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30 November, 2020
Politicians and military brass have failed to 'honour the presumption of innocence'
Sky News host Alan Jones says politicians and military brass have failed to understand they must “honour the presumption of innocence," adding the contemplation of placing the Brereton report on display in the War Memorial is a great “indignity”.
His comment comes regarding news the Australian War Memorial could make changes to its existing Afghanistan displays following the Brereton report.
“Well, why not add the Ruby Princess inquiry report to the Australian Museum?” Mr Jones said.
“The War Memorial is the veritable soul of the nation, the resting place of the Unknown Soldier. And here we are, in 2020, unproven allegations and politics directing what the military legacy will be.
Mr Jones says after the release of the Brereton report, which spoke of alleged crimes committed against Afghanis but did not name the alleged guilty, every Australian soldier “has been maligned, guilty around the world”.
“The Special Air Service Regiment's Second Squadron is to be dismantled. This non-leader, Campbell, is apparently going to recommend that the Meritorious Unit Citation, to the Special Operations Task group, be revoked,” he said.
“How much longer will the prime minister remain silent in the face of this assault on the integrity and contribution of these selfless men.
“Prime Minister, speak up and defend them and correct your original grubby comment that the report contains "brutal truths."
“Is the War Memorial now to be an institution to honour allegations?
“Rarely has the real truth been laid so bare through this shameful episode. The simple truth is we have lost our way; we are leader less.”
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6212420920001
A psychologist correspondent commentsIn course of my work I interview and assess many war veterans.
Because I connect, inquire, and do not keep records, many have described to me the awful dilemmas they face in war. Dilemmas and pressures which most civilians cannot imagine without having them explained and being asked, "What would you do then?"
I cannot even repeat their stories to my lefty/feminist colleagues because they get shocked, reject the reality of the stories and take offence, especially when I put that question to them.
Lefties cannot bear reality and individual responsibility, in other words, truth and freedom. That is why they are obsessed with changing reality/society into some fanciful version where everyone is equal and no individual responsibility exists.
Leftism is immaturity. It is basically a tantrum against reality.
Electricity supplies under pressure due to heatwave, energy market operator warns
This is a complete nonsense. I live in central Brisbane in SEQ and when I looked at my thermometer at mid-afternoon, it showed only 32 degrees, where a normal summer temperature at that time is 34 degrees. So any blackouts are clearly NOT blamable on a "heatwave". Greenie pressures on traditional generators are the real problem
In parts of northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland, the Bureau of Meteorology says it is looking like a five or six-day heatwave for millions of people.
Overnight, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said there might not be enough reserve capacity (Lack of Reserve Level 1) in New South Wales this afternoon between 3.30pm and 5.30pm.
Earlier in the week, it also said Queensland would likely be affected on Wednesday.
The Queensland prediction was serious enough to prompt it to issue an official Lack of Reserve level 2 (LOR2) forecast, meaning the possible shortfall could be enough to require the AEMO to ask big energy users to use less power.
"LOR2 means we are one contingency away from load shedding," said Ben Skinner, the general manager of policy at the Australian Energy Council.
But by Thursday, the AEMO had downgraded the forecast risk to LOR1.
"That is mild in terms of reserves, and they're largely being met at the moment, but we'll watch that very carefully to manage that over the coming days," said Michael Gatt, the AMEO's chief operations officer.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-29/heatwave-pushes-power-grid-to-the-limit-electricity/12930308
Australia's Covid vaccines: everything you need to knowAround the world about 200 Covid-19 candidate vaccines are being developed, with more than 40 in human clinical trial stage. The Australian government has agreements to secure four of the most promising vaccines, and will roll them out if they prove to be safe and effective.
All four vaccines require two doses, spaced a few weeks apart. As the pharmaceutical companies behind some vaccine candidates begin releasing results, many questions remain about the next steps towards controlling Covid. Here is what we know.
What are the four vaccines Australia is getting?
Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine: This is a viral vector vaccine, containing a weak or inactivated virus that cannot cause disease. This virus has genetic material from the Covid-19 virus inserted in it. Once the viral vector is inside human cells, the cells make a protein unique to the Covid-19 virus. This triggers the body to begin to build an immune response. If infected with Covid-19, the body will remember how to activate this response and fight the real virus.
Australia has secured 33.8m units of this vaccine. The phase three interim clinical trial results have only been communicated in a press release, so it is hard fully to interpret the results in subgroups, for example in elderly people.
In clinical trials, phase three represents the final stage before the drug is rolled out to the general population, and involves tens of thousands of participants.
Novavax vaccine: This is a classical protein vaccine, and includes harmless pieces of Covid-19. Once vaccinated, the immune system recognises that the proteins don’t belong in the body and begins building antibodies.
If the vaccine proves safe and effective, 40m units will be available in Australia as early as the first half of 2021. Phase one and two clinical trials are being conducted in Australia and the United States. Phase three clinical trials are under way in the UK.
University of Queensland/CSL vaccine: This is also a protein vaccine, and Australia has secured 51m units, which it hopes will be available by mid-2021. Phase one clinical trials in humans began in July in Brisbane, with phase two and three clinical trials to be under way in December.
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine: This is an mRNA-based vaccine that gives human cells instructions for how to make a a protein unique to Covid-19. The protein is harmless, but the body recognises it should not be there and begins to build an immune response. If infected with the real virus, the body will know how to attack.
The Australian government said 10m units of the vaccine would be available from March. Phase three clinical trial results found 95% of people given the vaccine were protected against the virus, and while the full results have not been made public, they are being provided to regulators.
Why mRNA, instead of the proven path of an inactivated virus?
The study protocol for the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine states there are benefits to this type of vaccine. “Unlike live attenuated vaccines, RNA vaccines do not carry the risks associated with infection and may be given to people who cannot be administered live virus (eg pregnant women and immunocompromised persons),” it says. However, the vaccine still needs to be tested in these groups.
It would be the first mRNA vaccine to be rolled out to the general public, but there have been clinical trials of mRNA vaccines to treat other diseases since the 1990s. They have the benefit of being easier to mass produce and cheaper. But the instability of mRNA vaccines has meant their study has been limited.
With the arrival of Covid-19 it made sense for different pharmaceutical companies to explore different technologies, in case one type did not work. Vaccine technologies have improved rapidly, allowing scientists to address some of the previous problems with mRNA vaccines, such as degradation during delivery into cells.
The Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA Covid-19 vaccine does need to be stored at minus 70C, but sophisticated eskies with dry ice and remote sensing have been produced to keep it stable in transit.
Does it matter that there will be different types of vaccine?
No, this is not uncommon. Each year there is a variety of types of flu vaccine. High-dose flu vaccines are offered to the elderly, but not routinely to healthy adults.
A taskforce of medical experts will look at the Covid-19 vaccines and decide which should go to which locations or groups of people. Like other common vaccines such as for tetanus and hepatitis A, the four Covid-19 vaccines are delivered with an intramuscular injection.
How will the vaccine be distributed?
The first doses will be rolled out from March.
The program will depend on the nature and test results of the vaccines approved for use, the federal health department has said, and will take into account any current outbreaks. If there was a large outbreak in a particular state, it would make sense to send the vaccine there first.
The physical rollout will be complex due to different storage, transport, security and administration requirements for the vaccine types. The federal government will be responsible for safely transporting vaccine doses to storage and administration sites within each state and territory.
Once vaccine doses are delivered, the states and territories will take responsibility for the safety and storage. Vaccines may be administered in GP clinics, dedicated vaccination clinics and workplaces, and vaccination teams will visit aged care homes and other centres with vulnerable populations.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled health sector will help identify rollout locations. Pharmacies are likely to play a role once enough doses are in stock and vulnerable and target populations have been vaccinated. If vaccines are licensed for children, they may be administered in schools.
The federal government said “to achieve wide population coverage it is likely that all or most” of these locations will need to be used over several months.
Who gets it first? Can rich people buy the vaccines?
According to a federal department of health spokeswoman, potential sales are up to the vaccine companies. “The Australian government is committed to providing Covid-19 vaccines at no cost to consumers,” she said. “Decisions to make any vaccine available privately are for the sponsoring company, noting all vaccines need to be registered by the TGA before they can be supplied in Australia.”
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation is advising the federal government about which groups should be prioritised for the first free doses. In line with World Health Organization recommendations, ATAGI said the first groups to be vaccinated should be:
Those who have an increased risk of developing severe disease [such as the elderly].
Those at risk of exposure, being infected with and transmitting the virus.
Those working in services critical to society functioning [such as health work and aged care].
Once enough doses are in stock, all Australians who want the vaccine will be given access on a voluntary basis during 2021.
The real reason China is imposing duties on Australian wine
Despite entering into a free trade agreement
China's decision to impose temporary anti-dumping duties on Australian wine from Saturday is more about "other factors", Trade Minister Simon Birmingham says.
Australian wine going into the Chinese market will face tariffs of up to 212 per cent, having benefited from zero tariffs under the China-Australia free trade agreement.
Relations between Australia and China have soured in recent years, with China's grievance list spanning foreign investment rules, banning Huawei from the 5G network and the push for an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus.
China has launched a series of trade strikes against Australia encompassing barley, cotton, red meat, seafood, sugar, timber and coal exports, as the diplomatic row deepens.
"The cumulative impact of China's trade sanctions against a number of Australian industries during the course of this year does give rise to the perception these actions are being undertaken as a result or in response to some other factors," Senator Birmingham said.
"(It) is completely incompatible with the commitments that China has given through the China-Australia free trade agreement and through the WTO."
Australian officials will seek to overturn the move over the next 10 days, after which the dispute could be taken to the World Trade Organisation.
Chinese officials said an investigation had found "substantive" evidence of the dumping of Australian wine and "material damage" to the Chinese wine market.
The tariffs cover a range between 107.1 per cent and 212.1 per cent.
The rate required of Australia's Treasury Wine is 169.3 per cent, which saw its shares fall more than 13 per cent before being put on a trading halt pending an announcement.
China began an anti-dumping probe into imports of Australian wine in August at the request of the Chinese Alcoholic Drinks Association.
Senator Birmingham said the investigation's finding was "erroneous in fact and in substance" and Australia would provide Chinese authorities with detailed evidence of how the wine industry works.
Australian wine exports to China were worth $1.1 billion in the year to June 30.
Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the government was extremely disappointed in the move by Australia's top wine market.
"The fact is Australia produces amongst the least subsidised product in the world and provides the second-lowest level of farm subsidies in the OECD," he said.
"The Australian government categorically rejects any allegation that our wine producers are dumping product into China, and we continue to believe there is no basis or any evidence for these claims."
https://au.yahoo.com/news/china-to-impose-duties-on-australian-wine-022248202.html
************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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29 November, 2020
Another dubious tale of "Aboriginal" achievement
VANESSA TURNBULL-ROBERTS
It's amazing how the people who feature in stories about Aborigines who achieve academically all turn out to look just like people of European ancestry. Why? Because they clearly are overwhelmingly of European ancestry. They look nothing like Aborigines. The lady above is even hyphenated, for goodness's sake!
She does have a slight "suntan" but to a degree well within European norms. Vanessa is quite simply good-looking. She would be a social success among any group of white Australians.
How she came to originate in an Aboriginal family, one can only speculate, but mixed ancestry is common among urban Aborigines so she may well have simply got a very fortunate roll of the genetic dice that featured all or most of the "white" genetics in her ancestry. Though we should perhaps note that there is no mention of her mother below.
Her life story does show that her childhood among Aborigines ended in producing serious distress for her but her tale below is clearly very one-sided. Why did the social workers remove her from her Aboriginal family? We are left to believe that it was because they were inhuman monsters.
The fact of the matter however is that removing a child is very rule-governed and in this case the aim was protective. It is very common for Aborigines to treat their children very negligently and even abusively so there must have been reports of that nature in this case.
But despite her difficult childhood, that evil white society recognized her talent and moved her into the upper echelons of that society.
So combined with many other similar stories, this story does reveal a very clear lesson. It is not at all the lesson intended by the narrator but it is clear nonetheless: Real Aborigines cannot achieve academically. It is only ones who are not really Aborigines who can. It reasserts the great importance of European genetics
As a child I lived on Gadigal country in Redfern in Sydney, before moving out to social housing near La Perouse. Through a white lens, people would say we were poor. But there was something really powerful in being appreciative of what we did have and that was community, family, kinship and love. We were living with poverty and struggled at times, but we never went without.
The Department of Community Services (DOCS, now the NSW Department of Family and Community Services) removed me from my family in 2008 when I was 10. It was around 10 o’clock at night, and I was in bed. My older brother, thankfully, was at my mum’s place that night. Dad was out on the balcony and he yelled, “Bub I’m so sorry, they’re coming to get you.” I looked out the window and saw all of these red and blue flashing lights.
I heard a knock at the door and it was a caseworker. She said, “Hug your dad one last time, you’ve got to come with us.” I remember hugging my dad so tight that I could feel his tears drop on my shoulder.
When I was in the DOCS car, I vomited because I’d been crying so much. I didn’t know what was going on. I was placed into an emergency foster home that night. I remember the caseworker saying to me, “You can’t go home because your parents neglected you and your parents don’t know how to look after children.” I was really confused, because I remembered my dad raising my nieces and nephews and cousins and playing a prominent role in their lives. I was like, “What do you mean that my dad doesn’t know how to raise children?”
I went to around eight or 10 foster homes in that first couple of years. That’s considered a low number. Behind the scenes, my family was battling the court system. My parents, who had no knowledge of the legal system, were put into a room to advocate why they should be allowed to parent their child. No one ever asked me what I wanted.
I was passed around as if there was no soul in my body. The foster homes that I went to were white – they weren’t my kin, even though my aunties and uncles had put their hand up to take me in. During my third year in out-of-home care, I lost my Pop. He wanted to take me in, but I was robbed of those years with him because of the state system. I went from spending every weekend at Pop’s house, hearing stories, sharing our culture, having a Sunday roast, to seeing him for sorry business after he’d passed away.
My experience in foster care was a driving force for me to make the most of my career. I thought, “I’m going to leave this state system, I’m going to go back to my family and I’m going to get that time back that was robbed from me.”
At 18, I was accepted to study social work and criminology at UNSW. I met with a senior law lecturer to talk about whether I should study law. I remember she said, “It’s been 15 minutes and I’m already wondering why you didn’t originally enrol in law as your first degree.” In that moment I was like, “Shit, someone genuinely believes I’m capable of doing this.”
I’m in the sixth year of a seven-year combined law and social work degree. As an Indigenous student studying law, you’re reminded every day of what you don’t have. In corporations law you’re reminded you don’t have tenure to your land. In criminal law you’re reminded all your people are being locked up, removed from their families and communities and subjected to punitive measures rather than support. I work part-time as a paralegal in the pro bono team with Sydney law firm Gilbert + Tobin. One of the most beautiful things about working there is it’s built on the values of giving back. The team is like family. I’m lucky to have their guidance and support on the right side of the fight for humanity and justice.
The year that Kevin Rudd gave his apology to the stolen generations was the same year I was taken. I remember everyone felt so proud as a nation, but the reality is, the same executive powers are removing our babies. This is still occurring today. [In 2018, First Nations children made up almost 40 per cent of all children in out-of-home care nationally, despite being 5½ per cent of Australia’s child population. About a third were placed with non-Indigenous carers.]
Controversially named racehorse makes its debut
A Queensland thoroughbred owner has been allowed to name a rookie racehorse "Black Suspect", despite concerns it could offend Indigenous people.
The three-year-old colt with the potentially provocative name is set to raise eyebrows when it makes its racing debut, with even its trainer admitting there could be questions.
Black Suspect was meant to have its first race in a maiden event at Toowoomba last weekend but was a late scratching.
Ipswich trainer Beau Gorman said the scratching had nothing to do with the name of the horse, owned by local racing enthusiast Colin Clark, but was because it simply wasn’t ready to go.
Mr Gorman said the horse was named because it was a big black colt and its sire was a US stallion called Unusual Suspect.
He said the name was chosen after other names, including Black American and Black Gold, were rejected by Racing Australia.
Coronavirus Australia: Wake up and smell the sickly stench of government control
Lucky we seldom use cash any more; it would be impossible to physically swirl the dollars fast enough between taxpayers and governments. For instance, if I spend $10 at a local Sydney cafe, one dollar heads to Canberra as GST, while perhaps another one will cover company tax on any profit; some of the federal tax is funnelled back to the cafe for JobKeeper payments and most of the GST dollar is returned to the NSW government which, after an initiative in its post-COVID budget this month, then sends some of it back to me in vouchers to be spent at a local hospitality businesses — such as my local cafe.
It might have been simpler to just let my barista keep the $10 — or are we worried that leaves too many work-from-home state and federal public servants with too little to do. Imagine the money wasted and the efficiencies forgone in this endless churn; it is a wonder cash is not turned into butter.
Yes, this is a simplistic and stylised example, but it illustrates the never-ending expansion and reach of government. While the mortality rate from COVID-19 is trending downwards worldwide, the virus has proven lethal against pre-pandemic notions of small government.
On the macro scale, the impact is frightening; where once we were traumatised by Wayne Swan’s $50bn deficits we have flipped this year from a projected $7bn surplus to an $85bn deficit — a record shortfall that will be almost tripled next year with a $213bn dollar deficit. Swan can finally have a Christmas where he fancies himself as Scrooge.
Government spending as a percentage of GDP snuck above 25 per cent in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, after which even Labor agreed it should be kept below that mark. But it surged to 27.7 per cent last year, and will hit almost 35 per cent next year. So, while we once considered it prudent to keep federal spending to less than a quarter of the economy, Canberra’s splurge is about to account for more than a third of GDP.
When John Howard lost government, 13 years ago this week, the nation had cash in the bank — negative net government debt. We started to worry when debt rose above $150bn after the GFC, ballooning to more than 10 per cent of GDP. Now it has hit $500bn — half a trillion dollars, or 25 per cent of GDP — and within five years it will top $1 trillion, or equivalent to 44 per cent of the national economy.
Never before has the federal government sent more money to more people and more businesses. We are reacting to the coronavirus pandemic like it is a once-in-a-lifetime challenge that we can bet the bank on — best hope there is not another pandemic, natural disaster, global depression or war around the corner.
While interest rates are at record lows, we have been prepared to burden future generations with enormous risks. The big privatisations are behind us and all hopes hinge on the tumultuous cycle of economic growth. Most of us under 80 years of age can thank previous generations for the prosperity we have enjoyed — yet we seem happy to do the opposite, make ourselves comfortable in the here and now, while forwarding the bill to future generations.
The same people who argue it is immoral to leave behind a carbon footprint for future generations have no qualms about leaving them more debt than has ever been imagined. There must be an argument that we could have been more prudent and avoided any sense of intergenerational theft — but this discussion seems absent from the political debate.
Perhaps even more debilitating than the lifetime of debt is the rapid and unbridled escalation of the Nanny state. What has long been an alarming trend has run rampant since Wuhan first shared its virus with the world.
We have long observed the politicians’ predilection for increasing spending, launching new initiatives, imposing new rules and inveigling themselves into every aspect of our lives in order to win our gratitude and boost their prospects. Yet it is even more disturbing to see how great swathes of the population have lapped this up and played along — “gimme more free stuff”.
Nonsensical interventions
Worse still is the way we see people enthusiastically yield to the feverish and often nonsensical interventions imposed upon them. Melburnians heeded a drastic, inconvenient and muddle-headed curfew slapped on the city with no medical imprimatur. They also were forced to wear face masks outdoors, even many metres away from fellow citizens.
Daniel Andrews and his barrackers claim the absence of infections as vindication, when the whole point was supposed to be about controlling the pandemic without crushing communities, businesses and livelihoods. Around all the states except NSW, signs are that these lessons are yet to be learned.
Worryingly, police officers in Victoria and elsewhere enforced curfews and other nonsense with ruthless disregard for civil rights — officers on horseback and in patrol cars moved people on in Sydney parks, pregnant women were arrested over Facebook posts in Melbourne, drones spied on Western Australians in the streets, and there were Checkpoint Charlies set up along a string of interstate borders.
Most of us accepted these intrusions. People compliantly kept their children home from school, for months on end, when there was no medical basis for doing so. We stayed apart from family because of closed borders, we cancelled overseas holidays, worked from home, and kissed goodbye to a wide range of social activities.
Curfews weren’t enough
But it was not enough; governments wanted more control. They banned people in Adelaide and Melbourne from leaving their homes; restricted how many people could visit our houses; set stringent attendance limits for funerals, weddings and church services; demanded we did not sing; or dance; made us commemorate Anzac Day on our own but let the protesters do as they pleased; and they shut beaches
All this in a blessed Land Down Under where the people were once renowned for their self-reliance and anti-authoritarian streak. Has the Nanny state eaten away our resilience and national character?
Sure, most of us have understood the aims and surrendered to authority, in part because we believe in the project of “flattening the curve”. But much of what has been imposed has been irrational, over the top and not based on science — yet we went along with it anyway. Were we too compliant, too ignorant, or too frightened to object?
There are Australians right now, kept apart or sweating it out in home isolation in Western Australia because Mark McGowan still insists on hard borders with Victoria and NSW, even though there has been no community transmission for weeks in the two most populous states. Some will be proud of this — “we are all in this together” — but it speaks more to fearmongering and ignorance.
Politicians have spoken of a “dangerous” situation and how they need to “keep people safe” which is a ridiculous way to frame attempts to control a virus that is mild to asymptomatic in more than 95 per cent of cases, makes a small percentage of people seriously ill and, in the main, is only life-threatening to people who are very old or already very ill.
This is not to dismiss the vulnerable — it is a call to focus on protecting them instead of trying to scare children and paralyse communities.
No such thing as a free lunch
Have we become so mollycoddled that we look to governments to prevent us from getting sick? Are politicians so conceited they believe they can manage all risk out of our lives? Do they fret about paying a political price because a virus hops from one person to another?
Ideas for government intervention have proliferated like a contagion. We have governments siphoning taxes from us only to regurgitate some of it back as vouchers to cover kids’ sport fees or, now, for us to spend in restaurants. There is no such thing as a free lunch — we are paying for these gimmicks ourselves.
Governments now proffer paid sick leave for casual workers, subsidies for wages, bonuses for employing people, refunds on car registration, funding for solar panels, bonuses for first-home buyers, freebies in childcare, schooling, healthcare, social housing, public broadcasting, and whatever else. We are dining out on the taxpayers of 2050.
No matter how successful or futile the vaccines turn out to be, no matter how far this pandemic has to run, we can say one thing about its duration. It will never outlive the propensity for governments and bureaucracies to constantly mutate and expand, infecting every aspect of our lives.
Beware, Parents, Your Kids Are Being ‘Scootled’
When I noticed that a top-tier federal-state education body is providing lesson materials for teachers, I decided to take a look. The body is Education Services Australia (ESA), a company set up by federal-state education ministers. ESA provides free supplementary online materials for teachers via 20,000-plus pages on its Scootle portal. No mickey-mouse operation, it’s all keyed precisely to the curricula and used in 2019 by some 60,000 teachers, who chalked up 2.8 million sessions involving 18.8 million page views. From 2000-09 this on-line exercise chewed up about $130 million of taxpayer money.[1] Today ESA self-supports on revenue of $40 million a year from projects and subscriptions.
Scootle is just one of many third-party inputs to schooling. More than 90 per cent of teachers and 8400 schools, for example, use online lessons supplied by the anti-capitalist green-left Cool Australia outfit (See here, here, here, here). I fully expected that Scootle materials would be part of the Leftist miasma pervading education, which is so all-encompassing that even the 50 per cent conservative-voting parents long ago ceased to notice what their kids are being taught.
In the immortal words of Victoria’s one-time education minister and premier Joan Kirner, education must be reshaped to be “part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation and social change, rather than an instrument of the capitalist system”. This was consummated in 2008 when PM Julia Gillard and her Labor premiers brought in their “Melbourne declaration”.[2] Conservative governments don’t seem to mind that schools have been converted to breeding grounds for green-minded woke warriors.
ESA is supposed to promote “improved students outcomes” and classier teachers and schools. As we know, our kids’ performance is sliding down the international league tables, despite ESA’s best efforts. So, as an amateur auditor, having logged on as a “guest user”, I had a look around.
“Paul Keating” gets 17 hits, virtually all laudatory; Gough Whitlam gets 56 hits, none hostile and most laudatory. Whitlam’s dismissal (1975) gets a dozen tracts. “John Howard” gets more than 20 cites, but sadly none are laudatory and most hostile.[3]
I got a surprise when I searched on “WWF” to check that green lobby’s input. Instead of cute pandas, I got a dozen propaganda film clips from the Communist-led Waterside Workers Federation of the 1950s, such as “Banners Held High, 1956: May Day”. Scootle tells kids this film is “honouring the achievements of workers across the world”. Actually, a few months after its May Day love-in, the WWF backed the Soviets as their tanks crushed the Hungarian revolt.[4]
Scootle’s asylum-seeker treatment is straight from The Greens’ playbook.[5] Search for “asylum seeker” and the request generates exactly 100 hits and ‘refugee’ alone 169 hits. Scootle’s intense interest in the topic includes: Discussion paper – ‘Towards a fairer immigration system for Australia’, 1992.
This is the cover of a 55-page paper titled ‘Towards a fairer immigration system for Australia‘. It states that the current immigration system is unfair to some groups and discusses how to guarantee fair access to Australia’s immigration system. The paper was prepared by Andrew Theophanous and published in 1992… The dimensions of the discussion paper are 29.60 cm x 21.00 cm.
I’m sure it’s a lovely paper from 28 years ago for kids to study, being 29.60cm x 21.00cm and all, about fairness and victim support. Author Andrew Theophanous was MHR (Labor) for the seats of Burke and Calwell from 1980-2000. But as Wikipedia puts it, “He was later jailed for bribery and fraud offences relating to visa applications and other immigration matters.” Specifically, “he was charged with defrauding the Commonwealth by making false representations in relation to an immigration matter, taking an unlawful inducement and soliciting an unlawful inducement.” He got six years, and served two of them. Maybe Scootle should footnote that?
Another example is:
Anthem – An Act of Sedition, 2004: MV Tampa and September 11
This clip presents an interpretation of the Howard government’s response to the arrival of refugees in Australian waters on the MV Tampa in August 2001. The narration states that John Howard had often used scare tactics for his political advantage and that the refugees were now to be used in a ‘race election’. Views defending the refugees are juxtaposed with images of troops. Scenes of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York dramatise the narration, which states that the government used fear of terrorism to override international law and civil rights.
The tone here seems similar to what East German kids used to get. Scootle’s explanatory notes say the film argues passionately that PM John Howard cynically exploited Tampa and 9/11 “to create fear, undermine the rule of law and secure a win in the November 2001 election.” The notes say, “the desperation of the passengers led the captain to attempt to land under conditions of emergency”. In fact the Afghans effectively took over the ship by threats, which led to SAS troops storming the vessel.
Scootle cites Julian Burnside QC, most recently a failed Greens candidate, who “condemns the ‘Pacific Solution’ legislation as being a clear-cut infringement of international law, and another lawyer sees it as being undemocratic.”
In a mealy-mouthed way, Scootle says,
In this case no attempt is made to present the case for the Howard government, the narration puts its views strongly and the use of dramatic footage heightens the sense of crisis, reinforcing the filmmakers’ view that these events marked a serious attack on civil liberties and democratic processes.
Impressionable kids are treated to a tear-jerking film (aka “powerful account”) about an Australian family with four kids visiting an Afghan teen in detention in Port Hedland in 2004. The visiting mother describes ‘a heavy gate being locked behind’ them, the children ‘huddled together wide-eyed and silent’ and the guard ‘unlocking the third door’, with an echoing, sombre and “slightly fearful” sound track. The film, asserts Scootle, “raises questions about the government policy that imprisoned children in the name of border protection.”
Kids also get a poem, ‘When I think of Australia’ by Amelia Walker. Extract: “I switch on the TV and see wire with children behind it. If this isn’t their country it isn’t mine.” Images include chicken wire and “refugees’ children in detention camps”. There’s also a color cartoon provided from leftist New Matilda[6] showing
a dilapidated ship crowded with asylum seekers approaching a pier where an elderly woman stands with outstretched arms, saying: ‘I know it’s extremely unAustralian of me, but I’d like to welcome you to our shores …’
So where does Scootle offer kids the conservative government’s case? A search on “people smuggler” finds one hit from a 1990 incident, and none contemporaneous. Another search fails to turn up reference to the 1,200 asylum seekers drowned after Labor’s PM Rudd overturned Howard’s policy and encouraged people smugglers to ship 50,000 people south in those infamously leaky boats.
More here:
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/11/beware-parents-your-kids-are-being-scootled/
************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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27 November, 2020
China claims 'quality' problem with Australian coal as $700 million worth sits idle off ports
It is clearly getting to be time to do something about this. Exporters who are not heavily dependant on the Chinese market could refuse all new orders from China until the existing shipments are paid for
But government action is probably needed to get enough impact. Morrison has several options, all of which would probably cause China to lose "face" so would have to be heavily telegraphed in advance
He could freeze all payments to China until China pays its bills -- including demurrage costs. China does have significant exports to Australia so losing payments for them should make an impact
He could ban all exports to China until China pays its bills. China is heavily dependent on Australia for some things -- such as metallurgical coal and iron ore -- so such a ban should cause great disruption to Chinese industry
He could let matters ride but insist that all future exports to China should be prepaid. That is a common way to deal with bad debtors. It should probably be the first option
For months, dozens of bulk carriers have been stranded off the coast of two major Chinese ports unable to unload their cargoes, with a Bloomberg estimate of more than 60 ships now in limbo in November.
Chinese authorities have not previously explained the exact reasons for the long delays, which have coincided with a series of restrictions and bans Beijing has imposed on other Australian exports amid diplomatic tensions.
But in answer to a question on Tuesday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has for the first time suggested quality problems are to blame.
As trade and political tensions simmer, speculation swirls about what's really going on between the two nations — and what's next on a Chinese sanctions "hit list".
"In recent years, China Customs has conducted risk monitoring and analysis on the safety and quality of imported coal and discovered imported coal not meeting environmental standards is relatively common," he said.
China has unofficially banned Australian coal imports since October amid souring relations between the two countries, and in turn, increased imports from Mongolia and Russia.
Mr Zhao said China had strengthened the examination and testing of imported coal regarding safety, quality and environmental standards "so as to better protect the legitimate interests and the environmental interests of the Chinese side".
Coal is one of seven Australian imported products that have reportedly been targeted with bans by China amid rising tensions.
Earlier this month, multiple Australian exporters said that their Chinese business partners had been informally instructed by Commerce ministry officials to stop buying seven types of Australian exports, including coal.
But many of the bulk carriers sitting off the Chinese ports arrived with their Australian cargo prior to those instructions being given.
China's Government has stopped short of directly linking the various trade measures with its anger at Australia but has made little effort to dispel the widely-held view that it is retaliation for a series of Australian moves Beijing objects to, including a public call for a coronavirus inquiry.
The Federal Government last week said the reports were "deeply troubling" but China has denied it is levying coordinated trade action against Australia.
China accounts for about one-third of Australia's total exports. The stalled shipments account for about a quarter of all imports waiting to pass customs clearance in China.
China's coking coal imports from Australia slumped in October to 1.53 million tonnes, or about 26 per cent of its total imports of the fuel, customs data showed, down from 78 per cent in March.
Despite the bans, Australia remains China's top seaborne coal supplier in 2020, as Mongolia was forced to trim exports in the first half of the year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-26/china-claims-quality-problem-with-australian-coal/12921354
Australian businesses stop exporting to China due to risk as trade tensions hit homeAmid ongoing trade tensions between Canberra and Beijing, some Australian exporters are now so scared of having their products rejected at customs they have stopped shipping to China.
Exporter Andrew Ferguson recently had three shipments of live lobsters die in China because of lengthy delays in customs testing.
China began more stringent testing because it said high levels of cadmium had been found in some shipments.
But Mr Ferguson has questioned whether he is a casualty of escalating political tensions between the Australian and Chinese governments.
"The lobsters were out of the water too long and they died while they were waiting to be cleared," he said. "The cost was significant."
He said it was too risky to continue shipping to China.
Some Chinese importers have told wine, sugar, wool, copper and coal suppliers their goods will no longer clear customs either.
Landmark NSW energy bill passes after more than 30 hours of debate
The bill, backed by the Liberal, Labor and Greens parties, looks to replace four coal-fired power stations with wind, pumped-hydro, and solar projects over the next 15 years.
It's a crazy splurge on renewables that will do nothing to avoid the inevitable blackouts. It's total nonsense, completely divorced from reality. What happens at night when the wind doesn't blow?
One Nation leader Mark Latham was the only true conservative in the matter
The Berejiklian government's landmark renewable energy bill has passed the NSW upper house after more than 30 hours of continuous debate amid a concerted effort from One Nation to block it.
One Nation leader Mark Latham moved to stymie the legislation by introducing 249 amendments, which forced the upper house to sit around the clock from 11am on Tuesday.
The final vote on the Electricity Infrastructure Investment Bill passed about 5.45pm on Wednesday, almost 31 hours later.
NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean said the passing of the bill was a "historic victory for the people of NSW" and every member of Parliament who supported the bill "deserves credit".
In the most ambitious energy plan in the country, the government will support the private sector to build $32 billion of renewable energy infrastructure by 2030 as NSW faces the end of coal-fired power generation.
The plan will also see $1.5 billion in lease payments go to landowners for hosting new infrastructure on their properties and put NSW in the top 10 for the lowest industrial electricity prices in the OECD.
The government says its Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap will cut the average small business electricity bill by about $440 a year, with savings of about $130 a year for the average household bill
The Coalition has been united over the plan and it also had bipartisan support from Labor as well as the Greens and other crossbenchers.
"The passage of this bill demonstrates what Australia’s energy policy can look like when our parties work together," Mr Kean said.
"This sensible framework for NSW will attract $32 billion in private investment, deliver some of the cheapest electricity in the world, create over 9000 direct jobs and ensure the prosperity of our regions."
But Mr Latham was determined to block the bill, saying it would "make Joe Stalin blush in terms of its economics".
The plan will create 6300 construction jobs and 2800 ongoing jobs, mostly in regional NSW, and deliver 12 gigawatts of renewable energy and two gigawatts of storage, largely pumped hydro.
Mr Latham warned it could cause energy bills to rise by as much as $400 a year.
ABC facing harsh backlash over claims of lack of diversity
The ABC is copping a wave of online backlash after revealing its upcoming line-up of news presenters for 2021, with people questioning the lack of cultural diversity among the broadcaster’s key programs.
The broadcaster released its 2021 programming schedule on Wednesday but it was the publicity photos of the presenters runnings its flagship news programs that left many unimpressed.
Viewers and even some ex-staff members were quick to call out the lack of diversity, with the majority journalists leading its top news programs, including Insiders, 7.30, ABC News Breakfast and The Drum, appearing to mainly be from caucasian backgrounds.
Former Four Corners and ABC News reporter Sophie McNeill tweeted a collated picture of the broadcaster’s white presenters, branding the lack of diversity “disappointing”.
Ex-deputy editor of ABC Life, Osman Faruqi, also shared the promotion images for the ABC’s leading news programs to his Twitter.
“Do the people who run ABC News not understand how weird this looks?” he asked.
“At some point, when you’re assembling these photos, you’d pause and think ‘Hmm something not quite right here’. It should so embarrassing that they shouldn’t be able get away with it. But who is going to hold them to account? Everywhere else is even whiter, lol.”
Australia’s former Race Discrimination Commissioner and Culture Strategy Professor at Sydney University, Tim Soutphommasane, said the ABC has a “long way to go” in terms of diversity.
“Let’s remember the ABC has it in its charter that it should reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community. So where is it?” he wrote on Twitter.
“And thanks to those who highlight there is diversity elsewhere on the upfront. That is of course good to see. But the diversity is not there in many of the flagship and other high-profile programs, especially news and current affairs.”
In response to the backlash, the ABC released a statement saying it was proud of the “diverse talent” across its programs.
Our 2021 slate reflects our commitment to representing and reflecting modern Australia, across diverse backgrounds, ages, genders, abilities and cultures,” the broadcaster said.
The ABC said increasing diversity across its workforce and programming was a priority, pointing to its current Diversity & Inclusion Plan and Reconciliation Action Plan.
“There’s no doubt that, like all media organisations, the ABC has significant work to do to live up to our goal to reflect the full diversity of our community,” the ABC said.
“But we are making progress.”
The broadcaster also released a collage of all the diverse programs and presenters that will be appearing on the ABC in 2021.
However, this still wasn’t enough to impress some, with Mr Faruqi and Ms McNeill pointing out there was still a lack of representation in the ABC’s top news programs.
“There is a significant gap between what appears to be coming of factual and entertainment TV and news in terms of whiteness, but it’s very funny the ABC is responding to concerns about the lack of diversity on news shows by saying “We also make Superwog!” Mr Faruqi wrote on Twitter.
He added: “It’s really weird that the ABC’s response was to subtweet everyone by pointing to shows about Chinese restaurants (which I can’t wait to watch tbh). They really are in denial, it’s very sad.”
Ms McNeill said, while it is true the ABC has diverse talent across many of its programs, it was still lacking in some major areas.
“It’s not really diversity in ‘Super Wog’ or ‘Chopsticks or Fork’ that I’m chasing. It’s in the flagship, heavy hitting, political programs & at an editorial level,” she wrote.
Seemingly in response to these claims, the ABC released an image showing a few more of the people working as presenters for ABC News.
But not everyone was so quick to criticise the ABC, with some viewers praising the broadcaster for featuring a wide range of programming and working towards even more diversity on screen.
“This is an easy attack but if we move beyond the ‘glam’ of TV, the ABC provides a diverse but not perfect platform. It does provide a variety of voices. Let’s not belittle it or grandstand in front of nodding heads, let’s look at the alternative & commit to make the ABC better,” one person wrote.
“I think ABC Australia has done a much better job of diversifying its presenters than any other visual media here has. Well done ABC,” another person said.
ABC looks at Australia and sees only faults and flaws
“You see, Mr Kroger, in simple terms you think we are too left wing and Mr Hawke thinks we are too right wing, so we sit somewhere comfortably in the middle.”
This was the analysis of a senior ABC staffer during a discussion on the broadcaster’s Gulf War coverage in 1991 during which the ABC consistently used the former secretary of the Australia-Iraq Friendship Association as an independent expert commentator.
“My friend,” I reproached the staffer, “Bob Hawke was not criticising you because you were too right wing but because you were too left wing.” Silence followed.
Such was my introduction to ABC life as a new board member in 1998. Months later at drinks with seven ABC and Fairfax employees in Sydney I learnt that not one of them listened to Alan Jones or had ever listened to him. More disturbingly, none of them knew anyone who listened to Jones. Given his ratings you might have thought paying occasional attention to Jones and his audience may keep you in touch with middle Australia. Apparently not.
Later, when a federal Labor politician complained to me about a hatchet job done on him by ABC television, I passed the details to the then managing director, who after some months of investigation told me there was nothing he could do as decisions in relation to that particular program were effectively made six rungs below him and were buried deep in the bowels of the ABC to a place his authority could not reach.
“Aren’t you the editor-in-chief?” I asked him forlornly. “Only in name,” he replied.
On another occasion when I started querying legal advice obtained by the ABC in response to actual and threatened defamation proceedings, I was repeatedly told the program-makers and their editors were confident of their stories.
“I’m sure they are,” I said, but “is it possible to have an opinion from someone actually trained in defamation law?” The ABC’s first response was always to close ranks around the staff and base their responses on the position of the program-makers, not lawyers.
And on it went. Year after year until I retired from the board in 2003. So, like many Australians, I was incredulous to read the gobsmacking remarks of ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose in her recent Ramsay Centre address where she felt the ABC was doing something right because it had critics from the left and the right. Apparently left-wing critics accuse the ABC of being “patsies for conservative causes”.
Really? If Buttrose seriously believes the ABC has a legion of critics on the left who think it is too right wing she is delusional. Perhaps Buttrose can point to a list of critics from the left who think Q&A is a patsy for conservatives. Was her speech a joke?
When you seriously analyse the ABC you start to appreciate the validity of Gerard Henderson’s long-maintained position, which is that the ABC is a staff-run collective. That is to say the program-makers and their editors are laws unto themselves and independent from the management and completely independent from the board.
As such, it was disappointing to read on this page last week the thoughts of board member Joseph Gersh. Of course with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars you would expect the public to appreciate the ABC’s role in emergency broadcasting, children’s shows, women’s sport, Indigenous and other issues, as Gersh pointed out. But the great failing of the ABC is in news and current affairs.
It is the duty of the board under section 8 (1) (c) to ensure the ABC gathers and presents news and information in an accurate and impartial way, “according to recognised standards of objective journalism”.
Yet the ABC’s news and current affairs division presents a grand narrative of the world as a dark place becoming darker by the day.
It constantly highlights Australia’s role in our diminishing world and presents us with a frightening future. In the eyes of the ABC we are led by heartless politicians who refuse to open our borders to unlimited immigration. This is presented as a cultural failing of Australians who by extension are immensely selfish and obviously racist.
According to the ABC our governments are dangerously naive about the threat to human life posed by global warming.
The ABC is also suspicious of religion, which it regards as a dangerous and quaint oddity from the past. Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular are permanent targets of the ABC’s ridicule and contempt. Its one-sided coverage of the Cardinal George Pell case astounded many. The only bright point in its religious coverage is its protection of all things Islam.
But worst of all the ABC sees no virtue in ordinariness. The milieu of ordinary suburban and rural life that comprises millions of private-sector employed Australians and their families is of no interest.
The ABC has a smouldering contempt for those men and women who have made and continue to make this country great. The ABC narrative prefers to delegitimise all that has been built and to support the deindustrialisation of all that we are.
The ABC routinely publicises the tragedies that took place after our founding, consistently promoting the view that the more enlightened leadership of the 21st century somehow has ongoing culpability for events of the past. The ABC’s criticism of Australia’s past and present is ceaseless, permanent, unrelenting, unrestrained and contrary to the real world.
So what is to be done? One of the ways the ABC might be repaired is for the federal parliament to amend the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 to include additions to s. 6 (1)(a) as follows:
“(iii) Broadcasting programs that celebrate the ongoing success of Australia’s democracy.
“(iv) Broadcasting programs that encourage and promote the importance to Australia of the private sector in general and the small business community in particular.
“(v) Broadcasting programs that encourage and promote the lives of ordinary wage and salary earners and their ongoing contribution to our success as a nation.
“(vi) Broadcasting programs that encourage and promote the lives of Australians living in rural and regional communities.”
The duty of the board also can be strengthened to ensure that it complies with its obligations of ensuring impartiality by adding a new sentence to s. 8 (1) (c) as follows:
“Impartiality requires the appointment of presenters and producers by the ABC to reflect the totality of all mainstream political views and values.”
Then we can begin to do as Henry Ergas longed for on this page, which is to have an ABC aimed at strengthening “the bonds of civility and enrich(ing) public life” rather than the constant narrative of denigrating our past, criticising our present and demonising our future.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
***************************************
26 November, 2020
It's time to go to bat for market forces
It could be the news of not one, but two, COVID-19 vaccines with over 90 per cent effectiveness that could be widely distributed before winter. It could be some economic green shoots, with some forecasters - particularly at the big banks - predicting a far faster recovery than first feared.
It could be just that it's nearly summer time.
Economic optimism is a good thing in more ways than one: it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Optimism breeds consumer and business confidence, which itself generates the desired investment and economic growth to beat the pandemic recession.
Of course, given what 2020 has dished out thus far, it might be wise to exercise some caution amid the optimism - lest we next suffer a plague of locusts or some other biblical black swan.
Yet, while the short-term issues associated with the recovery are crucially important, they're not the only serious economic problem we face.
Although it may seem like the sort of dull thing we used to be concerned about back when we didn't have any real problems (circa 2019), you may recall that wage growth leading into the recession was at near record lows, despite a 28-year run of uninterrupted economic growth.
As the Productivity Commission pointed out in its latest report on productivity, stimulating and maintaining productivity growth are the only things that will boost wages in the long term.
There are two roadblocks to rebooting productivity, one on the left and one on the right. From the right, the concern is the re-emergence of economic nationalism and protectionism. From the left, the issue is the strangling growth of regulation.
It took a long time for Australia to move away from protectionism. There is a serious risk that the border safety concerns of the pandemic will drive Australia, and the rest of the world, back towards the insular, protectionist attitudes that were prominent in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
As the Productivity Commission explained, the "Fortress Australia" approach of protection all around was deeply flawed: "The walls of Fortress Australia were unable to protect us from the economic turmoil of the 1970s and contributed to Australia sliding down the income ladder."
Scepticism of a free trade-led approach to international relations had been growing for years before the pandemic.
In the United States, both sides of politics have been openly expressing hostility to the merits of free trade deals. President Donald Trump has been a strong proponent of economic nationalism: specifically the idea that America is a loser from trade with the rest of the world.
A big part of Trump's pitch to "make America great again" was bringing manufacturing jobs back to America.
Of course, the unexplained flaw in this argument is that most of the jobs were actually lost to automation not trade. And the ability to manufacture far more than we used to, at a lower price, thanks to automation and productivity gains, is one of the most tangible examples of why we should embrace a pro-market agenda.
A pro-market agenda is not a pro-business agenda: it's a pro-consumer agenda. After all, despite what the politicians say, the gains from trade do not primarily arise from chiselling out access to distant markets for producers.
The biggest benefit comes from the competition that foreign producers bring to domestic markets. Competition drives innovation and cuts margins: that means more products and lower prices for consumers.
Competition forces firms to become more efficient to thrive. Firms protected from that competition grow fat and lazy, taking their customers for granted because they have nowhere else to go.
Regulation is a different type of limitation on competition, one that is equally damaging and even more insidious. Whatever lofty language is used to justify them, regulations are primarily about government control over businesses and markets.
Sometimes that control is exercised effectively, for a good purpose; such as regulations around manufacturing standards for medicines and medical devices.
But more often, regulation - regardless of how well-intentioned government is - creates as many problems as it solves. Regulations may create barriers to entry and flow through into unaffordable price rises.
The best example here is childcare, where the National Quality Framework has driven rapid growth in prices and out of pocket costs, despite increasing government subsidies.
Overzealous regulators can also create perverse outcomes, like ASIC's enforcement of responsible lending laws.
And sometimes regulation exists solely for the purpose of protecting vested interests, to the detriment of consumers - such as restrictions on the placement and ownership of pharmacies.
The number and scope of regulations imposed by government has exploded in the last decade or so. It would be convenient to point to the global financial crisis and its supposed failure of capitalism as the genesis of this trend, but in reality a desire to tamper with market forces to control economic outcomes far predates this downturn.
The left of politics in particular has embraced the regulatory state, both because of a discomfort with markets and because the declining power of unions has weakened their ability to push their social and political agenda on business and society through industrial muscle.
The distrust of market forces and the supposed unfairness of the outcomes from free markets are common to both right-wing protectionists and left-wing regulationists. The COVID-19 pandemic has enabled and encouraged the expansion of these attitudes.
Yet, as the Productivity Commission and the governor of the Reserve Bank have both made clear in recent days, freeing up market forces is the key not only to emerging from the COVID-19 recession but to sustained income growth thereafter.
If the green shoots of recovery are indeed more robust than they seemed a few months ago, it will be because Australia's efforts at deregulation and opening of markets in the 1990s and 2000s made our economy one of the most resilient in the world, in spite of the hostility to those ideas that has been growing since then.
It will not be easy to reignite this agenda. A lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and what's left will require taking on entrenched vested interests (particularly in the public sector, where the productivity gains promise to be the greatest).
But if we want broad-based wage growth, then it's time to go to work.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7020715/its-time-to-go-to-bat-for-market-forces/
Cheap, abundant gas cooks the green guilt industryThe conviction that global warming requires us to find new ways to burn other people’s money is hard-baked into the narrative of environmentalism.
Last week, the Grattan Institute took to cooktop shaming to make that case for switching to electricity. If you’re cooking with gas, we were told, you’re playing with fire.
Banning the installation of gas in new homes is “a prudent, no-regrets option” as a prelude to phasing out gas altogether.
“It may be painful for some in the short term,” Australia’s richest think-tank concedes, “but neither wishful thinking nor denial will serve us well.”
Installing electric cooking and water heating appliances adds $2500 to the price of a new house, and retro-fitting an existing house will cost $3800 more. What about the poor people? No problem. Electricity companies can pay for new electric appliances and recover the cost over time through additional electricity charges, says Grattan.
Electricity may one day be cleaner than gas, but to force a switch now would only increase emissions. Cooking with electricity is effectively cooking with coal for 60 per cent of the time and gas for another 20 per cent.
The incessant demand to commit to a target of net-zero emissions by 2050, if not sooner, ignores the fact that we don’t yet have the technology to get there. Pragmatism is an inadequate response to the apocalypse they insist is heading our way. It is tempting for a Liberal government to avoid the argument by making the pledge anyway. After all, Scott Morrison’s government will be in its 12th term before it has to deliver.
Yet a commitment to net-zero emissions in 2050 demands that we accelerate emissions reductions now, leading to the dangerous, knee-jerk responses of the kind advocated by Grattan.
Gas is a fossil fuel, ipso facto, it must be purged from our energy supply, or so the thinking goes. Hence Grattan’s expectation that gas will inevitably play a declining role in our energy mix, and we must start turning down the flame right now, whatever the cost.
The path to net-zero emissions will be revealed in the fullness of time and may or may not mean turning off the gas. It is bound to include offsets, such as the sequestration of carbon dioxide into soil where it can be put into productive use, producing better food, more productive farms, greater drought resilience and biodiversity.
The notion that the energy sector alone can achieve net-zero emissions is an assumption it has become heresy to deny. For some, the cost of over-ambitious emissions reduction targets is proof of their virtue.
Economic pain and environmental gain have become inextricably linked in the climate change narrative. Last year the same think-tank warned: “Australia will need to make faster, more expensive changes to get back on track.”
Yet the assumption that efficient technology costs more than the technology it replaces runs counter to our experience. A Honda Civic today costs roughly the same as new model did in 1973 but delivers twice as much power and lower emissions, thanks to investments in research and development in a highly competitive market.
For the past 50 years, however, the environmental debate has become shrouded in apocalyptic thinking and overlaid by puritanical guilt, led by people who doubt the power of free-range human ingenuity to deliver a better future. In the dull, zero-sum world of sustainability, anything that adds to the joy of human existence imposes a cost on the rest of nature.
Rational thinkers on the centre-right have abandoned the space, leaving the ironically named progressives in charge. The oil crisis that gave birth to the hatchback reinforced the conviction that excessive consumption was draining the world of energy and that economic growth should be curtailed.
Innovation in both car manufacture and oil exploration has since allayed the fears that peak-oil was just around the corner, but the anxiety lingers.
Grattan’s speculative assessment that the price of gas will make it too expensive to bring down the price of electricity or the cost of industrial production underpins its claim that it is yesterday’s fuel.
Yet the spot price of gas has fallen considerably in the east coast market since its peak early last year. Lower-priced offers from gas-powered generators in turn helped bring down wholesale electricity prices, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.
The removal of moratoriums to unlock supply in NSW and Victoria, together with the expected arrival of re-gasification terminals in one or more east coast locations, will further bring down prices, together with government moves to introduce more market transparency and new investment in gas pipelines.
The prospect of cheap and abundant gas should calm the nerves of those concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. The renewable energy sources in which we have invested so heavily will at last be able to pull their weight supported by quick-fire gas, which Chief Scientist Alan Finkel describes as “the perfect complement to wind and solar”.
The impossible trifecta of energy that is cheaper, more reliable and greener at last seems possible, a win-win for people and the planet.
This what a rational environmental policy might look like if a rational approach was ever articulated. It is advancement through incremental improvement rather than by abolishing capitalism and starting again.
A Liberal approach to the environment sees no conflict between economic wellbeing and the environment. Indeed, it recognises that a strong economy is a precondition for environmental improvement and that attempting to reduce energy consumption by constraining supply is a race to the bottom.
Crucially, it avoids the conceit of perfect knowledge in a policy realm that is exceptionally complex. It does not attempt to pick winners or over-promise. It prefers, in the words of FA Hayek, “true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much undetermined and unpredictable, to a pretence of exact knowledge that is likely to be false”.
China’s ‘major’ Australian miscalculation
Xi Jinping is carrying out an aggressive plan to force Australia to obey China – but there’s something “major” he wasn’t banking on.
Chairman Xi Jinping is urging his nation onwards and upwards on a new Silk Road towards international dominance. But he’s hit an unexpected roadblock: Australia. Now he’s getting angry.
And his “wolf-warrior” diplomats are leaping into the fray. “China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy,” a Chinese diplomat “leaked” to Nine Newspapers on Tuesday.
And it’s all Australia’s fault. “Responsibility for causing this situation has nothing to do with China,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a conveniently timed address to state-controlled media in Beijing later that same day.
“The Australian side should reflect on this seriously, rather than shirking the blame and deflecting responsibility,” Zhao warned. He failed to reflect on Beijing’s role in the escalating standoff.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, however, did. “Australia will always be ourselves,” he said. “We will always set our own laws and our own rules according to our national interests – not at the behest of any other nation, whether that’s the US or China or anyone else,” he said.
It’s exactly what the wolf warriors didn’t want to hear.
Chairman’ Xi’s ambitions seem likely to continue to be frustrated by Australia. But a frustrated Xi poses a “special kind of danger”, international relations analysts warn.
Beijing insists it has never interfered with other countries’ affairs. Nor is it interested in doing so, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said last week.
On Tuesday, Beijing proceeded to do precisely that. It issued a dossier of 14 grievances against Australia. Addressing these “would be conducive to a better atmosphere”, an embassy official said.
Changing these behaviours to ones more sensitive to Xi Jinping Thought would result in restored economic ties. But there’s a problem. Australia has a history.
It’s a unique history that has produced an eclectic national culture of political incorrectness. Not to mention irreverence, independence and an inherent suspicion of authority. None of these suit an autocratic mindset.
They tend to sit uneasily enough as it is with just about every Australian elected government. Until they’re back in opposition.
The crackdown against Australia’s recalcitrance is just one element of Chairman Xi’s rush to cement power. At home, he’s moving hard against any possible perceived threat to the Communist Party he dominates.
He’s even adopted a new title – “helmsman” – once reserved only for the great founding father Chairman Mao Zedong.
“Xi Jinping certainly seems to be cracking the whip with a purpose and a force that, if not new, is certainly designed to impress upon the party, entrepreneurs, citizens and the rest of the world his authority and determination,” Oxford University China Centre research associate George Magnus told US media.
Helmsman Xi unveiled his revised five-year plan to a Communist Party assembly last month.
He urged his commissars to redouble their efforts towards turning his promises into reality. He wants China’s economy to double by 2035. He wants greater state control of Chinese businesses. He wants Hong Kong and Taiwan to submit to his will.
Meanwhile, Xi’s been busy securing his position. He’s made himself national police chief. As chair of China’s Central Military Commission, Xi has ordered an extraordinary series of overlapping military exercises – the latest testing civilian industry’s ability to adapt to military demands urgently. Xi blames an “intensifying situation and increasing risk of military conflicts” as the need for such war preparations.
His Premier, Li Keqiang, is calling on Southeast Asian nations to quickly agree with Beijing’s “Code of Conduct for the South China Sea”. Their compliance would demonstrate “wisdom and capability to take good control of the South China Sea and maintain the peace and stability of the South China Sea”.
On top of all this, Xi wants to reshape the international order in his own image. Which is where Australia’s getting in the way.
“Xi Jinping’s China is an infirm colossus that will be frustrated by unmet ambitions. A strong but frustrated country poses a special kind of danger. This is the China Nightmare,” writes American Enterprise Institute Director of Asian Studies Daniel Blumenthal.
“Although China was ruled by a dictatorship before Xi’s ascent, he has made a radical bid to obtain almost total authority over his country’s affairs. In doing so, he has paralysed the normal functioning of the state’s bureaucracy.”
But Beijing’s belligerence is backfiring. Instead of compelling international compliance, it’s forcing South East Asia closer together for mutual protection.
“The ‘Beijing model’ was supposed to be an efficient alternative to democracy, which was supposedly more sclerotic and incompetent. Instead, the Beijing model has now inflicted untold misery on its own people and the rest of the world,” Blumenthal writes.
Canberra and Tokyo this week signed a new defence deal making it easier from troops of both nations to work with each other. Though hurdles, such as making Australians subject to Japan’s death penalty, are yet to be resolved.
The need for such a “special strategic partnership” is pressing.
Japanese Premier Yoshihide Suga joined Prime Minister Morrison in expressing “serious concerns” about “militarisation” across South East Asia. They stated the alliance’s “strong opposition to any coercive or unilateral attempts to change the status quo and thereby increase tensions in the region”.
Beijing doesn’t accept such tensions exist. Its territorial claims are uncontested, it insists. And the opinions of neighbouring nations and international courts of arbitration are irrelevant.
“(The) Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to their press statement in which they accused China on the South China Sea and East China Sea issue”, Zhao said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao told a Beijing briefing on Tuesday that “some” Australians harbour ideological prejudice, regard China’s development as a threat.
He went on to say Australia’s actions had “seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” – despite a Communist Party approved editorial having declared “Australia immature to be scared of Chinese scholars’ candid opinions”.
Australia, however, has its own feelings. And Prime Minister Morrison is unapologetic.
“Having a free media, having parliamentarians elected and able to speak their minds is a cause for concern, as well as speaking up on human rights in concert with other countries like Canada, New Zealand, the UK and others in international forums … if this is the cause for tension in that relationship, then it would seem that the tension is that Australia is just being Australia,” he said.
“Under Xi, the Chinese government’s goal is … a new network of strategic partnerships with China at the centre, and to propagate a “China model” of economic and political governance. It wants to create a new world order based on what it calls a “community of common destiny” that reshapes global institutions to be more compatible with the CCP’s own authoritarian governance,” Blumenthal writes.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull summed up the situation last week: “These sorts of actions, whether it’s trade action like that or furious editorials in the Global Times or People’s Daily, are all instrumental, they’re designed to achieve a certain response, which in our case is compliance.”
Electric car tax spreads to new states
Controversial new taxes on electric cars are likely to be implemented by Victoria and NSW as well as South Australia.
Pitched as a way of making up for lost fuel excise revenue, special levies on electric vehicles are seen by supporters as a fair way of paying for road infrastructure, while opponents say extra costs will stifle growth of zero emissions vehicles.
Owners of conventionally powered vehicles pay for road infrastructure through fuel taxes of about 40 cents per litre, a cost owners of electric vehicles do not bear.
South Australia became the first state to commit to an electric car taxes in November, when treasurer Rob Lucas flagged plans to implement new levies for the 2021-22 financial year, in the form of extra registration fees, and mileage-based charges.
“Electric vehicles do not attract fuel excise and therefore make a lower contribution to the cost of maintaining our road networks,” Mr Lucas said at the time.
Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas revealed plans to introduce state levies on electric cars on Saturday.
Mr Pallas told the ABC “we need to recognise we have to put in place appropriate arrangements as we move to more electric vehicles and low-emissions vehicles on the network”.
Victoria will charge owners of electric or hydrogen powered vehicles 2.5 cents per kilometre for road use, while plug-in hybrid vehicles will pay 2.0 cents per kilometre.
It means electric vehicle owners who travel 15,000 kilometres per year will have $375 added to their registration bill.
By comparison, a Volkswagen Golf 110TSI owner who completes 15,000 kilometres of driving while matching the car’s official petrol consumption figure of 5.4L/100km would pay $342.63 in fuel excise currently taxed at $0.423 per litre.
The NSW Government also looks likely to implement EV-based taxes in the future.
A NSW Treasury review of federal financial relations published in June 2020 said “electric vehicles still use the roads and must share the costs of doing so”.
Treasurer Dominic Perrottet told The Australian last week EV taxes are “something that I’d obviously want to take to cabinet within the next 12 months”.
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia chief executive Adrian Dwyer released a report in November 2019 saying taxes on electric cars would be “a home run reform” and must be introduced quickly.
“Once there is an electric car in every street, the opportunity will be lost,” he said.
The Australian Automobile Association, parent body to motoring clubs such as the NRMA and RACV, says there is widespread community support for electric vehicles taxes.
A survey of more than 4000 of its members agreed that “owners of electric vehicles should contribute towards the costs of the nation’s roads in some way”.
AAA managing director Michael Bradley said the Federal Government should step in to make sure EV taxes are nationally consistent and do not stymie green car sales.
Electric cars represent far less than 1 per cent of Australian new car sales.
Tony Weber, chief executive for the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, said the Victorian Government’s decision to tax battery-powered cars could “kill the technology at its infancy”.
************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
***************************************
25 November, 2020
A Black menace in Brisbane
Another problem Sudanese
Queensland Police have released horrifying body-cam dash-cam footage of a man driving erratically through the streets of Brisbane.
A man who led police on a wild car chase through Brisbane, injuring a young girl, has been described as a “straight-out menace”.
A fleeing Major Major, 20, was apprehended by officers on a motorbike in the CBD after leaving a trail of destruction from East Brisbane during peak hour yesterday.
Alarming footage shows Major colliding with three stationary cars at a set of traffic lights at Stanley Street and Wellington Street in East Brisbane about 5.20pm.
It’s alleged Major, who was on probation at the time, was driving a stolen car.
Police sighted the car and commenced a short pursuit along Stanley Street at Woolloongabba.
Major continued driving dangerously onto the Pacific Motorway, colliding with two other cars, during which police terminated the pursuit.
He continued through Brisbane City before crashing into a truck at the intersection of William Street and Margaret Street. The car was significantly damaged causing Major to leave the scene on foot.
A seven-year-old girl, an occupant in one of the cars hit by Major, was taken to hospital with neck injuries.
Major faced Brisbane Magistrates Court this morning charged with dangerous operation of a vehicle, evasion and driving without a licence. He has also been charged with five counts of wilful damage and two counts of stealing.
During a bail application police prosecutor Sgt Wade Domagala urged against releasing Major into the community. “Mr Major is a straight-out menace,” he said.
“The police tried to pull him over and then his behaviour just endangers the community ...smashing into other cars causing a seven-year-old to have to go to hospital.
“Your honour the community denounce that sort of behaviour and they need to be protected from people like him.”
War heroes deserve our thanks, not cutting down
It is sickening to suddenly hear people moaning about a warrior culture as if it was a disease
Australia’s Chief of Army says he was “sickened” and “shocked” by the nature and extent of the war crimes allegedly committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
If you venture to be a tall poppy in this country, then be prepared for those of more modest achievement to come at your ankles with chainsaws.
One of our tallest poppies, literally and figuratively, is Ben Roberts-Smith, the recipient of the Victoria Cross and the Medal for Gallantry and former member of the Special Air Service Regiment.
Roberts-Smith may or may not have been involved in the alleged crimes in Afghanistan detailed in the Brereton report, but his only known crime to date is to have exhibited extraordinary bravery under fire on numerous occasions.
A genuine hero – what a perfect target for the armchair critics who have never heard or seen a shot fired in anger, and whose most critical life decisions relate to the choice between iced latte and cappuccino.
What, I wonder, would those now chanting “shame, shame, shame” have done had they been in Kandahar Province on June 11, 2020, pinned down by fire from three machineguns and with two comrades already wounded?
Would they have huddled in a hole and cried for their mothers, or done as Roberts-Smith did as detailed in this citation accompanying his Victoria Cross.
“Corporal Roberts-Smith and his patrol members fought towards the enemy position until, at a range of 40m, the weight of fire prevented further movement forward. At this point, he identified the opportunity to exploit some cover provided by a small structure,” the citation detailed.
“As he approached the structure, Corporal Roberts-Smith identified an insurgent grenadier in the throes of engaging his patrol.
“Corporal Roberts-Smith instinctively engaged the insurgent at point-blank range resulting in the death of the insurgent.
“With the members of his patrol still pinned down by the three enemy machine gun positions, he exposed his own position in order to draw fire away from his patrol, which enabled them to bring fire to bear against the enemy.”
Corporal Roberts-Smith’s actions later in the encounter demonstrated “extreme devotion to duty and the most conspicuous gallantry”.
In another engagement, he realised that the forward edge of an observation post was not secure and moved forward to take up an exposed position forward of the patrol so he could effectively employ his sniper weapon.
“Lance Corporal Roberts-Smith’s actions whilst under heavy anti-coalition militia fire and in a precarious position, threatened by a numerically superior force, are testament to his courage, tenacity and sense of duty to his patrol,” the Victoria Cross citation found.
Courage, tenacity, sense of duty. See much of that around these days? I see plenty of self-interest, self-indulgence, self-promotion and self-opinion, but not much in the way of courage, tenacity and sense of duty.
It is sickening to suddenly hear people moaning about a ”warrior culture” as if it were a disease. We need people with a warrior culture to defend us from those who would destroy our democracy.
It is worth remembering that the enemy in question are in the habit of decapitating their prisoners and burning them alive in metal cages. They are not nice people.
There can be no doubt that some bad things happened, but it’s easy to judge while safely ensconced in the society that Roberts-Smith and his colleagues fought to defend.
At the battle of Milne Bay against the Japanese in Papua New Guinea in World War II where my late father served, he and his men were told to take no prisoners, and they didn’t. Were they war criminals? I don’t think so.
ABC in hot water over ‘racist’ kids’ show
Racism against the Chinese is OK for the Left, apparently
China is demanding a formal apology from the ABC over a “racist” show that implies eating rats is an everyday part of Chinese cuisine.
The diplomatic row over the Horrible Histories episode centres on the story of ancient China Empress Wu Zetian, the only woman to ever rule China.
In an article in the state-controlled Global Times, the newspaper has claimed the ABC’s Horrible Histories program had “drawn outrage and condemnation from Chinese-Australians for “broadcasting a children’s television series with controversial content suggesting insects, rats and hair are used in normal Chinese recipes, which they believe is racism and demand for an apology.”
“In an episode of the series, ancient China Empress Wu Zetian, who is played by a white actress, is eating insects, rats, jellyfish and hair, and invites two modern visitors, the program’s hosts, to join the meal,’’ the article states.
“As the visitors act disgusted, “Wu” explained it was “perfectly normal” to eat insects in China in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).”
But a spokesman for the ABC denied that the episode represented an example a white people masquerading as Asian noting the actress, Sophie Wu, in British-born but has Chinese heritage.
“The ABC has received some complaints, which will be considered by ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs as is our usual practice,’’ an ABC spokesman told news.com.au.
The Global Times said the episode was a disgrace. “This kind of racist behaviour is indeed too narrow-minded for a country,” a netizen (a citizen) wrote on China’s Twitter-like social networking platform Weibo.
“It’s uncanny how they are always talking about anti-racism and they are actually the meanest racists,” another one commented.
The episode is not new but from the sixth season of Horrible Histories, a sketch comedy released five years ago, that aired again in Australia recently.
Some Chinese-Australians have launched an online petition protesting warning it could cause Chinese children to be ridiculed and bullied at school.
“The program was also aired at the moment when some Western politicians constantly attacked China for COVID-19 outbreaks, launching smear campaign against the Chinese culture especially the food culture, which is indeed seen as malicious and offensive,” Chen Hong, professor and director of the Australian Studies Center of East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Previously, the BBC was forced to delete an episode of the program that depicted Florence Nightingale as racist.
“We also need an apology,” a Chinese student in Australia told the Global Times, “Hopefully ABC and CBBC can prove that they are really against racial discrimination, and not just another biased Westerners playing with double standards.”
Empress Wu Zetian (624-705) is one of the most controversial monarchs in Chinese history, a woman who historians claim presided over a reign of “blood and terror” but remained much admired.
A teenage imperial concubine to Emperor Taizong (598-649) she also served as his secretary, playing music and reading poetry. She then had an affair with the Emperor’s youngest son, Li Zhu, who sent for Wu to be returned to court after his father died.
She is also accused of strangling her own baby to frame a rival for the murder before deposing the woman and becoming the new empress consort.
Why NSW power bills could surge by $400 a year under government's new 'electricity tax' to pay for renewable energy plan
Power bills could increase by $400 a year under the New South Wales government's energy roadmap, Mark Latham has warned.
The NSW One Nation leader slammed the plan to encourage $32billion of private investment in renewable energy projects by 2030 as a 'stitch up'.
The state government wants wind, pumped hydro and solar projects to replace four coal-fired power stations which are due to shut over the next 15 years.
Energy Minister Matt Kean says then plan - which will create Renewable Energy Zones in Dubbo and the south west - will cut household bills by $130 and small business bills by $430 a year between 2023 and 2040.
The state government wants wind, pumped hydro and solar projects to replace four coal-fired power stations which are due to shut over the next 15 years +2
The state government wants wind, pumped hydro and solar projects to replace four coal-fired power stations which are due to shut over the next 15 years
But Mr Latham fears bills may increase as the government plans to offer a minimum electricity price to companies that build the renewable projects.
If the electricity price were to fall below that level, the government would levy cash from providers who would temporarily increase household bills.
Mr Latham told Daily Mail Australia the plan represents 'guaranteed income for renewable energy companies and their lobbyists, paid for by electricity consumers.'
He described the plan as a new tax and criticised Mr Kean for intervening in the electricity market.
'He's planning personally to levy amounts on the electricity distributors that they pass on to consumers,' Mr Latham told Sydney radio station 2GB.
'So that's a new NSW electricity tax where the minister gets to levy the money on the distributors... it goes straight on to the electricity bill.
Why might power prices increase?
The NSW government wants wind, pumped hydro and solar projects to replace coal-powered electricity.
Under the plan the government will offer a minimum electricity price to companies that build the renewable projects through a Long Term Energy Services Agreement.
The government's consumer trustee will then sell the energy to retailers and companies, with any shortfall made up by enforced 'contributions' from distributors who would push up their prices for consumers.
The government says these payments will only be triggered if consumers are already benefiting from low energy prices - and they would be repaid once prices increase and the renewable projects are making cash again.
'We're talking huge amounts of money and probably power bills going up by $100 a quarter,' Mr Latham said, without explaining where he got the figure from.
The 59-year-old has vowed to oppose the plan, which the Coalition government introduced in early November with support from Labor and the Greens.
'I think we should slow this down and make sure we can guarantee to people the lights stay on and the prices come down,' he said. 'This is the whole future of the energy sector in NSW and they won't have a committee that's commonplace in other areas. 'It's a stitch up, it's a cover up and we're going to oppose it.'
Federal energy minister Angus Taylor also fears the plan will push up prices and has demanded to see the NSW government's modelling.
'I'm concerned about models and analysis including unrealistic assumptions that don't translate into the real world,' he said in a speech at The Australian Financial Review Energy and Climate Summit on Monday.
'The Commonwealth would like to see the modelling behind that policy. I'm confident that we can work through it, and NSW has indicated its strong intent to get to a sensible outcome.'
The Australian Energy Council warned the government's intervention may encourage too many energy assets to be built in places where they may not be needed. 'This would ultimately mean higher costs for households,' it said in statement.
Tony Wood, energy director at the Grattan Institute, said the plan takes risk away from investors and transfers them to consumers who would potentially foot larger bills.
The plan will support 12 gigawatts of renewable energy and two gigawatts of storage, such as pumped hydro, and reduce carbon emissions by 90 million tonnes to 2030.
Landholders are expected to pocket $1.5 billion in rent by 2042 for hosting new infrastructure.
More than 10,000 construction and ongoing jobs will be created by 2026, with an estimated 2800 ongoing jobs in 2030, the government says.
Coal-fired power made up 77 per cent of NSW's total electricity generation in 2019 - higher than the national average of 56 per cent - but four of the state's five plants will stop by 2035. Renewables made up 19 per cent.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8975825/Power-bills-surge-400-year-warns-Mark-Latham.html
************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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24 November, 2020
The next Uluru? Fears iconic mountain could be shut to climbers after local Aboriginal tribes said it was a sacred place
Why all this catering to Aboriginal superstition? Why is Aboriginal religion privileged?
Australia does not have an explicit separation of church and state but there is no doubt that such a separation is widely agreed as proper. There should be no favoritism shown to any particular religion.
Many churches have aims that they would like government support for. So why are Aboriginal aims given such respect? It is quite simply racist and wrong
An iconic mountain could be the next Australian landmark banned to hikers for good after it was named as an Aboriginal sacred place.
Mt Warning, on the Tweed Valley coast in northern New South Wales, was closed to tourists in March this year as a precaution against crowds spreading Covid-19.
The popular scenic destination, traditionally known as Wollumbin, was scheduled to allow to sightseers back in May 2021, however, the re-opening will now be reviewed, according to The Courier Mail.
Since the last tourists ascended Uluru in 2019, debate has arisen around whether climbers should be allowed on other natural landmarks such as Wollumbin and the nearby Mt Beerwah on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service said the delay to re-opening Wollumbin was to assess safety issues around landslides and the chain section of the hike, but also said they would be holding discussions with Indigenous groups.
'NPWS will now consider the future of the summit track, in consultation with key community and tourism stakeholders, including local Aboriginal Elders and knowledge holders,' a spokesperson said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8972153/The-Uluru-Fears-iconic-Mount-Warning-shut-climbers.html
Qld political leaders furtive in praise of resources like natural gas
Our natural gas industry has delivered positive results beyond the supply of energy, so why does the Labor Party continue to demonise it, asks Des Houghton.
In a drought-scarred landscape in western Queensland, near Roma where I grew up, Trevor Kehl gazes over an inland lake twice the size of Lang Park.
It is not really a lake, but a storage pond holding 300 million litres of water. Kehl gets the water for free, as part of a deal with Senex, a Brisbane-based natural gas explorer and producer helping to provide reliable power as the nation transitions away from coal.
Kehl said a 10-year partnership with Senex had droughtproofed his cattle property.
Senex also installed an irrigation system at no charge, so Kehl can water 100ha of crops like Rhodes grass and barley to feed his 300 Braford breeders. The Braford is a cross between a Hereford bull and a Brahman cow, 55-year-old Kehl explained.
The water was drawn to the surface to release the gas. It was a godsend to rural producers, said Kehl.
Like many farmers and graziers who benefit from the gas water, Kehl no longer has to buy feed. His cattle put on more weight and therefore sell at a higher price. Now Kehl and his wife Jasmine will build sheds to store the hay they will make from the excess Rhodes grass, and offer it to the market.
The couple also receive annual compensation payments for the 11 Senex wells and 15 Santos wells on their properties.
Senex is a rising star in Gasland, and this year completed a $400m development in the Surat Basin, 500km west of Brisbane.
In the past two years Senex drilled 80 wells, built processing facilities and pipelines in and around its Roma North and Atlas developments. Roma North supplies the Santos-operated GLNG venture while Atlas is Australia's first dedicated domestic-only acreage.
"Senex continues to work with potential customers to supply natural gas that will support Australia's gas-led recovery and creation of sustainable jobs for Queenslanders," said managing director Ian Davies.
He said Senex now provided gas for domestic and commercial customers including CSR, Orora, Visy Glass, Alinta Energy, CleanCo Queensland and Southern Oil Refining. Davies recently gave the go-ahead for an expansion at Roma North and Atlas that would increase production by 50 per cent.
All the big players in gas are involved directly or indirectly in the beef and farming industry. Since 2014, Origin and Australia Pacific LNG have been supplying high-quality, treated coal-seam gas water to local landholders via its Fairymeadow Rd irrigation pipeline near Miles. The water is used for irrigation and drinking water for livestock.
Locals have been able to use the water to develop new or expanded irrigated cropping and watering for stock, boosting agricultural production.
The water is purified by reverse osmosis at the Condabri and Talinga water treatment plants.
Coal-seam gas has provided a windfall for many in the regions. Gas companies have built roads, airports and dams and given cash grants to sports clubs and schools.
The companies took billions of dollars of risk in establishing the industry that now benefits all Queenslanders. And they pay billions in royalties. They have done their bit.
So it truly beggars belief that sections of the Labor Party attempt to demonise gas.
The internecine war in the federal Labor Party over emission targets has caused deep divisions and threatens Anthony Albanese's leadership.
Gas is a huge industry that flies under the radar, perhaps because the big players are afraid to hail its benefits for fear of antagonising the hysterical green movement.
Queensland alone produced 1503 petajoules of gas last year, enough to power 28 million homes for a year.
In the same year the contribution of the Queensland resources sector to the state economy was $82.6bn, according to the Queensland Resources Council. Yet Queensland political leaders of all colours are furtive in their praise of resources like gas, probably because they fear being wedged like Albo.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/qld-political-leaders-furtive-in-praise-of-resources-like-gas/news-story/fe5fc6fb7105ee1f6093b8940239045f
The Biden promise to roll back campus due process reforms
Implications for Australia
Naturally, one of the people celebrating the American election result here in Australia was End Rape on Campus activist Sharna Bremner who was one of the authors of recent advice from TEQSA, our university regulator, on managing the kangaroo courts. I've written before about how astonishing it is that our official tertiary education authority would include this activist as one of the authors of advice to the unversities about these matters.
Bremner is delighted that a Biden victory will lead to his promised roll-back in the due process reforms introduced by Trump's Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos. See her tweet when it dawned on her that DeVos would be leaving:
Here she is acknowledging that in the document she helped craft for TEQSA she'd introduced some minor changes to Australian policies after the DeVos reforms to Title IX, the anti-discrimination regulations responsible for America's college tribunal system. Clearly now she's hoping we will follow suit and give up any pretense of protecting the rights of the accused.
It is really shameful that this feminist activist would have no hesitation in publicly revealing the key role she is having in shaping university policy. What a clear demonstration of how the entire higher education system has been captured.
https://www.thinkspot.com/discourse/XLuZOO/post/bettina-arndt/the-biden-promise-to-roll-back-campus-due-process-reforms/bvZtjy
Why billionaire Kerry Stokes is backing SAS soldiers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan
Media mogul Kerry Stokes has been publicly and privately supporting members of Australia's Special Air Service Regiment and their families for decades.
Accusations members of the regiment committed war crimes in Afghanistan - including the murder of prisoners - have only strengthened that commitment.
The Western Australian billionaire's association with the Perth-based special forces unit goes back at least as far as his days playing social rugby with SAS soldiers in the 1970s.
This week it was confirmed he is funding a defamation case brought by retired SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith against Nine Entertainment newspapers over reports on his wartime service.
Mr Roberts-Smith is general manager of Channel Seven in Queensland, which is part of Seven West Media, owned by Mr Stokes.
Mr Stokes' private investment company Australian Capital Equity has reportedly extended a $1.9million line of credit to Mr Roberts-Smith.
The former soldier has provided his Victoria Cross and other battlefield decorations including a Medal for Gallantry as security for the loan.
In the event Mr Roberts-Smith cannot repay the money Mr Stokes will donate the medal set to the Australian War Memorial, of which he is chairman.
'The funding of his legal action is a private matter, however he has put his medals up as collateral on a loan and will relinquish them if required,' Mr Stokes has said.
'If this eventuates, I will donate his medals with Ben's approval to the Australian War Memorial, as I have done so with other VCs and medals in the past.'
A report by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence released on Thursday found evidence of 39 unlawful killings by special forces soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly by the SAS.
Key findings on special forces in Afghanistan:
Special forces were responsible for 39 unlawful killings, most were prisoners, and were deliberately covered up.
Thirty-nine Afghans were unlawfully killed in 23 incidents, either by special forces or at the instruction of special forces.
None of the killings took place in the heat of battle.
All the killings occurred in circumstances which, if accepted by a jury, would constitute the war crime of murder.
There have been 25 alleged perpetrators identified either as principals or accessories. Some are still serving in the ADF.
Justice Paul Brereton recommended 36 matters involving 23 incidents and 19 individuals be referred to the Australian Federal Police for criminal investigation.
Mr Stokes was a co-founder of the SAS Resources Fund, set up after the 1996 Black Hawk helicopter collision near Townsville in which 15 SASR members were killed.
The fund provides assistance to serving and former members of the regiment and their dependants in times of financial hardship.
A spokesman for Mr Stokes told the Australian Financial the fund might be used to support those SAS soldiers facing potential prosecution for their actions in Afghanistan.
That assistance could include help with legal costs and other ongoing expenses such as for mental health treatment.
'He supports all SAS soldiers, not just Ben,' spokesman Tim Allerton told the AFR. 'It's the whole SAS community.'
It has previously been revealed Mr Stokes provided instant $50,000 payments to the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, where 27,000 Australian personnel served between 2001 and 2014.
Mr Stokes has also bought and donated to the War Memorial at least seven VCs awarded to Australians, beginning with that of Vietnam hero Kevin 'Dasher' Wheatley.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8968453/Kerry-Stokes-backing-SAS-soldiers-accused-war-crimes-Afghanistan.html
************************************
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
***************************************
23 November, 2020
Labor renegade Joel Fitzgibbon is now openly threatening to bring down leader Anthony Albanese and take his job unless he dumps the green inner-city Left and backs workers
The old party of the workers makes a last ditch stand. Fitzgibbon has no chance. The Left worldwide is now the party of the elite
The Soviet threat once kept the elite conservative. They were the ones threatened by a Communist takeover. But once that threat was gone they went on to service their natural feelings of superiority. Because they had obtained elite status in one field they felt that they knew it all and were entitled to impose their views on other people, including the workers. And telling other people what to do is the essence of Leftism
Joel Fitzgibbon has threatened to bring down Anthony Albanese if he doesn't move Labor to the centre and focus on the economy to win back blue-collar workers instead of pandering to left-leaning inner-city voters who favour climate change action over jobs.
The Hunter MP, who quit the frontbench last week after an explosive 'dust-up' with his leader over climate policy, told Daily Mail Australia he is prepared to 'go to the next step' if the party's emphasis doesn't change soon.
'I've given him a big warning and another chance and we'll see whether he can grasp that opportunity or if we'll have to go to the next step,' he warned.
Asked how long he would give Mr Albanese to turn things around before making his next move, Mr Fitzgibbon said: 'I haven't defined a time, let's see where this take us.'
The 58-year-old, who almost lost his coal-mining seat at the 2019 election, believes Mr Albanese and some shadow ministers are too focused on climate change and worries an overly ambitious policy could cost jobs and votes in regional areas.
He was furious that senior left-wingers - whom he branded the 'cheesecloth brigade' - were calling for an 'even more ambitious climate change policy' in the wake of Joe Biden's US election win as Mr Albanese attacked Scott Morrison for refusing to adopt a 2050 net zero emissions target.
Mr Fitzgibbon, who supports the target, admitted there isn't a gulf in policy between him and Mr Albanese - but wants Labor's 'language and emphasis' to change so that resources sector workers feel less 'demonised'.
'We should spend less time talking about climate change and more time talking about people's economic welfare and their aspiration,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
'People are more concerned about whether there are jobs and paying their mortgages than they are about climate change.
'We need to stop this fascination with it and talk in the language of our traditional base.'
Mr Fitzgibbon, who has backed the coal and gas industries since his election to parliament in 1996, accused left-wingers of deliberately exaggerating the problem of climate change to impress progressive inner-city voters.
'The left, of course, want to overstate the challenge and the problem because it suits them,' he said.
The former defence minister cited government figures released in August which showed that emissions per capita were lower than in 1990 by 42.9 per cent while the emissions intensity of the economy was 64.2 per cent lower than 30 years ago.
'This is a straw man. We're trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist. Australia is doing it's bit. Someone's got to show some leadership on this stuff,' he said.
Mr Fitzgibbon said he wants Labor to focus on jobs and getting people back to work after the Covid-19 recession put more than 1million Aussies out of a job.
'It's not just about one policy,' he said. 'It's not just about coal, it's about re-claiming the centre ground.'
One right-faction Labor politician, who supports Mr Fitzgibbon's position, told Daily Mail Australia the problem is that Mr Albanese is struggling to resist progressive figures in the shadow cabinet who are dragging him to the left.
One example was shadow foreign affairs minister Penny Wong's insistence that he should ask the prime minister to call Donald Trump and tell him to concede the election - a risky move that no other world leader contemplated, the politician said.
To win the next election and avoid a fourth defeat in a row, Mr Fitzgibbon believes Labor must claim the regional Queensland seats of Flynn, Capricornia and potentially Dawson, which all have large coal industries.
He is angry that Mr Albanese, who trailed Scott Morrison by 58 to 29 in the latest preferred prime minister Newspoll, has not visited a single coalmine after 18 months as leader.
CFMEU Queensland mining and energy president Stephen Smyth said if the Labor Party refuses to back coalminers then their votes will go to One Nation.
'Joel is great advocate and understands the issues facing coalmining generally. If Labor doesn't have an advocate in that space then One Nation will fill that void,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
Mr Smyth said his union members do not deny the science of climate change and are open-minded about the transition away from fossil fuels but worry that moving too fast will decimate their communities and destroy thousands of jobs.
Under Labor rules, 60 per cent of senators and MPs have to support overthrowing a leader before they can be replaced, but commentators say any number above half would pressure Mr Albanese to step down.
Some say Mr Fitzgibbon is more likely to act as a 'stalking horse' for a fellow right-faction leader such as Richard Marles or Jim Chalmers rather than take the reins himself.
Pushed on whether he would personally challenge for the top job, Mr Fitzgibbon laughed and said: 'It's too early to be talking about that, let's see where this takes us.'
The veteran MP last week said he has 'no plans' to run for leadership but would consider a tilt if 'drafted' by his colleagues.
Mr Fitzgibbon, who has demanded the resignation of left-wing climate spokesman Mark Butler, said several Labor politicians share his concerns.
'I have very, very significant support in the caucus for my views on the party's direction, my determination to make the party more electable,' he said.
Labor's dispute over energy policy is part of a broader challenge faced by left-of-centre parties in western democracies who are struggling to hold their traditional working class voter base while appealing to younger, more internationalist supporters who typically live in major cities.
This divide undid the UK Labour Party in December when Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson won long-held labour seats in former mining areas in the north of England with a nationalistic rallying cry to 'get Brexit done'.
A review of Australian Labor's 2019 federal election campaign found the party had become a 'natural home for diverse interests and concerns including gender equality, the LGBTQI+ community, racial equality and environmentalism'.
But it warned that 'working people experiencing the dislocation caused by new technologies and globalisation could lose faith in Labor if they do not believe Labor is responding to their issues.'
Mr Fitzgibbon believes Mr Albanese can win the next election but only if he strikes a better balance with a more moderate climate policy.
The Labor leader said he is not concerned about alienating blue-collar workers and believes Mr Morrison is isolating Australia from the rest of the world by refusing to adopt a 2050 net zero emissions target.
Frontbencher Mark Dreyfus, who represents Isaacs in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, said Mr Fitzgibbon is 'out of step' with the majority of Labor Party supporters and insisted 'we don't get to say no to climate change.'
Australia's largest union, the ACTU, supports that position. President Michelle O'Neill said climate change 'impacts every job' and 'we need to act.'
Labor's 45 per cent carbon emissions reduction target by 2030 was received badly in the Hunter and regional Queensland.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8956079/Joel-Fitzgibbon-urges-Anthony-Albanese-focus-jobs-not-climate-change-face-step.html
Australian Public broadcaster blames France when jihadis murder its innocents
Since the brutal assassination of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded on the street by an -Islamist for showing his students a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, the ABC has distinguished itself by publishing one piece after the other that pins the blame for the French terrorist attacks not on the fanatics and their murderous ideology but - you guessed it - on France.
The ABC's own news analysis, issued some two weeks after Paty's murder, set the pace. Although presented as coolly factual, more than two-thirds of the piece was taken up with criticisms of Charlie Hebdo's caricatures. Adding to the bias, the only expert interviewed for that piece - a long-time critic of the caricatures - was allowed to get away with claims that are frankly astonishing.
According to that hand-picked expert, there is a stark contrast -between France, which defended Charlie Hebdo's right to publish the caricatures as falling within the country's constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression, and the "responsible" approach adopted by "other European nations".
But almost all of those countries treated the caricatures exactly as France has; and far from affecting France alone, Islamist protests about caricatures of the prophet have, targeted Denmark, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, among many others.
Those comments, however, were just an hors d'oeuvre for an opinion piece by Myriam Francois, a UK-based convert to Islam who specialises in denouncing what she views as Islamophobia, and a follow-up article issued on Monday by Deakin University's Fethi Mansouri and Greg Barton.
Merely to list the grievous errors in those pieces, which were not balanced by better informed points of view, would require far more space than is available. But the essence of their argument is straightforward.
In Mansouri and Barton's words, France's laws on secularism "marginalise" and "chastise" the country's "religious minorities", including its Muslims, while providing "significant support" to the country's majority Catholic faith.
Viewed in historical perspective, that contention is laughable. Although Mansouri and Barton show little sign of having read them, the landmark statutes adopted in 1881-83, 1886, 1901 and 1905 were designed to, and did, eliminate the Catholic Church's role in public decision-making, weakening the church dramatically.
Nor is there any evidence that the laws generally "marginalised" and "chastised" religious minorities, as Mansouri and Barton contend; on the contrary, thanks partly to their protections, Protestants and Jews thrived in France after the Second World War, rising to prominence in every sphere of public life, much as France's Vietnamese community is doing.
It is true that the picture for Muslims, although not uniformly bleak, is grimmer. But that is hardly the fault of the secularism laws, which, as well as safeguarding the freedom to practise Islam, have been implemented neutrally, with the Council of State - the country's powerful administrative court - rejecting any measures which discriminate against particular faiths.
For example, a suite of laws adopted in the 1880s effectively prohibited "ostentatious" signs of religion in the public sector, forcing the removal, on a massive scale, of crucifixes and other -Catholic icons from all state schools and offices.
It was in the spirit of those prohibitions that the wearing of hijabs by Muslim students and of skullcaps by Jewish students in state schools was addressed (rightly or wrongly) in the law of March 15, 2004.
In fact, if that law, which extended the prohibition on "ostentatious" symbols to hijabs and skullcaps, was subsequently upheld by the European Court of Human Rights, it was primarily because it applied to all faiths on a neutral basis.
Mansouri and Barton then compound their error by claiming that Catholic schools in France - receive greater support than those of other denominations. On the contrary, the law of -December 31, 1959 provides exactly the same (very generous) level of financial assistance to all independent schools that agree to meet the standards set down in the national curriculum, regardless of their affiliation.
Schools which refuse to teach subjects such as sexual education and evolutionary biology, as some Islamic schools choose to do, receive less public funding - but so do all non-Islamic schools which make the same choices.
Indeed, rather than arising from the principle of neutrality, many French analysts believe France's problems with Islamism have been aggravated by the myriad derogations from that principle which have, however inadvertently, favoured the Islamists in recent years.
Over the past three decades, for example, administrative rulings have made it easier for low--income Islamic communities to build mosques by allowing local councils and other public bodies to contribute to their financing.
At the same time, so as to -ensure the availability of trained imams, France has facilitated their education in, and recruitment from, the Islamic world, including through state-to-state agreements.
But instead of strengthening social cohesion, as they were intended to do, those measures have encouraged the proliferation of centres preaching radical Islam, with foreign imams who were trained in fundamentalist madrassas actively promoting jihadism.
Similarly, although few public resources are devoted to consulting with other religious groups, since 1989 - when Pierre Joxe, the then minister of the interior, set up an official Islamic advisory council - governments from both sides of politics have made a sustained investment in establishing national and regional bodies to represent France's Muslims.
To claim, as Myriam Francois does, that France's Muslims are "rarely, if ever, consulted" on the policies that affect them is consequently absurd. What can be said, however, is that those efforts at consultation have largely backfired, creating additional platforms for the Islamists to capture and exploit.
There is nonetheless one assertion of Mansouri and Barton's that rings true: France does indeed "ask migrants to simply adopt and adapt to the republican values and work towards becoming French citizens", rather than remaining trapped in "hyphenated identities".
But despite the howls of outrage it provokes from Francois, Mansouri and Barton, that goal scarcely seems illegitimate. After all, while migrants bring to their new home their individual pasts, forging a common future requires a commitment to shared values and to the undivided obligations of equal citizenship. And the stronger, deeper and more genuine the common bonds of citizenship are, the greater will be the individual differences the polity can tolerate without tearing itself apart. Liberty and loyalty are therefore not alternatives but inseparable companions.
How those bonds of citizenship should be formed and tested is, no doubt, open to debate. Yet this much is clear: advancing that debate by providing a balanced and accurate discussion is not on the ABC's agenda.
Writing in this newspaper on Tuesday, ABC board member Joseph Gersh argued that today's "era of fake news" has made the ABC's role more important than ever.
It certainly has - as a purveyor, at taxpayers' expense, of the fake news he so loudly decries.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/abc-blames-france-when-jihadis-murder-its-innocents/news-story/2a4b5390045d770ea7815254964932ab
Australian High School denies Year 12 graduate entry to formal because of unpaid fees, accused of being `elitist'
It's not elitist that you should be expected to pay your way
A YEAR 12 Keebra Park High School student who was told he couldn't attend his formal on Wednesday night because of unpaid fees has slammed the school for being "elitist" and only caring about the wellbeing of a select few.
Graduating student Bailey Thompson-Rowsell, 17, said he and his long-term girlfriend Jenna had been looking forward to the attending the event all year.
But he said because his mother, who has gone through recent personal hardship, is behind in her school fees, a staff member told him in front of his peers he couldn't buy a ticket.
"I met every other requirement and then was told I wasn't allowed to go because my fees weren't up to date, I felt kinda hopeless," said Bailey.
"Most of the footy boys have been given scholarships to pay off the rest of their school fees but when it comes to the other students like me, who have also had to work hard all year to graduate, it's like no one cares."
Bailey, who intends to get a carpentry apprenticeship after graduating, said he was gutted he was unable to be at his girlfriend's side during the formal.
His mother said she tried to get financial support a few years ago to see if her son could access indigenous funding through the school but was told all indigenous support had been stopped at the school and that "elders had been fired".
"With my son well aware of our financial issues, he took it on himself to speak to the principal in the middle of the year who informed him he would be able to attend so long as his attendance was good and he passes," she said.
"He worked so hard to pass, he's a good kid.
"Last week, after assistance from his aunty and uncle he had the money to pay for a formal ticket, but when he went to purchase the ticket he was informed he couldn't go due to unpaid fees.
"This was obviously very embarrassing as other students were around."
Despite numerous attempts to contact the school to sort something out, Bailey's mother said she had not heard whether her son would be allowed into the formal.
She said the school even suggested her son should pull out of school altogether. "But he didn't want to leave and he not only finished the year but finished before all the other students in his class," she said.
"I personally think this is social discrimination at its best and this only proves to disadvantaged young people no matter how hard you work in school it still will not be enough to celebrate with your peers and not feel like as my son would say a poor kid."
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/keebra-park-high-school-denies-year-12-graduate-entry-to-formal-because-of-unpaid-fees-accused-of-being-elitist/news-story/b778e32b410337953a049357ae267f66
Hyundai Kona Electric car recalled in Australia
One of the world's biggest car makers has issued an urgent recall of its flagship electric car after some serious issues were reported.
The lithium-ion battery in the Kona Electric SUV may have internal damage or the battery management system control software may cause an electrical short circuit after charging.
If this does happen then the vehicle's battery may catch fire, which could result in serious injury or death to occupants or bystanders and damage to property, according to the company.
Hyundai suggests the affected vehicles should not be parked in a garage. They should ideally park in an open space away from flammable materials to minimise further damage if the vehicle does catch fire.
Owners should also only recharge their vehicles to no more than 90 per cent to further minimise the risk.
Close to 800 vehicles built between 2018 and 2020 are affected, and Hyundai is getting in touch with owners and directing them to their nearest Hyundai dealership to have the issue fixed.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/motoring/motoring-news/hyundai-kona-electric-recalled-in-australia/news-story/836e0a1c45a1748f88ec6852db25cc5b
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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22 November, 2020
Bombshell report into alleged war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan finds 39 unlawful killings were 'NOT in the heat of battle'
Note that these claims come from a report with unknown procedures, not a court case with the usual safeguards destined to see that allegations are fully scrutinied. To treat these allegations as proven is therefore to rely on a kangaroo court. Full judicial scrutiny might well find that they are not supported and are nothing more than inter-unit jealousy
Some of the allegations could well be sound, however. In a guerilla war neither side is much influenced by legality. The only imperative is to survive and win. And taking out persons who are likely rather than proven enemy agents will often serve that strategy. It will often be simply difficult to tell who is enemy and who is not. Yet survival may depend on getting it right. So "take no chances" will often be the rule adopted
Australian soldiers stand accused of murdering 39 people in Afghanistan and treating prisoners with cruelty.
The damning findings were outlined in a major report into alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan made public on Thursday.
The inquiry uncovered scores of instances of unlawful killings and inhumane treatment of detainees.
Australian defence chief Angus Campbell revealed 'none of the alleged unlawful killings were described as being in the heat of battle'.
He went on outline how the 'self-centred warrior culture' had led to 'cutting corners, ignoring and bending rules'.
'Cutting corners, ignoring and bending rules was normalised. What also emerged was a toxic, competitiveness between the Special Air Service Regiment end of the second commando Regiment,' he said.
Since 2016, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force has examined allegations of war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.
Over four years, Justice Paul Brereton interviewed more than 400 witnesses and examined tens of thousands of documents.
Justice Brereton found there was credible evidence of 23 incidents in which a total of 39 Afghan nationals were unlawfully killed.
He identified another two instances where prisoners were treated cruelly by elite Australian troops.
A few of the Afghan nationals killed were not participating in hostilities, while the majority were prisoners of war.
Justice Brereton identified 25 current or former ADF personnel accused of perpetrating one or more war crimes.
The report covered the period from 2005 to 2016, but almost all of the incidents uncovered occurred between 2009 and 2013.
'None of these are incidents of disputable decisions made under pressure in the heat of battle,' the report said.
'The cases in which it has been found that there is credible information of a war crime are ones in which it was or should have been plain that the person killed was a non-combatant.'
Dozens more allegations investigated could not be substantiated.
Justice Brereton also found there was credible evidence some soldiers carried 'throw downs' such as weapons and military equipment to make it appear the person killed was a legitimate target.
As well, there was evidence junior soldiers were required by their patrol commanders to shoot a prisoner in a practice known as "blooding" to achieve their first kill.
The inquiry has recommended the chief of defence refer 36 matters to the Australian Federal Police for criminal investigation.
The matters relate to 23 incidents and involve 19 individuals.
Justice Brereton placed the greatest blame on patrol commanders, believing they were most responsible for inciting or directing subordinates to commit war crimes.
'It was at the patrol commander level that the criminal behaviour was conceived, committed, continued, and concealed, and overwhelmingly at that level that responsibility resides.'
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has previously announced a special investigator will pursue possible criminal prosecutions. The position is yet to be filled.
The report recommended administrative action be taken against some serving ADF personnel where there is credible evidence of misconduct, but not enough for a criminal conviction.
It also recommended Australia compensate the families of Afghan people unlawfully killed, without waiting for criminal prosecutions.
'This will be an important step in rehabilitating Australia's international reputation, in particular with Afghanistan, and it is simply the right thing to do.'
As well, the inquiry recommended various service medals be stripped away from some individuals and groups.
'It has to be said that what this report discloses is disgraceful and a profound betrayal of the Australian Defence Force's professional standards and expectations,' the report said.
'We embarked on this inquiry with the hope that we would be able to report that the rumours of war crimes were without substance.
'None of us desired the outcome to which we have come. We are all diminished by it.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8964227/Australian-Defence-Force-Findings-war-crimes-inquiry.html
Sorry, ABC, we can see your bias
It is revealing that in attempting to demonstrate that the ABC is not biased against the views of mainstream Australians, ABC board member Joseph Gersh, writing in The Australian on Tuesday, used as proof the composition of the panel on the ABC's premier discussion and current affairs program, Q&A.
He described Paul Kelly and Malcolm Turnbull as conservative, which is false. They would not describe themselves as such. They would be more accurately termed small-l liberal.
What Gersh did not mention was that the other three panel members were former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr, left-wing activist Jan Fran and left-wing academic Jenny Hocking, not to mention left-wing host Hamish Macdonald. Not a single conservative among them. (At most maybe one of those six might be an occasional Coalition voter.) The point of mentioning this is that last week's display is representative of the bias the ABC presents daily.
This, after seven years of Coalition government, reveals the truth of Gersh's comment that many on the right side of politics are realising the ABC cannot be reformed.
Throughout its history the Institute of Public Affairs has always supported more freedom of speech and more diversity in the media. A media organisation owned and operated by the government that every taxpayer is forced to fund is incompatible with a free society. The IPA supports the continued existence of the ABC, but not one that is controlled by government and funded by taxpayers.
If the ABC is as necessary, popular and trusted as Gersh makes it out to be, then ABC staff have nothing to fear in operating a successful media business in the private media market. A subscription service, as is being proposed for the BBC in Britain, is a sensible policy the government should adopt.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/sorry-abc-we-can-see-your-bias/news-story/617dcf4b6b517910af09d418259025d5
'Nowhere to hide' for drug dealers as police given new powers
NSW Police will be granted greater powers that allow them to search drug dealers, their homes and cars without a search warrant for two years in a pilot program to be implemented in four jurisdictions.
A bill, which was first flagged in mid-2019, passed Parliament on Wednesday night and is expected to come into effect before the end of the year.
Under the program, a court may issue a drug supply prohibition order (DSPO) for any person convicted of a serious drug offence, such as supplying or manufacturing an indictable quantity, in the past 10 years.
The order will give police the power to search the homes, vehicles and person of convicted drug dealers at any time over two years if authorities have reasonable grounds to suspect that there is evidence of drug-related crime.
An individual may appeal against the DSPO six months after it is issued.
Four jurisdictions across the state will be involved in the trial: Bankstown, Coffs Harbour, Hunter Valley police district, and Dubbo and surrounding towns that fall under the Orana police area.
NSW Police Minister David Elliott said the four areas had been selected for the trial because of police intelligence and in consultation with the local MPs.
The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research will conduct an evaluation at the end of the trial.
While the program is earmarked for a two-year trial, Mr Elliott said if police indicated the orders were successful, he would be open to rolling it out further across the state.
He added the orders would help thwart organised criminal gangs from profiteering through the large-scale manufacture and supply of illegal drugs in the state.
"I want convicted drug dealers and organised criminal groups who target the most vulnerable in our state to know they have nowhere to hide if they are dealing drugs," he said.
"The message today is that every mom and dad across the state can sleep more soundly tonight knowing full well that it's going to be harder for their kids to buy drugs.
"Why? Because the supplier and manufacturer of those drugs is now going to have their life turned upside down with these potential prohibitions orders."
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said last year that 40,000 people were arrested for possession of drugs and 8200 for drug supply.
Drug on-the-spot fines save justice system thousands of dollars
"This power allows us to zero in on that supply chain and those people who were active in supplying drugs and manufacturing," he said.
But advocacy and education groups remain sceptical whether the orders are the best approach, warning they may target those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
Executive director of drug education organisation Unharm, Will Tregoning, said often those convicted of drug offences were from disadvantaged backgrounds or experiencing mental health issues and slapping a two-year order on them would not help.
He suggested the money should rather be redirected to rehabilitation services.
"They have substantial problems in their lives and this type of law enforcement ramp-up makes it more difficult to get help when they need it," he said.
Similarly, the Ted Noffs Foundation's acting chief executive officer Mark Ferry said a better way to disrupt drug supply might be to address underlying reasons and causes.
By doing so, there would be no need for the orders, he said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nowhere-to-hide-for-drug-dealers-as-police-given-new-powers-20201119-p56fze.html
Biden's plan to combat climate change leaves coal-loving Australia an outlier
Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election was largely welcomed by America's friends as a step toward more predictable and conventional U.S. foreign policy. One close American ally, though, faces a thorny predicament as a result of Biden's plan to build a global coalition to combat global warming: Australia.
Australia is the world's second-largest coal exporter and top liquefied natural gas exporter, according to industry bodies, and one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases per person. This status, combined with years of hand-wringing on both sides of Australian politics over climate policies, has earned the country a reputation as a climate-change laggard.
Under pressure from coal and gas interests, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to adopt the prevailing international target of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, putting Australia at odds with the incoming U.S. administration, the European Union, Britain and Japan. Even China, a big buyer of Australian coal, has pledged to be net neutral by 2060.
Morrison, by contrast, famously brought a lump of coal into Parliament in 2017, telling those seeking bolder steps on emissions reduction: "Don't be afraid."
Record fires and dead coral reefs aren't dulling Australia's lust for coal
Biden's election has emboldened Australians who say their country has a moral obligation to be at the forefront of global efforts to combat climate change. That's placing intense political pressure on Morrison's conservative government as the country heads into another summer, less than a year after wildfires scorched vast tracts of the country and spurred calls for urgent steps to alleviate the threat from longer fire seasons and increasingly calamitous conditions.
"Australia has nowhere to hide," former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd said in an interview. "It's time for Morrison to swallow his pride, admit he was wrong and embrace a carbon target."
The Liberal-National coalition government, which signed Australia up for the 2016 Paris climate agreement before Morrison became leader in 2018, has said it expects to achieve net-zero emissions at an indeterminate point in the future.
In the meantime, the government, which abolished a tax on emissions in 2014, has decided to base its energy policy on the use of natural gas, angering scientists who are pushing for greater use of wind and solar power.
"Our policies won't be set in the United Kingdom; they won't be set in Brussels; they won't be set in any part of the world other than here," Morrison said last week.
U.S. trade threat
When it comes to the environment, Australia is a paradox. Proud of setting aside some 23 percent of its landmass for parks and reserves, and the guardian of the Great Barrier Reef, the nation is nonetheless a significant contributor to global warming through its large mining and energy industries.
Australia is the only member of the 37-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that has not set minimum fuel-efficiency standards for cars, according to Christian Downie, an academic at the Australian National University in Canberra who studies climate politics.
Once a Biden administration takes office, one of the main economic threats to Australia is whether the United States goes ahead with a plan to impose tariffs on big emitters of carbon dioxide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/australia-climate-fires-biden-murdoch/2020/11/17/25516342-2306-11eb-9c4a-0dc6242c4814_story.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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20 November, 2020
Coon cheese officially dump the 'racist' brand as owners come up with a brand new name for the Australian classic
So what will they now call it? "White cheese? All this renaming is just playing into the hands of Leftist race-consciousness. Saputo is a Canadian company of Italian origin so much awareness of Australian traditions is not to be expected
"Coon" as a word for an African has in any case never been common in Australia. Australians who read American writers have probably in the past came across references to "Martin Luther Coon" but that is about all. The normal derogatory term for a black in Australia is "boong", with the "oo" pronounced as in "book"
The owner's of Coon cheese are moving along with plans to scrap the brand's name following backlash it is racist to Indigenous Australians.
Saputo Dairy Australia announced they would 'retire' the name in July, following a 'a careful and diligent review'.
The dairy processor confirmed they are in the process of seeking another name for the popular cheese.
'After thorough consideration, Saputo announced that we would be retiring our Coon Cheese brand name,' Saputo Dairy Australia told news.com.au in a statement.
Saputo is yet to reveal when the product's name will be unveiled and when it will hit the shelves.
Aboriginal activists have spent the past 20 years lobbying to have the brand name changed as the word 'coon' is demeaning to people of colour.
The move to rename the brand came after the Black Lives Matter movement gathered momentum in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
The company has claimed the controversial product was named after Edward William Coon, who patented a 'ripening process' that was used to manufacture the original product in the 1920s.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8960235/Coon-cheese-moves-plans-dump-racist-brand.html
'We do not deny climate change': Rupert Murdoch addresses son's exit from board
He says only that disasters are "consistent with" climate change
Rupert Murdoch has made his first public comments about the abrupt resignation of his son James Murdoch from News Corp's board, rejecting assertions the company denies climate change or that he did not consider his son's point of view.
News Corp, owner of The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun, was criticised by James Murdoch and James's wife Kathryn Hufschmid in January for promoting climate denialism after the global media empire's coverage of Australia's bushfire crisis gained global attention and scrutiny. James decided in August to quit the board of directors after years of unease about its editorial direction.
At the company's annual general meeting on Thursday morning (AEDT), Mr Murdoch was asked why he did not accommodate some of James Murdoch's views on climate change and on US President Donald Trump. James Murdoch has long been seen to have more progressive political views than his family and was critical of Trump in a New York Times interview in October.
"Our board has many discussions, but James ... claims that our papers have covered the bushfires in Australia without discussing climate change. We do not deny climate change, we are not deniers," Mr Murdoch said.
Mr Murdoch's comments are the latest to address the topic of climate change and the way News Corp mastheads approach it. The debate was ignited in January by former News Corp finance manager Emily Townsend, who sent an email to all employees accusing her employer of spreading a "misinformation campaign" on climate change that was "dangerous" and "unconscionable". James went public with his perspective on the matter days later.
But News Corp has run other pieces that have questioned the legitimacy of widely-accepted climate change science over the past decade.
Columns by Melbourne writer Andrew Bolt and Sky commentator (and The Australian Financial Review columnist) Rowan Dean in the tabloids and former ASX chairman Maurice Newman in The Australian have described climate change as a "cult" and "a socialist plot". In a broadcast on News Corp-owned Sky News, Bolt criticised the "constant stream of propaganda" on the ABC about the climate crisis.
In a clip which has subsequently gone viral, Malcolm Turnbull chastises Paul Kelly, head writer from The Australian about bias in climate-related stories.
A News Corp spokesperson tried to defuse the situation by arguing that, of the 3335 bushfire related stories by The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun, The Courier-Mail and The Advertiser between September 1, 2019 and January 23, 2020, 3.4 per cent mentioned the words "arson or "arsonists".
"The facts demonstrate starkly the falsity of Mr Turnbull's claim," a News Corp spokesman said.
"In this same period, news.com.au also published more than 300 bushfire stories, of which only 16 mentioned arson, equivalent to 5 per cent," the spokesman said. "Not one of these small number of stories stated the bushfires were 'all the consequence' of arsonists."
An editorial in The Australian on November 13 said the newspaper published a wide range of views on bushfire-related issues such as land clearing, backburning, drought, climate change and building regulations.
"Arsonists were a small part of the story. By January 7 this year, police had arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania," the article said. "As we editorialised on January 10: 'The evidence of global warming since the Industrial Revolution is clear. More intense fires are an observed reality consistent with the predictions of climate change science.'"
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/we-are-not-climate-change-deniers-rupert-murdoch-addresses-son-s-exit-from-board-20201119-p56fy3.html
Australian research: Kids' saliva may be key to fighting COVID-19
It's long baffled the experts: why don't children appear to contract or spread coronavirus? New Aussie research may have the answer.
Children exposed to coronavirus from their infected parents have produced antibodies to the virus without testing positive, new research has revealed
A Murdoch Children's Research Institute expert says an antibody in the children's saliva could hold the key to explaining why the children were protected.
The case emerged early in the pandemic when the Victorian children had close contact with their symptomatic infected parents, including one child who shared the parents' bed but never got coronavirus.
"The parents were positive but the children weren't despite us doing lots of tests," Associate Professor Nigel Crawford told 3AW on Wednesday.
"But we did find they had an immune response similar to their parents, suggesting they're getting protection from the virus."
Dr Crawford said testing showed that the children's saliva started to produce some immune response.
"They started to show the children were producing antibodies in their saliva, which may have stopped the virus from invading their system and causing more severe disease," he said.
"So there is evidence saliva is something we need to learn more about. This may even be a way to potentially test for the virus as well rather than the more invasive nasal swab."
Dr Crawford, who is also a paediatrician at the Royal Children's Hospital, said the finding could begin to shed light on why children were shielded from the virus.
"We haven't seen very many children admitted to hospital, certainly not many becoming very unwell or sick, despite the increased numbers with that second wave," he told the radio station.
"So we can start to unlock the mystery of why children are protected. We may then be able to understand how we can get protection broader in the community, including with vaccination programs."
The institute is doing an in-depth investigation and monitoring more than 20 families, including some in which parents were COVID-19 infected but their children weren't, to obtain more detailed findings on protective immunity in children.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/kids-saliva-may-be-key-to-fighting-covid19/news-story/4367f763c489fe068e13aac20b343dd3
Shocked Americans and Europeans cooped up in lockdown marvel at the 52,000 screaming Australian football fans packed into a stadium with no masks or social distancing
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/11/18/15/35823808-8962231-image-a-29_1605712055482.jpg
Australia is the envy of the world after hosting the biggest crowd at a sporting event since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Thousands around the globe who tuned into the State of Origin decider were stunned to see over 52,000 eager fans packed in Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium with no social distancing and very few face masks.
International viewers watching in countries with hundreds of thousands of active infections marvelled at the spectacle as almost all major sports worldwide are now played behind closed doors or with very limited, spaced out crowds.
But Australia has fought the pandemic so successfully that it has relaxed restrictions so much that big sporting crowds are possible.
Many overseas onlookers praised Australia and the Sunshine State for the pandemic policies which made the event possible.
But some locals were furious and questioned why thousands were allowed to gather at the footy, but they were banned from attending funerals and weddings.
Queensland were too strong for New South Wales and went on to win the brutal match 20 to 14 after surviving a late fightback.
But for a large number of viewers, the contest was not as impressive as the event itself.
Queensland has not had a single community transmission of Covid-19 in months and there are now only 94 active cases in all of Australia - the vast majority oh which were acquired overseas.
'Look at the crowd for the state of origin in Australia. Are they on the same planet as us?' One Twitter user posted.
'Breaks me seeing that and thinking about the state that our sports are in.'
Another said: 'Around 50,000 fans inside Suncorp Stadium for State of Origin III decider this morning. Amazing to see. Makes me very, very jealous to see.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8962231/Americans-Europeans-cooped-lockdown-marvel-State-Origin-crowd.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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19 November, 2020
Facebook apologises to Australian MP falsely accused by conspiracy theorist of being in 'paedophile network'
A rogue organization
Facebook has apologised to Nationals MP Anne Webster over months-long delays in responding to reports of abuse she received from an online conspiracy theorist that led to an $875,000 defamation payout order.
In September, federal court justice Jacqueline Gleeson ordered the payout to the first-term Mildura MP over Facebook posts in April by Australian conspiracy theorist Karen Brewer. The posts were shared hundreds of times and falsely accused Webster of being "a member of a secretive paedophile network" who had been "parachuted into parliament to protect a past generation of paedophiles".
Webster's husband and the not-for-profit they set up to help single mothers were also included in the payout.
Gleeson in her decision said Brewer's posts were "disgraceful and inexplicable".
Brewer's account was not deleted by Facebook until Guardian Australia reported on the case in August.
Webster installed security cameras at her home because she feared being physically attacked.
In a parliamentary committee hearing on family, domestic and sexual violence, Webster questioned whether Facebook could support people subject to abuse online if it took around five months for Facebook to take action in her case.
"It took till August until anything was done, after several court hearings and Facebook being reminded that they were part of the contempt of court if they continue to post it - if you continue to post it," she told Facebook's Australian director of public policy, Mia Garlick.
"So I'm concerned that the responsiveness is actually not there. If it's not there for me, then is it there for people who are abused in domestic relationships, or relationships that are over?"
Garlick apologised for how Facebook had handled the case.
"I do want to apologise for the experience that you had on our platform and I understand how upsetting and damaging untrue accusations that were said must have been for you.
"And I think that there are a number of claims that are made particularly about public figures - and primarily, it's often female public figures - that will violate our community standards that we will be able to take action on and remove promptly," she said.
But Garlick differentiated between Webster's experience on Facebook and the experience of people who are not public figures. She said content was not automatically removed in cases where public figures are accused of crimes, but said Facebook reviews applicable laws to see if the content could be found to be in breach of the law, and then it is blocked.
"I think one of the difficulties that arise in relation to the current state of defamation law is where we have to make a judgment about whether the person posting the content could rely on the defence of truthfulness," Garlick said. "And recent court decisions have also changed the standard for the content to be considered unlawful.
"And so we actually engage with local counsel to work through that legal analysis."
Garlick said posts were blocked, and the account was removed for "repeatedly violating community standards", but blamed "legal complexities" for Facebook not acting faster.
"There were some additional legal complexities in that case. And certainly, you know, we're actively engaged in advocating for reform of defamation law to try to assist in more swiftly addressing those kinds of issues."
Webster pointed out the defamatory posts also targeted her husband and a charity, and she said Facebook's abuse reporting tools were not fit for purpose.
"If they are to guard the safety of the users, I don't think it's doing a very good job," she said. "The fact that it takes maybe 48 hours - maybe three days - for a response to come at all and then for any action to be taken really was only after a court finding that meant Facebook would be held in contempt of court.
"I'm just assuring you that I am absolutely focused on ensuring that people in Australia are not harmed in the way that I was harmed, and that my organisation was harmed and that my husband was harmed - it is not OK."
The MP said the policies were not working and needed to be improved.
Garlick said Facebook's machine learning and AI processes were developing to ensure that abusive content was caught before it was posted, but it was hard to hard code in potentially defamatory content.
"Our goal is to try to remove harmful content before people even see it, because that removes the harm," she said.
"I very much understand and I'm very sympathetic to your case. And I do think that our ability to sort of code for defamation law is a much more complex thing."
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/technology/facebook-apologises-to-australian-mp-falsely-accused-by-conspiracy-theorist-of-being-in-paedophile-network/ar-BB1b4MBf?ocid=msedgntp
First home buyers up $54,000 but empty nesters worse off: Here's what the NSW government plan to abolish stamp duty and create an 'opt in' property tax means for you
Stamp duty is a huge disincentive to buying and selling so this should boost the property market
The NSW government's ambitious plan to make stamp duty optional is a huge win for first home buyers but may not benefit a family looking for their 'forever home'.
Under the proposal, which was raised during the state budget announcement on Tuesday, home buyers would have the option to pay stamp duty or an annual 'property tax'.
Stamp duty is a lump sum but the annual property tax would involve a small percentage of the land's value each year.
The ambitious plan - which will go to public consultation in March and could be introduced in the second half of next year - has been welcomed by economists real estate experts and the state opposition.
First-home buyer: Could save $54,000 at the time of purchase
If unimproved land was worth $500,000 they would pay $2,000 a year in property tax
Empty-nesters: Could face a bigger bill if they choose a property tax
A $700,000 would be up for $27,500 more over 20 years
Owner/occupied residential property: $500 + 0.3 per cent of unimproved land value
Investment residential property: $1,500 + 1.0 per cent of unimproved land value
Farmland: $0 + 0.3 per cent of unimproved land value
Commercial property: $0 + 2.6 per cent of unimproved land value
Stamp duty - or transfer duty - is a tax that buyers must pay when they purchase a new home. The amount due depends on the value of the property. For a $750,000 property, the duty would be $29,085.
The tax is a major cash cow for the state government, raising an estimated $8.3billion in the 2019-20 financial year - and scrapping it would require financial help from the federal government in the short term.
The duty tax can discourage people from moving house and replacing it with an annual land tax would increase the number of sales and let people keep more of their money to spend in the economy, the Treasurer said.
First-home buyers would benefit with a grant up to $25,000 instead of existing concessions.
Buyers with a growing family needing to upgrade would also benefit from the changes depending on how often they choose to buy.
However, not everyone would be better off with choosing the property tax.
A couple buying their 'forever home' for $700,000 would be up for $27,500 more over 20 years. Therefore, they would be better off opting for stamp duty over the land tax.
Buyers of luxury properties will likely be excluded from the property tax, left with no option but to shell out stamp duty in a bid to limit the initial hit to revenue.
Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the plan was a 'realistic pathway' to achieving the most important state economic reform of the last half-century.
The proposal could also generate $11 billion of economic benefits in the first four years, he said.
'Stamp duty is a relic of a bygone era when you picked one -career, started a family, bought a home and basically settled in for life,' he said.
Chief executive of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Adrian Dwyer hailed it as an 'enduring legacy of positive tax reform'.
'Sensible land tax reform has -finally been pulled out of the too-hard basket and placed on the table for reasoned public debate,' he said.
The treasurer is also consulting on handing out grants of up to $25,000 to help first home buyers pay the tax.
First home buyers are currently exempt from stamp duty if their home is worth less than $650,000 and receive concessional rates up to $800,000.
Land tax already applies to vacant land, holiday homes, investment properties and commercial properties over $755,000 but could be expanded to primary homes under the proposal.
Under current rules, the owner must pay 1.6 per cent of the value of their land above $755,000 to the government each year. For land worth $1,000,000 this figure amounts to $4,020.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8959123/NSW-tax-reform-Inside-governments-decision-scrap-stamp-duty-home-buyers.html
Housing fears ease as majority of deferred loans get back on track
This is good news for bank shareholders
Mortgage deferrals have been slashed by 66 per cent since the COVID-19 peak, according to ABA data from the seven largest banks.
Fears of a housing crisis spurred by an avalanche of deferred loans have dissipated with new data showing the majority of COVID-19 mortgage deferrals are back on track.
Latest figures released by the Australian Banking Association today showed the number of mortgage loan deferrals had dropped 66 per cent since the COVID-19 peak earlier this year, to now sit below 170,000.
The data compared loan deferrals on June 24 to that of November 4 and found a staggering shift.
Of those mortgage loan deferrals, home loan deferrals fell 67 per cent in that time to now sit just over 145,000.
Australian Banking Association CEO, Anna Bligh, said economic recovery was gathering pace. "This is an encouraging sign that most Australians are through the worst," she said.
"Australian banks have played a major role in carrying the economic burden of the pandemic for their customers. The good news is that the majority are now bouncing back as they restart their loan repayments."
She said more than 900,000 loans were deferred by Australian banks at the peak of the pandemic - most of which was carried by the seven largest banks.
Ms Bligh said the number of loans on hold was expected to fall further in coming weeks as more of them reached the end of their six-month deferrals.
The figures were sourced from CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, BOQ, Suncorp and Bendigo banks.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/housing-fears-ease-as-majority-of-deferred-loans-get-back-on-track/
Deloitte climate report more a fearmongering manifesto
Just when you thought you'd had enough scary and ridiculous predictions for one year, along comes Deloitte Access Economics with claims Australia will lose $3.4 trillion in income and 880,000 jobs by 2070 unless it takes drastic action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The meaningless numbers appear in A New Choice: Australia's Climate for Growth, which urges the government to "get on with stopping climate change".
"There is great opportunity for Australia to act on climate change today," it enthuses, suggesting we incur $67bn in costs now to slash emissions and secure a gross domestic product and jobs boost of $680bn and 250,000, respectively.
The report is flawed, misleading, reading more like a manifesto than a sober economic analysis.
At a basic level, Australia can't affect the trajectory of climate change whatever it does, having only 1.3 per cent of global emissions, or about 4 per cent including our coal exports.
Foreign policy is the only way we can meaningfully affect climate change.
Second, Deloitte's "do nothing" path of supposed disaster assumes nations "do not meet their Nationally Determined Contributions" (emission reduction targets) agreed at the Paris climate conference in 2015. Therefore, it's not really a base case to the extent government promises mean anything.
If they don't, why the clamour for governments to say they will be "net zero by 2050"?
Third, the "do nothing" path assumes an obsolete, extreme trajectory for emissions, known as RCP8.5, that pushes up average global temperatures by 4C by 2100.
Professor Detlef van Vuuren, an academic involved in designing RCP8.5, has said it was "never meant to be a business-as-usual scenario". Developed in 2014, RCP8.5 doesn't even include more recent emissions data.
"The consequences of an RCP8.5 pathway demonstrate the orders of magnitude of impact well for analytical purposes," the Deloitte reports says. Political purposes, more like it.
The bigger problem with these integrated climate and economic models is the false sense of precision and knowledge they create.
"They have crucial flaws that make them close to useless as tools for policy analysis," top MIT economist Robert Pindyck recently wrote.
The pandemic, which has produced a library of wildly wrong expert predictions, should be a reminder of the weakness of mathematical models, especially when related to events decades into the future. Climate modelling is even harder because of a fraught two-part chain of estimation.
Determining "climate sensitivity" - the speed and size of the response of global temperatures to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - is hard enough.
"Over the past decade our uncertainty over climate sensitivity has actually increased," notes Pindyck. And the "damage function", how temperature changes affect the economy, is "made up out of thin air . (not) based on any economic (or other) theory or any data".
Humans will adapt to changed climate, develop new technology, for instance; there will be positives and negatives for different countries from climate change.
"Increasing temperatures can increase both heat and cold-related health problems," the Del-oitte report states, illogically, given cold-related problems would obviously decline. There's also the question of the additional 250,000 "jobs for the future" that will emerge by 2070 - "by being a country that reaches net-zero emissions, sooner rather than later".
A world powered by renewable energy might be a scientific and ecological triumph, but also an economic disaster for Australia, which - absent some dramatic innovation - depends on fossil fuel exports to pay its way.
Australia's coal and gas exports generated more than $100bn last financial year. Like it or not, we have a comparative advantage in fossil fuels in a way we do not in the production of solar and wind energy, or hydrogen.
Economist Warwick McKibbin says if the world moved away from fossil fuels as per the 2015 Paris Agreement our currency would depreciate 6 per cent, and wages fall 2 per cent, by 2030.
"Australia being part of - if not leading the way - in the global shift to net zero in a new growth recovery is in the national interest," the Deloitte report asserts nonsensically.
Pindyck is well known to economics students for his concept of "the option value of waiting". It's far better to wait and see how events turn out tomorrow rather than lock yourself into a particular strategy today you might regret.
Leading the way would be a disaster for a fossil fuel exporter responsible for a sliver of global emissions.
The Deloitte report says solar and wind energy makes "complete or near decarbonisation of the grid a possibility". But it doesn't, curiously, mention nuclear power.
We've heard so much about the need to follow "the science" this year. The science says it's the only emissions-free and reliable energy source, and batteries aren't remotely up to the task of compensating for the intermittency of solar and wind.
Replacing ageing coal-fired power stations with the next generation of nuclear facilities would be a better option than an expensive and implausible "green new deal" that only makes sense if the rest of the world does it too.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/deloitte-climate-report-more-a-fearmongering-manifesto/news-story/88ce6bd86467ae249e17688c6519a435
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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18 November, 2020
Indigenous cricket star, 23, reveals why she WON'T take a knee for Black Lives Matters before sporting contests
An Australian cricketer has opened up about why she won't spark Black Lives Matter controversy by taking a knee on the field, despite her proud indigenous heritage.
Ashleigh Gardner became the first indigenous woman in almost 60 years to represent her country in woman's cricket when she made her international debut as a teenager in early 2017.
Gardner, now 23, is now integral part of the Australian side in all three formats and has embraced her new leadership role as an indigenous ambassador in the sport.
But she refused to follow the lead of sports stars opted to take a knee before matches in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in US.
This is despite several Women's Big Bash League players and staff pledging their support for the worldwide movement before games.
'Personally, I didn't really want to do that. And that's why I haven't done that, and neither has my team. I think they're in support of my decision,' Gardner told news.com.au.
'Everyone stands up against racism if you're a decent human being, but the whole taking a knee thing is more towards institutional racism, which is why it's so prevalent in America at the moment.
'Of course I'm against racism - Australia can be a very racist country, especially to my people. But taking a knee probably wasn't something I was willing to do.'
A proud Muruwari woman, Gardner paid tribute to her culture in an alternative way by taking part in a Barefoot Circle with teammates and opponents ahead of the WBBL season launch.
Players took off their shoes and formed a circle on the field in a respectful acknowledgment to the traditional owners of the land.
'The barefoot circle is a cricket centric way for players and teams to take a moment prior to matches to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, connect to each other as opponents and pay respect to the country (land),' Gardner captioned a photo of the powerful moment on Instagram.
'This is done barefoot as a way to connect to country, but also a moment to reflect that we are all common ground, we are all human beings and we need to stand strong with each other, for each other.'
Richmond and Collingwood AFL players, along with the umpires took a knee prior to the bounce of their game which resumed the season after a 10-week layoff
The Black Lives Matter movement has gained momentum worldwide following the death of US man George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis in May after a police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes.
AFL players were among first Australian sports stars to take a knee when the season resumed in June after a 10 week layoff due to coronavirus.
The powerful gesture was a player-driven initiative supported by the umpires.
The Wallabies rugby union team were set to become the first Australian national sporting team to formally support the global movement prior to their recent Bledisloe Cup clash against New Zealand in Sydney.
They later backflipped on the decision due to public backlash.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8949783/Indigenous-cricket-star-reveals-wont-knee-Black-Lives-Matters.html
No sex please, we're feminists
Louise Roberts comments on some recent Australian partings
It's ironic that after decades of telling them that they are strong, empowered goddesses who can make their own choices, the feminist left is now calling for society to protect women from their own -occasionally bad choices.
It doesn't make it right, but those who claim to speak for all women need to accept that sometimes those same women will make bad -choices.
They'll sleep with the boss, hook up with a junior staffer after too many after-work wines or implode their textbook spouse and kids set-up when they're caught indulging in a long term affair.
If we are going to accept that women and men are equals, then the fact is they will do equally dumb things.
Yet consensual sexual relationships seem to only become scandals if it is man having an affair with a subordinate female - the line is that he must be somehow exploiting her, never mind her own choice in the matter.
It's all so puritanical, and thanks to the overreach of modern woke feminism someone has to pay the price for the weakness of an office romance, preferably the bloke.
Even better if both parties have to resign their lucrative positions because then someone can play victim, a bonus point for the sisterhood.
In recent days we've seen dragged into the open a secret 2017 affair between former Coalition media adviser Rachelle Miller and then Human Services Minister Alan Tudge.
Both were married at the time and both have since separated from their partners.
And the chief executive of Channel 9 Hugh Marks has quit after his relationship with the company's former commercial director Alexi Baker was publicly revealed on Saturday. Baker left the business on October 1, the suggestion being that she was keen to avoid any allegations of -favouritism.
But isn't it something amid the personal carnage we've witnessed in federal politics and at Channel 9 to see the left side of politics defend -traditional marriage again.
If we want equality then we have to accept that there is, what some might regard, a downside to the celebrated war on gender - personal -responsibility.
Miller has gone one step further by lodging a formal complaint regarding the way she was treated in the office post affair, alleging federal Employment Minister Michaelia Cash forced her out with a fake redundancy.
The Liberal Party had a "women problem" and was rife with "sexism", is the message on high rotation.
In effect, Miller says she was punished for an affair that she "bitterly regrets" and performance at work was in question as a result.
"I lost a lot of self-confidence because I didn't feel I had any power at all to be able to stand up for myself," she said.
"I knew I was leaving a job that I really loved, but I didn't see that there was any other way out.
"You know, I actually at that time viewed myself as damaged goods and I was really worried about this coming out and impacting our chances at the election."
A workplace relationship has the sisterhood salivating for a witch hunt.
Lust must be punished, you don't have a right to a private life and so on.
But the truth is this - we wanted equality and sometimes the results of that aren't fabulous.
So how exactly do we see women? We need to make up our minds as a society.
Do we support a woman's right to have an affair and make her own mistakes or do we want to be the new -morality police and crowbar every woman into the victim slot?
As one colleague noted, according to the new rules you can only sleep with people at your level on the org chart.
Feminism is held up as a blueprint for life and we're all supposed to conform. But is this the space we want to occupy with our daughters - raising them to be a victim and someone without sexual agency?
While neither Miller nor Baker have gone this route, what we've seen too often in others is women having affairs and blaming men when it all goes wrong, no matter the real victims such as wives who have been discarded and the bewildered children scarred for life.
The so-called "sexual revolution" was never really about sex but overthrowing staid bourgeois institutions like the nuclear family.
That having been achieved, now the left is anti-sex again.
George Orwell, in his way, predicted this in his novel 1984, which featured a "junior anti-sex league" that promoted complete celibacy for both sexes.
And that means that professional women are victims in an illicit affair, as despite all their achievements, they have no will of their own or power to resist the entreaties of men.
So how is it that women can have total free choice as decreed by the feminist yet absolutely none at all? It makes no sense.
Cheating is no more of a hardwired tendency for males than for females. We need to stop treating women as shrinking violets.
And file modern feminism where it belongs - as the annoying friend who stops you doing what you desire.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/louise-roberts-no-sex-please-were-feminists/news-story/3992de9457ab374ee6804582683231e1
`Woke' consensus ruining our universities
Universities are our primary institutions for knowledge creation. And we assume the search for truth guides academics in their research and teaching, irrespective of their political views. However, while academics, particularly in the social sciences, have long leaned left, that bias is increasingly lopsided.
Academics who do not buy into certain left orthodoxies, particularly on issues of social justice, increasingly find themselves self-censoring their views to avoid damaging their career prospects.
Since I became a member of Heterodox Academy, an organisation founded to promote viewpoint diversity and respectful disagreement in academe, I've become increasingly aware of the ways the academic system selects against viewpoint diversity.
One junior academic, who we will call Sarah, has a promising scientific career ahead. She has an excellent publication record, international collaborations, strong teaching reviews, and has already been awarded significant grant funding. However, she has grown critical of the "diversity, -equity and inclusion" sector that is such a dominant force in our universities. Sarah would like to be more publicly critical of this "woke" consensus that focuses on gender and racial identity, but doesn't feel she can speak out for fear of offending academic colleagues, many her senior. Only when she has climbed the ladder and been promoted to professor would she feel secure to do so.
In a new book, Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education, academics Illana Redstone and John Villasenor explain how academe encourages conformity and the risks you face criticising diversity initiatives: "Well-intentioned cri-ticism of any proposal involving diversity is perilous . (and) might well be detrimental to his or her reputation and career growth."
Academic progress relies in large part on the approval of other academics, who review publication drafts and grant funding proposals and promotion applications. As such, academics with heterodox views reasonably prefer not to get offside with their -colleagues and administration.
Sarah isn't the only one to realise junior academics are constrained when speaking about controversial issues. Katy Barnett, a law professor, describes how her senior position allows her a freedom to express unorthodox ideas that other academics cannot: "I am much more comfortable with speaking out now I am a full professor. We can't have a situation where the only people who can speak out are powerful. It's a recipe for disaster."
Recently, researchers found more than half of left-leaning academic philosophers said they would be willing to discriminate against hiring someone applying for an academic position if the candidate held right-of-centre views. Many added they would discriminate when reviewing publications and research grant proposals that expressed right-leaning views. Social psychology academics feel much the same about scuttling the careers of their ideological opponents.
This culture is acute in the -social sciences, where the political views of academics often encroach upon their research and teaching activities.
At a recent academic conference in Australia, a high-profile professor and keynote speaker said: "Sociology demands you have a social justice lens. Any right-wing sociologists should be booted out of the club." She received enthusiastic app-lause from most of her audience.
At what point did academic disciplines become "clubs" where one could be excommunicated for views deviating from orthodoxy? Social scientists are often concerned with power relations between oppressors and the oppressed. How might junior academics with heterodox political views see their career prospects when left-wing thought is all but mandated by those in power?
Last year, the University of California announced it was requiring all applications to new academic faculty positions to submit a "diversity statement", declaring a candidate's commitment to the cause. Applicants deemed insufficiently committed to a specific component of diversity - namely, racial and gender diversity - would be removed from the pool of viable candidates irrespective of the quality of their work.
It hasn't taken long for Australian universities to demand the same as part of the agenda for diversity, equity and inclusion. It is nothing short of political screening of academics in a sector already ideologically homogenous.
While Australian universities face unprecedented challenges wrought by COVID-19, let's not neglect the problems they faced before the pandemic, which will persist well into the future.
Federal government legislation may have strengthened the legal basis for academic freedom to a level recommended by the French review. But there are deeper cultural issues within academe demanding our attention.
Universities should be environments that can handle a diverse range of views and in which academics can have successful -careers regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/woke-consensus-ruining-our-universities/news-story/c21f7d3ca1565ffefe9f9a3ed8ea9c6b
Robodebt victims welcome the Federal Government's $1.2 billion settlement
Victims of the Federal Government's controversial Robodebt system are welcoming a settlement that includes $112 million in compensation.
The total value of the deal is $1.2 billion - $721 million was announced in May when the Federal Government agreed to repay debts it illegally clawed back from 327,000 Australians.
It also agreed to waived $398 million in debts it was still pursuing and coughed up $112 million in compensation.
The class action's lead plaintiff, Katherine Prygodicz, said the settlement was a "relief".
"I can't answer for 400,000 people, I can only speak for myself, and I'm very happy that I don't have a Robodebt and that I don't have to pay money back to the Government," she told the ABC. "I am glad that it's come to closure, and I'm very happy with the result."
Ms Prygodicz initially received a demand for $4,000, but that was later recalculated to $3,000 after she questioned the debt.
"I'm not sure how they came up with that number and that was what motivated me to look into it a bit a bit more deeply," she said. "I didn't mind if I had a genuine debt and I needed to pay it back, I just wanted to understand how it was calculated.
"I know to the very best of my ability that I report the things accurately - I'm a maths and science teacher, and worked as a scientist, so I deal with numbers all the time and I couldn't understand why I had a debt."
The answers she got from Centrelink did not help, and the outstanding amount was taken from her tax return. "I was told that it was based on algorithms that would be too difficult for me to understand," Ms Prygodicz said.
Sydney woman Leonie Campbell was also hit with two debt notices in 2018, for money she was paid almost a decade prior when she was at university. The first demand arrived the week before her wedding.
She was originally pursued for $14,000 but managed to fight it down to half that. Ms Campbell is still waiting to be completely reimbursed.
"I had to troll through years and years of bank statements to get all the information they needed, and when I asked them what proof they had on their end, they didn't have to provide me with anything," she said. "I just thought that was completely wrong."
Ms Campbell also welcomed the end of the court process and the Commonwealth's decision to settle. "I think their response shows just how illegal the system was, and the stress that it put a lot of people through," she said.
"I'm pretty lucky, I would have been one of the lucky ones. "I had a full-time job, but I'm imagining that wasn't the case for a lot of people who had debts raised."
Andrew Grech from Gordon Legal, the firm managing the class action, said there was nothing victims needed to do straight away to get access to any compensation. The Federal Court is yet to approve the terms of the deal. "What they need to do is wait for the court to notify them of the next step, that will happen in about three to four weeks' time," he said.
"They just need to wait for the court process to unfold and they'll be notified of the next steps."
He conceded $112 million split between a potential pool of 400,000 people was slim pickings considering the vast amount of money the Commonwealth had been demanding from people. "Never enough money, but it's the best that can be achieved in all the circumstances," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-17/robodebt-victims-welcome-government-1.2-billion-settlement/12889380
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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17 November, 2020
Brooke Boney's one wish for all non-Indigenous Australians
She wants other Australians to look up their family history. She apparently thinks that will change attitudes. I have looked up my family history and it has indeed affected my attitudes. I am amazed and proud at how quickly they brought civilization to Australia.
She says that Aborigines have not ceded title to Australia. But they did not have to. Title to Australia was gained by right of conquest. If that right is of no consequence we should ask the English to go back to Germany, which is where they came from around 500AD. And all Arabs should certainly be ejected from Palestine
Before she studied journalism, Today reporter Brooke Boney would often read inaccurate stories about Indigenous Australians, or ones that failed to include their perspective.
Even now, Boney, who made history last year when she became commercial breakfast television's first Indigenous star, said she faced a "big uproar" from the public when she did give the Indigenous perspective on topics.
At an event to mark NAIDOC's week at Sydney's Botanic Gardens on Tuesday, chaired by Boney, Indigenous panellists discussed this year's theme, "Always Was, Always Will Be [Aboriginal land]".
Boney said if she had one wish it would be for non-Indigenous Australians "to go back through their own family history and see how their family has benefited from the oppression of black people."
"If everyone did that, we might have a better chance of moving forward," said Boney, who made headlines in 2019 when she said her family would not be celebrating Australia Day.
Indigenous rights activist Teela Reid said this year's theme recognised that "First Nations people had never ceded sovereignty to this country, to this land and to these waters." And she said non-Indigenous Australians needed to face this difficult and uncomfortable truth.
NAIDOC week was an opportunity to celebrate and embrace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, said the panellists. But they also called on non-Indigenous Australians to educate themselves about the oldest surviving culture on the earth.
Ms Reid, a Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman, also said there was an obligation for non-Indigenous people to own up to their truth of the history - one of bloodshed - of what "their people did to our ancestors".
"It is also about unfinished business that we have to confront as a nation," she said. "We have to be very mindful, as a nation, that we have not gone on a journey of truth-telling, and that journey would be a dialogue between non-Indigenous and First Nations people."
She said starting these conversations was a difficult process. "That's a sign of maturity. We are not expected to feel good, because the truth is that our history is one of bloodshed. Confronting the truth is an uncomfortable process."
https://www.smh.com.au/national/brooke-boney-s-one-wish-for-all-non-indigenous-australians-20201110-p56d8v.html
Alternative facts do not belong in serious debate
A centre/Left pair air grievances. Both Rudd and Turnbull have glass jaws
Malcolm Turnbull's reference this week to the "rather surreal environment of the Trump administration" was uncomfortably close to home - for Mr Turnbull himself. The term alternative facts, coined by Donald Trump's former press secretary Kellyanne Conway in 2017, sums up the former prime minister's folly in blaming Coalition MPs and News Corp, publisher of The Weekend Australian, for his own political failures.
Central to Mr Turnbull's victim narrative is his claim, echoed on Sunday by another vengeful and bitter former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, that News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch, through his editors, interfered in the Liberal Party to bring about a leadership change to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton or Scott Morrison, then treasurer, in August 2018.
But Mr Turnbull's alternative facts are contradictory. In his book A Bigger Picture, he claims Mr Murdoch told Kerry Stokes that Mr Turnbull had to go because "he can't win, he can't beat Shorten". But on the ABC in April, Mr Turnbull claimed Tony Abbott and right-wing media "overthrew my government and overthrew my prime ministership not because they thought I'd lose an election but because they thought I would win it . a Liberal Party that they could not control was not a Liberal Party they wanted to have." He cannot have it both ways.
For the record, our position, published before the partyroom vote that brought Mr Morrison the prime ministership was clear: "True to our mission of backing national and economic development, The Australian has argued strongly in this editorial column for the Turnbull government to succeed in its task of fiscal repair and reform. We have been constructively critical, urging the Coalition on its low-tax agenda aimed at delivering growth . Whether it is under Mr Dutton, Mr Morrison, Ms Bishop, Mr Abbott or even Mr Turnbull on reprieve, the challenge is to fight for Coalition mainstream ground rather than to haggle over Labor priorities."
Mr Turnbull lost control on the ABC's Q&A on Monday, personalising his attack on Paul Kelly, this newspaper's editor-at-large. Raising his voice and wagging his finger, Mr Turnbull demanded that Kelly resign over this newspaper's coverage of climate change. Coming from a supposedly sophisticated small-l liberal, the exchange exposed Mr Turnbull's autocratic mindset and disregard for personal conscience and the principle of choice. The notion that journalists toe a moral line dictated by any politician does not belong in a democracy. Mr Turnbull's claims that newspapers such as The Weekend Australian "make stuff up", engage in vendettas and encourage conspiracy theories was ludicrous and offensive. "You know, we had 12 million hectares of our country burnt last summer and your newspapers were saying it was all the consequence of some arsonists," Mr Turnbull raged. Another alternative fact. Making stuff up, apparently, is OK for Mr Turnbull himself.
In hundreds of news reports, commentaries, features and editorials during the summer of 2019-20, The Australian carried first-hand accounts of the fires, the deadly damage they caused and heartbreaking sufferings of so many. We also published a wide range of views on associated issues - land clearing and backburning, drought, climate change and building regulations. Arsonists were a small part of the story. By January 7 this year, police had arrested 183 people for lighting bushfires across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. As we editorialised on January 10: "The evidence of global warming since the Industrial Revolution is clear. More intense fires are an observed reality consistent with the predictions of climate change science." In that editorial we quoted Bushfire and Natural Hazards Co-Operative Research Centre chief executive Richard Thornton warning "there is significant research worldwide that fire seasons are starting earlier and generally getting longer".
Mr Morrison, we argued, "should command discipline within Coalition ranks and project a clear resolve to do what has to be done on climate change and bushfires. We should continue to be a good international citizen by contributing to climate change mitigation while being pragmatic about global politics and preserving the economic strength that allows us to fund Australia's adaptation to new ecological realities." Ever since the Howard era, we said, governments had accepted the need to respond to global warming: "And unlike many other countries, Australia has matched its rhetoric with credible actions to meet mitigation targets. From large-scale wind farms to rooftop solar, the growth in per capita renewable energy is well ahead of the rest of the world." It had become common, as we pointed out, "to denounce as climate denialism any attempt to include non-warming factors in the mosaic of bushfire science . It's clear more burning is needed, precisely because of the greater risks brought by climate change."
Given his business wizardry and economic know-how, Mr Turnbull could contribute worthwhile insights to the national conversation. But in a move he is, of course, free to make (we do not share his unease with free expression) he has joined Mr Rudd in a hectoring double act reminiscent of the Muppets' cantankerous old codgers, Statler and Waldorf. The two former prime ministers have much in common, including, at times, mutual disdain. Both have glass jaws; neither is a creature of his party. In 2016, Mr Rudd berated Mr Turnbull as a "little f..king rat" and a "piece of shit". On that occasion, as prime minister, with his cabinet divided on the matter, Mr Turnbull refused to back Mr Rudd's bid to be UN secretary-general. As Mr Turnbull rightly said, Mr Rudd lacked the interpersonal and management skills for the job. On that occasion, as on countless others on matters of domestic and foreign policy, we backed Mr Turnbull. True, we did not always back him, any more than we always backed Mr Rudd, John Howard, Mr Abbott, Paul Keating or Bob Hawke.
On Sunday, Mr Turnbull claimed Australians were living in a "siloed echo chamber that reinforces their prejudices, that appeals to the worst demons of their nature rather than their better angels". Yet another alternative fact. News Corp publishes popular newspapers in various parts of the country, and asks readers to pay for them. Likewise, News Corp has a growing paid subscriber base for its digital publications. The Australian is among the fastest growing subscriber-only news sites in the world. If readers don't like, they don't pay. Simple. In Mr Turnbull's alternative universe, presumably News Corp should not be as free to sell its publications to Australians, who are free, of course, not to buy them.
Mr Turnbull seems outraged that News Corp publications are sought after and respected by Australians interested in the news. This can not be right! Commentators must agree with me! They agree with me at the Guardian Australia. In Mr Turnbull's warped view of the world something must be done about it. What, exactly it is unclear. News is too powerful, so give Australians fewer options? More Guardian, less of The Australian? But what has changed? Just six years ago, when Mr Turnbull's political career was on the rise, not yet in ashes as it is today, he was the minister responsible for media laws. He said this, again on the ABC's Q&A: "You are living in the past if you think printed newspapers are still dominating the media. What we are seeing now is a period where Murdoch did dominate, certainly the print part of Australian media and of course pay TV, to a point that because of the internet and because of publications frankly like the Guardian, online publications, we are seeing more competition and more diversity in our media than we have ever had in my lifetime certainly." And of course, as prime minister, Mr Turnbull presided over changes to media laws that concentrated ownership, allowing Nine to buy Fairfax newspapers.
But to be fair to Mr Turnbull, we too have changed. We endorsed Mr Turnbull for the 2016 election, just as we advocated for Mr Rudd in 2007 against Mr Howard.
Mr Turnbull and Mr Rudd are out for revenge against media, expecially News Corp, who had the temerity to criticise them as well as praise them. Have they forgotten Enoch Powell's adage: "A politician complaining about the media is like a sailor complaining about the sea"?
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/editorials/alternative-facts-do-not-belong-in-serious-debate/news-story/4d9b0c43545c4595fcd2f83f5053cb34
The ghost of Tony Abbott paralyses Canberra on climate policy
The climate has moved on. Companies have moved on. State governments have moved on. Australia's biggest trading partners have, too. But the ghost of Tony Abbott inhabits Parliament House, Canberra. It scares the government. And it scares the opposition.
It was Abbott who broke Australia's national approach to climate and energy policy. It was a decade ago that he drove the knife of political conflict so deep and so effectively into federal politics that both sides of Parliament remain traumatised. They struggle to move on.
It was pathetically obvious this week. In both the Morrison government and the Albanese opposition.
In the government's case, it was when the Prime Minister made his congratulatory phone call to the US President-elect, Joe Biden. They discussed shared priorities including climate change.
The incoming American leader intends committing the US to a policy of zero net-carbon emissions by 2050. This is a policy that Morrison dare not endorse, or even speak. Instead, he told reporters: "I raised with the President-elect the similarity between the President-elect's comments and policies regarding emissions reduction and technologies that are needed to achieve that and we look forward to working on those issues."
So he emphasises the common ground - the obvious fact that all countries need new energy technology to cut carbon emissions. And avoids the difference - that Biden has a long-term target, and Australia does not. The Biden office issued a readout saying the pair discussed "common challenges" including "confronting climate change".
Australia, of course, has remained committed to Paris. And the Morrison government quietly has supported billions of dollars' worth of new renewable investments in the states, granted major project status to the $22 billion Sun Cable project to export solar power from the Northern Territory under the ocean to Singapore, invested in hydrogen technology, and much more.
But rather than being able to welcome home the prodigal son of the global climate effort in a full-throated greeting to post-Trump America, Morrison is suddenly mute when it comes to the forbidden words. It's just sad that a national leader can't speak the taboo words of targets or deadlines in an area of policy on which the fate of his country depends.
Australia's carbon emissions are falling. It's just that, on the current trajectory, we won't hit net zero for another four centuries. Or, more precisely, until 2393, as the Climate Council researcher Tim Baxter told my colleague Mike Foley.
It's not that Morrison is hostile to the concept of going carbon neutral. When asked, he agrees that he would like Australia to hit net-zero emissions "as quickly as possible". He just won't put a date to it, and says it'd be dishonest to do so without being able to specify the cost to the economy.
This runs contrary to two iron rules of politics. One is that the more distant the date, the more likely the commitment, and 2050 is 30 years hence. Morrison will be 82, assuming he lives that long and the planet is still habitable. He'd be long retired and unaccountable.
The other iron rule is to emphasise the benefits of a policy you support, and dissemble on the costs. For instance, the government is raising hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh Commonwealth debt in the bond market. It boasts about how it's supporting the economy today. And what costs will Australia's next generation pay to carry and repay that debt? Crickets.
Morrison's obduracy is even more bizarre when you realise that every state and territory in the Commonwealth has pledged to get to net zero by 2050. The real reason Morrison dare not break the taboo? Two words: Tony Abbott.
Recall that John Howard and Kevin Rudd reached a broad bipartisan agreement in 2007. They converged on the idea of an emissions trading scheme. This remained the consensus under Liberal leaders Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull. Until Abbott decided to break ranks, demonise the policy and lead a conservative insurrection against Turnbull.
Under the Abbott rule, it is illegitimate for politicians to commit to a carbon-cutting target. Even his own. As prime minister Abbott committed Australia to its Paris target. But once he'd been unseated by Turnbull, Abbott started campaigning against his own target.
That approach enabled him to bring down Turnbull, but also Julia Gillard. It was instrumental to his political successes.
No matter the need or the urgency. Morrison knows that to campaign openly, ambitiously, is to risk another conservative insurrection from his own Coalition. Instead he sticks to the safe ground of talking up new technology and more investment.
And then there's Labor. The party's spokesman on resources, Joel Fitzgibbon, had planned to announce his retirement from the opposition frontbench on December 7 under an internal deal in the NSW right faction. He decided to accelerate the plan and go out in a blaze of angry dissent instead.
Since last year's federal election he'd made a point of talking up coal mining. There's a lot of it in his NSW seat of Hunter Valley. He suffered a big swing against him at the 2019 election and blamed Labor's climate activists for being disdainful of coal mining and Labor's traditional blue-collar base.
Anthony Albanese's opening salvo against Scott Morrison in Monday's question time was to point out that 70 countries including Biden's America were committing to net-zero targets by 2050: "Why is the Prime Minister leaving Australia behind by refusing to?"
This was planned as a Labor theme for the week. Fitzgibbon's high-profile dissent within Labor sabotaged that effort and opened Labor to attack from the government. And when Albanese chided Fitzgibbon at Monday evening's shadow cabinet meeting, it erupted into an angry exchange. Without a discussion of the actual policy. Fitzgibbon resigned from the front bench the next morning. Three weeks early. He plans to continue his destabilising campaign of criticism.
Once again, Labor is acting out the Abbott rule - Fitzgibbon by noisily campaigning against climate activism, and Labor as a whole by withholding its climate policy. Still shaken by its loss last year, Labor is postponing announcements of most of its policy plans across the board.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-ghost-of-tony-abbott-paralyses-canberra-on-climate-action-20201113-p56eh7.html
Scientists Discover Coral Reefs Recovered Quickly After Bleaching
It was a depressing if expected inevitability when Western Australia's Rowley Shoals showed the first signs of mass coral bleaching earlier this year, but a follow-up survey has found a remarkable recovery looks likely to preserve the reef's near-pristine health - at least for now.
Tom Holmes, the marine monitoring coordinator at the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation, and Attractions, said that while his team was still processing the data, it appeared the coral had pulled off an "amazing" return towards health over the past six months.
"We were expecting to see widespread mortality, and we just didn't see it . which is a really amazing thing," Dr. Holmes said.
The survey was a follow-up to one conducted in April that found as much as 60 percent of corals on some Rowley Shoals reefs had bleached after the most widespread marine heatwave since reliable satellite monitoring began in 1993.
It has long been known that high sea temperatures cause coral bleaching which can kill coral - as seen by the devastation of the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast - but what is less well known is that bleached corals do not die immediately.
"So when a coral bleaches, it's actually just a sign of initial stress," Dr. Holmes said.
However, corals rely on these microscopic algae as a food source and cannot survive for long without them.
"If that stress continues for a long time and those corals remain white, then it can lead to mortality," Dr. Holmes said.
"But there are some cases of bleaching around the world where . that stress hasn't continued for a long time, and the corals have been able to take that alga back in from the water."
Dr. Holmes believes that the vital time gap between bleaching and dying created a chance for the reefs to recover at the Rowley Shoals, a chain of three coral atolls 300 kilometers off Broome on the edge of Australia's continental shelf.
https://principia-scientific.com/scientists-discover-coral-reefs-recovered-quickly-after-bleaching/
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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16 November, 2020
Calls for 'class quotas' in Young Labor to bolster party's blue-collar ranks
What an air-headed proposal! How would it work? Are they going to get working class kids by the collar and drag them along to Labor party meetings?
That most young Labor members are kids from affluent families going to elite universities, means that it is hard to see how anything could change. The plain fact is that conservative parties now have most appeal to the workers. That is particularly seen in the USA where Trump mopped up most of the working class vote
Youthful inexperience still does ensure that most young people do vote Leftist but it is unlikely that that tendency will flow through to party membership. The cultural climate in meetings dominated by rich kids would leave most working class kids very uncomfortable
Labor must fill its ranks with more working-class young Australians and TAFE students to help it reconnect with suburban and blue-collar voters, the head of an ALP-aligned think-tank says, proposing a major overhaul of the party's youth wing ahead of the next election.
The federal opposition has been plagued by infighting during the past 18 months over attempts to turn around its electoral fortunes following three successive poll defeats and to balance its climate change credentials with attempts to win back its traditional base.
Nick Dyrenfurth - executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre - says the party should introduce new quotas for Young Labor (representing ALP members aged between 15 and 26) to recruit and retain more non-university students into its ranks.
Dr Dyrenfurth, who was the ALP's national policy forum secretary between 2016 and 2019, said there had been no effort to recruit "actual working people" such as tradies, assembly-line workers, train drivers, cleaners, retail employees or plumbers into the party's membership.
He said the narrowness of the party's membership had contributed to the cultural problems and electoral weakness at the federal level.
"Labor was once a working-class party that needed middle-class votes to win elections; it has since become a university-educated, socially-liberal, white-collar party that needs blue-collar, non-tertiary educated, precariously employed votes to win," Dr Dyrenfurth writes in The Tocsin, the centre's quarterly publication.
Young Labor draw upwards of 95 per cent of its members from university campuses, mainly from the top-ranking institutions he writes, and not from the 72 per cent of non-tertiary degree holding Australians.
Dr Dyrenfurth wants a Young Labor membership ratio of one-third university students, one-third TAFE and vocational students and one-third young workers not studying by 2022.
"Such an approach would bolster the role of Labor's affiliated trade unions, which currently shoulder the load in keeping the party connected to its working-class base but find themselves all too often ignored by an arrogant parliamentary wing," he writes.
"Too many Labor MPs and especially its young activists look and sound the same as their ostensible Greens rivals: university-educated, socially liberal and likely non-religious or atheist, and destined for white-collar, higher-income secure work, living in the inner-cities."
Former Labor minister Craig Emerson, who now chairs the ALP-aligned McKell Institute, backed Dr Dyrenfurth's idea but with some reservations.
"The idea of getting more young people from working class backgrounds is fine and quotas have been effective in the past, especially in relation to getting more women into Parliament," he said.
"But I don't think that it's a good idea to tell university students they are [worth less] ... A lot of university students come from working class backgrounds. There are a lot of first-in-family university graduates and I wouldn't want to be signalling to working-class kids who want to go to university they are less valuable [to Labor] for doing so."
Emma Dawson, executive director of progressive think tank Per Capita, said she agreed with the aim of broadening the party's membership but quotas were not the way to get there.
"It's really important the Labor Party remains a labour party, but you can't coerce people into joining a political party," she said.
"The key thing is to devolve some of that decision making and some of that gatekeeping and listen more responsively to what people need, and that's different in different parts of the country."
Long-time frontbench MP Joel Fitzgibbon quit shadow cabinet this week after 18 months of disagreement over climate and energy policy, which he said had alienated its blue-collar constituency and cost it millions of votes outside capital cities.
He said the party had provided too much focus on progressive issues while ignoring its traditional base and the policies that working people need to "help them meet their aspirations and the aspirations for their families".
Labor's post election review found the party had moved to address political grievances of a vast and disparate constituency during its time in opposition and warned working people experiencing economic dislocation would lose faith if they do not believe the party was responding to their needs.
Low-income workers swung against Labor at the May 2019 election with the review finding its ambiguous language on the Adani Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland, combined with anti-coal rhetoric, devastated its support in the coal mining communities of regional Queensland and the Hunter Valley.
But it found higher-income urban Australians concerned about climate change swung to Labor, despite the effect Labor's tax policies on negative gearing and franking credits might have had on them.
Labor's assistant climate change spokesman Pat Conroy said on Friday the party could only govern when it unites it two bases of working class Australians university educated, progressive voters. "We're at our best when we represent both of those groups," he said.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/calls-for-class-quotas-in-young-labor-to-bolster-party-s-blue-collar-ranks-20201114-p56ejy.html
An Australian miner's woman visits him onsite
It's wonderful how much happiness males and females can bring to one-another. Can homosexual couples have such joy? Rarely, I imagine. Males and females are born to be attractive to one another. Male/male couples are not
Running on empty: Oil refineries at breaking point as world grinds to a halt
From the dawn of the lockdowns, Australia's biggest cities virtually shuddered to a stop. Busy streets were all but deserted, the roar of traffic dulled to a whisper.
Few scenes drove home the scale of the disruption more than silent freeways and empty skies, so the fuel slump that followed was destined to be severe. Petrol usage in the June quarter fell 26 per cent. Aviation fuel crashed 80 per cent.
It's been a temporary breath of fresh air for the environment, with transport emissions down sharply as a result. But for Australia's oil refineries - plants that process crude oil into fuel products - this is a moment of reckoning. The deepest and fastest demand crash in decades is reverberating through the industry, pushing oil refineries to financial breaking point. One has already announced it is closing down for good - BP's Perth refinery, the country's largest. The three that are left are at risk of closing too. Thousands of well-paid jobs are hanging in the balance.
"We are losing one refinery. We do not want to lose a second or a third," says Ben Davis, Victorian branch secretary of the Australian Workers Union. "The announcement at BP . sent a shudder down our collective spines."
Across the nation, mobility restrictions are gradually easing and cars are returning to roads, even in the worst-hit state of Victoria where a hard, second-wave lockdown lasted 111 days. But the crisis for oil refineries is far from over.
The three plants remaining - Viva Energy's Geelong refinery, ExxonMobil's in Altona and Ampol in Brisbane - have all dramatically slowed their fuel output in the face of severe oversupply. All three are bleeding multimillion-dollar losses, with their refining margins under enormous strain. Viva Energy, for instance, reported a third-quarter margin of $US2.30 a barrel, down from $US2.90 in the first half and $US6.60 a barrel on average in 2019.
While some petrol demand is returning, it is tipped to stay below pre-pandemic levels for much of the foreseeable future. Jet fuel, meanwhile, is recovering far slower than previously expected as planes remain grounded and borders shut. And there is a growing realisation across the industry that less air travel could be here to stay.
Viva is conducting a review of its 65-year-old Geelong refinery, weighing options including its permanent closure, after losses spiralled to nearly $80 million. At the Brisbane refinery, the situation is even worse, with losses blowing out to $141 million. Ampol has told investors it is also considering closing down its Brisbane refinery and converting the site into a fuel-import terminal.
"Frankly, it's a very challenged industry, full-stop," says Mark Samter, an energy analyst with MST Marquee.
"These are not idle threats by companies . These are wildly, wildly unsustainable numbers. If you leave these to the free markets, none of them survives."
The pressure on oil refiners is being felt around the world, but Australia's plants are considered at an even greater risk, Samter explains, because facilities here are much smaller and the costs to run them generally far higher. Three Australian oil refineries have closed in the past decade, as the local sector's dwindling fleet of ageing, smaller facilities has proved unable to compete with newer, cheaper mega-refineries being built in Asia.
The significance of a country's ability to continue making its own transport fuels, and the desire to keep its sizeable manufacturing workforce employed, has not been lost on legislators.
The Morrison government has been leading discussions with refiners for months, working to develop a rescue package including a 1.15›-a-litre payment for locally made fuel in a bid to keep refineries open "wherever commercial possible". The federal budget also contained measures to buffer Australia against potential supply shocks caused by global events such as wars or pandemics, including a $200 million-plus investment in a competitive grants program to develop new onshore diesel storage and increase stocks by 40 per cent.
In Victoria, the Andrews government is mulling ways to support the state's two refineries, and is in talks over a potential co-investment in an expansion of the Geelong site, according to government and industry sources, who asked not to be identified as the discussions were confidential. The proposal is to expand the 65-year-old refinery site into an energy hub with LNG import capability alongside refining.
Angus Taylor, the federal Energy Minister, says maintaining local oil refining capability offers Australia significant fuel-security benefits and must not be overlooked. "Stockholding plays a role and will continue to play a role, but refining has the added advantage of much longer-term fuel security in the worst possible scenarios," he tells The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Union representatives for refining workers agree. "Australia's capacity to make its own fuel cuts to the heart of our viability as a sovereign nation," AWU national secretary Daniel Walton said following BP's closure. "If we can't independently fuel our trucks, our farmers, and our defence industry then we leave ourselves incredibly vulnerable."
The biggest concern inside the industry now is when the support package will start being delivered. "Timing is of the essence," says Samter, as it has become plainly clear the initially proposed six-month time-frame may be too long to avoid plant closures and job losses.
While the discussions are continuing, the federal government and refiners are working towards rolling out the production payment early in the new year. "We are committed to fuel security, doing everything we can to protect those important jobs," says Taylor.
"We know how challenging a time it is for the refineries. We understand the urgency."
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/running-on-empty-oil-refineries-at-breaking-point-as-world-grinds-to-a-halt-20201113-p56ecd.html
Australia accused of discouraging electric vehicles
Australia could become a parking lot for the world's petrol vehicles unless drivers are encouraged to buy more electric vehicles, industry and experts say, as prices for the cheapest electric models here can be double what they are overseas.
This year an estimated 4400 electric vehicles were sold in Australia, a mere 0.6 per cent of total car sales in that time.
University of Queensland research fellow Jake Whitehead said Australia had become a "pariah" in the eyes of manufacturers of electric vehicles because there were no major incentives to encourage consumer uptake, while other countries set ambitious goals and generous incentives to drive the switch from petrol and diesel engines.
"We are down the path to becoming a dumping ground and my fear is it will become worse," Dr Whitehead said.
The US and EU and other markets set a quota for the volume of carbon dioxide that can collectively be emitted across the fleet of a manufacturer's internal combustion engine cars. This is not the case in Australia, meaning manufacturers could choose to run out their end-of-line petrol models here while they ramp up sales of electric vehicles in more attractive markets.
"Manufacturers are in a situation where they have to make a choice where around the world they send their limited production. Australia is a risky choice compared to the US and UK, where the vehicle is sold before it hits the dock," Dr Whitehead said.
The five cheapest electric models available in Australia cost between $44,000 and $64,000 and are expensive compared to the cheapest petrol models - which start at less than $15,000. The cheapest EVs in the UK and US sell for about $30,000.
The federal government is working on an electric cars policy that will focus on infrastructure like charging stations and support for research and development into new technology.
"We are backing a range of technologies, not picking one winner. This follows our 'technology not taxes' approach to reducing emissions," Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said.
Many major manufacturers are planning to phase out petrol and diesel engines, and major markets including the UK, Japan, France and Germany will ban their sale between 2025 and 2030 - while the USA offers a $7500 tax rebate for electric vehicles.
The Electric Vehicle Council said running costs are low compared to petrol cars with virtually no engine maintenance and electricity costs equivalent to less than 40 cents a litre of fuel.
South Australia this week said it would target electric vehicle owners with a road user charge to make up for the loss of fuel excise revenue, which contributes to road infrastructure. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrotet said he was considering bringing in a similar tax next year.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, which represents manufacturers of all vehicle types imported into Australia, "condemned" road user charges for only electric cars and called for a "sophisticated discussion" on long-term tax reform.
The chamber's chief executive Tony Weber said a new tax system to evenly distribute charges across all vehicle types could be based on road user and congestion charges.
"This seems to be a reactionary move by state government that focuses on revenue, where it needs to focus on all the costs and benefits of policies," Mr Weber said.
"(Electric vehicles) offer economy wide benefits, including improved health outcomes, and will make a major contribution to improving our environmental scorecard for the benefit of future generations."
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dumping-ground-australia-charged-with-discouraging-electric-vehicles-20201113-p56efr.html
Mega free-trade deal a lifeline for Australia-China relations
Australian businesses, universities and healthcare providers will be given access to 14 countries in the largest free-trade deal ever signed, as the federal government attempts to turn the new trading bloc into a circuit-breaker in its spiralling trade dispute with China.
Following eight years of highly secretive negotiations, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will be signed on Sunday after agreements were reached across the $30-trillion market by Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations including Indonesia and Vietnam.
The Australian government will use the European Union-style trade bloc in the Indo-Pacific to pull China back into multilateral negotiations and end trade disputes that have hit a dozen Australian industries and threatened $20 billion of exports.
"The ball is very much in China's court to come to the table for that dialogue," Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said.
The Australian government will use the trade pact to meet with Chinese ministers once in-person meetings resume next year. The Chinese Communist Party has frozen contact with Australian ministers since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak after multiple disputes over an independent inquiry into the origins of the pandemic, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
Senator Birmingham said the RCEP was the world's largest free-trade deal, representing 30 per cent of global GDP and 30 per cent of the world's population. It is the first time major trading partners China, South Korea, Japan and Australia have joined together in one agreement, reducing the reliance on a patchwork of bilateral deals.
"It's a hugely symbolically significant agreement, coming at a time of global trade uncertainty," Senator Birmingham told The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age. "It says in a really powerful and tangible way that our region, which has been the driver of global economic growth, is still committed to the principles of trade, openness and ambition."
Senator Birmingham called on China to honour the spirit of the new trade pact. "It is crucial that partners like China, as they enter into new agreements like this, deliver not only on the detail of such agreements, but act true to the spirit of them," he said.
He said Australian businesses in the services sector would benefit most from the deal, which will recognise qualifications and licensing practices, while allowing them to operate remotely and set up offices throughout the RCEP region.
The sector includes education, healthcare, accountants, engineering and legal service providers, and employs four out of five Australians while accounting for up to 70 per cent of Australia's GDP.
"It will make it much easier for what is a huge part of Australia's economy, to trade overseas," Senator Birmingham said. "Given the rise of the middle-income groups across many RCEP countries, there is a rising demand for more of those safe, high-quality health, education and other services that Australia is well placed to deliver."
The deal will also strengthen supply chains with common rules of origin and establish new e-commerce rules across the region.
The RCEP has been marred by years of bitter disagreement over tariffs and market access. It has missed five deadlines since discussions began in 2012.
Trade negotiators have been frustrated by India's reluctance to let go of agricultural subsidies for its highly protected and politically influential farmers and manufacturers, which fear an influx of Chinese products. Tariff changes have largely been left out of the deal as a result, leaving little benefit for Australian agriculture producers.
The 15 nations decided to sign the deal on Sunday without India, inserting a clause instead that will allow it to join at a later date.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has raised concerns about the secrecy of the deal and warned foreign labour market access could cost local jobs.
Trade expert Jeffrey Wilson, from the Perth USAsia centre, said given the global protectionist headwinds, including trade disputes between China and Australia, "RCEP will be the most important regional trade agreement ever signed". "It will remake the economic and strategic map of the region," Dr Wilson said.
Australia's relationship with China has deteriorated this year after multiple trade strikes rattled the seafood, timber, resources and agricultural industries. Senator Birmingham said the ongoing series of disruptions were "deeply troubling".
He said Australia would not "trade away its values" and called on China to make the first move to repair ties, after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said last week that it was up to Australia to "face up to the root cause" of the dispute.
Mr Wang said Canberra had stigmatised China by accusing Beijing of political infiltration, "blatantly interfering in its internal affairs" in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, and "putting wanton restrictions on normal co-operation".
Senator Birmingham said RCEP would provide a platform to bring countries together. "I think these are times of tension between the two great powers and the more we can use the existing architectures for dialogue be at an economic or security level, the better," he said.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday that the signing of RCEP would send "a clear, strong, positive signal for advancing regional integration and economic globalisation".
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spoken with regional counterparts for the ASEAN-Australia Summit and revealed a host of multimillion-dollar aid packages and initiatives. They include a new office in Myanmar's capital Naypyitaw, an expansion of the defence network across all countries within ASEAN and $104 million towards the region's security needs, including military education.
Mr Morrison committed $21 million to help fund a new public health emergency centre as part of Australia's $500 million three-year commitment to ensure coronavirus vaccines are available across the Pacific and south-east Asia.
Another $24 million was pledged to help with AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, while $232 million was announced to support development along the Mekong River.
"Australia and ASEAN are partners in the challenges we face, with south-east Asia's economic and health recovery critical to our own," Mr Morrison said.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/mega-free-trade-deal-a-lifeline-for-australia-china-relations-20201112-p56dx8.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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15 November, 2020
Jobs for the girls
Bettina Arndt on the feminist scene
Australia's Education Minister Dan Tehan is working on legislation to force our recalcitrant universities to properly tackle free speech on campuses. But it's one thing to find ways of stopping students throwing tomatoes at a Prime Minister's car and quite another to take on the current feminist culture which encourages blatant discrimination against men in academic appointments, and censors publications or scholarship which challenge their preferred narrative.
The Henrekson study
Across the Western World, universities kowtow to these orthodoxies. I have recently been corresponding with Swedish economist Magnus Henrekson, a professor and president of the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm.
Professor Henrekson told me about an exciting study he completed recently. It was based on an extremely large and exhaustive data set covering the entire Swedish population, used state-of the art econometric techniques and their hypothesis was confirmed, with strong empirical support.
Henrekson and his colleague Carl Magnus Bjuggren sent it to various top economic journals - only to receive endless rejections. "We have gotten pushbacks everywhere. It is obvious that the issue is not the quality of the paper per se. The problem is that the research question and the results are controversial (i.e., politically incorrect). We just get desk rejects where editors say that this is not an interesting question, or we get twisted reviews where reviewers go out of their way to conjure up outlandish alternative explanations to our findings."
Findings about what? Well, the first version of their paper was entitled "Avoiding the housewife stigma: Self-employment as a female career choice". So, the crux of the Swedish research is that women who marry men with extremely high incomes often start their own businesses which then underperform.
Isn't that a hoot? In this elevated social set, it goes down better at cocktail parties for these women to mention they are importing matsutake mushrooms or designing diamond nose studs than simply raising rug rats.
It's clearly not singing from the feminist songbook to suggest that the presence of a well-heeled husband could result in women choosing to dabble in unprofitable businesses rather than pursuing careers. Hence no one is allowed to publish research showing this is the case and even the most eminent journal reviewers meekly toe the party line.
I've been hearing such stories for decades. Research challenging the current cultural dogma simply doesn't get published and students writing theses on the wrong topics can't find supervisors or end up not qualifying for their degrees.
Unfair treatment of Colin Brown
Students like Colin Brown who has been fighting a mighty battle for a proper hearing after his PhD thesis on workplace male age discrimination was failed by a Melbourne university. Although it was initially passed by the two required examiners, the Dean of Graduate Research - a self-proclaimed feminist - then managed to disqualify one of these passes.
Eventually the Dean had his thesis failed after a number of strange "accidents" which included stalling on submitting his thesis for examination for 4« months and then sending out a mangled version which the university had distorted in printing, leading to a negative response from two new examiners. The whole ghastly saga has been published here.
Bias in astronomy
One of the most striking essays included in Janice Fiamengo's book, Sons of Feminism, was written by an Australian astronomer who ultimately decided to leave the country due to the invasion of his discipline by feminist and social justice politics.
Janice has given permission for me to share his thoughtful analysis with you - see here - as he explains exactly how the playing field is being systematically tilted to favour women.
Here, in his own words, is what life is like for an academic dealing with this climate:
"Before telescope-time or grant application meetings, we are now commonly subjected to patronizing speeches by diversity figureheads, who remind us how important it is to be fair to female applicants, how we should think twice before rejecting their applications, and how we should be mindful of gender balance and role models in our selection. It is a low-level form of brainwashing. We know that if we select too many male applicants (even if we do it on merit) our choice and motives will be scrutinized, monitored, criticized. Instead, if we select a few more female applicants (even if not all on merit), we will be praised and left in peace. Most astronomers unsurprisingly choose the path of least resistance."
And this is the result:
"Some astronomers still spend most of their time researching and monitoring the sky; others instead spend most of their time researching and monitoring gender balance within astronomy departments, setting up equity-and-diversity committees, writing 200-page reports on discrimination, conferring awards to themselves for their social-justice work, making up new types of privileges, and running blogs full of political propaganda. Unfortunately, funding is shrinking for the former class of astronomers like me and is ever-expanding for the latter."
Before this academic left Australia, the writing was already on the wall: "To obtain a good job, a male astronomer needs to be in the top 10% of male applicants, while a female astronomer only needs to be average."
The astronomer also comments on the feminist claim that astronomy departments are rife with sexual assaults and harassment. He points out there have been examples of inappropriate behaviour - famous male professors duly shamed for having relationship with young post-docs or students. But, as he says, no one ever calls out the female students who flirt with senior male professors whose careers have benefited from such interactions. And female professors have relations with younger male post-docs and nobody complains.
A steady stream of men have been shamed as creepy aggressors on the Women in Astronomy blog which the writer suggests has become similar to the Red Guards' Dazebaos during the Cultural Revolution.
"As a male, I could be anonymously accused of sexual harassment on that blog without a shred of evidence, and my career would be over in a frenzy of online lynching before I had a chance to defend myself. No wonder we all choose to toe the line in public."
Change in Australian politics?
Reading his words, I naturally thought of the ABC television's latest public lynching - the 4 Corners programme this week on sexual misconduct by government ministers. What was quite extraordinary was staffer Rachelle Miller accusing her former boss and lover, now immigration minister Alan Tudge, of hypocrisy for having an affair with her whilst espousing family values. The programme allowed Miller to play the victim, complain bitterly about feeling used by Tudge and not one word about her responsibility in conducting the affair, risking the breakup of two families.
But that point aside, it will be interesting to see whether this constant narrative inflating the risks for women of working with potentially predatory powerful men will eventually misfire on the sisterhood.
Earlier this week I was in Parliament House, meeting with various parliamentarians and advisers, talking mainly about the campus kangaroo courts. It was encouraging to learn our efforts to alert the public to what's going on here are much appreciated by key people in government.
At one point I was directed through the labyrinth of offices by a gorgeous young woman, tottering along on towering stilettos showing off her shapely bottom. You wonder how long prominent men will dare offer jobs to such beautiful creatures, or any young women. In this current climate we are already hearing women complain of being excluded from out-of-office socialising.
Was it just a coincidence that there seemed to be more young male staffers in some of the offices? Perhaps this is one area where feminist overkill might actually benefit men - if male employees become the safer bet for men in power.
Bettina Arndt newsletter: newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au
Queensland Teachers' Union member quits over `progressive' agenda
A longtime member and delegate has quit the Queensland Teachers' Union, saying it has become a puppet of the Labor Party and more interested in progressive agendas.
Brisbane manual arts teacher David Frarricciardi, 42, said he was offended at some of the behaviour he witnessed as delegate on the QTU state council for six years, and a school union rep for 12 years.
Frarricciardi said QTU claims of political impartiality were laughable.
"During my six years at the centre of the union I saw war-room-style call centres established in the lead-up to state and federal elections, where volunteers would sit and cold-call QTU members in marginal electorates and pressure them to vote for the Labor candidates," he said.
Frarricciardi said the union-funded demographic studies to support the election "war rooms".
"A straw that broke the camel's back for me came when I was when as a rep I rang my organiser for assistance and was told that she was too busy with the election campaign to call me back," he said. "True story."
The QTU is one of the state's most powerful unions with 46,724 members. It is influential in shaping government policy, and in recent years has supported progressive social agendas in schools. This had upset many members, Frarricciardi said.
QTU president Kevin Bates would not comment on Frarricciardi's specific claims, but rejected suggestions the union was in bed with the ALP. "We are not affiliated with any political party and never have been," he said.
Bates said the QTU did an impartial assessment of education policies before the election. It did not recommend a Labor vote.
"We then left it to our members to decide," he said.
However Frarricciardi said he had seen pro-Labor bias first hand.
He said he became especially concerned at a state council meeting when he learned the QTU executive was ready to support candidates who "share our views". "In other words, they wanted to support Labor candidates," Frarricciardi said.
At one meeting while debating possible funding options Frarricciardi said he openly advocated supporting candidates who were pro-education and not necessarily pro-Labor, and tried to amend a motion accordingly.
"However I was shouted down by a prominent member of the executive (also a Labor Party figure), who said, `You will never find a Queensland teacher who would be stupid enough to vote Tory.' "
Frarricciardi was disturbed by another "unpleasant episode" showing the QTU in a bad light. It happened when then education minister John-Paul Langbroek addressed an annual conference.
Unionists were determined not to let Langbroek's voice be heard. "All the lights in the room at the convention centre were ordered to be changed to green, and delegates were told to hold up signs saying, `We want Gonski,' while hissing at each of the minister's statements."
Frarricciardi said he was not aligned to any political party. He simply wanted the union to focus on teachers, without championing political and social causes.
"I joined (the QTU) entirely out of fear, yes fear," he said. "We were told that we needed the might and strength of the QTU to protect us. "There were bad people out to get us and without the QTU in our corner we would not stand a chance."
"But what else has crept in? "If you want your boy to wear a skirt to school, or your daughter to use the boys' toilet, then the QTU is the organisation to call.
"I asked a number of times what some of these progressive agendas had to do with my rights at work. "I also asked why my union dues paid to send two of the QTU executive members to Paris to speak on how Queensland schools are embracing LGBTQ.''
Frarricciardi said the QTU was happiest when pushing "rather odd" left-wing agendas. He said many QTU members agreed with him.
Frarricciardi had intended to start his own union, but when he saw the breakaway Teachers' Professional Association of Queensland was recently set up, he joined that instead.
Here I declare that the TPAQ is a sister union to the Nurses' Professional Association of Queensland, to which I sometimes give advice as a media consultant.
Frarricciardi said he would urge the TPAQ to concentrate only on industrial matters such as workloads, class sizes, reporting requirements, playground duties and after-school meetings.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/insight/queensland-teachers-union-member-quits-over-progressive-agenda/news-story/4b5be334931219f3471619c800977985
Vested interests cornered by shoddy ABC hatchet job
Monday night's Four Corners story was not a public interest expose about the secret sex lives of Liberal ministers Christian Porter and Alan Tudge. The poorly executed political hatchet job by Four Corners has backfired dreadfully on women and kicked an own goal for the #MeToo movement.
A base level of intellect could have predicted this. By airing a string of nebulous claims by women against Porter and Tudge that lacked detail, let alone slam-dunk evidence of wrongdoing, Four Corners host Louise Milligan and executive producer Sally Neighbour invited curious viewers to wonder about the possible motivations of those who appeared in the program, including Malcolm Turnbull.
The Four Corners program started with Jo Dyer, described as a member of the 1987 national schools champion debating team. Her claims against Porter date back decades: He was "very charming" and "very confident". He had an "assuredness that's perhaps born of privilege". He was "brash, blond and breezy". He was "quite slick" with an "air of entitlement".
That's it. Without evidence, we are entitled to wonder why Dyer offered gratuitous personal criticisms of Porter?
Four Corners did not mention that Dyer was a failed Labor candidate for preselection. Nor that she has said "my political views are not exactly secret". Nor that, as incoming director of Adelaide Writers' Week, Dyer attacked the state Liberal government for having "no f..king idea" and predicted "they will flog off everything . to their corporate mates".
That background could help explain why she filled out a bingo card of progressive words and phrases when speaking against Porter.
Melbourne barrister Kathleen Foley, who also made claims about Porter, says she knew him from the age of 16. She accused him of being "deeply sexist" and "actually misogynist" in how he treated women and spoke about them.
And the evidence? Foley offered this: "Everyone knew what kind of guy he was." And this: He drank a lot and expressed a preference for women who are thin and have big breasts.
If this is public interest journalism, ABC schedulers must immediately set aside entire days every week to shame high-profile Australian men who drank a lot at university and prefer skinny women with big breasts. In the name of gender equity, an equal number of days must be set aside to shame Australian women who overindulged and fancy toned men with other particular physical attributes. [Height]
Foley, an accomplished lawyer, should know that making accusations with no clear evidence of wrongdoing is dangerous. Viewers might wonder if she has different political beliefs to Porter too? This week Foley lost her bid for re-election to the Victorian Bar's governing council. Her platform included gender equity.
Four Corners did nothing to boost that cause, or Foley's credibility, by airing hearsay and hazy claims overlaid with spooky music and blurred recreations of nothing in particular.
Lame journalism loses control of its story.
Four Corners claims that Porter snogged a Liberal staffer at a pub in Canberra in late 2017. The woman at the centre of the claim did not feature on the program. When contacted by Four Corners, she reportedly denied the claims.
Milligan did not tell viewers this. She told ABC radio this week she did not want to talk about off-the-record conversations with people who did not want to go on camera. That's curious. Milligan breezily mentioned "dozens" of other people she spoke to - all unnamed - who made claims off camera against Porter.
Four Corners interviewed Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who offered the ABC more hearsay evidence against Porter. Hanson-Young claims she spoke to the young woman who "found herself in somewhat of a relationship" with Porter. The Greens senator says the woman was "very upset about what had been going on in the office she worked in and how she was being treated as a result of people finding out". "It's a man's world," said Hanson-Young, ominously.
This is not quality journalism.
There will be cases of legitimate public interest for the public to learn about the private lives of politicians. For example, where a foreign minister or defence minister becomes close to a suspected foreign agent. But presenting hearsay claims "volunteered" by Hanson-Young is not even close to serving the public interest.
Four Corners has done a serious disservice to women in particular. Look at how the program presented claims by Rachelle Miller, and still failed to move beyond a poorly executed political hatchet job.
Miller was a media adviser who had an affair with her boss, minister Tudge. Both were married, with children. Speaking to Four Corners, Miller appeared troubled. It is clear her relationship with Tudge did not work out. Yet, the precise claims she airs about him on camera are hard to pin down. A few days later, in what seemed like an orchestrated leak, we learned that Miller has lodged formal claims of bullying against Tudge and others. Those will be dissected by this column next week.
Sticking to the ABC's shoddy effort, Miller told Four Corners she lost self-confidence, was exhausted, and "the behaviour wasn't OK".
What behaviour? They entered a consensual relationship. Miller was not a junior staffer. She did not appear to take responsibility for her role.
Where was an ounce of nuance from the ABC to reflect the reality that when a man behaves badly, often a woman is behaving badly too?
Miller complained that Tudge wanted her to walk next to him as they entered parliament's Midwinter Ball. Would she have been more or less offended if he told her to walk two metres behind him?
Office affairs can be a bloody mess for everyone, not just the lovers. But no one should imagine that they all fail; many women marry men they work for. And the power relationship is not all a one-way power trip for the boss.
When a female staffer sleeps with her boss, she will often secure closer access to him at work too, invited into extra meetings and on travel. It changes how an office works. Office romances should be disclosed. And if there is to be a ministerial code of conduct, there should also be a staffers code of conduct because these relationships involve consenting adults with responsibilities to their office.
None of that was canvassed by the 56-minute political hatchet job by Four Corners. It was no surprise to see Labor's Kristina Keneally saying little more than some blokes "were on the make" at the Midwinter Ball in 2017. God forbid, maybe some women were on the make too.
Melbourne lawyer Josh Borstein loves a camera, too. He pointed out that the A-G occupies a unique place in our political system. Given he offered no evidence of wrongdoing by Porter, his presence concentrated the political bias of the program. Borstein is a Labor luvvie, trade union lawyer and partner at a law firm that rakes in fees from class action lawsuits - an industry that Porter, and the Morrison government, want to regulate to better protect plaintiffs.
Concetta Fierravanti-Wells added a conservative flavour with more vague comments, again lacking evidence of wrongdoing. Why was she there? Maybe the methodical researchers at Four Corners had not heard that the Liberal senator fancied being A-G before the role was handed to Porter by then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
It is bad enough that a bloated Four Corners team spent many months to produce a handful of discontents that might have an axe to grind. When the national broadcaster used taxpayer money to turn Four Corners into a full-throttle vengeance vehicle for Turnbull, it reinforced that politics, not public interest principles, drove its content.
Turnbull was invited to pontificate about the behaviour of two Liberal ministers who turned against him at the fag end of his leadership. As someone tweeted on Monday night, revenge is best served cold - and on TV. And then repeated.
Turnbull offered no evidence of wrongdoing that made this a public interest story either. Tudge's affair with Miller, and the allegations against Porter, predate Turnbull's "bonk ban" that prohibited sex between ministers and staffers.
Oh, the sweet irony that Turnbull wants a royal commission into the Murdoch media. During his dripping-wet interviews on the ABC this week, on Insiders, Four Corners and Q&A, obvious questions about his motivations went unasked.
They will be asked in Murdoch publications.
The upshot is that Turnbull, a group of apparently disgruntled women and other political junkies, have exposed a far more serious cultural problem than anything within the Liberal Party. They showcased how the revenge culture formalised by the #MeToo movement continues to backfire against women. Evidence of wrongdoing stands alone. Claims not backed by evidence invite us to check the motivations of accusatory women.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/vested-interests-cornered-by-shoddy-abc-hatchet-job/news-story/5b6e159da5d6adcf90702b0b80ddefaa
Australian Labor Party split on climate policy
'The biggest fear in the mining industry isn't market forces, it's the politicians'
Louise Nicholls has been living in the Hunter Valley long enough to remember when the local member was not Joel Fitzgibbon, but his father Eric, a friendly sort of bloke, she recalls, whose electorate office then ran things so efficiently that he always had time for a schooner of Old with the ladies from the Country Women's Association.
Joel inherited the seat, which has been in Labor hands since 1910, from Eric on his retirement in 1996, and kept it without too much trouble - or effort, says Nicholls -until the last election when a young coal miner and farmer named Stuart Bonds snagged 20 per cent of the vote for One Nation.
Fitzgibbon's margin collapsed from a cushy 14 per cent to an anxious 2 per cent.
Nicholls, who edits The Singleton Argus and runs a little farm outside town, says the difference in Fitzgibbon's public presence was dramatic and immediate.
"Bloody Joel," she says with a laugh as I raise the topic.
Days before the election the opposition agriculture and resources spokesman had been before cameras in vineyards discussing the newest methods of decarbonising agriculture and saving water.
"The day after the election it was all coal, coal, coal," says Nicholls.
"Don't bother talking to us about transition," a Fitzgibbon staffer told her days after the election, referring to the term often used to describe the organised withdrawal from the fossil fuel economy, she says. "That's all over."
After Labor's loss of the 2019 election Fitzgibbon took his newfound lack of ambition on climate change back to Canberra with the zeal of a convert.
It wasn't that he did not believe in anthropogenic climate change, it wasn't even that he did not believe that the use of thermal coal - coal burnt for energy - was not in decline.
It was just that he did not think Labor should be wedded to ambitious carbon reduction targets in opposition.
Why should Labor lose votes in seats - well, in seats like his - when it could simply embrace the government's position on climate and emissions reductions and let it take the heat?
Besides, if coal was already in decline, why should the Hunter Valley's workers not enjoy a few more years of its benefits?
Last October, Fitzgibbon told the think tank the Australia Institute that Labor should match the government's own emissions reduction target of 26-28 per cent by 2030.
"The focus would then be all about actual outcomes, and the government would finally be held to account and forced to act," he said.
Since then sniping among Labor ranks has continued on the issue, even as the world began to take more meaningful action on climate change as the coronavirus hit.
Organisations seen as wedded to fossil fuels such as the International Energy Agency began calling for all nations to adopt green stimulus packages as oil and coal prices collapsed. Britain and the European Union stepped up already ambitious reduction targets echoed by China, Japan and South Korea.
On climate, at least, the wind might have been in Labor's sails this week had it not been for Fitzgibbon.
After a widely reported shouting match in an opposition cabinet meeting on Monday night he resigned from Labor's frontbench, telling reporters that the party was too focused on climate change.
"We have to speak to, and be a voice for, all those who we seek to represent, whether they be in Surry Hills or Rockhampton. And that's a difficult balance," he said.
In the Hunter, views of Fitzgibbon's departure were mixed, and they underscored what a terrible political problem climate change is for the valley, for Labor and for the world.
CFMEU district president Peter Jordan is sure that Fitzgibbon has made the right move by distancing himself from politicians who've become too close to the concerns of inner-city electorates in Sydney and Melbourne.
"They don't know how people here feel. The Labor Party has been too strong on wanting to listen to the other side, the other side that's got the green element about it,'' Jordan says.
"Joel has done the right thing ever since the election, he has accepted the argument that was raised by his electorate and in the last 12 to 18 months he has set about trying to correct that and steer Labor back to its traditional roots, and that is what blue collar workers want."
Sitting in his office, Cessnock mayor Bob Pynsent recalls working on booths for Fitzgibbon the day of the last election, and how shocked he was at the angry reception he got from young blokes in hi-vis vests when he offered them how-to-vote Labor forms.
He too believes that Fitzgibbon is steering the right political course, though he concedes the politics are difficult. It might have been blue collar workers who abandoned Fitzgibbon at the last election, but they do not have the same problems as blue collar workers in other parts of the country, he says.
Pat Conroy holds the Labor seat of Shortland, adjacent to Fitzgibbon's, and he does not share his colleague's outlook. He says there are three coal transitions facing Australia, and the first two are under way.
The first is domestic thermal coal use. The Hunter Valley's four coal power stations are slated for closure over the next 15 years, starting with Liddell next year, or the year after.
Domestic thermal coal is in decline.
Conroy believes the shift away from seaborne thermal coal has also already begun, though because of the Australian industry's efficiency and the high energy content of its product, Australian coal mines will be among the last viable operations in the world.
Either way, he says, the end is in sight.
The third is steel-making coal, which Conroy says the world will abandon when new technology - now in development - comes into play.
"I think it is my first responsibility to my constituents to be honest about that," he says.
For his part, Fitzgibbon resists putting a timeline on the end of the industry.
"Predictions are a dime a dozen, and predicting what the global market might do soon is not a reason to regulate our industry out of existence now," Fitzgibbon says.
In that he agrees with the man who spooked him at the last election, One Nation's Bonds, who plans to run again.
"Why should Labor bring that forward? The biggest fear that people have in the industry is not the market forces, it's the politicians," he says.
He reckons that no matter how far Fitzgibbon distances himself from other Labor voices on coal and emissions he will still be known as a member of the same team.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/power-plays-at-work-as-labor-split-over-climate-action-20201113-p56egf.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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13 November, 2020
Tax on electric cars produces anger
South Australia's controversial new electric vehicle charge has been labelled "a big tax on not polluting" by policy analysts and the EV industry.
It comes as MG launches the lowest price electric vehicle on the market in Australia yet - a $40,000 SUV crossover - that is about $10,000 cheaper than its nearest rival, the Nissan Leaf.
Noah Schultz-Byard, South Australian director at the Australia Institute, said the decision in South Australia - the first in the nation to introduce such a charge - would only made it harder for people to go electric just as it was getting easier.
"Putting a tax on a car because it doesn't produce any pollution is ridiculous. It's like saying someone who gives up smoking no longer pays the tobacco excise, so they need to pay a penalty for having given up," Schultz-Byard said.
"People can make arguments for or against, but now is not the time when the upfront cost of an EV is still higher than a petrol car. Right now the cost of batteries that go into electric vehicles has been dropping steadily and is expected to drop in the years to come.
"Slapping a tax on that will only raise the barrier back up. This might scare a lot of people away from buying an electric vehicle, which is the opposite of what we want."
The move was announced in the state budget where treasurer Rob Lucas explained the decision by saying it would make road use more equal.
Lucas wouldn't be drawn on the size of the charge but did say it was expected to raise $1m a year starting in July 2021 and that it would include both an upfront cost and an additional charge on distance travelled.
"Someone needs to pay for the road maintenance and upgrade, and it should be the people who are using the road," Lucas said.
Dr Jake Whitehead, a research fellow with the University of Queensland, said this didn't stack up as money generated from road taxes is split between state and federal governments.
Less than half this money is then spent on road transport projects, while the rest goes to general revenue.
"Basically, what they're saying [to EV owners] is you should continue to pay stamp duty, registration and we're going to throw in an extra tax. Basic economics is that you make the price higher, you decrease demand," Whitehead said.
"What we're seeing is that EVs are being a scapegoat for falling fuel excise taxes, when the excise declines are actually because of more hybrid and fuel-efficient cars being introduced.
"The expected outcome from my perspective, is that you'll put a tax on EVs, that will be a disincentive [to buy] EVs, those buyers will then buy hybrid or fuel-efficient vehicles and that will exacerbate the issue with fuel excise. That'll only make the issue larger."
Behyad Jafari, chair of the Electric Vehicle Council, said his worry is that South Australia will set a precedent that will lock in bad policy across the country.
"Automotive companies simply won't bring EVs to our market," Jafari said. "South Australia has one of the lowest uptakes of EVs in the world and to now become the world's first countries to provide a net tax or net disincentive is the wrong move."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/11/south-australias-new-tax-on-electric-vehicles-ridiculed-as-a-big-tax-on-not-polluting
Coal Joel `out of step', blasts senior MP as Labor rift worsens
Federal Labor has descended into an all-out slanging match, with a senior frontbencher publicly blasting his colleague Joel Fitzgibbon as "out of step" with the party and the Australian people.
It follows Mr Fitzgibbon stepping down from the frontbench, saying the party was too focused on climate change and not enough on blue collar workers, following a heated shadow cabinet on Monday night.
Mr Fitzgibbon on Wednesday morning accused the Labor leadership of "overreach" on climate policy and warning against the party staying in "perpetual opposition".
Labor frontbench quit, says party lost its way
Albo feeling leadership heat as Joel backs coal
Opposition attorney-general spokesman Mark Dreyfus played down leadership speculation and Anthony Albanese's future, saying he had "zero fears" about it.
But he took aim at his former frontbench college for criticising the party's climate policies. "Joel is out of step, he's out of step with not only the Labor Party he's out of step with thinking across Australia - in the regions, in the cities," Mr Dreyfus said.
"I'm trying to say as clearly as I can that Joel's thinking and the statements that he's been making for many months now are out of step with what Labor has agreed on. "There's a growing realisation that taking action on climate is the direction that not only Australia needs to go in but the rest of the world is moving on.
"Perhaps a catalyst for his departure was what I saw as a completely incorrect rejection by him of the importance of the election of Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris as President and Vice President elect of the United States."
Mr Dreyfus would not comment on reports that he and Mr Fitzgibbon had a heated exchange at shadow cabinet, but denied there was any yelling.
Mr Fitzgibbon said he feared the party's policy was "so ambitious" that it was not being embraced by the public. "You can't give effect to climate change policy if you're perpetually in opposition," he said.
On Tuesday, after resigning from the frontbench, Mr Fitzgibbon said they could not win an election without winning central and north Queensland seats like Flynn and Herbert, adding that they had been "demonising" coal workers.
"The Labor Party has been spending too much time in recent years talking about climate change, which is an important issue, and not enough time talking about the needs of our traditional base," he said.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-government/coal-joel-out-of-step-blasts-senior-mp-as-labor-rift-worsens/news-story/b1f915e4b8a431d78dc27d842e7d96e9
Australia should cut emissions quickly and lead world in renewable energy, incoming chief scientist says
Chief non-scientist would be more apt
Australia's incoming chief scientist wants the country to be a global renewable energy leader and "bold and ambitious" in rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Physicist Dr Cathy Foley, who will replace Dr Alan Finkel in January, told Guardian Australia she believed the Morrison government was serious about rapidly shifting the country to a low-emissions economy.
Foley, who is currently the chief scientist at CSIRO, will enter the role at a time when a global pandemic has pushed the importance of scientific advice to new heights.
But she will also be tasked with compiling and curating scientific evidence to guide a potential rapid shift away from fossil fuels to a low-emissions economy.
"Of course I want Australia to be a low-emissions economy, but I want us to be a world leader in renewable energy, such as hydrogen, and what I'm hearing from government is that they want the same thing," she said.
"We need to move as quickly as we can using all the tools to lower emissions and be bold and ambitious in doing that."
The Morrison government has so far refused to set a target to reach net zero emissions by 2050 - a goal now endorsed by key trading partners, including Japan and South Korea, as well as US president-elect Joe Biden.
The UN's climate panel says the world's greenhouse gas emissions need to reach net zero by 2050 to have a 66% chance of keeping global warming below 1.5C.
But when asked what advice she would give the government on the target, Foley said: "I'm not in the job yet and I have not done my own gathering of information. I'm not in a position to say I can assess the situation.
"But I can say [is] we know Australia is committed to reducing emissions and Australia is committed to delivering on its commitments of the Paris agreement and we are seeing the government recognising this."
Finkel has advocated for increasing the amount of gas in Australia's electricity grid to lower emissions and support renewables - a position he was forced to defend in August after climate scientists wrote an open letter saying it was at odds with the Paris climate agreement.
Foley said: "The people who signed that letter are eminent scientists coming from a scientific perspective, but they are not necessarily business people.
"The gas issue is complex. Alan's position on gas is it will help reduce emissions more quickly and get more wind and solar more quickly. He is just providing the evidence from what he has garnered."
She said her role would be to make sure the voices of environmental science were heard, but to also "bring them to the other parts of the argument to see why an outcome has landed where it has". "I think pragmatic is not the right word. It's about being a boundary spanner . that's what's tricky in the chief scientist role."
Foley is a multi-award winning physicist specialising in the use of super-conductors to locate mineral deposits. She has worked at CSIRO for 36 years.
CSIRO's chief executive, Larry Marshall, said her appointment was a "testament to Cathy's personal scientific excellence". Finkel said he was honoured to be followed "by such an esteemed person".
Foley told Guardian Australia she had been asked to apply for the role but had not expected to get the job.
"The [science minister Karen Andrews] and the prime minister said they want to make sure there's independent information that's as unbiased as possible - gathering scientific information from wherever is needed on an issue or question and then give them frank and fearless advice to use to navigate the issue at hand.
"They may use the advice or not, but it's important to realise the response to how they use it may require me to be pragmatic, but it's the government of the day that makes the policy and the decisions."
She said while science was "one small part of the big picture when a big decision has to be made", Australia had closely followed expert advice to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic "and has had a good outcome".
She acknowledged that misinformation on issues such as climate change science were a problem - where evidence and information could be cherry-picked - and said the country needed a campaign to help the public understand the scientific process.
But she also welcomed the steps being taken by social media platforms in flagging posts that contained misinformation.
"I think [social media] has played a major role in misinformation being easily accessible and getting a life of its own," she said.
She hoped social media had now "gone through the wild teenage years" and was now "developing some maturity".
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/11/australia-should-cut-emissions-quickly-and-lead-world-in-renewable-energy-incoming-chief-scientist-says
'Unviable': La Trobe proposes cutting humanities and education courses
La Trobe University has proposed scrapping or reducing about a dozen disciplines in the arts and education, telling staff on Wednesday that it is no longer financially viable to teach these subjects.
The proposal comes as the university confronts a revenue downturn in the hundreds of millions of dollars due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing it to shed hundreds of positions.
Staff at La Trobe, who have also agreed to take a 10 per cent pay cut to avoid deeper job cuts, were told that unprofitable disciplines from the schools of humanities and education could not continue in their current state.
Those that face being discontinued include creative arts, Hindi, Indonesian and modern Greek studies. Planning and community development and philosophy would be scaled back.
The bachelor of arts would also be offered as a purely online degree at La Trobe's regional campuses, staff were told.
In the school of education - where La Trobe last month celebrated leaping 42 places to 62nd in the Times Higher Education World University rankings by subject - the bachelor of technology education faces being scrapped entirely, as would the master of applied linguistics and the master of teaching English to speakers of other languages.
The number of subjects offered in outdoor education would also be reduced.
The cuts to disciplines were described as horrifying and "the byproduct of a broken higher education system" by tertiary union leader Sarah Roberts.
Ms Roberts, the National Tertiary Education Union's Victorian assistant secretary, said: "It's deeply horrifying that what we all imagined might come to pass as a result of the pandemic has now crystallised at La Trobe. That is, liberal arts courses are being cut because they don't generate the revenue that more vocational courses do."
Ms Roberts called on the university to consult further with staff and the community "before going ahead with its radical proposal".
La Trobe University said in a statement that the schools of humanities and education had reviewed their course and subject portfolios and found a number that were financially unsustainable.
Some of the changes would also involve a loss of jobs, requiring further consultation with staff, the university said.
"For both schools, these are proposals only and potential impacts will depend on the outcomes of the consultation," it said.
"Any impacted courses and subjects will be taught out for existing students or suitable alternatives offered."
La Trobe University vice-chancellor John Dewar said the humanities disciplines in question have had "consistently low enrolments for the last few years and in the current circumstances the university can't afford to cross-subsidise them".
Disciplines being cut in the school of education were heavily enrolled in by international students, who are blocked from entering the country, Professor Dewar said.
"The context of course is COVID and the fact that like every other university we're facing a significant downturn in revenue this year, next year and probably some time beyond that," he said.
The university forecasts a revenue shortfall in 2020 and 2021 of between $265 million and $335 million.
It is one of just a few Australian universities that signed up to the Jobs Protection Framework, a deal between universities and the National Tertiary Education Union in which staff accepted pay cuts on the condition the university would limit job cuts.
Universities Australia has projected the Australian higher education sector could lose $19 billion in the next three years due to the loss of fee-paying international students.
Professor Dewar said the changes to education disciplines would require about five involuntary redundancies, while any possible job losses in the humanities would go out to staff consultation.
The university's decision to sign up to the Jobs Protection Framework had spared it from having to cut hundreds of jobs, he said.
"Involuntary redundancies are unavoidable at some point but we have done an amazing job of getting as far as we have without making a very many people involuntarily redundant."
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/unviable-la-trobe-proposes-cutting-humanities-and-education-courses-20201111-p56dqu.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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12 November, 2020
Morrison government shuts down proposal to fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait flags in parliament during important week for indigenous culture
Leftist racism again. They want to divide us according to race, in this case Aboriginal race. Why does race matter? Many aborigines do quite well. Why can we not celebrate them instead of moaning about others? We all have burdens to bear. By all means help people with problems but why not do that regardless of race?
Senator Thorpe is a strange spokesperson for Aborigines. She bears an Old English surname and has no Aboriginal appearance other than a light tan. Her aboriginal ancestry is clearly minimal. She is just a complainer. She would use her energies more usefully by raising children well.
The Morrison government has blocked a push to fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in federal parliament's Senate chamber.
Three Indigenous senators moved a motion to coincide with NAIDOC Week to have the flags hoisted on the floor of the upper house.
Labor's Malarndirri McCarthy and Pat Dodson, along with Greens senator Lidia Thorpe wanted them raised alongside the Australian flag.
But coalition senators opposed the move, narrowly defeating the motion 29 to 28 votes.
Cabinet minister Anne Ruston said there were many other circumstances to fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. 'The government believes the Australian national flag, which represents all Australians, is the only appropriate flag to be flown in the Senate chamber,' she told parliament.
The coalition then denied Senator McCarthy a chance to make a short statement on the issue, angering Labor frontbencher Murray Watt. 'This is NAIDOC Week. To deny a First Nations senator leave to speak for one minute on this motion is I think something the government will regret,' he said.
The government then relented, allowing Senator McCarthy and Senator Thorpe a chance to speak. 'Thank you so very much for allowing black people to speak about the black flag,' Senator Thorpe said.
Senator McCarthy said NAIDOC Week was a chance to show Australia politicians could unite the country. 'The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags are also national flags,' she said.
Senator Thorpe said she wasn't sure where other senators had come from, but her people had been in Australia for thousands of generations. 'Can I remind you all that we are on stolen land? The Aboriginal flag represents the oldest continuing living culture in the world,' she said.
'The Aboriginal flag is what we identify with, what we connect with, just as you connect with the colonial flag that you love and you appeal to.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8932695/Morrison-government-votes-AGAINST-proposal-fly-Aboriginal-Torres-Strait-flags-parliament.html
'We are ONE and free': Gladys Berejiklian says the national anthem SHOULD be changed as a sign of respect for Indigenous Australians
It is certainly absurd to say that Australians are all young so I supppose "one" is an improvement. But in what way we are "one" is pretty elusive
The New South Wales Premier has called for a national conversation around changing the lyrics to Advance Australia Fair.
A campaign is gaining momentum to scrap the national anthem as the State of Origin heads into round two on Wednesday night.
The Recognition in Anthem Project wants the lyrics in the first verse changed from 'we are young and free' to 'we are one and free'.
Gladys Berejiklian said the national anthem should be changed as a sign of respect for indigenous Australians.
'I love our national anthem. I get goose bumps every time I hear it sung or played, but think one word change will make such a difference,' Ms Berejiklian told the Daily Telegraph.
She said the change would 'acknowledge our proud Indigenous history'.
'We're all Australian and we all need to come together, no matter our background and heritage, that's what makes Australia and NSW what it is,' she said.
The premier recalled singing the national anthem when she was a little girl at school. But she said back then they would sing 'Australia's sons let us rejoice' instead of 'Australians all let us rejoice.'
Ms Berejiklian acknowledged a minor change could make a big difference for the Indigenous community. 'I'm so proud of our first nations people and our Indigenous players - I don't want them to feel they aren't included. Dignity and respect goes a long way,' she said.
She pointed to Armenian heritage and acknowledged how difficult it was to feel injustice.
Blues players Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr and Cody Walker refused to sing the anthem during Round One of last year's State of Origin. They were joined in another boycott last Wednesday by Maroon outside back Dane Gagai.
The premier said a national conversation should be held inviting the Indigneous community to have their say.
The NRL was left red-faced after backflipping on a decision to scrap the anthem at game one of State of Origin in Adelaide last Wednesday. The decision was spurred by public backlash including from Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
But some commentators, including 2GB's Ben Fordham agreed with the recommendation to alter the lyrics. 'This is a step we can and should take and I think the time is now,' Fordham said. 'I'm going to change starting tonight and I invite anyone else to join me.'
'When the national anthem plays before the Origin I will be singing it loud and proud, but in that opening verse I'll be singing 'Australians all let us rejoice for we are one and free.''
National sporting events have typically been at the forefront of debate around changing the national anthem. Earlier this year in February at the Indigenous All-Stars NRL game between Australia and New Zealand - the national anthems were scrapped in favour of traditional dances.
Star Latrell Mitchell was reportedly a driving force behind the anthem being conspicuously absent - with the 23-year-old refusing to take part in singing the song before the previous year's event.
Social media was impressed with the ceremonial dances and lit up with comments praising the move. 'The emotion was absolutely spectacular,' one person said. 'This beats any anthems hands down,' another added.
However, Advance Australia Fair is also held fondly by vast amount of the population with calls to scrap the song entirely met with consistent outcry.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8933487/Gladys-Berejiklian-wants-national-anthem-lyrics-changed-respect-indigenous-Australians.html
Joe Biden's Green New Deal is a setback for Australia too
Last week's was America's most important election, but it also has profound implications for Australia. The Green New Deal is what most distinguishes the Democrats' program from that of President Donald Trump.
As Jennifer Oriel has noted, Kamala Harris and -Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez plan to use energy policy not only to fundamentally reshape the American economy but as a means of redistributing wealth and income to "low-income communities, indigenous peoples, and communities of colour".
With the Green New Deal, the Democrats' policy target is -focused on zero net emissions of CO2. This means eliminating coal and gas and sharply winding back oil consumption. Nuclear power as an alternative has no place.
The day after the 2020 election, having given a year's notice, the US formally left the Paris Agreement on climate change. Under the Paris Agreement - largely developed by the Obama administration - Australia committed to reduce its CO2 emissions by some 28 per cent as did other developed countries.
Trump renounced it because its provisions would raise energy costs, disadvantaging the US economy, especially in the context of China and other developing countries having no meaningful abatement obligations.
Joe Biden will re-join and pursue policies that include funding developing countries' abatements, banning fracking for new gas supplies, requiring costly carbon abatement on gas and coal power stations, and a carbon tax.
The Democrats and political elites elsewhere, including Australia, generally support measures to address climate change. Those in politics and the bureaucracy (Trump's swamp dwellers) believe the version of the science that has human-induced CO2 emissions bringing catastrophic warming of the atmosphere, with costs that include loss of wildlife and increased climatic emergencies.
Burning carbon previously stored in fossil fuels has brought carbon dioxide emissions that have caused a 1C increase in temperatures. But some scientists (controversially) believe this will be magnified two to four fold -because CO2 will create more water vapour.
Of the 32 climate models monitored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, only the one produced by the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of Numerical Mathematics, does not feature water vapour amplification from CO2.
*Significantly, this "outlier" is the only model that has not overshot actual global temperatures in its forecasts*
Motivation for the Green New Deal also echoes 40 years of claims that renewable energy is the future and should be supported. This finds favour with many in business (and agriculture) who actually or potentially receive the subsidies. The subsidies to wind and solar in the US, like Australia, already cover half their cost.
US CO2 emissions have fallen recently, largely due to gas replacing coal in power generation. -Additional regulatory measures will be required to approach the deep cuts targeted by the Green New Deal.
A carbon tax is one of the Biden strategies. Many economists also favour this because of its claimed neutrality in bringing about emission reductions.
Australia under the Gillard government is one of the few governments to have introduced such a measure. But Gillard's carbon tax, like measures contemplated by Biden, was not a neutral alternative to other regulations and taxes. Rather, it was in addition to other taxes and regulations designed to reduce emissions, especially by supporting renewable energy.
Recent analysis for New Zealand estimate that a carbon tax of $560 per tonne is needed to bring about net zero emissions (the Australian tax was $20 per tonne).
Australia's projected 28 per cent reduction in emissions falls well short of cuts now contemplated by the EU and America's Democrats. Australian policy of paring back emissions is being met largely by a forced substitution of coal by renewables, driven by subsidies and selective taxes and regulatory measures. These are estimated to bring annual costs in higher electricity charges and taxes of about $13bn a year.
The coming lower costs of renewables continue to miscarry. Moreover, their unreliability demands enormous investments. These include more than $17bn to transform the Snowy and Tasmanian hydro resources into back-up facilities. They also mean vast expenditures on batteries and new transmission lines, as foreshadowed in NSW's recent electricity infrastructure road map.
Governments claim renewable energy policies will reduce prices, but experience disproves it. As a result of such policies Australia has have slipped from leading the world on low energy prices to being among the most expensive.
The Biden victory will bring increased pressure on us to introduce more regulations, subsidies and other measures to reduce domestic emissions. One upshot, aside from higher household electricity bills, will be closure or contraction of Australian industries previously benefiting from low cost energy. A corollary is lower living standards.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/joe-bidens-green-new-deal-is-a-setback-for-jobs-and-income/news-story/685a5593f2563ed55bc9028ee18581b4
Tutors could become a fixture of NSW schools to close education gap
An ambitious plan to hire thousands of tutors to bring students up to speed after the COVID-19 shutdown could become a fixture of the NSW public school system if it succeeds in narrowing the education gap.
The $337 million, 12-month scheme, which will be funded in next week's state budget, will equate to an average of $130,000 and 1700 tutoring hours per school.
The Department of Education will consult teachers and use the results of school assessments such as the check-in tests held this year and NAPLAN in 2021 to determine which schools and students need most help.
Retired teachers, casuals and university education students can apply for about 5500 tutoring jobs from this week, and will be paid according to their experience.
Learning gaps were already significant before the pandemic, and have long been one of the biggest challenges facing schools. By year 3, disadvantaged students are 10 months behind those from advantaged backgrounds.
But modelling suggests the gap may have widened by up to five weeks due to seven weeks of remote learning earlier this year.
When asked if the program could continue after its allocated 12 months if it succeeded in reducing the gap, NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said she would be closely monitoring its effectiveness.
"We have record funding going into our schools, there's opportunity to look at how that money is being spent," she said. "If this is something that is successful that we could look at tailoring with existing funding arrangements then absolutely we're open to having that discussion."
After NAPLAN was cancelled this year, three quarters of public schools participated in check-in assessments for years 3, 5 and 9. After positive feedback, the Department of Education will create more assessments for different years.
That data, plus consultation with teachers and principals, would help the department decide how to distribute resources, Ms Mitchell said.
"We'll look at the size of the school, and we'll also look at the need of the school - what the data shows us in terms of where the gap is in the learning and how much extra support is needed to catch up," she said.
"We'll give some flexibility to school communities to how they roll this out. We know small group tutoring is proven to be very effective. It might take place within the classroom setting supporting the teacher, it might take place before or after school."
The plan - which has also been adopted by Victoria - was first proposed by the Grattan Institute in June, after its modelling showed the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students in NSW grew by six per cent due to COVID-19.
Students 'need $1.1 billion to close remote-learning gap'
The institute's school education fellow, Julie Sonnemann, said research had found that intensive tuition in groups of between two and five, held three to four times a week over 12 weeks, could increase student learning by five months.
She said NSW's tutoring funding should be focused on core learning areas such as literacy and numeracy, and give priority to students who are in transition grades such as kindergarten, year seven, and years 11 and 12 .
Dr Sonnemann also said tutors should be required to use teaching methods with a strong evidence base. "This is a great opportunity to understand what works, to help students experiencing disadvantage catch up, and, longer term, to tackle the much bigger equity issues we've struggled with," she said.
"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get an understanding of how to close the equity gap."
The NSW Teachers Federation, which called for extra teacher hours to help the COVID-19 recovery, welcomed the plan. "We will work with the government to ensure the most effective implementation," said president Angelo Gavrielatos.
Craig Petersen from the Secondary Principals Council said he was yet to see detail, but "in principle, it's got the potential to be enormously helpful."
Mr Petersen said the check-in assessment showed literacy and numeracy may require attention, and schools might need to pay particular attention to students beginning year 11 to ensure they have mastered concepts they need for the HSC.
"I think it needs to be as flexible as possible within some guidelines so we can ensure we are getting our best value for money from what is a significant investment," he said.
Ten per cent of the funding will be directed to non-government schools in greatest need. The head of Catholic Schools NSW, Dallas McInerney, estimated about half of Catholic schools would qualify for funding.
"Its encouraging that there's policy responses which are going to buffer the effect [of COVID-19] on NSW students," he said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/tutors-could-become-a-fixture-of-nsw-schools-to-close-education-gap-20201110-p56d9o.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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11 November, 2020
Closing Australia's education divide will take a generation, landmark study finds
More pretence that all students have equal potential. The "divide" is the poor achievements of Aboriginal and working class children. In the USA the "gap" is between black and white pupils. And huge efforts and many bright-eyed ideas have been used to close that gap -- to no effect. So it would be optimistic indeed to think that things might be different in Australia
They are not. All sorts of efforts have been made to improve Aboriginal education but just getting Aboriginal children to attend school is a major difficulty. School is just not attractive to them and the parents don't care
And the basic thing underlying the gap is the same in the USA and Australia: the difference in Average IQ. IQ is highly correlated with educational success and both Aborigines and American blacks score abysmally on it. There is simply no way out of that situation
One of the most comprehensive studies of Australia's education system has found postcodes and family backgrounds impact the opportunities available to students from pre-school to adulthood, with one in three disadvantaged students falling through the cracks.
Sergio Macklin, the deputy lead of education policy at Victoria University's Michell Institute, released the report Educational Opportunity in Australia, which calls for immediate extra resources to help disadvantaged, Indigenous and remote students.
"Educational success is strongly linked to the wealth of a young person's family and where they grow up," Mr Macklin said.
"I think Australia's really letting down students from low-income families, Aboriginal students and those in remote areas."
The report critiques progress on last December's Alice Springs Education Council meeting where, in the wake of Australia's poor performance against its international counterparts, education ministers pledged to deliver a system that produced excellence and equity.
Last year's poor results on equality of education have now been exacerbated by remote learning, with some students without internet or stability at home falling weeks behind their peers.
"The children and young people that were being worst served by the education system are probably the ones that are being most affected by it," Mr Macklin said.
"So you'll see employment stress in families dramatically increased student vulnerability."
The report followed the progress of more than 300,000 students from school entry through primary school, into high school and onto early adulthood.
Mr Macklin believes the problem will take a generation to fix.
The report found disadvantaged students were more than twice as likely as their peers to not be in study or work by the age of 24.
The national average of students missing out on either work or study is 15 per cent, but this rises to 32 per cent of students from the lowest SES backgrounds, 38 per cent from very remote areas and 45 per cent among Indigenous young people.
"I think what this report highlights is that we're losing young people's opportunities in adulthood - and that's a real problem for young people," Mr Macklin said.
"But it's also a real problem for Australia. It puts a handbrake on our recovery efforts from the COVID recession."
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/closing-australia-e2-80-99s-education-divide-will-take-a-generation-landmark-study-finds/ar-BB1arPbh
Australian homes are now the biggest in the world and set to get even larger as more people work from home
Queensland homes are getting bigger as COVID-19 encourages more people to work from home and seek bigger dwellings in outer suburban or regional areas.
Latest research from CommSec shows that Queensland built the third-largest homes, including houses and apartments, in the country last financial year with an average floor area of 194.3 sq metres. Only Victoria and Western Australia had larger homes.
All new homes built in 2019-20 (average floor area, square metres)
Western Australia 218.5
Victoria 217
Queensland 194.3
South Australia 193.3
Northern Territory 181.8
ACT 178.3
Tasmania 174.8
NSW 171.8
Source: CommSec
CommSec chief economist Craig James said COVID-19 had caused more families to look for bigger homes and others to add extra rooms to their existing homes.
Mr James said the data shows Australia is again building the biggest houses in the world 235.8 sq m as opposed to 233.1 sq m in the US.
"The recent trends to butler's pantries, mud rooms and home theatres has given more families justification to build bigger homes," Mr James said. "More Aussies could embrace working from home in a bigger way, opting to move out of apartments in, or near the CBD, in preference for a larger home in a regional or suburban area."
CommSec's Mr James said COVID could lead to greater cohabitation, such as children returning to the family home, resulting in the need for more space.
"The trends from COVID-19 are still emerging." he said. "If a vaccine were found in coming days and weeks, then there may be a return to pre-virus normalcy. However, it certainly does appear that so many norms have been challenged."
Mr James said Australian homes were larger than those built in the 1980s and 1990s and are 27 per cent larger than those constructed 30 years ago.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/queensland-homes-among-the-biggest-in-the-world/news-story/395c524fc3f9f1492d02afa60d9b971a
Issues with China in Australia
A public hearing held over three weeks ago as part of the Senate inquiry into issues facing diaspora communities in Australia has sparked ongoing controversy after Senator Eric Abetz repeatedly demanded that three Chinese-Australian witnesses "unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] dictatorship".
His demands were made in the context of the Party's persecution of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang and its extra-territorial attempts to intimidate and silence Uyghurs living in Australia.
The trio - Wesa Chau (a deputy lord mayor candidate for Melbourne), Ormond Chiu (a research fellow at think tank Per Capita) and Yun Jiang (an ANU researcher and co-editor of China Neican) - made it clear they did not endorse the Party or its actions and re-affirmed their support for universal human rights and democratic values.
But they rightly refused to be hectored into making blanket public condemnations, arguing that this amounted to an unfair "loyalty test" based on ethnicity.
The exchange has only served to highlight the undue pressures some Chinese-Australians face. These pressures cut both ways.
It is intolerable that some citizens cannot criticise the CCP without being stalked and harassed and/or fearing for family members back home. It is equally intolerable that others may feel they need to self-censor or stay silent to avoid being tarred as a CCP sympathiser.
And from a national security perspective - as Natasha Kassam and Darren Lim recently argued - such a line of questioning may make it harder for security agencies to investigate foreign interference, if it alienates rather than engages the very communities that are not only the most targeted by such interference but also the most important to countering it as a major source of knowledge, understanding and intelligence.
We must ensure that genuine concerns about CCP interference do not lead to over-reactions that undermine liberal values and community cohesion, undercutting ritual claims that Australia is one of the most successful multicultural countries in the world.
https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/when-personal-becomes-geopolitical/
Joel Fitzgibbon refuses to rule out running for Anthony Albanese's job after quitting Labor frontbench and savaging party for being too woke
The 58-year-old MP for the New South Wales coal-mining seat of Hunter said he has 'no intention' of trying to oust leader Anthony Albanese but would if enough colleagues asked him to.
'I have no intention of running for the leadership. I would have to be drafted. And in the current climate, I'm not so sure I could be confident of that occurring,' he said.
Mr Fitzgibbon quit after colleagues raised concerns he has been undermining Labor's climate change policy by consistently backing fossil fuel industries, particularly gas and coal.
Since Bill Shorten's election loss in 2019, he has argued that Labor should limit its climate change ambition to win back regional, working class voters.
'The Labor Party has been spending too much time in recent years talking about issues like climate change, and not enough time talking about the needs of our traditional base,' he said.
'If you want to act on climate change, the first step is to become the government. And to become the government, you need to have a climate change and energy policy that can be embraced by a majority of the Australian people.
'That is something we have failed to do for the last seven or eight years.'
Mr Fitzgibbon said he warned Mr Albanese that he would quit the frontbench 18 months ago - and said he would not challenge for leadership.
'Anthony Albanese has my support. He will lead us to the next election. I set myself a timetable 18 months ago and I was determined to stick with it,' he said.
The 58-year-old, who suffered a large swing against him in the 2019 election, said Labor has effectively become too 'woke' and has alienated working class voters in order to win inner-city votes.
'I think there has been a cultural shift and too much of an emphasis on our more newly arrived base, and not sufficient emphasis on our traditional base,' he said.
The MP said he wanted to 'take the Labor Party back to its traditional roots, back to the Labor Party I knew when I first became a member 36 years ago.'
He wants to the party to focus on 'blue-collar workers, the people who have traditionally voted for us in very large number but somehow haven't been voting for us in large number over the course of possibly the last decade.
'I've seen them come up to the polling in high viz, carrying LNP how-to-vote cards, carrying One Nation cards and I ask myself how it all went so terribly wrong.'
Mr Fitzgibbon, who has previously threatened to quit if Labor adopts a 2030 emissions target that he finds too ambitious, will step down as shadow minister for agriculture and resources to become a backbench MP.
The move has sparked speculation he will try to oust Mr Albanese, who is trailing Scott Morrison in the polls, before the next election, due in May 2022. Asked if Mr Albanese can win the next election, he said: 'Albo can win if he listens to Joel Fitzgibbon more.'
The MP said he regrets not running for leadership in 2019. 'I don't believe I would have won that contest, but I think a contest would have been good for the rank-and-file and the industrial wing of the party,' he said.
'And it would have been an opportunity for me to develop a mandate for my determination to take the Labor Party back to its traditional roots.'
Mr Fitzgibbon suffered a 14.2 per cent swing against him on primary votes at the May 2019 federal election.
His coal-mining seat of Hunter is now marginal, with a three per cent buffer after preferences, for an electorate Labor has held continuously since 1910.
Labor's 45 per cent carbon emissions reduction target by 2030 was received badly in the Hunter and the regional Queensland seats of Dawson, Flynn and Capricornia.
'If you begin demonising coal workers, coal generation workers, you're immediately demonising oil and gas workers, power generation workers. And by the time that message gets through, you're demonising manufacturing workers, and it goes on and on,' he said.
It comes as the Opposition attempts to put pressure on Scott Morrison to adopt a net zero emissions target following Joe Biden's election as US President.
Mr Morrison has refused to follow others including China, South Korea, Japan, the UK, New Zealand and the European Union in setting a net-zero carbon emissions target to combat global warming.
Former Vice President Biden's election victory means the US - the world's second largest polluter after China - will in January have a leader that also favours a net zero 2050 goal, leaving Australia even more isolated on the issue.
Mr Albanese on Monday piled pressure on Mr Morrison and said a future Labor government would adopt a net zero 2050 target. 'Australia is now isolated amongst our major trading partners,' he said.
In a press conference on Monday morning, Mr Morrison said he would not bow to international pressure and that his government alone would decide Australia's climate targets.
'Australia will always set its policies based on Australia's interests,' he said. He said he wanted to achieve net zero emissions but feared a target could harm the economy and threaten thousands of jobs in fossil fuel industries. 'I owe it to Australians that if we make such commitments, I have to be able to explain how we get there and what it would cost,' he said. 'Our goal is to achieve [net zero] as soon as you can, but we'll do it on the basis of a technology roadmap.'
Mr Morrison slammed Labor for wanting to sign Australia up 'unconditionally' to a net-zero target without knowing the cost.
He doubled down in Question Time in Parliament, saying: 'Until such time as we can be very clear with the Australian people about what the cost of that is... it would be very deceptive on the Australian people and not honest with them to make such commitments.'
Mr Albanese - who believes investment in renewable energy will create jobs and bring power bills down - said he would announce his costings closer to the next federal election, which is due in May 2022.
Climate change is a prickly issue for Mr Morrison who would face a rebellion from Nationals and right-wing Liberals in his government if he were seen to be harming fossil fuel industries.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8931633/Joel-Fitzgibbon-quits-Labor-frontbench-months-going-rogue-climate-policy.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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10 November, 2020
Lack of trees exacerbates extreme heat effects in Australian suburbs
This is a storm in a teacup. "Leafy" areas are prestigious in Australia and more trees are being planted to capture that prestige. I myself have planted nine trees that are now very tall.
But trees take a while to grow so new plantings in new suburbs will take a while to grow. When they do grow up, the new suburbs too will be cooler
Note that this is just about suburbia. Worldwide there has been a great upsurge of tree planting as agriculture has become more efficient and the land released goes under pine plantations
Huge swathes of our suburbs are in danger of becoming virtually unliveable with residents jumping from "aircon to aircon via a car with aircon" to avoid the searing heat.
That's one of the conclusions of a new report that has also found that in just seven years the number of trees in 69 per cent of urban areas has dramatically dropped. Without enough trees shading city streets, temperatures can be as much as 10C hotter.
And one of the biggest culprits of cranking up the heat in our suburbs is homeowners clearing trees to build, among other things, swimming pools - ironically to cool down on hot days.
Associate Professor Joe Hurley from RMIT's Centre for Urban Research said city greenery not only helped put the lid on heat, it was also key in managing stormwater and provided physical and mental health benefits.
Heatwaves are a hallmark of an Australian summer. But they're getting hotter, becoming more frequent, and lasting longer.
"Green cover should be managed as critical infrastructure alongside communications, transport, water and the electricity network," he told news.com.au.
"But all too often trees are traded away for other demands like urban development. It can end up being about having tree or something else when we should manage our cities better so we can have green cities."
Prof Hurley is the lead author of Where Will all the Trees be, a new RMIT report, released today, which looked at tree cover across hundreds of Australian local government areas (LGAs).
It found Cairns had the most green cover at 83 per cent while Wyndham, in Melbourne's south west which includes Werribee, had the least at just 5.4 per cent.
"The bad news is between 2013 and 2020 the majority of LGAs have lost green cover. The more encouraging news is that from 2016, the majority are now gaining cover, that's a good sign that the longer term trend is being turned around - but they still haven't made up the losses," said Prof Hurley.
Other studies have shown trees can have a dramatic effect on the ambient temperature of cities. Urban areas are often hotter than surrounding country areas anyway due to "grey cover", the preponderance of hard surfaces like asphalt and metal roofs that help crank up the mercury. Lack of canopy can make this issue worse.
A vivid example from Melbourne illustrates this. Thermal images of Royal Parade show the surface temperature of the road fully exposed to the sun as surpassing 65C; yet just meters away a tree shaded area is around 30C cooler.
The air temperature of urban areas with more trees can be around 4C cooler than those without. On a more local level, the air temperature in an treeless car park can be 10C higher than a nearby shady street.
"We can't say `stop developing and just plant trees' so what's exciting about Parramatta is how it is increasing urban tree canopy to create better neighbourhoods while becoming a major urban centre," said Prof Hurley.
"The answer is to prioritise green infrastructure alongside development. As cities grow, we can make them greener - it's not an either, or."
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/lack-of-trees-exacerbates-extreme-heat-effects-in-australian-suburbs/news-story/0825f8746b7e3e25be04e21140da4637
Furious parents blast 'creepy' gender fluidity test asking young teenagers 'when they discovered they were straight'
Parents have been left outraged after Year 8 students were given a 'creepy' survey questioning their sexuality. The students from Kirrawee High School in southern Sydney were given the questionnaire as part of personal development, health and physical education studies.
Questions on the test include: 'When and how did you first decide you were heterosexual?' and, 'Is it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?'
It is designed to help straight people understand the questions often asked of gay and lesbian people and appreciate how intrusive they can be.
But shocked parents contacted One Nation MP Mark Latham to complain about the 'completely inappropriate and outrageous' questions, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The Heterosexual Questionnaire was created in 1972 to help heterosexuals understand how a gay person is often treated, and aims to demonstrate how unpleasant such questions can be.
Offensive questions include asking if their sexuality is a 'phase' and implying people like them are more likely to suffer mental health problems.
Mr Latham slammed the test as 'creepy'. 'As if you'd want your 13-year-daughter to be answering these questions to some male teacher - what, when, and how you decided to be heterosexual?' he said.
'It's creepy. You're trying to shame the kids for being heterosexual to make a point that no one should shame anyone for being homosexual.' Latham said the test was 'pushing gender fluidity'.
The young students were also shown a video called 'The Sexy Sliding Scale', presented by American TV star Bill Nye, which explores gender identity and claims there is a 'kaleidoscope' of gender.
Mr Latham said the video was also inappropriate to show to such young students.
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the department will review the school's Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) learning materials. She said the material was not suitable for or relevant to any Year 8 PDHPE class.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8927035/Aussie-parents-outrage-creepy-gender-fluidity-test.html
The real cost of lockdown: Australia faces a coronavirus mental health crisis with young women most at risk after thousands were left unemployed
An eminent psychiatrist has warned a second wave of coronavirus-linked mental health cases is crashing down on Australia, with the nation ill-equipped to flatten the curve.
In an editorial published on Monday in the Medical Journal of Australia, Patrick McGorry said the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic would be felt more keenly by particular at-risk groups.
The former Australian of the Year said a survey from the first month of the coronavirus pandemic confirmed the initial impacts on mental health had been severe.
As COVID-19 cases continue to dwindle, Professor McGorry cited predictions from more recent scientific models that Australia would face a 'second curve of mental ill-health and suicide'. 'This has now clearly arrived,' he wrote.
'The capacity of the mental health system, even before COVID-19, had been inadequate for responding to the demand, and the same system is now expected to respond to the surge in need for mental health care.'
That surge is likely to be driven by women, unemployed, marginalised, disadvantaged and young Australians, identified as groups at major risk for detrimental health and social outcomes.
Prof McGorry, executive director of peak youth mental health body Orygen, said levels of socio-economic inequality become 'blaring' when the pandemic is coupled with a recession. 'We may all be in this together but some are further in than others,' he said.
The global financial crisis demonstrated the destructive flow-on effects of austerity policies on mental health, he said, with measures such as JobKeeper and JobSeeker softening the blow in Australia thus far.
Prof McGorry is calling on policy-makers to adopt a unique approach to reform and strengthen the system, including shifting the focus of mental health care from large hospital-centric networks to local communities.
'We have been willing to turn our society upside down to flatten the COVID-19 curve, the same commitment is now required to flatten the mental health curve,' he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8927687/The-real-cost-lockdown-Australia-faces-mental-health-crisis.html
Millions of produce goes to waste because of Queensland border closures
A federal minister has slammed `disgraceful' rules that block seasonal workers from coming into Queensland, despite a serious shortage of fruit pickers.
Millions of dollars worth of Queensland produce is going into landfill as the state's farmers struggle to fill thousands of fruit picking jobs, despite the number of job seekers.
According to a Courier Mail report, farmers are aghast at the high unemployment rates, while they are forced to plough crop in the ground with no workers around to harvest it.
Jobseeker data reveals there are about 27,000 people in major fruit growing regions in Queensland receiving government assistance, while up to 25,000 fruit picking jobs need filling during peak season.
And while Queenslanders might not want to do the work, Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said people in other states do - they just can't make it over the border.
Mr Littleproud said it was "not common sense" that hard working Australians from interstate looking for work weren't able to move freely to fill the spaces.
He said the federal government had tried to start an incentive for states to allow farm and agriculture workers to move freely in a COVID-safe way, but Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania hadn't signed up for it.
"This is about free movement of labour between states in a COVID safe way," Mr Littleproud told the Today show on Monday morning.
"What we're saying is let's allow farmers and ag workers to move . There is a third cohort the states want to classify as seasonal workers. Sometimes they are backpackers who have been in the country for some time, even some Australians who are doing it.
"The challenge we've got when one state doesn't sign up is it means if you're picking fruit in Griffith at the moment, you want to go to Bowen to pick mangoes, you will be picked up at Stanthorpe and put into a motel for $2800."
There are fears supermarket prices could rise in the lead up to Christmas if things continue on the current trajectory.
National Farmers' Federation horticulture spokesman Tyson Cattle said the lack of workers was just another blow to farmers, who were at their "wits end". "We are pleading for people right now. For any one willing and able to jump into the sector," he said. "It's extremely frustrating for growers. They're really at their wits end.
"They have battled drought, floods fires, all those conditions they can't control, then this year they have a reasonable year . it just blows their mind that some guys have had to plough their crop into the ground because they can't get a workforce."
Mr Littleproud said the Queensland government were "currently flying in overseas workers, letting them isolate on the farm" but were barring Australians from taking up the same jobs. "It's just not commonsense," he said.
"We are incentivising Australians with up to $6000 in reimbursement of travel costs to get them off the couch and have a crack, but these states are holding this up. "There is a cohort out there we really need to get up and have a go at this.
"Farmers do not have the luxury to sit around and wait for someone to turn up to pick the fruit . People have to help them."
https://www.couriermail.com.au/coronavirus/millions-of-produce-goes-to-waste-while-thousands-without-jobs-amid-disgraceful-rules/news-story/ec8904af3c3e507b297f17a211c9e5f3
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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9 November, 2020
The surprising stock market
I follow only the Australian stock market but it generally mirrors Wall St. and I gather that it is still doing so at the moment
The surprise is how robust stock values are at the moment. The lockdowns knocked about 12% off the value of my portfolio but the election has substantially reversed that. My portfolio is now only about 6% down on where it was
There were a lot of pundits who said the market was in for a big fall. So what happened? It seems to be that investors now expect gridlock in American politics. And gridlock is something conservatives rather like. If there is no agreement in politics, no new laws will be passed and no new regulations will be issued. That means that businesses have to cope with market challenges only, not political changes. While the politicians are squabbling with one another, it gets them off the back of business
There was a good example of that during the British prime ministership of the unfortunate Theresa May. Her weak leadership plus a near balance in the House of Commons meant that very little got done politically. And British business boomed at that time.
So it seems that U.S. business is expecting something similar now. And that expectation will be well and truly fulfilled if, as expected, the GOP retains control of the Senate.
And over the last 4 years the GOP has very largely become the party of Trump. His attitudes and policies have not only won huge approval among the GOP rank and file but have also percolated into the thinking of most Senators, the contemptible Mitt Romney being the obvious exception. But even waverers like Romney, Collins and Murkowsky have generally gone along with the rest of their Senate colleagues anyhow. So a Senate dominated by Trump thinking will be a total roadblock to any of the insane new legislation that Biden has proposed.
And note that the GOP has also done well both in the House and in picking up State governorships. So even if sufficient new votes are "found" to deny the GOP complete control of the Senate, Congress as a whole will end up finely balanced and should as such fulfil its traditional role as a brake on change. Getting a majority for anything in either house is not easy. Only measures with a considerable degree of consensus behind them normally get up.
It took the first two years of his presidency for Obama and his supporters to get Obamacare through, during which little else got done
And I haven't even mentioned yet the now very conservative Supreme Court. The one big thing that conservatives wanted from Trump was to rebalance the Supreme Court and he achieved exactly that. And the Supreme court has a proven ability to knock on the head any adventurous legislation or regulations -- JR
Private health funds in financial peril call for tax rebate to be restored
Health funds keep a LOT of people out of public hospitals so governments have an interest in seeing that they keep going
A secret tax slug is adding nearly $250 a year to your health fund premiums and it's contributing more to your insurance costs than the annual premium hikes.
Health funds will this week mount a major campaign to reverse the cash grab after more than 30,000 families dumped their insurance in June - pushing the industry into a death spiral.
The financial regulator last year predicted only three of the nation's 38 health funds would survive past 2022 and new government data shows 11 of the nation's 37 funds made a loss last financial year.
Half the funds will be in financial distress unless the government steps in, Private Healthcare Australia chief Dr Rachel David told News Corp Australia.
The Federal Government used to cover 30 per cent of the cost of health insurance under a tax rebate that applies to families earning less than $180,000 and individuals earning less than $90,000.
But under rule changes that came into effect in 2014, the rebate has been gradually eroded and is now worth just 24.81 per cent of the premium.
The rebate used to be 35 per cent for those aged 65-68 but has fallen to 29.2 per cent and it was 40 per cent for the over 70s but has fallen to 33.4 per cent.
Unless the policy changes the rebate is on track the slide to just 16 per cent of premiums by 2030, Dr Rachel David has forecast.
The reason the tax rebate is declining is that it rises by the annual rate of inflation each year while health fund premiums have been increasing by two to three times the rate of inflation.
This year's October 1 premium rises added an average $103 to the cost of a family's private health insurance bills while the cut to the tax rebate pushed up the cost by a further $237.
The Coalition promised in the 2013 election campaign it would reverse the policy when government finances allowed but has never acted on that promise.
The October federal budget showed the government intended to slash a further $710 million from the rebate over the next four years, Dr David said.
"What we're arguing for at the moment is for them to basically put a floor under it so they are not reducing it by $710 million . our ideal would be to take it back to 30 per cent," she said.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Greg Hunt said "the Coalition supports and will protect the PHI rebate".
NED-2700-Health insurance rebate levels - 0
"We have cut the annual PHI premium rise by half on our watch. By comparison at the last election Labor intended to slash the PHI rebate. Our position remains unchanged," he said.
The reduction in government support for health insurance has occurred at the same time as tens of thousands of families and young people are dumping their cover while elderly people who are more likely to use it join up forcing up premiums even more.
The proportion of the population with hospital cover has dropped from 47 per cent in 2014 to 43.6 per cent in June 2020.
At the same time public hospital waiting lists are on the rise and desperate uninsured people are self-funding minor procedures such as tendon repair, the removal of skin lesions, sinus surgery and removal of tonsils.
The COVID-19 surgery ban has seen public hospital waiting lists surge with 80,000 fewer elective surgery procedures in public hospitals so far in 2020.
"We've had reports in the news in Victoria and South Australia that wait times for category three surgery could be years and years, even 10 years in South Australia," Dr David said.
It will cost state and federal governments half a billion dollars to clear this public hospital surgery backlog, the industry has calculated.
Consumer's Health Forum chief Leanne Wells said the tax rebate already cost $6 billion and before more taxpayer dollars were spent propping up the industry there needed to be a proper inquiry into the value of health insurance.
"Fifty five per cent of Australians do not have health insurance, yet the rebate endures at the cost of $6 billion or more while public hospital waiting lists continue to rise," Ms Wells said.
Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid said the AMA supported restoring and indexing the rebate for private health insurance to help make it more affordable for Australians.
"In particular, consideration should be given to prioritising those on lower incomes and younger cohorts. There is an obvious benefit here for Government - the more young people join, the bigger the insurance pool, the cheaper insurance gets for everyone - which benefits government and most importantly, patients," he said.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/health-funds-in-financial-peril-call-for-tax-rebate-to-be-restored/news-story/ff56afc5c7c8379ba6d75d5ef5c26362
Aboriginal welfare: Evidence shows CDC works
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) has long faced opposition from those who claim that not allowing welfare to be spent as recipients choose denies them `financial freedom' and imposes unnecessary restrictions.
But this `financial freedom' can fuel destructive lifestyles. And it is the responsibility of government to ensure that taxpayer money is spent on the aims of welfare - to provide the necessities of life - rather than drugs, alcohol and gambling.
The evidence shows that the CDC works. Nine months following the first trial period across Ceduna and East Kimberley, 41% of participants reported a decrease in alcohol consumption.
Similarly, at nine months, 48% of participants who used illegal drugs reported a decrease in use. Of those with gambling problems, after nine months 48% reported a decrease.
Some days I visit my local supermarket and encounter an alcoholic family member who asks me for money to support their addiction.
This practice, known as `humbugging' is endemic in regional and remote Indigenous communities. The demands made are rooted in a millennia-old system of sharing in family and moiety groups, that aimed to ensure everybody got some food.
I have learned not to carry cash for this reason. I can use the excuse that I only have my card and therefore I am unable to hand over cash.
Every day on the streets of Alice Springs and throughout the communities, humbugging has become a way for those with substance and gambling problems to scam money to support them.
And it's also become one of the leading ways that Indigenous people who want to keep their lives on track - or even get ahead - are held back.
So it's no surprise that many other Aboriginal Australians are forced to deploy similar measures to those I use to avoid the `humbugging' demands.
Labor and the Greens would be happy to allow some welfare recipients to maintain their right to destroy their lives with alcohol, substance abuse or gambling while their children, families and communities continue to suffer
https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/evidence-shows-cdc-works/
New education centre aims to end culture war over student testing
An education veteran is warning student testing has become a battleground for culture wars between those who argue teachers are avoiding accountability and others who say it reduces education to a set of numbers.
But Tom Alegounarias, the former chair of the NSW Education Standards Authority and one-time president of the Board of Studies, said assessment was too important to be derailed by simplistic debates, as it was vital to a quality education system.
With Professor Jim Tognolini, he has set up a Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment at Sydney University. It aims to build teacher confidence and expertise in testing, undertake research and provide expert analysis.
"On the one hand you have people arguing that teachers are unaccountable and afraid of testing because of accountability," Mr Alegounarias said. "On the other hand you have teachers who say the purpose of education is being perverted for the sake of an ideological commitment to numbers and a market-type accountability.
"This has distracted the profession and the community in general from more fundamental educational purposes.
"What we want the centre to do is build the depth and expertise of teachers, and the confidence of teachers - and in turn the community - that students are being assessed with reliability, validity and accountability. Ours is an educational mission, not a political one."
In recent years, debate has raged within the sector over tests such as NAPLAN. Many also argue the Higher School Certificate has had its day, prompting the NSW Education Minister, Sarah Mitchell, to say she was concerned about a "faddish push" to downplay the importance of exams.
Mr Alegounarias will chair the centre, and Professor Tognolini will be chief executive. The board will include representatives from the three school sectors, academics and teacher representatives, including unions.
It will be self-funded, not-for-profit, and sit within the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, in the Faculty of Arts and the Social Sciences.
Professor Tognolini said the recent NSW curriculum review and Gonski report emphasised the importance of good quality assessment evidence to teachers, and the challenges.
"The centre will work collaboratively with other assessment centres across Australia and internationally to learn from and have an impact on assessment and measurement issues that are truly global in their reach," he said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/new-education-centre-aims-to-end-culture-war-over-student-testing-20200923-p55yk5.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS -- including food blog)
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8 November, 2020
Superannuation fund commits to net-zero emission investments after Brisbane man sues
A 25-year-old man from Brisbane has successfully sued one of Australia's biggest super funds over its handling of climate change, forcing it to commit to net-zero emissions for its investments by 2050.
It's the first time a superannuation fund has been sued for failing to consider climate change
In 2018, Mark McVeigh sued Rest, his superannuation fund, in the Federal Court after it failed to provide him with information on how it was managing the risks of climate change.
Mr McVeigh alleged Rest had breached the Superannuation Industry Act and the Corporations Act by failing to manage those risks - which could include fossil fuel companies plummeting in value or infrastructure being damaged by extreme weather.
The law requires trustees of super funds to act with care, skill and diligence to act in the best interest of members - including managing material risks to its investment portfolio.
In an 11th-hour settlement reached on Monday while the case was adjourned, Rest agreed its trustees have a duty to manage the financial risks of climate change.
Because the case was settled out of court, the outcome doesn't carry the same weight as a legal precedent decided in court. But Mr McVeigh's lawyer, David Barnden, head of Equity Generation Lawyers, said the case still sets an important precedent globally.
"This outcome should represent a significant shift in the market's willingness to tackle climate risk - a shift which should set a clear precedent for the industry in Australia, and also pension funds around the world," Mr Barnden said.
Martijn Wilder, a lawyer at Pollination, another climate-focussed law firm, said the settlement meant the impact of the case could fall short of what some were expecting. "It has not [produced] a clear legal decision by a court which clarifies the obligations and duties of directors under the law," he said.
"However, there is widespread acceptance in the legal and business community that these obligations regarding climate clearly exist."
In a statement, Rest outlined the agreement it made with Mr McVeigh, and said: "The superannuation industry is a cornerstone of the Australian economy - an economy that is exposed to the financial, physical and transition impacts associated with climate change."
An historic agreement
In the statement, Rest said that "climate change is a material, direct and current financial risk to the superannuation fund".
Rest went further and agreed to manage its investments so they would be responsible for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
It also agreed to immediately begin testing its investment strategies against various climate change scenarios, publicly disclose all its holdings and advocate for companies it invests in to comply with the goals of the Paris Agreement, which aims to stop global warming at 1.5C.
The case was the first time an Australian superannuation fund had been sued for not doing enough on climate change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-02/rest-super-commits-to-net-zero-emmissions/12840204
Deputy PM Michael McCormack slams Adam Bandt's comments to South Korea as `treacherous'
Bandt is an old Trot (Trotsky-ite) so he hates the whole of Western society. Trotsky thought even the Soviet Union was too conservative. His followers normally see themselves as "revolutionary"
They are too extreme for mainstrean politics but a few of them have infiltrated the Greens, where they are very disruptive -- pushing the Greens even furtherto the Left than even the Greens want to go. Some of them have by now been eased out but Bandt has so far survived
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has slammed Greens Leader Adam Bandt for `treacherous' comments he says are against Australia's national interest.
The Nationals have called on Greens Leader Adam Bandt to retract his comments urging South Korea to stop buying Australian coal, or resign.
During an address to South Korean MPs on Tuesday, Mr Bandt encouraged them to stop buying Australian coal and renegotiate trade agreements to include carbon tariffs.
Nationals Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said reports that Mr Bandt was urging a foreign government to act to the detriment of Australia's national interest were "deeply concerning".
"By urging a foreign government to agitate for a change to Australia's domestic policies through a free-trade agreement, the Greens have attempted to undermine our democracy," Mr McCormack said on Wednesday.
"In telling a foreign government to stop buying Australian coal, Adam Bandt is telling tens of thousands of workers in our resources industry that their jobs don't matter.
"He is telling tens of thousands of families that they shouldn't be able to put food on the table. He is telling small and medium-sized businesses that they should just shut up shop."
Mr McCormack said the comments were an attack on Australian jobs and the national interest.
"Adam Bandt is Australia's modern-day Benedict Arnold. This is treacherous behaviour," he said.
"The Nationals urge Mr Bandt to immediately withdraw his comments and apologise to the thousands of workers who rely on Australia's resource industry for their livelihood. If Mr Bandt does not withdraw these comments, he should resign from parliament today."
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mining/deputy-pm-michael-mccormack-slams-adam-bandts-comments-to-south-korea-as-treacherous/news-story/42ca81bb9f979b960f170aef9928690d
Queensland tourism fares better with COVID-19 than all other states according to latest findings
QUEENSLAND has withstood the coronavirus tourism wipe-out better than any other state according to new research to be released on Friday.
There have been fears the virus - and Queensland's controversial border blockades - would wipe up to $15 billion from the state's tourism coffers, but the new findings will be a welcome ray of light for the embattled industry.
The data, from Tourism Research Australia, showed Queensland tourism expenditure was down 24 per cent in August compared to the same time last year, but other states dropped up to 96 per cent.
Queenslanders also answered the call to arms from our tourism industry, with the number of Queensland holiday-makers taking a break in their own state soaring compared to the same time last year.
According to TRA data, there was a 31 per cent increase in Queenslanders taking a trip in their own state, increasing their spending by 62 per cent for the month.
The figures also take into account the `Super Long Weekend' created after the cancellation of the Ekka and other Queensland shows in August as well as the extended relocation of most AFL clubs to the Sunshine State.
Tourism and Events Queensland's "Good to Go" campaign encouraging people to take a well-earned holiday had also just launched.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has come under frequent fire over the state's hard line stance on borders, said the measures had allowed Queensland to return to a new normal ahead of other states.
"This is only possible because of our strong health response in Queensland," she said. "While other states are still struggling to contain the virus, we're rebuilding our economy.
"Coronavirus has had a huge impact on our tourism industry. "But today's data shows we're heading in the right direction."
Unsurprisingly, COVID-ravaged Melbourne lost virtually all tourism revenue, while in NSW tourism expenditure was down 51 per cent.
South Australia saw a 49 per cent drop, with Tasmania (45 per cent) and WA (42) also down significantly.
Ms Palaszczuk said it was encouraging that Queenslanders had embraced the concept of exploring their own backyard in the face of international travel bans. "I asked Queenslanders to get out and explore their state. This data shows that they've answered the call," she said.
"Not only are we seeing more Queenslanders out and about, they're spending more - pumping millions of dollars into local businesses and supporting local jobs.
"Contrary to the national trend, regional Queensland had an increase of three per cent in overnight visitors in August, with total expenditure suffering significantly less than all other states and territories.
"While our tourism industry's recovery will continue to be challenging, particularly with uncertainty around international borders, these figures show the enthusiasm Queenslanders have to explore their own state and provided much-needed support to the tourism industry."
While parts of Queensland's tourism industry - particularly operators in the north, have been left hanging by a thread under the weight of border blockades and other prohibitive restrictions, some regions, notably the Granite Belt and Scenic Rim, have been reporting record tourism numbers due to the huge volume of holiday-makers unable to head overseas.
"Queenslanders have heeded our `Good to Go' campaign and some regions are seeing more visitors than ever before as people explore new places," she said.
"Queensland is an internationally renowned tourism destination and we hope to convert more Queenslanders to choose holidays at home in the longer term by showcasing the broad depth of experiences on offer in the state.
"Everything from authentic Indigenous experiences, to getting up close with wildlife, connecting with nature and wide-open spaces, to experiencing Queensland's `beautiful one day, perfect the next' lifestyle, or reconnecting with friends and family at local events - there are incredible experiences on offer just a short drive or flight away."
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-tourism-fares-better-with-covid19-than-all-other-states-according-to-latest-findings/news-story/6d83a2512fbf7985b06eba0f344cecaa
Banks not doing well
Banks have been hit from all directions and some have responded better than others to the litany of issues they are facing.
The National Australia Bank has dealt with the cards it has been handed a bit better than ANZ or Westpac. The Commonwealth Bank is, at this stage, the best in class but it has a different reporting period than the other three, so it's not as readily comparable.
That said it has been a horrible year for bank profits. ANZ, NAB and Westpac profits were down 42 per cent, 37 per cent and 62 per cent respectively in the 2020 financial year to September 30.
Each of them recorded levels of one-off provisions or remediation charges which are reflected in these outsized falls in profits. They did, at the very least, manage to reward shareholders with a payout of around 50 per cent of profit in the second half - the maximum currently allowed by the financial regulator.
Now they are caught in the dilemma of how to maintain or grow profits when their margins are under enormous pressure. In ultra low interest rate environments bank margins can get squeezed because the amount they pay depositors can only go so low. Already a large rump of deposits are receiving zero interest.
Under normal circumstances the response would be to make further inroads into their cost base.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has not only required banks to radically increase credit provisions, it has also added another layer to expenses, leaving them to swim against a strong cost tide.
The banks already had elevated costs in the wake of cleaning up the mess exposed during the Royal Commission. Dealing with the long tail of remediation has been expensive - it has required investment in people and systems along with compensating customers.
Westpac is additionally challenged by the need to get its compliance systems in order in the wake of actions taken by the financial crimes watchdog, AUSTRAC, relating to money laundering. These costs are over and above the $1.3 billion needed to settle this legal action.
The struggle with containing costs was evident to different degrees in all three profit reports.
Unfortunately keeping the cost base under control limits their ability to invest in more productive areas at a time when they desperately need to do so.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/national-australia-bank-profit-the-best-of-a-bad-bunch-20201105-p56bwo.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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6 November, 2020
One of the world's largest batteries to store renewable energy is set to be built in Victoria
This is just a boondoggle. It is the size of a small power station, but, unlike a small power station, it will not be able to run indefinitely. At a claimed 300 MW/450 MWh it will discharge at full pelt only for 90 minutes. And that will decay by about 5% every year. In dollars per MWH it has to be hugely expensive
The Victorian government on Thursday announced the 300 megawatt Tesla lithium-ion battery would be installed near the Moorabool Terminal Station, just outside Geelong, and would be ready by the 2021-22 summer.
Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said it would be the largest lithium-ion battery in the southern hemisphere.
She said an independent analysis had showed the battery would deliver more than $2 in benefits to Victorian households and businesses for every $1 invested.
She said consumers would pay for the use of the battery through their power bills, but the reduction in wholesale energy prices delivered by the battery would mean Victorians paid less for power.
The battery will help reduce wholesale prices by storing renewable energy at a time when the weather makes it plentiful and at its cheapest and then discharging it into the grid when power is needed the most, such as on a 40C day.
The state government said the battery would also reserve a portion of its capacity to increase the power flow through the Victoria-New South Wales Interconnector by up to 250 megawatts to help reduce the chances of unscheduled power outages in peak summer months.
Global renewable energy company Neoen will pay for the construction of the battery and for its ongoing operation and maintenance.
Construction of the battery was expected to create more than 85 jobs, the state government said.
Ms D'Ambrosio announced on Thursday she had directed the Australian Energy Market Operator to sign a contract with Neoen to deliver the new Tesla battery.
"What we want to proof against is that lack of reliability when we're in the middle of summer, when businesses need that power to keep running and Victorians need that power at home when they crank up their air conditioners to keep cool and to keep healthy," she said.
AusNet Services executive general manager of regulation and external affairs, Alistair Parker, said it was a "terrific idea". AusNet will be responsible for connecting the battery into the electricity transmission network that they own and operate.
"The particularly smart feature of this battery is the way it enables more capacity around the network day in, day out," he said.
Ms D'Ambrosio said the service was an 11-year contract worth $84 million, and the Victorian battery would be double the size of the one already installed at Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/victorian-government-reveals-plan-to-store-renewable-energy/news-story/88ec01f577926878950d9d68e14fe17f
NSW Education Department: 2394 teachers leave, 321 sacked for abandoning students
A record number of dud teachers have finally been put out to pasture this year following a Department of Education review into its human resources practices.
A total of 321 teachers have been terminated so far this year after the "Workforce Transition team" undertook a review of staff who had effectively deserted their positions.
"This review resulted in a large number of staff being deemed as having abandoned their employment and were terminated as a result," a note accompanying the data said.
By comparison, last year only 10 teachers were terminated by the Department of Education.
Parent groups welcomed the surge in sackings of teachers who were in a kind of education purgatory -- no longer teaching in classrooms nor officially fired-- saying it will free up space for enthusiastic young teachers to secure a permanent job.
This year a total of 2394 teachers left the job including those who were terminated, along with 850 public school teachers who resigned so far this year, 1,152 who retired, 44 who were medically retired and 26 who died while still employed as a teacher.
NSW P and C Federation president Tim Spencer said the highly unionised workforce meant it was difficult to get rid of dud teachers and welcomed the push which would clear the decks and give young enthusiastic teachers the opportunity to get a permanent job.
"It is challenging for a principal to deal with staff who either just don't turn up to work or go on prolonged stress leave, they have to replace them with casuals," he said.
"(There) has to be a reasonable and rational discussion as to why that person is not performing their role just like it would be in any other workplace and dealing with it appropriately."
Central Coast P and C president Sharryn Brownlee said the move could save thousands for the Education Department if the teachers had been still getting paid while on leave, at the same time principals had to pay another casual teacher to take their classes.
"It is long overdue. dragging things out for long periods of time is stressful for the individual and the school," she said.
Secondary Principals' Council president Craig Petersen said some teachers simply would never return from annual leave and the Department of Education had no mechanism to fire them. "These are people we haven't seen for months and terms and in extreme cases, years," he said.
A Department spokesman said they wrote to the teachers seeking explanation for their unauthorised absence this year. "The teachers who did not respond, or did not provide a valid reason for their absence, were terminated," he said.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the Department had done a great job reviewing unauthorised absences. "Freeing these positions allows our principals to fill permanent roles with high quality teachers," she said.
Shadow Education spokeswoman Prue Car said more needed to be done to keep good teachers in schools following the resignation of 850 teachers this year. "It's concerning there is no proper plan to keep our best and brightest teachers in our schools," Ms Car said.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/nsw-education-department-2394-teachers-leave-321-sacked-for-abandoning-students/news-story/0853782fc20729c2f72ded4c8d4a4001
Revealed: The new values statement immigrants have to sign before they are granted any Australian visa - and it sends an important message to non-English speakers
Immigrants applying for permanent, provisional or temporary visas now have to sign an updated Australian Values Statement before being allowed into the country.
The Australian Values Statement was first introduced in 2007 but has not been substantially updated until October 30, when the new statement came into effect.
Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge said the new statement has 'a greater focus on values like freedom, respect, equality and the rule of law'.
Immigrants must now read a 'Life in Australia' booklet available in 41 languages to educate themselves on Australian history, culture and society.
After completing the required reading, immigrants can then sign the Australian Values Statement.
The Values Statement itself requires immigrants to confirm they have read or had explained the provided materials and that they understand Australian society values.
All immigrants must accept respect freedom in all forms, commitment to the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, equality of opportunity for all people, a 'fair go' for all and the English language as the national language as part of the statement.
Permanent visa applicants sign the same statement with two additional pledges.
They must make reasonable efforts to learn English if it is not their native language and an understanding they will need to pledge their loyalty to Australia if they become an Australian citizen in the future.
?The declaration that Australian citizenship applicants sign as part of their application has also been updated to mirror the wording of the Australian Values Statement.
Mr Tudge said: 'The updated statement better reflects the importance we place on these values.
'There will now be one statement for both temporary and permanent visa applicants that confirms they understand and will conduct themselves in line with our values and our laws.
'Those who want to settle in Australia permanently will also commit to make reasonable efforts to learn English, so they can fully participate in the community and have the best possible chance to get a job.
'There is no new test or threshold associated with this change.'
The changes are part of the Morrison Government's $62.8 million investment in creating social cohesion, which builds on the $71 million social cohesion package announced in March 2019.
A new Australian Citizenship Test? with a stronger focus on Australian values will also come into effect on November 15.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8915225/Immigrants-pass-new-values-test-given-Australian-visa.html
Adani mine to rebrand to Bravus Mining & Resources
MEGA miner Adani will change the name of its Australian mining operations as part of a major rebranding exercise, but the company insists it's not because of relentless protesting.
Adani Mining, which is delivering the contentious Carmichael Coal Mine in the Galilee Basin, will today announce it is changing its name to Bravus Mining & Resources.
It comes as the miner marks its 10-year anniversary of operations in Australia.
Bravus Mining & Resources CEO David Boshoff said the name change was not motivated by protesting but rather the company felt it was the right time as the mine progressed into its operational stage.
"We feel if we were motivated by protesters . the height of that was in 2019, we are on track to deliver coal by 2021 and we feel nothing stands between us and that," he said.
"Certainly if we were motivated by the protesters it would have made sense to do that 12 to 18 months ago."
Mr Boshoff said "bravus" to the company meant "courage" in Latin. "We believe it took a lot of courage for us to where we are," he said. "Our 10 years in Australia has been a journey that has tested the resilience, skills and determination of our people and has confirmed the depth of our commitment to regional Queensland.
"We have made a significant investment in Queensland and we will be here for the long haul employing local people and doing business in Australia."
The CEO said Bravus was an Australian company, operating under Australian laws and would pay taxes and royalties.
He would not say how much the rebranding was costing but said the transition would take place over coming months.
While the company's mining and resources operations will undergo a name change, Adani's other operations across Australia will remain the same.
Adani was granted approvals for its scaled-back $2 billion mine by the State Government in June last year.
More than 1,500 people are currently employed on the mine and rail project and more than $1.5 billion worth of contracts have been awarded.
Mr Boshoff said 88 per cent of that work was being conducted in Queensland.
"The Stop Adani movement has tried unsuccessfully to prevent our business from operating in Australia, but the fact is there is ongoing demand for thermal coal in Asia and India," he said.
"We have already secured the market for the 10 million tonnes per annum of coal produced at the Carmichael Mine, which is focused on India and Asia."
Mr Boshoff said the coal market was predicted to recover from COVID-19 lockdowns next year.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/adani-mine-to-rebrand-to-bravus-mining-resources/news-story/4d89858bd820114484e5981557c2ace8
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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5 November, 2020
Coopers Gap Windfarm hit by major problems due to turbine damage and generator replacements
A South Burnett Times investigation has uncovered multimillion-dollar issues at Australia's largest wind farm project, including the need to repair almost half of the Coopers Gap project
IT`S billed as one of Australia's biggest renewable projects, but the South Burnett Times can reveal just six months since the installation of the final turbine, operators are already working to replace critical components in nearly half of the major windfarm's generators.
Coopers Gap Windfarm, a nearly $1 billion investment in future energy security, was completed just months ago, but already major issues have appeared.
In April, the final blade was installed on the last of the 123 wind turbines at the Darling Downs site, 50km from Kingaroy, which is estimated to have cost $850 million to develop.
But an anonymous source has revealed to NewsCorp that the commissioning process in recent months uncovered multimillion-dollar mechanical issues that have forced operator AGL and construction partners GE CATCON to begin major overhaul works - including replacing an entire turbine.
An AGL spokeswoman confirmed to the South Burnett Times major faults were found by General Electric during testing. "During the commissioning process, rigorous tests were carried out to ensure the long-term operational capability and reliability of each component," the spokeswoman said.
"However, recent testing by GE has identified that one of their wind turbines will need to be replaced. An exclusion zone has been erected around the turbine to ensure safety."
The Times was told by the well-placed source that one of the turbine`s blades - the largest ever transported in Australia, measuring 67m long and weighing 22 tonnes - may be at risk of becoming separated from the turbine.
The source also said "about 50" generators needed to be replaced and there were major component issues just months after the wind farm finished construction.
Both GE and AGL refused to confirm or deny the claim about the turbine blade when contacted, however GE did confirm 53 generators will need to be replaced, due to a single component which the multinational corporation believed could impact the generators' long-term reliability.
The generators are situated at the base of the site's turbines - one per turbine - with the remaining 70 generators not requiring the same work to be completed.
"To ensure reliability over the longer term, we are also proactively replacing a component in some of the turbines," a GE spokesman said. "We have already commenced planning for a repair program conducted in phases to minimise disruption."
When questioned as to what had occurred that required an entire turbine to be replaced rather than simply repaired, GE did not directly address the question - with the spokesman issuing a statement that mirrored AGL's own response.
"During GE's routine inspection and testing, it was identified that one of the turbines will need to be replaced," he said. "This turbine has been taken out of service while the Coopers Gap project continues to remain operational."
The South Burnett Times understands engineers are working to determine what caused the serious issue discovered during testing - however the nature of this issue remains unclear.
The Times has been told the 400m exclusion zone around the turbine is standard practice and there is no "imminent risk" of an accident at the site. As the public cannot access the wind farm site where the turbine is located, there is no risk to the public.
Neither AGL nor GE responded to questions regarding the time frame or cost of these major repairs.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/major-failures-half-of-coopers-gap-windfarm-to-be-repaired/news-story/5f107f9fa59360a8e895eca235decd8e
Intelligence Committee to focus on higher education and research sector security
This is about China
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) has received a letter from the Minister for Home Affairs agreeing to its suggested Terms of Reference for an inquiry into National Security Risks affecting the Australian higher education and research sector with a requested reporting date of July 2021.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (the Committee) will inquire into and report on national security risks affecting the Australian higher education and research sector.
In considering national security risks to the Sector the Committee specifically seeks information on:
A. The prevalence, characteristics and significance of foreign interference, undisclosed foreign influence, data theft and espionage, and associated risks to Australia's national security;
B. The Sector's awareness of foreign interference, undisclosed foreign influence, data theft and espionage, and its capacity to identify and respond to these threats;
C. The adequacy and effectiveness of Australian Government policies and programs in identifying and responding to foreign interference, undisclosed foreign influence, data theft and espionage in the Sector;
D. Responses to this issue in other countries and their relevance to the Australian situation; and
E. Any other related matter.
A full terms of reference are available online here
The Chair, Mr Andrew Hastie MP, said "We are going to examine the question of foreign interference in the Australian higher education and research sector. The Committee will engage with a wide variety of stakeholders in this sector as well as appropriate national security agencies."
https://www.miragenews.com/intelligence-committee-to-focus-on-higher-education-and-research-sector-security/
Australian exporters to China face $6 billion 'D-Day'
It's utterly stupid to antagonize China
Australian exporters to China are facing a $6 billion cliff after unconfirmed instructions from Chinese customs authorities threatened to ban Australian wine, copper, barley, coal, sugar, timber and lobster from Friday.
The notice, distributed by a customs clearance agent on Tuesday, has not been confirmed by the Chinese government, but its publication was enough to send shares in ASX-listed copper miner Sandfire Resources falling by 8 per cent.
Some Australian wine exporters have been notified by Chinese importers that Australian wine will not be cleared through Chinese customs from this Friday onwards. Australia exports $1.2 billion of wine to China each year.
Tony Battaglene, chief executive of wine industry group Australian Grape and Wine, said the message was going right across the industry to exporters of all sizes.
"There's a very consistent message coming out, which is that Friday is D-day, and it's not just about wine it's about a whole lot of products," he said.
"The message that we're hearing is that as of Friday product will not be cleared through customs. So any product arriving before will be okay, but if it arrives after Friday then you won't be cleared, and essentially the border will be stopped."
The November 6 deadline, if enforced, will be a major escalation in Australia's trade dispute with China. More than 20 tonnes of live lobster, feared dead, are still stuck on the tarmac in airplanes at Shanghai Pudong airport, where they have been since Friday undergoing tests for elevated metal levels.
Victorian Rock Lobster Association president Markus Nolle said rock lobster fishing businesses were watching nervously for the latest developments in China. Up to 95 per cent of lobsters from Victoria are sent to China.
"People have just come out of a pretty bad time with the COVID restrictions going back to January," he said. "It hasn't been a good year. If they don't have enough certainty to go fishing they'll have to tie up the boat and do something else to generate an income."
Queensland timber logs have also been banned after tree-destroying bark beetles were allegedly found in a shipment along with barley from Emerald Grain Australia. The claims have been strongly denied by Australian exporters.
The trade dispute followed Australia's push for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus in April but has continued to intensify after Beijing imposed new national security laws on Hong Kong and advanced its territorial claims on the South China Sea.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has denied it is ratcheting up economic pressure to win diplomatic concessions.
Australian trade officials were on Tuesday afternoon examining the authenticity of the instructions relayed in the customs notice, as concerns grow it may be self-fulfilling and encourage importers to diversify away from Australian products.
Senator Birmingham said on Tuesday the numerous reports of difficulties that different Australian exports are facing on entry into China are of concern.
"Whilst we shouldn't jump to conclusions, we are working closely with the various industries who have been the subject of these reports," he said.
Senator Birmingham has urged Australian companies dependent on China to broaden their markets to account for "unpredictable administrative decisions that have been made at the Chinese end". He has threatened to take China to the World Trade Organisation over the infringements.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/australian-exporters-to-china-face-6-billion-d-day-20201103-p56b31.html
Premier's about-face on euthanasia is pure politics
There is only one word needed to explain why a risk-averse Premier like Annastacia Palaszczuk would bring voluntary assisted dying into the election fray just a few weeks out from polling day - Currumbin.
Instead of waiting for the Law Reform Commission to bring down its report into euthanasia in March next year, a re-elected Palaszczuk Government will fast-track laws to the February sitting of parliament.
Here's the politics. Former Liberal Cabinet Minister Jann Stuckey's husband, Richard, a doctor, is running as an independent in his wife's former seat of Currumbin.
Dr Stuckey has said he will preference the Labor Party before the LNP - even though his wife was a former LNP Cabinet Minister - because it has a clear and concise policy around Voluntary Assisted Dying, which he supports. That policy position was made clear by the Premier at the Labor launch.
There is a belief within Labor circles that candidate, Kaylee Campradt, can upset Ms Gerber off the back of Dr Stuckey's preferences.
But not everybody in the Labor Party is happy with Ms Palaszczuk's backflip on her commitment to the churches that she wouldn't bring forward the legislation until the Law Reform Commission had brought down its report.
NSW Upper House MP Greg Donnelly, who has been in Parliament for 15 years, posted online on Friday that Ms Palaszczuk's decision to bring VAD into the election campaign was "utterly reprehensible''.
"Deliberations over proposed laws to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia for legislators are as serious as it gets ,'' he said. "Using such issues to try to secure some base political advantage should be beyond the pale.''
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-premiers-aboutface-on-euthanasia-is-pure-politics/news-story/e7fd29b250edc3b024648fc810114abe
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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4 November, 2020
The Australian economy will lose more than $3 trillion over the next 50 years if climate change is not addressed, according to a new report from Deloitte Access Economics
Absurd. How can anybody predict what will happen in 50 years' time? There will always be unpredicted events like the coronavirus to throw all predictions into a cocked hat.
What, for instance, would the eventual arrival of practical thermonuclear fusion bring about? Would limitless energy requiring only water as a feedstock make a difference?
Report author Pradeep Philip, who was a policy director for former prime minister Kevin Rudd, said there was also a lot to be gained if warming was kept below 1.5 degrees and Australia achieved net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
"If we do act over the next few years then in just 50 years there is a benefit to the economy of $680 billion," he said.
"We'll have an economy 2.6 per cent bigger, generating 250,000 jobs, so this tells us if you are pro-growth and pro-jobs then we need to act on climate change now.
"We know that there are new sectors around renewables, hydrogen, electric vehicles that can be created."
Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia will feel the effects most acutely, with trade, tourism and mining some of the industries most exposed to the effects of climate change.
"As things get hotter because the planet warms up, it makes it really difficult for those labour-intensive industries to work," Dr Philip said.
"If you work outside, in construction, higher average temperatures make it quite unbearable to work, so we get a loss of productivity, we get adverse health affects, and this translates across the board into retail, manufacturing, transport and mining.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-02/australian-economy-lose-$3-trillion-climate-change-inaction/12837244
Hawaii and bushfires fade as halo effect shines on Scott Morrison
Scott Morrison's political domin-ance is such that it's hard to conjure up circumstances that would see him lose the next election. Morrison may have been the underdog at the last election, but he's the firm favourite at the next. Every advantage is his. Prime ministers choose the timing of federal elections, which only adds to his chances of winning, by picking the exact moment in the electoral cycle to force Labor to the polls.
The summer of 2019-20 feels like a lifetime ago now. Morrison was under pressure, having returne-d from Hawaii, caught out for trying to secretly holiday while Australia burned. On his return he struck all the wrong chords when confronted about his failure.
The Morrison of today doesn't make those mistakes. The ups and downs of managing the pandemic have hardened him politically, but softened him in the eyes of many Australians.
The PM's critics sometimes find that hard to accept, because all they see is the rat cunning, which to be sure is still there. There is a hint of the left's response- to Howard in the way Morrison's critics spitefully hiss at him. It can leave swinging voters who aren't enamoured with Morrison- defending him against the worst of insults they feel are over-the-top, just as swinging -voters did with Howard.
Australians are appreciative for where the country is at versus how other nations are struggling through COVID, and they largely give Morrison the credit for that.
Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party aren't that many seats short of the elusive majority, but the issues aren't running their way. Not even close. In the post-pandemic world, incumbency advantag-e is high, as long as those in power haven't mishandled the virus. Donald Trump is the example of what happens to a leader when they do mismanage something so important.
The Coalition government certainly hasn't failed when it comes to COVID-19, and even the few pockets of failure along the way have been glazed over in the name of applauding the wider successes Australia has enjoyed. Because it has been a global pandemic, -comparisons with other nations are easy. Whether it's minimising the health impacts or evading the worst of the economic downturn, compared with neighbours near and far, Australia looks pretty good.
Morrison - the master of shifting blame or absolving himself of responsibility - has been able to do exactly that each time question marks have arise about mismanagement. We almost waited too long before shutting the border to the US. The disembark-ation of the Ruby Princess was found to be a failure of the NSW Health Department. The problems in the aged-care sector in Victoria only grew because of the second wave, which became the state Labor gov-ernment's responsibility, courtesy of its mishandling of hotel quarantining and poor contact tracing procedures.
There is little doubt aged-care problems are the closest Morrison has been to coming unstuck in this pandemic. Even then, if the problem had grown out of control, he could have cut the minister, Richard Colbeck, loose - just as he did with Bridget McKenzie when the sports rorts scandal was gaining traction.
Federal Labor is talking of "the Morrison-Frydenberg recession", but nobody is seriously- buying into that. Not when the recession is global in scale. To the extent that the surplu-s target was both unnecessary and perhaps even unachievable in the wake of the bushfires, COVID-19 almost instantly insul-ated the Coalition from criticism, including for its "back in black" gloating before it had even been delivered.
Labor would have been pilloried for the size and breadth of spending on schemes such as JobKeeper and JobSeeker had it delivered- them. The conservative side of politics being so bold, in contrast, was applauded. Even the decision to wind back the payments-, while difficult for some, can be seen through the prism of encouraging people back into work and attempting a return to normality.
The bushfires saw an alarmingly quick decline in Morrison's personal support, however, those days are over. Just like state leaders right around the country, including- Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, the PM's personal numbers are significantly higher than the Opposition Leader he squares off against, and his satisfaction rating is sky-high.
Criticisms of potential lost -opportunities when it comes to reform- in the aftermath of a crisis, while valid, will not resonate among mainstream voters. This is Morrison's heartland, and he is savvy enough to know how to feed it red meat when he needs to. A hint of nationalism when rebuffing British PM Boris Johnson for having the temerity to suggest Australia needs to adopt zero emissions targets. A sprinkle of hope that a further lowering of taxes to help with the cost of living is just over the horizon.
The PM also knows how to instil- fear into these voters. Don't risk a return to Labor, he says, lest it makes a bad situation worse. This is followed up by a positive message: trust the Coalition to steer the country the rest of the way out of this pandemic. Let us finish what we started.
Labor knows it is facing an uphill- task to be competitive at the next election, much less win it. Alread-y we are seeing signs of turf wars over unity and individual survivalism over collective hope of victory. Albanese will battle this all the way up until polling day.
Team Morrison is also well served by its campaign unit. At last year's election, new Liberal Party federal director Andrew Hirst may have been the difference -between victory and defeat, with his deployment of ground-game tactics and a cut-through advertising campaign targeting Bill Shorten. He is already planning his line of attack for Albanese, not to mention alternative leaders in Labor's caucus should change happen on the eve of the election.
The one-time novice director will go into the next campaign more seasoned but still hungry for further success. Unlike in years past, the Coalition is now every bit as good as Labor at online campaigning and fundraising.
Context is everything when it comes to the next election, and the Coalition will fight that campaign having successfully steered Austra-lia through the COVID recession- and out the other side of the pandemic. Labor could have benefited from a similar halo effect- at the 2010 election, having survived the global financial crisis, had it not been for the fact that it removed the leader who did that just months before polling day.
There is no chance of Morrison suffering the same fate.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/hawaii-and-bushfires-fade-as-halo-effect-shines-on-scott-morrison/news-story/2602a0d1ecc0c1485ad4d7f0a276d5d7
Merino Sisters commercial promoting Aussie wool in China goes viral reaching 230 million
The revival of the Aussie wool trade is falling on three sheep in a funny commercial for a Chinese audience that's reached more than 230 million people.
The advertisement - in an attempt to make wool popular in China - has been viewed almost 10 million times and has had more than 230 million impressions.
The marketing campaign explains the benefits of wool to a Chinese audience with Chinese celebrity Loura Lou interviewing three Merino sheep.
Funded by the Australian Wool Innovation's The Woolmark Company, the Merino Sisters campaign is aimed at making "prestigious Merino wool" popular in China in an attempt to increase exports of the Aussie fibre.
The campaign featured on China's huge online shopping platform, Tmall, and has generated more than 230 million impressions and 9.9 million video views.
The teaser post by Loura Lou ranked up two million views in less than 24 hours on Weibo.
"I've met the rich and famous and I'm never impressed . but the Merinos?" Ms Lou says in the video before she talks to the sheep.
AWI made the call back in March at the height of the coronavirus pandemic to pull out a global campaign as exports of the fibre dropped.
Exports of Aussie wool has dropped to about 2 to 3 per cent in India and Italy, which was previously taking about 5 per cent of the export.
However, China takes about 80 per cent of our Aussie wool.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/merino-sisters-commercial-promoting-aussie-wool-in-china-goes-viral-reaching-230-million/news-story/e20bcc150de59934254ebe541317c803
Coronavirus: Climate change effects not stopped by pandemic?
The harshest impacts of climate change are still devastating the world's environments despite the coronavirus pandemic bringing the world to a halt in 2020, a UN report says.
South Korean policymaker Soyoung Lee, an MP with the ruling Democratic party, said: "Korea's 2050 net-zero announcement will encourage other countries which are still deliberating over a 2050 target year, especially considering that Korea is still heavily reliant on the manufacturing industry and other high-carbon industries."
This week the world's fifth-largest emitter, Japan, pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, following China's commitment to hit carbon neutrality by 2060.
The European Union, which has also set a net-zero emissions target by 2050, has proposed a carbon border tax that could see high-emissions exports hit with an import levy.
The EU's Foreign Affairs chief Josep Borrell on Friday said China's "announcement could be a tipping point in the global fight against climate change."
"The simple fact that China acknowledges the dramatic threat of climate change and that we need more action is of paramount importance," he said.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-defies-international-pressure-to-set-emissions-targets-20201028-p569ed.html
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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3 November, 2020
Many Aborigines are their own worst enemy
A case in point. He paid the ultimate price for his foolishness.
If you want the police to be civil to you, you have to be civil and co-operative with them. And running away is the extreme of non co-operation
The police have an important job to do and we must expect them to do what it takes. And in this case they clearly followed their rules
Dwayne Johnstone was handcuffed, shackled and running away when he was shot in the back and killed by a corrections officer outside Lismore Base Hospital, an inquest has heard.
State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan will take submissions on Wednesday on whether the threshold has been met for her to refer the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The inquest into Mr Johnstone's 2019 death, which began on Tuesday at Lismore Court House, heard the 43-year-old Aboriginal man had been taken to hospital while on remand after suffering an epileptic seizure in the cells of Lismore Court House, where he'd been denied bail on assault charges.
Counsel assisting the inquest, Peggy Dwyer, said Mr Johnstone had a history of drug addiction and involvement in the criminal justice system - mostly over property theft, minor assaults and possession or trafficking of drugs. He had twice been convicted of escaping lawful custody.
Because of his history of escape, Ms Dwyer said he was classified E1, meaning "an inmate in those circumstances was to be handcuffed and ankle cuffed and treated as high risk at all times".
Ms Dwyer told the inquest Mr Johnstone, described as "a much-loved partner, son and stepson", had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and had been sexually abused as a child by the principal of his primary school, and again at the Burnside boys home.
A nurse who treated Mr Johnstone at the hospital described him as "compliant" and "appreciative of hospital care", Ms Dwyer told the court.
But as he was escorted back to the van on March 15, 2019 by two corrections officers - one of whom was armed with a revolver - he "elbowed" the unarmed officer who had a grip of his pants, throwing him off balance, and started running. The officers cannot be named for legal reasons.
Ms Dwyer said the inquest would hear multiple accounts, including from the corrections officers, that Mr Johnstone was moving fast despite being shackled and handcuffed.
The officer carrying a revolver told police in an interview that he called out "stop, stop, or I'll shoot" before firing a warning shot into the bushes, Ms Dwyer said. Mr Johnstone kept running, so he said "f---ing stop" and fired again.
The officer told police he aimed a second shot "in Dwayne's direction but not at him". When he still didn't stop, the officer aimed a third shot "at the centre of mass". The bullet entered the middle of Mr Johnstone's back and went through his aorta, liver, and diaphragm, Ms Dwyer said.
The officer who fired the shots told police he was surprised at how fast Mr Johnstone could run, and didn't think he or the second officer would be able to catch him.
But Ms Dwyer said the second officer told police his partner had told him to "get out of the road", and asked if he thought he could have caught up, he said he "didn't know" and hadn't been given the chance.
Ms Dwyer told the inquest that armed corrections officers carry guns but unlike police, are not equipped with non-lethal weapons, such as Tasers, extendable batons, or capsicum spray.
She said corrections officers may legally discharge firearms in a number of circumstances, including "to prevent the escape of an inmate" - with a number of provisos, including that a warning must be given and there cannot be reasonable grounds to believe the shot could hit another person.
However, she said the use of force must be the "option of last resort" and officers "may use no more force than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances".
Ms O'Sullivan said the question of whether the threshold for the matter to be referred for criminal prosecution had been met "is certainly a live issue".
She adjourned the inquest until Wednesday, when she will hear submissions from the parties before making a decision as to whether to continue or have the matter referred to the DPP.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/dwayne-was-fatally-shot-in-the-back-while-running-away-inquest-hears-20201027-p568xk.html
TV star-turned Perth Lord Mayor, Basil Zempilas, has been condemned for his 'insensitive' opinions about transgender people
The breakfast host, 49, who was elected in mid-October, told listeners of his radio show on Wednesday that it was 'wrong' for a person to identify as a gender that was not the same as their physical anatomy.
'If you've got a penis mate, you're a bloke. If you've got a vagina, you're a woman. Game over,' he said.
Mr Zempilas, a former Weekend Sunrise host, was encouraged to undergo transgender awareness training to assist in his role serving the broader community.
Hunter Gurevich, who chairs TransFolk WA, described the comments as unacceptable and 'repugnant'.
'These comments are repugnant, bigoted, narrow minded, parochial and fundamentally deny contemporary science,' he said. 'Further, it puts LGBTQIA+ people at increased risk of harm, when we are already a vulnerable group in society.
'It is especially disappointing when The City of Perth has long supported the LGBTQIA+ community of Perth. 'For Mr Zempilas to now betray not only the community, but our relationship with the city, is beyond inexcusable.'
Curtis Ward, from Pride WA, suggested Mr Zempilas hadn't quite grasped the difference between sex and gender. 'It is possible to appear one way and feel another and when someone says they're transgender, they are simply saying they feel differently to how they appear,' he said.
'[That is] sex being your physical appearance and your biology whereas gender is how you identify psychologically, whether you're feminine or masculine.'
Mr Ward said Zempilas' comments only fueled stigma surrounding the LGBTQIA community and perpetuated misinformed, hurtful and damaging opinions.
'I think people need to be educating themselves about what they're speaking about and if they do have that stage, and they are commanding such a large audience, they should be making educated statements,' he said.
During the segment, Mr Zempilas encouraged 'any women with a penis' to ring the radio station to win a $100 voucher.
Mr Zempilas told Out In Perth he would apologise if his comments had caused offence, and insisted that was not his intention.
But Mr Gurevich already said it would be difficult for members of the community to accept the apology. 'No apology will be accepted until Mr Zempilas confronts the damage his comments can and have done,' he said.
He will quit his presenting role on the radio show at the end of the year after stepping into the role of Lord Mayor.
The latest controversy came after he wrote in a column piece in August that he would 'forcibly' remove homeless people from the city centre if he was elected. 'I make no apologies for this, the homeless need to be moved out of the Hay and Murray Street malls and the surrounding areas,' he wrote.
'Forcibly, if that's what it takes. I'm sick of being told by people who don't live and work in the city like I do that it's not that bad - actually, it's worse. 'The look, the smell, the language, the fights - it's disgusting. A blight on our city.'
Mr Zempilas was forced to apologise after copping widespread backlash over the comments, with critics accusing him of being 'disconnected from the city'.
'Those comments were made in frustration over nine months ago after an incident with my wife and my six year old daughter and a man exposing himself at 11am on a Sunday,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'But the comments weren't appropriate and I have apologised.
'I've spent a good deal of the last six months educating myself by speaking with people who are homeless, trying to understand their situation better and by speaking with service providers. '
Mr Zempilas is a famous face in West Australia, and in March 2018, he was co-host of Weekend Sunrise, replacing Andrew O'Keefe. In September 2019, he stepped down as regular host of Weekend Sunrise, however continued to appear as a fill-in presenter.
The TV star is has been married to longtime partner Amy Graham since 2009, with the pair tying the knot in Greece. They share two daughters and a son.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8888957/Newly-elected-Perth-mayor-Basil-Zempilas-slammed-LGBT-groups-insensitive-comments.html
`Hermit nation': World's astonishment at Australia's response to COVID-19
The world is flabbergasted by our response to COVID-19, but one major newspaper reckons strict rules have turned us into a "hermit nation".
Articles published internationally over the weekend highlighted our monumental success, reporting that Saturday was the first day of no community transmission cases of virus in 145 days.
The New York Times ran a piece saying Australians now embrace the isolation they tried to escape for so long, but that our rules are so strict they've essentially turned us into a "hermit nation".
The author wrote that our rules were so strict they "seem like something out of China or North Korea".
"The virus has turned this outgoing nation into a hermit. Australia's borders are closed, internationally and between several states." the author wrote.
"Rather than chafing against isolation, though, Australians these days are more willing to smile in the mirror. Island living looks like a privilege when the world is pestilent. "
American current events opinion website Business Insider said we had an advantage over most countries from the start.
"It's an island with relatively low population density," they wrote. "But its rules were still far stricter than in many other countries."
With Victoria reporting another day of zero cases on Sunday, it appears the state is on track to easing restrictions this coming weekend.
More rules are set to be scrapped on November 8, including the 25km travel radius for Melburnians, and now it has been revealed that even more restrictions could be eased than previously thought.
Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said on Sunday that some of the rules around gatherings could also be changed on November 8.
"We can always make consideration of what the caps might be in certain settings, what the density quotients might be and some of the specific industries that might come on board in terms of being able to operate," he said.
Australia's success comes amid sharp rises across the rest of the globe.
The US reported 99,321 new Covid-19 cases today - the highest single day number of cases recorded for any country to date. It marks an alarming jump of almost 11,000 more cases compared to yesterday.
Meanwhile the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a national lockdown after passing one million coronavirus cases, and France is recording around 50,000 new cases daily.
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/coronavirus-hermit-nation-worlds-astonishment-at-australia/news-story/1f4b4b491a3d4f2c3c75833ad6347403
Conservative Daisy Cousens on social media trolls, Q+A and a Trump win
Less than four years ago, Daisy Cousens was firmly embedded in the performance arts community. As the daughter of music theatre royalty Peter Cousens and film and television actor Suzanne Roylance, it was only natural that her friendship circle comprised theatre thespians.
But then came a huge falling out, and long-time friends disappeared overnight. Her crime? During a highly-publicised appearance on the ABC panel program Q+A in February 2017, for which she was heavily trolled afterwards, Cousens revealed she was a staunch conservative.
"I was so terrified of how my friends would react," she tells Stellar.
"I didn't tell any of them that I was going on the show because I knew they were massively left wing - and not informed left wing, either. They're the type of people who read a two-line headline from The New York Times, and make an opinion based on that and think everyone who disagrees with them is a hateful bigot."
The subsequent backlash stung. "I don't really care about what people I don't know say about me online, but I really care about friends who will just completely delete you from their universe if you say something they disagree with politically."
Whatever the appearance on Q+A may have cost her personally, it gave back tenfold professionally. In the years prior, Cousens had been feeling directionless. She had left university with "a bunch of ultimately useless arts degrees" and after discovering there was limited work available in the industry, she went back to school to get her masters in creative writing..
That led to a writing position with an online women's magazine and her spot on Q+A, which, in turn, led to a several television appearances, a successful YouTube channel that now has almost 200K subscribers and, ultimately, her current role as a Sky News contributor.
"I'd aligned my whole sense of self from [when I was] a little kid to being a musical theatre performer and a singer, and I had to let that go," Cousens says. "Also, my fianc‚ and I wouldn't have met had I kept doing the theatre route."
She met her partner, Calum Thwaites, at a book launch in Sydney in early 2017. Since he lived in Brisbane, and Cousens in Sydney, they dated for 10 months by long distance. "I figured that doing long distance would get easier because we'd get into a routine, but actually it gets harder as you get more attached," Cousens says.
Given the nature of her work, it was easier for her to make the move interstate to join him in Brisbane. "I count my lucky stars every day," she says. "We try to keep politics separate from our day-to-day life. Sometimes he'll change my opinion, sometimes I'll change his. What's great is that it never gets personal."
The same can't be said for the comments online. "Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. You have to not care what other people say or think about you, particularly anonymous people on Twitter," she tells Stellar. "I mean, who really cares if XYZ Bot with two followers said Daisy Cousens is a racist Nazi white supremacist?"
Cousens may dress in uber-feminine clothing ("I've always been really, really girly") but that doesn't mean she's in any way a shrinking violet.
She admits to poking the proverbial bear - like the time she said, "I called myself a feminist before I started, you know, thinking", or the time she pointed out there were reports stating that "people on the right are on average better-looking than those on the left".
And while she admits that politics is particularly "grubby" at the moment, that hasn't deterred her from getting into the boxing ring.
"I'm hoping for Trump to win," she says of the upcoming US elections. "I have faith he can, and I picked his victory last time. But I'm not betting on any horse just yet."
So with her propensity to shock people, is Daisy Cousens the public persona the same as Daisy Cousens the person?
"I think the best way to describe a commentator is that it's the same person but with the volume turned up," she says with a laugh. "You're a bit more theatrical and provocative. The way I am in The Bolt Report or in my YouTube videos is very me. I try to stay really true to who I am."
https://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/stellar/conservative-daisy-cousens-on-social-media-trolls-qa-and-a-trump-win/news-story/886038968222f24b83dbf2f2bce87951
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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2 November, 2020
Queensland Election: How One Nation propelled the Labor party to victory
Queensland is my home state. All four of my grandparents were born here. And I am delighted that I don't have to move elsewhere in search of a better life.
I agree with the analysis below. I am myself a One Nation voter but I too thought Leftist Premier Annastacia has been doing a great job in keeping our borders closed.
Aside from businesses in the tourist industry, life has remained pretty normal in Queensland -- while most other places were suffering heavy lockdowns. Queensland has been an oasis of civilization amid authoritarion repression elsewhere
We actually have done even better than Sweden in continuing to lead normal lives. They have had thousands of deaths while we have had hardly any
One Nation is one of two genuinely conservative minority parties. The other being KAP. KAP has it base up in the Far North where I come from. So I was delighted to see that they got 3 seats
It was a move straight out of Pauline Hanson's playbook that helped Labor to a surprise majority government win at the election. Ironically, it came with the help of One Nation supporters.
Annastacia Palaszczuk has cruised back into office with the help of One Nation, ironically borrowing from Pauline Hanson's parochial playbook of slamming borders shut to outsiders.
One Nation's vote collapsed across the state, with Labor seen as a major beneficiary.
Analysts believe older One Nation voters worried about their health amid the COVID-19 pandemic turned to Labor because of Ms Palaszczuk's tough stance on border closures to `keep Queenslanders safe'.
It was a domestic nod to Ms Hanson's rise to power in the mid-1990s on a strong anti-immigration platform.
Last night, One Nation had recorded just 7 per cent of the vote statewide, down from nearly 14 per cent in 2017.
Strong swings against the party were recorded in many north and central Queensland seats including traditional strongholds such as Hervey Bay and Pumicestone, where it suffered swings of 13 per cent.
Labor legend Graham Richardson said it was no surprise that the One Nation vote moved towards the ALP. "I don't think Palaszczuk's ever been thrown off course, she just keeps going in the same direction," he said. "Pauline mightn't like it but Queenslanders obviously do."
One Nation admitted its major focus was holding its only Queensland seat, Mirani, west of Mackay. "I think we had net zero game,'' party spokesman James Ashby said. "The primary focus was to re-elect Stephen Andrew in Mirani."
One Nation, whose resurgence impacted on a host of seats in the 2017 election by way of preferences, was recording a plummeting vote in seats right across the state in early counting.
Senator Hanson called for Queensland to reopen the border early in the pandemic, saying it was "destroying people's lives' and threatening a High Court challenge to the `unconstitutional' border closure
She also urged vulnerable Australians to `lock yourselves away' so the borders could reopen to provide relief for suffering tourism operators.
But Senator Hanson was largely invisible throughout the election campaign.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/state-election-2020/parties/how-one-nation-propelled-labor-to-victory/news-story/e77ccd0de807e225a530777d4c96c0eb
In the case of Peter Ridd, we'll soon learn whether academic freedom matters
Prof. Ridd was critical of alarmist utterances about the Barrier Reef coming from his university colleagues
This week there were whoops of delight from Republicans over the appointment of conservative lawyer Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court. It will, they say, buttress democracy for decades to come. The Democrats were inconsolable, marking the rushed appointment as the end of democracy. The divide is fundamental: is it the role of America's highest court to interpret law in humble deference to what the law says, or to change the law to suit social -engineers who have grown -impatient with the democratic process?
Everyone agrees on one thing: judges on the US Supreme Court can alter the country in profound ways.
By the way, two new judges were appointed to Australia's High Court this week, although few will know their names. For the record, Simon Steward from Melbourne and Jacqueline Gleeson from Sydney, both former Federal Court judges and both in their early 50s, will serve long stints on our most influential court until they reach the mandatory retirement age of 70. Steward will join the court in December, and Gleeson, the daughter of former chief justice Murray Gleeson, will take up her seat in March next year.
Both judges will be watched closely by those who understand that the High Court can fundamentally change the direction of our country, too. Eighty per cent of its cases are mundane, having little impact on the country. The other 20 cent are the Big Bang cases. Through the intersection of law, politics and values, they can cause seismic shifts throughout the country.
Will Steward and Gleeson become roaming judicial adventurers making decisions like philo-sopher kings rather than humble judges? There are no guarantees. After all, the court's most recent appointment, and disappointment, is Justice James Edelman. Part of the recent 4-3 majority decision in Love v The Commonwealth, along with fellow justices Michelle Gordon, Geoffrey Nettle and Virginia Bell, Edelman dreamt up a legally bogus racial privilege to exclude two men from the normal application of our non-citizens laws.
Chief Justice Susan Kiefel's scathing rebuke of the majority should be inscribed somewhere along the hallowed halls of the High Court for the newcomers.
"Implications are not devised by the judiciary," Kiefel said, because they are "antithetical to the judicial function since they involve an appeal to the personal philosophy or preferences of judges".
The departure of Nettle and Bell means that, without the support from the new appointees, Edelman and Gordon might be relegated to minority dissents the next time they choose to cook up propositions to suit their preferred outcomes, and pronounce them as the law of the land.
All eyes will be on the newest judges especially if the High Court decides to hear the case involving physics professor Peter Ridd. In August, Ridd lodged a 13-page -application for special leave to -appeal a 2018 Federal Court decision that upheld his sacking by James Cook University. On Thursday, the High Court agreed to hear oral arguments about special leave in February next year. This is interesting. The vast maj-ority of applications are rejected "on the papers" - in other words without an oral hearing.
Next, the High Court will decide if the Ridd case is sufficiently important to warrant judgment from the nation's highest court. There is, as former High Court judge Michael Kirby once said, no point pretending that it is a logical or scientific process. In other words, it's down to whether the court finds a matter interesting. The test is subjective, their decision unappealable.
For the punters, the raw odds are about one in 10: last year, of a total of 445 special leave applications, the court granted leave in 52 cases.
Insiders give Ridd a 50-50 chance of making it over the next hurdle. The case, after all, is not just about the "substantial injustice" of JCU's termination of Ridd's career, claiming he acted in an uncollegial manner in breach of the university's vaguely drafted code of conduct when he raised questions about the quality of climate research at JCU.
If the High Court grants Ridd special leave to appeal, the court's final determination is likely to -reverberate across the country. Many universities have intellectual freedom clauses in their -enterprise agreements with academics. And most universities have ambiguously drafted codes of conduct that could be used to restrict these same intellectual freedom clauses. Where does that leave academic freedom in this country?
Ridd's case is being led by Melbourne QC Stuart Wood, while JCU has Bret Walker SC in its corner. Ridd's claim for special leave to appeal includes a powerful observation from legal scholar Ron-ald Dworkin that "any invasion of academic freedom is not only harmful in itself, but also makes future invasions more likely".
There is another harm to -society. If JCU's infringement of academic freedom is allowed to stand, it will have a chilling effect on other academics. We will never know what research escapes rigorous testing by academics who do not want to jeopardise their jobs.
The High Court is being asked to rule on the core mission of a university: is it, first and foremost, to defend academic freedom and further research, to seek the truth by challenging orthodoxies that can become dangerously inaccurate over time?
If, on the other hand, universities are allowed to sack academics in circumstances similar to Ridd, with obvious impacts for the quality of research and learning, then Australians are entitled to confirmation of this dystopian brave new world at Australian universities from our highest court.
And dystopian it certainly is. Along with making 17 findings against Ridd, two speech directions and five confidentiality directions (even prohibiting him at one stage from speaking with his wife about the matter), JCU also issued a "no satire" direction against Ridd demanding he not make fun of the disciplinary proceedings.
No satire? It's hard not to make fun of a taxpayer-funded university that censures, then sacks, a respected professor of physics, and employee of 27 years, a man ranked in the top 5 per cent of researchers globally for raising questions about the quality of climate science research at the Great Barrier Reef.
Only this week, this report slipped under the ABC News's -Armageddon radar: "Researchers have found a new reef that is as tall as a skyscraper in the waters off Cape York in north Queensland." As Ridd told Inquirer this week, "we are constantly learning new, and incredible things about the reef".
The shoddy, disproportionate treatment of the physics professor by JCU has become the centrifugal force to better protect academic freedom at universities, not just via the courts, but by parliament too.
Ridd's sacking led Education Minister Dan Tehan to initiate a review into free speech and academic freedom at Australian universities in 2019 by Robert French. Nothing had been done prior to Tehan taking the portfolio. This week, Tehan tabled the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020, which gives effect to legislative changes suggested by the former chief justice. The bill requires that universities commit to "academic freedom" - as defined by French - in return for getting registration, and taxpayer funds.
These are indeed interesting times for academic freedom, with a review under way by Professor Sally Walker into the implementation by universities of the model code on academic freedom also recommended by French.
The model code is intended to operate as an umbrella-like standard to fall over all university policies, codes, pronouncements, etc. If a particular enterprise agreement has a broader definition of academic freedom, that is great for academics at that university. If an EA offers less protection than French's model code, then that model code will lift the standard of academic freedom protections. That will be a terrific boost for academic freedom across the country because, as experts who have trawled through EAs of Australian universities told Inquirer this week, none of the EAs offer more protection than French's model code.
When Walker's review is completed late next month, we will discover which vice-chancellors have dragged the chain, more cowardly corporatist controllers than defenders of robust intellectual excellence.
Their incalcitrant approach to academic freedom should firm up the minister's resolve to stop the rot. Tehan's next move might be to legislate that every university implement the full French model code as a requirement of university registration. Even if not legislated, the minister has a backdoor way to secure the same outcome. Under section 136 of Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act, Tehan can direct the university regulator to use the model code when enforcing the educational standards to Australian universities. With oversight from Senate Estimates, this could well transform TESQA, known as a wet-lettuce regulator, into a genuine guardian of university excellence acting in the best interest of academics, students, taxpayers and the country.
In other words, with the model code in place, either by law or ministerial directive, what happened to Ridd can never happen again. That, of course, will not help the unassuming, but determined, professor. His final appeal for justice, and common sense, rests with the High Court next year, when at least one new judge, maybe two, will be on the bench. No wonder we will be watching closely.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/in-the-case-of-peter-ridd-well-soon-learn-whether-academic-freedom-matters/news-story/e9989ee75d014de015f7551ad8ed4e66
Bank's climate policy reveals steps away from coal to support net zero emission by 2050
But not shifting support away from family farms
ANZ has released its new climate change policy that will see the bank take steps away from financing thermal coal and towards supporting the transition to a net zero emissions economy by 2050.
Under the 10-year strategy, ANZ has committed to stop directly financing any new coal-fired power plans or thermal coal mines including expansions by 2030.
It will also "wind down" existing direct lending to coal-fired plants and thermal coal, and help existing customers with more than 50 per cent exposure to thermal coal create diversification strategies by 2025.
ANZ group executive Mark Whelan told investors via its blog Bluenotes that the new approach committed the bank to "taking strong action to support the Paris Agreement".
The big four bank has pledged to no longer provide services to any new business that makes more than 10 per cent of its revenue from thermal coal.
The bank also made changes to how it would finance the construction of large-scale office buildings, saying loans would only be provided if the buildings were highly energy efficient and had a 5-star energy rating.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack released a statement on Thursday condemning ANZ's policy for being "sheer virtue-signalling".
Mr McCormack said banks should be focused on "supporting our agricultural producers, not adding an extra layer of administration".
"Imposing largely Euro-centric standards to satisfy shareholder activists while our nation recovers from a global pandemic is grossly unfair," he said.
ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott told investors via Bluenotes on Thursday afternoon the bank was not shifting support away from farmers.
"ANZ's climate change statement is focused on the top 100 carbon emitters, and will have no impact on the bank's farmgate lending practices," Mr Elliott said.
He said the policy was about the bank's "major agribusiness customers" becoming more energy efficient and was "not about family farms".
The new policy adds ANZ to a growing number of businesses that are ahead of the Australian Government when it comes to commitments to stop the effects of climate change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-29/anz-climate-policy-steps-away-from-coal-toward-carbon-neutrality/12825934
Democracy under attack from the censorious Left
Democratic politics, which can only function within a system of representative government, turns on the successful and peaceful regulation of difference. In other words, democracy is all about -debate and discussion.
In contemporary Western societies, this concept is under attack, primarily from the left, by means of de-platforming individuals. This amounts to non-violent silencing, or political censorship.
In Australia, it exists within such institutions as universities, and can even be found within -sections of the ABC.
Division and disagreement is essential to the proper functioning of democracies. Yet you would not know this judging from some recent contributions to the political debate. On Tuesday, federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the member for the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, delivered one of the best speeches heard in the House of Representatives in decades.
The story is now well known. Labor Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese attempted to surprise the Coalition government by introducing a motion before Question Time commending "the people of Victoria for the sacrifices they have made in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic". The motion was introduced following the reductions to the harsh lockdown in Victoria introduced by Premier Daniel Andrews' Labor government, which were announced on Monday. Not surprisingly, Albanese's motion had a political message. It noted the people of Victoria had succeeded because they "have heeded the advice of dedicated public health officials" and resolved that this message be conveyed to the Premier of Victoria.
Most motions of this kind are rejected by the government. Not on this occasion - apparently to Labor's surprise. Prime Minister Scott Morrison not only accepted the motion but said that, if asked, he would have seconded it. Morrison then proceeded, in a strong speech, to point out Victoria's failure to handle hotel quarantine which led to close to 100 per cent of Australia's second wave infections. He added that the commonwealth provided "$200m every day of support to see Victorians through this crisis".
Then it was the regional Vic-toria-based Labor deputy leader Richard Marles's turn. He saw fit to praise the Victorian government, which he declared had "been a source of crystal-clear decisions at the heart of which has been the very best medical advice which has guided us from where we were back in July to where we are right now".
In his speech, Marles compared the situation in Victoria favourably to that in Britain. Albanese had made a similar comparison.
Following Marles, Frydenberg showed considerable passion, if not anger. He declared that the -reduction of the virus in his home state was a victory for the people of Victoria - "and no one else's victory". He said that Victorians have suffered so much but that "it should never ever have come to this". And he reminded the opposition that the proper comparison "is not with the United Kingdom (and) not with the United States; the comparison is with NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia".
Frydenberg referred to school closures, business failures, COVID-19-related deaths, job losses and mental health impacts of the stage four lockdowns necessitated on account of the Andrews-led Labor government's failure with respect to hotel quarantine and contact tracing.
This was modern politics at its best as the leaders of the Labor Party and the Liberal Party confronted each other on the floor of the House of Representatives. It is sometimes said that modern politics in the Westminster system is too bland. Well, this wasn't the case on Tuesday.
But not all were happy. Katharine Murphy is the political editor of the left-wing Guardian Australia online newspaper. Writing after the parliamentary debate had finished, the Canberra-based journalist came to the view that Victorians following the debate would have experienced "alienation or possibly revulsion".
According to Murphy, Frydenberg not only "puffed like a pool toy at full inflation" but was also "vibrating with outrage". She added that, when responding to Marles, the Treasurer "had taken up residence behind the bike sheds and started swinging". Murphy also made reference to "junkyard dog politics" and "the revenge of the knockdown clowns".
And then there was more. According to Murphy, "instead of sober acknowledgment unifying the country, adolescent rancour, either sheathed or naked, prevailed". And she accused Frydenberg of "the deliberate infla-mmation of societal divisions".
All this demonstrates just how out of touch some members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery are. All democratic societies are divided to a greater or lesser extent. This is particularly the case with the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the greatest socio-economic disaster to hit Australia since the Spanish Flu a century ago.
The fact is that the ACT, where Murphy lives, is doing well. There is little virus around. No public servants have lost their jobs due to the pandemic - some have received pay increases. The quality of housing in Canberra is high, which makes life relatively easy for professionally educated and technologically literate types who can work from home.
Meanwhile in Melbourne, very small and medium businesses have closed down, maybe never to reopen. Schoolchildren have lost experiences that they can never regain. The unemployment numbers are devastating. Families cannot get together if they live outside a restricted area. Victorian Police are behaving in a manner which has led to the imposition of excessive force on normally law-abiding citizens. People were locked up in rooms and apartments for 110 days in a row. And so on.
But Murphy reckons Frydenberg has no right to express restrained anger at the plight experienced by his fellow Victorians in general, and young families in particular, due to the incompetence of the Andrews government's management of health.
Andrews is on record as saying of Frydenberg: "He's not a leader, he's just a Liberal." This overlooks the fact that such long-serving Australian leaders as Robert Menzies and John Howard were Liberals. Andrews also seems to overlook the fact that Frydenberg has spoken out strongly in defence of his fellow Victorians - which is what leaders are expected to do in successful democracies. A point missed, apparently, by The Guardian's political editor.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/democracy-under-attack-from-the-censorious-left/news-story/4a5f1375b63dca73acefb85ecdb74905
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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1 November, 2020
The African problem comes to Darwin
The video clearly depicts Africans
A group of out-of-control youths have been terrorising Darwin, leaving residents feeling like prisoners in their own homes.
Armed with knives and rocks, the group of children - some just eight years old - have been wreaking havoc across this city every night this week.
Over the past 24 hours cars, cafes and homes have been broken into by the same group.
Blue Taxi Company has been posting images of the carnage they've experienced at the hands of the group. Their latest post shows glass scattered across the backseat of a taxi after a window was smashed. 'And another day in the war zone,' the post read.
Blue Taxi Company owner Helen Pachos told Daily Mail Australia the crime was so bad residents felt like prisoners in their own homes. 'It's just getting more and more out of control,' she said. 'During lockdown it quietened down, I'm not sure what changed in the last week but they are out and about.
'We get told by the police that it's just a group of youths - they call them youths, I call them thugs - that are repeatedly doing it.
'What is really concerning is they've got 10 and eight-year-olds tagging along, I call them ''crims in training''.'
She said she had put additional security measures in place to deter criminals but it had't stopped them from being targeted.
'We now have cameras everywhere. 'It doesn't stop them, it just gets the evidence that it's happening, that's not what I want, I want to feel safe. 'It's very scary. We're prisoners in our own home.'
Rick Hall shared a picture on Facebook on Thursday showing his car which had the window smashed in. 'That lovely little, but growing band from Karama just smashed my car with rocks as I was going past Casaurina Square,' he said.
'When I stopped and got out about ten kids pelted me with rocks and two threw their scooters at me.'
Another horrified homeowner discovered a knife left behind in a car after it was broken into this week. 'To the people of McMinns Lagoon, the little terds are armed,' the post read. 'They raided our cars and got cash. They left their knife in there so it's now in the hands of the police for fingerprints.'
Fresh Point Co cafe was also targeted by the group, with CCTV footage capturing the brazen thief in the act. The popular cafe was broken into at 2.45am on Friday after crooks smashed in the front door. The group made off with 10 bottles of alcohol.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8895853/Residents-claim-Darwin-overrun-control-youths-armed-knives.html
Can the new broom remove the feminist tentacles strangling TEQSA?
Bettina Arndt
We've had a very lively few days, with interesting developments in our campus campaign.
The good news is we have learnt that the new CEO of TEQSA, Alistair Maclean, might be the new broom the university regulator needs to clean up its act, given its shameful history of pandering to activists by bullying universities into setting up the regulations to usurp criminal law.
Maclean's previous job was CEO of Victoria's anti-corruption commission, IBAC, and he was also once senior adviser to former PM John Howard. This should be a man interested in ensuring regulators do their job properly rather than allowing universities to indulge in ideologically driven policies aimed at punishing men.
We can only speculate that this was a deliberate government decision to provide some proper oversight of this regulatory authority which has so clearly run amok. Dan Tehan must be frustrated that TEQSA chose to ignore his advice at their conference last year telling them to instruct universities to leave sexual assault to the criminal courts.
The Government has also set up an TEQSA integrity unit. No, that's not a joke! Apparently the idea is to encourage the regulator to rein in the unscrupulous behaviour exhibited by many of our universities, with the kangaroo courts coming in for particular scrutiny.
On Wednesday our campus justice group sent a long background document to Maclean, outlining the whole history of TEQSA's shameful role in this quasi-judicial mess.
Lo and behold, the letter ended up featuring in a highly entertaining Senate Estimates session that night, where the brilliant Queensland Senator Amanda Stoker grilled Nick Saunders, Chief Commissioner of TEQSA, about TEQSA's role in the establishment of these courts.
Regular readers may remember that last year Stoker's inquisition left Saunders and his colleagues squirming as she waved before them one of the TEQSA documents on adjudicating campus rape cases, pointing out it contained not one word about the rights of the accused.
We've put together a video about all this, which starts with an extraordinary confrontation where Saunders emphatically denies that TEQSA's initial Guidance Note to universities on this matter was intended to push them to adjudicate sexual assault. He claims he'd never heard of such a notion, apart from the letter they had received that very afternoon - which was, of course, the email from our campus justice group. Watch Saunders' normally flushed tones turn a vivid shade of puce as he mentions the offending email!
Clearly TEQSA is not at all happy that their new CEO is being exposed to the truth about their meddling on this matter.
Anyway, please watch my video and promote it widely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1u3mooRoXo
I am sure you will find the Stoker/Saunders confrontations riveting and very revealing. We need people to know about all this.
Bettina Arndt newsletter newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au
Australia's gas plan will push the Reef to extinction
A brainless Greenpeace emission below. Give them their assumptions and they would be right. But all their assumptions are at best dubious.
For instance, bleaching is mostly caused by sea-level fluctuations: Low level episodes in particular. They make no effort to look at that, They just regurgitate concentional assumptions
And coral is very good at regrowing so bleaching from whatever cause is never permanent. Even Ove Hoegh Guldberg noted that rapid regrowth
After three mass bleaching events in the last five years, the Great Barrier Reef is not as great as it once was. Now, as Australia attempts to rebuild from the economic fallout of COVID-19, a new threat has emerged which could threaten the world's largest living organism even further.
Scientists have made it clear that the blame for warmer and more acidic oceans lies on coal, the number one driver of climate change. But now that the Australian Federal government is pushing for a so-called "gas-led recovery" from the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of gas in the Reef's demise can no longer go unscrutinised.
Rather than heeding the best advice of scientists and switching Australia from polluting coal and gas to clean energy sources like wind and solar, the Australian Federal Government is instead laying the groundwork to replace one destructive fossil fuel with another. If the government's gas dreams become reality, the implications for the Reef could be cataclysmic.
In its 2019 Production Gap Report, the UN warned that in order to keep global heating at 1.5 degrees, gas production must decline by 20 percent by 2030.
"The continued rapid expansion of gas supplies and systems risks locking in a much higher gas trajectory than is consistent with a 1.5 degree Celsius or 2 degree Celsius future," the report reads.
"These declines mean that most of the world's proven fossil-fuel reserves must be left unburned."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the impact of 1.5C of global warming found that coral reefs would likely decline between 70% and 90% if the temperature increased to that level. If global warming reaches 2C, more than 99% of coral reefs could be wiped out.
Climate change expert and researcher at the Australian National University, Professor Will Steffen, was unequivocal that gas has already damaged the Reef and expanding the industry would only make that damage worse.
"There is no doubt that climate change is the primary driver of the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef," Professor Steffen said.
"Climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels like gas, so there is a direct link between the greenhouse gas emissions from Australia's gas industry, whether the gas is burned in Australia or elsewhere in the world, and the degradation and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef."
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257705-australias-gas-plan-will-push-the-reef-to-extinction/
Politician in hot water over `racist' Chinese post
CONTROVERSIAL Whitsunday MP Jason Costigan has been accused of racism after sharing a post about Chinese LNP candidate for Stretton Peter Zhuang.
Mr Costigan shared a message from Moreton Young LNP to his personal and official Facebook pages last night opposing advertisements Mr Zhuang placed in Chinese newspapers asking for support ahead of this Saturday's state election.
The group's Facebook page has since been deleted.
In sharing the post to his followers, Mr Costigan wrote, "Anyone for Chinese? If so, vote for the LNP".
The comments sparked a heated debate over whether the words used were offensive or even racist.
Facebook user Dennis Charters commented that the NQ First leader had invoked "racist comments".
"Jason you must be clutching at straws," he said.
Fellow Facebook user Peter Hood said the comments crossed "the boundaries of acceptable behaviour".
"Racism is never acceptable and I'm now assured that the Italian, Chinese, Greek, 1st Australian and other ethnic North Queensland (First) supporters in Mackay are not happy," he said.
Mr Costigan stood by his comments, saying "anyone who thought it was offensive is most likely sympathetic to the pro-Chinese Liberals".
"As the son of an immigrant, who helped build the nation, from the Snowy Mountains to the Bowen Basin, I'm very proud of who I am, where I have come from and the special role that immigrants have played in the development of our country," he said in a statement.
https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/regional/costo-in-hot-water-over-racist-chinese-post/news-story/63d98d22dd1efbc3c704aa01f9b12cfc
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE TIED)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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For the notes appearing at the side of the original blog see HERE
Pictures put up on a blog sometimes do not last long. They stay up only as long as the original host keeps them up. Some newsapers keep their published pictures online for as little as a week. I therefore keep archives of all the pictures that I use. The recent archives are online and are in two parts:
Archive of side pictures here
Archive of this year's pictures in the body of the blog. Note that the filename of the picture is clickable and reflects the date on which the picture was posted. See here