http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/john-mikkelsen/ A career journalist, former editor of regional daily The Observer in Gladstone. John is now a freelance writer and columnist featuring regularly in websites and regional papers. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/somethings-really-fishy-in-the-gladstone-waters/ It’s official. The water quality in Gladstone Harbour is fine despite one of the world’s biggest dredging programs. Sick fish are getting better, there are no health problems and the three week fishing ban over 500 sqkm of waterways has just been lifted. Apparently more than 20 fishermen who presented with serious infections and skin lesions after coming into contact with what they claimed to be infected fish and contaminated water are mistaken. Queensland Seafood Association president and cardio-surgeon Dr Michael Gardner doesn’t think so but swimming in the harbour has also been officially sanctioned by State Government authorities and all the kids who had to pack their fishing rods away during the school holidays can dust them off and get back out in the harbour while the dredging continues as part of a program to move 46 million cubic metres of silt. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/somethings-really-fishy-in-the-gladstone-waters/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/somethings-really-fishy-in-the-gladstone-waters/#item6878 Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:55:09 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/back-off-scammers-youre-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/ Have I got SUCKER tatooed on my forehead? Or a big bulls-eye and the words “easy target” pinned to my back? Not last time I checked, but that doesn’t stop the scammers from trying some very obvious tricks to part me from my cash. The lonely Russian girls have finally given up after coming to the conclusion I wasn’t their passport to a new life of riches - but their Russian Mafia bosses and Nigerian cousins haven’t. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/back-off-scammers-youre-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/back-off-scammers-youre-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/#item6732 Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:50:02 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/telling-the-government-to-go-and-get-trucked/ “Breaker, breaker Rubber Ducky, looks like we’ve got us a convoy… “. Well, actually we’ve got eight of them now and soon the wheels will be turning across the length and breadth of Australia in what promises to be the biggest mobile protest we have ever seen, with the Labor Government and an early election as the targets. The “Convoy of No Confidence in the Federal Government - Coalition of Industries” will rumble towards Canberra next month from every mainland state. What originated as a plan for a peaceful protest starting from Darwin and calling for an early election has gone viral in the space of less than a week. Organisers, the National Road Freighters Association, soon realised from expressions of interest and promises to participate that Darwin would not be able to cater for the expected numbers, and routes have now been planned for eight separate convoys including several in Queensland and others in all mainland states. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/telling-the-government-to-go-and-get-trucked/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/telling-the-government-to-go-and-get-trucked/#item6355 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:55:24 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/verbal-battle-lines-drawn-on-carbon-tax/ “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…” Those are the most famous fighting words in modern history, uttered by Britain’s war-time Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. They inspired a nation to ultimate victory, but these days if he were an Australian Prime Minister or Opposition Leader, he could be talking about the Gillard Government’s controversial carbon tax. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/verbal-battle-lines-drawn-on-carbon-tax/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/verbal-battle-lines-drawn-on-carbon-tax/#item6313 Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:45:28 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-governments-climate-commission-is-full-of-it/ It should come as no great surprise that the Federal Government’s Climate Commission has produced a new report with dire warnings backing Labor and the Greens’ case for a carbon tax. The report would really have created headlines if it said climate change was not real or that a carbon tax was not a necessary part of measures to prevent it, along with carbon sequestration. There was nothing much new, apart from a claim that sea levels could now rise up to one metre by the turn of the century, which is higher than even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s top range forecast of 0.18m to 0.76m. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-governments-climate-commission-is-full-of-it/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-governments-climate-commission-is-full-of-it/#item5911 Tue, 24 May 2011 19:45:51 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/this-specific-dingo-did-not-eat-any-babies/ Political correctness rules our lives and while I’m all for equal opportunity, why not extend it to some of the creatures that share our great country? Why is it considered acceptable for one or two species to regularly claim human lives, while another is hunted down and killed in retribution? Or a whole colony culled, after what might be little more than a nip? If you are unlucky enough to be eaten or bitten in the sea, you are intruding, you knowingly took the risk and the chances are very high that the protected predator responsible will be allowed to swim off in search of its next feed. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/this-specific-dingo-did-not-eat-any-babies/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/this-specific-dingo-did-not-eat-any-babies/#item5727 Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:45:19 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/10k-for-the-first-person-to-prove-weve-caused-climate-change/ Pssst – want to make an easy ten grand? Believers in the science of global warming, you now have the chance to spread the word and at the same time make yourself $10,000 richer. This has to be really simple, as almost everyone from PM Julia Gillard down, including much of our mainstream media, has been telling us it’s a fact - the science says so, anybody who thinks otherwise is a fringe-dwelling extremist, a denier who won’t accept the evidence and doesn’t deserve to be heard. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/10k-for-the-first-person-to-prove-weve-caused-climate-change/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/10k-for-the-first-person-to-prove-weve-caused-climate-change/#item5641 Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:55:32 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/laws-of-the-land-create-an-injust-environment/ Justice may be blind, but many Australian farmers find the scales are tipped against them as they struggle to come to terms with a growing minefield of environmental regulations on top of other natural enemies. They are not fighting the concept of land management, but the way in which their properties can be ‘locked up’ or confiscated without proper compensation. They can be prosecuted for something suddenly illegal under frequent amendments to vegetation laws which can be applied retrospectively. The farmer is virtually presumed guilty until innocence can be proven, often at great expense. Those who live in cities and urban areas might find this difficult to comprehend. The following events are more suited to a communist dictatorship but they happened in our “free country” … feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/laws-of-the-land-create-an-injust-environment/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/laws-of-the-land-create-an-injust-environment/#item5592 Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:55:16 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gas-gas-gas-no-laughing-matter/ Australia’s burgeoning liquified natural gas industry is no laughing matter for Central Queensland farmers faced with falling property prices and a growing maze of gas wells on prime agricultural land. With the recent green light for two controversial multi-billion dollar LNG projects, and a third granted conditional State Government approval this week, a national land rights organization has urged landholders to exercise “extreme caution” in dealing with gas exploration ventures. Many farmers themselves are madder than Jumping Jack Flash and threatening a “Lock the Gate” campaign. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gas-gas-gas-no-laughing-matter/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gas-gas-gas-no-laughing-matter/#item4450 Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:30:40 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-farmers-revolution-against-climate-bureaucrats/ What started as a ripple is now growing into a powerful protest wave sweeping across our great nation. In the space of a week, it has been fed by a series of fiery meetings in outback Queensland and southern States, a symbolic funeral service in Perth and gatherings in Brisbane and Melbourne. At first glance these might seem unrelated, but beneath the surface they are connected by a strong under current of people pushed to the limits. The Perth “funeral” on the steps of Parliament House involved the “death” of property rights, complete with wreath laying, a piper in full regalia and a cortege to Cottesloe Beach for symbolic burial. feedback@thepunch.com.au (John Mikkelsen) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-farmers-revolution-against-climate-bureaucrats/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-farmers-revolution-against-climate-bureaucrats/#item4374 Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:40:26 +0000 John Mikkelsen | Author bios | The Punch