Freedom of information request

Content of my email sent to Australian Research Council May 7, 2013.
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Dear Ms Howard,

Please could you provide me with the following information:

• Details of all Australian Research Council grants that have been given to various academic institutions for bicycle helmet studies over the past 25 years.

If there are certain administrative processes that I need to perform to facilitate my access to this information, I would be grateful if you could let me know.

Thank you for your assistance and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,
Sue Abbott

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(to date, not a peep from the Australian Research Council which in my opinion is particularly poor form given the public resources they have at their finger tips - even just a reply email to say 'thanks we'll be in touch soon' would have been fine)

A battle of heels

To expand a little on yesterday's tweet, BN2 was waiting at the King Street intersection on Elizabeth Street when this 'clop clop clopping' noise came rapidly up behind her! Suddenly a high-heel-wearing woman using the pavement appeared alongside and started to scream at her:

'Look at you...you're not wearing a helmet!!!!! And look at you in your heels...you're not even dressed for cycling!!!!!!! Look at you!!!!'

'I'm sorry, who are you?' said BN2

'I'm a lawyer and a human rights advocate, and you should be wearing a helmet!'

'Thank you for concern; it has been duly noted.'

With the lights still red and a posse of other pedestrians pooled in this little corner of Sydney, there followed an awkward silence until finally BN2 got her green light and self-identified lawyer got her green man...

Oh dear ...that love of nanny, so very very Australian!!!

Wonderful, wonderful Christiania!

Useful, convenient, nippy-ish, easy to park, perfect picnic-ing chariot, fits through vehicle barriers, way-way-way better than a car!!!

I love it...

We all love it....

You'd love it!!!!

Tractor tyres (check); B-triple tyres (check); bicycle tyres (don't be silly!)

It has taken 8 days to locate an inner tube in Scone!!!!! ...sigh... which basically meant a reshuffle of this week's engagements, then too much time near a kitchen, a dangerous spot of baking...and now full slice tins...not good

But finally yesterday at lunchtime, one was located 26 km away in nearby town of Muswellbrook, taken to the tennis club in Aberdeen during the late afternoon, and then brought home to me last night. It'll be back inside the tyre later on today and then I'll be on my bike in a jiffy hotfooting it off to town with a 'to do' list as long as my arm!

Note to self: when next in Sydney, stock up big time on inner tubes!!!

- never am I going to be without a cupboard full again

Helmet believers ♥ their little helmets

Oh gawd...here we go again.

Dr Dinh has had a letter published in this week's Medical Journal of Australia (MJA 198 [8] - 6 May 2013), which he then reports on in his article on The Conversation subsequently syndicated to the Brisbane Times...



...and oh boy!...are mainstream media excited.



Nothing he says extinguishes the fact that cycling here has yet to be made 'irresistible' as it has in the Netherlands (currently still a helmet- free country - don't do it, guys!!!), Denmark and Germany .

Somewhat weirdly though, I felt pretty chuffed when I noticed that he'd hyperlinked me in his article at 'publicised court cases'...clearly we (anti-helmet law campaigners) are getting under his and his colleagues' helmet promoting skin.

Oh...but it's so tiresome playing these little games - and expensive...

...ah...now that reminds me to get a wriggle on and submit my freedom of information request to the Australian Research Council (ARC) for details of all ARC grants provided to various academic institutions for bicycle helmet studies over the past 25 years...so...

Check

♫always look on the bright side of life...whew whooh, whew whooh whooh whooh whooh whooh♪♫

EXTREME ANIMAL CRUELTY AUSTRALIA'S FAULT - BAN LIVE EXPORT NOW

(Images: 'Egypt exposed,' Animals Australia)


Dear Joel (my federal member for Hunter) and George (my state member for Upper Hunter),

I have written to you before on this matter, and this terrible trade is still going on. You said you were going to stop it. To watch the cruelty exposed on The 7:30 Report is unbearable.

How can you let this happen?

How can Australia sit by and pretend that it'll be all ok once we've sorted it out (which we never do)?

How can we be so arrogant to think that we can keep an eye on these poor animals and guard them against acts of cruelty from our sunny shores?

How can we ever be sure what exactly happens to these poor wretched animals when they are so far away in other lands?

Enough is enough - ban live export now. Open up the abattoirs here again, make the meat producers pay proper Australian wages - ban live export now.

From here on in, I refuse to vote at any election state or federal until you, our elected representatives, provide solid assurances that this wicked practice is to be stopped now.

Any animal leaving Australia ought to leave 'already dead' - I cannot bear being part of this commercial cruelty. Whilst Australian governments refuse to ban this ghastly practice, their dreadful tortuous deaths are done in our name.

BAN LIVE ANIMAL EXPORT NOW.

Yours in abject misery at what I can't watch on The 7:30 Report,

Sue Abbott

(published on my Scone Blog too)

AUSTRALIAN CYCLING IS NASTY

Dear World,

Beware of ever introducing bicycle helmet laws into your countries.

Here is a taste of some recent comments left on a Youtube film made nearly 4 years ago by the highly-acclaimed documentary maker, Mike Rubbo, detailing the lead-up to my first court case.

Nasty, gutless, ignorant...but sadly not unusual in Australia...

...and these same types of comment are made on the road too...this is Australia.

Only last week I had one prize charlie with hand on horn pass me at great speed with only millimetres to spare, gesticulating like there was no tomorrow all the way to...the red traffic lights just ahead!

Naturally when I joined him at the still red lights I tapped on his front passenger window and asked him "what is your problem?" The coward could not even look at me and was as quiet as a mouse. What a lily-livered wonder! He hadn't planned on being stuck with me - no, he was zooming past in his 4 wheel drive - he was a business man - he was going places fast...but he was in Newtown and inevitably at the mercy of Inner West congestion.

Anyway, I digress...the internet prize charlies often claim to ride bikes but when you read the content of their comments you often discover that they can't - they always seem to be falling off and yet these incompetent numpties have the cheek to lash out against others who do things differently to them.

This, dear World, is Australian cycling and this is why those of us here who want to bring riding bicycles back to the realm of normal know that we have a massive uphill battle.

And so, dear World, my message to you is...be very very afraid...helmet laws kill cycling...period

Kind regards,
Sue Abbott