PM Morrison ... Events of interest from a libertarian/conservative perspective below
This document is part of an archive of postings on Australian Politics, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written. My Home Page. My Recipes. My alternative Wikipedia. My Blogroll. Email me (John Ray) here. NOTE: The short comments that I have in the side column of the primary site for this blog are now given at the foot of this document.
Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?
UQ physics student works out ‘paradox-free’ time travel
A young University of Queensland student says he has found a way to “square the numbers” and prove that “paradox-free” time travel is theoretically possible in our universe.
From Back To The Future to Terminator to 12 Monkeys, stories dealing with time travel invariably have had to grapple with an age-old head-scratcher.
The so-called “grandfather paradox” – that a time traveller could kill their grandparent, preventing their own birth – broadly describes the logical inconsistency that arises from any action that would change the past.
But Germain Tobar, a fourth-year Bachelor of Advanced Science student, believes he has solved the riddle.
“Classical dynamics says if you know the state of a system at a particular time, this can tell us the entire history of the system,” he said in a statement.
“This has a wide range of applications, from allowing us to send rockets to other planets and modelling how fluids flow. For example, if I know the current position and velocity of an object falling under the force of gravity, I can calculate where it will be at any time.”
Einstein’s theory of general relativity, however, predicts the existence of time loops or time travel, “where an event can be both in the past and future of itself – theoretically turning the study of dynamics on its head”.
Mr Tobar said a unified theory that could reconcile both traditional dynamics and Einstein’s theory of relativity was the holy grail of physics. “But the current science says both theories cannot both be true,” he said.
“As physicists, we want to understand the universe’s most basic, underlying laws and for years I’ve puzzled on how the science of dynamics can square with Einstein’s predictions. I wondered, ‘Is time travel mathematically possible?’”
Mr Tobar and his supervisor, UQ physicist Dr Fabio Costa, say they have found a way to “square the numbers” – and that the findings have fascinating consequences for science. “The maths checks out – and the results are the stuff of science fiction,” Dr Costa said.
Dr Costa gives the example of travelling in time in an attempt to stop COVID-19’s “patient zero” being exposed to the virus.
As the grandfather paradox shows, if you stopped that individual getting infected, “that would eliminate the motivation for you to go back and stop the pandemic in the first place”.
“This is a paradox – an inconsistency that often leads people to think that time travel cannot occur in our universe,” he said.
“Some physicists say it is possible, but logically it’s hard to accept because that would affect our freedom to make any arbitrary action. It would mean you can time travel, but you cannot do anything that would cause a paradox to occur.”
But the researchers, whose findings appear in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, say their mathematical modelling shows that neither of these conditions have to be the case.
Instead, they show it is possible for events to adjust themselves to be logically consistent with any action that the time traveller makes.
“In the coronavirus patient zero example, you might try and stop patient zero from becoming infected, but in doing so you would catch the virus and become patient zero, or someone else would,” Mr Tobar said.
“No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you. This would mean that – no matter your actions – the pandemic would occur, giving your younger self the motivation to go back and stop it.”
He added, “Try as you might to create a paradox, the events will always adjust themselves, to avoid any inconsistency. The range of mathematical processes we discovered show that time travel with free will is logically possible in our universe without any paradox.”
Cardinal George Pell returns to Rome for first time since child sex abuse convictions quashed
A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Sydney confirmed Cardinal Pell will fly out of Sydney today, but the purpose and duration of the visit is not known.
Cardinal Pell was leading the Secretariat of State, set up to reform the Vatican’s finances, when he took a leave of absence in 2017 to face charges of child sexual abuse.
The 79-year-old was convicted of sexually abusing two choir boys in the 1990s and was sentenced to six years in prison.
He had served 13 months of his sentence when his conviction was overturned by the High Court in April. He has been living in Sydney since his release.
Christopher Lamb is the Rome correspondent for Catholic news publication The Tablet and said all eyes would be on Cardinal Pell as he arrived in Rome. “The Cardinal has a number of supporters in Rome and some very loyal followers,” Lamb said.
“There will be a number of them who will be delighted to see him return — they always were very sceptical of the charges that were brought against him.
“However there will be others who will be concerned about the optics of a return by Cardinal Pell to Rome and the Vatican … particularly if the cardinal has a meeting, an audience, with Pope Francis.”
Vatican correspondent Joshua McElwee, from US newspaper the National Catholic Reporter, said Cardinal Pell was no longer employed by the Vatican and the reason for his visit was not clear. “At the moment he has no official role here,” McElwee said.
“Very likely he’s coming to put his affairs in order. I imagine he still has personal items here, things to bring home, perhaps an apartment to clean up. “I don’t know what else he would be doing other than those kind of things.”
Cardinal Pell’s return to Rome comes just days after the resignation of Cardinal Angelo Becciu who has been implicated in allegations of financial misconduct at the Vatican.
Cardinal Becciu previously worked in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State where he reportedly clashed with Cardinal Pell over reform of the Vatican’s finances.
But McElwee said it was not clear whether Cardinal Pell’s visit was connected to Cardinal Becciu’s resignation on Saturday.
“It’s known that Cardinal Pell and Cardinal Becciu butted horns when Cardinal Pell was in Rome,” McElwee said. “Becciu apparently was involved in some kind of alleged financial misdeeds and Pell has said that he raised issues about those at the time.
“It could be that Cardinal Pell is taking a victory lap here in Rome, but I don’t think it’s going to be more than a short visit.”
Lamb said Cardinal Pell’s visit coincided with a period of uncertainty in Pope Francis’s pontificate, with many speculating Cardinal Pell could be seeking to influence the outcome of a future conclave to decide the next Pope.
“Cardinal Pell is not someone who is openly disloyal to Pope Francis and has worked for Pope Francis,” Lamb said.
“But it is no secret that he has a different vision of the Church to the Pope and I suppose some people will be looking to see whether the Cardinal is involved in any pre-conclave manoeuvres, given we are almost eight years into Pope Francis’s pontificate. “There is a battle going on and the Cardinal is certainly seen by those who don’t like Francis as someone who is an ally.”
“One Nation” party gets academic freedom change in return for vote
A legal definition of academic freedom that some universities say will make it harder for them to discipline racist or sexist academics will be included in the Morrison government’s proposed university funding laws in exchange for One Nation’s support for the bill.
The measure is one of several commitments One Nation say they have extracted from the government, which will need three crossbench votes to get its reforms through the Senate as early as next week.
Senator Pauline Hanson said One Nation’s two Senate votes were also contingent upon the government reinstating a 10 per cent discount for students who pay their fees upfront, and reinstating a seven-year limit for full-time students to receive HECS-HELP before they have to pay full fees.
One Nation has fostered a close relationship with academic Peter Ridd, who was sacked by James Cook University in 2018 following his public criticism of colleagues’ research on the impact of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef.
“[Education] Minister [Dan] Tehan has shown a strong willingness to listen to the recommendations of [Senator] Malcolm Roberts and myself, and he’s proving to have the courage to take a tough stand with the inclusion of our amendments,” Senator Hanson said.
One Nation wants the definition of academic freedom inserted into the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to be in line with the wording recommended by former High Court Chief Justice Robert French in his government-commissioned review of free speech at Australian universities.
There has been an ongoing debate about free speech at universities, and the review was ordered following concerns among coalition MPs about the influence of left wing activists on campus after protesters targeted author Bettina Arndt at Sydney University.
In his 2019 report, Mr French proposed inserting a lengthy definition into the Act that included “the freedom of academic staff to teach, discuss, and research and to disseminate and publish the results of their research” and to “make lawful public comment on any issue in their personal capacities”.
Mr Tehan declined to comment on the specifics of his negotiations with One Nation, but said he would continue to work with the crossbench to secure passage of the legislation.
“The Job-Ready Graduates legislation will provide more university places for Australian students, make it cheaper to study in areas of expected job growth and provide more funding and support to regional students and universities,” Mr Tehan said.
The government was already examining whether it should proceed with legislating the French definition of academic freedom, and called for public submissions in January, but ultimately did not include the measure as part of its current reforms.
In its submission to the government, the Innovative Research Universities, a grouping of seven institutions including La Trobe University, Western Sydney University and James Cook University, opposed the move. It said legislating the freedom for academics to provide public commentary in a personal capacity had the “potential to create highly undesirable employment disputes.”
“As the wording stands, for example, it would seem that a university academic would be within her or his rights to publicly declare they hold a racial, sexuality or gender prejudice against one or more of the students they are teaching,” the submission said.
“If challenged about holding such a view, they would seem to be able to defend themselves by claiming to have spoken in a personal capacity, not an academic one.”
Senator Hanson said her motivation was to address concerns among university lecturers who were worried about “pressures they faced over ‘how’ and ‘what’ they could teach.
“My interest is in putting a stop to this Marxist, left-leaning approach to teaching in our universities and instead, protect educators who teach using methods based on science and facts rather than ideology,” Senator Hanson said.
In his review, Mr French, chancellor of the University of Western Australia, concluded that “claims of a freedom of speech crisis on Australian campuses are not substantiated”, but outlined a model code for protecting free speech and academic freedom, which all universities agreed to adopt by the end of 2020.
In September, Dr Ridd accompanied Senator Roberts on week-long tour along the Queensland coast, holding press conferences to question the scientific consensus on the poor health of Great Barrier Reef’s and threat posed by farmers. Dr Ridd said he was meeting with National Senator Matt Canavan and local LNP candidate Ron Harding to discuss the same issues on Tuesday.
Dr Ridd is now seeking leave to appeal his wrongful dismissal claim in the High Court, after his initial victory was overturned by the Federal Court in July. The university has maintained that he was not dismissed for his views, but for “serious misconduct” and breaches of the university’s code in how he expressed them.
The government’s bill proposes a major restructuring of university funding by hiking fees for some courses, including by 113 per cent for humanities, in order to pay for cuts to STEM, nursing and teaching courses.
The government says the reforms will fund an extra 100,000 university places for domestic students by 2030, but universities have complained that total funding per student will decrease by six per cent on average.
In addition to securing One Nation’s two votes, the government will need to secure the support of either Tasmania Senator Jacqui Lambie or Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff, who are yet to public reveal how they intend to vote.
Queensland Government grants approval for state’s third-largest coal mine with 1,000 jobs promised
Construction will soon get underway on what will become Queensland’s third-largest coal mine, 40 kilometres south of Moranbah in the Bowen Basin.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the State Government had signed off on a mining lease for the Olive Downs Coking Coal Project, run by Pembroke Resources.
The central Queensland mine will have a production life of 80 years and the Government says it will create 1,000 jobs.
The Government did not provide forecasts for how much it would collect in mining royalties, but the number is expected to be in the billions.
“Let me say very clearly that not only do I support the coal industry here, but I’ve also been over to the steel mill in Japan,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“Nearly every single household utilises steel in some form or another, and steel is going to be part of our lives for many years to come.”
Pembroke said it would produce up to 15 million tonnes of metallurgical coal per year.
It will be exported to international markets in Japan and China.
Pembroke CEO Barry Tudor said the mining lease approvals were the final hurdle to beginning stage one of the project.
“We are extremely pleased to have been granted the mining leases, having consulted extensively with the local community over the past four years,” he said.
“In addition to our commitment to the environment, we have focused on creating local jobs and proactively engaged with all stakeholders.”
Mr Tudor said the company had established a relationship with the traditional owners of the land, the Barada Barna.
“We have an Indigenous Land Use Agreement and Cultural Heritage Management Plan in place,” Mr Tudor said.
Ms Palaszczuk said she expected construction would start within months. “There’s no legal action with Olive Downs — Olive Downs is good to go,” she said.
Opposition leader Deb Frecklington criticised Ms Palaszczuk for her record on advancing resources projects, but said she supported the mining lease for Olive Downs.
Once complete, Olive Downs will be around the same size as the proposed Adani project.
Ms Palaszczuk said her Government had approved $21 billion in resource projects in the current parliamentary term.
Australian firm says its nasal spray reduced coronavirus growth in animal study
Australian biotech company Ena Respiratory said on Monday that a nasal spray it is developing to improve the human immune system to fight common cold and flu significantly reduced the growth of the coronavirus in a recent study on animals.
A study on ferrets showed the product dubbed INNA-051, which could be used complementary to vaccines, lowered the levels of the virus that causes COVID-19 by up to 96%, the company said. The study was led by British government agency Public Health England.
Ena Respiratory said it would be ready to test INNA-051 in human trials in less than four months, subject to successful toxicity studies and regulatory approval.
The company has raised A$11.7 million ($8.24 million) for the development of the spray. Investors include venture capital firm Brandon Capital Ltd, the Australian federal government, pension funds and biotech giant CSL Ltd .
Several companies across the world are in the pursuit of developing a coronavirus vaccine. Australia has entered into agreements with some drug companies investing billions to secure potential vaccines for COVID-19, which has killed over 992,000 people worldwide.
Australia has so far reported 875 deaths and just over 27,000 coronavirus cases, far less than the numbers reported in other developed countries.
The despicable Punchard is still not out of the woods
The Queensland Police Service is appealing a court judgment relating to the sentencing of a police officer who leaked the home address of a domestic violence victim to her ex-partner. A court had previously heard Senior Constable Neil Punchard had called the victim a “b*tch”.
The court this month overturned the suspended jail sentence and conviction handed to Senior Constable Neil Punchard for computer hacking after he searched the police computer system and leaked an address of a domestic violence victim to her former partner.
“This has taken some time due to the seriousness of this matter and the need to give it thorough consideration in the context of a complex legal framework.
“Once the appeal process has been finalised, the Commissioner will then consider the effect of the decision on the assessment of the suitability of the officer to remain employed by the QPS. The officer remains suspended from duty.”
In September, his conviction and sentence were overturned on appeal, leaving the furious victim demanding his dismissal.
Punchard has been stood down on full pay for more than two years.
In a hearing in July, barrister Angus Edwards, who appeared for the QPS, said Punchard inflamed an acrimonious situation by sending messages to his friend, calling the victim a “b*tch”.
“The complainant didn’t provide her address subject to those court orders for reasons that she is the subject of domestic violence orders,” Mr Edwards said.
“Now he (Punchard) didn’t know that but he didn’t bother to inquire.
“All he did was take one side of the story as a serving police officer and unilaterally decided he was going to breach the trust that he had been given and provide information …
“He called her a btch, he said to fk … her over, he said ‘the btch needs to fall on her own sword for the battle she started’, and he’d say things to (the man) like ‘I know you’re screaming inside, let loose on her’.
“So he knew there were issues there. He might not have known there was domestic violence but he took that risk.
“And his job was rather to protect members of the community from those risks and he behaved in the exact opposite way of what was expected of him.”
Muslim gang accused of stabbing teen in Queen St Mall face court on attempted murder charge
A Brisbane high school student accused of a brazen stabbing of a teenager in the CBD has been granted bail on an attempted murder charge after a court heard he is set to sit his final year exams in the coming weeks.
The Brisbane Magistrates Court heard on Monday Somali-born Sade Mohamed, 18, is alleged to have been the main offender in the brazen attack at Queen St Mall on Friday night, during which a 16-year-old boy was stabbed in the chest and back.
Four charged with attempted murder after CBD stabbing
Mohamed is one of four men — aged between 18 and 19 — who have been charged with attempted murder, armed robbery, acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm and going armed so as to cause fear after the 16-year-old suffered a collapsed lung after being stabbed on the corner of Albert and Queen streets.
The court heard police claim the attack on the boy was “retribution” after he allegedly hit another person with a stick at a nearby Brisbane hotel.
Mohamed was granted bail by Magistrate Anne Thacker on strict conditions, including that he live with his aunt across the road from Logan Central Police Station and report daily.
The other three men – Said Mohamud Abdi, 18, Aden Abdirahan Warsame, 19, and Mohamed Kenneh, 19 – were also granted bail on Monday.
Mohamed was described by police prosecutor Matt Kahler as the alleged main offender in the attack, saying he was the “the doer of the stabbing”.
But defence barrister Sam Di Carlo claimed this allegation was “conjecture and wishful thinking”.
Mr Di Carlo told the court his client trained in basketball before and after school and was set to sit his final Year 12 exams in the coming weeks.
He said Mohamed attended St James College at Spring Hill on a basketball scholarship and downplayed any allegations the alleged brazen weekend attack was gang-related.
“This can be distinguished from the case of two gangs at war,” Mr Di Carlo said. “This arises over an incident and is immediate retribution. “This is a one-off event and it’s not related in any way to the event that happened in Zillmere.”
Magistrate Anne Thacker said she was concerned there could be retaliation against Mohamed, after the court heard the alleged victim had made a number of threats on social media since being stabbed.
“What is a bail consideration is the risk of reoffending and that being driven by ongoing fighting between these two groups by way of ongoing retribution behaviours,” she said.
“That’s the sticking point in my view.”
Mohamed must abide by a curfew, have no contact directly or via social media with his co-accused and report to police daily as a condition of his bail.
The court heard Kenneh worked in the CBD raising money for charity and studies at university.
He was not alleged to have had a knife during the fight.
Abdi is alleged also to have used a knife on the 16-year-old victim, the court heard.
Meanwhile, Warsame, who is studying accounting, can attend university at QUT by the Goodwill Bridge from Southbank but is not allowed to enter Queen St Mall.
Travelling overseas has been an Australian rite of passage since the 1960s when London’s Earl’s Court was known as Kangaroo Valley. These days touring Australians are just as likely to be found in Bali or Los Angeles or a Mediterranean cruise.
There was a time when overseas travel was the preserve of the rich but cheap airfares opened overseas destinations to middle Australia.
Deep down, Australians are conscious of their distance from the rest of the world and equate exotic travel with success and sophistication. Aussies love nothing better than planning for, talking about and sharing photos of their most recent overseas trip.
But the coming of the coronavirus has changed this core element of the Australian way of life. Savings otherwise allocated to “a big trip OS” are now parked and some siphoned for home improvements.
And while such projects certainly fill a lockdown vacuum, they don’t fulfil the brief for time out, a change of scenery, the delivery of carefully curated Instagram moments projecting fun, success and worldliness.
What is required is a reimagination of an Australian holiday that is coronavirus safe and offers something new and unexpected.
But where to go? Some are doing a bit of a try-before-you-buy by hiring an Airbnb to experience the lifestyle, even to feel the serenity.
And if Airbnb listings are any guide there’s no shortage of destinations.
Between the end of July and the end of August the number of Airbnb properties listed in postcode 4870 (Cairns) jumped by 33, according to data accessed by Ripehouse Advisory. Excluding ski and university postcodes, this makes Cairns the number one destination for a local holiday.
These listings show Australians are as fixated as ever on traditional tropical, seaside and treechange destinations.
During August, Airbnb listings jumped by 30 properties in the Victorian goldfields town of Castlemaine (postcode 3461), by 27 in Western Australia’s lifestyle town of Busselton (6281), by six in South Australia’s Yankalilla, by eight on Tasmania’s St Helen’s (7216), and by seven in Alice Springs (0870). In the ACT the greatest increase was in the suburb of Phillip (postcode 2606).
Australia’s holiday idylls have existed in our hearts and minds since our childhood.
But now it’s time to rediscover, to see anew a place, a destination, a piece of pure Australiana that hasn’t stood still but which has evolved into something that has the capacity to engage the worldliest of travellers.
Why, I have heard that in many of these places they offer smashed avocado with crumbled feta at knockdown prices.
Who wouldn’t be up for a bit of rest and recuperation, for a bit of a reprieve from the lockdown madness, to support a local business, to help our fellow (small-business) Australians, doing it tough in the regions and in the heartland of this blessed spot, this Australia.
Qlders say private education is too expensive, experts warn the extra cost brings little benefit
This is transparent nonsense. It included ALL Queenslanders when it is only middle class parents who can afford it. What people think who cannot afford it is irrelevant. Around 40% of Queensland teenagers go to a private school so there are plenty who think it is worthwhile, almost the whole of the middle class, one surmises.
I sent my son to a private school and thought nothing of the fees. I got value for money in several ways — including orderly classrooms and some male teachers
I am also sponsoring a very bright lad in Scotland to the tune of $33,00 a year. With my help he is going to a top private school so that his opportunities in later life will be commensurate with his abilities. What school you went to is immensely important in Britain
Queenslanders have sounded the alarm over exorbitant school fees, with 60 per cent of Sunshine State residents saying the price of private education is too high, The Courier-Mail’s Your Say sentiment survey has found.
The survey, which garnered responses from 8000 Sunshine State residents, revealed 60 per cent of Queensland parents thought private schools were too expensive.
The Courier-Mail this year revealed that All Hallows’ School increased fees by 5.5 per cent to $11,450 for Year 7 in 2020.
Elite Brisbane Grammar School secondary fees are $27,540 per year, while sister school Brisbane Girls Grammar’s fees for Years 7-12 are $25,782 per year.
Southwest Queenslanders felt private education would cause the most hip pocket pain, with 64.72 per cent saying private education is too costly, followed by those who live in other southeast areas at 63.61 per cent.
Queenslanders in northern Greater Brisbane areas were the third most likely to think private school is too expensive with 60.85 per cent of residents in the area sounding the alarm over fees.
Sunshine Coast residents followed closely behind with 59.93 per cent objecting to private education costs, only slightly ahead of 59.08 per cent Central Queenslanders, and 59.03 per cent Far North Queenslanders.
Of those living in south Greater Brisbane, 58.8 per cent objected to private school costs, followed by 57.64 per cent of Gold Coast respondents.
The Sunshine State residents least likely to object to fees were North Queenslanders with just 54.14 per cent objecting to the costs of private education.
Southern Cross University associate professor David Zyngier said the average cost of educating a high school student was around $15,000 per annum.
“That’s the set costs for the average student so any private or non government school that charges more than $15,000, one has to ask the question what are they doing with that,” he said.
“If they’re charging $25,000 or $30,000, then parents should be asking themselves what they get for that additional money,” he said.
He explained that while parents pay more fees at independent schools, both public and private education outcomes balance out.
“Parents have been sold a story that private is better and unfortunately it is not,” Prof Zyngier said. “When you compare private schools (and public schools) with the same socio-economic status … the public school does better.”
UQ senior lecturer in education Dr Anna Hogan said there had been a trend of increasing public school enrolments.
“There seems to be an understanding in the public school sector, that middle-class parents who have the choice to pay for school fees are actually starting to more closely consider what they’re paying for education,” she said.
Parents were questioning why they would pay $30,000 in elite school costs when their children could have a good education at a select public school, she said.
He said private education meant smaller class sizes, more extra-curricular and sporting activities and more opportunities for their three children.
“There’s a strong sense of community and connections for later in life,” he said.
“I didn’t go to a private school but I personally feel the opportunities of private schools are better than what I had.”
Call for Australia to adopt new ‘ring fencing’ virus approach
One of Australia‘s top health experts has called on the Australian government to introduce a new technique to contain the COVID-19 virus as the country moves towards reopening.
Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, an epidemiologist and World Health Organisation advisor, said “ring fencing” of certain hotspots should be adopted moving forward.
“We have at least a year-and-a-half before the vaccine is found and produced in large enough numbers to be rolled out and I can only say that really we are a small country with a population, but a larger physical country,” Prof McLaws told ABC.
“We need to have a national approach to reduce borders so that people can move around and have a national agreement to what is a rapid response so that we can just ring-fence small clusters so that Australians can freely move around our country for work and pleasure.”
Prof McLaws also warned against fast-tracking Victoria‘s roadmap out of lockdown, saying it could undo all the work residents have done to reduce virus cases.
“Given the numbers and the success that the Victorians had to date, I can‘t see too many restrictions being eased other than the 5km area that people are allowed to move around in because Victorians, and particularly the Melbourne public, only have 26 more days to go until they reach their goal of less than five cases per day,” she said.
“If they continue on the downward decline in numbers, they will get there. I would just recommend sticking with the plan and maybe letting them move more than 5km to give them a compassionate break from the challenges that they have had to deal with so far.”
While Sweden is often cited in debates over how best to balance health and economic considerations in response to the coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison doesn’t think Australia should be following that country’s model of lax restrictions.
Speaking on Sky News this week, the Prime Minister said June quarter GDP showed Australia’s economy had experienced one of the “lowest falls of any developed country”.
“Our economy fell by 7 per cent. Devastating, absolutely devastating. But compared to the rest of the world, it was one of the lowest falls of any developed country,” Mr Morrison said.
“And when you look at our health results, both on the case incidents in Australia of COVID and the upsetting number of deaths that we’ve had compared to overseas, I mean, I know a lot of people on your program talk about Sweden. Well, Sweden has had a bigger fall in their economy and they’ve had almost 20 times the number of deaths.”
Indeed, Sweden’s economy tumbled 8.3 per cent in the June quarter, compared with Australia’s drop of 7 per cent.
However, Mr Morrison’s claim that Sweden has had almost 20 times the number of deaths is wide of the mark.
According to data compiled by US-based Johns Hopkins University, Australia had recorded 859 COVID-19 deaths (as of September 23), while Sweden had suffered 5,870 deaths. While Sweden’s death count is much higher than Australia’s, it is only seven times the number of deaths seen in Australia.
While Mr Morrison referred to the number of deaths when comparing the two nations, a comparison of the rate of deaths in both countries more closely aligns with his claim.
On those figures, Sweden’s rate of deaths per million people is 576.62 compared with Australia’s rate of 34.37. That means the Nordic nation has suffered a death rate more than 16 times that of Australia.
Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon threatens to quit shadow cabinet over emissions target
The veteran New South Wales Labor rightwinger Joel Fitzgibbon has threatened to quit the shadow cabinet if the opposition adopts a medium-term emissions reduction target he cannot live with.
In a significant escalation of Labor’s internal dispute about climate and energy policy, Fitzgibbon made the threat during an interview with Guardian Australia’s politics podcast.
The shadow resources minister said he would not quit the party over the issue. “I’m 58 years of age… I’ve been in the party for almost 40 years, I am too old to rat.”
But he said if Labor’s landing point on an emissions reduction target for the 2030s was “so offensive to me, if it didn’t keep faith with our traditional base, if it was fundamentally wrong and harmful, I would not criticise it from the shadow cabinet, I would have no choice but to go and do so from another position”.
Fitzgibbon said if the forthcoming shadow cabinet deliberation on the medium term target was a “fair fight and I just lost” then he would sell the collective decision even though it was “not my preferred position obviously”.
But asked whether the party leader, Anthony Albanese, would continue to enjoy his support if he insisted on Labor adopting a target Fitzgibbon could not live with, the shadow resources minister said: “I’d have to consider my position at the time.
“I wouldn’t overtly challenge it from the shadow cabinet, I’d have to make a decision about that”.
Albanese told the National Press Club in June Labor would set a medium-term target for the 2030s “based on science”, and the climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, has made that commitment several times since the 2019 election.
Fitzgibbon said he accepted the science of climate change, and had signed off on Labor’s policy of net zero emissions by 2050. But he has dug in his heels about the medium term target, first saying Labor should adopt the same position as the Coalition, then arguing Labor should not set one at all.
On the podcast, Fitzgibbon said first that he would accept the collective decision on the medium term target, pointing with unusual candour to his record of selling policies he didn’t support after collective decisions, including during the 2019 election.
“Gee I wish I could show you videos of me before the last election backing in things I hated, standing at the National Press Club and debating David Littleproud and ferociously backing in Labor’s policy.”
But later his position hardened, with the clear threat about quitting the shadow cabinet if the policy is not to his liking.
Fitzgibbon suffered a significant negative swing in his safe Hunter Valley seat at the 2019 election, and he contends ambitious climate change policies have contributed to Labor’s election defeats federally since 2013. He said voters in the regions now think Labor panders to inner city interests and disdains workers in traditional industries.
He argues Scott Morrison has made it much harder for Labor to resolve a medium term target by promoting a gas-led recovery from the coronavirus. While colleagues have criticised the prime minister’s announcements, arguing they lack substance, Fitzgibbon said Labor should let the prime minister roll out his agenda.
Fitzgibbon said it was unlikely Morrison would be able to implement many policies to lock in gas before the next election, but “if he rushes along that path, what does the Labor party do then? Do we say we are going to pull all that back and go down our own path?
“Now that’s an open question, and I don’t mind saying I will be internally urging my people to let him go his way, let this be his problem now, he’s the government, we lost. One of the consequences of losing … is you don’t get to call the shots.”
While Fitzgibbon’s front-running has some support within the caucus, and among some in the trade union leadership, his campaign has also infuriated and dismayed many colleagues. While his views have grabbed the headlines, many in Labor believe the party cannot retreat from climate action both on the merits of the issue, and politically.
Australian political history shows internal fights about climate change can be lethal for leaders of the major parties. But Fitzgibbon said Albanese would lead Labor to the next election.
“I’ve been around these games for a long time and there’s not even a hint, or a whisper, and very importantly he continues to enjoy my support.”
But Fitzgibbon suggested there was room to improve. “I think Albo is doing as well as an opposition leader could in Covid. I think this is a period where the power of incumbency is very, very significant.
“Not even a young Bob Hawke as opposition leader would be cutting through too much. But there’s a message in that for us too, to have a bit of a rethink ourselves about our approach. The last thing the Labor party can afford to be at the moment is a party of protest. It has to look like an alternative government.”
He said voters federally only “come to us when they are tiring of or angry at the other mob and when we don’t look too scary, and at the last election we made ourselves look as scary as we possibly could”.
The biggest story of the moment, the biggest structural change in our politics, is that the Morrison government has admitted comprehensive and probably permanent defeat on coal. It seems like a different era in history when Scott Morrison as treasurer proudly brandished a lump of coal in parliament to demonstrate his party’s commitment to our black gold.
Still the largest source of our power, still our second biggest export, coal has been placed in the Coalition’s fantasy technology basket, to be revisited one day in the mythical future when renewables don’t need subsidies, pumped hydro creates more energy than it consumes, China’s carbon market comes into operation, and Australia wins soccer’s World Cup 6-0 against Brazil.
The new lowest common denominator on coal is we continue to export it but there are no circumstances in which we build a coal-fired power station. This is how conservative governments embrace long-term strategic defeat. They win a thousand tactical victories as they march backwards. The Coalition has lost the coal argument. It came into office in 2013 never dreaming it would abandon coal, but that is what it has done.
Labor and the Greens have won the argument even as they have lost the elections. The conservatives — meaning the Liberals and the Nationals — have accepted defeat. The Coalition has a good chance of retaining government by arguing that it will implement the left’s policies more carefully, cautiously, modestly, competently and with less economic damage than Labor would.
The abandonment of coal has serious strategic implications for Australia. We will never recover a robust manufacturing industry without cheap energy and we won’t have cheap energy without coal. The day after the government announced its wish list of fantasy technologies of the future — which any Labor government would have been proud to unveil — AGL Energy dumped a plan for a discounted electricity contract for Victoria’s Portland aluminium smelter. The long and the short of it is that unless the government shells out massive subsidies we are likely to lose aluminium and then steel as we continue, suicidally, our march away from any manufacturing capability.
Don’t think that in abandoning coal-fired power we are reflecting a global trend. The only people who think that are those whose globalism embraces New York and Los Angeles, London and Paris, and almost no other part of the world. This year Germany has opened a new coal-fired power plant. Japan has 20-odd in the works over the next five years.
Ultra-supercritical coal-fired plants — the so-called high-efficiency, low-emissions plants — create about 30 per cent fewer emissions than old coal and a similar amount more than new gas. Such plants are being built in many parts of the world. It is a crazy woke fantasy to think coal is being phased out. Such thinking reflects a spectacular ignorance of Asia, which is becoming an ever bigger part of the global economy.
Not the only story about coal but by far the biggest is China. The Asia Society’s Policy Institute in New York has rounded up the figures in an extremely useful paper, China’s Response to Climate Change. Almost every climate commentator in Australia refuses ever to confront the China figures. Let me offer you a few of them.
This year alone China has approved new coal-fired power plants that can produce 17 gigawatts of energy. That is a huge capacity. And China is accelerating its approval and construction of coal-fired power plants, for that is more than it approved in the previous two years.
Kevin Rudd, in a recent oped in The Washington Post drawing on the Asia Society paper, pointed out that the new coal-fired power plant capacity being developed in China “is larger than the remaining fleet in the United States”.
The Asia Society records that China has 1040GW of coal-fired energy capacity, but this will be 1100GW by the end of the year. The China Electricity Council and the China State Grid both suggest raising this to 1300GW by 2030. Coal is declining slowly as a proportion of China’s energy mix but it is continuing, as these figures show, to increase rapidly in absolute terms.
The report also demonstrates the massive increase in coal, and other fossil fuel use, taking place as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. Specifically, Chinese finance and support is involved directly in new coal-fired power plants in The Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mozambique, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Serbia. Beyond China, Indonesia has a huge program of coal-fired power plants being built. Before COVID-19 knocked everything off balance, India was planning to increase its coal-fired electricity generation by almost a quarter over three years.
COVID-19 will slow all this, but only temporarily. What is clear is that coal is booming in most parts of the world not ruled by The New York Times or the BBC. Our corporate leaders, or many of them, are happy to recite the mantra that coal has no future, partly because they want to avoid social media campaigns against them. In the West coal is moving away from public companies and into private equity hands, or into Asian investments directly. None of the expansion of coal outlined above has been denied finance because some Western banks now find coal politically inconvenient.
UN projections are that Africa’s population will increase to 4.5 billion by the end of this century. If any of them want to live above subsistence level they will need cheap energy. Coal is sure to play a big part.
If you are a friend of the environment, indeed if you want to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, you will want Australian coal to be used everywhere that’s possible because ours is the cleanest coal in the world. It’s just a geological fact. If a coal-fired power station in China or India is using Australian coal it will generate fewer greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy produced than if it is using Chinese or Indian coal.
And as the biggest exporter (though by no means biggest producer) of coal, we could make a contribution by doing something clever on the technology of getting ever lower emissions from ultra-supercritical coal-fired energy plants. By not doing this we make ourselves poorer economically and weaker strategically, while our competitors, economic and strategic, become richer and stronger.
The Liberals, and even more the Nationals, know all this at some level but can no longer make a fight of it. Their political judgment is probably correct. Political parties must always deal with political reality. Gas is at least better than complete renewables madness. But the Coalition had no thought of this when it entered government. Its surrender on coal ought, though, at least be noted, given its grave implications for the national interest.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has defended police after a judge threw out charges against Canberra Raiders player Curtis Scott and described his arrest as ‘sickening’
Amazing. But cops stand up for cops
Scott, who joined the Raiders from the Melbourne last off-season, was found passed out drunk under a tree by police in Sydney’s Moore Park in January.
After attempting to wake him up, officers handcuffed and pepper sprayed the disoriented Scott, also stunning him with a taser, all while he was sitting on the ground.
Police were later left red faced when footage of the arrest was played in court, with the judge throwing out several charges, including two counts of assaulting a police officer, and describing the bungled arrest as ‘sickening’.
Despite the embarrassing criticism, Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told 2GB he was ‘sympathetic to police’ while avoiding answering a questions as to whether it was appropriate for officers to use a taser on a man who was sitting handcuffed on the ground.
“I watched the entirety of the event and I think sometimes you need to watch the entirety of the event to get it in context,’’ Fuller said.
“In these situations, if someone is trespassing in your front yard, they are asleep, they are intoxicated, they’re a young fit man, there are only a couple of ways to get them out.
“And one of those is for them to stand up and come with you.
“Often in these situations, it does escalate — there’s nothing we can do about that, if the individual is not going to comply with a reasonable direction.”
NRL player to launch civil action against NSW Police Scott is reportedly set to sue the NSW Police for more than $100,000 in damages over the incident.
Magistrate Jennifer Giles said she did not have the “stomach” to watch the 22-year-old being tasered a third time after two separate videos showed Scott being pepper-sprayed and tasered after he was handcuffed.
A drunk and disorientated Scott can be heard saying “I’m getting dressed” before repeating that he has “done nothing wrong”.
Trying but failing to drag him onto his feet police administer pepper spray into his face which causes him to moan and yell he is “f***ing dying”. He swats police away with his hands in cuffs.
Mr Macedone says the tasering that follows was inappropriate and unwarranted after Scott followed officers’ instruction not to resist arrest and merely “raised his voice”.
Outrageous photo shows an EPIC council fail after $1,232 child safety gate is installed at a local playground without a proper fence
A local council has been left embarrassed after images of a newly-installed child safety gate showed how completely useless it is.
The gate, which cost $1,232, was installed at Windsor Siding Park near Prahran and St Kilda East in Melbourne as part of a $300,000 upgrade by Stonnington Council.
An image of the gate shows it placed next to evenly spaced wooden stakes which revealed the awkward blunder.
The gaps in the makeshift fence mean children can easily escape the playground even if the safety gate is locked.
Stonnington Council spokesman Jim Carden said the gate looked ‘odd’ and the issue will be rectified. ‘Obviously the gaps in the adjoining ”fence” would appear to make the gate a bit redundant, so we have been looking at how to tidy it up without losing what is a nice design,’ he said. ‘So we are just adding some plants to fill in the gaps.’
Ratepayers Stonnington president Dean Hurlston said that council workers should have spotted the gate’s uselessness immediately. ‘Surely council staff or contractors can see the glaring error of judgment,’ he told Herald Sun. ‘It’s another example of council being out of touch with responsible spending and execution of projects. ‘It’s a good concept which has totally failed upon delivery.’
Despite decades of bruising battles, the reading wars rage on — with a new review exposing persistent opposition to evidence-based reading approaches in schools.
The NSW Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE) has put the contentious L3 (Language, Learning, and Literacy) programe under the knife. As many as three in five NSW government schools subscribe to the reading program — fully or partially — which ignores what’s clearly been identified as the best way to teach children to read.
L3 has persisted thanks to apparent pressure being placed on schools to participate in it, rather than it being backed by evidence.
Considerable taxpayer support has been committed for years to maintain the program, and the NSW Education Department has done little to deter educators from implementing the wayward method.
CESE’s move is a considerable blow to those who have resisted the phonics wave, as well as vindication for those who have been awake to L3’s evident flaws from the outset.
CIS research forcefully argued the case for reviewing the program in 2018 — pointing to the lack of evidence underpinning it at the time. The case against it has only mounted since then.
If it sounds like we’ve been here before, it’s because we have. A similarly dysfunctional programme — Reading Recovery — became defunct in 2018. Similarly, CIS research identified the lack of evidence supporting it as well.
As ever, children’s success in reading has been sabotaged by ideological commitment to constructivist learning approaches from a loud minority of education insiders.
A key battleground of the persistent reading wars is the role of phonics — the understanding of written letter and sound relationships — in learning to read.
One could be mistaken for assuming the war had already been won. Evidence from decades of research has stacked heavily behind use of explicit and systematic phonics as key to young learners’ reading success. And a growing number of policymakers — most notably the federal government — now actively promote the approach as a priority matter.
It’s well past time that education departments across the country better signal to teachers and schools which approaches have proved to be effective in the classroom — and those that aren’t.
Australian students have been denied the opportunity to become proficient readers and enjoy their best chance of educational success.
The task of reversing the damage caused by education’s evidence deniers remains a work in progress.
The terrifying police state Daniel Andrews wants to create: How innocent Victorians can be arrested and detained indefinitely without evidence – on the word of power-hungry public servants
The “Chairman Dan” name is well earned. Communist party bosses were usually named as chairmen
Innocent Victorians could be arrested in the street or at work and detained indefinitely by power-crazed officials under a new law Daniel Andrews wants to pass, top lawyers have warned.
The proposed new law, which will be debated in the Victorian parliament next month, would allow the government to give anyone it chooses – such as public servants – the power to enforce coronavirus restrictions and make arrests.
The unprecedented plan would also allow officials to detain people they suspect may spread coronavirus even if they have done nothing wrong.
Officials would also be able to follow up on tip-offs that Covid rules have been breached at a home or a workplace without needing the police to accompany them.
Eighteen esteemed former judges and lawyers have written an open letter warning that the law is ‘unprecedented, excessive and open to abuse’.
One of those lawyers, Ross Gillies QC, told Daily Mail Australia he fears power-hungry officials who enjoy exerting authority may abuse the powers given to them.
‘I don’t trust someone who is nominated by a public servant with the power to make arrests. I have real abiding concern that power is a very dangerous thing,’ he said.
‘Some people are excited by power and the ability to exert authority over someone else. There is the potential for enormous injustice.’
‘Someone might grab someone and say “I have reason to believe you are a Covid carrier or know someone who has Covid and I apprehend you”.
‘There would be no remedy in that situation. That may be the worst-case scenario but we know that can happen.’
Mr Gillies described the law, which has passed the lower house, as ‘draconian’ and urged the upper house to vote it down or amend it next month.
James Peters QC, who also signed the letter, expressed similar concerns. ‘Power is very intoxicating and only some people can exercise it carefully such as very well trained groups,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
Asked if the new law could see innocent Victorians being arrested in the street, he said: ‘That’s right, that’s a very big risk.’
Mr Peters said normally when somebody is arrested they are brought before a bail justice but the proposed law does not say that would happen.
Asked if it allows officials to indefinitely detain people under state of emergency powers, he said: ‘It could be read that way, yes.’
He also said it was unclear what redress people who are wrongfully arrested would have. ‘We have a traditional understanding of police power and redress to the courts if you have concern about how powers are exercised,’ he said.
‘But how are you able to effectively test the belief upon which you were restrained? ‘You might not find out about it [why you were arrested] until you get to court.’
He flagged that there could be a legal challenge if the law passes, saying: ‘When excessive powers are legislated, there is often a legal challenge.’
Asked if all 18 signatories to the letter would launch legal action together, he said: ‘I can’t speak for everyone I can only speak for myself.’
The proposed law does not specify who will be authorised to make arrests.
‘We just don’t know, that’s one of the vices. They could be anybody,’ said Mr Peters.
‘It’s not enough to say the problem can be managed without specifying who could be given the powers.’
In a press briefing on Wednesday, Mr Andrews suggested the power to make arrests would be given to WorkSafe officials and health department workers.
At the moment police need to be present to make an arrest but Mr Andrews wants public servants to have that power on their own.
He said currently when a workplace is inspected to see if it is abiding by Covid-19 rules ‘there’s got to be someone from police, someone from WorkSafe, somebody from the Health Department, that doesn’t make any sense.
‘If we can essentially double or triple the resource available to you, it stands to reason that we’ll have more people doing the right thing. ‘
Mr Andrews said he wants to make sure supermarkets, abattoirs and other workplaces are adhering to strict rules including social distancing and limits on the number of workers on the premises at once.
Asked why he needs to give powers to detain people before they do anything wrong, he said: ‘They’re based on a reasonable belief principle and proportionality principle about the risk of spreading Covid.
‘There are some people who are not compliant, refuse to act in a responsible and safe way. Those powers would not be frequently used. They would be, I think, rare. But they are important.’
Those who could be arrested include positive patients or close contacts who officials suspect may refuse to self-isolate, such as protesters or people with mental health difficulties.
They could be taken to a hotel for mandatory quarantine for as long as the authorised officer believes is necessary.
Critics say Mr Andrews wants to create his own version of the Stasi, the East German secret police force which spied on citizens through a network of informants and arrested more than 250,000 people between 1950 and 1990.
The measures are outlined in the COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2020, which will meet resistance when read in the upper house next month.
Liberty Victoria president Julian Burnside has raised concerns that government workers authorised to make arrests may not be able to accurately determine whether someone poses a risk of spreading Covid-19.
‘The bill introduces a preventative detention regime which appears to have little protections or oversight, and provides far too much discretion to people who may lack the necessary expertise to determine risk, including police officers,’ he said.
Victoria’s state of emergency and disaster powers, extended until October 11, give police the power to detain someone ‘for the period reasonably necessary to eliminate or reduce a serious risk to public health’.
Police officers can also search people’s homes without a warrant and restrict movement between locations such as between regional Victoria and Melbourne.
Gideon Rozner, Director of Policy at free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs told Daily Mail Australia the legislation was ‘extremely dangerous’ and would create the ‘Daniel Andrews Stasi’.
‘It will allow Dan Andrews to effectively appoint anyone he wants as an authorised officer, with extraordinarily broad discretion to enforce Victoria’s emergency powers,’ he said.
‘Union leaders could be appointed to unleash retribution on small business owners who speak out against lockdowns.
‘Labor Party officials could be appointed to intimidate political opponents. ‘I Stand With Dan’ types could be appointed to spy on their friends and neighbours.
‘Not since East Germany have we seen such a monstrous web of government surveillance. The Victorian Parliament must vote down this bill and say no to the Dan Andrews Stasi.’
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk yesterday scored a trifecta — a high-vis jacket, a hard hat and a marginal seat.
The setting was a copper refinery in southern Townsville, and the announcement was an undisclosed “one-off incentive” payment to global resources company Glencore.
The 2020 state election campaign is indeed ramping up.
The reason for handing over taxpayers’ money to a global company is to “secure the jobs of more than 1,000 people”, but the public is given no opportunity to scrutinise this.
In effect, we’re being asked to accept Glencore’s assertion it needs the money to continue its Australian copper operations and to accept the Government’s word it has secured the best deal possible.
But in the context of the looming election, the Government’s bargaining position doesn’t look strong, with hundreds of jobs at stake in some of the state’s most marginal seats.
Glencore has been threatening to shut down its Mount Isa copper smelter and Townsville copper refinery for the best part of a decade.
A planned closure in 2016 was staved off when the Queensland Government agreed to amend environmental-licensing conditions — a deal which ensured the smelter and refinery would stay open until at least 2022.
With that deadline approaching, Glencore this year announced its copper operations were again under review, with a final decision to be made just before the state election.
The Glencore refinery is smack bang in the middle of the electorate of Mundingburra, and a short drive to the nearby electorates of Townsville and Thuringowa.
All three seats are held by Labor by the smallest of margins, and given Labor only has a majority of two seats in Parliament, it’s impossible to underestimate the refinery’s political importance.
Government ‘leaving Queenslanders in the dark’ At a media conference on Tuesday, the Premier said the “investment” in the copper operations was “commercial in confidence”.
Ms Palaszczuk argued it was about “securing the jobs of more than 1,000 people in Mount Isa and Townsville for the next three years”.
Treasurer Cameron Dick would only go as far as revealing it was a “multi-million-dollar” deal.
“We enter into a number of arrangements with corporations and companies which support jobs, and we don’t make any apologies for that,” Mr Dick said.
Glencore Australia provided more detail in its public statement, describing the Government’s contribution as a “one-off incentive”.
“In addition to this incentive, Glencore will invest more than $500 million for the continued operation of the copper smelter and refinery,” the statement said.
“This incentive will partially mitigate the negative cost of continuing these assets which face high costs and struggle to compete internationally.”
Professor of economics at the University of Queensland John Quiggin said it was “pretty striking” this deal was announced as global copper prices had surged.
The business news service Bloomberg reported the global copper market could be “on the cusp of a historical supply squeeze as Chinese demand runs red hot”.
Professor Quiggin said the Mount Isa smelter had repeatedly been on the brink of closure since 2011.
“So, this decision isn’t really related to the pandemic or the global market,” he said.
Economist Fabrizio Carmignani from Griffith University said a subsidy from the Government made sense if the operation was facing some temporary difficulty.
“[However] from the statement of Glencore, it would look like their problems are structural — high fixed costs, unable to compete,” he said.
While he understood the need to protect jobs, Professor Carmignani said structural problems needed to be tackled by longer-term plans.
Brisbane Residents fear 30m tall Moreton Bay fig tree will be bulldozed to make way for a 15 storey unit tower
Brisbane people love their figtrees, which are native to the area. There is always a furore if a big one is threatened with being cut down. The developer should have been aware of that
Woody Point residents fear Traders in Purple are about to bulldoze a 120-year-old fig tree to make way for a 45m tall unit tower, which is yet to get the tick of approval from the courts.
The 30m tall tree sits on the site of the former Palace Hotel at Gayundah Esplanade Woody Point, north of Brisbane.
Traders in Purple hope to knock down the tree to make way for a 15 storey 158-unit tower and 13 two-bedroom townhouses.
The development was approved by Moreton Bay Regional Council late last year, despite residents’ objections.
Residents’ main concerns were loss of lifestyle, traffic and the fact the development is more than double the height recommended under the council’s planning scheme.
Group president Derek Catterall says they were still waiting on a decision to be handed down by the judge. Mr Catterall, who lives behind the proposed development, said the tree was part of the region’s history.
“WPAG had tried to get the tree listed as ‘significant’ with council, but was told by the Strategic Planning and Place Making Team Leader that this complicated process could take several years,” he said.
“We don’t have several years, as (Traders in Purple) has already been given the go ahead by council to build the Gold Coast-style high-rise towers,” he said.
“Apparently the development approval did not require the tree, which is an important food source for native birds, flying foxes and butterflies, to be retained.”
Mr Catterall said WPAG members had met with Division six Councillor Karl Winchester asking him to investigate options to either save or relocate the tree.
“It’s also ironic that a magnificent tree of this age, size, and historical significance is directly opposite the Woody Point Arboretum and yet is earmarked to be destroyed,” he said.
Mr Catterall said the magnificent tree could be seen from many residences and streets of the southern area of Woody Point including the foreshore at Crockatt Park, the Woody Point Jetty and Gayundah Lookout. “It’s so substantial it can even be seen above the skyline from the beaches at Clontarf,” he said.
Mr Catterall said an Eco Arboriculture Australia report found that this type of tree could live to 500 years of age and, with regular maintenance, could be retained for future generations and the local habitat.
The report also stated a vegetation protection order should be placed on the tree and heritage listed with the Council as it was a natural asset to the entire area.
Barrister With ‘Offensive’ Number Plate In Legal Battle Over Free Speech
A high profile barrister has found himself caught in a legal battle because of his ‘offensive’ private number plate which reads ‘LGOPNR’.
Peter Lavac, from Palm Beach in Sydney, has managed to successfully challenge the order from Transport NSW, but it still wants them to be banned.
If you hadn’t already worked it out, the letters ‘LGOPNR’ mean ‘leg opener’ (vom) and Mr Lavac claims that he was ‘taking to p***’ out of himself by attaching them to his yellow Lamborghini.
He claims that 99 out of 100 people wouldn’t know what the letters actually stand for, adding that it’s ‘tough s***’.
Transport NSW gave him 18 days to change the number plate and in a letter, they wrote: “Transport for NSW determined that these number plates could be considered offensive and must be returned.”
But Mr Lavac, a defence barrister and former Hong Kong crown prosecutor, was having none of it and told The Sunday Telegraph: “I resent anyone who’s trying to violate my freedom of speech and expression.
“They [the number plates] are meant to be humorous, tongue-in-cheek, funny and entertaining. That is how most people find them when it’s explained to them.
If you don’t like Labor’s climate policies, just wait a few months. They’re bound to change.
They’ve been changing since 2007, when Kevin Rudd identified global warming as “the great moral challenge” of our generation. Labor threw him out just three years later. Rudd as Prime Minister was a challenge too great even for his own Labor colleagues.
Replacement PM Julia Gillard’s flexible climate policies doomed her from the start. Just days before the 2010 election, Gillard famously declared there would be “no carbon tax” under her leadership.
To a certain extent, Gillard kept that promise. It’s just that Labor outsourced leadership and climate policy to the Greens, with whom Labor briefly formed a ruinous partnership.
“It was the Greens who put this on the table after the election,” then-Greens leader Christine Milne said in 2011, referring to the carbon tax. “It’s part of our agreement with the Prime Minister.”
Labor was noticeably quiet on climate change in 2016. Running against PM Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten found other issues more compelling. So did voters, as results showed.
Barely half a per cent of Shorten’s campaign launch speech that year covered climate concerns, and even then only in generalities (“we want real action on climate change”, “we choose renewable energy”).
It almost worked. Shorten missed out by a single seat, leading to Turnbull’s celebrated Night of the Long Sulk and the saddest victory speech in Australian political history.
Labor should have learned from that outcome. Instead, Shorten in 2019 went full rapture. “Ignoring climate change is simply not an answer,” the then-Labor leader declared.
But it might be if the question is: “How do we win a federal election?”
“Labor is committed to reducing Australia’s [carbon dioxide] pollution by 45 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero pollution by 2050,” Shorten continued.
His campaign speech that year was loaded with climate talk, up to 6.6 per cent from .5 in the previous campaign.
“I promise all of those Australians who want action on climate change, and I promise the young people in particular, all Australians: Labor will stand its ground,” Shorten said. “No retreat on real action on climate change.”
Shorten dismissed as “dumb” any questions about the cost of his climate promises and otherwise carried on like Greta Thunberg with slightly fewer personality disorders. And Labor lost big time.
A funny thing happened recently to Labor’s commitment to a 45 per cent emissions reduction by 2030. It’s completely disappeared from the party’s draft policy platform.
The ground upon which Labor stands has shifted once more. A climate change retreat is underway.
“It’s all about the jobs after COVID. It’s all about the jobs,” Shorten, now the former leader, told Nine this month. “In all seriousness, that’s what I think.”
Current Labor leader Anthony Albanese would be wise to adopt “it’s all about the jobs” as a party directive. He’d find a receptive audience among voters who’d appreciate a viable non-Coalition option.
The suburbs and regions are loaded with swing voters who no longer swing because Labor isn’t swingworthy. That’s why Labor’s primary vote in 2019 looked like Joe Biden’s score in a Sudoku tournament.
Those same voters are increasingly wary of squishy Libs who agree with the global climate agenda. If Albanese wants to become a John Curtin figure rather than bring down the curtains on Labor, he’ll find that path in pro-jobs, pro-manufacturing policies.
Of course, that will mean surrendering the inner-city vote to the Greens. But so what? The Liberals don’t win inner-city seats, yet they keep winning elections.
Besides, on current trends our inner city areas are probably only a few years away from turning into our own versions of leftist-ransacked Portland, Oregon. Smart residents should escape now while their houses can still be sold with intact windows and at least one floor that isn’t ablaze.
“Our world is on fire, the Liberals are pouring fuel on the flames and Labor is egging them on,” Greens leader Adam Bandt claims. “Under Anthony Albanese, Labor risks becoming just as bad for the climate as the Liberals.”
Translation: Under Anthony Albanese, Labor risks becoming electable. Some within Labor remember what happened when their party last followed Greens instructions.
Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon, among quite a few of his less-public colleagues, would prefer to win. Labor can do so by shunning the Greens and wedging the Coalition.
The coronavirus gives Labor some cover here. As Shorten put it: “It’s all about the jobs after COVID.”
Labor can justify throwing out all of its climate nonsense — not just the 2030 target, but everything — because the extreme demands of a post-COVID recovery demand it be so.
The Coalition’s enviro faction, and party heavyweights who give that faction credibility, would be absolutely stumped by a vote-scoring populist jobs-over-climate push by Labor.
They’d be blindsided. And, after 2022, they’d be gone.
Imagine a party founded on the ideals of working-class advancement actually committing itself to … working-class advancement. It’s an idea so crazy that it might actually work
Coalition’s NBN backflip will cost billions of dollars more
Just seven years after Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull scrapped Labor’s original national broadband rollout to deliver superfast speeds to the family home, it’s back.
Two million Australian households will be able to demand fibre-to-the-home internet by 2023 in suburbs across Australia under the Morrison Government’s new plan to be unveiled today.
It follows widespread concerns during the coronavirus pandemic over slow internet speeds and millions of Australians were forced to work from home.
The upgrade is expected to deliver a further eight million homes access to broadband speeds of up to one gigabit per second by 2023. Currently the mandatory minimum is 25 Megabits per second.
The only problem is the announcement by the Morrison Government today is billions of dollars more expensive than the original proposal the Coalition scrapped.
Labor was set to spend $45 billion on its original plan, while the Coalition will end up spending $51 billion.
Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has never stopped complaining about the decision to reverse his original policy, was quick to pounce. “What a mega backflip on the part by Morrison,’’ he said.
“For 7 years they’ve botched my government’s 2009 plan for fibre to the premises, instead wasting billions with fibre to the mythical ‘node’, giving us the worst speeds in the world. Now this! What total policy frauds.”
But the reaction online from internet enthusiasts has been just as brutal on social media with users complaining it was “too late” and “a joke”.
Ten years ago this month, it was former Liberal leader Tony Abbott who promoted Malcolm Turnbull back onto the frontbench with a mission to “demolish” Labor’s NBN.
“The Government is going to invest $43 billion worth of hard-earned money in what I believe is going to turn out to be a white elephant on a massive scale,” Mr Abbott said at the time.
“I’ve already described it as school halls on steroids, and we can be certain the NBN will be to this term of government what pink batts and school halls were to the last term of government.
Mr Abbott, who declared he was “not a tech head”, suggested it was a policy for video gamers and people who wanted to watch home movies.
“We are not against using the internet for all these things, but do we really want to invest $50 billion worth of hard-earned taxpayers’ money in what is essentially a video entertainment system?’’ he said.
After the Liberal Party won the 2013 election, Mr Turnbull was responsible for the policy switch in government.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher insisted today however that the demand among customers who were prepared to pay for superfast internet speeds wasn’t there 7 years ago.
“The 2013 decision by the Coalition to roll out the NBN quickly, then phase upgrades around emerging demand, has served Australia well,” Mr Fletcher said.
“The multi-technology mix was critical to getting the NBN rolled out as quickly as possible.
“When COVID hit, and millions of Australians shifted to working and studying from home, it was vital that we had good broadband as widely available as possible. If we’d stuck with Labor’s plan, it be would have been almost 5 million fewer homes.”
But Mr Fletcher said the connection would only be built if a customer ordered a high-speed plan, but there would be no upfront connection charge.
“Very importantly, it will be based on the principle of demand,” Mr Fletcher said.
“So we’ll roll the fibre down the street, but then the fibre lead into the home will only be built when there’s a customer order.”
Under the plan, the Morrison Government will also announce 130 zones including Rockhampton, Bunbury, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Mt Gambier and Devonport for upgrades with more to follow.
The zones were designated areas where there was a density of businesses within a “reasonable distance” of existing NBN infrastructure.
“For the first time, businesses outside capital city centres within these business fibre zones will have access to CBD zone wholesale prices, driving annual cost savings of between $1200 and $6000,” Mr Fletcher said.
But Labor’s communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland said the new plan will involve duplicating both cost and time, to connect Australian businesses with fibre after the Liberals left them behind with copper.
“After spending $51 billion on a second-rate network, and wasting seven years, it turns out fibre is what Australian businesses needed all along,’’ she said.
“Labor welcomes this step and surely people are wondering — what on earth was the point of spending $51 billion of taxpayers’ dollars on the Liberals’ second-rate copper network to begin with?
“This has meant Australian taxpayers have paid more for a network that does less, and more money is now required to play catch up.”
Queensland Health IT bungle leaves hospital low on supplies, costs taxpayers $33m to fix, says Auditor-General
Government medicine at work
The bungled rollout of an online ordering system for Queensland hospitals that left doctors without supplies, and vendors not being paid, has cost taxpayers an extra $33 million to fix, according to an investigation by the Auditor-General.
The program was referred for investigation by the State Opposition last year, which claimed staff were running out of critical supplies and vendors were refusing to deliver stock because they weren’t getting paid.
The Auditor-General found $540 million worth of vendor invoices were paid late in the first three months after the new system went live.
It also confirmed hospitals had trouble ordering supplies in the right quantity, and discovered 14 out of 16 hospital and health services across the state felt the system wasn’t working as expected.
The Auditor-General’s report said fixing the issues of the IT bungle had come at a significant cost in time, resources and dollars, including to taxpayers.
“Not all costs can be quantified, but an extra $33.5 million was spent to go live and to provide heightened support to entities over the four-month hypercare and transition period,” the report said.
At the time it was referred for investigation, sources had told the ABC that health staff were having to ration some of their supplies because stock was running low.
Shadow Health minister Ros Bates also said, “nurses having to put Band-Aids on the corporate bank card is absolutely appalling. Last week I heard nurses were actually buying food for patients from Woolworths”.
The report said Queensland Health had indicated the system failures, “had little to no adverse impact on patient care,” but the department had underestimated the compounding issues, pre-delivery.
Staff, managers not prepared for system
It found both staff and managers weren’t prepared for the system to go live and as a result, system performance affected productivity.
“Entities reported low completion rates for user training. Users had poor understanding of their responsibilities and the system’s processes,” the report said.
“Chief executives endorsed their entities’ readiness to go live, with caveats, although none had fully completed their readiness activities.”
Health Minister Steven Miles said he believed the report found the system had been important, and necessary. “It by and large indicates that the process was managed well,” he said. “Of course there are recommendations about how it could be done better.”
Two recommendations were made by the Auditor-General.
One was for redesigning the governance and accountability frameworks around project delivery, and a second asking for a cost-benefit analysis to develop a system that better monitored stock levels and consumption in real time.
The latest bungle comes a decade after Queensland Health’s disastrous payroll system failure, where thousands of staff were overpaid by millions of dollars.
That scandal ended up costing taxpayers more than $1 billion and ended the careers of several senior bureaucrats.
‘Free speech isn’t free’ and Australians are ‘failing to defend it’: Credlin
Sky News host Peta Credlin says free speech is something which has been protected in blood by past Australian generations, but sadly the people of today take it for granted and fail to defend it.
“Even in my lifetime the change in what we can say, write, even read has been diminished,” Ms Credlin said. “And the threat just seems to be accelerating.
“Free speech isn’t free, it’s something that’s been protected in blood by Australians in generations past who have fought in our name.
“To give us the sort of liberty today – free speech today – that sadly I think many of us take for granted, and even worse are failing to defend.”
Ms Credlin spoke with Tasmanian Senator Claire Chandler, who was hauled in front of the Tasmanian Equal Opportunity Commission after publishing an article about what she labelled the “reality of biological sex”.
“I’m certainly not going to be backing down on my views around women’s sports and women’s sex-based rights,” Ms Chandler said. “Nor will I be apologising for holding a view and advocating a view that the majority of Australian’s agree with.
“This is a ridiculous situation we find ourselves in, where unelected bureaucrats … are able to put people through the legal ringer, such as myself … in an effort to shut down debate about genuine public policy matters.
“It is deeply concerning in terms of the effects that this is going to have on free speech in this country.”
Do survivors of unwanted staring really have trouble passing exams? Well, that’s the inherent assumption in a submission from End Rape on Campus to the Federal Government objecting to their Job-Ready Graduates legislation which proposes to remove government-funded loans from students who can’t pass half their subjects.
The submission claims to be advocating for survivors of sexual violence, suggesting they fail or drop out of most of their courses while dealing with the universities complaint processes, and can’t support themselves through regular employment due to the effects of the trauma. “EROC Australia believes that the measures relating to academic performance would have a devastating impact on the ability of students who have experienced sexual violence to gain an education.”
Note the careful use of the term “sexual violence.” End Rape on Campus deliberately uses this umbrella term to cover both sexual harassment and sexual assault, while implying they are only talking about rape victims. Sharna Bremner, founder of EROC Australia, actually tweeted this week that the government legislation would “punish student survivors for being raped” but her use of language in the submission is far more slippery.
It was the Australian Human Rights Commission which latched onto the term “sexual violence” to cover up the disappointing result of their million-dollar survey into what was widely called the “campus rape crisis.” They found 99.2 % of students surveyed reported no sexual assault. Most campus victims turned out to be survivors not of assault but low grade sexual harassment which the survey found to be mainly unwanted staring.
So unwanted staring is actually at the heart of the campus crisis but naturally EROC activists are reluctant to admit their case rests on proving a leering male gaze can derail a student’s education. So they fudge things by throwing in a few points about the special trials faced by actual sexual assault victims – which are no doubt very real – midst sweeping claims about the shattering impact of “sexual violence”.
These are very tricky operators. That’s why Bremner and her cronies have not only managed to hoodwink most of the mainstream media into taking seriously their claims about a campus rape crisis but also have become major players in tertiary education policy.
Dracula running the blood bank
Amazingly, Sharna Bremner is fourth in the list of 13 authors on the recent “Good Practice Note ” on sexual assault and harassment recently issued by our university regulator TEQSA.
This alarming document encourages universities to keep adjudicating rape on campus, showing a total disregard for last year’s Queensland Supreme Court decision which determined these kangaroo courts to be illegal and thumbing its nose at Education Minister Dan Tehan’s instruction that these matters should be handled by criminal courts.
So, our major regulatory body with oversight of our vast tertiary sector sees no problem in proudly acknowledging this activist is instrumental in steering our universities still further into the illegal quagmire of our kangaroo courts. And it was her lobby group that was largely responsible for persuading the tertiary sector to buy into the manufactured rape crisis in the first place. Talk about Dracula running the blood bank.
It speaks to the extraordinary arrogance of TEQSA which sees no need to show any semblance of objectivity as they continue to lean on universities to ensure they usurp criminal law to appease the feminists.
And Bremner still isn’t satisfied. This week, EROC was on twitter arguing more needs to be done to force the universities to get more active in this area.
Australian feminists leading the way
This all dovetails neatly with my thinkspot conversation last week with Diana Davison, who is working in Canada helping falsely accused men in rape cases. Diana has a group of lawyers involved in her Lighthouse Project, trying to restore due process for the accused.
Diana has been tracking the incredibly successful efforts of feminist lawyers in Canada to tilt laws towards ‘believe-the-victim’ justice, undermining normal legal protections for accused men to ensure more rape convictions.
Diana revealed that Canadian feminists are working with law academics in the UK, USA and Australia, drafting new legislation and using the media to lean on politicians and law makers to enact laws to further this mighty enterprise. Interestingly she has evidence showing that Australia often leads the way in pushing these desired changes into law, which are then monitored by the feminists in the other countries before following suit.
We can observe this process in action in the current push for affirmative consent laws. Look at this revealing article in The Conversation, published late last year by Rachael Burgin, Executive Director of Rape and Sexual Research and Advocacy, who has conducted research on getting affirmative consent standards into law. In her article she proudly tracks the progress of this feminist endeavour to tilt the law to redefine normal sexuality so that every stage in every sexual encounter must be accompanied by constant checking for a green light.
It’s pretty funny how blatantly Burgin reveals her disappointment that Victoria’s changes to the laws haven’t come up to scratch in making it harder for alleged rapists to prove they had consent and her eagerness to bully NSW into line.
Terrible mistakes of feminism
Yet this is an endeavour which some feminist scholars now see as one of the “terrible mistakes” of the otherwise laudable project of entrenching feminist power.
In our conversation Diana recommended a powerful new book, Governance Feminism which offers a very frank assessment of the prevailing culture where feminists “walk the halls of power.”
“One can get a job in the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Criminal Court, the local prosecutors office and the child welfare bureaucracy for espousing various strands of feminism,” say Janet Halley and co-authors in their introduction. The authors see this as cause for celebration yet are refreshingly willing to properly examine who wins and who loses from feminism in governance.
There’s a brilliant chapter by the late London School of Economics law professor Helen Reece, which exposes the way feminists have found their way into the Crown Prosecution Service, or Judicial Training Board, allegedly not to propagate feminist propaganda but simply to instruct lawyers and judges on how to avoid “rape myths.”
Reece writes most entertainingly about an incident where UK television presenter Judy Finnigan dared to suggest on a TV discussion show that a rape involving professional footballer Ched Evans having sex with a woman too drunk to consent was not the most heinous form of rape.
Finnigan’s words: “The rape, and I am not, please, by any means, er minimizing any kind of rape, but the rape was not violent. He didn’t cause any bodily harm to the person. It was unpleasant, in a hot room, I believe, and she was, she had far too much to drink. And you know, that is reprehensible, but he has been convicted and he has served his time.”
Reece dissects the extraordinary outrage that greeted this remark, with the media running the “rape is rape” narrative denying that some rapes are more serious than others, and Finnigan eventually forced to apologise after being firmly told, “You can’t say that.” It’s a valuable expose of the censorship that now controls all public discourse on such matters.
Reece is also frank about flaws in the affirmative consent argument: “The problem is some women do like to indicate their consent to sex through subtle aspects of their behaviour.”
Young women, as well as young men, need to be taught to see consensual sex more responsibly, Reece argues. She suggests this might require “challenging the normative acceptance of entering into sexual relations with partners one hardly knows, of seeing alcohol as an integral part of a sexual encounter and misleading the partner about one’s sexual intentions.”
There’s much more of interest in this challenging book but useful indeed to see eminent scholars acknowledging that the feminist success in gaining power has come at considerable costs for society.
Email from Bettina Arndt: newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au
La Nina summer expected as ‘inland seas’ form in Queensland outback
What happened to global warming? Global warming caused by increasing levels of CO2 was said to explain the droughts. So have CO2 levels dropped? They have continued to rise – so can they cause opposite effects? In the dream world of the Greenies maybe they can. But nobody can say how
The old truth that Australia is a place where “droughts and flooding rains” naturally alternate is what is really going on but the Greenies don’t want to know that
Minor flood warnings have been issued for the Bulloo, Thomson and Barcoo, and Diamantina rivers.
It comes as Australia braces for a La Nina summer, the same weather event that brought drenching conditions to Queensland between 2010 and 2012.
Graziers Andrea Curro and Peter Magoffin said over 80mm of rain has fallen on their property southwest of Longreach since Friday, forming vast flooded areas. Aerial pictures show vast areas of their property now inundated.
It’s the most rain they’ve seen in over a year, and is potentially drought-breaking for them. “It went from literally being a barren wasteland to 3.5 inches of rain,” Ms Curro said. “We’ve had nothing since January.”
“For a couple of days it just looks like an ocean,” she said. “It sets you up for summer,” she said.
It comes as the Bureau of Meteorology predicts a La Nina for Australia’s east coast over summer, bringing the possibility of rainfall well above average.
Bureau of Meteorology mapping shows rainfall totals of between 50 and 100mm of rain fell across vast areas of Queensland’s interior, with the system expected to impact the state’s southeast corner later today.
Longreach resident Jenna Goodman said the rain was “quite heavy at times.” “I think outside of town got more than we did in town which is nice,” Ms Goodman said. “Not a flood by any means, but hopefully we get some good follow up rain!”
Senator says Tasmania’s anti-discrimination laws pave ‘road to tyranny’
Victorian Liberal Senator James Paterson has written an opinion piece for The Australian published today, entitled Silencing dissent – now that’s a road to tyranny.
The article is a response an anti-discrimination complaint made against his Tasmanian colleague, Senator Claire Chandler, who has been called before the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission after complaints were filed over her recent article arguing against trans women’s inclusion in sports.
In the piece for the Hobart Mercury, Senator Chandler spoke against ‘cancel culture’, and shared her view that transgender women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sport, access change rooms or women’s toilets. Speaking in the Senate the politician said being called before the commission was an example of free speech being eroded in Australia.
Senator Paterson agreed with Senator Chandler’s sentiment in today’s opinion piece for The Australian.
“The anti-discrimination complaint against Tasmanian Liberal senator Claire Chandler is the latest example of the threat to free speech posed by Australia’s state and federal anti-discrimination laws, and the bodies tasked with enforcing them,” Senator Paterson wrote.
Why working from home could be a disaster for Australia’s electricity grid this summer
Air conditioners could send Australia’s power grid into meltdown this summer, as roughly one third of the workforce do their jobs from home, experts have warned.
But warmer weather has come with a warning that increased use of air-conditioning in homes could lead to more blackouts and higher electricity bills.
“Air-conditioning is what drives our maximum demand in Australia,” said Peter Dobney, the former founding chairman of the Energy Users Association of Australia.
“We can expect higher prices, in fact, I think that’s a certainty.”
Last summer was Australia’s second-hottest on record and spring temperatures have already been warmer than average in many areas, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
Dr Paul Bannister, an energy efficiency expert from consulting services company Delta Q, said that did not bode well for the months ahead.
Blackouts can be sparked when electricity infrastructure is overwhelmed by demand. When that happens, energy providers have to choose areas of the grid to turn off, Dr Bannister explained.
“And with more people working from home there will be a higher load in the residential areas,” Dr Bannister said.
“But there won’t be a comparable drop in the commercial load, because most of the buildings are still operating.”
Some companies, like Optus, have opted for socially-distanced floors in their Sydney headquarters, with rosters allowing 50 per cent of staff in the office.
Others, like ANZ, sent around 95 per cent of their workforce home at the beginning of the pandemic, and have flagged that some employees may never return to Melbourne and Sydney offices.
“It’s very clear there is a risk here, with the air-conditioning running in the home and in the building at the same time,” Dr Bannister said.
“And cooling a house, it’s not as well insulated as a building, and the home may be less energy efficient.”
Stay up-to-date on the coronavirus outbreak Download the ABC News app and subscribe to our range of news alerts for the latest on how the pandemic is impacting the world Energy politics in Australia has been divisive in recent history.
A storm-stricken South Australia experienced a statewide blackout in 2016, and a stoush erupted in the aftermath as some politicians blamed the incident on renewable energy sources they argued were unreliable.
The blackout led to Tesla founder Elon Musk building the world’s largest lithium-ion battery to store power for the state.
Meanwhile, AGL Energy had to turn off its Tomago Aluminium Smelter in NSW — which is responsible for using roughly 10 per cent of the state’s power — for several days in January in a bid to stop blackouts.
A woman plays with her son in the ocean. The Bureau of Meteorology has already forecast above-average temperatures this summer.(Supplied: Scott Veitch) Mr Dobney said there were other ways households could help, including going without air-conditioning for 15 minutes every hour in peak periods.
Some power companies offer a service where customers can order them to automatically turn off air conditioners.
It’s known as “load shedding”, and some large corporations already do it lower power costs.
“It would get the demand down by 20 per cent or more in those residential areas,” Mr Dobney said.
“And this idea would mean the grid could keep up with demand.”
Anti-lockdown protesters swarm a suburban park in Melbourne before being chased off by police on horseback as several are arrested during a tension-filled ‘Freedom Rally’
It is notable that many of the rebels are young people. Lockdowns interfere with the mating game. Most young people probably do not have a regular partner and are in search for one. And social events are a major way of finding a partner.
And there are also single people in later age groups. So there will be ever-increasing pressure on Chairman Dan to drop the restrictions. Any restrictions that go against the sex drive are facing a powerful foe and must crumble sooner or later
Up to 150 people gathering at Elsternwick Park in Brighton dispersed to Elwood when faced with a long line of officers at the site, 11km from Melbourne’s CBD.
Protests were announced by rally organisers about 10.30am on Saturday – half an hour before kicking off at the State Library, and a second closely following at 12pm.
Shouting about Premier Daniel Andrews and coronavirus restrictions was heard throughout the disjointed protests.
The protests were described as ‘chaotic’, with one photographer saying there was ‘a lot of running and not much protesting.’
Some protesters continued to scatter through backstreets, even jumping fences into private property.
One arrested by police was filmed by Nine News telling officers: ‘Wake up, I know you already know this is wrong.’
In video captured of the event, protesters can be heard yelling ‘disgraceful’, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’, ‘no violence’ and ‘peaceful’ as officers stand nearby.
A man can be seen being arrested as he questions: ‘Officers, why are you doing this. I’ve never done anything wrong in my life. Please, this is enough. It’s only going to get worse. Who is going to fight for you.’
Premier Daniel Andrews said the protest was selfish and irresponsible.
The most infuriating protest ever: Climate activist pests bring peak-hour traffic in Brisbane to a standstill by deliberately cycling as slowly as possible on a busy major road
Interesting that I had an easier than usual drive from Woolloongabba to the Valley this morning
Climate change activists have brought Brisbane’s peak hour traffic to a crawl by cycling as slow as possible on a major road.
Up to 45 demonstrators from Extinction Rebellion are riding bicycles through the city in a slow-moving blockade on Monday.
Kicking off at Kurilpa Park, South Brisbane, at 7.30am the two-hour-long protest is part of a push for Australia to sign on to a binding target of zero net carbon emissions by 2025, overseen by a citizen’s assembly.
‘We will be riding as slowly as possible to disrupt peak hour traffic to bring attention to the climate and ecological crisis,’ organisers said in a Facebook post.
‘We are headed for complete annihilation. The amount of warming we are on track for, will literally mean the death of billions of people.’
‘Scientists say that at 4 or 5 degrees of warming, the earth could sustain a billion people. Our governments could push us to 7 degrees of warming.’
Rally organisers have told demonstrators to be COVID-19 safe by travelling in small groups of 10, social distancing and donning masks as they cycle towards King George Square.
Organisers listed ‘legal tips’ in a Facebook post advising attendees not to communicate with police.
‘There will be police liaisons at this protest, they will communicate between the police and activists,’ the post read.
‘If the police approach you please direct them to the designated police liaisons.’
‘In the past they have not arrested anybody for cycling slowly at similar events …’
Protesters live streamed the disruptive ride over Facebook, with footage showing them chanting ‘climate justice’ and blasting anthems, such as John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’.
Victoria’s police chief says his officers have been confronted with a worrying spike in mental health issues throughout the state’s lockdown period.
Chief Police Commissioner Shane Patton said anecdotal reports from officers indicated they were dealing with increasing numbers mental health problems.
“Each day, when I check the reports from across the state and see what’s been occurring, it seems, anecdotally, that my members are attending a lot more incidents where we do have mental health issues. People are feeling the pressures a lot more,” he told 3AW.
“When you think about the pressures that are being placed on people economically and restrictions and a whole range of different matters, as well as the fatigue in the community … our members are experiencing that.”
A nurse practitioner at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital Emergency Department also told news.com.au there had been a big increase patients being admitted for mental health problems. She described the situation as “confronting and intense”
Queensland police defends force following anti-police sentiment sparked by death of Indigenous woman Aunty Sherry
Queensland’s Police Commissioner has defended the state’s force as being “in no way racist,” following a wave of anti-police sentiment sparked by the death of an Indigenous woman in custody last week.
Several hundred protesters marched in Brisbane’s streets to Queensland’s Police Headquarters on Friday night, demanding an end to Indigenous deaths in custody.
The protest was organised in response to the death of 49-year-old Aunty Sherry Tilberoo, an Indigenous woman who was found unresponsive in a cell at the Brisbane watch house last week.
She had been held in the watch house for several days on drug and theft charges and was awaiting transfer to a correctional centre.
Friday’s vigil was held outside Queensland police headquarters where protesters lit candles to remember the 49-year-old woman.
Some protesters blamed deaths in custody on police negligence and “systemic” racism.
Aunty Sherry’s death sparked a wave of anti-police sentiment, with protests sparked the week before resulting in police being accused of “aggressive” behaviour as they made multiple arrests.
‘We are in no way racist’
While the woman’s death remains under investigation by the Ethical Standards Command, police said autopsy results indicated the woman had died of natural causes.
Speaking from the Brisbane suburb of Morningside, Commissioner Katarina Carroll said she was upset to hear some protesters labelling the force as “racist”.
“I am really upset about that,” Commissioner Carroll told the media. “We’ve done the right thing here all along.
“We’ve been extraordinarily open and transparent about this investigation, like we should be and always are.
“Sadly, she did pass away — sadly, it was of natural causes, but we are in no way racist.
There have been calls for police to release CCTV footage from the night Aunty Sherry died, but Commissioner Carroll said that had been referred to the coroner.
The Commissioner acknowledged reports of protestors describing the police service as racist.
“I think there is a select few that might say that, but in some ways … it’s not the right thing to always say that when we are trying to work very hard together,” she said.
“So, please, let’s settle … let’s make sure that the corner gets to do the hearing or the investigation and we’ll go from there.”
She said, overall, Queensland police have a good relationship with the majority of the community.
It comes as Queensland’s Police Minister Mark Ryan said the Government had invested a record amount of money into the police force across the state.
“Over the last five years our Government’s been rebuilding the police service,” he said.
“We’ve been putting on more staff — over 600 new staff — and we’ve given police a record budget, it’s up 20 per cent.”
Students at one of Sydney’s most elite schools boast about their luxury facilities including a ‘$50million gym and a library with harbour views’
Students at one of Sydney’s most exclusive private schools have shared videos boasting about a luxury ‘$50million gym and library with a harbour view’.
Sydney Church of England Grammar School, also known as the Shore School, sits in Sydney’s North Shore.
Students recently uploaded a video to TikTok as part of a viral trend showing off the school’s facilities.
The video, which has since been taken down, showed students looking out at views of the Harbour Bridge from the comfort of their library.
The video also showed the school’s gym, which includes treadmills, stationary cycling bikes and weight-lifting facilities.
The $33,000-a-year school sits on a eight-hectare block and features classrooms, lecture theatres and a 500-seat auditorium, according to the school’s website.
There are cricket nets, as well as tennis and basketball courts, two squash courts and a 25-metre swimming pool and diving facilities.
There are also boarding facilities and a chapel on campus as well.
The Shore School’s student’s video went viral, with other school children from across the country making similar clips to compare facilities.
However, administration were not impressed with the video posted on TikTok.
A spokesman for the school told the Daily Telegraph the students involved were told to remove the clip as it breached the school’s social media policy.
Students are allowed to use mobile phones on campus, and footage shot inside of the school is also banned from appearing online. Those involved were told not to do it again.
David Shoebridge, NSW Greens MLC, called the footage ‘deeply offensive’. ‘Students can see how unfair and unbalanced school funding is,’ Mr Shoebridge said. ‘It’s just extraordinary how most politicians can’t.’
This is a moment for universities to shine. Instead they’re in crisis
Well before the coronavirus outbreak it was apparent Australia’s under-25s were in danger of becoming the first generation in many decades to have lower living standards than their parents’ generation.
Years of wage stagnation, high rates of under-employment and high housing costs mean living standards have improved far less for younger people than for older age groups. Now the pandemic has exacerbated the problem.
Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood, who co-authored a recent study on generational inequality, says: “We were on the cusp of saying we’ve got a generation that’s going to fall behind the one that came before it, but I think we’re certainly going to be in that world now.”
Confronted with the weakest jobs market in memory, more young people than usual are opting for vocational or higher education. Applications for university next year have surged as school leavers respond to the recession by signing up for more study. The University Admissions Centre, which processes applications for admission to tertiary courses mostly in NSW and ACT, has received 21 per cent more applications from year 12 students wanting to attend university in 2021 than at the same time a year ago.
Many older workers will likely choose to upskill or retrain during the downturn. Education is a smart choice with the labour market so tight and travel restricted.
The spike in demand for post-school education is a national opportunity. Australia can use the pandemic to invest in our collective know-how. A more educated young workforce will help drive the recovery from the coronavirus recession.
So this should be a moment for Australia’s world-class universities to shine. Instead, the sector is in crisis.
The National Tertiary Education Union says more than 11,000 university jobs have been lost this year and more staff reductions are anticipated. Some institutions have slashed the number of courses available to students in a bid to save money.
The job losses and reduced course offerings mean a lower quality of tertiary education for young Australians. Many university students already complain about overcrowded tutorials and limited contact with academic staff.
University leaders say they’ve had no choice but to make cuts. They seem preoccupied with the decline in international student numbers due to COVID-19 border restrictions and the effect that has had on balance sheets.
The federal government, which funds universities, has added to the upheaval with a controversial overhaul of university fees now before Parliament. The “job-ready graduates” package proposed by Education Minister Dan Tehan will reduce student contributions for some courses, including engineering, health and science, while significantly increasing fees for many popular subjects, such as humanities (apart from languages), law and business. Tehan says his reforms will “grow the number of university places for domestic students by 39,000 in 2023”, although tertiary sector experts have queried that claim.
Professor Andrew Norton, a higher education analyst at the Australian National University, warns the government’s changes are “not going to deal” with the challenges now facing universities. In a submission to a Senate inquiry into the job-ready graduates legislation, he says problems with it “are too fundamental to be fixed by amendment. The bill should be rejected.”
Danielle Wood is even more scathing. She says the government’s proposed changes lack coherence and threaten to exacerbate the financial challenges faced by the higher education sector because of the pandemic.
“I honestly think it’s one of the worst-designed policies that I have ever seen,” Wood says. “Even if you accept its stated rationale, it doesn’t go anywhere near achieving it.”
To make matters worse for school leavers, Norton warns 2021 is shaping as a “competitive year” for university hopefuls. Under current policy settings, universities may turn away thousands of potential students as applications spike but the number of available places remains fixed. Many who miss out will likely end up on JobSeeker.
Over the past decade universities have been increasingly portrayed as export businesses rather than places of learning and scholarship.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison likes to speak about universities with the language of big corporations and commerce. Asked in July why universities were being denied access to the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme, Morrison said they were like other “large businesses” negotiating the coronavirus crisis.
“We should remember, these are very large organisations with billion-dollar reserves and they’ve got multi-million-dollar CEOs and they’re making decisions about how they’re running their own organisations, just like many large businesses are going through this,” he told ABC television.
But opinion polls suggest voters value the public good that universities provide, not just the export earnings. A recent Ipsos survey found 78 per cent of Australians viewed universities as crucial in solving the world’s biggest challenges. And 76 per cent agreed that access to universities should be expanded while only 7 per cent disagreed.
Young people typically bear the brunt of any economic downturn. Research shows age groups entering the workforce during past recessions have suffered long-term “economic scarring” including higher rates of underemployment and lower incomes.
Access to top-notch tertiary and vocational training is one way to offset the damage. We know higher levels of post-school education boost workforce participation, productivity, and national wellbeing. It will pay long-term dividends as an increasing share of employment becomes knowledge-based.
The deep economic downturn caused by the pandemic demands a renewed focus on the needs of young Australians.
Resources giant Adani has declared victory over environmental activists who tried to stop its $2 billion coal mine in central Queensland.
The Indian-owned company’s chief executive David Boshoff says the Carmichael project in the Galilee Basin has already created 1500 jobs, despite sustained opposition from green and Indigenous groups.
“The Stop Adani movement said our project would never go ahead and would never create a single job. We have proved our opponents wrong,” Mr Boshoff said in a statement on Friday.
His comments come a week after the Supreme Court in Brisbane ordered chief activist Ben Pennings to remove posts on social media from 2017 and 2018 encouraging people to get jobs at Adani to obtain information about the coal project to use aganist the company.
Mr Pennings, who runs the Galilee Blockade, was also ordered to stop asking others to disclose information to him about the project or using confidential information he obtains in his campaigns.
Mr Boshoff said Adani had helped prop up the resources sector and the state’s economy during the pandemic with 88 per cent of its contracts being delivered in Queensland.
He said with 1500 jobs already, more permanent roles will be created when the mine and rail line are operating.
“We are looking forward to the day next year when we can celebrate our success with our Queensland partners and employees, while watching the first shipment of coal being exported. Until then, it remains full speed ahead on construction,” Mr Boshoff said.
Meanwhile, the miner says it has managed to protect a traditional cultural heritage site after workers clearing grass for the railway found it last weekend.
The Jangga people, the area’s Traditional Owners, told the company the site is believed to be a women’s quarry, which was used to create tools and may be thousands of years old.
Mr Boschoff said with Jangga consent the company moved a vehicle access track to the railway, which will protect the site.
“This is a great outcome for both the Jangga People and Adani,” he said.
“The delivery of the Carmichael Project has enabled the Jangga People to do further exploration of their Country and discover more about their own rich history and culture.”
Scomo to replace coal by a mix of renewables and natural gas
It’s the only practical way to reduce CO2 emissions without having blackouts but the Greenies will hate it because gas is a “fossil” fuel. Greenies would rather have the blackouts
The federal government will invest $1.9billion over the next ten years on new technologies to help reduce Australia’s carbon emissions and slow global warming.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will splash the cash on measures including solar-powered microgrids for farmers, a new $70million hydrogen export hub and more energy-efficient air-conditioning systems for regional pubs.
It comes after Mr Morrison outlined plans to build a huge new gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley to complement Australia’s rapidly growing renewable energy sector, which provides 25 per cent of the nation’s power.
Some $30billion has been invested in renewable energy in Australia since 2017, with dozens of solar power and wind farms popping up around the country.
But Mr Morrison wants to do more to support newer technologies to drive down power bills, create jobs and reduce emissions.
The centerpiece of Mr Morrison’s plan is to build a giant hydrogen export hub worth $70million where the gas can be shipped to countries around the world including Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Germany.
Potential locations include the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, Darwin, north-west WA, Gladstone in Queensland, the Hunter Valley in NSW, Bell Bay in Tasmania and the Spencer Gulf in South Australia.
In the coming years Australia is set to become a major exporter of hydrogen which can be used to heat buildings, power factories and even run cars with no emissions.
Global demand for hydrogen is increasing and Australia has an abundance of it stored in natural gas, coal and biomass. One model predicts the industry will boost the Australian economy by $10billion and generate 16,000 jobs by 2040.
Mr Morrison will also spend $67million on microgrid deployment projects in regional and remote communities across Australia.
Microgrids are set up by farmers and mining companies to generate electricity using solar panels and batteries instead of diesel generation. Farms on the NSW Central Coast have been deploying them to reduce their energy costs.
The prime minister will announce a $52million package of measures to help companies become more energy efficient with new air-conditioning or roof solar panels.
The government will also set up a $50million Carbon Capture Use and Storage Development Fund which will pay for projects to capture carbon emissions.
Carbon capture involves trapping carbon dioxide released from factories and power stations, transporting it on ships or in pipelines and pumping it down into depleted oil and gas fields.
Scientists believe carbon capture can potentially stop half the world’s carbon emissions from being released into the atmosphere.
Potential locations to store the carbon include Moomba in South Australia, the Surat/Bown Basins in Queensland, offshore at Latrobe Valley in Victoria, offshore at Darwin, the Pilbara/Carnarvon Basin in WA and Browse in WA.
As part of the government’s plan, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency will be handed $1.4billion over the next ten years and will be allowed to invest in new technologies such as soil carbon sequestration, carbon capture and storage and the production of green steel, which is made using hydrogen instead of coal.
Mr Morrison said: ‘This will support our traditional industries – manufacturing, agriculture, transport – while positioning our economy for the future.
‘These investments create jobs and they bring new technologies into play. This will not only cut emissions, but deliver the reliable energy Australia needs while driving down prices for homes and businesses.’
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor said the Coalition would not introduce a carbon price, which former prime minister Tony Abbott repealed in 2014.
‘We will reduce the cost of new and emerging technologies, not raise the cost of existing technologies or layer in new costs to consumers and businesses through mandated targets or subsidies,’ Minister Taylor said.
On Tuesday Mr Morrison said he stands ready to build a new gas-fired power station in the New South Wales Hunter Valley to keep power prices down as Australia emerges from the coronavirus-caused recession.
The prime minister wants to reform the gas market to stop Aussies getting ripped off while major producers send $49billion of gas a year overseas, mainly to Japan, China and South Korea.
He will require energy companies in New South Wales to makes plans to produce 1000MW of power by April 2021 – and if they don’t he will step in and build a new gas-fired power station at Kurri Kurri in the NSW Hunter Valley.
A new plant there would replace power generated by the Liddell Coal plant which is due to close in 2023.
If no replacement is found then prices could rise 30 per cent over two years, or $20 per megawatt hour to $80 in 2024 and up to $105 per megawatt hour by 2030.
‘If the energy companies choose to step up and make these investments to create that capacity – great. We will step back. If not – my government will step up and we will fill the gap,’ Mr Morrison said.
Cathy Freeman’s iconic Olympic moment shows the racism Indigenous Australians face
This do-gooder article below is a good example of lazy thought. It casually accuses Australians of racism towards Aborigines but makes no attempt to enquire why that racism exists.
And it does exist. Australians rarely encounter Aborigines as anything but dirty and drunked layabouts and beggars and it is undoubted that they dislike ALL drunken layabout beggars. So that is the simple explanation for why Australians have a low opinion of Aborigines.
And the high rate of intermarriage beween East Asians (mainly Chinese and Filipinas) and Anglo-Australians shows that looking different and coming from different cultures does not of itself normally elicit prejudice. In the Bogardus social distance scale, marriage is the most non-racist category of behaviour. The almost total absence of any friction between Anglos and our large population of East Asians is surely evidence that Australians are NOT racist in general
It is of course true that what is true of the group is not true of all individuals within it. But it is a universal human habit to categorize, as the psychological literature (See here and here) clearly shows. But that literature also shows that once a person becomes known as an individual, the category judgments fall away.
My own father, who was a man of his times, had an Aboriginal friend — solely because the Aboriginal was a hard worker in my father’s trade (“lumberjack”) of cutting down forest trees. He was perfectly friendly to Tommy even though he had the usual negative view of Aborigines in general prevailing at that time. My father greatly respected hard manual work so his friendship with Tommy was an expression of his values
So the human tendency to categorize may be regrettable but it does not generate immovable attitudes. So Freeman received a lot of acceptance and admiration once she became known as an individual. But up to that point the assumption about her was that she was a discreditable type of person. She was judged as a member of her group. That is how the human mind works. It is nothing to do with Australians in particular
Call it racism or call it stereotyping but categorization is a basic human survival mechanism. It enables prediction
Twenty years ago Cathy Freeman stopped the nation not once, but twice in the space of 10 days.
All of Australia watched as Freeman won the 400m in front of 110,000 people at Sydney’s Olympic stadium on September 25, 2000.
Ten days earlier she was unveiled as the secret final torch bearer to light the Olympic cauldron inside the stadium.
It was something Freeman – who had the race of her life just 10 days later – was reluctant to do.
“It wasn’t until I got to Sydney, in those days before the Opening Ceremony that I started to think, ‘OK I have to be in this moment’.”
It was an iconic moment in not only our sporting history but the history of Australia.
Twenty years ago Indigenous Australians were fighting for an apology to the Stolen Generation. Just months before the Olympics 250,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians had marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge for reconciliation.
And here was a proud and outspoken Indigenous Australian on the world stage representing Australia.
It’s easy to look back at that moment with rose-tinted glasses. A moment that shows how accepting white Australians have been of Indigenous Australians.
But I have vastly different memories of that opening ceremony.
At an 18th birthday party in country NSW, the family whose daughter was turning 18 had moved the TV outside so everyone could watch the ceremony.
But despite it being a huge moment in our history, there are only two things I remember from that event.
The first was when a young Nikki Webster entered the ceremony surrounded by Aboriginal dancers.
A partygoer – who would have just been 17 or 18 – yelled out that Nikki wasn’t safe with so many Aboriginal men around her.
It was a disgusting comment that shows just how acceptable it was to be openly racist 20 years ago. Sadly, it’s probably still acceptable in some circles today.
When the torch bearers reached the stadium it was a parade of former Australian Olympians who did the final legs. Then it was Cathy’s moment. No one knew she would light the cauldron.
But the decision to use Australia’s greatest athlete at the time didn’t please everyone at the party.
People started to boo as Cathy took the torch and started the final run before lighting the cauldron surrounded by water.
You could just say this was a group of teens who didn’t understand the importance of this moment. They didn’t understand how racist it was to boo a prominent Indigenous woman during one of the biggest moments in her career.
But that would be ignoring how much Freeman had to fight during her whole career.
Like how Australian Commonwealth Games official Arthur Tunstall said Freeman should have been kicked out of the 1994 Commonwealth Games when she carried both the Australian and Aboriginal flags during her victory lap after winning gold in the 200m.
Or when Freeman was just a girl and didn’t receive a trophy after winning a race, instead watching non-Indigenous girls who finished behind her receive them.
“What did upset me at time was my parent’s reaction; they were more upset than me,” Freeman said years later.
It’s easy to look back at Freeman winning the 400m gold in Sydney or lighting the cauldron and forget the racism she faced.
She was even warned in the lead up to the 2000 Games she could be stripped of her medals if she celebrated with the Aboriginal flag. There were concerns it would breach an Olympic rule by being seen as a political gesture. But when she won the 400m, she carried both flags proudly.
The 20th anniversary of Freeman’s gold medal should rightly be celebrated this month as a moment that brought Australians together.
But it should also be a reminder of how much more Indigenous Australians have to fight to be accepted in Australia. And that it’s a fight that still continues.
Much of Queensland’s legislation against farmers was ‘completely unnecessary’
Marine scientist and physicist Professor Peter Ridd says data showing pesticides bear a a negligible impact on the Great Barrier Reef means much of the Queensland government’s new legislation against farmers were “completely unnecessary”.
Professor Ridd said it was recently revealed by the director of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, that only 3 per cent of the whole Great Barrier Reef, the ‘inshore reefs’, was affected by farm pesticides.
He said it was revealed even for the affected 3 per cent, pesticides were a low to negligible risk.
“It’s only 3 per cent of the whole Great Barrier Reef, and even when you look at the data on that … even on that 3 per cent, pesticides are a low to negligible risk,” Professor Ridd told Sky News host Chris Kenny.
“(Which) basically means a lot of this new legislation the Queensland government is bringing on against farmers is completely unnecessary.”
Green hypocrites and gutless banks holding up power to the people
That Australia needs a big new power station on the east coast is obvious. The $64,000 question is where? While everyone wants one, they do not wish to live near one. “Not in my backyard” is the cry from householders who still want their airconditioning running year round. As we dither and dally over the where, the need becomes more critical. You have to be old enough to remember the days when Neville Wran was premier to recall the “brown-outs”. Different parts of the state would be robbed through periods of inadequate power and no power at all. If one of those incidents occurs at the height of summer or the depth of winter, people die.
When Victoria closed its dirty brown-coal plant at Hazelwood it may have done us an environmental favour but it meant that other states had to increase the amount of power they produced to bridge the shortfall. So we adopted the approach of stretching out the power we had, knowing full well that we were only delaying the inevitable.
We can’t dawdle any longer. Our weak-willed banks lack the courage to back a new power station built by the private sector.
If this desperately needed power station is ever going to be built it will be with government money. It will be bitterly opposed by those who see nothing incongruous about turning the lights on tonight when they get home. No bank will risk losing tens of thousands of customers by shovelling money into this development, regardless of how worthy it might be.
Our banks run up the white flag and begin a quick retreat with the first whiff of grapeshot. “Principle be damned” is their motto as they race to find the lowest common denominator.
The financial services royal commission did much more than highlight corruption and malpractice in that system. It undermined our faith in our institutions. The AMP was the pinnacle of Australian business success. It was big and it was ours. I can recall my parents taking me to the top of the old AMP building to look out over the harbour. Just the mention of AMP invoked national pride. Watching its executives being grilled was not a pretty sight. They even stole money off dead people.
They say a rort is not a rort if you are in on it. At the AMP everyone had a rort going – robbing customers. Under new management the company is rebuilding; I wish them well, but it is a mighty task. You can easily rebuild physical structures but trust is different altogether and it takes longer. It would be a great idea if these boards had a consumer representative – a genuine independent who could apply a smell test to board decisions, particularly executive remuneration.
We waste talent in this country. Tony Abbott, a Rhodes scholar before becoming Prime Minister of Australia, was offered nothing when he left politics. He had to go to London to find work. That’s pathetic. You need to have a national memory bank and you have that by keeping those who made our history on our shores to educate, stimulate and nurture those Australians smart enough to know that the only way forward is to look to the past to find out what works and what doesn’t.
The US presidential election is near and brilliant colleague Rowan Dean predicts a landslide victory for Donald Trump, notwithstanding the polls. I am not inclined to rubbish Dean’s claim; he made a mug of me rightly predicting Scott Morrison’s victory over Bill Shorten. Joe Biden – an uninspiring candidate – may lead in the polls but then he has to get Americans out to vote. This will happen only if there is a sufficient number of Americans who want to dump Trump.
Why is it that the best the Democrats can produce is a doddery near-octogenarian flat out remembering what room he is in? Is he fit and able enough to handle all the complexities of the toughest job in the world? It is hard to come up with a confident, positive answer to that. What will this man do in a life-and-death crisis when it is his finger on the button? Will his mind be on the job or will it wander? Let us hope and pray that we never find out.
Sometimes democracy seems not all that it is cracked up to be. While the rulers of its greatest potential enemies, China and Russia, are presidents for life, the US President faces the people every four years. Incumbents don’t often get beaten but Jimmy Carter only got one bite of the cherry when his Georgian mafia showed they were well short of having whatever it takes to control all the levers of American government.
Trump is terrific for people like me. Journalists and commentators know he provides us with rich pickings. For that reason a part of my brain tells me to support him. My whole brain then kicks in and I return to sanity.
Big changes to Australian citizenship test flagged
The citizenship test has been modified so that aspiring Australians will need to correctly answer questions about the country’s values, the federal government is expected to announce.
The 20-question multiple choice test, which requires a 75 per cent overall mark to pass, will from November include five questions about Australian values – all of which must be answered correctly.
Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge is due to introduce the changes on Thursday to coincide with Australian Citizenship Day, when more than 100 citizenship ceremonies will take place across the country.
“The updated citizenship test will have new and more meaningful questions that require potential citizens to understand and commit to our values like freedom of speech, mutual respect, equality of opportunity, the importance of democracy and the rule of law.”
The new values-based queries will include questions such as should people in Australia make an effort to learn English, are people free to choose who they marry or not marry, do religious laws override Australian law and is it acceptable for a husband to be violent towards his wife if she has disobeyed or disrespected him.
Questions in the current test focus on Australian history and government.
Farmers reach ‘crisis point’ over shortage of labor
President of NSW Farmers James Jackson says the agricultural industry is at “crisis point” as crops are not being harvested due to a shortage of laborers.
It comes as the agriculture industry’s usual influx of backpackers who join the fruit-picking force at an estimated worth of $13 billion has been impeded by the coronavirus pandemic.
“In NSW, Victoria and South Australia, it’s looking like a pretty good cereal harvest and we do need casual labor that,” Mr Jackson told Sky News host Alan Jones.
“For the horticultural crops, we need labor for that. “We are looking and it’s five minutes to midnight on this because it’s starting to become the busy season for horticulture.”
Australia singled out for mammal extinction in UN’s dire global biodiversity report
LOL. The good ol’ Bramble cay melomys again: A small rodent that has actually gone extinct in recent years. The Greenies love it so we keep hearing about it.
The whole thing is a beat up. It is only the Melomys on Bramble cay that has gone extinct. There are tons of them on the nearby mainland.
And their extinction has NOTHING to do with global warming. One of the cyclones that bedevil the far North blew most of the vegetation and a lot of the sand away that formed its habitat. Any that survived the big blow died of starvation, not of any temperature rise
The Greenies will of course say that the big blow was caused by global warming but that is nonsense. Big blows have always been a frequent occurrence in the Far North. Where they hit is random however. Bramble cay and its inhabitants just got unlucky on one occasion
The extinction of Australia’s Bramble Cay melomys has been singled out for criticism in a United Nation’s report on the state of biodiversity across the world.
The fifth Global Biodiversity Outlook, released last night, warned that biodiversity is declining “at an unprecedented rate [while] the pressures driving this decline are intensifying”.
Australia was named alongside Cameroon, the Galapagos and Brazil as countries having suffered at least one extinction in the last decade.
The Bramble Cay melomys — a native rodent found on a coral cay in the northern Great Barrier Reef — was officially declared extinct by the Australian Government in 2019, although it was last seen in 2009.
It is believed to be the world’s first mammal extinction due to climate change.
Today’s report is an update on the world’s progress with the Aichi biodiversity targets — a set of 20 conservation targets set out in 2010 to be achieved by 2020, and signed off on by 194 countries including Australia.
Those targets include the elimination of “incentives, including subsidies harmful to biodiversity”, and halving “the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests”.
“At the global level, none of the 20 targets have been fully achieved,” the report stated, “though six targets have been partially achieved.”
Strengthening and enforcing environmental protection laws is outlined as a key lever to help stop the loss of biodiversity — a warning that Australian Conservation Foundation spokesperson Basha Stasak said the Government needs to pay attention to.
“The Australian Government’s own report to the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in March 2020 revealed the Government failed to meet or measure the majority of its [Aichi] targets,” Ms Stasak said.
“Yet the Morrison Government is trying to further weaken nature protection in rushed changes to the national environment law due to be debated in the Senate next month.”
Australia’s environment laws have come under scrutiny since the interim report into the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, released in July, found that the Act is failing to curb our loss of habitat and species.
The report’s recommendation for an independent “cop” to oversee the enforcement of environment protection laws was rejected by the Government.
Instead the Government is moving to introduce changes to the EPBC Act which would shift environmental assessments for major development projects to the states — a move critics say will further weaken an already failing system.
In a statement to the ABC, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment said that the Government was aiming to strengthen environmental protection.
“The Government continues to work on delivering both short- and long-term change that will make the Act more efficient and result in clearer, stronger protection for the environment,” the spokesperson said.
Australian species at risk of extinction without change Australia currently has 21 species listed as critically endangered on the IUCN red list — a globally recognised database of flora and fauna conservation status.
A further 24 Australian animals are listed as endangered, with 19 of those having decreasing populations.
One of the biggest failings of our environment protection laws is the self-assessment criteria, according to David Chapple, who heads up Monash University’s Evolutionary Ecology of Environmental Change Laboratory.
Under the self-assessment guidelines, people are required to decide for themselves whether they think their activity needs to be referred to the Federal Government for approval.
Yet, researchers have found that 93 per cent of the over 7 million hectares of threatened species habitat cleared since 1999 (when the EPBC Act came into effect) were not referred for assessment.
More than 3 million of that 7 million hectares was koala habitat.
“Self assessment and whether you actually refer yourself to the Act in the first place is an area where there’s a lot of improvement to be made,” Dr Chapple said.
“The [EPBC report] recommendation for an independent panel to oversee the Act is one thing that most conservation biologists think is a key element to [improve] it.”
In research published earlier this month, Dr Chapple and colleague’s assessed the conservation trajectory of just lizards and snakes in Australia.
They found that there are at least 11 species of lizard and snake at significant risk of extinction by 2040.
The biggest driver of species loss in Australia and globally is habitat loss, according to Associate Professor Chapple.
He said he wasn’t surprised by the poor outcomes in the UN’s report today.
“There wasn’t anything in there that surprised me. It’s a reinforcement of what we already know,” he said.
“In terms of the Samuel’s review of the EPBC Act, it’s very timely. It remains to be seen how many of those things [the Government] do take on.”
A Department spokesperson told the ABC the Government has made “significant progress” across its Aichi targets.
“The Australian Government is investing in dedicated threatened species strategies, national environmental science programs, practical on ground action to reduce threats from feral predators and pests and $200 million in bushfire wildlife and habitat recovery strategies that focus heavily on threatened species impacts.”
Canberra player Curtis Scott has had his allegations of police assault thrown out after a magistrate declared his arrest on the Australia Day weekend “unlawful”.
Scott was handcuffed and arrested by police at Moore Park while sitting under a tree before he was pepper-sprayed and Tasered. He was originally charged with seven offences as a result, including the assault of two police officers.
Body-worn police footage was played in Central Local Court on Wednesday, revealing the moment officers found Scott under the tree about 2am on January 27.
The 72-second clip showed Scott asleep under the tree with his arms folded in a floral blue shirt as officers tried to wake him.
The vision showed one officer grabbing at his earlobe three times to rouse him before Scott reacted by lashing his arms out towards police. This was considered one of the allegations of police assault.
Scott can be heard telling the officer in question: “Come on, get off me c—.”
Police then put Scott in handcuffs before telling him to “stop resisting” and to “get up” despite his intoxicated state.
Scott’s lawyer Murugan Thangaraj SC argued in court that Scott was not told he was under arrest when handcuffed, which is unlawful, and that the rest of the case could not go ahead.
Police allowed only 72 seconds of the entire incident to be played to the court and requested that no other parts be shown, believing that the charges in question were limited to the short clip.
Mr Thangaraj argued the request was an attempt by police to “shield themselves from scrutiny”.
He said that later in the full-length clip, a part that was not shown in court, a female officer stood on Scott’s foot on purpose and twisted his ankle. “She clearly applies pressure and twists his ankle,” Mr Thangaraj said.
He said that later in the full-length clip, Scott is seen “writhing in tears” after being pepper-sprayed by police before an officer tells him it is “not that bad [being pepper-sprayed]”.
Police prosecutor Rebecca Becroft told the court the officers used handcuffs for Scott’s protection and their own as he appeared to be “heavily intoxicated with alcohol or drugs”.
After viewing the shortened clip three times, Magistrate Jennifer Giles ruled the act of Scott being handcuffed while asleep “unlawful”. She described the first allegation of police assault as Scott “dreamily” using his arm to brush one of the officers away.
As a result, police withdrew the five charges in contention.
“I have to say it is drawing a very long and frightening bow to argue that the police can handcuff someone they are trying to wake up who is sleeping under a tree that is not under arrest,” Ms Giles told the court.
Outside of court, defence lawyer Sam Macedone said he was eager for the full clip to be played during the cost hearing on Thursday.
Mr Macedone also said that due to the police’s persistence of the case the cost to the taxpayer would likely amount to more than $100,000.
When Mr Macedone was asked outside court whether the police in question should be charged he said he would be not making that comment “at this stage”. “Not publicly anyway,” he said.
‘States doing the heavy lifting’ repatriating Australians: Palaszczuk
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has called on the federal government to use its resources to bring Australians stranded abroad home, claiming the states are doing “the heavy lifting”.
Ms Palaszczuk confirmed her government was willing to accept repatriated Australians currently trapped abroad, stating it was “imperative” Australians be allowed to return home.
“I think it is imperative we get back to Australia as many Australians as we can,” she said.
“The federal government can utilise its aircraft to bring people back and set up accommodation.
“I said to the Deputy Prime Minister that I would be more than happy to look at taking more Australians here where we have the capacity to do so.”
Surprise fall in jobless rate as 111,000 people find work in August
A tribute to the flexibilty of a capitalistic economy. The USA is performing similarly
More than 110,000 jobs were created across Australia in August, delivering the nation a surprise fall in unemployment even as Victoria went into coronavirus lockdown.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday reported the national jobless rate dropped to 6.8 per cent from 7.5 per cent. Markets had been expecting an increase in unemployment to around 8 per cent.
The bureau said 110,000 jobs were added in the month, taking total employment above 12.5 million. It is back to where it was in July 2018.
Of the jobs created, 74,800 were part-time positions. And despite the large jump in jobs, total hours worked only lifted by 0.1 per cent.
There were huge falls in jobless rates in many areas. The Northern Territory’s jobless rate fell to 4.2 per cent from 7.5 per cent, in Western Australia it fell to 7 per cent from 8.3 per cent while in Queensland it went to 7.5 per cent from 8.8 per cent.
In NSW, the nation’s biggest jobs market, the jobless rate dropped to 6.7 per cent from 7.2 per cent.
Analysts and the government had been expecting a spike in unemployment in Victoria due to its lockdown. But even there, the jobless rate only moved up to 7.1 per cent from 6.8 per cent.
The bureau’s head of labour statistics, Bjorn Jarvis, said there had not been a substantial change in the participation rate, which measures those in work or looking for it.
“The large increase in seasonally adjusted employment coincided with a large decrease in unemployment of 87,000 people, around 55,000 of whom were female,” he said.
While jobs lifted in most areas, Victoria’s lockdown did have a major impact there with total employment down 42,400. It is just above the low point reached in May in the wake of the first coronavirus lockdown.
The bureau said nationally there were now 215,300 people who worked zero hours through August. This had been 766,900 in April.
Victoria, with 113,000 people on zero hours, accounted for more than half those who held a job but did not work through the month. Victoria’s zero hour workforce peaked in April at 229,800.
An inquiry into Great Barrier Reef farming yields remarkable confessions as institutions are challenged by evidence.
By PETER RIDD
The Senate committee inquiry into the regulation of farm practices impacting water quality on the Great Barrier Reef has yielded some remarkable confessions by science institutions about the state of the reef. It has been the first time many of the scientists have been asked difficult questions and publicly challenged by hard evidence. They have been forced out of their bubble.
It was revealed by Paul Hardisty, boss of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, that only 3 per cent of the reef, the “inshore reefs”, is affected by farm pesticides and sediment. He also stated that pesticides, are a “low to negligible risk”, even for that 3 per cent.
The other 97 per cent, the true offshore Great Barrier Reef, mostly 50km to 100km from the coast, is effectively totally unharmed by pesticides and sediment.
This has been evident in the data for decades but it is nice to see an honest appraisal of the situation.
Why has this fact not been brought to the public’s attention in major documents such as the GBR Outlook Report produced by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority? Why has everybody been deceived about the true extent of the problem?
AIMS was also forthcoming on other important points. Records of coral growth rates show no impact from agriculture. Large corals live centuries, and have annual growth rings like trees. They record their own rate of growth. If farming, which started about 100 years ago on the reef coast, was damaging it, there should be a slowing of the growth rate. The records show no slowing when agriculture started a century ago, or when large-scale use of fertiliser and pesticides began in the 1950s.
I have written previously that AIMS has been negligent in not updating the GBR-average coral growth data for the past 15 years. We have the scandalous situation that there is data going back centuries – but nothing since 2005. AIMS claimed coral growth rates collapsed between 1990 and 2005, due to climate change; however, there is considerable doubt about this result because AIMS changed the methodology for the data between 1990 and 2005. At the Senate inquiry, under some duress, AIMS agreed it would be a good idea to update this data if the government will fund the project.
Updating the coral growth rate data will be a major step forward. It will prove or disprove the doubtful decline between 1990 and 2005. It will also give the complete record of how the GBR has fared in the past 15 years, a period when scientists have become more strident in their claims that it is on its last legs.
Hardisty, to his credit, has recently implemented red-blue teams within his organisation to help with quality assurance of the work that AIMS produces. A red team is a group of scientists that takes a deliberately antagonist approach to check, test and replicate scientific evidence. A genuine red team is a far more rigorous quality assurance approach than the present system used in science – peer review – which is often little more than a quick read of the work by the scientist’s mates. What AIMS has done internally is similar to what I have been proposing – an Office of Science Quality Assurance that would check, test, and replicate scientific evidence used for public policy.
Unfortunately, Hardisty’s commitment to quality in science was not reflected by many other important witnesses at the Senate inquiry. Many are in denial and resorted to shooting the messengers. An extract from a letter signed by Professor Ian Chubb, a former Australian chief scientist, was read out by Senator Kim Carr.
Disputing the conventional wisdom on the reef was likened to denying that tobacco causes cancer, or that lead in petrol is a health risk. Worse still, the reason sceptics do this, apparently, is “usually money”. Scientists such as Dr Piers Larcombe, the pre-eminent expert on the movement of sediment on the reef, with decades of experience, is thus written off as a corrupt charlatan.
It is scientific “cancel culture”. It is easier than confronting Larcombe’s evidence that farming has very limited impact on the GBR.
It is customary to be very cynical of our politicians, but it was senators Roberts, Rennick, Canavan and McDonald who forced some truth from our generally untrustworthy science institutions. Only our politicians can save us from them.
The evidence about the reef will not be buried forever. All the data indicates agriculture is having a negligible impact on the reef, and recent draconian Queensland legislation against farmers is unwarranted. And this issue will be influential come the Queensland state election on October 31.
Calls for daylight saving to be scrapped over health risks
There are growing calls from health professionals around the world to scrap daylight saving, with warnings turning clocks forward for half the year can have significant health impacts.
An Australian professor has spoken out about some of the health risks associated with changing the clocks, warning the health risks could be amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Professor of diabetes at Monash University, Paul Zimmet, told 3AW the Victorian Health Department needed to consider the negative impacts of the upcoming change to daylight.
“In terms of the scientific evidence, which we will want to stick with at the moment, there are more heart attacks just after daylight saving, more road accidents, and then you’ve got workplace accidents, car accidents and their implications,” he said.
“There is also cognitive dysfunction in relation to the daylight saving and the change in timing to our normal body rhythms.”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews shut down the possibility of cancelling daylight saving when asked about Prof Zimmet’s comments during Wednesday’s press conference.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful to the professor, who may be a very learned individual. No. Daylight saving will be proceeding,” Mr Andrews said.
“That’s why the curfew changes, that extra hour is really important, well ahead of daylight saving.”
Mr Andrews said the extra hour of daylight would hopefully help make the summer “like no other”.
“If we stay the course we’ll be able to get close to normal, COVID normal but close to normal, but people will be able to go out and enjoy the city, enjoy the state, enjoy being back at work, enjoy a sense of confidence as they go into 2021 and you know what they’ll enjoy most? They’ll enjoy the fundamental truth that all that they’ve given, all that they’ve done count counted for something,” the premier said.
“It wasn’t frittered away. It wasn’t because pressure came on a bad decision was made, the wrong decision was made. We’ve got to avoid that.
“This will be a summer like no other and daylight saving, I can confirm, will be a feature of it.”
Daylight saving will kick off at 2am on October 4, with residents in NSW, Victoria, the ACT, South Australia and Tasmania turning their clocks forward by an hour.
The debate around daylight saving ramped up last year when the European parliament voted to scrap changing the clocks from 2021.
From next year, countries that are part of the EU will be able to choose whether they want to stay on permanent summer” or “permanent winter” time.
Under the proposal, those that chose permanent summer would adjust their clocks for the last time on the last Sunday of March 2021, and those that choose winter will do so on the last Sunday of March 2021.
NSW police spent $24m on legal settlements, including for battery and false imprisonment
The New South Wales police spent $24m of taxpayer money on almost 300 civil legal claims brought against officers during the last financial year.
The figure, obtained by the NSW Greens, includes settlements for serious misconduct claims including battery, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
Data on the cost of civil claims against police have been notoriously hard to access, until now. Out of court settlements with government departments generally include gag orders, and police have resisted attempts by justice advocacy groups and politicians to access the figures.
NSW Greens upper house MP David Shoebridge has been attempting to force police to release the figures through freedom of information requests and parliamentary processes for several years.
In July, Shoebridge was able to pass a so-called “call for papers” motion with the support of the opposition Labor party and key crossbenchers in the upper house.
The motion compels government departments to produce certain documents within a specified timeframe. The first tranche of that release also revealed that NSW police have settled more than 1,000 civil claims made against officers in the past four years.
In a statement to Guardian Australia, Shoebridge said the figures were the first real insight “into the financial cost of police misconduct” in NSW.
“This is money that should be used to support and protect communities, rather than deliver secret payouts,” he said.
Justice advocates have long criticised the lack of transparency surrounding civil legal cases against NSW police.
In February, Guardian Australia revealed that Patrick Saidi, former commissioner of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, had sought an investigation into what he called the “systematic failure” of police to address the number of civil cases filed against officers for misconduct.
An internal investigation into the LECC showed Saidi had raised concerns that NSW police treated the millions of dollars paid in damages each year as “the cost of doing business” and believed officers subject to complaints were often not exposed to internal consequences.
Among his concerns, Saidi wrote, was his belief that officers subject to legal complaints were “given no feedback as to the illegality of any action on their part” and that unit commanders were often not informed about findings made against police.
“Up till now, commanders who have had police officers under their command have not been advised of the fact that damages or compensation monies have been paid as a result of the misconduct or unlawful actions of police officers under their command,” Saidi wrote in documents published as part of the investigation.
Shoebridge said the figures released by NSW police did not explain how police dealt with officers whose conduct was the subject of a civil settlement.
“The outcomes of these cases are usually suppressed, meaning it’s impossible to know whether the police whose misconduct has resulted in large payments to victims have faced any sanction at all,” he said.
“It’s very likely that most or all the officers whose actions have led to the police being sued are still working in the police with no sanction and often having been promoted.”
In a statement, NSW police said the full cost of civil claims was not reported in the force’s annual reports because the data is held by other departments.
“These figures were obtained from the Treasury Managed Fund, which provides insurance coverage for the portfolio,” a spokesperson said.
“As the NSW police force is insured, contingent liability for this portfolio is not borne by the NSW police force.”
Lifting teaching’s status can be achieved through embracing — rather than obstructing — market-based reform.
Australia’s education unions falsely blame alleged underfunding for the declining status of teaching, rather than failure to adopt the professionalism commonplace in other highly valued professions.
Any pretence that the source of teaching’s decline is low average rates of pay is debunked by evidence — as definitively shown in OECD data.
Instead, the fundamental problems are the flat pay structure — which has virtually no nexus with performance — and that this has made teaching unattractive to a generation of high-ability graduates.
Ultimately, the greatest threat to the status of the profession is its failure to embrace performance management — which undermines the efforts of hard-working teachers across the country.
Scathing government reports have repeatedly identified a lack of performance evaluation, few financial incentives for performance, and limited opportunities for career advancement.
But consistent, independent, and objective assessment of staff performance in the classroom will help teachers improve their craft, and ultimately deliver improvements in student achievement.
It’s also clear there’s a need to better attract, recruit, and retain high-ability teachers. But policy efforts have mistakenly imposed supply restrictions as the sole policy lever of choice.
These have included the blunt instruments of: tightening the eligibility to become a teacher (such as ATAR cut-offs and aptitude tests); increasing the hurdles needed to jump for accreditation (through compliance with additional professional standards); and requiring additional years of study and professional development to qualify for positions.
Rather than cutting the supply of teachers, policymakers should be expanding it. A wider pool of teaching applicants means schools — and the universities who admit prospective teachers — can be more selective in who they accept.
Reducing the barriers to entry for teaching — which currently prevent mid-career transitions and alternative on-the-job training pathways — will better target existing workforce challenges. More flexible pay structures can follow from more flexible teaching recruitment approaches.
All Australians will benefit from the education dollar being spent more wisely than persistent calls for more funding without accountability to match.
To genuinely address the declining status of teaching demands divorcing the profession from the anti-professionalism that holds back our educators.
Gas bills down and jobs up: Morrison government aims to cut household costs and boost employment with $53 million gas industry investment
Note that this investment will be a boost to Qld and NT, as they are the only places where their governments allow gas mining
Scott Morrison says a $53 million government investment in the gas industry will bring down household bills and support the creation of at least 4,000 jobs.
The prime minister wants to increase exploration to find new gas reserves and will set state and territories higher targets to encourage them to produce more.
It comes after The Australian Energy Market Operator warned that southern states could suffer shortages from 2024 as several Victorian gas fields run out.
Mr Morrison also wants to develop an Australian Gas Hub - where gas can be efficiently traded - at Wallumbilla in Queensland.
And he wants to set up code of conduct to help commercial and industrial buyers get fair prices when they buy gas from major suppliers.
Plans will be drawn up to develop five key gas basins starting with the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory and the North Bowen and Galilee Basin in Queensland.
The government will also set aside $10.9million to invest in pipelines and other infrastructure under a National Gas Infrastructure Plan.
Mr Morrison will work with state governments to accelerate three critical projects – the Marinus Link, Project Energy Connect and VNI West interconnectors.
'These links will help put downward pressure on prices, shore up the reliability of our energy grid and create over 4,000 jobs,' the Prime Minister said.
'Our plan for Australia's energy future is squarely focused on bringing down prices, keeping the lights on and reducing our emissions and these interconnectors bring us a step closer to that reality.'
Mr Morrison added: 'We'll work with industry to deliver a gas hub for Australia that will ensure households and businesses enjoy the benefits of our abundant local gas while we hold our position as one of the top global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters.
'This is about making Australia's gas work for all Australians. Gas is a critical enabler of Australia's economy.
'Our competitive advantage has always been based on affordable, reliable energy. As we turn to our economic recovery from COVID-19, affordable gas will play a central role in re-establishing the strong economy we need for jobs growth, funding government services and opportunities for all.'
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor said reliable and affordable gas was more important now than ever.
'A gas-fired recovery will help Australia's economy bounce back better and stronger while supporting our growing renewable capacity and delivering the reliable and affordable energy Australians deserve,' Minister Taylor said.
'We are building a robust and competitive gas industry that will allow both gas producers and users to thrive, with lower prices and lower emissions benefiting all Australians.'
Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia Keith Pitt said the Government's Gas Plan would drive job creation and economic growth in northern and regional Australia.
'This commitment will encourage investment to unlock Australia's vast resources potential – boosting exports, jobs and energy supplies,' Minister Pitt said.
'Developing Australia's untapped gas resources will help to deliver more affordable and more sustainable gas supply that supports households and businesses.'
Gas supports the manufacturing sector, which employs over 850,000 Australians and is an essential input in the production of plastics for PPE and fertiliser for food production.
In 2019, Australia was the largest exporter of LNG, with an export value of $49billion.
The International Energy Agency has found that coal-to-gas switching has saved around half a billion tonnes of emissions since 2010 – equivalent to putting an extra 200 million electric vehicles on the road running on zero carbon electricity.
In total, the government has set aside $52.9million for the gas industry in the 2020-21 Budget
It expects to comfortably meet its Paris emissions targets for 2030.
On Thursday Mr Morrison announced a $211million plan to keep fuel prices 'as low as possible' as the nation emerges from the coronavirus-caused recession.
The prime minister wants to protect the nation from any future 'price shocks' by increasing domestic fuel storage and supporting local oil refineries.
New domestic storage facilities to hold 780ML of diesel will be built at a cost of $200million, creating 950 jobs during construction.
The government will also pay refineries to stay open and turn oil into fuel when they may otherwise close because they are struggling to make money.
PM claims Australia will hit 2030 emissions targets in 'canter'
Mr Morrison made the claim during a national energy address, where he encouraged accelerated development of gas fields and the continued use of coal for decades to come.
Under the Paris Agreement, Australia has committed to reducing emissions by 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Despite further investment into gas and coal, a move which environmentalists will likely criticise, Mr Morrison said his government was committed to reducing emissions.
Mr Morrison said $30 billion invested in renewables between 2017 and mid-2020 would help Australia hit its 2030 targets. "We remain committed to (the 2030 target) and we will meet it in a canter."
"In Australia, you cannot talk about electricity generation and ignore coal," Mr Morrison said. "Coal will continue to play an important part of our economy for decades to come."
Some environmental groups have complained Australia will need controversial "carry-over" credits from previous agreements to meet the 2030 target.
Mr Morrison also announced Australia was boosting its national fuel storage capacity to protect against "low probability, high impact events". At a minimum, this means the national stockpile of petrol and jet fuel will cover 24 days, and diesel stocks to increase from 20 to 28 days.
The COVID-19 pandemic had highlighted supply chain threats, Mr Morrison said. Mr Morrison used his address to call on the gas industry to supply energy to Australia customers at cheaper prices.
Students struggle as review finds writing skills neglected in NSW government high schools
A sweeping review of the teaching of writing in NSW schools found it has been widely neglected in the secondary years, leaving thousands of students struggling with crucial skills such as writing clear sentences or expressing complex ideas.
The review, commissioned by the NSW Education Standards Authority, found educators lacked knowledge, skills and confidence in teaching writing, as well as training and resources that could help them. Over recent decades, writing had been "forgotten" amid a strong public policy focus on reading, the report said.
Almost a decade's worth of NAPLAN data shows high school students struggle with writing more than with reading or numeracy. But without those skills, they "struggle to show what they know, and their learning remains untapped or unseen", the report said.
The report found year 9 students in NSW in 2019 were the equivalent of five months behind the level of year 9 students in 2011. On average, one in six of those students was below the minimum standard required to succeed in their final years of school. That compared with one in 20 below the standard in reading and in numeracy.
"The minimum standard isn't high to begin with," said education consultant Peter Goss.
NAPLAN writing assesses how students develop and structure a piece of writing, as well as how they structure a sentence and use punctuation, paragraphing and spelling.
The decline in writing has been more pronounced for advantaged students, whose parents are educated, than their disadvantaged peers, Dr Goss's analysis showed. Boys are twice as likely to be at or below minimum standard by year 9 than girls.
The Thematic Review of Writing, handed to NESA in mid-2018 and obtained by the Herald, found a focus on writing at primary level was followed by "a significant decrease in teaching writing in the early years of high school" across all three sectors.
In primary school, the class teacher teaches writing, but in high school it is shared across disciplines so no single teacher is responsible.
"It is core business in [kindergarten] to years three or four, but then you look at what the teachers self-report to us … the attention shifts away from the explicit teaching of writing," said lead author Claire Wyatt-Smith from the Australian Catholic University.
Research has shown that writing ability in year 9 is a strong indicator of success in year 12.
While there has been controversy over the quality of the NAPLAN writing test — including a recent high-level review that called for it to be redesigned — the report said it was a "reliable indicator for some key elements of student writing ability".
"Strident claims that NAPLAN assesses all the wrong things about writing have been unhelpful, and have likely done a disservice to teachers looking to improve their writing instruction," the report said.
Jenny Donovan, director of the newly established National Evidence Institute for education, said writing skills not only enabled students to demonstrate their knowledge but also involved a cognitive process that enhanced their learning.
"Like reading, writing is not a naturally acquired skill," she said. "It must be formally taught, not caught, and practised. As students progress through schooling, their writing needs to become more complex, so their instruction in how to write needs to be correspondingly more complex."
NESA chief executive Paul Martin said the review was commissioned in response to data showing NSW writing performance had been static since 2011, "with a marked decline consistently evident as students move through the junior secondary years".
NESA endorsed all six of the report's recommendations, including that it declare writing a priority area, improve the quality of teacher training in writing, develop requirements for teaching degrees, strengthen writing content in syllabuses and create resources that give teachers clear guidance.
Changes will be incorporated into the new curriculum. The first step is "a K-2 curriculum that makes explicit oral language development, early reading and writing skills and early mathematics skills, particularly for children who are less advanced in these areas," said Mr Martin.
Peter Knapp, an education consultant whose doctorate is in the teaching of writing, said it was a complex process that required extensive knowledge and experience, which teachers were not being given at university or during their years in the classroom.
Unclear policy and confusing standards also made it more difficult, he said. "Our national and state curriculum documents lack any real precision on how writing should be taught," he said.
"They constantly seem to be under review to change, re-orient and re-direct so that teachers, in all honesty, will have difficulty knowing what needs to be done, and there is a view that the changes will make no substantive difference."
Almost one in 20 babies in Australia born through IVF
A new report by UNSW medical researchers sheds light on the latest IVF numbers, success rates and trends.
There were 14,355 babies born through IVF treatment performed in Australia in 2018, UNSW’s Assisted Reproductive Technology in Australia and New Zealand 2018 report shows. That represents almost one in 20 babies born in Australia, or about one in every class room.
There were 84,064 initiated IVF cycles in 2018, a 2.2 per cent increase on 2017. The overall live birth rate per embryo transfer has increased from 24.3 per cent in 2014 to 27.3 per cent in 2018, the most recent year from which data are available.
“The birth rate following frozen embryo transfer cycles (29.3 per cent) was higher than fresh embryo transfer cycles (24.6 per cent),” says lead report author, UNSW Medicine’s Professor Georgina Chambers.
There was a higher live birth rate in younger women: for women aged younger than 30 years, the live birth rate per embryo transfer was 40.4 per cent for fresh cycles and 34.9 per cent for thaw cycles.
For women aged 40 to 44 years, the live birth rate per embryo transfer was 9.5 per cent for fresh cycles and 20.1 per cent for thaw cycles.
“The reason for the higher live birth rate after thaw cycles in older women is mainly because the embryo was created in an earlier fresh cycle when she was younger and because preimplantation genetic testing is more frequently used in older women to select viable embryos,” says Fertility Society of Australia (FSA) President, Professor Luk Rombauts.
The proportion of twins and triplets born following IVF treatment is now 3.2 per cent - a record low in Australia and New Zealand’s 40-year IVF history. This all-time low is due to the increased proportion of IVF cycles where only a single embryo is transferred, up from 79 per cent in 2014 to 91 per cent in 2018.
“By comparison, the percentage of multiple births from IVF treatment was 8 per cent in the UK and 13 per cent in the US during the same period,” says Prof. Chambers.
A man has died and another 10 people have been seriously injured after a violent brawl in Brisbane's north overnight involving knives and baseball bats.
A man, believed to be about 20-years-old, died at the scene, while 10 others were taken to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital.
Detective Superintendent Tony Fleming said he believed the brawl involved two African groups. "We believe knives and baseball bats were used in that attack," he said.
"We know at least one young man has died and there are about 10 other people who have been hospitalised as a result of that incident. "Two of those people, I'm led to believe, are in a critical condition.
"I'm concerned this incident is the result of a retribution amongst these people for an incident that happened earlier this week in the western suburbs of Brisbane."
Detective Superintendent Fleming said he was concerned there could be further violence. "What we would ask is for the community to remain calm," he said.
"We are doing all we can to investigate this and hold people to account for the level of violence that happened. "We are active right across South East Queensland now to ensure we don't have a repeat of this."
Detective Superintendent Fleming says police are now stationed at a number of hospitals.
"None of that behaviour is helpful to those who've been injured and nor to others who are using the hospital," he said.
"We have, as I have indicated, police both at the locations where we think there might be trouble but also on patrol to make sure — or do our very best to prevent — any escalation."
He said it was still early on in a complex investigation.
"As I'm sure you can appreciate we've got a large number of people who've confronted each other ... the outcome of that is one young man is dead and a number of people are very, very, seriously hurt."
Detective Superintendent Fleming urged witnesses to come forward. "Both for justice, for those who've been injured, but more importantly to make sure that we don't have any further trouble."
Australia's race against China's 'rare earths weapon'
If you have a phone, a camera or an electric car, chances are that each of these devices is wholly dependent on key minerals that, at the moment, are processed only in China.
For much of the past two decades, this has been fine: a status quo that rewarded low-cost production in China with exports around the world. The global economy was growing, more smartphones were being sold than there were people and the electric vehicle market was burgeoning.
Now, as supply lines shrink, geopolitical tensions rise and the world's dependence on these minerals for everyday use surges, policymakers are coming to terms with a gaping hole in the world's development of rare earths that threatens to hit militaries as much as it does consumers.
There are 0.15 grams of palladium in an iPhone, 472 kilograms of combined rare earths in an F-35 fighter jet and four tonnes in a Virginia-class submarine.
"[With] some of these things, the government stockpile levels are very, very small in terms of weight," says federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt. "They are kilos compared to tonnes. That is how rare the element is."
Europium oxide, which is used to produce the colour red in household TVs, comes from a global europium stockpile of just 20 tonnes. Stock of ferro dysprosium, used in some magnets, is less than 500 kilograms.
But it is graphite, a key component of the lithium-ion batteries in phones, laptops, military and medical equipment and electric cars, that has sparked the most heated minerals race. Turkey, China, Brazil and Mozambique have the world's largest graphite reserves but only China has the technology and scale to purify the mineral into graphene and other battery anode compounds to make it useful.
"There is no other supplier in the world except China producing this material," says Andrew Spinks, managing director of EcoGraf, an Australian company set to become the first local processor of graphite in the country.
"It is the most electrically conductive mineral known. The next most conductive mineral is gold."
China has declared graphite a strategic mineral. It has 195 mining areas across 20 provinces that account for 70 per cent of the world's exports of processed graphite resources. Its dominance and proliferation-brand of state-linked companies has sharpened the concerns of governments that, in the event of a shortage or a military dispute in the South China Sea, the tap could be turned off.
"It does not matter if you are importing loaves of bread or anything else, if you only have one supply line, that is an increased risk," Pitt says in an interview in Canberra.
In the last few months of 2019, China had begun winding back its exports, well before its relationship with the US, Australia and Europe was pummelled by the coronavirus and China's crackdown in Hong Kong. From August to September 2019 alone, rare earths exports from China to the US dropped by 18 per cent.
Australia, which has historically focused on more common, highly profitable exports such as iron ore, is sitting on a graphite reserve in South Australia of 200 million tonnes.
"You are touching my nerves," says Professor Dusan Losic, the director of Australia's graphene research hub, which collaborates between five Australian universities, including the University of Melbourne and the University of Adelaide.
"We have very huge reserves just sitting down there," he says. "But nothing can be done with a lack of investment."
The government has committed $125 million to exploring two 2500 kilometre-long corridors in the hope of hitting another rare earths payload. One stretches from the Gulf of Carpentaria down to the border of NSW, South Australia and Victoria. The second runs from Darwin to the Great Australian Bight. The government has also invested $4.5 million in critical mineral research and development through the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia but industry figures say it is not enough. Losic says the cost of starting up a single graphite processing plant is $60 million.
Perth USAsia Centre research director Dr Jeffrey Wilson says Australia has abundant geology and technical capabilities, but the investment risk is higher than the private sector can manage.
"China holds a global monopoly on the production of rare earth minerals, which are used across the civilian and defence technology ecosystems," he says.
"With China applying trade sanctions to many countries in early 2020, there is a real risk the rare earths weapon may be deployed in the coming months."
Australia signed a strategic partnership in June that will allow for Australia to supply rare earth resources to India. Another deal with the US followed in July after Australian rare earths miner Lynas announced it would process the minerals at a Texas facility in partnership with the Pentagon. Australian resources company Syrah is also establishing a production line in the US state of Louisiana that will be the first to completely transform graphite into the active anode material used in electric vehicles outside China.
Pitt says: "We are being watched very closely internationally right now. I think every Australian will recognise how critical this is in terms of our nation. It is also about our strategic partnerships as well. That is why we are working very closely with South Korea and Japan and the US, Europe and a lot of other countries.
"They recognise it is in their interests to have a diverse source of materials into their countries, not just a single one."
Lynas says COVID-19 has heightened the focus on resilient supply chains and securing a diverse supply of critical minerals.
"It’s only when there is a risk that a component like rare earths will not be available that it comes to the attention of business leaders," a Lynas spokeswoman says.
One of the reasons for China's dominance in processing graphite is its use of highly toxic chemicals in the purification process, which other countries have been reluctant to replicate.
China's processors use hydrofluoric acid to remove impurities. The chemical is highly corrosive and discharges chemicals into surrounding land and water. Processing graphite also produces air pollutants that can cause respiratory illnesses.
Pitt says there is no intention to change any environmental controls to allow for more mining or processing. "If you work within that framework, you reduce the risk substantially," he says.
EcoGraf has spent the past three years developing an eco-friendly purification process that will avoid hydrofluoric acid and the discharge of air pollutants. Its new plant, the first graphite purification facility in Australia, is set to be established in Kwinana, Western Australia, after the company secured investment from Export Finance Australia and the German government to source graphite from a mine in Tanzania.
Spinks says the establishment of an Australian Critical Minerals Office, headed by Jessica Robinson, a former senior official in the Treasury and in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, is a sign of how seriously the government is taking the rare earths supply challenge. But he says more government support is needed to buttress the significant upfront costs of mining and processing the material.
"If we don't, we will just see battery minerals being shipped offshore for 1/100th of the price and then we have to buy it back," he says. "That just doesn't make any sense."
Coal miner wins bid for injunction against activist
Environmental activist Benjamin Penning will be forced to cease his public attacks against mining giant Adani after the company won a Supreme Court injunction against him.
Adani and its Carmichael Rail Network claim Pennings’ ongoing campaign of harassment has cost millions of dollars, forced its insurance to skyrocket by 400 per cent, blown out its $1 million security bill to $5 million and cost millions of dollars in lost and renegotiated contracts.
Adani is suing Mr Pennings, an outspoken serial protester and former Greens mayoral candidate, who it claims has orchestrated a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation against the company for almost a decade.
In addition to the damages lawsuit, Adani last week also applied for an injunction to force Pennings to remove previous online posts threatening the mine and its contractors and cease publishing any future posts relating to the mine on social media and websites including Galilee Blockade.
Adani alleges Pennings helped orchestrate an “infiltration campaign” whereby people were encouraged to leak the company’s confidential information, and a “Dob in Adani” campaign in which contractors were targeted by activists, causing a number of companies to cease relationships with the coal mine and its rail line.
This morning Justice Glenn Martin granted the mine’s injunction application, saying he was satisfied the evidence supported the conclusion that Pennings and others had “misused and will, unless restrained, continue to misuse confidential information with the purpose of frustrating or terminating the development of the mine and rail network”.
“The protest activity undertaken by the Galilee Blockade has led to at least three contractors withdrawing,” Justice Martin said.
“The information published on the social media accounts reinforces that the Galilee Blockade is determined to continue to obtain confidential information and to use it, and other information, to place pressure upon contractors to either withdraw from negotiations or to withdraw from contracts.
The evidence relating to the conduct of Mr Pennings and the Galilee Blockade allows for an inference to be drawn that, unless required to remove the statements complained of, they will remain on the social media accounts and will be acted upon by Mr Pennings and the Galilee Blockade.”
He said Adani had provided un-contradicted evidence that contractors and suppliers had been the subject of threats, some of which had been fulfilled through action being taken against contractors such as Downer Group, AECOM, and Greyhound Australia.
“The conduct alleged against Mr Pennings has, on the applicants’ case, resulted in a loss of many millions of dollars to the applicants,” Justice Martin said.
“Should they be successful in this matter then the potential size of an award of damages would, on the material, be beyond Mr Pennings. “There is nothing to suggest that an individual in his circumstances could make good the damage which is said to have been caused.”
Justice Martin said the balance of convenience “clearly favours” the granting of the injunction.
The order will require Mr Ben Pennings to remove online posts and campaigns remove any online material related to the Dob in a Contractor campaign, remove content from online channels that encourages the collation of confidential material about our business, and to stop what Adani alleges is threatening behaviour towards its contractors and employees.
“The plaintiffs have a good case against Mr Pennings and there will be no prejudice to him should orders be made which, effectively, require him to act in a lawful way,” he said.
“The injunction sought will have no financial repercussion for Mr Pennings but, if they are not made, the losses to the applicants will be very substantial.
“The injunctions sought do not seek to, nor would they, have any effect on any business or undertaking of Mr Pennings, nor do they restrict his right, or any other member of Galilee Blockade, to participate in lawful protest.”
Outside court, Mr Pennings said while he would comply with the court order, the “global movement” would not be deterred by the lawsuit. “Adani claims their legal strategy is not about inflicting hardship on me,” Mr Pennings said.
“Despite this successful injunction, Adani is still undertaking court action that could bankrupt my family. I shouldn’t have to sell our suburban family home to make a multi-billionaire even richer. So long as Adani threatens my family and the environment we all share I will do everything lawfully in my powers to stop them.”
“The global movement to stop Adani’s coal mine will not be deterred by the cold-hearted bullying tactics of a billionaire’s mining company targeting one individual.
“The Australian public will continue to oppose Adani’s destructive climate wrecking mine.”
Like the wild west, Sydney's high-rise residential building sector has been home to plenty of cowboys. They have run amok, employing substandard design and building practices. But the new building sheriff just got his badge. Operators who have been having a free run at transferring the risk and cost of defects to consumers have reason to be nervous.
Over many years, I have witnessed severe shortcomings in the regulations that were supposed to protect consumers who buy into high-rise residential buildings. It's now a pleasure to see effective regulatory reform under way.
The NSW Building Commissioner, David Chandler, has put in place two key planks of reform. First, new inspection powers to hold the serial offenders and escape artists to account. These powers came into play on September 1. Second, after July 2021, new mandatory minimum design documentation will be required before concrete is poured rather than after.
Over the years, so-called "design and construct" contracts have lowered the bar on building quality in Sydney. These contracts reduced the input of professional designers such as architects and engineers to such an extent the building process became "construct then design". Minimal documentation at the start of construction meant that builders had to make it up on the run. With little chance of being brought to account, many developers exploited the regulatory shortcomings. They forced future owners to pick up the repair tab on the faults that came out of this chaotic process.
Ahead of September 1, the commissioner signalled that this situation was coming to an end, with new auditing procedures designed to send a message to the industry: you won't get away with substandard work.
In an early test run of the new inspection procedures, I was part of an audit of a large development for the commissioner, in excess of 200 units, which was one week away from completion. We found 16 major areas of non-compliance. Rather than wait for the rectification order that was certain to be issued after September 1, the developer began work on the replacement of hundreds of shower areas that were assessed as highly non-compliant and likely to have significant defects in future. Planter boxes are also being rebuilt and roof membranes are being redone where inadequate. Millions of dollars of future defect repair costs are being nipped in the bud. We hear on the grapevine that all certifiers in Sydney are watching this particular project with great interest.
We inspected a separate smaller development also nearing completion in Sydney’s inner west. It had identical types of defects in the bathrooms and roofs. Rectification orders under the new regulations are expected to be issued. Many stone-clad bathrooms will need to be replaced to prevent future water leaking and ponding issues. Roof membranes and roof-top planter boxes will also be redone.
Developers and certifiers are watching these audits closely because, in the event of an unsatisfactory audit, the commissioner can withhold the all-important occupation certificate. Those of us in the waterproofing and building defect repair industry have not seen impending regulations being taken this seriously by the industry in decades.
While audits are critical to catching problems that have emerged, the game is also changing on the prevention side of things.
From July 2021, the Design and Building Practitioners Act kicks in. Developers will be required to have qualified and registered architects and designers produce critical design documentation. Complete designs will be needed for all of the important features of a building – fire safety systems, waterproofing, load-bearing elements, and services such as mechanical, electrical and plumbing.
During construction, builders will have to get the same registered designers to sign off on variations and performance solutions. At the end of the project, builders will have to testify that they’ve completed all work in accordance with the declared plans. These are big changes and will move the sector back to a design-first-then-construct approach.
To beef up the standard with which designs must comply, a collaboration between a wide range of practitioners and building industry groups is looking at improving key clauses of the Building Code of Australia with regard to damp and weatherproofing. Participants all sense this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the mistakes of the past.
It's quite simple. Architects and engineers like to be able to undertake a design without the developer deciding halfway to transfer the process to someone else, usually less qualified, to finish the design more cheaply. Builders like to start with a completed design so they know what to allow for. They like to know that everyone else is complying with the same standard and cannot undercut them on price by skimping on that standard.
The sheriff's badge is still new and shiny, but there is quiet optimism among the town folk that he is doing what is needed to support law-abiding operators and drive the scoundrels out of town.
Last-minute backflip on pulling out shark nets for whale season
THE Queensland government was poised to remove the state’s controversial shark nets this year for the winter whale season until an 11th hour backflip.
The shark net program, which has long attracted criticism from environmentalists but served to keep Gold Coast beaches fatality free for more than 60 years before this week’s shocking attack on Miami surfer Nick Slater, was to have been swapped out in June with a trial on new, alternative measures, but the move never went ahead.
The Sunday Mail can reveal that Fisheries Minister Mark Furner was scheduled to make the announcement at Sea World as the park celebrated its reopening from the coronavirus lockdown.
With its focus on marine science and a dedicated whale rescue crew, Sea World has long advocated for alternative measures to the shark control program, which came under fire earlier this year after a number of whales were tangled in nets.
However, by the day of the scheduled announcement, the State government had reconsidered the proposal, deciding instead to continue with the shark nets.
In a statement, Mr Furner on Saturday said the decision was about protecting lives. “The safety of human life is the Government’s highest priority,” he said.
He declined to elaborate on exactly what measures would have replaced the nets, which would have come out of the water until the end of the whale migration in October, but it is understood increased aerial surveillance featuring drones and spotter planes was on the table along with an increase in baited drum lines.
The balance between human and marine life has been at the core of a long-running debate over the shark net program, but there were fears any fatal attacks at a Queensland beach after the removal of nets would have sparked widespread condemnation.
Mr Slater was killed by a 3.5-metre great white at Greenmount on Tuesday, the first fatality at a Gold Coast beach since the shark net program’s introduction in 1962.
Greenmount is protected by a series of drum lines, but while it is a common misconception, there is no continuous net or barrier to sharks stretching the entire coast.
Instead, a series of small sections of net, measuring 186m long by six metres deep, are placed strategically along the coastline along with hundreds of baited hooks.
It is understood the temporary removal of nets would have coincided with a trial on new measures recommended in a report published in October last year.
The report, prepared for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries by engineering firm Cardno, recommended a trial of aerial surveillance measures for beaches from the Gold Coast to Bundaberg where the water is clear and objects can be easily spotted from above.
In March, the Queensland shark control program’s scientific working group recommended ‘the replacement of some nets with drum lines over winter during the whale migration season’.
Shark expert reveals the three factors that made Gold Coast mauling victim vulnerable to attack
A shark expert has revealed three key factors that contributed to the fatal mauling of Nick Slater at a Gold Coast beach on Tuesday afternoon. The 46-year-old longboarder was bitten on the leg by a monster great white shark while surfing at Greenmount Beach.
Mr Slater was among at least 40 surfers in the water when he was attacked and later succumbed to his injuries on the beach.
Bond University shark expert Daryl McPhee said Mr Slater's position at the bottom of the sandbank away from other surfers made him vulnerable.
A large school of bait fish in the water was another factor heightening the danger, he said, but more importantly was the time of day.
'Bites can occur any time during the day but you can expect an increase in shark activity at dusk and dawn,' Dr McPhee told Gold Coast Bulletin.
While those factors contributed to the attack, he said Mr Slater was also the victim of 'exceptionally bad luck'.
Local fisherman have claimed great white shark numbers have increased rapidly in recent times, though Dr McPhee said all evidence of shark numbers is anecdotal.
No data on the number of sharks was collected before they became a protected species, so there is no way to determine whether numbers have actually increased.
'When we protected white sharks, we didn’t know how many were there so there was no baseline for recovery,' Dr McPhee said.
'When someone says "sharks are protected, therefore the numbers have gone up", we don’t know whether they’ve gone up.'
Three-time world surfing champion Mick Fanning surfed at nearby Snapper Rocks on the morning Mr Slater was fatally attacked.
The 39-year-old, who survived a shark attack in the final of the J Bay Open in South Africa in 2015, called for an update to Queensland's shark management strategies in the wake of Mr Slater's death.
Greenmount Beach has shark nets on the outside of the lineup, but Fanning said the incident proves the system needs to be upgraded.
'It’s just a little bit outdated. We haven’t revisited them for a long time. We see south of the border they have the smart buoys and tagged sharks get pinged and we can see where those sharks are via an app and I don’t see why we shouldn’t have that on the Gold Coast,' he told Courier Mail.
Fanning said Mr Slater's death had shocked the Gold Coast surfing community. 'We didn’t think that it would happen so close and just the footage of it, it’s horrific. Everyone is shaken up and our hearts go out to the Slater family and all his friends, it’s just shocking,' he said.
Fanning suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and recurrent nightmares in the years after his shark incident.
Through his recovery, he started working with National Geographic on a two-part documentary called Save this Shark, which premiers on Tuesday. In the film, Fanning speaks with world-leading shark scientists and conservationists to share a broader understanding of shark habits.
Fanning disagrees with culling sharks, which he believes is a knee-jerk response many take after an attack. He said we need to do more study on shark patterns to learn to live in harmony with the ocean predators.
'We have to learn why it’s happening. Why are we seeing so much more activity along here? That’s what we need to find out rather than just going and slaughtering the ocean,' Fanning said.
Baby's death leads to 'extraordinary' discovery of 2000 unchecked results at hospital
Government medicine at work
Thousands of test results were never followed up at a major NSW hospital last year leading to the prescription of wrong medications, missed broken bones and the death of a baby girl, a doctor who worked there has alleged.
When the doctor tried to raise the alarm after discovering the unchecked results at Dubbo Base Hospital, he was accused of being "unsupportive" of colleagues and sacked, the Herald can reveal.
"During that week I had personally gone through perhaps 2000 unchecked results," the doctor said in an email to management, which was leaked to the Herald. "This is an absolutely extraordinary number."
The revelations put Dubbo Base Hospital back in the spotlight after a Herald investigation in May uncovered a death and a series of troubling near misses at the flagship facility and a second hospital within the Western NSW Local Health District.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard is expected to come under renewed pressure after dismissing the need for an inquiry into regional NSW hospitals, as sources said the state opposition was close to securing the numbers for an inquiry examining the Herald’s revelations.
The doctor’s discovery of the unchecked results sparked a furore at Dubbo Base Hospital last November, only months after a NSW Health investigation concluded a systemic failing at the hospital contributed to an infant’s death.
The doctor appealed against his termination to the NSW Ministry of Health and his version of events was laid out in legal documents leaked to the Herald by a third party.
It's understood the appeal was successful and the doctor was cleared of wrongdoing. The doctor declined to comment when contacted and the Herald has chosen not to name him without his consent.
According to the documents, the saga dates back to early 2019 when an unwell baby girl presented to the emergency department.
An X-ray showed she had a type of suspicious fracture seen nearly exclusively in babies being shaken, which requires that the infant must not be sent home while an urgent referral to child protection services is made.
However, the doctor did not check the X-ray and the child was discharged without follow up. "As a consequence, the opportunity to investigate the reason for the non-accidental fracture was missed and the child subsequently died," the documents said.
The Herald has established the identity of the 11-month old Aboriginal girl, but her family declined to comment. Her death is under investigation by NSW Police’s child abuse and sex crimes squad.
An investigation by NSW Health, known as a root cause analysis, concluded that systemic failings at the hospital were to blame for the unchecked X-ray, according to the legal documents.
In a letter dated August 2019, the hospital was ordered to address the problems.
A spokeswoman for the Western NSW Local Health district said there was "no doubt that the health system failed [the baby]".
They blamed a "gap in the electronic medical record system process" which meant the X-ray was not reviewed in a timely manner and the fracture was not detected when it was reviewed.
The spokeswoman said interim measures were immediately put in place and all of the investigation's recommendations had since been implemented, including a daily review of results by a senior consultant and the escalation of any abnormal results from the radiologist. "These actions mean that all reports and diagnostic results are reviewed and actioned daily," she said.
However three months after the NSW Health investigation findings, the doctor became concerned test results were still not being checked by registrars, locums, GPs, consultants and junior medical officers. During a shift in November the doctor allegedly discovered between 1500 and 2000 results had gone unchecked in a month.
He spent three hours working through the unchecked results, contacting patients about weeks-old missed fractures and incorrect antibiotics. "It is embarrassing both personally and for the Health Service," he wrote in a complaint to management.
Alluding to the death of the baby girl, he added: "Unfortunately we are all well aware of what can happen when results are not followed up".
One resident, who asked not to be named, told the Herald she spent three weeks chasing her MRI results after presenting to Dubbo Base Hospital with numbness down one side. When she finally got hold of the results after "numerous requests", she discovered she’d suffered a stroke. "I think it’s pretty poor," she said.
The doctor posted his concerns to a WhatsApp chat group involving about 40 hospital staff, writing: "sigh … This why I keep banging on about checking results [sic]".
He warned that if he was called to give evidence in court he would have to state doctors who hadn’t checked results "had not met the expected standard of care and were negligent".
Several participants agreed the unchecked results were alarming, one blaming understaffing and lack of orientation training for juniors. Others became defensive, complaining the discussion group no longer felt like a "safe, judgment-free platform".
When a hospital manager discovered the WhatsApp conversation a staff email was sent out saying it did not meet NSW Health Code of Conduct standards.
"All doctors who work here, at any level of seniority, should be assured that the hospital executive will support you at all times and in all circumstances," the manager said.
The doctor apologised for expressing his frustration on social media but stressed the matter was serious and warranted attention. He said while most doctors were diligent, "a small but significant number" continually failed to check results despite repeated requests to do so.
"I am upset and very sorry that my comments have been interpreted as being unsupportive of junior staff," the doctor said, adding he always did his best to support the development of the junior staff in their difficult roles. "If our juniors do the right thing – or even make a genuine mistake – the Health Service and myself will back them to the hilt."
But The manager accused the doctor of "egregiously" breaching the code of conduct. "I am amazed and concerned that you think your comments could be interpreted, by the staff in training, as supportive," the manager said, informing him of the immediate termination of his contract.
The doctor’s lawyers argued there had been a complete lack of procedural fairness in the termination.
In response to questions about the termination, a spokesperson for the Western NSW Local Health District said only that the doctor no longer worked at the hospital "under mutual agreement".
The stakes are high for Facebook and Google if Australians decide to get their news elsewhere
Global tech giants Google and Facebook are using the Australian public as human bargaining chips as they raise the stakes in their bid to block what would be world-leading laws to end the conceit that news content is a free natural resource.
While the legislation in question is complex and technical – the product of more than 18 months review and consultation – the political battle is totemic: should big tech be responsible for its impact on our broader democracy?
That’s the underlying premise of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry that informed the laws: the rise of the big tech platforms has created an unfair market, where media companies can no longer compete fairly. That distortion has led to the collapse of the media business model, leaving a space filled with conspiracy theories, self-reinforcing filter bubbles and voter manipulation.
After steadfastly refusing to take accountability for the dissemination of fake news and disinformation on its platform, Facebook last week threatened to block real news from the accounts of its Australian users if “pay for content” becomes law.
Google too has warned users their service is at risk, making veiled threats of ending free internet search while revving up YouTube creators in suggesting they will be disenfranchised and disadvantaged if they have to explain how they make their money off news content.
It’s a brazen show of strength premised on the notion that the millions of Australians who search and scroll on their platforms will continue to stare into their screens even without the fact-based journalism that for many is an anchor point of their online engagement.
So what do we human bargaining chips think? Results in this week’s Guardian Essential Report should serve as a caution to the Silicon Valley overlords, with majority support for propositions that reinforce the Morrison government’s roadmap to sustain the ailing news media.
The clear impression from the public responses to these propositions is that the public agrees there should be some form of recalibration. Not only do they think it’s reasonable to pay for news, a majority also believe that the platforms have too much power. While there are high numbers of uncommitted, the core statements break against the platforms 2:1.
Dig under the headline figures and two trends emerge: first, support for bringing big tech to account is skewed older (as is usage of the platforms as a primary news source); but more significantly, the issue breaks stronger with Coalition voters long conditioned to oppose regulation of any kind.
Perhaps that’s a result of the simple fact it is a Morrison government initiative, bought forward with the vigorous support of the Murdoch press, which sees obvious self-interest in the legislation. But this should not be a reason to reject it out of hand.
There is a very, very narrow section on a Venn diagram showing the crossover of Murdoch self-interest and national interest but the proposition that the big tech platforms should pay for premium journalism content is bang in the middle of that graph.
While a proposition that supports News Ltd’s business model will stick in the craw of many progressives, the reality is that without its advocacy the Morrison government would be unlikely to be pushing this issue.
The legislation is not perfect. After rejecting another recommendation from the ACCC to adequately fund public broadcasting, the omission of the outlets from this part of the code creates a two-tier media, with the real risk that the platforms use this “free” content instead. More glaringly, there is no requirement the negotiated payment would be spent on actual journalists, rather than filling the pockets of shareholders – something that should be persuasive in future negotiations.
These reservations aside, if you believe (as I do) that these companies need to be regulated before they roll over the top of democracy, the question is: if the government won’t step up with the urging of Murdoch, then when will it? Establishing a beachhead of regulation around media content is an important first step in the broader project civilising surveillance capitalism.
Second are concerns (vigorously fuelled by Google and Facebook) that the changes will give News Ltd even greater power in the Australian media, a power it repeatedly uses to pile on progressives and run partisan campaigns. But the dominance of Murdoch in the Australian media is a symptom of the media’s decline, not justification for its ongoing erosion. Fair funding for the use of journalistic content is our best chance of supporting other publishers, such as Guardian Australia, to build viable models to invest in civic journalism.
And finally, to the extent that News Ltd abuses its power, it does so in plain sight: there is nothing subtle about the old-school media mogul wielding influence for power. Their nefarious activities are baked into our political system and because we understand them, we have the opportunity to respond.
In contrast, Facebook and Google’s excesses occur behind the algorithm: the softly, softly seduction, the extraction of personal information and the repurposing of our reality, is done under the slick veneer of progress. Remember Cambridge Analytica?
By drawing this line in the sand, Facebook and Google have actually fessed up to how significant these regulations are, a chance to establish not just national but global ground rules that could help quell the takeover of our public square with lies and bile.
And if they make good on their threat to walk, then maybe we will have the chance to reimagine what our public square could be. A separate question in this week’s report suggest we will find a way through.
Three-quarters of us say we will go to a news website and choose the news for ourselves, while more than half will find another social platform. Yes, the majority predict they will read less news, but 30% say they would also use Facebook less.
For companies whose value lies in their human network, these are the highest stakes. If you start using your humans as bargaining chips, you risk losing them altogether. Lose your network and you are just another website.
Biden's radical climate change plan could be far reaching
It's just a desperate play for attention and relevance. It would need the co-operation of both houses of Congress to happen so it's just not going to happen. Congress is a notorious lead weight on change of any sort
If he did get some part of it through Congress, its destructive results would soon become obvious and there would be a massive loss for the Donks at the mid-terms, possibly enough to override a presidential veto to corrective legislation
The article below is from a Leftist source. Even they can see the risks
The fire season has just begun in the United States and already it has left the nation staggered by its ferocity. In California alone almost a million hectares have burnt so far, though conflagrations are being fought in 12 other states.
This week the temperature reached an all time record of 49.4 degrees in one Los Angeles suburb and the skies of San Francisco darkened to blood red throughout long hot days. News reports are full of clips of horrified residents saying that they thought they knew the risks of wildfires, but that nothing prepared them for this.
Asked if he had ever witnessed such conditions, the renowned climate scientist Michael Mann said during a radio interview this week: “Yeah, well I was on sabbatical in Sydney during what they now call the Black Summer fires… and it had that same sort of haunting orange hue. And it is the same phenomenon; unprecedented heat and drought last summer gave them unprecedented fires.
“We’re seeing the same thing happen in California, as we warned - as we have long warned - we would see if we continue to warm the planet by polluting the atmosphere with carbon pollution.”
In another time this might have prompted the sort of searing national debate over the need to properly tackle climate change that broke out here in Australia before the rolling catastrophes of 2020 diverted our attention.
But the US is not only battling a pandemic and the consequential economic collapse but relentless civil strife supercharged by a poisonous election campaign.
As a result, Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s adoption of what some consider to be the most ambitious climate change action plan ever put forward by a major party of a major nation has attracted far less attention than it probably deserves.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee, one of many on the party's left who had opposed Biden on environmental grounds and who have now embraced his candidacy, described Biden’s plan as visionary.
“This is not a status quo plan,” he told The New York Times in July. “It is comprehensive. This is not some sort of, ‘Let me just throw a bone to those who care about climate change'.”
At the heart of Biden’s climate change package is a determination to decarbonise the nation’s electricity system by 2035 before reaching net-zero carbon emissions for the entire economy by 2050.
To achieve this Biden would spend US$2 trillion on research for new green technology, new clean infrastructure and retrofitting existing buildings across the nation for energy efficiency.
He would direct all government procurement towards green technology, including electronic vehicles, and fund a Civilian Climate Corp similar to the Works Progress Administration established as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal", established to help the nation lift itself out of the Great Depression.
By comparison, after the 2008 financial crisis the Obama administration secured $90 billion for renewable energy in what is so far the largest single piece of climate change legislation passed in the US.
And Biden’s ambitions go beyond US borders. The plan would see him integrate climate policy into US foreign trade and national security strategies. According to policy documents, the US under a Biden presidency would lead an effort to “to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets”.
So significant is the potential for the plan that the global energy research consultancy Wood Mackenzie recently published a paper saying that a Biden loss would end any chance the US has of decarbonising its economy by 2050.
According to its analysis the plan would see “capital investments in renewable energy and energy storage assets top US$2.2 trillion through 2035. Utility-scale solar demand will soar to over 100 GW/yr, while battery storage capacity will surpass 400 GW - nearly 40 per cent of the total installed power generating capacity of the US in 2020. Coal-fired generation will exit the market in its entirety”.
Wood Mackenzie research director Dan Shreve believes the plan is so ambitious that it “teeters between achievable and aspirational but the backing of energy sector giants could tip the balance and once again establish the US as a leader in the fight against climate change”.
Either way, its scope would upend the US energy sector, and players wishing to thrive in it would need to plan for possible partnerships with - and acquisitions of - upstart storage providers, renewable energy developers and green hydrogen technology suppliers, says the Wood Mackenzie paper.
The international implications of the plan are equally significant says Matto Mildenberger, a University of California professor of political science who specialises in climate policy.
He notes that on their own either China, the European Union or the US has the power to drive down technology costs and shift markets through their sheer market size and force. Operating in concert that process accelerates.
So will it happen?
Mildenberger notes that Biden would not only have to win the White House, but Democrats would need to take the Senate, and then Biden would need to make climate change action central to his first-term agenda.
Mildenberger believes that the will within the administration might be there, as the climate change package is as much an economic stimulus policy as it is an environmental one.
The echoes of Roosevelt's 'New Deal' are no mistake, and much of the plan has been repurposed from the Green New Deal proposed by left-wing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Indeed one of that plan’s chief architects, Julian Brave NoiseCat, is one of many on the left now backing Biden as a result.
It appears clear that Biden is seeking to use his climate policy as a vehicle to unite his party before the election and tackle compounding social, environmental and economic crises after it.
“When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is ‘hoax',” Biden said in a speech last month. “When I think about climate change, the word I think of is ‘jobs'.”
Mildenberger, who has written at length about global and Australian climate politics, believes that a Biden presidency would immediately change the tone of climate diplomacy because Trump’s lack of action has given cover to interest groups and politicians seeking to derail climate policy around the world.
He says Trump has given the Morrison government "cover" to this end just as the Howard government "hid behind" George W. Bush.
This international reset could prove to be critical as the world prepares for next year’s delayed United Nations climate meeting in Glasgow, known as COP26 (the 26th meeting of the UN Conference of Parties). At that meeting nations are expected to reveal more ambitious emissions reduction goals in keeping with scientific advice on the volume of reductions required to keep global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius.
Australia's former top climate diplomat, Howard Bamsey, who led negotiations at a number of COPs, says that Australia would already have been under pressure from the UK, which is determined to host a successful meeting. That pressure will only be increased by a climate activist White House.
But he notes that Australia has proved willing to pay a diplomatic price for its recalcitrance on the issue in the past.
Bamsey, now a professor with the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, says he does not believe that the world would change suddenly for Scott Morrison should Biden win in November, but that pressure for increased Australian ambition would slowly mount over the year leading up to the Glasgow meeting.
Australia would not only feel pressure to increase its ambition from a Biden White House, should he win, says Bamsey, but from the UK which would be determined to host a successful COP meeting.
Perhaps even more significantly, Mildenberger says that should Biden win there is a chance that China and the US could resume co-operation over the issue, a partnership that was crucial to the success of the Paris agreement. (Bamsey is sceptical on this point.)
But even if all that was to fall into place he is no longer convinced that an orderly decarbonisation of the world’s economy is now possible.
“We needed to act 10 years ago for that,” he says. “But the Biden plan offers real hope that we can prevent the worst of climate change.”
Was Australia's crippling lockdown based on a MONUMENTAL stuff-up? How a critical error used to justify shutting down the economy and keeping millions of people at home went unnoticed - until now
Australia was plunged into strict lockdown at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic based on incorrect figures and a massive over-estimation of how many patients would require ICU treatment.
Research by The Peter Doherty Institute had estimated a peak daily demand of 35,000 intensive care beds would be required in the scenario of an uncontrolled outbreak in Australia.
But the modelling had confused ICU admissions with the number of people who would need to be taken to hospital during the pandemic.
As a result, New South Wales hospitals were predicted to be hit with 12,000 ICU patients rather than the 3,000 admissions the modelling had meant to show.
The data was used by the federal government to justify nationwide business shutdowns, border closures and social distancing restrictions when the virus took hold in Australia in March.
Then-Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said at the time the figures forecast an 'horrendous scenario' with a 'daily demand for new intensive care beds of 35,000-plus'.
He said such a demand would be 'completely beyond the realm of any country to create'.
The Doherty Institute's Professor Jodie McVernon said the modelling mistake - which was published in April - was noticed in June and the government was notified, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Disease modelling experts at James Cook University in Queensland noticed the error when they discovered a large discrepancy in predicted ICU admissions between different parts of Australia.
James Cook University infectious diseases physician Emma McBryde claimed her researchers had told the Doherty Institute of the mistake and the organisation said the error would be corrected.
But she claimed no revision had been made three months later. 'Leaving something inaccurate uncorrected on the public record is pretty close to research misconduct,' she said. 'I strongly believe we lock down too hard.'
Tracing the dangerous rise and rise of woke warriors
At last comes an attempt to explain the extraordinary origins of the cultural revolution of our times — the onslaught against the liberal order by woke crusaders waging a zero-sum struggle in the cause of racial, sexual, gender, disability and other identities across our institutions.
For many Australians the new culture seems to have erupted from outside their experience — almost from another planet — yet its momentum is immense and it is winning acceptance among leaders, public servants, corporations, schools, not-for-profits and most notably in our universities.
What is the meaning of this cultural revolution? Where did it come from?
Like all revolutions it began with a body of ideas that fermented over decades, but there is no doubting the purpose of these ideas — the dismantling of universal liberalism based on respect for each person regardless of identity. On display in Australia, North America and Britain is a common occurrence in history, where in good faith influential leaders and institutional decision-makers are implementing policies without understanding their origins or ultimate purpose as propounded by their intellectual originators.
This is where Helen Pluckrose, a liberal political and cultural writer living in England, and James A. Lindsay, a mathematician and founder of New Discourses, based in Tennessee, come into the picture. They were two of three authors of the Grievance Studies Hoax from 2017 where they submitted bogus and absurd papers to academic journals and were published.
Their aim was to expose the intellectual bankruptcy underpinning the cultural revolution and how far its woke crusaders had departed from science, reason and genuine scholarship. This now becomes a bigger, more serious project, with their book Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender and Identity — and Why This Harms Everybody, published in the US and released in Australia next week.
“The progressive left has aligned itself not with Modernity but with postmodernism which rejects objective truth as a fantasy dreamed up by naive and/or arrogantly bigoted Enlightenment thinkers,” they argue. “Postmodernism has, depending upon your view, either become or given rise to one of the least tolerant and most authoritarian ideologies that the world has had to deal with since the widespread decline of communism and the collapse of white supremacy and colonialism.”
Harvard University’s Steven Pinker, psychologist and public intellectual, said of the book that it “exposes the surprisingly shallow intellectual roots of the movements that appear to be engulfing our culture”. This book is not for the faint-hearted. It seeks to explain where these ideas came from. It should be read by every institutional leader and executive so they understand the ideological goals that lie beneath the policies they are implementing.
The authors trace the academic origins and evolution of each element in the intellectual revolution: postcolonial theory, queer theory, critical race theory and intersectionality, disability and fat studies, and social justice scholarship and thought. The central organising principle of the revolution assumes that humans are defined by a series of identities and that “every interaction, utterance and cultural artefact” slots into a power dynamic where everybody is the oppressed or an oppressor.
Their thesis is the revolution has its origins in postmodernism from the 1960s that saw the individual as a product of culturally constructed knowledge. From this point, there were two leaps forward — the second phase (roughly 1990 to 2010) when the ideas began to be applied and the decisive third phase (from 2010) when Social Justice Theory was asserted as a body of fundamental truth.
The authors say: “Theory has become increasingly confident and clear about its beliefs and goals. We can see its impact on the world in their attacks on science and reason.” The result is a “complete conviction that knowledge is constructed in the service of power which is rooted in identity”.
They write: “Therefore, in Social Justice scholarship, we continually read that patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, cisnormativity, heteronormativity, ableism and fatphobia are literally structuring society and infecting everything. They exist in a state of immanence — present always and everywhere, just beneath a nicer-seeming surface that can’t quite contain them.”
Society is seen as simplistically divided into dominant and marginalised identities. But there is one identity largely missing — economic class. It is barely mentioned unless tied into another identity or “intersectionality”. It is, therefore, the authors say, “no surprise that many working class and poor people often feel profoundly alienated from today’s left”.
The cultural revolution is seen by many old-fashioned Marxists as a bourgeois idea. There is one certainty — the more progressives accept this identity-based revolution driven by upper-middle-class scholars and activists, the more the centre-left of politics will splinter.
The foundation of Social Justice scholarship is concern “with what is said, what is believed, what is assumed, what is taught, what is conveyed and what biases are imported”. This means the lived experiences, the emotions and cultural traditions of minority groups must be recognised as “knowledges” and gain status or superiority over reason and evidence-based knowledge.
The authors say: “We find ourselves faced with the continuing dismantlement of categories like knowledge and belief, reason and emotion, and men and women, and with increasing pressures to censor our language in accordance with The Truth According to Social Justice.”
Their chapter on race captures the dilemma. Through the work of many academics Critical Race Theory has developed, arising from the idea of “positionality” — that one’s position in society as determined by group identity dictates how one understands the world and is understood by the world. Hence the dictum that “racism is ordinary, not aberrational” and is the “everyday experience of people of colour” and that “racism is present everywhere and always”.
Pluckrose and Lindsay write of the consequences of Critical Race Theory: “We are told that racism is embedded in culture and that we cannot escape it. We hear that white people are inherently racist. We are told that racism is ‘prejudice plus power’, therefore, only white people can be racist. We are informed that only people of colour can talk about racism, that white people need to just listen.
“We hear that not seeing people in terms of their race (being colour-blind) is, in fact, racist and an attempt to ignore the pervasive racism that dominates society and perpetuates white privilege.”
The influential reader Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic says the Theory “tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it”. The scholarship has its mission of social transformation. Racism, of course, does exist. Where it exists, it is a scourge on society.
But to the extent that Critical Race Theory prevails — to the extent that universities, bureaucracies, institutions and decision-makers accept this doctrine — then examples of racism will expand indefinitely since this is what the Theory dictates. The Theory asks not “Did racism occur?” but rather “How did racism manifest in that situation?” Once this becomes the question, then all organisations are vulnerable to racism accusations.
Because racism is everywhere — from football to business to the arts — Theory demands the task is to reveal its endless forms, and a new layer of managers and inclusion officials are appointed to institutions around the country to do just that.
The upshot is obvious: Australia along with other nations is seen as a more racist country. As Critical Race Theory takes hold, this trend will only intensify. Any individual who fights against the Theory is deemed by the Theory to be racist anyway and will be condemned as racist by activists or the diversity police.
Social Justice Theory, therefore, in the contemporary sense has broken decisively from the various human rights and civil rights campaigns of the 1960s whose aim was to remove discrimination and bigotry and seek to enshrine all individuals in the liberal order. It is easy to assert the failure of this goal but equally easy to overlook the progress that has been made.
Central to the authors’ thesis is the pivotal distinction between Social Justice Theory and genuine social justice as a legitimate philosophy seeking a fairer social order. Many well-intentioned people give up resisting Social Justice Theory fearing they will be branded and punished since it is not easy to defend universal liberal respect for all individuals against those pressing identity politics and claiming to represent social justice. Many liberals, having never before faced these arguments, are incapable of resisting the tide.
The authors examine the impact of Kimberle Crenshaw, the prime architect of intersectionality, the idea that people can be marginalised in multiple ways — by gender, race, sex and other dimensions — seeing her 1991 essay Mapping the Margins as a turning point in elevating identity politics over liberal universalism.
Writing nearly 30 years ago, Crenshaw saw identity politics “as a source of strength” for African-Americans, gays and lesbians but recognised it was “in tension with dominant conceptions of social justice”. The authors see intersectionality as “the seed that would germinate as Social Justice scholarship some 20 years later”.
They say it “does the same thing over and over again: look for the power imbalances, bigotry and biases that it assumes must be present” and assumes that, in every situation, some form of theoretical prejudice exists. In this sense liberal individualism — treating people the same regardless of identity — is seen as “at best, a naivety about the reality of a deeply prejudiced society and at worst, a wilful refusal to acknowledge that we live in that kind of society”.
One of the myths the authors tackle is the frequent claim that individuals who lose their jobs or standing because of woke doctrines represent only a minor problem for society. Many people ask: it’s no big deal, why are we getting so excited? The answer, the authors point out, is that while less than 10 per cent of the population probably espouse these theories, such ideas are becoming dominant across institutions. People leave universities as believers in Social Justice Theory and move into the public and private sectors becoming part of the mission statements of institutions pledging to change their organisational culture. Referring to the situation in Britain, the authors say equity, diversity and inclusion officers are spreading nearly everywhere — schools and universities, the police, large private sector companies, the civil service and local authorities. In Britain “more than 50 per cent of universities restrict speech especially certain views of religion and trans identity”.
Indeed, once universities open the door to Social Justice scholarship and ethics they “completely displace reliable and rigorous scholarship into issues of social justice by condemning all other approaches as complicit with systemic bigotry and thus unthinkable — or, in practice, unpublishable and punishable”.
In a remark relevant to Australia the authors made the general comment: “It is perhaps not surprising that large corporations have caved in so easily to Social Justice pressure. Their overriding goal is, after all, to make money, not to uphold liberal values.” Since most consumers and voters in Western countries support the general idea of social justice — and don’t know the difference between social justice and Social Justice Theory — submission is the easier route.
Meanwhile social justice activists are astute in targeting cultural opinion leaders, often from the left, seeking their compliance; witness incidents involving Ellen DeGeneres, Kevin Hart, Matt Damon, Martina Navratilova and J K Rowling.
The future is already here: jobs being filled on the basis of identity, indeed, even being advertised on the basis of identity; demands that actors play characters only from their own identity group; writers being forbidden to “speak into” the oppression of others; and just this week, from Hollywood, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts defined content rules for films — story content must reflect and feature under-represented groups based on identity politics — so expect more pressure on books, movies, plays and paintings.
The authors, aware they will face a ferocious backlash, make clear they believe in gender, racial and LGBT equality. Nor do they seek to attack universities and scholarship in general. But they offer a devastating indictment of Social Justice Theory.
Indeed, it is guaranteed to accentuate a backlash from right-wing populists. The Theory is getting traction now when times are tough, when liberalism and democracy seem tired — and there is truth enough in this. The power of Social Justice Theory is that it derives from an interpretation of human nature and a theory of society. Radical new ideas appeal, that’s part of the human condition. They always have, but as the authors say, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Humans are susceptible to utopianism, a big theory that looks good on paper, even if it is authoritarian, fundamentalist and hostile to human nature. The authors say bad theories look good on paper and terrible in practice, witness communism. Yet the journey to such realisation is often decades long. The authors call Social Justice “a nice-looking Theory that, once put into practice, will fail and which could do tremendous damage in the process”. Their central message shines through the book: “Postmodern Theory and liberalism do not merely exist in tension: they are almost directly at odds with one another.”
The university degrees that almost guarantee you a job, and the ones where you're wasting your fees
It may not be among the most prominent of our tertiary institutions - but Australian Catholic University has come out top in a new survey measuring how readily graduates find jobs.
The 2020 Graduate Outcomes Survey assessed students who finished their studies in 2017 from 79 different institutions.
The survey, which this year had the highest participation rate since it started in 2016, measures not only which institutions did best, but which degrees.
'Three years after graduation, there has been substantial improvement in full-time employment rates across universities so that all universities have full-time employment rates for undergraduates above 81 per cent,' the study said.
Twelve of the universities full-time employment rates increased by 20 per cent over the three-year period.
The courses with the highest employment rates mid-term are:
Medicine - 97.3 per cent
Engineering - 95.4 per cent
Computing and information systems - 92.9 per cent
The courses with the lowest employment rates short-term are:
Science and mathematics - 61.6 per cent
Agriculture and environment studies - 69.2 per cent
Health services and support - 73 per cent
The Australian Catholic University (ACU) has the best employment rate for undergraduates three years after they finish university with 95.5 per cent of students now in full-time jobs.
Next came Australian National University and the nearby University of Canberra.
As well as graduates, ACU also took out the top spot for those who completed their postgraduate studies in 2017.
On the postgraduate score, ACU was top, followed by Federation University Australia and The University of Notre Dame Australia.
In terms of fields of study, medicine graduates performed best, with 97.3 of those with a medical degree being employed three years after completing their course.
Engineering fared almost as well at 96.3 per cent, while mathematics was the third best degree in terms of medium-term employability.
But it was not all good news for STEM graduates, with short-term employability - classed as those in work a year after graduation - being lowest for biology, science technology and general science and mathematics.
The survey found average pay for graduates had risen only marginally when accounting for inflation, from $67,000 in 2016 to $75,000 in 2020.
Adani launches own rail company to haul coal from Carmichael mine
The Adani group has launched its own rail business to haul coal to its Queensland port, while avoiding any public mention of the parent company or the controversial Carmichael mine.
It follows years of pressure from anti-coal activists that has prompted a string of potential Adani contractors to walk away from the mining giant, increasing the cost of doing business.
Adani's apparent move to go it alone on coal haulage will add $200 million to the upfront cost of its Queensland project, according to one energy analyst.
Bowen Rail Company (BRC) last month announced it was launching a haulage business to service Abbot Point export terminal.
Head of project delivery, David Wassell, said the company had bought its own "state-of-the-art locomotives and rollingstock" and would recruit about 50 workers.
Neither the media release nor the company website mention Adani or the Carmichael mine.
But company searches show BRC is owned by an Adani group company in India, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited, via two holding companies in Singapore.
The searches show the directors of BRC are all senior Adani staff in Australia.
They are Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj, Adani Enterprises infrastructure chief executive Trista Brohier, Adani Australia executive director Samir Vora and Adani Abbot Point Operations finance manager Damien Dederer.
Staff biographies on the BRC website exclude their work history with Adani.
Mr Wassell's biography states that, "prior to joining Bowen Rail Company, David held the position of national supply chain development manager at ASCIANO".
But his LinkedIn profile said between BRC and ASCIANO, he worked for three years as Adani Australia's manager of rail operations.
The LinkedIn profiles of two other BRC staff state they work at Adani Australia, the proponent of the Carmichael mine.
Adani Australia is owned by Indian-based Adani Enterprises Limited.
The Adani family owns almost 75 per cent of Adani Enterprises and just over 62 per cent of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone.
The ABC last year revealed Adani was snubbed by rail haulage operator, Genesee & Wyoming Australia.
The other two rail operators with capacity to haul Adani's 10 million tonnes of coal a year — Aurizon and Pacific National — have come under activist and shareholder pressure to follow suit.
A spokesman for Aurizon told the ABC it was, "not aware Adani has commenced any commercial process with regard to the tender of above-rail haulage contracts or indeed whether they intend to".
A Queensland Government document showed Adani had applied for accreditation as a rolling stock operator, which was needed to haul coal.
The national rail safety register showed Adani was still waiting for that accreditation.
A spokeswoman for Pacific National did not respond to questions from the ABC.
Adani's current plan hinges on building a 189km rail line from the mine to link to Aurizon's Central Queensland Coal Network running to Abbot Point.
It must reach a separate access agreement with Aurizon, which it reportedly has not yet done.
The Aurizon spokesman said it was legally required to consider all access requests but also to keep them confidential.
Adani had previously planned to build a 388km line to transport up to 30 mega tonnes a year of coal.
But it was forced to scale down its plans after the only contractor it considered capable of building the mine, Downer, walked away after being targeted by protesters.
In a Supreme Court application for an injunction and damages against activist Ben Pennings, a lawyer for Adani said scaling down to 10MT of coal a year, "resulted in an increase to the capital cost per tonne of coal of at least 15 per cent".
Protest pressure puts off contractors
Adani, in its application, said activist pressure has driven up its cost of engaging contractors on two fronts.
Adani has, "not always been able to engage what are known as the 'tier 1' companies or the 'industry leaders'", raising its risks and "substantially" increasing its insurance costs, its lawyer said in an affidavit.
Companies won't do business with Adani unless it enters "cost plus" contracts that force it to cover any "additional costs [that] may be incurred as a result of activist and protester action", he said.
Former Citibank analyst Tim Buckley, now at the pro-renewables Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said Adani's decision drastically increased its capital costs, which other rail operators would have wanted to avoid.
Mr Buckley said locomotives and coal wagons for the mine's first phase of 10MT a year would cost $200 million upfront.
This would rise to half a billion dollars in the mine's second phase of 27MT a year, he said.
The money it saved from not outsourcing would be offset by having to pay $50 million a year in interest, he said.
"Adani is now working to set up a business in direct competition with Aurizon's existing coal rail haulage, to help defray the costs of having to also establish new rail loco and wagon maintenance facilities, an expensive duplication of existing infrastructure," he said.
Pablo Brait, from environmental lobby group Market Forces, said BRC was, "another potential vehicle for the shifting of funds from Adani's India-based companies to its Australian coal project".
This meant Adani group investors who had previously ruled out financing the Australian coal project were now linked to it, and faced renewed pressure by environmental campaigners.
Market Forces has raised the issue with financiers linked to Adani Ports.
Adani Ports' biggest bondholder, Allianz, has previously ruled out financing or insuring new coal projects.
An Adani Australia spokeswoman said the Carmichael project was "on-track to produce first coal in 2021".
"Discussions that Adani undertakes with third parties on contractual matters are commercial in confidence," she said.
Koala bill causes NSW Government crisis as John Barilaro says Nationals will effectively leave Coalition
The NSW Government is in turmoil after Deputy Premier and Nationals leader John Barilaro said his party would no longer support its legislation in Parliament.
In the latest explosive development in a Coalition spat about koala policy, Mr Barilaro announced all Nationals MPs would move to the cross bench.
However, he confirmed Nationals ministers would not surrender their portfolios.
Mr Barilaro said he had not spoken to Premier Gladys Berejiklian before announcing his decision and the ABC understands she has summoned him for a meeting this afternoon.
The Coalition agreement has been under pressure after Nationals MPs expressed anger over proposed planning regulations that would give farmers responsibility for managing koalas on their properties.
Mr Barilaro said his MPs had been liaising with Liberal colleagues about the policy since late last year and that if the Nationals did not take a stand, they "would become the laughing stock of regional and rural NSW".
He said Nationals MPs were "all concerned about where, after six months of hard work, putting forward in my mind sensible amendments to the SEPP [State Environmental Planning Policy], that we felt that we were now being betrayed".
Mr Barilaro said the NSW Nationals would no longer:
Support Government bills
Attend joint partyroom meetings
Attend Parliamentary leadership meetings
He said that would not change until the party's position on the koala SEPP is "considered", but also said the Nationals' seven ministers would not surrender their portfolios.
"I know there are Liberal members who would love to see that," Mr Barilaro said. "They would love to see me resign today, see members resign today but that would be giving in."
He said his MPs reserved the right to support Government legislation if it affected regional areas.
'We are not anti-koala'
Under the new regulations, more trees are classed as koala habitat which will restrict land clearing.
Mr Barilaro said the Nationals would on Tuesday introduce a repeal bill for the current SEPP.
"The National Party stands for a thriving koala population," he said. "We actually want to see the population double. We are not anti-koala.
"We think a SEPP like this is somehow a way to sanitise the regions, attack the property rights of landholders and do absolutely nothing to support koalas."
The Nationals have 13 Lower House MPs, while the Liberals have 35 and Labor 36.
In the Upper House, the Nationals have six, the Liberals have 11 and Labor has 14.
Yesterday, amid escalating tensions within Coalition ranks, Liberal MP Catherine Cusack described Mr Barilaro's behaviour as "bullying".
"The whole strategy is 100 per cent bullying," she said. She said the koala SEPP had been updated "at the behest of stakeholders that came from their own electorates" after an "exhaustive" process.
"I think it's fair to say Liberal members … are really stunned and bewildered by this extraordinary behaviour by the leader of the National Party, who's also the Deputy Premier who we support in Parliament to deliver stability and loyalty to the Premier, the Cabinet and the Government," she said.
Both houses of the NSW Parliament are due to resume sitting next week.
The Deputy Premier said the next two sitting weeks would be tough for the Liberal Party, and said the Government's agenda would be derailed. "But we need to flex a muscle and that's what we're doing today," he said.
Give HECS discount to university students willing to pick fruit, says NT Farmers Association
In a year where labour shortages are looming for a number of agricultural industries, NT Farmers chief executive Paul Burke, said it was time to start thinking of innovative ways to address an issue that had plagued farmers for years.
"So similar to how backpackers can work in regional Australia for 88 days to extend their visas, we think there's potential for uni students to get a wage and a discount off their HECS debt if they go and work in a region," he said.
"Uni students get a reasonable amount of holidays each year, but we need an incentive to bring our best and brightest into the regions during times when we need people to help with picking, packing and processing.
"We feel that incentive could be in the form of a reduced HECS debt."
The idea was raised in the Senate last week by NT Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, who passed a motion calling on the Morrison Government to "urgently act to come up with creative and innovative solutions to support farmers facing this seasonal worker crisis".
"NT Farmers CEO Paul Burke's suggestion of getting Year 12 students who go into gap year overseas, to now be encouraged to go on farms, is a good initiative," she said.
"I will explore the HECS options with my colleagues and am keen to see alternate ideas put forward."
Mr Burke said there was still a lot of work to be done, and the HECS idea was still in its infancy, but he felt its benefits could be wide-reaching.
"It would also give the agriculture industry some really good exposure to our future leaders and visa versa," he said.
"It will give them [uni students] a better understanding of agriculture. They'll have a better understanding of living regionally and the challenges and opportunities that presents."
Government looking at 'number of incentives'
While Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has not commented on the HECS discount idea, last week he said the Government was looking at "a number of different incentives" to lure students into regional work.
"We're going to see a lot of Year 12 students finish in a couple of months and they're not going to have the opportunity to go backpack around the world, there may be an opportunity to backpack around the country and make a quid while they're doing it," he said.
"Also there are university students who'll finish in a couple of months. There is an opportunity for them to go and work in agriculture and make a quid over the summer holidays and then go back with some dollars in their pocket and have a better time when they go back to uni".
In its roadmap to make Australian agriculture exceed $100 billion in farm gate output by 2030, the National Farmers Federation has also suggested establishing an "Ag Gap Year" program to get young Australians to try their hand at agriculture.
Paul Burke said the Ag Gap Year program would need to run in conjunction with other labour schemes, such as the seasonal worker program.
"It's about getting all of the tools in the toolbox, so we have a mobile, motivated and willing workforce to work in our industry," he said.
The nation’s publicly-funded broadcaster has listed a job for a full-time producer of news and states the vacancy is “open only to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants”.
An Anglo female journalist aged in her 30s, who did not wish to be named but is looking for work, was shocked when she discovered she was unable to apply for the position due.
“The ABC producer job came up in my LinkedIn notifications and I immediately got excited because it’s exactly the type of role I’ve been looking for,” she said.
“I got such a shock when I realised I couldn’t actually apply, because I’m a white woman.”
“It’s so disheartening at a time when jobs in journalism are hard to find,” the woman said.
It comes after a recent study of television news and current affairs by Media Diversity Australia found presenters, commentators and reporters on Australian television were predominantly from an Anglo-Celtic background.
The Institute of Public Affairs of Australia’s director of communications Evan Mulholland said the race-specific advertisement was “outrageous”. “The ABC have decided to enforce divisive-identity politics into its hiring process,” he said.
“Rather than seeing mainstream Australia has a unified nation, the ABC is deliberately segmenting and dividing our community into categories. “It is no wonder the ABC removed the words “us” and “our values” in their editorial guidelines.”
The full-time position is based in Sydney and on the listing it said the “ABC’s a great place to work”.
“We provide various opportunities for Indigenous staff including attention the national Indigenous staff conferences, activities during NAIDOC week, regular networking events and mentoring support,” it said.
Mr Mulholland said Australians have “had a gutful of this divisive identity politics”.
An ABC spokesman said under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act the broadcaster is required to “develop a program to eliminate discrimination and promote equal opportunity including for women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”. [unequal = equal??]
Last Thursday, The Canberra Times carried a story announcing I was to keep my Honours award. The article was written by UTS journalism lecturer Jenna Price.
Price is one of the founders of the feminist action group, Destroy the Joint, which in 2015 persuaded most of our media and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to quote their fake homicide figures doubling the number of domestic violence related deaths to claim two women are killed every week in Australia. Destroy the Joint’s fake stats were based on cumulative figures of female deaths featured in media reports, including an elderly woman who was euthanized by her doctor son. Price’s group justified their distorted data by claiming “all violent deaths of women are the result of societal misogyny.”
It’s pretty revealing that this activist is a senior lecturer in journalism at one of our major universities. Price’s journalism displays a similar disinterest in the truth and she’s always delighted in taking pot shots at me, misrepresenting my views on any number of issues.
So here was this journalist using the news about my AM to have another go at me, in an article which included quotes from the Honours Council Chairman Shane Stone. At that point the Council had decided not to make an official announcement about the decision but reconsidered when I wrote to Stone pointing out it was not a good look for him to grant an exclusive interview revealing news on this controversial matter to such a journalist.
Stone then released the attached document which puts Price and her mob in their place, pointing out that my award was destined to stand since I had done nothing to contravene their rules – I had not committed a crime nor had the Council found that my award was based on false or misleading material.
He pointed out that the manufactured outrage about my views was irrelevant:
In a system that recognises the service of hundreds of people each year, it is inevitable that each list will include some people who others believe should not be recognised. Unanimous community approval is not a criteria for Council to make a recommendation. Nominations for Awards are from the community. Similarly, individuals are neither qualified nor disqualified on the basis of their political leanings, social views or religious convictions.
Congratulations for what?
Many people very kindly sent good wishes regarding the decision, which I do appreciate. But it is odd to find people congratulating me on retaining the award.
As I pointed out to Sky News’ Chris Kenny in the only interview I have chosen to give on this subject, it is as if I’ve spent eight months with my house being vandalise and graffitied by nasty thugs and now I am supposed to be thrilled that they didn’t actually get to burn the place down.
Here’s the Kenny interview - https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6188680854001
I’d be delighted if you would help promote this to show they didn’t succeed in cancelling me. I have posted on my website all the latest information about who wanted me cancelled and why. I’m really keen that people know what was going on here – so please help me spread the message.
In fact, it was always obvious that I would keep my award, given the regulations governing the honours committee. And the long delay was not due to the fact that the committee was conducting a forensic examination of all my alleged wrong-doing. They simply meet only twice a year and the February meeting was cancelled due to Covid. Various media stories with Council officials over recent months made it obvious what the decision would be but the September meeting needed to take place before they could announce it.
Flexing their muscles
The feminists overplayed their hand. In their determination to take me out, they displayed for all to see the control they have on key sectors of our society, from our captured mainstream media, to their puppet bureaucrats. (Note - they managed to recruit two Attorneys General, the key legal officers for their state, to promote misinformation about me.) And then there was the Australian Senate, led by Keneally and Wong, who used a scurrilous political stunt to wedge upper house government Senators, so they’d agree to a misleading motion condemning me.
I feel this has all served to alert the public into the dangers of our current situation, where we have allowed ideologues to control so many important institutions. It exposed the lengths these people are prepared to go to silence anyone who challenges their narrative. I hope this leaves many of you thinking about what’s going on here. Are we really all just going to sit back and wonder who is next?
But the good news is the whole kafuffle has led to growing support for my various campaigns exposing what the feminists are up to, on our campuses and elsewhere.
Perhaps even more importantly, the mob also made it abundantly clear that my work really matters. Why else would they go to such efforts to use my award to try to cancel me?
That’s cause for celebration – a sure sign that I’m making my mark. The gruelling saga has actually proved an inspiration to me, convincing me that my efforts must be making a difference.
Thriving and concentrating on the main game.
In a way the activists did me a favour. I’ve decided to give up social media – they can keep that cesspool to themselves. And I plan to do very few interviews with the Australian press who have proved themselves such a cowardly bunch, more interested in sucking up to the feminists than doing their homework to expose what’s really happening in our society.
I intend keeping a lower profile which gives me more time to work hard on the key issues that really interest me. We are attracting more lawyers and other serious players to our Campus Justice group and have some exciting plans to expose the appalling way our universities are behaving.
I’ve mentioned the Mothers of Sons group, who are soon to launch their website featuring some extraordinary videos and stories from mothers about the injustice being experienced by their sons. You’ll be appalled by what their stories reveal about our justice system. I’m helping them get their show on the road and will be telling you more about this soon.
And I’m doing live chats on thinkspot with amazing people across the world who are working in similar territory. Last week I chatted to Diana Davison, co-founder of The Lighthouse Project, a Canadian non-profit that helps the falsely accused and wrongly convicted. Our discussion was really fascinating and I’ll get that to you next week. But here's a taste of what's to come. And another more amusing part of our long conversation.
Public service jobs soar as private sector employment is smashed
Despite dire predictions for Australia's economy, one sector is in the midst of a hiring frenzy.
More than 22,100 public service jobs have been created since the start of the coronavirus pandemic as 572,700 private sector roles have been axed.
Australia's jobless rate of 7.5 per cent is already the highest in 22 years and the Reserve Bank is bracing for unemployment to hit ten per cent by Christmas - a level unseen since early 1994.
For the first time ever, more than one million Australians are officially unemployed, swelling the ranks of JobSeeker recipients.
Between March 14 and August 22, the overall number of payroll jobs dived by 4.2 per cent across all industries as Australia sunk into recession for the first time in almost three decades.
Government jobs classified as public administration and safety defied the downturn, with their numbers surging by 2.7 per cent in five months.
The Institute of Public Affairs, a free market think tank opposed to coronavirus lockdowns, said it was wrong for taxpayers to have funded 22,100 public sector jobs.
Research fellow Cian Hussey calculated 26 private sector jobs were lost for each one created in the public service.
'This is a purely private sector and small business recession. Bureaucrats have never been better off,' he said.
'Bureaucrats and unelected health officials have not incurred any of the costs of their reckless lockdown measures, yet they decide when and how the private sector workforce can go back to work.'
The IPA described the phenomenon of public sector job numbers rising as private sector jobs disappeared as a K-shaped recession.
'Australia's "K-shaped" recession shows we are living in two Australias with wealthy, protected bureaucrats who are flourishing, and those in the productive, private part of the economy who are getting smashed,' Mr Hussey said.
Treasury's Economic and Fiscal Update forecast the federal government's gross debt would swell to $852billion during this financial year as a result of COVID-19 stimulus programs.
The struggling arts sector was given $250million as part of the federal government's JobMaker plan, before ABS figures showed a massive 14.3 per cent plunge in arts and recreational services jobs in the 22 weeks to August 22.
Theatres were closed in late March as part of the COVID-19 shutdowns.
Australia's gross domestic product dived by a record seven per cent during the June quarter.
A plunge of that magnitude had not occurred since the ABS began compiling quarterly national accounts data in 1959 with the downturn rivalling the early stages of the Great Depression in the 1930s
Australian students launch class action to prevent coal mine approval
This is just virtue signalling. Similar lawsuits previously have got nowhere
Eight young Australian students have brought a class action in the country's federal court seeking an injunction to prevent government approval of a coal project, lawyers representing the claimants said on Wednesday.
The lawsuit against Environment Minister Susan Ley comes ahead of a decision this month on whether to approve the Whitehaven Coal-owned Vickery coal mine extension project in New South Wales.
"The case is an Australian first, as it seeks to invoke the Minister's common law duty of care to protect younger people against climate change," Equity Generation Lawyers said in a statement.
All the claimants are under the age of 18 years and Equity Generation is urging other youngsters from across the world to register for the class action.
"It is the only class action on climate change that includes every single person under the age of 18 around the world as a result of the likely harm each one will experience from climate change."
Ley's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment while a spokeswoman for Whitehaven Coal declined to comment.
Climate change has been a divisive topic in Australia, which counts coal and iron ore as its two top exports.
The country's reliance on coal-fired power also makes it one of the world's largest per capita carbon emitters and just last year it approved a huge new coal mine by India’s Adani Enterprises .
"As a young person, I cannot vote to have my voice heard by politicians," said 16-year-old Laura Kirwan from Sydney, one of the litigants.
"I believe that the government has a duty to young people to protect our futures from the impacts of climate change, including stopping the climate impacts of the Vickery Extension Project."
The eight young Australians have all been involved in "School Strike For Climate", which was initiated by student activist Greta Thunberg in 2018 demanding that world leaders adopt urgent measures to stop an environmental catastrophe.
The injunction comes less than two months after a 23-year-old Melbourne student filed a class action against the government alleging it had failed to disclose climate change-related risks to investors in the country's sovereign bonds.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the person who distributed controversial material designed to teach schoolchildren about sex, gender fluidity and relationships has been “spoken to”.
Sneaky attempt to promote sexual deviance
Asked about the material, which has been likened to the shelved Safe Schools program, Ms Berejiklian said the documents are “not official Department of Education material”. “The person who distributed has been spoken to,” she said.
Speaking ahead of her Education Minister confirming an investigation into how the material was uploaded, the Premier said she would expect the material to be taken down.
Earlier, NSW’s Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said public school teacher guides about on penis tucking and bra padding for students who want to appear feminine was posted “without permission” and is now being investigated.
“Safe Schools has never been part of the NSW Curriculum nor will it be and there are no plans to bring that in,” she said on Wednesday.
“In relation to that particular issue there was a link that was provided without permission that did go to resource and content that isn’t endorsed by the Department or by the Government.
“We’re looking at the processes to how that has happened because as I said it was something that was posted without permission.”
The guides have come under fire for being a rebranded version of the controversial Safe Schools program.
Safe Schools was axed in 2017 after uproar that the program taught young children about sex, gender fluidity and relationships.
But resources accessible to teachers on the School Biz portal provided by the NSW Department of Education appear to mirror material from the program which critics say is bringing it back “by stealth”.
Links on the portal transfer teachers to various websites, including a 40-page guide OMG I’M TRANS which talks through how to pad your bra for bigger breasts or tuck your penis to reduce its visibility.
Resources included fictional stories for children, including The Gender Fairy, Are you a Boy or Are you a Girl and on the young readers’ list a story titled Sex Is A Funny Word: A Book About Bodies, Feelings and You.
“Some people have a ‘fluid’ gender — it changes over time. My friend has warned me not to be surprised if one day she rocks up with a shaved head and asks to be called Bruce. But you know what? That’s completely up to her,” says a passage in the PDF OMG I’m Queer.
Even though the Safe Schools Coalition is no longer operating, the portal includes “All of Us”, its guide on gender diversity, sexual diversity and intersex topics.
The website also linked to the Commonwealth’s Student Wellbeing Hub which had articles on supporting sexual diversity in schools, students changing their gender and LGBTI classmates.
NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham obtained screenshots of the School Biz portal and said teaching materials offered ahead of Wear It Purple Day on August 28 taught children about exploring sex, gender identity and being transgender and queer.
“This worries me because if Safe Schools was abolished then why do we need people within the department building an extensive catalogue of material relating to this,” Mr Latham told The Daily Telegraph. “It’s absolutely brought back by stealth. Behind a firewall they are sending information to teachers which resurrects Safe Schools despite the government ending it. There was a reason this was kicked out of schools in the first place. There has been no disclosure.”
The notification for teachers on the portal said: “There are also a number of resources available to help foster discussion about everyone having the right to be proud of who they are, and everyone having the right to feel safe and supported.”
Institute of Public Affairs director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program Dr Bella d’Abrera criticised the teaching resources.
She said with Australian children lagging behind the rest of the world in education the department should be focusing on teaching children how to read and write, not indoctrinating them with radical gender theory.
“There is absolutely no place in NSW schools for this kind of social engineering. Teachers should not be politicising impressionable children in the classroom,” she said.
A NSW Education Department spokeswoman said the links were operated by third parties.
“These are all external websites operated by third parties not NSW Education. The Safe Schools Program has never been part of the NSW curriculum and we do not promote it,” she said.
A spokesman for the Federal Department of Education said the resources on the Student Wellbeing Hub were removed but had been reinstated since 2016 after an independent review found them suitable.
“The resources you refer to were originally published in 2013 as part of the original Safe Schools Hub that was funded by the previous Labor Government. The resources were removed while a 2016 independent review was conducted by Professor Bill Louden,” the spokesman said.
“This review found that the resources were ‘consistent with the aims of the program … suitable, robust, age-appropriate, educationally sound and aligned with the Australian Curriculum’. The resources were returned to the Hub in 2016 after the completion of the Louden review.”
Experts question Victoria's coronavirus model and map as new cases fall to lowest since June
Widespread masks and social distancing are probably all that is needed
Leading epidemiologists have raised questions about elements of the government's pathway to reopening and the modelling that underpinned it, as the state recorded 41 new COVID-19 cases, the lowest daily total since late June.
On Sunday, the state government announced the stage four lockdown would be extended by two weeks, with more significant restrictions to be eased in late October.
Several health experts expressed concern about the state government plan on Monday morning – as the state recorded nine additional deaths – saying the thresholds to advance to future stages of restrictions were too difficult to achieve.
The Andrews government commissioned Melbourne University and the University of New England to model 1000 different scenarios. That modelling found if restrictions were eased when the average number of new daily cases was above 25 for a fortnight, there was a 60 per cent chance of returning to lockdown before Christmas.
Catherine Bennett, chair in epidemiology at Deakin University, questioned the assumptions that underpinned the road map modelling, saying lack of clarity from the government made it difficult to assess whether the predictions were relevant.
"The model is one that's based on – I think, because we weren't actually told this – that the assumption is [if] you basically open up and you have no restrictions, you have an unmitigated outbreak," she said.
"They should have told us that, because that's quite critical to understanding the relevance of the model ... Models are imperfect but they can be useful, but in this case it really depends what was modelled, and we weren't even told that."
Jodie McVernon, director of epidemiology at Melbourne's Doherty Institute, said the state government provided "quite scant" detail of the modelling.
"There was very little detail of the modelling that was presented yesterday and I think it was probably disappointing that we didn't hear more of a description of what the locations of infections were … and how the active case numbers were being mapped to the triggers and thresholds," she said on ABC Radio National.
Professor Bennett said she was surprised the government did not use data on the more than 19,000 infections in the state – including the way the virus was being transmitted and in which types of settings – to better tailor the easing of restrictions.
"I heard the Premier saying 'we don't need to know where infections are, we need to know the risk', but that's absolutely how epidemiologists work out what the risk is – they look at our history, at where cases present [in different workplaces and settings]," she said on ABC radio.
"No one would have argued with a complete opening up … but the question then is ... is [this] the smartest way ahead that gives us the public health protection we want, but also gives us as much opening up possibility, not immediately but in a step process."
Professor McVernon said the case thresholds for reopening in later stages, which effectively require zero cases for a fortnight, would be difficult to achieve and were not being achieved in NSW where restrictions were much looser.
She said the government needed to demonstrate how the improvements it claims to have made to contact tracing and infection control in healthcare settings were factored into the path out of lockdown.
Professor Bennett and Professor McVernon both believed the case thresholds for reopening in later stages, which effectively require zero cases for a fortnight, would be difficult to achieve and were not being achieved in NSW where restrictions were much looser.
Mary-Louise McLaws, epidemiologist and COVID-19 adviser to the WHO, said the state needed to be in hard lockdown until September 28, but questioned whether this would be required beyond late October if cases were below five a day.
She said authorities could decide to move ahead of the road map and push into stage two or stage one rules by late October. "I can't see that you'll be in lockdown past that if all goes well," she said on 3AW.
"Most states don't achieve [zero cases] … It's very difficult to get that," she said.
Victorian Industry Minister Martin Pakula, who is responsible for much of the government's consultation with different industries, acknowledged the extreme anguish of many business people but said the government was honest with businesses and peak bodies in the weeks leading up to the reopening plan announcement.
"This causes enormous consternation and pain. This is very, very difficult for business," he said.
"I'm not going to be critical of industry because I understand how much pain they're in.
"The health advice was contrary to their interests."
Victoria recorded nine deaths in the past day, bringing the toll to 675. There were 1781 active cases in Victoria on Monday, a drop of about 80 from Sunday.
Only four of the new cases were added to the total of "mystery" cases with no known source.
There are now 266 people with COVID-19 in Victorian hospitals, including 25 in intensive care.
Teys Australia blames JobSeeker for historically high worker shortage
One of Australia's biggest meat processors says the Federal Government's JobSeeker program is such a good deal the unemployed are not applying for jobs.
Teys Australia's corporate and industry affairs manager, John Langbridge, said the company had 150 vacancies for unskilled labourers, but applications were at their lowest levels ever, despite a national unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent.
The meat processor has eight factories across the country and employs about 4,500 workers, mainly in rural and regional locations.
JobSeeker recipients can receive up to $1,300 a fortnight, but the Government has announced it will reduce the payments from September 24.
Mr Langbridge said the government had done well to keep the economy primed, but financial aid was putting people off applying for jobs.
"People seem, for whatever reason, a little but too comfortable with the current circumstances to be chasing those jobs down," he said.
"At some point it's going to be weaning people off one system and basically getting the economy back into a more normal footing.
"That's the thing we're pretty keen to see Government do — manage the transition from where we are now, to basically the economy back up and running."
Mr Langbridge said the vacancies included jobs for cleaners, butchers, tradespeople and administration workers.
Teys Australia said it had written to the Federal Government for help, but declined to specify what kind of changes would be required.
Outbreak in abattoir not helping
Mr Langbridge acknowledged COVID-19 cases linked to abattoirs in regional Victoria had not helped the vacancy situation at Teys Australia.
He said since March a number of protocols had been introduced into the company's Australian sites, including daily screening for workers.
"We really haven't had any scares at all in the period," he said.
"The environment is very safe.
"It's very clean — we produce food, so the level of hygiene is quite high."
Calls to keep JobSeeker
Australia's meat processing industry has traditionally been one of the country's largest employers of skilled foreign workers.
Speaking on the ABC's Q+A program on Monday night, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said the Government had extended some measures so that migrants on certain visas could stay in Australia to work.
"The Regional Australia Institute has identified 40,000 jobs in regional Australia right now, and not necessarily in agricultural or indeed the resources sector," he said.
"There are so many jobs in regional Australia and we're encouraging migrants to fill those jobs."
How much do we need to lock up to protect its habitat?
Bitter division in the Coalition over planning policy related to koalas is threatening to split the government, with Deputy Premier John Barilaro asking the Premier to call an emergency cabinet meeting over the issue.
Mr Barilaro wrote to his National MPs asking them to sign a letter urging Gladys Berejiklian to hold the cabinet meeting on September 14 as three Nationals MPs threaten to move to the crossbench.
Nationals MPs are demanding that cabinet changes the guidelines which form part of a State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) that seeks to protect koala habitat.
A spokesman for the Premier said the "issue would be considered by cabinet in due course".
While the Nationals are leading the opposition to the policy, some Liberals, such as Wollondilly MP Nathaniel Smith, are also concerned about the impact it could have on their electorates.
Several government sources said Emergency Services Minister David Elliott has also expressed concerns, although the minister said he had not yet declared his position.
The concerned MPs want Planning Minister Rob Stokes to agree to a raft of changes, including the definition of core koala habitat, before NSW Parliament resumes next Tuesday.
A government source said Ms Berejiklian had already made the decision that cabinet would consider the changes before Mr Barilaro's letter.
One of the most vocal opponents, Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis, said the guidelines were "a knee-jerk reaction to target farmers and the timber industry" and a "line in the sand".
The Nationals MP said the new rules, which include increasing the number of tree species protected from 10 to 123, would severely limit the way property owners could manage their land.
"I was elected to parliament to represent my community and I get really annoyed when city-centric people preach to us, especially when people in Sydney have done nothing for their koalas," he said.
Mr Gulaptis said he would move to the crossbench if changes were not made. Nationals MP Gurmesh Singh, who represents Coffs Harbour, is also considering sitting on the crossbench, as is upper house Nationals MP Sam Farraway.
The NSW Nationals' chairman and former long-serving MP Andrew Fraser also weighed into the debate on Monday, issuing a statement "demanding commonsense on planning policy".
"The people of regional NSW are sick and tired of being used as the biodiversity offset for western Sydney development," Mr Fraser said.
Mr Stokes, who has met with Nationals MPs including Mr Gulaptis and Mr Singh to discuss their concerns, has maintained that changes were about modernising koala protection laws.
"It's fair enough then that there should be an obligation to check whether it's [a development] going to have an impact on koala populations," Mr Stokes said last week.
The NSW Farmers Association said on Monday that Ms Berejiklian needed to "partner with farmers" to take steps to protect koalas on farms instead of imposing a policy based on inaccurate mapping.
"The current debate around the Koala [policy] has been wrongly characterised as a green versus brown debate – this is incorrect," NSW Farmers' president James Jackson said.
The Nature Conservation Council has warned that the Berejiklian government should be "considering strengthening laws to protect this iconic species".
“On current trends, koalas are on track to become extinct in NSW by 2050,” the council's chief executive Chris Gambian said.
“The laws that Mr Gulaptis wants to tear up were drafted well before the summer bushfires, which killed thousands, wiped out local populations and pushed many others closer to extinction."
Kyle Sandilands 'overstepped the mark' with Virgin Mary comments, says watchdog
Commercial radio presenter Kyle Sandilands breached standards of decency with last year's on-air comments about the Virgin Mary, according to a ruling handed down this week by the Australian media watchdog.
The remarks were made in September 2019, with Sandilands questioning whether the Virgin Mary was indeed a virgin and suggesting people who believe in the Bible's story of immaculate conception were "dumb as dog s---".
Australian Communications and Media Authority chair Nerida O'Loughlin said the broadcast offended religious listeners as well as the wider community. However, claims the broadcast incited hatred and ridicule towards Christians were not upheld.
ACMA examined 180 complaints as part of its investigation. In comparison, just over 125 complaints were scrutinised in regards to Alan Jones' comments in August last year about New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
"Australians are generally tolerant of irreverent humour and critical discussion about religion," Ms O'Loughlin said. "But they would not expect a host of a broadcast program to derisively criticise people's intelligence because of their religious beliefs.
"Mr Sandilands overstepped the mark in terms of the generally accepted standards of decency in this case."
A spokeswoman for ARN, the owner of radio stations KIIS, WSFM and Gold, said the broadcaster accepted the findings.
Coal's rapid decline won't cripple future energy grid: COAG study
What a laugh! This is just a call to replace coal with natural gas The Greenies won't be happy at all. Natural gas is also a "fossil" fuel that gives off CO2!
Natural gas does tend to be cheaper than coal but that is subject to supply and demand. On the East coast at the moment only Queensland mines it and their producers have long-term contracts with overseas customers.
It would certainly be cheap if NSW and Victoria relaxed their bans on gas mining but that seems a long way off. An unholy alliance between Greenies, Nimbys and farmers is standing in the way so far
Coal’s rapid exit from the energy grid can run smoothly and governments won’t need to intervene in the market to keep the lights on.
The future energy market can serve consumers well without big government subsidies despite the unprecedented disruption in the shift to renewables, said Energy Security Board (ESB) chair Dr Kerry Schott. The ESB is proposing a range of market reforms in a new study released for consultation on Monday.
Established by the Commonwealth of Australian Governments (COAG) Energy Council in 2017 the ESB advises on the unprecedented market transition so it can deliver “security and reliability to drive better outcomes for consumers” in the national electricity market.
“Governments are pretty nervous about big coal plants exiting the grid, and old gas plants for that matter, and I can understand why they want to intervene,” Dr Schott said.
“But if we can get the market measures in place outlined in the report, governments may not need to intervene at all. But comprehensive change to the market design is needed “
The ESB’s Post 2025 Energy market design report found “the exit of generation is not in itself a problem” if forward-looking reforms are made.
It’s seeking feedback on a suite of policy proposals to manage prices and encourage private investment in not just large scale power generation but also firm dispatchable resources like hydro power, batteries and fast-start gas plants for when the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing.
Over the next 20 years 61 per cent of Australia’s ageing and increasingly expensive coal fired capacity is set to be shut down and mainly replaced by cheaper renewable energy with dispatchable back-up that can enter the grid as required at short notice.
The national energy market in the past year comprised 74 per cent coal, six per cent gas, 4 per cent solar, 10 per cent wind and 5 per cent hydro. This is changing rapidly.
The ESB noted governments have reacted to the volatility in consumer electricity prices with a wide range of uncoordinated policies that “do not align with incentives to encourage investment in the amount and type of resources that would meet consumer and power system needs”.
“What we’re trying to do with our reform options is to have a market for the essential services that firm and dispatchable power provides. We want companies bidding those services into a market that is properly valued so the Australian Energy Market Operator can stop intervening to ensure those services are available - which is currently very expensive,” Dr Schott said.
The ESB also emphasised the need for new market rules to harness the benefits of what’s known as the distributed energy resources - that is the two million households and business with rooftop solar panels that can feed power back into the grid, and store power in batteries.
The CSIRO has found a two-sided energy market, where households pay for using power supplied from the grid and are also paid for the power generated on their premises and demand savings they make, could earn up to $2.5 billion a year, or an annual electricity saving of $414 to an average household.
International Baccalaureate develops higher critical thinking skills than state programs
From what I hear, it is Leftist critical thinking that is taught
Australian high school students who sit the International Baccalaureate diploma develop significantly higher critical thinking skills than those taking a state-based equivalent such as the HSC.
New research conducted by the University of Oxford shows the difference in critical thinking was more pronounced for students in year 12 than in year 11, suggesting skills increase over the IB's two-year duration.
Founded in Switzerland in 1968, the IB diploma is a globally recognised senior school credential offered as an alternative to the Higher School Certificate in about 20 NSW independent schools.
It has slowly expanded its footprint over the past 30 years, with Cranbrook becoming the latest Sydney school to offer the IB diploma from next year.
While the HSC offers a flexible curriculum where students study any combination of units, the IB locks students into six streams: they must study one subject from the sciences, humanities, arts, mathematics, English and a foreign language.
Students must also write a 4000-word essay on a topic of their choice and complete a 100-hour course in the theory of knowledge, as well as participate in co-curricular creative, physical and service activities.
"Those are some of the reasons I chose the IB," said year 10 Cranbrook student Max Lindley, who will be in the school's first diploma cohort and hopes to write his major work on paleontology.
"Understanding how information is spread, what makes a good source – I find that very interesting."
The Oxford research used critical thinking tests to assess differences in samples of IB and non-IB students in Australia, Norway and England. They tested students’ skills in induction, deduction, evaluation, and credibility assessment of given statements.
The findings showed IB students "exhibit significantly higher levels of critical thinking in comparison with matched non-IB students, with the effect more pronounced towards the end of the program".
In qualitative interviews, students said they believed the IB diploma better prepared them for future studies than other school systems and suggested the teaching of critical thinking made them better learners.
Cranbrook headmaster Nicholas Sampson said those skills would give students an advantage in university and the workforce.
"The level of academic breadth keeps open so many options at university and beyond. We think the IB is accessible to most students, the key is attitude: you've got to be committed and organised," he said.
But he concedes the IB is not the most suitable course for all students. “For some the greater specialisation offered by the HSC is invaluable and we understand that," Mr Sampson said.
Year 10 student John Coleman struggled to choose between the courses for that reason: he would like to focus on the social sciences in his final year, and the IB would force him to drop either modern history or economics. "It's a tough decision and I don't want to do it," he said.
While the IB is studied in government schools in other Australian states, a spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said it did not support any IB programs in state public schools.
"The Higher School Certificate is a world-class qualification that is available to all NSW school students," he said.
The Australian component of the Oxford University research took place in four independent schools, with sample students from each course matched according to socioeconomic status, sex, age and cognitive ability.
An IB spokeswoman said it brought forward “important findings” about the program's impact on students’ critical thinking.
Safe spaces, pronouns in email signatures and don't say 'guys': Inside the PC training sessions where bureaucrats are told not to use the words 'husband' and 'wife'
Bureaucrats in NSW have been encouraged to adopt politically correct language and avoid using phrases such as 'husband and wife' and 'ladies and gentlemen'.
NSW treasury workers, who are amidst the state's worst economic crisis in almost a century, have also been urged to include their preferred pronouns in their email signatures.
But the focus on inclusive language has been slammed by One Nation MP Mark Latham, who believes there are greater issues to battle through during the coronavirus pandemic.
Staff received an official message from NSW Treasury's Economic Strategy Deputy Secretary Joann Wilkie following a training day in line with 'Wear It Purple', The Daily Telegraph reported.
The note detailed 'some of the things we can all do to help create a safe space' in the workplace.
'Things like adding a pronoun preference to your signature block,' she wrote.
'And not assuming when you're talking to a colleague that they are heterosexual/cisgendered/endosex, so use 'partner' rather than 'wife' or 'husband' and use an introduction like 'welcome folks' rather than 'hi guys' (I need to work on this one) or 'good morning ladies and gentlemen'.'
Mr Latham said treasury staff's priority should be on non-stop job creation as Australia struggles through a recession.
He said the notion of needing a safe space is 'ridiculous' and claimed Ms Wilkie would be on $250,000 a year while working in one of the 'safest' offices in the country.
'She should do her day job of 'economic strategy and productivity' instead of insulting the thousands of business owners who have closed down and the hundreds of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs with her work priority of safe spaces and PC-word training,' Mr Latham said.
IPA western civilisation program director Bella d'Abrera agreed with the One Nation MP's comments. Ms d'Abrera said treasury staff should focus on getting Australians back to work rather than whether they say 'wife' or 'husband'.
National accounts data released last week confirmed national GDP collapsed by seven per cent in the June quarter and around 6.3 per cent in the 12 months to June.
The 8.6 per cent decline in NSW for the June quarter was the worst of all states and territories and the worst in the state's history.
Treasurer Dominic Perrottet told the publication all large organisations have plans for inclusion as staff should be treated with respect and feel safe in the workplace.
Treasury has been instructed to focus on preparing the budget, creating jobs and supporting business, he added.
Australia has adequate generators already. This money is just in a chase after a Greenie mirage
Half a billion dollars will be injected into a new renewable energy fund, increasing public ownership of projects and helping accelerate Queensland’s target of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
The mammoth investment comes after the Government assured Queenslanders earlier this year the state was on track to meet its target in a decade’s time.
Treasurer Cameron Dick said a range of projects would be supported by the funding including generation and storage.
He said the Government would work to develop a mandate for the relevant government owned corporations, but conceded it would be hard to do before an election.
Asked why the funding was necessary when there was private investment, Mr Dick cited the 2030 target. “We think this is an appropriate step to take to help accelerate achieving a 2030 target,” he said. “It’s obviously a priority. “We think we can get there and this is an important step forward for us.”
Electrical Trades Union state secretary Peter Ong said the union welcomed the money but would have liked to have seen the funding put into Cleanco’s budget over the next three years and a reverse of the current mandate which delivers all profits from current generators to Treasury.
The ETU has been pushing for greater public ownership in the renewable sector.
'Where's the consistency?' Dan Andrews is slammed for cracking down on anti-lockdown protesters after allowing Black Lives Matter rallies to go ahead
Typical Leftist bias
Daniel Andrews has been slammed for cracking down on the anti-lockdown protests after letting thousands of people gather for Black Lives Matter rallies in June.
Up to 200 protesters descended on Melbourne and clashed with police as the 'Freedom Day' rally spiralled out of control on Saturday.
Frustrated activists, furious with Mr Andrew's Stage Four lockdown, turned out in their droves to demand restrictions come to an end.
One crowd faced off with police on horseback as they chanted 'freedom' as officers arrested 17 people and gave out more than 160 fines.
The heated demonstration came months after 10,000 Melburnians took to the streets for the Black Lives Matter protests, when police were encouraged to 'exercise their discretion' when issuing fines.
Despite the massive crowds, only three fines were issued during the June rally.
The major differences between both rallies saw Mr Andrews' slammed on social media for the double-standard.
State MP for Caulfield and Shadow Minister for Police, Corrections and Community Safety David Southwick questioned the premier's consistency.
'Whilst No protest is ok at the moment, spot the difference,' he wrote on Twitter.
'1. 10k BLM protest - 3 organisers fined.'
'2. 250 CFMMEU protest - 1 fine.'
'3. 200 people protest Today - 15 arrests and 150 fines.'
'Where’s the consistency Dan? No wonder people are angry.'
Mr Southwick said the premier was being hypocritical as he 'rolled out the red carpet' for the Black Lives Matter protest.
'Victoria Police have had to take strong action today to clean up Daniel Andrews' mess who rolled out the red carpet for the 10,000 BLM protest.'
The Victorian Premier criticised Saturday's protesters, calling their behaviour 'absolutely selfish'. 'It is not safe, it is not smart, it is not law. In fact, it is absolutely selfish for people to be out there protesting,' he said. 'The only protest we should be engaged in, the only argument, the only fight we should be engaged in is against this virus.'
His comments come as the state recorded 76 new coronavirus infections and 11 deaths on Saturday.
In total, police arrested 17 people and issued at least 160 infringement notices for breaching the Chief Health Officer directions.
Police released a statement calling the march 'disappointing' and criticising attendees for 'putting the lives of Victorians at risk'.
Of the 17 arrests, 14 were for breaching the Chief Health Officer directions, while one was for assaulting police. They are all currently in custody assisting police with enquiries.
Shocking footage shows the horde of protesters, many refusing to wear masks and battling with police, as the city's CBD was brought to a standstill as traffic was diverted from the area.
Dramatic scenes saw demonstrators tackled to the ground while officers struggled to detain them.
The protests kicked off at the Shrine of Remembrance but coronavirus-deniers then took to the streets, stopping traffic near Albert Park.
As a result of the protest, a police officer received lacerations to the head after being assaulted by an individual who was in attendance.
One woman with a top reading: 'Freedom' was seen being dragged away by two police officers as she desperately tried to fight them off. Meanwhile, another man was seen dragged away from the demonstration with his shirt pulled up around his arm.
Despite the hundreds of protesters in attendance, they were no match for the army of police.
The Black Lives Matter protests saw 10,000 residents hit the streets in Melbourne in June.
Health authorities feared mass gatherings like a public protest would spark a coronavirus outbreak and urged protesters to use hand sanitiser, wear face masks and stay home if they had coronavirus symptoms.
Only three protesters tested positive and there was no evidence of transmission at the rally.
Sydney Anglicans, religious schools declare support for Latham discrimination bill
A number of powerful interest groups including the Sydney Anglican Diocese, the Association of Independent Schools and Catholic Schools NSW have declared support for One Nation leader Mark Latham's bill to amend the state's discrimination laws in favour of religious freedom.
But other church groups, as well as the peak body promoting diversity in Australian workplaces, have condemned the bill, arguing it would permit vilification and harassment in the name of faith and prevent firms from fostering "inclusive cultures".
The comments are contained in submissions to a state parliamentary inquiry which are yet to be published but have been obtained by The Sun-Herald.
Mr Latham's bill would explicitly make it unlawful for a person to be discriminated against on the basis of their religion, bringing NSW into line with other states. However, it would also go much further, protecting people such as former rugby union player Israel Folau from adverse action by employers for comments made outside the workplace that are motivated by religious belief.
It would be unlawful to discriminate against any employee for their religious activity, as long as the activity did not contain "direct criticism" of their employer, or cause "direct and material financial detriment" to the employer.
Mr Folau settled an unlawful dismissal case with Rugby Australia last year after his contract was terminated for his repeated comments on social media that homosexuals, adulterers, drunks and liars were sinners and would go to hell.
In a note accompanying his diocese's submission, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies lamented that in the social media era, "even the private, social and charitable lives of people of faith become subject to workplace scrutiny and assessment", and required protection.
Dr Davies said there was a growing but "ill-informed" idea in the community that religious people could leave their faith at home, in the private sphere. "A person can no more leave their faith at home as they can temporarily abandon their ethnic identity," he said.
The Association of Independent Schools of NSW said it particularly supported section 22M of the bill which would allow "religious ethos organisations" to discriminate in line with the tenets and doctrines of its faith, including giving preference to people of that faith when hiring and firing.
Catholic Schools NSW, responsible for educating about one in five NSW students, supported the bill's aims but was concerned certain clauses were contradictory and would inadvertently limit Catholic schools' ability to preference Catholic staff and students.
However, some church groups opposed the bill in its current form, including the Uniting Church in NSW and the national Anglican church, which is separate to the Sydney Anglicans.
Carolyn Tan, chair of the Public Affairs Commission of the Anglican Church of Australia, told the inquiry: "We are concerned that the bill does not provide adequate mechanisms for ensuring that religiously-motivated activities do not prevail over the fundamental rights of others and over attempts by employers, law enforcement bodies and others to protect such rights and to enforce public safety, order and health."
Diversity Council Australia, which was founded by large listed companies such as ANZ, AMP, BHP, Coles, Myer, Rio Tinto and Westpac, strongly opposed the bill, warning it prioritised religion above other human rights and would inhibit corporations from creating inclusive workplaces.
For example, DCA suggested the bill could permit an employee to make derogatory comments to a homosexual colleague during an off-site lunch break.
"The proposed legislation would give licence to a wide range of potentially harmful and offensive statements to be made by people 'motivated by a religious belief'," DCA told the inquiry. "Allowing such comments would not enhance social cohesion in NSW, or in workplaces."
The parliamentary inquiry is ongoing and will hold public hearings before the bill is voted upon.
Australian government puts environmental law changes through lower house
Legislation to change Australia’s environmental laws has been put through the lower house by the Morrison government prompting outrage from Labor, the Greens and the crossbench.
The government’s bill would amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, clearing the way for the transfer of development approval powers to state and territory governments.
The proposed changes passed the lower house on Thursday night after the government used its numbers to gag debate on the bill and amendments proposed by Labor and the crossbench.
No member of the government spoke on the bill, which still has to pass the Senate and will now likely be debated during the October budget sittings.
“To just gag that debate, to prevent people from having their say, I think is a real disgrace,” Labor’s environment spokeswoman, Terri Butler, said.
“This isn’t minor legislation, this is significant legislation that affects what happens to our natural environment, what happens with jobs and what happens with investment.”
Butler said the government was trying to rush changes to the laws through parliament under the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Now is a time for more scrutiny. Now is not the time for us to be putting up with the government rushing things through in the dead of night in a situation when there’s not that attention focused on them,” she said.
The independent MP, Zali Steggall, had proposed an amendment that would have added a reference in the bill to promised national standards recommended by the interim report of the review of the EPBC Act. “This is appalling conduct by government minister [Sussan] Ley, the prime minister and every coalition MP that is supporting this,” Steggall said.
“The conduct of the government today in parliament had nothing to do with this pandemic. It had nothing to do with measures around the welfare or the health or the long-term benefit of Australians. This was about abrogating your rights, all of you, in having a voice in this parliament and knowing that you will actually have an environment that is going to be protected.”
The Greens MP, Adam Bandt, said the government was “trashing the environment and trashing democracy”.
“No government MP wanted to front up and defend the indefensible, but the rest of the country is entitled to have its say on such a crucial bill,” he said.
Andrew Wilkie, another independent MP, called the bill “environmental vandalism in the extreme”. He said it ignored the recommendations of the interim report handed down by the former competition watchdog chair Prof Graeme Samuel.
By blocking debate the government had shown “complete contempt for democracy”, Wilkie said.
The government introduced its bill, a near replica of Tony Abbott’s failed 2014 one-stop-shop policy, last week. It has argued deregulation of its decision-making powers under the EPBC Act is necessary to aid Australia’s economic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The bill had been criticised by conservationists, Labor and the Greens for weakening environmental protections and failing to include promised national environmental standards, which were the key recommendation of the interim report.
Labor also wanted the government to commit to another of the review’s recommendations – an independent regulator that would enforce the law if approval powers are devolved to state and territory governments.
In a statement on Thursday night, the environment minister said moving to a “single touch” approval system would “reduce regulatory burden, promote economic activity and create certainty around environmental protections”.
“The Labor party, which turned its back on environmental reform after its own review of the EPBC Act a decade ago, today attempted a day of cynical misrepresentation in the House,” Ley said. The minister said there would be more reforms to follow.
“We will develop strong commonwealth-led national environmental standards which will underpin new bilateral agreements with state governments.”
Queensland fruit farmers face a chronic shortage of fruit pickers
Queensland farmers are desperately trying to entice young Australians to fruit picking as they face a chronic shortage of workers, despite the fact they could be earning up to $3800 a week.
Growers are offering up an attractive wage for the position – once popular among the many backpackers to Australia pre-pandemic border closures – as various fruits lay rotting on the ground.
It comes after Rachel Mackenzie at peak industry group Berries Australia said the labour shortage is a “serious problem”, with the backpacker population having reduced by more than 60 per cent in recent months.
Managing Director Gavin Scurr at Piaata Farms, which includes The Strawberry Fields at Wamuran, spoke to the Courier Mail, revealing there are misconceptions around fruit picking, particularly surrounding the wage.
“There is this perception that fruit picking provides poor wages but that is simply not true,’’ Mr Scurr told the publication. “We recently paid a worker $3800 for a week’s work recently and that is a top picker working six days a week, probably around ten hours a day, but even when you look at it as an hourly rate, that is pretty good.’’
He added that while it can be a hard job, with the right attitude, there’s fun to be had. “It’s all about attitude - there are the real guns who just get right into it and make it a competition, with themselves and with the other guns,’’ Mr Scurr said. “And they have fun, they just enjoy what they do, they go for it and it is not unusual for them to earn $3000 a week.’’
He added that “gun fruit pickers” are often after flexible working conditions and work across more than one farm given the lack of reliable workers around the place.
“Some really good workers may only want a certain number of hours a day and leave at 2pm and others might want only two or three days a week or whatever, but if they have that right attitude, they will be in high demand among the growers and they get the work.’’
He said it’s common that some workers apply, only to last one day and never come back.
It comes as Mr Scurr has had to destroy a portion of his crop because of a lack of labour.
Across Australia, many farmers are facing similar heartbreak as they struggle to find farm hands.
Orchardist Guy Geata, who grows cherries outside of Orange, has seen inquiries for work drying up during the pandemic despite cherry pickers being able to earn around $400 a day.
“We need about 70 people in December, and I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said, warning that if growers can’t find workers, Christmas fruit will be more expensive.
“It’s going to be left on the tree, they won’t taste as good, and the price is going to go up,” he said.
In August, NSW Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall similarly said Australians should consider taking up a job on the farm as producers struggle to find overseas workers.
He conceded it was “very hard” to get Australians to do that sort of work. “I think it would be lovely if there was a change of mindset, but that’s going to take a considerable amount of time,” Mr Marshall said.
British Museum shows artefacts collected by explorer Captain Cook as part of ‘permanent British occupation’ of Australia
Australia is an independent multicultural nation. It has been independent since 1901. It is NOT under occupation by the British. And Cook was NOT part of the settlement of Australia
But the whole idea is to deplore European settlement in Australia. As such, it is clearly racist. The systematic racists are on the Left, not the Right. The Left can't leave race alone. They find racism under every bed when the place that they should be looking at is the mirror
The British Museum has been accused of rewriting history and hypocrisy after it relabelled Aboriginal artefacts collected by Captain Cook as being part of the “permanent British occupation” of Australia.
The relabelling of the artefacts is a response by the museum to the Black Lives Matter protests, linking Captain Cook’s charting of the east coast of Australia to the suffering of Aboriginal people following the arrival of the First Fleet 18 years later.
“James Cook sailed up the east coast in 1770, permanent British occupation began in 1788 with a ‘First Fleet’ of ships carrying convicts to establish a penal colony at present day Sydney,” a sign next to a Gweagal shield said.
“Some Aboriginal people in central Australia remained out of contact with Europeans until the 1980s,” another label states.
“The Eora people of the Sydney region suffered the first brunt of British colonisation from 1788.
“Despite loss of population due to disease and frontier violence as well as displacement, Aboriginal people continue to live in the Sydney region maintaining strong bonds with their traditional lands and culture.”
The British Museum would not officially answer questions about why the labels for the items had been changed but staff in the Enlightenment room, where the Indigenous items, were kept said The Black Lives Matter protests had “inspired” the change.
“They were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement to finally address it,” a staff member said.
Another staff member said the signs were “explaining the history of the museum and how things got here”.
Despite the changes to the signs, the museum has refused to repatriate the items to Australia as requested by Indigenous Australian man Rodney Kelly, who says the Gweagal shield belonged to his ancestors.
Institute of Public Affairs Foundations of Western Civilisation Program director Dr Bella d’Abrera said the museum was reinventing history by conflating talented navigator Captain Cook with the suffering of the Aboriginal people.
“The British Museum is guilty of promoting the false narrative that Captain James Cook invaded and occupied Australia,” she said.
“Attributing genocide to the son of a Scottish farmer is both historically inaccurate and morally wrong … Captain Cook did not invade Australia.
“This is sheer hypocrisy. On the one hand they imply that the shield was stolen from the indigenous population, but on the other, they are not returning it to the descendants of its original owners.”
History Council of NSW president Dr Stephen Gapps also said the museum should return the items if that is what indigenous people wanted.
“I personally think that (relabelling) is a way of getting around the fact they still have those artifacts in their collections and are not willing to give a lot of those back,” he said.
“Ideally they wouldn’t have an object label on the shield and the spears and other objects, they would begin a process of repatriation.”
Exhibitions of Indigenous Australian artwork at the museum have also been given similar signs acknowledging their origins.
A statue of Cook located in The Mall near Buckingham Palace was defaced during the London Black Lives Matter protests, two statues of him were defaced in Sydney during protests in June, and there has been an online petition to have a statue of him removed in Cairns.
Australian National University history professor Ann McGrath said the myth of Captain Cook needed to be separated from the facts.
“I think that Cook the man is a different thing from Cook the myth and what he came to symbolise,” she said.
“It is logical that Aboriginal people see him as the beginning of their troubles and the loss of everything that they had — and in a way we have to separate that from the biography of the actual man.”
The official reason for Cook’s voyage to the Pacific was to observe the 1769 transit of Venus in Tahiti while the unofficial purpose discovered in a note from the King once the Endeavour set sail was to look for evidence of an ‘unknown southern land’ — a prize in a great race place between Britain and France at the end of the 18th Century.
His instructions from the King were “if he found a “continent or land of great extent” he should seek “with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country”.
Cook named the new land known as New South Wales and claimed it for Britain before sailing north towards Queensland.
Bettina Arndt and Mike Carlton can keep their orders of Australia, council decides
Cancel cultists lose one
The sex therapist Bettina Arndt and writer Mike Carlton will retain their orders of Australia, after the council responsible for the awards refused to revoke them.
In a statement on Friday, Shane Stone, the chairman of the Council of the Order of Australia, said the awards were not an endorsement of recipients’ social or political views, and revocation was generally reserved for criminal convictions, adverse court findings or misrepresentations about personal achievements.
Arndt’s 2020 Australia Day honour was referred to the Council of the Order of Australia for review after public backlash that she had been awarded it for services “to gender equity through advocacy for men”.
Arndt came under fire for a 2018 interview with the convicted paedophile Nicolaas Bester in which she described the behaviour of female students as “sexually provocative”. Arndt was also forced to defend claims she had misrepresented herself to be a clinical psychologist, despite not being legally registered.
Carlton’s award was referred after the News Corp columnist Sharri Markson complained about swearing and violent imagery in his tweets and claimed that cabinet ministers were unhappy with the award.
In a statement on Friday, Stone said the council had “considered requests for the cancellation of appointments … and will make no further recommendations to the governor general”.
Stone said that in a system that honours hundreds of people each year “it is inevitable that each list will include some people who others believe should not be recognised”.
“Unanimous community approval is not a criteria for council to make a recommendation,” he said.
Although nominations for the awards were sourced from the community, the decision to grant or revoke awards was not “directed by governments or influenced by lobbying or public campaigning”, he said.
“Similarly, individuals are neither qualified nor disqualified on the basis of their political leanings, social views or religious convictions.”
Stone said recommendations for an award were not “an endorsement of the political, religious or social views of recipients, nor is conferral of an honour an endorsement of the personally held beliefs of recipients”.
Stone said the order’s constitution and precedent set out that revocation of awards will be considered “where an individual has been convicted of a crime or offence under the law, received a civil penalty under the law or has been subject to an adverse finding by a court, tribunal or other body exercising judicial or administrative power under the law”.
Although the constitution allows cancellations “where an individual has behaved or acted in a manner that has brought disrepute on the order” this is generally reserved for convictions or adverse court findings.
“The council will also consider cancellation or termination where information on which the initial recommendation was made is found to be based on false or misleading material.”
New Matilda revealed close to 200 instances where Arndt had been interviewed on TV or radio or referred to in articles, in parliament or at conferences and was introduced as a psychologist, a clinical psychologist or a doctor, despite not being registered with the regulator, Ahpra (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency). This included the Guardian in 2010.
Arndt has explained that when she obtained her Master of Clinical Psychology in 1973, it was not a requirement for psychologists to be registered.
“As professional registration of psychologists tightened up, I tried to control how I was described more carefully when being introduced on radio and television,” she said in February.
“This isn’t always so easy. Producers and researchers looking after these programs change jobs frequently and it requires constant monitoring,” she said.
Arndt said she refers to herself as “trained as a clinical psychologist.”
How Australia's definition of 'forest' has cheated beef producers
WHY is fast food giant McDonald's demanding an end to deforestation in Australia's beef supply chain when ranchers in it's homeland, the United States, have no restrictions on thinning or clearing on agricultural land?
Have you ever wondered why Queensland has become defined as a global hotspot for deforestation when 87 per cent of the state is mapped remnant vegetation?
The answer is Australia plays by a different rule book when it comes to the definition of forests, says prominent northern beef producer Josie Angus.
With husband Blair, Mrs Angus breeds, backgrounds and feeds cattle on close to 162,000 hectares spread across four properties in central and north western Queensland, to market branded beef to 30 countries.
Australia has effectively self-imposed trade barriers that is costing the beef industry dearly and if ever there was a time to change that, it's now, Mrs Angus believes.
"It won't be an easy sell, but if we can't drive change now in this current environment where people are fresh from the first empty supermarket shelves they've ever tripped across in their lives, then when can we?" she said.
Mrs Angus was joined by fellow cattle producers Jacqueline Curley and Alice Greenup in a webinar hosted by Agforce last week which tapped into sentiment that it was time for the beef industry to stand up to those making inaccurate claims about its sustainability credentials.
She presented a graph of global rates of land cover changes since 1992, which showed Australia is consistently at the bottom of the list - it is clearing less than all G20 nations, less than Europe and even less than the world average.
"So why are we being beaten up, identified as a deforestation hotspot?" Mrs Angus asked.
"It's simply because we are not playing by the same rule book as the balance of the world."
All in a definition
The United Nations' definition of forest is land spanning more than 0.5 of a hectare with trees higher than 5m and a canopy cover of more than 10pc, not including land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use.
Explanatory notes clarify forest is determined both by the presence of trees and the absence of other predominant land uses.
The Australian definition: Forest is an area of land dominated by trees that have a height of at least 2m and a crown cover of at least 20pc.
The Australian definition includes no exemption for agriculture.
"If we were, as the rest of the world does, to classify land currently in ag use as ag land, it is exempted from deforestation," Mrs Angus said.
So why has the Australian Government saddled its beef industry with such an unfair definition?
Mrs Angus argues beef was made a sacrificial lamb to the likes of mining and cities enjoying increased emissions in Australia's commitment to the Kyoto protocol.
The time was ripe for a policy reset and it must begin with equivalence in definition, she said.
"We are on the cusp of negotiating a trade deal with the United Kingdom, a market to which we once supplied 170 000t," she said.
"The UK has just announced legislation that would see their corporations prosecuted for sourcing products like beef from areas with deforestation.
"The UK will use this as a trade barrier and it all boils down to a definition - Australia has self imposed a definition of forest that is doing us real harm."
In the 1960s, Australia was the second largest agriculture exporter in the world but has now 'plummeted off the graph', Mrs Angus said.
If we had grown at the same rate as the now second placed Netherlands we would be producing $126b in extra product.
"That makes the target of $100b by 2030 seem rather unambitious," Mrs Angus said.
"It is time to stop apologising, stop focusing on fixing all the world's environmental issues and stop pandering to NGOs (non-government organisations) who want nothing but to see our demise.
"It's time we stopped believing the only way to make an extra buck is to become a carbon credit so other industries can expand at our expense.
"Our land is for ag purpose, I can't underline that fact enough."
This year’s abandonment of NAPLAN could inflict an enduring blow to school accountability. The literacy and numeracy tests — normally conducted in mid-May — were scrapped amid the pandemic uncertainty.
But now, Queensland’s education unions have urged teachers against preparing pupils for next year’s exams — unilaterally declaring the tests are over for good. This is just the latest in a series of attempts in recent years to hijack the testing regime.
If governments cave in to these threats they will do so at the expense of students, parents, taxpayers, and even teachers.
Strengthening, not whittling away, accountability is key to arresting the decline in Australia’s education outcomes.
Policymakers must accept that the decision to halt this year’s testing has needlessly strengthened the hand of those who have long opposed standardised assessment and resisted the accountability that comes with it.
What’s telling is that so much effort was exerted to cancel the tests, rather than into making them happen, rescheduling them, or coming up with viable alternatives.
Standardised assessments are needed because they offer objective and comparable tools for monitoring students’ progress, informing teaching practice, and measuring performance of teachers and schools. It’s needed more than ever given the educational disruption wrought by the pandemic.
It’s true that NAPLAN can be improved. The task for policymakers mustn’t be to quit the test, but to upgrade it so it becomes a more effective tool for educators, students, parents, and decision-makers.
It could be held at a more appropriate time of the school year (and potentially in different year groups), it could be a more rigorous assessment and one varied according to students’ capabilities, its content could be better aligned with curriculum, and it could be online (especially because test results are far more timely).
NAPLAN will again to be on the agenda for the Education Council — constituted of Australia’s education ministers — due to meet next Friday.
Reviving Australia’s educational outcomes will depend upon commitment to rigorous national assessment, not more of the same anti-test and anti-performance mentality that threatens to steer the education system yet further astray.
Roses are red … but all Australian broadcaster’s Jonathan Green sees is foliage fascism
If you listened to ABC Radio National’s Blueprint last Saturday, you would have learned of an alarming development at the highest level of American government. In short, President Donald Trump intends replacing the republic with an absolutist monarchy. How do we know this? Well, according to host Jonathan Green, it is to be found in First Lady Melania Trump’s recent revamping of the White House Rose Garden.
“This once colourful and exuberant and shady space has been replaced by a far more formal and severe planting,” said Green. “We wonder what that might say about – perhaps this is to elevate it beyond its significance, perhaps not – the direction of American democracy.” It is a tad ironical that Green used the royal ‘we’ when decrying the president’s supposedly monarchist ambitions, but I digress.
You might be wondering how the garden in question was altered to give it authoritarian overtones – the installation of a moat, the planting of Honey Locust and Prickly Ash trees along with tropical Manchineels, the toxic sap of which causes the skin to blister, perhaps? No, the most significant changes were merely the removal of a dozen crabapple trees, the replacement of the previous roses with pastels, the installation of a few boxwoods, and the addition of a limestone walking path bordering the central lawn. Oh, and there is the improved drainage as well as providing better access for people with disabilities. Terrible I know.
The changes were all too much for Green, who spoke of a garden which had provided a “shady, friendly sort of space” when the Obamas had occupied the White House. All that had apparently changed under the Trumps. “The trees have gone as well,” lamented Green. “I mean this is quite a bold statement to pull out trees that date back to the Kennedys”.
Likewise, it was quite bold of Green to make a statement that was, well, balderdash. The original crabapple trees were planted during John F. Kennedy’s presidency; however, as confirmed by Marta McDowell, author of “All the Presidents’ Gardens,” they have been replaced three times since. As for the current crabapple trees, they will be planted elsewhere on the White House grounds given they were overshadowing the roses.
But Green was not alone in seeing this as a case of foliage fascism. His guest, Amir Alexander, a UCLA academic, saw parallels in the garden redesign with – wait for it – that of the Sun King. “As it is now it is entirely open, every corner is visible from the Oval Office … all the parterres, all the lines of bushes, the lines of flowers and now also that framework, those aligns of the pathway that line along the sides of the garden, that all of them converge and all of them lean to the West Wing and the Oval Office,” he said. “The language and the implications are directly derived from that style that was invented in Versailles.”
Responding to Alexander’s assertion that the White House now featured a “power garden”, Green was eager to attribute messianic traits to the President. ”What does that kind of garden say about its owner; what does it say about the powerful personage that in its way represents,” he asked.
In response Alexander claimed that previous occupants of the White House were careful to ensure the design of the gardens reflected the appropriate checks on executive power. “Those elements of power, projecting power in that garden, were always tempered by other elements and made sure that even the great power of a President is never compared to the absolute power of a monarch like Louis XIV,” he said. Sacré bleu.
Let’s put this in perspective. The Gardens of Versailles comprise 800 hectares. The White House Rose Gardens is less than one hectare. The former took 40 years to construct, the latter was transformed over three weeks and funding was met by private donations. Do we need any more comparisons to refute these ridiculous analogies?
Noting the White House announcement in July that the revamp of the gardens would be modelled on that carried out during the Kennedy presidency, the Guardian was in full Jacobin mode. “The First Lady’s attempts to restore the past seem to be working, albeit not in the way she may have intended,” sneered Arwa Mahdawi, adding that ‘Marie Antoinette’ had started trending on Twitter after the renovations were announced. “While Melania T may be attempting to channel Jackie O, it looks as though she can’t help giving off strong Marie A vibes.”
“The geometry of the revised garden, the equality of its pavers, belies the inequality of our time; seemingly mocking the chaos wrought by the Trump administration,” wrote Wendy R. Sherman in USA Today. Author and former New York Times senior reporter Kurt Eichenwald, who has numerous times accused the President and his supporters of racism and xenophobia, angrily tweeted the First Lady was a “foreigner” who was trying to “wreck our history”.
It is a depressing reminder of how far activist journalists will go to construct a narrative, irrespective of its implausibility. Perhaps we should have a competition for the silliest appraisal of presidential policy based on a horticultural perspective. I will begin with an edition of The Queenslander dated April 15, 1905, which notes: “A window opened into the White House rear gardens, and gave an excellent and uninterrupted view of the lofty Washington monument about 300 paces distant.” This was during the era of Theodore Roosevelt. Had political commentators observed more closely at the commencement of this presidency, they would have correctly inferred from this seemingly innocuous construction of the gardens that he favoured the Isthmus of Panama as the site for a canal and would support secessionist movements in Colombia in order to realise it.
Then there was this from The Advertiser edition of April 19, 1930, noting the reminisces of the White House’s official gardener, Charles Henlock: “In his long connection with the White House he has seen the conservatories grow from a small glassed-in section of the mansion to thirty greenhouses, twelve of which are wholly devoted to flowers”. My conclusion is that this was a sign of President Herbert Hoover’s inability to respond effectively in the early stages to what became the Great Depression. Also, this surfeit of flowers is indicative of GOP insouciance.
And let’s not forget that on 11 June 1973 the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier reported that President Richard Nixon was photographed strolling in the White House Rose Garden. Two days later Watergate prosecutors found a White House memo describing plans to break into the office of Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Coincidence? I think not.
Do not laugh, for there are academics in western universities who would consider these examples worthy of a PhD thesis. As for the ABC, the fact Green views the relocation of a dozen crabapple trees as ominous gives you an indication as to how balanced the national broadcaster will be in its coverage of the upcoming presidential election. The White House Rose Garden is to Versailles what ABC is to Australia, you might quip.
But in fairness to Green, the triggering of journalists over goings-on in the White House grounds over absolutely nothing goes back a long way. Writing for Brisbane’s Sunday Mail on April 16, 1950, British journalist Don Iddon told of the alarm and terror he experienced in the US capital.
“When I went for a walk towards the White House, I was startled by what I took to be a burst of machinegun fire,” he wrote. “I thought thugs had moved in with sawn-off shotguns and were wiping out Cabinet members along Pennsylvania Avenue. However, it turned out that the noise came from the pneumatic drills of workmen in the White House gardens.” Iddon survived his scare and went on to live and write for another 29 years. Who knows, maybe there is hope for Green yet.
When National Cabinet meets on Friday, NSW will propose borders across the country are reopened for farmers, who face financial ruin as a result of the strict closures.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro said the situation was “at the 11th hour” for producers across NSW, who needed an adequate workforce for the fast approaching harvest season.
“We cannot stand by and watch farmers, crops and businesses face ruin due to the border closure with Victoria,” Mr Barilaro said.
“Agriculture is an essential industry. Our farmers feed and clothe the nation and we must do everything to ensure they can continue to operate as smoothly as possible.”
An Agricultural Workers Code will be presented and considered at the next meeting of National Cabinet on Friday, and at a meeting of Agriculture Ministers on Tuesday.
The code would see new requirements introduced to ensure the safety of farmers and communities by having a COVID Safe Plan in place, the use of PPE by workers and robust record keeping to allow for contact tracing.
There would also be regular voluntary testing for workers under the new code.
Agriculture Minister Adam Wallace said the current situation was unworkable and would further harm primary producers, who are still working to recover from the drought.
“Our farmers have had a gutful of these senseless border restrictions and so have I,” he said.
“As Agriculture Minister I am not going to stand by quietly while our primary producers face failed crops and animal welfare disasters due to well-meaning but impractical road blocks.”
He said the current permit system, which he describes as “cumbersome” restricts the movement of agricultural workers across the NSW/Victoria border beyond 100 kilometres.
“While we have been able to introduce a new permit which has allowed more primary producers to access exemptions, the time has definitely come to remove these restrictions altogether,” he said.
The COVID-19 panic is unnecessary — it is much less threatening than we think
Deutsche Bank analyst Tim Baker was perplexed on Friday, highlighting in a research note to clients the “extent to which Australia and New Zealand stand out for a heavy response to a relatively mild problem”.
“Put simply the Antipodes have coronavirus caseloads at the bottom of the pack but lockdown stringency at the top; governments have chosen to respond with extreme caution,” he said.
In France, about 5000 cases a day are being diagnosed, yet the French government has vowed not to lock down the country again. Indeed, if my friends’ social media accounts are anything to go by, Europe rapidly is getting back to normal. While the flow of cases has rebounded a little, death rates have collapsed.
Meanwhile on Monday, after another 73 new cases were announced in Victoria, Australian Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said it was unlikely the second six-week lockdown would end on September 13.
What can explain such extreme behaviour, and the extraordinary contrast in attitude, well into a pandemic that has been much less deadly than feared?
A Roy Morgan poll last week found 72 per cent supported Victoria’s 8pm to 5am curfew and 5km restriction. Three-quarters said restaurants, cafes and pubs shouldn’t be able to serve food even with social distancing. Almost 90 per cent wanted masks to be compulsory “when leaving home”. Almost 60 per cent wanted it to remain illegal to visit immediate family. Until this year, the World Health Organisation and senior disease experts advised against all of these actions to combat viral epidemics.
From the perspective of those halcyon days, our response to the coronavirus would be a story befitting Charles Mackay’s classics Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds. Masked solo drivers are now a common sight in Sydney.
Perhaps Victorians’ authoritarian tendencies have arisen from extreme — and unjustified — fear of the coronavirus. Even in nations that didn’t mandate tough lockdowns, such as Sweden, economic activity and movement collapsed.
In Britain and Sweden the public thinks 6 per cent to 7 per cent of the population has died, which would be 3.6 million and 600,000 people, respectively. The figures are 41,500 and 5800. Interestingly, Sweden’s overall mortality for this year, adjusted for population size, is barely distinguishable from previous years.
Franklin Templeton, a US investment manager, recently conducted a survey of Americans that left its chief investment officer stunned. About 70 per cent of all age groups said they were worried about contracting “serious health effects” from the virus, a “staggering discrepancy with the actual mortality data”. “For people aged 18 to 24 the share of whose worried about health consequences is 400 times higher than their share of total COVID deaths, for 25 to 34 it’s 90 times,” Sonal Desai said.
“The misperception is greater for those who identify as Democrats and for those who rely more on social media for information.”
As growth of cases slows, as it has everywhere, many Victorians will attribute the decline wholly to the lockdown, to the wisdom of the state government, a classic logical fallacy but politically powerful.
Looking at data from 23 countries and 25 US states, economists from the US Federal Reserve and the University of California last month found growth rates of coronavirus deaths surged and dissipated rapidly everywhere, notwithstanding government policy.
“Given that transmission rates for COVID-19 fell virtually everywhere in the world during this early pandemic period, we are concerned that studies may substantially overstate the role of government-mandated shutdowns in reducing disease transmission,” they wrote.
Humans spontaneously took action to avoid viruses, whatever government said, they reasoned, and “unexplained natural forces” also accounted for the decline in transmission. Seven of the eight influenza pandemics since 1700 fizzled out without any government action. “Unfortunately, each of those seven had a second substantial peak approximately six months after the first,” they did add, somewhat ominously. “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety,” American journalist HL Mencken wrote.
Fear might be helpful in eliciting compliance with public health measures — and for attracting clicks to online news articles — but it’s a disaster for economic activity and the livelihoods of swathes of the population who would like to get on with their life.
If most people significantly over-estimate the risk of coronavirus in a year’s time, they will not travel or consume in anything like the way they used to. Life will be a lot less pleasant. For now, JobKeeper and JobSeeker have papered over the economic damage wrought by lockdowns and fear.
George Orwell worried that man’s future was a boot stamping on his face. If the government doesn’t rectify such misplaced fear, it may end up being a mask.
Leading up to and during the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, some high-profile university academics weighed into the debate.
Appalled by what they regarded as egregious conduct by a number of financial institutions, the argument was put that a royal commission was needed and stiff punitive and regulatory action required to deal with the misconduct.
Last week, Professor Ian Harper delivered a lecture in which he queried his views on financial deregulation. (He had been a panel member of the Wallis inquiry that recommended deregulation subject to light-handed rules and compliance.)
“Having championed disclosure as a strong deterrent of unethical behaviour in financial markets, I was dismayed to witness the litany of shameful behaviour uncovered by the Hayne royal commission. Had I thought more about the need for strong ethical foundations, I might have been more circumspect about the need for ongoing regulation.”
But, given that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, it is a bit rich for academics to be picking on financial services when it is very clear that universities operate in a larger amoral space.
The concepts of values and culture – terms that Commissioner Hayne emphasised as being crucial for financial services – are largely absent in the way universities operate.
In the long list of royal commissions, is there a case for one into the conduct of universities in order to expose instances of misconduct?
On Sunday the Morrison government announced it would launch an inquiry into foreign interference in Australian universities, but it needs to be broader than that. Obvious issues include the recruitment and treatment of international students, the dilution of educational standards, the casualisation and underpayment of staff, the feeble commitment to free speech and the selective take-up of tied funding.
International students have been the cash cow for universities and in the decade from 2009, international student fee revenue rose more than 250 per cent. On a per capita basis, we have had the highest number of international students of any country. The principal source countries have been China, India, Nepal, Brazil and Vietnam.
Most are recruited by overseas-based, essentially unregulated agents. We know little about the inducements used to secure enrolments, and little about the accuracy of the information provided to potential students about prospects for employment while studying and after graduation, or about the chances of students eventually obtaining permanent residence.
In exchange for a percentage of the fees paid by these students, these agents have strong incentives to make possibly unrealistically positive cases to them.
Some recent material related to Indian students studying in New Zealand has been revealing. It’s clear that some agents use coercive tactics and add large dollops of misinformation to secure enrolments – promises of well-paid employment and an easy pathway to permanent residence.
The reality is Indian students in New Zealand disproportionately exploited in the labour market, often by employers who arrived from India some time ago. The path to permanent residency is often uncertain and tortuous.
And there is clear evidence that pass marks have been adjusted to ensure international students do not fail. Cheating is common, with students buying assignments undertaken by third parties, as is the practice of contrived group assignments in which international students are placed in groups with able domestic students.
The dip in standards is not confined to international students. When universities admit students with low scores – it has been common for students to be admitted to teaching degrees with ATARs well below 50 – you know something is wrong. Being unsuited to university study, these students fail and drop out at higher rates. Money triumphs over principle.
Then there is the growing casualisation of teaching staff. The extent of this is unclear as senior management has an incentive to keep the figures under wraps.
In recent months, it has become clear that there has been significant underpayment of casual staff members, in part due to inappropriate classifications but also to insufficient pay for preparation and marking. Sydney University, for instance, has agreed to pay almost $10m in back pay to casual staff.
The fact that many vice-chancellors have been slow to implement the model free speech code recommended by Robert French in his review commissioned by the federal government is also telling. The commitment to free speech within many universities is very dependent on who is talking and what is being said.
Tied funding is a vexed issue particularly for some academic staff. But compare the operation of a number of Confucius Institutes at Australian universities with the debate over the Ramsay Centres for Western Civilisation.
A mixture of language teaching and propaganda, the Confucius Institutes appoint their own staff members and are essentially unsupervised. The fact that some universities have baulked at the conditions that these centres demand is telling.
Recall also the controversy surrounding the proposal for an Australian Consensus Centre by Bjorn Lomborg, the respected Danish climate change researcher. In the end, the enterprise died because no university vice-chancellor was prepared to stand up to the opposition of a small clique of staff members.
The bottom line is that much of the conduct of Australian universities does not meet the ethical standards our community rightly expects. Rather than serving the core mission of universities to provide excellent teaching and research, too many practices lack any moral basis and are undertaken to raise money.
Of course, the federal government has contributed by providing international students with easy entry and pathways to permanent residence. And international student fee revenue has also relieved the taxpayer of some spending. But the regulation of higher education is an ineffective, box-ticking exercise.
The result is extraordinarily well-paid senior university managers, growth of non-academic staff numbers at the expense of academics, and excessive investment in campuses and glittering new buildings, many of which will not be needed in the digital age.
The fact that many ordinary folk neither trust nor care about universities should come as no surprise.
A royal commission into higher education would be very revealing.
Scott Morrison's plans to double the cost of arts degrees to $14,500 a year while slashing the price of maths and engineering qualifications face a huge setback
Morrison is coming down heavily on the utilitarian view of education but there is a big lobby for education as a general cultural grounding.
The cultural argument has some force but theory is poorly matched by experience these days. Humanities courses distort our inherited culture if anything. They are Left-wing madrasses rather than Athenian symposia.
In the circumstances the argument that taxpayer money should not be spent on Leftist indoctrination has much force. Morrison is on the right track
The future of the Morrison government's university fee changes is uncertain after a vote in the Senate showed a lack of majority support for the idea.
The draft legislation, which also reduces the price of 'job-relevant' courses, was introduced to federal parliament last week and is being debated in the lower house.
While a Greens bid to have the bill referred to a committee for an inquiry failed in the Senate because of an even vote, if senators vote the same way for the draft laws they would fail.
Cross bench senators Jacqui Lambie, Rex Patrick and Stirling Griff sided with the Greens and Labor, leaving the committee vote tied.
Labor's education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek says the government is hiding from scrutiny by voting against an inquiry into the bill.
'Whenever there are tough questions to answer, the Liberals run from scrutiny,' she told AAP. 'If Scott Morrison thinks his plan to cut unis and jack up fees is so great, why is he trying to stop an inquiry? What has the prime minister got to hide?'
The proposed laws would more than double the cost of some humanities courses in a bid to encourage people to enrol in courses it argues lead to higher employability.
Science and maths would be among the degrees made cheaper, along with psychology, agriculture, environmental sciences and health.
Under the plans, nursing qualifications will cost just $3,700 per year while IT, science and engineering degrees will drop by $2,000 per year.
Meanwhile humanities degrees are expected to jump from $6,804 per year to $14,500. Teaching and nursing degrees are expected to drop by 45 per cent, while a law degree will cost 28 per cent more.
United Firefighters Union Queensland says not enough firefighters to reach hazard reduction target
The State Government looks set to miss a crucial bushfire mitigation target for the fifth year in a row amid concerns there aren’t enough firefighters to do the work.
The extraordinary revelation joins new warnings of “above normal fire potential” across the state between September and November.
The Courier-Mail can reveal of the 413 planned hazard reduction activities, which largely consists of controlled burns, about 274 were undertaken.
The Government also looks set to miss its target of 153 planned upgrades which includes fire break upgrades, as part of Operation Cool Burn, which typically extends from April to August.
And just 130 of 153 planned community education activities were undertaken.
A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services spokesperson said QFES continued to receive reports about recently completed activities, with the figures to rise.
It comes nine months after The Courier-Mail revealed the Government had failed to meet its targets for the previous four years.
United Firefighters Union Queensland general secretary John Oliver said according to experts, the window of opportunity to conduct the burns was shortening. “We don’t have enough firefighters to do that work,” he said.
Mr Oliver said there needed to be a systematic approach to hazard reduction burns across the state.
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services officers undertake controlled burning across the state as part of Operation Cool Burn. In 2019, just 117 of the 168 planned burns were completed.
Fire and Emergency Services Minister Craig Crawford said QFES had worked harder than ever before to prepare Queensland for this year’s bushfire season. “2020 Operation Cool Burn means Queensland is well-positioned for the season,” he said.
“Favourable weather conditions have meant twice the number of hazard mitigation activities have already been completed compared to this time last year. “Those activities will continue as long as it is safe to do so.”
Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington claimed it was hard to believe that after last year’s horrendous bushfires, the Government looked set to miss its own targets.
“The Palaszczuk Labor Government has no performance targets for holding government departments to account, which is why the LNP’s bushfire plan includes a commitment to complete 98 per cent of all planned hazard reduction activities,” she said.
Meanwhile, the government has finally begun rolling out more high-quality P3 respirator masks two years after promising to issue “thousands” to protect the health of rural fire brigades.
The Rural Fire Service has now issued 724 of the 800 masks it is delivering in 2020 to 59 brigades.
“Due to the pandemic, significant delays have been caused by increasing demand on mask suppliers and subsequent limited availability of stock, as well as limited sea transport options to ship items to Australia,” a spokesperson said.
Training and fitting for the masks was also impacted by COVID safe requirements.
Volunteer brigades have been asking for the masks, which filter 99.95 per cent of particles, since 2014.
Extraordinary expose of what Queensland doctors really think
Queensland doctors have little or no faith in the Queensland Government’s health system and only three per cent say the state’s patients are in good hands.
In an eye-opening expose, an Australian Medical Association Queensland survey of 677 doctors reveals medics fear that patients are at risk from misdiagnoses and medical accidents, some policies make no medical sense and doctors’ expertise and advice is being ignored.
AMAQ vice president Dr Bav Manoharan said it was important to gauge the views of doctors on the state of health before people went to the polls on October 31.
“I wish I could say that the results of this poll have surprised me but doctors have felt ignored and watched the erosion of services for some time now. This survey sends a clear message to all political parties contesting the next State election about what Queensland patients need and deserve,” he said.
“Doctors believe appointing people with frontline health experience to key policy making roles in the public system is the top solution to improving patient care, followed by increased funding for primary and preventive care.
“AMAQ is calling on all political parties to lay out their visions for health care for Queensland, so voters can make an informed decision at the ballot box.
“Every Queenslander deserve equal access to quality health care,” the vice president said.
Dr Manoharan said many doctors feared a rise in misdiagnoses and medical mishaps if the current public health system was allowed to continue.
“We are concerned at the level in which some health practitioners are working outside of their scope,” he said.
“Nurse endoscopists for example - this was a trial that began in 2000 and is common practice in some hospitals. “This kind of process was always carried out by a specialist or a general surgeon. “Nurses are not able to remove any suspicious lesions putting patients at risk back on the waiting list.”
Dr Chris Perry, the AMAQ chief, said doctors have advised the government of the risks of testing people for COVID in retail outlets, and the working pharmacists themselves are overwhelmingly opposed to the trial on safety grounds and yet it is going ahead.
“The trial is backed by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia – a lobby group that represents a small number of wealthy pharmacy owners who benefit from increased traffic to their retail outlets – but it has been vehemently opposed by working pharmacists and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia which has called for an immediate stop to the trial,” he said.
“It shows the State Government is totally out of touch with community expectations about its role to protect people’s health and is blatantly ignoring sound medical advice,” he said.
Australian Medical Association Federal President Dr Omar Khorshid has supported Dr Perry’s concerns, writing to Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles to warn him that COVID testing in pharmacies “is dangerous and poses unacceptable risks” to staff, customers and the wider community.
Dr Perry called on the State Government to invest more in existing COVID testing centres, rather than contracting out the important health measure to commercial enterprise.
“Fully equipped testing locations already exist with trained staff. We need to boost the number of these services and ensure there’s adequate supply of PPE such as head coverings, face shields, masks and gowns rather than encourage sick people to wander through shopping centres and retail outlets,” Dr Perry said.
Dr Manoharan said that 60 per cent of doctors in the survey states that Queensland Health ignored their advice in favour of other solutions to patient care, while a further 38 per cent said they believed the State Government made some sound decisions, ‘though there are some policies that don’t make medical sense’.
“More than 90 per cent of doctors surveyed said the State Government trial allowing pharmacists to diagnose people with urinary tract infections (UTIs) and prescribe antibiotics placed patients at a medium to extremely high risk. Many also noted the trial contradicts national and global efforts to reduce antimicrobial resistance. Pharmacists handing out antibiotics for possible urinary symptoms which could be caused by pelvic cancers or bladder stones, fragment patient care and lead to poor health outcomes for Queenslanders,” the deputy president said.
On the whole, the survey found 38 per cent of doctors had little or no faith in the public health system while 45 per cent said they had some faith, but had noticed a decline in quality and services over the past decade.
A Queensland Health spokesman said the state “has one of the best health systems in the world.”
“And while we always welcome feedback that might help us continue to improve, we understand this survey had a small number of respondents and it’s difficult to see the results as an accurate reflection of our workplaces,” a Queensland Health spokesman said.
“If the doctors surveyed (677) were all in the public health system where there are just over 10,000 doctors, that is just 6.7 per cent of all our doctors.
“If the doctors surveyed include general practitioners, that percentage will be significantly lower.”
The effect of Australia's international travel ban has been devastating for some people
If you want to have a harrowing week at work, try appealing for and then reading through more than 500 emails and messages from people whose families and lives have been torn apart.
That's more than 500 tales of pain and heartbreak, more than 500 stories of separation and anxiety brought about by Australia's current travel bans, rules that no doubt had good intentions but seem so subjective and ridiculous now that they're properly examined.
These people wrote in response to a column published last week that questioned the strictness of Australia's current travel bans: right now Australian citizens are not allowed out of the country without an exemption approved by Border Force; no one is allowed in, either, without prior approval, and then only if they fit under a daily cap on numbers and can find an airfare that's reasonably priced. And these stories are the consequences.
Australians, unfortunately, need to get comfortable with this stuff. You as a citizen need to read these stories and accept that these are the necessary consequences of an incredibly tough regime enforced by your government. And if you can't get comfortable with it then you need to ask why this is being done in your name.
Because that's what is happening. This is being done for you, for your health, for your safety. Are you happy with that?
These are just a few of the stories I've been sent in the last seven days. I've left out literally hundreds that have just dealt in garden-variety pain, the people who can't see their children, their parents, their boyfriends or girlfriends, their fiancés, their spouses, and have no idea why, or when they will again. Here, instead, are some of the most troubling:
Traveller Newsletter
An Australian woman was living in Tanzania with her Tanzanian husband. She fell pregnant just before the COVID-19 pandemic and on government advice returned to Australia when it struck, while her husband stayed in Tanzania to work. As the seriousness of the pandemic increased, she applied for a visa for her husband to join her. After several months and plenty of hard work he was eventually granted that visa and he booked a flight to Australia. However, thanks to the cap on international arrivals he has now been bumped off his flights five times over several months. He missed the birth of his baby girl. He still hasn't seen her.
An Australian man's father died suddenly in India, leaving his elderly mother with no carer. The man can't leave his job in Australia as he is his household's sole earner. He has applied to have his mother come to join him in Australia so he can look after her – that application has been rejected.
An Australian man's wife returned to her family in Vietnam to have their first baby. She now can't get back to Australia, and he can't leave to get to Vietnam. He's never met his child. "There is no plan and no hope," he wrote. "I am utterly destroyed and my marriage is on a knife edge."
A flight attendant and Australian permanent resident who works between San Francisco and Sydney, and who has two children with disabilities, is allowed to quarantine at home in Sydney when she's on flight layovers, as she is considered an "essential worker". However, on her longer monthly breaks, NSW Health does not consider her essential, which means she would have to quarantine for a fortnight in a hotel at her own cost every month. Because of that ruling she now can't fly the Sydney route and is forced to base herself in San Francisco. She's not sure when she will be able to see her children for any reasonable length of time again.
An Australian permanent resident's wife went home to India to give birth to their first child, and can't get back into Australia because of visa issues and now flight availability, plus the couple can't afford the cost of hotel quarantine. The man hasn't even met his six-month-old child.
An Australian woman wanted to visit her 87-year-old mother, who suffers from dementia, in the UK. Her application was denied, in same week the Australian cricket team flew to England.
An Australian woman is married to a South African man. She returned to Australia at the beginning of the pandemic, and is now applying to have her husband join her here; however, the Department of Home Affairs won't process his visa application until he submits his biometrics in person at an Australian Visa Application Centre. The AVAC in South Africa has been closed since March 27. So, no biometrics, no application, no travel.
An Australian man has travelled to the UAE to restart his job there, but his wife and two children have been denied permission to leave Australia and join him. He's not sure when he'll see them again.
To reiterate, I'm not calling for open international borders. None of the people who have emailed me are, either. It's possible to recognise the seriousness of COVID-19 and the need for restrictions while also appealing for more compassion and common sense in the way those restrictions are enforced.
It's also possible to recognise that there are grey areas here, there are nuances that aren't taken into account by current rules. There are so many families and others whose circumstances fall outside of the "you should'a come home earlier" narrative, people with lives overseas, with jobs and families that prevented an immediate dash back to Australia, or an immediate departure home.
We're a nation of migrants living in a globalised world, where almost everyone has family or friends or partners living in another country. And what about those caught in similar situations because they can't even move from state to state? These people deserve sympathy. They deserve a smarter, fairer, better system.
This is the brutal cost of Australia's travel bans. I'm not comfortable with it. Are you?
California leads the way to electricity blackouts, closely followed by South Australia. They both created this problem by taxing, banning, delaying or demolishing reliable coal, nuclear, gas or hydro generators while subsidising and promoting unreliable electricity from the sickly green twins – solar and wind.
All supposed to solve a global warming crisis that exists only in academic computer models. Energy policy should be driven by proven reliability, efficiency and cost, not by green politics. Wind and solar will always be prone to blackouts for three reasons.
Firstly they are intermittent, producing zero power when winds drops or sunlight fails.
Secondly, green energy is dilute so the collection area must be huge. Both solar panels and wind turbines are old technologies and now close to collecting the maximum energy from a given land area of wind and sun, so limited technology gains are possible.
Wind turbines generate nothing from gentle breezes and must shut down in gales. To collect more energy the green twins must collect from greater areas using a widespread scatter of panels and towers connected by a fragile network of roads and transmission lines.
This expensive, extensive but flimsy system is far more susceptible to damage from cyclones, hail, snow, lightning, bushfire, flood and sabotage than a big, well-built, centrally-located, well-maintained traditional power station with strong walls, a roof and lightning protection. Green energy also requires far more investment in transmission lines and inter-connectors that consumers must pay for, and the energy transmission losses are greater.
Thirdly, green energy is like a virus in a distribution network. When the sun shines, solar energy floods the network, causing energy prices to plummet. Coal and gas plants are forced to operate at a cash loss or shut down. Erratic winds make this problem worse as they are less predictable and changes can be quicker.
But when all green energy fails suddenly, like in an evening peak demand period after a still cold sunset, coal cannot ramp up quickly unless it has been kept on standby with boilers hot, waiting for an opportunity to generate some positive cash flow. Gas and hydro can fire up swiftly but who wants to own/build/maintain an expensive fair-dinkum power station that operates intermittently?
Currently hydro, or stop-start gas turbines on standby, or coal generators fired up but not generating are keeping Australian lights on during green energy blackouts. But no one will build new reliable generators to operate part-time. Soon we will have day-time where there is heaps of electricity producing no profit for any generator, and night-time when electricity prices will soar and blackouts will threaten.
Authorities have their solution – rationing. They will use a blackout crisis to grab the power to dictate rolling blackouts of whole suburbs, areas or factories or selective consumer blackouts using smart meters.
Naturally Green “engineers” also have a solution – “More Big Batteries”.
There are many contestants in the battery growth “industry” including pumped hydro, lithium batteries, compressed air, big flywheels, hydrogen storage, capacitors and molten salt. They all need to be able to cope with a few days without wind-solar, which makes them huge and expensive. And all are net consumers of energy as they go through the charge/discharge cycle.
Half-tonne Li/Co/Pb batteries are huge consumers of energy – energy for exploring/mining/refining metals and for concrete, battery manufacture, transport and construction; energy to charge them and absorb the inevitable losses in the charge/discharge cycle; energy to build battery warehouses and finally energy to recycle/bury worn-out batteries (which wear out far quicker than coal, gas, hydro or nuclear power stations).
Few people consider the extra generating capacity needed to maintain charged batteries. Solar energy at best delivers power for about 8 hours per day when there is no cloud, smoke or dust in the air. So a solar array needs batteries with a capacity of twice name-plate capacity just to cover the hours of darkness, every day. These batteries then need extra generating capacity to charge them during daylight hours.
But a solar system also needs to be able to cope with up to 7 days of cloudy weather. This needs 7 times more batteries plus the generating capacity to charge them.
The Big Battery in South Australia has a capacity of 150 MW and cost $160m. East Coast demand these days is about 22,500 MW which would require 150 SA batteries and adding a 10% factor of safety = 165 batteries. The cost could be 165 X $160m = $26.4bn.
No matter whether the battery is stored hydrogen or pumped hydro, the cost to stabilise 100% green energy would be prohibitively expensive. Before we leap over this green cliff, those who claim otherwise must be obliged to demonstrate a working pilot plant without coal, gas or diesel.
Wind power suffers the same problems but is far less predictable. Wind droughts are a common feature. At times wind turbines drain electricity from the grid.
To maintain grid stability, the generators must charge batteries which can then supply a steady stream of electricity to the grid. This requires many more transmission lines and battery connections.
At this point the maths/costs of zero-emissions with 100% solar/wind become preposterous. And the ecological disruption becomes enormous.
When Danish windmills stand silent, they import hydro power from Scandinavia. When German solar panels are covered in snow, they import nuclear electricity from France. And California can draw power from Canada.
But Australia is an island. When the grid fails, Tasmanian hydro or New Zealand geo-thermal are the closest reliable-energy neighbours.
The looming Covid Depression has no room for more green energy silliness. We cannot afford to mollycoddle an aging failing technology. A hard dangerous new world is coming. To survive we will need cheap reliable energy – coal, gas, nuclear or hydro.
Melbourne doctor slams coronavirus conspiracy spreading on Facebook
There are two extreme claims below and each is right in its own way. The key statistic at issue is the number of people who have died with the virus in them but no other known problems. Such people are very few but are they the only ones who have been killed by the virus?
The answer in that we do not know, The truth is undoubtedly somewhere in between. The incidence of comorbidities is high so it is unquestionable that the virus did not cause all the deaths attributed to it -- but even the most extensive autopsies would not always be able to sort out the cause of death in the patient. Was it the virus or was it the comorbidity?
THe high percentage of those who have died with a comorbidity strongly suggests that it was mostly the comorbidity that caused death, not the virus -- but the exact percentage will never be known.
The important grain of truth that does emerge, however, is that the virus does not usually kill by itself. So it is true that the official count of cases is greatly overstated. But by exactly how much we cannot tell
Note that what is written on a death certificate is not always maximally well informed. It is therefore possible that NOBODY died of the virus alone
COVID-19 conspiracy theories are rife. While some people question its origins, others outright deny that it exists.
A top doctor has lashed out at a conspiracy theory spreading like wildfire on social media, picking apart the main arguments behind the theory.
Dr Sara Hassan from Melbourne shared a graphic being spread on Facebook by coronavirus deniers, which claimed that only 6 per cent of the COVID-19 related deaths reported in the US were actually caused by COVID-19.
The US has been ravaged by coronavirus, so far reporting more than 183,000 deaths out of over six million confirmed cases.
“I’m getting on this early because this type of misinformation and outright deliberate mischaracterisation of the facts is already making the rounds amongst conspiracy theorists hellbent on twisting facts to suit their agenda,” Dr Hassan said in a Facebook post.
“Those who spread these mistruths have one intention: To attempt to throw doubt about COVID deaths, minimise the seriousness of the pandemic, and ultimately encourage people to revolt against any mitigation put in place to prevent further deaths.”
Dr Hassan said the claims had come from a chiropractor in the US “who has obviously never completed a death certificate in her life”.
The claims are a screenshot from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing COVID-19 related deaths in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.
“By focusing on the breakdown of deaths by comorbidity, this chiropractor has concluded that given only six per cent of COVID deaths had no other comorbidity listed on their death certificate (and) that this somehow means that ONLY six per cent of the COVID death tally is attributed to COVID, and the remaining 94 per cent of deaths are not,” Dr Hassan said.
“Such outrageous, ignorant and patently false claims are now spreading through social media by bored conspiracy theorists with a serious case of Stuckhome Syndrome,” she said.
“We know as a fact that people with underlying comorbidities are more susceptible to dying of COVID than those without pre-existing health issues.
“We know that COVID infection in those with underlying cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, obesity, diabetes, immunosuppression and chronic neurological conditions results in worse disease outcomes.
“This is clearly evident in epidemiological data coming out of COVID-affected nations,” she said.
Australian data showed 67 per cent of pandemic-related deaths had at least one comorbidity, she said.
However, Dr Hassan said while conspiracy theorists are sharing the screenshot to validate their “false belief that COVID deaths are criminally over-inflated,” she said as a doctor able to interpret the statistics correctly, they show something more frightening.
“The fact that six per cent of COVID victims had absolutely no underlying pre-existing condition is terrifying,” she said.
“They were relatively healthy individuals and they still succumbed to this wildly infectious and unpredictable disease.”
Dr Hassan shared another post from Dr Sara Marzouk on how death certificates are written, saying she was concerned about laypeople misinterpreting information being shared on social media.
“For those whose only interest is to argue with indisputable fact, spread misinformation, encourage life-threatening complacency and erode confidence in our public health authorities/ health care workers/scientists, then please don’t bother commenting as you’ll be automatically blocked,” she wrote.
Dr Hassan’s post has gone viral, attracting more than 1200 reactions and being shared more than 1700 times.
“Thank you Dr! The more real information out there, the better it is for everyone,” one person commented with a heart emoji.
“Just thank you for taking the time to be a voice of reason when those, with a serious case of #stuckathome-itis who are no doubt afraid but horribly misinformed, seemed to be the loudest,” one woman commented on the post.
“This information merely confirms the warning the (World Health Organisation) stipulated at the start of the pandemic, that the elderly and those with comorbidities were at risk,” one man commented on the post. “Well hello! So they were right.”
Victorian doctors pen desperate letter to Premier Dan Andrews about controversial State of Emergency Bill
Senior doctors across Melbourne are urging politicians not to support a state of emergency extension, saying the move threatens to “destroy” the health and wellbeing of fed-up Victorians.
In a letter to Premier Daniel Andrews, seen by NCA NewsWire, 13 medical practitioners outlined their concerns about the State Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
They say it is “vital” stage four restrictions are lifted on September 13, believe “an alternative medical response” is required and highlight key data they think is being “excluded”.
During question time in parliament on Tuesday afternoon Opposition Upper House leader David Davis demanded the Premier and Health Minister Jenny Mikakos meet the doctors who penned the letter. “I ask that the Minister for Health with the Premier meet with all 13 doctors to listen to their views,” he said.
In the letter the doctors wrote: “It is our professional opinion that the stage 4 lockdown policy has caused unprecedented negative economic and social outcomes in people, which in themselves are having negative health outcomes.”
Speaking to NCA NewsWire, Box Hill Hospital urologist Dr Geoff Wells said he hoped the letter would convince the government to lift harsh stage four restrictions on September 13.
“When I see my patients and ask them how they’re coping, the number one response is the sadness at not being able to see their grandchildren for three, four or five months and the ones who live on their own are extremely isolated,” he said.
“The mood of the population has changed dramatically in the past two weeks – there seems to be one half that is getting angrier and angrier and the other half which has just lost all hope – these policies are effecting the general psyche of the community. “We just want to have significant input into this response instead of a blanket approach that is harming the general population.”
The letter – a combined effort from urologists, psychiatrists and surgeons – sent to the Premier’s office on Monday compared coronavirus data with other serious medical concerns.
Well-known Royal Melbourne Hospital transplant surgeon Dr Bob Millar, Monash Hospital orthopaedic surgeon Dr Jon Bare and Nossell Institute for Global Health public health physician Nathan Grills were among the contributors.
Professors John Murtagh, Haydn Walters and Kuruvilla George, Dr Peter Denton, Dr William Edwards, Dr Andrew Taylor, Dr Michael Knight, Dr John Mathai and Dr Eamonn Mathieson also had their say.
In the letter, the doctors said specialist referrals from GPs had fallen dramatically as a result of patients fearing they would get sick if they went out.
“As a direct consequence of this delay, many will have poorer prognoses. This has especially been the case with three consultants who treat cancer,” they wrote. “We now know that whilst COVID-19 is highly contagious, it is of limited virulence.”
Virulence is a technical term for the severity of a disease.
“We are told that since March 2020, 565 Victorian patients have died either with or from the virus (31st August numbers). This compares with annual Victorian deaths of approximately 10,000 patients with cardiovascular disease and 11,000 with cancer.
“Accordingly, the COVID-19 deaths are a relatively small proportion of the 114 deaths per day that are normally seen in Victoria. In comparison, since the start of March COVID-19 has been associated with 3 of the 114 deaths per day.
“Most of the 565 deaths have occurred in nursing homes which according to doctors currently working in this environment have described causal factors related not only to the virus but to other care related issues, including isolation, loneliness, and related diminished nutritional intake.”
The doctors go on to write about how Victoria has seen 541 fewer flu deaths this July than last year. “In Australia last year, 2019, in the month of July alone we had 71,000 new laboratory-confirmed cases. And a total of 313,000 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza for the year.
“This is only a fraction of the actual total cases of influenza, as many cases go untested. In August 2017 we had 99,000 new laboratory confirmed cases of Influenza and a total of over 250,000 cases for the year.
“Since June 2020, the death rate has risen sharply in aged care facilities where the risk of transmission of COVID-19 has been unacceptably high. However, the government, and the doctors advising it, have not reviewed their policy in order to focus on this vulnerable segment of the population. Instead, stage 3-4 lockdowns for the whole community have continued for no apparent scientific reason.”
The doctors recommended the state of emergency not be continued past September 13, with an agreement made for parliament to be allowed to “openly discuss and debate appropriate medical plans”.
The doctors want a panel of non-politically aligned medical and health-related experts be selected by a bipartisan parliamentary group to provide the transparent and active role of informing and advising government decisions and responses to the epidemic, as well as adequate measures, testing, and protection of the vulnerable, especially those in Aged Residential Care environments and their families and carers.
Victorian parliament will vote on the Premier’s controversial bill to extend Victoria’s state of emergency by another 12 months today.
Learning a new language in adulthood is very difficult even for very bright people so many migrants are never going to be able to make it. That is an argument for selective immigration but the refugee intake undermines that
IT’S a billion dollar federal government program which having failed to achieve its objectives, will have another mountain of money shovelled its way.
It’s the Adult Migrant English Program which will now benefit from that long-cherished government solution to a poor policy outcome which is to throw more money at it in the faint hope that it will somehow disappear.
The underlying problem is that there are lot of people in Australia who can’t speak English and who on the evidence, aren’t particularly interested in learning how to do so.
If they were, then they’d be taking advantage of the 510 hours of free English language tuition provided over five years for which we pick up the tab. Less than one in five of those who currently enrol in the course finish with what is regarded as “functional” English.
According to Acting Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge there are about one million residents, or one in every 25 Australians, who cannot communicate effectively in English.
In 2006 this figure was 560,000 so it’s not difficult to see the direction in which it is trending.
To overcome this, Acting Minister Tudge will now expand the failed program so that there are no caps on the hours of tuition provided nor on the number of years within which the course must be completed.
The reasoning here is that someone who couldn’t complete 510 hours of free tuition over five years, which works out to a commitment to learning the language of your adopted country of about two hours a week, will now suddenly be overcome with the urge to learn to speak it.
Let’s face it – if you can’t crack it in five years, you’re not trying too hard.
The government admits that this failure to embrace English can be a threat to national security, saying that “malign information or propaganda can be spread through multicultural media, including foreign language media controlled or funded by state players.
“This can be particularly influential if local residents’ English is poor and hence they are more reliant on foreign language sources,” it says.
“State players”, of course, is political-speak for the Communist Party government of China and its insidious infiltration of our society.
The government has also been forced to concede that the spread of COVID-19 in Victoria was in part facilitated by the inability of some ethnic groups to grasp the import of what they were being told.
Acting Minister Tudge said the coronavirus pandemic showed it had been difficult to communicate with multicultural Australians through mainstream channels, in spite of distributing information in 63 languages.
Obviously, if people spoke and understood English this would not be a problem.
Data taken from the latest census indicates that around half of Australian residents who were born overseas and who arrived in this country with no English skills still can’t speak the language well - or at all - after living here for 15 years.
In some suburbs up to one in three people cannot speak the national language well or at all.
Stating the blindingly obvious Mr Tudge said that without English language skills, migrants were less likely to integrate, participate in Australia’s democracy or get a job.
“This is not to blame anyone whose English language proficiency is poor, but clearly full participation in the community is difficult when there are language barriers,” he said.
He dare not blame them for fear of being accused of racism but if it’s not their fault, then where does the blame lie?
What is the mindset of someone who migrates to a country with no intention of becoming part of it?
There is no way you are ever going to become an Australian and embrace our values if you can’t understand what anyone is saying so what are their intentions?
To remain closeted in an ethnic group, cocooned from society’s mainstream?
The government has announced that it is going to revisit the questions that will be asked of people who are applying for citizenship.
“The stronger focus on Australian values in citizenship testing will be an important part of helping protect our social cohesion into the future,” Mr Tudge said.
Perhaps but if the questions are asked in English, and I don’t see how they can be asked in Hindi, Mandarin or Arabic with making a mockery of the process, then there are at least a million people out there who won’t have the faintest idea what they mean.
Politicians can wax poetic about the wonders and virtues of our great nation at citizenship ceremonies but if a significant proportion of the population doesn’t speak the language then it’s just so much theatre.
Insisting on competent language skills for immigrants isn’t racist.
Rather, it is giving them a chance to truly be a part of our nation, to get a job and mix on an equal footing with their fellow Australians.
Facebook, Instagram threaten to ban all news stories in Australia if it has to pay for the news it uses
This is a hollow threat. There are many sources of news. You do not have to get your news via social media
The world’s biggest tech giants are threatening to remove all news content and reduce their services in Australia in a battle over a proposed new law.
Facebook’s threat to ban news from its platform in Australia to avoid paying for journalism has been labelled “ill-timed and misconceived” by the competition watchdog.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took aim today, saying it hoped “all parties will engage in constructive discussions”.
“The draft media bargaining code aims to ensure Australian news businesses, including independent, community and regional media, can get a seat at the table for fair negotiations with Facebook and Google,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said in a statement.
“Facebook already pays some media for news content. The code simply aims to bring fairness and transparency to Facebook and Google’s relationships with Australian news media businesses.”
Earlier, it emerged Facebook and Google could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties if they refuse to pay for news content they use in Australia.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Australia did not respond to “coercion or heavy-handed threats” after the multibillion-dollar social network today issued a threat to remove all news content from its platforms in Australia rather than share some of its revenue with local news outlets.
“Australia makes laws that advance our national interest,” Mr Frydenberg said. “We don’t respond to coercion or heavy-handed threats wherever they come from. Our reforms to digital platforms are world-leading and following a groundbreaking 18-month inquiry by the [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission].”
Mr Frydenberg said “substantial penalties” could ultimately stretch into hundreds of millions of dollars if they failed to adhere to the policy.
The fallout follows moves by the ACCC to force Facebook and Google to compensate Australian media outlets for the use of their content — a move that would set a worldwide precedent and one that Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said would establish a “more level playing field”.
Instagram, which is part of Facebook, will also be part of the company’s proposed news ban.
Both Facebook and Instagram issued alerts to their users today saying from October 1, 2020, their Terms of Service would change to include: “We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook.”
This step would allow Facebook and Instagram to remove their users’ content to avoid paying for news.
Facebook issued its news threat this morning, with Australia and New Zealand managing director Will Easton saying it would ban all news content from being seen by Australian users if the news code was introduced.
“Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram,” he said in a statement.
“This is not our first choice — it is our last. But it is the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic and will hurt, not help, the long-term vibrancy of Australia’s news and media sector.”
Mr Easton said Facebook objected most strongly to the “perplexing” argument that Facebook should “pay news organisations for content” while ignoring “the financial value we bring publishers”.
The multibillion-dollar tech giant also reiterated its earlier argument that news was not a big money-spinner for the platform.
“The ACCC presumes that Facebook benefits most in its relationship with publishers, when in fact the reverse is true,” he said.
“News represents a fraction of what people see in their News Feed and is not a significant source of revenue for us.”
The move follows an aggressive campaign by Google in Australia, which saw the trillion-dollar firm add warnings to its search page and pop-up messages on YouTube about the proposed law, claiming its free services would be put “at risk” in the country.
But ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the campaign contained “misinformation” as Google would not be required “to charge Australians for the use of its free services” under the draft law, or “share any additional user data”.
“The draft code will allow Australian news businesses to negotiate for fair payment for their journalists’ work that is included on Google services,” he said.
“This will address a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.”
Swinburne University social media senior lecturer Dr Belinda Barnet said Facebook’s threat could have a “significant impact on their traffic in Australia” and was akin to “cutting off their nose to spite their face”.
“People will not be able to discuss what’s happening in the world and in their own country under this change,” she said.
“More importantly, this will impact Facebook’s own business.
“They have enormous reach in Australia for news — much more than any other platform — so they’re shutting down a sizeable chunk of their own business in terms of extracting data about users’ preferences and advertising revenue from that eyeball time.”
Dr Barnet said the move was Facebook’s “trump card” and a clear effort to avoid having to pay for the news it used both in Australia and other countries.
“Obviously, the stakes are high for Facebook,” she said.
NED-2036-Major digital platforms in Australia - 0
“If Australia succeeds at getting Facebook to pay for news content, the global precedent will be set and other countries will look on.”
Australia’s draft news bargaining code laws followed an 18-month investigation by the ACCC into the impact of digital platforms on news and advertising in Australia.
While the code was initially designed to be voluntary, Mr Frydenberg made it mandatory earlier this year, saying the tech giants “weren’t making progress on that critical issue of payment for content”.
He said the news code was designed to create a level playing field between Australian publishers, both small and large, and multinational tech firms.
“It’s about a fair go for Australian news media businesses, it’s about ensuring that we have increased competition, increased consumer protection, and a sustainable media landscape,” Mr Frydenberg said.
“Nothing less than the future of the Australian media landscape is at stake with these changes.”
While countries including Spain, Germany and France have attempted to force tech giants to pay for news before, they have argued the case on copyright grounds.
By comparison, the ACCC made its case on the basis of competition and market dominance, arguing both Facebook and Google had become “unavoidable trading partners” for Australian media organisations even though they did not share revenue generated from using content created and funded by the publishers.
Submissions about the ACCC’s draft news bargaining code closed last Friday.
When a final code is passed into law, the two tech giants and news outlets — including Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media and News Corp — will have three months to negotiate over payment for news before entering a final arbitration process.
The news code could be in place by the end of the year.
Andrew Bolt: Australians left to die instead of Trump’s coronavirus cure being used
Hundreds of Australians may be dying because of Donald Trump. See, the US President last May made a fatal mistake: He backed a drug that could cure the coronavirus.
Sorry, let me rephrase. Hundreds of Australians may be dying because many politicians, medico-bureaucrats and journalists hate Trump’s guts.
Many would apparently rather ignore the studies that now say hydroxychloroquine works than admit Trump may have been right.
Think of that, if you get sick. Or if you watch a loved relative die.
Are you — are they — being denied a cure that almost any chemist in Australia could hand over right now, just to stop Trump from looking good?
In May, Trump said he was taking hydroxychloroquine because he had “heard a lot of good stories”.
Why not try it, he suggested, when “you’re not going to get sick or die” from a drug that has been used by millions since 1955 to protect against malaria, and, later, to treat conditions such as lupus.
From that moment, the media left in the US and Australia demonised hydroxychloroquine to prove Trump’s a fool.
Twitter, YouTube and Facebook even censor posts by doctors saying they’ve successfully used it.
How the pharmaceutical giants must love it. Hydroxychloroquine is a generic drug that earns them peanuts, but a new vaccine, however imperfect, would earn them billions.
The height of this insanity was reached last week when Labor’s health spokesman, Chris Bowen, demanded federal parliament censure Liberal MP Craig Kelly for having said studies showed hydroxychloroquine, given early, saved lives.
For some reason, this news appalled Bowen. He said Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration “strongly discourages the use of hydroxychloroquine” for this coronavirus, and denounced Kelly for spreading “misinformation and conspiracy theories”.
Please stop Bowen becoming our health minister. We’re not safe if our health system is run by a man who hates being told of a cheap cure, and tries to silence any MP trying to show the evidence.
You see, in the week before Bowen tried to silence Kelly, no fewer than five new studies said hydroxychloroquine indeed saves people from dying, even without the zinc that apparently makes it more effective.
In the US, the Hackensack University Medical Center said people given hydroxychloroquine were a third less likely to later need hospitalisation.
In Italy, a study in the European Journal of Internal Medicine said patients needing hospital care, when hydroxychloroquine is less effective, still had “a 30 per cent lower risk of death” when given the drug.
In Belgium, a study in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents of 8000 hospitalised patients also said the death rate was cut by a third.
In Spain, a study of 9644 patients found “hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (an antibiotic) correlated with a lower mortality rate”.
In France, a study by Aix Marseilles University of 226 sick residents in an aged-care home said hydroxychloroquine halved the death rate.
That’s five studies all saying hydroxychloroquine works — all in the week before Labor called Kelly “the most dangerous man in parliament” for saying the same. How shameful.
Worse, states like Victoria still want to ban doctors from prescribing this drug.
This is sick. This is the cancel culture played for deadly keeps.
Yes, other studies insist hydroxychloroquine is useless. And Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews dragged along Associate Professor Julian Elliott to a press conference last week to defend his state’s ban on it.
Elliott, head of the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, obliged, attacking “a particular trend on social media”, and declaring “hydroxychloroquine should not be used” because “there’s now substantial information that it’s not effective, and it does have side-effects”.
But as I’ve noted before, Elliott’s taskforce cherrypicked wildly to dismiss hydroxychloroquine.
It checked only nine studies that showed it had little or no effect, but ignored any that showed it worked.
It relied most on an Oxford study that for some disastrous reason gave very sick patients potentially lethal overdoses — up to 12 times the recommended dose.
Crucially, none of the nine studies included zinc. Hydroxychloroqine is a zinc ionophore — it helps zinc get into cells and stop the virus replicating. The aged, most likely to die of the coronavirus, often have zinc deficiencies.
To repeat: I don’t know if hydroxychloroquine works or not. But I do know it doesn’t kill, if used properly under medical advice, and some experts back it. So why ban doctors and patients from deciding for themselves? Or are hundreds of dead Australians a small price to pay for kicking Trump?
Resistance spreads across Melbourne as anti-lockdown protesters clash with police
Police have arrested three men after fiery clashes with anti-lockdown protesters in Roxburgh Park in Melbourne's north on Sunday evening.
Illegal anti-lockdown “freedom walk” protests are spreading across Melbourne as unrest grows over the tough lockdown measures imposed on the city.
Police again clashed with angry protesters in residential streets as the organised demonstration unfolded in Roxburgh Park in Melbourne’s north on Sunday afternoon.
Ugly footage from the event show protesters baiting officers, setting off flares and dangerous running across a major road in front of moving traffic.
One policeman asked protesters to disperse before officers moved in to break up the group of about 30 youths.
One man was tackled to the ground by about half a dozen police officers when the tense standoff just off Pascoe Vale Rd was broken up.
Protesters wearing anonymous or Guy Fawkes masks linked arms and loudly chanted “resistance, resistance” before sprinting from police.
The event appears to have been organised on the social media platforms of Snapchat and Facebook, with many of the group streaming it live on Facebook.
The new northern protest group consisted of about 30 young men and grew in size as the “walk” progressed.
One who streamed the event said they were just exercising their rights to exercise for one hour a day.
“Everyone come down to Pascoe Vale Rd now for a walk, keep your distance, wear your mask.”
One protester claimed they were “just going for a nice walk and we’re getting harassed by police” as his video showed five men walking along the footpath side-by-side with no social distancing gap of 1.5m between them.
A Craigieburn boy, 17, and two Broadmeadows men, aged 18 and 22, were arrested and will be issued with fines for breaching the chief health officer’s directions.
Police said they were continuing to investigate the gathering and review social media footage to determine if more penalty notices need to be issued.
Another five people were also fined in Dandenong as anti-lockdown protesters took to the streets near George Andrews Reserve for the seventh straight day.
Police have also been monitoring social media sites such as Facebook for people encouraging others to blatantly breach the restrictions.
Meanwhile, on Monday Police Association Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt urged the Victorian parliament to extend the state of emergency as police and protective services officers relied on the extra powers to continue to assist the community in the ongoing fight against coronavirus.
“There can be no adequate plan for a return to some normality if the framework designed to ensure it’s done safely and incrementally is removed,” he said.
'There are individuals who are born evil': Top Australian criminal psychologist reveals why some people are destined to kill
He has analysed the minds of Australia's worst criminals, including mass murderer Julian Knight and Melbourne crime boss Alphonse Gangitano.
Now, top Australian forensic psychologist Tim Watson-Munro has lifted the lid on the murky world of crime and why some people are destined for a life of lawlessness.
Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia, to promote hayu's true crime docu-series catalogue, Watson-Munro explained that while there are many factors that could lead someone to become a criminal, some people are simply born 'evil'.
'They are psychopathic from the start and demonstrate anti-social traits even during their pre-adolescent years. This can involve cruelty to animals, lighting fires and pathological lying,' he continued.
These behaviour patterns become hardwired with time, and can also be exacerbated by the use of drugs and alcohol, Watson-Munro explained.
The impact of 'social learning' must also be considered, including the home environment in which a person is raised, their role models and families.
The idea of genetics playing a role in criminality is explored in hayu series Killer Siblings, which tells the story of identical twin murderers the Stovall brothers.
Watson-Munro, who has worked with almost 20,000 criminals, also shared the body language cues which can suggest a suspect is guilty during interrogation.
'Defensive body language such as closed arms, fidgeting when questioned on pertinent aspects of the case and an absence of eye contact, may reflect a consciousness of guilt,' he said.
'More seasoned psychopaths however who are well adapted to the interview process tend to approach the situation with an air of bravado, with well-rehearsed responses to anticipated questions.'
The absence of emotion in someone's voice has, in the past, been used as a way to identify guilt.
On the other hand, however, Watson-Munro pointed out that some innocent people have received criticism for not showing enough emotion - such as Lindy Chamberlain who was wrongfully convicted for the murder of her child.
Therefore, while body language is a useful diagnostic tool in criminal investigation, it should not be considered as infallible.
Rather, it should be used as 'an adjunct to more reliable and valid means of investigations such as DNA evidence and eye witness accounts,' he explained.
Press freedom inquiry proposes warrant changes, legal reform but ‘do not go far enough’
Former judges or senior lawyers should be able to make recommendations about police raids on journalists or media organisations reporting in the public interest under new rules proposed following an inquiry into press freedom in Australia.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security also found Australia’s spy agency should reveal how many times it applied for warrants on journalists each year and journalists should be told when they are no longer under investigation as part of 16 recommendations tabled late last night.
But press freedom advocates said the recommendations would not stop journalists from being jailed for doing their job, and some members of the inquiry said its recommendations represented a “bare minimum” approach and “broader reforms to protect press freedom and the public’s right to know are clearly needed”
The parliamentary inquiry followed Australian Federal Police raids on the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in June last year, and an unprecedented campaign for legal reform by Australian media organisations.
Parliamentary Joint Committee chairman Andrew Hastie said the inquiry, which was called in July last year and received 61 submissions, found greater protections and transparency were needed around reporting on matters of public interest in Australia.
“The issues related to law enforcement, intelligence powers and press freedoms are complex, and this inquiry has allowed the Committee to examine a range of matters in great detail,” he said.
Its final report recommended Public Interest Advocates should have a say in warrant applications against journalists and media organisations over the potential “unauthorised disclosure of government information,” and warrants should only be issued by superior courts.
The inquiry also supported reviews of defamation laws and the introduction of shield laws for journalists, greater consistency in the way government departments handled Freedom of Information requests, and a review of what information was classified as secret.
The report said both the Home Affairs Minister and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation should reveal how many warrants were sought against journalists and media organisations each year, and how many attempts were made to get them.
But its findings were criticised by members of its own committee, with Labor members adding that the recommendations did “not go far enough”.
“The Morrison Government should regard the Committee’s recommendations as a bare minimum – a starting point – for reform,” they said.
“Broader reforms to protect press freedom and the public’s right to know are clearly needed, though Labor members recognise that reasonable minds may differ about precisely what those broader reforms should look like.”
MEAA Media federal president Marcus Strom said the result was disappointing after a year-long wait for significant changes, and despite support for some reform, “journalists still face jail for legitimate news reporting in the public interest”.
“Most troubling in the inquiry’s recommendations is the fact that warrants can still be issued for police raids on journalists and media companies without those warrants being challenged,” he said.
“While we welcome the proposal that such warrants must be issued by a superior court, journalists must be able to challenge warrants before they are acted upon.”
News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said the report showed there was still “much work to be done” to protect press freedom Australia.
“The PJCIS report highlights the problems journalists have in doing their job to keep Australians informed, and acknowledges that they must be better protected,” he said.
“However, while the report acknowledges the problem, it doesn’t go far enough in solving it.”
The inquiry followed an industry-wide campaign by the Right to Know coalition of media organisations, including News Corp, the ABC, Nine, Seven, SBS, and The Guardian, calling for six reforms to ensure the public was kept informed. They included the right to contest search warrants, protection for public sector whistleblowers, changes to Freedom of Information and defamation laws, limits for restricting government documents, and protection for journalists threatened with jail for doing their jobs.
