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LETTER FROM CANBERRA Saving you time. Three years on. After Letter from Melbourne, established 1994. LETTER A monthly newsletter distilling public policy FROM and government decisions which CANBERRA affect business opportunities in Australia and beyond. Saving you time. Three years on. After Letter from Melbourne, established 1994. A monthly newsletter distilling public policy and government decisions which affect business opportunities in Australia and beyond. My Country MyThe Countrylove of field and coppice, Of green and shaded lanes. TheOf ordered love of woodsfield and and coppice, gardens OfIs running green and in your shaded veins, lanes. OfStrong ordered love woodsof grey-blue and gardens distance IsBrown running streams in your and veins, soft dim skies StrongI know butlove cannot of grey-blue share distanceit, BrownMy love streams is otherwise. and soft dim skies I know but cannot share it, Warm Up Edition MyI love love a sunburntis otherwise. country, 19 December to 28 February 2011 A land of sweeping plains, Warm Up Edition IOf love ragged a sunburnt mountain country, ranges, 19Issue December 31 to 28 February 2011 AOf land droughts of sweeping and flooding plains, rains. OfI love ragged her far mountain horizons, ranges, IssueInside 31 OfI love droughts her jewel-sea, and flooding rains. • Flood levy proceeding IHer love beauty her far and horizons, her terror - Inside• Prime Minister seeking to better IThe love wide her jewel-sea,brown land for me! • Floodrepresent levy Australia(ns)proceeding Her beauty and her terror - • PrimeHer agenda Minister and seeking challenges to better TheA stark wide white brown ring-barked land for forestme! • Arepresent more federated Australia(ns) health system All tragic to the moon, • CarbonHer agenda tax/cap/trade and challenges fullish speed AThe stark sapphire-misted white ring-barked mountains, forest • Aahead more federated health system AllThe tragic hot gold to the hush moon, of noon. • CarbonBroadband tax/cap/trade (debate) continues fullish speed to TheGreen sapphire-misted tangle of the brushes, mountains, aheadunravel TheWhere hot lithe gold lianas hush coil,of noon. • BroadbandM for Multiculturalism (debate) continues finessing to GreenAnd orchids tangle deck of the the brushes, tree-tops • unravelImmigration debate WhereAnd ferns lithe the lianas warm coil, dark soil. • MRefugee for Multiculturalism funeral costs finessingdebate And orchids deck the tree-tops • Immigration(Federal) Labor debate Party review AndCore ferns of my the heart, warm my dark country! soil. • Refugeechallenges funeral costs debate Her pitiless blue sky, • (Federal)Road freight Labor review Party review CoreWhen of sick my atheart, heart, my around country! us, • challengesReith prompts industrial relations HerWe seepitiless the bluecattle sky, die - • RoadOpposition freight internal review tiffs WhenBut then sick the at greyheart, clouds around gather, us, • ReithBank promptsreform soundings industrial relations WeAnd see we thecan cattlebless dieagain - • OppositionMining taxes internal unresolved tiffs ButThe thendrumming the grey of cloudsan army, gather, • Bank reform soundings AndThe steady,we can soakingbless again rain. • Mining taxes unresolved The drumming of an army, TheCore steady, of my heart,soaking my rain. country! PLUS... pages 11 - 14 Land of the Rainbow Gold, Latest Roy Morgan findingsPLUS... For flood and fire and famine, Global Warming & Leaders Core of my heart, my country! Roy Morgan Research insert, pp11-14 LandShe pays of the us Rainbow back threefold Gold, - PLUS... ForOver flood the thirsty and firepaddocks, and famine, Roy Morgan Research insert, pp11-14 SheWatch, pays after us manyback threefolddays, - OverThe filmy the thirsty veil of paddocks, greenness Watch,That thickens after many as we days, gaze. The filmy veil of greenness ThatAn opal-hearted thickens as wecountry, gaze. A wilful, lavish land - AnAll youopal-hearted who have country, not loved her, AYou wilful, will notlavish understand land - - AllThough you who earth have holds not many loved splendours, her, YouWherever will not I mayunderstand die, - ThoughI know to earth what holds brown many country splendours, WhereverMy homing I maythoughts die, will fly. I know to what brown country MyDorothea homing Mackellar thoughts will fly. Dorothea Mackellar Dorothea Mackellar dressed as one of the Graces for Mrs T.H. Kelly’s Italian Red Cross Day tableaux at the Palace Theatre, 20 June 1918... more information in our editorial Dorothea Mackellar dressed as one of the Graces for Mrs T.H. Kelly’s Italian Red Cross Day tableaux at the Palace Theatre, 20 June 1918... more information in our editorial 19 DECEMBER 2010 to 28 FEBRUARY 2011 14 Collins Street ABOUT THE EDITOR ALISTAIR URQUHART Melbourne, 3000 Alistair Urquhart graduated from the Australian National University in Canberra, in Law, History and Politics, was Victoria, Australia admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and remains a (non-practicing) member of P 03 9654 1300 the Law Institute of Victoria. Before that, he graduated from high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and had many F 03 9654 1165 opportunities to become aware of the workings of Washington DC. For 30 years, he listened every Sunday evening [email protected] to the late Alistair Cooke and his Letter From America. www.letterromcanberra.com.au His early career was mostly in the coal industry, where he became involved with energy, environmental and water Editor Alistair Urquhart issues, and later in the SME finance sector. His public affairs firm works with many engineering and information Associate Editor Gabriel Phipps technology firms, other professional association and industry groups, on a wide range of issues, in Victoria, Canberra Subscription Manager Juliette Biegler and overseas. Urquhart visits Canberra regularly. He may hold the record for miles rowed on Lake Burley Griffin. Advertising Manager Eddie Mior Editorial Consultant Rick Brown Design Richard Hamilton Editorial A challenging year for many leaders, and others Steph Dang Welcome to our first edition for the year. It covers from the end of 2010 and January and February. We will bring Letter from Canberra is focused on the interface you ten monthly issues before Christmas. It will be a busy year for our readers. For new readers, our methodology of business and government, with enough politics includes marking up several papers each day, including The Age, The Financial Review and The Australian, plus all and bureaucracy to understand the, or any, types of other material that comes into our office with ‘a government link’. relevant business opportunities. We have been publishing Letter from Canberra’s We started this magazine three years ago with the election/early days of new prime minister Kevin Rudd. The sister publication Letter From Melbourne, a then centralising national focus of our nation is shifting back, a bit, to a more federation approach as more public policy digest, for 16 years. Commencing Liberal/National Party governments appear. with the Kennett era corporatisation and privatisation of energy and other utilities and We have not yet opened up a betting shop as to what might, or might not, happen to the wide range of opportunities the other fresh broom approach of a new for policies and prime ministers during the year. government, where we focused on business opportunities. Increasingly, we included matters In the world of industrial relations, ‘things’ are warming up, both on the ground where people actually work in the other states and adopted a more federal (unions/their members/employers/employer associations) and also in parliament where the IR debate will get focus. nasty, recently prompted by former industrial relations minister in the Howard government Peter Reith. Opposition The recent change in federal government opens leader Tony Abbott has said, no way back. Just like the prime minister said no way forward on a carbon tax in up new business opportunities, particularly the this parliament. Times change. government’s new emphasis on climate change, carbon trading, water, industrial relations, Our media is using its muscle to become even more important in the world of politics, and our lives. Many of us education, information technology and the have views as to when and whether they or some or which of them do a fair job. No doubt the Channel 7 reporter traditional sectors. Mark Riley showed his trade at one of its low points as he made to suggest that Tony Abbott was not concerned For many years, our other publications have about a dead Australian soldier. included the well-known federal government Departmental Wall Chart. (NOW AVAILABLE at 03 Our cover. If not directly affected by the weather that mother nature provided over the past two 96541300 or letterfrommelbourne.com.au)) We months, we have all had good reason to reflect. We covered this sense in our recent Letter From conduct seminars and informal luncheons and Melbourne. How modern technology and planning and regulations are no match for the strength of meetings in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. nature. Perhaps it made us reflect back in time, when a larger percentage of Australians lived in the Most people have their clipping services and a bush, and were often more immediately effected by the natural environment. It made the editor muse range of email products/newsletters/etc. At the on Dorothea Mackellar’s poem, which we have included in full, particularly to give perspective of the end of the month, Letter From Canberra gives a second verse that so many of us do know. And now the sad events in New Zealand. broad overview of what has been going on, not just in one industry but across all industries and Isabel Marion Dorothea Mackellar, OBE, 1885 to 1968, Sydney-born, Australian poet and fiction the world of business and government generally. writer. Her best-known poem, My Country, written at age 19 while homesick in England, was first Objective. Independent. Read it on the plane. Or at published in the London Spectator in 1908.
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