This document is part of an archive of postings by John Ray 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. Backups from previous months accessible here
30 June, 2023
Universities waste a fortune on consultants. When will they learn?
Jenna Price, writing below, lets her hostility to business apear but she is broadly right. Universities are a unique institution and need their own rules. I personally see little wrong with the original model where a university was entirely run by its senior teaching staff
My refugee parents were obsessed with education to both protect and embolden me. Mum, mother of the naughtiest girl in the school, was relieved when I graduated. At universities in those days, you actually had permission to talk in class. It was powerful and transformative.
That’s not what’s happening now. Universities are now online assembly lines where interrupting wildly is nearly impossible, and the atmosphere is more likely to be lagging from our unpredictable internet connections than anything else. Staff aren’t paid properly. Class sizes grow. Student satisfaction has plummeted.
How did we get to this? Sherryn Groch, writing for this masthead, reveals a disturbing pattern – Australian universities are spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year hiring consultants, including from scandal-drenched PwC.
Groch listed wage theft and cruel – often involuntary – redundancies, but there’s more to add to the list. Education, the experience of connection and of intellectual intimacy are being stolen from this generation. Young people have never paid so much for so little.
In the meantime, the consultants –and those who hire them – go about their business with no concern for the ethical aspects of what they are doing. Every single researcher at a university has to complete ethics approval. I doubt consultants would get to first base with such a requirement. The PwC revelations show us we should have trust issues with consultants.
How have they come to dominate the culture of higher education? Just look who is on the councils of these institutions. Academics for Public Universities say there has been a dramatic shift and now barely a third have expertise in the sector. Councils are crammed with big business types and the culture trickles down to vice chancellors and on to deans.
One academic staff member tells me she has to explain to other council members that teaching university students is not like working in a factory. Yes, you might be lucky to get a vice chancellor who can persuade a bunch of profit-hunters that universities are about something higher than money. Staff representatives can’t stand up for everyone on their own.
Business loves cutting costs and restructures. Are those the values we should bring to our future – our teachers, nurses and doctors, engineers, computer scientists, sociologists and lawyers?
In 2017, a consultant interviewed me at a Sydney cafe about the faculty in which I worked. Too noisy to record, she took desultory notes. The experience of my colleagues in that review was pretty similar, although one told me, she instructed her interviewer: “Write this down.”
I asked questions, she already had answers. My trust in the process disappeared entirely. The “strategic assessment” cost the university many thousands of dollars and ended with a document that generative AI could have written if you’d put the words visionary, mission statement and “do better with less” into its prompt.
A few years later, the whole process happened all over again. This time it was a bunch of international academics who had as much understanding of the Australian job market (or, indeed, Australian universities) as I had about herrings.
At Deakin, consultants delivered a course on change management and leadership. Jill Blackmore, Alfred Deakin professor of education and president of the Australian Association of University Professors, who sat in on the course, said: “Worst course I’ve ever been in, and we paid for it. It did not understand what leadership in a university was all about.”
Just now, at a university near you, a consultant has been called in to investigate the use of offices. The academics have said, repeatedly, hot-desking and open-plan offices might be OK if you didn’t have to deal with sobbing students and more recently, sobbing colleagues. After two years of consultations, enthusiasm has cooled and the report is shelved. Money for nothing.
Look, every organisation, be it universities, hospitals, telcos, or banks, needs to have reality checks. But let’s engage experts who think about the national good and not the bottom line.
The nation’s 10 top-ranked universities alone spent at least $249 million on consultancies last year, more than they spent before the pandemic.
Universities spend money on consultants instead of education. Every teaching academic I know has had to defend paying casual staff – those running tutorials – to attend lectures. I once had to do an entire cost proposal which took me hours for the sheer bloody-mindedness of my then-boss – at the same time, we were wasting money on consultants.
The University of Melbourne’s Michael Wesley, author of the new book Mind of the Nation: Universities in Australian Life, knows we have a problem. We hire people from the corporate sector, and they lose their minds at what they see as waste.
“But as my boss points out (Duncan Maskell who last week called for free higher education), we are a not-for-profit organisation ... [the] ruthless pursuit of shareholder value is utterly alien to the university. The corporatisation of [Australian] universities is almost unique in the world.”
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UQ rises in world university rankings
As I have a degree from there, I rather like this report. QS is one of several university rating systems. It is a private organization that was founded by Nunzio Quacquarelli in 1990 to provide information and advice to students looking to study abroad. It has become widely read. The Leiden rankings are the most objective so it is pleasing that they rate UQ even more highly than QS does
The University of Queensland has jumped seven places to be ranked 43 in the world in the QS World University Rankings for 2024.
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Terry said the results place the University in the top three per cent of the 1,500 universities ranked.
“Our achievement in these important global rankings is a testament to the impact of our teaching, research and innovation across a range of fields, to help solve some of the most pressing challenges facing the world,” Professor Terry said.
“UQ’s network of more than 430 international research partnerships, includes the recently announced collaboration with Emory University to accelerate vaccine discovery and development.
"The Global Bioeconomy Alliance with the Technical University of Munich and Sao Paulo State University is another great example of our globally significant cooperation.”
The QS World University Rankings for 2024 measure a university’s performance across indicators including Research and Discovery, Global Engagement, Learning Experience, Employability and Sustainability.
“UQ consistently ranks in the world’s top 50 universities and this reflects what is an unwavering commitment to teaching excellence and delivering positive learning outcomes for our students,” Professor Terry said.
“We know UQ graduates are sought after by industry and business, and engagement with these sectors is critical to shape our programs, connect students to the workforce and equip them with skills that make them relevant now and into the future.”
In the 2023 Nature Index based on research outputs in prestigious journals in the previous year, UQ was second in Australia.
In the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2023, UQ was ranked 35 in the world and third in Australia overall, and was the top rated university in Australia in the field of Life and Earth Sciences and sixth in the world.
The Leiden ranking measures the scientific performance of more than 1,400 universities worldwide.
https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2023/06/uq-rises-world-university-rankings
*************************************************Queensland's insanely expensive pumped hydro plans
With desperately underfunded hospitals, police, schools and roads, this is gross
The Queensland government surprised many when it announced last year that the state would construct two new pumped hydro schemes, dwarfing the troubled Snowy Hydro 2.0 project in NSW.
At the core of the Energy and Jobs Plan, announced in September 2022 by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, is a commitment to turn off coal-fired power stations by 2035.
By the same year, Queensland would be running on 80 per cent renewable energy thanks to dozens of new solar and wind farms that would traverse the state.
To meet that target, the state needs a ready supply of stored power to draw upon when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing — enough to power the state for hours at a time.
That is where pumped hydro comes in as a large-scale storage option.
What is pumped hydro?
Pumped hydro works similarly to big batteries, filling in supply gaps when the grid needs a top-up of electricity.
The design involves two dams built at differing elevations, connected by a tunnel, with transmission lines then connecting it to the grid.
When there is plenty of sun and wind to power the grid, energy is in high supply, so water is pumped to the upper reservoir using surplus electricity.
When the sun goes down or there is no wind, water is released to the lower dam through the tunnel, generating electricity as it passes through a turbine.
That electricity is then injected into the grid via high-voltage transmission lines.
The debate
The criticism is broadly two-fold: firstly, that pumped hydro comes at a monumental cost and is being outpaced by other technologies (namely batteries), and secondly, that Australia simply does not have the workforce needed to construct such huge pieces of infrastructure by 2035.
The Energy and Jobs Plan proposed a 2-gigawatt pumped hydro scheme at Borumba Dam — west of Gympie — and another much larger plant called Pioneer-Burdekin, approximately 1,000 kilometres north of Brisbane, west of Mackay, offering an unprecedented 5 gigawatts.
The government has promised that the 2GW Borumba project would store enough energy to power 2 million homes continuously for 24 hours.
If constructed, the 5GW Pioneer-Burdekin project would be the largest energy storage (PHES) in the world.
Currently, the largest PHES schemes are in China and the United States, with plants of around 3 gigawatts each.
Pumped hydro is also expensive. The cost and delivery time frame for the Snowy Hydro 2.0 scheme bears little resemblance to what was originally announced by Malcolm Turnbull in 2017.
It was estimated to cost around $2 billion, not including power lines, and to be completed by 2021. Now, it is expected by December 2029 at a total estimated cost of $10 billion.
New transmission lines
The sheer amount of energy that will be stored in each of Queensland's pumped hydro centres means that new high-voltage transmission lines need to be built, replacing the current mostly 275kV lines that connect the grid.
Powerlink, the state-owned company that constructs and manages the transmission lines, estimates the new 500kV lines will cost $6-8 million per kilometre and will become the backbone of a new "super grid" that will connect the state's renewable energy network.
The company announced a compensation scheme for those that will be impacted by the new transmission lines surrounding Borumba at meetings and via letters earlier this year.
Powerlink CEO Paul Simshauser said the route had been designed to run through as much state-owned land as possible, but that some impacts on landholders were unavoidable.
"We've come up with what we think is the lowest-cost solution for Queenslanders," he said.
But the former CEO of Powerlink, Simon Bartlett, warned that the current plans would come at an exorbitant cost because Pioneer-Burdekin was so far away from the main population centre of South-East Queensland.
"A basic rule of planning is: build your generation, if you can, as close as you can to the load centre. That reduces what you spend on transmission, and it reduces the risk of long-distance transmission," Professor Bartlett said.
"But the plan doesn't do that, the plan wants to build it 1,000 kilometres from the main load centre [Brisbane] – it just makes no logic to me, I'm afraid."
Professor Bartlett also says it is high risk for Powerlink to connect the pumped storage schemes by only one new line of 500kV towers that carry a double circuit, due to the risk of fires or vandals bringing down towers.
"What they're proposing is just a single transmission line, that's a major flaw in the design because that can come down, and every half a kilometre there's a tower, and all the wires are on the one tower. So that can come down and totally blackout a large part of the state," he said.
Mr Simshauser refuted that, arguing two lines of towers were not needed.
"We believe at this point in time anyway, [it] will be a cost that we won't need. We believe we can manage it in other ways," Mr Simshauser said.
"There are always risks in running a transmission network, any of our system plans will always take into account the most probable and credible contingencies that we can envisage and make sure that the balance of the network is, you know, available to deal with those contingencies."
What about batteries?
Queensland's Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said he considered the state's plan to be "the best path possible" to transition to renewables.
Professor Bartlett is urging the government to re-think the scale of the two schemes, in favour of emerging grid-scale batteries.
"They say it's the world's largest scheme. As soon as someone says that: watch out. There's a reason that others haven't gone that big," Professor Bartlett said.
"There are other ways of getting storage besides pumped storage, and there's been incredible developments in chemical batteries, the costs have just come down dramatically.
"[Australian Energy Market Operator] AEMO's own report shows that 8-hour batteries are about half the cost of an 8-hour pump storage scheme.
"Pumped storage is expensive because of the civil engineering, the concrete, the steel, the labour … and while pumped storage has getting dearer, batteries are getting cheaper."
However, Powerlink CEO Paul Simshauser said that it needed to make decisions based on current market conditions.
"At this point in time, the only serious battery proposals that we've got on our book are lithium-ion batteries, and all of them have congested around a 2-hour storage time, which tells us that that's what the market deems as economic at this point," he said.
"In terms of long-duration storage, really the only long-duration storage project proponents we've seen are pumped hydro," he said.
Similarly, Mr de Brenni said the government had closely considered the alternatives.
"We've worked for a number of years considering all of these options, and pumped hydro energy storage is the proven technology that will enable us to reach our renewable energy targets," he said.
Who is going to build it?
The construction industry is sounding the alarm that there are too many projects in the infrastructure pipeline, and Australia simply does not have the workers to complete them.
Engineers Australia CEO Romilly Madew said governments around the country were not learning from major infrastructure delays on other big projects.
"When you take into account the infrastructure pipeline that's already in place, you've got the Queensland Olympics coming up in 2032.
"You also have AUKUS now been added into the mix from the federal government. And then you add in energy transition. The capacity isn't there," Ms Madew said.
"If we say it's going to take 10 years, let's say it's going to be 15. There are so many unknowns at the moment and we really need to make sure we have contingencies on these projects,"
"We must remember it's taxpayer money — so are we reporting transparently on the time frames, on the delivery and on our commitments, and being really realistic about those?"
Mr de Brenni agreed there were workforce issues but was not concerned the state would not be able to attract workers.
"Whilst there are challenges in the infrastructure market, today, we're confident that we'll be able to attract the very best workers so that it's delivered, and it will be a quality outcome for our state for generations," he said.
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Senior Queensland cops desperate emails reveal crime crisis, lack of police resources
Leaked police emails give alarming insight into the true state of Queensland’s frontline with no one available to respond to dozens of calls for help and supervisors so inundated they fear making a serious mistake.
Over several emails to superiors in the first half of 2023, a senior Gold Coast officer lays bare how offenders are using the M1 as their own private raceway, homeowners are becoming vigilantes and in one night 90 of 122 call-outs could not be serviced.
In his emails to police bosses, respected Glitter Strip district duty officer Senior-Sergeant Arron Ottaway reveals his frustrations over a lack of manpower, including one incident where an off-duty top cop could not get police help as he fought off a violent and drug-addled intruder in his own yard.
In one email, Sen-Sgt Ottaway told a superior how “frustrated” residents opted to chase teen criminals themselves and smash the window of their stolen car rather than call police.
He even admits that the lack of support and stress had driven him to drink.
In another email in late April, Sen-Sgt Ottaway told a superior of recent shifts where police had to deal with up to 122 jobs at a time, with as many as 90 “unresourced”.
“The QPS is asking too much of me – I cannot continue to work by myself as a DDO on the Gold Coast at peak times (or I will) make a mistake that will have a high consequence,” he wrote.
“We, as DDOs, are continually getting asked to overview more, make more decisions, run multiple high-risk jobs, consider high-risk DV offenders, liaise with QAS over mental health, approve transports … you get it, the list goes on.”
In one email, sent in late January, he wrote that he was the only District Duty Officer (DDO) on duty and “there are so many jobs and competing interests that I’m losing my mind”.
“Tonight has been relentless, just like last night, ” he wrote. “Last night, I didn’t stand up for four-and-a-half hours due to the workload. I eat at the computer.
“Last night, on the way home, I stopped at a bottle shop drive thru, bought a six-pack and drank all of them once I got home, just to try and calm myself down.
“I once dealt with a mental health consumer who said that he drinks for the “comfortable numbness” – I think I understand what he is speaking about.”
In the email, Sen-Sgt Ottaway told how three stolen cars were rolling through the Gold Coast, “one at high speed treating the highway like a racetrack”. “So bad was the driving that members of the public were calling Triple 0,” he wrote.
“Yet conversely, so frustrated are the members of the public, that instead of calling police when the crooks were actually breaking into the house, the street got together, chased the baddies and smashed the front windscreen of the stolen car they were in.”
In another case, Sen-Sgt Ottaway said, an off-duty senior commissioned officer rang for help “because a UID (under the influence of drugs), violent, shirtless offender was in his yard and he was rolling around on the ground fighting with him”.
“It gets worse,” he wrote. “The off-duty officer and his wife had called a number of times. You guessed it – no cops, no on-road DDO, no RDO (regional duty officer) to go.”
Sen-Sgt Ottaway said he had to decide “on countless occasions” whether to allow police crews to transport a mental health patient to hospital because an ambulance did not turn up or was unavailable.
“I’m asked to decide, with zero medical training and virtually no information, of whether I should allow our people to do these transports,” he wrote.
“I guess I’ll be the one in trouble for that as well when the patient dies in police custody.”
Sen-Sgt Ottaway also told how he was trying to deal with 23 “unresourced” domestic violence cases at one time and how there were “no police” to respond to an urgent request for help from paramedics.
He said the South Eastern Police District was “more interested in its budget” than providing urgently needed manpower and “our people are struggling”. “There cannot be just one DDO on,” he wrote.
“DDOs are losing their sh-t because every single shift is like running a marathon. And I can’t keep up any longer.”
The seasoned cop has been relegated to desk duties amid an internal investigation into the pursuit of two teenagers in an allegedly stolen car.
Footage of the low-speed chase shows cops attempting the controversial precision immobilisation technique, or “PIT manoeuvre”, where pursuing police force a vehicle to turn sideways and the vehicle to lose control.
An official police report obtained by The Courier-Mail states that the “tactic of boxing in” was approved by the police communications controller to stop the vehicle which was travelling on its rims at an estimated 10 km/h.
But some police claimed Sen-Sgt Ottaway had been “targeted” over the “justified” pursuit because of his complaints about a lack of officers on the Coast. “Our boss has been ‘benched’ because he was trying to catch crooks,” a source said. “We have never been taught or trained on how to box in or PIT a car. The offenders were never going to stop.”
South Eastern police region Assistant Commissioner Brian Swan said the Gold Coast was a “really challenging” policing environment and he had ordered a comprehensive review into officer safety and well-being, including rostering and support programs.
“The thing that worries me the most is the well-being of our people - that we have healthy and safe workplaces and healthy and safe people, not just physically but psychologically safe as well,” he said. “We’re in the process of changing the way we do things, but it’s going to take time.”
Mr Swan said staffing levels were continually monitored and millions of dollars was spent on overtime, with police able to call in extra officers in busy periods.
“We could have a police officer on every corner in every suburb and some shifts, that won’t seem like enough,” he said.
“The complexity of what our teams are doing every day is just immense.
“I’ve made it very clear that budgets are not to get in the way of officer and community safety.
“My priority is the safety of the community and the safety of my workforce and that’s the bottom line.”
Mr Swan said there was no link between Sen-Sgt Ottaway being stood down and the concerns he had raised over police numbers.
Emails written by Sen-Sgt Ottaway to his superiors in the months before the pursuit reveal his stress and frustration at a lack of back-up.
After Sen-Sgt Ottaway first spoke out, Gold Coast chief superintendent Craig Hanlon emailed DDOs to tell them he appreciated that “we are all under increasing pressure to complete our jobs with demand increasing and associated staffing issues”.
“However, I and the District Management team sleep well at night knowing you are reviewing calls for service and demand and managing resources throughout the District under our Priority Policing Policy,” he wrote.
Last month, an inspector emailed Sen-Sgt Ottaway to tell him his concerns had been “taken seriously” and Coast police bosses had decided to launch a review into issues including DDO rosters, equipment and health and safety.
The Queensland Police Union said it was supporting Sen-Sgt Ottaway
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29 June, 2023
"I exposed war crimes among the SAS"
The report below by a female sociologist is one in a long line that judges wartime behavior by peace time standards. As such, it is typically unjust. It is particularly egregious however in judging the highest risk military situations by civilian standards.
I am a former Army psychologist so perhaps have a keener awareness of the issues than some. I have no field experience. All I know is what I could learn from talking to people here in Australia. But one thing I have learned loud and clear is that military experience greatly reshapes attitudes.
One of the reasons miitary veterans often refuse to talk about their wartime experiences is that they know how their wartime actions were guided by different standards than civilian ones. The heat of battle alters attitudes and attitudes alter behaviour.
And nowhere is all the more so than in special operations. Such assignments are super high-risk and big pressure and survival instincts are at their highest there. The stress is great and anybody acting under stress is likely to make different decision from peacetime ones. And that is acknowledged throughout the military. And it is that acknowledgement that leads to "coverups". People who try to apply armchair standards to wartime behaviour are seen as missing the point and are therefore sidelined as much as possible. It is exactly such sidelining that the lady below experienced.
It would so wonderful if war could be waged like a game of chess but that is never going to happen. To use a common cliche, war is hell and there are many demons in hell. Democratic societies do their best to exclude or expel the demons but that will only ever be a campaign with limited success.
"Hypermasculinity" has got nothing to do with the problem. All that is at work is the attitudinal response to the military situation. In social psychologist's jargon, what we see are "the demand characteristics of the situation".+
It is rather regrettable that the sociologist lady below abandoned that obvious social explanation in favour of a pseudo-psychological one.
As the most frontline of SAS fighters, all that applies particularly to Ben Roberts Smith. He tried to explain his actions under the highest stress by civilian standards but inevitably failed.
It wasn’t long ago that I had been a successful business owner with a string of government contracts.
For me, it all began on Australia Day 2016. That was the day I submitted a report to army chief General Angus Campbell that would trigger the biggest inquiry into war crimes in Australia’s history. It would also be the day that David Morrison, chief of Army from 2011 to 2015, would be awarded Australian of the Year. Chair of the committee that chose the winner was Special Forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith.
The first time I heard mention of war crimes among Australian Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan was in 2014, in a small, partially furnished office in an Army barracks. I’m a sociologist and I had been contracted by the army to undertake a number of research projects. I was speaking with an army chaplain about domestic violence prevalence. The conversation went well beyond the initial topic. It was the first time I heard of the “serious misconduct” that was occurring within SAS patrols in Afghanistan. The chaplain described returning from deployment “a broken man”, having tried and failed to have his concerns taken seriously.
It wasn’t until late 2015, in one of the first interviews I did for a project in Special Operations Command, which oversees special forces units, that the chaplain’s story came back to me. That project began as an examination of Special Operations capability. It ended in a report on war crimes that led to the Brereton Report and news stories that resulted in Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith unsuccessfully suing this masthead for defamation.
The Federal Court last month found Roberts-Smith was a liar and murderer who engaged in war crimes. At the time of my initial report, I had no idea what that report would eventually cost me, personally and professionally.
For I now realise that what I was coming up against was more than the horrific acts of a few rogue soldiers. It was the cult of brand “SAS”; the cult of the male warrior. In this cult, unsanctioned violence is justified, encouraged and celebrated.
It seemed my report on the SAS had triggered a threat to some Australian men’s masculinity. I’d dared question their heroes. These loud voices would hound me for years. The attacks on me to be bashed, killed, tortured, and my livelihood destroyed came via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, email, text and phone call. Mostly the backlash came from those not in the military, but some were ex-military and younger white male soldiers – all of whom appear to idolise the SAS as a stronghold of hypermasculinity.
When the war crimes allegations emerged, then-defence minister Peter Dutton said he had made it “very clear” to Defence that I should not be awarded further contracts. That he did not want the military to be “distracted by things that have happened in the past”. My credibility was questioned repeatedly by Jacqui Lambie and reiterated in the Murdoch press.
It became politically inconvenient for me to keep speaking about the SAS issues. In 2021, I had written an essay about how misconduct becomes entrenched in organisations and how it spreads, and I used the SAS as a primary example. The Australian Government Solicitor unsuccessfully tried to stop my essay being published.
In a letter I received from the government solicitor’s office shortly after publication, I was told my conduct and public statements had “harmed the Commonwealth”. The result was that my ongoing work with the government was “terminated for convenience”.
The implications for me, my family, my business, and my staff were profound. The message had been sent to the department loud and clear that I was now a liability and a risk. No work would follow. Work in the pipeline was stopped indefinitely. I’d told the truth, so they cut me out.
After that my business collapsed and my mental health declined amid the endless stream of misogynistic threats through social media. Work from other organisations was not forthcoming. I gather this was because most businesses hire consultants to tell them what they want to hear, not uncover what is really at the heart of their problems.
I once heard Special Forces described as the “weeping sore” of the Army that no one was prepared to tend to. But there is a cost to organisations that leave issues to fester. It teaches others in the organisation that bad behaviour is acceptable, that those who engage in it will be protected, that to dismiss it is the norm. Such attitudes seep through an organisation and rot it. When the day finally comes that these problems must be addressed, the damage is far greater for all involved.
But the greatest takeaway from my experience is a personal one. That despite the cost, I would do it all again. I am grateful for the trust placed in me by soldiers and officers who gave accounts of egregious acts of violence and cover-ups. I have never taken it for granted and I have felt an unwavering duty of care to them.
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Climate cult weakening
Politically, ‘net zero’ is increasingly on the nose in many European countries. This week, the Swedish parliament officially abandoned its 100 per cent renewable energy target to meet net zero by 2045, replacing it with a ‘technology-neutral’ target. Many green-tinged Europeans were dismayed, but as Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson told the Swedish parliament, ‘We need more electricity production… we need a stable energy system.’
Of course, for the Swedes, blessed with huge mountains and deep lakes but little abundant sun, hydro plays a key part in their renewable energy supply: 98 per cent of their electricity already comes from hydro, wind or nuclear power, so they can afford to eschew fossil fuels. The new ‘non-renewable’ target simply means they can get more nuclear power into the grid, and essentially admits that the Nordic utopian fantasy about wind and solar being our salvation is now done and dusted.
Meanwhile, in Germany during the last winter, one town was forced to tear down the local wind farm and dig it up to get to the precious coal beneath. A more entertaining and apt metaphor is hard to find.
In an article headlined, ‘The perils of net zero coercion’, the UK Telegraph this week reported that, ‘Sweeping bans to cut greenhouse emissions in Europe is leading to widespread public backlash,’ and that, ‘Climate coercion is a very bad way to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Western democracies’.
A day earlier, the Telegraph had also warned that, ‘Germany is headed for a political meltdown. Olaf Scholz faces a reckoning as Germans resist his “Green dictatorship” of mandatory heat pumps and unaffordable technologies.’
This week, even the BBC had to admit that Britain is not capable of meeting its own net-zero targets. According to the latest report by the bed-wetting Climate Change Committee, there is a ‘worrying tendency’ of UK government ministers to avoid embracing the next stage of net zero. What a surprise! ‘The UK has lost its clear global leadership position on climate action,’ the report’s authors lament. ‘We are no longer COP President; no longer a member of the EU negotiating bloc…. We have backtracked on fossil fuel commitments.… And we have been slow to react to the US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s proposed Green Deal Industrial Plan, which are now a strong pull for green investment away from the UK.’
Last week Britain also abandoned its proposed ‘green hydrogen levy’ on households, which, according to the Guardian, ‘[signals] a possible U-turn as households struggle with high inflation and this week’s shock interest rate rise’.
Craig Mackinlay MP, chairman of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said: ‘The cancellation of the proposed £118 Hydrogen Tax on household energy bills is hugely welcome and I hope is the start of a common sense journey for the government on energy policy…. When the laudable ambition of net zero hits the reality of cost and significant changes to the way we live, the public are understandably turned off.’ Meanwhile, we also learn that EVs are looking increasingly dubious. That same UK Climate Change Committee report says that ‘plug-in hybrids have performed up to five times worse than expected’. China, too, is reportedly ‘discarding fields of EVs, leaving them to rot’.
Yet here in far-away Australia, our climate warrior-in-chief Chris Bowen blithely places his faith for our energy future in green hydrogen and EVs convinced that Australia can survive without our fossil fuel energy advantage. Is he deaf? Blind? Can he not read a foreign newspaper? Does he not have any advisers who are actually aware of the shift in public opinion occurring in places once famed for their green ideology but now crippled by soaring inflation and out-of-control cost of living?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/climate-cringe/
***********************************************Super fit mother-of-two, 37, 'is left in chronic pain, bound to a wheelchair and forced to find a new home' after Covid jab
A mother-of-two claims she has been left in debilitating pain and now relies on a wheelchair to get around after receiving three doses of a Covid vaccine.
Mel Guevremont, 37, says she has gone from being a keen gym-goer, surfer, snowboarder and rock climber to barely being able to take a few steps around her home before her legs give out.
Ms Guevremont, from Sydney, claims her body has broken down and she has been forced to wear a neck brace since receiving her third Pfizer mRNA vaccine in March 2021.
'It's ruined my life completely and utterly,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
'I am skin and bones. I don't recognise myself. It's not my body and I wake up with a new symptom every day. It's a grieving process.'
Ms Guevremont and her partner Richard Ellison, who moved to Australia from Canada seven years ago, said they were forced to sell their Manly unit because it was located on the fourth floor and she struggles with stairs.
They now live with their two boys in a ground-level home in the south-eastern Sydney suburb of Maroubra.
Ms Guevremont said she has spent more than $25,000 seeing specialists, including neurologists and rheumatologists, but has not found them helpful.
Mel Guevremont says she has been left in a wheelchair after three doses of the Covid vaccine
Her comments come after a landmark Covid vaccine injury class-action lawsuit was filed in April against the Australian government, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the Department of Health.
The nationwide suit, which reportedly has 500 members, seeks redress for those allegedly left injured or bereaved by the Covid vaccines.
Ms Guevremont said she was a fit and healthy woman who regularly took part in outdoor activities - but her active lifestyle has drastically changed.
'Right before these jabs I was snowboarding in New Zealand. The only problem I had was a tweaked knee from too much surfing and playing basketball,' she said.
'I was an adrenaline junkie. I did not stop. It's quite the clash for me to be barely able to hold a cup of coffee or hold my own neck.
'How do you go from snowboarding, ripping on a mountain and having a great time, to all of a sudden can't hold your neck?'
Ms Guevremont claims she is also suffering from electric shocks, unexplained weight loss and body weakness.
'I went to a beauty salon and after a while I couldn't feel my legs,' she said. 'When I tried to get up, my legs just completely collapsed. I sort of laughed and brushed it off. 'I thought maybe it was related to post-pregnancy hormones.'
Ms Guevremont says she struggles to do basic physical activities like walk to the park or even pick up her two boys, who are aged two and four.
'It breaks my heart. My young one wants to play soccer, and he knows I played soccer with him before, and all of a sudden I can't,' she said. 'I wonder if I am going to be there for my kids.'
The mother has made farewell videos for her boys just in case she is 'not around' when they grow older.
In July 2021, Ms Guevremont caught Covid-19, which she said took her four days to get over, after which 'she was fine'.
In November 2021, her condition spiralled and she fainted and collapsed. 'My partner rushed me to the hospital and I stayed there for a week,' she said.
She said a specialist suggested she might have 'post-vaccination syndrome and potentially post-viral syndrome' - although she only wrote the second diagnosis in her notes.
In referrals seen by Daily Mail Australia, hospitals and neurologists have diagnosed Ms Guevremont with 'suspected vaccine injury'.
Last year, Ms Guevremont reported herself as a vaccine injury to the TGA but said she was still waiting for a response. 'They fail to follow up and investigate,' she said.
A TGA spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia an 'acknowledgement email requesting further information was sent in response to an adverse event report submitted by Ms Guevremont'.
They added: 'The TGA strongly encourages vaccine recipients and healthcare professionals to report their experience of suspected adverse events, even if there is only a very small chance a vaccine was the cause.
'The TGA uses these reports to look for patterns in reporting that may indicate a new safety signal for a vaccine.'
The spokesperson said such a signal will lead 'to appropriate regulatory action which may include making changes to a vaccine's Product Information and communicating information to doctors.
'To date, the TGA has initiated over 43 regulatory actions to include new safety information in Product Information documents,' the TGA representative said.
But Ms Guevremont said she felt 'abandoned' and turned to Kerryn Phelps, the former head of the Australian Medical Association, for help.
Last December, Professor Phelps told a parliamentary inquiry into long Covid that both she and her wife had been vaccine-injured.
Ms Guevremont said Professor Phelps was very kind and supportive in referring her to a neurologist who 'specialised in vaccine injuries' but who turned out to be too busy to see her.
She also condemned the vaccine-injury compensation scheme run by Services Australia. 'The compensation scheme is a joke,' she said.
The compensation scheme for Pfizer vaccines includes about 10 eligible conditions, but these don't include neurological conditions such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome and Transverse Myelitis, even though they are listed for AstraZeneca shots.
'The TGA and regulators around the world continue to monitor and analyse Covid-19 vaccine safety data covering hundreds of millions of people, and the latest evidence from clinical trials and peer-reviewed medical literature,' the TGA spokesperson said.
'This information continues to overwhelmingly support the safe and effective use of Covid-19 vaccines.
'It remains the consensus view of international regulators and health departments that the benefits of Covid-19 vaccination continue to far outweigh the rare risks.'
Ms Guevremont is currently looking at experimental treatments and possibly moving the U.S. to receive them.
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Parents start own schools in ‘woke teaching’ backlash
Rebel parents worried about “woke teaching’’ are starting up their own small schools, in a renaissance of “classical” education.
Twenty-two students have enrolled in the conservative Hartford College, which opened in Sydney this year as Australia’s “first liberal arts school for boys’’.
As more families drift away from free public schooling, start-up schools are mushrooming across the country, paid for through tuition fees, bank loans and federal government funding for basic running costs.
The Hartford College motto is “Dare to think. Dare to know,’’ and its ethos is to encourage students to “think outside the box, ask difficult questions and have courage in pursuing the truth’’.
Its chairman and founder is father-of-six Tim Mitchell, the solicitor director at Bay Legal in Sydney, who established the school with just 22 students in February after renting a spare building from the Catholic Church in the inner-Sydney suburb of Daceyville.
The school plans to grow to 200 students from Years 5 to 12.
READ MORE: Religious schools poach public pupils
“It was parent-driven – the idea was initiated in 2020 when people came together and thought it would be a much-needed initiative to have a school with a classical, liberal arts education,’’ Mr Mitchell said yesterday.
“It’s a Christian ethos, and an ethos of academic excellence and opening boys’ minds to great literature, philosophy and languages, as well as science and technology.’’
Hartford College employs six teachers, some part-time, specialising in traditional school subjects as well as French and Latin, music and philosophy.
The school complies with the NSW Education Standards Authority curriculum, but customises its own syllabus.
“Each boy has his own mentor who meets every couple of weeks for mentoring and advice,’’ Mr Mitchell said.
“Every term the parents have an hour to talk to the principal.
“Ultimately parents are the most important educators, and the school’s there to assist the parents.’’
Parents are paying between $10,500 and $13,300 a year in tuition fees for boys in Years 5, 6 and 7, who are taught in small classes.
“We’re confident the school will grow,’’ Mr Mitchell said. “It will be cash-flow positive in two or three years.’’
Parents Nathan and Tanya Brown chose the school for their 12-year-old son when they noticed a sign outside the new school building close to their home.
“The culture of the school appealed to us, especially the mentoring program for boys,’’ Ms Brown said.
“We liked the liberal arts curriculum and the focus on literacy for boys.
“We get quite a bit of feedback from the school – it’s not just about kids’ marks, it’s about how happy he is and his application to his studies.
“He’s found a good group of friends.’’
Hartford is the second start-up school for principal Frank Monagle, who was founding headmaster of Harkaway Hills College in Melbourne, a girls’ school set up by a dozen Catholic parents in 2016 to teach “traditional values’’ through the Parents for Education movement.
It now has 167 students between pre-Prep and Year 10, paying between $5225 and $9928 in tuition fees this year.
The school received $2.2 million in federal funding and $363,000 in Victorian government funding in 2021, equivalent to $13,000 per student.
Mr Monagle said he aims to integrate subjects, so that English lessons tie in with history or science subjects.
As an example, Year 7 boys studying Aesop’s Fables in English would study ancient Greece in history.
“I’ve found that subject teachers and departments within schools tend to be in their own silos so they haven’t a clue about what’s happening in other (subjects),’’ Mr Monagle said.
“We’re integrating the lessons as much as we can because boy react to the big picture – boys more than girls will ask, ‘Why are we learning this?’’
In Brisbane, beer baron James Power is part of a group of six Catholic families planning to set up St John Henry Newman College, an independent school also in the “classic Liberal Arts tradition’’.
The parents hope to begin primary school classes in 2025, before expanding into a secondary school.
Dr Kevin Donnelly, the coordinator of a Classical Education and Liberal Arts seminar held in Sydney yesterday, said many parents resented the “woke ideology’’ taught in many mainstream schools.
“Throughout their schooling, students are indoctrinated with the belief gender and sexuality are fluid and limitless, that males are inherently violent and misogynist and that Western civilisation is oppressive and guilty of white supremacism,’’ Dr Donnelly, who reviewed the national curriculum in 2014, said.
“Unlike the national curriculum taught by existing government and non-government schools, parents are seeking a more rigorous and enriching education for their children.’’
Federal Education department data shows that 76 independent schools – separate from the Catholic education system – have opened since the start of the pandemic in 2020, including six so far this year.
Independent Schools Australia chief executive Graham Catt said enrolments in private schools had risen 3.2 per cent last year, educating one in every six students.
“It is interesting how much growth is occurring in small and low-fee schools,’’ he said.
“(They) are often new or small and offer specialised programs and support.’’
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27 June, 2023
International fans converge on Sydney Harbour Bridge ahead of FIFA Women's World Cup
Why block traffic on a traffic artery for a sport with only a small following? If closing the bridge to promote women's soccer is right, why not close it to celebrate men's soccer? I am not holding my breath. It is just more discrimination in favour of women. Some people are more equal than others, it seems.
Many people use Sunday as an occasion to visit friends and relatives. To bad on this occasion if any of those they wanted to visit lived on the other side of the harbour
An estimated 4,000 people from around the world danced, sung and walked their way across the landmark ahead of the ninth iteration of the competition.
Unity Celebration marked the 25-day countdown to the international soccer competition kicking off in Australia and New Zealand in July.
Chants from home countries and the sounds of drums shook the bridge during the event, which began with a smoking ceremony, followed by live cultural performances and speeches.
A special double-sided World Cup jersey was also unveiled, commemorating the co-host countries.
'The fans are amazing'
Head of the 2023 competition, Rhiannan Martin told ABC News she was expecting a massive turnout. "We have great opportunities here for everyone to watch, I think the level of football will improve through the tournament."
Tehlia and Steve, two fans from Jamaica, were excited to see their home country play in next month's competition. "It's amazing to be in Australia while they're in the World Cup, and we can be here to support them," they told ABC News.
Anna, from Columbia, danced across the bridge with a group of friends. "We really can't wait until the girls get here. This is amazing, we are so excited," she said.
The 2023 competition will run from Thursday, July 20, to Sunday, August 20.
During the 32 days, 64 matches will be played in 10 stadiums across Australia and New Zealand.
There are 32 countries vying for the trophy — the largest number of competitors in the women's competition so far.
The first two games will take place in Auckland's Eden Park and Sydney's Stadium Australia, with the host countries versing Norway and Ireland respectively.
The Matildas, representing Australia, are in Group B alongside Ireland, Nigeria and Canada.
Ms Martin acknowledged the investment put in by Australia and New Zealand in preparation for the games, and said it will prove a tough competition.
"The groups are very strong. I know Australia have got a strong group," she said. "We're looking forward to fantastic football in 25 days."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-25/nsw-fifa-womens-world-cup-harbour-bridge/102520140
**********************************************Australia Removes Moderna Vaccine for Children Under 5
Health authorities in Australia have quietly removed Moderna’s paediatric COVID-19 vaccine for children five years and under, with both options offered by the company now no longer available in the country.
This comes after the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) announced it would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for individuals who are under five unless they have one of seven specific high-risk medical conditions that could place them in heightened-risk categories for severe COVID-19.
The seven conditions include severe primary or secondary immunodeficiency, including those undergoing treatment for cancer or those on immunosuppressive treatments; bone marrow or stem cell transplant or chimeric antigen T-cell (CAR-T) therapy; complex congenital cardiac disease, structural airway anomalies or chronic lung disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, chronic neurological or neuromuscular conditions or a disability with significant or complex health needs.
“ATAGI does not currently recommend vaccination for children aged 6 months to <5 years who are not in the above risk categories for severe COVID-19. These children have a very low likelihood of severe illness from COVID-19,” the advisory body said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Moderna for comment on the decision.
Moderna Vaccine Only Gave Modest Protection: ATAGI
In justifying its change of advice, the health authority said that there was a very low risk of severe COVID-19 in healthy children aged six months to less than five years.
“This age group is one of the least likely age groups to require hospitalisation due to COVID-19. Among the small number who are hospitalised or who die due to COVID-19, underlying medical conditions or immunocompromise are frequently present,” ATAGI said.
They also noted that the age cohort had a relatively low rate of paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS-TS) following COVID-19 compared to other older children, and this further declined with the Omicron variant compared to ancestral SARS CoV-2 strains.
Further, the health advisory group noted that a clinical trial of 5,500 children aged six months up to five years demonstrated that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine provided only modest protection against infection, while safety data reported patterns of vaccine-related adverse events.
“Up to one in four children in this age group had a fever following vaccination with Moderna vaccine, with higher rates seen in those with a history of previous COVID-19,” they said.
“As fever in this age group can sometimes result in medical review and/or investigations and occasionally trigger a febrile convulsion, the side effect profile for this vaccination needs to be considered in the risk-benefit discussion.”
Additionally, the health authorities also changed their advice on COVID-19 booster shots for those 18 and under, with the body now recommending that children and adolescents aged under 18 years who do not have any risk factors for severe COVID-19, should not receive a booster shot.
Omission of Children’s COVID-19 Vaccine Deaths In Australia Raises Concerns
The changing advice follows concerns in March that Australia’s drug regulator was too slow to update the country’s Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN) despite several deaths being attributed to the vaccine, including two children, aged 7 and 9.
The information came to light following a Freedom of Information request by an Australian doctor that found the delayed response from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
Senator Gerard Rennick said he would push for independent oversight of the TGA.
“A third independent medical party should examine the evidence as the TGA has a conflict of interest because they approved the vaccines and would therefore be held responsible for the deaths of these children due to poor regulatory oversight,” Rennick told The Epoch Times.
The senator also said he was concerned that the TGA was soft-pedalling the risks with the COVID-19 vaccines, especially around myocarditis and cardiac arrests.
“They are definitely downplaying the risks. They do not have enough information to rule it out given the known link between the vaccines and myocarditis and myocarditis and cardiac arrests,” Rennick said.
The TGA states that they “rigorously assess any COVID-19 vaccine for safety, quality and effectiveness before it can be supplied in Australia.”
As of June 19, the DAEN states that since the beginning of the vaccination rollout in Australia, there have been 138,645 adverse events reported to the federal government. Of those, 135,126 are believed to be directly related to the vaccines, while 991 are reportedly vaccine-related deaths.
Further, in the age cohort of six months to 17, there have been 5,817 adverse events recorded, with 5,689 attributed solely to COVID-19 vaccines. Nine children and adolescents have also reportedly died as a result of an adverse vaccine reaction.
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Cyber bullying, sexual content against teachers on the rise, eSafety commissioner warns
Teachers are experiencing escalating abuse from students and the eSafety commissioner warns the problem will get worse as generative AI technology becomes more widely used.
The commission has received reports of students taking photos of their teachers and rating their physical appearance, starting organised campaigns to have staff removed, making damaging allegations and creating sexualised abuse content.
“Some Australians are at greater risk of online abuse than others and sadly eSafety is aware teachers and principals are among them,” commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.
“We have received a number of reports of this form of abuse from across the community and we expect many more as generative AI technology becomes more widely dispersed.”
She said along with race, gender, sexuality and religion, perpetrators of abuse sometimes target specific professions, especially where their work is performed in the public eye, including teachers and principals whose work is sometimes known to “several thousand”.
While the commission has a good success rate in removing harmful content, Grant said social media platforms need to take responsibility for the “weaponisation of their platforms”.
“Teachers are incredibly vulnerable ... people don’t realise that feeling of being in a classroom with 20 or 25 or 30 young people.”
The commission is developing a social media self-defence program similar to other specific resources available for journalists and sportspeople.
Research from 2019 found 70 per cent of teachers reported being bullied or harassed by a student in the previous 12 months. Verbal abuse was the most common form, while 10 per cent said they had been hit or punched by a student.
Nearly 60 per cent reported they’d been bullied or harassed by parents. Women were more likely to be subject to abuse, while men were more likely to have students organise against them.
“Teachers are incredibly vulnerable. People don’t realise that feeling of being in a classroom with 20 or 25 or 30 young people,” said the study’s author, Dr Rochelle Fogelgarn – a lecturer in teacher education at La Trobe University and former teacher.
“[Teachers] are putting themselves out there for the services of the community. It’s not for the money.”
She said it was unrealistic to expect schools or teachers to crack down on abuse, especially as so much of it was anonymised online.
Psychologist and Headspace App mental health expert Carly Dober said bullying could have long-term impacts on teachers and lead to them dropping out of the industry.
“The lack of control that can really shake the person’s confidence, self-esteem and motivation to continue on in the role and to continue serving and giving as much as you do as a teacher,” she said.
“I’ve been hit, pinched, scratched, pushed, and sometimes come home with bruises on me.”
Liz Michelle, casual relief primary school teacher
“It can also leave people a bit paranoid, wondering who has seen this, and what do they think?”
Headspace App’s Workforce Attitudes Toward Mental Health Report found 34 per cent of people working in the education sector said they have felt extreme stress every day over the past 12 months, while 42 per cent reported an increase in violence or threats.
NSW Teachers Federation senior vice president Amber Flohm said the union was aware of the issue.
“Cyberbullying against teachers is not uncommon and reflects both the complexity and challenges of teachers’ work and ever-evolving technologies in classrooms and schools,” she said.
The parents who are driving teachers out of the classroom
“Platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram are frequently used to ridicule teachers which of course has a significant impact on teacher’s wellbeing.”
NSW Education Minister Prue Car said a mobile phone ban in state public high schools, which will be implemented from term 4 of this year, would help reduce opportunities for student abuse.
“Teachers have been through enough in the past few years without having to endure abuse, whether actual or online. There is no place for this sort of behaviour in our classrooms,” she said.
The department will review the former government’s suspension policy to ensure teachers have the “right tools” to manage student behaviour.
A draft will be released for consultation in the coming months.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said he met the eSafety commissioner last week, who will brief state and territory education departments on the issue.
“There aren’t many jobs more important than being a teacher, and they deserve to be safe at work,” Clare said.
The minister will meet with state and territory counterparts next month to discuss teacher safety and AI frameworks in schools.
Liz Michelle is a casual relief primary school teacher and runs a parenting blog called Teaching Brave.
She has been a relief teacher for nine months after leaving the early childhood care sector and said she was shocked at the level of abuse from young children she received.
“I’ve been hit, pinched, scratched, pushed, and sometimes come home with bruises on me,” she said.
“I get quite a bit of verbal abuse, so that comes in the vein of screaming, swearing, insults. Verbal abuse can be quite significant. Any expletive you can think of, it all comes out and gets screamed in my face.”
Some incidents she reported to the school, she said, but found most outcomes unsatisfactory. As a casual, she said she’s particularly vulnerable to abuse and has chosen not to work at certain schools.
Michelle said while she hasn’t experienced cyber abuse, she was aware of colleagues who had seen nasty posts written about them, had been cyber stalked and had students invade teachers’ personal privacy.
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Uni of Melbourne VC slams balaclava-wearing transgender activists over campus vandalism
University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell has slammed “disgraceful” campus vandalism by balaclava-wearing pro-transgender activists – who were apparently targeting outspoken feminist philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith – and has referred the matter to police.
In a hard-hitting statement sent to the university’s staff on Friday afternoon, Mr Maskell warned: “The type of criminal behaviour seen last night has the potential to incite further physical and psychological harassment, endangering people’s well-being and safety, and it needs to stop right now.’’
The Australian understands that around midnight on Thursday, two activists smashed windows and sprayed graffiti with words to the effect “Trans – we are not safe’’ across the university’s Sidney Myer Asia Centre Building in Swanston Street in inner Melbourne.
Mr Maskell said: “Two individuals were caught on CCTV purposefully damaging university property and putting up graffiti pertaining to transgender issues. This activity follows the distribution of material on our campuses and social media platforms recently that seeks to vilify individual members of our community. This type of behaviour is completely unacceptable and stands in direct opposition to the values we hold as a university.
“Let me be unequivocally clear – such intentional acts of damage, violence or vilification against others will not be tolerated. Resorting to violence and causing damage on our campuses is disgraceful.’’
The vandalism occurred as the university prepares to post security guards outside feminist philosophy lectures by gender critical feminist and University of Melbourne associate professor, Holly Lawford-Smith, which start next week. Security guards were requested by Ms Lawford-Smith – who believes that biological sex is more important than gender identity – after she and her students were subjected to what she calls an “authoritarian” and “gross” boycott by self-described transphobia activists.
These activists urged students to boycott Ms Lawford-Smith’s lectures, and they put up posters around campus declaring, “Only a fascist takes feminism”, “Are you on the side of fascists?’’ and “Our demands: Transphobes and Nazis off campus”.
The attempted boycott, by an anonymous group called Fight Transphobia UniMelb, followed Ms Lawford-Smith’s attendance at the recent Melbourne Let Women Speak rally that was gate-crashed by neo-Nazis. After that rally, she was twice investigated by Melbourne University, and cleared both times.
“I hate it,’’ the academic said of the campaign targeting her students. “It’s really inappropriate. It should never have gone beyond me … It’s really unfair on them. They shouldn’t have to be fearful about ideas at any university. It’s just so authoritarian and gross.’’ She said “this is the first time they (activists) have targeted other students’’ and revealed that in 2021, activists targeted tutors teaching her courses.
The philosopher, who was overseas when the vandalism occurred, earlier lodged a formal complaint with WorkSafe Victoria, alleging that Melbourne University has failed to uphold academic freedom and provide her with a safe work environment.
She said her intensive feminism course, which runs for three weeks, mostly deals with disagreements within second-wave feminism over issues such as prostitution, beauty and “sex abolitionism versus gender abolitionism’’. “There is one lecture called trans/gender and that’s on whether gender identity should replace sex for all purposes,’’ she said. She said she looks at the question of gender identity “from both sides” in the course, adding: “In general you don’t ever teach from your perspective.’’
One of Ms Lawford-Smith’s students, who did not want to be named, said posters labelling those who take the feminist philosophy class as “fascists” were “certainly defamatory; a sort of targeted reputational attrition, or smear campaign’’. This student was both relieved and dumbfounded at “the sheer absurdity of this escapade having come to a point of a class teaching feminism requiring security’’.
Another feminism student said: “(It) strikes me as rather ironic that the group which advocates for respectfully addressing others according to the ways they identify … is so aggressive in labelling others (who presumably don’t identify as fascists).” When this student spoke to The Australian earlier this month, he said: “There are posters everywhere slandering Holly Lawford-Smith and her students … I think it’s great that the university is upholding its free speech value and not caving in to activist pressure. But I don’t think it’s done enough to defuse the hostility she’s faced.’’
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26 June, 2023
Alarming attack on "misinformation"
Who is to decide what is misinformation? The government? Much that was called misinformation about Covid subsequently was vindicated as truth. We may have to rely on the High Court to strike this arrogance down
Digital platforms – including social media, search engines, and dating sites – could face fines of up to $6.8m under proposed new laws aimed at combating misinformation online.
Under historic new legislation proposed by the government, digital platforms could face penalties of up to $6.88m for failing to address systemic disinformation and misinformation.
The government has released a draft framework to empower the Australian Communications and Media Authority to hold digital platforms responsible for misleading or deliberately deceptive information online.
Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said the proposed legislation was aimed at protecting Australians from the growing threat.
“Mis and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust, and can threaten public health and safety,” she said.
“The Albanese Government is committed to keeping Australians safe online, and that includes ensuring the ACMA has the powers it needs to hold digital platforms to account for mis and disinformation on their services.”
The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill would give the media regulator greater powers to act on systemic issues.
For the first time, the ACMA would be empowered to access documents from digital providers related to misinformation and disinformation on their platforms.
The proposed authority would not extend to the content of private messages sent online.
The bill targets endemic misinformation and disinformation issues which pose a serious harm to Australians, and it would allow the ACMA to fight continued noncompliance from digital providers.
If platforms allow the spread of harmful lies and propaganda to continue, the regulator would be able to register enforceable industry codes with a maximum penalty of $2.75m or 2 per cent of a company’s global turnover (whichever is greater).
Should the code of practice prove insufficient, the ACMA would be able to implement an industry standard which would carry maximum penalties of $6.88m or 5 per cent of global turnover.
The proposed powers would apply to digital platforms accessible in Australia, including search engines, social media sites, dating sites, and web forums.
The ACMA would be focused on encouraging services to implement strong systems to tackle misinformation and disinformation rather than regulating specific content.
Unlike the eSafety Commissioner, the regulator would not have the authority to request the removal of posts or content.
The proposed legislation enacts key measures recommended in the 2021 ACMA report on the adequacy of digital platform measures to combat disinformation.
Public consultation on the draft bill will begin on Sunday and conclude on August 6, with the legislation to be introduced later this year.
“This consultation process gives industry and the public the opportunity to have their say on the proposed framework, which aims to strike the right balance between protection from harmful mis and disinformation online and freedom of speech,” Ms Rowland said.
“I encourage all stakeholders to make a submission and look forward to introducing the Bill into parliament later this year, following the consultation process”.
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Dirty little secrets of Australia’s dangerous EV rollout
The electric vehicle take-up among Australian consumers may provide a warm and fuzzy feeling for the environmentally conscious, but as machines, EVs are significantly heavier than the traditional motor car and a challenge more likely to weigh on Australian roads.
According to data provided by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, electric vehicles accounted for 6.8 per cent (17,396) of light vehicle sales (257,094) in the 12 months to March this year.
It is important to note there are more than 20 million registered cars nationally.
Electric vehicles such as the Tesla 3 which dot the more fashionable areas of Australia are also very heavy, due primarily to the weight of the battery required to power such vehicles.
A Tesla Model 3 weighs 1844kg (1.84 tonnes) at the higher end while the fuel-efficient Mazda 3, for example, tips the scales at 1.4 tonnes.
Considering the popularity of sports utility vehicles, the weight difference would be even greater than the 400kg gap between the Tesla Model 3 and the Mazda sedan.
If hydrogen-powered or battery-powered trucks ever make the leap from concept vehicle to commercial reality, then Australia’s road network would require far greater levels of maintenance and construction than exist currently.
In the United States, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reported earlier this year that the safety aspect around collisions (a heavier vehicle tends to keep going when it collides with a lighter vehicle) as well as braking performance were increasingly major areas of concern.
It appears that environmental posturing requires a reality check.
While EVs are popular, the question of whether such vehicles should be subsidised is debatable.
To be exact, more than 85 per cent of the driving public through their registration fees have enabled the Queensland government to provide a $3000 rebate for zero-emission vehicles, (this of course does not consider the dirty offshore refining practices to acquire the specific minerals for these cars).
For fans of the George Orwell novel Animal Farm, the idea that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” rings true as the 85 per cent represent the horse.
With a market share of 6.8 per cent and growing, electrical vehicle owners should be coming under the purview of policy makers in terms of a timeline to legislate a road usage fee as opposed to being given a $3000 kicker.
As it stands, most car owners subsidise would-be Tesla owners the equivalent of a year’s fuel as the batteries EVs use are included, meaning those same EV drivers pay nothing in fuel excise which, of course, helps fund the nation’s roads.
Fuel excise receipts from petrol is expected to hit $60bn over the next four years according to federal budget papers, although is likely to decline given the incentives to the more
well-heeled to buy an EV.
Well-paid politicians such as Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, an electrical vehicle evangelist, in a YouTube video where she test-drove a Tesla told her adoring fans afterwards, “Wow, I’m hooked!” If only the good senator took an interest in the minerals used for such cars, the emission intensity of the mining effort to create that same vehicle and the industrial resources required to upgrade the transport network so it can cope with the extra load.
While noting Tesla’s desire to be free of cobalt, the mineral mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the raw material that powers the rechargeable batteries used in modern-day computers, phones, and electric vehicles as well as being a standout in human rights abuses.
Children as young as seven, according to Human Rights Watch, are working in cobalt mines, all in the name of the great green leap forward.
While foodies are proud of the “paddock to plate” mantra around its clean supply chain practices, the same cannot be said for the “resources to road” moniker for Australia’s electric vehicle enthusiasts where questions around a sustainable transport future remain murky.
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A new low for Queensland Health
Director-General wants penalties for whistleblowers
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has told the head of Queensland Health that she does not support the punishment of whistleblowers following his sensational call to introduce gag laws that punish those who speak out about issues involving the health department.
The Sunday Mail revealed Health Director-General Shaun Drummond wrote a submission to the inquiry into Public Interest Disclosure laws, requesting that whistleblowers providing journalists “inappropriate” information about Queensland Health should be penalised.
The unorthodox request sent shockwaves through media outlets, with Mr Drummond accused of attempting to muzzle journalists who report on medical mistakes such as the DNA lab testing bungle.
A spokesman for Health Minister Shannon Fentiman on Sunday confirmed she had since spoken with Mr Drummond and “communicated her position” on the matter.
But the Minister refused to reveal whether the debacle had caused her to lose confidence in Mr Drummond as the Director-General.
“As has been made clear, the Minister does not support introducing penalties for the disclosure of information to journalists,” the spokesman said. “The Minister’s position has been communicated to the Director-General.”
Earlier on Sunday, Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Mark Furner issued a stern warning to Mr Drummond, reminding him that public servants don’t make laws.
“It’s the government that makes decisions on what laws will be introduced in the parliament, not Director-General’s, they are public servants to assist in that process,” Mr Furner said.
“There’s no agenda on the table in terms of the cabinet currently, in regards to this particular proposal, so it should be reminded that it is the government of the day, the Palaszczuk government, (that) makes those laws, not senior public servants.”
When asked if it was unusual for a senior public servant to make a request to criminalise whistleblowers, Mr Furner said: “I think the Minister of Health will no doubt be wanting to have a discussion with her Director General over this”.
Ms Fentiman on Saturday distanced herself from Mr Drummond’s submission, saying the department was independent of her own ministerial office.
She also referred to her strong support of the expansion of Queensland’s shield laws last year. “While journalists’ sources are generally identified in media reports, there are some occasions when important information can only be reported through confidential sources,” she said at the time.
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Non-mulesed wool attracts premiums but the transition away from mulesing has been slow
In southern New South Wales in Howlong, Ian Trevethan has 4,000 merino ewes running around in the paddocks.
By the end of this year, after some careful genetic selection, he hopes the new lambs won't require mulesing.
"We weren't sure when to transition [away from mulesing] or how [to]," Mr Trevethan said. "But I think the debate over whether or not mulesing is going to be an option down the track is over. We can see that it'll only be a matter of time before we can't."
Mr Trevethan said the transition through genetic selection would take time.
"Last year we bought non-mulesed ewes from a farm which ceased mulesing a while ago, and we're buying rams and placing more emphasis on low breech wrinkle," he said. "With the combination of plainer rams and those ewes we're hoping to set ourselves up for a mules-free flock."
Mulesing refers to a one-off procedure where flaps of skin are removed from a lamb's breech and tail.
After the area has healed, the skin should have no folds or wrinkles and is less likely to attract blowflies and reduce the risk of flystrike.
Over recent years, animal welfare groups such as the RSPCA have called for the end to the practice and to breed sheep that are less susceptible to flystrike.
In 2019, the Victorian government passed legislation legally requiring the use of pain relief when mulesing lambs.
Mr Trevethan said the transition would require more reliance on chemicals to protect against disease and changing to six-month shearings to control wool length.
"Society moves, and we have to move with it," Mr Trevethan said.
"We don't look forward to mulesing. It's not pleasant and no-one enjoys it. "We are looking forward to having animals that we don't have to mules, but it'll take time and needs to still be a tool for some producers."
In the latest annual report from the Sheep Sustainability Framework, only 15.8 per cent of merino wool was declared as non-mulesed, increasing by only 0.5 per cent from the previous year.
The 2023 annual report also found 52 per cent of producers mules their flocks.
Currently, there is no official target date for the industry to phase out mulesing, however, Mr Trevethan believes farmers need time to get it right.
"If the carpet were ripped away and we couldn't mules overnight, the animal welfare outcomes would be disastrous," he said.
"Although we have to transition, it'll take some time to get there, so it still needs to be a tool for some people to use."
Grower group Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) said they do not tell growers how to run their farming operations, but was committed to helping producers find ways to manage flystrike without mulesing.
Since 2001, AWI has spent more than $44 million to research flystrike and find alternatives to mulesing.
More money for non-mulesed wool
Jenni Turner, a wool broker and area manager for Fox and Lille Rural, said the volume of non-mulesed wool has changed in the past decade. "In rough figures, 10 years ago about 10 per cent of the clip would have been unmulesed, but now it's more around the 20-per-cent mark," Ms Turner said. "Over the past five years, there's been some demonstrable premiums for non-mulesed wool."
Ms Turner said even though the market right now had low demand, there was a growing premium market for non-mulesed wool. "In terms of your wool marketing, being non-mulesed is a really good price risk management tool," she said. "It's one of the safest things you can do in terms of trying to assure yourself a good price compared to a market.
"The demand comes from America and Europe, and not China."
In 2019, a string of retailers such as Kmart, Target, Country Road and Myer announced they were transitioning away from using mulesed wool.
"I think the attitude amongst buyers and brokers is that it's very pragmatic," Ms Turner said. "We're taking the orders from the mills and fabric makers. It's clear that breech modification is not their preference at all."
"In terms of grower attitudes, money talks. However, it's not an easy tool to take out of your toolbox."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-06-26/slow-transition-to-non-mulesed-wool/102509740
************************************22 June, 2023
‘It’s just ridiculous’: Key unions demand premier scrap $500m Powerhouse redevelopment
I heartily agree. I can see no point in destroying useful buildings. But governments tend to have an edifuce complex. Politicians want their name on a foundation stone
Two of the state’s most powerful unions have called for a halt to the proposed $500 million redevelopment of the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo, and the reinvestment of the savings to top up pay rises for frontline health and emergency sector workers.
The Public Service Association, representing 40,000 public sector workers, says it will press for Premier Chris Minns to personally intervene to shelve plans the Labor government inherited for the knockdown rebuild of the museum’s 35-year-old modern wing.
The Public Service Association’s general secretary Stewart Little said his members, including more than 100 permanent museum staff, believed the project was an extravagance the state could ill afford at a time of crippling cost of living increases.
He was joined in his criticisms by Health Services Union boss Gerard Hayes who said spending to redevelop and reconfigure the museum’s inner-city location made as much sense as knocking down and rebuilding the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
“As a health service person, we are in very difficult economic times. Why would we be dealing with luxury wish lists when we are not dealing with providing the necessities?” Hayes asked.
Union criticism of the project comes at a sensitive time of wage negotiations with the Minns government which went to the election promising to scrap the cap on public sector wages.
Unions are agitating for an improvement in the government’s standing offer of a 4.5 per cent wage increase and have identified the Powerhouse redevelopment as a potential source of budget savings to fund a more generous wage offer – all at a time when treasurer Daniel Mookhey says the NSW budget is facing $7 billion in unexpected cost pressures.
At the March election, Labor pledged to “save” the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo as a “world-class institution” and is currently undertaking broad community consultation about the museum’s future.
These reorient the museum’s entrance and demolish the museum’s galleria, home of NSW’s first train, Locomotive No 1 and the priceless Boulton & Watt rotative steam engine, and the Wran wing along Harris Street.
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Truth is absent in celebration of Bruce Pascoe
Bruce Pascoe should have been booed off the stage of the Sydney Film Festival last weekend. Instead, Australia’s most famous fake Aborigine was treated like a hero.
Looking pinker than me, the old fraud posed for the cameras, surrounded by white admirers who seem to prefer their Aborigines to look like themselves.
Worse, Pascoe was there as the star of a film backed by the ABC, Film Victoria and Screen Australia, using taxpayers’ money to promote the greatest literary fraud in our history. He is now honoured as a professor at the University of Melbourne after writing Dark Emu, falsely claiming Aborigines were farmers, not hunter-gatherers.
That film, The Dark Emu Story, premiered at the festival, where producer Darren Dale hailed it as “so important” in this “momentous year” when we get to vote on Labor’s Voice – a kind of Aboriginal-only advisory parliament, cemented into our Constitution.
For once I agreed with him. This film is important for confirming truth is dead in Aboriginal politics. It’s so dead that Labor can brazenly claim the Voice is a “modest change”, and this apartheid will somehow unite us.
I was away for the film’s premiere, so must rely on reports and the trailer. But that’s already enough to tell us both Pascoe and the Voice come from the same monstrous mountain of bull-droppings, promoted by the same extremists.
For instance, Professor Marcia Langton, also of the University of Melbourne, popped up in The Dark Emu Story to abuse me and others for pointing out Pascoe was a fake Aborigine peddling a fake history.
“The racist attacks on him hinged on whether or not he was Aboriginal,” raged the former Communist League national committee member, who has also called Pascoe’s Dark Emu “the most important book on Australia”, even though it misrepresented sources and has been debunked by academics.
Langton’s smear in the film is important, because she is a key architect of Labor’s Voice, one of the two authors of the co-design report which the Albanese government cites as its model.
For a start, what does it say about Langton’s commitment to the truth that she defends not just Pascoe’s book but his claimed Aboriginality, even though his genealogy shows all his ancestors are of British descent?
But there’s a pattern here. Langton is also curiously indifferent to the danger of fake Aborigines hijacking the Voice.
Her report tells the federal government not to hold direct elections to choose the 24 people who will form the Voice to advise parliament and public servants on everything from welfare payments to defence.
No democracy? Why not?
Well, says Langton’s report, because Aborigines would complain of fake Aborigines voting: “Eligibility to vote, particularly with regard to confirming indigeneity … has historically been divisive in some communities.”
Shockingly, the Albanese government has bought Langton’s argument. There will not be direct elections. Voice members will instead be selected by the Aboriginal aristocracy which already dominates black politics and helped produce a social disaster.
It staggers me that not one prominent Leftist has publicly protested that Aborigines are being denied a democratic vote for the Voice that’s meant to represent them.
Is that because they’re scared an election means having to create an electoral roll of voters who’ll have to prove they really are Aborigines? Are they scared we’ll learn how many Pascoes are out there, particularly in politics and universities?
Suzanne Ingram, a board member of the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office, complained on SBS last year that 300,000 of the 810,000 Australians now claiming to be Aboriginal were fakes. An Aboriginal member of the Albanese government’s referendum working group privately told me Ingram was right.
In fact, the past two censuses – 2016 and 2021 – had more than 130,000 people calling themselves Aborigines who hadn’t in the census before, and many Aborigines are now horrified by the flood of fakes.
Activist Stephen Hagan told SBS there were even “fake Aborigines coming into the (Aboriginal) organisations”, and Sydney’s Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council warned “people have used self-identification to receive jobs, housing and scholarships they’re not entitled to”.
Michael Mansell, Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman, warned of thousands more fakes like Pascoe in Tasmania, where the number of supposed Aborigines has rocketed from 36 in 1966 to 30,000 today.
But white journalists – the kind promoting Pascoe – don’t want to know. See the ABC defend Pascoe even now.
Truth does not matter to them, so fakes and frauds rule. A white man is now our most celebrated Aborigine, and democracy is denounced as a threat to Labor’s racist Voice.
Fight back. Say no.
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The courage to ‘speak the truth’
Roger Karge
A recent Spectator Australia article by Victorian Liberal MP Beverley McArthur, in which she criticised Geelong Council’s decision to cancel Australia Day, brought the wrath of the usual suspects – the Leftist media including the Guardian – but also surprisingly, and sadly, a rebuke from her Party Leader, John Pesutto.
McArthur had only rightly pointed out that:
‘Cancelling Australia Day is code for saying we are not a good nation. We are not worth celebrating’ and, ‘Geelong councilors will not allow one day to reflect upon the wonderful things that have been enabled via colonisation by a democratic nation… In cancelling Australia Day, it has given in to the oppression of identity politics, of victimhood. In so doing, it fails to applaud the successes of the Aboriginal people in this modern nation.’
McArthur is said to have commented further that:
‘Should we also say sorry for hospitals, roads, mobile phones, ready food at supermarkets, homes, running water, electricity for light and warmth, indigenous-only medical centres, aged care, and court processes?’
Pesutto is reported to have distanced himself from McArthur’s comments by saying:
‘I do not accept that as a statement, I think it is hurtful to Indigenous Victorians and Indigenous Australians. I think it’s incumbent on everyone to engage in debates about Indigenous Australians and the great contribution our First Nations people have made it [sic] our country in a very respectful way. There are ways to conduct this debate without causing hurt or offence.’
Less surprisingly, Marcus Stewart, a Victorian Nira illim bulluk Aboriginal man, also attacked McArthur, describing her as:
‘…another unknown politician saying something offensive at our expense as they try to make a name for themselves. Should Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people be saying thanks for the invasion of our lands and massacre of our people?’
The irony of Stewart’s and Pesutto’s own ‘hurtful’ and somewhat ignorant comments is not lost on many of us educated Speccie readers.
Stewart, in his public role as co-chair of Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly, is well within his rights to critique McArthur’s policies and claims, but he discredits his case by disrespectfully attacking her personally.
He also criticised McArthur by asking, ‘Should Torres Strait Islander people be saying thanks for the invasion of [their] lands…?’
Well, they should say thanks, because that is what they do every July 1. This is the date on which Torres Strait Islanders celebrate the Coming of the Light, a commemoration of the day in 1871 when the London Missionary Society introduced Christianity into the islands. Christian values are some of McArthur’s ‘wonderful things that have been enabled via colonisation’, the celebration of which her critics now perversely label as ‘hurtful’.
And how do we know that the Coming of the Light is as important and as celebratory to Indigenous people in the Torres Strait as Australia Day is to Australians generally? Because the Victorian government’s website Deadly Story tells us so.
This website was legislated under the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 to, ‘satisfy the requirement that all Aboriginal children in out-of-home care are to be provided with a cultural plan’.
Pesutto should be aware of this legislation, shouldn’t he? If even the Victorian government acknowledges an Indigenous Torres Strait Islander celebration of the coming of colonisation, why can’t McArthur’s critics acknowledge and support defenders of Australia Day?
Similarly, other prominent Liberal Indigenous Australians have publicly made claims similar to McArthur’s without censure by the Liberal Party or Aboriginal activists.
Warren Mundine has offered a nuanced perspective on the topic. He recognises that there were negative impacts on Indigenous communities due to colonisation, but that our discourse ‘shouldn’t be just negative stuff all the time’ because Australia is ‘one of the most successful countries when it comes to improving the lives of Indigenous people’.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, another influential Liberal-aligned Indigenous voice, has also contributed to the conversation without attracting the ire of the party. Price ‘does not see herself as a victim to white people or the idea of colonisation’ but rather, ‘She “speaks the truth” when it comes to Indigenous people helping themselves with their own problems, instead of pointing the finger and laying blame elsewhere.’
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/the-courage-to-speak-the-truth/
**********************************************Children behaving badly
Something is going seriously wrong with our children. Standards are declining in education; manners and respect are forgotten; ignorance, expectation, and entitlement abound… Where have we gone wrong?
The US Surgeon-General has announced that social media is harming children’s development, issuing an advisory that says:
The current body of evidence indicates that while social media may have benefits for some children and adolescents, there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. At this time, we do not yet have enough evidence to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.
Even at an early age, the concept of play has been taken over by activism, requiring it to be gender neutral; boys playing with tanks and girls with dolls is said to encourage gender stereotypes that have become unacceptable to academia. Some bizarre parents are even choosing to cross-dress their children, from kindergarten, to encourage diversity – surely this is a form of child abuse? In any case, playtime has become device time, with little opportunity for imagination, or development of manual or creative skills.
Schools have, for centuries, been a fertile ground for indoctrination. The Jesuit motto was: ‘Give me a child ‘til he is seven and I’ll show you the man.’ The curriculum has become filled with personal rights and the demands of race, sexuality and, (if any is included), rewritten history, leaving little time for the fundamentals of reading, writing, or understand simple mathematics. Modern teaching methods, and a lack of classroom discipline has compounded the problem.
Despite smaller classes and more resources than ever being allocated, surveys show a steady decline in educational outcomes. The enormously expensive reduction in class size, as part of the Gonski review of 2010, resulted in more teachers, but a continuing worsening of results. This waning of reading and writing ability is a major handicap to future employment. To fix this, the schools system needs to adopt adequate testing, avoiding cheating with old-fashioned weekly hand-written testing.
The recent ACARA finding that 14 per cent of children are functionally illiterate at the end of their 12 years of schooling has been hidden by sleight of hand, with the figure revised to 10 per cent being ‘in need of extra tuition’. The solution to these embarrassments proposed by the teacher’s union is to stop ‘stressful’ exams which reveal their failure. Alternatively, lowered pass marks can maintain the illusion of continuing success; in Queensland, the pass mark for many Year 12 subjects has dropped below 50 per cent, with 41 per cent considered a pass in English; in Victoria, even lower levels can be awarded a pass.
The politician’s expensive, knee-jerk response is to start schooling earlier, at the age of 4. In other countries, this approach has failed to produce long-term benefits, but $55 billion is due to be spent on childcare subsidies over the next 4 years. A return to traditional teaching methods is slowly occurring, but it follows a lost generation of unemployable illiterates, and also requires retraining of teachers to return to direct instruction.
As marriages flounder and single-parent or blended families become the norm, the conventional family unit is in decline; the absence of children’s discipline at home is increasingly apparent. The role of a father is often missing, both in the home and at school, as male teacher numbers drop away. Two incomes are increasingly needed to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, with parents handing over their children’s upbringing to schools. Often, their only input in the education process is to complain about the outcome. As teachers’ standards also decline, the ability to maintain classroom order has been lost; an OECD study of 15-year-olds showed Australia rated 70th out of 77 countries for class discipline.
Social media has had an enormous detrimental influence. Peer group pressure has resulted in bullying, body image concerns, sexting, gender dysphoria, and anti-social behaviour, leading to a dramatic rise in the incidence of emotional distress and juvenile crime. The gender-confusion pandemic, largely involving primarily girls who want to be boys, even has its own community of online ‘influencers’ to help the transition process; the result is a ten-fold expansion in confused teenagers seeking medical or surgical intervention. This transition is often done through school, and without parental consent (or knowledge).
Juvenile crime in 10 to 14-year-olds has increased by 50 per cent in 5 years, often encouraged by social media notoriety, not greed or need. The latest Victorian statistics are even worse, showing an 86 per cent increase in crime in this age group. The belated banning of phones from schools in most states is a step forward in controlling this addictive behaviour, with Queensland belatedly considering this move.
94 per cent of teenagers are ‘highly wired’; 67 per cent of primary-aged children and 36 per cent of pre-schoolers have their own smart devices. Reliance on the phone and its contents has created a range of new medical conditions with anxiety overlay; FOMO (fear of missing out) when offline, and the even more serious loss of a phone with all its contents (‘nomophobia’).
The recent Royal Children’s Hospital health poll revealed 83 per cent of teenagers exceed the maximum recommended 2 hours a day screen-time, with a staggering 44 hours per week devoted to study, entertainment, and communication. 43 per cent of young people use their devices at bedtime, 25 per cent of children have resulting sleep problems. Even mealtimes are no longer off limits. An APS study found 24 per cent of teens regularly used social media when they are eating. The increased incidence of stress and bullying coincides with the introduction of this addictive technology and, despite our increased physical comfort, adolescent self-harm and suicide are on the rise. The recent Covid pandemic, with schools unnecessarily closed, and lack of physical contact, has added to the tension.
Japanese studies have shown that early and excessive use of these devices is associated with permanent brain damage; how often are toddlers given a screen to entertain them? Children under 2 years should not have access to screens; those older should have exposure limited to 2 hours a day. Using television as a babysitter reduces activity and increases the risk of obesity, unsupervised use of media in the Covid crisis averaged 7 hours a day, adding fatigue to the equation. Computer games can, in moderation, improve attention and visuospatial coordination; long-term and heavy use in adolescence can lead to damage to the hippocampus (an important memory area of the brain), and addiction. Restricting use requires parental input, and is vital to prevent long-term damage to brain development.
Many hours spent on devices have contributed to the rise of an alphabet of behavioural disorders, ADHD, OCD, ODD, DD, all now coming together under the label autism spectrum. The latest statistics show that 11 per cent of 5 to 7-year-old boys and 5 per cent of girls have autism spectrum disorder and are included in the National Disability Insurance Scheme, (NDIS), adding to its unsustainability and likely bankruptcy.
The modern media’s obsession with crisis is adding to mental problems. Brainwashing about the climate-induced end of the world, including the exaggeration of Australia’s regular droughts, floods, and fires, the death of the great barrier reef, and the extinction of species is playing a role in the decline of mental health. The rate of anxiety/depression has doubled in 30 years, with rising suicide rates.
Children are now inappropriately being used by teachers as leaders of protests, instead of being at school. They are encouraged to march the streets in protest to save the planet. They protest about waste, but are careless about the use of plastic or its recycling, rubbish is dropped at will, toys and clothes are thrown away. The detrimental effect of ubiquitous advertising plays a significant role in waste accumulation, their demands enhanced by more ‘influencers’.
A return to competition is needed, both with both sport and academia, to equip students for the real world outside, where rivalry can be fierce and cannot be avoided. A lack of competition at an early age, whether in class or in the sporting field, seems to be producing young adults with an over-expectation of their ability; in the 1950s 12 per cent of young adults thought they were special, today surveys suggest 80 per cent do.
Paradoxically, this narcissism has resulted in an inability to compete. When faced with competition in later life, this acopia results in the stress avoiding competition was supposed to prevent. Those who do work, have an increasingly reluctant approach to it, the modern phrase to describe it being ‘quietly quitting’.
With so much time taken up with inactivity and screens, it is no surprise that children’s weight is increasing and fitness is declining. Children no longer walk to school, there are rarely stairs to climb, they walk only a few paces from the car to the shop. The number participating in team sports is also in decline, the loss of the camaraderie of team sports is another step backwards in forming relationships.
As the obesity epidemic progresses, the associated health problems are on the rise, with childhood diabetes an early marker. Australians follow the US, with two-thirds of adults being overweight, and over 20 per cent now obese sending adult life expectancy is already in decline. The weight gain is occurring at progressively earlier ages, as poor diet and inadequate exercise contribute. Sadly, the problem is inter-generational and well established; overweight mothers give birth to overweight babies who will become overweight adults.
As an increasing proportion of youth move on to university; aided by lower entry standards, that underserved sense of entitlement is further enforced. Students take courses which, even with lowered pass marks, lead to a higher drop-out rate. For those who do complete, their courses increasingly fail to lead to employment, leaving them with debt. Meanwhile, they are further exposed to the left-wing academia which stunts their ability to question opinion.
The future for the over-indulged, under-educated, self-opinionated, overweight, offspring of Western society looks grim; youths’ lack of resilience is increasing, and they seem incapable of coping with adverse events. In the 19th century, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ This no longer applies in modern society; now what doesn’t kill you enfeebles you, resulting in a need for counselling and extra support.
Parents must put in the time to regain control of their children’s development; they also, need to take time out from the contagion of their own devices; leaving responsibility to supposed experts at school has plainly not worked. Discipline needs to be restored in the home, treats have to be earned, and entitlement contained, diets better controlled, physical activities encouraged and screen time limited. Schools must emphasise the importance of curricula based on learning fundamentals instead of social engineering. Teachers need to rediscover classroom control and the importance of rote learning – something still producing results in less financially well-endowed countries elsewhere. The approach of last resort – return of national service – has even been advocated, by former Premier, Jeff Kennett…
Physical as well as mental fitness needs to be restored, experts have now realised that exercise is good for stress, perhaps we don’t need all those counsellors; the starting point may be as simple as putting away the phone and going for a long walk outside.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/children-behaving-badly
************************************21 June, 2023
Analysing a vaccine critic's claims
Should there be a Royal Commission conducted as part of the Australian government’s COVID-19 emergency response? That’s the opening question media personality professor David Flint David asks Malcolm Roberts, an Australian politician on the “Save the Nation” show.
Roberts, a member of right-leaning populist One Nation and a Queensland senator since 2019, replied “Absolutely.” In an interview on the “malfeasance” associated with the Australian government’s response to COVID-19, Malcolm Roberts speaks some truth, but at some points in the conversation conveys points that aren’t necessarily true or conclusively proven as fact.
COVID-19 shines a spotlight on the politicization of medicine across the board, from right to left, from so-called “old” industry to so-called new green industry advocates—they all are using the unfolding science to make their convenient point. But some of what Roberts has to say cannot be ignored. Of the more controversial stances, it’s proven that the 30,000 excess deaths in Australia in 2022 were caused by the mass COVID-19 vaccination countermeasure response to the SARS-COV-2 pandemic.
Roberts told Professor David Flint that in March 2021, as the mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign got underway, he asked both the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Australia and the head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the nation’s drug regulator, if the vaccines were 100% safe.
The Australian senator shared, “The immediate answer was, no they are not.” TrialSite reminds all that no vaccines are 100% safe. There are no perfect solutions to public health. There are instead tradeoffs where hopefully smart, objective biomedical scientists, physicians, regulators and other relevant experts in their respective fields determine the risk-benefit analysis—do the benefits of such vaccines markedly outweigh risks at a population/societal level? But that’s the reality of how vaccination works. Thus, Robert’s first question to the heads of Australia’s vaccine response was just not based on a notion of reality.
But Roberts' second question to the CMO and head of TGA was more on point, a question grounded in real-world reality. He asked, “Will they stop someone from getting the virus?" He told the interviewer that these top medical and regulatory heads in Australia declared, “No they will not.”
So, this was an honest answer. By March 2021, TrialSite was already learning of breakthrough infections due to the Delta variant, meaning that these COVID-19 vaccines were not of the sterilizing type. They could not stop all infectious transmission meaning that they could not be counted on to control the pandemic.
Nearly all developed nations produced public health data showing how the jabs did help reduce the incidence of morbidity and mortality associated with COVID-19 and although critics don’t believe those numbers, they don’t take time either to prove why they are incorrect.
However, the durability of the mRNA products became a serious question early on—by the spring of 2021. A significant issue was mRNA vaccine durability, so ultimately, three boosters were necessary in a period of just over a dozen months after the first primary series. While the RNA virus was mutating, this was a well-known topic. But it remained politically incorrect to even critique the vaccines for fear of creating vaccine hesitancy---something was terribly wrong.
Back to the interview, Roberts told the Save the Nation host he then asked the top medical and regulatory brass of Australia, “What dosage will you be administering the vaccines, the injections?" The Senator told Professor Flint that these powerful overseers of COVID-19 vaccine response declared, “We don’t know.”
The Australian senator summarized, “So they don’t know the dose, they know that it's not effective, they know that it won’t stop transmission, and they know that it's not 100% safe.” He paused and continued, “There is no benefit from these things, none whatsoever.”
Roberts then said, “In fact, efficacy goes into the negative after some time with people who have had these injections because it destroys the immune system.”
Mandates down under?
What about injection mandates in Australia? The Senator told the Save the Nation host that the head of the county at the time, Scott Morrison, would go on television and repeatedly lie to the Australian public that there were no such mandates.
According to Roberts, “Scott Morrison bought the injections, he gave them to the states, he then indemnified the states for their use, he then gave them access to the National Health Data, which enabled the injection to be mandated, because otherwise, the states couldn’t have enforced the mandate.”
Roberts continued, “Then we had the state premiers at the same time telling us that the reason they wanted mandates was to comply with the national cabinet.” He continued, “Well, the head of the national cabinet, which is a bogus entity as you know, was Scott Morrison.”
His point—“Scott Morrison drove the whole thing in this country.”
As part of the national Australian emergency Roberts emphasized that Morrison "redistributed taxpayer money to states for COVID-19 lockdowns (Australia was notorious in the Western world for these) and other inhuman restrictions, ineffective, damaging restrictions that weren’t effective in managing COVID.”
A correction, as TrialSite reported during the pandemic, Australia to some extent embraced the Chinese zero-tolerance COVID policy which meant strict enforcement of rules and regulations to prevent the spread of the virus. It implies that any violation of these rules would not be tolerated, and appropriate action will be taken to enforce compliance.
The specifics of zero tolerance policy for COVID-19 vary depending on the nation, context of jurisdiction, and the like. But some common elements were embraced by the Australian national and state government. This in fact, did stop the spread of COVID-19 (Australia wasn’t hit early on nearly as hard as places like America), but the policy in reality only delays the eventual spread of the pathogen, at great cost to human psychology, cultural vitality and economy we might add.
What’s Senator Roberts’ takeaway on the Australian gov response to COVID-19?
The pandemic response was “completely mismanaged, deceitful, it killed thousands of people…” Roberts intensifies his criticism of the government introducing the phenomenon of excess deaths.
Declaring that there are now 30,000 excess deaths in Australia for the year 2022 alone, this elicited an immediate response from host Professor David Flint who interrupted the Senator, “Could you explain to viewers what an excess death is?”
The Senator responded, “Every year in Australia there are an expected number of deaths, and they vary slightly but because no two years are identification, there is slight variation… and there is a range above and below the mean [number] so it varies,” and the senator demonstrated how a certain number of deaths are expected with some variation above or below the mean number.
So, the point is that the number typically occurs within an expected range, but since COVID-19 and the mass vaccination program the expected death numbers have skyrocketed across much of the developed world.
TrialSite has reported on this number. In fact, this media chronicled in early 2022, that the death rates surged just as the nation’s population became heavily vaccinated which defied expectations.
For example, TrialSite reported in late April 2022 in “Heavily Vaxxed Australia: First 3.5 Months of 2022 has Doubled the COVID-19 Deaths from 2020-2021 Combined.”
Back to the interview, Roberts said, “What we know is that provisional death data shows an excess of 30,000 or more in 2022.”
On the interest of these deaths among the leadership of Australia? Roberts said these people who head TGA, the CMO the secretary of the federal health department “don’t give a damn, there is no inquiry going on as to what is causing these excess deaths. We know, we know from overseas experts, from peer-reviewed scientific papers that it is the injections causing these [excess] deaths. And an alarming level of deaths.”
Why don’t they care? Roberts declared, “I think they are worried about being found culpable for the injections that they have pushed on people and killed people with.”
But contrary to Roberts’ claim there has not been one peer review, scientific study published in a mainstream journal that connects the mounting excess deaths crisis and the mass vaccination program.
Speculation has included COVID-19 itself, and all the problems that come after lockdowns, tight access to healthcare, and the like. But the vaccines are suspect, and Roberts is correct in his assessment that generally, governments are avoiding the topic. That avoidance most certainly signals a set of priorities and values.
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Renewable energy rollout too slow, warns AEMO boss Daniel Westerman
Australia is not building renewable energy developments quickly enough to compensate for the loss of coal-fired power generation, the head of the country’s energy market operator warns, as major projects continue to be beset by problems.
The slow progress could intensify pressure on prices and stoke concern about energy security, Daniel Westerman – the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator – will say in a speech on Tuesday.
Australia has set an aggressive target of having renewable energy account for more than 80 per cent of the country’s electricity generation by the end of the decade, a target that has intensified pressure on existing coal-fired power stations, which already face social, economic and reliability questions, he says.
Senior Australian energy executives have warned the build- out of renewable energy developments is too slow, a view Mr Westerman shares.
He joins a chorus of industry executives expressing concern that the massive renewable energy pipeline is currently failing to materialise.
Ian Learmonth, the head of Clean Energy Financial Corporation – the country’s green bank – in May said Australia was not on course to meet its target of having renewable energy account for more than 80 per cent of the electricity generation by the end of the decade.
Energy executives have said the lack of transmission – high voltage wires and poles – is discouraging new developments.
About 10,000km of new lines must be built before 2030, but their development has been hampered by funding constraints and community opposition.
A growing number of Australia’s most influential figures, including Origin Energy CEO Frank Calabria, have warned of the risk of not making progress in building the high-voltage wires and poles needed for renewable energy developers to push ahead with new projects.
The importance of new projects materialising is growing as several major projects currently in development suffer delays.
CleanCo, a Queensland state-owned entity, on Monday said it had cancelled plans to build a wind farm in what would have been Australia’s biggest wind energy precinct due to delays over connection agreements and rising costs.
CleanCo had planned to build the 103 megawatt Karara wind farm in the MacIntyre precinct, which had been earmarked for projects producing more than a gigawatt of power.
But CleanCo said it had pulled the pin on the project.
“As a result of significant delays to the connection process for the Karara Wind Farm, and subsequent impact to costs, CleanCo is pausing the development of the project,” a CleanCo spokesperson said.
States and territories are increasingly aware of the transmission roadblock.
Victoria and NSW have offered landowners affected by new transmission lines $200,000 for every kilometre of their land crossed by a major infrastructure project.
Queensland has gone even further.
The Queensland state government in May said it would offer landowners who agreed to allow high-voltage transmission cables across their properties an average $300,000 per kilometre.
Still, progress remains slow, and authorities are increasingly alarmed.
AEMO has called for faster work on five projects worth nearly $13bn, but Australia has a long history of transmission project delays.
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Attack of the MeToo zombies
"Me too" refers to claims by women that they have been victimized by men
What began as a soap opera has morphed into a zombie movie that refuses to die. With the Brittany Higgins saga now in its 28th month, we have learned more than we ever wished to know about the characters but the plot’s central question remains unanswered. It revolved around the sordid question of whether or not Higgins and her co-worker Bruce Lehrmann had had intercourse in the early hours of Saturday 23 March 2019 in the office of the then minister for defence industry, Senator Linda Reynolds, and if so, whether it was consensual. Higgins alleged she was raped. Lehrmann strenuously denied the allegation.
There was never any way of knowing beyond reasonable doubt what happened. There was no physical evidence, no eyewitnesses. Both parties have admitted to telling lies so both were unreliable witnesses. Both had consumed alcohol. But the burden of proof falls on the prosecuter and the accused remains innocent until proven guilty.
One might have hoped that the story would have ended there. One reason it didn’t was that both parties had committed a serious security breach by entering, without any justification, the Minister for Defence’s office, a place that contains highly classified material. In Lehrmann’s case, it was his second security breach and he was sacked but it was Higgins’ first breach and she was given a second chance.
Since then, the Higgins affair has spawned reviews, inquiries, an aborted trial, and ongoing defamation cases. It’s been fertile ground for the #MeToo movement. Former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins inquired into the workplace culture at Parliament House. Walter Sofronoff KC inquired into the handling of Lehrmann’s trial, prompting ACT Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shane Drumgold to admit to behaving badly. He’s not the only one.
Thanks to a trove of leaked text messages sent between Higgins and Sharaz and a mammoth five-hour audio recording of a meeting between Lisa Wilkinson, a former host of Channel Ten’s The Project, Angus Llewellyn, the producer of The Project, and Higgins and Sharaz, we know that all of the above behaved badly.
There has been much handwringing over the politicisation of the Higgins affair and the damage that it might do to Higgins. When Lehrmann’s trial was aborted, the ACT DPP dropped the charges against Lehrmann not because there was insufficient evidence but because of concern about Higgins’ mental health. But what the new information reveals is that nobody was more actively engaged in weaponising Higgins’ allegations than Higgins herself. She seems to rival only Prince Harry in her quest to breach her own privacy.
The texts expose what looks like detailed planning by Higgins and Sharaz to enlist Labor MPs in their bid to ‘tear down’ the Morrison government. Higgins appears jubilant that Morrison is about to be ‘f-cked over’. Just wait,’ she texts Sharaz. ‘We’ve got him.’
The texts also show that Finance Minister Katy Gallagher misled the Senate when she declared on 4 June 2021, that ‘no one (in the Labor party) had any knowledge’ of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation before Higgins publicised it herself. With the confected condemnation of an antipodean Greta Thunberg, Gallagher turned on Reynolds and demanded, ‘How dare you?’ snarling that Reynolds’ remarks were ‘all about protecting yourself!’
This week, that particular chicken came home to roost and Gallagher found herself in the spotlight doing her best to protect herself. She claimed that she hadn’t misled parliament when she said ‘no one had any prior knowledge’ of Higgins’ allegations while also admitting that she had indeed had prior knowledge.
It is now clear that it was the late Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching who opposed the weaponisation of Higgins’ rape allegation and warned that if Labor’s skulduggery ever came to light, it would blow up in their faces. For her integrity and foresight, she was kicked out of Labor’s tactics group and mercilessly bullied by Gallagher, Senator Penny Wong, and then senator Kristina Keneally – the mean girls.
In another revelation, Llewellyn and Wilkinson encouraged Higgins to secretly record a conversation with Cash, which is illegal.
Wilkinson also mocks Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s name and claimed she was only preselected because of her race. Sharaz says, ‘It’s like, “I’m not racist. I have a black friend” – it’s that argument.’ Wilkinson adds: ‘And our cleaner’s black.’ Wilkinson didn’t even bother to apologise for her comments until she was publicly called out by Jacinta Price and even then only for any offence she ‘may have caused’.
Leftists have expunged from memory that it was the Labor party that created the White Australia policy, the Liberal party that abolished it and the first Aboriginal in parliament, Neville Bonner, as well as the first Aboriginal minister, Ken Wyatt, were both Liberals.
Higgins is recorded saying she was always acutely aware of the potential to ‘commodify’ her allegations. And what a valuable commodity it turned out to be. With the help of Sharaz, she turns a night of alleged drunken debauchery into a modern-day morality play in which she is ‘a national hero’ of the MeToo movement, as Australian of the Year Grace Tame put it, and her former employers – all women – are scheming villains who subject her to negligence, victimisation, sex discrimination, and harassment in the wake of her allegation against Lehrmann and discourage her from speaking with police.
There is no evidence to back these allegations. Reynolds and Cash and former chief of staff Fiona Brown, all strongly encouraged Higgins to go to the police. Brown wept as she recounted in court that Higgins sent her a message thanking her for all her help.
Higgins did go to the police but delayed pressing charges for two years until she had weaponised her allegations against the government and ensured Lehrmann would be judged in the court of public opinion.
Her strategy has been richly rewarded. Her claims were settled by Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus following a one-day mediation from which Reynolds and Cash were excluded. The payment was rumoured to be close to $3 million.
The saga is far from over but the zombie allegations have left a trail of victims. Reynolds lost her senior portfolio. Brown felt publicly demonised and suicidal. The government lost the election. Kitching was bullied, perhaps into an early grave. Will the zombie allegations now turn on those who made them? With Labor controlling both houses of parliament, the mean girls might not be losing too much sleep for the moment.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/attack-of-the-metoo-zombies/
************************************20 June, 2023
More PFAS excitement
Ever since Erin Brokovich dramatized it, there has been much heartburn about a common class of chemicals known as PFAS. It is widely used in industry and most Americans as a result have some of it in their blood. And is bad for rats if you give it to them. So it must be bad for people? Sadly for the drama-queens, it isn't. Over many studies PFAS have been found to be harmless to people in the doses normally encountered.
The latest study is one done in Australia and everybody seems very tense about it. You can read below a claim that the government tried to nobble it. In the washup, however, they had no need to. The researchers once again found no conclusive evidence of harm from PFAS. It was a rather pathetic study but I will bypass that for the moment and simply reproduce the actual findings from the study -- below:
For most of these health outcomes, we estimated the differences between the towns and comparison areas to be relatively small. For others, the differences were of modest size, but our estimates were imprecise, meaning the likely size of each difference could be anywhere between quite small to quite large. Even though our studies included almost everyone who had ever lived in the towns in the years we had available data (in some cases dating back to 1983), some of the conditions studied are uncommon and we observed only a few cases. For these outcomes, we could not precisely estimate the differences between the towns and comparison areas, and there is very little we can say about whether a difference really exists.
Due to the nature of our studies, there were certain design limitations. We were unable to fully account for certain risk factors (e.g. smoking) that could have led to observed differences in rates (or lack of them) between the towns and comparison areas (‘confounding’). In particular, we were not able to account for socioeconomic factors as well as we would have liked. This is important, as socioeconomic conditions are strongly linked to health. In addition, some findings could have arisen just by chance alone and not because an association truly exists.
In light of the above, while there were higher rates of some adverse outcomes in individual towns, the evidence suggesting that this was due to living in these areas was limited. We did not have direct measurements of PFAS exposure and we cannot rule out that the higher rates were due to chance or confounding. Further, there was low consistency in our observations across the three towns (something we would not expect if PFAS caused an outcome), and there is limited evidence from other studies observing similar results or explaining how potential biological processes can result in PFAS causing these effects in humans. Overall, our findings are consistent with previous studies, which have not conclusively identified causative links between PFAS and these health outcomes
https://nceph.anu.edu.au/files/PFAS%20Health%20Study%20Data%20Linkage%20Study%20Report_7Dec2021.pdf
People living in areas with high PFAS concentrations sometimes blame their illnesses on it but that is an unproven and unlikely claimHealth officials asked university researchers to remove references about potential community concern over elevated rates of cancer found in towns contaminated with “forever chemicals”, even as the federal government was defending multimillion-dollar litigation over the pollution.
Emails obtained by the Herald and The Age under freedom of information laws reveal federal health bureaucrats expressed concern to Australian National University researchers about how they reported “very high” rates of certain types of cancer they uncovered in an independent study of residents exposed to per- and poly-fluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAS) leaching off Defence sites.
Samantha Kelly with her son William, 7, in the garden of their new home after they fled contaminated Williamtown. Kelly fears her son’s health issues could be linked to exposure to “forever chemicals” after he was born with high levels in his blood.
The emails reveal the Department of Health circulated the draft version of the study to other Commonwealth departments “for their review of any red-line issues” in October 2021, while Defence was in court defending a $155 million class action over property devaluation caused by the toxins.
In anonymised emails released to the Herald, a bureaucrat told the researchers it was “counterproductive” to mention throughout their report that residents may be concerned about elevated rates of adverse health outcomes in their communities.
The department suggested researchers “highlight the significance of ‘null findings’” and say their study found “no consistent links between PFAS contamination and the health outcomes observed”.
The researchers declined to add the suggested line. “The research team is independent and did not make changes to any parts of the reports where we disagreed,” said Professor Martyn Kirk, who led the ANU research team.
“The research team did not agree to follow any departmental advice to emphasise null findings.
“We didn’t include anything in the report that we weren’t happy saying, particularly as it relates to causes of disease.”
A large number of the changes the department requested were not made by the researchers, a review of the documents by this masthead confirms.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it did not seek to change the study’s findings but rather to “highlight the findings as presented and draw out the context”.
The spokeswoman rejected suggestions the department tried to “downplay” the findings of elevated rates of certain adverse outcomes in the towns.
“In reviewing the draft reports from the study the minor suggestions made by the department focused on increasing clarity and consistency within the reports,” she said.
“It was a matter for the ANU study team as to how they considered and incorporated any feedback provided.”
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The gas stove mania hits Australia
State and territory governments face a new energy battleground this decade, following a new demand to rip out gas appliances and ban new connections to homes and small businesses so Australia can achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
The plan from the Grattan Institute think-tank would trigger a deadline for the sale of gas appliances, a ban on new residential and small commercial gas connections and the need for instant asset write-offs for landlords installing electrical appliances as part of moves to get gas out of Australian homes.
Removing gas from the nation’s energy supplies may also cause a fresh political headache for governments, which are already under pressure to deliver an ambitious green transformation, shifting the electricity network from fossil fuels to renewables.
The Albanese government wants to wean about five million homes off gas, investing $1.6bn to help low-income households and businesses adopt energy-efficiency measures such as solar panels and electric appliances as part of a sweeping electrification package in the budget.
An ACT plan to ban gas for new homes and businesses has been criticised, with plumbers saying the move will trigger job losses, energy price spikes and the premature shutdown of billions of dollars worth of gas assets.
The bill for phasing out gas has been forecast as exceeding $6bn. While the Grattan Institute says those costs are now lower, the costs of upgrading electricity networks are likely to be dwarfed by the cost to households – exacerbated by supply chain constraints, skilled labour shortages and the sheer scale of the work required.
“In Victoria you would need to convert 200 households every day for the next 25 years. In some ways, it’s more of a logistical problem than a cost problem,” Grattan energy director Tony Wood said. The electrification of Australia’s energy system is already slated to lift demand for electricians across the country, with 2021 estimates from the federal government forecasting the need for another 14,000 trained workers by 2026, to about 157,000.
Another 12,500 skilled workers will be needed for large-scale renewable energy projects, according to AEMO projections.
And the electrification of households will add even more pressure to that skilled labour shortage, the Grattan report says.
“There are 11 million gas appliances in homes across Australia. At a minimum, there are 11 million hours of labour involved in replacing these with electric appliances. Spread over the 27 years to 2050, this amounts to 1400 hours of labour per day – 175 electricians working full time. This is significant added demand for an already stretched workforce,” the report says.
This will come as Australia competes for labour and equipment with other countries, including Britain, the US and Europe, which run similar programs.
The use of gas in homes and commercial buildings accounts for less than 5 per cent of Australia’s annual carbon emissions, but the new report, “Getting off gas: why, how, and who should pay?” highlights the extraordinary logistical challenges facing even that small portion of Australia’s total emissions.
The report argues that, although electric heaters and cookers are ultimately more efficient and cheaper to run, the effort required to replace the estimated five million gas stoves installed in Australian homes – alongside 4.5 million gas water heaters and 2.7 million heating systems that use gas from the mains – means governments need to tighten policy settings immediately to force gas out of Australian homes.
The electrification of Australia’s energy system is already slated to lift demand for electricians across the country.
The electrification of Australia’s energy system is already slated to lift demand for electricians across the country.
“In all sectors, emissions patterns change very slowly. Assets that use gas tend to be replaced only when they reach the end of their useful life. A gas water heater installed today will still be burning gas in 2035. An industrial furnace installed today could still be burning gas in 2063,” the report says.
“To reach net zero, governments need to start changing asset-replacement patterns now.”
Mr Wood told The Australian that the problem, particularly for Victorian households, was not even necessarily dependent on carbon reduction targets – the looming gas shortfall caused by the end of the Bass Strait fields owned by Woodside and ExxonMobil would require the same transition.
Mr Wood said the work to transition Australian households and small businesses away from gas would take decades – but governments needed to set a deadline in order to run the long public advocacy campaigns needed to get the public on board.
The report likens the effort required to that of switching Australia’s broadcast TV stations from analog to digital.
“The decision to move Australian television networks from analog to digital was made in 1998. The switchover itself began in 2010, and was rolled out over three years. Online information for households was available from 2001, and a widespread communications campaign began in 2008,” the report says.
But the cost of conversion remains a major barrier, the report says.
Induction cookers cost, on average, about $400 more than gas equivalents. Heat pumps cost about $1500 more than instantaneous gas hot water systems and – while split system reverse cycle airconditioning units are now broadly equivalent in price to gas heaters paired with an air conditioner for summer use – ducted units suitable for larger buildings cost about $1800 more than gas heating.
Some state governments are already offering rebates and incentives for replacing gas appliances with electric equivalents. The ACT government offers up to $5000 for a range of electric appliances, and the Victorian government offers $1000 towards the cost of installing heat pumps for hot water systems and reverse cycle airconditioning units.
But that will not be enough to help low-income households transition, and additional incentives will also be needed to convince landlords to convert rental properties.
“Rebates can be very costly to the government. Subsidising $5000 per household with gas would cost $25bn. Subsidies also often require households to have money upfront. A rebate that requires the recipient to spend the money installing an electric appliance to replace a gas one, and then wait for their rebate claim to be assessed and paid, is of no use to someone who doesn’t have the money in the first place,” the report says.
Instead other governments should look to the examples set by the ACT government’s sustainable household scheme, which offers up to $15,000 in zero-interest loans, and to add to the recently announced Albanese government scheme that will offer up to $1bn in low-interest loans for energy-efficient household upgrades.
Additional measures will be needed to f to encourage landlords to upgrade the homes of the 31 per cent of Australian households that live in rental properties.
“When landlords are asked why they do not carry out energy retrofits, the most common factor cited is financial constraints. These can include lack of access to capital, but also the landlords’ expectations of net profits from their rental properties, and their perceptions of retrofit costs,” the report says.
“The simplest way to provide private landlords with a financial incentive to move to all-electric appliances is to provide an instant asset write-off for new electric appliances that replace gas ones.”
Mr Wood told The Australian the sheer amount of work involved needs the same kind of careful planning required to electrify the national grid, despite the relatively small amount of carbon emissions generated by household gas use.
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NSW premier prepared to clash with councils over affordable housing incentives for developers
Good on him!
NSW Premier Chris Minns has slammed local councils for blocking developments in the Sydney metropolitan region, saying he is prepared to fight for his recently announced policy that will give developers stronger incentives to build.
On Thursday, Minns unveiled a suite of incentives for large private developments containing at least 15 per cent “affordable housing”. The policy would allow developments worth more than $75 million that cleared the 15 per cent hurdle to bypass local councils and planning panels.
Speaking on Monday with Ben Fordham on 2GB, Minns agreed he may be setting himself up for a clash with local councils but was not afraid to fight for the Labor government’s first major reform aimed at helping to solve Sydney’s housing affordability crisis.
“We’re not afraid of that fight, we’re prepared to take it on. A lot of these mayors who I’ve spoken to or heard from in the media in the last couple of weeks have two minds. They have two answers to any question in relation to development and that is ‘no’ or ‘hell no’,” Minns said.
“We can’t grow a city, which is expected to take 37 per cent of all inbound immigrants over the next five years, by saying no to all reasonable developments across the metropolitan area. If we keep doing that, we will have more than 30,000 people fleeing NSW every single year.”
The reforms are set to take effect later this year and are a part of the NSW government’s commitment under the National Housing Accord to construct 314,000 homes over five years.
Government departments and agencies have also been tasked to identify surplus public land to be redeveloped into housing and will set a 30 per cent target for social and affordable housing in any development on that land.
Updated population projections from the May federal budget show NSW will lose more than 124,000 residents to other states over the coming years.
Minns argued the projected exodus from the state was part of the push for increased housing supply.
“People are leaving Sydney, particularly young people going to other jurisdictions because of cheaper housing ... one of the leading conditions of that is supply,” he said
“I have to make decisions to increase supply across the metropolitan area. If that means taking on the fight with councils. That’s what we’ll do.”
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Brisbane City Council has short-stay accomodation in its sights
Long stay rentals have been throttled by regulations. Now short stay accomodation will dry up too
In a bid to address the number of short-stay accommodation properties in Brisbane, the council will increase the rates surcharge from 50 per cent to 65 per cent.
The 50 per cent surcharge was announced in last year's budget, with 750 properties in Brisbane paying the increased rate during the 2022-23 financial year.
Mr Schrinner said it had been a "complex and time-consuming task" to identify these properties.
"We will continue to pursue those owners who are yet to comply, including using digital technology to detect them," the lord mayor said.
A taskforce will be established within the council to look at new ways the city can regulate short-term accommodation properties.
Mr Schrinner said this could result in the introduction of permits, as well as capping the number of a days a property can be leased online.
"It could even result in prohibiting short-term accommodation in some areas," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-14/brisbane-city-council-budget-adrian-schrinner/102477522
************************************19 June, 2023
Dark Emu documentary reveals new evidence of Aboriginal mining and trading
Although I once taught in a university department that offered courses in anthropology, my contact with the discipline is only a nodding one. I think I have learned enough, however, to offer some preliminary observations about the controversy below. The most original claims below are about the Mithaka area so I will confine my comments to that
And what I see of the "research" involved is pretty ludicrous. Example:
It consists of little more than "Ethnohistoric accounts". And what are they in plain speech? They are stories recently "remembered" by elderly Aborigines. Which makes them no evidence of anything.
The article also features historical accounts by whites of Aborigines in the middle of the 19th century and as late as the early 1900s. "Diaries and photographs from the early 1900s" are evidence of what pre-settlement Aborigines did??? Should we not instead conclude that Aborigines had learned some things from whites in the previous 150 to 200 years?
And some writers have drawn large conclusions about holes in the sandstone in the Mithaka area. see below
Calling them grinding stones requires imagination. Once when I was a kid I did do a bit of amateur archeology. I went digging in the Innisfail area in a place that was reputed to have been an Aboriginal settlement. And I made a very clear discovery. It was a very recognizable stone axe with grooves to allow it to be fastened to a shaft.
So I know that real Aboringinal artifacts have a shape derived from their use and which suggests their use. Form follows function. I can see nothing of that in the bits of rock above. None of their different shapes suggest grinding of anything. A profusion of well-worn flat stones would have been expected but I see none of that
That is pretty obvious so some writers suggest that these bit of rock were "blanks" to be used for later work to transform them into something. But where are those later works? I can find no mention of lots of them being found
My conclusion is that the sandstone holes are natural formations of some kind. Aborigines may have visited them but are unlikely to have produced them
So why all the excitement? We read that "The current project was initiated in part by the Mithaka Aboriginal group", which suggests that it is just propaganda designed to promote respect for Aborigines.
Bruce Pascoe’s bestselling book Dark Emu challenged thinking about Indigenous history – and sparked a fierce culture war – by arguing that Aboriginal people engaged in agriculture, irrigation, construction and baking rather than just being hunter-gatherers before European settlement.
Now the author, academic and farmer has gone even further in a documentary that argues there is new evidence of Aboriginal mining and trading of the grinding stones that were produced.
Writer-director Allan Clarke’s The Dark Emu Story, which has a world premiere at Sydney Film Festival on Saturday, refers to a recent archeological site on Mithaka country in south-west Queensland that Pascoe believes reveals a new level of sophistication to Aboriginal land use.
“The people there were engaged in a massive mining operation to extract mining stone cores and dressed them and faced them so that they would be a product for other communities,” he said on the way to Sydney for the screening.
“The trade of those stones is yet to be really studied, but it’s going to be fascinating because nearly three and a half million stones were mined and then crafted. The vast majority – 95 per cent – were traded.”
Pascoe said these sandstone cores, or blanks, were used to grind grain, which indicated that Aboriginal people largely had “a grain-dependent civilisation” before British settlement. Outside the tropics and desert regions that did not produce grass “the vast majority of places were grinding grain into flour”.
While the archeological site in the documentary is between Birdsville and Windorah, Pascoe said there was similar evidence of surface mining further west.
“The mining doesn’t look like conventional mining,” he said. “But any miner would understand that it would be called mining. There’s no machinery obviously, but there were tools and levers.”
Published in 2014, Dark Emu was critically acclaimed, won major literary awards and has sold a phenomenal 360,000 copies. The Indigenous dance company Bangarra adapted it into a dance and Pascoe wrote a version for young readers.
But there has also been ferocious backlash that questioned Pascoe’s claims about the sophistication of Aboriginal culture and the quality of his research.
The most comprehensive rebuttal came two years ago in anthropologist Peter Sutton and archeologist Keryn Walshe’s book Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate.
They argued that Pascoe was broadly wrong in his claims about the sophistication of Aboriginal culture and that his book was poorly researched, exaggerated many points, selectively emphasised evidence to suit his opinions and ignored information that did not support his case.
Sutton and Walshe raise their concerns in The Dark Emu Story, which will screen on the ABC later this year.
But as producer Darren Dale of Blackfella Films has said, the documentary is “us trying to reclaim some of the debate around the book”.
Clarke, a writer-director who is best known for the SBS documentary The Bowraville Murders, is a Muruwari and Gomeroi filmmaker and The Dark Emu Story has Indigenous academic Marcia Langton, broadcasters Stan Grant and Narelda Jacobs, choreographer Stephen Page and others arguing for the book’s importance despite the criticisms.
Originally planned as a three-part series, it is now a single feature-length documentary that is competing in the festival’s $60,000 competition for “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous” films.
“Because the culture wars erupted the way they did, that had to be addressed,” Pascoe said. “That’s now quite a significant part of the film’s purpose, to talk about those issues and how they manifest themselves in Australia.”
Pascoe rejected the criticisms in Sutton and Walshe’s book.
“I find it a little bit embarrassing that people of such great intelligence can avert their eyes from the bleeding obvious,” he said. “The film addresses that and the significance of the new archaeologies is unmissable and this is what I hope Australians will cheer about.
“They will find after watching the film that there are many examples of Aboriginal people having a really strong, well-founded society and economy.”
The controversy has been hard on Pascoe, who says in the documentary that it resulted in him separating from his wife, author Lyn Harwood, for four years and that they still live in different houses, adding: “I just feel very tired in my spirit.”
Before the screening, Pascoe said he expected the backlash.
“I was also expecting the kind of [positive] response that the book had because during its production over a period of five or seven years, I’d come to understand Australia’s craving for a more realistic telling of the history,” he said. “But I knew that there were some in the country that could not tolerate anything but a colonial Raj mentality.”
Andrew Bolt and other conservative commentators have called Dark Emu a literary hoax and claim Pascoe invented an Aboriginal family background.
“I wasn’t surprised at all,” Pascoe said. “Eighty-five per cent of my genes are Cornish and English so I can see both sides of the fence.
“That’s a difficult position to be in. You ask any Aboriginal person how difficult it is to honour both families.
“But it’s really the Australian condition, where we have to come to terms with the fact that for 30, 40 years there were virtually no white women in this country. As a consequence, there are a lot of mixed-race Aboriginal people.”
Pascoe said Australians should be excited by archeological revelations that indicate “a culture that has no other likeness in the world”.
“This last 20 or 30 years has been quite revelatory about the culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” he said.
The Voice to parliament referendum, Pascoe said, had been caught up in the same culture war as Dark Emu.
“It’s really sad that conversations which should be considered and full of information and progress become three-word slogans – “the Canberra Voice” and things like that, which are just silly,” he said. “Aboriginal people who have misgivings now, should the Voice succeed, will find that it changes a lot.”
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In their own words: ‘Demonised’ property investors threaten to bail on Qld
Queensland property investors have unleashed on the State Government in a recent survey that revealed more than 80 per cent are considering bailing on the Sunshine State.
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland recently published the results of its survey of more than 3300 Queensland property investors, with 81.4 per cent of respondents saying that recent and proposed tenancy law changes had influenced the likelihood that they would sell up.
Now The Courier-Mail can reveal exactly what some of those investors said in response to questions contained in the survey, and it is not a glowing report card for the Queensland Government.
When asked for their primary reason for considering selling, many pointed to ongoing rental reforms, bad tenants, increasing holding costs and the stigma that all landlords were “greedy, wealthy people” among some of their key gripes.
“The rules keep changing and the government is now trying to tell me what I can and can’t do with my asset,” one said.
One landlord wrote: “Government at all levels driving up costs, sleight of hand legislative changes such as the recent move to allow rent increases only once every 12 months. QCAT failing to apply the legislation have made it a very risky and onerous investment class. Plus the constant demonisation of landlords, failing to appreciate the risk they take and that they supply the housing government has single-handedly failed to invest in.”
Rising interest rates and maintenance costs, falling yields and a cap on rent rises have also made holding on to an investment property untenable for some, according to the survey responses.
“We have not increased rents on our properties to keep up with all the increases in interest, maintenance etc, as we are trying to keep current, settled tenants, but these changes are making our finances dwindle to such an extent that we are considering selling our properties,” one investor said.
It comes as property managers warn that the number of investors seeking appraisals is “through the roof” as stage two of the state’s latest rental reforms are being considered.
Those proposed reforms include making it easier for tenants to install the safety, security and accessibility modifications they need, helping parties negotiate about making minor personalisation changes to rental properties, finding a balance between tenants’ rights to privacy and owners’ need for information, ensuring rental bond settings provide appropriate security and parties are transparent and accountable for their bond claims and ensuring that rent payment, utility and re-letting fees and charges are fair and reasonable.
The reforms are supported by Tenants Queensland.
But on the topic of modifications, landlords expressed concerns around tenant-caused damages and liability. “How can a lay person be allowed to alter a property without consent of the person that owns it?”, one investor said. “Why should anyone be able to do what they want to our hard earned assets?”
Another said they were already considering selling their four investment properties. “We have done the right thing with our tenants for over 10 years (and) I am not prepared to take on all of the risk and debt associated with owning investment properties,” they wrote.
Another investor said they had already made the decision not to renew their current leases and would sell them as a vacant possession.
Ray White AKG CEO Avi Khan, who has over 2000 rental properties on his books, said the number of investors seeking appraisals was “through the roof”, adding that the vast majority were interstate investors who perceived that the government was taking away control of their assets.
“And if that continues, it will only make the rental crisis worse,” Mr Khan warned.
The latest PropTrack Rental Vacancy report said that while vacancy rates remained steady in May, the rental vacancy rate remained half the level seen before the pandemic.
Rental vacancies ticked up 0.08 per cent in Brisbane during the last quarter, but declined 0.05 per cent in the combined regions.
REIQ CEO Antonia Mercorella said they had shared “overwhelming reports” of private owners selling up or considering getting out of the Queensland market.
“We have maintained that a prominent factor in an owner’s decision to withdraw property from the permanent rental market over the last three years has been tenancy law reforms and the perceived lack of control over their assets,” she said.
“The proposed stage two rental reforms are the fourth rental law related reform in as many years.
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Government schools losing students
No surprise why. Government schools offer a choice range of chaos and propaganda
Public primary schools in Sydney’s east, north shore and inner city have lost more than 4700 students in the past four years, with more children being clustered in composite classes to manage shrinking enrolments.
The decline in public sector enrolments – intensified in more affluent suburbs – comes as more families move suburbs, switch catchments, or leave to secure a place in year 5 at private schools.
In a letter to parents last month, Clovelly Public’s principal Matt Jackman made an impassioned appeal to parents urging them to push back against the “pressure and marketing the private sector” places on families and keep children enrolled through to year 6.
“As with most public schools in the eastern suburbs, we are seeing an even greater increase in students leaving the public education system at the end of year 4,” he wrote.
“There are a variety of reasons this happens, but the one I hear most is that private schools can’t guarantee placements in year 7 if the child does not transfer over in year 5.”
The fall has occurred as schools in the east and north have recorded the fastest growth in composite classes – where students from different years are grouped – rising by 35 classes, or 20 per cent between 2019 and 2022.
Principals say cost of living pressures mean families are relocating to more affordable parts of Sydney, while private schools are competing for top-achieving students in year 5 by offering scholarships or encouraging parents to enrol before year 7 to avoid forfeiting a place.
A NSW Education Department spokesperson said there had been a surge in births between 2005 and the end of the baby bonus payments in 2014, which was translating into falling enrolments.
Public primary schools in the eastern suburbs have been hit with the biggest enrolment drop, declining by 13 per cent in four years, followed by the northern beaches, North Sydney and inner west.
In Maroubra Junction Public’s latest annual report, the school notes declining enrolments are partly due to families moving “out of the local area for financial reasons, transferring into their local school closer to their new residence”.
Morag Bond said she opted for Coogee Public for her son Jonah – who is now in year 4 – because of the school’s proximity to the family home, the teachers and extension activities offered.
“Coogee is our local school, and we really saw the benefits in that. But it’s been hard this year. He’s losing his friends as they go into private and Catholic schools,” she said. “I appreciate it’s such an individual decision, but we are happy, and he will stay until the end of year 6.”
She is undecided about secondary options, except that it will be a school close to home. “There is also the massive financial pressure of private education. People can get seduced by well-kept grounds, or the facilities, but it’s important to look at the school as a whole,” she said.
Despite an overall decline in public school enrolments due to population changes and lower migration, private schools have retained a steady share of students over the past four years.
Independent schools increased enrolments from year 4 to year 5 by 1500 students in 2022, up by 35 per cent from 2020. Year 5 is the biggest intake grade into private schools after year 7.
Another parent, Heather Shepherd, who has a son in year 4 at Randwick Public, said there was a noticeable difference in year 5 and 6 class sizes.
“There is a lot of pressure on parents to get them into a private school, or they are moving away from Randwick because there is no co-ed public high school option. Families leave for different reasons, but I think staying at the school until year 6 is such a rite of passage,” she said.
NSW Department of Education Secretary Murat Dizdar said he wants parents to see public schools as the first choice. “I know independent and Catholic schools compete strongly for enrolments. I want our public schools to be competing too, and that starts with attracting and retaining the very best teachers and school leaders,” he said.
The department spokesperson said it was common for schools across NSW to have composite classes and the evidence shows they do not disadvantage students compared with single grade classes.
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That’s what friends are for: Labor and the trade unions
Everyone knows there is a close connection between the Australian Labor party and the trade unions. Arguably, the ALP is just a fully owned subsidiary of the trade unions.
Every time Labor is in power, both federally and at the state level – and that’s a lot of the time these days – a principal role of that government is to dole out favourable treatment to the unions. By tightly controlling pre-selections, the trade unions ensure these special deals are ongoing.
Of course, it’s a case of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. The unions come good with financial support for Labor at election time as well as providing organisational support, with members doing much of the legwork associated with elections. We can now add in the money that comes via industry super funds with their close links to the sponsoring unions, something which Senator Andrew Bragg has been energetically tracking.
Of course, any sensible, liberal-minded person doesn’t object to trade unions. It’s a fundamental right in any democracy for individuals to associate and combine to create groups to represent their interests. Indeed, Australia signed up to the Freedom of Association convention of the International Labour Organisation many, many years ago.
But where it gets tricky is that freedom of association is limited to registered trade unions in Australia – that is, to those organisations given the tick of approval by the regulator. Life is made very difficult for alternative organisations that are prevented from competing on equal terms. And as Speccie readers know, monopolies are bad, no matter what form they take.
We have witnessed the valiant efforts of the Red Union Support Hub based in Queensland, but with membership now across Australia and New Zealand, establishing alternative unions for nurses, teachers and a number of other occupations. By guaranteeing that no union funds will be directed to political parties as well as offering lower fees, these new unions have an attractive product to sell to members.
Needless to say, the existing trade unions have been none too impressed with this development and have called in favours from the political wing of the movement. The Queensland government has obliged by making life very difficult for the Red Union Support Hub by enacting specific legislation to preclude these new unions from providing industrial representation for their members. The federal government has also been happy to oblige with some legislative changes to make life difficult for the Red Unions.
But returning to the issue of the favours that Labor governments hand out to their mates in registered trade unions, sadly there are no handy lists hanging around to quickly assess the actual assistance provided and its magnitude. It’s a matter of ferreting around, keeping your ear to the ground. Sometimes information leaks out unexpectedly.
Take, for instance, the recent review by IBAC (Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission) in Victoria. Short of declaring what happened to be corrupt, the review did establish a series of events that failed to meet the standards of good governance. Dan the Man described the report as ‘educational’.
In brief, the state secretary of the Health Services Unions had complained to the Labor government that her union was not receiving the sort of financial assistance that other unions were. To appease her, a dodgy scheme was concocted – the union was to be granted a large sum of money (over $3 million) in order to train workers to deal with violence in health-care settings.
The project was not properly specified, there were no criteria established for the selection of the successful candidate and the money was simply handed to the HSU, notwithstanding the hesitation of some public servants. The truth be told, neither the premier nor the health minister gave the awarding of this money – money for nothing really – a second thought.
Staying with Victoria, the government has decided that kindergarten (pre-school) for three- and four-year-olds should be free – OK, free of charge – both at stand-alone kindergartens and when delivered at childcare. In order for the childcare operators to receive the subsidies from the government, they must enter into model agreements with the United Workers’ Union. This involves workers being ‘encouraged’ (made) to join the union.
The UWU also covers aged care workers, with the exception of those with nursing qualifications. It is keen to sign up more unions in a sector that is traditionally poorly unionised – like childcare. One of the ways this is being achieved is through government restrictions on aged-care operators importing workers independently rather than through a union-controlled arrangement.
How this works is that the minimum wage that must be paid to temporary workers is about to be lifted quite significantly – it is currently $53,900 per year but is about to be raised to $70,000. When a consortium of aged-care operators (who are beset by worker shortages) sought a lower figure for their sector, the minister quickly declined.
His advice was to use the union scheme which allows migrant aged-care workers to be paid less! (Yes, you read that correctly. It’s how the minimum wage works in parts of the US – unionised workers can be paid less than non-unionised ones.)
We have also seen union involvement in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme in which persons from the Pacific Islands come to Australia to work on farms. Recently, the union has decided that the PALM workers must be guaranteed work of at least 30 hours per week – or paid for these hours – notwithstanding the variability of the demand for farm workers. In turn, groups representing the farmers have pointed out that this will make the scheme unviable and they will be turning to alternative workers such as backpackers and grey nomads.
Then there is the Productivity, Education and Training fund set up by Jimbo, with an initial allocation of $8.9 million last year, but topped up to $20 million in the most recent federal budget. ‘The purpose of the PET fund is to ensure stakeholder groups are properly resourced to educate their members and engage in the government over our reforms so we can get the best outcomes for Australian workers’. Each union – or possibly each state branch of each union – will be eligible for grants of up to $200,000 ‘to engage in industrial relations legislation’. (In theory, employer associations can also apply.)
I am only scratching the surface here. There are numerous examples of favours being doled out to unions and union enemies punished.
Even so, the unions still face an existential threat with falling membership and shaky finances (with the exception of the CFMMEU). For them, Labor governments are essential.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/thats-what-friends-are-for/
************************************18 June, 2023
Public prosecutors pushing ‘doomed to fail’ rape cases, say District Court judges
Judges have warned that public prosecutors are putting sexual assault cases before courts without the required scrutiny, due to their fear of being criticised for dismissing a victim’s claim, and instead are choosing the “easy” option of letting a jury decide.
In extraordinary comments that raise questions as to the impact of social and political campaigns on independent state prosecutors’ determination of public interest in bringing rape cases to trial, two recent NSW District Court judgments have highlighted a trend of “unmeritorious” cases being brought before courts, risking miscarriages of justice.
The cases have highlighted what the judges - Penelope Wass and Gordon Lerve - say are stark examples of the abrogation of the prosecutor’s responsibilities amid courts increasingly hearing a proportion of rape cases that are “doomed to fail”, with one judge slamming prosecutors for putting “incredible and dishonest allegations of sexual assault through the criminal justice system”.
Now, NSW District Court acting judge Paul Conlon has added his voice to concerns, telling The Weekend Australian judges have “unfortunately in recent times seen many examples of cases being pursued with no reasonable prospect of conviction with the inevitable result of an acquittal.”
Judge Conlon also slammed the handling of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins’s rape allegations against Bruce Lehrmann, saying the case was “doomed” because the claims had been made public before it reached court, and he attacked Anthony Albanese’s and Scott Morrison’s “incredible naivety” in apologising to her in parliament.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian, Judge Conlon said the pursuit of cases without the prospect of conviction was ultimately damaging for genuine victims, who may be put through the trauma of an ill-fated trial.
“There is a prosecution guideline, which is still a guideline as I understand it, in every DPP around the country, that if on a professional assessment a view is reached that there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction, then such a matter should not be brought to court,” said Judge Conlon, who was a Crown prosecutor for 20 years before being appointed to the bench in 2006, where he became well-known for his tough sentencing of rapists and extensive work in reforming the justice system to support child sex assault victims. He retired in 2018 as a judge but still serves as an acting judge, and is also the chair of the NSW Rugby League.
“Prosecutors have a duty to the community not to bring persons to trial on suspect evidence,” Judge Conlon said.
“Unfortunately in recent times, judges like myself have seen many examples of cases being pursued with no reasonable prospect of conviction with the inevitable result of an acquittal.
“Accordingly it would seem to me that the initial critical assessment process in respect of the available evidence is simply not undertaken.
“It’s easier for prosecuting authorities to send the matter to court and let the jury decide. They then don’t have to confront the difficult task of telling a complainant that the matter will not proceed and explaining why that decision has been reached. There is a belief they will also escape criticism by allowing the matter to go to court.”
The comments are in line with grave concerns documented by fellow NSW District Court colleagues Judge Wass and Judge Lerve in two matters in the past six months in costs determinations. Judge Wass said in the matter of R v DS, in which an accused was acquitted by a jury after 25 minutes, that “such was the state of the evidence that I formed the view during the trial that had the jury returned a verdict of guilty on any count, I would have presided over a clear miscarriage of justice”.
While Judge Wass did not criticise the individual prosecutor in the case, who had acted “impeccably and with fairness”, she warned that police had formed an “imperfect and entrenched point of view regarding the allegations” and suggested the trial should never have been run at all.
“The officers of the Director of Public Prosecutions who prosecute on behalf of the Crown enjoy the power to prosecute in the public interest,” Judge Wass said.
“They also carry the duty in wielding that power – given the lives that it disrupts and the damage it can cause – to do so with the appropriate circumspection and responsibility.
“A prosecutor is required to do more than shepherd incredible and dishonest allegations of sexual assault through the criminal justice system, leaving it to the jury to carry the burden of decision making that ought to have been made by the prosecutor.
“The bringing and continuation of unmeritorious cases in abrogation of the prosecutor’s responsibilities … in failing to make an evaluation and act accordingly imposes a burden not only on the criminal justice system, but on all of those involved in it, including complainants and, not the least of whom, any person against whom that prosecution either commences or continues.”
In February, Judge Lerve, who is also a former prosecutor, said he had presided over a number of sexual assault trials during the Covid-19 pandemic which he believed were “doomed to failure from the outset”.
The concern expressed by judges follows the furore over the Lehrmann case in which ACT DPP Shane Drumgold came under heavy scrutiny amid conflicts with the police over the decision to take the case to trial.
Judge Conlon slung criticism at the mishandling of the Lehrmann matter, saying the case was destined to fail as soon as it was aired in the public domain.
He condemned Mr Morrison and the Prime Minister for apologising for a crime which had not been proven, saying the option to stop proceedings before it went to trial due to the huge publicity of the matter was valid.
“In the Lehrmann/Higgins case, that was doomed to failure as soon as it was thought appropriate to ventilate the issues in the public domain and attempt to influence public opinion,” he said.
“The role played by some sections of the media in that process was breathtaking in its stupidity. As was the incredible naivety of the two leaders of our country (Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese) in issuing apologies on the floor of parliament before one word was spoken in evidence. The fundamental and important principle of an accused person’s presumption of innocence was simply ignored and cast aside.
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Liberal women’s committee condemns John Pesutto’s expulsion of Moira Deeming, demanding he apologise
The Liberal Party’s Federal Women’s Committee has passed a motion expressing concern at the actions of John Pesutto and his Victorian leadership team in relation to expelled MP Moira Deeming, and demanding he apologise and reinstate her.
The motion was carried on Friday morning with the support of the Queensland and WA women’s committee presidents, but was opposed by those in NSW and Victoria.
It states that Mrs Deeming’s expulsion was “without basis”.
“Women have a right to participate in the political process without fear of cancellation,” the motion reads.
“The silencing of women has no place in the Liberal Party. The Federal Women’s Committee demands the immediate reinstatement of The Honourable Member Moira Deeming MLC and a full apology from Opposition Leader John Pesutto.”
Mrs Deeming was last month expelled from the parliamentary Liberal Party after speaking at a March “Let Women Speak” rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
The protest was organised by British feminist activist Kellie-Jay Keen’s group Standing for Women UK, which campaigns against what its supporters see as the infringement of transgender rights upon those of women and children.
Transgender rights activists held a counter-protest, and a third group, of masked men dressed in black, taunted the transgender protesters and performed the Nazi salute on the steps of state parliament.
Mr Pesutto initially attempted to expel Mrs Deeming in March, but was forced to resort to suspending her for nine months amid a lack of support from colleagues.
In seeking to make the case against Mrs Deeming, Mr Pesutto circulated a 15-page dossier of social media screenshots and media reports — mostly relating to Ms Keen — accusing the MP of “organising, promoting and participating in a rally with speakers and other organisers who themselves have been publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists.”
Mrs Deeming’s anger at what she regards as an unfair public shaming culminated last month in her giving notice that she would be suing Mr Pesutto for defamation, alleging the Opposition Leader accused her of being a “Nazi sympathiser and Nazi associate”, and used that as a basis to “threaten and bully” her.
Having subsequently been expelled from the parliamentary party in May after a second expulsion motion was moved against her, Mrs Deeming has since issued two more defamation concerns notices.
The Australian understands she has made a decision not to file her Federal Court case against Mr Pesutto until after the Warrandyte by-election, so as not to be accused of damaging the Liberal Party’s prospects in the seat being vacated by retiring MP Ryan Smith, who holds a 4.2 per cent margin.
Liberal Party members are set to meet on Sunday to preselect a candidate to run in the by-election, which is expected to take place in August or September, after Mr Smith retires on July 7.
Mr Pesutto faced a walkout from angry Liberal Party members at last month’s Liberal state council meeting and has variously been condemned for his treatment of Mrs Deeming by the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, former Prime Minister John Howard, and a transgender Victorian councillor.
Mrs Deeming said she, her husband and their four children had “suffered unjustly” as a result of her attendance at the “Let Women Speak” rally.
“(We) are extremely grateful to the Federl Liberal Women’s Committee for their public show of support,” Mrs Deeming said.
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Coal is a four-letter word
Coal is a four-letter word for Labor/Green governments in Australia where it can’t be used in polite company. Thank goodness it can still be exported and its royalties used to fill the Treasury coffers of our governments.
Queensland is the latest state to benefit from soaring global demand and sky-high prices for our high-quality thermal and metallurgical coal. The coal industry is the goose that is laying the golden egg but Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick is doing his best to strangle the poor fowl, just like his fellow Queenslander Jim Chalmers running the federal Treasury.
Last year Mr Dick imposed a new coal royalty rate regime which is the highest in the world. Yes, it yielded a bumper return this year, but as surely as night follows day, it will deter new investment. As Mrs Gina Rinehart observed in The Speccie last month, despite very high commodity prices, the investment in mining is much less than in the last mining boom a decade ago. High royalties, high taxes, sovereign risk, and red and green tape as far as the eye can see explain why companies are far more hesitant to invest in Australia these days.
Mr Dick is happy to crow about delivering the largest surplus of any Australian state government in the history of this country. Revenue from coal royalties more than doubled, soaring from $7.2 billion last year to $15.3 billion this -financial year.
Like Mr Chalmers, Mr Dick will use some of that revenue to cut the cost of electricity bills with government rebates. This is a testimony to the cloud-cuckoo land in which they live. Electricity prices wouldn’t be soaring if Australia wasn’t engaged in a reckless race to shut down its coal-fired power stations as soon as possible.
Federal Minister for Energy and Climate Change Chris Bowen never tires of telling anyone who will listen that wind and solar provide the cheapest energy. We should have guessed that Mr Bowen puts climate ahead of energy. He needs to take a trip to Denmark where around 50 per cent of electricity is supplied by wind and solar power and ponder why Denmark has some of the most expensive electricity in the EU. Here’s a hint. Wind and solar energy isn’t cheap once you include the cost of the subsidy provided by the sale of renewable energy certificates, and the costs of backing up intermittent power with dispatchable power to balance the grid when intermittent energy vanishes. And it isn’t cheap when you include the cost of transmissions lines.
It’s a sad day when Chinese communist dictator for life, Xi Jinping talks more sense on energy than Australian ministers. In 2020, Xi Jinping vowed to make China carbon-neutral by 2060, a decade later than Australia’s quixotic commitment. Then in 2021, China suffered huge power outages because its central government, like Australia’s, capped power prices. When costs rose power plants did the logical thing and cut supply rather than operate at a loss.
But unlike in Australia, the Chinese government did a radical reality check. China relies on coal for more than half of its energy. Heeding a report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air which advised that technologies for storing clean energy are simply not yet mature enough to be deployed at the scale necessary to expand the use of renewable energy, Xi said that coal would remain a mainstay of China’s energy mix that would be hard to change in the short term.
So while Australia hurries to close down its coal-fired power stations, local governments in China approved more new coal-fired power stations in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, with more than 20 gigawatts of new plants approved.
To put that in context, Eraring, the largest coal-fired power plant in Australia, provides less than 3 gigawatts of power and authorities are rushing to shut it down in 2025, seven years earlier than planned.
Whatever the imagined benefit might be to the environment, it will be drowned in the increased emissions in China. But the scarcity of baseload power in Australia will drive up prices and provide a profit bonanza for energy generators, many of whom are foreign-owned. Australian power bills will go up, imposing pain on consumers and driving businesses broke or offshore. What we no longer produce we will have to import from countries like China and India. It makes no sense but it seems our governments are determined that we learn this lesson the hard way.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/coal-is-a-four-letter-word/
********************************************************Chronically flawed justice in Australia
With the exception of two or three of our tastier fish species, I doubt if anything in Australia has taken a more comprehensive battering in recent years than our criminal justice system.
It would be nice to say that the wrongful imprisonment of Kathy Folbigg is a rare blot on a nation’s otherwise exemplary judicial record. But I suspect most of us were less shocked by her acquittal last week than we were by her conviction twenty years ago.
It wasn’t always thus. Ned Kelly may have a certain Robin Hood allure for modern Australians, but few of his contemporaries would have questioned the integrity and competence of the police who arrested him or the judge who hanged him.
And even 100 years later, the faith of most Australians in the courts was still strong enough to withstand the reversals of the Lindy Chamberlain case – with even those who still think she did it conceding that the discovery of new evidence damaged the prosecution narrative.
But the miscarriages of justice which have done most to undermine our confidence in our legal system in recent times were not exposed by the discovery of new evidence or, as in the Folbigg case, overturned by advances in science.
The decision to charge Cardinal Pell was always, and by any evidentiary measure, ludicrous, and the fact that it was eventually adjudged to be so by the High Court, after the man had spent more than a year in prison, should reassure nobody.
It was obvious from the get-go that what was really on trial was not so much an elderly man as a global patriarchy – of which Cardinal Pell just happened to be a figurehead. And what became clear as the case progressed first through the criminal and then the appeal courts was that a substantial proportion of the Victorian judiciary were also of this opinion, and were determined that the verdict which had already been delivered across the tables of Toorak dining rooms, and amplified by an overwhelmingly left-leaning local media, should not be gainsaid by due process – at least, not on their watch.
It is hard not to see parallels between the Pell acquittal and the decision of the Director of Public Prosecuter to abandon the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann. And in the latter case the publication of all those texts and emails and the making of all those speeches raises even more glaringly obvious questions about the ability of public servants and senior legal figures to conduct themselves with integrity and objectivity.
It is now a matter of public record, for example, that ACT police never thought there was enough evidence to convict Mr Lehrmann, and that they advised Shane Drumgold, the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, not to press charges. Mr Drumgold has yet to give an adequate reason for ignoring this advice, and until he does, it will be hard not to conclude that he was motivated by the same fear which presumably motivated Scott Morrison to publicly apologise (on our behalf) to Brittany Higgins weeks before the trial even started, and which persuaded the Federal Attorney-General and Federal Finance Minister to sign off on Miss Higgins’s $2m+ Commonwealth compensation package within three days of her claim being lodged.
That is to say, it is hard not to conclude that all these respected figures were more concerned about being seen to believe a woman’s claim to have been sexually assaulted than being seen to believe in habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence.
The systemic failure which led to Chris Dawson not being convicted of the murder of his wife for 30 years, it must be said, was not the result of the divided loyalties of lawyers and officials. It was mainly just the incompetence and laziness of NSW police, and it’s no exaggeration to say that if it hadn’t been for the endeavour of a single journalist Dawson would still be a free man today.
As free, indeed, as all the murderers and rapists who we may assume have escaped justice in Queensland in the past few years because the evidence with which police and prosecutors hoped to convict them was deemed insufficiently strong by a pathology lab whose boss, as we now know, had raised the admissibility bar to cut costs.
If there are any aspiring Ned Kellys in Australia today I cannot imagine them being greatly deterred by the men and women in uniforms, white coats and wigs.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/aussie-life-121/
************************************16 June, 2023
Japanese burger chain wins legal stoush with landlord over Covid pandemic rent reduction
I am quite a fan of MOS burgers so I am pleased that they had a win. Making their landlord pay for losses caused by government policy is regrettable, though. Compensation should have come from the government
The dispute between MOS Burger Australia Pty Ltd and its landlord in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal revealed the extent of its massive sales slump at its store at 79 Adelaide St in Brisbane’s CBD.
In April 2020, sales slumped 92 per cent compared to the previous year, to $12,091, the court heard.
The next month sales were zero and in June they fell 93 per cent compared to the 2019 figure to just $10,217, the tribunal heard.
MOS applied to the tribunal to get rent relief from landlords Telado Pty Ltd and G & J Drivas Pty Ltd because the sales of the CBD store slumped in the six months to September 2020.
They claimed relief under state laws passed in 2020 aimed at helping struggling small businesses during the pandemic.
The three members of the tribunal ruled they were satisfied that Mos Burger met the requirement of being a small business during the pandemic.
The tribunal ruled that MOS was entitled to pay 50 per cent of its rent for each month between April and September 2020.
It ruled that MOS should be able to waive payment of $106,043 in rent due to the pandemic, so it was allowed to pay $185,953 in rent instead of the usual rent of $291,966.
The landlords, Telado and G & J Drivas, unsuccessfully argued that MOS was 40 per cent owned by two large Taiwan-stockmarket listed companies so should not be considered a small business.
MOS is part-owned by An-Shin Food Services Ltd, listed on the Taiwanese stock exchange and Teco Australia Pty Ltd whose board members include the chairman of Teco Electric & Machinery Co Ltd, a company also listed on the Taiwanese stock exchange.
For 2020, An-Shin had revenue of $US187m ($$250m) and Teco had revenue of $US74m ($$99).
There are still three other MOS stores open in Queensland – in Sunnybank, Westfield Mt Gravatt and at Australia Fair on the Gold Coast – which sell Wagyu beef burgers as well as katsu and karaage chicken burgers, or burgers with lettuce instead of a bread bun.
The chain opened its first Australian store in 2011.
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NSW police officers under investigation over arrest of Canberra Raiders hooker Tom Starling
Police officers involved in a scuffle during an arrest in 2020 of Canberra Raiders hooker Tom Starling, are now under investigation.
Starling, who received facial injuries in the arrest, was initially charged with seven offences, including attempting to take a police officer's gun, during the incident.
A police officer was left with a cut to his hand while allegedly intervening in a fight involving Starling, 22, and his two brothers in 2020.
In January last year, all the charges relating to the incident against him were dropped except for one: hindering an officer.
In February of this year, the final charge against Starling was dismissed after a magistrate said police breached their duty when they "assaulted" him.
In a statement issued today, NSW Police confirmed they were "continuing to conduct inquiries in relation to the conduct of officers" who responded to the incident.
Previously, the Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney was shown CCTV footage of police punching Starling in the face multiple times, a scene Magistrate Covington at the time called a "free for all". "One that is more typically seen in a street fight as opposed to officers in their duty," he said.
"Clearly what occurred was nothing other than Tom being assaulted himself."
Magistrate Covington also said Senior Constable Daniel Drew admitted to the court that he had "no reason to punch" Starling.
Today, Tom Starling's mother, Joanne, spoke to Radio 2GB about the incident that she said had turned her family's lives upside down.
"I was there and I witnessed the majority of it and to see that on the front page of the news was just devastating," she said.
Joanne told the radio station it had been a "tough few years" not just for her but for her extended family and friends who she said had stood by her.
Raiders coach Ricky Stuart also told Radio 2GB he applauded the decision to investigate the officers' actions.
*********************************************
New Premier has the chance to correct an ICAC injustice
Eight years ago, lawyers representing the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption stood in the Court of Appeal and conceded defeat. They accepted that ICAC, the state’s guardian of integrity, had no lawful basis for declaring four men corrupt.
Margaret Beazley, who was then president of the Court of Appeal, prepared a draft declaration recognising that ICAC had made findings against these men that were a nullity and beyond its jurisdiction.
But before this could be finalised, the NSW government, then led by the Liberal Party’s Mike Baird, intervened after being lobbied by ICAC.
Baird introduced a retrospective Validation Act that papered over ICAC’s wrongdoing. Conduct that was unlawful one day was rendered lawful the next.
This drove a wedge between the NSW Liberal Party and principles of governance that go back to Magna Carta, a document that was sealed 808 years ago this week.
The consequences have been profound.
For eight years, NSW has denied justice to four innocent men who had turned to the courts for a remedy after being subjected to conduct by a government agency that had no basis in law.
Baird’s Validation Act is a clear departure from the principles that protect individual liberty against the unlawful predations of a mighty state. That is what Magna Carta and the rule of law are all about.
Clause 29 of the Great Charter says, in part: “To no one will we sell or deny or delay right or justice.”
The Federal Court’s Justice Steven Rares has described clause 29 as the source of concepts such as the right to justice according to law and the right to justice without delay.
The Validation Act has another problem: when parliament considered this unprincipled scheme it was not even given the full story about what was at stake.
It had been presented as a response to an unrelated High Court decision involving prominent silk Margaret Cunneen SC. The court had made it clear that ICAC had misunderstood the limits on its own jurisdiction.
The problem is that nobody told parliament the Validation Act would have the effect of reversing the outcome in a court case that was close to conclusion.
One of those with first-hand knowledge of what happened is Labor’s Adam Searle, who left parliament at the last state election and has returned to the Bar.
On June 22 last year, when this affair was again before parliament, he made a statement in the Legislative Council that should cause a great deal of unease.
This, according to Hansard, is what Searle told parliament:
“I was one of the Opposition members tasked with interacting with the government and the office of the then Premier. A question raised in those discussions was whether anybody else, apart from Ms Cunneen, was before the courts.
“I did not take a file note, but my strong recollection is that we were assured that there was no live matter before the courts. Maybe that was a mistake; maybe it was deliberate.
“The point is that there were people before the courts and the parliament was not told. Maybe if it was told it would not have made any difference, yet it may have. We will never know.
“But, at this point in time, the evidence is overwhelming that these people were wrongly dealt with,” Searle told parliament.
The disastrous impact of this statute on the personal and business lives of the four men was uncovered in 2021 by the parliamentary committee that oversees ICAC.
The committee’s report, like Searle, made the point that parliament was never told about the four men who, under the law expounded in Cunneen’s case, had already secured an admission of defeat from ICAC.
The committee’s report says: “The existence of this litigation and its settlement by the ICAC was not disclosed to members of the NSW parliament when they debated and voted on the Validation Act.
“Had there been a relevant disclosure, this group of persons may well have been excluded from the operation of the Validation Act on the basis of the agreed settlement of their case against the ICAC.”
There is an argument that the entire Validation Act should be repealed – not just because parliament was kept in the dark, but because this law retrospectively “validates” unlawful conduct.
But while repeal might be the perfect solution, this should not be allowed to become the enemy of a prompt remedy for those who had their victory snatched away eight years ago.
The injustice they have suffered is blatant and extreme.
Just three of those four men are still alive – John McGuigan, John Atkinson and Richard Poole. The fourth man, Travers Duncan, died last year.
After eight years of injustice, how much longer must they wait for the restoration of rights that were guaranteed by Magna Carta?
In 2021, the ICAC committee did not seek a full repeal of the Validation Act. But it did not want it to apply to those who went to court only to have their victory snatched away by a parliament that was never told of their unique position.
Last year, One Nation’s Rod Roberts introduced a Bill that would give effect to the ICAC committee’s modest yet unanimous proposal. The Coalition government, under the leadership of Dominic Perrottet, did nothing.
Last month, Roberts reintroduced that Bill. The Labor government of Chris Minns faces a choice: does it stand for fairness? Or will it follow Perrottet’s example and do nothing?
******************************************
mRNA vaccines fast-tracked for Australian agriculture
After the spectacular failure of mRNA vaccines in human trials, the agricultural industry is pushing ahead with mRNA vaccines for livestock engaged in the food industry.
Whispers of stock ‘dying suddenly’ will no doubt become a complaint of farmers in the future, summarily ignored by government in the same way officials refuse to listen to serious concerns about dam-building restrictions, price hikes on Ag products, ridiculous fees and charges, incomprehensible red and green tape, biosecurity regulations that do nothing, and – fresh out of Western Australia – expensive negotiations with Indigenous groups who have never set foot on the land they claim to ‘own’.
In one example that mRNA is on its way Down Under, on May 2, 2023, Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) announced funding for a project to ‘test mRNA vaccines that can be rapidly mass-produced in Australia in the event of a lumpy skin disease or other exotic disease outbreak’.
The Manager for Animal Wellbeing, released a statement saying:
‘This project will develop a mRNA vaccine pipeline initially for LSD, but potentially for other emergency diseases. This will enable capacity for rapid mass production of a vaccine for LSD in the event of an outbreak. No LSD vaccines are registered for use in Australia yet. While some vaccines exist overseas, the path to registration in Australia for traditionally-produced [vaccines] is longer than that of an mRNA vaccine.’
Why are traditional vaccines, which have safety records that outstrip mRNA vaccines, subject to longer approval periods than mRNA vaccines? That sounds like a significant structural failure within Australia’s health body that, instead of being fixed, has the potential to be exploited by manufacturers looking to cash in on mRNA.
mRNA vaccines are quick to produce and ‘nimble’, which is why pharmaceutical companies like them – but that doesn’t mean that they are safe, effective, or suitable for consumers whether those are humans or livestock.
A 2022 article in PubMed Central notes: ‘Recently, the successful application of mRNA vaccines against Covid has further validated the platform and opened the floodgates to mRNA vaccine’s potential in infectious disease prevention, especially in the veterinary field.’
No doubt this is why we keep hearing bleatings of ‘emergency’ and ‘outbreak’ in the same breath as mRNA, as if to remind us of the mantra used during the Covid era to embark on what the former Health Minister referred to as the ‘largest clinical trial – the largest global vaccine trial ever’. Look how that turned out.
The fall-out of Covid mRNA vaccines is likely to continue for the best part of a century as a percentage of vaccinated individuals ‘die suddenly’ or suffer from long-term debilitating illnesses. These are quickly becoming a burden for the health industry and state finances after vaccine manufacturers hand-waved responsibility because it was an ‘emergency’. Most nations are setting up compensation pools of cash to cope with the growing list of individuals who claim to have been harmed.
Another excuse used to feather the nest of mRNA vaccines is that they are thought to provide the solution for influenza-style viruses which traditional vaccines have proven ineffective against. Everyone wants to see an effective vaccine against respiratory viruses, but it’s almost as if the doe-eyed vaccine industry has put on a blindfold for the last three years. mRNA Covid vaccines did next to nothing to combat or control the influenza-style Covid and do not, based on what we have seen, offer any advantage to traditional vaccines for this problem beyond the feel-good marketing headlines. There is a strong argument that for the majority of the population, they did more harm than good.
Instead of suspending all mRNA vaccines until we understand what went wrong, they are being given priority treatment by regulators and championed by manufacturers who love the competitive edge of speed their production offers. Governments, particularly the (broke?) Victorian state government, are funnelling tens of millions into mRNA development to keep capitalising on the political popularity they enjoyed during the Covid era.
MLA note that mRNA vaccines should be ready for use within two years and while everyone is busy stressing that this will be a ‘voluntary’ option for the farming community, vaccines inside the agricultural industry rarely are if a producer wishes to sell their product into domestic and international markets. If we go down the mRNA vaccine production line, it is extremely likely that Australians will be eating mRNA-vaccinated livestock within a couple of years with very little understanding of what this will mean health-wise.
Anyone who criticises mRNA vaccines or their potential future within the agricultural industry are paraded through the press as ‘conspiracy theorists’ with publications quick to send out the fact-checkers to insist that it’s pure fear-mongering to suggest fragments of these vaccines will end up in the food chain.
Except, it was a ‘conspiracy theory’ to suggest that the human body would continue making Covid mRNA vaccines long after the injection, or to raise concerns that it would leave the site of the injection. Not only did the fears described as ‘conspiracy’ prove to be true, the behaviour and side effects of Covid mRNA vaccines are reaching well beyond what anyone predicted.
How sure are we that in the rush to saturate the market with mRNA vaccines, that proper long-term testing will be conducted, particularly when it comes to lingering in meat and milk? Will it impact high-risk activities such as calving, given there is a strong suspicion that Covid vaccines are responsible for a spike in human miscarriages?
Keep in mind that we are still being told Covid vaccines are ‘safe and effective’. The Australian government, sitting on a pile of unwanted vaccines, is spending public money on marketing campaigns, encouraging Australians to go and get their booster shots at the same time other countries have removed Covid vaccines.
At least some States in the US are taking note, rushing to pass legislation to ban the use of mRNA vaccines for animals involved in the food industry whose meat or milk is produced for human consumption. Idaho is one example where it will be a misdemeanour to use mRNA vaccines – and that includes the Covid vaccines.
Australians need to be aware that mRNA vaccines are coming for the agricultural industry and they will likely be compulsory. America is having a serious conversation about whether this should be allowed, and Australia needs to do the same thing. It is perfectly reasonable to require extensive long-term safety data before we revolutionise agriculture.
This conversation will not happen on its own. Australia’s agricultural elite resemble a body of yes-men nodding furiously toward mRNA. Family farmers – disempowered, constrained, and demoralised – have no voice in this matter. Their wishes will be bulldozed by a small collection of billion-dollar farming entities, several of which are foreign-owned.
If Australians care about what they eat, it’s time to start making a racket.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/mrna-vaccines-fast-tracked-for-australian-agriculture
************************************15 June, 2023
Newspaper apologises for coverage of 1838 Aboriginal massacre
How can they apologize for something they didn't do? The SMH has undergone several changes of ownership since 1838 and the staff have undergone even more changes. There is no known link between the person who wrote the 1838 article and anyone now involved with the paper.
So what is the "apology" about? I think it has to do with the current obsession with Aborigines that has been been put on high beam by the "Voice" referenduum. The SMH just wants to be in among the virtuous as far as Aborigines are concerned.
And part of that would simply be to raise awareness of the bad things that 19th century whites sometimes did to blacks. It is an attempt to put present-day white Australians on a guilt trip. But there is no cause for such guilt. British justice prevailed in the 1838 matter and the white murderers were hanged for their deeds. Equality before the law prevailed even back then. If anything, present day Australians can be proud of how justly the institutions of their ancestors ultimately acted
The Sydney Morning Herald has issued an apology for their historical coverage of the Myall Creek massacre.
In 1838, at least 28 unarmed Indigenous Australians were killed by 12 colonists at the Myall Creek near the Gwydir River, in northern New South Wales.
“In several editorials published before, during, and after two Sydney trials in late 1838 relating to the massacre, the Herald essentially campaigned for the 11 accused mass murderers to escape prosecution,” an editorial in the 9 June edition said.
“It also opposed the death sentence eventually handed to seven of the men.
“In one editorial published ahead of the trials and amid a public debate about legal protections for Aboriginal people, the Herald proclaimed: ‘The whole gang of black animals are not worth the money the colonists will have to pay for printing the silly documents on which we have already wasted too much time’.”
The newspaper also encouraged readers “to shoot and kill Aboriginal people if they ever felt threatened”.
The newspaper owned up to the errors made and issued an apology for their coverage, writing: “The Herald has a long and proud history of telling the Australian story. But on Myall Creek, the truth is we failed dismally.”
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More trans disturbances
Last week, Twitter restricted the availability of a documentary called What is a Woman? The title might sound innocuous, but when political commentator Matt Walsh puts the question to the trans clerisy in his mild-mannered, deadpan voice and scrutinises their advocacy of the surgical and chemical modification of the bodies of minors, he rattles their ideological platitudes.
The reason Twitter gave for throttling the visibility of the film was that it might ‘violate Twitter’s rules against Hateful Conduct’. The capitalisation of Hateful Conduct suggests that it isn’t just undesirable behaviour but a formal crime. Even free speech advocate and owner of Twitter Elon Musk seemed nervous. He responded to early criticism by referring to the movie as ‘sensitive content’.
Once Musk had watched the film, he shared it himself tweeting, ‘Every parent should watch this’ and joking that, ‘The Streisand Effect on this will set an all-time record!’ He was right. In less than a week, more than 170 million people have watched the film. Yet mainstream critics have refused to review it calling the director a ‘transphobic bigot’ and telling the publicist that she should be ‘ashamed to be associated with him’.
All this might be just another skirmish in the looking-glass land of 21st-century culture wars but the question ‘What is hateful conduct?’ just got a little more pointed, at least in Queensland, which is poised to criminalise hate speech. And it’s not messing around. Vilification based on racial, religious, sexual, or gender identity will be punishable by up to three years in prison.
That’s a dramatic increase. At present, offenders face a maximum fine of 70 penalty units or six months in jail, but that’s not enough it seems. According to the explanatory notes provided with the Bill, the increased sentence reflects ‘the seriousness of this type of offending and the community’s denunciation of such conduct’.
The bill was based on the recommendations of a report by the Queensland Parliament’s Legal Affairs and Safety Committee tabled in January 2022. It called on the government to protect the community from the distress and insecurity associated with the public display of hate symbols.
The government responded by making it a criminal offence to display hate symbols used by Nazis and Isis but just to cover all eventualities, the Bill gives the minister the power to prohibit ‘emerging symbols and images associated with extremist ideology’ by regulation.
It will also be a lot easier to charge someone with a hate-speech crime. Under the current civil law, a written complaint must be sent to the anti-discrimination commissioner within a year. By law, the commissioner must reject complaints that are frivolous, trivial, vexatious, misconceived, or lacking in substance. If the complaint is not dismissed, it may be dealt with through conciliation. For the police to commence a prosecution, they must first seek the written consent of the attorney-general or director of public prosecutions.
The new legislation gives police the power to lay charges without consulting anyone if they believe someone has committed a crime using ‘any form of communication to the public including by speaking, writing, printing, displaying notices… or by electronic means’, which would cover social media posts.
It is not hard to imagine what Queensland police might designate as hate speech in the current environment. In March, for example, the Let Women Speak movement organised a series of rallies in Australia and New Zealand headlined by Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker.
The purpose of the rallies was to defend single-sex rules in places where women feel vulnerable such as changing rooms, bathrooms and prisons, the right to single-sex sporting competitions, and to shield children from radical gender theory.
Little more than a decade ago, such practices were uncontroversial. Suddenly, they are unspeakable. Anyone who espouses them is labelled a ‘transphobe’. And since gender identity is protected under anti-discrimination law, ‘transphobic’ behaviour is unlawful. In the workplace, it can be grounds for dismissal. In the public square, it is grounds for cancellation. The question for Queensland is, if the new Bill passes, will women who demand single-sex rights which are deemed transphobic be guilty of a criminal offence?
If that sounds daunting, it’s not the only threat women’s rights activists face. The Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne was besieged by hundreds of trans activists and about 30 black-shirted Nazis who the police ushered through the crowd allowing them to make Nazi salutes as they passed the women.
It was all very convenient for Victorian Premier Dan Andrews who branded the women ‘anti-trans activists’ who had ‘gathered to spread hate’ and conflated them with the Nazis by saying that ‘some of them performed the Nazi salute’.
It got very ugly, very quickly. Liberal MP Moira Deeming was threatened with expulsion from her party for speaking at the rally. She alleges that the Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto accused her of being a ‘Nazi sympathiser and Nazi associate’ and used that as a basis to eventually ‘threaten and bully’ her out of the parliamentary party. Pesutto denies the allegations so Deeming is suing him for defamation.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, weighed in on the stoush expressing concern that women and girls were being silenced on issues of sex, gender and gender identity through ‘the incitement of hatred’ by smearing them and their allies as Nazis and extremists. She condemned the fact that women politicians ‘have been sanctioned by their own political parties with a threat of dismissal or actual dismissal’.
It’s all bad enough as it is. People are already too frightened to speak out about women’s rights or trans issues for fear of losing their jobs or their reputations.
It would be even worse if what was at stake was the loss of your liberty and a criminal record.
This wouldn’t just have a chilling effect on free speech, it would put it in a deep freezer that all the sunshine in Queensland couldn’t thaw.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/twitter-trans-and-videotape/
************************************************Albanese government plans to ban contract work
Call a plumber to fix something and he becomes your employee?
If you’ve ever been to a pub gig, you’ll have taken part in what the Albanese government wants to (effectively) close down. The Albanese agenda became starkly clear in 2022 after Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke declared the ‘gig economy’ is a ‘cancer’. Burke stated that it’s an agenda not open to discussion, and that legislation will be introduced in late 2023.
The gig economy is not something new. The Beatles, The Stones, Cold Chisel, AC/DC … they all did and/or do ‘gigs’. Like countless musicians, stand-up comedians, crooners, harpists, you name them, they all do gigs. It’s the lifeblood of the entertainment industry locally and globally.
And gig makes for some disparate traditional bed partners. Yes, every barrister is a gig worker. So too is each sex worker!
A gig is pretty simple. There’s a contract for a set price to do something. ‘Come to my pub. Play for three hours and I’ll pay you a thousand bucks,’ says the pub manager. ‘Done,’ says the singer. The singing done and the money paid. End of contract.
Every barrister is required to give an upfront estimate of costs to each client. Yes the specifics of each job can’t be precisely determined but the broad parameters are set. As work unfolds and if/when the work moves beyond those parameters, a renewed costs estimate must be given to the client. When the jobs done, the money is paid.
Sex workers have control over what they do. This is actually stipulated in relevant prostitution control laws. Every job(gig) has a pre-agreed price for pre-agreed services.
Gig work is not new, odd, or threatening. In fact it is very traditional and ‘old’.
But somehow, for the Albanese government, this is a ‘cancer’.
What’s happened over the last 15 years or so is that this familiar entertainment and other industry ‘gig’ model has taken new forms. Now gig work is available for ride-share, food delivery, aged and disability care, and odd jobs. The list goes on. And, yes, the entertainment industry has gig platforms.
What’s happened is that online technology has made gig work more secure. Gig platforms enable anyone wanting to do a job to connect with someone needing a job done. The revolution is that job specifics and price are upfront and agreed by the parties. The gig platforms also make the payments and enable both the ‘doer’ and the ‘receiver’ of the service to rate each other. The platforms make the market work efficiently, transparently, and securely.
It’s fantastic. The risk of not being paid is massively reduced. Think of how many times a pub manager has failed to pay the full amount agreed upon, screwing over the worker (singer)? It’s the security of payment and security and clarity of the gig work agreement that’s made this expansion of gig work so seemingly popular. And it’s all happened without government sticking its nose in!
Yet this is a cancer? So here comes the Albanese government promising to mess it all up. How do they say they are going to do this?
Put simply, Minister Burke is going to create laws that will require gig workers to have holiday pay for example. How will this work? Let’s take our pub gig as an example.
The pub manager will have to pay holiday pay on top of the $1,000 agreed. How is this to be calculated? Holiday pay is for full-time employees who’ve worked a full year. How is this to be calculated for 3 hours work and no more? Ouch! That has heads scratching! But let’s say it’s $70. It’s clear what will happen. The pub manager will only agree to $930 for the gig. $70 will have to be held back.
But when does the gig singer get the $70? Does the singer determine when it’s ‘holiday’ time or does the pub manager decide? Sounds like a recipe for scamming! So, will Albanese then set up a massive new government-run department to manage gig workers’ holiday pay? Or maybe the entertainment union will be sanctioned to run a ‘holiday’ fund. Will the singer need to apply to the government or the union for the $70?
Just think. Will barristers suddenly become ‘entitled’ to holiday pay? What about sex workers? The mind boggles. Who’s going to pay? Who’s going to manage the holiday pay accounts? It’s a recipe for a mess.
We know this will be a mess because this is what’s happened in the UK. Old 1996 UK laws were used in 2021 to declare that UK Uber drivers are ‘entitled’ to holiday pay. Uber are trying to work out how to adjust prices and to manage this. When does Uber pay holiday pay to an Uber driver? When Uber decides or the driver?
And in the UK it’s impacted tax issues resulting in a rolling saga of court cases, distorted tax liabilities, and more, under the general heading of ‘status’ dramas. (See Spectator 5 June 2023)
But there’s more. Research from the Victorian government into the gig economy (2020) shows that around 830,000 Australians did gig platform work in any year. But only 0.19 per cent of the workforce used gig for their full-time work. In other words, around 810,000 Australians (about 7 per cent of the workforce) were only using gig work as part-time top-up work. How is gig holiday pay to be calculated for all these part-timers?
In the government’s recent Consultation Paper on the issue, they flagged that they’ll limit the laws but weren’t specific. It’s perhaps predictable that the government will apply its version of ‘common sense’ and keep barristers, entertainers, sex workers, and more out of the measures. However, so far they’ve been vague about who’s in and who’s out!
And their ‘limiting’ assurances are weak because for their agenda to work the legislative structure will require treating a commercial contract as an employment contract. I’ve explained this before in Spectator Australia. The ‘limiting’ problem is, that once this contract threshold is crossed (treating a commercial contract as an employment contract) ‘limits’ become impossible to contain.
This is demonstrated in California. In 2020 California (incredibly) made illegal the use of self-employed people. But politically powerful self-employed groups had themselves excluded. Powerful people such as lawyers, movie directors, financiers, and others had themselves put outside the law, for now. But such exclusions are entirely politically dependent. Over time such exclusions become corrupted by the political process. Inevitably, like a cancer, the contract corruption encroaches into areas thought safe from such corruption.
This is the real cancer that should be of concern. In their determination to proceed with their gig economy agenda, the Albanese/Burke government will introduce cancer into Australia’s commercial contract process.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/to-gig-or-not-to-gig-is-that-the-question/
******************************************************Nursing targets forcing aged care beds to close, members warned
?One in five public aged-care beds is being forced to close under Victoria’s union-backed nurse-to-patient ratio rules, sparking warnings that Labor’s 24/7 nursing targets will trigger residential aged-care shutdowns when they come into force next month.
The bed closures come as figures from the Department of Health and Aged Care project a nursing shortfall of about 8100 in residential aged-care facilities between 2023-24, as the sector grapples with new reforms including 24/7 nurses and minimum care requirements.
A confidential briefing from the Victorian Healthcare Association to its members, obtained by The Australian, has warned the state’s rigid workforce rules – requiring at least one registered nurse per seven residents in the morning, eight in the afternoon and 15 at night – are further exacerbating critical nursing workforce shortages.
The staffing requirements were implemented in 2015 after significant lobbying from the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, which argued staffing ratios eased workloads for nurses and ensured residents received better-quality care.
But the VHA has expressed concern that Victoria’s staffing requirements are inhibiting the ability of providers to service the public, with about 20 per cent of beds sitting vacant according to industry figures.
The VHA has warned that the workforce rules were not recommended by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, and has called for the law to be amended to enable state-owned providers to hire personal care workers to alleviate critical workforce shortages and deliver high-quality care and residential aged care to older Australians.
The sector is concerned that the aged-care closures across the state are forcing elderly people into hospitals for non-acute conditions, clogging up the healthcare system and leading to shortages in acute beds designed for elective surgeries.
“This problem is currently closing around one in five publicly funded aged-care beds in Victoria at a time when other aged-care services are closing their doors nationally,” VHA president Leigh Clarke said.
“We are deeply concerned about how this is impacting on people needing care in their own communities and the flow on effects for their families and other health services which often care for people waiting for residential aged care.”
According to Victorian industry figures, there are currently about 1200 empty beds out of 5300, with workforce shortages preventing providers from accepting new residents.
A Victorian government spokesman said no public sector aged-care beds had closed due to nurse-to-patient ratios and that the state government remained committed to the policy.
“We will always protect nurse-to-patient ratios – that’s why the Victorian budget 2023-24 invests $42m to help meet these ratios and ensure older Victorians get the best possible care,” the spokesman said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the Victorian aged-care closures were a “serious warning sign” of potential further stress to be put on the sector ahead of Labor’s 24/7 nursing targets set to take effect next month.
Senator Ruston said older Australians should not be forced out of their homes as a result of rigid workforce constraints, and that Labor governments were putting “politics and their union mates” ahead of care for the elderly.
‘This is a serious warning sign of potential further stress that Labor governments are prepared to put on the aged-care sector to appease their union mates,” Senator Ruston said.
“Implementing additional, mandated staffing requirements in the middle of a workforce crisis is irresponsible and will have significant detrimental consequences,” she said.
Aged Care Minister Anika Wells said facilities would not be forced to shut down if they could prove they had made genuine attempts to have a nurse onsite 24/7.
She told The Australian that the “vast majority” of providers would meet the 24/7 nursing target by July 1, and that the federal government would work with those unable to help them meet it “as soon as possible”.
“Come July 1 there will be many, many more nurses providing many, many more hours of care in nursing homes because of our 24/7 reforms,” Ms Wells said.
But The Australian last month revealed at least 23 aged-care homes had shut their doors since September last year, with a number of providers citing difficulty in attracting and retaining staff to meet the government’s targets.
The sector is scrambling to implement a suite of reforms including mandated minutes of care per resident, quality and safety standards and full-time nursing requirements, as it adjusts to a new funding model brought in last October as recommended by the aged-care royal commission.
The overhaul comes as financial troubles plague the sector, with the latest figures from the Quarterly Financial Snapshot of the Aged Care Sector revealing 42 per cent of private providers are operating at losses.
One Victorian provider who spoke on the condition of anonymity said it was facing a $500,000 budget black hole which was projected to grow to $1m by the end of the year amid significant costs to rural and regional aged care.
The provider currently runs 69 beds in regional Victoria and has 24 people on its waiting list that it is unable to admit due to tough workforce requirements in the state.
Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan, who represents the regional Victorian electorate of Wannon, said Victoria could no longer keep operating and urged the Victorian government to resolve the issue “as soon as possible”.
“We can’t keep operating with 20 per cent of our beds closed in our public aged-care sector in Victoria,” Mr Tehan said.
“That is 1200 people currently missing out on a bed with the number growing. This needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
“VHA is engaged in good faith with the Andrews government, they have to reciprocate on that good faith.”
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13 June, 2023
After the demise of Hillsong, is there a place for the church in modern Australia?
There is always great condemnation when prominent Christian leaders and preachers "go off the rails". But that is inevitable. The standards Christians try to live up to are impossibly high, inhumanly high. Take Christ's teachings as recorded in Matthew 5. Excerpt:
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain"
No normal human being could live up to that but insofar as people try we would live in a much kinder and more peaceful world. Let us be thankful for the high standards Christians set for themselves and find no cause for condemnation when their normal human instincts reassert themselves in various ways
Only a few years ago, Hillsong – a Pentecostal church planted in the north-western suburbs of Sydney in the 80s – was one of Australia's biggest and most successful exports.
"It should go iron ore, the Hemsworth Brothers, then Hillsong – it's massive," Marc Fennell told the ABC's The Drum.
His latest documentary for SBS, The Kingdom, charts the rise – and fall – of the megachurch that he was once a member of.
Mr Fennell isn't the only one interested in the subject matter. Earlier this year, American television network FX released a four-part documentary, The Secrets of Hillsong, and the Herald Sun launched its investigative podcast about the church, Faith on Trial.
Yet amid the scandals plaguing Hillsong, the Pentecostal church movement in Australia has survived.
The fall of Hillsong is not a unique story in Christianity
At its height, Hillsong was hosting prime ministers at their church services and conferences, winning multiple Grammys, and counting celebrities like Justin Bieber and Vanessa Hudgens among its members.
In recent years, allegations of trauma, abuse, fraud, cover-ups and exploitation have come to the fore, culminating in the resignation of Hillsong founder Brian Houston earlier this year.
But scandal is not a unique experience for the Christian church – Pentecostal, or otherwise. Director of the Centre for Public Christianity Simon Smart says churches of all denominations have "good moments" and "regrettable ones" as they've evolved, adapted and reformed alongside social and cultural changes.
"Pentecostalism isn't alone in having its imperfections," he told the ABC's The Drum. "On a grand scale, you have the 16th-century Protestant Reformation that was responding to serious corruption within the church," Mr Smart explains.
"In recent times, churches have responded to deep systemic flaws when it came to responding to and taking preventative measures against sexual abuse within its walls.
"What was a terrible chapter in church history led to serious self-assessment and changes to internal practices such that church communities are now much safer places for children than they once were."
Mr Smart also noted that celebrity culture has had a negative influence on the church. "I don't think [celebrity] has any place there," he said on The Drum. "The founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ, was everything other than that – he was all about humility, compassion and love, and not about the grand gestures."
Tania Harris is an ordained Pentecostal minister who works in churches across all denominations in Australia and abroad.
"Wherever you find humanity, you'll find flawed humanity," Rev Harris says, "and where there is great success, those flaws can become apparent."
She believes that the rapid growth and success of Australian Pentecostalism contributed to its downfall.
"I've watched churches grapple with this since the pandemic and since the scandals have been exposed," Rev Harris says.
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Give us a fair go! Work, mass migration, housing, and the red tape disaster
The recently announced plan of the federal government to preference a new round of mass migration over those Australian pensioners, veterans, and students who wish to work strikes at the very heart of the notion of the Australian fair go.
And Australians are concerned. A recent survey by the Institute of Public Affairs found that 60 per cent of Australians want migration paused until adequate infrastructure is built. This was backed up by The Guardian, which found that 59 per cent want a cap on immigration until there is sufficient housing built.
For those of us outside the Canberra bubble, the combined pressures of a worker shortage crisis, housing shortages, and inflation are all contributing to a declining standard of living for Australians. Yet, the Albanese government is failing to act with the urgency these issues demand.
There are currently more than 438,000 job vacancies across the country, which is double the pre-Covid level, with almost a quarter of businesses unable to find the workers they need. This is costing Australians $32 billion in foregone wages, and the federal government $7 billion in income tax.
The high level of job vacancies is largely attributable to the tax and red tape barriers facing those pensioners, students, and veterans who would otherwise return to work. These three groups face an effective marginal tax rate of 69 per cent if they choose to work. This is because once pensioners, for example, earn more than just $226 a week they lose 50 cents on the dollar in pension payments.
Today, only three per cent of pensioners in Australia work, compared with approximately 25 per cent in New Zealand. But a recent survey by National Seniors found that 20 per cent of Australia’s pensioners would work if tax and red tape barriers were removed.
Yet, instead of implementing a policy that enables willing and able Australians to work, the federal government has proposed increasing immigration by 715,000 over the next two years at a minimum. We are told this will cure our worker shortage crisis.
Throughout our history, Australia has proven itself to be one of the world’s most welcoming and tolerant communities. Sustainable immigration has been the bedrock of our country’s social and economic success, but what the government is now proposing is not only unsustainable, it will exacerbate the very problems facing everyday Australians.
Any sudden acceleration in unplanned, mass migration is reckless in the extreme, considering Australia’s acute housing shortage. Analysis by the IPA found that the proposed increase in migration will exacerbate the nation’s housing shortfall, leading to a shortage of at least 212,800 homes between 2023 and 2028.
To be fair, not all in the Canberra bubble are unaware of the problems facing mainstream Australia. Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan has been on the front foot on this issue, stating:
‘When people are stuck in deadlocked traffic or can’t find somewhere to live, they should ask themselves why is Labor running a Big Australia.’
The IPA also found that seven in ten Australians want pensioners, veterans, and students to receive first preference for local jobs. Rather than taking the short-sighted, lazy approach of more migration to spur economic growth, governments must act urgently to get Australian pensioners, veterans, and students into the workforce.
To his credit, Peter Dutton has called for Australians to have priority when filling vacancies in the labour market. It is clear that concerns in the community about unplanned, mass migration are starting to hit home in the corridors of power.
Removing all red tape and tax barriers facing Australians who wish to enter the workforce is a simple and effective policy measure that is good for them and good for our nation.
Allowing more Australians into the workforce will improve productivity, incentivise private investment in the economy, and increase tax revenue for the federal government. It’s a win-win-win policy with broad community support, and our leaders in Canberra must back it in.
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Tony Abbott and John Howard join Jordan Peterson-led group looking at ‘meaning of life’
The former prime ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard are among six Australians who have joined a global group fronted by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and backed by a pro-Brexit hedge fund billionaire and a Dubai-based investment group.
The group – The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) – has been gathering high-profile figures from politics, industry, academia and thinktanks for an inaugural three-day conference in London in late October.
Peterson has said the conference would look at “issues metaphysical, cultural and practical” and “issues pertaining to the meaning of life” but also to “become practical with regard to the realisation of policy”.
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The Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg and the American commentator Michael Shellenberger, who have both questioned the urgency of the climate crisis compared with other global problems, are on the group’s advisory committee.
Also on the committee are Australia’s shadow defence minister, Andrew Hastie, and a former deputy prime minister, John Anderson.
Company records in the UK show Arc has two shareholders – the Dubai-based investment management group Legatum Ventures and the British investor and Brexiter Sir Paul Marshall.
According to The Times Rich List, in 2020 Marshall was worth about $1.1bn and is co-founder of Marshall Wace, reported to be one of the world’s biggest hedge funds.
Legatum and Marshall are major investors in GB News, the rightwing and partisan alternative news outlet launched in 2021.
One of Legatum’s four founders, the billionaire Christopher Chandler, told the Guardian in 2018 he made “hundreds of millions” from investments in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and at one point owned 4% of the gas giant Gazprom with his brother Richard Chandler. The businessman was already rich when he invested in Russia soon after the end of the USSR.
A “statement of vision and interpretation” for Arc includes six “fundamental questions” around energy, environmental stewardship, families and societies.
Discussing the questions, Peterson has said there are “no excuses for putting forward energy policies that punish those who are absolutely poor”.
“We have no right to deny the developing world the opportunity to pursue the opportunities that we have been blessed to pursue.”
The vision document says: “We at ARC do not believe that humanity is necessarily and inevitably teetering on the brink of apocalyptic disaster.
“We posit, instead, that men and women of faith and decisiveness, made in the image of God, can arrange their affairs with care and attention so that abundance and opportunity could be available for all.”
The document asks how it might “effectively conceptualise, value and reward the sacrificial, long-term, peaceful, child-centred intimate relationships upon which psychological integrity and social stability most fundamentally depend.”
Peterson has said a model for this was “something approximating the nuclear family” with “long-term, committed, stable heterosexual marriages sanctified by the community”.
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Qld budget’s power play: ’Free’ electricity, huge infrastructure spend
Electricity will be nearly “free” for Queensland’s most vulnerable and all households are in line for a $550 power bill reprieve in a Palaszczuk government state budget cost of living cash splash unapologetically funded by slugging mining companies.
And while families tighten their purse strings the government will move to spend $89bn on its infrastructure “Big Build” out to mid-2027, vowing to back its signature energy, health and Olympic projects despite rising construction costs.
The whopping $15.3bn coal royalties windfall — three times what the government had expected — has also delivered the state government a one-year only “record-breaking” surplus which immediately dips into the red in 2023/24.
And while net debt will be $5.8bn this financial year rather than an expected $19.7bn, the government’s need to borrow for its Big Build means the net debt over time will be larger than initially expected.
Treasurer Cameron Dick, emboldened by the heft of the coal royalties riches, confirmed the state government will not budge on mining tax changes it made last year and vowed to “keep fighting” the coal lobby.
The centrepiece of the 2023/24 Palaszczuk government budget is immediate and temporary cost of living relief delivered through a $1.5bn electricity rebate package which builds on power bill relief announced by the federal government.
Small business will receive no added government help, with a $650 energy rebate announced in the federal budget unchanged.
Queensland’s 2.2m households will receive at least $550 off their power bills in the 2023/24 financial year.
Eligible vulnerable Queenslanders including pensioners — already in line for a $500 rebate — will receive a double-punch top up worth a combined $522 to bring their total bill help to $1072.
Mr Dick said this meant many “low-income Queensland households, such as pensioners, may pay nothing for electricity next financial year”.
It’s understood about 64,000 customers of major energy retailer Ergon won’t pay a power bill due to the size of the relief for vulnerable Queenslanders.
The average household power bill in southeast Queensland is expected to be $1969 in the upcoming financial year, while those in the regions will be slugged $1926.
The power rebate builds on other cost of living relief measures in the budget including a $645m package across four years to make kindergarten free for all Queensland children from January 1.
Mr Dick unapologetically said coal royalties, including changes made to the regime last year which added an extra tier to take advantage of sky high prices, had made a “very significant contribution” to the budget.
“I don’t step back from that fight at all,” he said.
“I’ll fight them (the Queensland Resources Council) every day because Queenslanders see very clear in this budget what we’re delivering back them.”
Coal royalties raked in a phenomenal $15.3bn for the state in the 2022/23 financial year, $10.5bn of it from the new tier — far higher than the $5.4bn in total coal royalties expected, with $765m meant to come from the change.
Overall the coal royalties changes will rake in $7.2bn for the state over four years, up from the $1.2bn Treasury had initially forecast in last year’s budget.
Rivers of coal gold have led to the Palaszczuk government delivering what it touts as the biggest budget surplus delivered by any state government anywhere in the nation — at $12.3bn — in the 2022/23 financial year.
But the government will go directly back into a $2.2bn deficit in 2023/24, projecting thin surpluses between $105m and $377m in the years after.
Net debt was set to be $19.7bn this financial year, but has been brought down to $5.8bn.
The figure will increase substantially in future years — though lower than initially expected — climbing to $47bn in 2026/27.
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12 June, 2023
‘Symbols of hate’: The lingering afterlife of Croatian fascism in Australia
I have had some contact with this group. I was invited to attend a club meeting in Sydney in the late '60s of a very conservative club called the 50 Club -- with premises in Darlinghurst. It was a lunchtime meeting that I went to and the food was notably good. Most of the members were Croatians and the leading light was Lyenko Urbanchich (Ljenko Urbancic). The Ustasha was mentioned with some admiration occasionally.
But they were never more than a talk shop. Several of them joined the Liberal party in attempt to shift it rightward, with Urbanchich having some prominence in the iberal Party for a while. The Liberals eventually got wind of his antisemitism, however, and he was sidelined. A fuller history of Urbanchich and his activities is here, in an article by Mark Aarons, former head of the Communist Party of Australia
Urbanchich
So as far as I can tell, Balkan Rightists have no influence outside of their own circles and need be of no particular concern.
When a small group of Croatian emigres met in 1953 in a humble weatherboard house in Footscray, a world away from the strife of a destroyed Europe, they formed a soccer club that would help transform the sport and twice be champions of Australia.
But from the start, that meeting in inner Melbourne was not just about soccer.
That small group of migrants deliberately chose to start their club on April 10. In 1953, that was the 12th anniversary of the creation of a Nazi-backed puppet state in Croatia. That state, ruled by a movement called the Ustasha, on conservative estimates killed 500,000 Serbs, Jews and Romani people during the war.
At the meeting to create the club, which later became the Melbourne Knights, was Srecko Rover, a man who would play a pivotal role in the emerging Croatian community in Australia.
He was a man with a dark history. During the war, Rover was part of the Ustasha elite and, as journalist Mark Aarons later wrote, had overseen mobile execution squads.
On Hitler’s birthday in 1944, Ustasha dictator Ante Pavelic awarded Rover the prestigious Small Silver Medal for his role in battles against “renegades”. Rover denied detailed witness accounts of crimes and died in 2005.
The story of the Melbourne Knights is a microcosm of the tensions within a large migrant community, Croatian Australians, over their history.
It presents uncomfortable questions about the mainstreaming of far-right symbolism – ASIO has identified the rise of political extremism in general as a significant concern – and how to deal with the past in a multicultural country where many experience direct or intergenerational trauma from genocide.
Many of the experts interviewed for this investigation said views in sections of the Croatian diaspora in Australia were much more extreme than in modern-day Croatia, with displays of support for fascism more open and mainstream.
It is clear that a minority of Croatians in Australia still choose to celebrate Croatia’s fascist past. They range from young people performing stiff-arm salutes at the soccer, to people controlling some of the community’s most important institutions – its community centres and soccer clubs. Ustasha flags were also observed at anti-lockdown protests during the pandemic.
Flags, clothing and key rings decorated with the symbols and phrases of the Ustasha – including portraits of dictator Ante Pavelic – are being sold from Sydney, with the content shared and celebrated across social media.
The open celebration of that past is a source of tension with Serbian and Jewish Australians.
Croatia’s ambassador to Australia, Betty Pavelich, told this masthead there was no place for the “glorification of totalitarian regimes, extremism or intolerance”.
“We firmly believe that it behoves us all to ensure that disinformation, glorification and the mainstreaming of criminal, totalitarian ideologies, their symbols and movements, do not take root in modern societies,” she said.
Pavelich added it was important not to malign “law-abiding and respectful communities, based on the unacceptable views and behaviour of small groups of individuals”.
At the Knights, which hope to enter soccer’s national second division next year, there is no public disavowal that one of their founders was an accused war criminal. Rather his role is celebrated, as is the Ustasha-linked date of the club’s birth, April 10.
“It was these people that began a story, tradition and movement that we uphold today,” the club proclaimed via social media on the day in 2019. “The date was and still is a symbol of the struggle for Croatian independence and a reminder of how and why the Croatian people ended up living in the far-flung reaches of the globe.”
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The Age sacks star columnist Julie Szego after ‘disparaging comments’ over trans article furore
The editor of The Age has sacked one of the masthead’s star columnists after she called out the publication over its refusal to run an article she wrote on youth gender transition.
According to The Australian, journalist Julie Szego posted on social media last week that while she had been commissioned to write a feature-length story about the contentious issue by The Age’s former editor Gay Alcorn, the newspaper’s current boss Patrick Elligett refused to run it.
Szego, a freelancer who has written for The Age on and off for more than two decades, then chose to self-publish the 5000-word piece on her own Substack page.
She told her social media followers her new blog will be a site where: “I’ll be writing about gender identity politics … without the copy being rendered unreadable by a committee of woke journalists redacting words they deem incendiary, such as ‘male’.”
Szego later told The Australian that the post about her colleagues at The Age was “a vague and cheeky comment that was not intended to put anyone down”, but it had been cited by Elligett as a reason to sack her as a columnist.
“I love my former comrades at The Age,” Szego said in the exclusive interview. “I have no bitterness whatsoever, but this issue of gender identity politics is causing tensions in newsrooms around the world and The Age is no different.”
Szego said she believed her story was “measured”, and that despite suggestions to the contrary she does not hold a firm view one way or another on paediatric transition.
Szego also said the fact that she attended the controversial Let Women Speak rally in Melbourne in March had been used as part of a whispering campaign against her.
“I attended the rally, I was conspicuous with notebook and pen,” she said, The Australian reports. “I attended as a journalist because I wanted to get some colour from the event as I’m hoping to write a book on the wider debate. “My attendance at the rally caused great suspicion in there (The Age’s newsroom).”
The Australian also spoke to editor Patrick Elligett, who said he explained to Szego why he would not publish the article, and said The Age “continues to cover the issue of gender policy with balance, nuance and accuracy. It is an issue many of our competitors will not touch.”
Szego’s interpretation of that conversation differs. “Patrick told me he could not publish my piece under my byline because it would damage the reputation of the masthead,” she told The Australian on Sunday. “I would suggest he’s damaged the masthead more by not publishing it.”
Szego said she received a text message from Elligett last week, informing her that she would no longer be writing for The Age because of her social media post about her “woke” colleagues.
“Obviously we can’t have our columnists publicly disparaging the publication like that so we won’t be commissioning further columns from you,” she claimed Elligett said.
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"We can't afford to shut Eraring": Central-West mayor warns
NSW cannot afford to lose Eraring Power Station any time soon based on the current pace of the state's renewable energy infrastructure rollout, Mid-Western Council's mayor believes.
The Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone is the first of five clean energy generation hubs that are due to be built across the state as part of a plan to deliver at least 12 gigawatts of renewable generation and 2 gigawatts of long-duration storage by 2030.
The zone's "energisation date" was recently pushed back from 2025 to 2027-28 due to an increase in proposed project size from 3 gigawatts to 4.5 gigawatts.
Similarly, the New England zone, which abuts the Hunter Region, will now start in 2029 compared with an initial 2027 goal. The Hunter-Central Coast zone will follow.
Despite the ambitions for the Central-West Orana REZ, Mid-Western Council Brad Cam said there was very little progress to show to date.
"Nothing has been built yet. Based on the number of solar panels that are due to be installed in the Central-West Orana REZ, you would need a shipping container full of panels arriving in the Port of Newcastle every day for the next 365 days," he said.
"Ninety per cent of the world's solar panels come from China and they can't keep up with demand. So tell me where we are going to get the panels we need for this project in the next 12 months."
"The bottom line is we simply can't afford to shut Eraring in 2025. If they do the state will be stuffed."
The lack of firmed baseload power is among the factors contributing to escalating power prices.
Energy Consumers Australia data shows the proportion of households and small businesses concerned about being able to pay their electricity bills has risen above 50 per cent.
In addition to the lack of skilled workers needed to build the Central-West Orana REZ, Mr Cam said there were major concerns about the lack of infrastructure and community services, including health, police and water, in place to support the project.
"They are talking about putting in a 1000-bed camp for the workers who will be installing the high voltage infrastructure. But who's going to service it," Mr Cam said.
"We (the council) need 12 months to prepare and build up a sewer treatment plant and a water filtration plant. Then there's the issue of where are they going to get the construction water from?"
"I think they (the government) are sick of listening to me. "I'm just trying to be practical to help them understand there needs to be better planning and better organisation for this to roll forward," he said.
"In simple terms, we understand the NSW Energy Roadmap relies on green energy being generated in these zones to be accessible to the Hunter via new transmission lines proposed to be built," he said.
"Not only is this intended to underwrite supply for existing demand in Sydney and the Hunter, but also being counted on to be the source of green electrons for new industry that will simply not eventuate without renewable energy being available and affordable.
"We're aware of issues in relation to the provision of labour force and road transportation of materials to supply large-scale renewable projects and if kinks along this pathway become prevalent, its only going to add to the concerns currently being expressed in the Central West."
An EnergyCo spokesman said supply chain cost increases due to global efforts to decarbonise and a significant but necessary transmission route design change to avoid negative impacts on the Merriwa-Cassilis communities and prime agricultural land had impacted the Central West-Orana REZ timeline.
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Trio of big issues take toll on Albanese government
Peta Credlin
For the first time, the Albanese government is starting to look less than politically bulletproof. Over the past week, it’s been assailed over three issues which, in combination, while nothing like enough to turn it into a one-term wonder, certainly should finally end its long honeymoon.
There’s the ongoing price pain, that government actions are now widely thought to be making worse, not better. There’s the ongoing energy madness, which industry leaders are finally starting to call out.
And there’s also the apparent involvement of senior Labor ministers with the Brittany Higgins rape claim in order to embarrass the Morrison government rather than promote justice for women.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher is in real trouble. If the text messages from Higgins’ boyfriend David Sharaz are to be believed, Gallagher knew that the Higgins rape allegation was about to break and was in on the plot to weaponise it against the government.
Maybe activists, journos and pollies pitching scandals to score political points just evokes a yawn among the public. Still, misleading parliament, as Gallagher may have done, remains a hanging offence for a minister.
There’s also the more potent difficulty that the government paid as much as $3m to compensate Higgins over an alleged rape that has never been proven and has been denied by the alleged perpetrator.
The whole episode now looks to have been exploited for the specific purpose of embarrassing the previous government, giving it more than the whiff of a pay-off – especially given she was paid out in near record time, with Reynolds herself banned from defending taxpayers against the Higgins claims.
Naturally, the Prime Minister is standing by his minister.
The fact that Anthony Albanese went out of his way to insist that this was not something that should be referred to the new integrity commission suggests that he’s worried about what more might come out, especially if key players are forced to testify under oath. The fact Gallagher went to ground late last week is telling, too, but with parliament back this week she’ll have nowhere to hide.
Then we had the procession of ministers, from the PM down, trying to spin a line that the latest interest rate hikes were nothing to do with them; instead, they were solely driven by the Reserve Bank. But the reality is that May’s big-spending budget and the near 9 per cent boost to minimum wages has hit inflation, and both issues sit squarely with the Albanese government.
The very fact that they’re so desperate to blame others is the clearest indication yet that voter anger is showing up in Labor’s polling.
Then there’s the crisis in our energy sector, with not just skyrocketing prices breaking consumers but now the threat of blackouts and unreliable supply over winter.
Serious industry players spoke loudly last week – many for the first time – about how Australia’s renewables transition is too much, too quickly. They said it defied engineering reality. That it will cost many billions more than government is letting on. That we must have nuclear power in the mix.
While the government may be able to brazen its way through the increasingly messy Higgins matter, with the support of its media friendlies, higher interest rates and skyrocketing power prices are objective realities that can be addressed only if the government is prepared to change its policy on wages, on spending programs like the NDIS, and on climate. Is this government prepared to admit that it’s got anything significantly wrong?
I doubt that very much.
A showdown between a government on a mission and an electorate that doesn’t like the consequent pain is almost inevitable.
So, the penny has now dropped for me on the infamous “Mean Girls” affair that made the final months of Labor senator Kimberley Kitching’s life so miserable.
At the time, I couldn’t reconcile why Labor leader Anthony Albanese steadfastly refused to hold an inquiry into credible claims, including written statements from Kitching, that she was viciously bullied by a trio of her Labor senate colleagues, Katy Gallagher, Penny Wong and the now ousted Kristina Keneally. I couldn’t understand why the party accusing the Morrison government of not doing enough to support women would leave these claims untested and, worse, why the media let him get away with it. But now it’s crystal clear.
The trigger for Kimberley Kitching’s fallout with her colleagues, and the retaliatory bullying that followed, including demoting her, stemmed from the fact she refused to support their plan to use the yet-to-be revealed rape claim by Brittany Higgins as a weapon against the Coalition.
At the time, Kitching was in Labor’s senate tactics group and when she discovered what was being worked up, she spoke out against it internally and, according to the Liberal minister in the middle of it, Linda Reynolds, reached out to warn her (something Kitching denied – I suspect to save her preselection).
All of this came out in a senate estimates hearing where, when confronted by Reynolds that she knew of the Higgins claims beforehand, Gallagher screamed back at Reynolds, “no one had any knowledge … how dare you?” Reynolds went further, alleging that Wong and Gallagher later admitted to her in a private meeting they did in fact know about the Higgins matter before it broke publicly.
Unlike Gallagher, it wouldn’t appear that Wong has misled the Senate although Wong’s said she did not know the “full details” of the matter which is a different than not knowing “any” details. How could Albanese hold any inquiry into the Kitching abuse, and risk all the Higgins scheming coming out? He couldn’t because the real risk for him was that any investigation would expose the use by Labor (and others) of a vulnerable young woman, to bring down the Morrison government.
And he relied on a compliant (and conflicted) media to help sweep it all under the carpet given we also know that key media personalities were in on the strategy. If Labor thought paying Higgins millions in compensation would make the problem go away, it hasn’t.
In fact, the payment is now the surest avenue to expose this scandal given the scope of the new federal anti-corruption watchdog, which opens its doors on July 1.
As more and more comes out, we are reminded again of the unique politician we lost in Kimberley Kitching, because regardless of how you vote, she was a woman of integrity, and parliament is all the poorer without her.
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11 June, 2023
‘Absolutely stunned’: Sperm counts are falling faster than ever
This scare article on an old topic is just another way of promoting a whole host of irrational Greenie fears about "chemicals" in the environment. Big problem: As far as we can tell, overall sperm counts are NOT declining. See
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-sperm-counts-really-declining/
And the emphasis on sperm counts is outdated anyway. We now know that sperm motility is the crucial factor. Sperm count is a correlate of motility but is not itself the problem. I have always had a low sperm count but had good sperm motility, so had no trouble fertilizing the egg that became my robust sonChemicals in tin can linings, cosmetics, nail polish, teflon pans and flame retardants on cushions have been linked to a steep decline in sperm counts and a potential “crisis in human reproduction”, Australian fertility specialists have been warned.
Sperm counts have fallen 52 per cent in the past five decades – and the decline appears to be speeding up – experts at the 2023 Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand conference were told this week.
Leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologist Dr Shanna Swan has studied the effects of chemicals now common in everyday life and the environment on male fetus development. She was “absolutely stunned” to discover a key reason for falling sperm production was chemicals that can interfere with the body’s hormones.
Chemicals known as phthalates, found in personal care products, fragrances, plastics and even dust, were among those affecting development of baby boys, via the mother’s exposure in early pregnancy, Swan said. Chemicals known as BPAs, found in plastics, were also to blame.
An exposed boy’s future offspring would also likely be affected, said Swan, a professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
An updated meta-analysis of studies from around the world found sperm counts were declining worldwide “at an even faster rate than we thought”.
“It was about 1 per cent per year since 1972, and from 2000 on, it was 2.64 per cent, which says sperm count is declining at an accelerated rate,” she said.
Swan predicts that by the middle of the century, many more people will rely on reproductive technologies.
Swan said her latest research had accounted for differences in the measurement of sperm.
“[The effects] don’t stop with the pregnant woman, or the pregnant woman’s offspring. The child, in the next generation will be impaired similarly,” she said.
“We have a multigenerational impact, and probably impacts on life expectancy and morbidity [illness] are also going to be there for those children.”
Professor Roger Hart, lead clinician for the Western Australian public fertility service, is part of the world’s oldest longitudinal study of development from pre-birth through to adulthood, the federally funded Raine Study.
He said its findings supported Swan’s.
The University of Western Australia professor and sub-specialist in endocrinology and infertility said just 14.4 per cent of boys born during the study – which began in 1989 with a cohort of almost 3000 women – had sperm counts that met the minimum standard.
One Raine finding was that sperm concentration and motility in the offspring were significantly linked to BPAs in the mother’s blood.
“We found if the boy’s exposure to phthalates was higher in utero, [then] when they were 21 their testicles were significantly smaller. According to how much exposure you had, testicular volume was reduced,” Hart said.
“It is very much in line with Shanna’s [work]; she’s reporting that sperm counts have dropped by half in 50 years ... Obviously, we need to study further to see what the causes [of sperm decline] are – but this is pretty amazing stuff.”
But associate professor Tim Moss, of the not-for-profit men’s health organisation Healthy Male, urged caution in drawing a link between chemical exposure and men’s infertility.
Moss, a former president of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand, said he believed the studies examined by Swan’s group were limited.
Hart’s work showed effects of BPAs and phthalate exposure were “borderline, if anything; but this does not mean that there is not an effect”, he said.
Moss argued three years ago in The Conversation that the “doomsday scenario” for sperm production suggested in Swan’s original metanalysis had not been adequately proven.
“It’s reasonable to expect chemicals that affect hormone function in our bodies ... could affect reproduction in males and females, given available evidence. But we don’t have irrefutable proof,” he wrote.
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A case study of why it is so difficult to build new homes
A lot of different people insert themselves into the process and have to be placated in some way. We all pay a price for the delay that they cause -- in the form of fewer residences being built per year and the resulting higher accommodation costs
A row over a proposed 855-dwelling project which would house 2,000 residents at Zetland is being seen as a test for the New South Wales government in the battle over Sydney development.
The site is on prime real estate, 5 kilometres from the CBD and just behind Southern Cross Drive, one of Sydney's busiest arterial roads.
It's also become the centre of a stoush between one of Australia's richest men, and the neighbouring Randwick City Council, as Sydney grapples with a housing shortage.
NSW Premier Chris Minns last week made it clear his vision to address Sydney's housing issues was to reduce urban sprawl and create more densely populated inner-city suburbs.
Billionaire Harry Triguboff, Meriton Group's managing director, says his company is trying to do just that with its blueprint for the Zetland site, which includes a 25-storey tower.
"You know that we need apartments, people have nowhere to live. I build every year, 2,000 apartments. So I provide the most in the country," he told the ABC.
But some residents from nearby Randwick City Council area have banded together in opposition, calling a public meeting tonight to air their concerns — and the local mayor is behind them.
Forecast to grow to around 32,000 homes by 2036 with up to 70,000 residents, Zetland symbolises the government's battle to manage a liveable city alongside increasing housing density.
Meriton's proposed developments would be on one of the largest remaining sites — once home to a car dealership — in the vast urban renewal precinct at Green Square.
The state government is under pressure to review the plan from Randwick City Council, angry locals, and one of its own ministers.
West Kensington resident Jane Grusovin said tonight's public meeting was called because of problems facing the area like traffic gridlock, a lack of public transport and affordable housing.
Ms Grusovin said Green Square desperately needed a Metro station, more schools and parks, and argued the growing population was putting surrounding areas under pressure.
"The problem with this Meriton planning proposal on the old Sutton's Holden site, is the densification without the infrastructure to support it," she said.
Mr Minns faces opposition to the project from within his own party.
Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig will speak at the meeting and opposes the development.
Mr Hoenig, whose electorate of Heffron takes in Zetland, called for a moratorium on further development in a January social media post.
"I'm for good quality high-density apartment living when the people can be moved, educated, housed, and provided health services. That is not Zetland," he said in it.
Randwick Council's critique calls for the proposal to look more closely at the impact of traffic and transport, height, visual impact and overshadowing on the residents of West Kensington.
An old house with an apartment block in the background
The new development will be situated to the left of this apartment block in Zetland.(ABC News: Harriet Tatham)
Randwick Mayor Dylan Parker said reports showed that, even as far back as 2009, roads and traffic in the area was a concern.
The only railway station at Green Square is crowded at peak times, although, a new metro station in the neighbouring suburb of Waterloo is due to open next year.
The South East Sydney Transport Study (SESTS) in 2020 pointed to the urgent need for a Metro station at Zetland and rapid bus routes, but there was no "firm commitment" to these projects by the state government, Mr Parker said.
Meriton believes the proposal's impact on traffic would be minimal, with Southern Cross Drive "on the doorstep" and 952 car spaces being built for 855 dwellings to alleviate pressure on street parking.
Spotlight on height limits
The leafy, wide streets of West Kensington sit just across the other side of Southern Cross Drive, east of the planned development.
Randwick Council, which oversees Kensington, argues the visual impact of the development's 25-storey tower on the heritage suburb needs to be considered.
Resident Megan Smith already lives in the shadow of another multi-storey apartment block built in Zetland, adjacent to the site of the proposed development.
She has written to the City of Sydney about the intrusion on her family's privacy and her objection to height rezoning allowing a tower 90 metres high in one corner of the planned site.
"We totally understand that councils have to provide housing for people. We're not against that at all. But just raising the height limits from 30 metres to 90 metres is outrageous," she said.
Meriton said its shadow diagrams indicated two or three buildings would be overshadowed in Randwick local government area, and Mr Triguboff dismissed concerns about privacy due to the development being on the other side of the Eastern Distributor.
Independent councillor Yvonne Weldon, Greens Deputy Mayor Sylvie Ellsmore and Labor's Linda Scott raised concerns when the proposal came before Sydney City Council in December 2022.
They voted against it being placed on public display and handed to the state government for a final decision.
Ms Weldon would like to see affordable housing included in the development, and points out the city has already met "very ambitious" housing targets set for Zetland.
"When we have major developments such as this, I don't understand why there isn't more done to actually incorporate affordable and social housing in existing developments," she said.
In a statement, Meriton said its latest offer to Sydney City Council included the construction of 25 affordable-housing units and a cash contribution to provide additional affordable housing.
"Council has asked us for it to be in so it's within our development, but it's in its own building, which we then give to them so they can manage it as they see fit, which they prefer," Mr Triguboff said.
The offer responds to issues raised by public submissions on the development.
How global cities tackle housing crisis
Renting and buying in the Harbour City has never been less affordable, but the solutions to the deepening crisis could be staring us right in the face.
University of NSW architecture professor and former City of Sydney councillor Philip Thalis said some people were choosing to live in Green Square because they could not afford to live in suburbs like Kensington.
"There's a huge equity issue here. And if you actually look at the demographics of Green Square, predominantly young people, whether they're renting or buying their first home, these are the people we actually need to look after," he said.
"I'm much more concerned about what's happening [with development] in places like Granville. I'm much more concerned about what's happened in Carlingford. What's happening at Mascot Town Centre?"
After City of Sydney has reviewed public submissions, the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) will finalise the project's Local Environment Plan (LEP) in September, under the minister's delegation.
"They will ensure all matters raised by the community and government agencies will be adequately addressed prior to a final decision being made," a DPE spokesperson said in a statement.
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Senior child psychiatrist stood down after questioning gender medicine
The suspension of a senior staff psychiatrist over her approach to transgender patients has thrown the Queensland Children’s Hospital into turmoil, casting a spotlight on widespread concerns among doctors at the treatment of children with gender dysphoria.
The case of Jillian Spencer – stood down from clinical duties apparently accused of transphobia – has exposed a culture in which clinicians are unable to employ medical discretion or a neutral therapeutic stance and are bound by their employment to affirm children’s gender transition.
Dr Spencer, a senior staff specialist in the QCH’s consultation liaison psychiatry team, was removed from clinical duties in mid-April following a patient complaint in an unusual response from a public hospital that followed months of conflict over affirmative gender medicine and trans identity politics within the hospital.
The case has prompted other doctors to raise concerns about the operation of the hospital’s gender clinic and the lack of co-ordination with its adolescent mental health service, the young age at which vulnerable patients with complex presentations are being prescribed cross-sex hormones, and the advocacy role of the gender clinic’s nurses who are running education sessions for public school nurses on chest binding.
Some staff members employed at the QCH have spoken of their concern at the way Dr Spencer’s case was being handled after the hospital drew upon its powers to compel staff under employment law to use children’s preferred pronouns, even though doing so was regarded by the Cass review as an active treatment measure as part of a social transition process that could lead to a cascade of medical interventions.
The hospital has also banned any discouragement of referrals to the gender clinic.
Some doctors at the hospital hold concerns that children are being prescribed hormone treatments after only two consultations at the Queensland Children’s Gender Service, with teenagers being approved for cross-sex hormones, which carry side-effects of sterility and loss of sexual function, sometimes at just 14 years old. This is despite the UK and several European countries adopting a more cautious approach to the prescription of such drugs amid concerns – also expressed by NSW’s Westmead gender clinic doctors – the evidence base was lacking.
The QCGS has 922 patients on its books and, according to FOI documents, prescribed cross-sex hormones to 102 adolescents in 2022 – more than twice as many as the Melbourne Children’s Hospital’s gender clinic. However, the true number of patients on hormones may be significantly greater as many are referred to private clinicians who prescribe to children under the care of QCGS.
Nurses employed by the gender service have been running “chest binder fitting sessions” for patients, as well as providing training to public school-based health nurses on chest binding.
The hospital not only actively pushes pronouns compliance by staff but also enters patients in the medical records as the gender they identify as, rather than their sex-based gender. Some doctors are opposed to this as it renders sex-based measures such as growth charts inaccurate among other medical implications.
QCH management did not respond to specific questions concerning all of these issues. A spokesperson for Children’s Health Queensland said: “The safety and wellbeing of children and young people in our care is always our highest priority.”
“All treatment and care provided by the Queensland Children’s Gender Service is guided by the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People (8th edition),” the spokesperson said. “In line with Children’s Health Queensland’s universal person-centred care approach, we respect the individual needs and preferences of every child … and their right to feel safe and supported while receiving clinical care through our services.”
The hospital operates on the basis that gender dysphoria results in serious mental health problems if not treated early and in accordance with internationally recognised practice.
Dr Spencer is prevented from speaking about her employment, but a number of Queensland medics aware of the circumstances of the psychiatrist’s case have spoken to The Weekend Australian.
The matter that led to Dr Spencer’s removal from clinical duties is understood to relate to an assessment she carried out in the hospital’s paediatrics ward of a mentally troubled 14-year-old who was under the care of the hospital’s gender clinic and had been taking puberty blockers.
Following the consultation, an apparent complaint of transphobia was levelled by the patient, and it was deemed by the hospital executive that Dr Spencer represented a risk to the safety of trans and gender-diverse children. Sources familiar with the matter said the psychiatrist has not been provided details of the complaint by the hospital.
“This is completely unusual,” said Dylan Wilson, a Queensland paediatrician informed of the situation. “This is not standard in terms of managing complaints.”
Dr Spencer is a signatory to the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists’ guide to managing gender dysphoria and incongruence in young people, which advocates a cautious approach and comprehensive mental health assessment. Her concerns about the lack of an evidence base underpinning gender-affirmative medicine and the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children were well-known within the hospital.
“Doctors in no way should be punished for expressing any concerns about a treatment pathway in any speciality in any form,” said NAPP’s president, psychiatrist Philip Morris.
“It would be completely outrageous if expressing concerns which are echoed by international organisations resulted in any form of disciplinary action.”
Children’s Health Queensland said it was, by law, unable to comment on employment matters but noted all employees were bound by public sector codes of conduct.
Dr Spencer has become so concerned at what she believes are the harms to children of the affirmative medicine model – which came under heavy scrutiny during a review in the UK by paediatrician Hilary Cass, who concluded there is a lack of evidence underpinning it – that she has appeared at women’s rights rallies and detailed her concerns at the “massive health risks” from hormone drugs and surgeries.
She told a recent rally in Canberra she was deeply concerned at the current culture in which “anyone’s child will be encouraged at school, online, during extra-curricular activities, by their friends and by health professionals to contemplate their gender”.
“Even little kids are being encouraged to contemplate their gender,” Dr Spencer said. “For some children this turns into an enduring preoccupation and they start to believe that the solution to any difficulties that they are facing lies in changing their bodies. From this point on the nightmare for families begins.
“Because they slowly come to realise that there is collusion going on between teachers, health professionals, child protection services and even the courts to ensure that all children are affirmed even if their parents disagree with that approach.
“Suddenly you’ll see what you never had cause to notice before: rainbow lanyards around the necks of health professionals and teachers, trans pride flags … in the waiting room at the health clinic, adults asking your child their preferred pronouns and using them … Wherever you try to move there is a professional there ready to trans your child.
“It will suddenly dawn on you (you) are not in with a chance to protect your child. These people you are relying on for help in the village it takes to raise a child are not actually interested in the long-term welfare of your child. They don’t suffer if your child becomes infertile or never experiences sexual pleasure or lives with debilitating side-effects from puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
“But they feel like really good people because they’re being inclusive.”
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Parents left in the dark by new-age learning
In the jargon and edubabble much loved by new-age, Woke educrats teachers no longer teach, instead they are described as facilitators and guides by the side, and students, instead of being students, are knowledge navigators and digital natives where self-agency and self-directed, inquiry-based learning prevails.
Teacher-directed lessons have been scrapped to be replaced by collaborative, negotiated, goal-setting based on deep dives and holistic synergies. Instead of pass/fail, assessment is based on muti-tiered progression points and zones of proximal development.
Welcome to the mad, crazy world of 21st century learning where teachers are drowned in education gobbledegook making it impossible to teach effectively and to ensure students work hard to achieve the best results.
No wonder, despite the additional billions invested over the last 10 to 20 years education standards, as measured by international mathematics, science, and literacy tests, have either flatlined or gone backwards. Employers also complain about young employees lacking basic skills.
Teachers are no longer the masters of their subject based on the fact they know more than their students. Instead, learning is restricted to the world of the student. Teachers are told students must have choice, voice, and agency when it comes to what happens in the classroom.
Primary school children, in particular, are centre stage where self-directed learning draws on a process model that allows students to engage with the curriculum at their point of need and that engages them as the centrepiece in the inquiry cycle.
Students pose questions, seek answers, and are guided to become effective researchers where they take ownership and co-construct meaning with peers. To cater for all learning styles, success-criteria is outlined and/or co-constructed so that they can be set up for success, and ultimately be rewarded in the classroom.
When it comes to assessment the new-age classroom is also progressive and decidedly Woke. Gone are the days when students either passed or failed and where the class was ranked in terms of performance.
Those responsible for Australia’s National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) boast there is no pass/fail in the national test as students are assessed as either exceeding, strong, developing or needs additional support. Whatever that means.
Instead of summative assessment, where 4 out of 10 means fail and work is ranked A to E, teachers now use an assessment that is descriptive, diagnostic, collaborative, and based on a developmental continuum with various progression points.
Not only do students progress from year to year without any explicit measure of whether they have mastered what is required, but parents are left in the dark as their children progress through school. The first time students face a high-risk, objective test is Year 12.
Not surprisingly, one of the common complaints made by teachers is that instead of having the time and energy to actually teach and interact with students they are exhausted by a new-age approach to learning and assessment that is cumbersome, time-consuming, and counter-productive.
What needs to be done? Instead of meaningless edubabble what happens in the classroom should be expressed succinctly and directly in plain English based on what the evidence suggests is the most teacher friendly and effective approach.
Teachers, instead of being guides by the side, must be authority figures in charge of the classroom. Students, especially boys, need boundaries as the most effective classrooms are those where there is a disciplined, industrious environment with consistently enforced consequences for bad behaviour.
One of the reasons Australian classrooms are ranked among the most disruptive and noisy across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is because schools have adopted fads like open classrooms and teachers as friends instead of authority figures.
Teachers and schools must also set high expectations where students are pressured to excel instead of excusing failure because students are from so-called disadvantaged groups and less well-off communities.
One of the reasons Asian students in places like South Korea, Japan, and China outperform Australian students in international tests like TIMSS and PISA is because every student, whether poor or rich, city or country is pushed to excel.
The expression only a fool repeats again and again what has been proven to fail is especially true when it comes to education. Notwithstanding that the gobbledegook forced on teachers is responsible for falling standards and teacher burnout, it is still all pervasive.
The most recent asks teachers to implement a multi-tiered level system of teaching, involving ‘universal student screening, evidence-based interventions provided on a sliding scale of intensity, and progress monitoring of students receiving intervention’.
Asking teachers to evaluate and monitor every student, each lesson based on individualised learning programs and progression points, once again, overwhelms them with paperwork, taking time from actually teaching and raising standards.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/parents-left-in-the-dark-by-new-age-learning/
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Will regulating short-term accommodation help to ease the rental crisis?
There are few things more moronic than a Leftist government. First they create a shortage of properties to rent by imposing ever more onerous regulations that drive owners out of the long term rental business.
Now they want to regulate the short term market. Can we guess that increased regulation will drive owners out of that market too? Houses and apartments are fetching high prices these days so the temptation for owners to sell up and leave the government to its problems will be strong. The one thing governments are provably good at is REDUCING the number of properties available for rent
Australian rental market listings declined 18.9% in April, according to recent PropTrack data – the largest decline since December 2017. Now, there are calls for limits to be put on short stay accommodation as a potential solution to the problem.
Melbourne, Perth and Sydney are facing the toughest rental market conditions in the entire country, with total rental listings over the year falling 31.3%, 19.2% and 15.7%, respectively.
While some markets saw an increase in rental supply (mainly regional), total stock for rent remains significantly lower than at the start of the pandemic in both capital cities (-40.2%) and regional areas (-36.1%).
And with rental prices at the end of March 2023 sitting at a median of $500 per week in capital cities, an increase of 11.1% over the past 12 months, it’s like renters are being dealt a double blow.
The question of how to sustainably fix the rental supply issue and provide secure housing to the millions of Aussies who rent is now more pertinent than ever.
Is ending short-stay accommodation the answer?
“If the short stays industry is allowed to go unregulated, we just can’t have a healthy long-term rental market,” Gabrielle de Vietri Greens MP and State Member for Richmond said.
This has led the Greens to introduce a bill to parliament which would place strict regulations on the short stays industry in Victoria, with the aim to bring more properties back to the regular rental market.
“Some of the things we’re proposing is a 90-day cap on how many days someone can rent out a property on the short stays market,” de Vietri said.
Similar restrictions have already been placed on short-term stays in the cities of London and Amsterdam.
If this bill was passed, it could mean thousands of short stay accommodation listings on sites like Airbnb would potentially return to the long-term rental market, helping to ease the current rental crunch.
However, many oppose the bill, including Robynne Young who owns two Airbnbs in the Dandenong Ranges and Mornington Peninsula. Ms Young and partner Nick are using the income from these properties to self-fund their retirement. “They’re taking away our livelihood,” she said.
“I think we lose sight of the fact the tourism industry is integral to the Dandenong Ranges [and] neighbouring communities rely on it for their existence.”
Experts suggest a nuanced approach
A more balanced approach is needed according to Dr Tom Alves from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute:
“This form of accommodation can be a positive contribution to local economies and tourism in some places. However, at the same time, it’s harder for low-income earners who are a permanent part of a community to access affordable rental houses,” he explained.
As a response to the rental crisis Airbnb last year proposed state and territory governments introduce state-wide registration schemes and codes of conduct.
A tourism levy to fund housing and community projects, and a review of eviction protections have also been suggested by the accommodation listings site.
The NSW government has already introduced a 180-day cap on using empty properties for Airbnb-style letting in Sydney and other tourist hotspots.
And in October, the Queensland government announced an investigation into the impacts the short-term rental market was having on housing stock.
The long-term solution
Dr Alves suggested Australian lawmakers look to borrow from what the EU is doing and consider harmonised regulations across all states.
That could mean a nationwide cap on the number of days a property can be rented out on short-term accommodation sites, which may see more properties returning to the long-term rental market for the millions of Aussies struggling to find affordable rentals.
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British cardiologist calls for mRNA vaccines to be suspended due to heart risks
A British cardiologist has called for Covid vaccines to be suspended in Australia due to heart risks, accusing the TGA of a “cover-up”.
A controversial British cardiologist has called for the Pfizer and Moderna Covid shots to be suspended in Australia until the risk of heart complications is better understood, saying prior vaccines “have been pulled for much less”.
Dr Aseem Malhotra, who has emerged as one of the most high-profile figures in the anti-vaccine movement and is currently in Australia on a speaking tour, said it was a “no-brainer” and accused the medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), of ignoring the clear safety signal from its own reporting system once the rollout was well under way.
“People can be forgiving if new information comes in, we know people make mistakes — but once you get that information back, them not acting on it … the problem is the cover-up is worse than the crime,” he said.
The 45-year-old boasts an impressive resume but has become a polarising figure since last year, when he first called for the suspension of mRNA Covid vaccines and started making claims — which have been disputed by fact checkers — about their dangers.
Professor Marc Dweck, chair of clinical cardiology at the University of Edinburgh, told The Guardian in January that Dr Malhotra’s opinions were “misguided and in fact dangerous”.
“The vast majority of cardiologists do not agree with his views and they are not based upon robust science,” he said. “I would strongly urge patients to disregard his comments, which seem to be more concerned with furthering his profile … rather than the wellbeing of the public.”
Dr Malhotra, a National Health Service-trained consultant cardiologist and prominent public health commentator for many years in the UK — particularly on diet-related illnesses and the pharmaceutical industry — appeared on breakfast TV in 2021 to encourage Britons to get vaccinated.
But last July, his father, Dr Kailash Chand, former deputy chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) died unexpectedly of a cardiac arrest at 73.
“At the time people were trolling me, saying it was the vaccine, and I got really angry and blocked them, because that was not my mindset — but then I started to notice increased incidences in cardiac deaths and I started to wonder,” he told The Telegraph earlier this year.
He would come to attribute the death of his father, who he described as “one of the fittest guys I knew”, to the Covid booster shot six months earlier.
“Previous scans showed he had nothing significant, no underlying conditions,” he said.
Dr Malhotra has since courted controversy with inflammatory statements on social media linking high-profile deaths or injuries to the vaccine, such as the on-field cardiac arrest of American football player Damar Hamlin in January.
In April, Hamlin told reporters that “the diagnosis of what happened to me was commotio cordis”, or a “direct blow at a specific point in your heartbeat that causes cardiac arrest”.
Dr Malhotra has also linked unusually high excess death rates in many developed countries to the vaccination rollout.
That claim has been widely disputed by experts, who instead attribute the rise in deaths to factors including Covid itself, undiagnosed illnesses after lockdowns, and strain on health services.
In January, the BBC was forced to apologise after Dr Malhotra “hijacked” a live TV interview to claim that “Covid mRNA vaccines do carry a cardiovascular risk” and call for the rollout to be suspended pending an inquiry into excess deaths.
But Dr Malhotra is unrepentant.
“Basically, all patients with unexpected heart attacks or cardiac arrests have to be seen as being caused by the vaccine until proven otherwise — even several months later, so even, I would say, up to two years since having the vax,” he said.
“As a cardiologist, it is unusual to see sudden cardiac death. We have a mechanism of action, it would be unscientific not to include it as a potential cause. What the vaccine does is it accelerates the progress of coronary artery disease, so someone who otherwise wouldn’t have is going to present several months or a year later.”
In recent months Dr Malhotra has been on a “world tour of activism”, even making an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in April.
The description for his Australian tour says he will be “raising public awareness about vaccine injuries and providing a risk-benefit, evidence-based analysis of the Covid vaccines with special emphasis on cardiovascular complications and solutions”.
Despite speaking at a series of sold-out events in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast, Dr Malhotra’s Australian tour has been met with a virtual media blackout.
Save for an appearance on Sky News Australia and an article in the small local publication Canberra Weekly about his speech there, most media outlets have steered well clear.
Dr Malhotra said it only highlighted the disconnect between the public and institutions including government, health and media.
“What’s really interesting is everyone comes up to me and is aware, and doctors are seeing stuff, but they are generally afraid to say anything,” he said, adding he was meeting many doctors at his talks.
“You could argue I’m speaking to an echo chamber … [but] the professionals are very supportive — they’re horrified, sad. When you speak to people on the ground, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, everyone is aware of someone they know, either a family member or friend, who suffered a serious adverse event.”
Dr Malhotra said the “objective evidence to support the fact there is a disconnect between the public and the establishment is people are not turning up” to get boosters.
According to the most recent Health Department figures, 16.5 million Australians, or 82 per cent, had their last Covid vaccine more than six months ago, making them “out of date” under the new definition.
Just under 3.1 million, or 15 per cent, have had a vaccine within the last six months.
“There is a massive drop among people who are recommended to have boosters,” he said. “That [loss of trust] is not a good recipe — where does that lead us next?”
Myocarditis and pericarditis — inflammation of the heart or lining around the heart — are known but rare side effects of the mRNA vaccines.
According to the TGA, myocarditis is reported in one to two out of every 100,000 people who receive Pfizer or Moderna, but young men and boys are more at risk.
“These are usually temporary conditions, with most people getting better within a few days,” the TGA says. “Vaccination against Covid-19 is the most effective way to reduce deaths and severe illness from infection. The protective benefits of vaccination far outweigh the potential risks.”
As of May 28, 2023, the TGA has received 138,730 total adverse event reports from 67.4 million doses administered, a rate of 0.2 per cent.
The medicines regulator has identified 14 reports where the cause of death was linked to vaccination, from 986 reports received and reviewed.
But Dr Malhotra is one of a growing number of health professionals arguing the true rate of serious adverse events is far higher than reported.
He accused the TGA of “wilful blindness”.
“Think about it from a psychological perspective — they are responsible in a way for approving and the mandating of these vaccines for all Australian citizens — it’s not easy to suddenly acknowledge what they’ve done is harm people to such a significant degree,” he said.
“It’s much easier to bury your head in the sand. I would be mortified to know what I’d done, even accidentally. But having said that, it is their job — there has to be accountability.”
He stressed he was a supporter of vaccines, and that’s why “people have to believe in the safety of vaccines”.
“Historically, traditional vaccines have a serious adverse event rate of one in one million — other vaccines have been pulled for much less,” he said, citing the 1976 swine flu vaccine which carried a one in 100,000 risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and the 1999 rotavirus vaccine which was linked to bowel obstruction at a rate of one in 10,000.
In December, former AMA president Dr Kerryn Phelps broke her silence about the “devastating” vaccine injury she and her wife suffered after Pfizer.
In a bombshell submission to parliament’s Long Covid inquiry, the former federal MP revealed she had spoken with other doctors “who have themselves experienced a serious and persistent adverse event” but that “vaccine injury is a subject that few in the medical profession have wanted to talk about”.
“Regulators of the medical profession have censored public discussion about adverse events following immunisation, with threats to doctors not to make any public statements about anything that ‘might undermine the government’s vaccine rollout’ or risk suspension or loss of their registration,” she said.
Last week, Dr Phelps lent her tacit support to Dr Malhotra’s visit, sharing the Canberra Weekly article on social media in which he called for an inquiry into mRNA vaccines.
She declined to comment, however, saying she had not attended his talk in person.
Another high-profile physician, 2020 Australian of the Year Dr James Muecke, attended Dr Malhotra’s Adelaide talk over the weekend, happily posing for a photo afterwards.
But Dr Malhotra said there was a “culture of fear” with some people reluctant to even be seen attending his talks.
“All of this is suppression of free speech — Australians need to know their democracy is under attack,” he said.
The speaking tour is being arranged by the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS) — one of several splinter organisations born out of opposition to Covid vaccine mandates in 2021 — and sponsored by Gold Coast-based internet radio station TNT Radio, which the website Crikey recently described as “a home for Australia’s fringe political figures and international conspiracy theorists”.
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus in 2021 branded AMPS and other groups under the umbrella of Queensland-based Red Union as “fake unions run by LNP members and their associates set up to try and divide working people”.
Dr Malhotra countered that the smearing of anyone raising concerns as anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists or “cookers” was “part of the playbook” of the drug industry.
“One of the ways is through opposition fragmentation — it involves smearing and deplatforming those who are countering their narrative,” he said.
“This is not unusual. This is deliberate. If there are people who are in opposition, this is how we discredit them, this is how we frame them to other people in society. Big tobacco did it for many years — this is not new.”
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Trucks stuck in tunnels face deregistration after tunnel chaos prompts crackdown
It's not the trucks that are at fault. It's the drivers. Such drivers should face a lifetime ban on driving trucks
Trucks more than 30 centimetres overheight that get stuck in tunnels would automatically be referred for deregistration under a proposed crackdown after the Harbour Tunnel was blocked three times in two days.
Premier Chris Minns called the situation “intolerable” and said the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator needed to get tough or NSW would seize back the power to suspend registrations.
NHVR acting chief executive Ray Hassall told the Herald the regulator wanted severe overheight offences – those exceeding 300 millimetres above the limit – to automatically trigger a referral to suspend the truck’s registration. “We want the problem to be fixed as soon as possible,” he said.
Roads Minister John Graham will meet regulator chairman Duncan Gay, himself a former roads minister, on Thursday to discuss the 57 overheight incidents in Sydney tunnels so far this year.
About half of those were in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, including two on Tuesday – one in the morning peak and one in the afternoon – that caused traffic chaos. The southbound entrance was briefly closed again at lunchtime on Wednesday when another truck set off the warning system.
In that case, Road Freight NSW said the truck was under the limit but a twisted piece of plastic protruding from the top of the truck – of unknown provenance – triggered the sensor.
The government is also looking at repositioning warning systems further back from the southbound tunnel entrance, to give drivers earlier notice they are above the limit, and introducing personalised warning signs with the truck’s number plate.
“The infrastructure in the run-up to the Harbour Tunnel is a mess,” Minns told Nine’s 2GB radio on Wednesday. “The slip lane that trucks can pull into if they’re overheight apparently is in front of the final stop sign. Once you pass that final stop sign you’re in the mouth of the tunnel.”
Minns said only three offending trucks had been taken off the road since August and a fourth attempt was derailed in court. He warned the regulator that if it did not toughen up, the NSW government would take back the power to suspend registrations.
“Clearly the system isn’t working,” Minns said. “Something has to change and if necessary we’ll take that responsibility back into state hands and enforce it ourselves. The situation as it currently stands is intolerable.”
Under national laws, the regulator must refer “aggravated” overheight incidents to Transport for NSW for a truck’s registration to be suspended – which is a large financial impost for operators.
Graham wrote to Gay earlier this week asking for the regulator to help make this process easier. “Operators ... should be held accountable,” Graham wrote. “On multiple occasions in the last two weeks, NSW commuters have been left inconvenienced and frustrated.”
Hassall said the regulator was keen to be more stringent. “We want to use severe overheight offences as an automatic trigger for making a referral,” he said.
The NHVR also has four “chain of responsibility” investigations under way that could lead to prosecutions of trucking operators, Hassall said, and is investigating causal factors behind the apparent spate of incidents.
The NSW government rebuffed calls from lobby group Business Sydney to ban large trucks from the tunnel altogether, saying such a move would divert too many heavy trucks to the bridge, and they would clog up the city.
Tuesday morning’s incident in the Harbour Tunnel reportedly had traffic queued back for up to 20 kilometres. The penalty for driving past low clearance signs on NSW tunnels and bridges is $4097 and 12 demerit points, which is the maximum permitted under current legislation.
Minns also flagged a police blitz in coming weeks. He said data indicated inexperienced operators and owner-drivers were the main problem, rather than big logistics companies. Hassall said that made sense.
At the Harbour Tunnel’s southbound entrance, overheight trucks first trip a digital sensor a kilometre away, which triggers a warning sign diverting them to the bridge. There is a second detection point 740 metres from the entrance, a third at 480 metres and fourth at 250 metres.
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Alcohol consumption likely to continue, despite harms and parallels with tobacco
Alcohol consumption is declining across the world, including here in Australia.
According to the latest data, 31 per cent of Australians cut down the amount they drank in 2019.
Leading up to that year, the number of those who had stopped drinking altogether grew slightly, too.
Since the 2010s, movements such as "sober curious" have been increasingly embraced, while the non-alcoholic drinks industry has boomed.
It comes as alcohol's harms are increasingly recognised.
"We know that alcohol and ethanol in particular is considered to be a Class 1 carcinogen," Cancer Council Australia's Clare Hughes tells ABC RN's Future Tense.
"The evidence is really strong of the link between alcohol use and cancer risk."
Alcohol use cost Australia an estimated $66.8 billion in the 2018 financial year, with premature death accounting for almost $26 billion of this sum.
Parallels are being drawn between alcohol and tobacco use in Australia, which — after years of targeted campaigns and initiatives — is among the lowest among of the OECD nations.
But some argue that alcohol's history, and its distinct cultural position, mean it will follow a different trajectory.
A long history of drinking
Since tobacco's risks were recognised in 1950, its cultural acceptance has shifted drastically. Between 1993 and 2019, the number of Australians who smoked daily dropped from 25 per cent to 11.2 per cent.
But Carl Erik Fisher, an addiction physician and author of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, argues that alcohol is rooted in human civilisation.
Though sentiments have changed over time, including the 20th century's temperance movement, Dr Fisher says alcohol is "deeper in our cultural and social consciousness" due to how long humans have been drinking.
Sobriety here to stay with alcohol-free business booming
From non-alcoholic drink stores to booze-free beers, businesses are cashing in on the growing movement to go sober.
Some research indicates that humans have been consuming alcohol since 7,000 BC. By comparison, Dr Fisher says our understanding of tobacco as a widespread commodity, particularly cigarettes, is "young" and therefore less cemented in our cultural DNA.
He argues the prevalence of alcohol in human history makes it less likely to fade away.
Neurologically, alcohol is like a "shotgun spring across many different neural receptor systems, some of which are very powerfully sedative", Dr Fisher says.
Because of its range of effects, including an anticipation or sense of "chase" attached to wanting it, people will continue to drink alcohol compulsively, despite the risks, Dr Fisher says.
"That's where things turn from an impulsive, enjoyment-oriented or ... rewards-oriented pattern of use, to a more compulsive pattern of use."
Cognitive dissonance a barriers to change
The prevalence of alcohol in society could also be reducing appetites for policy change similar to that faced by tobacco.
There are social barriers to new policies, says Terry Slevin, the CEO of the Public Health Association of Australia.
He says policymakers are unlikely to introduce measures that confront their own alcohol consumption behaviours.
"These are people who understand science and know it very well but still don't like being made to feel uncomfortable and reflecting upon their own consumption behaviour," he says.
"And that's certainly the case for decision makers, politicians [and] policymakers in government.
"That cognitive dissonance is a very real fact that I've seen loud and clear for more than 30 years."
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7 June, 2023
Distressing moment little boy watches on in tears while his father gets 'bashed' and pepper-sprayed by cop
Disturbing footage showing a police officer beating an innocent man in front of his sobbing son has been released after the cop's desperate bid to clear his name was dismissed.
NSW Senior Constable Jay Maleckas was found guilty of unnecessarily punching and using capsicum spray on father Steven McIvor outside the Castle Hill metro station in north-west Sydney on September 5, 2020.
The officer of 21 years also had his appeal against the conviction thrown out by Judge Stephen Hanley in Parramatta District Court on Monday, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Footage recorded by Mr McIvor and captured on police body cams shows the tense exchange which followed a plea for help from from the dad after he was confronted by a group of 'eshays'.
The beginning of the video shows Mr McIvor repeatedly asking Maleckas if he could speak to a sergeant and if he was under arrest while Maleckas blocked him from moving along the footpath.
Eventually Maleckas told the distressed father that he was under arrest 'to prevent a breach of the peace'.
Mr McIvor was then told to get on the ground and was tackled as his seven-year-old son cried while crouched next to him.
The young boy was then moved to the side and watched in horror as Maleckas capsicum-sprayed his father to the point he could no longer breathe and punched him nine times, causing his head to bleed profusely.
Throughout the assault, Mr McIvor told the constable he was willing to cooperate, saying: 'I'll do whatever you want sir, tell me!,' and 'I'm over it, I'm over it, let me go!'.
Eventually Maleckas let the father roll onto his side and strangely went over to comfort the hysterical boy.
While walking to the police car behind his handcuffed father, Mr McIvor's frightened son asked Maleckas: 'Can you not kill him?'
Maleckas told the boy: 'Oh I'm not going to kill him mate, I'm not going to kill him. He's alright.' The seven-year-old insisted: 'But you have a gun.'
Maleckas shut down the exchange, saying: 'Nah, I'm not going to shoot him. I'm not going to shoot him mate.'
The court heard Mr McIvor had called for police claiming 'about 50 little kids' had threatened him with violence on the metro station platform after he'd left the nearby Hillside Tavern.
He admitted he was 'slightly' affected by alcohol at the time and was in a 'heightened emotional state'.
However, police seemingly didn't respond to Mr McIvor's call so he started to walk towards the local police station to make a report.
It was on his way to the station that he was confronted by Maleckas, who had two probationary constables shadowing him to learn about the job, at about 4pm.
The judge noted neither of the rookies wanted to arrest Mr McIvor.
Video shows Maleckas yelled 'don't you bite me, don't you bite me you c***' at Mr McIvor in between capsicum-spraying and beating him.
Judge Stephen Hanley found Maleckas had 'no basis' to arrest Mr McIvor, noting: 'Even if it had been lawful the appellant (Maleckas) needed to use reasonable force.'
Outside the court on Monday, Mr McIvor said the verdict left him 'relieved'. '(It's been a) big three years,' he told Seven News.
Maleckas has resigned from the police.
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QPS reveals number of officers sacked for refusing to get Covid-19 vaccine
The Queensland Police Service has sacked 38 people – including 16 officers – for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccination after a mandate was introduced during the pandemic.
Nine officers remain suspended over the mandate and are understood to be awaiting a Supreme Court decision after the directive was challenged in the courts.
Justice Glenn Martin has reserved his decision on applications to overturn vaccination mandates.
“The number of Queensland Police Service members suspended at any point because of noncompliance with the Commissioner’s directions on mandatory vaccination is 201, comprising 116 police officers and 85 staff members,” a police spokesman said.
“Several matters remain ongoing with respect to the Covid mandate, and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Commissioner Katarina Carroll made the direction in 2021, telling officers they were more exposed to the risk of Covid-19 than most occupations as they were on the frontline.
“Recent modelling indicates the QPS has over 2 million contacts with the community annually,” she wrote at the time to staff.
“These interactions are often conducted in uncontrolled and sometimes volatile circumstances that routinely involve close proximity to members of the public, which further increases our risk of exposure. As such, I have a duty to protect both our employees and the broader community.”
However a number of staff refused to have the Covid vaccine and were later stood down and then suspended. Challenges were lodged in the courts and Justice Glenn Martin has reserved his decision on applications to overturn vaccination mandates.
In December last year Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy revoked the directive but said public health advice suggested the virus would persist in the community for some time “with the severity and risk presented scaling up and down at various intervals”.
“While the COVID-19 public health environment continues to remain unpredictable, following the removal of the Public Health Emergency Declaration and changes to the public health risk environment, the QPS has reviewed the current COVID-19 vaccination requirements and it has been determined to revoke Commissioner’s Directions No. 13 and 14 as of Monday 12 December 2022,” Mr Chelepy wrote.
“The Deputy chief health officer of Queensland was consulted as part of the review process conducted by QPS to determine the outcome of the direction.
“Following the revocation of the mandate, any conditions attached to exemptions granted by the Vaccination Exemption Committee (VEC) will no longer apply. Members who had conditions attached to their exemptions will be required to engage with their local management to arrange a return to business as usual.
“Members who were subject to discipline action for failure to comply with the Commissioner’s Directions will still be investigated and dealt with in line with our discipline processes.
“The outcomes for these employees will need to be reviewed on an individual basis, with consideration given to the nature and details of each matter.”
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Vulnerable left behind in cashless welfare fiasco
Food, clothes and school excursions for children, rent to keep a roof over a family’s head – since when are these worth less than winning an inner-city vote?
The answer, apparently, is when federal Labor makes an election promise to win inner-city seats by abolishing the cashless debit card. So senior Labor minister Don Farrell told senate estimates last week.
The card in four trial sites across Australia was abandoned last year – without any new form of income management or support in place – to belatedly be replaced by a new voluntary “smart card”.
Last week in estimates we found how the smart card wasn’t that smart. At a cost to taxpayers of $217m, the card was being used by just 22 people from my electorate of Hinkler.
The year prior in Hinkler, around 7000 people were on the card: those aged 35 and under and receiving JobSeeker, Parenting Payment Partnered or Single and Youth Allowance (other). This meant 80 per cent of their welfare was placed on to the cashless card, ensuring there was money for the essentials like rent, food and clothing, leaving 20 per cent to be withdrawn in cash, or retained and saved.
That was before Labor cut the card up in a blaze of ideological zealotry, saying it was demeaning and taking away people’s human rights.
I ask you, how is it taking away human rights to leave welfare recipients to face huge cost-of-living pressures, rent increases, food and power price hikes, without the card to aid their financial management?
Labor’s timing could not have been worse for vulnerable children and families.
At a time when all the heavy lifting to set up the card, roll it out, test it and ensure it worked across the nation’s EFTPOS machines had been done; at a time when inflation was hitting record highs, when housing affordability and availability was becoming dire, Labor pulled the plug.
The smart card wasn’t even ready to put in the cashless debit card’s place, stranding people who wanted to retain any form of income management. And now, we find out that a massive $217m was wasted on the smart card; millions that could have been spent improving the quality of lives of vulnerable children and families.
Services Australia CEO Rebecca Skinner admitted in senate estimates last week that the smart card was a national system. That means the card can be accepted anywhere in Australia. The cashless debit card was accepted at EFTPOS machines anywhere in Australia.
Now that technology exists and welfare recipients can easily access EFTPOS payments across the nation, instead of limiting its use, I say expand its use across the nation so that welfare recipients have money for rent, food and clothes before welfare can be used on alcohol, cigarettes and other non-essential items.
But wait! The Labor left Twitter tweeters are choking on their soy lattes at the thought of destroying the rights of welfare recipients.
What about the rights of children to be fed and clothed, for domestic violence victims not to be bashed or intimidated to hand over their cash; for Australian taxpayers to be reassured that their hardworking taxes are going to actually help not hinder!
And remember, that welfare payments are meant to be a safety net until paid employment can be found. Post-Covid-19, Australia has been desperate for workers, mainly unskilled workers, in retail, admin, farming, trades, factories. Employers are still facing huge challenges in filling jobs.
If welfare recipients don’t like the mandatory cashless debit card/smart card, there are jobs to pick and choose from at their finger tips.
Sadly, Australia has a major problem with intergenerational welfare. In my electorate and many others, all kids have known is their parents and grandparents having been on welfare. In some cases, up to four generations of welfare dependence. It is the norm for these kids to believe that is what families do, they rely on welfare not work.
We’ve all seen way too many graphic and heart-wrenching images of towns in Australia in recent months where children aren’t being given the opportunities they should. Where crime, alcoholism, domestic violence and lawlessness are destroying children’s lives, their opportunities, ambition, dreams and hopes of a normal life.
Was an election promise by Labor to win votes in inner-city seats worth it?
It’s time to stop the political, ideological game playing and get the cashless debit card, by any other name, rolled out nationally for welfare recipients under the age of 35 to provide financial management, the essentials of life and safer, more functional communities for all.
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6 June, 2023
Deadly effects of ingrained inflation as RBA likely to hike rates again
That the time of 2.30pm on the first Tuesday of each month can suddenly be of such grave consequence to so many Australians does not speak well for our national economy.
We will know on Tuesday afternoon which way the Reserve Bank of Australia will move on interest rates. After 11 increases since April 2022, it is possible the move will continue to be upward.
That will mean we have faced a full dozen rate increases in a little over a year, taking the official cash rate to just over 4 per cent.
The word “transitory’’ prefaced the word “inflation” for much of 2021. The developed world appeared to accept (or perhaps hoped) the rapid increase in the money supply sparked by the pandemic, along with surging consumer demand for dwindling supplies of consumer goods, had sparked an inflationary trend that would swiftly disappear.
Australians now know that was not true. They also know a Fair Work Commission decision last week allowed for a 5.75 per cent increase in award wages.
That will impact around 2.5 million people, or up to 20 per cent of the workforce, while there will also be a record 8.6 per cent rise in the minimum wage.
Few economists buy the theory that wage increases spark inflation, but almost none discount the theory that, once inflation rears its head, a potentially devastating wage-price spiral can swiftly develop as the wages dog chases the inflation tail.
That the Fair Work Commission has said its decision will only make a modest impact on total wage growth in 2023-24, and has specifically ruled out the possibility of a wage-price spiral developing, does not mean it won’t happen.
We now know the truth. Inflation is part of our lives, and will be for some time.
In fact, Terry McCrann writes on Tuesday that the RBA is already “still way behind the curve”.
Those mortgage holders exiting fixed-interest deals in the months ahead and facing massive hikes in their monthly repayments are enduring some sleepless nights, wondering how their families will survive.
Ordinary Australians now know something has fractured in the national economy.
Their anxiety is reflected in new numbers collected by Suicide Prevention Australia showing financial anguish is routinely cited in those battling suicidal thoughts.
Distress is highest among middle-wage earners, with almost 30 per cent of those living in households earning $100k-$149k a year reporting they have experienced suicidal behaviour in the past 12 months.
What happens on Tuesday afternoon is not merely a clerical exercise in national account keeping. It can translate into genuine anguish and despair among ordinary people – ordinary people who do the right thing.
They work hard, they obey the law, they pay their taxes and they try to improve their lot in life by taking out mortgages, only to be crushed by outside forces they cannot control.
The federal government cannot be held entirely responsible for this state of affairs, but it can do something in the year ahead to try to assist in bringing inflation under control and helping to cut interest rates.
It can stop spending so much money.
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Australian business leaders to fight Labor on ‘same job same pay’ IR reforms
Australia’s builders, farmers, oil, gas, small and large business operators will launch a pre-emptive strike on Labor’s industrial relations plan with a public campaign warning the proposal will create a “red tape minefield” for employers, destroy workers’ flexibility and drive up consumer costs.
In an advertising blitz starting Monday, peak bodies including the Business Council of Australia (BCA), the National Farmers Federation, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Master Builders Australia, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APEA) and more will condemn the federal government’s proposed “same job, same pay” reforms as heavy-handed and unfair.
The full details of the government’s proposed changes, due to be unveiled later this year, will focus on what Labor has described as closing “loopholes” exploited by businesses to undercut workers’ pay.
Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has said the reforms would ensure subcontractors or labour hire workers were not deliberately paid less than their permanent colleagues for doing the same work.
But ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar said “same job, same pay” was the “opposite of fair” as it restricted “reward for effort and experience”.
“It will take away the flexibility that workers want and businesses need,” he said.
BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott agreed and said Labor’s plan would be an “own goal” for the country because “jobs will go somewhere else”.
“This is going to really impact on workers … and will also make Australia an extremely unattractive destination for people to invest,” she said.
Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chair Matthew Addison said Labor’s changes must not be allowed to have “far reaching, unintended negative consequences”.
Master Builders Australia acting chief executive Shaun Schmitke said Labor’s changes “pose a serious threat” to the construction industry and threatened to strip subcontractors of their “autonomy,” ability to negotiate higher wages and be “free from the influence of unions.
Minerals Council of Australia chief Tania Constable said the “dangerous policy” would chase away local investment and jobs, and was unfair to workers.
“How is it fair that someone with six-months’ experience can demand the same pay as someone with six-years’ experience?,” she said.
National Farmers Federal boss Tony Mahar said “same job, same pay” would be a “red tape minefield” for farmers.
“Most farms are small, family-run businesses which don’t have lawyers or any HR department to turn to,” he said.
“It would spell chaos and confusion at peak periods like harvest.”
APPEA chief executive Samantha McCulloch said the oil and gas industry needed an industrial relations framework that supported flexibility and improved productivity to “ensure competitive and affordable gas supply” needed for the future.
Mr Burke has consistently rejected criticism from the business sector, arguing it was “not fair” for a major employer to agree to a pay rate with employees and then undercut that by using cheaper labour hire workers instead.
“It’s a loophole,” he said in May. “It needs to be closed and we’ll be closing it this year.”
Mining and Energy Union general secretary Grahame Kelly has also condemned employers’ “fearmongering” and said the new laws would be “good” for the industry.
“Same job, same pay … will be great for regional communities who lose out when big employers cut wages for half the workforce,” he said.
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Queensland hospitals reveal patient wait times when brought in by ambulance
Patients are waiting nearly eight hours on stretchers across multiple Queensland hospitals, a situation that has been slammed as “devastating” and “stressful”.
New data shows public hospitals at Bundaberg, Caboolture, Cairns, Robina, Hervey Bay, Ipswich, Logan, Mackay Base, Brisbane’s Mater, Prince Charles, and Princess Alexandra all recorded ramping times of more than seven hours between August 2022 and February 2023.
In the worst case, at Princess Alexandra Hospital, a patient waited on a stretcher for eight hours.
Opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates, who had asked then Health Minister Yvette D’Ath for the data in a Question on Notice, said the unacceptable and chaotic situation was “devastating” and “stressful” for patients.
“Paramedics didn’t sign up for this vocation to spend an entire shift ramped while other calls go unanswered by Queenslanders in their hour of need,” Ms Bates said.
She said the LNP party proposed solutions to tackle ramping like “better resources, improving triaging and real time data monitoring.”
As this publication reported on Monday, more Queenslanders were turning to emergency departments for primary healthcare as a Medicare system “on its knees” was making seeing GPs unaffordable.
Queensland paramedics waited nearly 13,000 hours with patients outside emergency departments in January.
Mackay Hospital and Health Services acting chief executive Dr Charles Pain said the shortage of comprehensive bulk-billing clinics was contributing to EDs dealing with “more acutely unwell people” and more people arriving by ambulance.
The state’s biggest paediatrics units – Queensland Children’s Hospital and Prince Charles Hospital – both saw increases by as much as 30 per cent in almost every category of patient under 14 years of age according to the latest hospital performance data for January, February and March.
New Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said Queensland had the busiest ambulance service in the country, and was the only mainland state to provide the service “free at the point of use”.
“Despite (this) … Report on Government Services data shows the QAS outperforms most jurisdictions, including Victoria and New South Wales, in relation to ambulance response times.”
Ms Fentiman stated 72 per cent of Queensland patients were seen within the recommended time frames compared to 66.4 per cent in NSW, and that every category 1 patient was seen within the recommended two-minutes.
She said this was despite the number of category 1 and 2 patient presentations having more than doubled since 2013/14.
“The rise in the urgency of cases, and the reduction in the availability and affordability of primary care, means that people who would have otherwise sought care in the community are now coming to our emergency departments,” Ms Fentiman said.
“Some of these patients will be less urgent and may need to wait for some time before receiving care from an emergency doctor.”
Ms Fentiman said the Labor government had invested in measures to help patient flow including Satellite Hospitals, and fast-tracking new beds.
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Kathleen Folbigg pardon exposes sad truth about many in our jails – DNA lawyer
A leading Queensland DNA lawyer says many innocent people are still languishing in jail and Kathryn Folbigg’s pardon must change the way the Australian justice system deals with wrongful convictions.
Ms Folbigg, the woman once dubbed Australia’s worst female serial killer over the deaths of four babies between 1989 and 1999, sensationally walked free from Grafton prison on Monday after serving 20 years for murder and manslaughter.
She was released after being pardoned by NSW Governor Margaret Beazley following an inquiry headed by the state’s former chief justice, Tom Bathurst KC, which found that scientific evidence had cast doubt over her guilt.
Jason Murakami, who established the Griffith University Innocence Project in 2001 to help free those wrongfully convicted of serious crimes, said Ms Folbigg’s pardon and the possible quashing of her convictions showed the system was flawed and needed an urgent overhaul.
He said the current petition process for pardons used in all Australian states was “outdated, cumbersome and far too slow”.
“In 2023, there is still reluctance by various players in the justice system that the system does get it wrong and there are victims of wrongful convictions sitting in jail as we speak,” he said.
“Ms Folbigg’s matter puts sharp focus on what we have been calling for for over years and that is a formalised process to deal with post-conviction claims.
“As a country, we are so far behind the UK, Canada and even New Zealand in relation to how we as a society deal with wrongful convictions.”
Mr Murakami, an adjunct professor in law and partner in Gold Coast firm Behlau Murakami Grant, co-wrote an international law journal called Murder, Wrongful Conviction and The Law which was published last month.
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5 June, 2023
Shock development: Police believe Linden Malayta was shot dead
The Malaytas are Pacific islanders, not Aborigines. When they were younger, the chidren of the familty were a lawless terror in the Ayr/Home Hill area. It seems likely that at least some of them eventually became involved in more serious crime. And the death of Linden could well have been due to a falling-out among criminals, due to fear that he might "rat" on his associates
A teenage boy who disappeared two years before he officially became a missing person was likely gunned down, police believe, in a shocking development based on new evidence.
The shocking development in the mystery disappearance of 14-year-old Linden Malayta can be revealed today by the Courier-Mail after police received new evidence.
Police also revealed they believe the Ayr teen predicted his own death telling a friend he feared for his life.
Authorities will now set up multiple crime scenes in North Queensland as police pledge to not give up on the boy.
“He made comments (to that friend) in relation to individuals who were going to kill him, and that he had come to say goodbye to that person,” Townsville Child Protection and Investigation Unit officer-in-charge Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Miles said.
Linden told her “they won’t let me stop”, and shared how he thought these people were going to kill him.
She encouraged him to tell the police, but he said “no one could help” him.
“Someone out there knows what happened to Linden, it’s about those people coming forward now to bring some closure,” Detective Miles said.
Linden was last seen in Ayr in March, 2019, but it wasn’t until police checked in with his family in June, 2021 that they told officers they hadn’t heard from the teenager in years.
Police began investigating his disappearance, and in March this year announced they now believed Linden had been murdered and announced a $500,000 reward for information.
The new timeline of Linden’s final days alive suggest he travelled from Ayr to Townsville with two or three people on or around March 18, 2019.
Soon after, police believe he was shot dead by those people during an altercation.
“The information we have been provided is that there was a firearm that was incidental to his death,” Detective Miles said.
“We are unsure whether that death was the result of intentional or accidental use of that weapon.”
Detective Miles said police would now move to set up crime scenes at multiple locations across the region, including the houses of some associates.
“We’ve got some other information that is going to allow us to undertake some examinations of some historical crime scenes associated with that altercation, that we know of … we’ll be doing that in the near future.”
The Malayta family, a well-known family from Ayr, have been struck by tragedies in the last few years, with two other family members dying in tragic circumstances.
Linden’s cousin Robert Malayta, 18, drowned in the Ross River in February last year when he jumped into the water to try and escape police after fleeing from a crashed stolen car.
Selwyn Malayta, Linden’s uncle, drowned in Plantation Creek in Ayr after wandering into the water late at night in September.
There were initially suggestions Linden had left Ayr to start a new life and cut off contact with his family, with some inquiries leading police to South Australia. This was never confirmed.
More than four years had passed since Linden was last seen but Detective Miles called on anyone who has information to come forward.
“(The length of time) certainly has probably impacted the memories of individuals who interacted with Linden, certainly with that passage of time small snippets of information may well have been forgotten that could be crucial to establish his movements.
“We remain positive that more information will come to hand and no matter what, we won’t stop doing what we are doing until we are able to bring this matter to a resolution.
Linden was last seen wearing his favourite red baseball cap and had a distinctive walk due to clubfoot.
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Credlin: Why trial of VC winner is not the whole story
Applying armchair standards to what happens during the heat of war is absurd. Killing someone who has been trying to kill is a normal reflex in war
While a damning court judgment reveals terrible mistakes were made in Afghanistan, it’s far from clear that it’s just Ben Roberts-Smith, and some of his SAS comrades, who’ve made them, writes Peta Credlin.
When does a beaten enemy go from being a combatant to a prisoner, and where’s the line between the necessary brutality of war and criminality? Obviously, these distinctions matter and, in the case of Ben Roberts-Smith, it seems that these lines have been crossed.
But the fact that some of his fellow warriors, as their testimony shows, regarded him as a hard “soldier’s soldier”, while others thought him a murderer, suggests that very different interpretations are possible, even if the facts can be agreed.
And while it’s pretty clear, following last Thursday’s damning court judgment, that terrible mistakes have been made, it’s far from clear that it’s just the VC recipient, and some of his SAS comrades, who’ve made them.
The Australian soldiers comprising our task group in Uruzgan province were really three different armies. Of the roughly 1500 troops deployed at any one time, about half were essentially support personnel, meaning they rarely left the comparative safety of the heavily fortified base.
I visited this base at Tarin Kot on four separate occasions and it resembled a modern industrious village, in the middle of lunar-like landscape, surrounded by guns, wire and concrete.
In addition to those inside the base, there were also about 400 regular infantry, in what we called the “mentoring task force”, whose job was to patrol the fertile valleys, usually with elements of the Afghan national army, sometimes to clear but mostly to hold ground that was safe for the civilian population (more or-less loyal to the Afghan government) to go about their lives.
Then there was the 400-strong Special Operations Task Group, alternately SAS or commandos, who several nights a week would venture forth into the badlands on what were essentially hunter-killer missions, to find and destroy those who were thought to be hardened Taliban insurgents.
It was not uncommon for our special forces operators to have done six or more tours of duty, mostly dealing out death to a less-skilled enemy, but sometimes having it dealt back to them.
I’m not sure that any of us, who have never been exposed to deadly combat, can fully grasp just how psychologically fraught and morally deadening this could be. That’s why I won’t join the pile-on against Roberts-Smith, typified by the vindicated journalists (who have themselves never risked a bullet for our country) now triumphantly describing him as a liar, a bully and a murderer.
Yes, he may have been all those things, in some instances, but the judgment against him last week was a civil law matter, with a lower burden of proof (on the ‘balance of probabilities’) and not a war crimes trial operating at the criminal standard of proof (‘beyond reasonable doubt’). Even if he is charged (and that hasn’t occurred to date) and found criminally guilty, that won’t be the whole story.
Our country sent him and his fellow soldiers on hardest job of all, to kill people who would kill us for our beliefs, and to protect people who just wanted to live and worship in their own way. And if mistakes were made, at least some of the fault lies with us too – and with the senior commanders, now tut-tutting about the excesses of military culture.
Plainly, a succession of risk-averse governments and military hierarchies expected too much of the SAS and the commandos, whose extraordinary level of skill and professionalism was thought to render them less likely to suffer casualties than normal infantry.
Then there’s the resentment inherent when particular soldiers are singled out for gallantry awards, given that soldiering takes a team, as well as brilliant individuals, with each member exposed to similar deadly risks.
Roberts-Smith became a target, as well as a hero, the instant he gained the ultimate accolade of the VC. I might add, given all the talk he should be stripped of his VC without a criminal conviction, that the Victoria Cross is a not a “best and fairest” award. It’s a medal for ‘most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent valour or self-sacrifice’ and I defy anyone to read his citation for bravery on 11 June 2010 and say he didn’t deserve it.
Of course, even in war, our soldiers are expected to act honourably, and it’s never right to harm prisoners. On the other hand, we have to accept that terrible things happen in war, especially after people have seen their mates slaughtered, or brought in prisoners reasonably suspected of making suicide vests, or being a bombmaker, only to see them released on some legal technicality.
Fits of moral indignation seem to be characteristic of these times. But the pariah status we seem so happy to confer on people sometimes turns out to be undeserved.
Think Cardinal George Pell, convicted and jailed before the High Court unanimously exonerated him 7-0. Think of the Bruce Lehrmann case, where a righteous trial-by-media declared him guilty of raping Brittany Higgins but, as the Sofronoff inquiry goes on, is starting to look more and more like an orchestrated show trial to score a political point.
What’s happened to the old presumption that people are innocent until proven guilty; or the understanding that only those without sin should be the first to a cast stone?
Our greatest military historian, Charles Bean, knew something about flawed heroes. Writing of the original Anzacs, he said: “The good and the bad, the greatness and the smallness of their story will stand. Whatever of glory it contains, nothing now can lessen”.
My respect for those who wear our uniform has not diminished.
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Flawed franking legislation must be abandoned. Just look at the UK to know why
We have been publicly fighting for the preservation of Paul Keating’s franking system since Labor’s proposed changes in March 2018. For the sake of every Australian, let’s hope and pray the government comes to its senses and abandons the current changes, which industry and taxation experts, lawyers and academics all agree are flawed.
The Senate economic committee, chaired by Labor senator Jess Walsh, has clearly heard us all.
Now it is time for the government to show leadership by stepping up and abandoning this deficient proposed legislation, as the unintended consequences are just too high.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones seems to agree. “If there are having unintended consequences, we’ll look at that.”
He doesn’t have to look too far. I’m currently in London, meeting with fund managers and business leaders.
Two things come up repeatedly – Australia is the envy of London’s investment community, and the Australian government’s plans to fiddle with franking will be a disaster for Australia.
The lesson the people I speak to keep pressing is this: Britain once had a structure similar to our dividend imputation system, but unfortunately the changes their government made helped downgrade London’s reputation as a financial centre, forced their greatest companies to move offshore for funding and have seen the nation’s retirement savings flee for foreign markets.
Here’s a quick history lesson: in 1973, Britain implemented a system of company taxation called the Advance Corporation Tax (ACT).
Like our own franking credit system, the ACT aimed to prevent double taxation of corporate income in Britain by providing a tax credit to shareholders that reduced any tax payable on their dividends by an amount equal to the tax already paid by the company.
Under ACT, companies paid tax on distributed profits at 30 per cent and that tax payment was credited against their shareholders’ tax liability on the dividends.
So far, so familiar.
Unlike Australia, Britain abolished its dividend imputation system in 1999 following a series of changes the government made that resulted in the system losing its value. Still sound familiar?
In the two decades since, institutional ownership of companies listed on the UK sharemarket has plummeted – a completely unforeseen consequence of a change that has now left policymakers contemplating laws to force pensions and insurance companies to buy British shares.
The numbers are stunning.
In 2000, insurance companies and pension funds owned 38.7 per cent of the British sharemarket.
By 2010 ownership had fallen to 14.4 per cent and by 2020, they owned just 4.3 per cent.
Where did the money go? Almost all of it has been moved overseas into foreign companies and alternative assets.
The reason is clear: dividends paid from British stocks to British shareholders are now taxed twice.
And while the Albanese plan so far is not as drastic as scrapping franking entirely, the complicated interplay of capital markets means the consequences of any weakening of dividend imputation will be severe.
On the surface, the latest proposed change seems simple: the government wants to stop companies paying fully franked distributions that are funded by a capital raising and from conducting fully franked off-market buybacks.
But the proposal will have a significant impact on Australian companies’ ability to pay fully franked distributions and will discourage the normal process of investment, economic growth and capital formation in Australia.
The proposed legislation promotes debt over equity, discourages large, mature companies from paying tax in Australia and will lead to a significant increase in the budget deficit.
If superannuation funds ultimately move money out of Australia, it’s not just bad news for local business, it’s bad news for every single one of us: from our youth looking for a job to anyone saving for retirement.
Because of the changes to dividend imputation in Britain, pension schemes now hold 72 per cent of their investments in fixed income, real estate and other assets – assets that typically offer lower returns than equities and employ fewer people.
Lower returns mean less money saved for retirement and a lower standard of living for retirees.
Contrast that experience to Australia.
Our franking system has encouraged Australian companies to invest in Australia, employ Australians, pay tax in Australia and emboldened Australian shareholders to do the same, in turn creating more local jobs and more ownership of Australian companies by Australian citizens.
Our franking system encourages all Australians, from mum and dad investors to large industry superannuation funds, to support and invest in Australian companies.
This directly reduces the cost of capital for our businesses, improving shareholder returns and allowing all of us to look forward to a safe and prosperous retirement.
Things are now so bad in Britain that London’s most famous companies are drawing up plans to move their listings to New York. A new law has even been proposed to force pension funds to invest 5 per cent of their capital into companies based in Britain to help bolster the local economy.
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Crisis point: Sick kids inundate EDs as hospital system buckles
This was inevitable. New government regulations, restrictions and taxes have made it more difficult for private GPs to provide "free" (bulk-billed) care to all so hospitals are the only alternative now for most lower income people
Queensland emergency departments are being inundated with sick kids and adults, with as much as 30 per cent more needing hospital care as access to bulk-billing GPs becomes scarce.
Families struggling to cope with cost-of-living pressures and a lack of bulk-billing doctors are being blamed for a surge in the number of children presenting to Queensland’s emergency departments.
The state’s biggest paediatrics units – Queensland Children’s Hospital and Prince Charles Hospital – both saw increases by as much as 30 per cent in almost every category of patient according to the latest hospital performance data for January, February and March.
Queensland emergency departments divide patients into categories from one to five, with category one patients representing the most severe illnesses or injuries and category five the least urgent.
Regional centres like Mackay, Toowoomba, Rockhampton saw increases in every category of patients aged 14 years and under, with Mackay seeing a whopping 100 per cent increase in category two patients seeking medical attention.
Townsville University Hospital had a 44 per cent surge in Category two children (516) and 34 per cent for Category three, Ipswich Hospital saw a 41 per cent jump in category two (920) and 32 per cent in category four (1046) while Sunshine Coast University Hospital had a 22 per cent increase in category two (720) and 60 per cent in category five (80).
Gold Coast University Hospital had spikes across nearly all categories including a 79 per cent jump in category five patients (95) while Logan and Cairns Hospitals also surged across all categories.
Over half a million people presented to the state’s emergency departments in the last quarter with Health Minister Shannon Fentiman blaming the high numbers on population growth and difficulties in people being able to get into a GP or find one that has bulk-billing.
“Clearly we have huge population growth here in Queensland, and yes, we have a primary care system that was neglected for many, many years by the federal government,” she said.
“If you talk particularly to people in regional Queensland, it is very difficult to find a GP appointment and it’s expensive because not many of them are bulk-billing.
“So people wait, and they don’t go and see their GP, they don’t get access to primary health care in their community, they get sicker and then they present in an emergency department.”
Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine president Dr Dan Halliday said the federal government’s decade-long resistance to thawing the freeze on Medicare rebates had forced the hand of many GPs to ditch bulk-billing, including to children and pensioners.
He said it was a misconception that all GPs bulk-billed children 16 and under, with this decision entirely up to each individual practice or GP.
“We know that if you do provide good quality primary care, that you actually reduce the presentations and admissions to the emergency departments,” Dr Halliday said.
“Bulk-billing in certain areas is on its knees, and in some areas that it’s ceased altogether, which is an absolute shame.”
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Dr Bruce Willett said he feared that without a permanent moratorium on payroll tax for GPs, the Medicare reform would just be eaten up in payroll tax.
“It was actually really rare for children not to get bulk-billed, but the rebate got down to the stage where (it was no longer viable),” he said.
He said the issue of payroll tax “sucking money” out of Medicare affected every state and territory in the country and needed to be taken to national cabinet.
But Dr Boulton said the best way that the state government could alleviate the pressure was a permanent moratorium on payroll tax.
“The amnesty doesn’t apply to new practice, so a practice anywhere in Queensland will be liable to pay the patient tax when they see their doctor, which we know is not fair,” she said.
“The evidence is very clear that if governments support patients accessing their GP, those patients will be healthier and they’re less likely to visit the hospital and it will reduce the strain on hospitals.”
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4 June, 2023
Locals outraged as popular outback tourist campsite closed to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage
Locals in a small Queensland outback town have slammed council’s decision to close a popular camping site that draws hordes of tourists every year, due to concerns the area’s Aboriginal heritage is being “trampled on”.
The popular Camooweal billabong camping site on the banks of the Georgina River, located about two hours west of Mt Isa close to the Northern Territory border, is a popular destination during the dry season from May to September.
But last week, Mt Isa City Council announced that public access to the area, including the banks of the Georgina River and Lakes Francis and Canellan, would be closed for six months — including for the rest of the 2023 tourist season.
The site has been managed by the Myuma Group through a sublease with the council since 2021. Myuma represents the traditional owners of the upper Georgina River region.
Mt Isa Deputy Mayor Phil Barwick told ABC Radio on Monday both council and Myuma wanted to protect the area’s environment and cultural heritage.
“We’ve been trying to work through that and while it’s going well, at the same time the area’s been quite trampled on, if you like, so we need to recognise that as well,” he said.
In its statement last week, the council said the decision to close the sites for camping was “to protect cultural heritage and was made following discussions held between Mount Isa City Council and representatives of the sites’ lessees and native title claimant holders”.
“Public access to the sites will remain open to all permanent Camooweal residents for the purpose of fishing and water activities, and for people who hold the appropriate permits under the Stock Route Management Act 2002,” council said.
“Appropriate signage will be installed at the entrances of the three sites — the Barkly Highway, Urandangi Road and Highlands Plains Road — advising of the temporary public access closure, with the lessees to install fencing and gates at the entrances.
“Other than rubbish bins, there are no other amenities in the camping areas. Council collects rubbish from the Georgina River site each week.”
In a statement, Mt Isa Mayor Danielle Slade said council appreciated the sites are popular with campers every tourist season, but the temporary closure was important in order for the cultural heritage sites to be assessed and processes put in place for their preservation.
“Council apologises for the inconvenience the temporary public access closure may cause and thanks people for their patience and understanding while this matter is assessed,” she said.
“Hopefully the temporary closure will have a positive effect on businesses in Camooweal, with campers and caravanners instead staying in the town’s caravan park.”
Yahoo News reports the decision has rocked the small town of just 236 residents, with local businesses fearing tourists will bypass Camooweal entirely.
“If they close it, yeah it’s going to affect us,” Camooweal Roadhouse manager Sandeep Kumar told the outlet on Monday.
Mr Kumar told Yahoo News he often sees travellers who come back year after year to stay at the camping grounds.
“They’re regularly coming here in the store and they’re buying fuel and groceries and stuff, so if that happens, nobody is going to stay here, you know,” he said. “That’s the favourite spot to stop here.”
One reader wrote, “Shows how much the Mayor knows of Camooweal. Absolutely zilch … If the river is not available to tourists — this town will be a ghost town. Well done Mount Isa City Council. Don’t bother funding the Drovers Festival — the attendees will have nowhere to stay. Why would you do this at the start of a tourist season? Why do it at all?”
Another said, “Now watch the town die! Who’s going to bother stopping when they can’t camp?”
Some locals have speculated similar closures will occur around the country with the introduction of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
In April, a popular Victorian campsite was also closed over Aboriginal heritage concerns.
Bear Gully Campground, located within the Cape Liptrap Coastal Park south of Melbourne, was closed by the state government’s peak body for the management of National Parks, Parks Victoria.
The sudden move came after advice that camping and recreational activities within the park may have impacted an Aboriginal place and its artefacts.
Overlooking Wilsons Promontory, the Bear Gully camping area is renowned for its unpatrolled surf beach suitable for “rockpooling, fishing, surfing and coastal walks”, according to the Parks Victoria website.
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Infill housing might be our best hope of ameliorating the housing shortage
Put more housing in existing suburbs -- if councils and the NIMBYS will let you
It is a year for divisive debates – the kind that pit generations against one another and make people hateful and racist. While you’d think the Indigenous Voice to parliament might head that ticket, it comes a distant second to the urgency and ire in the housing debate.
Housing has become a culture war with a number of fronts: the first is intergenerational resentment, the second is population and the third is ideology.
Intergenerational conflict has been with us since teenagers were invented, so no surprises the generations are at loggerheads over shelter as well. The conflict is simple: the older generations as a whole (yes, I hear you, not necessarily individuals) own more stuff. That stuff includes houses – sometimes big ones and sometimes many of them. The younger generations don’t own a lot of stuff yet. So, they need to buy it, cajole it, or vote it off the older generations.
This is not a new conflict but it is exacerbated by the fact Australia’s economic sunshine has disappeared momentarily behind a cloud of inflation. Inflation has pushed up mortgages, rents and the cost of living more generally. The people doing best in this environment are those who own their home outright and benefit when interest returns on deposits are high – that is, generally, the oldies.
Recent data from Commonwealth Bank found that spending by over-55s has increased above the inflation rate and those over 75 are spending 13 per cent more than previously. And they’re doing it ostentatiously – Baby Boomers are spending 18 per cent more on eating out than last year, snaffling Wagyu and chocolate treasure chests, no doubt, at kitsch, made-for-Instagram, French-theme brasseries. Of course, these were also the people who had less to spend when rates were low for a very long time.
Still, appropriating Millennial culture by booking out the ’grammable restaurants is a direct affront to under-35s, who are cutting back on all the fun stuff. With reality getting all too real, no wonder BeReal, the “authenticity” app, is no longer popular.
Philip Lowe’s suggestion to get a flatmate to help manage costs has merit – I once got myself a boyfriend for the same reason, a long time ago, in a country far away – but the generational optics of a Boomer with a large house in an inner-cityish suburb telling young people to share bog roll was never going to be great. Now he’s got the people who haven’t managed to buy a house off side, as well as those who are dealing with rising mortgage rates that were predicted to stay low.
The precariousness of renting feels more acute as prices rise and immigration starts to bounce back post-COVID. The only thing more terrifying than rent rises is the idea that a wave of high-skilled workers with high-skilled incomes is about to arrive in Australia and outbid locals for the mould-free rentals. This is exacerbated by the fact that, though there is notionally full employment, some large companies have been laying off workers. In news that absolutely everybody but the die-hard work-from-home class saw coming, tech giant Atlassian “rebalanced” 500 people off its books in March.
Then Commonwealth Bank offshored 40 roles to India in April and rounded that up by another 200 in May. (I hear HR isn’t worried, though – those who remain have been given two days of paid bereavement leave when their pet dies, so internal staff satisfaction surveys should record a dead-cat bounce.)
Where low-income cohorts have historically been most affected by population policy, now it’s the educated classes who are feeling off-kilter. But you won’t get any points for suggesting to out-of-work coders that they should learn to clean.
If this seems like a mix of the serious and the silly, it’s because that is exactly what life’s most fraught issues are underpinned by. Existential angst is intertwined with status anxiety.
People who own houses fear anything that will devalue them. Building more stock and infilling suburbs would push down prices, according to Centre for Independent Studies economist Peter Tulip. While developments in desirable areas would fetch higher prices, higher-income people moving to live there would free up stock lower down the chain, as people upgrade to suit their circumstances.
And Tulip argues that “if we put more money into construction, then the value of the housing stock will fall”. This would make housing more affordable for those who want to buy, but of course it would decrease the value of existing housing. He believes this is one of two reasons why increasing supply is so politically difficult. The other is simply fear of change. “It’s the same mentality that opposed decimal currency or daylight saving,” he says.
But Sydney University economist Cameron Murray reckons the current feeling of crisis is driven by the anxious educated classes. He calls them “the forgotten elite” – people in their 30s and 40s “who thought they’d be living in the inner city but now feel they can’t”.
“It’s the same half a dozen suburbs we always hear about needing more housing,” Murray says. “In the US, in California, where this culture war over housing has been imported from, it’s always about Berkeley, as though you can’t live anywhere else.”
Tulip is a YIMBY – Yes In My Back Yard – and believes the world needs more YIMBYs to embrace medium-density infill accompanied with well-planned infrastructure. Murray says YIMBYism is just another status play.
In the current circumstances, making YIMBYs cool seems like a win-win solution to me, whether it’s for silly or serious reasons. Concentrate on good town planning to build up thriving cities and let the rest take care of itself.
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Penalizing obstructive political "protests": Reforms to South Australia's Summary Offences Act
After more than 14 hours of overnight debate, mainly due to the filibustering efforts of the upper house crossbench MPs and the unwillingness of the major parties to adjourn, the reforms passed just before 7am on Wednesday with three minor amendments.
It means the maximum fine for obstructing a public place jumps to $50,000 and three months jail.
The government — and opposition for that matter — say it will give the courts the discretion to impose harsher penalties than they could under the existing regime.
The trigger for the changes was two days of disruption on Adelaide's streets earlier this month by climate change protesters amid an oil and gas industry conference.
They were floated by the Liberal opposition, quickly adopted by the government with minimal internal or external consultation and shunted through the lower house of parliament in less than half an hour with bi-partisan support.
Between debate in the two houses, there was backlash from human rights groups, the Law Society of South Australia and the union movement, which helped get Labor elected in 2022.
The state government has argued the changes are not anti-protest laws.
When he spoke in parliament on May 18 as the changes were introduced, Premier Peter Malinauskas said the government considered protest and speaking up as "an integral part of our vibrant democracy".
"The government does not seek to prevent members of the community from having their say," he told the house.
Earlier in the speech, he said:
"Irrespective of the causes that protests are aimed at, the way that the protests are increasingly conducted puts the safety of the public at risk."
A press release issued by the premier's office shortly after the rapid passage of the bill in the House of Assembly was titled "Tough new penalties for dangerous and obstructionist protesters".
"We have swiftly introduced legislation that increases the penalties for those who do not seek to comply with appropriate arrangements when it comes to protesting peacefully," he told reporters at the time.
Mr Malinauskas has repeatedly pointed out it's the Public Assemblies Act that governs organised protests, a piece of legislation itself that makes no mention of the word protest or protesters.
"There is nothing changing to that. Not one word. Not one comma. Not one full stop," he said.
Others have seen the impact of the Summary Offences Act changes on protesting in South Australia differently, including allies of the government.
"This bill fundamentally threatens our ability to take action like this, in the interests of our members and the South Australian community."
They are the words of Leah Watkins, secretary of the Ambulance Employees Association, as she addressed a crowd on Tuesday morning rallying against the bill as Labor MPs met at parliament.
As a senior figure in the paramedics union, in recent years she has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Peter Malinauskas and Labor MPs to push for better resourcing for the state's ambulance service.
"The fact that we are facing these laws without any community consultation, without any engagement with the community whatsoever, is outrageous," said the president of SA Unions Dale Beasley to the same rally.
He went on to add he was "really worried" about what these laws were going to mean for workers who take action in and outside their workplace.
"This is a very serious piece of legislation that deserves time and consideration and that's not something that we've had," he said.
Steph Key, a former Rann Labor government minister, told hundreds of people gathered on Festival Plaza there was "no excuse" for the way the legislation was handled.
"By ramming through that legislation, there's no excuse for it, and I don't support it at all," she said.
"We really do need to make it clear that protesting is a right that we should have."
The government's decision to make its move so quickly could be seen to have some echoes of the Rann-era so-called "announce and defend" style of leadership — an approach his successor Jay Weatherill tried to distance himself from.
Or maybe the Malinauskas-led administration just wanted to move quickly so the issue didn't drag on, nor give the opposition the upper hand.
When asked whether this was his government's Land Tax moment — a reform that fired up regular Liberal Party supporters last term – Mr Malinauskas said that issue didn't get resolved by the parliament for "almost a year" while Summary Offences reforms were sorted "relatively quickly".
But, whatever the reason, tensions have been publicly inflamed with traditional friends of the Labor parliamentary party for the second time in little more than a year, following the back and forth over changes to the state's Return to Work scheme.
After the bill passed, Mr Malinauskas said it wasn't a question about people's ability to protest.
"It's a question of every other citizen in the state that wants to be able to move through the city safely and with confidence that it's happened in an ordered way," he said.
As things stand, though, the Malinauskas government's relations with some key unions — the people who pay the bills at election time — have been hit.
It has left some on the left side of politics wondering whether that fight could and should have been avoided.
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Just 3pc of tech graduates are job-ready, Australian Information Industry Association survey finds
Only 3 per cent of Australian tech companies believe graduates are job-ready after finishing university, with many taking up to 12 months of training to reach required productivity levels.
The lack of readiness is tightening the overall jobs market, forcing smaller firms that can’t afford to train staff without experience to fork out hefty sums while competing against major companies for highly-skilled workers.
The state of the market amid Australia’s current skills and labour shortage is severely limiting the ability for Australian tech start-ups and small firms to be innovative, Australian Information Industry Association chief executive Simon Bush said.
“Feedback from our members is that on average it takes between six to 12 months to train a graduate and while larger companies can take on that overhead and the cost of training, for smaller companies it is a real handbrake on productivity,” he said.
The 3 per cent job-ready rate, which arrived from the AIIA’s fourth Digital State of the Nation survey, had fallen from 5 per cent in the previous year.
Across the nation, cybersecurity positions are the most in demand in the tech space followed by artificial intelligence roles.
To meet demand, many tech companies had moved away from hiring people university degrees and were actively hiring workers who had recently completed micro-courses and vocational training courses, the AIIA found.
Some of the training provided in short courses was similar to on-the-job learning, and easing the pressures on companies to train staff, Mr Bush said.
“We’re finding that our members really are looking to hire people from non-traditional areas, in other words, non-ICT areas in order to meet demand,” he said. “?And in relation to cyber security, micro courses are the what the market wants.”
The local tech market will not be as active as previous years over the next 12 months, with 26 per cent of companies unsure if they would actively hire this year, the survey found.
The pulling back on expanding staff headcounts may drive some pressure down on graduate salaries, which The Australian revealed last year had been as high as $147,000 to $350,000 at the top-paying firms.
“What’s happening with consumers, and cost of living, inflation and interest rates there, companies are not looking to grow their business as much as they perhaps were going to last year in terms of hiring people,” Mr Bush said.
The roles which demand a premium are cybersecurity and AI, with senior staff in those fields in more demand than ever before. “If you are an AI expert in a technology company, right now you are a rock star,” Mr Bush said.
Of those looking to hire, the intention to bring on local workers had grown to 69 per cent, up 5 per cent from the previous years when borders were closed.
The major factor driving companies toward hiring overseas staff was the skills shortage. Labour costs were another factor, cited by 17 per cent of staff, down from 50 per cent the previous year.
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2 June, 2023
What is the point of teaching English?
I greatly enjoyed my experience of English classes over 60 years ago. I got heavy exposure to the literary greats, both in poetry and fiction. It was a pleasure that I would wish on others but I know that the silver cord has been loosed and the the golden bowl is broken. More details on what has been lost here:
https://memoirsjr.blogspot.com/2015/07/some-reflections-about-education.html
Only in the world of English teaching could you leave an industry conference feeling more confused about the purpose of your discipline than when you arrived. This conference was held in February by VATE (The Victorian Association of Teaching English) bringing secondary English teachers and department leaders from across Victoria to Deakin University. The dark cloud hanging over the industry, in this case in the form of a national teacher shortage, did not dissuade the typical good-natured banter and cheerful complaining between the mutually fatigued. Teachers became students as the day was divided into several sessions broken by recess and lunch. Those from the Grammar schools made comparisons between who had done a better job of gaming their median study score the previous year through tactical enrolments and expulsions, while those from public schools looked over in envy before turning to each other with tall tales of wrangling delinquents and plucking gems from the great unwashed masses. Scattered throughout the room were a few fearful whispers of ChatGPT. As a teacher who is two years into their career, I was here to learn how to better teach English – but what is teaching English?English is often considered the beating heart of a secondary school’s academic life. This is partly out of necessity because most states require students to complete an English subject at Year 12, which ties a school’s ranking to its English proficiency. This is also caused by the more material fact that success in English predicts positive effects in other subject areas. English is also unique within the traditional core subjects (Science, Mathematics, English, History) as the only subject that has art, and the appreciation of art as art, at the centre of its classrooms. The only serious encounters with art that many Australians will have in their lives will be had within an English classroom.
Despite its importance, the purpose of English is a contentious issue among politicians, parents, journalists, and academics, let alone among teachers and students. There is a general consensus among English teachers that we are sick of being at the whim of Culture Wars, though I will posit that this is only another way of saying that we wish our culture would win already. For we know that the business of English teaching, whatever it is, is important. And woe to the civilisation which fails to realise this.
Returning to the conference… I was about to see first-hand the confusion surrounding the purpose of English. With an acknowledgment that Deakin had stolen the land it stood on (and with no sign that it would be giving it back anytime soon), we launched into the morning session. We delved into functional grammar and effective feedback, everything was grounded in objectivity as we looked into ‘the mathematics of English’ as the speaker put it. We poured over punctuation, syntax, spelling, and how best to teach them. Cast in this light, the goal of my profession, above all else, seemed clear: to teach students to accurately understand the world around them and, in turn, be understood through clear communication. But where exactly did that leave the beauty of the literature we studied? Was this beauty merely a utility that authors used to better communicate? Perhaps we would find out in the next session.
The next session focused on the new VCE unit featured in the senior year levels, Crafting Texts (Year 11) and Creating Texts (Year 12) with our speaker being one of its designers. As our speaker explained, the senior text lists are increasingly including shorter texts and anthologies of short stories as opposed to the traditional novel or play. This has been done to keep English engaging in light of our population’s diminishing attention span and a general lack of interest in reading books. In what is a step further in this direction, students will no longer be required to read whole texts, short or long, but rather a collection of excerpts called Mentor Texts centred around a generalised topic. Examples of these topics include ‘Futures’ or ‘Nature’ or perhaps, ‘Food’ – the choice of which is left with the school, as are the Mentor Texts. What is concerning here is not really the unit itself – which exposes students to a variety of writing techniques and approaches to a topic – but rather the line of thinking behind it. The conclusion of this sort of pandering to the lowest common denominator will eventually mean the expulsion of books altogether in favour of short-form media. How short? If we take the most popular media application with teens as an example, TikTok, then about 15 to 60 seconds. We are kidding ourselves if we think this change is a natural evolution of artistic tastes and that we, as English teachers, need to somehow keep up with or bow down to. Are we meant to believe nothing would be lost by reducing Shakespeare into bite-sized snippets or as if anything bite-sized could aspire to anything like the depth of a work by Shakespeare?
Part of the issue is that many educators have given up on taking an active role in the development of their students, taking a descriptivist role rather than providing any sort of prescription. In other words, we are stuck teaching students to appreciate what they are already interested in, cursed by the hangover from the academic fads of whole language approaches and process writing that taught English teachers to only ‘facilitate’ the organic development of language and not to provide rules that would obstruct that natural growth. While these approaches have rightly fallen out with academics they live on in schools and in curricula, drawing us ever closer to the day we begin teaching Emoji 101. It is from these educational trends that I was given the impression that English teaching is not about grammar but is about, above all else, facilitating the self-expression of our students. As the University of Melbourne academic, Raymond Misson wrote, ‘English teachers are not on about teaching single truths, they are on about capacity building, giving students the capacity to create their own set of values and their own hierarchy of truths suitable for dealing with the diversity of the texts they come across and the diversity of the world they live in.’
Though it may seem ridiculous to those outside of the teaching world, there are indeed teachers who happily celebrate the death of the novel and play as the predominant text forms studied in English. ‘Down with Shakespeare, down with Dickens!’ they cry. For it is often their view that the form of traditional literature, as well as the content, is contaminated by the slew of likely -isms, racism, sexism, colonialism, et cetera. In their view, the length of the novel or play amounts to textual mansplaining. The same teachers when forced to teach classics typically set students activities that gloss over the depth of these texts, by getting them to write and perform rap songs loosely connected to Hamlet or create blackout poetry by vandalising a page out of Bleak House. That students walk away from these texts feeling like they are irrelevant is often the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy held by these teachers that the classics are old, stuffy, and boring – even though the boredom is rather the result of poor teaching due to a lack of familiarity with these texts and their milieus. And thus the TikTok-isation of English appears to them as revitalisation. As for some, this pandering is a cathartic release from fears that they could bring more into their classrooms than merely a highly detailed knowledge of the Harry Potter universe. A release from fear that if they had used a fraction of the time they have spent arguing Dumbledore’s sexuality on online forums with familiarising themselves with the Western Canon that their classrooms would become portals to exploring truly different worlds rather than indulgent playgrounds populated by the inoffensive. It is these teachers that have raised our most recent generation to require the censorship of Roald Dahl’s use of ‘horsey face’, ‘idiot’, and ‘fat’.
These new senior English units based around short mentor texts are then a double-edged blade. In the right hands, it can be an engaging way of viewing a topic from multiple viewpoints across different time periods. It could also give students a cursory survey of many texts they could choose to read in full later on (unlikely, but possible). However, there is the danger that in the absence of a single authorial voice, or at least the absence of an artistic effort unified into a single text, students could be exposed to a shallow reading of texts cherry-picked according to agendas held by our more dictatorial teachers. This leaves the passing down of literary tradition vulnerable to being strangled, so to speak, in its crib. It is no coincidence that Adolf Hitler read in a manner similar to the process set up by these mentor text units – Hitler would skim read while choosing passages to literally rip from the books after first reading through the contents and the concluding pages to check it was suitable according to his own political ideology. It was this functionalist method that allowed him, for example, to make selective analogies from Carlyle’s biography of Frederick the Great to match his own circumstances. This approach could be seen not just in Hitler’s reading habits but also in the wider efforts of his regime, such as in the selective reading of the Bible that led to the creation of an antisemitic New Testament featuring an Aryan Jesus who hated the Jews. These tyrannical hermeneutics are common to all dictatorships, not to mention being increasingly found today festering around our schools and publishing houses. Therefore, in the teaching of these mentor text units, we would be wise to heed Pope’s famous warning: A little learning is a dangerous thing / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
With the mentor text units explained, we had a brief lunch and shifted to the third session of the conference on the ethics of selecting texts. This session largely followed the party line that I had been hammered with over my two-year Master’s degree at the University of Melbourne. For while the error of over-prioritising self-expression has largely subsided in the academy, another has arisen around the role of English in the cultivation of morals. Thus, I was reminded in the third session that the actual purpose of English teaching is, above all else, creating a just and equitable society. In this session, our sixty minutes of hate featured one of the usual suspects that we as English teachers need to combat by putting the right books in the right hands. Whether it is the patriarchy, heteronormativity, settler-colonialism, or white supremacy the story always ends the same way and rests on the same erroneous propositions about English teaching and the nature of literature. The first error is always the reduction of the artwork to a sociological artefact or political chess piece, whether it’s a reduction of the content of the book or of its authorship. This attitude has long been entrenched in the discipline, as Paul de Man wrote in the 80s, English departments have become ‘large organisations in the service of everything except their own subject matter’. Hence, as we unwrap English teaching from these erroneous propositions let us make use of its own subject matter; namely, literature.
It should be no surprise then that merely teaching about the economic conditions of 19th-century England will not give students the same experience found in reading Dickens’ Hard Times, nor will instruction in Catholic theology give students the same experience as reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. Similarly, when we reduce a play like Macbeth to a solely feminist reading we are robbing our students of the full experience the text offers, and again not heeding Pope’s warning on the dangers of ill-digested books. Bringing ‘theory’ into our English classrooms may prove useful in illuminating the tenets of feminism – however, it ultimately fails in opening the text to a reader. It is particularly fraught in these ideologies with strict social programs. The students who are interested will soon find more straightforward propaganda and those who are not interested will walk away with a poor impression of what books can offer, either because they have been taught a good book in a shallow way or taught a shallow book.
The chief reason that our text lists are bloated with mediocre books is because of a preoccupation with author identity and apprehension to teaching books authored by ‘dead white males’. This has led to many texts being introduced on the virtue of their creator’s identity rather than on the text’s quality. This prejudice is merely a mirror image of the one it is aiming to solve and often results in a vicious circle where fresh prejudices form amongst students who are forced to read mediocre books studied merely because of the author’s identity. Ultimately, this attitude to text selection largely stems from exaggerated self-victimisation. As my University of Melbourne professor told my fellow teacher-candidates and me in a tutorial, ‘There are no First Nations authors on the text list this year so effectively Aboriginal viewpoints have been banned from being studied.’ Following this logic, we can find not only evidence of systematic racism against First Nations people in the text selection process but also Estonians since there were no Estonian authors, not to mention the Innuits, and all the other categories of persons not included that year. But of course, under the tenets of Wokery, certain kinds of oppressed peoples are more equal than others. For example, even the womanhood of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, has done nothing to protect her from the charge of being white and writing about black experiences in America. Indeed, the classic book has now been labelled racist by critics calling for it to be removed from English syllabi. Ironically, the nuance of the characters within To Kill a Mockingbird teaches the exact lessons about human nature that would benefit those obsessed with identity politics. That Atticus Finch can see the goodness in the mean-spirited and racist Mrs Dubose and call her ‘the bravest person [he] ever knew’ simply does not compute with a fanatical mind. Then again, perhaps it is nuance itself which offends.
Even if we imagine the social programs promoted by these ideologues were not so wrapped in fanaticism and hypocrisy, there are still a number of issues that plague the prospect of treating English as moral cultivation. For even when the right books are put in the right hands there is no guarantee that students will take away the intended message. There is no guarantee our students will automatically identify with the Aboriginal cause in watching Rabbit Proof Fence and go on to further the process of reconciliation. We can observe this in the attempted moral betterment of A Clockwork Orange’s Alex DeLarge, where despite giving the impression to the prison chaplain that he has taken to Christianity he actually enjoys reading the Bible to imagine ‘helping in and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in, being dressed in a toga that was the height of Roman fashion’.
But we need not be an Alex DeLarge to have monstrous thoughts while reading. As academic Joshua Landy has written, there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between our everyday beliefs and those we take on in reading a book. When watching a monster film, we often find ourselves taking some satisfaction when the rationalist character is brutally killed (the one who is stoutly closed-minded to the existence of the monster until it is too late), despite the fact our everyday beliefs concerning monsters are more likely aligned to the rationalist character than any other. Even the prospect of improving a general moral faculty like empathy is dubious and more often than not a reader may rebel, as Oscar Wilde did regarding Dickens’ moralistic tale The Old Curiosity Shop, writing: ‘One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.’
Despite these points, a proponent of the moralist approach to English might shelter behind an aestheticist position that students engaging with the artistry of writing is a good in itself. However, in reality, there is nothing preventing the fruits of eloquent writing from being used for evil ends. For instance, the use of euphemisms to conceal or distort ugly truths can be observed through the language used by the mafia (‘we took him on a one-way ride’), the military (‘significant collateral damage’), journalists (‘anti-choice politicians attack female reproductive rights’) or real estate agents (‘this cosy cottage is a renovator’s dream’).
I reflected on this and more as the teaching conference came to an end and we streamed out of Deakin University. Specifically, I tried to fit together in my mind the three answers I had received while trying to discern the purpose of my vocation. It was a difficult task since each member of this trinity appears to be incompatible with the others. They are also inadequate if they solely form the basis for discipline. If it’s based on grammar, then English is too dry and does not comprehend beauty. If it’s based on self-expression, then English becomes hopelessly solipsistic and forces teachers to pander to the whims of popular culture. Finally, if English is based on do-goodery it devolves into a study of propaganda at worst, or ineffectual moral development at best.
Yet there is hope. A harmony between the different aspects of English is possible because there once was such a harmony in the traditional trivium of rhetoric, logic, and grammar which once filled the educational role for society that English now does. In the trivium the objective, subjective, and ethical concerns of the language arts were balanced against each other. However, there is yet another trinity that underpinned and allowed this harmony to exist, and that is the trinity of the transcendentals – the true, the good, and the beautiful. Our secular society has given up the transcendental nature of the good, the true, and the beautiful and so there is no longer any social credence behind the idea that beauty is the splendour of truth, or in those famous words by Dostoevsky that: ‘Beauty will save the world.’ It is a return to transcendental truths that could bring a unified and purposeful direction back to English and save the discipline from disintegration. Or at the very least, save me from a life of teaching the art of the euphemism to future real estate agents.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/what-is-the-point-of-teaching-english/ ?
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The Cape Byron Lighthouse Declaration: a ‘suspended’ guide to making healthcare great again
Julie Sladden
Lighthouses have served mariners for centuries, warning of nearby dangers. Cape Byron is no exception, guiding the route of countless mariners with its beams offering security and guidance. It seems, therefore, a fitting place for three resolute Australian health professionals, to gather and make a declaration against the censorship, coercion, and medical tyranny of the past three years.
These three would call themselves ordinary Australians, but when you hear their stories, you realise they are anything but. Critical care and anaesthesia specialist doctor Paul Oosterhuis, mental healthcare doctor Robert Brennan, and ‘former psychologist’ Ros Nealon-Cook did not know each other three years ago, but their paths brought them to the same point in September 2021. And that point can be described with one word: suspended. Their crime? Speaking out against Australia’s Covid pandemic response.
Rather than step back into the shadows, they have instead renewed their vows to stand and propose a blueprint for the redemption of healthcare in The Cape Byron Lighthouse Declaration.
Each of their stories is different and you can listen to a full version online, but I’ll give you the abridged version here. Dr. Brennan was suspended following complaints for distributing flyers and his association with the Covid Medical Network (now Australian Medical Network). Dr. Oosterhuis was suspended following anonymous complaints regarding his social media posts. And Ros Nealon-Cook was suspended following ten complaints about a video she released outlining serious harm to children due to the Australian government’s pandemic response measures.
Hardly crimes of the century. In fact, not crimes at all.
When you consider that one of AHPRA’s purposes is to ‘protect the public’ what possible motive could there be for suspending a qualified, experienced, and respected health practitioner for expressing their professional opinion in the context of a health issue?
I digress.
Ros Nealon-Cook describes how these three found each other and the idea for the declaration:
‘We were all suspended within several days of each other in September 2021 and were all targeted. We became sort of like war buddies. Quite draconian measures were used by AHPRA, by the boards, by the Health Care Complaints Commission, and all these different tentacles of the government. We were threatened with criminal action and all sorts of things. It was just this constant campaign of bullying… They even came after me for a psychiatric evaluation, which I didn’t go to, but they did on me by transcribing interviews.’
Yep, you read that right: a psychiatric evaluation was done on a healthcare practitioner, without them even being there.
(Who are these people?!)
Nealon-Cook continues, ‘The idea for the declaration started as a bit of a joke, and one day I just said to Paul and Robert, “Oh for goodness sake, let’s do our own Great Barrington declaration… but we’ll make it all about the censorship and bullying of health professionals.” We had a bit of a laugh about it, and that was it.’
But, as many ideas do, the idea germinated. So, on the dawn of January 22, 2023, the Cape Byron Lighthouse Declaration was born. It states:
All silencing and censorship by bureaucrats and regulators, including of experienced practitioners and scientists must stop. There must be respect for every individual’s right to freedom of opinion and expression.
The right to ‘informed’ consent must be upheld – and must include being fully informed of relevant risks, as well as any benefits (proven or presumed).
Mandates and other forms of medical coercion are unethical – and must cease. Bodily autonomy is the inalienable right of every individual – and must be respected.
There is an urgent need for transparency and reform in science and medicine and to halt the increasing globalisation of public health. We demand the restoration of voice and decision power to individual practitioners – and those they serve.
Since its launch a few weeks ago, the declaration has received international attention and signatures from around the world including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, and the US with numbers increasing daily.
Three years ago, I could not have conceived we would need such a declaration. But the Covid years have revealed the diseased underbelly of healthcare and its powerful influences. Healthcare, nor the people it serves, cannot thrive in the presence of censorship, coercion, and unethical behaviour. So, the time has come to remind ourselves, our governments, and our leaders of the core foundations.
If the stories of these three health professionals demonstrate anything, it is that silencing and censorship do not work. Eventually the dam wall breaks and such ‘ordinary people’ break through. ‘We didn’t die,’ says Oosterhuis. ‘We got louder.’
‘Paul Rob and I, we’re just normal people,’ says Nealon-Cook. ‘We’re not media trained, we fumble our words and stumble along. But would we do it again? Absolutely. Because we have to. We have to do this, and we’ve lost everything. We’ve lost our careers. We’ve lost our reputations. We’ve lost friends. It’s had really serious impacts on family. But this is so important, and we would do it again and again and again.
‘People keep saying to all of us, “Oh you’re so brave. I could never do that.” I wasn’t brave. I was terrified when I did it, but I’m more terrified of what will happen if we don’t turn this around. Because potentially we’re going to be living in a world where there’s complete censorship, of any debate, any scientific debate, any expertise that doesn’t fit in with the narrative.’
The call to action is clear.
‘There’s a lot of people that are still waiting for this to be solved by someone else. They’re still waiting for the hero on the white charger or the likes,’ says Nealon-Cook. ‘The key piece is that everyone needs to stand up. And the sooner that everyone does that the sooner this is all over.’
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Slap on the wrists for Climate activists who halted coal train
CLIMATE activists who brought a coal train to a grinding halt in Newcastle have been slapped with fines ranging from $750 to $450 in court.
At least 30 of the Rising Tide protesters who faced court on Thursday pleaded guilty to entering enclosed lands and assisting in the obstruction of a rail locomotive.
One member, Jack Ruben Thieme, pleaded guilty to a further charge of property damage after a fence was cut to allow members of the group onto the rail corridor.
He was fined a total of $750.
Magistrate Stephen Olischlager warned the group that the right to protest isn't absolute.
"Arguments are never won through either the use of force or disregard for the rights of others, at the end of the day, support for worthy causes is won by changing minds, exposing truths and respectful communication of arguments," he said.
More than 50 members had their matters heard in court, represented by defence solicitor Olivia Freeman who argued her clients acted the way they did out of desperation in the face of "climate inaction".
"The science is now at a point where there can be no dispute that there are a number of members of our community with sincere and strongly held beliefs that to address the climate crisis and a rise of 1.5 degrees that we can't keep burning fossil fuels," she said.
She pointed out there was a common thread across the reference letters handed into the court in support of the offenders.
"Every person before the court today is a person with the utmost integrity, compassion, concern and passion about the environment," she said.
"These are all strongly community-minded individuals that give back in various ways to the community in which they all live and are described as caring and generous."
Ms Freeman pushed for good behaviour bonds and non-convictions for those of her clients without a criminal history, but Mr Olischlager said there was a need to deter the public from similar action.
Police prosecutor Harry Hall was unsuccessful in his attempt to have each of the offenders banned from any coal storage or loading facility across the state and rail corridors except for when travelling.
"The NSW Police accepts that all individuals have the right to protest, but it must be done in a lawful and safe manner," he said.
"There are always methods individuals can use rather than this unlawful example."
He argued the protesters put police and emergency services at risk and dragged resources away from people in need, potentially endangering lives.
More than 10 of the activists had their matters adjourned to July 10. Some live interstate and will appear via audio visual link on the next occasion
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Philosophers cry freedom in gender wars
Leading Australian philosophers have waded into the gender wars engulfing university campuses here and the United Kingdom, calling for stronger protection of academic freedom and robust debate of issues relating to sex, gender and gender identity.
Writing in response to a boycott campaign by student and trans rights activists against University of Melbourne feminist Holly Lawford-Smith, a group of 20 academics from seven universities backed her right to teach from a gender critical perspective without harassment or interference.
A group of fellow academics are backing the right of Holly Lawford-Smith to challenge transgender ideology.
A group of fellow academics are backing the right of Holly Lawford-Smith to challenge transgender ideology.CREDIT:JOE ARMAO
“Our support for Lawford-Smith’s right to teach and research in this field is neither an endorsement nor a criticism of the substance of her views,” the group wrote in a column published this week by The Times Higher Education.
“But, in relation to this issue, it seems clear that university leaders and academics need to do more to foster climates of genuine academic freedom.
“Lawford-Smith is one of several academics globally who have faced censure, campaigns of harassment and deplatforming for their gender-critical views. Likewise, the University of Melbourne is one of several universities globally that has had legal claims lodged against it by gender critical scholars.”
Gender critical scholars argue that women are defined by sex, rather than gender or gender identity.
“When it comes to debates about sex versus gender identity, people in positions of authority must avoid conflation of a rightly non-negotiable commitment to LGBT inclusion with endorsement of the view that gender identity is more important than sex,” the authors wrote.
“This conflation lies behind claims that those who hold or express gender-critical views are de facto ‘transphobic’ or make campus unsafe for trans people.”
The authors of the column include philosophy professors at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, Monash University, ANU and Charles Sturt University.
Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown said views that “deny the lived experience of trans and gender diverse people” do not allow for informed and respectful discussion.
“There is always an opportunity to engage with people and ideas with respect and compassion, but it makes it very hard to do this when one side denies the existence of the other or mischaracterises them as threats and frauds,” she said.
This masthead last month revealed that Lawford-Smith, the target of a two-year campaign by trans activists which escalated following her involvement in the Let Women Speak event gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, has lodged a WorkSafe complaint against the University of Melbourne claiming she has been bullied and not provided a safe workplace.
In her complaint, Lawford-Smith claims that a university investigation into her attendance at the rally and comments on social media undermined its commitment to academic freedom. The investigation found she had no disciplinary case to answer.
University of Melbourne provost Nicola Phillips last month said the universities had to balance their “resolute” commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression with the responsibility they had to provide a workplace free of harassment and intimidation.
Vicki Thomson, the chief executive of the Group of Eight – also known as the sandstone universities – said all her members strongly asserted the importance of academic freedom.
“Progress depends on our capacity to develop and challenge new ideas, to discuss, debate and at times disagree as we endeavour to contribute to a more cohesive and inclusive society,” she said.
“Upholding freedom of expression is, at all times, essential to the core mission of our universities, as is the right of students and staff to feel and be safe on our campuses.”
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1 June, 2023
The garlic cure
A report by the Peter Doherty Institute suggests that good old Aussie garlic is good for warding off the coronavirus. ‘Scientists at Doherty have been researching garlic properties over the past 18 months and have discovered a certain Australian grown garlic variety demonstrates antiviral properties with up to 99.9 per cent efficacy against the viruses which cause Covid-19 and the common flu,’ reported the AFR.
It was always the case that the grotesque government over-reach that blighted (and destroyed) so many lives during the so-called pandemic of 2020 and 2021 would either end in tragedy or – as is clearly now the case – in farce. Were the lockdowns, the internal border closures, the mask and vaccine mandates, the social distancing, the banning of various therapies, the hotel quarantines, the endless press conferences and the ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ all potentially avoidable using the oldest naturopathic remedy known to mankind?
Ultimately. some human actions occur on such a vast and incomprehensible scale that they defy normal responses. Surely the common-sense reaction to the Covid years would see a sensible royal commission or other such official inquiry taking place to determine what we as a society can learn from where we went right and where we went wrong during Covid. This is how we normally respond to unusual events, be they hurricanes or other natural disasters on a confronting scale, or criminal or other unsavoury behaviour by our authorities or elected officials.
What the Covid era showed so insidiously and so uniquely was that there was a grotesque abuse of power in two entirely different spheres: the political and the medical.
Covid should already be in the hands of some form of judicial commissioner charged with determining why pregnant women were being arrested in their PJs, why men and women were being put in chokeholds or kicked in the head or slammed to the ground by burly Victorian police officers, why weird detention centres were being constructed, why little old ladies couldn’t take the chihuahua for a walk in the park outside a 5km perimeter and so on. Equally, some form of medical commissioner or public coroner should already be poring over the well-documented excess deaths data to determine whether or not the mandated mRNA vaccines were responsible for killing an unprecedented number of young or healthy people who were never in any serious danger from the virus anyway.
But no, instead the abuses of the Covid era are being busily swept under the carpet. And we watch idly as those who were responsible for potentially some of the greatest of those abuses of power – and, let’s be totally frank here, potentially criminal activity – slink off into early retirement or are safely parachuted into highly paid positions on the international globalist job circuit.
As Rebecca Weisser writes this week, we are now teetering on the brink of an even more potentially devastating event: the possibility of a Global Pandemic Treaty courtesy of the deeply compromised and discredited World Health Organisation. The Spectator Australia has repeatedly warned against this continually developing threat, which has been in the making for several years.
Days before last year’s federal election, then prime minister Scott Morrison rushed onto radio 2GB with astonishing haste to deny and denigrate as a ‘conspiracy theory’ our Flat White editorial warning that Australia was set to sign the treaty that very week. A year on, that warning is more needed than ever.
Instead, as the world hurtles towards a totalitarian health system that would make Orwell spin in his grave, we are hilariously told that a decent diet of Aussie garlic may well have been the answer all along
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/garlic-19
****************************************************Australians could be jailed for three years for hateful social media posts
Australians in the state of Queensland could be jailed for up to three years for sharing social media posts that violate sweeping hate crime laws.
The Criminal Code (Serious Vilification and Hate Crimes) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 proposes tougher penalties for those who commit crimes motivated by prejudice on the grounds of race, religion, sexuality or gender identity.
The proposed laws would increase the maximum prison time for making bigoted statements from six months to three years.
Inflammatory social media posts fall under the purview of the bill, which prohibits the vilification of specified groups through “any form of communication to the public,” including via electronic means.
Sharing a Nazi symbol on social media, or carrying it around publicly, will also result in jail time.
The bill introduced into the Queensland Parliament in March would modify the criminal code to introduce a “prohibited symbols offence”. This would ban the display of hate symbols, including those tied to Nazism and the Islamic State.
As part of the clampdown on hate symbols, Queensland will ban the display of Nazi swastika tattoos. The Queensland government says its hate crime laws will be among the strongest in Australia.
Displaying a swastika is already illegal in Victoria and New South Wales (NSW), with Western Australia set to follow and South Australia also considering the issue. In NSW, it results in a year-long jail term or a $100,000 (£81,000) fine.
Like NSW and Victoria before it, Queensland will exempt Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, for whom swastikas are religious symbols. There will also be an exemption for when hate symbols are used for educational purposes.
The Queensland Law Society (QLS) opposes the increased maximum imprisonment for serious vilification. In its submission to the government, the QLS urged it to closely examine how effective and practical the higher penalty would be.
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has previously welcomed bans on the Nazi symbol in NSW and Victoria. It also pushed Queensland and other Australian states and territories to move quickly to adopt similar legislation.
“These bans are an important tool to deter open displays of antisemitism and further marginalise racist extremists, and will help strengthen communal cohesion and harmony across Australia,” the AIJAC said in June 2022.
https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/australians-could-jailed-three-years-101216781.html
***************************************************The Budget’s rivers of gold bypass education
Comedy writer Robert Orben is credited with saying, ‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.’ It is a phrase the federal government appears to want to put to the test.
This is despite handing down a Budget earlier this month which shows government spending is set to reach its highest level since 1993.
It was surprising to find education funding did not share in the rivers of taxpayers’ gold, given it was a fairly traditional Labor Budget. Treasurer Jim Chalmers did not even mention schools or universities in his Budget speech.
The little funding for education announced in the Budget papers was laser-focused on forcing the issues of race and gender onto students in a manner that almost put the cross-curriculum priorities in the National Curriculum to shame.
Perhaps the activists consider the long march through our educational institutions and our national curriculum complete…
As postmodern ideologies infiltrated the National Curriculum, Australia experienced a two-decade-long decline in education standards. A trend that is continuing, according to the OECD’s latest report.
Worse still, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows the average 15-year-old is more than a year behind students 10 years ago in reading, science, and maths. Today, Singapore, Poland, and Canada are among the many countries whose students are ahead of Australian 15-year-olds in these three key areas.
What is abundantly clear is that our education sector is failing young Australians.
A rare, glaring admission of the dire state of things was this Budget’s provision of $436 million for a foundation skills program to improve adults’ literacy, numeracy, and digital skills.
So, after 12 years of the National Curriculum, schools have been unable to inculcate the basics into a sizable number of their students. Any responsible government would recognise this as a profoundly significant problem and seek to address it forthwith.
According to the IPA’s research report, De-Educating Australia: How the National Curriculum is Failing Australian Children, students are being taught to view the world through a postmodern lens that recognises no objective fact.
This year’s Federal Budget has an obvious political slant, directing funding at minority groups while failing to address the broader problems in the Australian education system.
Independent schools are the losers, with funding expected to fall as inflation outstrips government support over the next financial year. Not surprisingly, the National Curriculum was the winner, with funding for ‘progressive’ priorities like Indigenous education and gender equity while infinitely more important outcomes like literacy and numeracy are ignored.
Funding for Indigenous education highlights the federal government’s focus on race as a key issue. The Budget sets aside $14.1 million to place educators in 60 primary schools to teach First Nation languages and provide greater cultural understanding. The problem with this decision is that it takes time and funds away from teaching the English language and the foundational skills students need.
Last year, the Federal Education Department’s performance measures showed that 11.2 per cent of Year 3 students failed to meet the minimum standard in national literacy tests.
Gender equity is another priority, with $20 million going toward teaching students about sexual consent and respectful relationships. Here the state takes on the role of the parent while once again failing to deliver core outcomes: literacy and numeracy. Programs like The Good Society, Respectful Relationships, Safe Schools, and Consent training promote a politicised narrative about gender and sexuality that disregards the views of many parents.
Gender equality and women’s participation in male-dominated sectors is another area underpinned by major funding. Women have been placed at the core of a $3.7 billion agreement between the states and territories to fund vocational education and skills training over the next five years. This feeds into the narrative that any disparity in the number of men and women working in a particular field is due to discrimination rather than choice.
The Labor government should stop and consider if women even want roles in male-dominated fields before they spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars on such programs.
The failure of leaders to understand key educational data and act accordingly is deeply concerning. While the $10 million set aside for phonics-based reading instruction for teachers is a step in the right direction, it is undercut by activities that clutter the curriculum.
This year’s budget fails our children while propping up a radical political agenda focused on gender equity and indigenous studies. It’s an education Budget for the Canberra bubble and inner-city elites, to the joy of left-wing activists and lobbyists.
But it is far removed from reality and the pressing needs of Australian students who after more than a decade of the National Curriculum still cannot keep pace when it comes to the basic skills of reading, writing, and understanding maths.
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Australia’s insurmountable housing shortage explained
This week, The AFR View published an editorial claiming “Australia’s housing affordability crisis is due to the supply side, stupid”.
That, it claimed, is the lesson policymakers must learn, according to research from former Reserve Bank economist Tony Richards, published in the paper.
The tenet of Mr Richards’ argument was that the rate of dwelling construction relative to population growth slowed significantly in the 20 years to 2021.
In turn, 1.3 million fewer dwellings were built than otherwise would have been had the rate of dwelling construction matched the 20 years to 2001.
The assertion from Richards’ research is that Australia has gotten worse at building homes, which has left the nation desperately short of housing, resulting in the current affordability crisis.
This ‘lack of supply’ view is frequently parroted by the media, the housing industry, and policy makers. Yet it is fundamentally wrong.
Australia is a world leader in home building. The OECD’s Affordable Housing Database shows that Australia has built significantly more dwellings per capita than most other OECD countries:
Australia ranked fourth in the OECD for housing construction in 2020. Australia’s dwelling construction rate was also unchanged from 2011, according to the OECD.
The fundamental problem is not Australia’s ability to build homes, but that Australia has run one of the world’s largest immigration programs, thus ensuring that housing demand has always outpaced supply.
In the 20 years to 2001, Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) averaged 95,000 people a year and population growth averaged 217,000 people a year.
In the 20 years to 2021, Australia’s NOM averaged 182,000 and population growth averaged 320,000 people a year. And this period includes the negative NOM experienced over the pandemic:
The housing supply situation will only worsen if the May federal budget’s aggressive immigration forecasts come to fruition.
The Budget projects net overseas migration to reach 400,000 for the first time ever in 2022-23 before slowing to 315,000 in 2023-24. It will then moderate to an historically high 260,000, where it will remain over the forward projections.
The federal budget, therefore, projects a record 1.5 million net overseas migrants to arrive in Australia over the five years to 2026-27 – equivalent to an Adelaide’s worth of people.
However, this construction boom was not enough to keep pace with the massive increase in immigration-driven population growth from the mid-2000s, which is projected to hit new heights going forward.
Australia’s housing shortage will worsen. Building housing for such a massive rise in population is an impossible undertaking even under ideal housing conditions.
It is even worse when the entire housing construction sector is on its knees due to widespread insolvencies and skyrocketing materials and financing (interest rate) costs.
According to ASIC data to 14 May, 1872 home builders have declared bankruptcy so far in 2022-23, which is the largest number of insolvencies on record.
Among the insolvencies listed above are industry titans such as Porter Davis Homes, which went into administration in March with over 1500 homes partially constructed, as well as a slew of smaller firms.
Since 2021, it is estimated that builders responsible for about 5200 homes worth a total of $2.2 billion have gone bankrupt. As a result, fewer builders are left to satisfy the nation’s housing needs in the face of unrelenting immigration demand.
This week’s dwelling approvals data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics were an unmitigated disaster, with total approvals collapsing to a 13-year low:
To add further insult to injury, Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy told Senate Estimates this week that the downturn in dwelling approvals is expected to continue until 2025, with investment in new dwellings likely to contract by 2.5 per cent this year and a further 3.5 per cent in 2023?24 and 1.5 per cent in 2024?25.
Growing Australia’s population by between 400,000 and 500,000 people a year amid falling dwelling construction necessarily means Australia’s housing crisis will worsen, resulting in higher rents and increasing homelessness.
It’s the immigration, stupid!
If the Albanese Government truly cared about ending the nation’s housing shortage, it would run an immigration program that was substantially lower than the overall expansion in the housing stock, not the other way around.
It is time to stop scapegoating a ‘lack of supply’ and start addressing the immigration elephant.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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