brendan_kerrison

What Maria said. Fantastic.

I really love this one. The colours are definitely different from the standard apostles shots, more subdued and really highlighting te colours in the rock. I also love what the long exposure has done with the sea. Fantastic.

It really is beautiful. So close and yet I've never been there. The water makes me want to run down and jump in it. Is it much of a hike down to the beach from where you can park?

 

Is this a crop or multiple photographs stitched?

Any comments and/or critiques are much appreciated.

Any comments/critiques much appreciated

Any comment and/or critiques are appreciated.

Any comments and/or critiques are much appreciated.

Any comments are much appreciated

Ha! Love it Tony - thank goodness for older brothers and Super Teddy. Luckily my little one hasn't discovered the Cupboard Monster yet.

I have to say I'm in agreement with Peter A. I would have thought Uluru was one subject that did not deserve or in fact need this sort of treatment.

Brendan... what are you drinking?

A cabernet merlot would be lovely thanks.

Not sure if if anyone else saw this article by Alan Ramsey a few weeks back. Or more pertinently the speech given by author Shane Maloney to a group of students at Scotch College that is reported within. I would love to have seen some of the faces that day

Ha! So it's even worse than I thought The more expensive the school the more likely it is that the parents earn more than those about them, therefore the more relative funding they get. Fantastic.

aha, some policy discussion!

here ya go Mr D - this is fair. Every child gets teh same amount of dollars each year which can be spent by parents in any school they choose. If the school fees are higher than this allowance - the extra costs become a tax deduction for the parents above that rate -beats a baby bonus or Labor tax plan hands down. her eis another policy to bring in, the interest costs of a family home are tax deductible - and capital gains are introduced on sale of family home - just like any other 'asset'.

Fair? How on earth is that fair? Surely you are joking? It works on the assumption that all schools and all parents are created equal, which patently they are not. Being an advocate of the blue bloods I can see why this would work for you, but being a red blooded fellow myself I'm quite a fan of redistribution of wealth.

How are the less resource rich schools supposed to ever catch up following this model? Any concerned parent is obviously going to try and send their child to the school with the most resources. Those schools will thus get ever more resources. But hey, this is what you blue bloods like to do, let the rich get richer and the poor, well who cares about them anyway. Why aren't they working harder and getting richer? This policy does not create equlity amongst schools, it promotes inequality. A fair system would provide every child with the same opportunity, regardless of economic status, to attend a well resourced school. The only way to do this is to equalise the resources of schools. Your policy surely does not do that.

In addition, how are Mr and Mrs Low Income supposed to afford the fee-allowance gap for The Kings School? A tax deduction certainly isn't going to do it? They would need to have a spare $15000 a year to get their child enrolled.

While Labor's schools policy might not be perfect, policies never are, it a farsight better than the Coalitions. The ridulousness of basing funding on socio-economic levels of the geographical location of the school with no exceptions is beyond absurd. The Coaltion knew that lots of well resourced private schools are located in disparate socio-economic regions and targeted their policy deliberately.

Disclaimer: For 6 years I attended Newington College, Stanmore, a very well funded GPS privte school

 

Critique away

Thanks Tony.

I think that Labor have a bag-full of issues to throw at Howard. They'll bring them up on any pretext, just to keep Little Johnny on the back foot.

I agree. Howard is going to be spending so much of this campaign fire-fighting he might as well just leave the helmet on. He must have been very annoyed that he couldn't quite dodge the Scrafton bullet completely, as it is it's only likely to bounce off his flak jacket. All the same those bruises are going to start hurting by election day.

Viva la Senate. And mixed metaphors.

On the other side of politics... there's always the Liverpool Council issue, which so far, Latham has managed to keep hosed down (the FTA session of Parliament was supposed to be all about Liverpool). I hope it stays that way.

Unless there was actual corruption going on I don't think Liverpool is going to be an issue. People have different expectations about the standards required for the different levels of government and are pretty accepting of, or resigned to, the sort of shenanigans that go on in the rough and tumble of local government.

Love the photo BTW. I think the real Rumsfeld Junior would have had more of a knowing smirk than this fellow. Or maybe he only developed that in later years

"Both sides have come out firing, like a couple of Rugby sides determined to soften up the other team before the first fatigue sets in. This cannot be maintained. They will have to get their breath back in the coming week or so."

You think so? I'm not so sure. Howard is more desperate than usual to win this election and I don't think he'll leave anything in the tank in an effort to do so. And he has plenty of minions more than willing to go into bat for him. It's one area in which Latham can't compete - he doesn't have the same sort of people who are willing to do so much of the dirty work for him. It's a side-effect of Latham's very sudden rise to power and Howard's longevity.

If you will remember also Peter, the week after the baby bonus the government's polling actually fell.

No one I know saw the baby-bonus as anything more than what it was - a sweetener. I was quite surprised by how poorly the last budget was received by the wider public. It was clearly a pre-election budget yet people didn't seem to buy it, which is unusual because usually they do. Perhaps it was because Latham was still fresh, politics was on peoples mind, and they actually thought about what was being put to them. What was the baby-bonus supposed to achieve? Was there a better alternative? Latham's Budget response was a stroke of genius. He didn't even bother rebutting what the Government was offering and used it as a means of communicating Labor's platform. It couldn't have been less reactionary.

I also think that Labor and Latham can win but it's going to be a fraught campaign. The stakes are high and as you say anything can go wrong.

Sorry Peter, but I'm not all that fond of chardonnay myself, especially not the over-oaked stuff that most Australian wine makers produce. Give me an ice cold Clare Valley Riesling or an aged Hunter Semillon and I'll be happy :)

 

"an impoversihed fake nation state"

 

Lordy me. That gave me a chuckle. Thanks for the laugh. I'm at work so there's no time to reply now but I'll get back to you on that.

Peter, you can speak for everyone in that crowd can you? While not actually captured in Tony's photo I was there - maybe I'm standing behind the tall guy with the glasses. Do you know what I think in regards to East Timor? I don't think so. Australia's policies and attitude towards East Timor have been a disgrace, on both sides of politics, for as long as I have been alive, pre and post "liberation". The fact that we can use our position to screw them on the Timor Gap treaty makes me angry beyond words. To see our esteemed Foreign Minister Alexander Downer sprout inane platitudes about how good it is for both countries is obscene. And yes the policies have been by and large bi-partisan.

 

Still, we live in a two party system - who are you going to choose?

Tony, thanks for both your photographs and your commentaries. Both are always a joy to see and read. While I was not one of your "Faces in the Mob", I was one of the faces in that mob.

 

The election cannot come quickly enough - I want to play my part in voting our deceitful little sycophant of a Prime Minister out of office RIGHT NOW.

 

My greatest fear is that somehow Howard will squirm his way back into office. The coming election should not be close, it should be a landslide, yet somehow it remains neck and neck. After all these years of dishonesty and deceit so many people want more. I literally do not understand.

Comments/critiques welcome.

Chaos waiting to happen.

To each their own :) There was never any intention for this to be either light or crisp. Cheers Brendan.

Any comments appreciated.

Great photo. I quite like the background. The linearity of the steps contrasts with the curves of the model without being distracting. I also think that the slightly washed out toning works nicely with the vividness of the shirt and skirt.

Thanks all for the kind comments.