The 3^rd Annual “Battle of the Bands” is a music festival of ethnic youth and young people within Victoria. The night will include ethnic action dancing, sway of the pacific, the glitter of Asia, Bands from the church groups will range from heavy rock to gospel country.

Many of the stars of the music festival will be “Second Generation” Australian born children of immigrants and refugees as performers.

Everyone is welcome to come and join in the fun and audience members are encouraged to come in costume of your ethnic heritage which include Anglo, European background.(Dutch, German, Scottish, English, Wales, etc)

It is proudly supported by the Uniting Church in Australia.

Date 22 November 2008.

Location Box Hill Wesley Uniting Church in 2-6 Oxford Street, Box Hill, Melbourne.

Times 3pm to 9.30pm

parking details Street parking

Tickets secretary. Tee Makoni - talaheumakoni@hotmail.com

Adults $5.00

Young people 12 to 25 Goldcoin donation

Children under 12 free.

Food stalls will be available

New Performers wishing to join in should contact:

Don Ikitoelagi (03) 9251- 5287 email Don.Ikitoelagi@victas.uca.org.au

I biked around the Opening Day of Parliament yesterday and it truly was a festive event for many people wishing to see the children decked in their bright school colours. Our wheelchaired neighbour got herself a great spot just on the corner of Queen Salote College and Mala'e Kula. She had a deck chair out there with a number of her elderly friends. I wrote a little bit about the event here and here and there are more photos in our Photo Gallery.

I believe that the PSA and People's Democratic Party antagonistic march proved a few things.

1. Our best future lies in fixing the existing system.
2. The PSA do not represent near half the employees of government
3. The political parties do not represent near 1/10 of the people of Tonga.
4. Neither group are interested in the people

Our best future lies in fixing the existing system.

We are a small country, and transparency and accountability of government is a whole lot more important than giving readily manipulated voters the right to vote. Full democracies give power to an elite few who have short term agendas of maintaining and increasing their power. Of the pasifika experience we have wonderful examples of thriving democracies.

Fiji - our nearest neighbour does a coup every couple of years to retain power within the small elite whilst bush Fijians still get lip service from that same elite.

New Zealand - ooops, sorry.

The Solomon Islands - does this sound like another extended version of Fiji, or are the military in this case trying to get the people back the government ? Oh, and their issue has spilled into International direct involvement.

(Western) Samoa - Ooops, they just got their land back from Germany via New Zealand via UN Mandate(?) And they maintain a President for Life.

East Timor - the freedom leaders' mandated solutions become a greater danger to the people, than external supporters. Where the UN and Australia were first brought in for protection against Indonesia, Australia is now in again to protect the East Timorese from themselves.

In Greg Sheridan's piece: Throw troops at the Pacific Problem is a rather enlightening moment.

What is true of depressed people is also true of depressed nations. The moment just before they pass from being merely difficult, poorly run and impoverished to being actual failed states, where anarchy reigns and no coherent government functions, represents a peak of intensity.

It also represents multiple, simultaneous systems failures.

Such was the case in East Timor and Solomon Islands, the two South Pacific failed states in which Canberra has had to intervene with decisive military force to restore a semblance of order.

All the noise out of the PSA and People's representatives seem to be designed solely for the purpose of creating multiple, sumultaneous public service, law-and-order failures. Without any real ideas about what happens on the other end.

The PSA do not represent near half the employees of government

Let's go through the numbers. Approximately 700 to 1,000 people gathered with the marchers. There are 4,000 employees of Government, most of them situated on Tongatapu.

Looking at the reports, more than half of the people in the march didn't look like they were government employees, dressing in bush or non work clothing.

Visit bTonga

When attending university or after-high-school classes, many of the institutions use numbers as part of differentiating their classes. Usually they have a number for the level of difficulty (example 1 is the earliest/easest gradually getting tougher with higher numbers requiring either world experience or having taken lower number classes.)

[ref: MatangiTonga.To]

When the House passed the 60% salary rise on Monday October 16, all Cabinet Ministers voted against it, while the others voted for it. There was a tie of 13-all in the Whole House Committee, but it was passed with the Casting Vote of the Acting Chairman, Samiu Vaipulu. The same result was repeated in the Legislature there was a 13-all tie but again it was passed with the Casting Vote of the Speaker, Hon. Tu'iha'angana.

However, on reconvening the House was troubled that since then there had been a public reaction labeling elected members as "a bunch of thieves".

Elected members were suspicious that the move by the Prime Minister to withhold the ministers salaries while paying out the members was intended to further tarnish the elected members' reputations. The Chairman of the Whole House Committee, Hon. Tu'ilakepa pointed out to the Prime Minister that it was a collective decision by the House to raise their salaries, and if the House agreed with his request it would not be good for the image of the elected members

I wonder if they have Junior courses for politicians ? They seem to make some elementary gaffs that just makes you wonder about their honesty (cough cough cough) and integrity (cough cough cough.)

This kind of back to basics thing isn't isolated to Tonga, maybe someone has recent examples from New Zealand, but currently in Sydney we are witnessing a field day for local media ripping out big bloopers/nightmare errors from NSW politics. One example is below

* NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister is charged with multiple drugh and child sex offences

Possibly the problem isn't with our politicians not knowing what they should know, but to know when to ignore they're own lofted predispositions to be righteous.

Is that remotely possible ?