that would be 175 extra days per school, or 35 extra working weeks of hiring someone to come in. So spread that over a few part time people and you’ve got yourself a magic amount of extra assistance with reading, writing etc.

To give you the background: many public schools rely on volunteers currently. Now wouldn’t it be great to pay those people? If we paid $18-20/hour we’d get even more time out of people. Those people would not be there to convert by stealth, preach about nonsense (or in one instance at least of a chaplain grooming children).. No, they’re there to help without preaching.

This would also be a benefit to give people a good part time source of income, particularly mothers/fathers who have their kids at the school and who aren’t working elsewhere.

What else?

What else could the money have gone to that’s school/education related?

Here’s his blog on the matter. He assures his readers that:

The allegations gaining the media coverage are that Chaplains in schools are proselytising. That’s a word you don’t hear very often and it means to try to convert somebody to a religious faith or political doctrine. I can assure our school community that I have never had feedback regarding our Chaplain proselytising.

Perhaps, like any properly performed proselytisation they simply aren’t aware of it and trust that the education department, like when they were at school, is secular and has proper checks and balances in place to prevent it. That clearly isn’t the case if a recent Radio national program on it (transcript here) is anything to go by.

The principal goes on to say:

I am a strong advocate for Chaplaincy and just as strong in my belief that Chaplains must not proselytise or make any judgements about other people’s religious beliefs.

I’m sure he is, he’s had chaplains at the last school and now at this one. Could it be that he is a pathway for Access Ministries into schools? Who needs Chaplains to do the spreading the word if the principals are doing it for Access Ministries?

Regardless, I’ve given him feedback (on the 18th) on an example of proselytising via a comment on his blog (that’s still awaiting moderation on the 21st). How did I find the information? I just looked at a couple of the school newsletters. How many other such things go on without making it into the newsletter?

My reply:

So there’s no proselytising huh? I can straight away show you that there has been religious promotion (in addition to hiring a chaplain):
How about the visit to the school from a Christian Radio station mentioned in the newsletter (1/4/11). Was that organised by the chaplain’s study group member by any chance? Were parents made aware that an evangelical Christian radio station would be coming into the grounds and would be bribing kids with handouts to spread the word of the lord?

89.9 LIGHT FM VISIT
Following an invitation from one of our Year 6 students, Iris Kennedy, 89.9 LightFM came to visit our school on Wednesday morning before school.
There was great excitement as they handed out free ‘Up and Go’ drinks, bags of fresh fruit, single serves of preserved fruit and stickers. Well done Iris and 89.9 LightFM.”

I suppose the stickers were not promoting religion at all huh? And I suppose the student didn’t at all get the idea from sessions with the Chaplain?
Yes, well done 89.9 LightFM: you got an opportunity to preach to all students without parents choosing to opt in.

So how was this announced? Surely it would be made clear that this is a religious group going to be coming in to school grounds.

89.9 LIGHT FM VISIT
Next Monday / Wednesday morning one of Melbourne‘s FM radio stations would like to visit our
school. 89.9 LightFM will be here to hand out stickers and prizes and also do a “live cross” to the school during the breakfast program. They have chosen our school as one of our students emailed them and invited them to come.

No mention of their religious nature so that parents can make an informed decision. No permission slip to participate I’d guess?
So anyhow, that’s just one example of proselytising by stealth that happens when a clear separation isn’t kept between church and the secular education our public system is meant to provide. That’s the problem with having a Chaplain in the first place: there’s no effective way to opt out even if you want to.

So just how many other such things go on. Little visits from church affiliated groups. Courses that are snuck in without mention of their true content? Any of the Hillsong programs by chance (that was reported on the radio as having occurred at other schools)?

I know access ministries runs a course for principals: have you attended that by any chance?

And how exactly do you support the parents who have not opted in to receive Christian Chaplaincy? Or is it automatic opt in and you need to specifically opt out of receiving contact with the Chaplain?

What was the process by which you decided to hire the chaplain in the first place? Was it as thoroughly communicated and considered as the visit from the Christian radio station or one or two vocal Christians? Did you survey the religious makeup of the community? Consider the minority religions?

I’d urge you to reject any future funding and ask for more counsellor time instead. Take the lead from the teachers union and widespread public backlash.

Perhaps a review of the materials the Chaplain is handing out might be in order too. Some material is coming to light that appears to actively try to discourage kids from seeking out help from teachers and only go to chaplains.

The materials I referred to are ones that Mike Stuchbery has brought to light on his blog.

You’ll have to forgive my scepticism that kids (under the instruction of a Chaplain) are entirely self motivated to invite an easy listening evangelical Christian radio station to the school. I guess they were handing out stuff while they sang the message of Jesus to the entire school which is something that the Chaplain has to pretend he isn’t there to do.

Here’s the tweet by the principal, so I’m pretty sure he would have realised the radio was a religious one right?

I suppose a Christian Radio station brought into the school by stealth isn't proselytising?

I wonder whether a Muslim radio station would have been advertised in the newsletter without mentioning the religious affiliation and giving parents a chance to opt in or out (and let’s be clear: people should never have to opt out with religion in public schools, that should be assumed and explicit opt in required for anything).
Proselytising by stealth is what it is called and it has no place in public secular education.

Ban the chaplains and give parents back the secular education they expect.

Not only are these skygod worshipping quacks completely untrained and unqualified to counsel children (which is a separate matter and not to be confused with this particular “Chappy” and SU Qld’s response to that): they are almost exclusively all employed by one organisation: Scripture Union and almost exclusively Christian (98% or so).

Oh yes, let this guy empart his wisdom to our children on causes of floods

This organisation has the following mission:

Aims:
As a worldwide organisation working with the churches, SU aims:

* to make God’s Good News known to children, young people and families

to encourage people of all ages to meet God daily through the Bible and prayer,so that they may:

* come to personal faith in our Lord Jesus Christ
* grow in Christian maturity, and
* become both committed church members and servants of a world in need.

Now what sort of organisation is SU Qld then in addition to being a blatantly evangelical mob who are leaching off hundreds of millions of tax dollars?

Example of spreading the word..

Well, they’re the type that doesn’t care too much if it employs child predators it seems. Apparently if they’re a Scripture Union Chaplain trying to seduce a 12 year old boy over msn it’ll do what Churches have always done with child predators: wait a while for the fuss to die down and shuffle them on to the next place. You know how it works: if you are truly sorry and ask Jesus for forgiveness then it’s ok right?

From the articles we learn about Chappy Jocelyn Hook:

The female chaplain of Golden Beach State School has today been removed from her job over her suggestive online chats with a 12-year-old boy.

Jocelyn Hook’s employer, Scripture Union Queensland, announced this afternoon that the married mother of three would not be allowed to work at any school “for the time being”.

Ok, so it’s “for the time being” then huh? What exactly did she do pray tell? *cough*

The move followed revelations by the Daily about the chaplain’s behaviour, in which the father of the boy said he was disgusted that Mrs Hook had kept job despite the SU ruling she had behaved inappropriately.

“We have decided to remove Jocelyn Hook from school chaplaincy duties,” SU chief executive Tim Mander said.

“The recent publicity and the publication of her name, her photo and the name of her school has made her chaplaincy role untenable at this time.”

Again the “at this time” type comment. Hmm.. Smacks of EVERY COVER UP the various churches have carried out over the years!

It's ok, "after a time" you can shift them on to somewhere else.

So what about the father who discovered this dodgy behaviour:

The father of the boy, now 13, said his son eventually became uncomfortable with some of Mrs Hook’s online comments, contained in dozens of logs between September 21 and December 30 last year, only to be told: “Trust me, I’m the chaplain.”

and

The father is disgusted over Scripture Union’s contention that Mrs Hook’s behaviour was improper but not predatory and, as such, less worrying.

“I do wonder if this would be brushed off with such a limp wristed answer if the chaplain had been male and he’d been talking to my 12 year old daughter,” he said.

The MSN Conversations of Chappy Joce
And the dodgy MSN conversations, so you be the judge of whether this was a text book case of grooming, or as SU Qld asserts:”The investigation found that although the chaplain’s behaviour was inappropriate, her behaviour was not predatory in nature”.
I currently teach Primary Ethics to kids aged 10-12 and no way on Earth would I (or any other sane adult) be:

• chatting with 12 year old students over msn without parental approval and a damned good reason to do so (I can’t really think of any)
• discussing “hickeys” and then inviting over for a swim
• inviting other people’s kids over for a swim (full stop!) and then offering rewards

These chats read like something directly out of the course all Primary Ethics teachers have to do on “Shining the light on Child abuse” except the scenario is not the dodgy uncle, but a dodgy Chaplain.

You take a look..

Excerpts of MSN exchanges last year between Golden Beach State School chaplain Jocelyn Hook and the then 12-year-old boy.

Mrs Hook’s user name is “Chappy Joce” or “Joce”.

September 28 (messages relate to a date the boy went on)

(2.50pm) Chappy Joce: So… got pash rash!

(2.50pm: BOY: wut?

(2.50pm) BOY: u got a pash rash?

(2.51pm) Chappy Joce: No you do

(2.51pm) BOY: no i dont

(2.51pm) Chappy Joce: Sure I bet u do.

September 29

(10.00am) Chappy Joce: wondered if you were hiding any hickeys

(10.00am) BOY: what?

(10.01am) Chappy Joce: bet u dont know what a hickey is hey… must be gettin old

(10.01am) BOY: i dont kno what a hickey is at all.

(10.02am) BOY: do i want to kno what they are?

(10.02am) Chappy Joce: love bit

(10.02am) Chappy Joce: you know… big read sucky mark on your neck?

(10.46am) Chappy Joce: wanna come over for a swim today?

(10.46am) BOY: umm… not really.

(10.47am) Chappy Joce: fine then!

(10:48am) Chappy Joce: i will let you use my pink laptop and msn

(10.48am) BOY:…

(10.48am) Chappy Joce: if you can’t bear to be away from melissa for that long

(11.27am) BOY: i dont wanna swim, so mum says i hav to stay home

(11.28am) Chappy Joce: just that chattin with melissa is more important! oh well u r a big boy and can take care of yourself

(11.28am) BOY: lmao (laughing my ar.. off)

(11.28am) Chappy Joce: behave… no dancing naked on web cam

(11.28am) Chappy Joce: hehe

(11.28am) BOY: i dont hav a webcam..i dont like them

December 30

(7.49pm) BOY: ? ill have a look thru the list of games on wikipedia

(7.49pm) Joce: crash of the titans

(7.49pm) BOY: ah yeah

(7.50pm) Joce: spank u… i mean thank you

(8.23pm) BOY: mums about to go to ur place now

(8:23pm) Joce: ok thx i better put some clothes on then lol

(8.24pm) BOY: lmao dnn2k (did not need to know)

(8:24 PM) Joce: dnn2k huh

(8:24 PM) BOY: do not need to know

Hrm..

Background: Powerbalance and the stupid morons it brings to my website

You may have read my earlier two posts on Power balance: the first on Fake powerband scam? Power balance is Snake oil in bracelet form and the second on How to spot a fake power balance bracelet.

Powerbalance "performance"

I have a lot of hits of people utterly convinced the things work, reckon I’m stupid for doubting it.. But for some reason they have arrived via google searches worried they might have a fake one that doesn’t work (yeah, I know: they aren’t very bright..). Queries like:

• how do you tell if a powerband bracelet is fake or not?
• real vs fake power balance
• fake power balance
• power balance bracelet scam

etc

The curse of stupidity: power balance

I was even resorting to offering firstly a $1,000 and then $5,000 bet that Power balance would not do anything beyond a placebo in a proper scientific double blind test. The details were that if I won I would donate the money to charity (so I could in no way personally profit from the venture). Unsurprisingly when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is: they suddenly disappear.

The ACCC spanking

Here’s what the ACCC released:

Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd (Power Balance) claimed that their wristbands and pendants improve balance, strength and flexibility and worked positively with the body’s natural engergy field. It also marketed its products with the slogan “Performance Technology”. These claims made by Power Balance were not supported by any credible scientific evidence and therefore Power Balance has admitted that it has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of s 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

So I presume that this information will be known to Power balance head office in the USA (and thus on to other countries). So I think that means that they are actively misleading the rest of the world. Can someone please get a class action lawsuit in the USA on these chumps ASAP.

Wait for the best bits which are the conditions placed upon Power balance:

To address the ACCC’s concerns, Power Balance has undertaken that it will:

• not make any claims about its products that are not supported by a written report from an independent testing body that meets certain standards;
• offer a refund to consumers who feel they have been misled;
• publish corrective advertising to prevent consumers from being misled in the future;
• amend the Australian website to remove any misleading representations;
• remove the words ‘performance technology’ from the brand itself; and
• implement a compliance program.

Time to update the Power balance website
So here’s how their website should have looked:

How I would do the powerbalance page if it had to be truthful.

Instead of this page they always had a “coming soon” type page on the Australian one. If nothing else it’ll cost them to remove their “performance technology” from their product. Good.
I think they should also have to fix all international pages because what do people do if the page is not there: they search on the USA/overseas sites.
Hey, maybe there’s hope for them in RMIT’s double blind scientific tests of holographic power bands.

My report to the ACCC’s SCAMWatch website
Here’s the report I lodged some months ago, I hope it was instrumental in bringing power balance to the ACCC’s attention. I’m glad they paid attention to my comment about the “technology” bit of their slogan.

Confirmation

Top of Form
The ACCC appreciates the time you have taken to report this scam. The ACCC receives many reports of scams. This information greatly assists us to monitor scam trends and take action where appropriate. A record of your report will be kept and if any further information is required, you may be contacted by ACCC staff. If you want advice about how to deal with a scam, please review the information on this website. You may also wish to contact the SCAMwatch Information Line on 1300 795 995.

You submitted the following:
Scamwatch complaint lodged by Mr Nathan Lee

Complainant details
Name:Mr Nathan Lee
*snip snip*chopped out some stuff*snip snip*
How did the scammer contact you?Internet
Details of the scammer (business, company, group or individual)
Name:Powerbalance LLC
Street address:Unit 2, 173 Salmon St.
Suburb / Town:Port Melbourne
State:Vic
Country:Australia
Postcode:3207
Phone number:+61 3 96467249
Email:
URL: http://www.powerbalance.com
ABN:
ACN:
Other names:
What type of scam was it?
Health & medical (including weight-loss, miracle cures)
What problems did you experience?

* Misleading or deceptive information about the product/service/business
* Overpriced or sub-standard goods
* Too good to be true

Money
Did you pay / transfer / lose money to the scammer? false

Briefly describe the scam (including any information not covered by the questions above):

Claims which have been tested on national TV and found to be false. Product is a placebo, sold for an exorbitant price. Calling a rubber band and sticker “technology” is crazy. Makes claims like “optimizing the body’s natural energy flow”,improve “core strength” and have no basis for these claims.
Bottom of Form

One holoscam down.. An awful lot still to go.

Update: Oh, but if you want a hologram bracelet infused with truthishness rather than scamishness: try the placebo bands from the skeptic bros. Unlike all these other garbage products: this one is actually honest and goes to charity if there are any profits left over from the $2 sale price!

Update: Here’s the Ad from powerbalance:

Power balance admits they are a scam.

Would anyone claim it is a “tricky issue” or “tradition” that black people shouldn’t marry whites? Or would that simply be racist?

Citing tradition, religion or the status quo (as politicians, religious leaders do) doesn’t somehow excuse you from common decency.

Parallels..

If you don’t like gay marriage then it is simple: don’t get gay married or stay at home if invited (you may miss some rather extravagant gay weddings). Don’t for an instant think that supporting a ban is any more acceptable than wanting a ban on mixed race weddings (which I’m sure had another set of unenlightened people in the past crying about the decline of society and death of morality).

You don’t choose your skin colour at birth, nor do you choose your sexuality (when did you decide to be straight?).

You can however choose to continue to be ignorant, prejudiced, racist or homophobic.

(A letter the smh didn’t publish.. Guess pointing out that racism and homophobia are identical was too “out there” for ‘em).

The boys even got to rock-nerd it up (geologists). Was fairly well roasted and a little bit sunburnt on the neck by the time the day was done. Think future trips over the summer will be down south as far as can go.. The several kilometre hike in motorcycle leathers was interesting though.

• Exemption to the anti discrimination laws so that Churches could take stone age prejudice into the modern world (can’t have gays or unwed mothers working near Christians: it’d be harder to demonise them if they actually knew some)
• Increased Govt funding of public school chaplains (to the tune of $400m+ rather than spending money on qualified counsellors, an action labelled as “dangerous” by the Australian psychological group)
• removing (or maintaining the lack of) a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion
• no progress on euthanasia laws (after all, if people are suffering then it is god’s will, right?)
• creationism to be taught in schools (see their comment on the national curriculum here)

The ACL's campaign issues bear remarkable similarity..

In fact, if it is a progression towards a more equal or compassionate society: these clowns are against it. If it is a step towards a Christian Taliban style government where every outdated, barbaric garbage law from the bible is blindly enforced by law: then they’re for it. Their version of religious freedom means “massive government legal and funding bias toward Christianity”.

A Secular, compassionate democracy (consistent with say our constitution!) isn’t high on their to-do list.

So here’s my suggestion for their prayer for the Victorian election on their page:

Nathan says:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

14 November 2010 at 10:09 pm

So I hope you’ll be praying for fairness and equality for all people, (not just straight couples) lest more gay people get persecuted/driven to suicide. It’d be fantastic to see a call from good Christians to deliver fairness in the marriage laws extended to all men and women.

And for the environment as a moral duty to future generations..

And for politicians to launch an enquiry into the paedophiles that the church has continually covered up lest more people have their lives ruined by this organised campaign of deceit..

And perhaps also spare a prayer for a proper secular separation of church and state (e.g. religions pay taxes and contribute back to the rest of society via the tax system).. As freedom of religion can only exist if there’s no funding of religions by govt.

Look forward to seeing those sentiments included in your prayers, I hope the uglier aspects of Christian lobbying are shunned in favour of these more compassionate views.

Or you can censor my views.. Whichever sits best with your conscience.

What chance is there they’ll go that way? It’d probably take a miracle (and they can’t even rustle up anything remotely convincing for Mary Mackillop’s miracle).

If Jesus existed he seemed pretty accepting of people, it’s self proclaimed Christians who seem to be known for their lack of acceptance, misogyny etc.You know what Jesus said about banning gay marriage: nothing. What he said about forcing old terminally ill people to suffer no matter whether they want to die or not? Nothing.  But here we have people claiming to be Christians and making these things their key issues..

Jesus disagrees with the ACL

Perhaps I should say a prayer that they see sense on their prejudiced ways.. Perhaps be a bit less like bigoted scum-bags and more like their spiritual leader supposedly was.

As a side issue I’ve recently become a member of the Secular party of Australia because of the need to focus on separation of church and state (or lack thereof). Especially when we came close to electing candidates unlikely to respect that separation as well as deny science in general.

Climate change denier and creationist. God help us if Abbott gets in.

I really wish Abbott hadn’t back stabbed Malcolm Turnbull out of the Liberal hot spot. He’s at least got half a brain more than Abbott and was prepared to take a stand for the environment (before the liberal party bribepolitical donation companies got their claws into him). If elected he’ll be our version of George Bush: ignorant, smarmy, religious as anything and completely unsuitable for the top job. He couldn’t keep his religion out of the Health ministerial workings imagine how things will regress with him in the PM seat.

Abbott was so bad as health minister I wrote to John Howard suggesting he should be sacked.

Although I’d prefer the Greens to get a bit more of a say (to make up for Labor’s back-down on taxing carbon and capitulation to mining interests) or perhaps a wild-card like the secular party to reel back in the massive bribery/infection of church into state. But for no other reasons than the National Broadband Network (NBN) and the GFC recession free status of Australia (unique in the developed nations) Labor should get another round. It seems the dummies are hung up on Rudd’s disposal and yes, it was rough, but let’s look at policy instead. The situation is as it is: both leaders trampled the guy before them. Deal with it.. Who stabbed who in the back is kinda expected since the “Et tu, Brute?” story has political origins.

Et Tu Brute...

Anyhow, if Abbott gets in all this talk about stopping the boats won’t be important. If Abbott wins the NZ PM had better get a boat phone system in place because hoards of Aussies will be paddling their way to New Zealand strapped to anything that can float!

Here’s some pics with commentary from their current trip to the Simpson desert.. They should rent their “skills” for drought breaking as they have had the same situation 35-40 years ago in the same areas of Australia with widespread flooding. Combine with my abilities in my month of leave between last job and current one: you’ve got an unbeatable rain producing family. Sister I wouldn’t know: will tell you when she actually takes a holiday.

This trip is in one of their growing number of travelling Adventure vehicles: An Australian made OKA off road beast of a 4WD with Dad’s many conversions and improvements (e.g. solar cells, living area improvements etc).

Anyhow, on with the show. So note: this is “proper outback” none of that hug the coastal bitumen crap the rest of us call a trip out of the city. This is The Simpson desert. There’s mention of “big red”, so to explain: it’s a monster sand dune that kicks off the journey. Here’s an article talking about a motorcyclist getting up it.

Anyhow everything is looking a little greener than usual, but here’s my old man’s “guest” (well I didn’t bother asking) commentary (click on the pics to get a bigger view):

Simpson Desert – August 2010

Not easy to find anything resembling a desert. To even get to the first dune – called Big Red, but according to serious sand drivers, not very big at all – required a bumpy long detour around a long lake lying up against the dune.

Simpson - Near Big Red

I forget how many dunes there are between Birdsville on the Eastern edge and Dalhousie Springs on the western fringe, but it is a lot – and so far the view from the top of each one has been different enough to keep the drive interesting.

Simpson - 1000 dunes to go

Not the sort of setting I expected for our first night on the trail. Eyre Creek – flowing, with lots of small fish and heaps and heaps of bird-life. We stayed for two nights.

Simpson - Eyre Creek Camp

Where is the desert we came to see? Hard to see the sand for the wildflowers. The red dunes set them off perfectly.

Simpson - Flowers

The OKA is remarkably capable of getting up the steepest dunes with a minimum of fuss despite all the axle-hopping dig-ins left by the pretend off-roaders, but there were a few that had the top couple of metres covered with dry wind-blown sand and a couple of times I got a bit complacent and had to back up a couple of metres before revving things up a bit.

Simpson - OKA nearly at the top

As always happens, there are always plenty of spectators to see the mistakes.

Simpson - Spectator Galahs

Not always plain sailing. The angle of the tray relative to the cab is not a design feature. Apparently they are taking it with good grace and humour but you could imagine the worry at every bump. Been driving like that for several days.

Simpson - Vehicle with bent chassis

And some more flowers. Shows the biggest and showiest and there are dozens of smaller ones just as spectacular once you get close.

Simpson Wildflowers - Poepple's Corner

And the account of the OKA’s 4WD capabilities.

The @##%$$^ rig very nearly ended up a smouldering heap half-way up the first dune.
Stopped for a coffee half way around the lake detour and let the tyres down a bit and also put it into low range 4WD
I was VERY confident about the capabilities so when I arrived at Little Red and saw the toys hooning up the sand with the tyres at 18psi and with their turbochargers on the point of disintegrating, I figured I would show them how it is done – so I decided to leave the tyres at 35psi (and made sure those at the starting gate knew just in case I fell flat on my bum) and headed up the slope in second low range at just above idle. Got about 5 metres on to the sand and ‘failed to proceed’. Bugger!!

Reversed back, muttered to the assembled smirkers something about too heavy and tyres too much pressure) and let the tires down to 24psi as seems to be pretty standard for OKA owners. Gave it a bit more revs. This time I got about half way up before having to reverse back down.
Damn and !@@W#W$%#%^&*

Of course I got plenty of advice from the experts – let your tyres down to 18, wind her right up and go back through the gears keeping the revs up, leave it in second and flatten it, etc etc.

Tried all of the above and the absolute best I could get was about three metres from the top. Tried about 6 times and things were getting desperate – but the family drinking wine at a table and chairs they brought to the top of the dune had a bit of light entertainment to liven up their afternoon, so I guess it wasn’t a complete loss for everyone.

What a disaster. The trip was over before it started because even if I managed to get over, I mightn’t be able to get back.

Anyway, couple of blokes in utes had said they would pull me over if I wanted but by the time they came up, I had decided to make it on my own with the help of the sand mats. Put a mat behind each back wheel and reversed back on to it. Limited slip diff on the back and normal one on the front, so figured that would get it off to a flying start.
Put it into gear and let out the clutch (gently because the ceramic clutch doesn’t take kindly to any abuse) and what happened? Exactly bloody nothing. Well, something happened of course. Betty reported that the front left wheel was spinning but the rear wheel I could see was just sitting on the mat doing nothing at all. Huh!!! Limited slip diff not limiting? Other blokes said no, neither back wheel is turning. Hmmmmm!

Put it into high range 2WD and it tried to drive off the mat. High range 4WD and same thing happened. Drove off the mat and stalled it.
Back into low range 4WD and the OKA – GREAT vehicle by the way – just ambled up to the top of the hill. Mouth of the ute blokes opened and they said that their vehicles couldn’t do that.

Smiles and HUGE relief all round and the trip was on again.

Still don’t know how it could happen that a transfer case could get just the front shaft driving without the rear shaft but it did happen. Reason I couldn’t get anywhere was because it was in front wheel drive. Guess it says a lot that I was able to get a nearly 6-tonne vehicle almost to the top of the first dune with the two back wheels not driving. When I first moved off after selecting low 4WD on the detour, there was a loud bang. Sounded pretty awful but I figured it was just gears getting into mesh or something and the vehicle moved off OK so my heart rate went down to normal and I didn’t think any more about it.

Anyway, I was so relieved at the outcome that I didn’t bother going down to Big Red to show them how to do it and just headed off into the setting sun – or something like that.

I’ll leave Big Red for next time. Piece of cake!

and bit of one of Mum’s email from the start of the journey.

..
We are now by the banks of the Coopers creek at Innamincka. This is our 3rd visit to this small centre. 1st in the 70s in the Range Rover and camper trailer via Strezleki track when we couldn’t get down the Birdsville track due to wet road conditions. 2nd in the Cessna when we flew in briefly. Seems more evidence of mining as in fuel cost now. Still a very small centre. Tibooburra is bigger. Tibooburra has gold as its attraction initially it seems. You actually have the choice of two food and fuel outlets there.

We went north from T through the Toona Gate and then on to near Epsilon in Qld last night. Tony did his bit for the wildlife at lunchtime yesterday – helped a bull ant get a chunk of salmon home to its nest and then later he pulled a joey out of a new, deep cattle grid just as we were entering the Sturt reserve. We stopped waiting for a ‘roo to get off the grid and then wondered why it wouldn’t go far from it and was raring up on its hind legs looking t us and the grid. T twigged that there might be something in it so he got out. He had to pull the little one out twice because the first time it went straight back over the grid and down again!

Seeing lots of budgies out here. The emus and kangaroos were particularly evident in the park but in NSW as well. In the cattle country this side of the park hardly any. Only seen one lizard so far. The 3 nights 30 kms from WC we heard heaps of frogs in a “lake” nearby. Seeing quite a few white parrots and here at the creek/river there are lots of white water-birds – some with spoonbills getting little fish from the clay-coloured water. Everywhere has had rain and though roads from WC and Tibooburra have opened up there are still heaps closed here. The road we came into town on is very well built as was the road across the top as we came off the Stokes track. That up to and from Toona gate had many bypass sections where the road had served as a marvellous catchment and dam area for the water. There was always evidence of the first(last?) vehicle through when the road was very wet. For kms some unfortunate had a skating time, leaving deep tracks.

Getting warm enough in these parts. Nights are quite cold at times. We have heating and good doonas so no problems.

…

Called in at a geothermal (hot rock) power unit just out of town. Not functional as they had trouble with a blow-out just one week shy of production some time back and now the rain is holding things up a bit. The blow-out cause H2S to corrode the metal it seems. They now predict production in a year or two using a different spot, close by.

So there you go. Sure beats the working caper (though does require a lifetime of working to afford such things I guess). Reads like a wildlife documentary almost. David Attenborough would be proud. Or maybe the Leyland brothers?
I guess it’s the prime time for wildlife with all the rain and growth around.

Tony's direct line to stop the boats.

And if that’s not making any sense:

and the scary movie rip off (probably better known):

You’d think Tony Abbott would steer clear of phones altogether after getting stuck in the outback and unable to work a phone:

There was some discussion about using a satellite phone Mr Conway had left with the party to summon help in the form of a helicopter from Kings Creek station.

As the light was fading, the chopper pilot wouldn’t be able to land but could drop some supplies.

“Beer, water, food and rugs. Especially beer,” quipped the Opposition Leader.

Just one problem with that plan.

No-one in the group could get the satellite phone to work.

After failing to make a voice call, Mr Abbott tried sending a text to the only mobile phone number he could remember, that of his press secretary Claire Kimball back in Canberra.

“WERELOSTNEARFOSSILCREEK” the text said. No one could work out the key on the sat-phone to put spaces between words.

It’s probably just as well for Ms Kimball’s peace of mind that this alarming text failed to transmit.

While the concept of the armed forces/navy calling the PM isn’t particularly novel, it makes for a good visual though.

Check out #boatPhone on twitter for other news.