Murray river wetlands, floodplains and groundwater systems will be removed from a list of threatened ecological communities, amid government claims the protections posed a “bureaucratic nightmare”.

Australia’s lower house has passed two motions to strike down pre-election listings of threatened ecological communities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. One relates to the Murray and associated wetlands, floodplains and groundwater systems, from the junction with the Darling river to the sea. The other concerns the wetlands and inner floodplains of the Macquarie marshes in New South Wales.

The listings would have required the federal environment minister to assess any proposed activities that were likely to have a significant ecological impact, such as large new developments, works or infrastructure. Coalition MPs argued the listings, made on 5 August just before the election, added an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

But the Greens’ deputy leader, Adam Bandt, described the removal of the listings as “a sneak attack on the environment and the health of our most important river at the behest of the big irrigators”. Conservationists denounced it as a “poor decision driven by politics, not science”.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/11/murray-darling-taken-off-endangered-listing-to-cut-green-tape

The High Court has overturned Australia’s first same-sex marriage law, according to a summary published on the High Court website.
The court is due to hand down its findings in the landmark case at 12.15pm, however, a judgement on the court's website says the court has ruled against the ACT government’s historic Act, saying it conflicted with federal marriage laws.

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/samesex-marriage-laws-overturned-by-high-court-20131212-2z884.html#ixzz2nDfBFtPt

The Coalition has opposed what used to be called the Gonski education funding reforms right from, almost literally, the moment they were released — the opposition’s education spokesman, Christopher Pyne, famously didn’t even bother reading the initial report after it was released before emerging to attack it. And it was only a few weeks ago that Pyne was assuring one and all that the Coalition would repeal the government’s education funding reforms before the end of the year. The Gonski funding reform model was a “Conski”, Pyne declared in April. And NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell had been “conned” by former PM Julia Gillard into signing up.

Well, forget about all that: the Coalition has surrendered, unconditionally, on education funding, announcing this morning it was adopting Labor’s funding process entirely.

The Coalition had begun shifting a couple of weeks ago — or, more correctly, the ground had started shifting under it. Faced with the impossible problem of doing what Pyne had so blithely declared would happen — the repeal of Labor’s funding model by the end of the year in favour of maintaining existing arrangements — the Coalition had said it would retain the Labor model for a year and then “review” it and renegotiate funding with the states.

That conjured the amusing image of Pyne trying to negotiate with O’Farrell for a decrease in funding for NSW schools.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/08/02/abbotts-unconditional-surrender-on-gonski-education-reforms/?wpmp_switcher=mobile

Hello... Now that Porkie-Pyne has "caved-in" to the Gonski model for four years due to public outcry (the Libs [CONservatives] had hidden their agenda being a wall of porkies BEFORE the elections) ... The name Gonski has been wiped-out of the education funding model and now being replaced by Pyneski-porkie as he tries to do a few swifties on the side while no-one is looking... The Liberal (COnservative) Elves WANT TO destroy public education once and for all... 

If you’re wondering why the harmless and largely inoffensive ABC (the odd Chaser sketch aside) has become the target of right wing gang rapists and the criminal conspiracy also known as News Corp, it’s only partly because the ABC represents the Australia of the Morphy Richards toaster and boiled mutton at the same time as it represents the country which celebrates an antipodean Ramadan or conceives of January 26 as Invasion Day. It is doing what it is meant to do, telling the story of all Australia back to all Australians and in doing that it is drawn into a struggle over the definition of what constitutes Australian culture.

But always always always there is power and money to be considered; the power of a conservative government in the short term, the wealth and power of the Murdoch family over the long arc. Abbott’s unimpressive bullies hate the idea of being exposed as fools and scoundrels in exactly the same way that the Hawke and Keating governments hated it. Note well that when politicians of any stripe complain of bias they don’t actually mean bias. They mean anyone who questions them; who subverts their designs; who gets in the way. There is no more biased media anywhere in the free world than that owned by the Murdoch clan, but crucially for the moment it is biased in favour of the Abbott administration. So that’s not bias. 

Murdoch meanwhile is utterly transparent in his motivations. The ABC is a competitor, one funded by the public treasury and thus not amenable to being brutalised by market power in the same way as smaller, weaker challengers, be they businesses like Fairfax or even widely unread individual bloggers who make The Australian’s highly paid economics writers look like idiots.

In the end it would not matter if every ABC staffer was sacked and replaced by neo-fascist butt monkeys. As long as Aunty is taking a single dollar in potential profit away from the Murdoch Clan, they will try to destroy it.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/blogs/blunt-instrument/simple-as-abc-murdoch-out-to-crush-competition-20131212-2z73f.html#ixzz2nDle3rSC

See toon at top...

Add toyota to the list in the toon at top...

Plus a few other items like the jobs of more than 50,000 people being wiped of the register... AND MORE, including making the Australian Navy perform illegal acts!

TONY ABBOTT and his nasty loonies are IDIOTS.