Australian Politics
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Labor's 'surplus' Budget is just smoke and mirrors - and Aussies should be worried...
PETER VAN ONSELEN is nearly right below. The debt is a problem. But, insofar as it is domestic debt, inflation will wipe it out. The real problem is the inflation, which in effect steals peoples' savings
This year's Budget highlighted just how fiscally doomed we are as a nation, even if the government attempted to hide the fact in plain sight.
And they've used a mix of deception and trickery when doing so.
Before we even got to Budget day itself, 'the surplus' was strategically leaked to the media: coming in at $9.3billion, it surprised most observers on the upside. A product of favourable terms of trade.
Sounds good, right? Wrong.
It wasn't the surplus for the coming financial year, the year all the new spending and tax cuts are slated to start. It was a surplus in the financial year that ends in just six weeks: the 2023/24 financial year.
That's come and gone. The next four financial years are all in deficit, and big time. The first is a deficit of nearly $30billion, the next year it rises to nearly $50billion. Remember, that national debt is more than one trillion dollars already.
Even just paying off the interest bill on that quantum of debt is hard. The fact we are continuing to just rack up more and more debt - with no plan to do anything about it - should be disturbing to all Australians.
And let's be clear, both sides of politics are to blame for this mess.
Budgets are supposed to be about the coming financial year, not the last. The substance of Treasurer Jim Chalmers speech focused on new spending and tax cuts that happen next financial year, spruiking income tax cuts as the 'foundation stone' of the Budget.
But by linking in an old surplus, Chalmers tried to create the false impression that all the new spending and tax cuts was happening within a fiscally prudent envelope, because he was handing down a surplus.
Only he wasn't.
It was tricky indeed for the government to try to focus backwards on the surplus in the financial year that is about to end but forwards on new spending and tax cuts in the next one.
That's called having your cake and eating it.
Making the situation even worse, via some tricky accounting there is a further $80billion of spending that isn't even counted in the wall-to-wall Budget deficits in the years to come.
And these politicians have the temerity to lecture business leaders when they think they are being less than forthcoming when quizzed for the cameras at show trials such as parliamentary committees.
What a bunch of hypocrites we have serving us in Canberra.
Unless the major political parties find a way to work together to repair the Budget's financial underpinnings, future generations are going to be unfairly gifted massive debt with difficult-to-manage annual interest payments.
A situation made worse by baked-in recurrent spending that Australians are growing used to and will find hard to live without when the day of reckoning comes and the financial tap gets turned off, as it inevitably has to.
We are living beyond our means, it's that simple. Families can't do it for long when doing their own budgeting, and neither can countries.
The only way to fix the situation is going to be via tax hikes, cuts to spending, or both. And reforms to the way we tax, and the way state and federal governments work together, also need to happen.
Most concerning, no one seems to be much bothered by government debt anymore, meaning that racking it up doesn't damage governments politically the way it used to.
We must force a change of approach, so that whoever is in power becomes more fiscally prudent.
Because both sides of politics have let spending get out of control for so long that complaints from opposition become akin to white noise.
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Teen had been previously convicted of 84 offences but had not spent a day in custody until he killed someone
The grieving husband of a mum-of-two stabbed to death during a home invasion has recalled the haunting moment his life changed forever.
Emma Lovell, 41, and her husband Lee spent Boxing Day 2022 baking treats and playing games with their young daughters Scarlett and Kassie before the North Lakes couple enjoyed a few cocktails and went to bed early.
Several hours later, she was fatally stabbed in the heart after two teens, then both 17, broke into her home north of Brisbane at about 11.30pm.
Her partner of 22 years was also stabbed in front of their horrified daughters.
The teen, now 19, who killed Ms Lovell had been previously convicted of 84 offences but had not spent a day in custody until that night.
Mr Lovell has opened up about being attacked in his own home - and how he didn't realise his wife was gravely injured until his daughter saw she was bleeding.
'By the time I looked back at Emma, she was, like, just, like, passed out on the floor,' he told A Current Affair on Monday night.
'And when Kassie came back, she was like, 'Mum's bleeding', I'm like, 'what do you mean?'
'She's bleeding and looked at her left side and I know it was just, like, soaked with blood, you know, and then that, like, panic sets in.'
As he was rushed to hospital, other paramedics performed open heart surgery on his wife on their front lawn.
'To be at the hospital and be told that she hadn't survived was a major shock,' he recalled.
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Homeschooling rises across Canberra post-pandemic
Since COVID lockdowns kept students out of schools, there's been a big rise in the number who now find home the best place to study.
There's been a 50 per cent increase in the numbers not going to school for their learning.
Official figures for the "home-educated" count 465 people of school age in the category in the ACT, compared with 305 just before the virus struck, and compared with only 166 just 10 years ago.
"School is an obsolete model," Ilaria Catizone says in a break between teaching a handful of homeschooled children who've come together to learn a bit of Italian.
She concedes formal schools work for some young people but not for all. The ones who don't quite fit the mould are often the ones opting out, perhaps because of bullying. Some parents told The Canberra Times they were unhappy with "woke" education, particularly on sexual matters.
Ilaria Catizone has been been schooling Audrey, 7, and Elody, 13, for the last three years. At the communal session, Elody also helps teach the younger children Italian through a game of bingo where numbers are called in Italian and pasta rings go on the numbered squares.
These kids are meeting in a community hall for their lesson, so homeschooling doesn't always happen at home. Sometimes, it's collective in that a group get together and learn.
The parents' motives vary.
Rebecca Bonazza said her daughter Skyler, 10, was bullied in her public school in Canberra.
"Bullying was rife. When she concentrates, she hums, and a lot of kids picked on her," the mother said.
"Kids just seem to be more nasty these days, and because she's a bit different she rarely wanted to go to school."
Her mother was also unhappy about the amount of mention of sex, both in class and outside - "woke", as she put it. "A lot of things they are told are a bit much," she said.
She felt homeschooling meant "super-young children" could be protected from "things on the internet".
"You can't protect your children from that but at home you can," she said.
So the mother has bought the daughter a pile of books about a string of subjects, including science and maths.
"We learn about the world, about money. And I plan to take her out into the world, to teach her things, to galleries. We have a lot of discussions. We go to the library. We go to book stores. She has a lot of books," Ms Bonazza said.
Skyler is not yet in her teens and her mother said she may go to college in years 11 and 12 to get formal qualifications.
But for now, home (and a community hall) is the place of learning.
It should be said the number of homeschoolers remains small compared with the number of on-campus schoolers, even though the percentage rise is big.
The latest official figures for the ACT have 465 children in homeschooling compared with 82,280 students across primary schools (47,174), high schools (23,926) and colleges (11,180).
But the rise upwards since COVID is unmistakable (as is the fall for public schools: 50,556 in 2023 compared with 51,153 ACT pupils in 2021).
One of the organisations promoting homeschooling is holding an information session at Downer Community Hall between 4pm and 6pm on Monday.
The organiser, Ms Catizone, said she would try to answer common questions like, "What about socialisation?", "Will my children learn enough?" and "What about university?".
She said kids had opportunities to socialise despite not going to school, with a public school's wide mix of types and backgrounds.
Her daughters' education is "interest-led". Her eldest daughter was curious and learns, even about formal subjects like mathematics.
"She learns a lot of maths through shopping or cooking or helping us do our tax returns. She's renovated her room, and that involved a lot of maths like measuring," Ms Catizone said.
"If she wants to go to university, she will do more formal maths."
Ms Catizone is a vegetarian and, at home, there is an interest in "ethical behaviour" which prompted her daughter to research vegetarianism, both in terms of food but also fashion.
The teenager is interested in make-up, and that provides two fields of learning. "She's done research on ethical make-up", and the daughter has researched "make-up through the ages".
"It's very important for them to do their own research," the mother said.
She rejects the idea schooling children at home gives parents an opportunity to indoctrinate children in the parents' values.
In response to the idea, she says religious schools do the same.
Ms Catizone is a convert to homeschooling but she also concedes it doesn't suit everyone. It is obviously only for those with some money and time.
There is a class aspect.
Parents who both work fixed and long hours to just about pay the bills may not be convinced about homeschooling. For them, public schools are the only option.
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Overseas student numbers add up to new election battlefront
Are the government and opposition on a unity ticket when it comes to migration? They share the aims of reducing the migrant intake as well as cutting back on the number of international students. Both sides have even put some figures on their ambitions.
The context of this seeming agreement is the massive surge in migrant numbers over the past two years, ever since the pandemic restrictions were lifted. The most recent figure for net overseas migration – the difference between long-term arrivals and long-term departures – was 549,000 in the year ending in the September quarter last year. This is a historic high.
The largest single group in the NOM by far is international students (50 per cent), followed by permanent migrants (25 per cent). Only 5 per cent of the NOM is temporary skilled workers. To reduce the NOM, it is absolutely essential to reduce the number of new international students.
It is clear the net migrant inflow has had a number of negative effects and is unsustainable. The fact the vast majority of these newly arriving migrants are destined for Sydney or Melbourne is also an important consideration.
Education Minister Jason Clare has come under fire over claims he made on the weekend that pro-Palestine chants such as ‘from the river to the sea’ could mean different things to different people. The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair slammed the Education Minister after he implied that the anti-Israel slogan More
With blockages to any rapid increase in the supply of new housing, it has been apparent for some time that migration of the scale we have seen has placed additional pressure on housing, particularly for rent. This in turn has been associated with extraordinarily low vacancy rates as well as soaring rents. (The figure of only 4 per cent of properties being rented to international students is highly misleading: it’s the change that matters, not the average figure.)
At the same time, migrants have taken jobs across a variety of fields, including in areas of significant workforce shortage. International students work predominantly in hospitality and retailing, but also fill jobs in aged care and childcare. Interestingly, very few migrants, including recently arrived ones, work in construction. According to the Grattan Institute, a mere 0.5 per cent of all construction workers are on temporary skill visas.
Multiple surveys indicate a very strong preference among voters for the migrant intake to be significantly reduced. Both the Coalition, in the past, and Labor, until recently, have been wont to ignore public opinion on this point, preferring to accede to the demands of educational institutions, businesses and property developers for large migrant numbers.
Weirdly, most state governments have also supported large migrant intakes – there are specific state visas – notwithstanding the fact that many of the costs of recently arrived migrants are borne by them. The Treasury continues to push for high immigration on the basis of assumption-driven estimates of the net fiscal benefits of permanent skilled migrants, who actually make up a relatively small proportion of the NOM.
So what are the positions of the two parties? The Labor government is now planning for the NOM to come in at 395,000 this financial year, an increase of 20,000 from its most recent estimate. Recall here that Treasury had estimated the figure at only 315,000 in last year’s budget. Next financial year, Labor is planning for the NOM to be only 260,000, then 255,000 in the subsequent financial year. These figures are still well in excess of the long-run average for the NOM.
The government is also attempting to reduce the number of international students, which is currently at an all-time high. Various measures have been put in place, such as insisting on higher levels of competence in English. Visa rejection rates for applicants from certain countries have risen. The overall rate of acceptance for students from China, however, remains close to 100 per cent.
Education Minister Jason Clare has released a new policy on controlling numbers of international students, backed up by legislation. It talks about “sustainable growth”, which on the face of it, doesn’t look like a decline. Certain “dodgy” colleges are being targeted, which rather begs the question of why enrolments were ever allowed in these colleges.
With some 1400 institutions enrolling international students, the proposal is for the minister to negotiate soft caps on international student enrolments with each one, with account being taken of efforts by them to build additional accommodation for international and domestic students.
If that sounds like a bureaucratic lake of treacle, you wouldn’t be wrong. In particular, the leaders of the Group of Eight are sighing with relief, content in the belief they will not have to reduce their lucrative intake of international students. The numbers at some universities are just astonishing. Sydney University has more than 35,000 international students, mainly from China, and they account for close to 50 per cent of all enrolments. Last year, Sydney University recorded a surplus – we can call this a profit – of around $1.4bn, on which no tax is paid.
As I have explained before, the idea that international education is an export industry is stretching a point. But whereas other exporting companies, particularly our mining companies, pay tax on their profits, the universities do not. In many ways, international education looks more like a racket than a normal industry, benefiting the institutions and the highly paid staff but creating few spillover benefits for the wider community.
There is also the very important issue of the diminution in the quality of the offerings for domestic students. They are commonly forced to undertake group assignments with international students with very poor language skills. They end up doing all the work, but the final mark is shared by the whole group. Last time I looked, degrees are awarded to individuals, not groups. There is also the issue of cheating, which is not well-controlled.
The Coalition’s policy as laid down in its budget-in-reply speech is in two main parts. First, the permanent migrant intake will be reduced from 185,000 to 140,000, with slight increases in subsequent years. Secondly, there will be a concerted effort to reduce the level of international student enrolments at the big universities in Melbourne and Sydney, in particular. It remains to be seen if an elected Coalition government would actually stand firm in this quest to reduce international student numbers. But on the face of it, this aspect of its policy looks much more determined than Labor’s.
It boils down to a case of compare and contrast. Labor claims to have the issue of migrant numbers, under control betting that larger numbers of departures will assist in getting the net numbers down. But the policy looks weak and impractical. The Treasurer will also be keen to avoid the possibility of a recorded recession in the event of a rapid decline in migrant numbers.
The Coalition’s plan to reduce the permanent migrant program by 25 per cent looks much more aggressive. Clamping down on the number of international students will require courage and determination against a likely avalanche of self-interested resistance. It remains to be seen whether it can be achieved.
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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)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Monday, May 20, 2024
Inside the fight to free Kathlees Folbigg
I was one of those who from an early stage saw the conviction of Kathleen Folbigg as a gross miscarriage of justice.
The law failed her so often that it is the justice system that has ultimately been convicted as not fit for purpose. It has not only been Kathleen Folbigg that has been failed in this case. It is the whole commmuity that as been failed. For an innocent person to have been REPEATEDLY been found guilty is deeply destructive to any faith in the system.
And, as in the Bruce Lehrmann case, it is a rogue official who ignored informed advice on the matter to set in train a huge and regrettable series of events. At least Shane Drumgold has suffered heavy consequences for his actions as a prosecutor in the Lehrman case. But I suppose there is no hope that the official in this case will suffer in any way.
As Lenin once asked: "What Is To Be Done?". I am afraid I have no good answers to that, any more than Lenin did. All I know is that if anybody close to me got into trouble with the law, I would use all my resources to get them from the outset the best possible legal representation. That initial conviction is the dangerous one
When Kathleen Folbigg had her long-standing convictions for the deaths of her four infant children quashed last year, Rhanee Rego was right by her side. The young lawyer had started working on her case while still at uni – and never stopped.
In June 2017, at the age of 24, when most young people are drinking too much, dating the wrong people and otherwise avoiding adulthood, Rhanee Rego, a fourth-year law student at the University of Newcastle, took up a part-time placement with a barrister named Robert Cavanagh. Tall and lanky, with the lugubrious manner of a country undertaker, Cavanagh is well known for campaigning against wrongful convictions. One of the cases he was looking into at the time was that of a convicted child killer named Kathleen Folbigg.
Folbigg, who was also from Newcastle, had been found guilty, in 2003, of murdering three of her young children and the manslaughter of a fourth, and sentenced to 40 years in prison (later reduced to 30). She had become known as the country’s worst female serial killer and was widely reviled. She had been bashed in jail and placed, for her own safety, in solitary confinement. There seemed little doubt about her guilt. Her former husband, Craig, had given evidence against her, as had her foster sister. But Cavanagh believed Folbigg was innocent and set Rego to work reviewing the case.
“I had no idea what I was signing up for,” says Rego, who I met in Newcastle recently. “I knew almost nothing of Folbigg’s case growing up. I was just 11 when she was convicted.”
By the time Rego became involved, Folbigg had already been the subject of a trial, two appeals and a petition for review, initiated by Cavanagh and fellow barristers Isabel Reed and Nicolas Moir, not to mention investigations by journalists and justice advocates. But Rego came to the case with voracious intent. For the next two months, whenever she had time, she would drive from Swansea, just south of Newcastle, where she was living with her grandmother, to Cavanagh’s chambers in the city, and read everything about the case that she could get her hands on – the trial transcripts, witness statements, police and expert reports, formal submissions and Folbigg’s diaries. “The diaries were possibly the hardest part,” Rego says. “Kathleen’s handwriting is terrible.”
Cavanagh believed Folbigg was innocent, but Rego was determined to come to her own conclusion. “I didn’t want to help a woman who’d potentially killed four of her kids, especially pro bono,” she explains. But as she made her way through the material, she became increasingly alarmed. “There was simply no direct evidence anywhere to say Folbigg was guilty,” she says. “The case was entirely circumstantial. It was like clouds. You could see them, their shape and formation, but when you went to grab them, there was nothing there.”
When she mentioned her concerns to friends, they warned her against getting too involved; Folbigg was a figure of hate. But as a novice lawyer, it seemed clear to Rego that Folbigg’s convictions had been a mistake, and that, once the facts were re-examined, she would be released. “Surely the judges wanted to correct this?” she thought. “Surely politicians were worried they had put an innocent woman in prison?”
But that’s not the way it worked out. Folbigg would remain in jail for another six years. Rego, meanwhile, still wet behind the ears, would become her most unlikely advocate, a key player in reversing the worst miscarriage of justice in recent times. Now she’s working to secure what is expected to be one of the biggest compensation payouts in Australian legal history.
Much more below:
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If you see this looking at you, be very afraid
Jok Gar, 21, was sentenced last December to two years in prison with a non-parole period of 16 months for the unprovoked attack, in which he and another man savagely beat a man in Melbourne and stole his phone.
A knife was used in the September 6, 2022 attack, with the victim's face slashed and his earlobe partially severed.
Gar and his co-accused Tyler De Silva left the man unconscious and bleeding, with police discovering them in the toilets of Southern Cross train station at 4.30am.
De Silva was handed a lighter sentence of six months due to having an intellectual disability - he has an IQ of 48 - childhood epilepsy and 'severe neglect issues' in his upbringing, the Geelong Advertiser reported.
Gar's appeal cited the 'manifest' differences in the two sentences, but Supreme Court justices Karin Emerton and David Beach said Gar's initial sentence had been 'lenient'.
The judges said the attack was 'both dangerous and callous', and that 'it was not the applicant's only act of random violence against a stranger on the streets of Melbourne'.
They also said there was 'no reason to believe that (Gar's) prospects of rehabilitation are other than very poor'.
A decision on the case had been reserved following a hearing on April 16, but in the meantime Gar was told his refugee visa, which he received in 2009, had been cancelled.
His lawyers said the visa cancellation and the risk of deportation after he has served his time behind bars, were grounds for another appeal.
But the judges disagreed, saying Gar still can apply for the visa cancellation to be reversed.
'We see no good reason to reduce (Gar's sentence) on the ground that the visa cancellation will make the applicant's imprisonment more burdensome,' justices Emerton and Beach wrote.
The judges also cited Gar's history of violent crime.
In January 2023, he pleaded guilty to the aggravated assault of a woman in Geelong West, and four months later in May he was convicted of attacking a stranger 'without provocation' in Melbourne's CBD in the early hours of New Year's Day, 2022.
That assault caused fractures to the victim's skull and facial bones.
Gar went into prison as a medium security prisoner but has been reclassified as maximum security due to his behaviour in jail, which has involved assaults, fights, verbally abuse and spitting on guards.
He also 'stomped on another prisoner' and poured milk and urine under another inmate's cell door.
Gar was born in Egypt to Sudanese parents and arrived in Australia when he was six.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13429297/Refugee-severed-ear-Australia-visa-cancelled.html
**********************************************Court upholds coal mine approvals. Defies Global warming argument
The Federal Court has upheld Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek's refusal to assess the climate impacts of coal mine expansions at Narrabri and Mount Pleasant near Muswellbrook.
The Environment Council of Central Queensland took Ms Plibersek and Narrabri Coal Operations (a subsidiary of Whitehaven Coal) and MACH Energy to court for failing to protect the environment from climate harm resulting from new coal and gas projects.
It had argued the minister's refusal to act on the climate risks of the mining expansions was irrational, illogical and unlawful.
The mining companies joined Ms Plibersek in court to defend the case.
The court found on Thursday that, under existing environment laws, the minister was not legally required to assess risk to the environment from the climate harm of the coal mine expansions.
"We are devastated and heartbroken by today's decision," Ashleigh Wyles from the Environment Council of Central Queensland said.
"We're afraid this decision will open the floodgates for the Minister to approve dozens of new goal and gas projects currently on her desk.
"Instead of standing up to fossil fuel companies, our Environment Minister is standing with them in court, defending her refusal to act on the climate harm of new coal and gas mines."
The minister employed the "market substitution" argument or "drug-dealers defence" to defend her decisions.
But the ECoCeQ argued this was dangerous logic because it was out of step with the law, with science and with public expectations.
"Our client is dismayed that under law as it currently stands, it is somehow not the role of the Environment Minister to protect our environment from the climate harm of new coal and gas mines," Environment Justice Australia co-chief executive Elizabeth McKinnon said.
"This judgement today does not change the science. What it does show is that Australia's environment laws are utterly broken.
"Our laws are failing to keep up with the climate crisis. They are failing to protect the iconic places, plants and animals of this country from the devastation of climate change."
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Is this the joke of the year>
Much hilarity in Pyongyang, one imagines
Australia has imposed targeted sanctions against entities linked to unlawful weapons trade between North Korea and Russia.
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong announced sanctions against six bodies linked to North Korean arms exports to Russia, calling the ongoing transfer of weapons a “flagrant violation” of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
“Australia condemns, in the strongest possible terms, North Korea’s illegal export and Russia’s procurement and use of North Korean ballistic missiles in support of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine,” Senator Wong said in a statement.
“The use of North Korean ballistic missiles by Russia increases the suffering of the Ukrainian people, supports Russia’s illegal and immoral war of aggression and undermines the global non-proliferation regime.”
Senator Wong said Australia would continue to work with Western allies to hold Russia and North Korea to account and address the security threat posed by North Korea.
On Thursday, the US announced sanctions on two Russian individuals and three Russian companies for facilitating arms transfers with Pyongyang.
US Treasury officials said in a statement that both countries had strengthened their military co-operation over the past year, with North Korea providing ballistic missiles and munitions to Russia in return for weapons and economic aid.
Senator Wong said deepening ties between the two countries had serious security implications for South Korea, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific region.
“Together with our partners, we call on North Korea to engage in constructive dialogue and move toward permanent peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” she said.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/australia-s-big-move-on-north-korea/ar-BB1mxGuB
************************************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)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Sunday, May 19, 2024
Why population growth isn't to blame for rising property prices
This is a classic case of ignoring the old maxim that correlation is not causation. Omitted are any figures on the building activity in the areas where prices grew less.
The slower price growth in some places was almost certainly due to more building activity there -- which increased the supply and hence lowered the prices in those places. Controlling for building activity would undoubtedly see a STRONG correlation between population growth rates and property prices
Note for instance that the big price leaps have been in Sydney, where it is very difficut to build new housing due to land shortages etc
Housing is shaping up to be a major election battleground as the federal opposition vows to dramatically cut Australia's migration intake if it forms government, in a move it says will free up tens of thousands of homes.
But new analysis suggests population growth is not to blame for the worsening affordability crisis.
Rather, a 'perfect storm' of factors ranging from labour and material shortages to higher interest rates and increased investor selling has resulted in a housing supply shortage that will take years to fix.
"People think population growth is the most dominant factor influencing property market performance but it's actually a very small one," said Propertyology's head of research Simon Pressley.
Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Propertyology has ranked the population growth of 120 cities and municipalities with more than 20,000 residents over the 20 years to June 2023.
"When we lined up the population growth rates against real estate capital growth rates, this 20-year period is another major parcel of proof that there is no direct correlation between these two metrics," he said.
Take Sydney, for instance. Its property owners may have enjoyed significant capital gains over the last two decades, but they can't thank population growth. The Harbour City ranked just 43rd in a list of Australia's fastest-growing locales.
The top 10 growth spots were in the regions, eight in Western Australia and Victoria.
Top of the list was the WA coastal city of Mandurah, an hour south of Perth, which saw its population swell by 91%.
"For 14 years of that period it was Australia's fastest growing population yet the median house price was unchanged," Mr Pressley said.
Similarly, Victoria's Surf Coast saw 85% population growth, WA's Busselton 81%, Queensland's Sunshine Coast 70%, and Mount Barker in South Australia 68%. Yet all displayed "underwhelming" property price growth during the period, Mr Pressley added.
In contrast, Noosa and Byron Bay saw phenomenal property price growth yet were "well below average" in terms of population growth.
The total national population increased from 19.7 million to 26.6 million over the two decades, a growth rate of 35%.
Of the state capitals, Perth (53%) and Brisbane (52%) had the highest population growth rates, while Adelaide (23%) saw the lowest.
PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said it's easy to make the link between population growth and property growth, but noted the popularity of a place bears little to its population metrics.
"Where we build homes is where population growth is going to be highest so it's a chicken and egg scenario. It's the abstract concept of demand that pushes prices up, and population growth is only one part of that demand.
"And demand has waxed and waned across different parts of the country at different times."
Where have property prices grown the most?
Since PropTrack started tracking its Home Price Index in 2010, the 10 areas to log the steepest price hikes were all in Greater Sydney.
The Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury region saw property price growth of 177%, the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven 171%, Blacktown 160%, the Central Coast 158%, Sydney's outer west 150%, while the Illawarra, Sydney's Northern Beaches and Sydney's southwest all recorded growth of 148%.
"Sydney has the perennial appeal of being the biggest, most cosmopolitan part of Australia where wages are markedly higher than elsewhere and that has an impact on prices," Mr Ryan said.
"People want to live where things are affordable, but also where they have the most opportunities."
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/why-population-growth-isnt-to-blame-for-rising-property-prices/
*******************************************************Would YOU like to see the picture below as a portrait of you?
Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has demanded the National Gallery of Australia remove a portrait of her from an exhibition by Archibald Prize-winning Indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira.
The billionaire mining mogul directly approached NGA director Nick Mitzevich and NGA chair Ryan Stokes in April to press for its removal.
There have since been more than a dozen complaints to the gallery from associates of her company, Hancock Prospecting, which have accused the NGA of “doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party” by displaying her image in an unflattering way.
Rinehart recently praised the Chinese government for “doing a better job than our government”, and it is unclear what the “bidding” referred to.
Complaints have also come from athletes she sponsors, according to sources who are familiar with the correspondence but who asked not to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the issue.
Ben Quilty, a friend of Namatjira who collaborated on an artwork for the show, said Namatjira was one of the most important artists of our times.
“If Olympic swimmers think they have so much say over the National Gallery, maybe Vincent and I should spend more time in the swimming pool,” Quilty said.
The portrait is one of 21 painted by the Western Aranda artist of notable Australian figures including Ned Kelly, Lionel Rose and his friend, Adam Goodes.
It features in the first major survey at the NGA of Namatjira’s work, titled Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour, which opened on March 2. Namatjira, a celebrated portraitist and a satirical chronicler of Australian identity, could not be reached for comment.
The gallery bills the show as one that takes a “wry look at the politics of history, power and leadership from a contemporary Aboriginal perspective”.
Rinehart’s request is understood to have been rejected by the gallery on the basis the cultural institution’s artistic vision should not be swayed by individual public opinion.
In response to a series of questions about Rinehart’s complaint, Mitzevich issued a carefully worded statement from the gallery.
“The National Gallery welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays,” the gallery said.
“Since 1973, when the National Gallery acquired Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, there has been a dynamic discussion on the artistic merits of works in the national collection, and/or on display at the gallery. We present works of art to the Australian public to inspire people to explore, experience and learn about art.”
The dispute follows a series of controversies for Rinehart. In March last year, she withdrew her $15 million sponsorship of Netball Australia after Indigenous player Donnell Wallam asked for her uniform not to include the Hancock Prospecting logo.
Wallam was protesting against comments made by Rinehart’s father and Hancock Prospecting founder, Lang Hancock, in 1984 that Indigenous Australians should be sterilised and “breed themselves out”.
Rinehart has refused to condemn her father’s comments and cancelled her funding for Netball Australia after players refused to wear her company’s logo.
In June, Rinehart claimed the West Australian government’s changes to Indigenous heritage laws, after Rio Tinto’s destruction of the ancient site at Juukan Gorge in 2020, would force home owners to get heritage approval to build granny flats in their backyards.
The 70-year-old has drawn praise from some Indigenous leaders for millions of dollars in funding given via the Roy Hill Community Foundation which provides scholarships, training, work experience and internships through the Madalah organisation.
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Far-Leftist university lecturer sacked over Nazi swastika incident loses bid to get reinstated
He got off the Hilton bombing by the skin of his teeth. At his appeal, a very skeptical judge (Gleeson) just did not believe some of the evidence
The University of Sydney has won its appeal against a court ruling that found a controversial lecturer was unlawfully sacked after he showed students a slide show that superimposed a Nazi swastika on the Israeli flag.
In October 2022, Federal Court Justice Thomas Thawley ruled Dr Tim Anderson was exercising his academic freedom. He accepted the lecturer’s argument the swastika graphic was created to encourage critical analysis.
The judge said that while he considered Anderson’s comments would be offensive to many people, he did not consider the context in which the swastika was used involved “harassment, vilification or intimidation”.
But on Friday, the Federal Court overturned the decision in a two to one majority, finding Anderson’s comments did not comply with the “highest ethical, professional and legal standards” required to be protected under the intellectual freedoms enshrined in the university’s enterprise agreement.
The political economy lecturer, who was supported by the National Tertiary Education Union through the case, was sacked from the university in February 2019, a few months after he had superimposed a swastika over an Israeli flag.
Friday’s judgment said that in July 2018, Anderson posted to his Facebook account a photograph taken at a lunch in Beijing where one of the people wears a shirt with antisemitic slogans in Arabic which translate into English to: “Death to Israel”, “Curse the Jews” and “Victory to all Islam”.
The university directed him to remove the photograph, which he did not do.
In October 2018, the university moved to sack Anderson after he showed a PowerPoint presentation in a lecture about civilian deaths in Gaza that featured the Nazi swastika imposed over the flag of Israel.
It came after two other warnings in 2017 and 2018 over statements made about a News Corp journalist and his labelling of US senator John McCain as a “key al-Qaeda supporter”.
Anderson had previously told the court, in an affidavit: “While some may feel offended by Nazi-Zionist analogies, I say the inclusion of the analogy in that graphic was appropriate. The purpose of the slide was to encourage critical analysis ... No student raised any issue with the slide during the seminar.”
In his reasons, Judge Nye Perram said he accepted it may “in an appropriate case” be consistent with the standards in the university’s enterprise agreement for an academic to use a Nazi swastika.
“It was for Dr Anderson to engage in the forensic gymnastics of explaining how his at least incendiary conduct could be characterised as being consistent with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards. This he did not do,” he said.
The university submitted Anderson’s comments were “variously intemperate ad hominem attacks” and were not in pursuit of academic excellence.
Last year, the court dismissed Anderson’s claims for damages but found Anderson should be reinstated to his position, pending the outcome of the university’s appeal.
Friday’s ruling, which overturns that order, comes amid ongoing discussions about freedom of speech and antisemitism on campus. Vice chancellor Mark Scott has written to the attorney-general to seek legal advice from federal authorities on how to respond to protesters who call for an “intifada” against Israel.
“We’re pleased with this outcome, as we were confident of our actions,” a University of Sydney spokeswoman said.
“We strongly defend freedom of speech and the ability of our staff to express their expert opinion as outlined in our Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom. The principle and practice of intellectual freedom must be upheld in accordance with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards.”
The swastika incident followed years of controversial statements and activities by Anderson, including several trips to North Korea and Syria and expressions of solidarity with their dictatorial regimes.
Anderson was also convicted in 1990 over the 1978 Hilton hotel bombing in Sydney. He was acquitted the following year.
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Huge complexities and costs behind the CO2 allergy
The global warming hoax has much to answer for
This week’s news that energy networks plan to charge households to export excess solar energy to the grid in the middle of the day will affect the two men in very different ways.
In a dynamic mirrored by the nation at large, Horsley is likely to benefit from the new order, while Seton is likely to lose out. Meanwhile, the distributors and the likes of St Vincent de Paul Society say the move protects renters and low-income households without solar.
Sydneysider Nic Seton has solar panels on his roof and is worried about Ausgrid’s new network charge.
Sydneysider Nic Seton has solar panels on his roof and is worried about Ausgrid’s new network charge.CREDIT:LOUIE DOUVIS
It was enabled by a national rule change in August 2021. Australian Energy Market Commission chair Anna Collyer, whose organisation made the decision, says it allows distributors to recoup the cost of paying for upgrades to the grid to remove bottlenecks and allow more solar to be exported.
“A ‘do nothing’ approach would have led to a worse outcome for all,” Collyer says. “There would have been increasing instances where customers are limited in their level of exports or not allowed to export at all.”
Australia leads the world in rooftop solar: the Clean Energy Council estimates it represents 11.2 per cent of the national energy supply.
It’s a great success story that opens up myriad opportunities for the transition to a decarbonised economy, but experts say it also brings challenges with managing grid stability and who should pay for that.
At the heart of the problem is a demand curve that looks like a duck, even if it doesn’t walk and quack like one. Figures from the Australian Energy Market Operator show energy demand starts off neutral in the early morning, plummets during the middle of the day when consumers are either not at home or using their own solar, and then peaks in the evening when people get home and turn on their devices and lights.
Grattan’s director of the energy program, Tony Wood, says: “The dramatic growth in solar PV is breaking the electricity duck’s back. Flattening the load is likely to restore it to good health.”
This is at the heart of the changes announced this week by the three NSW energy distributors – Ausgrid, Essential Energy and Endeavour Energy. The NSW pricing structure was approved by the Australian Energy Regulator last month, and all three companies said it was done after extensive consultation with customers.
Rob Amphlett Lewis, group executive distributed services at Sydney’s main distributor Ausgrid, says: “We want to move as much of our energy [usage] into the middle of the day when we’ve got all of this generation happening, and that effectively squashes the duck.”
The solar duck is a national problem, and NSW is merely at the vanguard of a shift that is likely to come to other states as well. SA Power Networks was one of the proponents of the national rule change in 2021 necessary to bring in the charges and will be able to introduce them in the next AER pricing review in 2025, along with Queensland. Victoria’s next AER cycle is in 2026.
The effect is that the distribution networks, which own the poles and wires but are separate entities from the electricity retailers, will allow a threshold of free exports during the day and charge a penalty beyond that while also providing a reward for energy exports in the evening. The distributors, which have geographic monopolies, have different pricing structures, and the retailers can choose how to package it to customers.
Solar households will still enjoy reduced bills from using their own energy and will still be paid feed-in tariffs from retailers based on wholesale electricity prices. The overall cost is expected to be low for the average customer.
Seton has a modest 4.5-kilowatt battery on the roof of his townhouse in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Newtown, where he lives with his partner and two children. About six years ago, the family paid about $6000 after rebates and has enjoyed large savings on their electricity bills.
He has no control over the fact that the solar panels only work when the sun is shining, cannot justify the cost of a home battery at upwards of $9000, and has already tried to shift his energy usage to the middle of the day as much as possible.
Meanwhile, at the seven-person Horsley household in leafy Wahroonga on the north shore, there is a possibility the family can make money from the situation.
Peter Horsley has spent tens of thousands of dollars on 17 kilowatts of solar panels and three batteries, not including the cost of two electric cars.
He can charge his batteries during the day from the solar panels and then sell electricity back at higher prices in the evening. With his set-up (Tesla battery and an app from his retailer Amber Electric), Horsley has set this up as a default and can also manually override it when needed, for example, if there is a blackout.
He can even charge his batteries from the grid rather than his solar panels. “The prices can go negative during the day as well, so there have even been cases where we’ve been paid to fill up our batteries and take energy off the grid,” Horsley says.
He has already participated in an Ausgrid trial for two-way pricing, which offered generous evening feed-in tariffs but is not sure what the net effect will be in the future. Despite this, he is confident he won’t be worse off and adds that he does not support the changes, mainly because he believes in solar as a climate change solution and is worried it will slow uptake.
Energy distributors, backed by advocates such as the St Vincent de Paul Society, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, say that it is about equity: the networks need to find the money to upgrade the grid to absorb the new solar energy being generated, and they don’t want the poorer non-solar households to bear the entire cost.
Seton, who runs Parents for Climate, says it’s pitting homes without solar and their interests against homes with solar. The better way to address equity is to help low-income households and renters get solar and to help solar households buy batteries.
He is frustrated there is a mandatory levy, however small, on solar households who have tried to contribute to the renewable energy transition.
“At the end of the day for some people, it’s still one more brick in the wall in that cost-of-living crisis,” Seton says.
Campaign groups such as Solar Citizens have described the new charge as a “sun tax” and warned it could put people off buying solar panels, while Rewiring Australia says it’s about the large-scale incumbents “defending their turf” against households getting in on the game.
There are also market analysts, such as Tristan Edis, a green energy and carbon markets economist with Green Energy Markets, who say it is the wrong approach.
Edis says bluntly that “the rule change was bullshit” and the regulators were “snowed” by the energy distributors. “They’ve just given them the keys to a new revenue stream through this rule change, even though there’s not proper evidence here.”
He points to UNSW research from 2020 that suggests so-called solar traffic jams are largely the result of distributors failing to manage voltage, a problem that occurs during the evening peak as well as by day.
Distributors do not effectively measure voltage spikes from solar households anywhere except Victoria, Edis says, so they had not proven the case that solar households were causing the problem.
In Victoria, the government had regulated the distributors to lower voltage, and this had occurred despite high solar penetration. As a result, he predicts that Victorian distributors will not need to introduce two-way pricing in their next AER round in 2026.
But Amphlett Lewis says the UNSW research shows the various ways to manage voltage, and the extensive consultation that Ausgrid and the other distributors carried out, determined that two-way pricing was the best model.
Rewiring Australia chief executive Saul Griffith says there is a bigger picture being lost. “A lot of people are not at home during the day when their house is generating the most electricity,” Griffith says. “In the best of all worlds, the excess electricity they’re making will charge the electric vehicles that are going to be prolific in this country … and the biggest battery in Australia will be our cars.”
The networks are keen on the vehicle-to-grid charging that Griffith is advocating. Essential Energy chief operating officer Luke Jenner says the network “is optimistic about the opportunities electric vehicle charging and vehicle-to-grid charging can offer consumers” and, while it already offers two-way charging for electric vehicles, it is currently testing and developing infrastructure to develop it further.
Home batteries cost from $9000 to $15,000 and the federal budget did not provide any funding to help households buy batteries. Some schemes exist in Victoria and Queensland, while the NSW government will have more to say on this in its consumer energy strategy due in the coming months.
Community batteries are another solution, often touted by the networks themselves, as they can build and own them, often with government subsidies. Ausgrid has five across Sydney and the Central Coast, Endeavour Energy has partnered with Origin Energy for community batteries in western Sydney and Shell Cove in the Illawarra, and Essential Energy says it owns and is developing several energy storage solutions.
Ausgrid’s Amphlett Lewis says both household and community batteries have their place, but “shared batteries will have a big role to play because they’re more cost-effective than behind-the-meter batteries”.
Tristan Edis disputes this, though, saying it’s better to support individual households in getting their own batteries because distributors have a profit motive and a monopoly business structure. That means they are wasteful and do not act in the best interests of consumers, while the locations of community batteries are often chosen “based on where politicians want to cut a ribbon.”
St Vincent de Paul Society’s executive manager of policy and research, Gavin Dufty, says batteries are expensive, but he advocates helping households to shift their usage of appliances, such as increased use of timers so loads of dishes and laundry can be done during the day even if no one is home.
He supports the policy: “It’s putting in the right foundations if we’re going to electrify everything and get to net zero, which we want.“
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Major win for Aussie workers who refuse to get the Covid vaccine as 'unreasonable' mandate is scrapped
Mandates requiring health workers in NSW to receive two doses of a Covid vaccine will be scrapped this week.
In March, NSW Health said it was reviewing the rule and it has now been revealed that it will be removed for existing personnel and for new recruits from Thursday.
The rule was put in place in August 2021 and about six months later NSW Health said that 995 staff members had either resigned or been sacked over the policy.
Former paramedic and campaigner against the mandate John Larter received a letter from lawyers for NSW Health who had written to his legal team informing him of the change.
'This symbolises NSW Health have acknowledged they can no longer continue to maintain their position due to overwhelming evidence that mandatory vaccination was a misuse of power,' Mr Larter told 2GB's Ben Fordham Live.
'It was completely disproportionate and unreasonable to sack frontline workers which negatively impacted health workers, patient care and outcomes,' he said.
'Lets hope all of those sacked workers are reinstated and compensated.'
Queensland and Western Australia removed their Covid vaccine requirements for health workers in 2023.
Mr Larter had previously launched legal action against the mandates and taken NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard to the Supreme Court in 2021.
The devout Catholic argued the laws were invalid and that they stopped residents from conscientously objecting to the vaccine based on religious grounds.
Mr Larter said he didn't receive the AstraZeneca vaccine because he believed it was sourced from the cells of aborted fetuses.
He lost his court battle after Justice Christine Adamson dismissed his case.
NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said NSW Health will continue to strongly recommend all its workers stay up to date with their vaccinations, in line with advice for the broader community.
'While the latest evidence shows most people have now developed protection from serious disease due to vaccination and/or previous infection, Covid remains a serious public health issue,' Dr Chant said.
'Covid vaccination continues to provide strong protection against severe illness, particularly for people at higher risk of serious illness and death from Covid, including older adults and those with underlying health conditions.'
The latest advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommends a Covid vaccination every six months for all adults aged 75 years and over.
A Covid vaccination every 12 months for adults aged 65 – 74 years is also reccommended, and adults aged 18 – 64 with severe immunocompromise should consider a vaccination every six months.
A yearly Covid vaccination should be considered for all other adults aged 18 – 64 years, and those aged 5 -18 years with severe immunocompromise.
Covid vaccines prevented almost 18,000 deaths among people over 50 in NSW as the Omicron strain hit, a study has found.
A Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Monash University joint research team looked at Australia's vaccination campaign to get an insight into what would have happened had NSW's rollout been different.
The team used computer simulations to find how vaccinations and boosters impacted the Omicron wave between August 2021 and July 2022.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13419117/Covid-mandate-NSW-health-scrapped.html
************************************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)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Thursday, May 16, 2024
Fears ‘TeacherQuitTok’ social media trend ‘warping perception’ of profession for young teachers
This is a classic case of blame the messenger. If they want to stop teachers talking about quitting, they have to deal with the problems behind the dissatisfaction. And Leftst limits on what teachers can do to maintain order in the classroom are the biggest problem. There should be high-discipline schools for unruly pupils
Australian teachers are being inundated with videos of burnt-out peers breaking down as hashtags like ‘TeacherQuitTok’ go viral on social media, prompting fears the negative reinforcement could be pushing young educators out the door.
There have been nearly 17,000 contributions to the ‘TeacherQuitTok’ tag on TikTok, racking up four million views on the single most watched video, while similar tags like ‘TeacherBurnout’ have 12,000 posts under them.
In clips with thousands of likes, young Australian ex-teachers cited the “never-ending” juggle of different needs among their 30-student classrooms, including pupils with behavioural issues, and “lack of respect” from higher-ups and the general public as reasons to quit.
“Being a teacher is really emotionally draining,” a former Brisbane teacher said.
“You’re constantly juggling and being responsible for all these different personalities and different situations, and it’s relentless, it’s never-ending.”
“The access to you 24/7 (from parents) … sometimes it’s a lot,” another added.
Other popular videos under hashtags like ‘TeacherBurnout’ and ‘HowToQuitTeaching’ are even more extreme, with teachers in the US and UK filming themselves having emotional breakdowns in the break rooms and crying in their classrooms.
University of Newcastle Associate Professor Rachel Buchanan has been researching the rise of ‘QuitTok’, which predates the more recent, niche version of the trend for teachers, and is concerned about the impact of such videos flooding educators’ social media feeds.
Although social media allows educators who are feeling “powerless and unheard” to have a voice, Professor Buchanan said, the echo-chamber effect can also “normalise quitting”, especially for young teachers lacking support and mentorship.
“On TikTok it feels inescapable that everyone’s quitting, and everyone’s burnt out … and it can warp your perception of what’s really happening,” she said.
“#TeacherQuitTok also reinforces and validates the decision to leave the profession – hearing others’ stories and joining in feels like participation in a movement or a moment.”
Sydney-based after-school care manager Teneal Broccardo knows first-hand how damaging the exposure to the constant negativity can be, citing the viral content with making her reconsider training to be a primary school teacher.
“There’s this massive trend about how stressful is, and when I was studying I found it really disheartening,” she said.
“I saw all these people working themselves to the ground and I thought, do I want to do this to myself too?”
Already having experience working with children and with classroom management alleviated her fears, the 29-year-old said, but for others she imagined “it could be the last straw”.
“TikTok is very influential. If you’re seeing more positive things instead, like teachers decorating the classroom or explaining different techniques they use, you are going to be more motivated.”
A 2022 Monash University study found only three in every 10 teachers surveyed on staying in the profession for the long-term, and their concerns are regularly reflected in ‘TeacherQuitTok’ content, lead author Dr Fiona Longmuir said.
“It’s the conditions that are making it challenging (to stay) more so than what they’re seeing on social media,” she said.
“There’s a big public discourse saying that teaching is tough, but that’s because it is tough.
“We don’t have a teacher shortage in Australia, but we do have a shortage of teachers who want to work in our classrooms.”
NSW Education Minister Prue Car said a pay rise, more permanent contracts and ban on mobile phones are among the ways the state is trying to “turn the tide on the teacher shortage”.
“Teachers do an incredibly important job in our community and they should be proud of their work. They deserve to be respected and valued,” she said.
“We are starting to see positive signs in terms of teacher vacancies, but we know there is more to do and we continue to look at ways to reduce workload and restore morale.”
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Victoria stil refusing to develop much needed gas
Energy minister Chris Bowen deserves high praise for telling Australia the politically incorrect truth – that we need gas to support our accelerated roll out of renewables.
It could not have been easy for Bowen to tell the truth because it contradicted his previous statements and the “we need gas” truth does not accord with the view of many in the cabinet and the ALP supporter base.
As my regular readers know, over the years Bowen and I have often had different views. In Australia, it is rare for a minister to reverse previous statements.
Accordingly, Bowen rises dramatically in my estimation, and the nation could do with more federal and state ministers with that sort of courage.
Australia’s new gas policy means both the government and opposition have similar gas policies, and that suddenly puts Victoria in a position where it is holding the east coast of Australia to ransom by stopping development of its immense low cost onshore no fracking gas reserves.
Fascinatingly, the last time Victoria held the nation to ransom over gas was in the 1960s, soon after gas was discovered in Bass Strait. The then Premier, the late Henry Bolte, wanted to keep the gas for Victorians and to use cheap, reliable energy to boost industry in the state.
It worked and Victoria got a great boost, but eventually the gas was shared with NSW and other states, and we have an east coast pipeline grid.
It is time for Canberra to get much tougher with the delinquent Victorian state, which keeps crying poor when it in fact is not using its enormous riches.
If Victorians wants higher unreliable energy prices, I guess that’s their business, but there is no reason why the existing pipelines should not be used to send Victorian gas to NSW and Queensland who understand the value of gas to lower emissions while keeping reliable energy prices low.
Victoria can encourage its industry and people to follow its energy and go north.
Meanwhile, Victoria can still benefit from is the remarkable attributes of its gas, which is dissolved in deep water. In Queensland, the water that is produced with gas is not suitable to grow crops but the water that contains Victoria’s gas needs very little if any treatment to be used to grow carbon absorbing plants and to revolutionise parts of Victoria’s agriculture, including making it drought proof.
Bowen’s current energy policy still insists that nuclear is too expensive. It is certainly a lot more expensive than a Latrobe Valley gas fired power from the incredibly low-cost Victorian gas. But BHP has shown that Canadian nuclear power is much cheaper than current Australian power costs. .
By using Victoria’s low carbon gas not only can we remove coal from the power equation but suddenly by not rushing nuclear we can watch a nuclear revolution taking place that is led by China.
The world’s second-largest economy now operates nuclear submarines using molten salt cooled thorium, and the same fuel is being used in container ships and also new power stations. It looks to be the future if nuclear, so it makes sense to wait.
My regular readers know the detail of Victorian gas and the fact that former Premier Daniel Andrews gave a carefully selected committee $42m with the instruction to look for gas on shore in Victoria, but that instruction carried a strict caveat – they were forbidden to look where one of the world’s leading gas reserve estimators, MHA Petroleum Consultants, (now part of the giant Sproule group) had calculated Victoria gas reserves totalled 4.996 trillion cubic feet of gas.
That’s some 60 per cent of the last 50 years of Bass Strait production. Better still there was a “high” estimate of reserves at 12.6234 TCF which would make the Victorian reserves second only to the North West Shelf. Lakes Oil also has onshore gas, and its reserves were also in forbidden territory.
The Andrews Committee pocketed the money and dutifully reported Victoria has no on shore gas. Publication of the MHA calculated reserves was removed from government web sites.
The gas was first discovered when Victorian brown coal fields were being mapped in the decades leading up to the 1950s. Decades later, with Bass Strait running down, Exxon in Houston began researching this very deep gas that is dissolved in water and sent the data to MHA.
The first proposal to develop the gas included Esso and BlueScope in the consortium and was put to the then Coalition Premier Denis Napthine in 2014. Napthine incorrectly thought it involved fracking and would hurt farmers, so rejected it prior to the election he lost.
That first proposal emphasised that further wells (about six) must be drilled to make sure that production and permeability will duplicate the first test wells. But Exxon were so confident that they planned to spend $200m (in 2014) on the project, arranged for BlueScope and other major gas users to pencil intent contracts and signed six agreements with local landholders who would benefit from the development.
In the decade that followed Andrews and his energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio, must have known that fracking was not required and because the gas was on the national pipeline and next to the Exxon treatment plant the costs were very low. As a result, they had to be able to deny its existence to keep green seats.
To get Victoria to comply with national policy may require punishment. And also required, is a local media that is not engulfed by Victorian government propaganda.
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PM says Labor senator Fatima Payman’s use of Israel ‘genocide’, ‘river to the sea’ was inappropriate
Another Muslim bigot
Anthony Albanese says it’s “not appropriate” a WA Labor senator used a controversial chant when she broke ranks with the government’s position on Palestine, as the Coalition heaps on pressure on him to “take action” against her.
Fatima Payman on Wednesday accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and questioned how many more deaths would be needed before the Prime Minister declared “enough”.
In a significant split from the Labor Party’s position, the Muslim senator called for sanctions and divestment from Israel, and declared “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a phrase Mr Albanese has previously condemned as a violent opposition to a two-state solution.
She said the phrase was a call for “freedom from the occupation, freedom from the violence, and freedom from the inequality”.
Senator Payman criticised Mr Albanese and her Labor colleagues for failing to condemn Israel and “stand up for what is right”, accusing her government’s leaders of making “performative gestures” while defending the “oppressor’s right to oppress”.
Mr Albanese on Thursday morning was asked if he had spoken to Senator Payman since she made the comments, to which he gave an emphatic “no”.
He said he did speak to her regularly, as he does all his Labor Party colleagues, and their last conversation was “very pleasant”.
But he said her use of the politically charged phrase was “not appropriate” and did not reflect the Labor Party’s position.
“What is appropriate is a two-state solution, where both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in security and peace and prosperity,” he told ABC Radio.
“It is not in the interests of either Israelis or Palestinians to advocate there just be one state. That is a forerunner of enormous conflict and grief.”
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the Prime Minister “has to take action”, noting Senator Payman had “laid down the gauntlet” to Mr Albanese.
“She’s used a phrase the Prime Minister himself has agreed is a violent statement. She’d endorsed the phrase, and in the Prime Minister’s own analysis, people who make this statement are in opposition to a two-state solution,” Senator Paterson told Sky.
“She’s not just undermined decades of bipartisan foreign policy, she’s undermined decades of Labor Party policy.
“The Prime Minister has said this phrase has no place in Australia. Surely he cannot (have) a member of his caucus saying this.”
Senator Payman gave a statement to a small selection of media on Wednesday on Nakba day – the anniversary of Israel’s 1948 establishment – where she acknowledged there was “disillusionment” in the community with the political parties.
“Today, more than ever, is the time to speak the truth – the whole truth – with courage and clarity,” she told SBS News and Capital Brief.
“My conscience has been uneasy for far too long. And I must call this out for what it is. This is a genocide and we need to stop pretending otherwise.”
Mr Albanese said the scenes coming out of Gaza were “very traumatic”, but said Jewish Australians were also experiencing “a lot of trauma” due to rising anti-Semitism.
“People who happen to be Jewish are being held responsible here for the actions of the Netanyahu government. I don’t believe that is appropriate,” he said.
Senator Paterson said Senator Payman’s call for Australia to end trade with Israel especially at a time of rising anti-Semitism would “further undermine and test social cohesion”.
Former Labor minister and ALP Friends of Israel co-convener Mike Kelly labelled Senator Payman’s comments “disappointing” and “completely wrong”, while opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said the slogan had “no place” being uttered by members of the government.
Jewish leaders have repeatedly sounded the alarm about the “river to the sea” chant, which they argue calls for the destruction of Israel.
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Albanese government shows its true character in budget blowout
Federal budgets are more than numbers; they reveal the character of a government and this week’s effort confirms that Anthony Albanese is running the most green-left government we’ve ever had, with more handouts, more debt and more picking winners.
On top of epic incompetence in immigration and border protection, workplace changes to buy off the unions, the failed attempt to entrench racial difference in our Constitution via the voice proposal and the broken promises on tax and superannuation, now gone is any pretence at budget responsibility.
With the terms of trade at a once-in-a-century high and unemployment at a once-in-a-half-century low, the budget should be in massive surplus.
Instead there’s a wafer-thin $9bn surplus, largely on the back of fossil fuel exports that the government wants to stop, to be followed by a long run of deficits of between 1 per cent and 2 per cent of GDP based on extra baked-in spending of $315bn largely on the so-called care economy.
Plus there’s $80bn in off-budget spending (for student loans, low-income housing and more green projects such as another $7bn for Snowy Hydro).
But even with so much spending off-budget, net debt is still expected to grow by another $200bn across the next five years.
All the old budget rules – such as keeping tax under a certain percentage of GDP, capping growth in spending and insisting that new spending is offset by savings – that helped Peter Costello deliver 10 straight surpluses and Paul Keating to deliver four have been scrapped in favour of creative accounting that dresses up spending as investment.
This budget conclusively proves that Labor monumentally fails to grasp that government can’t spend a dollar that it doesn’t get from taxpayers, either in taxes now or in taxes tomorrow to pay for today’s debt. As always, Labor thinks government is much smarter at spending taxpayers’ money than we are ourselves.
All the average Australian will gain from this budget that’s new is the non-means-tested $300 electricity bill handout that won’t nearly compensate for the climate-policy-driven leap in costs; and for low-income renters, some extra help that won’t nearly compensate for the immigration and interest-rate-driven rise in housing costs.
And even these are essentially the government putting in one pocket money that it has taken out of the other. What this budget will mean for all of us is a long-term weaker economy with bigger government, lower productivity and more green protectionism.
The only real surprise in the budget was the brazenness with which Jim Chalmers abandoned any fidelity to the fiscally responsible pro-market legacy of Keating and Bob Hawke, to trumpet the virtues of green interventionism.
The relentless boosterism of the federal Treasurer sits uneasily with the fact Australians, struggling with mortgage repayments that have doubled, don’t feel Labor has helped them and they are starting to notice that GDP per person has fallen for four straight quarters – meaning that whatever the headline numbers say, ordinary families are already in deep recession.
Very few economists accept the government’s spin that its energy and housing handouts will reduce inflation. Even if the handouts temporarily mask some policy-driven cost increases, struggling families are much more likely to spend on other necessities than to keep the money in their pockets. Hence the overall inflationary pressures that so worry the Reserve Bank and have led to the sustained rise in interest rates, which might even increase again.
The budget has only intensified the paradox of the Reserve Bank tapping the economic brakes while the government presses the accelerator; so, with some economists now tipping more interest rate rises, it seems undeniable that the biggest impact of the budget will be to keep interest rates higher for longer, with even the government’s own budget papers forecasting no drop in the cash rate before the middle of next year.
What was needed in this budget was a short-term focus on beating inflation, a medium-term focus on controlling government spending and a longer-term focus on making our economy more productive. In failing on all three counts, the government has let our country down badly.
As well as permanently higher wages for aged-care and childcare workers (as if the government should be meeting the wage costs of mostly private sector workers), there has been no serious attempt to rein in skyrocketing National Disability Insurance Scheme costs other than by funding the states to stop cost-shifting on to the commonwealth. And it’s far from clear that the government is serious about big cuts to immigration.
Quite apart from the fact it needs continued high immigration to pump up the overall economic growth numbers and avoid a technical recession, and even on its own figures still expects to keep immigration at double the average of the Howard years, there’s as yet no specificity about how it will cap overseas student numbers or require educational institutions to house the students they import.
But this has become a characteristic of this government: to declare an objective without any detail about its implementation and then to act as though wishing it has made it happen.
Given the woke obsessions of our universities, is the government’s announced objective to graduate eight out of 10 Australians by 2050 likely to make us more productive, as opposed to more likely to vote green left?
Then there’s some $23bn in various Future Made in Australia programs designed to make us a renewable energy superpower because, the Treasurer insists, the “world is committed to net zero”. Even though China and India are not – or at least not nearly as quickly or as convulsively as we are.
It doesn’t matter how often the government asserts it, the notion that Australia has a comparative advantage here, as if other countries don’t have wind and sunlight, hardly stands scrutiny.
There may be a case for some assistance to the strategic minerals that more battery making will require, especially given China’s attempt to corner this market, but it’s hard to credit that we should invest massively in “green hydrogen” that’s completely unproven at scale or that we can out-subsidise the US or the EU. Given that the big players in these industries include billionaires such as Andrew Forrest, why is the government relieving them of the need to commit more of their own money? Why is Labor bankrolling billionaires but making ordinary families scrimp and save?
It’s now a decade since the last budget that attempted any serious economic reform, when the Coalition tried to roll back entitlements and cut government spending. Instead, what we have now is a budget where government spending, as a share of the economy, is forecast to rise to its highest levels, outside the pandemic, in almost 40 years.
With no obvious cuts to anything and an abundance of giveaways, this one has the feel of a pre-election budget. Perhaps backed with more wall-to-wall government advertising, it might be enough to anaesthetise voters. But if the government does run to a premature election before the end of the year, it will expose its fear that the overall economy is going to get worse.
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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)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Budget controversies
The big heartburn from the recent Australian Federal budget seems to be the $300 electricity subsidy. It was criticised because it goes to everyone and it was called inflationary.
It was alleged that restricting it to lower income people would have reduced its inflationary impact as well as being fairer. As a cost-push influence that is very doubtful. An extra $75 in their pockets for four consecutive quarters would hardly be noticed by middle to high income earners so would have litte impact on their spending.
And its inflationary impact can really only be judged by how it was financed. But amid a big overall increase in spending that is impossible to dissect. Would inflation have been less if the subsidy had been less? It is impossible to know with any certainty. Paradoxically, the government hope that it will REDUCE inflation. That more spending will reduce inflation is absurd.
But the big folly in the budget is all the money given to push our indusrries into processing our exports of minerals rather than simply digging them up and putting them straight onto a ship to go overseas.
That is hopeless. China and other Asian countries have much lower costs than us in both labour and energy so will always out-compete us on any processing we do. Only continuing subsidies could make processing competitive here: Just a continuing bleed of money into a hopeless cause
Australians are getting a $300 sweetener in the form of a rebate for energy bills in this year’s federal budget to help deal with cost of living pressures.
But economists are concerned that the short-term gain will mean longer-term pain — if the savings are spent by households, that could further fuel inflation and potentially cause the Reserve Bank to further increase interest rates.
Tuesday's budget includes a range of cost of living measures including tax cuts, energy bill relief, housing and rental assistance, among other policies.
From 1 July, more than ten million households will receive rebates of $300 on their energy bills, while around one million small businesses will receive $325.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers described this third budget as a "responsible" one that would help people under pressure today while "investing" in the future.
"I want Australians to know that despite everything coming at us, we are among the best placed economies to manage these uncertainties and maximise our opportunities."
"Treasury is now forecasting inflation could return to target earlier, perhaps even by the end of this year," he told federal parliament.
But Deloitte Access Economics partner Stephen Smith said the increased spending in the budget may stoke inflation, making the job of the central bank more difficult.
He described this as a "big spending budget" that had the potential to fuel inflation.
"Saving more on energy is good for Australians, but those savings are likely to be spent elsewhere in the economy. It's not necessarily a budget that will reduce inflation," he told SBS News.
Chalmers told SBS News the combination of the government's "responsible economic management" and the way cost of living measures were designed in the budget would put downward pressure on inflation.
"We’ve designed it in a way to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem," he said.
"The clear advice that we received, is that a combination of our cost of living policies, particularly our energy relief and rent assistance will put downward pressure on inflation without adding to inflationary pressures elsewhere in the economy.
Rating agency S&P said the budget could be "mildly inflationary".
"Today's budget slightly loosens the purse strings," the rating agency said in a statement.
"There will be a range of views about that but we are pretty confident we got it right."
The federal Opposition said Labor had added $315 billion of new spending, at a time when restraint was needed.
"The government is no closer to dealing with its homegrown inflation crisis – which means more pressure on cost of living and interest rates higher for longer," shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said.
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Will the budget reduce housing costs?
The ONLY way to reduce housing costs is to increase the supply of houses and I can see little if anything of that below. To achieve anything there need to be more tradesmen and more vacant land available. I can see nothing to bring that about below
Residential and commercial property developers have been buoyed by the expansionary budget, but have called for more to be done to make housing more affordable.
Housing developers stand to benefit from a combination of tax cuts and infrastructure packages put in place to stimulate building but major hurdles remain for the industry and the budget could feed into higher rates.
The Urban Development Institute of Australia backed the government’s commitment to address housing supply through the targeted strategies in the budget, UDIA national president Col Dutton said.
Measures include bolstering funding for infrastructure projects, with about $1bn going to getting homes built sooner, with funding for states included to provide roads, services and parks.
There is also a new national agreement on social housing and homelessness for states and territories to deliver crisis support and social housing, and $90.6m going into training more tradies and construction workers through fee-free TAFE places.
The budget also allocates $1.9bn over five years to increase maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by a further 10 per cent.
But, Mr Dutton said for the government to reach its ambitious National Housing Accord target of building 1.2 million new homes over five years, 97 per cent must be delivered by private developers.
“Market-wide solutions will be necessary to tackle a range of fundamental problems, particularly at a time when completions are in free-fall. These include chronic lack of development-ready land, significant shortage of skilled workers in the construction industry, accelerated cost of construction materials and inhibited project finance, all of which are holding back projects,” Mr Dutton said.
Property Council of Australia chief executive Mike Zorbas supported the budget’s focus on housing. But, he warned further investment in creating new stock was essential to hitting “ambitious” housing targets.
“The government’s continued focus on housing is welcome. This budget contains solid investment in housing — particularly for the most vulnerable — and the better planning of our cities,” Mr Zorbas said.
“To hit 1.2 million homes by 2029, we need to improve investment settings, incentivise housing approvals, further boost … housing options including retirement living, purpose-built student accommodation and build-to-rent housing and bring more tradies in from overseas to complement domestic capacity,” he said.
The industry body boss said the government missed the opportunity to adjust the eligibility threshold for rent assistance to include those living in retirement villages.
The Real Estate Institute of Australia said the budget was a missed opportunity for the federal government to address stamp duty given the affordability struggle.
“These are homes built now that aren’t reliant on pressures within the building and construction sector,” president Leanne Pilkington said.
“Stamp duty reform would — at a minimum — bring around 4 per cent of existing homes to market, around 430,000 homes.”
Macquarie analysts said there were $6.2bn of new initiatives to continue addressing housing pressures, including meeting the housing target.
They noted the build-to-rent industry would be supported by lower foreign investment fees and said retail landlords would benefit from the stage three tax cuts and cost-of-living measures.
“We believe the housing package, and measures to increase construction workers should help reduce development time-frames over the medium term, which should be a tailwind to residential developers,” they said, noting more spending power from tax cuts should help malls.
Senior economist at research house PropTrack, Paul Ryan, called for the national housing accord to be broadened, saying it was the perfect forum to co-ordinate a switch from stamp duty to land tax, which had the potential to unlock the spare housing capacity in existing homes.
“Removing stamp duty would be transformative in improving productivity across the economy by opening up the ability for people to move where opportunities arise,” he said.
“Given the time it takes to approve and build new housing, there is no time to waste in tweaking these policies to unlock housing supply if it is to have an impact on housing costs over the coming years.”
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Get ready for an early election after Labor’s budget splurge
It’s now the day after the budget, and the dust has settled. The smarter operators in the ALP government will already realise the safest course to adopt will be to call an early election in late 2024 or early 2025.
The 2024 budget is a magnificent pre-election budget, but it contains a series of high-risk assumptions which could very easily unravel if Anthony Albanese waits until May 2025.
The 2024-2025 budget is a high-spending exercise which appears to have been against the view of treasury, and the inflationary impacts of this spending will gather momentum in 2025 and by next May they will be very apparent. The extra money in the system will create a buoyancy at the end of this year and early next year.
The inflationary side effects will come later and will also be masked by the subsidies. It's crazy to hold an election when the subsidies are about to end.
It's unlikely the Reserve Bank will reduce interest rates on the basis of the temporary power and other subsidies. If there is a late-2024 rate cut then it's a perfect election time and, if there is not, then the prospect is still there.
At present, the opinion polls have the two parties very close, and Australians don’t like early elections.
But, this budget looks like it has been prepared by a cabinet which understands what could happen in 2025, and so presents a smorgasbord of benefits extending to most people in the community.
This is the sort of thing you do when you are planning an election. It is not the sort of thing politicians usually do if they are going to wait 12 months before calling a poll.
Among the specific May 2025 dangers for the government are:
* The 3.25 per cent wage rise assumption is one of the key pillars in the reduction of inflation forecast, which the government is using to fan the idea of interest rate cuts. If Fair Work accepts the government’s recommendation and in a few weeks awards a 4 per cent wage rise starting July 1 there is little chance the government’s low 3.25 per cent wage index rise will be achieved. But, the inflationary impact of those higher wages will not be felt until 2025.
* The government is pulling down inflation with subsidies across the board. If the government waits until May these subsidies will be on their way out and inflation will be set to return and will become very apparent to the electorate.
* Major deficits are forecast for subsequent financial years, so unless there is a big iron ore price rise there will not be the ability to hand goodies out in preparation for a May 2025 election. The goodies have been handed out a year early, which underlines the need for an early election.
* The huge looming rise in commercial construction costs will seep into home construction costs next year.
* The ‘Made in Australia’ campaign and the backing of critical minerals and green hydrogen are high-risk commercial strategies. If the government waits until May, then the risks involved in these strategies will become much more apparent as other countries are heading in similar directions.
* The US is full of uncertainty, particularly in 2025 when there is a risk Donald Trump will become president, which could create considerable problems for an ALP government. Neither Trump nor Joe Biden carries US certainty and are part of the US risk profile of waiting until May.
* At this stage, the horrors of the industrial relations bill are not fully understood, and in particular those working as casuals don’t understand their current 25 per cent cash premium could end. The full implications of a union representative being in every enterprise creates a nightmare for family businesses. The restrictions to the gig economy will harm a great many people.
The industrial relations legislation is not due to be operational until August 26, and it would be very easy using regulations, lack of action and other means to make sure there are no fundamental changes for anyone in 2024.
But, in 2025 the horrors will become much more apparent, so it is not a good time to have an election.
To defend themselves, the Coalition will of course point out all the above points.
One of the greatest weaknesses in the ALP’s position is homeownership is being taken away from a generation of people to be replaced by rentals.
The Coalition is uniquely placed to make it possible for those in their twenties and thirties to buy dwellings, and would need to be a cornerstone of their policies.
The fact Chris Bowen has now embraced gas as an important part of the renewables aims, plus the power subsidies, curbs a Coalition energy attack, but overall government energy policy will still leave openings for the Coalition.
And, there is, of course, the migration mess and the rise in boat arrivals as a result of the mistakes in handling detainees.
But, a 2024 election win is a much easier task than winning an election in 2025, when Tuesday’s budget will start to unravel.
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Drumgold's woes are not over
Five Australian Federal Police officers are suing the ACT government for almost $1.5 million over allegations by former chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold that they “acted disgracefully” in seeking to pressure him not to prosecute the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins.
Lawyers for the five officers have sued both the government and Mr Drumgold personally over his allegations against them, which included that they had sought to mislead him as to the strength of the case against Bruce Lehrmann and bullied Ms Higgins.
They also say Mr Drumgold wrongly accused them of “consistently and inappropriately” interfering with his conduct of the prosecution, extending over one and half years.
The allegations were made in a letter Mr Drumgold sent to ACT police chief Neil Gaughan on November 1, 2022, expressing concern over “some quite clear investigator interference in the criminal justice process”.
The letter sparked the Sofronoff inquiry into police and prosecution conduct in the Lehrmann case, which largely exonerated police and found that Mr Drumgold’s assertions were baseless.
Each of the five applicants – Detective Inspector Marcus Boorman, Commander Michael Chew, Detective Superintendent Scott Moller, Detective Senior Constable Trent Madders and Senior Constable Emma Frizzell – was identified by name in the letter.
In a statement of claim released by the Federal Court on Wednesday, the officers say Mr Drumgold knew or ought to have known that the imputations in the letter were false and unsupported by evidence.
The officers are suing for a total of $1.415 million in damages and economic loss, with Mr Boorman’s claim the highest, at $250,000 for general damages, $85,000 for aggravated damages and $80,000 for economic loss.
One of the AFP officers previously told The Australian the letter had “destroyed careers and destroyed people’s lives”.
“When you’re in a profession where integrity is pivotal, if you lose your integrity, if it’s suggested that you are corrupt or you’ve trying to pervert the course of justice or influence something, it just goes against the grain,” the officer said.
The officers are also suing over Mr Drumgold’s release of the unredacted letter to a journalist from the Guardian, purportedly under FOI legislation but which in truth, they allege, he had no right to hand over.
The letter, containing the DPP’s suspicions of impropriety against the named police officers and Senator Reynolds, was released without any consultations or redactions. The FOI application was determined and executed within four hours of being considered for the first time.
The claim alleges that unauthorised act by Mr Drumgold amounted to misfeasance in public office because it was “done maliciously by Mr Drumgold, in that he knew he had no valid power to release the letter and … harm to the Applicants was reasonably foreseeable.”
The allegations by Mr Drumgold “went to the heart of each applicant’s role and standing as a police officer” and led to the establishment of the Sofronoff inquiry, which in turn exposed them to further reputational harm.
Earlier this year the ACT government apologised to former Liberal minister Linda Reynolds and paid $90,000 in damages and legal costs over accusations by Mr Drumgold in the same letter that the senator had engaged in “disturbing conduct” that included political interference in the police investigation.
The Sofronoff inquiry found that suspicions Mr Drumgold formed during his early interactions with the investigators “predisposed him to see non-existent malignancy in benign interactions between the police and the defence at the trial”.
Mr Drumgold complained police were speaking with the defence at the trial during adjournments. However, it was not surprising police felt deep antipathy towards the DPP since the feeling was mutual, the Sofronoff inquiry found.
“Mr Drumgold did not seem to appreciate that mutual trust is a two-way street. It was he who, at the first opportunity, formed the baseless opinion that the investigators were improperly trying to thwart a prosecution.
“This inquiry has thoroughly examined the allegations in Mr Drumgold’s letter. Each allegation has been exposed to be baseless.”
Late in giving his evidence, Mr Drumgold “finally resiled from his scandalous allegations,” inquiry chair Walter Sofronoff noted. Mr Sofronoff said that “any official writing a letter of that kind would also know that copies of the letter would have to pass through many hands and that there was a real risk that it would be made public”.
“In fact, it was with the help of Mr Drumgold himself that the letter defaming others made its way into a newspaper.”
Mr Sofronoff found no police acted improperly: “The evidence before me showed that the investigators consistently acted in good faith and conducted a thorough investigation … Nobody suggested to me that the investigation was flawed in any way.”
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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)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related. I hope she recovers soon from her encounter with Guillain-Barré syndrome
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
