Australian Politics
Friday, January 06, 2023
‘Good on her’: Thorpe backs Price over calls for more details on Voice
A Green/conservative axis! Sure death for the referendum
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has praised Coalition senator and leading No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for calling for more transparency around the Voice to parliament as she insisted the party still did not have a final position on whether it will support the referendum.
As the Greens’ spokeswoman on First Nations issues, Thorpe said that while she and Price approached the Voice from “a completely different angle”, they shared a similar scepticism about the need for another advisory body and the Indigenous leaders “handpicked” by the Albanese government to steer the process.
“Both of us in our collective experience have seen numerous advisory bodies try and fix things and fail. She has also seen the hand-picked spokespeople for our people, who she doesn’t agree with, and nor do I,” Thorpe told this masthead.
“I think transparency and accountability through any process that this country wants to take about making a decision on our lives is paramount – and I think that’s what Jacinta is bringing out and good on her.”
Thorpe added that people needed to respect there was not a singular homogeneous view across the Indigenous community, saying: “We have different ways that we think would bring this country together. Jacinta has hers and I, through the black grassroots movement in this country, have another way.”
Price – who has argued the Voice proposal lacks detail, is racially divisive and will add only another bureaucratic layer to failed governance structures in Indigenous communities – is expected to join forces with conservative Indigenous commentator Warren Mundine to spearhead the No case in the lead-up to the referendum, which is due in the second half of this year.As the Nationals’ sole Indigenous MP, Price’s strident opposition to the Voice was a key factor in the party room’s decision last year to formally oppose it, which triggered the defection of Calare MP Andrew Gee, a Voice supporter, to the crossbench.
Replacing Gee on the opposition frontbench on Wednesday, veteran Nationals MP Darren Chester said he was not against the concept of the Voice but believed it was a “step too far” to enshrine this body in the Constitution, saying it could be legislated instead.
The Greens’ policy position is to progress all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart – – the Voice to parliament, a treaty with Indigenous people, and a truth-telling process – while demanding Labor implement the outstanding recommendations from the decades-old Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing them Home report.
But in comments that add to the confusion around the Greens’ policy, Thorpe said it was incorrect to characterise the party’s position as broadly supportive of the Voice.
“That’s not the position. The position is that we’re in negotiation and that we’re not going to say that we support something when that undermines our negotiation power,” she said.
“So we don’t support anything. We don’t support a No campaign, we don’t support a Yes campaign until we see Labor action those recommendations that save our people’s lives and provides a guarantee that our sovereignty won’t be ceded.”
She called for Labor “to provide legal evidence” from an international constitutional expert that Indigenous sovereignty would not be ceded by being “incorporated into the colonial Constitution”, adding: “If we get evidence to the contrary – and we don’t have an opportunity for treaties – then we are doing the wrong thing.”
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the Voice would not have any impact on sovereignty, but would instead “improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. It will ensure the government hears from local communities about local solutions and how to address existing policies that aren’t working”.
Thorpe’s hardline negotiating position has been criticised by Voice advocates as political gamesmanship, including by high-profile Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton, a leading member of the Albanese government’s Indigenous Voice referendum working group, who last year accused the Greens of demanding “impossible” trade-offs.
Thorpe’s position also appears to be at odds with previous positions advanced by her federal colleagues, including leader Adam Bandt.
In the lead-up to the federal election last May, Bandt described the Voice to parliament as something that “cannot fail”, saying the party’s policy was to “improve, not block vital legislation” and it would work to further truth, treaty and voice.
“We may only get one chance at a referendum to enshrine a Voice to parliament in the Constitution,” he tweeted in April.
In October, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young declared she would be doing “everything I can” to support the Yes case.
Asked whether her position conflicted with the broader Greens membership – Resolve polling from December showed 85 per cent of Greens voters backed the Voice – Thorpe said she took her guidance from the party’s grassroots First Nations network, known as the Blak Greens.
“So if there’s anybody who disagrees with that policy, well then they need to chase it up with the Blak Greens,” she said.
She suggested a treaty process could deliver dedicated First Nations senate seats, which she said would be “real power” rather than an advisory body whose advice “was either taken or it’s not”.
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Is Snowy 2 an impossible dream?
The massive Snowy hydro-electricity "2.0" project is rolling on, but without a chief executive, after the collapse of one of the key builders and with a growing question about what it will deliver.
This has been a season of drama for the controversial project, which is building 27 kilometres of tunnels and seeking to revolutionise Australia's electricity grid.
When Snowy Hydro boss Paul Broad's snap resignation was made public in August, the reason given was delays with the project.
But within days, he said it was a clash with Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
"Issues have arisen obviously between what I think of the world and what Chris Bowen, minister for energy, thinks of the world and, rather than create a drama, I resigned," Mr Broad told the ABC at the time.
"I didn't want to put the company in a position where we were seen to be fighting at every level with whatever the government may or may not want to do."
Just a week later, Webuild reached agreement with the Clough administrators to buy Clough's Australian organisation including offices, brand, credentials, business references, senior management and office personnel, as well as its share of the Snowy 2.0 and Inland Rail contracts, with the related workforce.
Webuild has a backlog of work in Australia worth 8.9 billion Euro ($14 billion) and has completed projects including the airport rail line in Perth.
The Snowy Hydro 2.0 project is a mega project. The first tunnel, completed in October, was a 10-metre-wide, 2.8-kilometre stretch to create access to a cavern 800 metres underground where a new power station would be housed. And it only gets harder from there.
The original scheme produced electricity by buildings dams and releasing the water stored in them to power turbines.
Construction began in 2019 on the so-called "Snowy 2.0" project, which involves a system of "pumped hydro".
Two existing dams will be linked by a 27-kilometre underground tunnel and a new underground power station that will allow water to be pumped and re-used – because it will flow through the turbines twice.
It's due to be finished by 2026. But even without delays, there are problems. One of the biggest dangers for Snowy Hydro 2.0 is that it will be too late to prevent a catastrophic shortfall in energy.
Ageing coal plants are shutting, but many of the closure dates rely on the machinery holding out — and the economics holding up.
Dr Dylan McConnell from the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE) at University of New South Wales says there is some good news.
"Pumped hydro projects like Snowy 2.0 are a form of energy storage that provides a useful source of dispatchable generation, useful for balancing the grid," he said.
The reason they provide balance is they can pump and fill their reservoirs when there's abundant energy supply and then provide generation later when supplies are low, such as when the sun goes down or if it's not windy.
But the bad news, he says, is that delays to the project could have a cascading impact on the amount of power in the system.
"The market operator doesn't see a delay to Snowy 2.0 having a material impact on the reliability outlook for New South Wales," Dr McConnell says.
"However, that assessment is also contingent on some significant transmission projects being delivered in a timely manner."
But the clock is ticking. "A key question is how much of the anticipated projects — particularly transmission projects — might be delivered in a timely way," he says.
The Snowy Hydro 2.0 project is set to have a huge impact on the price and reliability of our power.
Beneath the ground, workers are busy digging and building. On the surface, the problems keep mounting.
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How Labor unleashed youth crime wave in Queensland
One Queensland family’s Christmas has been ruined by a gang of recalcitrant juveniles who have repeatedly terrorised their family home. A week before Christmas three youths broke into their home and stole car keys.
The initial crime spree was foiled when the juveniles hit other cars while trying to get away. They were then scared off by locals responding to the commotion. But the juvenile criminals took the keys and have been back twice (including on Christmas Eve) scoping out the home in balaclavas.
Understandably this young Queensland family now struggle to sleep in their own home.
The local police know the offenders but their hands are tied by Queensland’s lax youth crime laws. Instead, police have told the frightened family that they should install a fence and buy a German shepherd. Why should Queenslanders have to turn their homes into a jail when it is the criminals that should be there?
When pressed one police officer said they need to write letters asking for tougher laws and that they should “blame the Labor Government.”
Queensland has been shocked by the tragic stabbing death of a young mum of two, Emma Lovell, on Boxing Day at her home in North Lakes. Her sad passing is the regrettable culmination of the surge in break-ins committed by juveniles since 2019. But for the grace of God, any break in creates the risk that something tragically goes wrong.
Why have juveniles been breaking the law with abandon since 2019? In August 2019, the Queensland Government changed the Youth Justice Act. In the words of the Government’s Explanatory Note about these changes, they had the “objective of removing legislative barriers to enable young people to be granted bail.” The changes told judges that the principle should be “detention as a last resort”, and that “the bail decision-making framework” incorporated an “explicit presumption in favour of release.”
Judges must be shaking their heads at the chutzpah of the Queensland Premier who under pressure given the spate of juvenile crime last month cowardly told judges “to do their job”. The Premier’s own Government told the courts just three years ago to rule with an “explicit presumption in favour of release!”
The data shows the clear impact of Labor’s liberal approach to young criminals. In the 12 months before the bail changes in 2019, there were a reported 6184 “unlawful entries” by juveniles. In the 12 months before November last year (the last month data is available for) there were 10,108 reported “unlawful entries” by juveniles.
There has not been an increase in unlawful entries by non-juveniles, in fact they have slightly fallen since 2019. This provides strong evidence that Labor’s youth bail changes are to blame.
Following Labor’s changes to bail there has been a staggering 63 per cent increase in juveniles breaking in to people’s homes and businesses. This is a recipe for a repeat of the tragic outcomes we saw on Boxing Day.
In response to the clear failure of their laws, the Labor government has tried a couple of times to put a band aid on this open wound. In 2021, the Government announced that courts could require juveniles to wear GPS tracking devices when on bail. Since then just 8 juveniles have been fitted with such devices. With 27 juvenile break-ins occurring every day in Queensland over the past year this will hardly make a difference.
Now again the Labor Premier is trying to her tired schtick of blaming others while announcing a hasty response that is meant to distract attention from the real issue. The Government’s latest thought bubbles include trialling engine immobilisers and the appointment of a new Police Assistant Commissioner.
It is time for the Queensland Government to stop eating Christmas pudding and instead digest some humble pie. Their botched 2019 reforms have clearly led to a youth crime epidemic and it is time to roll back to the laws we had pre-2019 before more innocent people are killed.
An online petition calling for an “Emma’s law” to strengthen bail laws has already received 134,000 signatures. The only reason the Queensland Government is not listening to this outcry is that the Premier is too proud to admit she was wrong.
If the Government will not act maybe it is time for us to take up the advice of that frustrated policeman and all write letters calling for action.
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Australian woman opens up about her devastating vaccine injury
The wife of high-profile doctor Kerryn Phelps has detailed the horrific side effects in her first interview about her battle with a debilitating Covid vaccine injury.
Jackie Stricker-Phelps told Daily Mail Australia her life as she once knew it is gone and there is no prospect of recovery from her vaccine injury.
The former schoolteacher's symptoms started minutes after her first Pfizer jab in May 2021 and she is still unable to walk without pain.
She is one of thousands of Australians who suffer devastating long-term side effects, but feel like the government and medical regulators deny it's happening.
'I have had debilitating neurological and rheumatological effects since the initial Pfizer vaccine,' she said.
'I had a surge of heat in my head, my face went bright red, my gums and sinuses started to throb, I felt my hands and feet go numb and I developed pins and needles all over my torso, arms and legs. 'I could hardly walk, and so begin the next 19 months of hell.'
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she saw a neurologist the next day, who closely monitored her symptoms, and later also visited a rheumatologist.
'I have had visual disturbance, nerve pains, burning gums, flushed face, hair loss, musculoskeletal inflammation, and night sweats,' she said. 'I tried multiple prescribed medications, steroid injections into my spine and hips for pain.
'Two of my specialists have confirmed it is a vaccine injury and say they see other people with the same adverse events.'
Both she and Dr Phelps, who also suffered a serious vaccine injury from her second Pfizer jab, investigated the possible risks before getting vaccinated.
'We were told the most common symptoms were a sore arm with maybe a temperature for a few days and a rare possibility of anaphylaxis. We were both told it was far safer to get the vaccine than the illness,' she said.
To manage the risk of anaphylaxis, Ms Stricker-Phelps had her shot in a hospital and was observed afterwards by Dr Phelps, another doctor, and a registered nurse.
When her symptoms began, she claimed the nurse told her 'this is not anaphylaxis so you can go home' despite her barely being able to walk.
Ms Stricker-Phelps said her symptoms had not shown any significant improvement and frequent flare-ups made her unable to perform many basic tasks.
In the midst of a recent flare-up, she found it extremely painful to walk, communicating was difficult, and she struggled to leave the house.
'Flareups are even harder to deal with as there are no protocols in place for treatment,' she said.
To deal with the latest one, her specialist sent her for 'yet another spinal injection' to try to reduce inflammation across her body.
Even when the flare-ups subside, exercise is difficult because of the pain she suffers throughout her body.
But she said the hardest thing was having to live an isolated life to avoid catching Covid.
'I cannot receive any more of the current vaccines so am not protected from Covid,' she said. 'I have to isolate from family and friends, and avoid group activities such as parties or the theatre as the virus is transmissible even from vaccinated people.'
Ms Stricker-Phelps said she had no idea if and when her condition would improve, let alone recover, because so little was known about it. 'The best chance of recovery is for more effort and funding into research to find the underlying mechanism of the injury and for specific treatments to be developed,' she said.
'But first, the government and the medical profession need to acknowledge the extent of the problem.'
'The cloak of silence has been lifted and people are starting to talk about long Covid and vaccine injuries,' Ms Stricker-Phelps said.
Because the government never publicly acknowledged the full risk, she argues Australians didn't have proper informed consent when they decided to get the jab.
'It is important that people have fully informed consent by being made aware of the risks and then make their own decisions about their vaccinations,' she said.
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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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Evelyn Rae, a 
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related
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