Liz

That Sould have reading whos kidding whom.

When I spoke to the Ministers adviser [three times] to make sure I understood about loosing funding the proticols he explained it was just at certain times.?

It seems that its only if Not For Profitt groups step over the line and do their job at certain times of the year and certainly not before an election.

How dare the RSPCA look after the welfare of animals just before a federal election.

Of Course animal cruelty is not important to the Government who support Amanda Vanstones cruel piggery and hundreds of other Ministers and staff who have direct interests wich is clearly a conflict of interest as they then vote on codes of practise.

After all Packers le Courst Murdoch are all cruel live animal exporting stealing our jobs and blocking farmers off from water to divert to cruel intensive insitutes. They dont have to print the truth so they dont see why the bullying carry right on through the system.

Gee Wiz lucky WE dont count on funding Bernie isnt it.

Every single human has a right to work all day any day they wish to support their Not For Proffit Bernie.

Howard certainly takes advantage of volonteers just look at the games careres and dozens of others.

Hush Hush Bernie but geuess what.
We the people pay for everything and if you want to control N.F.P. organisations then perhaps it should be given back to us in forms of tax deductions so each of us can support > What we want when we want
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Threats will only get you this reply from real people.
Stick OUR money up your bum. Chum
Support RSPCA and STOP the CRUEL NATIONAL and LIBERAL party.
See you at the polls Bernie or is it Earnie?

Ah Tanya, my sympathy. You are still trying reconcile our lived reality (the defunding of uppity NGO's is established practice) with the rhetoric pumped out by the propaganda arms of the corp-state ('free and open democracy..'). Stop drinking the propaganda kool aid and you'll learn to trust the reality your senses bring you, only then will the workings of plutocracy make any sense. Running around now making quacking noises about a horse that bolted years ago just makes you look silly, better to turn your guns on the government for forcing up oil prices with Iraq & Afghan wars.

Crikey Liam, that's a tad pessimistic isn't it? stop drinking the propaganda kool aid?

Tanya's message is solid - whether or not she has the wherewithal to back up these claims remains to be seen. Perhaps if Labor got into power they would make changes to increase transparency, but then again, it is more likely they won't.

That being said Liam, you can't just assault a message for being too idealistic. If you don't at least have something to shoot for, you won't even try. That's when you're really screwed.

Now I don't think Labor would go about making the system more transparent and honest. Take Beattie for instance - he likes having his face plastered over the media (well, not when it involves dams) but he's actually a pretty secretive fellow.
Take a look at the FOI stats over the past few years and you'll see what I mean.

That being said, while large organisations, be they political parties or corporations or whatever, tend to crowd out the idealistic views of their members, those views are still there.

History is a pendulum and while one day it swings towards a McCarthyist style conservatism, the next swing of the stick brings a change toward leftist pseudo-socialism. Action and reaction I suppose.

I guess what I'm getting at, is don't just take a swipe at idealism because you're too cynical to believe it can work.

I'm something of a cynic myself, but realistically I know that the only hope for change is to embrace what you can.

Yahoo, TurnRightThenLeft...That ...while large organisations, be they political parties or corporations or whatever, tend to crowd out the idealistic views of their members, those views are still there."

Yes, a well put - completely balanced view. I appreciated these words - it is encouragement - wholesale.

I know you can be a "cynic" TurnRightThenLeft... and I guess this makes your critical point - even more valuable.

I agree, ... " realistically I know that the only hope for change is to embrace what you can", it is all we can do.

www.miacat.com

This is what Tanya says, but her fellow travelers in Macquarie Street wouldn't dare to cut funding to any NGO criticizing them?

NGO's need to be able to speak. Many of those they serve do not have the resources or connections to establish appropriately sized and resourced credible lobbies.

Well I am very disappointed.

I asked Tanya a straight question on 18 July and there has been no answer. In fact she hasn’t responded to any posters.

So we still don’t know which sentiments expressed in her article are her own, which are Labor policy, which have general agreement within the party or which are at odds with policy.
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The lack of follow-up from authors is a real problem, which erodes the quality of the Online Opinion Forum.

It makes me wonder whether many article authors even read the comments. Afterall, these articles are published in newspapers and seem to end up on OLO rather incidentally, at least as far as the authors are concerned.

I think that all authors should be required to read the responses and put in at least one reply and preferably partake in the ensuing debate for as long as it lasts.