The Cost of Free Food

Last week in the previous post I was telling you about our special guest from the 

Urban Farming Group 

who came to talk with us at "Living Better". The following is taken from their site,

•The idea 
Urban farming Tasmania is a free Tasmanian collective supporting new friendships and stronger communities through sharing fruit and vegetables, art & music. The idea came from seeing a lot of wasted fruit and vegetables and we thought this problem could be solved through a collective which could grow and share fruit and vegetables,  art, music and performance.

The main manifestation of this idea has been a weekly swap market of fresh produce and made product, the idea being that as a community we come together and share the excess and make up short falls in each others resources. No monetary exchange. Seasonally a volunteer force also collects/forages produce and turns that into preserved produce.

Just days before Bridgette came to speak with us about the project, the local paper had done an article on page 5 about the project. There was general excitement about how positive the community felt and the growth of this tiny little idea.

However,

this article brought this project to the attention of the council.

(insert dastardly dangerous spooky music)

Immediate changes needed to be met in order to comply within the definition of a council regulation free market. 

1.Food may NOT be swapped or bartered (even though there is no monetary exchange) but must be donated or gifted.

This brings up some interesting discussion issues I think and I would like you to ponder this first point. Is there a lot of difference between either method? (shoulder shrug *meh!) To me it is a bit hair splitting. I do have a small concern though that if food doesn't have a perceived value will we treat this event differently. Will people still come and support week after week and "donate" food in order to gain the "gift" of some food. How does the committee make this work? One idea was that all the food is put on a large trestle and then people take what they need. Very altruistic but does this successfully ensure that someone who brought apples isn't stuck with, well, apples!

2. Fruit and vegetables need to be whole, labelled and registered.

Hmmm, because we wouldn't want someone to get carrots and not know what they were! What about pumpkin? Does that mean you can't cut and share a pumpkin? And registered! Really? We need to create some red tape and fill out forms and create paper waste in order to gift food.

OK whatever, world gone mad but some things we have to just suck up....

3. No baked or cooked foods till further notice, there being issues of sourcing commercial kitchens and food handling standards.

Well I kind of expected this one. We have over-regulated ourselves to the point now that "it just isn't safe to trust food prep to just anyone" and all the regs ensures that things are done properly with a minimising of danger and should something go wrong then somebody is certainly accountable on some form or registration somewhere. Even poor old fresh eggs are subjected to a long list of regs.

Does this all seem just a little obstructionist? Do you think people can really be bothered in the face of all this negative nervous Nelliness. I am sure the energy of this group will soldier on, life is full of small setbacks. 

The last point from the council was a doozy though and it had everyone scurrying for points of law and here it is......

4. Foraging for food on public land may be an illegal activity and was to cease till further notice and the public food map had to be temporarily removed until advice was sort. 

DISCUSS!

 KNOW YOU WANT TO.....

Interesting notion isn't it.

Food should be left to drop and not eaten. It is preferable that food wasted and littered than someone should RISK safety by eating it. I believe that this is ultimately what food producers and manufacturers would love to happen. There has been a concerted fear of food safety campaign being waged since the second world war. 

Lets think about this for a moment.

Eating an apple from a tree on the side of the road could be illegal food foraging from public land but fishing from a stream is fine???

All of this happened within a week and to council's credit and the Urban Farming Groups' compliance, the market is still scheduled to proceed each Monday as planned with the changes.

The other good news is that council have now issued a statement about foraging food and I quote,

'We encourage sustainability practices within the Northern Tasmanian community and has no objection to members of the public taking fruit or other produce from street trees or trees within the Council's public reserves. However, the taking of fruit or other produce should only be done in locations where it is safe to do so, using methods which are also safe. Fruit and other produce should not be collected from roads or from trees by climbing or using ladders. The Council does not spray these trees with insecticides or pesticides, so care should be taken to ensure any fruit or produce collected is free from insects'.

So the good news is that the public food map is back!

Do be careful of those organic non-sprayed unsafe fruits though!!!

In case you are not capable to discern for yourself they have also spelled out the common sense rules too. Please, we have to stop this cotton wool wrapping and let people use their own common sense before we breed it out of the next generation otherwise what hope will we have then.

Your thoughts/comments? 

Do you have a group similar in your area?

Have council regulations made you give up?

Do you think food foraging is unsafe?

Cleaning, Foraging, Divining

Our Living Better group met last week and we celebrated our first anniversary.

We had a speaker from the group talk about cleaning without chemicals. There are a number of ways to achieve this and each style suits different people, their lifestyles and methods.

There is the Enjo method which is reliant on just water and the micro-fibre of the cloths. There is also the home based methods of pantry items like bi-carb soda, vinegar and lavender oil for the very industrious. The third alternative that Elisha presented to us was by Nature Direct. It relies on the micro-fibre cloths AND different blends of essential oils and extracts, like pine, cypress, eucalyptus, clove and rosemary. It is an Australian company and nearly all the products are made in Australia which is important to us. Chemical cleaning manufacturers are not required by law in Australia to list their ingredients but they are required to list warnings....and there are plenty of those. The products from Nature Direct list all their ingredients and while you wouldn't want to ingest them, they are certainly not going to cause great harm. Check out their "Did you know...?" page here.

Our next guest speaker was Bridgette from Urban Farming Tasmania.

She runs a "market" on a Monday at the Tasmanian College of Arts and the idea is that people bring produce from their gardens or foraged along with any other trade items like music, artwork and design. Her group essentially wanted a community style market where no money changed hands and people supported each other by trading their surplus. They are passionate about seasonal living and not letting food go to waste, in fact they are wanting council to plant more food instead of ornamentals. They have produced a free food map of the area plotting figs, walnuts, apples, sloes, quinces and more about the greater Launceston area. We all received a gift from Bridgette (pictured above) of quince paste made from local foraged fruit. We were very excited by her project and many more tree sites were suggested 

BUT....

stay tuned for there is more to this story.

In the few days since we met Bridgette, Council has been made aware of the group through a newspaper article and they are coming down hard but I want to discuss this more fully in a day or so when we see their final stipulations. You can see this all unfolding on their facebook site. There is a can of worms here.

A very controversial point still in debate at the moment is the legality of foraging fruit from public land. They seem to have an issue with the food map. People on both sides are scrambling to find legalities. 

Does this mean fishing is not legal? To me that is foraged food from public land?

Anyway, we will have this debate in a day or two. In the meantime please show this group your love and support with kind messages.

Our last speaker introduced us to water divining. The image above from WikiHow is very similar to the rods we tried (as usual I got caught up in the moment and no pictures!)

Martin told us his story and demonstrated as he walked about the room how the rods moved and swayed. Each of us had a turn and were amazed at how the rods swerved and we were not able to control it. It is very hard to understand and though there is plenty of documented anecdotal evidence, I don't think there is any scientific specific evidence. 

It was a really interesting and fun way to top off our night. This is a new venue for us too and I am pleased to say that it was wonderful having a large quiet room all to ourselves. We would not have been able to have the cleaning demo or the water divining demonstration as well in the pub. The lighting is good and it is heated and we have our own toilet amenities too.  

Our next meeting is 27th June 7-9 at the Workers Club in Launceston

We'll be discussing winter remedies and bee keeping and possibly fruit tree pruning.

Inspiration's Seeds

Our second guest speaker last Thursday night at the Living Better group was David Kenyon from 

Inspiration's Seeds

These seeds are developed in Tasmania particularly for home gardeners in cool districts. Years and years of trials have gone into sourcing and securing vegetable seed that perform well in our short growing season.

David says a lot of people will blame fail rates on bad weather years and fickle climate over summer but he maintains that most of the time it is simply growers not choosing the appropriate variety for their growing season. 

We talked about cross pollination and stable and unstable genes, that is how conforming the produce is to subsequent seed saving and sowing. We talked about hidden genes (the genes responsible for the intangible traits like mildew resistance) and visible genes (the obvious visible characteristics like colour and size) and touched on the politics of seed and big companies and seed ownership. David also spoke about the fashions and fads of home growers. Twenty years ago his seedsmen put a lot of trial and research into cereal crops only to abandon and loose much of the work when it proved unpopular with the home gardener. How things have changed, there is a marked increase in interest now for cereal and grain crops amongst home gardeners such as quinoa.

David also brought along a couple of tomato varieties to taste and the smell was divine. This was my favourite called "Santa" a bright red and very round 4cm fruit that really has that tomato flavour and smell from the good old days. It's great to be able to taste and see and plan for next summer.

Something else that I have never tried is the Black Spanish Radish. David got us all excited by this variety. It grows to the size of a swede and is available to harvest in that hungry time of winter. David recommends peeling it and grating it for salads or adding it to slow cooks. 

So what do we plant now?

 David advises brassicas and silverbeet as well as onions, lettuce, asian style greens, beetroot and carrots.

Here is the best bit...

David brought along seeds to buy and they normally retail for $3.50 but we were able to purchase on the night for $2.50/pkt. I am very sorry for those who missed out and couldn't come on the night but boy did I enjoy myself. 

You can purchase Inspiration's Seeds on line and you will be especially impressed with their range of bean varieties. I am going to have some fun with those next summer for sure.

So if you are in cool districts, now is the second biggest planting time of the year so get cracking.

What Value Do We Really Place On Food?

Map: World Food Statistics

This site has some wonderful global maps. To get a picture of economies, food production and income spent on food, go to the site and have a play. There is a drop down box at the upper left of the map where you can change the information required and as you roll over the countries, all the stats will appear.

You will get an idea of who grows food and how much of their income is spent on their food. Some of the information is staggering.

As we are in Seed Freedom Fortnight, I would like you to see a bigger picture of food. I would love to know if the stats were pretty much what you thought or if they were a total revelation. What is one thing that blew you away? What conclusions do you draw from some of the stats? 

I find it interesting how little America pays for food, naturally the average income is relatively high compared to most countries and there is a lot of food produced in the area. Given that, does it explain how cheaply food integrity is regarded by countries like America and Australia. I'm talking bigger picture here, not your pockets of natural wholesome food devotees. I'm thinking about the rise and rise of food chains and the fall of farmers profits. I'm thinking of the growing fast food industries and the fact that we think it is normal to abandon our homes and eat the most basic of meals, namely breakfast, outside of the home and prepared by someone else on a regular basis. There are many people eating their breakfast out more than 5 times a week.

Do you think we hold food too cheaply in our esteem?

Here is another good post on food price and quality over at "the Frugal girl" in her post 

"Why is it so hard to spend money on high quality groceries…"

"Why do we buy junky cereal to save a dollar or two, but then order $20 takeout on a busy night?"

I hope you head over and have a play with the map and read Frugal Girls post, I'd be interested to know what you think.

Seed Freedom Fortnight

Seed Freedom Fortnight

2-16 Oct 2012

Some of you may not know this but there has been an insidious move by a few companies over the last few decades to make whole country's agricultural business their business!

They have produced chemicals and fertilisers that only lead to more chemical and fertiliser dependency and to wrap the whole up in a nice oligopoly package they have also patented seed.

They OWN the seed.

The farmer must buy the seed, he can not save the seed and he risks financial ruin should his seed become accidentally cross pollinated with their seed thus making it the company's seed.

You may have heard of Monsanto in America. What you may not realise is that some of the dirtiest work by these oligopolies is occurring in struggling third world countries. 

We are losing seed varieties every year but it is most important that you start saving seed now. Seed adapts and evolves for the area it grows in. If we lose that, we lose the ability to feed ourselves. We become instead reliant on a system that holds all the cards and reduces diversity.

We lose our freedom from hunger and independence.

Please, each one of you, in your area, save your seed and buy only local heirloom/open pollinating/GMO free seed.

In this fortnight get together and swap seed.

That's what we did to wrap up our Living Better group last month.

After we finished the cakes we had a sit down and shared seed.

I gained beetroot, lupins and peas and NZ yams.

I swapped multi-headed sunflowers.

This Saturday I will also take to market some Turks Turban pumpkin seed.

Hope you watch the video; Dr Vandana Shiva has been fighting for seed freedom for decades and Costa is own special Australian gardening legend.

Seeds Of Freedom

(Nine Seeds)
This is too important not to view. It's not just for growers or greenies or hippies, in fact it is more pertinent for the category of "those who eat". It does take about 25mins but it is great to watch while you are sitting having a break with a cup of tea or doing a bit of knitting. It is gentle and thought provoking and I would hope that it inspires some debate around your dining room table tonight.

Seeds of Freedom from The ABN and The Gaia Foundation on Vimeo.

More Links;

Navdanya

Seed Savers Exchange

Mr Brown Thumb 

Read About This Week

Are you looking for something new to read?

Here is what excited me this week....

I watched a little boy take me through step by step "How To Make A Corn Cob Dolly"

on the Magic Onions. Don't underestimate the abilities of your kids and let them have a supervised go with tools. Imagine his pride when he gave it to his sister. 

Beautiful

"I have to stop.
There's no denying the sight I see.
Nothing can draw me away.
The view before me demands my response...."

What comes next???

Click over to Pumpkin Pie Painter to read "Unexpected Purple"

It is but a short passage but so poignant.

A good segue from that would be to "A Prayer For Our Daughters" that I read on ChickChat

You might also like to read about Marriage Discrimination that is being debated at the moment. (Stop and think and remember to consider your responses)

Virtu writes about "I DO"

And finally....

A very new blog about being Gluten free here at ValysK

Have a wonderful weekend.

There is much on my mind and much to consider.

Thanks to all the wonderful bloggers who take my thoughts elsewhere for a glimpse into their worlds.

Boat People - An Australian Experiment

My all time, biggest, most read post is,

Boat People

In recent weeks, SBS television has aired their series called,

"Go Back To Where You Came From"

and you can read more or watch the episodes here

The show takes six ordinary Australians and documents their journey as they trek in reverse the journey of a refugee coming to Australia.

They have no phones, passports or money and they start in an Australian refugee camp.

They see life as it is for a refugee waiting for status.

They are later placed on a leaking, rudimentary small boat to make a crossing over the seas.

They are placed in refugee camps in Kenya and Jordan.

Here they are obvious aliens and have to line up for a daily food ration like the other refugees and are subjected to stares of suspicion and confrontation.

The journey is challenging and frightening and an eye opener even for those of us safely watching from home.

The participants make a very moving visit to the family members of refugees already in Australia and exchange messages of hope and love. 

We forget....these people do not have mobiles, they can't simply ring sisters or brothers and communicate. Their days are spent wondering and not knowing. Not knowing if someone is safe, alive or dead. They simply must wait and hope.

This is a very definite turning point for the participants. Hearing the stories of torture and rape they are brought face to face with the reality of why refugees flee their country.

From our safety in Australia, it is hard to comprehend that a people, let alone their government would do harm to their own.

They are starting to understand the desperation that drives someone to send their children on alone in a leaky boat in the hope that they may reach safety.

The participants travel further still going to Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo from where people flee. They see first hand the physical disfigurements of war and the child victims.

This program is heart wrenching and emotional. It is must see viewing and it is a turning point.

I'm not saying that acceptance and understanding is going to be the automatic solution, but what this series does do is level the perspectives, bare some truths and enable people to finally have a meaningful discussion about the wider problem that is;

"people fleeing from their own countries"

If you watched this program, I would really like to know if it changed your perspectives. Did you learn something? Has it dispelled some of the popular myths that the media like to portray?

For me it re-humanised the debate.

4 Corners also had an excellent story this week. They re-visited the survivors from Pol Pot's regime and who have since settled in Australia. I remember that time but a lot of the horror had faded from memory. It was good to see these people again 20years on and they really taught me some valuable lessons.

The Fluoride Debate

Image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

Last week via Facebook a friend of mine has been campaigning to stop fluoride being added to the water supply. This is a practice that has been employed for more than 40 years by government bodies in most water supplies in Australia. The purpose is to provide a digestible supplement that reduces the risk of tooth decay for the population as a whole.

My friend and I have had a short debate. I support fluoridation from the view point of one who remembers a nation of poor teeth even in those very young. It was extremely common to see people from their 30s and 40s with dentures. Of course dental techniques have come a long way and we are able to save many more teeth than were able once before.

My friend is a young mother and her children are quite young and growing and developing and naturally she is concerned about what they may be ingesting. She has read evidence that suggests fluoride is responsible for all sorts of disease in society like; asthma, cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

There are many articles and scientific studies that prove the evidence for BOTH sides of the argument.

Governments spend considerable money fluoridating water. 

We look to them and trust them to be doing the right thing for the community.

It begs the question; "would our government knowingly poison it's people?"

Make no mistake, we should not blindly accept what governments do, they are our elected facilitators and we should always be questioning.

BUT

How do we decipher the conflicting information?

Which scientific study do we believe?

I DO believe chemicals can be harmful and in our home, our environment and our food chain, Craig and I have absolutely limited them. I wholeheartedly support a persons right to live without them.

Having said that, obesity still remains the number 1 cause of disease in this country whether directly or indirectly. As a nation our sugar/fructose intake is tenfold what it was 100 years ago. There is not much point fighting to exclude a marginal chemical but continuing to feed processed foods to our children. From their cereal in the morning to the tomato sauce on their packet pasta they are being bombarded with chemical and sugar. We now have a generation who cannot even drink alcohol unless it has a tonne of sugar added like a soft drink.

So how do we way up the chemical damage?

Is it like sins? Big sins and little sins?

Legal drugs and Illegal drugs? Both surely do damage.

Should we as a society err on the side of caution, eliminate fluoride? It's like immunisation, do we have the right to say it is compulsory? Because that is in effect what we do by fluoridation of water.

What are your thoughts? 

How do we get the information for informed decisions in the face of such conflicting information? 

What about those of you in other countries, is your water fluoridated? 

How do you feel about it?

Take Action - Help Ban Live Export

Did you watch Four Corners tonight? What they showed was absolutely shocking

Dear friends, whether you are Australian or not, please sign the petition against the most horrible cruelty I have seen ever.

The following from the GetUp site:
Right now Australian cattle are being maimed and tortured before suffering the most painful deaths that the animal welfare movement has ever seen.

What's more, this callous slaughter is carried out in facilities that use equipment paid for by Australian taxpayers and inspected by Australian authorities.

Tomorrow we're presenting a petition at Parliament House in a press conference with the RSPCA, Animals Australia, and the Australasian Meat Industry Employers Union (AMIEU). The urgent petition calls on Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig to end the cruel practice of live cattle export.

Can you join the campaign and forward this to friends and family?

www.getup.org.au/campaigns/animals/live-export/ban-live-export

If you weren't convinced before, just watch this video footage from Animals Australia. Warning: the video is hard to watch, but it's worth the discomfort if we can help prevent this happening to other animals.

Let's call on the Government to immediately halt the live export of Australian animals to Indonesia and move towards an end to all live exports of Australian animals within 3 years. A huge public outcry right now, while the Government and the public are paying close attention, can ensure that not one more ship loaded with Australian cattle is allowed to leave an Australian port bound for Indonesia.

If you've seen the horrific footage of cattle being slaughtered in Indonesian abattoirs you'll know there is simply no room for more excuses from an industry that has had over a decade to fix this problem.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/animals/live-export/ban-live-export

Our campaigners are in Canberra tonight with experts from the RSPCA and Animals Australia. The Agriculture Minister has already started to walk back from his previous support for live exports -- but another inquiry or investigation isn't enough. It's time to end live exports. Please join the campaign and forward this email to friends and family.

Thanks for taking a stand,
the GetUp Team

GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you'd like to contribute to help fund GetUp's work, please donate now! If you have trouble with any links in this email, please go directly to www.getup.org.au. To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Authorised by Simon Sheikh, Level 5, 116 Kippax St, Surry Hills NSW 2010

Meat and the Environment

I am not advocating either way for meat eating or vegetarian lifestyles.

The debate is about looking at our food eating habits as a whole.

I'm suggesting to take an approach that looks at the cause not the symptoms.

Balance not knee jerks.

I met an ambitious young man this week who is up and coming in his political party. He is vegetarian as he believes that the production of meat for consumption places huge environmental strains on the planet and has a negative impact.

This same young man also admits that he is not a good vegetarian and his diet consists of lots of processed and packaged foods and leans heavily towards grain based food. Doing the math here is difficult certainly to get a quantitative figure but I'm pretty sure it's an environmental impact trade off for yet another.

Not only is his diet heavily weighted with processed food, but he also has no idea about his local seasonal produce. So when he goes shopping he decides "I need fruit I'll have; watermelon, oranges and strawberries" (but it's the middle of winter)

So back up the truck here....the oranges are Californian and have been shipped from the other side of the world, the watermelon is totally out of season and so are the strawberries that have been artificially grown in heated sheds. The final horror is that the watermelon has been GM for a seedless variety so consumers don't have to worry about pesky seeds.

I've been vegetarian a couple of times in my life and I know how the body craves "fuel" and is not so easily appeased when there is no complex animal proteins to break down. You have to eat smart and you have to eat well.

The suggestion I put to you is that it is possible that while trying to negate an environmental impact on the planet with the abolition of one practice, you actually place a greater strain on it through other practices.

It seems to me his abstinence from meat was knee jerk.

We would be far better off educating about a more balanced and conscious consumption of food. Thinking about the real costs associated with what we eat.
We need to improve farming practices. Feeding our livestock properly would be a start....did you know that vast numbers of livestock in intensive farming situations are fed cheap corn? This was never meant to be their staple diet and they are not healthy on it.

The livestock industry is massive and growing but so is our population. Is it exponential? I don't know but it sure isn't rocket science to figure out that you can't keep producing more people and not have more food demands. Maybe globally we are going to have to look at population control. The world is like a petrie dish of ever expanding microbes. One day it's going to get ugly!

Here is one last little piece to add to this argument. The same people who argue that meat livestocks are taking up and ruining vast amounts of land are also the same people who happily purchase cashmere that has been produced in China because it is so cheap. To corner that market though, and to produce so cheaply, China's precious land is fast being turned to desert.

Don't despair! All of us have an impact and our very existence makes it inevitable. What I am saying is let's think about our actions on a broader level, weighing cause and effect, cure rather symptomatic relief.

I mean you wouldn't drive 100km away to fill up with fuel at petrol station X because they are always 4c/l cheaper....would you???
By all means eat less or no meat but be just as mindful of the environmental cost our other habits are responsible for.

Boat People

While we still wait to find out who will be forming government after the federal election at the weekend, I'd like to take a moment to express some "ponderings" on the subject of "Boat People" as this was included as a major policy by both parties and a bit of a catch cry for the Liberals.

The term "boat people" refers to illegal refugees that come to Australia via Asia. They pay exorbitant fees to smugglers for a very precarious, dangerous and squalid sea crossing. Some families cannot afford to send everyone so some children are separated from siblings and or parents. They flee their counties for a better life and usually for political persecutions not because they want a bigger house or better car. They want an education for their children that is often denied them on racial or political grounds because of the "sins of the father".

We have a wonderful social security system in this country and these refugees are entitled to and in fact do get, medical treatment, education, housing and a modest payment.

This seems to be the scariest thing for most Australians. I reserve the right to say "most" here otherwise why was it such an election issue? It is a valid concern and of course people have the right to ask where and how their taxes are spent. How do we constantly pay thousands of dollars for people coming to our shore who are not even our own?

I put it to you that it is more scarier to have people who are our "own" who are now third and fourth generation welfare recipients who now know nothing but breeding future generations of welfare recipients. These are the people costing us a spiraling out of control fortune. They have no pride and no aspirations further than bigger TVs and tailor made ciggies.

When I was young I worked in a Japanese restaurant with quite a few "boat people". They were from Vietnam and were working 70hr plus weeks trying to save to be able to sponsor the rest of their families who were caught for years in camps. 

Which brings me to the next Australian catch cry "keep jobs for the Australian workers". Most people think that refugees will mean less jobs for Australians. News flash - Australians don't want these jobs. Most Australian children coming out of school with job aspirations believe that they will be walking into the management positions! They think a certificate guarantees them the right to start at the top, not the bottom. They want to be in hospitality but not on Friday and Saturday nights because they want to party with their friends. 

The next concern that Australians raise is about border security. Also a valid concern. This is the real world and there are real baddies and we want to keep them out. Political asylum seekers are not necessarily trouble makers but it is fair to say that we would rather keep our society tempered and tolerant. I put it to you that there are a lot more breaching our borders that we have allowed in than we know.

I have also worked with people who have flown into Australia and then just stayed....for years....and they work...and they even get tax refunds from the government! I also know someone who received tax refunds but was invisible to the child support agency. Definitely a bit of left hand/right hand blindness in our government; but that's not unusual for any government, they are huge accounting firms but you would like to think simple cross checking works. 

The Mercury newspaper on Saturday had a wonderful article in it's magazine about Mr Hung Nguyen, a valuable and well respected local surgeon without whom our community would be the poorer. I thought what a shame it was that they had not published this story sooner instead on voting day. While I don't think immigration policy was the be all and end all of party picking this election, I do think it sheds light on the "character" of a party.

Mr Abbott, while I do want a responsible government with sound policies and solutions to illegal immigration, I felt your slogan "I will stop the boats" was simplistic, knee jerk and another opportunity to "Dumb Australians Down". It was embarrassing.

I sincerely hope that whoever forms government they can put strategies in place to restrain illegal immigration, expedite valid immigration and start inspiring Australians back into the workforce and paying taxes instead of taking taxes. We need it for our elderly, infirmed and unfortunate.

If you have read this through I'm sure you have a comment.

Thank You Prime Minister

It's obvious, the excitement is just busting out of me, you can tell. I have never been prouder of a Prime Minister than I was of Kevin. I really thought here was a man that other global leaders could aspire too. He is articulate, empathetic and so educated!

Not since Paul Keating have I admired an economic mind so much.

Keeping Australia out of the global depression was nothing short of miraculous. I grew up studying economics and politics with the common phrase "when America gets a cold, Australia gets the flu". Well not this time buddy.

He was a man for all people.

I met Kevin Rudd at the State Labor conference in Launceston a couple of years ago not long after he had become Prime Minister. I remember that afternoon thinking what a wonderful country I live in when I can be with the PM in the morning and mucking out the chook shed in the afternoon.

I knew he was going to expect me to answer simple questions but even preparing myself in those minutes before we were finally face to face was a waste. I was completely overwhelmed and rendered insensible. The US presidential elections were well underway and I chose to do a Hillary Clinton dressing in a mono-colour suiting style (wish I had chosen black, much more flattering)

His speech that day was wonderful and I swear he was looking right at me when he said....

"....it is this big"

....his budget thank you very much!

...actually I don't remember what he said at this point but I do know that his is the photo I carry in my wallet, sorry Craig!