late winter light

Down at the Bay the old potato farmers are the last to leave the market.
We stop the tree man to buy one Cox pippen, one Golden Delicious and one pink Cherry blossom tree.
In the cafe, people jump on their seats and shout "Look at the Whale"
The whale is giving a show, flipping his tail high in the air , as he leaves the Bay.

keep out?

This is old news but good news. It just goes to show that even a majority in the Senate doesn't make the rubber stamping any easier. In short, the Howard Government was trying to pass a bill that would mean that anyone landing on our Australian shores could be dumped into offshore processing centres. Fortunately the old fear card, which partly won the Howard government another term (A Howard slogan-hordes of people, particularly terrorists and the sort of people who would throw their children overboard were going to arrive unannounced and unwanted because we were percieved as an easy target for people smugglers) hasn't worked in the governments favour. A few dissenting voices talking about human rights and international law forewarned our wiley PM and he had to scuttle the bill before the public embarrasment of a defeat in the Senate.

from inside..

again the blog is bogged, so I am filling in time to tempt the pictures to come on board. Here is firstly the Kosiosko National Park, swirling past, in a photo taken from the car. Mt Kosiosko had shocking fires a few years ago and the area is beginning to slowly recover.
The next photo is taken from inside a friend's house. Sun going down on a lovely afternoon spent indoors catching up with an old friend. Now, please publish!

woman,child and flowers

I have to check the blog again as it sometimes will not post the post!! So this is a just check'n.

two buds and a garden border...

I have not had much time for posting recently but I have been able to take note of the early signs of Spring budding. Hope springs eternal
Talking of hope springing eternally. Here is an idea for no borders. It all starts with your neighbour. Taking a walk with my camera the other day I discovered two houses which had no borders except for a shared flower garden.
The link in the title is to an organisation called no borders which calls for the decriminalisation of all people seeking to find a new home.
Tomorrow our Government is trying to pass a bill which would make it possible for them to take anyone who lands on our shores to an off shore detention centre. This would remove them from access to all the support that they need to navigate our migration system! Hopefully there will be a couple of mutinies which will scuttle this outrageous bill. We'll see.

Once again, hope springs eternal. The UN resolution calling for a ceasefire should come into operation tomorrow.

Briefly, good news...

Seems such a rare commodity but it does happen..
Writing some time back about the West Papuan situation, I had noted that Amanda Vanstone (piggery shareholder and Minister for Immigration) had denied asylum to one of the 43 West Papuan Asylum Seekers (who had arrived by canoe onto Australian shores). The person refused asylum was David Wainggai and he has spent the last months in a very uncertain situation on Christmas Island (one of Australia'a answers to unwanted arrivals, we ship them to processing centres offshore that make it very difficult for asylum seekers to get legal representation and support) Anyway the Refugee Review Tribunal has overturned the Department's decision and David has just been granted a protection visa. All I can say is thank god for the few processes that are still free from political interference. Click the title for a link to the story -