This document is part of an archive of postings on Australian Politics, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written
This is a backup copy of the original blog
30 January, 2021
‘Immunological unicorn’discovered in Australia
In a high security laboratory in Sydney, where a select group of researchers go to extreme lengths to work with samples of blood and swabs containing Covid-19, virologist Stuart Turville found a unicorn.
“A beautiful, immunological unicorn,” Turville, an associate professor with the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales, said.
“We found him when we were analysing samples from the Red Cross blood bank from people who have had Covid. And he had the most amazing Covid response I’ve ever seen.”
The unicorn is a 50-year-old father of three named Damian living on the NSW Central Coast who developed symptoms of Covid-19 in March. His symptoms were severe enough to take him to the hospital emergency department, but after being given oxygen he was sent home the same day. Bizarrely, when he was tested for the virus with the gold-standard PCR nasal swab, the lab kept returning a negative result for Covid-19.
“When they initially diagnosed him they couldn’t find virus in his nasopharyngeal area [the upper part of the throat behind the nose],” Turville told Guardian Australia.
“So they kept on swabbing him and swabbing him, but they couldn’t find it. He kept on saying to them, ‘Look, I’m sick, my son’s got it, I have to have it’. And it was only when they looked at his blood, his serum, they said; ‘Oh, yeah, you’ve had it. And you’ve got the most amazing immune response’.”
Most people who have Covid-19 develop a decent immune response.
“But this guy’s response is 100 to 1,000-fold that,” Turville said.
“His response is that good. To put it in context, we are eight or nine months out since he was infected. And he still ranks in the top 1% of responders, so what that means is if we could ever bottle a vaccine that could mimic his response, you’d want to do it. I would say that we’re going to see him responding just as well probably a year out, and maybe after about two years we might start to see some response decay.”
Usually, patients who show a particularly robust immune response to Covid-19 end up in an intensive care ward. In many of these severely unwell patients, the immune system overreacts in what is called a “cytokine storm”. Cytokines are proteins that can trigger an inflammatory response so aggressive that not only are virus cells attacked but cells in the blood vessels, urinary tract, organs and blood vessels are also destroyed, leading to organ failure and sometimes death. For some reason Damian’s response, though strong, did not bring on such an aggressive storm.
“That’s something we’re trying to get our head around,” Turville said.
Not only is Damian’s immune response lasting but it has not weakened much over time, offering strong ongoing protection against the virus, which is what makes him so unique. A Public Health England study found that while most people who have the virus are protected from reinfection for at least five months, some are reinfected, and even asymptomatic people can harbour high levels of the virus in their noses and mouths, and therefore risk passing it on to others.
After being told about his unicorn status, Damian offered himself up for medical research. Turville estimates that Damian has donated blood and plasma upwards of 15 times.
Hundreds of recovered Australians like Damian have now donated blood so their plasma, teeming with antibodies, can be separated out and used to make batches of serum through a collaboration between the Kirby Institute and manufacturer CSL. This serum is then given to severely unwell patients around the world to treat their disease.
“It also means that if the virus emerges again in Australia and takes off, we’re battle ready,” Turville said.
“Damian’s serum has contributed to many batches of these CSL products. Whenever we get a batch of serum that is particularly amazing, we say ‘OK, he’s in this batch’. That’s how impressive his response is.”
Some of the findings about Damian have been published in a pre-print paper about “high and elite responders,” which describes how “patients with high and robust Covid-19 responses were more likely male, hospitalised, and of older age”.
It is work like this that has researchers from the Kirby Institute’s containment lab – more scientifically referred to as a Physical Containment Level 3 (PC3) Laboratory – occupied at times until 3am in the morning. They also examine samples taken from returned travellers in hotel quarantine, growing the different variants in the lab to see how they behave. It is one of a handful of high-security labs around Australia where the virus is being studied.
Recover and revitalise education
As Australia’s 4 million school students and their educators kick off a new school year, it must be free of educational complacency for the path ahead.
It’s fitting that back to school coincides with this week’s UNESCO International Education Day —themed around ‘recovery and revitalisation of education for the covid-19 generation’.
Recovery and revitalisation are certainly worthy aims for policymakers in light of last year’s educational disruption. School closures undeniably resulted in learning losses and forced educators, policymakers, and parents to challenge existing schooling practices and priorities.
The task of recovery — in scope and scale — mustn’t be dismissed.
Last year, CIS research found that around 1.25 million students in the eastern states — over 40% of them — were likely to have fallen behind.
The plan of attack in NSW and Victoria is centred on marshalling a thousands-strong army of tutors to provide catch-up support. However, it’s expected this will assist only around one in five students — or around half those that will likely need it.
And while schools will welcome the help in remedying lost learning, to date there’s been limited quality assurance and considerable uncertainty over expectations of catch-up tutors.
The scale of learning loss is also likely to eclipse previous — relatively benign — predictions.
Late last year, the results of a pseudo-NAPLAN test found NSW students had fallen behind by months rather than weeks. This means that while schools were closed — around 7 weeks in NSW — students not only progressed more slowly, but effectively went backwards. This bodes poorly for Victoria’s status as the education state, since students were out of class for up to 18 weeks.
Among the key events of the 2021 education calendar will be May’s NAPLAN exams — results of which will paint a national picture of student progress following the pandemic.
But just as recovery will not be for the education policy faint-hearted, so too will be the challenge of revitalisation. This will largely hinge on learning key Covid lessons to better harness parental engagement and technology in schools.
In 2020, home-based learning gave many parents a closer look at, and interest in, their child’s schooling. CIS polling shows a majority now have more positive views on teachers and schools. A key task for educators this year will be to capitalise on this goodwill via more constructive engagement between school and the home.
In addition, 2020 saw educators embrace increased uptake of technology in schools — many with a view to entrenching a more permanent place for digitalising course content, collaboration, and assessment. While innovation is welcome, this will require smarter and more discerning applications than has been typical in the past.
The Covid-19 generation will need to muster all the available support this year to ensure they don’t become educational casualties of the pandemic.
If 2020 will be remembered for its educational disruption, 2021 must be equally characterised by recovery and revitalisation.
https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/recover-and-revitalise-education/
Violent parents, power-drunk principals, out-of-control students – a veteran Brisbane teacher has revealed the horrors of teaching in today’s State primary schoolsViolent parents, classrooms full of students medicated for disorders, and principals who are “horrific bullies” are all in a day’s work for exhausted Queensland educators.
Children as young as six are trying to set classrooms on fire, stabbing teachers with scissors and calling them c--ts.
Many kids arrive hungry, filthy and have spent the night “cowering under their beds” as parents attack each other in drug and alcohol-fuelled rages.
Learning is further compromised by a content-heavy curriculum that kills creativity, while stressed-out teachers “live in fear” of poor NAPLAN results and power-drunk principals.
Add reduced government funding to the mix and children are falling through the cracks and turning to crime.
This scathing education report card comes from a passionate teacher of 30 years who has “seen and heard it all” in state and private primary schools across Brisbane and beyond. The married mother of two teenagers, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect her career, is speaking out because she wants to see change.
At the top of her list is improved mental health and social support in schools to help “damaged, broken little people”.
She wants education to get back to basics, and greater support and respect for the role of teachers.
“You go into teaching to make a difference but sometimes everything you do is still not enough,” she says.
“Shocking stuff goes on, it’s heartbreaking, and classrooms can be warzones.”
Her candid revelations come as Education Queensland data shows attacks on teachers have soared in the past five years. The number of suspensions for assaults with objects has increased by 29 per cent while attacks without objects are up by 50 per cent.
The pressure on teachers to meet unrealistic expectations has also been identified in recent studies as a major reason people quit the profession, particularly in the first few years.
While this veteran educator is in it for the long haul, she wants to expose the truth about teaching in today’s primary schools.
Not all state schools are created equal. What goes on in affluent inner city schools cannot be compared to what happens in outer disadvantaged areas.
In one of my grade 3 classes, half of the students were on medication for behavioural disorders or mental health problems – and six boys were so hard core, every single day.
One would lock himself in the storeroom and I’d finally coerce him into the classroom and get him into his desk and he’d reach out and punch the kid sitting beside him in the head.
I’ve had a student try to set the classroom on fire and two boys who really enjoyed getting on the roof and putting sticks in the TV antenna. There is constant noncompliance and disrespect.
These kids come from such dysfunctional families and are in constant fight or flight mode.
If you ever do meet the parents, mum’s got no teeth because the latest boyfriend’s knocked them out.
Kids are either up all night cowering under their beds, hiding from violent adults who are boozing and drugging, or their stepdad is chasing them down the road with a knife.
They come to school damaged and broken, so I try to create a positive family environment within the classroom and I tell them we need to make sure everyone is feeling welcome and safe.
We celebrate the smallest of wins, like someone going from 3/10 for spelling one week to 5/10 the next, because it’s about instilling self-confidence.
Mental health is an increasing problem.
I’ve face-timed a nine-year-old girl in a psychiatric hospital to let her know I am there for her any hour of the day or night. We need to be wrapping around our kids a lot more – there are not enough services within schools, yet kids are crying out for help and unless we deal with that first and help them with whatever is going on, we can’t make any difference to their learning.
Record almond harvest is coming despite a challenging year for agriculture
While some horticulture industries are having one of the most challenging harvests with workforce shortages and heavy tariffs, one sector continues to go from strength to strength.
Almond production is booming now with around 123,000 tonnes expected to be harvested in Australia this year — the largest on record.
With 80 per cent of the world's almond coming from California, Australian almonds are proving their place in the market. With every tonne of almonds sold in Australia, three tonnes are exported to around 50 countries.
Chief executive of Almond Board Australia, Ross Skinner, said the projected 10 per cent increase in harvest this year was due to the second wave of expansion from plantings in 2016.
"[The record harvest] is mainly based on the increased planting coming into production," Mr Skinner said.
"We've increased our planting over the past five years, and those trees are starting to mature into much larger trees and bearing much more crop."
With the harvest due to start any week now, Mr Skinner said the mechanical process of producing almonds, as well as the demand for the product at home and overseas, had meant the industry had avoided major hurdles that were currently facing other horticultural industry from COVID-19 movement restrictions.
The fallout with China that resulted in heavy tariffs on barley and wine is not something that is expected to be a concern for almonds.
"Much of the 2020 crop was pre-sold before the issue with trade relations with China emerged so we were confident that those contracts would be honoured and that has been the case," Mr Skinner said.
"All indicators show that the relationship will remain strong, and we have been fortunate that we have alternate markets if things turn sour, but at this stage, things look promising."
And as for labour shortages putting stress on industries like stone fruit, where the strain is causing some farmers to walk away altogether, the mechanics of almond process means less reliance on hands-on labour.
"We will have an extra 1,000 seasonal workers during the harvest season, and most of our producers had organised that labour already," Mr Skinner said.
"Being a highly mechanised industry means our harvest requirements aren't as high as the other horticultural industry, so we are well placed when it comes to labour."
Sales to the second biggest market, India, have increased to 38 per cent compared to last year and the Middle East and European markets are up 16 and 17 per cent, respectively.
"There's been strong growth in the export market, which is what we've needed because we've been growing more and more," Mr Skinner said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-29/record-almond-harvest-is-coming/13099836
************************************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 January, 2021
Mothers of Sons being launched next week
Bettina Arndt
I have some exciting news about an event coming up next week. We have all been invited to the launch of Mothers of Sons – a new initiative by mothers speaking out about the injustice experienced by their sons. I think this is a great idea and I'm delighted that I have been given all the information to share with you.
The official launch of Mothers of Sons will take place via a Facebook live event from 7.00pm AEDT on Monday 1 February 2021.
Here’s the link you use to join the event - Facebook.com/MothersOfSonsMOS/
Please circulate this to everyone who might be interested in learning more about this new effort to fight for fair treatment for men and boys.
How it began
You may remember two years ago I made a video interviewing a young man, Dan Jones, who had spent five years fighting off false rape and violence accusations, which eventually led to his accuser, Sara Jane Parkinson, being sent to prison. Later that year Dan’s story featured on an hour-long 60 Minute TV special.
Following the program, the family was swamped with mail from families fighting similar battles, including many from mothers whose sons were in the firing line. Michelle Jones, Dan’s mother, started corresponding with some of the mothers and eventually this led to the idea of an organization using women, mothers, speaking out about what was happening to their sons.
I frequently find myself bailed up in a supermarket with a tearful older woman wanting to share her story about not seeing her grandchildren, spending her life savings to try to protect her son against false allegations of violence or sexual assault, or worrying herself sick as her son struggles against our biased legal system.
Michelle started gathering some of these mothers together and eight months later, the MOS group is ready with a sparkling new website: https://www.mothersofsons.info/
This has been a huge labour of love, with many talented people contributing their skills to ensure the MOS mothers are ready to make waves.
Go to the website and you will see videos of the mothers’ extraordinary stories. Women like Michelle Jones and also:
Jo Thompson-Jones whose three-year-old granddaughter was murdered by her mother after the woman was told by a Family Court judge that she had lost custody to Jo’s son, Nathan.
Those two mothers, Jo and Michelle, are the only ones able to speak publicly about what happened to their families. In Michelle’s case the accuser is in prison, and Jo’s son’s partner was found hung in prison where she was awaiting her homicide trial.
It is very telling that the rest of the current group of mothers are afraid to go public with their stories because they fear fresh accusations from the women who are persecuting their sons. MOS has changed their names to protect their identities, but you can read their accounts of what happened or hear podcasts from mothers like these:
Erin – After the rape accusations against her 18-year-old son fell apart in court, the jury stood outside and cheered the boy when he left the courtroom.
Katrina – On the night when her sleeping son was beaten by his partner, the police treated him as the aggressor and took him outside to ‘calm down’.
Millie - Domestic violence accusations were used to obtain a permanent visa for the mother of her son’s child, setting off a series of court battles which destroyed her son’s life.
Mary - It took seven years for her son to convince the Family Court that his children were at risk from their mentally ill mother who’d threatened to kill them. But all it took was a new batch of lies for a magistrate to reverse this decision.
Read advice from the wise women
The mothers have put together their lessons learnt, hard-won advice for other families about how to deal with false domestic violence or rape allegations, handling the police, finding good lawyers, handling Family Court disputes. Have a look at their words of wisdom – vital information to help all families dealing with these issues.
Mothers can use MOS forums to connect with other mothers.
For mothers struggling to help their sons it can be a real lifeline to connect with mothers who have been through similar experiences. The MOS forums give mothers the opportunity to share experiences, gather advice and support.
How you can join this powerful new voice for change
There are many ways you can help Mothers of Sons make a difference to the lives of men and boys. Here’s how you might contribute:
More mothers needed to share their stories. If you are a mother with a son who has experienced injustice, write to MOS. The mothers have editors to help you write your story, or perhaps make a video if you are in a position to speak out openly about what has happened.
Spread the word. Promote the MOS website on social media.
Sign up for the MOS newsletter using the link at the bottom of the MOS home page.
I'm very hopeful Mothers of Sons will help change the public dialogue on injustice towards men, taking over some of the public advocacy that characterized my own career.
Via email: newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au
Australian vaccine fears amid global supply threats
Australia’s medicines watchdog the Therapeutic Goods Administration will make its own decision on whether the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe for use in those aged over 65 even though German authorities have recommended against its use in this age group the Health Minster Greg Hunt said.
The head of the TGA Professor John Skerritt has indicated there is no risk to the elderly from the vaccine but the authority has yet to approve the vaccine.
The UK had no concerns about the use in this age group, Mr Hunt said.
Australia had contracts for supply of 140 million doses of different vaccines and was prepared for a range of outcomes if the AstraZeneca vaccine could not be used in the elderly, he said.
As global bickering intensifies over supply of COVID-19 vaccines Health Minister Greg Hunt has given a commitment that none of the 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine produce in Melbourne will be exported overseas.
“With regards to the 50 million doses they are direct contract between the Australian Government and CSL and therefore delivery here in Australia we don’t see in any circumstances under which they wouldn’t be provided in full to Australia,” he said.
And he said Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne was contacting the World Health Organisation and European authorities to secure supply of vaccines under contract for Australia where they are being produced overseas.
Mr Hunt welcomed positive clinical trial results of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine overnight, Australia has purchased over 50 million doses of this vaccine and he said it will be supplied here in the second half of this year.
Two million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will be available to Australians from late March and vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine will commence in late February Health Minister Greg Hunt has clarified today.
Highly infectious new variants of the COVID-19 virus, particularly one from South Africa, appear to be outsmarting existing vaccines which are not as effective against them as earlier strains.
Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax have already signalled they are working on new vaccines to combat the latest variants and this could challenge Australia’s vaccine rollout.
“I’d be cautious on making judgments on existing vaccines against the variance at this point in time, that will remain a matter for the vaccine advisory committee and the medical regulator,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
There was not yet any advice that changes to Australia’s vaccine program was needed yet, Mr Hunt said.
“One of the hallmarks of our approach has been to prepare and to adapt,” he said.
Queensland going slow on new dam construction
The Green/Left hate dams and the Qld. government is a Leftist one
QUEENSLAND needs to build more critical dams to revive its economy, says Prime Minister Scott Morrison, expressing frustration at the state government dragging its heels. He has urged the state to get on with approving more job-generating projects for the regions, including Hughenden Dam and Hells Gates.
The call follows Mr Morrison's four-day blitz of the state's regions, visiting towns still fighting to recover from the lingering drought. Mr Morrison would not commit to a state employment target, with Queensland now having the highest jobless rate in the country of 7.5 per cent, saying that was up to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. But he said programs such as the JobMaker hiring credit and building infrastructure would get Queenslanders back into work.
While he praised the state for its commitment to projects such as CopperString 2.0 and Townsville Port, he told The Courier-Mail more needed to be done. "I think water infrastructure has proved very frustrating," Mr Morrison said. "Whether it's Hughenden Irrigation Scheme, or Hells Gates (dam), or any of these projects, we've gone through a lot of frustrations trying to get things like Emu Swamp and Rookwood Weir done. These things have to move more quickly that they have done. Water is critical to Queens-land's future, we do seriously want to invest in these projects, but they have to be approved by the state government."
Rookwood Weir is currently scheduled to start construction in April, despite first being promised by then-premier Peter Beattie in 2006. The federal government has committed $54m towards Hells Gates dam for a business case, and another $2m towards a feasibility study for Hughenden Irrigation Scheme, with a promise of a further $180m to go towards construction.
The Palaszczuk government announced an additional $6m for design and construction tender documents for Emu Swamp Dam in February last year, while in September it announced an expert panel would look into the Bradfield inland irrigation scheme. The Premier's office and Regional Development and Water Minister Glenn Butcher declined to comment
Courier Mail 25 Jan., 2021
Rupert Murdoch slams ‘woke’ culture in Australia Day speech
Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire mogul behind Fox News, took issue with the silencing of debate on social media, saying censorship had hobbled discourse with “awful woke orthodoxy”.
Mr Murdoch, 89, made the rare public remarks during a brief video to accept a lifetime achievement award from the Australia Day Foundation. The clip was posted online by the Herald Sun, owned by the media mogul’s News Corp.
“For those of us in media, there is a real challenge to confront,” he said. “A wave of censorship that seeks to silence conversation, to stifle debate and ultimately stop individuals and societies from realising their potential.”
[The US Capitol riot on January 6 was followed by a purging of the social-media accounts of then-President Donald Trump and others, drawing complaints of censorship. On Monday, Twitter said it would seek to police the service more vigilantly for misinformation and introduced a new feature called Birdwatch.
Fox News and other conservative outlets are under fire for fueling uncertainty about the US presidential election, which critics say contributed to the storming of the Capitol. Mr Murdoch’s own son James Murdoch has joined the outcry, telling the Financial Times that outlets “that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years”.]
In his remarks from the award ceremony, Rupert Murdoch said a “rigidly enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket on sensibility”.
************************************
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)
***************************************
28 January, 2021
‘Bad theology kills’: Senior cleric returns honour over Margaret Court decision
In its new guise as the Uniting church, the Methodists have undergone a rapid falling away from their traditional devotion to Bible teachings. The guy quoted below reflects that
It's hugely perverse that he calls a devotion to Bible teachings "bad theology". Surely the bad theology is anything leads you away from faith in God and his clear teachings. Consult Romans 1:27; Jude 1:7; 1 Timothy 1:8-11; Mark 10:6-9; Matthew 19: 4-16; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Corinthians 7:2; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Genesis 19:4-8 if you want to read good theology. The Bible repeatedly makes clear that homosexuality is a defiance of God. Real Christians accept that
All sexual acts are voluntary. Everybody has the choice to engage in them or not
A church leader says Margaret Court’s “bad theology” is his reason for joining the growing list of Order of Australia members who are returning their awards in protest against her elevation to the country’s highest civilian honour.
A number of recipients, including retired broadcaster Kerry O’Brien and acclaimed artist Peter Kingston, have either returned or refused awards and others say theirs have been tarnished.
In this week’s Australia Day awards, Court was elevated from an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) to a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for her sporting success.
As a tennis player, she won 24 grand slam women’s singles titles, but as a Pentecostal pastor she has preached against LGBTQ rights, opposed same-sex marriage and, in 2017, compared homosexuality with Hitler and “the devil”.
The Reverend Alistair Macrae, a former president of the Uniting Church in Australia who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contributions to the church and the community, said on Wednesday that he would be handing back his award.
“As a minister and theologian, I am aware that bad theology kills people,” Mr Macrae wrote in an opinion piece for The Age.
“Bad theology underpinned the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. Bad theology supported Hitler’s racist ideology and the evil it produced. Bad theology underpinned or failed to recognise the racist assumptions behind the destructive program of colonisation not least in this land. Bad theology continues to alienate and oppress sexual minorities.”
Court has stated that her religious views are separate from her sporting career, comments which Mr Macrae argued were disingenuous for a public figure.
He pointed to high suicide rates in the LGBTQ community and stressed that Court’s views were not shared by all Christians.“If it harms people, from my perspective, it’s not from God,” he said.
Grampians cross burning spurs call for action
State and federal authorities are being urged to take further action against a right-wing extremist group that burnt a cross and chanted racist slogans at a popular Victorian tourist destination over the Australia Day weekend.
Thirty-eight members of the far right National Socialist Network burnt a cross next to Lake Bellfield at the foot of the Grampians, a ritual usually associated with the Ku Klux Clan, in central Victoria on Sunday evening. Tourists and locals heard the group chanting “white power” and Nazi slogans.
On Thursday morning, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald revealed local police and intelligence officers from Victoria Police’s Counter Terrorism Command were collecting information about the group, which hiked through the Grampians National Park on the weekend.
The group’s members also visited the tourist town at the foot of the Grampians, Halls Gap, where they engaged in anti-Semitic and other racist behaviour. At least half a dozen tourists and residents said they had reported the men to police.
Six uniformed officers from the nearby town of Stawell spoke to the group, including its leader, ex-Australian army soldier turned neo-Nazi Tom Sewell. Mr Sewell later posted online pictures of the police officers’ name badges as well as images of the neo-Nazi group posing in front of a burning cross and displaying Nazi salutes at various locations in the Grampians.
Mr Sewell has previously sought to distance his group from those that espouse violent action and there is no suggestion that the group’s members engaged in any violent acts.
When Halls Gap resident James passed the group on his mountain bike on Sunday afternoon in town, he was addressed with a Sieg Heil.
“There were 40 white males, many with skinheads, some chanting ‘white power’. That is intimidating for anyone.”
According to extremist experts, two right-wing groups, the Lads Society and Antipodean Resistance, recently helped form a new Australian extremist outfit, the National Socialist Network, which in turn helped organise the 38 young white men to assemble in the Grampians over the Australia Day weekend. Photos show some wearing army-issued boots and packs.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have identified some of the key organisers and participants of the Grampians gathering. Some show the faces of young men who would prefer to stay in the shadows — posing in their own online posts with faces covered.
The organisers were the Lads leader, Mr Sewell, raised in the middle-class suburb of Balwyn in Melbourne, and Stuart Von Moger, a security guard who has appeared at several far-right events and meetings with political figures who were unaware of his ideology. The Lads have also been accused of a failed attempt to branch-stack the NSW Young Nationals in 2018.
Mr Sewell has claimed in a social media post that the Grampians event was aimed at providing “content” for a new neo-Nazi group, the European Australian Movement.
He has the hallmarks of some far-right activists in the US, including those who stormed the Capitol three weeks ago, a move which Mr Sewell said in one online message had lessons for Australian extremists.
ASIO recently revealed that up to 40 per cent of its resources are being directed towards right-wing extremist groups.
NAPLAN ban by Queensland Teachers’ Union ruled unlawful
Queensland teachers have been told they must continue NAPLAN testing this year despite a boycott by a major union.
A plan by Queensland teachers to boycott NAPLAN testing has been given a fail grade by the Industrial Court, with teaching of the controversial test set to go ahead this year.
State school teachers in the Queensland Teachers’ Union voted almost unanimously to boycott teaching the controversial test to pupils in October last year.
However, in an internal memo circulated to all Department of Education staff on Friday, director-general Tony Cook announced the industrial dispute had been slapped down by the courts.
“The department considered the directive to be unprotected industrial action, and therefore unlawful, and sought the assistance of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission to resolve the matter,” Mr Cook said.
Following an appeal by the QTU, Mr Cook said the Industrial Courts sided with the Education Department, ruling on Thursday that “the QTU … immediately cease and do not recommence.”
QTU president Cresta Richardson said the union’s executive was now considering its next steps, saying the test had been shown to have a negative impact on students’ wellbeing.
“It’s use is beyond what it was meant for,” Ms Richardson said.
“The main focus of teachers for student outcome should be on the day to date teaching, learning and assessment that students receive and the outcome of such assessments.”
In a statement, the Department of Education told The Courier-Mail the decision was now an opportunity to move forward with “fully implementing the Australian Curriculum.”
“The department accepts the decision of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission and will continue to consult with the Queensland Teachers Union on the most appropriate way forward,” a spokesman said.
Among those who welcomed the decision to resume NAPLAN was the 222-member Teachers’ Professional Association of Queensland.
The organisation’s vice-president Cameron Murray said the controversial test was a powerful tool to ensure schools weren’t missing elements of students’ learning.
“We’ve always supported NAPLAN as a measure of student progress,” Mr Murray said. “It’s a diagnostic which can tell everyone – parents, teachers, kids, the Education Department – of our progress,” he said. “I truly believe that NAPLAN allows us to identify where there’s gaps and where there’s need for support.”
Mr Murray praised teachers as skilled but said the NAPLAN system was designed to “trust but verify” student performance.
Labor set for climate change shift with architect of emissions target Mark Butler to go
Labor's long-serving climate spokesperson Mark Butler has been shifted from the portfolio as part of an Opposition reshuffle on the eve of Federal Parliament's return.
Key points:
While Mr Butler takes on responsibility for health, deputy party leader Richard Marles moves from the defence portfolio to a broad brief across national reconstruction, jobs, skills, small business and science.
Brendan O'Connor, formerly employment spokesperson moves into defence, Ed Husic slides from agriculture into the innovation portfolio, and Chris Bowen goes into climate change.
Tasmanian MP Julie Collins shifts into agriculture from her previous role for ageing, seniors and women.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese said the changes reflected the best choices, not the easiest choices. "This reshuffle is about Australians getting the most out of Labor," he said.
He said Mr Marles would be "leading Labor's focus" on the recovery from the pandemic.
Outspoken backbencher Joel Fitzgibbon has backed moving Mr Butler, saying that taking the long-serving climate spokesperson — a member of the more progressive left faction of the party — out of the role would send the "right message to our traditional base".
Mr Fitzgibbon, a member of the more conservative right faction who resigned from the frontbench in protest at the direction of the party, said on Thursday morning that he respected Mr Butler but the change was a "good thing". "It will send the right message to our traditional base, but it won't be enough alone," he told RN.
"We also need to recalibrate our policy and our messaging if we are to reassure our traditional base that while we are serious on taking action on climate change — meaningful action — we will do so without risk or threat to their livelihoods."
Mr Albanese said on Thursday morning Mr Fitzgibbon's comments were "wrong". "They don't reflect the overwhelming view of people in the Labor Party," he said.
"The overwhelming view of people in the Labor Party is that we need strong action on climate change, and that strong action is good for jobs, that it's good for lowering emissions, and also good for lowering energy prices."
Mr Albanese says he regards climate change "as an economic portfolio, therefore someone who has been the Treasurer of Australia is eminently qualified to fill that role". Mr Bowen was briefly Treasurer in 2013 in the last Kevin Rudd government.
In a statement, Mr Butler said "the job of every front bencher is to serve in the portfolio allocated by their leader".
"That's always been my position under the four leaders I've had the privilege of serving under Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese."
Mr Butler has been in the role since late 2013, after briefly serving as climate change minister under then-prime minister Mr Rudd. Labor has failed to defeat the Coalition in the two elections since then, a period of disagreement around the extent to which Australia should be reducing carbon emissions.
Labor took a policy of reducing carbon emissions by 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030 to the election in 2019, compared to the Government's longstanding pledge of reducing emissions by 26 per cent in the same timeframe.
Mr Fitzgibbon suffered a massive swing against him in his Hunter Valley seat at the 2019 poll, beating the Nationals candidate by just 3 percentage points.
A One Nation candidate claimed more than 21 per cent of the vote, and the Labor MP's first preferences dropped by 14 percentage points.
This week the leader of the National Party, Michael McCormack, supported a push by his colleagues to build a new coal fired power plant in the Hunter.
Despite more than 100 countries signing up for a net zero emissions by 2050 target and many also making commitments before then, Australia is yet to make pledges beyond 2030.
The Government announced this week it had signed up to international efforts to help prepare the world for anticipated climate change.
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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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27 January, 2021
Heatwaves may mean Sydney is too hot for people to live in 'within decades'
This is a heap of nonsense. I grew up in Far North Queensland where temperatures that would flatten some Southerners were normal. According to the BOM, Sydney has a December mean maximum temperature of 25.2 while in Cairns it is 31.5. So many days were over 30 degrees Celsius in Cairns while such days were rare in Sydney. We just accepted such days as normal and went about our business in Cairns. Life went on as usual. It wasn't too hot to live in.
It is true that Sydney has always had some very hot days. Back in 1790 it was so hot that bats were falling out of the trees. But life has gone on in Sydney ever since and it will continue to do so. It is no drama
Parts of Victoria and NSW are sweating through an extreme heatwave that started sweeping across Australia's southeast on Saturday.
This may seem like just a good excuse to go to the beach, but as the planet warms and summers become longer and less bearable, heatwaves are coming to represent an existential threat to Australian suburbs.
Already, heat kills more people in Australia than any other natural disaster, including floods, cyclones and bushfires.
Now, faced with the prospect of 50-degree-plus summers, experts say highly urbanised parts of Australia may become unliveable within decades.
The race is on to re-imagine, redesign and rebuild the Australian suburb. Car parks may be ripped up and planted with trees and greenery, houses retro-fitted with insulation, roads painted to reflect rather than absorb heat, and supermarkets and even whole suburbs built underground to reduce cooling costs.
One centre of these efforts is Western Sydney, home to more than 2.5 million people. In this floodplain of closely packed houses, heat pools on islands of black bitumen and collects on sun-baked concrete.
The mercury gets close to 50 degrees Celsius here in summer — and that's just the ambient air temperature. The radiant heat from bitumen carparks can push 80C. The surface temperature of playground equipment has been measured at 100C.
Since 2019, all 33 Sydney councils have been funding a climate adaptation program that has identified heat as the number-one climate threat to Sydneysiders.
"We are not yet building a city that's really equipping our people to survive and adapt extreme heat," says Beck Dawson, who heads the Resilience Sydney program.
"If the community doesn't have access to things to make themselves cool we effectively have a very large oven occurring across the Western Sydney plains.
"The scale of the emerging threat is different to anything we've faced before."
Businessman films the sick moment a black URINATES on his $80k BMW because he 'can't find a bathroom'
Leo Alhalabi caught the stranger relieving himself on his car's back left tyre outside a property in Melbourne on January 14.
The horrified digital marketing guru, 24, confronted the man, who had parked his white Toyota behind the flashy M4 in broad daylight on the quiet suburban street.
'Why did you park specifically here to piss on my car? Is it because it's a nice car?' Mr Alhalabi asked the man, as seen in a video he shared on Instagram.
As the stranger stuttered and stumbled through his replies, Mr Alhalabi probed further, asking: 'Why piss here?'
'I was just pissing there because I haven't got a bathroom,' the man replied.
Mr Alhalabi stifled a laugh and said: 'You don't have a bathroom so you piss on my car?'
The man repeatedly apologised and offered to wash the tyre.
Mr Alhalabi agreed to let him rinse the urine off the wheel and promised not to 'do anything' to him.
'Life is all about forgiveness, okay? So I'm not going to do anything to you,' he said, triggering a wave of grovelling apologies from the stranger.
When the man said 'there is no bathroom in the city, Mr Alhalabi's friend chimed in and said: 'There's a tree. A car's not to piss on'.
The businessman called police, who said there was nothing they could do about it.
At the end of the video, Mr Alhalabi congratulated himself for keeping his cool during the confrontation. He wrote: Don't let people trick you out of your position. I'll take the no assault charges or jail time.' 'Despite how much they may have deserved it.'
People in the comments praised the businessman for remaining calm.
Why internet search and social would barely miss a beat if Google and Facebook carried through with their threats to pull out of Australia
There's no doubting the power of Google and Facebook. They are two of the most popular and valuable companies on the planet and their bosses are influential multi-billionaires.
Even the company names have become verbs - for searching online, and for adding new virtual friends.
There's no doubt threats by the tech giants to withdraw their most popular services for Australian users would cause problems initially if they follow through - but ultimately the decision would backfire on both, experts say.
Both Google and Facebook faced a fierce backlash for their defiant responses to a new law, the News Bargaining Code, which will force them to negotiate payment to media companies for the news content they use.
Google's response to a Senate Committee was to threaten stopping Google Search in Australia, while Facebook said it may have to block links to new articles in it's popular News Feed. Both companies have proposed alternatives including voluntary instead of mandatory codes, which have not been accepted by the Federal Government.
Alternatives to a Google search
Bing - the default search engine for the Microsoft Edge browser is the next biggest after Google, but still only has 3.74% of web traffic in Australia despite being around for 11 years
DuckDuckGo - considered the 'anti-google', this search engine doesn't collect personal data and claims to use 400 sources to return search results
Yelp - Australian search engine which specialises in locating local businesses such as restaurants, doctors, beauty salons and bars
The tech giants must have felt they were on strong ground when U.S. authorities backed them up, calling on Australia to scrap the proposed laws.
Google and Facebook's threats drew a series of stinging response from across the political spectrum, as well as from industry representatives and academics.
Most notably Prime Minister Scott Morrison slammed the bullying: 'People who want to work with that in Australia, you're very welcome. But we don't respond to threats.'
Both companies make huge profits in Australia but have drawn criticism for how little tax they pay.
The Australian Financial Review reported Facebook Australia earned nearly $674 million by Australian advertisers in 2019, but paid under $17 million.
Google did even better, making $4.3 billion in 2019, and paying less than $100 million.
Experts and industry spokespeople say if the tech giants make good on their threats millions of users would face impacts ranging from annoyance, to receiving even more dodgy information than usual, to potential health risks.
Small businesses that rely on Google ad words campaigns for people to find them would also be thrown into uncertainty.
'Dominance by one player does not end well for society. Google is not evil its just too dominant,' says Peter Strong the CEO of the Council of Small Business.
'The world is watching us to see what happens next, it really is.'
But ultimately, Australians - including business - would adjust and cope. A move to block Australian users would end up being 'self-destructive'.
'It is self-defeating and self-destructive to treat your users in these ways,' said Peter Lewis, from the Australia Institute's Centre for Responsible Technology.
'Ultimately these companies are networks of users and they're only as strong as their networks. If they make decisions that weaken those networks and don't respect their users, ultimately they weaken themselves.'
'We managed to survive before Google, and I'm sure we could again.' 'We'll find a workaround, we always do,' Mr Lewis says.
On Facebook chat threads, internet natives and heavy users appear relatively unfazed by the potential for Google Search to be blocked for Australians. Many said they would simply use the Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) they already pay for to get around geoblocking.
For those without a VPN, Google is not the only search engine that works.
Australian consumer tech website Gizmodo recommended four 'great alternatives as the legislation went before parliament: the so-called 'anti-google' DuckDuckGo, the family friendly Swisscows, Ecosia and Bing.
'DuckDuckGo is popular because it positions itself as being the 'anti-Google'. Unlike the tech giant, it doesn't store cookies or any kind of identifiable personal information,' according to Gizmodo.
'There would certainly be a learning curve for consumers to understand that there are alternative options out there,' says Teresa Corbin, CEO of The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).
'Ultimately though some of the alternative search providers do not profile users and provide more privacy options for consumers.'
The Google Search users who will be looking for new ideas with the greatest urgency will be micro business owners and those in highly competitive markets, such as cafes, restaurants, hairdressers and tradespeople.
'We don't know what would happen, we're trying to work that out,' says Peter Strong, CEO of the Council of Small Business.
'Small businesses usually just get someone to do this for them and then forget about it. Well if Google pulls out, they're gone.
'How would people find a local hairdresser, or plumbing business, cafes, or delivery businesses? Of course they will start using other search engines, but this will cause a lot of uncertainty.'
'There could be health impacts too. What if you order your medicines online or need to get your wheelchair fixed?'
Ms Corbin agrees: "Australians would be able to adjust to using alternative services.'
'However, there are still many questions to be answered about what the future of the internet in Australia would look like if Google and Facebook follow through on these threats, such as how small businesses who depend on Google Ads in search will be affected.'
Mr Lewis agrees business will struggle, but will find other ways to reach their audiences - 'maybe even back through to news organisations.'
While it seems unlikely that news organisations could end up recommencing large scale online classifieds as a solution - the loss of which sunk the business models that newspapers operated for decades - things change quickly online.
News organisations are already building search and aggregation tools for bona fide news sites - such as Daily Mail's Newzit - have also sprung up in recent times that could meet a demand for fact-based news services.
Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, at Curtin University, says contrary to some reports, Facebook is not threatening to shut down the News Feed for Australians.
What is proposed is worse than that, Mr Leaver says.
'If you drop a link to an interesting news article into your post it wouldn't work. Information from unverified sources would start to clutter up the feed - that's a significant shift away from verified information.
'To me that is a huge issue. Facebook is already fighting a war against disinformation and it is not winning, the likes of 5G and Covid conspiracies.'
'Without credible sources to counter that Facebook could become even more of a cesspool for misinformation,' Mr Leaver says.
So where can people go for news - apart from the obvious choices of news websites and news aggregation sites?
It is likely that news will migrate in greater volumes to other social media platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram - which carried virtually no news until the last couple of years.
Ultimately, Mr Lewis doesn't think the threats by Google and Facebook will work: 'By threatening to leave by attempting to block users, they've backed themselves into a corner.' 'Unless they have a master plan I'm not seeing, I cant see how this ends with them getting what they want.'
'Google and Facebook need to come to the table in good faith,' Ms Corbin says.
'We saw Google recently agree to a copyright framework agreement with French publishers that required them to pay news publishers for their online content, so the idea of a deal is not incomprehensible to these tech giants.'
Mr Lewis says it's important to note that the News Media Bargaining Code is the first of several major changes to the way information is shared online.
Major changes will follow soon relating to data privacy, the transparency of advertising and the spread of misinformation.
These changes are seen as more urgent since it became obvious that conspiracy theories - such as those surrounding COVID-19, QAnon, Brexit and the US election - were spreading quickly online.
Google has defended itself in statements posted to YouTube and available on the Google search page. It has also laid out its case in an open letter.
NSW walks away from Norfolk Island services, Queensland poised to take control
"We've heard that New South Wales wants to abandon their responsibilities there so we are very keen to have those further discussions with the Federal Government," she said.
The NSW Government has been running Norfolk Island's school and health system since the Federal Government revoked the island's self-ruling status in 2015. But that service contract expires in June.
"It's an issue we've been discussing with the Commonwealth for the past two or three years and something we feel strongly about, in terms of what needs to happen," NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
The NSW Government has committed to servicing the island, which is home to less than 2,000 people, until the end of this year.
The Federal Government is liaising with other states to secure an arrangement for next year and beyond.
The Norfolk Island Regional Council governs the territory — which was handed to Australia by the United Kingdom in 1914 — and is bankrolled by the Commonwealth.
However, NSW provides health and education funding at a cost of more than $32 million per year.
Norfolk Island's administrator, Eric Hutchinson said: "Both education and health services on the island are critical services, just as they are I think in any other community large or small around a big country."
While he would not speculate on who he thinks should take over the services contract, he admitted Queensland was a logical partner with three island flights operating out of Brisbane each week.
"We've seen many Australians visiting Norfolk Island for the first time, a very remote part of a big country and that's benefiting businesses here on the island and we hope that that will continue."
In a statement a spokesman for the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure said "the Australian Government is committed to the continuity of essential state services on Norfolk Island".
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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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26 January, 2021
My day
I have just got back from celebrating Australia day in the traditional manner -- with a family BBQ. My brother joined us. We had lamb chops, sausages, salad, various cheeses and Tasnmanian Pate. So the food was good.
We had most of the lunch under shade in the garden but adjourned to air conditioning for our Pavlova dessert
We discussed the ever-growing "Invasion Day" movement and wondered why they cannot have their day while we had ours. Each to his own, we said
But the motivation for the protests is actually clear. They smell money in it. It's an ever louder call for "reparations". They seem to think that can get yet more money from the government for people with any Aboriginal ancestry.
The fact that the governent already gives them various types of support that are not available to other Australians is ignored. Gratitude? You'd be joking. The existing payments have simply made them greedy for more.
They think that more noise will produce more money. But that is unlikely to happen. Whatever they got they would want more and that should be obvious to anyone. One of the reports below asked for a million dollars for each aborigine. The whole thing is just contemptible money grubbing -- JR
ABC kicks off Australia Day coverage with Aboriginal language national anthem - after it backed down on policy of calling Jan. 26 'Invasion Day'
The ABC has started their Australia Day coverage with a televised performance of the national anthem being sung in a local Aboriginal language - as the sails of the Opera House were lit up with indigenous art for the first time.
The WugulOra morning ceremony at Sydney's Barangaroo Reserve was broadcast live on the ABC on Tuesday, culminating in the singing of Advance Australia Fair.
The anthem was first sung in the Eora Sydney language by Aboriginal vocal performance group the KARI singers, which was followed by the English version.
Before dawn the sails of the Sydney Opera House had been lit up with an artwork from artist Frances Belle-Parker, a Yaegl woman from Maclean, northern NSW.
Her design was to represent the oldest living culture in the world.
Shortly after first light, the Aboriginal flag was also raised alongside the Australian flag just across the water from the spectacular artwork on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
As the country prepares for heatwave conditions for the day, marches are planned in many capital cities to advocate abolishing Australia Day and demand justice for First Nations people.
In Melbourne, an Invasion Day rally will go ahead despite the city's annual Australia Day parade being cancelled.
In Sydney, the NSW police minister has warned the thousands of people planning to march in protest that they face fines or imprisonment for violating COVID-19 public health orders.
Conservative lobby group Advance Australia said it planned to arrange for the words 'Aus Day' to be written in the sky above Sydney on Tuesday, to counter the 'Invasion Day rally'.
The country has again been embroiled in the annual debate about whether Australia Day's date should be changed or the name changed to Invasion Day.
As Australia woke up on January 26, the sun rose over the country's most famous building the Sydney Opera House spectacularly lit up with artwork in recognition of First Nations people
The wording of the Australian anthem was recently changed to replace 'for we are young and free' to 'for we are one and free' to take account of the long Aboriginal history on the continent.
The Eora Nation is the name given to the 29 Aboriginal clans that collectively make up the indigenous population of the Sydney Metropolitan Area. The word Eora means 'here' or 'from this place'.
WugulOra, meaning 'One Mob', was a ceremony on Australia Day to celebrate 'the world's oldest living culture through dance, music and language'.
The event honoured the traditional custodians of the land, the Gadigal people, and involved an ancient Smoking Ceremony, performances and talks from local Elders.
The ABC on Monday backed down on its policy of interchangeably using the terms 'Australia Day' and 'Invasion Day' after the government intervened,
The national broadcaster had published an online events guide using both terms to refer to the January 26 public holiday which commemorates the 1788 arrival in Sydney Cove of the First Fleet - a transportation of settlers, military, and convicts from Britain.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher attacked the use of the term by the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster. 'The ABC online article is incorrect about Australia Day,' he said on Monday.
'The name of our national day is well understood and supported, and for the ABC to suggest otherwise - that in some way Invasion Day is interchangeable with Australia Day - is clearly wrong.'
Hours later, the ABC issued a defensive statement regarding its policy.
'In light of some misreporting on this issue, to be abundantly clear: The ABC's policy is to use the term Australia Day, as it always has,' it said on Monday afternoon.
'As the editorial advice states, other terms can be used when they are appropriate in certain contexts. This does not mean they are used interchangeably.'
The ABC events guide on Sunday had described Australia Day as 'a contentious day for many' despite the national broadcaster's style guide recommending Australia Day as a 'default' terminology.
The initial article, which has now been amended, was titled 'Australia Day/Invasion Day 2021 events for Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin'.
Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt, meanwhile, acknowledged January 26 was a painful date for many Australians, but argued the day was an opportunity to reflect on the nation's story of reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Cricket Australia's decision to drop references to 'Australia Day' while promoting Big Bash League games also drew debate, with politicians and commentators weighing in.
Australia Day Arrests as police clash with Invasion Day protesters
Peaceful protests calling for a change to the January 26 Australia Day holiday turned ugly as police clashed with protesters and, on one occasion, a protester was forcefully removed by bikies.
Thousands gathered for Invasion Day protests in Australia’s capital cities and in regional centres.
After hours of speeches at the Domain in the Sydney CBD, where police told protesters they could gather but not march, a number of protesters were arrested.
In Canberra, a man wearing a Make America Great Again cap and waving an Australian flag was forcibly removed from an Invasion Day rally by three men in bikie colours.
As he drove away, the assembled crowd cheered.
In Melbourne, thousands marched from Parliament House down Bourke Street after a peaceful protest in which police refused to remove their hats, a stance in line with police procedure.
The clash between police and protesters at the Domain in Sydney followed a warning from police. “If you do the right thing, I’ll do the right thing,” an officer told an organiser as 3000 people gathered.
NSW Police said five people were arrested including an 18-year-old man who was not part of the gathering.
One man was charged with assaulting police and one woman was charged with hindering police in the execution of duty.
Two other men were each fined $1000 and released.
Earlier, in the Sydney suburb of Newtown, a fresh mural painted by acclaimed street artist Scott Marsh emerged at first light.
It shows Scott Morrison dressed as Captain James Cook next to two words, “Captain Cooked”, and the hashtag #ChangeTheDate.
A speaker at the Sydney event, Gwenda Stanley, told a crowd of more than 500 people that it was time Indigenous Australians were given proper reparations. “A million dollars for each black person,” she said.
“Don’t be fooled by the Uluru statement from the arse. Let’s do reparations before treaty. A million dollars for each black person and than we can talk treaty.”
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mick Willing yesterday warned officers would not hesitate to ensure crowd numbers stayed under 500. “Do not come in and be part of that public gathering. Find another way to express your views and opinions,” he said.
“We are all aware that these are sensitive issues and they are very important issues to a lot of people, but we are still in the middle of a global pandemic and we’re asking people to abide by those health orders.”
Police will be able to issue on-the-spot fines upwards of $1000 but the penalty for breaching public health orders comes with a fine up to $11,000 and a six-month jail term.
The coronavirus pandemic this year saw Victorians unable to gather for an Australia Day rally because it was deemed a public health risk by the state government. But Melbourne City Council did approve an Invasion Day Dawn Service.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said the seated, 250-capacity service at Kings Domain was “a way of supporting an event that reflects that ancient Australian history”.
The January 26 public holiday has in recent years seen thousands of Australians take to the streets to protest against Australia’s national holiday.
Thousands have gathered outside Parliament House in Melbourne for a demonstration where a minute of silence was observed. Huge crowds are also peacefully protesting in Brisbane.
Organisers of the Sydney protest told news.com.au 3000 people turned up. “They allowed us to occupy the Domain and for the event to go ahead so long as there was a no marching so that wasn’t the compromise,” Ian Brown said.
Mr Brown, a Gomeroi man from Moree, said the Uluru Statement from the Heart which proposed a voice to parliament, was not the answer. “The statement doesn’t do enough. They have this idea the statement is a grassroots movement. There was no consultation done on my homelands.
The Invasion Day rallies call for, among other things, a changing of the date to reflect the fact that for some it represents more than the beginning of British colonialism when the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove in 1788.
They want it to be moved because that same date represents the “continued genocide of Aboriginal people”.
One of the key figures in the NSW Black Lives Matter movement has told news.com.au changing the date of Australia Day from January 26 will not be enough.
Paul Silva is the nephew of David Dungay Jr, a Dunghutti man from Kempsey, who died in prison custody in 2015.
“I’m here to demand the abolishment of Australia Day. It’s not significant to us as First Nations people. Over 250 years ago the First Fleet come in and murdered, raped and stole children of our ancestors.”
Mr Silva said the whole day needed to be abolished. “Changing the date is not going to make a difference in my view. “That we allow Australia to celebrate a day when murders and criminal activity took place is just appalling.”
Mr Silva also hit out at Prime Minister Scott Morrison who last week stoked controversy by suggesting that those who arrived on the First Fleet didn’t have a “flash day” either. “Him making comments like that is just appalling. He basically condones what happened when the First Fleet come here.”
Lidia Thorpe, the first Indigenous woman in Victorian parliament, is using her platform to call for change. On Twitter, she wrote: “Too many Australians still think January 26 is a day of celebration, but for Aboriginal people across this country, it’s a Day of Mourning.
“That’s why I’m inviting communities, councils and organisations to fly the Aboriginal flag at half-mast on #InvasionDay.”
Invasion Day protests have been planned for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Newcastle, Rockhampton, Lismore, Albury and Lithgow
Trade bully tactics fail as Australia's exports to China SURGE by 21 per cent in just one month - with wheat exports soaring to a record high despite tariffs
They can't do without our iron ore
Australia's exports to China surged by 21 per cent in just one month despite the nasty trade war with its biggest trading partner.
In December alone, almost $35billion worth of Australian goods and services were sent overseas, as the Communist power bought substantially more iron ore to make steel for its Covid recovery.
China's 80 per cent tariffs on barley have also done nothing to dent the agricultural sector, with other markets buying Australian cereals.
Last month, barley exports tripled while wheat exports surged to a record high as Russia battled a drought.
The China trade spat has clearly failed with Australian exports to China surging by 21 per cent in December to $13.3billion.
China bought 38 per cent of Australia's $34.9billion worth of exports
The monthly trade surplus of $8.956billion was the fourth highest on record
Chinese demand for iron ore saw exports of this commodity surge 21 per cent
Wheat exports hit a record high as Russia drought boosted demand from Saudi Arabia
China bought 38.2 per cent of Australia's overall exports of $34.9billion - which rose by 16.3 per cent, Australian Bureau of Statistics trade data showed.
Australia's monthly trade surplus also stood at $8.956billion - the fourth highest on record - as the value of imports fell nine per cent to $25.971billion.
'Exports of metalliferous ores and cereals are the strongest in history, resulting in the fourth highest goods trade surplus on record,' the ABS's head of international statistics Katie Hutt said.
China's insatiable demand for iron ore, the commodity from Western Australia used to make steel, soared by $2.2billion, or 21 per cent, in December to $12.5billion as Brazil continued to struggle with production.
Even more bizarrely, barley exports last month rose by $182 million, or 254 per cent, despite China in May imposing 80 per cent tariffs on the cereal in retaliation at Prime Minister Scott Morrison's April call for an inquiry into the origins of Covid.
That first round of trade intimidation sparked a December complaint to the World Health Organisation from former trade minister Simon Birmingham.
Saudi Arabia last month bought 42 per cent of Australia's barley exports as Russia, the world's biggest wheat exporter, suffered from a drought.
Australian wheat exports surged 423 per cent in December.
'December exports of cereals was the largest on record,' the ABS said.
'Favourable growing conditions in Australia, coupled with less favourable conditions in other wheat growing regions such as Russia has driven demand for Australian wheat to record highs.'
Despite the good news, Oxford Economics senior economist Sean Langcake said more Australian exports were vulnerable to more trade sanctions from China.
'Given these disputes are far from resolved, trade barriers could be in place for quite some time and may broaden to include other goods,' he said.
Oxford Economics concluded that while resources exports had a low vulnerability score, more rural exporters could be in danger if China could source them from other markets.
'A particular export is more vulnerable if China is a relatively important market (for Australia and globally) and/or if Australia is a relatively small supplier (to China and globally), which would allow China to substitute to supply from elsewhere,' Mr Langcake said.
Mr Morrison on Monday said he was prepared to meet President Xi Jinping to resolve the trade dispute provided China didn't demand concessions.
'We will remain absolutely open and available to meet, to discuss, any of the issues that have been identified,' he said.
'But those discussions won't take place on the base of any sort of preemptive concessions on Australia's part on those matters.'
Even before the Covid pandemic, China was upset with Australia over its decision in August 2018 to ban Huawei from installing 5G mobile networks.
In February 2019, Chinese customs authorities delayed shipments of Australian coal at its Dalian port to send a message. Similar tactics were tried in 2020 with Australian coal shipments.
China has also stymied Australian exports of timber, lobster, lamb and cotton as part of its intimidation tactics despite in 2015 signing the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement eliminating tariffs and trade barriers.
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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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25 January, 2021
The luckiest country: Australia goes a WEEK with zero coronavirus cases across the entire nation
Australia has gone a week without a single community transmission of Covid-19, as other nations across the world continue to buckle under the strain of the virus and its ever changing and increasingly dangerous mutations.
While a day without any local cases may seem impossible for other countries battling the virus, for Australia it is slowly becoming the new normal.
But experts are now fearing the Australian government has backed the wrong horse when it comes to vaccines, after not putting in a single order for the highly-effective Moderna jab - which is 94.1 per cent effective.
Instead, the government has bought 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and only enough of the equally effective Pfizer jab to protect five million Australians.
NSW recorded three Covid-19 cases on Sunday all of which are in hotel quarantine, meaning the infected are returning citizens, after the state contained recent outbreaks in the Northern Beaches and Berala in Sydney's west.
In Victoria, the state has gone an incredible 18 days without a single community transmission case following fears the Northern Beaches cluster would completely ruin their long standing streak after it spread across the border.
After enduring a hard three-day lockdown in Brisbane, Queensland also recorded zero new cases of Covid-19.
The rest of the country have continued to record no community transmission as the virus is once again under control.
There is now a total of just 129 active cases of Covid-19 nationally with the rest in hotel quarantine as Australians enjoys some normalcy ahead of a vaccine rollout in February.
Most Australians will have the AstraZeneca vaccine and others will have access to Novavax, with just five million citizen getting Pfizer.
Moderna, of which Australia has zero orders for, and Pfizer have proved to be the most effective in clinical trials.
The reason for the government's failure to secure a Moderna order has been shrouded in mystery, with the nation's top doctor Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly only hinting that the company had been unwilling.
In the meantime, beaches around the country were packed over the weekend with restrictions eased many weeks ago, in stark comparison to the strict lockdowns experienced across Europe.
Many of Australia's close partners, including the UK and the US, are recording huge numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths.
In the past 24 hours, the United Kingdom recorded a massive 33,652 new Covid-19 cases and has suffered a total 97,518 deaths.
The situation is even more dire in the United States, where its Centre for Disease Control predicts there will be 465,000 to 508,000 total COVID-19 deaths by February 13. So far, 417,000 deaths have been attributed to the deadly respiratory virus.
Brazil recorded almost double that of the UK total with 62,334 cases in the past 24 hours and a total of 216,445 deaths since the pandemic began.
ABC ‘clearly wrong’ on Australia Day call, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher says
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said “the ABC has clearly got this wrong”, referencing the national broadcaster’s publication of an article yesterday on its website about events being held on January 26.
The piece was headlined Australia Day/Invasion Day 2021 events, sparking upset among some Coalition MPs and conservative commentators.
The piece said January 26 was “one of the most polarising dates on the Australian calendar”.
However the ABC is sticking to its guns, saying while Australia Day is its “default terminology”, a “variety of terms” describe January 26 and “it would be inappropriate to mandate staff use any one term over others in all contexts”.
ABC personality Shaun Micallef said referring to protests as “Australia Day events” would have been inaccurate.
A prominent Indigenous activist has accused politicians of playing the “race card” against Aboriginal Australians, which he claims happens in the run to every Australia Day.
Many Indigenous Australians bristle at the date as it marks the arrival of the First Fleet from Britain, an event which led to many Aboriginal people being killed in massacres and suffering other ill treatment at the hands of colonisers.
Others argue the day marks the foundation of modern Australia and the freedoms enjoyed by all.
A new poll published today found fewer than one-third of Australians support shifting the day from January 26.
The ABC article listed celebrations held under the Australia Day banner as well as demonstrations billed as Invasion Day – hence the use of both terms in the headline.
“The name of our national day is well understood and supported, and for the ABC to suggest otherwise – that in some way Invasion Day is interchangeable with Australia Day – is clearly wrong,” Mr Fletcher said.
He added that the name Australia Day was used in legislation and was “reflected in the usage of the overwhelming majority of Australians”.
He conceded the public broadcaster had editorial independence but he urged it to “correct this inaccurate article” and to “be impartial”.
New South Wales Police Minister David Elliott also chimed in, saying it was “breathtakingly irresponsible” to even highlight that Invasion Day rallies were taking place.
Planned protests are not officially sanctioned due to COVID-19 restrictions that prohibit mass gatherings on health grounds.
“If you’ve ever wanted evidence that the ABC are out of touch with reality then yesterday was exactly the case,” Mr Elliott told Sydney radio station 2GB.
Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt said January 26 should be referred to as Australia Day.
“This Australia Day we should walk together, side-by-side, as one to reflect, respect and celebrate all that makes us Australian – Indigenous and non-Indigenous,” he said.
Indigenous leader and one-time Liberal Party candidate Warren Mundine said the history of January 26 wasn’t in dispute, but Australia should “stop focusing on things that divide us (and) focus on the real issues and making them better”.
That wasn’t a view shared by prominent Indigenous activist Dr Stephen Hagan, who was behind the long-running and ultimately successful campaign to have Coon cheese renamed.
He told news.com.au he was “100 per cent” in favour of the ABC’s decision to use both Australia Day and Invasion Day.
“I support using both terms if for no other reason that it keeps up the conversation which leads to truth telling,” Dr Hagan said.
“When people say the ABC shouldn’t use the term Invasion Day, what they are saying is they do not support Aboriginal people”.
Dr Hagan noted that New Zealand’s national day, Waitangi Day, marked the signing of a treaty between Britain and the local Maori population which established the modern nation, rather than the day UK forces arrived in Kiwi shores.
Mr Hagan accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack for using the “race card” with their comments leading up to Australia Day.
“From the PM’s stupid and pathetic comments about the condition of (those in the First Fleet) to McCormack making a reference to all lives matter, they always use the race card – they never miss a beat”.
Labor’s Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Linda Burney also supported the ABC’s use of different terms for the day depending on what was being referred too.
The ABC did not respond to Minister Fletcher’s comments that the article was “incorrect”. But in an earlier statement it defended its use of several names for January 26. “The default terminology for the ABC remains ‘Australia Day’.
“We also recognise and respect that community members use other terms for the event, including ‘26 January’, ‘Invasion Day’ and ‘Survival Day, so our reporting and coverage reflect that.”
The broadcaster said that the term “Invasion Day” was not interchangeable with “Australia Day,” but rather was used in the context of events that are billed as such.
It added that both the Macquarie and Australian Oxford dictionaries listed “Invasion Day” and “Survival Day” as “roughly synonymous” with “Australia Day” particularly for Indigenous Australians.
“Given the variety of terms in use, and the different perspectives on the day that the ABC is going to cover over the course of the long weekend, it would be inappropriate to mandate staff use any one term over others in all contexts.”
Andrew Bolt: No Australia Day will satisfy activists determined to imagine Australia as an illegitimate state
Sky News host Andrew Bolt asks how trashing Australia and its history helps anyone move on and says “it just keeps us stuck in the past”. Mr Bolt said “terrible things happened but look around us, a hell of a lot of good…
Fine, change the date of Australia Day from January 26. Let race activists — even Cricket Australia — pick any other they prefer. I’ll happily go along with that if they agree to a deal: to then also celebrate the creation of this great country.
Think that will happen?
Trouble is, too many activists are against not just the date of Australia Day, the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet, but against the very idea of this nation.
That’s why no concession seems to work — not the apologies, the kneeling, the “barefoot circles’, the “welcome to country”, the smoking ceremonies, the acknowledgement of country, or even the $30bn a year of Aboriginal welfare spending.
The goalposts just get moved, and rage and division grow.
Just weeks ago we saw again how this no-win game plays out, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison decided, on his own, to change words of our national anthem from “young and free” to “one and free”. He said he’d bought the (false) claim “young and free” was offensive because it suggested there was no Aboriginal history before whites arrived.
But have the activists who once refused to sing our “racist” anthem now started to belt it out?
As if. Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe, who identifies as Aboriginal, sneered that changing “one word” would make no real difference, and the head of Sydney’s Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council said we actually needed a whole new anthem to “reflect the true identity of Australia rather than, in my words, a very terrible past”.
Labor frontbencher Linda Burney, who was raised by her great aunt and uncle, of Scottish descent, but identifies as Aboriginal through her father, simply demanded more concessions — such as changing our constitution so people with Aboriginal ancestors get a race-based advisory parliament.
Others now push for more changes to our anthem to get this elusive “unity”. They want a verse sung in one of the 300 or more Aboriginal languages.
But when the Wallabies decided last year to sing the national anthem in two languages before their game against Argentina, that wasn’t enough, either.
Latrell Mitchell, one of the NRL indigenous stars, raged: “When will people understand that changing it to language doesn’t change the meaning!”
An Australian anthem would not represent him in any language, because he was Aboriginal: “Understand what you’re being proud of. I stand for us, our mob!”
MITCHELL, at least, is honest about the real end game for many race activists.
Their problem is not with a few words in the anthem, the Union Jack in our flag, or holding Australia Day on January 26.
Their problem is with history. With Australia itself. With the creation of an essentially European nation on what was Aboriginal land.
This is why Australia Day is denounced as a “day of shame”, too embarrassing now for Cricket Australia to even mention in Mondays’s three Big Bash games.
This is why Tarneen Onus-Williams, an organiser of a big Australia Day protest in Melbourne three years ago, shouted, “F. k Australia” and “I hope it burns to the ground”.
This is why actor and playwright Nakkiah Lui screamed in front of an applauding ABC audience: “F. k whitey! Shit on your colonisation … Burn this place to the ground!”
This is why so many of our guilty-white — like writer Bruce Pascoe — prefer to call themselves Aboriginal, even when they have no known Aboriginal ancestors.
This rejection of Australia is now pushed by the ABC, our reckless national broadcaster, which on Sunday groaned: “For those whose history is being denied (on Australia Day), this isn’t a war of words, but an exhausting yearly exercise in defending the pain of their existence … Those are people who cannot cheer for a country that was built on the dispossession and loss of their people.”
No Australia Day will ever satisfy activists determined to imagine Australia as an illegitimate state that makes all Aboriginal Australians feel a constant “pain of their existence”.
What do they imagine will fix things? Evicting all non-Aborigines? A new apartheid, with different voting rights or homelands for different races? Forcing non-Aborigines to constantly apologise for their very presence?
Where is reconciliation if Australia is divided by race?
Right now, “reconciliation” is a fraud we should confront.
So, fine, let’s change the date of Australia Day. But only when activists agree that they, too, will then celebrate with our flag and our national anthem. That would be a brilliant deal.
I am genuine in wanting unity. Are they?
Postgraduate enrolments soar as jobseekers wait out competitive market at university
Australians are enrolling in postgraduate university courses in numbers tipped to reach record highs.
Max Kaplan hadn't had any luck landing a job after completing his engineering degree at the University of New South Wales.
Throughout 2020, he applied for several jobs a week, but to no avail.
"It was a little bit crushing at times when I was facing rejection after rejection," Mr Kaplan said. "You go through five years of uni, a year of work, and still can't find anything … it feels like you've wasted your time."
Despite graduating with honours from a university placed third in the nation for employment, he is now preparing to study a masters of mechatronic engineering at the University of Melbourne.
He believed further specialisation was the best way to spend the next two years while the job market bounces back. "I'm trying to wait out the bad job market and hopefully find myself in a bit of a better place," he said.
Postgraduate courses, on average, cost more than $20,000. "It's a risk I'm willing to take," Mr Kaplan said.
Last year, enrolments in postgraduate study rose sharply across the country.
The universities with the highest growth in enrolments for specialised courses included:
University of New South Wales — 26 per cent
James Cook University — 20 per cent
University of Queensland — 19 per cent
Charles Sturt University — 18 per cent
University of Melbourne — 13 per cent
Curtin University — 10 per cent
Professor Andrew Norton researches higher education policy at the Australian National University and said enrolments historically rose when the economy suffered. "In recessions more people look for education because it's harder to find a job," Mr Norton said.
The official unemployment rate has fallen by 0.9 per cent since its 7.5 per cent peak in July 2020. More than 900,000 Australians remain out of work.
Mr Norton expected university enrolments to hit record highs in 2021. "People with postgraduate qualifications generally do better than those with bachelor degrees, regardless of their subject areas," he said.
In northern NSW, Elizabeth Rose has returned to university to upskill after taking a three-year break from working as a counsellor. The 60-year-old has enrolled in a Graduate Diploma of Psychology at James Cook University in Queensland.
The university is forecasting a 24 per cent increase in both undergraduate and postgraduate enrolments this year.
"I just want to do something … I need to get my brain into gear and investigate more issues," Ms Rose said.
She saw an opportunity to boost her income and fill a gap in mental health support in the regional town of Grafton - a need she said had been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
"There aren't that many psychologists in town, and people are waiting sometimes four and five months to get in," she said.
She said age was not a barrier to achieving her career goals.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-25/postgraduate-enrolments-spike-during-pandemic/13057628
************************************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)
***************************************
24 January, 2021
Man who strained his back picking up company car keys will receive workers compensation
How on earth is the employer responsible for this? Is the employer responsible for damage that he does to himself while he performs an everyday task? If he was acting on the instructions of his employer it would make sense. But he clearly was not. He was making a private decision about a private matter
It's all an instance of the courts assisting people to target those who have deep pockets. If some one suffers in some way, lawyers look around for someone who is even tangentially involved and puts the reponsibility on him if he has significant resources. And judges allow that.
Liability is not dermined by guilt or responsibility but by ability to pay
A tribunal found the link between his work and his journey to work meant his injury was compensable
The South Australian Employment Tribunal has ruled that Robert Thelan, a works coordinator for SA Power Networks, must be compensated for the injury.
Mr Thelan was on call at home, on September 9, 2019, when he received a text message asking him to attend a job to fix a power line.
He got dressed for work and went out to the company Ford Ranger in his driveway, and sat down in the drivers' seat.
Mr Thelan accidentally dropped the keys to the four-wheel-drive ute onto the driveway, according to the judgment of Deputy President Judge Miles Crawley.
Staying in the seat, 90 centimetres above the ground, he leaned out the driver's side door to pick them up, straining his back in the process.
He drove to the Port Pirie SA Power Networks depot and reported the injury, and was taken to hospital soon after.
He was subsequently unable to work and incurred medical expenses, but SA Power Networks rejected his compensation claim.
The company, which builds and maintains the state's electricity infrastructure, argued that the injury "did not arise from employment and employment was not a significant contributing cause of the injury".
SA Power Networks said Mr Thelan was "merely undertaking activity preparatory to undertaking duties of employment".
But he submitted that his injury did occur when he was carrying out his duties of employment, and that he therefore deserved compensation.
Under his employment agreement, he started getting paid when he began his journey to a job, and he was required to use a company vehicle to get there.
In 2019, another judge had found that there needed to be a "real and substantial connection between the employment and the accident" as well as "a real and substantial connection between the employment and the journey" for an injury to be compensable.
But in this week's case, Judge Crawley said Judge Brian Gilchrist was wrong in his decision.
"I find that it is not a prerequisite to compensability that there be a real and substantial connection between the accident and the employment," the judgement reads.
SA Power Networks declined to comment.
New nuclear treaty will be 'ineffective': DFAT
Australia says a new United Nations nuclear treaty signed by more than 80 countries will be ineffective in eliminating nuclear weapons from the world.
The Morrison government has not signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which comes into effect on Friday.
The treaty, signed by 86 countries, bans signatories from testing, developing, producing, stockpiling or threatening to use nuclear weapons.
The Australian government decided not to sign the treaty on the basis that it failed to recognise the realities of the current international security environment.
Government sources confirmed there was concern about how the treaty would affect Australia’s dealings with the United States, including intelligence sharing through the Pine Gap satellite surveillance base near Alice Springs, because it banned signatories from doing anything to assist a nuclear weapon state in its nuclear plans.
New Zealand, which is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement with the US, Australia, Canada and Britain, has signed the treaty.
As a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed in 1968, Australia is already prohibited from manufacturing or acquiring nuclear weapons.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australia shared the view of many other countries that the treaty “will be ineffective in eliminating nuclear weapons”.
“Australia is committed to the goal of a peaceful, secure world free of nuclear weapons, pursued in an effective, pragmatic and realistic way,” the DFAT spokesman said.
“Our long-held focus is on progressing nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament through a progressive, practical approach that engages all states, especially nuclear weapon states, in the process”.
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said Labor welcomed the treaty.
"After taking into account the need to ensure an effective verification and enforcement architecture, the interaction of the treaty with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and achieve universal support, a Labor government would sign and ratify the treaty," she said.
"Australia can and should lead international efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. A Labor government would work with our allies and partners to this end and would always act consistently with the US alliance."
Helen Durham, director for international law and policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross, said all countries should sign the treaty as it was the “most explicit and clearest expression that the horrific weapons need to be banned”.
“It deals not only with their use but also with their threat of use, with their stockpiling, with their production, with their development and their testing,” she said.
“This treaty is a great opportunity to move a very stagnated, to date, agenda forward and we would encourage every state to take up this opportunity.”
Dave Sweeney, co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said the treaty was a “sign of hope for our planet”.
“The changed status of nuclear weapons means Australia faces a clear choice,” he said. “We either choose to be a responsible and lawful member of the global community or we remain silent and complicit in plans to fight illegal wars.”
Two alarming assaults on your freedom by a government that spruiks liberty
Coalition politicians who champion Donald Trump’s right to free speech have passed numerous laws making it a serious criminal offence to exercise this right in Australia. Labor parliamentarians have also helped pass laws criminalising speech that’s clearly in the public interest or simply innocuous.
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison was invited at a recent press conference to condemn far-right conspiracy theories promoted by government members such as George Christensen, he refused. He also defended another Liberal backbencher, Craig Kelly, who has undermined the government’s health message by spreading false information about COVID-19. At the time, Morrison said: “There’s such a thing as freedom of speech in this country and that will continue.”
In fact, there are severe constraints on free speech in Australia, more so than in North America or Western Europe.
The Coalition government’s 2018 security laws make it an offence to leak, receive or report a wide range of "information, of any kind, whether true or false and whether in a material form or not, and includes (a) an opinion and (b) a report of a conversation". Another clause makes it a serious crime to say anything that harms "Australia’s foreign relations, including political, military, and economic relations". Even if ministers should sometimes be circumspect, other people should be free to criticise any country without resorting to disinformation.
Jail sentences for some offences can be 15 or more years, even when little genuine harm results. There is no recognition that leaked information has never killed anyone in Australia. In contrast, secret intelligence generated by Australia and its allies has led to innocent people, including children, being killed in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Parliamentarians have endorsed the serious erosion of core liberties over recent years. The rot set in when they abjectly acquiesced in the Australian Federal Police’s raid on Parliament House in 2016, with police accessing IT systems and seizing thousands of non-classified documents to search for the source of leaks to a Labor opposition frontbencher. The leaks revealed problems with rising costs and delays in the National Broadband Network – information that should have been public.
In an earlier era, ASIO and the AFP would never tap phones in Parliament House, let alone raid an institution at the pinnacle of Australia’s democratic system. The Parliament should have found the AFP in contempt. Instead, the politicians squibbed it and the AFP was emboldened.
Last July, after a protracted investigation, the AFP recommended charging an ABC journalist Dan Oaks, co-author of the 2017 series "The Afghan Files", which exposed alleged war crimes committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan. In October, the prosecutor declined to proceed. The law should clearly state the AFP should not conduct an extensive pursuit of a journalist who was unambiguously acting in the public interest.
Undeterred, the Morrison government is pushing for more powers that undermine free speech and civil liberties. Its International Production Orders bill would give ASIO and the AFP the right to order communications providers in "like-minded" countries to produce any electronic data they request and remove encryption. One downside is that the FBI and a wide range of American law-enforcement and security bodies will have reciprocal rights to access private data held by Australian people and corporations. A big stumbling block is that the US law, called the CLOUD Act, prohibits other countries accessing American data if they have weaker privacy and civil liberties protections than the US. Australia falls into that category. The protection in European countries is even stronger than in the US.
In a bold move, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton last month introduced a bill creating extraordinary new powers to affect a wide range of people, not just paedophiles as the government claims. The bill covers all crimes with a jail sentence of three or more years. This includes whistleblowers and journalists and innocent people expressing an opinion that falls foul of foreign influence laws.
If passed by our politicians, Dutton's bill will give the AFP and Australia’s Criminal Intelligence Commission the ability to covertly take over a person’s online account to gather evidence of a crime. Even more disturbingly, they will have an unprecedented “data disruption power” to add, copy, delete or alter data on the internet.
Law Council president Pauline Wright described the proposed powers as extraordinary. She said allowing a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to issue “disruption warrants” is of “particular concern” – only superior court judges should be able to make such orders.
Both these proposed new powers should be severely curtailed. No Australian government should be able to destroy individuals’ online data without a court finding them guilty of a crime. Nor should foreign security agencies be allowed to access Australians’ private information under the US Cloud Act.
Hurrah for Mark Latham
Bettina Arndt
Now, here’s some positive news for a change. Mark Latham has achieved a real breakthrough in his role heading up an inquiry into Higher Education for the NSW Parliament. The inquiry’s final report, tabled today, includes Recommendation 36 which seeks to abolish the kangaroo courts in NSW universities.
Here’s what it actually says:
That the NSW Government ensure the rule of law and the processes of the NSW criminal justice system are respected by universities in dealing with alleged sexual offences. Universities must use the NSW Police as their first and most important point of reference in dealing with any allegation of the law being broken, in all instances, for all allegations. In particular, NSW universities must respect the presumption of innocence and not create their own ‘Kangaroo Court’ and tribunal processes that circumvent the rules and standards of natural justice established at law by the NSW Parliament. The NSW Government should establish a legal protocol for universities to follow in this regard and, if universities chose to ignore or breach it, the protocol should be legislated as mandatory for NSW universities.
This is the first time an Australian government has been asked to take action on the appalling system for adjudicating sexual assault in our universities, which usurps criminal law and denies accused students their legal rights.
That’s pretty exciting and it was good to see the submission from our Campus Justice group featuring prominently in the report. (See p80 - 81, 6.47- 6.49)
Next step is the report will be considered by Cabinet – which is where you come in. We must get a heap of letters into Cabinet Ministers to give them the backbone to follow this through. See here – a draft letter you can use to urge each Cabinet Minister to ensure action on this issue, plus email addresses of the ones we want to lobby.
So that’s your first task for 2021 – just a few minutes of your time to make sure we tip the balance on this critical issue. After the End Rape on Campus activists’ efforts to destroy me last year, I’m even more determined not to let these wicked witches win. But I need your help.
Coercive control inquiry closing next week
Mark Latham has put out a plea for more submissions to the NSW Coercive Control inquiry – the deadline is Jan 29 so that is coming up very soon. The feminists are swamping the inquiry with letters/submissions urging this to be added to the armory women can use to destroy the men in their lives. And they are out in force massaging public opinion to show women are never really perpetrators.
Look at this research by Melbourne University academics suggesting women never use force without having good reason – like a controlling husband. “There is only so much a person can take. Everyone has a breaking point,” they quote one woman who ended up in a violence program after breaking a window. She admitted she was intoxicated, “using alcohol to help with the fear and anxiety.” We won’t tolerate excuses for violence from men but with women it is different, of course.
I’ve been looking at some fascinating statistics from the UK. There were 24,845 coercive control incidents recorded in England and Wales in the year ending March 2020. But that resulted in only 305 convictions, 301 men and 4 women. That ratio is hardly a surprise. The coercive control legislation is supposed to be gender-neutral but most men are reluctant to see themselves as victims and know if they complain they are unlikely to be taken seriously by police and the legal system.
So here we have this flood of complaints chewing up valuable police time but most come to nothing due to either women withdrawing their complaints or difficulty providing evidence for nebulous crimes like economic abuse, “invasive surveillance”, “gaslighting” and “denying freedom”.
We certainly don’t need this nonsense adding a huge burden on our own stretched legal system.
That’s why I need you all to do another little job for me – and for the men of NSW. Here's the link to make a submission and here is background information you can use to object to new legislation on coercive control. At minimum you can just write a few sentences, or a paragraph or two.
We’ve allowed so much of our legal system to be weaponized against men. Here’s a chance stop it getting any worse.
************************************
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 January, 2021
Google, Facebook think they are above Australian law
The editorial below is rather over the top. No matter how big it gets, a private company has little power over a sovereign state. And in this case the media companies' response to the threatened Australian legislation is mostly bluff. There are many alternatives to social media companies and the idea that anybody has to rely on Google et al. for their news is laughable. There are more news sites around the world than you could poke a stick at. Russian news site RT in particular delights in putting up stories that are little covered in the West.
And even search is far from a monopolized function. Bing, Duckduckgo and Yahoo are well established alternatives. Anybody who finds the offering of a major media company suddenly missing will quickly learn to log on to an alternative site.
And precisely that will cause Google et al. to back down. They would be very allergic to a loss of business to their competitors
The threats and bullyboy behaviour of Google and Facebook yesterday tore away any last facade hiding the tech titans’ true nature as virtual rogue states who consider themselves immune to fair law or regulation.
Both companies’ appalling tactics will be of deep concern to thinking Australians – who are the ultimate victims.
Over several years the several million Australians who use these platforms have become increasingly suspicious and disturbed at the way tech giants wield their power without any responsibility; from allowing the publication and distribution of extremist and harmful content and the proliferation of fake news, failing to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, and manipulating audiences at the end of their algorithms.
Yesterday both companies proved once and for all they believe they should not be answerable to the rule of law.
Before a Senate hearing examining a proposed code of conduct which will for the first time make the digital behemoths pay news organisations for the content which helps drive their superprofits, Google threatened to remove its search engine from Australia in retaliation.
It’s a crucial moment in time: Australia wants to apply a simple – and small – set of reins but both tech giants want to gallop away, unfettered by regulation or scrutiny.
The threat to withdraw Google Search follows on from Google’s decision a few weeks ago to hide some Australian news sites from its search results – a move interpreted in several quarters as another retaliation against an Australian government backing the payment proposal.
Google is now the third technology company behind Apple and Microsoft to exceed a value of One Trillion US dollars, putting it ahead of a few successful western countries when compared to their wealth as measured in GDP.
Independent Senator Rex Patrick has compared the company, which in a burst of idealism once incorporated into its mission statement the phrase, “don’t be evil,’’ to the oppressive leadership of China.
“Google’s behaviour is straight out of the Chinese Communist Party’s playbook, and it’s not appreciated,” Senator Patrick said.
Senator Patrick, who along with five other upper house colleagues was examining the merits of the proposed legislation, said he and his Senate colleagues took a dim view of Google’s threat to remove itself from the Australian market.
Senator Patrick, quite rightly, pointed out that Google was threatening to withdraw its service from the market place just as countries around the world were examining ways of sustaining public interest journalism.
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, also a member of the Senate committee at yesterday’s hearing, warned of the dangers of big companies amassing the sort of global power which he compared to the oil companies of the last century.
“Their power and market reach is such that there needs to be intervention to redress the imbalance.’’
Google and fellow travellers in the tech world such as Facebook have grown enormously rich in the past two decades partly because they can harvest data valuable to the world of marketing.
But what began in 1996 as a Stanford University research project has become such a corporate juggernaut that it is beginning to become apparent that Google believes it can dictate terms, and decide the rules, of a game which it believes it controls totally.
Executive director for Reset Australia, Chris Cooper, gave a wonderfully illustrative quote on how the company’s corporate maturity may not have kept pace with its financial growth.
“Today’s egregious threats show Google has the body of a behemoth, but the brain of brat,’’ he said. “When a private corporation tries to use its monopoly power to threaten and bully a sovereign nation, it’s a sure-fire sign that regulation is long overdue.’’
While slightly more restrained, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had a blunt view of the latest development, clearly indicating he would not be intimidated by Google’s threat to limit the nation’s access to Google Search.
“Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia,” the Prime Minister said. “And people who want to work with that in Australia – you’re very welcome. But we don’t respond to threats.”
This case has implications that go far beyond our shores. It is a true test of whether these global tech titans can be brought to heal or whether they are above the law and unanswerable to the people of Australia.
Coronavirus Qld: Hi-tech quarantine solution
The State Government is pushing ahead with controversial plans to establish quarantine camps in central Queensland and Toowoomba.
Dr Anseline, together with epidemiologists Professor Marylouise McLaws and Dr Henning Liljeqvist, is lobbying for a similar national scheme.
They said recent evidence suggested hotels were far from optimal for quarantine, as the virus could easily spread among guests and workers.
Dr Anseline said locking people up in hotel rooms for 14 days – often without fresh air or exercise – was having a huge impact on mental health.
He said while state and federal governments had done a great job thus far containing the virus, changes were needed as the pandemic dragged on.
“Hotels have been a stopgap solution, but we have to look at the medium and longer term because even with a vaccine, this virus could be with us for years,” he said.
“There are still tens of thousands of Australians waiting to return home, as well as overseas students and tourists hoping to travel to Australia again in the not-too-distant future once travel bans are lifted.
“We need to come up with safer, novel and more effective solutions, and we believe that new technology and processes, which can be overlaid on existing hotel quarantine protocols, are the answer.”
Under Hemisphere’s plan, overseas arrivals would be rapid-tested on arrival in Australia, with those testing positive housed in separate quarantine accommodation.
Those testing negative would be quarantined in single-level cabins with their own kitchens, outside CBDs but close to airports and hospitals. “This would reduce worker and guest transmission but also significantly improve mental health outcomes,” Dr Anseline said.
The plan also involves guests and staff wearing new hi-tech wristband trackers to monitor movements and vital signs. The wristbands could also be used for home quarantine, Dr Anseline said.
Quarantine facilities would have COVID marshals and on-site sewage testing.
Dr Anseline said masks should be compulsory on all flights and quarantine facility staff needed to be given special COVID-19 safety training.
Relocating to Queensland? Get in line, Sunshine state builders record four-fold rise in new home enquiries
A building company says the level of inquiry for new homes in south-east Queensland is "phenomenal," with a mass domestic migration apparently underway to the Sunshine State.
Metricon Queensland general manager Luke Fryer said new homes sales were up 80 per cent and the level of enquiry in local property had been extraordinary.
"The major relocation companies are quoting 400 per cent increases in quotes to people who are wanting pricing to relocate from Sydney and Melbourne up to the Gold Coast and Greater Brisbane," Mr Fryer said.
Interstate migration and government stimulus measures have helped boost new homes sales and building approvals across south-east Queensland, he said.
"We are seeing a significant increase in domestic migration.
"The level of enquiry and level of people committing to building a new home on the Gold Coast and south-east Queensland has really been phenomenal."
"I'd suggest some 80 to 90 per cent up year on year.
"It's been an extraordinarily positive result and response from Australians who do have certainty around their employment."
While trades and product supply pressures were currently manageable, Mr Fryer said they could become an issue later this year when more building approvals will be processed.
"Certainly trades will come under pressure in 2021, because there's only so many plumbers, so many brickies, so many electricians to go around at the moment."
'Absolutely the biggest boom'
Darryl Meehan director of Q Coast Homes said demand for renovations was unprecedented and unlike anything he had experienced in over 40 years. "The renovation sector is doing even better than the new home market, especially on the Gold Coast," Mr Meehan said. "I think that has just gone in absolutely the biggest boom … its [ever] been."
Mr Meehan said 2021 was looking very positive and the Federal Government's HomeBuilder and JobKeeper programs had saved the industry. "Every builder on the Gold Coast that was able to survive through the pandemic has had an increase in volume, I would say somewhere between 20 to 25 per cent."
Mr Meehan said interstate migration was putting pressure on property prices for existing homes too. "Any existing house that comes onto the market, it's not on the market for very long."
HomeBuilder figures show the grants have been most popular in Victoria, Queensland then NSW.
Mr Fryer said real estate agents have been inundated with eager buyers and many existing homes are being sold before they even hit the market. "They've got a book of buyers that have given them very clear instructions that if they find a property that fits their criteria to purchase it."
"Properties are selling before their listed for sale," Mr Fryer said. "In the olden days that would be sight unseen but now with modern technology with virtual walk throughs and the like, they're able to view the property digitally and they're purchasing."
Violent women are mad but violent men are bad
Bettina Arndt
Our captured media really showed their bias in the reporting on the tragedy at Tullamarine, in Melbourne where the bodies of a mother and three children were discovered last Thursday. The ABC led the charge, with their thinly veiled account which highlighted the fact that the father of the children was “assisting police with inquiries”. Using the classic journalist’s fake nod to fair reporting, the story mentioned that there was no history of family violence but then featured prominently a list of family violence support services bang in the middle of the article.
All the media stories waxed lyrical about this caring, protective mother who adored her children, and wasted few words on the devastated father who had called the police to report the tragedy. One report in The Australian suggested the father had been led away in handcuffs by police, which wasn’t true. He was apparently never really a suspect and certainly was not charged.
By the next day, police had released their conclusion that this was a murder/suicide perpetrated by the mother. Boy, did that take the wind out of the sails of these prejudiced reporters. Within two days the story was forgotten with only the occasional piece appearing, often featuring heart-wrenching letters written by schoolfriends of the little children. No one seems to want to write about this devoted father who has seen his entire family wiped out. No investigatory reporting on how and why this happened.
Now that we know the mother was the perpetrator, how come we see absolutely no reporting about exactly how these poor children were killed? If the father had been responsible, the media would have delighted in exposing grisly details of why crime scene cleaners were required at the house.
Naturally, most of the media isn’t interested in highlighting the fact that women are just as likely as men to commit filicide, killing their own children. Currently mothers are actually more likely to do so than fathers in Australia. But have a look at this telling piece from Denise Buiten, a sociology and social justice lecturer from Notre Dame – “Men and women kill their children in roughly equal numbers and we need to understand why.”
The answer is pretty simple, according to Buiten. When it comes to perpetrators of filicide, the women are mad and the men bad.
It’s all part of our biased justice system where the gender of the perpetrator influences the outcome from the moment a crime is reported.
Email: newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au
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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 January, 2021
Would-be Canberra car salesman wins $46k after tribunal finds he was discriminated against over road rage offences
A person with convictions for road rage is fit to be a car salesman?
A Canberra man has successfully sued the ACT Government for more than $46,000 after he was refused a car sales licence because of two prior road rage convictions.
Last week the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) found the ACT Commissioner for Fair Trading had discriminated against the man when they rejected his application for a motor vehicles sales licence in 2018.
The would-be car salesman successfully argued two "irrelevant" criminal convictions were used as basis to reject his application, which he said led to financial and emotional distress.
Road rage incidents
ACAT heard the man had applied for the licence in 2018, but two separate criminal convictions for property damage and assault showed up during a police record check.
The tribunal heard first offence took place in 2016 when the man hurled a small sledgehammer through the front windscreen of another driver's vehicle during a road rage incident.
The second conviction was from an incident two months later where the man spat in another driver's face during a dispute, resulting in a good behaviour bond.
The man told government staff in an email that he suffered from a permanent back injury and had suffered a deterioration in his mental and physical health in the lead up to the incidents.
"Metaphorically speaking, the overloaded ship had set sail and had now entered a storm en route to its destination," the man wrote. "As I reflect on the events and how I handled them, my only option at the time was to hang on to what I could as I embarked through this storm."
The man also claimed he had been "blinded by ego and pride" and had since addressed his behaviour. "I am no longer the invincible young brave man I used to be," he told Access Canberra staff.
"But the hardest battle for me has been to not allow the negative notions of the subsequent criminal records imposed on me to affect me mentally. "I have been a law-abiding citizen … Now I am labelled a criminal and have this stigma attached for the rest of my life."
ACAT heard after discovering the man's criminal record, the Commissioner for Fair Trading refused the man's application due to the seriousness and "nature" of his previous offending.
Senior ACAT Member Heidi Robinson found that amounted to discrimination, and awarded the man $46,766 in damages.
"The intention of the amendments to the Discrimination Act are clear: a person's criminal conviction should not ‘hound' them for their whole life, keep them out of employment, or cause them to be subject to discrimination," she wrote in her decision.
"I am satisfied that the applicant was treated unfavourably because of his irrelevant criminal record."
The government was also warned not to reject any of the man's future applications based on his criminal convictions.
Thousands of tutors register to help kids who fell behind due to coronavirus in Victorian schools
There's growing excitement about the start of the school year as Victorian public school students prepare to return to the classroom on January 28.
Some things will return to normal, like interschool sports and choir practise.
Other things will look very different as schools across the state hire thousands of tutors to help kids who fell behind during remote learning.
Overall, parents, teachers and students are feeling pretty "optimistic" about the new school year, said David Howes, the deputy secretary of Victoria's Department of Education and Training.
Teaching staff were exhausted at the end of the 2020 school year but after a well-deserved break they are "re-energized" and ready to go, he said.
"There's a fair bit of excitement around. There's a lot of enthusiasm just for getting back to school productions, school sport, school concerts — all of those things that were so very difficult last year," he said.
"People are pretty optimistic."
'Huge' interest surrounding tutors in schools program
The Victorian Government is spending $250 million to recruit and deploy more than 4,100 tutors at state schools to help students who fell behind last year.
Catholic and independent schools are getting similar funding.
It is the single biggest boost to individual learning in the state's history.
It is estimated about 20 per cent of children will need help to catch up.
"Schools are going through the process of selecting tutors to match their programs, and particular students," he said.
Mr Howes said there was also a desire to capitalise on the use of digital technology to enhance student learning.
"There's a lot of schools looking forward to taking that learning and putting it into place without the necessity of the pandemic to drive that," he said.
"I think overall, people are reenergised, certainly refreshed."
Teachers will get a mental health checklist to identify any student who needs additional help.
"That checklist is important — teachers are not professional psychologists and we don't want them to be," Mr Howes said.
"What we do want [teachers] to do is look out for any warning signs that students might need that extra support and then they can be referred on."
Mr Howes said it was clear some kids suffered from anxiety last year and schools reported a large number of young people were unsettled when they returned to school.
"There was this pattern that kids were really excited to first come back and then they found they had to adjust … to being around a large group of people," he said.
"Then there were some kids who really thrived and learned at their own pace."
When classes resume, school life will look a lot more normal, Mr Howes said.
Masks will be recommended for secondary school students, but they won't be mandatory.
Things like choir and interschool sport are now back on the agenda.
"Kids can participate in full contact sport and non-contact sports," he said.
"Woodwind instruments — that there was a lot of interest in — will be back.
"We're asking schools to be cautious around that. So make sure there's adequate ventilation, limiting the number of students who might participate at any one time."
Drinking fountains will be working again and parents will be allowed back on to the school grounds — something particularly important for prep students.
"Parents and carers on that really important day when they send their children off to school," Mr Howes said.
Parents will have to register their details if they are at the school for more than 15 minutes in case contact tracing is necessary at a later date.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-21/tutors-start-of-the-school-year-in-victoria/13075100
Virtue signalling does nothing to make lives of indigenous Australians saferMoves to change the date of Australia Day, or ignore it altogether at the cricket, is pointless, divisive — and won’t help indigenous Australians, writes Aboriginal Jacinta Price
Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon has declared Zali Steggall will only be a one-term MP after her comments surrounding a minute silence on Australia Day clearly “does not reflect the views” of her electorate.
Right now the lives and wellbeing of all Australians depends on a unified nation, and Australia Day is more important than ever.
In Abraham Lincoln’s words: “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” And with the threat of COVID — coupled with the economic damage threatened by China — we have to come together in order to stand strong. To do otherwise would be a deliberate act of narcissistic self sabotage.
Arguing to change the date of Australia Day is arguing to establish yet another superficial and ineffective act of symbolism that will change nothing for the plight of marginalised indigenous Australians.
And virtue-signalling sporting associations like Cricket Australia, who claim to want to make next Tuesday’s Big Bash “culturally safe” by not mentioning Australia Day — perhaps in the spirit of “don’t mention the war” — are doing nothing to make the lives of actual indigenous Australians safer.
Would changing the date have prevented the recent tragic death of an Alice Springs woman, allegedly murdered in a brutal domestic violence attack? Will a different date halt the continued bashings and child sexual assault in our remote communities? Will it stamp out the destructive alcoholism and welfare dependency?
No. It’s pointless window dressing. A curtain that simply works to conceal the real problems indigenous Australian face by giving a superficial matter centre stage under a bright spotlight; while in the wings, women and children continue to be molested, battered and killed.
Nor will making such a change appease the aggrieved and offended minority whose goal is seemingly not to solve our most critical problems or attain unity, but to spark and maintain division.
Along with the continued planning for Australia Day protests, we have the recent example of the rabid campaign to force the makers of Coon Cheese to change its name — which ignored the brand’s innocuous origins acknowledging the cheese process pioneer Edward Coon.
And were the complainants happy when the name was changed to the equally inoffensive ‘Cheer Cheese’? No … they then whinged that indigenous people should have been consulted about the new name. And Sky News has reported the main activist in the case plans to sue for $2.1 million in damages.
This proof that bending to the will of the ‘offenderati’ never appeases them is likely to be repeated if we capitulate to their campaign against our national day.
But the arguments they put forward don’t stack up, in any case.
They claim we Aboriginal Australians, or ‘First Nations People’ as termed by the elitist politically correct, are not recognised enough within our nation.
If you are Aboriginal or of Aboriginal descent you are told by activists and self-flagellating sycophants that we are victims of our colonial past and continued imaginary white oppression. This false depiction removes our agency and fails to recognise our individual abilities as human beings.
It also plays ignorant to the forms of recognition of Aboriginal Australia that Australians participate in whether wilfully or forcefully year in, year out.
There are 11 official days of the year and one entire week all dedicated to recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Not to mention every single event, program, sporting game, theatre performance, school assembly, Council meeting, conference and email salutation where there is a ‘Welcome to Country’ or ‘Recognition of the Land in which we are so very privileged to be gathered on’.
To suggest Australians don’t do enough to recognise Aboriginal Australia is to suggest the sun rises in the west: it simply is not true.
If they can get beyond being perpetually offended, they may instead find they could invest their energy into supporting practical outcomes to overcome family violence, child sexual abuse, youth suicide, alcohol and substance abuse in our indigenous communities and providing genuine help for those who suffer real world disadvantage and trauma.
It would also be wise not to invest in an action that is capable of spreading COVID to some of the most health-vulnerable members of our community — Aboriginal Australians.
Our nation provides the right for us to celebrate Australia Day how we see fit.
No one has the right to suggest on your behalf what you do on this day and why you do it. No one has the right to attempt to gaslight you into believing you are celebrating genocide if you eat some lamb or sport an Aussie stick-on tattoo on January 26.
It is everybody’s choice as to how they choose to recognise what Australia Day means to them.
By all means choose how you wish but do not impose your choices on others; and don’t put others lives at risk.
I will be celebrating Australia Day with my Warlpiri, Celtic, Mauritian, Asian and African family. I urge everybody else to come together with the people most important to them, and celebrate what Australia is and help foster what it can be.
Daniel Andrews opposes Australia Day honour for tennis legend Margaret Court because of her LGBTIQ views
More harassment of Christians
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says he does not support former tennis great Margaret Court being recognised with an Australia Day honour.
In recent years, Ms Court has come under fire for her views on the LGBTQI community.
"I do not support that. I do not believe that she has views that accord with the vast majority of people across our nation, that see people particularly from the LGBTQI community as equal and deserving as dignity, respect and safety," Mr Andrews said.
The Order of Australia has four levels, of which Ms Court's new status as a "Companion" is highest.
Ms Court won 24 Grand Slam singles titles and was the first female Australian to win Wimbledon in 1963.
The 78-year-old, who is now a reverend in Perth, wrote an open letter in 2017 saying she would boycott Qantas over its support of same-sex marriage. "I teach what the Bible says about things and you get persecuted for it," she said in an ABC interview last year.
In 2013, Ms Court wrote a letter to the editor in a newspaper lamenting the birth of Australian tennis player Casey Dellacqua's child in a same-sex relationship. "It is with sadness that I see that this baby has seemingly been deprived of a father," Ms Court wrote.
Her honour was supposed to be revealed next week, but news of the decision broke this morning.
Mr Andrews said he would prefer not to be giving oxygen to Ms Court's views. "But I don't give out those gongs, that's not a matter for me, that's for others," he said.
"You might want to speak to them about why they think those views, which are disgraceful, hurtful and cost lives, should be honoured."
One of the main stadiums at Melbourne Park — home of the Australian Open — is named in her honour. Mr Andrews said the name of Margaret Court Arena was a matter for other people
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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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21 January, 2021
The Left-led destruction of standards in the schools
We will MAKE you equal, they implicitly say -- even if we can do that only by dumbing everybody down to a low common denominator. Their "all men are equal" gospel is truly pernicious but is part of their general disconnect from reality.
Reality is unimportant to them. They see only what they want to see. And what they want is to see everyone as miserable as they are. As Gore Vidal once said: "Whenever a Friend Succeeds, a Little Something in Me Dies"
In my university teaching career I saw several instances of the sort of thing mentioned below. I was in a very Leftist Sociology department and I saw student marks upgraded on all sorts of flimsy grounds
A friend of mine walked away from his job as a teacher recently, turning his back on career spanning over three decades.
He told me he was leaving because he was tired of being forced to give good marks to indifferent students, as there existed an unwritten but understood direction that no one was allowed to fail.
He said he was tired of coaching sporting teams to take part in competitions in which there was no scoring, so that everybody was a winner and no one suffered the ignominy of coming second.
If everyone passes and nobody loses, then the students are happy and parents are happy and the headmasters and education bureaucrats are happy.
Little Johnny never acquires the discipline inherent in study, but sails through high school without raising a sweat because the system says he must. He also thinks he’s great at sport as his team never lost.
His lack of commitment to learning doesn’t matter, because as long as he can sign his name and apply for a student HECS loan, universities will welcome him into their folds.
He spends three lovely years watching online lectures in between playing video games, going to the beach and hanging out with his mates.
His tutors give his barely comprehensible assignments a pass mark because they know that their superiors expect everyone to pass.
Tutors know that if they fail students, particularly those from overseas, they will be accused of having a bias against a particular group.
It doesn’t matter that these groups have poor written and spoken English language skills, and engage in wholesale cheating.
It’s much better to give everyone a tick and move on, rather than risk a career-threatening confrontation.
Three years and $30,000-plus later, Johnny emerges from the sun-drenched halls of academia with a degree and zero skills.
He has been in the education system for 15 years and learnt absolutely nothing because no one forced him to pursue goals and strive for excellence.
He eventually gets a job in retail or a call centre, and looks at the degree hanging on his bedroom wall and gets angry because he feels the system has failed him.
What happened to that high-paying job to which his degree entitles him?
He’s right, of course. The system did fail him. It thought it was doing him a favour by protecting him from the emotional damage he might suffer if he was told that if what he was offering up was his best, it wasn’t good enough and he would have to go back and give it another shot.
He never learnt that there are winners and losers in life, and that the difference between the two is that winners try harder.
We know the system is failing these kids because it’s evident in the studies that compare the performance of our students with those in other countries.
This evidence is incontrovertible, but no one seems particularly interested in changing anything.
In 2019 almost one in every 10 student teacher university graduates failed an online literacy and numeracy test.
How difficult is the test? Here are two sample questions.
* This year a teacher spent $383.30 on stationery. Last year the teacher spent $257.85 on stationery. How much more did the teacher spend this year than last year?
* A surf shop has surfboards for hire at $15 an hour up to a maximum of $60 a day. What is the cost of hiring a surfboard from 9.30am to midday?
Challenging? I don’t think so.
Surely a system that produces high school graduates who then progress through a degree at the completion of which they are unable to perform simple intellectual tasks is flawed.
They then go on to teach others and the process is perpetuated.
Many teachers do great work and it could be, I imagine, the most demanding of professions but that is not the point.
The concern is that far too many of our kids are completing their high school education ill-equipped to make their way in the world, and then drift into meaningless degree courses that qualify them for Centrelink payments and little else.
In a few weeks, thousands of Queensland children will part company with their tearful mothers and pass through the school gates for the first time.
We want these kids – all of our kids – to be winners in every sense of the word, but it falls to parents to instil the understanding that success is hard won because a system that seeks to please all and disappoint none will never do it.
Scott Morrison attacks Cricket Australia for decision to drop term 'Australia Day' from BBL promotions
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has criticised Cricket Australia (CA) for its decision to avoid using the term "Australia Day" in Big Bash League promotions.
Three Big Bash clubs will wear Indigenous jerseys and Cricket Australia decided to drop the term in a bid to normalise conversations over the date's history.
The move to abandon references to "Australia Day" prompted a rebuke from Mr Morrison, who is touring a refinery in Queensland on Thursday.
"I think a bit more focus on cricket, and a bit less focus on politics would be my message to Cricket Australia," he told radio station 4RO. "I think that's pretty ordinary but that's what they're putting on their press releases."
He said Cricket Australia should listen to any backlash from fans opposed to the decision and reverse it.
The Sydney Thunder, Perth Scorchers and Melbourne Renegades will all wear their special strips in matches on January 23, 25 and 26.
A barefoot circle, Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony will also take place before some games, with CA leading the initiative backed by the clubs.
The moves form part of several recommendations by the sport's National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cricket Advisory Committee, with three games to be played on January 26.
"They thought it was pretty important to not remove cultural elements we have celebrated all season on a day like that," Cricket Australia's diversity and inclusion manager Adam Cassidy told AAP.
"Obviously it's a bit of a challenge when you have matches being played on a day of mourning for a lot of people."
CA is well aware the issue is a sensitive one and is desperate for it not to prove divisive, but for it to encourage open discussion.
"When you are a business operating under a Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan, it does come with responsibility and accountability to lead on key reconciliation issues," Cassidy said.
"In an ideal world what we're trying to do is create a safe and inclusive environment for everybody."
Indigenous jerseys have been worn across different sports for some time, but it is the first time they will be used over the Australia Day period.
The move has been firmly approved by the game's players, with Sydney Thunder's Brendan Doggett championing the cause through his own Indigenous history.
"I hate conflict. So I am of the opinion if we can all merge forward together that's ideal," Doggett said. "The way we're going to do that is by starting conversations and talking about it and acknowledging the history of what's happened. "If we wear the kit and hopefully even start one conversation then that is a win."
The Thunder have long referred to the public holiday as the January long weekend and have been a leader in multicultural initiatives through the Thunder Cup.
Doggett, meanwhile, has grown increasingly aware of his Indigenous history in recent years, after only discovering his mother's family's links to the Stolen Generation around five years ago.
That, too, has changed his perspective on the day, which he says is now far different to when he was a carpenter in Queensland.
And it's with that perspective he believes it is possible to become more united, and that wearing the Indigenous jerseys could help prompt that.
"For me now it's more of a day to just recognise and acknowledge the history and everything that has happened. And do it respectfully," he said. "It makes me want to make sure that everyone's moving forward together.
"It's a pretty dark past but if we can move forward, together and united then in my opinion that's the best result."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-21/big-bash-league-indigenous-strips-australia-day/13077082
Medevac detainees freed from Melbourne hotel after years in immigration detentionAt least 26 refugees and asylum seekers have been freed from immigration detention in Melbourne, where some have spent more than a year detained in inner-city hotels, advocacy groups say.
The men were allowed to leave the Park Hotel and the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) on Wednesday, according to Ian Rintoul from Refugee Action Coalition.
Legal representatives for some of the men who were still detained said they had been told they would be freed on Thursday.
"We've got 100 cases where people are still in detention, and the minister has indicated that he's considering granting the visas in a number of other cases," Daniel Taylor from Sydney West Legal said.
Most of the men had cases pending in the court, where lawyers planned to argue they were being illegally detained.
The men who are being released were brought to Australia under the now-repealed medical evacuation law — widely referred to as the Medevac law — which allowed refugees and asylum seekers in offshore detention to enter the country for urgent medical treatment.
Ramsi Sabanayagan, a Tamil refugee from Sri Lanka, learned that he will be freed on Thursday after eight years in immigration detention. "Tomorrow morning, I am released," the 29-year-old refugee said. "I can't believe, really, I can't explain our happiness. Really, very exciting."
Mr Sabanayagan said he arrived on Christmas Island in July 2013 and was later transferred to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea where he spent more than six years in Australian immigration detention.
In November 2019, he was transferred to Australia under Medevac to receive treatment for mental health issues and severe headaches caused by shrapnel wounds.
Mr Sabanayagan said in recent months he had made multiple requests to immigration officials to be returned to PNG but didn't receive a response.
Police cars lined the streets outside the Park Hotel in Melbourne on Wednesday as officials prepared to move the men to the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) to be processed.
Images showed at least one man waving to supporters as police escorted him to a waiting bus. Within hours, some walked out of the gates of MITA, according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC).
"The entire refugee movement is feeling a great sense of relief that people are finally being released," Jana Favero from the ASRC said. "People's mental and physical health rapidly deteriorated over the past year, especially with the pandemic."
The Home Affairs department has long maintained the men's stay in Australia would be temporary, and that as soon as their treatment was over they would be returned to PNG, Nauru or another country that was willing to take them.
Before being transferred to Australia for medical treatment, the men had spent years in offshore immigration processing centres on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Under Australia's immigration policy, asylum seekers who arrive by boat are told they will never be settled in the country.
The Medevac legislation passed in February 2019 was short-lived, as the Government opposed it and repealed it in December 2019, months after the federal election.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton claimed the legislation offered a "back door" into the country that refugees would exploit to stay here.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Home Affairs Department said Australia's policy remained unchanged. "No-one who attempts illegal maritime travel to Australia will be permanently settled here," the spokesperson said.
The Home Affairs spokesperson did not confirm what visas the men had been given, but said final departure bridging visas give holders the right to temporarily reside in Australia while they finalise their arrangements to leave.
Mr Taylor from Sydney West Legal said all of his clients who had been in detention had asked to return to PNG or Nauru, but their requests were ignored.
Hundreds of people were transferred to Australia under the Medevac legislation. Most were held in Alternatives Places of Detention (APODs), namely hotels in Melbourne and Brisbane while they received medical treatment.
Some of the refugees said they did not receive adequate medical care and were confined to their rooms for 23 hours a day.
Fishermen reject Greenie claims Australians are 'eating endangered sharks' under the guise of flake
Queensland shark fishers have rejected an Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) campaign encouraging Australians to stop eating flake.
The Give Flake a Break campaign urges people to choose sustainable seafood alternatives, as there is no legal obligation to disclose what species of shark is being sold, or where it has come from.
Margaret Stevenson, who owns a fishing business with her husband Graham at Burnett Heads in Queensland, says there should not be any concern as fishers are already heavily regulated.
"We've got a total allowable catch that restricts how much we can catch," she said. "We have to call in and give out how many sharks we've caught, even if it's only one, and that's every trip. "We can't leave the boat ramp for an hour after we've called in so boating and fisheries patrol can inspect our catch.
"We have to identify each species of shark that we catch in our logbooks and report on it and we have to do that on the phone as well — we have to give them the numbers before we get in."
Senior sharks campaigner for the Australian Marine Conservation Society Leo Guida argued the seafood labelling system was "broken".
"Fishers do record what species they catch, and there are fishers out there who do a fantastic job and provide us with sustainable alternatives," he said.
"But by the time it gets to the plate, somewhere along the way, the information as to what species — particularly with sharks — that people are eating gets lost or is very difficult to find.
"We know this because there are quirks in our national environment laws that allow the harvest and sale of endangered fish. "These include the endangered school shark and the critically endangered scalloped hammerhead."
Mrs Stevenson said what AMCS was implying was simply wrong. "It just can't happen with these claims that we're selling product that we shouldn't be — that it's threatening an endangered species," she said.
"If they [boating and fisheries patrol] come and inspect our catch and we have something that we shouldn't have or there's an error in what we've told them over the phone — we're liable to get fined. "Our whole livelihood, our whole business then is on the line."
A handful of species are listed as threatened under Australia's Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, including the grey nurse shark and the speartooth shark, which banned them from being fished in Australian waters.
But while the scalloped hammerhead shark is classed as globally critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, it is legally allowed to be caught in limited numbers in Australia under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
In Queensland, recreational fishers are prohibited from catching scalloped, smooth and great hammerhead sharks, but commercial fishers are not.
Graham Stevenson explained that they were not catching endangered species of shark. "The species of sharks that we catch here primarily are spinner sharks, which are a school type shark — they're in the thousands out here," he said.
"We get black-tipped sharks and weasel sharks — weasel sharks only ever eat octopus, they're very similar to the southern gummy. "At different times of year we do get a lot of hammerhead sharks — they're very prolific in this area."
Mrs Stevenson said she was frustrated that there did not seem to be anything they could do about it. "We're guilty until we're proven innocent and we've got no mechanism available to us prove our innocence as an industry," she said.
"The only thing I can say to consumers is to put the onus back onto these greenie organisations and demand the evidence, demand the proof of what these claims are.
"A few years ago, we had a really good market for shark and they [AMCS] came out and did a big campaign and because of it that whole business that used to buy our shark went bust."
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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 January, 2021
Is Novavax the dark horse of Australia's COVID-19 vaccines?
Experts say early clinical data on Australia's third COVID-19 vaccine, Novavax, is promising enough to suggest it could play a significant role in the nation's pandemic strategy.
The federal government has signed up to buy 51 million doses of Novavax’s two-shot vaccine and those involved in trials say it is expected to be made available as early as the middle of this year, in addition to COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca that will be available in coming weeks.
Australia's Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly on Tuesday confirmed the nation's drug regulator was in direct talks with European and Norwegian authorities after several elderly people died after receiving Pfizer's vaccine. It is not yet clear if there was a link between the deaths and the vaccine.
While large phase three studies for the Novavax vaccine are ongoing, early data released in December suggests it is likely to offer strong protection against COVID-19. There are even hints it may do something other vaccines have struggled with: stop the coronavirus' spread.
"The phase one data was really convincing. The immune responses were really strong – up there in the realms we saw with the mRNA vaccines. That level of immune response tends to be a bit of a correlation ... those are the vaccines that have ended up giving very strong efficacy," said University of Sydney professor of medical microbiology James Triccas.
Paul Young, co-leader of the University of Queensland's aborted COVID-19 vaccine project, agreed the data "does look promising".
"The preclinical animal data showed that viral titres in the upper respiratory tract were lower in vaccinated animals, suggesting but not proving that infectivity and transmission may be lower," he said.
Paul Griffin, medical director of the Nucleus Network – contracted by Novavax to conduct clinical trials in Australia – said if all went well, the vaccine could be available for use by May or June.
"I think this is one, just based on where it’s up to timing wise, that has fallen off the radar in this country. There has been a lot of attention on Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna," he said. "It is looking very safe and effective."
It is difficult to directly compare phase one trial results, but data reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in December suggested Novavax’s vaccine produced an immune response similar to vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
"They were able to induce higher [antibody] titres than recovered COVID patients. And that’s a really good sign. When we were seeing results like that, it did highlight Novavax is one to watch, and a really promising formulation," said Kylie Quinn, an RMIT vaccine designer.
Griffith University virologist Adam Taylor said the trials showed the vaccine was safe and generated good antibody responses. "Certainly, this is a useful candidate."
Other vaccines have already shown themselves capable of inducing strong immune responses and protecting people from the virus.
What makes Novavax different is a hint in the early data it could not just protect people but also stop the virus spreading. Stopping or reducing transmission of the virus is valuable to protect people who cannot or will not get vaccinated. At this stage, it remains unclear if any of the vaccines available can prevent transmission.
In a small study, Novavax’s vaccine effectively prevented COVID-19 growing in the noses of monkeys. Results in animals often do not translate to humans. But other vaccines have struggled to repeat the achievement; they effectively protect the lungs but still allow the virus to grow in the nose, where it could spread.
While other vaccines quickly moved from phase one to phase three trials and then approval, Novavax's progress has been slower. The company started its key phase three trial on December 28 after several delays due to issues scaling up vaccine manufacture.
Novavax has had a chequered history. Two failed vaccine trials in recent years led to the company’s stock plunging; it sacked 100 employees and closed two manufacturing plants. In its near-30-year history it is yet to develop an approved vaccine.
Nevertheless, the company is aiming to produce 2 billion doses of vaccine this year.
Novavax’s jab combines traditional and cutting-edge technology. Inside each vial are copies of COVID-19’s spike protein – the cellular harpoon it uses to attach to and enter our cells – and a dose of the company’s adjuvant. The adjuvant triggers the immune system, which recognises the spike protein and builds antibodies and immune cells capable of defending the body against the virus.
"It’s more of a traditional vaccine – the same type we have used for other vaccines we have in use," said Professor Triccas.
Novavax produces the spike proteins using moth cells, and then studs them on a nanoparticle, creating a shape that looks much like the spike-covered virus. In theory, immune cells should be much more likely to spot and attack these nanoparticles, as they look just like little viruses.
The company used similar technology in a flu vaccine it is developing. In a late-stage clinical trial, it produced much stronger antibody results than a current flu vaccine.
Addressing the deaths in Norway, Chief Medical Officer Professor Kelly said on Tuesday: "In a normal week, 400 people do pass away in their aged care facilities.
"In general terms, they were very old, they were frail, some of them were basically terminally ill."
It is not yet clear if the deaths are linked to the vaccine, and Australian experts have already said they are no reason to slow the vaccine's rollout.
Professor Kelly said it was possible Australia's drugs regulator would advise against giving the very elderly and frail the vaccine.
"That is a very tricky balance. We know elderly people, as is the case in Norway, elderly people in aged care facilities are towards the end of their life. We know from our own data from the Australian pandemic, of the 900 people who have died, they have mostly been in the very elderly group, they are of the greatest risk of severe infection," he said.
"The mortality rate is very high once you get over 80 or 90 if you get COVID-19. It's that risk balance equation which the [regulator] will need to do around which people should be excluded from the vaccine."
Barley finds a home in Mexico after China ban
Despite the trade tensions with China and the massive tariff imposed on barley exports, there are some good signs for grain growers on international markets.
West Australian grain handler CBH Group has sent a shipment of malt barley to Mexico, which is a first for the Australian grains industry.
The shipment of 35,000 tonnes of malting barley, used to make beer, was loaded at the port of Albany in WA and sent to Mexico.
CBH Chief Marketing and Trading Officer Jason Craig said other shipments could follow. "While it is early days, this shipment to Mexico signals a potential new market for malting barley. However, this will need to be developed over time."
There is an opening in Saudi Arabia, which is the second-largest barley market globally, importing approximately 7 million tonnes each year.
"Australian feed barley has become very price competitive compared to barley from alternative origins, such as Russia and the Ukraine that have dominated exports to the country for the past few years," Mr Craig said.
There is good news for Australian growers in the feed sector as well. Australian feed barley exports to Thailand and Vietnam are expected to double in 2020-21, according to CBH.
WA produced a big crop of barley, but growers were alarmed late last year when China, their biggest market, imposed a massive 80 per cent tariff. That dispute is heading to the World Trade Authority for resolution.
World wheat prices are also set to rise after Russia imposed a second levy on exports and cancelled some contracts for Russian wheat.
Commonwealth Bank Commodity Analyst Tobin Gorey said it was all being driven by domestic politics. "The Russian President doesn't want to see food prices in Russia continue to increase and he wants to keep more grain for local use."
Russia is the world's biggest exporter, so this latest action is expected to push world prices up.
"There will be a reduction in the amount of Russian wheat sold into the Middle East and South East Asia and it will pave the way for Australian grain sales," Mr Gorey said.
World wheat stocks have been running down over the last few years and Australian farmers on the eastern seaboard have had a big harvest.
It is a serendipitous moment, according to Tobin Gorey. "It's the best [harvest] for probably 10 years, and the world needs our wheat, so the prices have started to go up."
After three years of drought and the worry over the China trade dispute, it is good news for growers.
"We are still recovering from a three-year drought so having a bumper harvest and good prices are exactly what Australian farmers in Qld, SA and NSW were hoping for," Mr Gorey said
Government slams proposal to hold a minute's silence on Australia Day as the idea to recognise Indigenous Aussies will only 'increase division'
The Morrison government has slammed a proposal to hold a minute's silence on Australia Day.
Independent MP Zali Steggall wanted the silence to recognise the suffering of Aboriginal communities during and after colonisation.
But new citizenship minister Alex Hawke said the idea will only increase divisions. 'It is disappointing to see an ill-considered proposal from the Member for Warringah that plays negative politics with our history and which can only perpetuate divisions between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians,' he said in a statement.
'The truth is Australia Day unifies us all, because of our shared history – the good and the bad.
'Regardless of the failings in our history, Australia has become one of the most free, egalitarian, safe and diverse societies today, and our shared commitment to continuing this journey together is what matters most.'
Ms Steggall - who was an Olympic skiier before turning to politics - wrote to mayors in her Sydney electorate asking they observe a minute's silence on January 26.
The day celebrates the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships into Port Jackson in 1788.
Ms Steggall has written to the Australian Local Government Association along with the mayors of the North Sydney, Mosman and Northern Beaches councils.
But Alice Springs councillor and Warlpiri woman Jacinta Price condemned Ms Steggall for 'painting Indigenous Australians as helpless victims'. 'Zali needs to learn a bit more about our country's history, instead of using shallow, PC, woke-ish ways of dealing with these particular issues,' she told Jim Wilson on 2GB. She said Australia Day is a time for unity with people who have travelled across the world to become Australian.
Last week, Scott Morrison's government warned councils not to use the Covid as an excuse to cancel Australia Day celebrations to appease Invasion Day activists who want the date changed.
Local councils are required to hold citizenship ceremonies on January 26 and could have their citizenship powers revoked by the government if they fail to comply.
While most councils are still holding citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, some have announced they have called them off in either solidarity with Indigenous people or the Covid pandemic.
Minister Hawke said local councils should not divide Australians over the contested date after a tough year marred by the pandemic.
'For any council seeking to play politics with Australia Day citizenship ceremonies, our message is simple - don't,' he told The Australian. 'Australians need this sort of negative bickering less than ever at this challenging time.
'We know the vast majority of councils across the country will do the right thing when determining whether to hold online or physical citizenship ceremonies.'
Inner-city Melbourne councils Yarra and Darebin will not be holding citizenship ceremonies on January 26.
The two councils voted to stop referring to January 26 as Australia Day in 2017, which resulted in their citizenship powers being stripped.
Yarra and Darebin councils will also hold events commemorating Indigenous people in place of Australia Day events.
According to a recent survey of 1,038 people by think tank Institute of Public Affairs, two thirds believed Australia Day should be celebrated on January 26.
Only 11 per cent were in favour of the date being changed.
About 72 per cent of people interviewed thought the day was an authentic way of of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to celebrate being Australian.
Aboriginal man slams the 'noisy minority' fighting to change the date of Australia Day - and says the event 'doesn't exclude indigenous people'
A proud Aboriginal man has slammed calls to change the date of Australia Day and says January 26 doesn't exclude indigenous people.
Indigenous affairs commentator and Australian Catholic University researcher Dr Anthony Dillon weighed into the debate this week when he said the date neither includes nor excludes people.
Dr Dillon has since publicly lashed the 'noisy minority' who want the date changed.
January 26 marks the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet into Port Jackson in 1788.
'For most of them it's a celebration… but you've got this minority who are trying to make out that the white man is yet again guilty and that it's a terrible day for Aboriginal people,' Dr Dillion told Sydney radio station 2GB on Wednesday.
'It does nothing for reconciliation, it does nothing for racial relations. It's ridiculous.'
He doesn't believe changing the date would change the situation. 'How would it?' he asked.
'The problems affecting Aboriginal people aren't going to be fixed by changing the date.'
He says it isn't the date that includes or excludes but individuals themselves.
'We are told that celebrating Australia Day on 26 January is not inclusive. Well actually, dates neither include nor exclude people. Individuals do that themselves. If you want to exclude yourself from celebrating Australia Day, go for it,' Dr Dillon tweeted earlier in the week.
He plans to celebrate next Tuesday's public holiday with friends. 'It will be a happy day for me but I guess ultimately, I will reflect on what a great country we live in,' he said.
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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 January, 2021
University humanities students sold short on riches of their heritage
Gender and race are legitimate themes for study, analysis and debate in universities’ humanities courses. Disciplines such as history, literature and social science should encourage students to take a broad view of the world and think independently, grounded in a deep knowledge of their subjects. Humanities courses overrun by identity politics and ideology, however, fail to provide the liberal arts education students are entitled to expect. To the contrary, such courses narrow students’ understandings of the world around them. The problem fuels divisions within the general community, evidenced by perennial controversies around Australia Day and “cancel culture’’ campaigns for the removal of public statues associated with European settlement. The trend is then perpetuated in schools, as a high proportion of humanities graduates become classroom teachers.
An audit of Bachelor of Arts subjects at 10 top universities last year by the Institute of Public Affairs found 572 subjects, or 44 per cent of 1181 subjects analysed, were concerned with identity politics. A further 380 featured critical race theory, a US-born framework for studying race and power. It coined such concepts as “white privilege” and “structural racism”. About 25 per cent of subjects focused specifically on gender issues. Such themes were dominant in humanities courses at Macquarie (70 per cent), and Melbourne (61 per cent) and Sydney universities (59 per cent). The dominance of such themes — which should be fair game for critical scrutiny — short-changes many students. Only a quarter of English literature subjects involved the study of great works comprising the Western canon, Rebecca Urban reported. And just 23 per cent of history subjects covered Western civilisation, from Ancient Greece to the modern world. Only 10 per cent of political science subjects surveyed taught students about the history of ideas and political thought. And freedom, a concept highly valued in democracies and traditionally a key tenet of the study of the social sciences, was featured in just 10 per cent of a possible 524 subjects.
IPA director Bella d’Abrera, who carried out the review, said academics obsessed with identity politics had turned the humanities into a political project. Subjects had become “homogenised” to the extent it was “almost impossible to differentiate’’ between sociology and English literature; philosophy and sociology. Regardless of the subject, the same worldview, of identity politics and critical race theory, was repeated through all disciplines. For example, one course on the history of sport examines the meaning of sport across “class, racial, gender and ethnic groups”, including “the rise of female, LGBT and transgender athletes”. The major problem is not that or any other particular subject — it is the preponderance of the trend, and the exclusion of much of the riches of history, literature, philosophy and political science. For many taxpayers, the trend underlines the sense of the Morrison government’s lifting fees for humanities courses in a bid to steer young people to nursing, maths, science and engineering courses, which offer greater job prospects.
It also shows that the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, which sponsors great books-style courses at several universities, and Campion College, a private liberal arts university in Sydney, are filling a major gap in the nation’s education. Campion College president Paul Morrissey is correct when he says disciplines such as literature and history should be studied for their own sake, using a wide range of interpretative lenses.
Activists wield ‘I’m uncomfortable’ like a sword
The guidelines for movie casting recommend that the director begins with some searching questions. For example: “Can this role be played by a woman, someone who is trans or gender non-conforming, someone with a disability, a person of colour, an older person, etc?”
The National Australia Day Council’s “Reflect. Respect. Celebrate” campaign advertisement has followed the advice up to and including “etc”. And why not? As the ad says, “we are all part of the story”.
Sadly, however, this well-intentioned call for national unity has been pulled from the schedule at Nova Cinema in Carlton, Melbourne. Like everything that gets cancelled these days, the action took place on Twitter.
“Hey @cinemanova,” wrote a person by the name of unaustralian native © @MerikiKO. “I love coming to your cinema to switch off and watch a good film at a great venue.
However, we were made uncomfortable by the Australia Day ads that you have screening. This is highly inappropriate for mob to have to pay to sit through. I hope you reconsider.”
Cinema Nova replied apologetically, claiming that “reduced in-office hours” meant the ad “may not have been vetted with our usual care”.
We would never intentionally make our valued customers feel uncomfortable, so we will remove the associated propaganda from further sessions. We hope to welcome you back soon
That’s all it takes these days to get something that makes you “uncomfortable” pulled from the cinema. Just a single, ungrammatical Twitter message complaining that a 60-second ad is “inappropriate for mob to have to pay for”.
It would be just as futile to ask what makes a Cinema Nova audience uncomfortable. Presumably not the currently screening R18+ movie Possessor, which portrays a man stabbing himself in his head before killing another bloke with a meat cleaver. Yet an innocuous message from a federal government-funded body is declared “propaganda” and pulled down.
The ease with which a single slacktivist from the fruitcake fringe can force commercial businesses to take the knee is one thing. The damage this does to the cause of reconciliation is another.
The National Australia Day Council is damned if it leaves Aboriginal faces out of its ad and damned if it puts them in. Popular support for an Aboriginal voice to parliament begins to crumble when the demands for inclusiveness reach the level of the absurd.
If Saputo Dairy thought it could settle the argument about Coon Cheese by simply changing the name, it was mistaken. The cheese is named after its inventor, Edward William Coon, not the common name of the butterfly Astictopterus jama or the Maine coon, an energetic breed of domestic cat that tends to pounce unexpectedly.
Saputo, however, was not prepared for an etymological fight, even with a lone activist who claims that a walk down the supermarket dairy aisle hurt his feelings. Saputo announced last week that the product will henceforth be known as Cheer.
“We trust our valued consumers and those who are new to our products will embrace this new name,” Saputo’s commercial director, Cam Bruce, cheerfully announced, bringing a new dimension to the word cheesy.
“Cheer Cheese … brings that extra little bit of happiness. Whether it’s a sliced snack, a part of your family’s dinner time favourite or a melty midnight toastie (sic).”
Anti-Coon campaigner Stephen Hagan was not satisfied. “I would have liked it to be something a bit more inclusive of First Nations people,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald. “We weren’t even consulted on names. We would like to have contributed.”
This is not what Indigenous leaders had in mind when they signed the Uluru Statement from the Heart in May 2017. They wanted a structural mechanism to give Indigenous Australians input on policy and legislation, not fatuous campaigns on the nomenclature of dairy products.
The Morrison government has committed to a constitutional referendum to put just such a mechanism in place. Like all such questions, it should be considered on its merits, unclouded by distractions.
The biggest risk to the “yes” vote will not come from conservatives. It comes from the activist fringe dwellers who have co-opted Indigenous interests as one of a suite of causes with which to attack the status quo.
These play-fights over symbolic issues devalue the seriousness of purpose behind the Uluru Statement in the public eye. These people are as unserious as the social media platforms they frequent. They could choose to campaign to end the welfare and alcohol dependency that is endemic in many rural and remote communities. They could take a stand against the vandalism and violence symbolised by the boarded-up shops of towns such as Walgett and Brewarrina in NSW.
These, however, are not things you can fix on Twitter. Perhaps an Indigenous voice to parliament can.
The yes campaign must filter out calls to make Australia Day a Day of Mourning, flying flags at half-mast or dressing in black, as Greens MP Lidia Thorpe proposed in The Age last week. A yes vote will only succeed if Australians can be convinced that this is a permanent step towards a better future, not just a stick of shame with which to beat the rest of us over the head.
The Greens are already saying the proposed Voice to Parliament does not go far enough. They are seeking a legally binding treaty under which the elected parliament would be bound to adopt Indigenous advice.
This kind of crazy talk will all but guarantee the referendum’s failure. It comes from people more concerned about projecting their own virtue than winning a popular vote. It is why supporters of the Voice must take on the radical voices in favour of a yes vote, not just those arguing no.
Aboriginal man attacking woman had to be pulled off her by police
A man has been tasered and charged with attempted murder by police after he allegedly attacked a woman in a rural Queensland town overnight.
A call for help was made after 9pm on Monday in relation to a domestic violence disturbance at a home in Aurukun, in far north Queensland.
According to police, the 37-year-old man was allegedly attacking a 51-year-old woman, who is known to him.
A police issued statement said the man had to be tasered upon the arrival of police.
“Officers arrived to find a man allegedly attacking a woman known to him and consequently deployed an electronic conductive device before he was taken into custody,” the statement said.
The woman suffered serious non-life-threatening injuries, while the man was taken to the watch house where he was refused police bail.
He will appear at the Cairns Magistrates Court later today on charges of attempted murder offence (domestic violence) and assault occasioning bodily harm while armed with an offensive instrument.
No slowdown in scary climate prophecy phenomenon
The beginning of every year often triggers the release of doomsday predictions. You know the sort of thing: there will be no polar bears in 50 years, parts of the world will be uninhabitable within two decades, the world will run out of oil/gas/water very soon.
If you bother to tune into the ABC, you will regularly learn about these various catastrophic prophecies because they are very popular with the program producers. Add in a bit of scary music and the picture of a forlorn koala or parched landscape and the story writes itself. It has become almost a vocation for some jumped-up types who think their opinions should be taken seriously because of their accomplishments or positions in completely unrelated fields. Think Al Gore, Prince Charles, Greta Thunberg, Tim Flannery and plenty of others.
I was reminded of this when I came across a recent article with the juvenile title “Underestimating the challenges of avoiding a ghastly future”. Oh no, I thought, not a ghastly future. And who should be among the list of authors but Paul and Anne Ehrlich, who are still going strong with wild, over-the-top predictions. Who can forget The Population Bomb, published in 1968?
According to these authors, hundreds of millions of people were going to die in the 70s because of overpopulation and the world’s inability to feed everyone. But here’s the bit I really love about this book: Paul Ehrlich still thinks he was largely correct but his timing was just a bit askew. In 1986, Ehrlich doubled down by predicting that in 2020, one billion people would die as a result of climate change. That’s right: one billion.
Let me be clear: I’m not recommending you read about avoiding a ghastly future. Yes, overpopulation is still a big issue for the authors, even though all the demographic predictions point to falling world population around the middle of the century.
There is an unproven assertion in the article that COVID-19 and climate change are somehow linked because of increased interaction between different animal species because of changing climate patterns. That sounds scary.
Of course, Ehrlich doesn’t have a mortgage on barking out doomsday scenarios. Who can forget Al Gore, who has become extremely wealthy undertaking his climate change evangelism?
During the first decade of this century — his film, An Inconvenient Truth, was released in 2006 — he repeatedly declared there would be no ice in the Arctic by 2013 or 2014. As it turned out, there was actually more ice than ever in those years.
And we can’t go past our own Professor Tim Flannery, a mammologist by training, predicting in 2007 that cities such as Sydney and Brisbane would run out of water because of climate change and that “even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems”. This, sadly, was not an accurate prediction for the citizens of Brisbane, who endured a ghastly flood in 2011. And, while drought remains a perennial feature of Australia’s climate, most parts of eastern Australia have had above-average rainfalls in the past year and the landscape is green and lush.
I’m not exactly sure why we should pay any attention at all to Prince Charles and his climate change fanaticism. But in 2019, he stated: “I am firmly of the view the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival.” The good thing is the 18 months is up and we can all move on without his opinions.
Embarrassing though these false predictions might be, they are perhaps slightly less excruciating than those made by actual experts — OK, so-called experts — in the field. Take this forecast in 2000 by Dr David Viner, senior research scientist at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia:
“Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event.” (This is the same unit that was the subject of an email scandal in 2010.) Sadly for Viner, but happily for the rest of us, winter snowfalls are very much with us. The UK is enduring a particularly cold winter with snow in various parts of the country. So neither rare nor exciting, it would seem.
And let’s not forget the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declaring in 2007 the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, only to then retract this projection. But it wasn’t a problem according to the IPCC because “in drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly”. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened as a result of the error and readers of the larger report were encouraged to accept the rest of the material as gospel.
The cannier experts in the field tend to project much further out than the next few years or decades because the chances of being tripped up by curious commentators checking for inaccuracies are very slim. Take the UK Met Office, a zealous climate change agency much like our Bureau of Meteorology. Dr Lizzie Kendon, a science fellow at the Met Office, has predicted by 2080 the hottest days in the UK will peak above 40C and the number of cold days will decrease. “We’ll still have cold days, but features like lying snow will become an increasing rarity …” Luckily for Lizzie, 2080 is in the very distant future.
Gratuitous and unverified projections are not science. They are not based on the testing of refutable hypotheses and generally reflect personal biases of the person making deliberately alarming forecasts to promote their preferred set of actions. The media should either ignore them or treat them with the scepticism they deserve There’s plenty of good science around but also plenty of rubbish. Claims that the end is nigh should be treated with the same level of respect given to the speakers in Hyde Park Corner.
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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 January, 2021
Left selective in showing contempt, outrage
GERARD HENDERSON
It was the incorrect answer to a politically correct question. On Wednesday, ABC Radio National Breakfast presenter Sally Sara interviewed New York-based Anti-Defamation League vice-president Greg Ehrie. The ADL is a leading anti-hate organisation, profoundly opposed to white supremacist groups and other extreme domestic ideologies.
Discussion turned on the decision of Twitter and Facebook to ban Donald Trump following the riots at the US Capitol on January 6. Sara ran a recording of acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack comparing the storming of the Capitol with “those race riots we saw around the country last year”. She asked Ehrie, “what’s your response to that comparison?”.
Ehrie replied: “Certainly, it’s very hard not to compare. They happened almost contemporaneously, one after another. And there were a lot of similarities — other than the ideologies — involved with the genesis. How they formed and how the crowds …”
At this stage Sara interrupted: “Hang on, this is storming the Capitol building …” The message was clear; Ehrie had given a response Sara did not want. As it turned out, he went on to condemn the January 6 riots. All he had said was that, in this time of social media, the strategies adopted by rioters of various ideologies were similar.
It is true Trump’s “Save America” speech, delivered in front of the White House, was designed to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election as determined by the vote in the electoral college. Trump lost narrowly to Joe Biden in 2020 as Hillary Clinton had lost narrowly to Trump in 2016.
It was a Trump-like rambling but captivating 75-minute address. At about the 18-minute mark, the US President said: “We have come to demand that congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been fully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Clearly, Trump called for a peaceful demonstration. However, in view of the dynamics of the rally, his overall comments were irresponsible. There are such phenomena as unintended consequences, and they took place with a vengeance on January 6. But they do not make Trump a terrorist, as some of his political opponents now assert.
Trump has reason to query the predominance of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election, conducted at a time of pandemic. In November 1960, Republican candidate Richard Nixon had reason to query the validity of some ballots in Illinois and Texas, which led to Democratic rival John F Kennedy entering the White House. Nixon accepted the decision with little dissent; Trump chose another tactic. On Wednesday (US time), Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives — with about 5 per cent of Republican members supporting the unanimous Democrat turnout led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It remains to be seen if he will be convicted by the Senate, but this seems unlikely.
To win elections, Republicans need their traditional voters plus lower-income Americans, including those of African-American and Latino backgrounds, whom Trump got on board. That’s why it will be difficult for the Republican Party to distance itself from Trump and his supporters if it wants to win in 2024.
In recent times, Australia has had its own violent political riot, when left-wing demonstrators attempted to break down the doors of Parliament House in 1996 as part of a protest against John Howard’s recently elected Coalition government. The story is well told by Tony Thomas in the current issue of Quadrant Online. Fortunately, the Australian Federal Police was better equipped to repel rioters in 1996 than was the case with Capitol police in 2021.
It should be remembered that during the period of the Trump presidency, demonstrators invaded the Capitol building in 2018 while protesting over the President’s decision to nominate Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. They also demonstrated outside the court.
Previously, Trump had succeeded in getting another conservative, Neil Gorsuch, appointed to the US’s superior court. In March 2020, leading Democrat senator Chuck Schumer declared at a left-wing rally: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released a whirlwind and you will pay the price.” An irresponsible statement, to be sure.
Obviously, the overwhelming majority of the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump were not present at the “Save America” rally. And the overwhelming majority of those who were did not storm the Capitol. Even so, many of the wealthiest and well-educated left-liberal types despise so many of their fellow Americans.
We are familiar with Clinton’s 2016 reference to the Trump-supporting “deplorables”. In the wake of January 6, CNN presenter Anderson Cooper sneered at the demonstrators, violent and peaceful alike. He told viewers: “And they’re going back to, you know, the Olive Garden and the Holiday Inn that they are staying at.”
The Holiday Inn in Washington DC is a three-star hotel. Olive Garden is a moderately priced dine-in and takeaway food chain. Cooper is a left-wing multi-millionaire, born to the Vanderbilt family. Like so many contemporary left-wing journalists, he expects everyone should agree with him. In the event, the Americans making most sense in recent times were the likes of Ehrie, who got the correct perspective, and VicePresident Mike Pence who did his constitutional duty in ensuring an orderly transition to the Biden presidency on January 20.
Phoenix of hope rises from ashes of pandemic disaster
For much of the past decade the pace of innovation underwhelmed many people — especially those miserable economists.
Productivity growth was lacklustre and the most popular new inventions, the smartphone and social media, did not seem to help much. Their malign side-effects, such as the creation of powerful monopolies and the pollution of the public square, became painfully apparent. Promising technologies stalled, including self-driving cars, making Silicon Valley’s evangelists look naive. Security hawks warned that authoritarian China was racing past the West and some gloomy folk warned that the world was finally running out of useful ideas.
A dawn of technological optimism is breaking. The speed at which COVID vaccines have been produced has made scientists household names. Prominent breakthroughs, a tech investment boom and adoption of digital technologies during the pandemic are combining to raise hopes of a new era of progress: optimists giddily predict a “roaring Twenties”. Just as the pessimism of the 2010s was overdone — the decade saw many advances, such as in cancer treatment — so predictions of technological utopia are overblown. But there is a realistic possibility of a new era of innovation that could lift living standards.
In the history of capitalism, rapid technological advance has been the norm. The 18th century brought the Industrial Revolution and mechanised factories; the 19th century railways and electricity; the 20th century cars, planes, modern medicine and domestic liberation thanks to washing machines. In the 1970s, though, progress — measured by overall productivity growth — slowed. The economic impact was masked for a while by women piling into the workforce, and a burst of efficiency gains followed the adoption of personal computers in the 1990s. After 2000, though, growth flagged again.
There are three reasons to think this “great stagnation” might be ending. First is the flurry of recent discoveries with transformative potential. The success of the “messenger RNA” technique behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and of bespoke antibody treatments, shows how science continues to empower medicine. Humans are increasingly able to bend biology to their will, whether to treat disease, edit genes or grow meat in a lab. Artificial intelligence is at last displaying impressive progress; spectacular falls in the price of renewable energy are giving governments confidence their green investments will pay off.
The second reason for optimism is booming investment in technology. Having shrunk for years, public R&D spending across 24 OECD countries began to grow again in real terms in 2017.
The third source of cheer is the rapid adoption of new technologies. It is not just that workers have taken to videoconferencing and consumers to e-commerce — significant as those advances are — the pandemic has also accelerated the adoptions of digital payments, telemedicine and industrial automation. It has been a reminder that adversity often forces societies to advance.
Alas, innovation will not allow economies to shrug off structural drags on growth. As societies get richer they spend a greater share of their income on labour-intensive services, such as restaurant meals, in which productivity growth is meagre because automation is hard. The ageing of populations will continue to suck workers into low-productivity at-home care. Decarbonising economies will not boost long-term growth unless green energy realises its potential to become cheaper than fossil fuels. Yet it is reasonable to hope a fresh wave of innovation might soon reverse the fall in economic dynamism responsible for perhaps a fifth of the 21st century’s growth slowdown. Over time that would compound into a big rise in living standards.
Although the private sector will ultimately determine which innovations succeed or fail, governments also have an important role to play. The state can usefully offer more and better subsidies for R&D, such as prizes for solving clearly defined problems. The state also has a big influence over how fast innovations diffuse through the economy. Governments need to make sure regulation and lobbying do not slow disruption, in part by providing an adequate safety net for those whose livelihoods are up-ended by it. Innovation is concentrated among too few firms. Ensuring the whole economy harnesses new technologies will require robust antitrust enforcement and looser intellectual property regimes. If governments rise to the challenge, faster growth and higher living standards will be within their reach, allowing them to defy the pessimists.
Aussie cherry growers hit back at China report
Australian cherry growers have hit back at China’s claims their fruit is inferior to other countries, as the sector hopes to avoid being the next target in Beijing’s trade war.
It follows a report in Chinese state-owned media that the taste and quality of Australian cherries had dropped, prompting buyers to turn to other countries’ products.
Cherry Growers Australia president Tom Eastlake rejected the claim, saying: “We are positioned as the premium cherry product in the world.
“Seventy-two hours from hanging on a tree, it is in the market.”
Growers did not send fruit to international markets when the quality had been affected, such as during extreme weather events, because they did not want to damage the industry’s reputation, Mr Eastlake said.
He also said the sector had received no complaints from Chinese customers.
The Global Times reported fruit traders had claimed Australia’s share of cherries in the market had dropped due to “inferior quality”.
But Mr Eastlake said the fall in exports to China during 2020 was due to the grounding of planes during the pandemic.
His first thought after the Global Times report was “this doesn’t sound good”. But buyers told him they actually needed more fruit.
“The most reassuring thing for me is when you ring your key people in China and say is everything OK?
“And they say, ‘Well look, Mr Tom, if you could send us more that would be wonderful.’
“We don’t have a plan B for China. Not because we don’t have any other options, we’ve got plenty.
“We want to keep working with them, which we will, to see our product get there.”
While other luxury products have fallen victim to worsening trade tensions between the two countries, Aussie growers believe they will continue to thrive in the Chinese market because of their decade-long connection with buyers.
“Trade tension or diplomatic relations is not one of our principal concerns because we are an industry that is built on relationships,” Mr Eastlake said.
“The federal government should, and does, maintain their relationship with China and we, as an industry, do the same.
“Everything has been clearing, everything has been going in and everyone has been really happy.”
Publicity-seeking academics on social media are influencing school policy
A social media-driven "cult of the guru" within education is giving flashy "Kardashian" academics disproportionate influence over schools at the expense of more complex ideas and research, new research argues.
Scott Eacott, an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of NSW, applied the "Kardashian Index" to 50 education researchers from around the world, including 11 from Australia, and found almost a quarter - eight men and four women - had a score high enough to qualify them as a social science Kardashian.
Three were from Australia, and eight were frequent keynote speakers at education conferences.
Named after influencer Kim Kardashian, the index was developed in 2014 to measure the discrepancy between a scientist's social media profile and their publication record. A high index increased the likelihood that they were famous for being famous.
Dr Eacott said this guru culture threatened to undermine the sector. "My big concern is education de-professionalising itself from the inside," he said.
He also examined academics' Twitter mentions, as tagging like-minded gurus can create "cumulative advantage". Seven like-minded researchers out of the 50-strong sample contributed half of all the mentions exclusively among themselves.
Dr Eacott's paper, published in Leadership, Education, Personality: An Interdisciplinary Journal, argued Twitter presence was conflated with expertise in education, and became a means of influencing and shaping the sector's direction.
It did not name any of the alleged Kardashian researchers, but cited University of Kansas Professor Yong Zhao, University of Toronto Professor Michael Fullan and Boston College Professor Andy Hargreaves as examples of gurus in education.
Dr Eacott said social media was an easy way for time-poor teachers and principals to interact with research. "[Social media] devalues the role of regular research, because it reduces everything to slogans," he said. "They say things at face value that are difficult to argue against. Who doesn't want to 'foster creativity'? But they give you nothing to operationalise.
"You need systemic leaders, and professional associations that are more research literate. We say schools are complex, but we ignore that for simple solutions. If schools are complex places, then you need complex solutions not simple solutions. That takes time."
But Professor Hargreaves, who has more than 80,000 citations in peer-reviewed journals and more than 40,000 Twitter followers, said it was important for academics working in professional fields to share their findings in an accessible way, as epidemiologists have done during the pandemic.
"I would be very opposed to anyone saying it was a bad thing to have an impact in the public square, virtually, in print, or physically. Indeed, it would be irresponsible," he said.
Public intellectuals should also not be confused with gurus, Professor Harvgreaves said. "Whenever someone calls me a guru (in a positive way), I am very clear they should call me a teacher as my job is not to get them to follow my ideas, but to engage with those ideas then think and learn for themselves."
"When social media are well used, they are a way to draw people [and] followers into longer, more substantive reads, including academic papers, and to move knowledge around. Some people use social media simplistically. Many in our field don't."
The Kardashian Index was a lighthearted attempt by biologist Neil Hall to highlight the growth of the rock star researcher on the conference circuit, and suggest scientists should be less concerned about social media and focus more on traditional research.
Critics of the Kardashian Index say neither citation numbers nor any other metric adequately measures an academic's value. Professor Zhao declined to comment and Professor Fullan did not respond to the Herald's request for comment.
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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 January, 2021
Young woman appears in court after allegedly obstructing police and breaching bail
What gives these people the right to disrupt other people's lives? There is no such right but you would never know that from the decisions of the courts
The affinity between Leftists and environmentalists was well on display here. From Napoleon and the Socialist Hitler onwards, both groups cheerfully disregard the rights of others in pursuit of their own interests. Many completely innocent people were greatly put out by the traffic holdups but did the demonstrators care about that? Not as far as one can see. Obtaining their own goal -- personal publicity -- ruled supreme
That personal publicity was the aim can be seen from the pointlessness of their "cause". The people they were championing were NOT refugees. They were people who claimed to be refugees but whom the authorities and the courts had ruled NOT to be refugees. They had already had full attention to their fraudulent claims
A refugees rights activist charged after a protest in Brisbane has been bailed following a night in custody. Emma Jade Dorge, 24, appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court charged with obstruct police and a breach of bail condition.
About a 100 protesters marched in the streets of Kangaroo Point yesterday blocking peak hour traffic as the Gabba Test finished.
The protest began about 5pm at the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel where scores of immigration detainees have been warehoused since last year. The protesters headed down Main St chanting “we won’t stop until we free the refugees”.
A Queensland Police spokeswoman said there was no permit issued for the demonstration and it was “an unauthorised protest”.
Dorge was the only person charged following the incident.
Representing herself in court this morning Dorge indicated during a bail application that she was likely to plead not guilty to the charges.
If refused bail today she would spend months in custody for offences that are likely to only attract a fine if found guilty, she told the court.
“All of my alleged offences and history are for peaceful protesting. I don’t pose a risk to the community in being let out on bail,” she said.
Magistrate Annette Hennessy granted bail stating she did not consider Dorge an “unacceptable risk”in the community.
Australian 'excess' deaths lower than expected, despite coronavirus pandemic
Australia recorded fewer deaths than expected from medical conditions in 2020, despite being in the midst of a global pandemic.
So, what's behind the numbers. What type of deaths are we talking about?
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released provisional mortality figures in December for deaths certified by doctors.
According to the ABS, "excess mortality" is the difference between the number of deaths in a period of time, and the expected number of deaths in that same period.
The ABS's December report showed there were 116,345 deaths registered by doctors between January 1 and October 27, 2020, compared with the 2015-19 average of 117,484.
Doctor-registered deaths include deaths associated with respiratory diseases, dementia and chronic conditions such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
"In 2020 when the initial wave of the pandemic hit, we had an increase in the number of deaths and the increase was sustained only for around a month," ABS health and mortality statistics director James Eynstone-Hinkins said.
"After that, what we've actually seen is a lower number of deaths through the winter months pretty much right the way through until October, which is the latest data that we have now.
"What we can see is that the causes that have the lowest numbers of deaths in comparison to previous years are mostly in the respiratory disease group so that can include chronic lower respiratory diseases, things like influenza and pneumonia.
"It certainly points to a lack of transmission perhaps of some normal infectious diseases during the winter months that may have contributed to a lower-than-expected number of deaths during that period."
The statistics do not include deaths referred to coroners, such as accidents, assaults and suicides, which Mr Eynstone-Hinks said usually accounted for about 10-15 per cent of deaths in Australia.
What happened with influenza?
Federal Health Department figures show that of the laboratory-confirmed influenza cases last year up to late November there were 37 deaths, a 50 per cent decrease from the five-year mean.
There were 21,266 notifications of laboratory-confirmed influenza to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System in the year to the end of the 2020 influenza season, which was almost eight times fewer than the five-year average of 163,015.
Deakin University chair in epidemiology Catherine Bennett said Australia was heading into an early influenza season before COVID-19 arrived, but restrictions introduced in response to the pandemic slowed transmission not only of coronavirus, but also of other infectious diseases.
"Because we went early and hard with our restrictions, we not only prevented many COVID deaths — we did see 900 or so [COVID-related] deaths — but at the same time we prevented many more," Professor Bennett said.
"In the process, by bringing in an early vaccine for flu and just the effects of the restrictions, the isolation, the extra hygiene people were practising, we also reduced our flu deaths and other communicable, respiratory in particular, deaths really noticeably."
Without restrictions and physical distancing, Professor Bennett said Australia would have recorded similar numbers of influenza deaths to previous years, as well as "many more" COVID-19 deaths than the 900.
Is drilling in Lake Torrens the next Juukan Gorge?
Can a Premier who is also Minister for Aboriginal Affairs really refuse an inquiry sought by Indigenous people into his state’s native title organisations because he says he respects Aboriginal self-determination — yet then approve mining exploration in an area his own Aboriginal heritage body recommended against?
It’s a bob each way on self-determination and it’s at the heart of this month’s decision by South Australian Premier and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Steven Marshall to grant Argonaut Resources subsidiary Kelaray permission to drill on the western shores of Lake Torrens, 450km north of Adelaide. It’s a decision some insist is potentially South Australia’s version of last year’s Juukan Gorge destruction by Rio Tinto in Western Australia.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the nation’s most experienced native title lawyers says: “In some ways Torrens is not directly comparable with Juukan because the destruction of the caves is far more damaging to traditional culture than exploratory drilling at Torrens. Yet, in another way, it is far worse. While it can be argued neither the WA government nor Rio Tinto properly understood the importance of Juukan ahead of the blasting, the Lake Torrens situation is the opposite. The Marshall government has approved drilling of a site even though it had extensive knowledge from the state’s Aboriginal Heritage Commission warning it of the potential destruction of sacred sites.”
The issue is divisive politically and for local people. ABC Online on September 28 reported comments from Kuyani woman Regina McKenzie, who said her people “had a deep connection with the lake”.
“The Kuyani were the law holders of what anthropologists would call the lake’s culture people,” McKenzie said.
Her brother, Malcolm “Tiger” McKenzie, completely disagrees. He is unequivocal that cultural issues need to be traded off to maximise economic benefits to local Indigenous people.
“There’s a lot of people, especially the Greens, that stop Aboriginal people advancing in this country. There are important cultural issues associated with the lake, but without mining how are we going to build the capacity of Aboriginal people to work and to contribute to this country?”
Tiger, 68, lives in the Aboriginal community of Davenport north of Adelaide. He believes concerns about a possible repeat of the Juukan Gorge disaster could be alleviated if people from the various tribal groups associated with the lake could sit down and negotiate with the company and state government.
“That’s what we blackfellas have got to do. Sit down and negotiate. We should not be saying no from the very beginning. Otherwise we are always going to have our arms out for a handout.”
For its part, Argonaut is treading warily; CEO Lindsay Owler, acknowledged by all sides as a thoughtful executive who has good relations with government and local Aboriginal communities, saw no benefit in going on the record for this story. Argonaut wants good relations with local Aboriginal people and is willing to pay royalties to any group that eventually secures native title.
Argonaut’s Kelaray sent a draft Native Title Agreement to the Kokatha in October 2019. A royalty framework agreement and proposed heritage arrangements were sent to the Adnyamathanha, including the Kuyani subgroup that may make its own claim for the area, and the Barngarla in late 2016. None of Argonaut’s draft agreements has been executed.
Professor Peter Sutton, anthropologist with the South Australian Museum, gave evidence in the Overlap case that the Kuyani had the strongest connection to the Lake Torrens area.
As in all things native title since the original Wik Ten Point plan devised by John Howard in 1998, negotiated local agreements are the best way forward. With that in mind, Koolmatrie hopes Marshall’s indication last year that he may be prepared to look at some form of parliamentary inquiry will proceed by mid-2021. Andrew Thomas says Marshall should “be meeting with the Kokatha law and culture committee regularly”.
The complexity of the anthropological evidence considered by Justice Mansfield suggests to reform group members that the path of legal action is not the best way forward for Aboriginal native title holders and those without title who nevertheless have legally recognised cultural connections with proposed mining sites.
In the Lake Torrens matter that process would be complicated by the state’s history of mining approvals in the area. A spokesman for the Premier said records indicated the first exploration hole at the lake was drilled in 1960 and 282 exploration licences had been granted over the area since the 1970s. As well, “previous Section 23 authorisations had been approved in 2010 and 2018 by the former Labor government”. The spokesman said any proposed mining would mean “a separate Section 23 authorisation would have to be sought by Kelaray”.
The Marshall government could lose a lot of political skin pleasing neither side, whatever the anthropological justifications for the Premier’s latest decision. An inquiry and a new, more co-operative approach could benefit miners and Aboriginal groups while minimising political damage. A good place to start might be splitting Marshall’s portfolio responsibilities. Many people spoken to for this story believe it is inappropriate that a Premier with power to override Aboriginal heritage recommendations is also Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
Nor is there much support for the opposition. The most recent drilling at Lake Torrens was approved three years ago by ALP minister for Aboriginal affairs Kyam Maher, who told ABC radio on Thursday he now believes Marshall’s decision went much further than his own. The present Aboriginal Heritage Act was introduced by Maher in 2016.
Greens upper house MLC and spokeswoman for Aboriginal affairs, Tammy Franks, said in response to Maher’s comments, “We rushed through the Aboriginal Heritage Act in the first place in 2016. It didn’t have the support of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement or the SA native title services at the time. We didn’t even wait for Law Society advice. It was rammed through the parliament and they got it wrong.
“I will be moving to open up the Aboriginal Heritage Act when parliament resumes in the first week of February. I would hope Labor would be willing to have a respectful conversation that actually listens to Aboriginal voices.”
This issue will only get politically hotter. Lake Torrens is not Juukan Gorge, but activists are keen to make it seem so.
Recovery gathers pace as nation heads back to work
CBD baristas, lunch bar operators, shop keepers and suppliers are geared up and raring to go. Monday in the third week in January traditionally signals a large-scale return to work after summer holidays. This year it is more significant. Many Australians will be stepping out of the shadows of COVID-19 and returning to the workplace for the first time in nine or 10 months. The conditions are auspicious. No new cases of community transmission were recorded on Friday. The US, Britain and Europe can only envy our position. Foot traffic in the Sydney CBD increased this week; Victoria will allow 50 per cent of private sector workers and 25 per cent of public servants on site from Monday. Are the latter more delicate?
Important decisions for employers and governments lie ahead on matters such as workplace rules about vaccinations. Employers, we have reported this week, are seeking clarity. The principle of choice is important. And Scott Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt have made it clear that COVID vaccines will not be compulsory. At the same time, employers such as nursing home operators have long insisted that staff receive an annual flu shot. A sensible, co-operative approach in individual workplaces will help. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is being proactive. In a blueprint that has been well received by Treasury, the Health Department and other business groups, it is proposing that after the inoculation of the elderly, Indigenous Australians and frontline at-risk workers, that staff in manufacturing, international education and other major export sectors receive the vaccine in the second phase, ahead of the general population. Ensuring export supply chains do not become a source of infection and allowing international travel to restart as soon as possible would make sense.
Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox, who represents the nation’s larger employers, says governments will need to issue advice “so employers and employees know what their rights and obligations are’’. Fair enough. Vaccination programs will take months to complete; in the interim, social distancing and other precautions will remain vital. Practical decisions will be needed, at some stage, in regard to those who decline or postpone vaccinations because of pregnancy or medical conditions. Workplace layouts, working from home and masks will be part of the mix. Much will depend on Australians’ take-up rate for vaccines. Rolling out vaccines later than other countries is a positive; useful lessons will be learned from overseas experience.
As the nation opens up, we endorse Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ plan, to go to national cabinet on February 5 to allow international students to re-enter his state. It should be adopted nationally. COVID cases are negligible and the higher education sector faces crippling losses if overseas students are locked out in the first semester. Victoria, sensibly, wants a separate entry quota for overseas students, on top of the current quota for international arrivals. Australia’s success in suppressing COVID should be a comparative advantage in a competitive field, which is also Victoria’s largest export industry. Students, including some from China, Malaysia and Pakistan, are backing campaigns to return. They are ready to pay up and follow quarantine rules.
Mr Andrews should extend his thinking to scrapping Victoria’s Stasi-like domestic border regime. It is denying Victorians the chance to return to their own homes as dates for resuming work and school loom large. Out of more than 11,000 people who have applied for exemptions since January 1, about 8000 are yet to be processed. Such tardiness on a matter that is costing Victorians dearly is inexcusable. On Friday, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce accused the Andrews government of “hypocrisy’’ for denying Victorians the right to come home, with some basic precautions, while allowing in more than 1000 overseas tennis players. Provided it is staged safely, with restrictions for preventing the spread of coronavirus applied rigorously, we applaud the holding of the Australian Open and welcome its competitors. But Mr Joyce’s concern about Qantas and Jetstar being forced to cancel almost 3000 flights between Sydney and Melbourne, the nation’s busiest air corridor, with significant social and economic consequences, is valid. Victoria closed its border to NSW on January 1 in response to Sydney’s northern beaches cluster. The move was excessive then and is now out of all proportion with the risk of COVID transmission. As the broader national economy bounces into the new year from Monday, state leaders should be looking outwards to consider how they can safely promote economic recovery and mobility.
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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 January, 2021
Queensland judge allows mother to consent to autistic child’s transgender treatment
This case was obviously decided on the facts rather than on any principle so should not be regarded as any precedent. The kid was mentally abnormal and distressed while the father had effectively renounced his parental rights so this was not in any way a paradigm case.
One wonders, however, whether the mother might have encouraged the inappropriate gender role. From what we are told, it seems not. If that were the case it would be a matter of considerable concern
It is reassuring that nothing irreversible will be done at this stage.
A 13-YEAR-OLD child, born as a boy but living as a girl, has been given urgent permission to have male puberty bocking drugs without the father’s consent in an extraordinary Queensland first.
The landmark legal case is the first of its kind to be heard in the Supreme Court, with decisions regarding consent for treatment for children with gender dysphoria having previously only been made in the Family Court.
The child, “A”, has been living as a girl for several years and is terrified of her voice deepening and her male genitalia getting bigger, the judge was told.
The mother applied for an urgent order for her to be able to consent to stage one male puberty blocking treatment for her child, without the father’s consent.
“From the age of four, A would declare that she was something other than her male gender and began to declare she was a girl and not a boy and had been born in the wrong body,’’ Justice Ann Lyons said.
“She is uncomfortable wearing boys’ clothes and prefers girls’ clothes, preferably in the colour pink.’’
The mother and child have not seen the father for more than three years, with the mother claiming he had a criminal history for drug and weapons offences and was violent.
She and the child moved to regional Queensland to escape the father, whom she claimed was emotionally, verbally and physically abusive towards both of them.
He did not support the child’s desire to be female, the court heard.
In a recent Family Court decision, a judge said doctors had to seek consent from both parents before a child could be given stage one, two or three treatment for gender dysphoria.
The Supreme Court heard the mother did not know the father’s whereabouts and there were concerns that if the application was made in the Family Court there could be long delays.
The girl is being home schooled, but while she attended a supportive State school she had worn a female uniform and chosen a female name on the school roll and on her bus pass.
A treating team recommended A receive reversible treatment that would block her puberty as a male.
The child, who has autism spectrum disorder, had a history of self-mutilation because of her distress about her genitalia and had previously had suicidal thoughts, a psychiatrist said.
The child recently became upset when experiencing erections.
The doctor said he was concerned if she did not get treatment the child would be at significant risk of depression, anxiety, social isolation, suicide or self-harming of her genitalia.
Justice Lyons heard the application on December 18, two days before the child turned 13.
The judge said the application was brought in the “parens patriae’’ jurisdiction, in which the court acted as a parent to protect children who are unable to look after their own interests.
It allowed the court to make orders contrary to the wishes of a child’s parent, if satisfied it was in the best interests of the child.
Justice Lyons said she was satisfied that A had gender dysphoria, that she and her mother consented to the puberty blocking treatment and the treating team considered it was in the child’s best interest that it not be delayed.
She said considerably delaying treatment to obtain the father’s consent was not in the child’s best interest.
Justice Lyons allowed the mother to consent to the puberty blocking drug treatment without the father’s consent, because of the time of year and concerns about delay.
However, the judge said any future applications for stage two treatment should go before the Family Court of Australia, given its expertise in such matters.
Australian Transgender Support Association of Queensland president Gina Mather applauded the decision of Supreme Court Justice Lyons, which she said was for the betterment of the child.
“We understand the heartache and desperation of trying to contact an absent parent regarding medical assistance for a child,” Ms Mather said.
“The Supreme Court judge should be commended for acting quickly to make this urgently-needed decision,.
“Family law is too slow regarding children under the age of 16 whose parents are of differing opinions with regards to gender dysphoria and puberty blockers.
“This medication is reversible and allows breathing space for everyone, the child, the parents and so on.’’
Australian MS researcher is “excited” by vaccine discovery
An “accidental” miracle cure for multiple sclerosis could emerge from the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scientists who have created a highly successful jab for coronavirus have discovered that the same vaccine mRNA also improved MS symptoms in animal trials and prevented disease progression in rodents showing early signs of MS.
The findings have “excited” a leading Australian MS researcher who hopes that future research will offer a similar protection in people with the debilitating disease.
There are over 25,600 people living with multiple sclerosis in Australia, including over 3970 in Queensland. It is a lifelong disease with no cure. It attacks the central nervous system — the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves and the progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS cannot be predicted.
German company BioNTech has delivered a COVID-19 vaccine that has been unrivalled in its efficacy and it is being rolled out in the US and the EU.
Their work into multiple sclerosis has been published in the medical journal Science.
“While this is an interesting study, it is early-stage research in the laboratory. In people with MS we don’t know specifically which components of the brain and spinal cord are targeted by the immune system; so designing a specific “vaccine” has not been possible. This research is exciting because the “vaccine” was shown to dampen the immune response against additional components of the brain and spinal cord which are involved in auto-immune responses in MS,”
Dr Julia Morahan, Head of Research at MS Research Australia said. “This is an encouraging early finding, and we hope that future research will investigate whether a similar protection could be induced in people with MS,” she said.
BioNTech’s CEO, Ugur Sahin, MD Ph.D has led new research and together with his team they hypothesized that an mRNA vaccine could work in a targeted fashion to help the immune system tolerate specific MS-related proteins without compromising normal immune function. Existing treatments suppress the immune system but can leave patients open to infections. More than 60 per cent of patients are using disease modifying therapy.
Bin-busting grain harvest reviving rural towns
Where's that food shortage the Greenies are always predicting?
Grain growers along the eastern seaboard reaped record winter crops this season, with timely rain across the grain belt in NSW, Victoria and Queensland after a run of dry years.
GrainCorp's haul of wheat, barley and canola exceeded 13 million tonnes, with many of its sites that receive and store grain setting new records after four or more years of drought.
This eclipsed the previous record crop of 12.6 million tonnes reported by eastern Australia's dominant bulk grain handler in 2016-17. Since then, the harvest from Queensland, NSW and Victoria has been depressed by the lack of rain.
GrainCorp operations manager Nigel Lotz said the company's receival site at Coonamble, NSW, which had been barely used in recent years, epitomised the reversal in fortunes for farmers. It set a new record of 443,000 tonnes for the site this year, the single biggest haul in the state.
"NSW port facilities didn't have much activity at all last year, but now the ports in NSW and Victoria are booked out for the whole year coming up," Mr Lotz said.
"Last year in north-east Victoria, southern NSW and particularly north-west NSW, the season was very lacklustre. Now, with all the activity during harvest, you could sense the vibrancy in the communities and people had a skip in their step."
The grain harvest is wrapping up in Victoria, also with some record results despite wet weather since December, which can strip quality from the grain and disrupt harvest logistics.
Julia Hausler, a farmer in the northern Wimmera, said timely rain earlier in the year meant her district enjoyed one of its better seasons in recent memory.
"We were on a knife's edge in the Wimmera, Mallee and central Victoria, but we got the rainfall in August and it turned the season around," Ms Hausler said.
Dalby, Queensland farmer and AgForce grains president Brendan Taylor said farmers were at the whim of "storm lotto" this season, with heavy but patchy rain so localised that a boundary fence could mark the difference between delight and desolation.
"There's been a lot of good management by people to get through these tough seasons, but there's also a lot of good luck in being under the rain and if you're not it can be bloody heartbreaking," he said.
Sam Heagney, who farms at Mungindi, Queensland near the NSW border, said he had an average harvest season but "you didn't have to go far to find someone who'd had their best season ever".
"Coming from such a low base, anything seems amazing. All the businesses in towns were so happy, they were busy and there were lots of people around," Mr Heagney said.
"We have been getting a bit of rain, in late December and early January. But the more the better now. It still hasn't been enough to fill the irrigation dams like Copeton and Keepit."
While wheat prices are down $100 on last year's drought-induced highs of about $350 a tonne, Ms Hausler said the current price was a welcome surprise given the large volume of grain that had hit the market.
"It's a relatively good price at the moment, and a rare thing that prices have even trended upwards $21 since December, despite the good harvest."
Coal exports from Port of Newcastle strong despite China's ban on Australian coal
While Australian coal remains off limits in China, the trade tensions have barely dented overall export figures from Australia's largest coal terminal, with producers finding other international markets.
China usually accounts for 20 per cent of exports from the Port of Newcastle, and when coal ships stopped leaving for China in November, it raised the prospect of a shortfall in demand.
Yet, overall export figures for December show only a 3 per cent decline on the previous year.
A total of 14.9 million tonnes of coal were exported from the port last month, worth $1.7 billion, compared to 15.4 million tonnes in December 2019.
Rory Simington, senior analyst with Wood Mackenzie, said the international coal market had rebalanced itself "remarkably quickly" in the face of the trade war.
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".
But Mr Simington said new markets had opened for Australian producers, ironically as a result of China's surging power demand for heating through a bitterly cold northern winter.
"The Chinese coal market's in a bit of chaos at the moment because there's an extremely cold winter there and prices for domestic coal are extremely high," Mr Simington said.
"So they've gone to other places like Indonesia, Russia, South Africa and have pushed up prices in those destinations — that has provided opportunities for Australian coal into other destinations that it wouldn't normally compete into.
"If China pushes up Indonesian prices, that means a consumer in India is looking at relatively much higher prices for Indonesian coal, and they're saying, 'well, I'll just have some Australian, thanks'."
Mr Simington said new export orders to India, Pakistan, Turkey and even Spain had cushioned the shock for Australian coal producers.
In its December quarterly statement to the ASX, Whitehaven Coal explained that they were sourcing Australian coal through other countries:
China has supplemented its domestic coal production with higher cost coal from alternative origins such as Russia, Indonesia and South Africa.
In addition, late in 2020 China lifted its total import quota in response to strong domestic demand and an extremely cold winter.
China's restrictions have altered seaborne coal trade flows where, instead of being delivered to China, Australian coal is now finding customers in alternate destinations including India, Pakistan and the Middle East, and traded coal historically delivered into these markets is finding its way into China.
Demand boosted by pandemic
Annual figures for Port Waratah Coal Services (PWCS), which handles the bulk of coal loading in the Port of Newcastle, show its exports to China dropped from 18 per cent in 2019 to 8 per cent in 2020.
But overall there was only a 4 per cent decline, which PWCS chief executive Hennie de Plooy attributed to the pandemic.
"Certainly very little coal from here went into China sort of in the last four or five months of the year, but producers in the Hunter Valley were able to find replacement markets for basically all of the coal that didn't go to China," he said.
"I think the main impact was actually the pandemic, the demand really softened in the first half of the year around April-May, when a lot of the economies basically shut down and energy demand dropped.
"Economies restarted in the second half and demand picked up."
New South Wales Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee said it was good news for the industry.
"2020 was another strong year for NSW coal exports despite a range of challenges," he said in a statement.
"It … demonstrates the ability of the sector to adapt to changing opportunities and markets, with NSW coal exported to around 20 different countries during the year."
In another win for the industry, thermal coal prices rose significantly at the end of 2020, up from a low of around $US50 a tonne, where many Australian coal producers are cash negative, to now above $US80 a tonne.
Mr Simington said the prices were being driven not only by China but also Japan and other Northern Hemisphere countries experiencing the cold winter.
Mr Simington said there was "absolutely no sign" of the Chinese Government relenting on its Australian coal ban. "I think the Chinese Government is showing that it's prepared to endure quite a bit of pain with coal prices where they are in China," he said.
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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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14 January, 2021
Queensland considers mining camps for quarantining travellers with four new cases recorded
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she would raise the matter with the Federal Government when national cabinet meets next Friday.
"We are going to look at all options and one of those options is to look at some of the mining camps that we have in Queensland," she said.
"Now, for a start, some of these mining camps are four-star. "My understanding is most of them, the ones we're looking at, have balconies so there's a lot of fresh air for guests and also, too, there's the capacity for all of the staff and the cleaners and everyone to also be based on those sites as well.
"I think this is a rational option and if we are dealing with a strain which is up to 70 per cent more infectious, I think we need to be really serious about it."
There are now 27 active cases in the state after more than 13,000 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours.
None of the positive cases were at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, which was evacuated and shut down yesterday after a spread of the UK variant on its seventh floor.
A major investigation is underway into what caused the cluster that's so far infected four returned travellers at the hotel, as well as a hotel cleaner and her partner.
More than 220 staff at the hotel are being tested and isolated along with 147 former guests, figures revised down since yesterday.
Furthermore, 406 contacts of the cleaner and her partner have been contacted, tested and isolated. "So far none of them have tested positive," Ms Palaszczuk said.
Dr Young said the virus started at the Hotel Grand Chancellor when a man and his partner arrived from the UK on December 30
Shearer shortage due to COVID restrictions sparks 'unofficial auction' for workers
Shearing Contractors Association of Australia secretary Jason Letchford said some producers were paying shearers premiums of between 20 and 50 per cent per sheep in an "unofficial auction system".
"The [minimum] pay rate is about $3.24 to shear a standard or flock sheep in Australia," he said.
"But we've seen the marketplace burst in the last three or four months, with smaller farming enterprises going directly to shearers paying somewhere between $4 and even more than $5 a head to shear those sheep.
"This is the first time we've seen such a broad, wholesale wavering from the award."
Normally hundreds of New Zealand shearers travel to Australia to help with shearing.
However, Dubbo farmer and Australian Wool Innovation national manager of wool harvesting training and development Craig French said between international border restrictions and the sheep herd rebuilding in the wake of the drought the industry was facing a skills crisis.
"There's no doubt that we're in crisis with shearer numbers … right across the country," he said. "It's not just due to the lack of New Zealand staff, there is definitely increased demand for contracting teams."
Job vacancies surge to pre-COVID levels, as Australian share market loses momentum
The number of job vacancies in Australia surged to 254,000 in the November quarter, in the latest sign that Australia's economy is recovering quickly from COVID-19.
It was a big jump (+23.4pc) since the last quarter (August), according to new data released by the Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Online shopping booms during COVID-19
As social distancing rules and fear kept people away from the shops, online sales have taken off and many analysts say a lot of consumers will not return in-store.
The data also showed the number of advertised opportunities was 12 per cent higher than where it was over the previous year.
ABS head of Labour Statistics Bjorn Jarvis said it was also "higher than the pre-COVID level in February" and this "reflected the pace of recovery in labour demand in the second half of the year and labour shortages in some industries".
The latest figures show the biggest gains came in the sectors hardest hit during the pandemic: arts and recreation (+233pc), accommodation and food (+66pc) and retail trade (+39pc).
While public sector opportunities lifted sharply (+16.9pc), private sector vacancies saw an even bigger rise (+24.2pc).
The ABS obtained these figures by tracking the number of jobs currently advertised, via phone surveys and online electronic collection.
The surge offers hope that the job market can continue its surprisingly quick recovery, which saw the unemployment rate drop to 6.8 per cent in November (from a July peak of 7.5 per cent).
It was a major improvement over the May quarter result, which showed job vacancies plunging to 129,200 at the height of the pandemic.
"Today’s data adds to the evidence that the employment recovery should continue into early 2021 at least," said ANZ senior economist Catherine Birch.
"A much quicker labour market recovery poses a question about the right balance of policy settings.
"We think the RBA will be clear about the answer — keep the stimulus flowing.
"Also, it's worth keeping in mind that some component of the very strong vacancy numbers would reflect skills mismatches, which may become more significant as long as international borders remain closed, curtailing skilled migration.
"This component of job vacancies is not helpful in reducing unemployment or improving growth and productivity."
An economy with secure work and a pay rise? Economists say we're painfully close
A big boost in government spending, or a mining boom, can lead to greater economic output or growth. The key though, as always, is whether or not it's sustainable.
If it is, the economy begins to produce wonderful characteristics like ongoing employment and higher wage growth.
Right now, the building blocks for meaningful economic growth are in place: higher consumer spending and demand for labour.
Achieving the next step is the particularly challenging bit, but much of the hard work has been done.
While our worst health fears were never realised, everything but the kitchen sink was thrown at the economy.
In fact, in total, the Government expects to rack up roughly $1 trillion in debt to pay for income subsidies like JobKeeper, JobSeeker and other policies to keep businesses and families afloat.
Tracking how this stimulus has been and is being spent is crucial to understanding how the economy may fare this year.
Because of the inherent uncertainty that comes with managing a pandemic, many households chose to pay down debt and save some of the government cash handouts, rather than spend. The logic was simple: Who knows what the next months will bring, so I think I'll squirrel the money away for a rainy day.
The thriftiness seemed to peak in April.
Consumer spending came roaring back in May, but a 112-day lockdown in Melbourne, which ended in late October, snuffed that out.
Now, there's not only evidence shoppers are loosening their purse strings, but that businesses are also hiring.
That's a recipe for further spending by both shoppers and businesses.
Spending is back up
Late last year shoppers took full advantage of Black Friday sales and the release of the iPhone 12.
Business turnover was strong enough to encourage bosses to take on more staff. ANZ Job Ads surged 13 per cent in November and further 9 per cent in December.
Earlier this week, retail spending showed promise, again.
Figures released by the Bureau of Statistics on Monday show national retail sales jumped 7.1 per cent in November as Melbourne shoppers came out of lockdown to splurge.
Strong internet sales during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales period also helped boost overall spending.
Shoppers spent the most in Queensland, up 4.5 per cent, followed by Tasmania, up 3.4 per cent, and the Australian Capital Territory, up 2.5 per cent. Spending in New South Wales lifted 2.3 per cent.
And again, private sector spending data released on Monday backed this up. According to the Commonwealth Bank, credit and debit card spending in the week to January 8 rose by 13 per cent on a year ago.
Electronics are popular, as are household items and clothing and footwear.
It is up to businesses now
The gross domestic product or GDP equation is simple: Consumption plus business investment plus government spending and net exports… make it up.
All components, bar business investment, are coming through for the economy right now.
Businesses small and large have the option now, if they can, to hire more workers and grow their firms.
Economist Angela Jackson sums it up this way:
"The Government has certainly put a lot on the table to encourage business investment. And if [businesses] don't [spend] this year, you kind of think, well, are they ever going to do it?"
The question is, she says, "Are the conditions there for businesses to invest, and do businesses have the confidence to do that?"
The economic boon and you
As always, it's meaningless to talk about economic growth unless it affects your hip pocket directly or Australians, more broadly, benefit from it in some way.
Obvious benefits include higher pay for those on low incomes and more secure work for those who are underemployed.
Industrial relations expert John Buchanan argues while the recent lift in consumer spending — which makes up the vast bulk of economic growth — is encouraging, there's still a lot of slack in the labour market.
The current underemployment rate is still hovering around 10 per cent.
The next few months will be crucial
Coronavirus, and the economic threats that come with it, aren't going away anytime soon.
Government subsidies need to remain in place, consumers need the confidence to keep spending, businesses will need to continue expanding and hiring, and China will need to keep sucking up Australia's raw materials.
As it stands, JobKeeper and JobSeeker will end in March, and hard COVID-19 lockdowns remain a constant threat for business — making longer term investment plans challenging to say the least.
But is there ever a time when achieving sustainable economic growth is easy? Of course not.
Australia's management of the coronavirus has left us with a better-than-expected economic platform on which to launch — thanks to a once-in-a-generation politically palatable government spending spree.
Taking a few business risks now, however scary, could lead to stronger sustainable economic growth — something many Australians have been longing for now for years.
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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 January, 2021
Another troublesome Sudanese
A drunk plane passenger violently lashed out at flight attendants when they asked him to hand over a juice bottle he had carried on-board, a court has heard.
Dominic Bol Bol, 29, behaved so poorly on the Tiger Airways flight from Sydney to Adelaide that the crew threatened multiple times to turn the plane around.
But he argued that the allegations against him were “all lies” and “not true” as Magistrate John Fahey on Wednesday sentenced him to six months behind bars.
Magistrate Fahey said Bol Bol was intoxicated and carrying bottles of alcohol and aloe vera juice when he boarded the plane on August 29, 2019.
“I don’t really know how it was you got on the plane while you were in that state,” he said in the Adelaide Magistrates Court.
After takeoff, Bol Bol blared music from his phone and attempted to speak to a woman sitting near him.
He also stood up, despite repeated requests from flight attendants to remain seated and turn off the music.
Magistrate Fahey said a flight attendant who asked him to hand over the juice was met with abuse.
“You were told then that if you were not going to behave then the aircraft may be diverted back to Sydney,” he said. “Again you were asked to hand over the aloe vera juice. “You refused, but, in any event, it was taken from you.”
Bol Bol loudly said to the attendant “f*** off, give me back my bottle”, stood up and walked towards the front of the plane.
He tried to move forward to the cockpit while continually asking for the bottle back, waving his arms, clenching his fists and pushing crew members around.
Magistrate Fahey said passengers stepped in to help block Bol Bol, before he targeted a cabin manager and crew member. “You pushed the cabin manager and were acting in a threatening way towards him,” he said.
“Eventually a call was made to the Australian Federal Police and, when you arrived at the airport, you were taken into custody.”
Bol Bol later returned a blood-alcohol content reading of .240.
“That’s a very high reading and you were no doubt higher than that when you were on the plane, which no doubt explains your behaviour” Magistrate Fahey said.
The magistrate said a plane is a confined environment and passengers rely on each other to behave and respond to directions from the cabin crew.
“I can only imagine how frightening that must have been for the people on the plane,” he said. “They must have been, I think, extremely concerned by your behaviour.”
Bol Bol has a history of failing to attend scheduled court appearances, and arrived 45 minutes late for the hearing.
He pleaded guilty to assaulting or threatening a member of aircraft crew, and was jailed for six months.
Magistrate Fahey said the behaviour was dangerous and “extremely alarming” and he refused to suspend the sentence.
Bol Bol, who has prior convictions for assault and trespass, looked shocked as he was led away from the dock by court staff.
He also pleaded guilty to offensive and disorderly behaviour in an aircraft and failing to wear a seatbelt during takeoff and landing.
Scientists call for pause on AstraZeneca vaccine rollout
The Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology says the federal government should immediately pause the planned rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine because it may not be effective enough to generate herd immunity.
Phase three clinical trials of the vaccine, which is the centrepiece of Australia's vaccination strategy, show it is only 62 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19 when given in the recommended dose. Trials suggest vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are about 95 per cent effective.
Immunology society president Professor Stephen Turner said based on current trial evidence the AstraZeneca vaccine should not be widely rolled out.
“The AstraZeneca vaccine is not one I would be deploying widely, because of that lower efficacy,” he said. “You cannot rely on it to establish herd immunity.”
“Given we have fantastic vaccines against this, I think it would be wise to not rely on the AstraZeneca vaccine for controlling the virus in Australia. But it could be used as a tool to blunt the effect of COVID until those vaccines could be deployed.”
Infectious diseases expert Associate Professor Michelle Ananda-Rajah says the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be effective enough to generate herd immunity.
There are no questions about the safety of the vaccine. Trial data suggests it offers potentially complete protection against life-threatening illness, meaning that even if people become infected the disease could be less damaging.
On Tuesday, the Australasian Virology Society confirmed to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that it supported an immediate pause in plans to roll out the AstraZeneca vaccine until research proved it was effective enough to achieve herd immunity.
But following a furious internal debate, the president of the virology society contacted The Age and the Herald late on Tuesday evening to say it had changed its position and no longer opposed the rollout of the vaccine.
When asked why the society was changing its official position at the last moment, its president, Professor Gilda Tachedjian, said: "That’s for us to know and you to find out".
“One reason is we don’t want to undermine the confidence in the vaccine. And we don’t have the full picture. We need to go with the most effective vaccine so we can have herd immunity. But we just don’t have the full picture at the moment with the AstraZeneca vaccine."
Speaking before the virology society's position changed, vice-president and spokeswoman Professor Heidi Drummer said 62 per cent effectiveness was not enough to achieve herd immunity.
“We should wait to see what data AstraZeneca provides to demonstrate higher levels of efficacy can be achieved with their vaccine and opt to use vaccines that achieve the highest level of efficacy to achieve herd immunity, whichever they are," she said.
“If it is 62 per cent efficacy, and that comes out in their further trials, I think there is a really good argument to make for the federal government to invest in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and use that in the wider community.”
Professor Drummer later said she "had to stand by what the president says". "I don’t oppose the rollout of the vaccine provided we can see more data that shows that 90 per cent efficacy can be achieved,” she said.
Herd immunity means that such a large portion of the population is immune that a virus can no longer circulate and is eliminated.
Associate Professor James Wood, a University of NSW vaccine modeller and member of the federal government’s Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, said herd immunity was “the long game”, and providing a vaccine that could protect life immediately was much more important, particularly given Australia had so far only bought enough Pfizer vaccine for 5 million people.
Phase three trial results from the AstraZeneca vaccine published in The Lancet this month show the vaccine was 62.1 per cent effective at preventing disease when given in standard doses.
However, in a small group of volunteers who accidentally received a lower dose, that rate rose to 90 per cent, creating significant uncertainty over the vaccine’s true effectiveness. Not a single person given proper doses of the vaccine developed severe COVID-19.
Vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer have achieved greater than 90 per cent effectiveness, probably high enough to force the virus out of circulation if widely administered, Professor Drummer said.
The Australian government has secured 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, with two injections required per person.
It remains unproven if any of the vaccines can prevent transmission of coronavirus.
Professor Drummer said clinical data suggested the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were far more likely to do so than AstraZeneca's, but more studies needed to be conducted.
Dr Andrew Miller, president of the Australian Medical Association’s Western Australia branch, said a vaccine that did not provide herd immunity would not meet the public’s expectations about returning to pre-COVID normal.
“We need it to be over 70 per cent effective – preferably over 80 per cent – to prevent significant transmission still continuing in the community,” he said.
“We've got plenty of money, and we have got plenty of time because we have very good disease control. Why would we settle for the second-best option?”
But will people buy it?
Stupid new name
The owner of 80-year-old cheese brand Coon has explained the meaning behind the company’s new name, after racism claims sparked a rethink.
Lino A Saputo, the Chair and CEO of Saputo Inc, the Canadian dairy company that owns Coon Cheese said it was a “challenging” decision because Coon was such a well known brand in Australia.
“Although we’ve only owned it since 2015 it was important for us to understand that name did not please other consumers,” Mr Saputo told Sunrise on Wednesday.
He said the name being disliked by some created a “competition that was not favourable” and led them to “embark on a journey of changing the name”.
Responding to criticism the company was named after a cheese processor named Edward William Coon, and therefore shouldn’t change its name, Mr Saputo said some of the company’s consumers were “activists”.
“You want to have a culture that is fully inclusive, where everyone feels like they’re accepted, where everyone feels like they’re respected.
“We thought there was no harm in changing the name. In fact, a real plus, a real benefit to our consumers.”
The rebrand comes six months after their initial announcement in 2020, in the midst of global Black Lives Matter protests. Calls came from Australian actor Josh Thomas on Twitter, and Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan, who said the name was “racist”.
“Treating people with respect and without discrimination is one of our basic principles and it is imperative that we continue to uphold this in everything we do,” Mr Saputo said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cam Bruce, the company’s Commercial Director, said the new name, Cheer Cheese, “is a cheese for everyone, and we trust our valued consumers and those who are new to our products will embrace this new name”.
The company’s Commercial Director said Cheer Cheese remains committed to Australian dairy farmers.
The company’s Commercial Director said Cheer Cheese remains committed to Australian dairy farmers.Source:Supplied
“We want to stay true to the brand values,” Mr Bruce said. “CHEER Cheese is the same recipe that millions have come to love, and will continue to grow up with, for generations to come.
“We remain committed to our Australian farmers who continue to produce the high-quality milk that goes into all of our products, including CHEER Cheese.”
Cheer Cheese will be available on Aussie shelves from July 2021.
But the announcement has sparked a furious backlash from critics who said it was a sign of “political correctness gone totally mad”.
“Won’t be buying it … should never have changed the name — family name nothing to do with racism … gone mad,” one woman wrote on Facebook.
“FFS political correctness has gone totally mad,” one woman wrote on Twitter. “Coon cheese will always be Coon cheese, not this stupid Cheer cheese name change.”
“Its old name was in no way racist given the context,” another man wrote on Facebook. “There’s still many people out there with the last name Coon, should they be forced/asked to change their name?
Others simply couldn’t get used to the iconic brand’s new name.
“Not a fan of being forced to change the name but surely someone could have came up with a better name?? Cheer?? Really,” another wrote.
“What an absolutely ridiculous name. I’ll never buy this brand again,” another said.
Lockdowns not the way forward in COVID fight
Prof. Peter Collignon
If we look at past outbreaks in Australia – northwest Tasmania, Adelaide, Logan, Sydney’s Crossroads Hotel – they, like the current clusters, have all been controlled by a combination of testing, contact tracing, quarantining of close contacts and limits on the size of events.
Melbourne’s devastating second wave last winter was our major exception, but many important factors were poorly managed, and these have now been markedly improved.
Why, then, is there now such a sense of panic that COVID-19 will spiral out of control, with calls for citywide lockdowns of millions of people?
We have a very good track record of success in Australia with good testing and contact tracing. Additionally, in summer transmission risks are lower than in winter.
It’s hard to see a lot of benefit from sharp three-day lockdowns such as occurred in Brisbane, if you have good testing and contact tracing.
We need to be careful not to overreact or catastrophise. Our track record shows spread can be controlled and this can be achieved while still giving the vast majority people reasonable mobility, as well as economic and social engagement.
COVID-19 and its risks will be with us for another year or two. Governments need to trust the public with good information to show rationale for decisions. We need health advice and interventions to be consistent, predictable and sustainable.
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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 January, 2021
Origin and Neoen plan $1bn batteries for NSW power plants
What use is a power source that lasts only for a few hours? What happens when the battery runs flat? Nights can last for 12 hours so when the wind is not blowing get ready for blackouts after 10pm or thereabouts.
And cloudy days could be a problem too. There are many days that are overcast all day, which greatly reduces solar panel output.
Clearly, gas-fired generators are essential. And if you have got them, why the battery?
Two of the world’s biggest batteries, worth a combined $1bn, will be built at the sites of NSW coal plants in a move to ease strains in the power grid and provide back-up for renewable energy generation.
Origin Energy plans to develop a giant 700 megawatt battery at Eraring, Australia’s largest coal-fired power station, while France’s Neoen is preparing a 500MW battery stack dubbed the Great Western Battery Project at Wallerawang, home to the former EnergyAustralia coal station, which has now been decommissioned.
The two batteries would rank as the largest storage devices in the world and over four times larger than the Tesla world-beating battery in South Australia, which is also operated by Neoen.
The rollout of the big batteries shows the willingness of investors to ensure enough supply is in place when coal plants retire over the next two decades. It also boosts the flexibility of running Eraring, which supplies a quarter of the state’s energy needs, during peak demand until its scheduled retirement in 2032.
Origin’s 700MW battery, which can send power into the grid for up to four hours, will be developed in three phases, with the initial capacity expected online by late 2022. An expression of interest for its supply and installation was issued to industry players on Monday. The battery is the largest under consideration in Australia and will require sign-off from Origin’s board.
“The deployment of this battery at Eraring will support Origin’s orderly transition away from coal-fired generation by 2032, while complementing the policy objectives of the NSW energy road map,” said Greg Jarvis, Origin’s executive general manager for energy supply and operations.
“We recognise we have an important role to play in positioning Origin’s electricity generation portfolio to support Australia’s rapid transition to renewables,” Mr Jarvis said. “A large-scale battery at Eraring will help us better support renewable energy and maintain reliable supply for customers, by having long-duration storage ready to dispatch into the grid at times when renewable sources are not available.”
Neoen, which in November teamed up again with Tesla for a “humungous” 300MW battery installation near Geelong in Victoria, will spend up to $400m on the NSW facility, with a generation capacity of 500MW and up to 1000 megawatt hours.
The battery installation will be close to the former Wallerawang plant and connect to a substation that was used for the coal development, documents lodged with the NSW Department of Planning show.
Neoen has so far committed $3bn of investment on 1600MW of renewable generation in Australia and plans to double spending to $6bn by 2022, representing 3000MW of power supply.
“The large-scale battery system would reduce the possibility of load-shedding and blackout events in the state, especially considering the multiple existing coal-fired power plants that are planned to retire in the next decade,” Neoen said in its planning documents.
A breakdown at AGL Energy’s Liddell coal plant in December has increased the potential for power blackouts during heatwaves this summer and forced the nation’s biggest aluminium smelter to cut production.
The batteries back up a key plank of the NSW government’s ambitious plan to attract $32bn in private investment over the next decade focused on 12 gigawatts of renewable generation and 2GW of long duration storage.
Big energy producers and users had previously raised fears over a plan by the NSW government to underwrite investment in renewable and storage generation.
It may also ease tensions between industry and the federal government after Scott Morrison gave companies until April to commit building 1000MW of new power capacity to ensure there was a like-for-like replacement for the Liddell coal plant which will close in the 2022-23 summer.
Coal, which currently provides 70 per cent of electricity, will contribute less than a third of supply by 2040 and could be forced out earlier than planned retirement dates as competition from renewables and carbon constraints render plants uneconomic, Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts show.
By 2035 nearly 90 per cent of power demand could be met by renewable generation during periods through the day. However, that will require up to 50GW of large-scale solar and wind to be added under the most aggressive plan to cut emissions, representing nearly all the current capacity of the market to be built in just two decades.
Up to 19GW of “firmed” dispatchable resources such as gas, pumped hydro and batteries will be required in the next two decades to back up renewables.
Big coal plants like Eraring have been forced to dial down capacity close to minimum levels more frequently due to low wholesale spot prices and the solar “duck curve” phenomenon, where renewables beat coal on price during the day.
Traditionally the country’s big coal generators run around the clock, reflecting both market demand for the fuel but also the difficulty in tweaking output from huge pieces of machinery that can take hours to properly synchronise with the grid.
But the relentless surge of cheap and plentiful renewables — solar, wind, hydro and battery storage — is sparking a shift among the big baseload coal producers that supply 70 per cent of the grid’s needs.
Whereas once Origin may have run the plant through the day and night, the ability of solar to cut wholesale prices in the day means Eraring may make a better return ramping its output up and down to meet peak demand.
Another one of Australia's delightful Aborigines
A man alleged to have dragged a woman for several hundred metres during a violent carjacking in Brisbane will remain behind bars on remand until his next court appearance.
Theo Fewquandie, 18, did not appear at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning after his dramatic arrest the night before.
He is facing a raft of serious charges, including unlawful entry of a motor vehicle, robbery with violence, dangerous operation of a vehicle causing grievous bodily harm, deprivation of liberty and unlicensed driving.
Police have since urged anyone with dashcam footage of a man – described as being “Aboriginal in appearance, curly hair in a ‘man bun’ style, black shorts, black T-shirt and a black, white and red hoodie” – to come forward.
Fewquandie, from Ellen Grove, is alleged entered a blue Mitsubishi hatchback parked outside of the Buranda Shopping Centre carpark at 7pm on Monday.
It is alleged the driver had gone inside to collect food from the local Nando’s, leaving a 22-year-old woman waiting in the car.
Fewquandie is alleged to have pushed the woman out of the vehicle, causing her to be dragged several hundred metres before crashing into a wall.
The 22-year-old woman was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
No application for bail was made on Tuesday morning as Fewquandie’s lawyer asked for an adjournment.
He will return to court on March 1.
Class action drags on as survivor fears death before cash
Queensland residents have passed the 10-year anniversary marking a deadly flood on the 10th of January 2011.
Ten years after a raging torrent crashed through homes and destroyed lives there are renewed calls for thousands of flood victims to be swiftly compensated by the state’s ‘negligent’ dam operators.
A class action backed by 7000 people led the Supreme Court in 2019 to find the state government, Seqwater and SunWater were negligent in the operation of the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams in the lead up to the 2011 floods.
The government has accepted the decision but the two dam operators have appealed, which is expected to be heard in the Court of Appeal in May.
Ipswich Councillor Paul Tully, who represents the hardest-hit suburb of Goodna, slammed dam operators Seqwater and SunWater for “dragging” the matter out and denying compensation to victims.
“Ten years on and claimants have passed on, families have split up, couples have divorced and children are still suffering from the impact of the flood but Seqwater and SunWater and their lawyers and insurers are continuing to toy with people’s lives and emotions,” he said.
“This is a national disgrace as the class action grinds to a halt for possibly another two years while the case heads to the High Court.”
Mr Tully, who is part of the 7000-strong class action, said the operators should “accept the umpire‘s decision” and called for new national legislation to ensure large disputes were settled in an appropriate time. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” he said.
“Class actions are powerful tools against corporate wrongdoers but the system needs to be overhauled so that victims of natural disasters don’t have to wait for more than a decade to be compensated.”
Goodna resident Frank Beaumont, 78, says despite the muddy water receding a decade ago, he’s still battling to survive.
Mr Beaumont, lost $250,000 in home value, his marriage and family due to the stress of the event. “It‘s absolutely frustrating, the court case has been going on for seven years and the next part of it is not until May this year,” he said.
As he approaches 80 years old Mr Beaumont is increasingly fearful he won’t live to see any money. “I hope to be around but if Seqwater and SunWater lose their appeal they can go to the High Court so there are another two years – It’s very doubtful.”
Seqwater and SunWater declined to comment.
'Hard to see a safe corridor': NSW shelves plan for return of international students
The NSW government has shelved plans to start returning 1000 international students to Sydney each week in a blow to some of the city's major universities.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian told The Sun-Herald in November she wanted to use a third of the state's hotel quarantine slots to bring in international students and skilled migrants, starting as soon as this month.
The push was at odds with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a national cabinet agreement which made returning Australians the priority leading up to Christmas.
NSW Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney Stuart Ayres said returning international students will be a critical part of NSW economic recovery from the pandemic.
"At the moment our priority is returning Australians home. Given the arrivals cap of 3000 a week into Sydney Airport – that currently leaves limited room to consider international students," he said.
"The NSW government will continue to work closely with the Commonwealth government and the education sector with the clear aim of having international students back in 2021."
On Saturday, Ms Berejiklian said of her original plans: "I think that's always our aspiration, but we can't pretend about how serious the current mutations of the virus are, and until we understand better what those strains are doing."
A federal Department of Education spokeswoman said NSW had not yet submitted "a formal plan" and that bringing Australians home was the government's first priority.
However, senior NSW government sources said a detailed plan to return 1000 students had been developed late last year, but this had been put on hold since the northern beaches and western Sydney coronavirus outbreaks.
Western Sydney University vice-chancellor Barney Glover said it was unlikely universities would see a so-called safe corridor trial in the near future.
"I think that's unfortunate, but I certainly understand the position the government is in," he said. "I think we've just got to be patient," he said.
Professor Glover said it might be possible to see the return of students return as early as May, but the second half of the year was "looking more likely".
Nicole Brigg, pro vice-chancellor international at Macquarie University said that after watching the daily news "it is hard to see a safe corridor happening soon".
University of Technology Sydney deputy vice-chancellor Iain Watt said the safe corridors plan had not been abandoned, but Australian education providers were at risk of long term loss of market share of international students to other countries including the UK and Canada, whose borders are open to them.
"We are going to be locked into this smaller share of the market if we keep can't find a way to balance the health and safety issues with economic issues and allow students from low risk countries to travel here," he said.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Australia's international student industry generated $40 billion in annual revenue. Mr Watt said significant numbers of students and "not just a few hundred" would need to return to help the thousands of businesses that rely on international student spending.
Chief executive officer of the International Education Association of Australia Phil Honeywood said the average international student spent up to $100,000 a year in the Australian economy and stayed for three to four years, but state and federal governments were "rolling out the red carpet" to other short-term visitors.
"Our political community is relaxed about bringing tennis and cricket players and their entourages into Australia for a short time," he said. "They are similarly relaxed with hundreds of foreign military personnel about to arrive here for short-term training exercises.
"However, unlike Canada and the UK, they continue to put barriers up against international full fee paying overseas students who are here for the long-term rather than a few weeks."
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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 January, 2021
New global ranking system shows Australian universities are ahead of the pack
Whether it’s purchasing power parity or the Happiness Index, global comparisons require benchmarking. Sport does this well with World Cups and the Olympics, or better still the single ranking familiar to tennis and golf aficionados.
The problem with universities is there are around a dozen rankings. Each is a variable mix of research, reputation and teaching metrics, leading to quite different and confusing results.
University rankings certainly have their critics, who point to the potential to mislead students and distort research priorities. Our newly developed Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities (ARTU) overcomes the flaws of singling out performance in any one ranking.
Read more: Beyond the black hole of global university rankings: rediscovering the true value of knowledge and ideas
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This aggregated ranking helps to broaden the range of assessment — from research citations (frequency referred to in the academic literature) and impact, through to reputation, and qualitative as well as quantitative measures. It also helps address the inherent imperfections of any one of the individual ranking systems, when seen on their own.
The ARTU orders universities by cumulative performance over the mainstream scoring systems. Condensing the three most influential — the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE) and Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) — gives a single broad overview of a university’s position.
How does Australia fare?
Australia now has 13 universities in the global top 200. That’s an increase from just eight two years ago.
Australia ranks fourth in the world in 2020, after the US, UK and Germany. Indeed per head of population, Australia is well ahead of these nations, and second behind the Netherlands for nations of more than 10 million.
This is no new entrant fluke, as Australia has seven universities in the top 100. That’s 7% of the best universities for 0.3% of the world’s population (or 1.6% of global GDP). Two Australian institutions, Monash and UNSW, are among the five that jumped more than 20 places within the top 100 between 2012 and 2020.
Asia on the rise
Although rankings are compiled annually, performance is a lagging indicator assessed over several years. For instance, research citations can be judged between five to 11 years later.
On the one hand, this should help cushion our pandemic-affected universities from precipitous falls over the next few years. On the other, it conspires against rapid rises up the global ladder.
This makes the ascendancy of East Asian universities, and in particular those from China, all the more remarkable. The top two Chinese universities now come in at 18th and 27th internationally, ahead of Australia’s lead, the University of Melbourne at 29th. The next four Chinese universities have risen more than 100 spots since 2012 to crack the top 75. This is especially impressive given that research is largely judged on English-language outputs.
Australia has fared well in this battle of the old versus new order. Long-established universities benefit from major endowments, philanthropy and long-run reputation. Australia’s universities in the top 200 have an average age of 78, compared to over two centuries for overseas unis in top 200.
China has this disadvantage too. But China does have the benefit of a booming economy, which drives top-down investment in cutting-edge technologies and academic excellence through STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) research at scale.
A measure of the value of international students
It can be argued that Australian universities thrived on the back of 28 years of growth, a desirable location, political stability and relatively open borders to knowledge-based entrants. But the standout contribution has been from international students. In absolute terms universities in Australia have the second-highest number after the US.
Simply put, the margin between international and domestic student income covers the indirect costs of strategic investment in research, teaching and other areas. Australian universities need to raise around an additional dollar in support and infrastructure spending for every dollar won in grant income. And all this while fulfilling the core mission of educating local students, with 43% of 25-to-34-year-olds now having a bachelor degree, up from 34% in 2010.
But coronavirus has laid bare the Achilles heel in this business model. Closed borders and geopolitical shifts have delivered a major blow to cross-subsidisation, as well as to the international collaboration so crucial for team-based research addressing the world’s grand challenges.
Vaccines now offer some light at the end of the tunnel, but it will be many years before the world resembles its former self, if ever. Trust in science and an R&D-led economy argue for a major role for universities in the recovery from COVID-19. But the only certainty is uncertainty.
So expect considerable volatility in higher education. How well our universities stack up will depend in part on how international competitors fare, and in particular their relative economies and resourcefulness. Australia looks well positioned here, but will need to weather the threats posed by contraction, domestic constraints and a challenging business model.
Rankings are not perfect. They do not assess all aspects of the mission of Australian universities and are rightly subject to criticism, often from institutions not doing so well. But rankings are the best surrogate measure of global standing that we have and they are here to stay, whether we like them or loathe them.
As the aggregate scoreboard for top universities around the globe, ARTU is well placed to track the shake-up from COVID-19 as it plays out in our universities over the next five to ten years.
Victorian Liberals confront Bernie Finn over pro-Trump social media posts
The Victorian Liberal Party says it will confront one of its controversial upper house MPs over pro-Trump conspiracy theories he shared on social media while rioters stormed the US Capitol in Washington on Thursday.
David Davis, the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, said he "fundamentally" disagreed with his colleague Bernie Finn, and that his posts on his private Facebook page were "wrong".
The Victorian Liberals will "talk" to Bernie Finn about his pro-Trump posts.
The Victorian Liberals will "talk" to Bernie Finn about his pro-Trump posts. CREDIT:JASON SOUTH.
Mr Finn, who is also the opposition whip in the upper house, attracted criticism from some members of the Liberal Party after he shared several pro-Trump posts in the lead up, during and after the riots in Washington.
Mr Davis did not go as far as condemning Mr Finn, but said the Liberal Party would "certainly be talking to" him about his comments. He was asked what action the party would take against Mr Finn, but did not answer.
"I don't know why Bernie has made those comments," Mr Davis said.
"My view is that they are wrong, I think that the election result is very clear and I think the fact is that there's been a series of terrible events in America in this recent period, and I think the community is horrified by what they've seen.
"People are allowed to speak, but, having said that, I think it's incumbent on us to say when we think they're wrong."
On Wednesday evening, before the violence had erupted, Mr Finn shared a lengthy post reiterating false claims of election fraud and wrote that US President Donald Trump had "set a wonderful example to every other national leader by putting America first".
"Within the next 12 hours, Donald J. Trump will make history for one of two reasons: 1) He will fight off a concerted effort by globalists, big corporations, big media, the Washington Establishment and the mad Left to improperly remove him from the Oval Office," Mr Finn said.
"Or, 2) He will succumb to the aforementioned Deep State forces - but not before exposing the massive corruption undermining the American political system."
As rioters tore through the Capitol, Mr Finn shared an image of former US president Ronald Reagan and an excerpt of one of his speeches.
"The people of the United States would be well advised to remember these words of a very wise man and great president," Mr Finn wrote.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction," the excerpt of Reagan's speech began. "We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
On Thursday afternoon, Mr Finn also shared an article to his private Facebook page from the conservative news website Washington Times that claimed a facial recognition technology company had identified members of far-left group Antifa who had "infiltrated Trump protesters who stormed Capitol".
In the post, Mr Finn wrote: "This shouldn't surprise anyone. This is far more Antifa than Trump."
The Washington Times has since issued a correction to its news article to state the technology "did not identify any Antifa members".
COVID: The difference between Australia and the rest of the world
NSW Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has started his coronavirus update by constrasting the situation in Australia with the rest of the world.
There have been 750,000 fresh coronavirus cases worldwide over the past 24 hours, Professor Kelly says. In Australia, seven of eight jursidictions have recorded no new local cases today (NSW reported three).
There were 1000 deaths in the UK on Saturday and 4000 in the US.
"My sister lives in a small village in northern Italy," Professor Kelly said.
"I was speaking to her yesterday, or had texts from her yesterday, where she was talking about the church in her small village: the bells are tolling for deaths almost every day and almost the whole day, just in a small village in Italy."
He added: "That's what the situation is out there in the world right now. In Australia, we're doing much better than that."
The Chief Medical Officer has praised high testing rates across Australia reported on Sunday.
NSW and Victoria both reported more than 23,000 tests, and Queensland reported more than 19,000 tests.
"Over 73,000 tests really is extraordinary," he said.
"Hats off to everyone involved with that, including the community, but also the people who are putting themselves on the frontliine there to take those tests, those that are working absolutely full-time and right through the night sometimes in the laboratories to get that crucial information to guide our public health."
Lockdown demands were wrong: Sydney shows how to fight COVID-19
Peter Collignon, Professor of infectious diseases
COVID-19 is and should remain a major concern to all of us. Thankfully in Australia, by any global comparison we currently have little, and in many areas zero, community transmission. There are many things we have done very successfully to decrease our risk of spreading this infection.
What we do, however, needs to be proportionate to the risk at the time. Too often, panic and isolationism seem to be playing major parts in headlines, opinions and decision making.
Many prominent individuals made dire predictions about what might happen in Australia. Most of these have been wrong, including recent warnings that Christmas and New Year's would be super-spreading events in Sydney if we did not apply a citywide lockdown.
Currently, there are three COVID-19 clusters in Australia from recently introduced strains. The Avalon cluster, which started in early December and had more than 140 cases, now appears to be extinguishing. The more recent Berala cluster with over 20 cases is also waning. In Melbourne, a cluster associated with a restaurant with more than 30 cases appears to be well-controlled.
These successes show current interventions and advice from health departments in NSW and Victoria have been effective at stopping spread without the total lockdowns many advocated.
Saturday January 9: NSW has recorded one new locally transmitted case of COVID-19 linked to the Berala cluster.
Despite some infected visitors from both Melbourne and Sydney, there has been no transmission of COVID-19 within regional NSW (population three million). Brisbane has just gone into a surprising lockdown after only a single new case associated with a quarantine hotel leak.
If we look at past outbreaks in Australia - Adelaide, Logan in Brisbane, Sydney's Crossroads Hotel - they, like the current clusters, have all been controlled by a combination of good testing, contact tracing, quarantining of close contacts and limits on the size of indoor events.
Melbourne's devastating second wave last winter was our major exception, but many important factors were poorly managed and these have now been markedly improved.
Why, then, is there now such a sense of panic that COVID-19 will spiral out of control? We have a very good track record of success in Australia with good testing and contact tracing. Additionally, in summer transmission risks are substantially lower than in winter.
Some restrictions seem very inappropriate. Despite no recent community transmission of COVID-19 in regional NSW, some states (Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia) have shut borders.
If they do cross the border, many people will spend two weeks in hotel quarantine as if they had come from high-prevalence regions such as Europe. Their actual risk of being infected must be less than one in a million. So why treat them as being high-risk?
We need to be careful not to overreact or catastrophise. Our track record, particularly responses of the NSW government, shows spread can be controlled. This control was achieved while still giving the vast majority of people in Sydney and NSW mobility, as well as economic and social engagement.
Frequent dire predictions that end up being wrong don't help. We need to be alert but to markedly decrease some of the associated panic. COVID-19 and its risks will be with us for at least another year or two. We need health advice and interventions to be consistent, predictable and sustainable.
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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 January, 2021
Cosy deal between union and builders
A mutually beneficial arrangement with builders allows the corrupt CFMEU to thrive and expand, writes Des Houghton.
Union thug John Setka and his CFMEU cronies are the beneficiaries, but are not the cause of our fractured industrial relations system.
It’s a sham system that not only fails to block corrupt unions like the CFMEU, but seems to support them.
How else could regular workplace thuggery be tolerated? Why else could the intimidation flourish?
How else could taxpayers be gouged billions extra for vital public works?
Could it be because of a cosy relationship with the top-tier building firms who win all the lucrative jobs, the industry groups like the Master Builders’ Association, and the unions?
Collectively, this group must share responsibility for adding billions to the cost of vital infrastructure like schools, universities, hospitals and freeways.
We can safely call the CFMEU “corrupt” because that is the way it has been described in federal and state parliaments, and in just about every other tribunal in the land.
Setka is not alone, with Queensland home to its fair share of CFMEU bullyboys.
The Courier-Mail recently reported that assistant secretary Jade Ingham, who has a history of industrial unlawfulness, civil disobedience and appalling verbal abuse, was appointed by the State Labor Government to the Queensland Building and Construction Commission,
More recently a court heard another CFMEU organiser subjected a female health and safety officer to “obscene and derogatory abuse” on a Gold Coast site, calling her a “f..king dog c..t” three times and “made a sound like a dog barking”.
So why do we continue to allow the CFMEU, in all its iterations, to thrive and expand?
In his Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia’s Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill, known as the Omnibus IR bill, the Minister for Industrial Relations, Christian Porter, has set the stage for the creation of not one but two CFMEUs.
So construction industry chiefs, and police and the workplace regulators, will now have a two-headed monster to deal with.
I am being picky here, and acknowledge there is much more in the Omnibus bill.
However the lawlessness and union monopoly in the construction industry remains a stain on the nation’s soul. How can we sing “we are one and free” while unionists are given more power than police?
It’s time political parties of all persuasions admitted the “gravy train” arrangement between top-tier construction firms and powerful industry groups that help shape the laws that seem to me to protect wrongdoing.
The cosy arrangements enshrined in Enterprise Bargaining Agreements add 30-35 per cent to the cost of public projects. It means taxpayers have been slugged billions of dollars extra for work.
Stoppages on construction sites like hospitals and universities and other private developments adds tens of millions more.
Later, many of these stoppages are determined by the courts to be unlawful.
So why haven’t governments or big contractors attempted to recoup costs in the civil courts?
With billions earmarked for post-COVID infrastructure, taxpayers are going to be hit again and again and again.
For all his good intentions in stamping out union thuggery, the government seems to have put the problem in the too-hard basket.
It is no secret that Labor governments stack the bureaucracies in the respective works and IR departments, with Socialist fellow travellers who underpin the monopoly mechanism which supports the “gravy train”.
Labor is duly rewarded with electoral funding from unions.
The LNP gets nothing from the union “gravy train” but seems to tolerate the top-tier monopoly for the sake of industrial peace.
Perhaps it’s time for the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, to start a fresh Royal Commission into Union Governance and Corruption.
And while they are at it the government should again introduce legislation for a good character test for union officials.
How can we sing our national anthem with any pride before the corrupt pool is drained?
There are fresh fears for the future of the iconic Wollumbin trail
Bureaucratic pandering to Aboriginal superstitions feared
Speculation has been building that the world-famous volcano at Mt Warning also known as Wollumbin – which has been off limits since last March, would stay shut with mounting pressure from Indigenous groups for the mountain to be declared a sacred place similar to Uluru, which banned climbers in 2019.
The NSW environment department insists the closure will be reviewed in May, but a leading climbing advocate who visited the mountain this week believes the summit climb’s days are numbered after the removal of the chain section that helped hikers negotiate the final ascent to the top.
A spokesman for the environment department said the chains were removed due to safety concerns, but Marc Hendrickx, a qualified engineering geologist and climbing veteran, said that could have been easily fixed rather than removing the entire structure.
“It has been neglected for decades and it seems like they (authorities) are just getting ready to shut it down permanently as soon as possible which would be a terrible shame,” he said.
Mr Hendrickx, who has sent a report on the state of the climbing trail to NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean, said he believed sensitive issues raised by Indigenous leaders could be addressed without closing the mountain off for good.
“I know they consider it to be sacred – I consider it to be sacred too,” he said. “It’s a very special place.
“But this argument about its Aboriginal significance has been around since the 1970s – it’s only recently this argument that climbers are somehow causing offence has emerged and as long as people show respect and take their rubbish with them, it should be allowed to continue.
“It is an absolute travesty that National Parks is even considering the notion of closing this beautiful place.”
Since 2010, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and NSW Police have responded to 44 ‘significant’ visitor safety incidents on the summit track, including two fatalities.
Rock and mud slides are common with the mountain regularly closed for repairs over the years.
In a statement, an NPWS spokesman said several factors would determine the fate of the mountain trail.
“NPWS understands that locals and visitors may be disappointed by the extended closure however our main priority is to ensure the safety of visitors and staff,” he said.
“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.”
How to get your kid into a prestigious school
DESPERATE parents are going to extraordinary lengths to get their children into private schools, subverting enrolment procedures they say unfairly favour the brightest students.
From donating tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of sporting equipment to lying about their religious faith, nothing is off the table.
Family connections and being enrolled since birth are no longer guarantees in a fight for placements that has become “obsessive”.
Meanwhile, huge sums are being spent tutoring children as young as seven ahead of international exams that pit them against peers in Asia and give them an edge on NAPLAN, key determinants of enrolment success.
“Parents will almost literally sell their souls to get their kids into some schools, and it definitely helps to know how to play the game,” one education insider said.
In an exclusive Courier-Mail investigation, parents reveal how they secured spots for their kids and the “invasive” measures schools employ to vet families and enhance college reputations.
Facebook accounts are checked and financial records requested as schools court parents who are high-performers in industry and sport, with the expectation they will bankroll building programs or coach elite sport, particularly rugby or rowing.
All this is in addition to non-refundable application fees that can exceed $3000, and lengthy questionnaires in which parents must explain how they will support the college. Religious schools also demand references from clergy.
St Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace (Terrace) and sister affiliate All Hallows’, with their comparatively low tuition fees and inner-city location, are regarded as the toughest schools to get into, from a prestigious crop that includes Brisbane Grammar and Girls Grammar in Spring Hill, Anglican Church Grammar School (Churchie) in East Brisbane, Brisbane Boys’ College (BBC) in Toowong, St Margaret’s in Ascot, and Somerville House in South Brisbane.
Annual tuition-only fees for domestic day students at these schools range from $12,000 to $24,000 for Years 5 and 6, and up to $28,000 for Years 7 to 12.
But no price is too high for many parents, including those who take on second jobs and sacrifice to give their children a private school pedigree. As one Terrace mother said: “The day I ripped open his acceptance letter at the mailbox I screamed and cried, and the builders next door asked if I’d won lotto – I kind of did”.
If an enrolment application is rejected at a top school, having the right connections can have it overturned.
“One minute we were told ‘get lost’, and the next, after a call to the principal from a benevolent old boy who was a close friend, the school rang and said they were excited to announce they had found a place,” one parent said.
Others have hit up politicians to get applications across the line.
Much more here:
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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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8 January, 2021
A new version of Advance Australia Fair with lyrics that have been changed to be more inclusive is being backed by Indigenous figures
The words of the new version are pretty anodyne, unlikely to inspire or offend anyone. The reference to the "Dreaming" (aboriginal legends) is however out of place in a NATIONAL anthem. I personally feel nothing about that. It is a reference to a small minority.
If a reference to Aboriginal religion is OK,however let's make official the unofficial Christian third verse of the anthem. It is as follows:
With Christ our head and cornerstone,
We'll build our nation's might.
Whose way and truth and light alone
Can guide our path aright.
Our lives a sacrifice of love
Reflect our Master's care.
With faces turned to heaven above,
Advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia Fair.
Support for an alternative Australian anthem is growing with a new version reportedly being backed by rugby league star Latrell Mitchell.
The Indigenous NRL player previously criticised the singing of the current national anthem at the Aussies’ Rugby Championship, even though it was performed partly in the Eora language, saying that the words of the anthem should be changed.
Mitchell now appears to be endorsing a new version of Advance Australia Fair partly written by legendary Australian singer Judith Durham of The Seekers, which changes the lyrics to be more inclusive.
Durham first performed the new anthem in 2009 and it includes lyrics such as “Australia, let us stand as one, upon this sacred land”.
It is gaining support after being posted on the Instagram page of Clothing the Gap this week.
Indigenous Australian actress, director and writer Leah Purcell, as well as Indigenous star of Married at First Sight Telv Williams, have thrown their support behind the new version, commenting their approval.
“This is amazing. This needs to be our national anthem!!! Thank you brother,” Purcell wrote in the comments section.
Williams simply posted “perfect”.
Spike in interstate Aussies applying to Queensland universities
Interstate applications to study at Queensland universities have skyrocketed by 26 per cent over last year’s, with social researchers attributing the spike to changed perceptions about the Sunshine State in the wake of COVID-19.
An additional 2000 interstate applicants – from 7665 to 9679 – want to study at institutions in Queensland in Semester 1, 2021, data from the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre reveals.
Applicants from Victoria have increased 51 per cent – from 1723 last year to 2597 – while New South Wales applicants rose by 21 per cent – 3637 to 4401.
Demographer Mark McCrindle said the spike was almost solely because of COVID-19, and aligned with trends in migration, property searches and job applications.
“It’s either because of the lockdowns or the outcomes of the lockdowns, it’s also because of the changes in how we study and universities are really pivoting to a lot more flexibility in online courses,” he said.
“People are thinking Sydney and Melbourne have gone through a series of rolling lockdowns with COVID, the future is going to be pretty similar to the recent past in that sense… therefore if you wanna just get on and get it done, a relocation to Queensland might be the go.”
Mr McCrindle said the increase in applicants would help to cushion the huge economic blow caused by the loss of international students.
“The goal of the universities is to fill the courses, so the more students they can get the better,” he said.
“Plus uni students spend money, from a hospitality perspective, an entertainment perspective, a general spend perspective.
“There’re not saving, they do earn and spend so it’s great for the local economy and the broader economy… it’s a good boom to have.”
It comes as interstate applicants for Victorian university spots dropped 13 per cent on the previous year – from 8669 to 7544.
Victorian Rose Nabanyana, 27, said the Melbourne lockdown pushed her across the line to apply to study a Bachelor of Nursing at the University of Southern Queensland.
“I was looking for somewhere to move, but then with all the covid in Melbourne it was like ‘yep there it is’,” she said.
“School was like a green card to do it, when I got the email back I was like ‘yes, finally’.
“I’m nervous and excited at the same time because I’ve never lived in Queensland at all.”
A Griffith University spokesman said applications from Victoria for trimester one 2021 were up 88 per cent on last year and the university has seen a 30 per cent total increase in interstate applicants.
Year-12 graduate Alexander Berner, 18, moved from Central Sydney to Surfers Paradise to study a Bachelor of Forensic Science/Bachelor of Criminology at Griffith University this year.
“I think the culture surrounding Queensland is much more sporty and together, whereas in Sydney it’s sort of more heads down doing the right thing, so the togetherness and social aspect would be the major thing,” he said.
Cruise ships could return to Queensland within months, but there will be new guidelines for our post-pandemic age
The cruise industry was brought to a shuddering halt during the coronavirus pandemic, but companies are now taking bookings for this year, with a huge surge in demand for Queensland itineraries on Carnival, the world’s biggest cruise line.
Carnival, which hopes to resume cruises to Brisbane and beyond by late April, has experienced a 400 per cent increase in demand in Queensland voyages since announcing a delay on international itineraries in a move set to inject an estimated $16.7 million into the Queensland economy.
Carnival hopes to run cruises to Queensland waters out of Sydney from late April, while the Carnival Spirit is expected to be based in Queensland from late June.
Cairns ($6.8 million), Port Douglas ($3.7 million), Airlie Beach ($5.4 million), and Moreton Island ($800,000) are the destinations that will be included within new itineraries.
While the developing situation in Sydney could prompt changes, Carnival bosses are hopeful cruise ships will soon be visiting Queensland destinations including Moreton Island, Airlie Beach and ports further north.
Carnival Cruise Line VP and GM Australia Jennifer Vandekreeke said the company was buoyed by the demand for Queensland cruises.
“We are going to be back with bells on,” she said. “We’re still in the hands of the state and federal governments, but there is already a lot of excitement about getting cruising back.
“We’re getting a great response on bookings and we know there’s lots of passengers who can’t wait for us to come back so that’s really exciting.”
Cruising has come under the microscope during the pandemic, with the Ruby Princess debacle sparking a special commission of inquiry.
However Ms Vandekreeke said strict safety recommendations introduced by the Cruise Line International Association, including mandatory COVID-19 testing for passengers and crew before they embarked, should give passengers increased confidence.
Research conducted by Carnival revealed Queensland residents were in desperate need for a holiday with nearly half of respondents taking no annual leave for the entire year.
A cruise to Moreton Island would be one way to cure the holiday blues, with Tangalooma poised for the return of cruise passengers.
Tangalooma Island Resort director David James said the return of cruise ships would deliver a windfall to the region and help keep jobs.
“As more cruise itineraries are scheduled and promoted to our region, it also solidifies Brisbane and the islands of Moreton Bay as an aspirational destination for interstate travellers that may never have visited this incredible part of the world,” he said.
“We look forward to welcoming cruise tourists back to Tangalooma with open arms once it is deemed safe for them to return to Queensland waters.”
The forecast is also good news for the Great Barrier Reef, where tourism operators have been among the hardest hit due to the loss of international visitors.
For all the cuts and privatisation, government is bigger than ever
Subsidies are an enormous distorting influence
During the 1980s, economists and public policy experts started to argue over the size of our government. Those on the Right said it was too big, while those on the Left disagreed.
The Right typically pointed to trends in government spending and taxing over time adjusted for inflation. Those on the Left preferred to look at public spending and taxing as a share of the economy, compared over time and to other countries. One lot of numbers showed big government, the other showed it to be relatively small.
Each side’s figures supported what they previously believed and rarely did they bother to engage.
It has become an article of faith among many on the Left that they won the debate but lost the policy war. The Right’s dodgy numbers were circulated by generously funded think tanks to bamboozle successive governments into swingeing cutbacks, leading to tax cuts aimed at the rich. From Keating and Hawke to Greiner and Kennett, from Tasmania to the Northern Territory, budgets were grim, assets were sold and the state began to relentlessly shrink.
In reality, the story was far more complex, involving a public sector that has been turned inside out and in ways no one could have reasonably expected when the reform caravan started rolling down the hill.
For all the cuts and privatisations, government is now much bigger than it was.
For all the talk of competition delivering the goods, the evidence is that our economy is at least as concentrated as it was and some parts are even worse.
And whereas in the old days, it was easy to see where government began and ended, today it is almost impossible to see that line.
Take superannuation. The Keating government could have used its compulsory levy to fund one public scheme. It would have been far cheaper to run — by up to $15 billion-$20 billion per year according to some estimates —and delivered workers a better return.
Instead, the compulsory levy was channelled into private and union funds, and our expensive, opaque and confusing privatised pension system began.
The levy might be compulsory, but it’s not classified as a tax, nor are the payments that are made to beneficiaries seen as government spending, even though they are made by government decree.
The $22 billion NDIS is another example where the lines have been blurred. It is wholly government funded, but services are delivered by private agents contracted to deliver services, some directly with recipients who are given the cash to pay for whatever they enjoy. What might once have been delivered by public servants paid and educated rather well has been replaced by a privatised system using a largely casualised workforce that is undoubtedly underpaid.
Aged care and child care are other examples, where governments provide most of the cash used by privates and not-for-profits to pay workers, cover costs, pay management and in some cases deliver to shareholders a nice return. They might be government funded, but they get classified as private firms.
They often use silly names that hide the identity of the actual owner and are often as interested in making a buck from property development as much as they are from the services that are meant to be their main concern. Their often male owners and managers get paid handsomely, while their typically female workforce stays underpaid.
In construction, governments are using deals with a dwindling number of private companies implementing mightily complex contracts prepared by the private consultants and the biggest law firms. Those construction firms draw on private finance that is much more costly than public debt and the financiers get paid much better than if they worked for the equivalent government department. They get classified and see themselves as being private but they depend on taxpayer cash.
But if government is now much bigger than it was, why go to all the trouble restructuring in the pursuit of something small?
Some of it is an accident arising from a particular way of viewing the world. The idea was to use private sector efficiency to deliver government services better than before. It never occurred to advocates that wage cuts are not an efficiency gain at all. It never occurred to reformers that markets bring with them marketing departments whose purpose is to sell, and that it is in the sales effort, not service delivery, that private sector providers often excel.
We now spend far more on rent assistance, negative gearing and other tax breaks for private landlords than we ever did on public housing. But we have no public assets to show for it, most tenants endure unaffordable and insecure housing, and homelessness is still rife. Private balance sheets have been beefed up at the expense of the public purse.
Worse still, we have made all these decisions but rarely by the ballot box and good old-fashioned electioneering. One proud soul took that route in 1993 and he promptly lost an unlosable election. Instead, big decisions around service design are made in between elections. We have ended up in a policy loop no matter who is in office. We just get more judicial inquiries and royal commissions.
We’ve got big government alright, but that’s not where we started. The only thing we can say for certain is that the main beneficiaries have not been those in need.
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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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7 January, 2021
Judge says it makes Australia look bad internationally if we return criminal immigrants to their own country
Judge says he is a better judge of Australia's national interest than our elected representatives are
Under international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be re-turned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm
But breaches of international law are common and this particular one would be unlikely to generate much angst anywhere
In any case the application of any law will be decided in conjunction with the particulars of the case so the outcome is never automatic
The Morrison government has been warned it must consider the impact on Australia’s national interest of sending refugees back to their country of persecution after losing its bid to deport a convicted child sex offender.
Last year the then-acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, refused an Afghan man a safe haven enterprise visa on character grounds, despite acknowledging the risk he could be killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But the federal court has set aside Tudge’s decision, ruling he failed to take into account the full ramifications of Australia breaching its international nonrefoulement obligations.
As immigration minister seeking expanded powers to deport visa holders who committed crimes, Scott Morrison told parliament in 2014 that Australia was not seeking to avoid international law and that refugees would “not be removed in breach of any nonrefoulement obligations”.
According to Justice John Griffiths’ decision, handed down on 23 December, Tudge was aware of Australia’s obligation but believed the issue was not relevant to the question of national interest.
“The acting minister undoubtedly recognised that, in this particular case, the exercise of his power under … would put Australia in breach of its international non-refoulement obligations,” the judge said.
“[Tudge] considered that this was outweighed by other considerations which favoured the decision to refuse to grant the applicant the visa.”
The visa applicant, who has spent more than five years in immigration detention, failed the character test after being convicted in 2014 of two counts of assault with acts of indecency and five counts of indecent assault of a person under 16.
Justice Griffiths noted the case was “not the first” in which a minister has cancelled or refused a visa with the consequence the person “would be removed from Australia to their country of origin” in breach of international law.
He warned it was “important to bear in mind that Australia’s nonrefoulement obligations are owed not to the visa holder or visa applicant, but to the international community”.
Tudge had argued that it was merely “speculation” that breaching international law would harm Australia’s national interest.
But Justice Griffiths said the “very serious consequence” of breaching Australia’s obligations “had to be confronted” more directly in circumstances where there was an “accepted risk” the man could be killed.
“The minister erroneously confined his assessment of the national interest by simply focusing upon the seriousness of the applicant’s criminal conduct, the sentence he received, the risk of him reoffending and the harm to the Australian community if such a risk eventuated.
“In my view, the acting minister fell into jurisdictional error by assessing the question of the national interest on an erroneously narrow basis.”
Despite the Australian government’s loss in the case, the judge acknowledged the court “cannot generally review the merits” of an assessment of the national interest, meaning immigration laws properly applied will still allow refugees to be sent back to their country of persecution.
A home affairs spokesperson said the department was considering the decision but as the appeal timeframe had not ended it was “inappropriate to comment further”.
War veteran who stepped in to stop an African gang attacking a helpless child was BRUTALLY bashed
A war hero who was knocked unconscious while trying to stop a young girl from being bashed by 15 gang members now suffers debilitating headaches that leave him thrashing around in agony.
Ben Woolley was unloading shopping from his car outside the family home in Pakenham, east of Melbourne, at 7.30pm on January 2 when his partner Jessica Davies noticed a girl being attacked in a park opposite their home.
Without thinking, the father dashed over to stop the assault and shouted at the group to 'stop fighting' more than 100 times.
While the group of Sudanese nationals stopped attacking the helpless girl, who the 44-year-old described as a Caucasian teenager, the gang diverted their attention to him.
'At that point they started to circle around me,' Mr Woolley told Daily Mail Australia. 'One smashed me over the back of the head with the hard end of the umbrella, but I thought that was just one person, so I kept trying to split the crowd and stop them from attacking.'
Shocking footage captured by Ms Davies showed the moment the gang pounced and began their attack, beating him over the head and coming from every direction.
Mr Woolley tried to fight back, but every time he regained consciousness after being punched he was knocked out again.
'Two men then came over while I was unconscious and the women were shouting to the men "kill him",' he said.
'I'm certain they were trying do to that because they kept stomping on my head and repeatedly punched in the face. I thought I was going to die.'
One woman approached Ms Davies and asked her to put the camera down, claiming the stoush was a 'family matter'.
Ms Davies had to stop filming when she was punched in the back of the head.
When she looked over towards their family home, she realised Xavier, 7, Zariah, 6, and Aaliyah, 3, were watching their mother and step-father getting mauled by the gang.
Zariah later said: 'Is Ben going to be dead forever?' because all she could see was her loving father figure lying motionless in the park.
When he awoke in an ambulance, Mr Woolley, whose three biological children are stuck in Canada with their mother during the pandemic, was convinced he was on the battle ground and started asking paramedics for his old military friends.
Ms Davies said emergency workers had to convince him that he wasn't serving the army anymore, before he started asking for her.
She explained that her partner was initially unresponsive as he lay beaten and bruised in the dirt, before he started making gurgling sounds.
'It was so traumatic. I thought that he was going to die and I just prayed.'
Despite the cracked ribs, a broken nose, partial vision loss in the left eye, pressure behind his now black eyes, and a body riddled with cuts, Mr Woolley said the worst side-effect has been the debilitating cluster headaches.
Though he began suffering from cluster headaches, which he described as 'like a hot poker is stabbing me in the eye', when he was too close to a bomb blast during his 10 years in the army, the attack has made them much worse.
'They're not like normal headaches where you sit and hold your head - they're much worse. I thrash around in pain,' he said.
'I used to get them a couple of times a week, but now they're happening a few times a day.'
As a result, Mr Woolley has been unable to spend any quality time with the children during the school holidays and has missed countless family events.
Ms Davies' children are also now too scared to go to the park opposite their home, and will often run to their parents screaming 'there are Sudanese people in the park'.
Why China WILL back down on trade war with Australia: Expert says the communist superpower has no choice but to end its assault on Canberra
China will 'quietly' back down from its economic coercion of Australia in the face of increased pressure from the US and other allies this year, a leading expert has predicted.
Dr Jeffrey Wilson, research director at the Perth USAsia Centre, said 2021 'will not look like' last year where Beijing progressively blocked most of Australia's top exports including coal, seafood, wine, barley, timber and meat after Scott Morrison called for an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus.
The change of administration in the US shifts the dynamic of the dispute in Australia's favour because Joe Biden is more likely than Donald Trump to pressure China to back down, Dr Wilson told Daily Mail Australia.
'The incoming Biden administration actually cares about containing China in a rules-based system. So when we get punched that's a problem for him. It didn't even occur to Trump that this was something the US should care about,' he said.
Biden has vowed to end Trump's America First approach to foreign policy by restoring American global leadership, calling out human rights abuses and strengthening traditional alliances.
On 3 December, Biden's new national security advisor Jake Sullivan, who has argued for a competitive approach to China, tweeted 'America will stand shoulder to shoulder with our ally Australia.'
The tweet did not mention China but was clearly a reference to the tensions between Canberra and Beijing.
'This shows how seriously the US takes the issue,' Dr Wilson said. 'It's OK for China to bash Australia when Trump doesn't care. But when the US says "if you're going to pick on my little brother then you're picking on me", that completely changes the story for China.
'Once the US gets involved that's a big escalation that they don't want. There's an argument to be made that this will be the thing that actually stops this.'
In January 2019, President Trump signed a 'phase one' trade deal with China to end an 18-month trade war between the world's two biggest economies.
Dr Wilson said China wants to avoid more economic tension with the US and would feel threatened by the possibility of sanctions or tariffs implemented by Biden.
'China can't beat America in a trade war and they don't want to fight with a peer,' he said.
'They've just come out of a trade war with Trump which was terrible for their economy and cost them billions, the last thing they want is one with the Biden administration as well.
'The trade war is also impacting Chinese people as cities where they haven't rationed power for 25 years are facing blackouts,' Dr Wilson said.
'If the government really stopped and thought about this before they had done it, they might have checked what would happen if they banned Australian coal.
'Someone's gone and done it at a very high level and not really bothered to check the consequences.'
Dr Wilson said the blackouts are a 'serious problem' for the Chinese Communist Party which draws its legitimacy and popular support from providing economic development.
'If they can't keep the lights on over winter, it's a pretty damning indictment on their capability as a regime,' he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9109971/Why-China-trade-war-Australia.html
Man files human rights complaint against Scrabble over racist slurs in game dictionaryA Northern Territory man has filed a formal complaint against the owners of popular board game Scrabble for including racist slurs against Aboriginal people in the game’s dictionary of playable words.
Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan – formerly of Queensland, who last year forced Coon cheese to change its name – lodged the complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission against international toymaker Mattel for allowing the words “abo”, “coon” and “boong” to be played.
He said he was “absolutely flabbergasted” the company permitted the use of such offensive words.
Although the word coon can be misused, it has legitimate uses as well so does belong in the dictionary. "Coon" is short for "raccoon"
"Abo" is simply an abbreviation. Australians are great abbreviators
"Boong" is always derogatory these days but it was originally simply the name of an Aboriginal tribe, no more offensive than "Boori","Murri", "Koori" etc. So it has legitimate historical uses.
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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 January, 2021
China's plan to produce its own wine and agriculture instead of buying it from Australia and switching from coal to green energy could blow a $150billion hole in our economy
It could theoretically. But the claim that China will shift to "green" electricity in replacement for coal is a bit of a laugh. Only a Western Greenie would believe that of China. They have been very enthusiastic builders of coal-fired generators.
And China's limits on Australian wine need to be seen in conjunction with the fact that China already produces quite a lot of its own wine. But tastes in wine are very individual so it is clear that many Chinese prefer Australian wines. So the non-availablity of Australian wines will be felt in China
And the block on Australian coal is already being felt. Chinese power stations are already running out, causing blackouts. Coal is a very common mineral worldwide so Australian coal could theoretically be replaced. But that would incur a penalty in both quality and price
China's long-term plan to be more economically self-sufficient could harm Australia's major exporters, including those in the once unassailable resources sector.
The Communist power is Australia's biggest trading partner buying 35 per cent of exports worth $150billion during the last financial year.
Iron ore, the commodity used to make steel, is by far the most valuable good sent to China, but thermal coal, agricultural and service exports would be under threat if China aimed to be less reliant on imports and more focused on renewable energy.
Associate Professor Jane Golley, the director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at Canberra's Australian National University, said local exporters would be vulnerable under President Xi Jinping's plan to be more self-sufficient and generate more economic growth to legitimise Communist Party rule.
'If the Chinese government succeeds in making the Chinese economy more reliant on domestic production and consumption, that doesn't sound like a great idea for the Australian export market broadly,' she told the ABC's 7.30 program.
China in 2019-20 bought $18billion worth of Australian coal. That component included about $8billion worth of thermal coal, used for electricity generation.
China is aiming to produce net zero carbon emissions by 2060 which threatens Australia's lucrative coal exports. 'For example, they will continue to shift out of coal and towards renewable energies,' Dr Golley said.
'They're also going to open up for capital investors to come in from abroad to support that green growth and so there will be opportunities for Australians in certain markets but I don't think it will be quite as universal as it has been in the past.'
World’s eyes on Australia to see if we can resist China
Before the pandemic shut down international travel, Australia had been receiving a steady stream of visitors from Western civil services, intelligence agencies, think tanks, universities and parliaments, all interested in one thing: what measures had Australia taken to protect its institutions from interference and infiltration by the Chinese state?
Experts have been explaining over and over what Australia has done and the circumstances that turned this country into the global leader pushing back against the Chinese Communist Party’s interference.
Two important factors persuaded the Turnbull government to introduce these and other policies. First, public alarm was rising following a series of media reports about donations by CCP-linked people to political parties, centring on the Dastyari affair. Second, the evidence in a series of secret intelligence briefings describing the extent of Beijing’s campaign to win friends among Australia’s elites became overwhelming.
The responses have included outlawing foreign interference, banning Huawei from the 5G network, excluding Chinese investors from buying up critical infrastructure and working behind the scenes to shake institutions such as universities out of their cash-induced complacency.
Today, Australia has become a model for other nations concerned about China’s influence. Some have introduced foreign interference legislation mirroring Australia’s.
During the past nine months, Beijing has subjected Australia to an escalating program of punishment, mainly by the use of economic coercion but also by a diplomatic freeze backed by a barrage of insults and threats emanating from the highest levels of the party in Beijing.
The Canberra embassy issued 14 demands we must satisfy if we wanted China to back off, including abolishing our foreign interference law, allowing Huawei into our 5G network, permitting unrestricted Chinese investment and limiting media criticism of the regime.
The trigger event for Beijing was Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s call in April for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus.
But the retribution follows growing annoyance in the CCP, reaching up to general secretary Xi Jinping, that China’s attempts to break our resistance to its domination are failing. For Beijing, and for democracy, the geopolitical stakes could hardly be higher.
If Australia refuses to be intimidated, sticks to its position and takes the pain then Beijing must realise sooner or later that its campaign can’t succeed and grudgingly will resume normal relations with Australia.
That outcome would send a powerful message to the rest of the world: it’s possible for medium-sized nations to maintain their independence in the face of severe pressure from Beijing. A decisive blow would be dealt to Beijing’s goal of gaining global supremacy, if not by its United Front strategy of co-opting elites, then by economic blackmail.
On the other hand, if Australia’s resolve weakens under pressure and we give way to Beijing’s demands then it would represent a stunning victory for the CCP’s tactic of bullying and economic retribution.
The message to the rest of the world would be shattering. In the corridors of power, those urging resistance to the CCP would be told: “Australia tried but was forced to back down. China is too powerful. Only the US can resist and who knows for how long.”
This would pave the way for China to rapidly become the dominant power in the world from where the CCP would spread its malign influence.
Party documents are unequivocal: the CCP is hostile to free speech, a free media, religious freedom, independent courts and civil society.
So the stance being taken by the government in Canberra has world historical significance.
The vital question is: who in this unequal contest will win?
The Morrison government has made it very clear that Australia’s principles are not negotiable. But Beijing believes that if it imposes enough economic pain on Australians then we will be forced to trade our principles for higher growth.
The crucial factor in this fight is Australian public opinion. Communist Party bosses tend to believe that winning over powerful elites is enough. In pursuing that tactic they have been very successful. There are powerful voices in Australia urging the government to capitulate to Beijing’s pressure.
Certain former prime ministers, premiers, mining magnates, vice-chancellors, strategic analysts and Sinologists are all telling the government to appease Beijing. And some of the leaders of the industries being squeezed by China’s trade bans have become, in effect, mouthpieces for Beijing, calling on the government to “fix the relationship”, as if it’s all our fault. This is exactly what Beijing planned.
But in democracies political parties want to win elections above all else. Most Australians have been woken from their slumber and now see China as a serious threat to the democratic practices that for too long they had taken for granted.
With an election due at the end of this year or early next, the public must therefore watch both sides of politics closely for any signs of wavering. If our leaders go weak at the knees then the rest of the world is imperilled.
The epidemic Australia is failing to control
While we may be leading the health pandemic recovery, it seems like Australia has an education epidemic it is not treating effectively. Two decades ago, Australia was one of the leading education nations in the world. The OECD, for example, used to hold Australia as one of the best in class in education. But not any longer.
Despite frequent school reforms, educational performance has not been improving. Indeed, it has been in decline compared to many other countries. International data makes that clear. Australian Council for Educational Research concluded it by saying that student performance in Australia has been in long-term decline. The OECD statistics reveal system-wide prevalence of inequity that is boosted by education resource gaps between Australian schools that are among the largest in the world. And UNICEF has ranked Australia’s education among the most unequal in rich countries.
Often the inspiration for the education reforms in Australia are imported from the US and Britain. Yet, the evidence base to support many of these grand policy changes here is weak or non-existent. For instance, research shows that market-based models of school choice, test-based accountability, and privatisation of public education have been wrong strategies for world-class education elsewhere. Yet, market models have been the cornerstone of Australian school policies since the early 2000s.
So, what should we do instead? Success in fighting the ongoing health pandemic is a result of systematically relying on the best available science and expert knowledge to maximise the effectiveness of treatments while minimising their side effects. We should follow that same principle in education, too.
Evidence-based education policies use research to link selected treatment and expected outcomes, but they almost always ignore possible harmful side effects they may have on schools, teachers or children. Take NAPLAN, for example. Those who advocate the necessity of national standardised testing regimes back their views by positive consequences of high-stakes testing while ignoring the associated risks that research has exposed: narrowing curriculum, teaching to the tests, and declining student motivation, just to mention some.
Education and health are important contributors to a better life. During the coronavirus pandemic, we have seen what evidence-based public health policies look like. But unlike medicine, education operates on the basis of ideology, politics and consensus. We see the inconvenient consequences of that in national statistics and international education indicators.
In early December, Australia’s plans of having a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine were ruined when the University of Queensland research team found that participants in phase 1 trials tested weakly positive on HIV tests. These detected side effects made Prime Minister Morrison terminate a $1 billion deal with the UQ and look for safer options to treat the coronavirus pandemic.
If education was like medicine, many controversial education policies, including NAPLAN, MySchool and school funding models, would have been terminated during trial phases due to harm they do to teaching and learning.
If we have learnt anything in 2020, it is that we need to learn to act in education more like we act in medicine. We should stop claiming that there is an extensive evidence base behind suggested educational treatments like the School Success Model without being sure about their possible side effects to children’s learning.
More importantly, it is unfair to expect schools to base their pedagogical decisions on solid evidence unless the policies behind these expectations are based on best available science and professional practice.
https://www.smh.com.au/education/the-epidemic-australia-is-failing-to-control-20201229-p56qq3.html
Is there anyone more "incorrect" than Bettina Arndt?Another one of her intrepid articles below: "Truths about indigenous violence", where she criticizes both blacks AND women
Early last year I taped a fascinating video discussion about a similar but even more touchy topic. I’ve been sitting on it ever since because I decided not to release the video during the attacks on me because I didn’t want this important issue to be caught up in the vitriol.
Now it seems to make sense to start 2021 with a bang – and reveal this powerful story.
It’s all about indigenous violence. But not the dangerous aboriginal men you hear so much about, men rightly condemned for their aggression towards women and children.
What you never hear about in public discussion of indigenous violence is the domestic violence perpetrated by indigenous women.
Last year I was contacted by Phillip Bligh, an indigenous leader from the Central Coast of NSW. Phillip has spent over 30 years working in indigenous communities and schools and acting as a consultant for governments and other key organizations.
He wrote to me after being asked by the domestic violence organization White Ribbon to assess the cultural appropriateness of their Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Training Manual. Phillip was appalled that, as is true with all White Ribbon material, the manual presented a very simplistic picture of violent aboriginal men attacking and terrorizing women and children.
The reality is far more complex, with indigenous women playing an increasing role in family violence. Phillip wrote to me about the families he knew where children grew up in fear of violent, abusive mothers. He expressed his concern about the veil of silence being drawn over the fact that this mothering is contributing to the cycle of violence causing so much damage in his community.
He pointed out that report after report is being produced about the violence of indigenous men, but women are hardly ever mentioned and statistics about their abuse is invariably missing.
The hidden statistics showing women’s violence
In preparation for our discussion, we asked the excellent NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research to dig out the latest statistics. The results were very telling:
* Indigenous women are eight times more likely to perpetrate domestic assault than the group of all women.
* Indigenous women are more than twice as violent as men in general.
Our governments spend millions of dollars on projects calling out men’s violence but not one cent addressing the destructive effects of the high levels of domestic violence perpetrated by indigenous women.
And how come no one is talking about the fact that the problem of violent indigenous women is getting far worse? Look at these trends over the last decade – it is women who are becoming more violent, particularly the indigenous women.
To make matters worse, these domestic violence figures don’t include the high levels of child abuse and neglect by indigenous mothers which contributes to the constant issue over child protection in these communities.
These facts will be uncomfortable for many people, but effective social policy must be based on evidence not ideology.
It takes a brave soul to speak out about this controversial issue and I applaud Phillip Bligh for coming forward.
Emailed Bettina Arndt newsletter: newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au
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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 January, 2021
Greenies lose one in NSW
The Greenies really pushed this one. They had wins in various courts before this final loss. One argument that initially got some credit was that you had to consider emissions OVERSEAS. Emissions in other countries had to be considered by Australian courts. Apparently Australia must be held responsible for what other countries do if they burn coal sourced from Australia.
The conservative NSW government has been rather bold in giving this approval. Farmers are a traditional base of support for conservative parties and lots of farmers have joined the Greenie protests. Farmers don't like coal mines messing up their nice green landscapes either.
Coal and gas projects that could release more than 1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases have been given the green light by the NSW government in the two years since a Land and Environment Court ruling, which upheld the government's Rocky Hill coal mine refusal in part because of climate impacts.
The billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions would be generated by third parties like overseas power plants burning the coal and gas produced over the life of six projects approved since February 2019. The 1 billion tonne figure is nearly double Australia's entire annual greenhouse gas output.
Activist group Lock the Gate Alliance say NSW's project approval agency, the Independent Planning Commission, has been compromised by changes that were imposed by Planning Minister Rob Stokes after the Court rejected the Rocky Hill proposal.
Following that ruling, Mr Stokes issued a statement of expectations in May last year. It followed the commission imposing extra conditions on the Wambo coal mine, and rejecting a proposed coal mine in the Bylong Valley.
Mr Stokes' statement of expectations said the commission should make final determinations within 12 weeks of receiving a project for assessment, and that one of its guiding principles is to adhere to government policy when assessing proposals.
In the Rocky Hill case the Land and Environment Court found scope 3 emissions must be considered - that is greenhouse gases generated when third parties, such as power stations, burn gas or coal for energy.
Lock the Gate NSW spokesperson Georgina Woods said after the commission rejected the Bylong coal project Mr Stokes "kneecapped" the authority. Since then, the IPC had "failed in its obligation" under planning laws to consider scope 3 emissions in its approval of four coal projects and the Narrabri coal seam gas project, she said.
"Long-standing regulation stipulates that the consent authority, in this case the IPC, must consider whether a project should come with conditions that ensure greenhouse gas emissions - including downstream or scope 3 emissions - are minimised to the greatest extent practicable," Ms Woods said.
Mr Stokes said the IPC was reformed following an "extensive review" by the NSW Productivity Commission, and that it was required to consider scope 3 emissions impacts. He accused Lock the Gate of "only telling one side of the story".
"All environmental impacts of projects including greenhouse gas emissions both here and abroad must be considered by the IPC in making a decision," Mr Stokes said. "The IPC [recently] approved more than $1.5 billion in renewable energy projects."
Local farmers last week lodged a legal challenge to the commission's approval of the Narrabri gas project in north-west NSW. The Mullaley Gas and Pipeline Accord, represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, will argue in the NSW Land and Environment Court the IPC wrongly found that it could not address scope 3 emissions from the gasfield.
'Rural hardship': Farmers take Narrabri CSG approval to court
There are three coal projects under consideration by the IPC which would create an additional 450 million tonnes of carbon emissions over the course of their life.
Lock the Gate said communities impacted by resources projects must be permitted to lodge merits appeals in the the Land and Environment Court.
A merits review is when a third party can reconsider the evidence presented to, and final decision of, an authority like the IPC. Under current laws merits appeal rights are revoked when the Planning Minister directs the IPC to hold a public hearing.
Property prices defy pandemic, grow in every capital city except Melbourne in 2020
Buying a home in every capital city across the country except for Melbourne became more expensive in 2020, while regional property prices grew three times as fast as the big smoke.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, Sydney house prices increased 4 per cent over the year to December, CoreLogic data released on Monday morning shows. Regional NSW house prices jumped 8.8 per cent over the same period. In Melbourne, prices slumped 2 per cent but increased 5.5 per cent in regional Victoria.
Capital city property values collectively increased 2 per cent over the year, while country home prices increased 6.9 per cent.
While prices did suffer during the height of the virus, falling about 2 per cent between April and September, national prices are now in their third consecutive month of price growth.
The coronavirus pandemic also changed when people were willing and able to sell, and when the virus hit sales volumes dropped 40 per cent. But by the end of the year there were more sales than 12 months ago, CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said.
"Record low interest rates played a key role in supporting housing market activity, along with a spectacular rise in consumer confidence as COVID-related restrictions were lifted and forecasts for economic conditions turned out to be overly pessimistic," Mr Lawless said.
At the height of the virus, major bank economists were predicting a major city property price crash shaving more than 20 per cent of home values. These forecasts were largely made before the introduction of federal government stimulus measures, including the $100 billion wage subsidy program JobKeeper, and emergency assistance from lenders to allow repayment holidays.
"Containing the spread of the virus has been critical to Australia’s economic and housing market resilience," Mr Lawless said.
Melbourne home values remain 4.1 per cent below their March 2020 peak, while Sydney prices are 3.9 per cent down compared to the peak of the property boom in July 2017.
He said the turnaround for regional areas, which have typically underperformed compared to capital city prices, was affected by more remote working opportunities.
The best performing cities for price growth were Darwin, Canberra and Hobart, which increased by 11.9 per cent, 8.5 per cent and 7.7 per cent respectively.
Regional Tasmania was the top performing country location, with prices up 12 per cent.
Apartment prices did not fare as well over the year, declining 0.2 per cent in Sydney while remaining flat in Melbourne.
Queenslanders lead nation with $4.1b in sales to mid-January
QUEENSLAND is forecast to lead the country with over $4.1 billion in sales to mid-January, seeing the highest predicted growth from last year’s post-Christmas spend.
The Australian Retailers Association predicts retail sales across the period from Boxing Day to mid-January to be up by 7.9 per cent over the 2019 figures – an increase of $301m.
The figures beat out Tasmania at 7 per cent, followed by ACT at 5.6 per cent.
Queensland is also set to benefit from being the premier holiday choice for many Australians particularly while international borders remain in place.
ARA chief executive Paul Zahra said the figures were a strong result, particularly in a pandemic year, and could be attributed to overall consumer confidence and Queensland with low infection rates, stimulus cash still in the economy and domestic holiday makers and money being diverted from overseas travel.
He said while the numbers bode well for 2021, the industry is cautious around the impact of JobKeeper and JobSeeker schemes ending in March.
“New Year’s Day has traditionally been one of the quietest shopping days of the year as most consumers choose to recover from the festivities of the night before- with many retailers choosing to open with reduced trading hours. However, we expect to spring back quickly as the Boxing Day sales continue into January - we know Australians like to snap up a bargain.
“We expect Queensland post-Christmas sales to lead the country with a forecasted sales increase of 7.9% over the same period in 2019. “According to our ARA - Roy Morgan forecasts, this would equate to $4.1 billion in spending – an increase of $301 million.”
It comes as the accommodation sector looks to restore people’s confidence after a drop off in December.
Queensland Hotel Association chief executive Bernie Hogan said there had been an “enormous drop off” in December when people’s confidence was at a low.
“That has seemed to recover okay through the Christmas and New Year period but forward looking, it doesn’t look that strong,” he said.
“Cairns and Whitsundays are obviously a big commitment (for people in NSW) for travel – people are worried they may not be able to get there or stay there or come home so it’s a big commitment for people.
“Drive markets right across Queensland have gone very well because there was a last minute opportunity for people to pick up a last minute deal but anything further than that there are still some concerns.”
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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 January, 2021
Three cops violently restrain an Aborigine who hit them while resisting arrest
"Disturbing"? Hardly. What do you expect when a known crook hits a cop?
This is typical of the problems cops face when someone refuses to go quietly. They have to use force but what exactly they do depends of what the crook does. It all has to be done in seconds, leaving little room for making ideal judgments. The cops do what they perceive as needed in the moment even though armchair critics might think differently
And this guy was no innocent. He had clearly heard of the George Floyd case and thought he could bluff the cops with his knowledge of it. His claim "I can't breathe" appears to have had no substance as he came to no lasting harm -- unlike George Floyd who really could not breathe and promptly died of his situation.
A disturbing video has captured the moment police officers repeatedly punched and kicked an indigenous elder before pinning him to the ground and leaving him gasping for air during a violent arrest.
'I can't breathe' the man screams while lying on the narrow footpath in Campbelltown in south west Sydney.
The ugly footage shows the 47-year-old being restrained by three male officers from the Campbelltown City Police Area Command at about 2.40pm on Tuesday.
The man, identified by a witness as Uncle Bud of Campbelltown, resists arrest and begins trading blows with police who react with force.
The video clip the shows the arrest taking a frightening when officers begin laying into the victim.
One officer knees the victim while another throws a wild punch at his stomach.
The indigenous man lashes out with his fist sparking a vicious response from the officers.
One policeman punches the victim in the face before he is wrestled to the ground and kicked once more for good measure.
While pinned down the man repeatedly shouts 'I can't breathe' as witnesses berate the officers for their heavy-handedness.
The person who posted the clip to Facebook said the man received the 'royalty treatment' by New South Wales police.
But police have denied claims the officers involved did anything wrong.
NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia the man was seen riding a bike on Peppin Crescent in Airds when officers attempted to stop him.
He was wanted for breaching his bail conditions.
NSW Police said he allegedly failed to comply with the order to stop and tried to flee but officers caught up with him when he lost control and crashed the bike.
'It's alleged the man resisted the officers and punched a constable and senior constable multiple times to the head,' NSW Police said.
'The man was subdued and during a search of him police located and seized an amount of methamphetamine.'
The was later taken to Campbelltown Police Station and charged with the breach of bail, as well as three counts of assault police, resist arrest and possess prohibited drug.
His bail was refused bail when he appeared at Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday December, 30.
Swedish Covid-19 data exposes our fatal lockdown hysteria
By economist SANJEEV SABHLOK
Three months ago I resigned as an economist in the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance to protest against disproportionate public health measures by Daniel Andrews that had led to a police state. Information has since become available that makes these policies even less justified.
As I have written previously, this pandemic is not the Spanish flu. Data is now telling us that it is not even in the league of the Hong Kong flu.
In May, modellers had said Sweden would experience more than 100,000 additional deaths from COVID this year, with 96,000 additional deaths by July if lockdowns were not imposed.
Fortunately for the Swedes, their policy is led by arguably the world’s best epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell. He followed the standard approach found in all official pandemic plans, including in Australia. Tegnell did not impose coercive lockdowns or close borders. And no masks, no quarantines. He tried to shield the elderly while flattening the curve by slowing the spread of the virus.
Since Sweden is almost the only country in which the coronavirus was allowed “to let rip”, this pandemic’s true magnitude will be conclusively known from its annual mortality statistics.
Official Swedish mortality data as at December 18 is available at https://bit.ly/36sV3cE . After controlling for recent under-reporting, I estimate Sweden will end up with about 97,000 deaths this year. Long-term trends suggest Sweden would have had about 92,500 deaths this year, so there will be about 4500 additional deaths this year, a far cry from the models.
Note that these 4500 excess deaths are well below the 8300 officially reported COVID deaths to date. And these 4500 additional deaths are not all COVID deaths. Sweden’s Public Health Agency noted in October that “the 2019-2020 influenza season was mild”. As a result, 3419 fewer people died in Sweden last year than in 2018. Many of the frail among these 3419 survivors last year would have died this year anyway. Of its own accord, therefore, COVID has caused a much smaller number of deaths than these 4500 additional deaths. Sweden’s average two-year death rate in 2020 will be around 0.92 per cent, the second lowest in the past 10 years.
One struggles from this analysis to identify a serious pandemic in Sweden: just a bad flu, milder than the Hong Kong flu.
When I outlined this to an international panel on December 10, British MP Andrew Percy demurred and said the UK had experienced proportionately many more excess deaths than Sweden. It has, but analysis for nations other than Sweden needs to account for the additional deaths caused by the hysteria drummed up by governments and their coercive lockdowns.
As I have explained in my book, The Great Hysteria and the Broken State, and in my 68,000-word complaint to the International Criminal Court, lockdowns have likely killed two million people and shortened the lives of hundreds of millions.
Lockdowns kill in many ways, including by causing additional COVID deaths. For instance, the Victorian government spent most of its effort during the lockdowns in restricting the movement of the young, who were never at risk, while ignoring aged-care homes. This led to hundreds of avoidable COVID deaths. Australia’s governments went “all in” on a hunch in March on the basis of models, all of which turned out to be wrong — as they have always been in the past.
Our governments also shut their eyes to the data, which has been telling us a different story since mid-April, ending up in perhaps the biggest policy blunder in Australia’s history.
Moreover, I have discovered during my research that community-wide cordons have been used only once in the past 500 years: for Ebola in 2014 in Africa. But only “very small-scale cordons” — comparable to quarantines — were found to be effective by an evaluation, not the larger-scale lockdowns. When lockdowns are rejected by the science even for a lethal virus such as Ebola, the idea of lockdowns being applied for a flu-like virus does not arise. That is why lockdowns were never part of any official pandemic plan, nor were indefinite international border closures.
Scott Morrison wants to keep Australia’s borders closed and freeze the virus at a level of zero until everyone is vaccinated. But such a policy is preposterous, apart from being unlawful. Section 5 of the Biosecurity Act 2015 states the “appropriate level of protection for Australia is a high level of sanitary and phytosanitary protection aimed at reducing biosecurity risks to a very low level, but not to zero”.
In 2013, British epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta had shown that major pandemics are behind us because international cross-mingling boosts immunity. Minor viruses, however, cannot be avoided.
Are we going to close Australia for every bad flu in the future? We must get back the spunk we lost during this Great Hysteria and resume our normal life as a proudly rational, thinking Western nation. We must reassert our faith in freedom and reason, and end our embrace of the cowardly, totalitarian, zombie ways of the communist Chinese government.
Since 80 per cent of COVID deaths in Sweden have occurred among those over 75, people in this age group should continue to be sheltered and offered the vaccine. To mandate it for others would be yet another display of intellectual and spiritual cowardice.
Energy chiefs accused of 'unjustified' electric vehicle sales forecast
The federal government's outlook for electric vehicle sales is overly optimistic because it assumes numbers will spike before 2030 despite a lack of policy to drive uptake and new state taxes slugging clean cars, experts say.
In 2019 the Department of Energy predicted electric vehicles would comprise 19 per cent of new car sales by 2030. That figure increased to 26 per cent in last month's 2020 forecast, despite the federal government's delay releasing an electric vehicle policy and the introduction of new road user charges to tax clean cars in South Australia and Victoria.
In making its projections, the department assumed electric vehicle sales would climb based on existing policy measures and that state-based taxes would not have a material impact on uptake.
Electric vehicle policy expert Jake Whitehead, from the University of Queensland, said without government incentives even small taxes such as the 2.5¢-per-kilometre tax on electric vehicles announced by the Victorian government last year could reduce uptake by up to 50 per cent.
"What matters is perception and even if the tax is only a few hundred dollars per year, the perception is that it will cost thousands over a car's lifetime and that government does not support the technology," said Dr Whitehead, a lead author on transport for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Electric Vehicle Council chief executive Behyad Jafari said there was "nothing to justify the projections that the electric vehicle market is going to grow like that in Australia".
He said the 2019 estimate was replaced by different projections that were consistent with modelling by the Commonwealth Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE).
"The BITRE numbers which say electric vehicles will be 26 per cent of new car sales by 2030 also assumed they would be 1.4 per cent by 2020, but currently we are at just 0.7 per cent," he said. "It shows the government is just finding numbers to make the projections work for them."
Dr Whitehead said electric vehicle sales could remain low unless manufacturers brought a wider range of cheaper models to Australia.
He warned car makers may run out their end-of-line petrol models in Australia while they ramp up sales of electric vehicles in more attractive markets.
Many major manufacturers plan 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 US offers a $7500 tax rebate for electric vehicles.
Falling transport sector emissions are a significant element of Australia's efforts to satisfy its global climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Are cows the new coal? Chowing down on meat alternatives
Probably just a temporary fad
Vegetarians and vegans aren't the only ones avoiding meat, according to Jack Cowin, a man who made his fortune selling burgers and who is now a firm believer in meat alternatives.
"The meat industry is a huge industry but plant-based is the future as far as new product development goes," Cowin, the owner of the Hungry Jack's burger chain, says.
The billionaire holds a 24 per cent stake in plant based meat alternative V2Foods, which is used in Hungry Jack's Rebel Whopper burgers and stocked across Australia in Woolworths and Coles supermarkets.
Cowin says he's happy with sales of plant-based burgers across Hungry Jack's stores and he believes they will continue to grow driven by customers who are not vegetarian nor vegan but want to reduce their meat consumption for environmental or health reasons.
"We sell a lot more animal-based meat than we do plant-based meat," he says. "But there's also a group of meat eating people that are interested in the health aspects and they're interested in the environmental aspects and the millennial side of the population as you know, anything that is kind of planet friendly they like."
"So there's a definite market there and we've been able to attract new business," he says.
Hungry Jack's isn't the only fast food company getting on board meat alternatives with McDonald's announcing it will introduce a line of plant-based meat alternatives called 'McPlant' in 2021 and local chains Hunky Dory, Pie Face, Mad Mex, Fergusson Plarre and 7-Eleven all stocking meat alternative products.
Globally plant-based meat is attracting significant investment and now boasts cashed-up players like the $US10 billion ($13 billion) listed plant-based meat company Beyond Meat.
Meanwhile, its keenest competitor Impossible Foods is also gearing up for an initial public offering in the new year to cash in on the trend. Established food giants like Nestle and Unilever are also keen to dive deeper into the sector and the COVID-19 pandemic has ended up adding more fuel to the fire.
With abattoirs and meatworks across the US closing down to contain the pandemic, the resultant meat shortage forced many consumers to switch their attention to plant-based meat.
The wider acceptance of the products looks set to accelerate investor activity in the local meat alternative market that a 2019 report from think tank Food Frontier and consultancy Deloitte says could generate up to $150 million in sales. The report adds that on a "moderate" growth trajectory it would be worth almost $3 billion by 2030.
Food Frontier says the sector has been "growing exponentially" since the report was published with 29 Australian companies producing meat alternative products and over 200 meat alternatives on the shelves across Australia.
One of these new entrants is Australian startup Fable Foods which launched its mushroom based meat alternative last year and is now stocked across 150 cafes and restaurants and 1,500 retail stores including Coles supermarkets.
Fable co-founder Michael Fox says there are "significant tail winds" boosting the prospects of the meat alternative sector.
"Talking to people in the food industry who have been in it for a long time, this is very much a once in a generation sort of opportunity ," he says. "It's exciting for the future of the planet and it's an exciting sector to be running a business."
Fox believes we are at the cusp of a dramatic shift in consumption from products derived by animals to plant-based meat, with the transition to fully take hold within the next couple of decades.
"For the most part people buy meat because they love the taste of it and it's reasonably priced," he says.
"So our goal at Fable and the goal of other meat alternative companies is to produce products that have a better taste and texture than meat and are cheaper than animal meat."
"And if we can do that, then there is really no reason for people to eat meat from animals anymore."
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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 January, 2021
Indigenous leader welcomes 'important change' to national anthem
From Friday, the second line of Australia's national anthem will change from, "For we are young and free" to "For we are one and free".
First Nations Foundation chairman and Yorta Yorta man Ian Hamm said the fresh line was an important symbol. "Symbolism is important, real action and change is important. If you do one or the other, you only get half the job done," he said.
"You do need symbolic change, you do need real change.
"This is an important indication to ourselves as a country as to what our expectations are going forward, and to recognise in our national anthem the continued human occupation of this continent from 60,000 years plus to 1 January 2021, and beyond, is an important change.
"We're very definitely not young."
A number of state and federal politicians from all sides of politics called for a change to the lyrics, with the most vocal support from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian last year.
Mr Hamm said it was "a focal point for that discussion about who we are as a country".
"We should regard ourselves as a nation that's bonded, as opposed to being divided, and we should recognise our Indigenous history as part of our Australian history.
"'One and free' looks for what brings us together. I think it's a really good change."
Composer Deborah Cheetham is a Yorta Yorta woman and said the new wording was long overdue but changing the anthem "one word at a time is probably not the right way to go".
"It's an important acknowledgement. The word young has underestimated the lives that have lived on this continent for some millennia," the soprano and educator said.
"The recognition of all Australians now and the connection we have to the longest continuing culture in the world, that is what needs to be captured in our nation's anthem and I think one word at a time, I'm not sure that is the way to go about it really.
"What this change brings is an opportunity for conversation. And I hope it's a conversation that will be respectful."
Ms Cheetham said there had been "a lot of conjecture around Advance Australia Fair for a long time", not only because of the lyrics, but due to its large musical range which made it difficult for everyone to sing.
She said singer-songwriter Kutcha Edwards and The Seekers' singer Judith Durham's 2009 anthem, Lyric for a Contemporary Australia, was more appropriate.
Some of those lyrics include the words: "Australians let us all be one, with peace and harmony, Our precious water, soil and sun, grant life for you and me. Our land abounds in nature's gifts to love, respect and share, And honouring the Dreaming, advance Australia fair. With joyful hearts then let us sing, advance Australia fair."
It would be wonderful if sporting events included a stirring rendition of an anthem that spoke for every Australian, writes Richard Hinds.
"It is a beautiful lyric. It may be time for us to write something that captures the spirit of the nation, the strength of the nation and is inclusive of all people who strive and live and die as part of this nation," Ms Cheetham said.
With his trademark rhetorical question, "How good is Australia?", Mr Morrison said the country's anthem should reflect "who we will always hope to be and the values that we will always live by".
"We are a strong and vibrant liberal democracy. We live in a timeless land of ancient First Nations peoples, and we draw together the stories of more than 300 national ancestries and language groups," he said.
"It simply reflects the realities of how we understand our country. It's a change for all Australians, and I've already been encouraged by the strong response from Australians right across the country, Indigenous, non-Indigenous, people of all different backgrounds, people of all different political views.
"I think it's a great way to start the new year."
But federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Wiradjuri woman Linda Burney, the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the House of Representatives, said more needed to be done.
Mark Latham unleashes stinging criticism on Aboriginal tribes for having NO IDEA what 'nationhood' meant as he slams decision to change the lyrics 'we are young and free' in Australia's national anthem
Mark Latham has hit out at the Prime Minister's decision to remove the line 'young and free' from the national anthem - arguing Aboriginal tribes didn't see themselves as a nation before colonisation.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the second line of Advance Australia Fair would be changed from 'for we are young and free' to 'for we are one and free' as of New Year's Day after critics argued the line was disrespectful to Aboriginal history.
He said the change was made to reflect the background of all Australians and the country's 'strong and vibrant liberal democracy'.
But the NSW One Nation Leader has lashed out at the move - claiming the change represents a 'hard 36 year habit to break'.
'I'm sure there will still be people who will be singing 'young and free', Mr Latham told A Current Affair. 'It's a hard habit to break, isn't it?'
The change comes after critics long claimed that describing Australia as a 'young nation' overlooks the fact Aboriginal people have lived on the continent for centuries.
Mr Latham said a national anthem has to 'reflect a nation' - a goal the one-word change fails to achieve.
'The indigenous tribes, 170 of them, weren’t a nation, they didn’t see themselves as a nation'.
'I find this notion that we call them "first nations" is an insult to them, because they never thought of themselves as a nation.'
The One Nation politician said the anthem had never excluded a part of Australian society in the first place.
'We are a young nation we were federated in 1901, 120 years ago today so we are a young nation', Mr Latham said.
'Before that we were a series of colonies who weren’t a nation, and before 1788 we had 170 indigenous tribes in Australia, they didn’t have a conceptualisation of nationhood', the One Nation leader said.
No more retiree tax: Anthony Albanese dumps franking credits policy
Anthony Albanese will formally dump the policy branded a retiree tax as he moves to put Labor Party members and politicians on an election-ready footing going into the new year.
The party has now established its national campaign committee, which will meet in the coming weeks to prepare for a possible early election in the second half of 2021.
The bid to abolish franking credit refunds for people who paid no tax, raising $6 billion a year, was held up in Labor's review of its 2019 election loss as emblematic of a complicated, high-spending agenda that left it open to simplified attacks from the Coalition and scared off its traditional base of lower income voters.
"I can confirm that Labor has heard that message clearly and that we will not be taking any changes to franking credits to the next election," Mr Albanese will tell party faithful from the neighbouring electorates of Dunkley, Bruce and Isaacs, in Melbourne's south-east, in a live-streamed speech on Saturday.
His address, which capped off a week in which he mailed every ALP member a booklet of speeches he delivered in 2020, is aimed at energising the party's base for an election.
Mr Albanese will ramp up his personal attacks on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, according to a draft version of the speech seen by this masthead, labelling him "a man who stands for nothing except advertising campaigns, selfies and favours for Liberal mates".
"When it comes to Scott Morrison, I think Australians have started to work him out anyway. They see him as fake. As someone who is always political and always looking to shift blame to others," he will say, while also cautioning Labor must do more than highlight deficiencies if it wants to win government.
"In 2021 we face a critical battle … The battle ahead will be one of values - whether people are held back and left behind."
The Labor leader takes credit for suggesting that wage subsidies, support for renters, a moratorium on evictions, paid pandemic leave, Medicare rebates for telehealth, and extra mental health care were appropriate policy responses during the coronavirus health and economic crises.
He promises the party's policy rollout will step up in coming months, with its platform to be formally settled at the national conference on March 30 and 31, and spruiks the childcare and train-building policies he announced in his October budget reply speech.
On climate policy, which has caused tensions within Labor's caucus in recent months, Mr Albanese will promise the party can be smart about its approach and lead Australia to "use the challenge as an opportunity to create new jobs and new industries".
Cooling in 2020
CO2 levels have continued to rise so where is the global warming?
Below are the CO2 figures from Cape Grim in Tasmania. In the last 3 years, CO2 levels have risen from 403ppm to 410pm
2018 01 15 2018.0384 403.75 0.18 in situ
2018 02 15 2018.1233 403.81 0.15 in situ
2018 03 15 2018.2000 403.90 0.14 in situ
2018 04 15 2018.2849 404.16 0.17 in situ
2018 05 15 2018.3671 404.40 0.13 in situ
2018 06 15 2018.4521 404.67 0.16 in situ
2018 07 15 2018.5342 405.18 0.21 in situ
2018 08 15 2018.6192 405.65 0.13 in situ
2018 09 15 2018.7041 405.86 0.10 in situ
2018 10 15 2018.7863 405.91 0.16 in situ
2018 11 15 2018.8712 405.84 0.16 in situ
2018 12 15 2018.9534 405.75 0.13 in situ
2019 01 15 2019.0384 405.73 0.17 in situ
2019 02 15 2019.1233 405.66 0.14 in situ
2019 03 15 2019.2000 405.79 0.19 in situ
2019 04 15 2019.2849 406.20 0.17 in situ
2019 05 15 2019.3671 406.70 0.21 in situ
2019 06 15 2019.4521 407.23 0.21 in situ
2019 07 15 2019.5342 407.83 0.21 in situ
2019 08 15 2019.6192 408.33 0.16 in situ
2019 09 15 2019.7041 408.58 0.13 in situ
2019 10 15 2019.7863 408.73 0.11 in situ
2019 11 15 2019.8712 408.76 0.11 in situ
2019 12 15 2019.9534 408.52 0.17 in situ
2020 01 15 2020.0383 408.25 0.18 in situ
2020 02 15 2020.1229 408.32 0.16 in situ
2020 03 15 2020.2022 408.57 0.17 in situ
2020 04 15 2020.2869 408.80 0.13 in situ
2020 05 15 2020.3689 409.07 0.13 in situ
2020 06 15 2020.4536 409.49 0.18 in situ
2020 07 15 2020.5355 410.02 0.20 in situ
2020 08 15 2020.6202 410.47 0.16 in situ
2020 09 15 2020.7049 410.76 0.11 in situ
2020 10 15 2020.7869 410.85 0.13 in situ
2020 11 15 2020.8716 410.79 0.14 in situ
2020 saw a welcome shift to cooler and wetter conditions after the widespread drought of the past few years.
Last year's persistent drought-bringing climate, set up by a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, was replaced with neutral and eventually rain-encouraging La Niña conditions in September.
Despite a hiatus over spring, those conditions finally brought widespread rainfall to end 2020.
Many water stores have risen, but many have not filled to the extent we might have hoped for in a La Niña year … not yet.
There are still a few months of the summer wet season left.
Sydney's water stores are the big turnaround story of 2020. In January, the stores were at 44.9 per cent of capacity, their lowest point in the past five years.
Temperatures
Mean temperatures came in at 1.15 degree Celsius above the 1961-to-1990 average, well cooler than 2019, which was 1.52C above the average.
Overnight temperatures were also the fourth-highest on record using the Bureau of Meteorology's (BOM's) gridded dataset, which gives an average temperature for the country as a whole.
But maximum temperatures were less extreme than we have been accustomed to in recent years, coming in at the eighth-hottest on record, 1.24C above the 1961-to-1990 average.
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