bingger.net

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The ongoing debate over whether the Australian Health Minister Tony Abbott, or the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) regulate the abortifacient mifepristone (RU486) has complicated with a number of members proposing amendments to the Senate bill, now in the House of Representatives.

Jackie Kelly (Australian Liberal Party, Lindsay) has said that “There should be a transparent process in which the minister is accountable for his or her decision” on so-called restricted goods (of which RU486 is such a good) as listed in the TGA legislation. Kelly has proposed an amendment with points stating that “the Minister for Health and Ageing continuing to have the decision making role in relation to the approval of restricted goods…”, “the Minister being required to obtain written advice from the Therapeutic Goods Administration prior to giving written approval or refusal to approve”, “the Minister’s decision being subject to disallowance”.

In the debate on February 14, Andrew Laming (Liberal, Bowman) noted his intent to propose an amendment in the later consideration in detail stage, noting his views that the TGA process is “so far removed…from the concerns and the beliefs of the community” and that he is “unable to convince [himself] that completely leaving these decisions to the TGA is the right thing to do”. His amendment loosely aims to propose a “disallowable instrument in Parliament where there is a disagreement with the findings of the TGA.”

The introduction of amendments has caused confusion on procedural matters February 15 in the Questions to the Speaker period (that follows Question Time), where members can ask questions of the Speaker on procedural and other technical matters. In the following vote on the proposed legislation, if one of the votes on the amendments succeeds, this has the effect of discontinuing the other amendment proposals, as each of the amendments proposed has the effect of being a complete alternative bill.

The RU486 debate will have precedence over all other matters in the House until it is dealt with. Voting is expected on Thursday.

Monday, November 2, 2020

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2020 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

This month’s spotlight on the campaign trail: the Free and Equal Elections Foundation holds two presidential debates, three candidates who did not participate in those debates give their final pleas to voters, and three political pundits give their predictions on the outcome of the election.

Friday, October 10, 2008

The head of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, has called for a meeting to assess the trade finance situation, including the impact on developing countries. The meeting, which is schedule for November 12, will allow credit institutes and government officials to review the current trade credit situation.

“A number of WTO members, in particular developing countries, have flagged the problems they are facing in arranging trade financing,” wrote WTO Director-General Lamy.

“The purpose of our next meeting will be to review how the international market for trade-financing is faring in view of the current very difficult conditions on international financial markets,” he continued.

Credit is vital to trade with around 90 percent of the US$14 trillion in world trade financed by credit. While this market has done well compared to other credit markets, bankers are suggesting that problems might occur shortly. Rates on these trade loans have increased by 3 percent.

Developing countries have seen several recent years of positive growth but the effects of the global financial crisis on these countries have pushed growth levels down.

Lamy has asked that the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other regional development banks to attend. He also invited the five leading commercial banks in trade finance: Citigroup, Commerzbank, Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan Chase, and HSBC.

Lamy also said that work on the Doha Development Round of trade is continuing but did not say if it would be finished this year.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced on Tuesday that Old Parliament House in Canberra has been heritage listed. It is the 31st entry on the National Heritage List.

The listing acknowledges the role the building has in shaping Australia’s culture and protects it from being modified in any way which could affect its historic value.

Old Parliament House served as the home of Australia’s parliament from 1927 until 1988, when it was relocated to the present parliament house. From 1901-1927, parliament met in Melbourne in the Victorian Parliament House (the state parliament was relocated for 26 years). Before being known as Old Parliament House, the building was known as Provisional Parliament House – as it was intended to be used for 50 years before a permanent building could be built.

In the 61 years the building was used as the seat of parliament, the government changed only seven times, and several new political parties were formed (the Liberals, Anti-Communist Labor Party, and the Australian Democrats).

Mr Howard said the building played an important part in Australia’s political history. “Old Parliament House will always be an important part of our political history with its rich collection of original furniture, art and memorabilia helping to illustrate the story of Australia’s political customs and functions,” he said.

According to Mr Howard, the National Heritage List lists sites which have helped shape the country. “The National Heritage List contains places that have played an important role in the development of our nation, such as Captain Cook’s landing place in New South Wales, Port Arthur in Tasmania and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra,” said the Prime Minister.

The building currently houses Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, and serves as a venue for receptions and exhbitions.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Some personal details of 3 million British learner drivers who had applied for the ‘theory test’ component of their Driving licence have been lost in Iowa, in the USA.

The data was lost on a hard drive that was owned by Pearson Driving Assessments Ltd, a private contractor to the UK driving standards agency.

Details were given by the UK Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, in the House of Commons at 1730 UTC yesterday. It is the first major loss of data in the UK since information on 25 million people was lost by HM Revenue in October.

In her statement to MPs, Ruth Kelly confirmed that no banking information was contained within the lost data, nor were individuals’ dates of birth. She highlighted that security measures had been taken, and that the information that had been stored was not in a format “readily usable or accessible” by standard means.

Political figures in the UK continue to raise concerns about both the specific loss of this information, and the nature of governments ability to safely gather and maintain information. Susan Kramer, representing the Liberal Democrats stated “This constant attempt to gather data, to get more data, to know more about you, to link it more together, all of that it seems to me is what comes into question.”

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The provincial election was called today in British Columbia. Alongside with the election, the citizens of the province will also be debating if they should change their electoral system from Single Member Plurality to Single Transferable Vote (STV). The vote for both the election and the referendum is to be held on May 12th.

According to the Angus Reid Strategies online poll, the issues before the candidates this year are the economy, crime and public safety, and health care.

Gordon Campbell is the current Premier of British Columbia, and leader of the Liberal Party. Three new tax measures have been proposed, increasing apprenticeship training tax credits, reducing small business income tax, and raising the revenue definition for small business. “Keep B.C. Strong” is the Liberal slogan.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Carole James is focusing her election platform on supporting a green economy, eliminating the carbon tax, offering families tax relief, freezing post-secondary tuition, raising the minimum wage, and providing a small business tax holiday. The NDP slogan is “Take back your B.C.”

The Green Party, led by Jane Sterk, is focused on environmental issues, crime and police, and a ‘green economy’. The Green Party is in support of the carbon tax and will be campaigning in favour of the new STV voting system that is being proposed again. The Green Party slogan is “A better plan for B.C.”File:Carole james.jpg

Wilf Hanni is at the helm of the Conservative Party which opposes the Recognition and Reconciliation Act, privatization of BC Hydro Bill 42 ‘gag law’, and the carbon tax. They propose to reduce senior civil employee pay scale, as well as personal and corporate income tax.

Other parties running candidates are the Democratic Reform under Graeme Roger, the Marijuana Party under Marc Emery, the Work Less Party under Conrad Schmidt, the Refederation Party under Mike Summers, the Sex Party under John Ince, and the Communist Party under George Gidora.

For 60 days before the election, each party may campaign with an allowable CA$1.1 million, in the final 28 days, $4.4 million may be spent. $70,000 is allowed by candidates before the writ is dropped, and another $70,000 in the midst of campaigning.

The referendum will allow BC voters to choose between two voting systems. The Single Member Plurality system is the current system in all Canadian provinces, and is also used to elect Members of Parliament in Ottawa. The other system is BC-STV, which would replace 85 single-member ridings with 20 larger ridings in which between two and seven Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) would be elected. The total number of MLAs will not change. Voters would rank the candidates in order of preference, as many or as few as they wish. When the results are tallied, votes are transferred to the next preference on the ballot when the first preference has been elected or eliminated. The system is designed to ensure that every vote helps to elect someone, every vote counts as fully as possible, and every voter is represented by a candidate they voted for, as nearly as mathematically possible.

Previous elections held under the current Single Member Plurality (also known as First Past The Post) system led to odd results in certain elections, such as the 2001 election where the winning party obtained 77 of the 79 seats of the legislature with just 58% of the vote, and the 1996 election, in which the party with the most votes failed to win the election. The recommendation to switch to STV was made by the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, a group formed in 2004 of randomly selected citizens. They spent a year learning about voting systems around the world and consulting with BC citizens.

It’s the fourth referendum in the country and the second in the province within the last 4 years. The previous referendum held in 2005 also voted on these same electoral systems and came within 2.3% of the 60% threshold. In order for the referendum to be binding, BC-STV will again need 60% of the popular vote and 50% of votes in 51 of the 85 ridings in BC. If the change is approved, it will be the first province in the country to adopt reform of the electoral system in recent history.

Fair Voting BC, recognized as the official proponent group, argues that STV will lead to fairer election results, effective local representation and greater voter choice. They argue that BC-STV will give voters the power to hold politicians and political parties accountable, by giving every voter a vote that actually makes a difference. If the STV system is approved, then it will be put into use for the first time for the 2013 provincial election.

The recognized opponent group is the No STV Campaign Society. Their arguments are that STV will give larger ridings, voters would be unsure of whom their MLA would be, there would be unequal geographic representation, that the counting method is too complicated, the electoral system results are unverified in practical usage, the system results in a higher probability of minority governments and the subsequent coalition of parties. They also argue that other countries who use systems similar to STV have had problems with their election results.

$500,000 in public funding has been given to both the proponents and the opponents of the referendum.