tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-326462702024-03-18T22:47:35.746+13:00 Australian PoliticsAustralia's one-term Prime Minister above ... Events of interest from a libertarian/conservative perspective belowjonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.comBlogger5858125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-55415553028290340352024-03-18T15:32:00.003+13:002024-03-18T15:35:20.563+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Great Barrier Reef undergoing mass bleaching event</b><br/>
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<i> Hoagy is back! Professor Hoegh-Guldberg is once again being an alarmist. He went silent for a few years when his own research showed the reef to be very resilient against damage. But he seems to like attention<br/>
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Less excitable people below, however, give a more positive and much less alarming picture </i><br/>
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The Great Barrier Reef has been hit by its fifth mass coral bleaching event in the past eight years. That event has led experts to ask whether Australia's environmental icon has reached a tipping point.<br/>
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One of the world's leading coral authorities, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland, is worried it has.<br/>
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"I know that's shocking … but that's the type of system we're working with at the moment," Professor Hoegh-Guldberg told 730.<br/>
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The chief scientist for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), Roger Beeden, believes such a call is premature.<br/>
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"Right now, what we've got is a system is that is actually bouncing back from particular events," he said<br/>
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But he does concede the repeated mass bleachings are taking a toll. "There is no doubt that these events are a clear alarm signal that we all need to be acting on climate change," he said.<br/>
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The GBRMPA declared a mass bleaching event was underway in Australia last week but how it effects the reef remains to be seen.<br/>
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"We won't know how significant that is until it plays out, and that's going to play out probably over the next six to eight weeks," Dr Beeden said.<br/>
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The worst affected areas appear to be in the southern region of the reef.<br/>
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And when 7.30 showed Professor Hoegh-Guldberg video and images taken recently by the media company, the Undertow, he was alarmed. "I think it's devastating," he said.<br/>
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"This is an advanced bleaching event and I think a lot of coral is going to die.<br/>
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"Not only are the branching corals bleaching, which are the sensitive ones, but the bommies, really large long-lived corals are also bleaching severely.<br/>
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"And these bommies have been around for 200 years, so the fact that they're dying under these conditions should set off the alarm."<br/>
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Not all bleached coral dies – some of the severely bleached coral from a 2016 event in the north of the reef has survived.<br/>
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"For those areas that were affected by coral bleaching you can see some recovery in some places. Other places there's no recovery and you can see that full spectrum of things," Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.<br/>
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He says that while it's vital to ensure reefs remain resilient through programs such as improving water quality, repeated bleaching events make recovery harder each time.<br/>
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"What we do know is that if you increase the events that damage coral and you don't give them enough time to recover, you end up losing coral," he said.<br/>
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"We've seen bleaching come and go, and what we're seeing here in this 12 to 18 months is that we will see the tipping point exceeded and the system crash."<br/>
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"As to what that means exactly in terms of species and how that will play out, the ebbs and flows, we don't fully know," Dr Beeden said.<br/>
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"It's certainly clear from the global science that we're putting pressure on reefs."<br/>
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But the GBRMPA chief scientist also says the Great Barrier Reef has shown remarkable resilience.<br/>
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"Given enough time, and a lack of other pressures, coral reefs in the Great Barrier Reef are still able to bounce back from these kind of events."<br/>
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A 2022 survey by the Australian Institute for Maritime Science showed coral cover across the Great Barrier Reef was at its highest level since it began records 37 years earlier.<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/great-barrier-reef-mass-bleaching-coral-devastated/103588726">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/great-barrier-reef-mass-bleaching-coral-devastated/103588726</a>
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<b> Sydney University will recruit hundreds of new teaching-focused academics in what it says is a bid to improve student experience and place a higher value on teaching in higher education.</b><br/>
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<i> This is just more dumbing down of education. Getting research published is the guarantee that the teacher's knowledge is at cutting-edge level. Take that away and a teacher might have no expertise to share. The students might just as well read the latest book on the subject. I did a lot of research in my academic career and I always had a LOT to say in the classroom that was not in the books</i><br/>
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Vice chancellor Mark Scott said the roles would carve out a new career path for teaching specialists in academia, allowing them to fill some of the most senior roles at the university.<br/>
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However, some are unhappy about the plan, suggesting it creates two tiers of academics by removing a focus on research.<br/>
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The university will on Monday launch an international campaign to recruit more than 150 tenured academics after an initial appointment of internal applicants across 55 new roles.<br/>
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The teaching-focused positions will be for every career stage, from lecturers to full professors and senior leadership roles across a broad range of disciplines.<br/>
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Scott said for students the key engagement with the university is around what happens in the classroom, not in the research lab.<br/>
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“Our most brilliant teachers should be as famous and revered in the institution as our most brilliant researchers are today,” he said.<br/>
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“I have a view that we owe every student a transformational experience here at the university.<br/>
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“They’re paying higher fees than students have ever paid in this country.<br/>
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“So to prioritise appropriately teaching and learning as important as we do research - that’s what we need to do. I think that’s what the great global universities do.”<br/>
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Teaching-focused academic roles are controversial among many academics who see the roles as career-limiting and involving intense workloads.<br/>
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The jobs came about as part of protracted EBA negotiations with staff which concluded last year. The university agreed to introduce 330 new permanent academic roles to reduce casualisation of the workforce but 220 of those were to be teaching-only positions.<br/>
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It contrasts with the existing deal for academics which guarantees they spend 40 per cent of their time on research, 40 per cent on teaching and 20 per cent community engagement.<br/>
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English and linguistics academic Nick Riemer, the university’s National Tertiary Education Union branch president, said there was a clear effort from senior management to break the teaching and research nexus.<br/>
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“There should be more academic jobs at the university because at the moment it has an overreliance on casualisation and that just involves outright exploitation,” he said.<br/>
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“But we are very seriously concerned that university management seems intent on separating teaching and research, which are academic functions which intrinsically belong together.<br/>
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“If you’re not researching in your fields you’re passing on doctrine.”<br/>
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Riemer said the education-focused roles that exist at the university were subject to high levels of overwork.<br/>
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“And there’s every reason to think uni management see teaching focus roles as just a cheap way of getting staff to do a lot of teaching without giving them the time for the research they need to do to stay up to date,” he said.<br/>
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But Scott said teaching at higher education level had been undervalued, and the roles would create viable career options for teaching specialists.<br/>
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“We’re creating a career pathway that says to the very top end of the professoriate, people who are teaching experts can have a career pathway to the very top,” he said.<br/>
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One of the first internal recruits for the roles, Louis Taborda, senior lecturer in project management, said he chose teaching because he saw it as a noble cause.<br/>
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He began his career as a high-school maths and computer science teacher, then worked as an IT consultant before moving to academia.<br/>
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“I felt right at the beginning that getting into teaching was something that was noble, pure and unadulterated,” he said.<br/>
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“It’s absolutely a pleasure to watch students grow.”<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/why-hundreds-of-new-uni-teaching-jobs-are-generating-controversy-20240315-p5fcpp.html">https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/why-hundreds-of-new-uni-teaching-jobs-are-generating-controversy-20240315-p5fcpp.html</a>
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<b> South Australia introduces sweeping reforms to REDUCE the availability of rental accomodation</b><br/>
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<i> The more you restrict what owners can do, the more reluctant they will be to let their properties out</i><br/>
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From March 1, rent price increases are now capped at one increase for every 12 month period.<br/>
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There is a dramatic lift in penalties for landlords who discriminate against a potential tenant who has children, with the maximum fine rising from $2500 to $25,000.<br/>
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And a landlord who falsely states he or she requires possession of a rental premises in order to terminate a tenancy can be hit with a maximum fine of $50,000 from an earlier maximum penalty of $2500.<br/>
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The changes follow the illegalisation of rent bidding – the practice of landlords or real estate agents soliciting higher bids for a rental above the listed price – in September last year.<br/>
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The change means landlords can no longer able to advertise properties with a rent range, put properties up for rent auction or solicit offers over the advertised rental price, with a penalty of up to $20,000 in place for breaches.<br/>
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Later this year, a third tranche of reforms will stabilise the rental experience ever further.<br/>
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South Australia will extend the notice period to end a tenancy from 28 days to 60 days, permit tenants to have pets in rentals with “reasonable conditions” and ensure rental properties comply with minimum housing standards.<br/>
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Consumer and Business Affairs Minister Andrea Michaels said the government’s reforms struck the “right balance” between protecting both the rights of tenants and landlords.<br/>
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“At a time when South Australian tenants are facing unprecedented levels of housing insecurity, we want to ensure tenants have the best possible protections in place including stronger rights, more financial stability and better long-term security,” she said.<br/>
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“Landlords also deserve protection to ensure their property is being properly taken care of, which is why we have also increased penalties available for those tenants who fail to live up to their responsibilities.”<br/>
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Tenants who intentionally cause serious damage to a rental property now face fine of $25,000 from $2500 before the changes.<br/>
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What the numbers show<br/>
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Data from SQM Research shows average weekly rents for both houses and units continue to rise across much of Australia.<br/>
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Some cities have recorded double digit growth in rent prices in the past 12 months, including Adelaide, which recorded a 13 per cent rise in combined house and unit rent prices.<br/>
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Adelaide has a vacancy rate of 0.5 per cent while Perth’s market is the tightest, with a vacancy rate of 0.4 per cent.<br/>
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Sydney’s rate is 1.1 per cent.<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/south-australia-introduces-sweeping-reforms-to-protect-renters-from-exploitation/news-story/073cfc0ff49578ed5dcfbadf7624d80a">https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/south-australia-introduces-sweeping-reforms-to-protect-renters-from-exploitation/news-story/073cfc0ff49578ed5dcfbadf7624d80a</a>
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<b> Complaint filed to Human Rights Commission against WA child protection department</b><br/>
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<i> Great! Absolute silence on WHY Aboriginal children are still being removed wholesale from their families by social workers. If you have seen how brutal Aboriginal men often are towards women and children you will know that the removals often save lives. How incorrect that is!</i><br/>
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A law firm has lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) against Western Australia's Department of Communities over the allegedly discriminatory removal of First Nations children from their families.<br/>
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It is the second of four complaints filed against state government child protection departments and Shine Lawyers is claiming that widespread racial discrimination has led to the unlawful and unjust removal of Indigenous children into state care.<br/>
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Shine Lawyers also says government departments have failed to reunify these children with their families.<br/>
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First Nations woman Lisa* was removed from her family when she was six and lived in at least 10 different foster homes.<br/>
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"I felt like [the Department of Child Protection] destroyed everything that I could have had with my family," she said.<br/>
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Lisa said she lost connection with her mum and cried for her every day when she was sent to live 600 kilometres away.<br/>
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"I still cry for them," she said.<br/>
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"I still miss them and I still don't get it back — I never get the love back."<br/>
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Now 20, Lisa said she relived her childhood trauma when her six-week-old daughter was taken from her and placed into care.<br/>
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"Since I lost my connection with my mother, I don't want to lose it with my daughter," she said.<br/>
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Lisa does not want her baby growing up thinking that she is not loved.<br/>
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"I never got a chance to love her before they decided to take her away from me," she said.<br/>
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Shine Lawyers special counsel Caitlin Wilson said despite legislative intervention, inquiries, policies and reports, and the fact that these statistics have been reported for years, the over-representation of Indigenous children in the child protection system had not decreased.<br/>
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"Sadly, Western Australia has the highest over-representation rate in the country," Ms Wilson said.<br/>
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"We're seeing a real failure when someone is identified early on during their pregnancy, a failure of the department to wrap support around that person and help them with housing issues or domestic violence, substance disorders, whatever it might be.<br/>
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"Instead they're removing the child at birth and it's too late for anyone to do anything at that stage."<br/>
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The complaint in WA follows one in New South Wales in January and class actions are set to be launched against government departments in four states, including South Australia and Victoria.<br/>
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WA Minister for Child Protection Sabine Winton said she could not comment specifically on the case in the AHRC, but she was proud of her department's work.<br/>
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"Aboriginal children are over-represented in the out-of-home care system, there's absolutely no doubt of that," she said.<br/>
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"We are working hand-in-glove with the federal government to meet our national commitments to closing the gap."<br/>
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Ms Winton said recent changes in the out-of-home care system showed the direction the department was moving in.<br/>
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"We now have 16 organisations who support young children in care … of those, six are now Aboriginal-controlled organisations," she said.<br/>
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"This time last year there was only one Aboriginal-controlled organisation.<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/indigenous-child-protection-complaint-human-rights-commission/103583338">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/indigenous-child-protection-complaint-human-rights-commission/103583338</a>
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<b> Battery Storage Plans Fan Community Bushfire Fears</b><br/>
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A northeast Victorian community is fighting plans to build battery storage in an area of extreme bushfire risk, as the state government closes one avenue of appeal.<br/>
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Mint Renewables and Trina Solar plan to build two battery energy storage systems (BESS) near the Dederang terminal station in the Kiewa Valley.<br/>
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“It’s just ridiculous,” Dederang’s Sharon McEvoy, who owns farmland next to the proposed sites, told AAP.<br/>
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“It’s north-facing, and backs right up next to the bush ... surrounded by bushfire management overlays.”<br/>
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Ms. McEvoy led a community meeting, as more than 200 frustrated residents of Dederang and nearby communities filled the recreation reserve hall and spilled out onto the deck and foyer.<br/>
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“We know the fire risk,” she told the crowd on March 14.<br/>
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Battery fires can burn for several days and release toxic and flammable gasses, as seen in 2021’s four-day fire at the Tesla Big Battery site near Geelong, west of Melbourne.<br/>
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“We care about the environment, the waterways, and the land where we live and work,” said Ms. McEvoy, while fighting back tears.<br/>
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“The government is sacrificing the wellbeing of rural communities.”<br/>
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The meeting came hours after the Victorian government announced plans to fast track new renewables projects, including stripping the ability of third parties to appeal planning decisions in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).<br/>
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“Once the reforms come into effect, new permit applications for batteries can be considered under this new accelerated pathway,” a spokeswoman for the department transport and planning told AAP.<br/>
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“Our accelerated pathway for renewables projects will help deliver cheaper and cleaner energy to Victorian households sooner.”<br/>
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The department has not yet received permit applications for either of the Dederang battery storage projects, and applications made from April 1 can be considered for fast tracking.<br/>
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The state government maintained community voices would continue to be protected, despite the curtailing of VCAT access.<br/>
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“Third party objections will still have a place in the approvals process, but this change prevents time-consuming and repeated delays that hold these projects back for years,” the Victorian government said on March 14.<br/>
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Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said the issue went far beyond a state planning issue.<br/>
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“What is happening to your community is happening right across the country,” Senator McKenzie told the crowd.<br/>
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“We’re all on the journey to net zero, but we need to share the burden.”<br/>
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Both Chinese-owned Trina Solar and Mint, owned by Infratil and the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, opted not to attend the meeting.<br/>
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“We are updating our design and developing mitigation measures to ensure the project is well-informed by local knowledge,” Mint said in a statement.<br/>
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“We will continue to be open and responsive to questions and constructive feedback.”<br/>
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Ovens Valley state MP Tim McCurdy said residents should direct their concerns to Victoria’s minister for planning, Sonya Kilkenny.<br/>
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“We’re not anti-renewables, we just want communication,” Mr. McCurdy told the crowd.<br/>
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“We want to know what’s going on.”<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/battery-storage-plans-fan-community-bushfire-fears-5607927">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/battery-storage-plans-fan-community-bushfire-fears-5607927</a>
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
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<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
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jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-40622627722545516232024-03-17T11:23:00.005+13:002024-03-17T11:23:00.145+13:00<br><br/>
<b> Authoritarianism lives in the mind of a Leftist teacher</b><br/>
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<i> Brendan McDougall (below) teaches in a government school in country Victoria. He realizes that some parents are prepared to make considerable efforts to ensure that their children get a good education while others are prepared simply to accept what the government offers. He deduces rightly that, no matter the system there will always be at least some people who seek privately-funded education in order to give their children more than the government offers. He wants to stop them doing that. He wants to forbid private education altogether. He would approve of the old Soviet system.<br/>
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That is a distinctly radical proposal from a distinctly radical website and one with no chance of adoption so why does Brendan argue that? His argument is actually realistic in some ways. He thinks that having private schools diverts resources that might otherwise go to government schools and he wants more resources for government schools. Private schools get all the best teachers, for instance.<br/>
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What he overlooks is that the existing system greatly expands the share of national resources that goes into education. Private schools attract private money, which adds to what the government spends on education. He is actually advocating for LESS money to be spent on education<br/>
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He cannot be unaware of that. It is just Leftist envy that is heaving in his breast. He is aware that many private school users "are paying for their children to have access to a more powerful peer group" and he hates it. He just cannot bear the thought of other people doing well for themelves and feeling happy about it. Their happiness makes him unhappy. He must be miserable a lot of the time.<br/>
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We can be thankful that there are not enough like him to be influential. When Mark Latham was leading the Labour party, he suffered a crashing electoral defeat after just a mild threat to Federal funding to private schools. Around 40% of Australian teenagers go to non-government schools so that is a huge voting bloc to threaten.<br/>
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In case it is of any interest, I went to a small country State school in Queensland and sent my son to a regional Catholic school. Both schools were rather good, I think</i><br/>
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Australia’s public schools are in crisis.<br/>
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Teachers nationwide have been shouting about this for more than a decade. There are no teachers. Our students are falling behind internationally. Many kids are depressed and school refusal is through the roof. It’s become so dire that even Education Minister Jason Clare agrees.<br/>
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Over the past decade, right-wing responses have been to blame the teachers or claim there are too many soft skills being taught. Those advocating in the media for school reform have tended to argue about the funding disparity between public and private schools, and the fact our schools are many percentage points away from meeting the school resourcing standard.<br/>
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These arguments ignore the reality that our current system values the education of some young Australians more than others — and the numbers obfuscate and distract from the true rot in the sector: class segregation.<br/>
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We have one of the most robust private education sectors in the world, and it’s hard to argue, especially following a recent Four Corners investigation into allegations of harassment and discrimination at Sydney’s Cranbrook School, that this is doing our society any good.<br/>
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Private schools don’t need tweaks or reforming; they need to be abolished.<br/>
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No teachers, no resources<br/>
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Our teachers are overworked, overwhelmed, burnt out and undervalued — and the numbers often cited are egregious. In New South Wales and Western Australia, shortages of more than 2,000 teachers were reported at the end of 2023. In Victoria, 800 jobs remained unfilled across the state when students returned from the summer (now reduced to 795 at the time of writing, including 14 principals).<br/>
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This shortage is being felt across the board, but the pain is sharpest at schools in our most vulnerable communities, such as mine, where six teachers have returned from retirement this year and we still have seven unfilled full-time jobs, with no applicants in sight.<br/>
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In the decade following the 2012 Gonksi review — which assessed school funding and depicted a system characterised by alarmingly declining test scores and increasing educational inequality — funding of private schools has increased at twice the rate of public. Not only did the review’s warnings go unheeded, but successive governments have worked in tandem to accelerate the trend. In Victoria and NSW in 2021, five elite private schools spent more on new facilities than governments spent on 3,372 public schools combined.<br/>
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These numbers are shameful, but while they liven up discussions in staff rooms, they’re not effective at creating change. There are deeper issues at play. For every cartoonishly posh school in Kew or Bellevue Hill charging well over $30,000 tuition a year, there are five or more smaller, lower-fee private schools that cost $5,000 a year that compete for teachers and students across Australia’s less affluent areas.<br/>
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These schools are often as materially scruffy as the fee-free public school down the road, with similar performances in metrics like NAPLAN and ATAR. Despite this, parents flock to these independent private schools in droves, with enrolments ticking up 14.1% over the past five years, while enrolments at Catholic private schools increased by 4.8% in the same period. Yet despite recent cost of living pressures, enrolments in public schools only grew by a measly 0.7% over the past five years, well below the average growth for all schools of 3.5%.<br/>
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Paying for a peer group<br/>
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We are certainly not getting richer, particularly those of us young enough to have kids starting school for the first time, so why might cash-strapped parents be willing to spend an ever-increasing portion of their disposable income on a product that isn’t measurably “better”?<br/>
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One reason is that private schools have marketing departments, but a more potent force is that middle-class parents in Australia consider privately educating their children a cultural norm.<br/>
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Australia is one of the richest countries in the world, and we have one of the highest percentages of private-school-educated young people in the world — 36%, with an increase of 4 percentage points over the past 20 years. In a country like the United States, where there are roiling debates about school choice and rampant social inequality, only 10% of students attended private schools as of 2022-23.<br/>
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In Australia, enough parents send their kids to private schools that to do otherwise can feel inadequate or negligent. Parents care about their kids and they don’t want them to miss out, so they work two jobs and send their kids to private school so they can relax knowing they did everything they could.<br/>
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In doing this, however, they inoculate themselves against needing to care about what happens to those who can’t afford what they can. They tap out, and if a third of our families tap out of public education, there becomes little political will left to make our public schools work. This is compounded by the fact that it’s the wealthier, powerful third — the parents who are also doctors and bankers and lawyers and politicians — who leave the public system first.<br/>
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This means that in Australia we have two education systems — one for everyone, and one for the students whose parents believe that the one for everyone isn’t good enough. These latter children spend their formative years only associating with people like them, with limited mixing across class lines. Parents who send their kids to private schools aren’t necessarily paying for a better education — they are paying for their children to have access to a more powerful peer group.<br/>
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This has been true for decades. Parents today who attended public schools grew up knowing the state didn’t care about their education, and so it is with today’s young people. They know this in their bones as they walk through the gates. As teachers, we see it in their eyes, but we also see it in our declining PISA scores, our school refusal rates, completion rates, our problems managing behaviour, and the upticks in youth crime statistics. These kids know that their country cares about other children more than them.<br/>
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Education for all<br/>
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In a debate about the value of VCE in my Year 12 English class last week, one student asked me if “a 40 here is really worth the same as a 40 at a private school in Melbourne”. The truth is that it’s worth so much more when it’s been fought for so much harder, but there aren’t the structures in place for us to see that.<br/>
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The rampant, chronic underfunding of our public schools is a blight on our national identity, especially for a country that lionises the idea of a “fair go”. But simply reallocating funding to be more equitable will not address the class segregation corroding Australia’s school system.<br/>
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So what can we do? Well, we can start by phasing out the federal taxpayer dollars pouring into the coffers of private schools — a minimum of $17.8 billion in 2024. If someone wants to pay for their child to attend a school where they won’t fall in with “the wrong crowd” or the other classist monikers we reserve for poor kids, they can pay for it themselves. We could then invest that money back into our public schools, targeting funding to the communities like mine who need it most.<br/>
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We could ban the new construction of private schools that are de facto designed to siphon away from the public sector the families who have the resources to invest in their children’s education, robbing their local school of their assistance. A better-resourced public sector could be designed to provide different educational options for different kids, and we could repurpose some of those three-storey performing arts centres into facilities accessible to everyone.<br/>
<br/>
These solutions aren’t easy — they require long-term thinking, values-based politics and bravery. The issue has been ignored for so long that it is entrenched. Decades of underfunding and neglect have made our public schools less competitive and less attractive to middle-class parents. Decades of conversations during school pick-ups and dinner parties have made parents increasingly anxious that their child might get left behind.<br/>
<br/>
Even if we did manage to abolish the grossly inequitable privatised model we currently have, our schools would still be segregated by postcode; by the capacities of parents to pay “top-up fees” to give their local public school an edge. But unless our leaders dare to acknowledge the injustices baked into the system, more kids will leave the public system, more burnt-out public school teachers will leave the profession, and more of our next generation will leave the education system feeling as though it wasn’t designed for kids like them.<br/>
<br/>
If governments, state and federal, are serious about fixing public education, they must consider the radical choice of abolishing the private education sector. Until they do so, they will never truly ensure that our schools are about every child learning, growing and flourishing.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/03/15/australia-public-school-private-school-funding-class-disparity/">https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/03/15/australia-public-school-private-school-funding-class-disparity/</a>
</p>
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<b> Urban planners decry NIMBYs as residents oppose St Lucia housing development</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Nimbys are often very active and vocal so goverments are reluctant to defy them. But they are claiming a right that usually does not legally exist under statute law. But Common Law is more flexible and can beget wins. They certainly obstruct housing provision for others</i><br/>
<br/>
Urban planner Dorina Pojani says "selfish" NIMBYs are preventing much-needed homes from being built.<br/>
<br/>
What's next? Brisbane City Council will decide on whether to approve the development following the weekend's election.<br/>
Robert Davidson fears his apartment's value will plummet when a luxury high-rise apartment is built right next door.<br/>
<br/>
The University of Queensland music lecturer lives on a leafy street in St Lucia, just down the road from his campus.<br/>
<br/>
The developer, Place Design Group, plans to build a four-storey building with ten units at the neighbouring property, 7 Ryans Road.<br/>
<br/>
Dr Davidson's real estate agent, Plum Property, estimates his apartment is currently worth $830,000, but would only sell in the $600,000 range if the development goes ahead.<br/>
<br/>
"When I bought the unit I didn't know that was the case. It's kind of been sprung on me and it feels like I'm paying for someone else's profit," Dr Davidson said.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm a huge supporter of medium-density housing. I just think you need to think strategically about where it should go, and there's so many reasons this is not strategic."<br/>
<br/>
Planning educator says attitude 'selfish'<br/>
<br/>
University of Queensland urban planning Associate Professor Dorina Pojani said, in her view, a four-storey housing development in that area of St Lucia was perfectly reasonable.<br/>
<br/>
Dr Pojani said Brisbane's housing shortages were being exacerbated by "selfish NIMBYs" — home owners who oppose new houses being built in their neighbourhoods.<br/>
<br/>
She said in her view this was a clear example of "typical NIMBYism", driven by fear of falling property values.<br/>
<br/>
"That kind of attitude is extremely selfish as the city is undergoing a major housing crisis and we've got people living in tents and parks," Dr Pojani said.<br/>
<br/>
"Even if their property values decline, I say 'who cares?'<br/>
<br/>
"A house should be a place for living. It should not be a place to store wealth, showcase wealth, or pass wealth from generation to generation."<br/>
<br/>
Dr Pojani said any new units, even luxury ones, would help boost Brisbane's housing supply and alleviate the shortages.<br/>
<br/>
Place Design Group did not respond to the ABC's request for comment.<br/>
<br/>
However in their written response to objections raised by residents, they rejected claims their building would lower neighbouring house prices.<br/>
<br/>
"The development will have negligible impacts to surrounding property values," it said.<br/>
<br/>
"The development will enhance the street appeal of Ryans Road, not only for the property subject of the development, but those within the immediate and surrounding area, having a positive influence on nearby property prices."<br/>
<br/>
The 'Nimby Paradox'<br/>
<br/>
As suburban sprawl radiates from cities across the country, experts and politicians are increasingly saying we need more infill development. But building higher-density homes isn't always easy.<br/>
<br/>
Brisbane artist Jackie Marshall, who currently lives with Dr Davidson, said she felt the developers were effectively "stealing" value from the neighbouring properties.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Marshall said the development would worsen traffic, endanger cyclists, clear greenery, and spoil the views for neighbours.<br/>
<br/>
"There are so many sites in St Lucia that are ripe for high and medium density building that do not contribute to cyclists' problems, that aren't on the floodplain, that aren't taking value away from residents' properties," she said.<br/>
<br/>
"If the LNP are serious about solving the congestion problem they need to make sure we don't approve developments that will put cars on the Brisbane river loop and create a danger for commuters."<br/>
<br/>
Natali Rayment is the executive director of Wolter Consulting Group and the co-founder of YIMBY QLD, an anti-NIMBY group.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Rayment said Brisbane had a severe "missing middle" — a shortage of medium-density apartment blocks.<br/>
<br/>
She said higher density accommodation was particularly crucial near facilities such as universities, train stations, and other areas of high activity.<br/>
<br/>
She said many Brisbane residents still clung to the idea of low density suburbia, despite its drawbacks.<br/>
<br/>
"We're a big city with great opportunities, yet we still seem to have these old country town values," Ms Rayment said.<br/>
<br/>
"We've got a housing shortage and if someone wants to build four storeys in St Lucia right now, I think we need to say yes and get it happening."<br/>
<br/>
The development is currently pending approval from Brisbane City Council, which is in caretaker mode for the local government elections.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/urban-planner-decries-brisbane-nimbyism/103582718">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/urban-planner-decries-brisbane-nimbyism/103582718</a>
</p>
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<b> Australian Alps snow cover to fare worst in the world under climate change, German study finds</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> And pigs might fly. Prophecies are worthless. The best snow in our general area is in New Zealand, anyway</i><br/>
<br/>
A grim picture has been painted of the future of the Australian Alps, with research predicting snow cover days may fall by 78 per cent by the end of the century.<br/>
<br/>
Worldwide, 13 per cent of ski areas are predicted to lose all natural snow cover by 2100.<br/>
<br/>
Researchers from the University of Bayreuth in Germany have today published a study in the journal PLOS One, prompting calls from academics to reinforce an urgent need to address climate change.<br/>
<br/>
The study puts Australia's rate of decline as the highest when compared to six other major skiing regions in the world, including New Zealand, Europe and Japan.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not surprised by the findings of this report, to be honest," Climatologist and Australian National University Professor Janette Lindesay said.<br/>
<br/>
"There's no doubt that we're heading for an even warmer future."<br/>
<br/>
The study found one in eight ski areas across the globe, or 13 per cent of winter ski slopes, were predicted to lose all natural snow cover this century under a high emissions scenario.<br/>
<br/>
High emissions referred to one of three climate change scenarios based on the Shared Socio-economic Pathways model laid out in the study, alongside "low" and "very high".<br/>
<br/>
Study co-author Dr Veronika Mitterwallner said her team focused on the "high emission" projection to summarise their findings because they considered it the most current and realistic scenario of the three.<br/>
<br/>
Despite this, the study found annual snow cover days across all seven "major mountain areas with downhill skiing will significantly decrease worldwide" across all three scenarios.<br/>
<br/>
Professor Lindesay said it reinforced a need to ramp up efforts to tackle climate change and lessen potential damage to alpine environments.<br/>
<br/>
"The scenarios are effectively storylines … taking into account possible future carbon dioxide emissions, socio-economic circumstances, population growth and possible policy responses to global heating," she said.<br/>
<br/>
"The best thing we can do is get emissions down to net zero as fast as we possibly can."<br/>
<br/>
The study predicts snow resorts may need to move or expand into less populated mountain areas at higher elevations to combat the effects of climate change.<br/>
<br/>
But University of Canberra based geomorphologist Phil Campbell said that would not necessarily work in Australia where ski resorts were at a lower altitude compared to other countries.<br/>
<br/>
"One of the problems in Australia is that we're fairly low in our ski resorts, which are already at the very top of our mountains," he said.<br/>
<br/>
"We're not going to have the same ability as many other countries do to be able to relocate our ski resorts.<br/>
<br/>
"The same goes for endangered plant species as well, because there's nowhere for them to retreat to."<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/australian-alps-snow-cover-climate-change-german-researchers-/103577562">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/australian-alps-snow-cover-climate-change-german-researchers-/103577562</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Dick Smith's urgent warning to Australia as a record influx of new immigrants move Down Under</b><br/>
<br/>
Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith says a record influx of new immigrants is a 'disaster for families' and young people wanting to own their own home.<br/>
<br/>
The electronics chain founder, who turns 80 next week, wants Australia's net immigration slashed to 75,000 a year to ease Australia's rental and housing affordability crisis.<br/>
<br/>
This would take immigration levels back to where they were in 1997, before the overseas intake doubled within a decade, only to double again after the pandemic.<br/>
<br/>
'Every Australian family has a population plan to have the number of children they can give a good life to, but at the rate we are going, it means the average Australian family will have less,' Mr Smith told the Daily Telegraph.<br/>
<br/>
Australia's population is estimated to double in the next 50 years, with big business interests advocating high immigration to boost the supply of labour.<br/>
<br/>
Mr Smith said 'billionaire political donors' only promoted high population growth to expand their wealth.<br/>
<br/>
New Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday showed Australia welcomed 125,410 permanent and long-term arrivals in January, marking the highest January on record.<br/>
<br/>
Accounting for departures, the net growth in permanent and long-term arrivals for January reached 55,330, surpassing the previous highest intake in January 2009 by 40 percent.<br/>
<br/>
Treasury economists are expecting Australia's overseas intake, covering skilled migrants and international students, to slow to 375,000 in 2023-24.<br/>
<br/>
This would be lower than the record 518,000 intake for 2022-23 and below January's annual increase of 481,620.<br/>
<br/>
But this would still be almost double the pre-pandemic level of 194,400 in 2019-20, before Australia was closed from March 2020 to December 2021.<br/>
<br/>
Official data showed the majority of new arrivals are settling in NSW and then Victoria, leading to more congestion in Australia's two biggest cities.<br/>
<br/>
Most migrants begin as renters, leading to more competition for accommodation in Sydney and Melbourne.<br/>
<br/>
High population growth is also creating problems in other states, with Brisbane the recipient of high interstate migration, as south-east Queensland attracts residents from NSW and Victoria in search of more affordable housing and warmer weather.<br/>
<br/>
Daniel Wild, the deputy executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs think tank, said high immigration was behind Australia's housing crisis.<br/>
<br/>
'It is clear that the federal government's migration program is unplanned, out of control, and out of step with community expectations,' he said.<br/>
<br/>
'On top of this it has failed to address Australia's worker shortage crisis, the very thing the federal government uses to justify such rapid increases in intake.<br/>
<br/>
'It is clear this lazy approach to solving worker shortages is not working and there should be a greater focus of getting Australian pensioners, veterans and students into work.'<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13199425/Dick-Smiths-urgent-warning-Australia.html">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13199425/Dick-Smiths-urgent-warning-Australia.html</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Australia’s ATM extinction!</b><br/>
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Hands up if you’ve struggled to find an ATM lately… I don’t mean an overpriced service station ATM; I mean a free, big four banks ATM. If you’ve struggled, you’re not alone.<br/>
<br/>
The big four banks in Australia, namely ANZ, Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank, and the NAB, have not only been shutting down bank branches (around 460 branches in the past three years), they are also rapidly removing ATMs.<br/>
<br/>
As of June 2017, there were 13,814 bank-owned ATMs across Australia. Six years later, in June 2023, there were just 5,693 – a decline of almost 60 per cent or 8,121!<br/>
<br/>
Banks, the government, and corporate media will claim customers overwhelmingly prefer digital transactions, and they’re shutting down ATMs in response to the lack of demand for cash. I push back on this by asking: What came first, the inability to find an ATM, or a natural shift to online services?<br/>
<br/>
Further, considering we were locked down in our homes for almost three years, I would’ve thought measuring outdoor-based consumer activity during this period would be fraught with difficulty.<br/>
<br/>
Over the past few years, one of the main drivers toward digital transactions has been reframing cash as dirty and capable of spreading diseases such as Covid.<br/>
<br/>
As someone who works in the service industry, I witnessed first-hand how successful this narrative proved in scaring people away from using cash. Retailers and businesses took this artificial marketplace signal as a cue to get rid of money permanently – a move many companies would applaud given the considerable costs involved in maintaining cash on the premises.<br/>
<br/>
Offering cash as tender is expensive – from Armaguard collection to paying an accounts employee – not to mention the security costs involved in preventing internal and external theft. Businesses also prefer cards as they can add various surcharges. The ACCC currently has its hands full trying to rein in Australian businesses charging excessive credit card surcharges. Australian companies are legally obliged to charge customers the amount they pay to credit card companies, which is 0.5-3 per cent. Thus, businesses charging a flat surcharge for every transaction are not just ripping us off but also breaking the law.<br/>
<br/>
Further, running and maintaining an ATM costs the bank money. Aside from the initial cost of purchasing the ATM, a suitably qualified person must physically stock the machine with cash and receipt paper. Then there are insurances, including public liability, rent charges, and the ongoing costs involved in anti-fraud software and hardware updates. It’s ridiculous to suggest that banks don’t minimise these costs as much as possible; nevertheless, there’s no doubt ATMs are expensive to maintain. All this highlights that ATMs and cash are no longer strong profit drivers for banks compared to digital products and services.<br/>
<br/>
Indeed, any profits derived from ATMs disappeared in September 2017, when all four big banks stopped charging $2 transaction fees to non-customers using their ATMs. At the time, the banks collectively and accidentally ‘came out’ by stating in the media that they would accept the loss of $500 million in profit produced annually by charging ATM fees. This is interesting, as you will recall that up until that point in time, the banks had claimed that they did not make a cent of profit from ATM fees. For those more astute readers, you may have also noted the significance of the timing of this announcement. 2017 was the first year that ATMs started to disappear en masse…<br/>
<br/>
In response to the rapid closure of bank branches and ATMs, many have suggested that we withdraw our cash at Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, or Australia Post. Okay, sure, that seems valid. However, the other day at my local Woolworths, I counted only two cash checkouts with withdrawal facilities and 12 card-only checkouts. We’re seeing the same scenario play out at Coles. Many Woolworths stores in metro locations across Australia conducted cashless trials as early as 2020. As for Australia Post, well, to achieve sustainability goals, it is currently shutting down local branches and creating regional hubs.<br/>
<br/>
The situation at Aldi is worse. There are some newly opened Aldi stores across the United Kingdom and Europe that require you to scan a digital QR code with embedded digital ID tracking to enter the store. These stores are entirely autonomous, with no shop assistants, and cash is not accepted.<br/>
<br/>
Imagine there’s nowhere to withdraw our money from, and a hiccup in the banking system were to occur, for example, a global banking crisis. Without ATMs or bank branches, it would be hard, if not impossible, to withdraw our savings. This, in turn, could lead to a situation known as a bank bail-in. Bank bail-ins are when a bank’s creditors and investors, i.e., you and I, are forced to take a loss on our holdings to recapitalise the bank during a financial crisis. This is a fancy way of saying the bank uses its customers’ savings to bail itself out of monetary issues, and yes, it’s 100 per cent legal.<br/>
<br/>
Bank bail-ins were introduced in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis to improve the stability of the international monetary system by screwing over the working and middle classes. And please don’t make the mistake of thinking that bank bail-ins only occur in corrupt third-world countries. They have occurred in Cyprus twice, once in 2013 and again in 2021, and in Italy and Spain in 2017. It’s yet another legal mechanism that allows the elites to steal our money to pay for their uncontrolled and unregulated greed.<br/>
<br/>
The banks and government must be positively licking their lips at the unprecedented amount of consumer data falling into their laps at zero cost, with little to no oversight or pushback from the population. The ability of governments to track where their citizens are spending every dollar in the broader economy gives them extraordinary powers. When people use cash instead, that data cannot be captured or subsequently profited by selling it to third parties.<br/>
<br/>
The collection of data on our spending habits is in addition to the ability of certain devices and applications to track our location, know who we’re dating, where we work, how much we earn, and our complete medical and tax histories. These apps, websites, and devices also read our emails, texts, and social media posts and listen to our phone conversations. So, now they will know how, when, and where we spend our money. This occurs even when our financial interactions are technically between us, our bank, and a third party. Imagine what it will be like when we’re all forced onto a government-controlled Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).<br/>
<br/>
The government plans to fully integrate us into their new dystopian system of digital IDs and CBDCs by 2030. This will usher in a cashless era of control over everything we own and how, when, and where we spend every dollar. When you combine these mechanisms of control with existing Australian government digital infrastructure, such as the MyGov website, which centrally collates every citizen’s Medicare, Centrelink, and taxation information, the government’s digital surveillance box set will be complete.<br/>
<br/>
This digital boxset represents what Harvard Professor Shoshana Zuboff has labelled the Dictatorship of no Alternatives. Whereby it is not only challenging to escape submitting to this regime, but it also becomes impossible to offer an alternative system. It’s a monopoly on power and information beyond anything previously imagined. Soon, CBDCs and a government-issued and controlled digital ID will become compulsory for living a normal life. This digital pass will be required to travel, sign a lease, open a bank account, apply for a mortgage, enrol your kids in school or university, visit the doctor or hospital, attend a concert, and get a new job. We will have no choice but to submit. Thus, the dictatorship of no alternatives is simply technofascism by another name.<br/>
<br/>
This is all happening right now. The globalists are busy behind the scenes, rapidly dismantling the old financial system based on physical dollars and implementing a new digital ID and CBDC system, gamed to their advantage. One small way to push back against all this is to keep using cash. Sometimes, the simple things in life really do remain the best!<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/australias-atm-extinction/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/australias-atm-extinction/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-25872255443323737982024-03-14T14:28:00.003+13:002024-03-14T14:29:21.032+13:00<br /><b> Opposition Confirms It Will Develop 6 Nuclear Power Sites</b><br/>
<br/>
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has confirmed the Coalition’s energy policy—expected to be released ahead of the federal budget in May—will probably include six nuclear plant sites.<br/>
<br/>
While he has yet to name the exact locations, Tasmania has been ruled out as a potential host state. It’s considered likely that the reactors would be built on the sites of old coal stations to take advantage of existing transmission infrastructure.<br/>
<br/>
This means the Labor-held seat of Hunter, the independent seat of Calare, and Coalition-held Flynn, Maranoa, O’Connor, and Gippsland may be all on the shortlist for nuclear power stations.<br/>
<br/>
At the Australian Financial Review Business Summit in Sydney on March 12, Mr. Dutton said the Coalition would encourage nearby communities to accept the plants by offering them subsidised energy—a model he said was used in the United States. He told the audience that it would also provide an incentive for the industry to establish jobs.<br/>
<br/>
“Nuclear is the only proven technology which emits zero emission and firms up renewables,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
The opposition’s position comes as modelling on Australia’s net zero transition estimates the country will need to invest hundreds of billions, and even trillions, to fully reduce emissions.<br/>
<br/>
The tremendous cost stems from the widescale investment in wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and pumped hydro (where available), but also into transmission infrastructure, as well as electrification of public transport networks and private vehicles (buying EVs instead of regular cars).<br/>
<br/>
Nuclear Detractors Also Point to Cost<br/>
<br/>
Energy experts say it’s difficult to estimate the cost of transitioning to nuclear, given the technology is not currently commercially available.<br/>
<br/>
But during the speech, Mr. Dutton dismissed what he described as “straw man arguments” against nuclear, including cost.<br/>
<br/>
“Australia’s energy mix is about 21 percent gas, 47 per cent coal, and 32 percent renewables. Ontario province in Canada is about 5 percent gas, 35 percent renewables, and 60 percent nuclear. South Korea is about 30 percent gas, 30 percent coal, and 30 percent nuclear, with the balance mainly hydro … Australians pay almost double what Ontario and South Korean residents pay,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
He said reactors produce a “small amount of waste” and said the government had already signed up to deal with nuclear waste via the AUKUS agreement.<br/>
<br/>
The Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA) found there were 2,061 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste in 2021, compared to 1,771 cubic metres in 2018. It projects 4,377 cubic metres in the next 50 years, compared to 3,734 cubic metres projected in 2018.<br/>
<br/>
Intermediate-level waste is produced in nuclear medicine—for example, imaging, scanning and radiotherapy.<br/>
<br/>
Currently, the waste is stored in more than 100 places, but most of it is held at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) facilities in Lucas Heights, Sydney.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/opposition-confirms-it-would-develop-6-nuclear-power-sites-5605495">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/opposition-confirms-it-would-develop-6-nuclear-power-sites-5605495</a>
</p>
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<b> Court Strikes Down $3,000 Fine for Person Trying to Leave City During Pandemic</b><br/>
<br/>
The NSW Supreme Court has found that a $3,000 fine for leaving Greater Sydney without a permit in 2021 was unlawful, casting doubt on the validity of around 30,000 similar fines issued during the pandemic.<br/>
<br/>
This is the second such ruling.<br/>
<br/>
The state’s Revenue NSW, however, says it will not withdraw the fines and, will instead, treat each one on a “case-by-case basis,” likely meaning those fined will need to argue their case with the government and potentially take the matter to court.<br/>
<br/>
The case centred on a $3,000 fine imposed on Angelika Kosciolek for leaving Greater Sydney in 2021. She was homeless and made plans to travel to South Australia after being offered accommodation there.<br/>
<br/>
But Justice Desmond Fagan said fines issued during COVID-19 must pass the “bare minimum test,” established in a 2022 Supreme Court ruling. That ruling said that for a fine to be valid, the penalty notice must clearly state the relevant Act, and the provision related to the offence.<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Kosciolek’s fine was found to have not passed that test, and the Redfern Legal Centre (RLC) said most COVID-19 fines also failed to precisely state which laws had been broken.<br/>
<br/>
‘Withdraw and Repay’: Redfern Legal Centre<br/>
<br/>
“If a COVID fine fails to state the specific offence, the fine is invalid,” Samantha Lee, senior solicitor at the Centre, said. “RLC considers that the judgment supports the conclusion that the remaining COVID fines are invalid and urges Revenue NSW to withdraw and repay the 29,000 remaining fines.”<br/>
<br/>
Yet Commissioner of Fines Administration Scott Johnston, from Revenue NSW, told a Budget Estimates hearing that it would not be withdrawing any of the remaining fines, but will continue to “review and treat every matter on a case-by-case basis.”<br/>
<br/>
However, Ms. Lee urged Mr. Johnston to “come to his senses.”<br/>
<br/>
“The commissioner is refusing to honour a supreme court judgement and do the right thing and give people back their money and withdraw these fines that don’t meet the legal requirements,” she said. “We’re giving the commissioner time to come to his senses and make the right decision to withdraw these fines. If not, then watch this space.”<br/>
<br/>
More than 33,000 COVID fines, worth millions of dollars, were cancelled after a NSW Supreme Court ruling in 2022 found that details of the offences were insufficient.<br/>
<br/>
In that instance, Revenue NSW withdrew 33,121 fines, meaning roughly half of the 62,138 COVID-related infringement notices issued in the state during the pandemic were invalid. However, it emphasised that the decision to withdraw the fines did not mean the offences had not been committed.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/court-rules-a-3000-fine-for-leaving-sydney-during-covid-invalid-5605371">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/court-rules-a-3000-fine-for-leaving-sydney-during-covid-invalid-5605371</a>
</p>
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<b> Greens Leader’s $1 Million Expense Bill Causes Debate</b><br/>
<br/>
Greens leader Adam Bandt claimed $963,166 (US$637,000) in expenses in a single year, including $23,000 for two private jet flights during the 2022 election campaign. He also spent $204,000 on printing costs and $12,000 on a government-provided vehicle and petrol allowance.<br/>
<br/>
That’s in addition to his $314,000 salary and the wages of his personal staff, according to the Department of Finance.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Bandt booked a chartered flight from Townsville to Rockhampton, costing $8,300, to announce details of his party’s plan for the country to rapidly transition from coal to renewables. The second charter between Canberra and Brisbane, at a cost of $15,000, was to attend the Greens’ election campaign launch.<br/>
<br/>
A private jet emits as much carbon dioxide in one hour (two tonnes) as the average person emits in an entire year. Staff Travel Adds Another $372,000<br/>
<br/>
His other travel costs included almost $29,000 on government COMCAR trips and taxis, and $57,000 for domestic flights. Another $372,000 was spent on staff travel expenses.<br/>
Mr. Bandt’s spending was criticised by independent MP Dai Le, who is among the most frugal MPs in claiming expenses.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m shocked by the news of parliamentarians overspending and surprised by the Greens use of chartered flights when they are the party that opposed the use of fossil fuels,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“At the end of the day, how we spend and what we spend on, will be judged by the people when it’s time to cast their vote.”<br/>
<br/>
The Greens spokesperson said: “As the leader of the third-largest political party in Australia you would expect Mr. Bandt would engage in extensive travel and—unlike the prime minister and many ministers—he doesn’t have access to government VIP flights. All Mr. Bandt’s expenditures are within entitlements.”<br/>
<br/>
Despite the size of his claim, Mr. Bandt ranked below several Labor ministers, including Employment Minister Tony Burke, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for 2022 expenses.<br/>
<br/>
‘Legitimate work expenses’: Stephen Conroy<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Bandt also found a defender in former Labor senator Stephen Conroy. “To my shock, I’ll actually defend Adam Bandt,” Mr. Conroy told Sky News Australia. “The amount of travel and the work expenses, providing they’re within [the guidelines]—and there’s no suggestion from any of these stories, not one single suggestion that anyone has gone outside the guidelines.<br/>
<br/>
“These are legitimate work expenses. A politician’s job is to communicate with their constituents. Adam Bandt is the leader of a political party, so you’d expect him to be out there up front.”<br/>
<br/>
Last year, it was revealed that Mr. Albanese spent almost $700,000 on domestic and international travel, and other expenses, in the first three months of his prime ministership.<br/>
<br/>
In addition, Mr. Albanese and his deputy Richard Marles incurred more than $5 million in costs using defence jets to move around Australia and overseas.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/greens-leaders-1-million-expense-bill-causes-debate-5605422">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/greens-leaders-1-million-expense-bill-causes-debate-5605422</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Home Schooling Must Be Consistent With Australian Curriculum: New Laws</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> The syllabus is so wishy-washy that no problems should arise</i><br/>
<br/>
The Queensland government has introduced legislation in parliament mandating that home education is consistent with the Australian government’s curriculum.<br/>
<br/>
This comes amid an almost tripling of students who are been homeschooled in the state since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.<br/>
<br/>
Education Minister Di Farmer introduced the Education (General Provisions) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 on March 6, which includes amendments related to homeschooling.<br/>
<br/>
Under the proposed changes, students who are schooled at home are required to follow the government’s syllabus for senior subjects.<br/>
<br/>
The minister noted that more than 10,000 students are currently registered for homeschooling in Queensland.<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Farmer said that given these higher numbers, it is “more important than ever” that students are undertaking a high-quality program.<br/>
<br/>
In addition, she highlighted that the legislation provides “safeguards for student wellbeing.”<br/>
<br/>
“The bill requires a summary of the educational program to be provided at the time of application for home education registration to ensure the child or young person has immediate access to a high-quality program and removes the separate time-limited provisional registration application,” Ms. Farmer told parliament.<br/>
<br/>
“This will provide a single and simplified home education registration process with appropriate oversight by the department.<br/>
<br/>
“Further, the bill removes the need for a certificate of registration and associated obligations, to reduce an unnecessary regulatory burden for parents. Instead, parents will continue to receive a written notice, as they do now, setting out evidence of registration and any conditions on registration.”<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Farmer said the bill establishes a “new guiding principle” emphasising that home education “should be in the best interests of the child or young person.”<br/>
<br/>
“This must take into account the child’s safety, well-being, and access to a high-quality education. This amendment was included in the bill after public consultation on home education amendments was completed,” Ms. Farmer said.<br/>
<br/>
“Using a guiding principle which makes explicit that a child or young person’s best interests must be central to the significant choice of home education is something I am confident Queensland families and home educators will support.”<br/>
<br/>
Home Education Australia spokesperson Samantha Bryan raised concerns with AAP that the mandate may lead to more parents taking home education underground.<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Bryan also told the publication most families registered with the Home Education Unit are succeeding with homeschooling, even if they are not following the national curriculum.<br/>
<br/>
“If children are already receiving a high-quality education, if the system’s not broken, why are we trying to allegedly fix it,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Bryan suggested a dual enrolment option allowing families to combine part-time homeschooling with part-time school attendance.<br/>
<br/>
“Families are making great sacrifices because they desperately love and care about the wellbeing of their child,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“Some of these families would love to put their kids back in school so I think a dual enrolment option—part-time home education, part-time school— would be great.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/home-schooling-must-be-consistent-with-australian-curriculum-new-laws-5603182">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/home-schooling-must-be-consistent-with-australian-curriculum-new-laws-5603182</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-44825492220719584242024-03-13T14:27:00.002+13:002024-03-13T14:27:50.620+13:00<br><b> Michael Blythe and the argument in support of negative gearing</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> I used negative gearing in my younger days, when I was a well-paid academic. I doubt that I would have bothered with landlording without the facility it offered.<br/>
<br/>
And if you want lower rents you need more landlords, not fewer. I specialized in offering high quality rental accomodation, using properties that were mostly in poor condition when I bought them but which I had improved. So eliminating negative gearing would chase people like me out of the rental market and hit it hard just when it is dowm.<br/>
<br/>
It's moronic policy if you have the best interests of tenants at heart. But the Greens are led by the unreconstructed Trotsykite, Adam Bandt, so that cannot be assumed</i><br/>
<br/>
“Negative gearing must be scrapped” is the clarion call from just about everyone hit by a tight property market.<br/>
<br/>
The tax break is cast as the source of all problems, from spiralling prices to rental supply issues. But is this true?<br/>
<br/>
As the pressure builds against this decades-old tax break, the Greens are pushing hard against the policy. There is a clear and present danger the government may up-end current arrangements — despite denials from the Albanese administration.<br/>
<br/>
If you invest in property, or ever wish to do so, then negative gearing is likely to be crucial to your plan. The ability to set losses against your taxable income is the most important tax break (outside of super) for the everyday investor.<br/>
<br/>
Millions of investors have used negative gearing and millions more no doubt have it in their plans, and as Michael Blythe of PinPoint Macro Analytics puts it: “in our market tax arrangements are as important as interest rates.”<br/>
<br/>
As a former chief economist at Commonwealth Bank, the nation’s biggest home lender, few people know more than Blythe about negative gearing and what it means for the wider economy.<br/>
<br/>
The latest wave of speculation surrounding negative gearing has prompted him to issue a case for the defence. Blythe has produced a report which in his own words will “provide ammunition in support of the status quo”.<br/>
<br/>
His paper, ‘In praise of negative gearing,’ will no doubt be greeted with catcalls of derision, but it is worth reading and offers a compelling argument for keeping negative gearing in place.<br/>
<br/>
In his paper, Blythe goes after some of the most common tropes set out against negative gearing — and he knocks most of them flat.<br/>
<br/>
One very important takeaway is despite the understandable assumption negative gearing is only for the wealthy (and parliamentarians), the data does not suggest this is the case.<br/>
<br/>
More than one in ten taxpayers claim rent interest deductions. Among this group are surgeons and dentists.<br/>
<br/>
But, it also includes emergency service workers, nurses, teachers and bus drivers — it’s a tax policy for everyone.<br/>
<br/>
The other key argument it loses revenue for the government is also undermined by simple economics showing investors are only negatively geared at the start of their investment — as years pass they begin paying tax as property owners.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, there have been recent periods where negative gearing was contributing to budget revenue.<br/>
<br/>
As Blythe patiently explains, the Australian residential property market is based on capital gain, not rental income — rental yields are low and owners accept those low yields on the basis that some day in the future they will get a capital gain.<br/>
<br/>
Importantly, investors work on the assumption capital gains will be somewhere near 25 per cent — based on it being at the top income tax rate and discounted by 50 per cent (a process which has now been in place for more than two decades).<br/>
<br/>
The report shows if the negative gearing system was not in place, then rents would be pushed higher. Keep in mind we already have a rental vacancy ratio of nearly 1 per cent in the major cities.<br/>
<br/>
If you remain unconvinced, then Blythe goes back to the one and only example we have in history of what Australia might be like if negative gearing was removed.<br/>
<br/>
The test case was in 1985 — when negative gearing was initially scrapped and then restored two years later,<br/>
<br/>
If we look at what happened during the two-year interregnum: “the national experience suggested that removing negative gearing would reduce rental supply, lift rents and slow house price growth.”<br/>
<br/>
As for the most recent removal attempt — the ALP move in 2019 to limit negative gearing — it “would have been a replay of 1985” says the report.<br/>
<br/>
Of course, the argument for the defence of negative gearing is far from perfect, and it fails one group — first-home buyers.<br/>
<br/>
The truth is if negative gearing was removed, then house prices would fall — and when this occurred more first home buyers could get a start in the market.<br/>
<br/>
For now, we have the current situation where first home buyers are acting as ‘rentvestors’ — they are getting into the market by owning an investment property first and then buying a home later.<br/>
<br/>
The latest ABS data clearly shows the 2 -34 year old age group has raised their share of the investment property market. The argument goes: at least they have got a foothold in the market.<br/>
<br/>
This is true, but it’s a secondary experience to owning your own home.<br/>
<br/>
As an economist, Blythe warns you can’t do tax reform in parts: “the playing field needs to be level,” so if the government removes negative gearing for houses, then it will also need to be removed for shares.<br/>
<br/>
Certainly, investors are getting worried. Blythe’s report shows a telltale surge in google searches around negative gearing ever since the government changed course on the planned stage 3 tax cuts earlier in the year.<br/>
<br/>
As Blythe suggests: “We have a Budget coming up in May, and we have this one-sided debate about negative gearing, because the people that push for changing housing taxation arrangements make the most noise and get the most attention.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/michael-blythe-and-the-argument-in-support-of-negative-gearing/news-story/59aaa92cfb3f6188351490d2bec62f6d">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/michael-blythe-and-the-argument-in-support-of-negative-gearing/news-story/59aaa92cfb3f6188351490d2bec62f6d</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> The Albanese government is hiding many dark environmental secrets</b><br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government is embracing some of the worst practices of dictator-driven governments to conceal controversial environmental measures. The secrecy may be necessary because the measures curb mining in Australia, hit many property developments, restrict solar farms and hurt farmers.<br/>
<br/>
I emphasise this commentary is not about the detail of what is planned — I don’t know the detail. My contribution is to reveal the extraordinary third world practices being embraced by Anthony Albanese to conceal what is planned so it can be rushed through the parliament.<br/>
<br/>
I fear the designers have no regard to the revenue implications of what they plan. Their title “The Nature Positive Plan” looks to be in the tradition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.<br/>
<br/>
The secrecy measures are nothing short of extraordinary and are equally dangerous as those used by former PM Scott Morrison to conceal the fact he was taking on extra ministries.<br/>
<br/>
I set out below how the truth behind “The Nature Positive Plan” is being concealed.<br/>
<br/>
Representatives from leading companies and other interested parties are invited to go into a room to look at parts — not all — of the draft legislation.<br/>
<br/>
But before they are allowed to enter the room, they must sign a voluminous confidentiality agreement preventing them from discussing both their entry into the room and the contents of the draft legislation they are about to be shown. I do not know the exact penalties for breaching that agreement, but the fines will be heavy and jail a possibility.<br/>
<br/>
Once the agreement is signed, those allowed to enter the room are told they must not photograph any of the draft legislation on the table and cannot take it away. They are given a fixed time to take notes using blank paper and a pen.<br/>
<br/>
There is some discussion allowed about the draft, but I don’t know the details. The participants are allowed to take their notes away with them. Nothing else.<br/>
<br/>
I don’t know the people who were invited but almost certainly some will be international companies who later (illegally) will report back to international boards, including those in the US (our defence partner), this is a country where very strange practices are taking place.<br/>
<br/>
To overseas eyes used to third world countries, it must reek of corruption, but I don’t think money-based corruption is taking place. It's all about extreme left wing agendas.<br/>
<br/>
As I understand it, there have been several of these bizarre events. Only a government with something very dangerous to conceal would embrace this sort of tactic.<br/>
<br/>
It is publicly known the Albanese government is planning a new tranche of legislation to replace the current Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.<br/>
<br/>
The EPBC Act was a carefully prepared document. The states and federal governments set the framework and then industry groups, individual companies, environmental groups, scientists, conservationists, subject-matter experts, and the general community were consulted extensively.<br/>
<br/>
The EPBC Act was developed over years before the federal government published a discussion paper, then an exposure draft, to get detailed feedback on the entire suite of changes.<br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government thinks it can replace this substantial, 1,100-page legislation (plus hundreds of further pages of subsidiary legislation) in short time.<br/>
<br/>
Australia as a nation spends its mining, agriculture and property revenue by providing very high levels of social services. Jim Chalmers, in recognition of this revenue source, has taken steps to make mining approvals smoother.<br/>
<br/>
But, I suspect the treasurer does not know exactly what is being planned. You will remember he advocated pensioners use the gig economy to gain the extra income he was allowing them to earn without impacting pension entitlements.<br/>
<br/>
He didn’t know the industrial relations legislation was going to hit the gig economy hard.<br/>
<br/>
It is understandable an ALP government would seek to upgrade the environmental rules set down in the 1990s. But the right way to go about it is to bring the community together with wide consultation — just as was done in the 1990s.<br/>
<br/>
I am told one version of the environmental secrecy technique was used before the industrial relations bill was put on the parliamentary table. The industrial relations blueprint was a total mess and will endanger our economy. And its “loopholes” title was also in the Orwell tradition.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-albanese-government-is-hiding-many-dark-environmental-secrets/news-story/8da7109dd5622482b6cdd70f8a246632">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-albanese-government-is-hiding-many-dark-environmental-secrets/news-story/8da7109dd5622482b6cdd70f8a246632</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Why abolishing boys schools is an act of woke madness</b><br/>
<br/>
Greg Sheridan<br/>
<br/>
The campaign to abolish single-sex schools, especially boys schools, is a sign of the madness of ideology and the badness of groupthink.<br/>
<br/>
It reflects the dreary, dull, lifeless, joyless, small “S” Stalinist bureaucratic conformity that progressive ideology routinely attempts to impose. It’s a rush to insanity, where pressure will come on every successful boys school to become coeducational.<br/>
<br/>
Let’s state the obvious. Boys schools, girls schools and co-ed schools can all be extremely good, mediocre or terrible. It’s a good thing for our educational environment, and for countless families and students, that different types of schools flourish.<br/>
<br/>
Gender Equality Advocate Michelle May says. “The argument is that currently it is not done on merit,” Ms May said. “It’s still very much a boys club. “As long as we’ve got More<br/>
It seems a pity that some boys schools with long, good traditions now feel obliged to go co-ed. They may be feeling cultural pressure.<br/>
<br/>
Let me confess. I spent the majority of my schooling at a Christian Brothers school in Sydney that was for boys only. It was a great school, with wide socio-economic and racial diversity, and certainly taught its students respect for women and girls, and respect for everyone.<br/>
<br/>
It wasn’t an exclusively male environment. There were female teachers, librarians, admin staff, mothers in the tuck shop. To be rude, much less sexist, towards any of these would have been unthinkable and would have earned draconian punishment.<br/>
<br/>
The contemporary debate is too ideological. If a particular school has a behaviour problem, that needs to be fixed. Abolishing boys schools generally would be wretched iconoclastic vandalism.<br/>
<br/>
In the Financial Review last week an anonymous business executive called for ending single-sex schools and said boys schools should stop trying to make “men” out of their students.<br/>
<br/>
How weird is this? What is it that boys are supposed to become if not men? Giraffes? Oranges?<br/>
<br/>
The piece reflects the confused and counter-productive campaign against masculinity. Men, like women, can do terrible things. Men are responsible for much more violence than women. I agree we’re living through a plague of domestic violence that we must stop. But you won’t make men decent, respectful and successful by telling them masculinity itself is bad.<br/>
<br/>
Seventeen years ago, in central Melbourne, about 7.30am, a biker, who had been on an all-night binge, was beating up his girlfriend. Two men came to her aid. One was killed in the process. In giving his life to the instinct to protect a woman under assault, that man was displaying masculinity, and it wasn’t toxic.<br/>
<br/>
At the school I attended more than 50 years ago, the brothers, and all the teachers, stressed that men had certain obligations to women – politeness, consideration, respect, courtesy.<br/>
<br/>
The brothers taught that when walking down the street with a girl the bloke should try to walk between the girl and the road. That’s so any danger coming from the road, such as a car crashing off the street, hits the bloke first.<br/>
<br/>
That may all seem hopelessly outdated. But men and women are still different. Completely equal but different. The idea that the differences are mainly the result of socialisation is contemporary ideology waging war against human nature.<br/>
<br/>
Almost no one really lives their life according to the new ideology. Is there a household in Australia where, if a married couple hears a strange noise in the middle of the night, the husband turns to the wife and says: “Now, darling, why don’t you go and see if that noise is a burglar. I’ll stay here by the phone. I would go myself but I don’t want us to be trapped in gender stereotypes.”<br/>
<br/>
It’s good that women’s sport is increasingly seen as the equal of men’s sport. But it’s still different. No one argues that men and women should play rugby league together. The army for a long time included boxing in its training. It’s a tough sport. Maybe its concussion risks render it no longer fit for such training. But you can see it helped soldiers cope psychologically with experiencing a physical blow but carrying on. It has never been the case that men and women enter the same boxing ring and box against each other.<br/>
<br/>
The variety of human experience is vast but boys and girls are different. Co-ed can work superbly, but so can schools that focus only on boys, or only girls. Boys and girls do tend, within all kinds of statistical variation, to learn a bit differently, so boys schools can focus on the way boys learn.<br/>
<br/>
Girls tend to mature earlier than boys and in that early adolescent period a single-sex school allows a boy to remain a boy for as long as necessary. And then become a man.<br/>
<br/>
Cardinal George Pell once remarked that “self-confidence, directness and an instinct for struggle and competition” characterised Christian Brothers schools. That’s pretty accurate.<br/>
<br/>
But boys schools also offer boys a distinctive diversity. At a boys school, if there’s going to be a choir it has to be the boys singing.<br/>
<br/>
The school I went to was exceptionally strong in sports. My one season as a junior rugby league player led to a broken shoulder; my parents decided I’d dispense with footy. I wasn’t very good at sport anyway but the school offered multitudes of other activities. I was always in the debating team, the chess club, sometimes the drama performances, sometimes music groups, briefly in the science club, in Christian youth groups and a million other things.<br/>
<br/>
Even though I didn’t play football or cricket, and hardly excelled at the sports I did participate in, I never felt out of place. Books, learning, contention, energy, purpose, competition – it was a pro-life environment.<br/>
<br/>
The teachers occasionally gave us the strap for our malefactions. Some of life’s antipathies are irrational. I greatly disliked one teacher, who warmly returned my sentiments. No doubt unfairly, I thought him a dogmatic smart alec. Perhaps we were too much alike.<br/>
<br/>
I persecuted him with many pedantic questions and points of order while staying well within the rules and norms. One day, nonetheless, he sort of gave in and gave me the strap. I went home that afternoon immensely chuffed, feeling I’d won a moral victory.<br/>
<br/>
There were times, of course, when we were louts and hooligans, and needed strong direction. The school was pretty strict. Sensibly so. And it had a great tradition. Wearing its uniform meant something. We cared about it. No doubt it struck other kids entirely differently.<br/>
<br/>
But it gave me wonderful treasures. In its library, in primary school, I met PG Wodehouse, my lifelong companion.<br/>
<br/>
We moved house and I finished at a co-ed school. It was good, too. Diversity is good. The urge of ideological censors to hammer everything into a single monotonous conformity is as misbegotten as their demonisation of masculinity, and of the need to turn good boys, indeed, into good men.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-abolishing-boys-schools-is-an-act-of-woke-madness/news-story/e08f940cc72712c7956431ea1ae4c0eb">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-abolishing-boys-schools-is-an-act-of-woke-madness/news-story/e08f940cc72712c7956431ea1ae4c0eb</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Australian living standards going downhill</b><br/>
<br/>
The news that the Paris-based OECD has confirmed that Australia has suffered the biggest drop in living standards in two decades would be unknown to most Australians, including the voters in the recent Dunkley by-election.<br/>
<br/>
Nor would they be aware of the expert view that there is little hope of an early recovery.<br/>
<br/>
From a world leader two decades ago, we now underperform comparable countries in the OECD by close to 8 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
This is not just bad luck.<br/>
<br/>
This is the result of the agenda of the political class and other elites who first handed over manufacturing to Beijing, and who are now targeting both agriculture and mining.<br/>
<br/>
They will never be satisfied until, as a result of their efforts, we follow Argentina into third-world status.<br/>
<br/>
At Federation, Australians were, per capita, the world’s second-richest people. This wealth was shared more equally than in most countries. We are now the 20th, our ranking in constant decline.<br/>
<br/>
Contrast Singapore. From an impoverished colony within living memory, Singaporeans are today more than twice as wealthy. With low taxes and widely available housing, their disposable income is double ours.<br/>
<br/>
But instead of such truly crucial news, Dunkley electors and Australians at large, were informed in excruciating detail about Taylor Swift, including the fact she was watched from a free place by a dancing Prime Minister, who then flew on a CO2-emitting RAAF jet to an exclusive concert by Katy Perry in a Melbourne billionaire’s mansion, before flying back to Sydney to decide whether to appear at Sydney’s Mardi Gras.<br/>
<br/>
Nor was there much in the news about funding terrorism or the careless handing out of visas to potential supporters of terrorism and even terrorists.<br/>
<br/>
Macrobusiness.com.au and the Australian Financial Review excepted, there was even less news about the collapse in living standards, a matter unconventional economist Leith Van Onslelen discussed in detail on ADH TV on the Thursday evening before the election.<br/>
<br/>
The election campaign also coincided with the news, played down in the political world and much of the media, that the climate catastrophist chickens have at last come home to roost, at least in relation to our nickel industry. As our leading geologist Ian Plimer pointed out recently on ADH TV, whenever he asks science apologists for the learned articles proving CO2 causes global warming, now ‘boiling’, he never receives them, not once.<br/>
<br/>
Net zero is unattainable and pointless.<br/>
<br/>
The news which exposes the futility of adjusting for climate boiling which does not exist came from Indonesia. It would seem that their politicians are smarter than Australia’s.<br/>
<br/>
Through a clever operation of banning exports until investment was attracted into the nickel industry and by using high-quality and cheap Australian coal to produce electricity for the extensive necessary processing, the Indonesians have effectively replaced our entire nickel industry.<br/>
<br/>
The major reason for ours becoming un-economic is the Albanese-Bowen policy of burdening Australia with probably the Western world’s most expensive and unreliable electricity.<br/>
<br/>
That buyers will pay a so-called ‘green premium’ for this the sort of infantile fiction pushed by Albanese and Bowen.<br/>
<br/>
The reasons people buy goods or services are quality, efficient delivery and price.<br/>
<br/>
When Australians realise that because of the elites’ agenda our GDP is falling towards a mere proportion of today’s, let us hope they do not seek salvation in some Juan Peron as the Argentinians did. While electing sound people rather than career politicians, let us hope they require fundamental reform to make our politicians accountable 24/7, just as they are in Switzerland.<br/>
<br/>
As Ian Plimer jokes, the best politician is a frightened politician.<br/>
<br/>
In the meantime, Leith Van Onselen points to a range of factors which explain Australia’s declining living standards and associated poor labour productivity.<br/>
<br/>
Australia, he says, is unique in that it pays its way in the world primarily through the sale of its fixed mineral endowment.<br/>
<br/>
A drover’s dog would realise that importing huge volumes of people through immigration distributes these mineral riches among more people, resulting in reduced wealth per person.<br/>
<br/>
That is exactly what the Albanese government is now doing.<br/>
<br/>
In fact Australia’s population has ‘ballooned’ by 8.1 million people (43 per cent) this century alone, with business investment, infrastructure investment, and housing and hospitals failing to keep pace.<br/>
<br/>
Like so many New South Wales and Victorian state politicians, rather than standing up to Canberra, Premier Minns is acting as its lackey, planning to ruin Sydney by turning vast parts into canyons of high rise slums with hopelessly congested transport, roads, schools and hospitals.<br/>
<br/>
Another factor is that the Reserve Bank, having kept interest rates very low, has significantly increased them in a highly concentrated mortgage market now more sensitive to such changes.<br/>
<br/>
(There was a time when, with the presence of, for example, mutually owned building societies and government-owned banks, there was some protection against Reserve Bank variations.)<br/>
<br/>
Leith Van Onselen argues that the biggest cost consequence of concentrated markets is in the energy market, especially on the east coast, which operates through a cartel which exports 80 per cent of the gas. There is little effective regulation over this and, unlike Western Australia, there is no domestic gas reservation policy requiring a certain amount of gas to be sold at fixed prices.<br/>
<br/>
As we all know, we cannot depend on the much-vaunted so-called renewables, when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun is not shining. We need a backstop. And gas has the great advantage that it can be turned on very quickly.<br/>
<br/>
So without a sensible reservation policy, when the international gas price goes up, Australians’ electricity prices go up and this is why we’re seeing such massive increases in household bills.<br/>
<br/>
Among other factors for our declining living standards are the amount of bracket creep in personal income tax which is not indexed, as well as the increased excise on petrol and diesel.<br/>
<br/>
This is notwithstanding the specially designed cosmetic change to taxation for the by-election, which involved the Prime Minister breaking innumerable promises.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/biggest-drop-in-living-standards-in-two-decades/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/biggest-drop-in-living-standards-in-two-decades/</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-67858172277885947542024-03-12T16:29:00.004+13:002024-03-12T16:31:18.990+13:00<br /> <br/>
<b> Anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian feminism</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> A strange combination, considering the subordiate position of women in Muslim society. How is cutting the clitoris out of your daughters feminist? It's a widespread and respected practice in Islam. Islam is a religion of h*te and it appears that, for many, feminism is too. Only h*te explains the marriage between the two. It goes against all that feminism claims to be against</i><br/>
<br/>
An anti-Israel academic who says “Zionists have no right to cultural safety” and disseminated a leak of private details of hundreds of Jewish artists will be one of the stars of a Sydney Opera House event on Sunday, sparking outrage from Jewish groups.<br/>
<br/>
The venue is now facing calls to reconsider hosting Macquarie University academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, who is to give a talk as part of a festival co-curated by anti-Israel social media influencer Clementine Ford.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Ford and Dr Abdel-Fattah were among the figures who sent to their social media followers a link to leaked personal details of Jewish creatives from a WhatsApp group.<br/>
<br/>
The talk is advertised as a “timely discussion about the need for white feminists to decentre themselves to embrace supporting roles rather than equating empowerment with the ability always to lead”.<br/>
<br/>
Dr Abdel-Fattah has come under fire for a comment she made on her Instagram account on Thursday afternoon that “if you are a Zionist you have no claim or right to cultural safety”.<br/>
<br/>
“And it is my duty as somebody who fights all forms of oppression and violence to deny you a safe space to espouse your Zionist racist ideology,” she continued.<br/>
<br/>
“It is the duty of those who oppose racism, misogyny, homophobia and all forms of oppressive harm to ensure that every space Zionists enter is culturally unsafe for them.<br/>
<br/>
“And institutions and festivals that continue to defer to the fragile feelings and tears of Zionists are as abhorrent as those who would defer to the feelings of misogynists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis.<br/>
<br/>
“You want to cancel pro-Palestinian voices and Palestinians because of cultural safety?? Whose cultural safety are you privileging?”<br/>
<br/>
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin labelled Dr Abdel-Fattah an “odious extremist” and called on the Sydney Opera House to decide “whether our most iconic venue is the people’s house or a platform for those who denigrate and vilify others”.<br/>
<br/>
“She has likened the Jewish national liberation movement that restored the Jews to Israel after the land had been colonised by others for 2000 years to Nazism and white supremacism,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“This is an extraordinary piece of deceit that places a target on the back of virtually every Jew. She will deny she hates Jewish people, she will tell us about all the Jewish people she’s friends with but anyone with any awareness of what anti-Semitism is and how it works knows what this person is.”<br/>
<br/>
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip also condemned Dr Abdel-Fattah’s comments.<br/>
<br/>
“Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has infamously refused to condemn Hamas or accept that it is a terrorist organisation, is now seeking to deny safety to Jews here in Australia,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
A Sydney Opera House spokesman said: “The All About Women festival supports freedom of expression, thought, discussion and debate.<br/>
<br/>
“We recognise this is a challenging time of conflict and division about which artists, audiences and the community feel very strongly, and that not all views presented will be shared.”<br/>
<br/>
Dr Abdel-Fattah was contacted for comment.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/outrage-at-zionism-slur-by-macquarie-university-academic-set-to-star-at-sydney-opera-house-event/news-story/b91e69dd367cc53a36ed06d446a01fce">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/outrage-at-zionism-slur-by-macquarie-university-academic-set-to-star-at-sydney-opera-house-event/news-story/b91e69dd367cc53a36ed06d446a01fce</a>
</p>
****************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> Court Finds Emergency Doctor Guilty of Misconduct for Questioning COVID Vaccine</b><br/>
<br/>
<i>Must not mention clinical experience?</i>
<br/><br/>
A junior emergency room doctor in Western Australia has been found guilty of professional misconduct after giving a series of speeches and interviews critical of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and questioning the safety of the Pfizer vaccine.<br/>
<br/>
Dr. Mitch Sambell, who has not practiced medicine since April 2023, has had his registration suspended for three months, and will be subject to a 12-month mentorship by another doctor.<br/>
<br/>
Further, he has been ordered to pay a contribution of $2,500 toward the costs of the Medical Board of Australia, which sought review by the State Administrative Tribunal.<br/>
<br/>
In a schedule of agreed facts, Dr. Sambell admitted to telling an interviewer that administering the vaccine to the wider populations was “at best manslaughter, and at worst, like, outright murder.”<br/>
<br/>
He also described the director-general of the World Health Organisation as a “communist.” That interview was published on a video platform, Rumble, titled “Medical Cover-Up in Australia—Albany Doctor Speaks Out.”<br/>
<br/>
ED was ‘Flooded’<br/>
<br/>
When asked by the interviewer, “Could you confidently say that people died in Australia from the vax jab?'’<br/>
<br/>
Dr Samball responded, “Oh, a 100 percent. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in ED. I saw so many people die in the hospital, so many people. I’ve got people who are 40 that have heart failure after taking this vaccine ...”<br/>
<br/>
“When it started getting rolled out I started seeing ED just got flooded; our hospital was at 117 percent pretty much all the time. And people say, ‘Oh it’s just a lack of staff, it’s flu season,’ but it wasn’t. We rolled out an experimental therapy to supposedly 95 percent of the population, and then our healthcare system couldn’t cope.”<br/>
<br/>
He noted that the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency has threatened disciplinary action against medical professionals who spoke out against the vaccine and said: “The truth always come out. And you can hide, and you can use your money, and you can manipulate things, but when people find out, you’re in big trouble.”<br/>
<br/>
Dr. Samball repeated similar views at a public meeting in the Shire of Denmark in Western Australia in March 2022, saying, “If you are injected you can still acquire and spread the disease, so why are we allowing this issue to tear apart families, destroy businesses, and ultimately remove people’s ability to choose a medical intervention without coercion, and therefore consent? ... I’m disgusted that the career I love has been used to destroy people’s lives, and honestly I’m ashamed to be called a doctor.”<br/>
<br/>
The State Administrative Tribunal found these remarks “legitimised anti-vaccination sentiments and/or were contrary to accepted medical practice and/or were untrue or misleading,” they were also “designed to, or had the potential to, undermine public trust in the medical profession” and were inconsistent with the Code of Practice with which doctors are expected to abide.<br/>
<br/>
In setting the penalty, the Tribunal noted that Dr. Samball had no previous disciplinary history, has made no public comment on the issue since 2022, and had “shown insight and remorse.”<br/>
<br/>
The ruling has been criticised by newly appointed One Nation member and former Liberal Party MP, Craig Kelly, who said on social media it was “Medical Fascism in Action” and that “Australia is officially a medical fascist state.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/court-finds-emergency-doctor-guilty-of-misconduct-for-questioning-covid-vaccine-5604647?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=top-news-australia-top-news-0-large-3">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/court-finds-emergency-doctor-guilty-of-misconduct-for-questioning-covid-vaccine-5604647?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=top-news-australia-top-news-0-large-3</a>
</p>
*********************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> Christian schools under fire from official body</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Tax deductibility for Greenie bodies is OK but not for Christian ones.</i><br/>
<br/>
The insidious influence of Catholic schools was a matter of no small concern to the colonial establishment in the late 19th century, not least because of their devilish power to corrupt the youth.<br/>
<br/>
“Large numbers of children are perverted to Popery before their parents are aware of the true character of the teaching,” The Protestant Weekly reported in 1886, arguing that Catholic schools should be barred from government funding. Romanist education was “a false mean deceit” propagating “a religion degrading to the intellect and the heart as its design was simply to extract money”.<br/>
<br/>
Such narrow sectarian prejudice would be deemed inappropriate in the 21st century by the guardians of diversity and inclusion, whose job is to make everybody feel comfortable.<br/>
<br/>
Today, their intolerance extends to all forms of Christian education and, indeed, to any private school that undermines the monopoly of the state system. The Productivity Commission fired a particularly nasty salvo against religious schools, out of character for an organisation that once anchored its findings in data rather than the fashionable preconceptions of the intelligentsia.<br/>
<br/>
In November, the Commission published a draft report recommending that donations to Christian school building funds should no longer be tax-deductible. The draft argued that the Deductible Gift Recipient status granted by the Australian Taxation Office to a wide range of registered charities was inappropriate since religious education had limited claim to a broader public purpose.<br/>
<br/>
The PC argues that DGR donations require co-investment from taxpayers since a $100 donation from someone in the top income bracket saved them $35 in tax. This, the PC argues, is unfair since the priorities for public investment in schools should be decided by the government, not God-bothering tax dodgers.<br/>
<br/>
They were not the exact words the PC used, but how else should we read a passage like this? “The Commission does not see a case for additional government support for the practice of religion through the DGR system.”<br/>
<br/>
Or this? “Providing indirect government support through school building funds means government funding is not prioritised according to a systemic assessment of the infrastructure needs of different schools.”<br/>
<br/>
The naive proposition that the government knows better where to spend public money than the public themselves sits awkwardly with the lessons from the Rudd government’s Building the Education Revolution program, a $16.2bn splurge on school infrastructure projects to stave off the recession that never was. The official report into the implementation of the BER by Brad Orgill found public schools in Queensland, NSW and Victoria paid 25 per cent more than Catholic schools and 55 per cent more than independent schools for near identical projects.<br/>
<br/>
Yet the Commission doggedly insists that tax deductibility for donations to school building projects is unfair. It bolsters its argument with a peculiarly perverse interpretation of what constitutes private benefit. Potential donors are most likely to be people directly involved with the school, it claims, and are likely to reap the fruits of their donations as the parents of students or as alumni.<br/>
<br/>
The Commission does not oppose tax-deductible donations per se. Indeed, it argues that they should be extended to a broader range of charities. Nor is it opposed to charities that want to build things, just those who like to build buildings that could be used for religious purposes.<br/>
<br/>
It declares the building of social capital to be a worthy charitable ambition. Ditto is the building of bonds between individuals and communities, however loose that goal might be defined. Capacity-building activities for organisations and individuals get a tick, particularly the building of empowerment and self-determination by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations. Indeed, the Commission recommends the establishment of an independent philanthropic foundation controlled by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for that very purpose.<br/>
<br/>
It is religion to which the Commission seems to object. Not all of the 5000 school building funds that are currently endorsed are religious. Some three-quarters are for charities, and a quarter for government entities, such as public schools.<br/>
<br/>
Yet the Commission wears its prejudices on its sleeve by mounting arguments exclusively against Christian schools rather than private schools. The concerns about tax-deductible proselytising do not extend to the 148 environmental charities with tax-deductible status.<br/>
<br/>
The Commission does not question the broader public purpose of Boundless Earth Limited, which attracted $30.6m in revenue in its most recent annual report lodged with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.<br/>
<br/>
Boundless Earth gained its tax-deductible concession in 2021, stating its purpose is ”to accelerate climate solutions at the scale and speed required for Australia to do its fair share to avert the climate crisis”. Boundless Earth’s registered address is 13 Trelawney Street, Woollahra, the site of the former German consulate now owned by Mike Cannon-Brookes.<br/>
<br/>
The Commission makes no recommendation that the projects and organisations Boundless Earth funds should be put on the public record, or suggest that Boundless should be declared an associated entity by the Australian Electoral Commission under the disclosure rules for political donations. And this would not be an unreasonable recommendation since Cannon-Brookes has made no secret of his financial support for the teal campaign at the last federal election.<br/>
<br/>
The granting of DGR status to Boundless, Greenpeace, Lock The Gate, the Australian Solar Energy Society (which operates as the Smart Energy Council) the Climate Council, Farmers for Climate Action, Veterinarians for Climate Action and other members of the renewable energy cheer squad reinforces the growing concern that privileges of charitable status should be reviewed.<br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government has prudently distanced itself from the Commission’s recommendations. “It’s not something we’re considering,” Assistant Education Minister Anthony Chisholm told a Senate committee last month.<br/>
<br/>
The Commission is right to complain that the DGR system is poorly designed. It is piecemeal, overly complex and lacks a coherent policy rationale. It is responsible for inefficient, inconsistent and unfair outcomes for charities, donors and the community. It is badly in need of review.<br/>
<br/>
Yet the draft report of the philanthropy inquiry is a small-minded, mean-spirited document unworthy of an organisation with a reputation for forensic and impartial examination of public policy. For the sake of their own reputation, the commissioners should find the courage to send the report back to its authors and ask them to start again.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/christian-schools-on-the-nose-amid-pcs-green-faith/news-story/74d7ec97ccba7a9dcee309b528ac145a">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/christian-schools-on-the-nose-amid-pcs-green-faith/news-story/74d7ec97ccba7a9dcee309b528ac145a</a>
</p><br>
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<b> Embracing ‘feelings’ is no solution to scourge of youth crime</b><br/>
<br/>
It is beyond incredible that in this technology age, where billions have been devoted to research into the causes and cures of crime, governments remain functionally clueless on how to efficiently deal with the scourge of increasing youth crime.<br/>
<br/>
The most recent data from the ABS shows that in the previous year police charged nearly 50,000 offenders aged 10-17, a 6 per cent increase from the previous year. And we are not taking about petty transgressions. The most common offence among juvenile offenders (25 per cent) is assault intending to cause injury.<br/>
<br/>
The youth crime rate will only drop once the legal system makes young people accountable for their actions and the system reverses the trend of encouraging young people to embrace their feelings. Instead of surrendering to their feelings, they need to be taught impulse control and that the welfare of others is no less important than their own.<br/>
<br/>
The importance of stopping crime cannot be overstated. The empirical data shows crime, especially violent and sexual offences, can ruin people’s lives. Research demonstrates the most effective way to reduce crime is to increase the chances people will be caught. This is known as the theory of absolute general deterrence. It works – all of the time. That’s why speed cameras have had such a dramatic effect on reducing speeding and people don’t commit crime outside police stations.<br/>
<br/>
If governments want to reduce crime, there is a sure fix. Put more uniform police on the streets. In crime hotspots, this should be supplement with AI-enhanced CCTV which automatically notifies police when suspicious activity is detected.<br/>
<br/>
This will only be effective if criminals face unwanted consequences. The primary aim of the criminal justice system is community protection. The main consideration in setting penalty severity is the principle of proportionality; the view that the harm caused by the crime should match the harshness of the penalty.<br/>
<br/>
Both of these considerations mean all serious sexual and violent offenders should be subjected to harsh sanctions. The human body does not distinguish between the level of suffering caused by being stabbed by a 50-year-old or 15-year-old. The community needs to be protected as much from teenagers as adult criminals.<br/>
<br/>
The goal of rehabilitation is alluring but it’s failing – youth reoffending rates are higher now than five years ago. Clearly the offenders are receiving the wrong advice and treatment. The criminal justice system needs to stop the nonsense of encouraging youth to connect with their inner selves. It needs to teach them objective truths in the form of the importance of hard work, grit and being good at not getting what they want – even if it triggers their feelings.<br/>
<br/>
At present, the evidence shows the only forms of rehabilitation that work are age and education. People age out of crime. The prefrontal cortex of people does not mature until age 25. All young offenders are salvageable and can become contributing members of the community. This can be accelerated through better education. Nearly 80 per cent of young adult prisoners have not completed high school – an approximately four times higher non-completion rate than other young adults.<br/>
<br/>
This gets us to the complex tension between the desire to rehabilitate young offenders and the need to protect the community from serious acts of violence.<br/>
<br/>
Primacy must be accorded to incapacitating offenders from inflicting serious harm on more victims. Yet prisons are not the solution for young people: they diminish educational progress and governments have no idea how to run youth detention centres in a non-profligate way.<br/>
<br/>
The excessive spending on youth justice provides an easy alternative to youth detention. Each serious juvenile offender should be chaperoned by a police officer 24/7 as they go about their daily activities.<br/>
<br/>
Police chaperoning sounds excessive and simplistic, and there are many theoretical reasons not to pursue this approach, but all of them are evaporated by the thudding economic reality that the cost of a 24/7 police chaperone for each young offender would be approximately $400,000 annually (ie, five full-time police salaries – factoring in holidays and other leave – working on this one task). Incredibly, this is more than a $600,000 annual saving for each offender (the saving is $1.5m in Victoria).<br/>
<br/>
The job of police would be made easier if the offenders were required to wear GPS tracking bracelets and compelled to stay within set geographical confines, which were sufficiently expansive to include important facilities, such as school and sports activities. Thus when offenders were inside their home or school, the police would not need to have visual contact with the offenders.<br/>
<br/>
Constant police monitoring of young offenders would obviously have downsides. Some offenders would find it embarrassing and humiliating. Others would regard it as a serious invasion of their privacy. But these disadvantages are minor when compared with the harshness of the alternative: being removed from their family, school and friends and placed in detention.<br/>
<br/>
The money saved through appointing a police chaperone to each serious juvenile offender should be spent on putting more police and AI-enhanced CCTV cameras on the street, which would reduce the crime problem at the outset.<br/>
<br/>
Alternatively, governments can keep employing even more misguided youth counsellors and hiding the cost of their incompetence in remote government reports and hope they can continue to avoid accountability for their breathtaking missteps.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/embracing-feelings-is-no-solution-to-scourge-of-youth-crime/news-story/df9c4c0f9085d0d301db273e5e9e90c3">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/embracing-feelings-is-no-solution-to-scourge-of-youth-crime/news-story/df9c4c0f9085d0d301db273e5e9e90c3</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-51162451073617609682024-03-11T15:38:00.002+13:002024-03-11T15:38:20.234+13:00<br>
<b> Wishy Wilson is back, madder than ever</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> He has launched a tirade of Warmist claims with no scientific foundation whatsoever. But he is marijuana-dependent these days so perhaps we should cut him some slack<br/>
<br/>
He is something of an elitist so Green/Left views are to be expected of him, though he is more extreme than most. His past as a Duntroon student and an investment banker certainly confirm his elitist identity<br/>
<br/>
He is also an enemy of Christmas. That is he in the centre below<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-image">
<a class="asset-img-link" style="display: inline;" href="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/12/18/09/4767F19D00000578-5188055-Senator_Nick_McKim_pictured_left_his_media_adviser_Patrick_Carua-a-23_1513588545000.jpg"><img class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e008de3ffc883402c8d3a96b0c200c img-responsive" alt="image from https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/12/18/09/4767F19D00000578-5188055-Senator_Nick_McKim_pictured_left_his_media_adviser_Patrick_Carua-a-23_1513588545000.jpg" title="image from https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/12/18/09/4767F19D00000578-5188055-Senator_Nick_McKim_pictured_left_his_media_adviser_Patrick_Carua-a-23_1513588545000.jpg" src="https://jonjayray1.typepad.com/.a/6a00e008de3ffc883402c8d3a96b0c200c-580wi" /></a><br />
</p>
Note about his hyphen: Hyphenated names can arise in a number of ways but ususally a Miss Whish (say) decides that she is really too grand to marry a mere Wilson (say) so marries on condition that all her children are known as Whishes as well as Wilsons. So Peter's hyphen would seem to betray a certain inherited arrogance. But Greenies think that they are the real people and the rest of us are cattle so he is clearly in the right party.</i><br/>
<br/>
Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson has criticised Labor for failing to protect The Great Barrier Reef, saying the Albanese government’s policies have Australia “on track to blow through the two degrees warming threshold.”<br/>
<br/>
“Warming oceans caused by the burning of fossil fuels is the single greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef, and still Labor wants more coal, more gas and more Reef destruction,” Mr Whish-Wilson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.<br/>
<br/>
“Try as they might, Labor’s attachment to the “drug dealers' defence,” that if we don’t export it someone else will, is meaningless to the protection of the Reef.,” he said More<br/>
<br/>
Mr Whish-Wilson said a 99 per cent decline in the world's coral reefs will ensue if the threshold is broken, including the world’s largest living organism, the Great Barrier Reef.“The only thing that will save the Great Barrier Reef is an end to fossil fuels. That starts with saying no to new coal and gas. This is the bare minimum required to give the Reef a chance of survival," he said. “After two years in government, Labor refuses to do what is required to protect the future of the Reef. Only the Greens in balance of power will implement a climate trigger and take action to stop the fossil fuel cartel before it destroys our climate and the places we hold dear.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/politics-latest-unions-bosses-blast-nsw-icacs-antijobs-intervention/live-coverage/6d01ff5938414276b5819921c4ec809b#137996">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/politics-latest-unions-bosses-blast-nsw-icacs-antijobs-intervention/live-coverage/6d01ff5938414276b5819921c4ec809b#137996</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Pure unadulterated hate</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> From a religion of hate</i><br/>
<br/>
A Sydney imam has described Jews as a 'criminal, barbaric, tyrannical enemy' in an anti-Semitic sermon, claiming Jihad was the 'only solution' to restore Palestine.<br/>
<br/>
Australian Imam Abdul Salam Zoud delivered the sermon to his congregation at Masjid As-Sunnah Mosque in Lakemba, southwest of Sydney, on February 9.<br/>
<br/>
The sermon, which was streamed live on the Mosque's Facebook page, was unearthed and translated by the Middle East Media and Research Institute - an American group that monitors Muslim extremists.<br/>
<br/>
Imam Zoud said the Jews had trespassed on land and oppressed the people of Palestine.<br/>
<br/>
He praised Jihad and Hamas, claiming the Prophet Muhammad and the Righteous Caliphs did not conquer the world by peaceful means, negotiations or concessions.<br/>
<br/>
'These people (Jews) only understand the language of force,' Imam Zoud said.<br/>
<br/>
'Do not even dream that [Palestine] can be regained through negotiations. By Allah, Palestine will only be restored through Jihad.'<br/>
<br/>
'Jihad for the sake of Allah is the only solution when it comes to the infidels.'<br/>
<br/>
He said'all the billions that were spent to improve, beautify, and highlight the image of the Jews have all gone in vain'.<br/>
<br/>
He added the goal of Jihad was not to kill people and take over their land but rather to remove obstacles preventing the spread of Islam.<br/>
<br/>
The sermon has outraged MPs and Jewish leaders in Australia, with many claiming the hateful speech should not be tolerated.<br/>
<br/>
Liberal Senator Dave Sharma labelled the sermon 'disgusting' and 'un-Australian', claiming the imam was inciting violence.<br/>
<br/>
'If it is not unlawful it should be,' Senator Sharma told the Daily Telegraph. 'That crosses the line from free speech into inciting violence.'<br/>
<br/>
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies David Ossip said the sermon was 'incredibly dangerous' and 'inconsistent with Australian values'.<br/>
<br/>
'If we are serious about maintaining the communal cohesion and harmony we all treasure, we surely cannot tolerate hate preachers poisoning the minds of their adherents by vilifying other Australians and calling for jihad,' Mr Ossip said.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13178143/Sydney-imam-gives-shocking-anti-Semitic-sermon-Masjid-Sunnah-mosque-Lakemba.html">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13178143/Sydney-imam-gives-shocking-anti-Semitic-sermon-Masjid-Sunnah-mosque-Lakemba.html</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Unachievable at any cost</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Political blindness in Western Austraia</i><br/>
<br/>
Two weeks ago, we got a taste of the brave new world of renewable energy. Victoria’s grid collapsed on a hot and windy afternoon. 530,000 homes were left without power, train lines were shut down, schools and businesses had to close their doors, phones couldn’t be used even for emergency calls, and hundreds of sets of traffic lights were out of order.<br/>
<br/>
The same fate awaits Western Australia unless it reverses course on its ideological determination to pursue Net Zero.<br/>
<br/>
In June 2022, the WA state government announced its plan to close all coal-fired power stations (Collie, Muja, and Bluewaters) in the state by 2030 as part of a commitment to an 80 per cent emissions reduction target by that year.<br/>
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This will result in the removal of two-thirds of the WA network’s current electricity supply.<br/>
<br/>
The justification for this policy was the ‘overwhelming uptake of rooftop solar’, adding that, ‘…an estimated $3.8 billion will be invested in new green power infrastructure in the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), including wind generation and storage, to ensure continued supply stability and affordability. This investment is expected to pay for itself by 2030-31 relative to the status quo of increasing electricity subsidies.’<br/>
<br/>
A detailed analysis conducted for the IPA by Senior Research Fellow Kevin You, former General Manager of Generation at Western Power Mark Chatfield, and this correspondent, demonstrates that this plan is neither feasible nor achievable at any cost.<br/>
<br/>
Our research shows that the cost to replace coal-fired power generation will be far more than the already huge sum of $3.8 billion – it will be far greater than even 10 times that amount.<br/>
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WA’s vast size means that it is geographically isolated, not only from the rest of the country, but internally. Therefore, it cannot be connected to a national energy grid, as is the case with states on the eastern seaboard. It must – and does – produce and rely on its own energy. Therefore, the huge fluctuations that arise from taking out coal in the main network cannot be addressed by relying on other states.<br/>
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In the southwest of the state, there has been an historical reliance on coal, but WA also has abundant energy in the form of gas.<br/>
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Following the discovery of large gas reserves in the mid-1970s on the North West Shelf, the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline (DBP) was constructed. It is one of Western Australia’s most critical pieces of energy infrastructure.<br/>
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The pipeline was privatised under the Court government in 1998, however, the easement surrounding the pipeline was not privatised. In fact, it was enlarged to accommodate potential future expansions to the gas pipeline’s transmission capacity.<br/>
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Until now, gas has been able to back up the increasing move to solar and wind. The state’s domestic gas reservation policy, which requires gas exporters to set aside 15 per cent of reserves for domestic use, has been considered a key to avoiding the energy shortages and price rises seen in the east.<br/>
<br/>
However, the warning signs are already there that the WA government’s Net Zero energy policy will not provide the stable, affordable, reliable power its proponents claim.<br/>
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The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) in a recent report suggested WA could face electricity blackouts as soon as 2025 unless it fills a forecast shortfall in energy supply.<br/>
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This report is the first time AEMO has given a forecast that takes into account WA’s commitment to transitioning off coal-fired energy by 2030, which it says would strip an estimated 1,366 MW of power generation out of the system.<br/>
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Unfortunately, the WA public is not being told of the true costs of the WA government’s 2030 renewable energy feel-good dream. There is the real threat that Western Australians will not be able to keep the lights on or turn on the air conditioning when they need to.<br/>
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A key finding of our analysis is that by phasing out coal by 2030 and without expansion of the DBP, even if:<br/>
<br/>
wind capacity from today is trebled<br/>
<br/>
battery capacity is increased nine-fold<br/>
<br/>
the state’s solar capacity is doubled<br/>
<br/>
Greater Perth and the Wheatbelt still risk blackouts close to four months in a year.<br/>
<br/>
Our analysis shows further that, theoretically to maintain the network in the absence of coal and gas, there would have to be a massive overbuild of renewables, requiring approximately:<br/>
<br/>
50 batteries, with a total capacity of 5000 MW, (currently one battery is in service)<br/>
<br/>
8,000 MW of solar factories, currently at 180 MW<br/>
<br/>
12,000 MW of wind factory capacity, currently at 1,040 MW<br/>
<br/>
4,134 MW of rooftop domestic solar capacity, currently it is 2,406 MW<br/>
<br/>
Once transmission easements, poles and wires are added in, we calculate the total cost to be – not $3.8 billion – but more than $52 billion, which is equivalent to over 130 per cent of budgeted general WA government spending for the financial year ending 2024.<br/>
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This can only result in ever-increasing energy bills for ordinary Western Australians. As far as we can tell, no thorough cost-benefit analysis has been done of the government’s plan, especially in relation to battery production and storage.<br/>
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Consider also the destruction of the environment – and much of the state’s available arable land – by plastering its landscape with solar panels and wind factories.<br/>
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All in a reckless pursuit of emissions reduction. Let’s not forget that Australia is responsible for just over 1 per cent of the world’s emissions.<br/>
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Less than one-fifth of that 1 per cent comes from WA, and about 6 per cent of that one-fifth of the 1 per cent comes from WA’s coal-fired power stations.<br/>
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Therefore, shutting them down would contribute to reducing roughly 0.013 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.<br/>
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For $52 billion, the money would be better spent keeping coal-fired power stations open for the foreseeable future and in the meantime expanding the DBP and buying gas, which is the only way to avoid blackouts while sensibly reducing emissions.<br/>
<br/>
If WA wants to avoid what happened in Victoria, its government must abandon its ideological fantasy of Net Zero, which, as our research shows, is unachievable at any cost.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/unachievable-at-any-cost/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/unachievable-at-any-cost/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Envy and the left</b><br/>
<br/>
We are all familiar with the concept of envy. As we know, this corrosive, malignant state of mind is one of the seven deadly sins of Christianity, but it’s also condemned in Islam, Buddhism, and most secular ethical systems. Writing in 1930, Bertrand Russell identified envy as a major, and largely unacknowledged, cause of unhappiness in Western societies. If anything, its pernicious hold is stronger than ever today and growing. Social media is widely blamed for this, but progressive ideology is also a culprit, and perhaps the most important one. True, the left has always appealed to envy, but as its Utopian ambitions have grown, so too has its demonetisation of the successful.<br/>
<br/>
Let’s start with the government’s ditching of the Stage Three personal income tax cuts. In a classic Robin Hood ploy, it is taking money from all those who earn more than $150,000 (compared to what they would have received under Stage Three) to pay for higher tax relief for those on lower incomes. The latter could have been funded by spending cuts, preserving the reform intention behind stage three.<br/>
<br/>
So why was this option apparently not even considered? Doling out benefits to the needy does not provide, for the envious, the frisson of pleasure that penalising others in the community does. Envy was the leitmotif of Bill Shorten’s leadership. Under Prime Minister Albanese, the appeal is less overt, but still unmistakably there: a dog-whistle rather than a campaign slogan.<br/>
<br/>
Envy’s reach extends well beyond tax. It is hard-wired into identity politics. Consider what kind of world its adherents aim to create. Their goal is not equality in the true sense of the word: a colour-blind society where all enjoy the same rights and freedoms. No, they crave hierarchy and privilege. Power must be stripped from imagined oppressor groups (white males and Jews, to take two favourite targets) and transferred instead to their supposed victims (women, Indigenous people, and Palestinians). Where the traditional left at least paid lip service to the abolition of all privilege, progressives covet it for themselves. Covetousness, as we know, is a close relation of envy.<br/>
<br/>
Nor is climate change ideology free of envy. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, many people mask their envy in virtue. I suspect this was a large part of the psychological appeal of last century’s prohibition movement. I have no doubt that it motivates climate change moralisers today, who insist we give up – for our own good, of course – cheap and reliable power, viable agriculture and industry, and even the type of cars most of us want to drive. For many of them, I suspect, this harsh prospect provides a warm inner glow. Not only can they indulge their worst envious instincts, they can pose as morally superior at the same time.<br/>
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If you think I am drawing a long bow, consider why renowned economist and climate believer Bjorn Lomborg is so despised by the left. By rejecting the need for emissions austerity, he is denying climate zealots the opportunity to take others’ petrol-powered SUVs away.<br/>
<br/>
Of course, none of us is immune from envy. This vice can afflict conservatives as well as progressives, libertarians as well as socialists, in their personal lives. Equally, no political philosophy is free from morally corrupting influences and ethical blind spots. For conservatism, at least in the eyes of its critics, a lack of compassion toward the less fortunate is highlighted in this regard. For the left envy is the age-old moral hazard, given how easily compassion can morph into the urge to hurt the better off.<br/>
<br/>
Mainstream social democratic parties, to their credit, used to keep this malign instinct within certain limits, confining their ambitions to income redistribution. In the past, the tall poppy syndrome was about pricking the pretensions of high and mighty rather than outright cancellation. Today’s progressive left, like its socialist predecessors, has given envy far freer rein. Indeed, it is an inevitable by-product of progressivism’s basic worldview.<br/>
<br/>
By denying the existence of individual merit or excellence, progressives are suspicious of success of any kind, which is attributed to privilege, luck or the lottery of the free market. By rejecting traditional religion, they blind themselves to the darker realities of human nature, not least their own. And consider the effect of the depressing, zero-sum view of the world progressivism adopts: the belief that everything we value, whether material wealth, cultural riches, and indeed treasured historical memories, must have been stolen or appropriated from some oppressed group.<br/>
<br/>
Rather than giving in to envy, we can respond to the success of others in a constructive way. We can admire them. We can seek to emulate, and possibly even surpass them. This competitive impulse, while decried by some, is a positive social and economic force. It has always been the key to capitalism’s dynamism and social mobility.<br/>
<br/>
This truth was recognised by our greatest Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke and John Howard. Their policy settings, which put aspiration (and where merited, compassion for the less fortunate) before envy, yielded enormous economic and social dividends. We became richer and more socially cohesive as a result. I suspect we were happier and more content. Yet this era seems a world away.<br/>
<br/>
If you want to know why socialism, for all its manifest failures, retains its attraction, you don’t need to look beyond its appeal to envy. After all, there is a reason why the major political party of the left in Australia is called the Greens. Progressive ideology, the socialism of the 21st Century, has given this vice new impetus and cover, pulling the impressionable young into its orbit. They may initially have good intentions, but for too many envy’s seductions (and addictive effect) eventually take over. This is a recipe not for happiness and fulfilment, but for anger, emptiness, and demoralisation. We can see every day in the faces of progressive protesters.<br/>
<br/>
Envy can be overcome. People can change for the better. The ancients, in their wisdom, gave us the clue we need. Envy, they believed, is a form of selective blindness (as its Latin word invidia suggests). Those afflicted by it must remove their self-imposed blinkers. Yet for progressives who, whether from hubris or vanity, refuse to see this is no small task.<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/envy-and-the-left/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/envy-and-the-left/</a> ?<br/>
<br/>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-87515654479481801522024-03-10T11:42:00.005+13:002024-03-10T12:44:39.097+13:00<b> Drumgold still in trouble</b><br/>
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeTHLC6h2ZQCa5hHDNFcEpc7fKdXrU22PvXC8WcGMza4Q4Fj0v26KQiHjQHMbA1kjkBaC0I-lC3kiq6chuSPlVwHcX8DolIgjHdLNl63iqRkFbTAdqkVyQzeWZVbj1tSNiOJPwZRSRBRZ5myXB4NsfB-syJN2tazHeoZSxKh-gCLPt3BYmQFl/s550/drum.jpg">
<br/><br/>
<i> If ever a man has been destroyed by his own political correctness, it is Shane Drumgold, SC. He abused his position as prosecutor to launch a very weak rape case against Bruce Lehrmann, because "believe the woman" was all the rage. And to help a weak case to stand up he said a number of things that have come back to haunt him.<br/>
<br/>
I feel sorry for him. He clawed his way up to a prestigious position depite humble origins in Mount Druitt. But the battle apparently left him insecure so he was unable to resist media pressure to prosecute. He lacked the self confidence that would have come from a private school background -- the usual background for a barrister<br/>
<br/>
I too have a humble background and went to no school at all for my university entrance qualification but I have never aspired to public prominence. Economic and academic success has been plenty for me. Good interpersonal relationships are the only important form of success as far as I can see and my record there has been mixed. One wonders how Drumgold's second marriage is faring</i><br/>
<br/>
Five Australian Federal Police officers have begun defamation action against the ACT government over allegations by former chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold that they engaged in “a very clear campaign to pressure” him not to prosecute the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins.<br/>
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Lawyers for the five officers have sent a concerns notice to the government and to Mr Drumgold over his allegations against them, which included that they had engaged in “consistent and inappropriate interference” in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann.<br/>
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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”.<br/>
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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.<br/>
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One of the AFP officers 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.<br/>
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“I don’t think people appreciate the impact that this whole debacle over the four years has had on individual police officers. We did nothing wrong, and we are paying the price.”<br/>
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The concerns notice – a precursor to defamation proceedings – comes just days after 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.<br/>
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Mr Drumgold authorised the release of the unredacted letter after talking to a journalist from The Guardian, who then lodged a Freedom of Information request.<br/>
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The letter, containing the DPP’s suspicions of impropriety against the named police officers and Senator Reynolds, was released without any of the consultations or redactions required by law. The FOI application was determined and executed within four hours of being considered for the first time.<br/>
<br/>
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”.<br/>
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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.<br/>
<br/>
“This inquiry has thoroughly examined the allegations in Mr Drumgold’s letter. Each allegation has been exposed to be baseless.”<br/>
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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”.<br/>
<br/>
“In fact, it was with the help of Mr Drumgold himself that the letter defaming others made its way into a newspaper.”<br/>
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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.”<br/>
<br/>
The police had made mistakes, Mr Sofronoff said, including conducting a second interview with Ms Higgins that was not likely to produce anything useful and which caused her distress.<br/>
<br/>
“None of these mistakes actually affected the substance of the investigation and none of them prejudiced the case … I do not find that any police officer breached a duty or acted improperly.”<br/>
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One of the officers bringing the defamation action was critical of the ACT government’s attitude towards its police force. “The ACT, it’s a bubble here. It is a very closed shop and I think some of the people in these positions are batting way above their weight. Two police stations are closed because the government hasn’t invested. They have no care for the police at all. The number of police that are off due to stress, or leaving, it’s phenomenal.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/police-officers-sue-over-shane-drumgold-claims-that-destroyed-lives/news-story/8ce9e4ca7168b4846a2355e6ba1a3c3f">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/police-officers-sue-over-shane-drumgold-claims-that-destroyed-lives/news-story/8ce9e4ca7168b4846a2355e6ba1a3c3f</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Understanding national conservatism</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> National conservatism sounds suspicuously like Trumpism, particularly on trade issues. "Free trade" has always sounded good to conservatives but Trump showed that it should not be an all-powerful consideration.<br/>
<br/>
And Trump was not really being unorthoox in his trade restrictions. Economists have always recognized exceptions to the desirabiity of free trade: "Infant industry" and the "Australian" cases for instance. And the "supply-chain" difficulties presently besetting trade rather vindicate that</i><br/>
<br/>
<br>
The Economist, the British magazine well-known for its particular metropolitan liberal worldview, had a pearl-clutching cover piece last week where it bemoaned ‘the growing peril of national conservatism’.<br/>
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‘It’s dangerous and it’s spreading,’ the editorial warned its readers – making it sound like some new Covid variant.<br/>
<br/>
What exactly is national conservatism?<br/>
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Australians could be forgiven for being a little in the dark, for while there have been national conservative conferences in Washington DC and Florida in America, and in London, Brussels, and Rome in Europe, there has been nothing similar so far here. There are no mainstream Australian journalists who describe themselves using that label. Nor, unlike elsewhere, are there leading politicians or any groupings in any of our mainstream parties who march under that banner. I have found it a struggle to get those involved in the think tank world and in centre-right politics in Australia to even understand the concept properly.<br/>
<br/>
The Economist labelled national conservatives as those ‘seized by declinism’, ‘the politics of grievance’, and those who see the ‘state as its saviour’. But that is unfair and does not do this intellectual movement justice. National conservatives have a deep philosophical critique of the assumptions held by policymakers in the capitals of the West. As some of the leading intellectuals of the movement, like Yoram Hazony, have explored in great depth, they are critical of aspects of classical liberalism and the dominant worldview which over-emphasises the sovereign individual, rather than the family, the nation, and our religious traditions as the source of our prosperity and freedoms. They believe the focus in centre-right circles has, in recent years, gone awry. In the words of Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, it is time to ‘put conservatism back into its traditional sphere of national identity’.<br/>
<br/>
Perhaps the most obvious areas where national conservatives differ from the current centre-right are in relation to immigration, trade, and foreign policy.<br/>
<br/>
First and foremost, national conservatives reject the long-standing consensus on immigration. They believe that mass immigration perhaps poses more of an existential threat to the West than Soviet missiles ever did. Nations like Poland and Hungary recovered from years of communist domination. But it is far less clear whether parts of Western Europe and elsewhere will survive the ethnic conflicts and other threats to social cohesion that have been carelessly imported into their homelands. This is not simply about ‘stopping the boats’ or ‘building the wall’ – although many Western governments struggle to do even that. It is emphatically also about legal immigration. There needs to be a reassessment from first principles as to what level and what type of immigration, if any, makes sense for Western nations and our peoples going forward. In the Howard era, there was an oft-repeated line that because the government was able to control illegal immigration Australians welcomed higher levels of legal immigration. If that was ever actually true, it is not true now.<br/>
<br/>
National conservatives also recognise that the trade and investment policies of the West need a serious rethink. They reject the idea that the end goal, beau ideal, should be open borders trade and investment between nations, without regard to their differing economic, social, or political circumstances. To be clear, this means large numbers of Australia’s existing trade and investment agreements, including but not limited to, the one we signed with China, will need to be torn up or at the very least significantly redesigned. Our trade and investment policies have created boom towns in places like Shenzhen and Bangalore and rust belts in places like Stockbridge, Elizabeth, and Youngstown. They have gutted our national industrial capacity and destroyed communities. They have turned us into exquisite connoisseurs of imported goods, rather than producers of anything other than primary produce or overpriced housing to sell to foreigners. The idea, so beloved by The Economist, that it should be as easy to import manufactured goods from China to Australia as it is to import the same from England to France needs to be consigned to the ash heap of history.<br/>
<br/>
National conservatives also believe that our foreign policy needs to change. The reckless evangelicalism that has characterised Western military adventures for well over the last quarter century needs to stop. What is needed is a new prudence that is focused instead on our vital interests (narrowly defined) and which is far more selective about the conflicts we allow ourselves to be dragged into. Large numbers of our people are simply sick to the back teeth of endless and pointless wars in places like Somalia, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. These are places that they do not really care that much about, but which they or their children have been expected to die for. These interventions always seem to follow a similar storyline: some bad guy is the ‘next Hitler’, a particular incident is the ‘new Munich’. Unless we get involved and offer unlimited economic or military support, we are Neville Chamberlain-like appeasers. Certain politicians then get to globe-trot around the globe pretending they are the next Winston Churchill. Inevitably what then follows, many years later, is a loss of blood, treasure, and national prestige, the destabilising of entire regions and a flood of refugees, and all manner of second-order unintended consequences. In nearly all cases these are not grand ideological struggles, but messy intractable ethnic disputes where there are no pure actors on either side.<br/>
<br/>
There are other areas of policy where national conservatives have new and constructive things to say, including on social policy – where a reconstitution of family structures and traditional ways of life is going to be as important as the reconstruction of our national borders and identity. But if there is one theme that unites this movement, it is that they are anti-Utopian. The left was in the past the utopian ones, the ones who liked to ‘imagine there is no countries’. But since the great victory in the Cold War the centre-right has also become increasingly un-moored from reality. It has ignored the importance of the nation-state when it comes to trade, immigration and foreign policy and many other issues. All national conservatives are asking is that we get real again.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/understanding-national-conservatism/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/understanding-national-conservatism/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Transgenderism is an attack on women</b><br/>
<br/>
The 21st Century Australian woman has greater freedom and opportunities afforded to her than at any other time in history, and to truly honour this legacy, we must reflect, be proud and thank those who led the way.<br/>
<br/>
However, in the abundance of blessings, women face a new battle. It is not to do with votes or pay but an attack on our very being – an attack on the identity of a woman.<br/>
<br/>
What is a woman? An adult female human.<br/>
<br/>
Plain and simple I would have thought. Not so, according to some. Sadly, the movement to let men parade as women and demand female recognition has erased the uniqueness, beauty and femininity of a woman by claiming that womanhood is merely a subjective feeling that can be experienced by any person, notably men!<br/>
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This modern tendency to question basic biology places women in greater danger than even the suffragettes would have thought possible. It disgraces the hard-fought battles women have mounted and won, to achieve equality.<br/>
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Women deserve to feel safe and respected. We have achieved this through removing the marriage bar, criminalising marital rape and legislating against sex discrimination.<br/>
<br/>
However, despite this progress women today now find themselves in a fight for the right even to be recognised as biological women. The right to safe spaces including single-sex toilets, change rooms and female-only prisons has now also been denied.<br/>
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It is becoming increasingly common to have all-gender and trans-inclusive bathrooms to cater to a minority of men who feel like women. Women can’t even be guaranteed a safe place to champion women’s rights, including on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne. This idea would outrage suffragette women and the early feminist movement and rightly so.<br/>
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The fact is that today, feelings trump women’s safety and very existence. And for what?<br/>
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The logical fallacy that people should choose the restroom that they feel most comfortable using over the protection of vulnerable girls is unacceptable. The fact that women can be raped in a woman’s prison by a man masquerading as a woman is deplorable.<br/>
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The dignity of women is further disgraced by rhetoric that distorts the truth of motherhood.<br/>
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The ability to produce and nurture life is a phenomenon that only women can experience. But today, inclusivity has overridden our right to be called a mother, in favour of ‘person who gives birth’, ‘chest-feeder’, or simply ‘parent’. For the record, I’m not a birthing parent but a proud mother.<br/>
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Gender blindness, including the use of gender-neutral language, destroys the significant differences between men and women, a basic biological factor in life.<br/>
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Our over-sensitivities today strip women of their dignity and right to existence.<br/>
<br/>
I never thought that upon my entrance into the Victorian Parliament in 2018, I would have to fight to uphold the definition of womanhood and argue for the protection of rights for women and girls.<br/>
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We do a great disservice to those women who achieved equality and respect by allowing the identity for which they were really fighting to be erased.<br/>
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As we approach International Women’s Day, let us celebrate the achievements of women yesterday, be thankful for the blessings we have today, and proudly and boldly proclaim the uniqueness and dignity of womanhood for tomorrow and the foreseeable future. And we must also applaud our modern-day heroes, fighting at the barricades of social media and legislative halls to preserve the unique and precious identity of what is, a woman.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/women-back-to-the-barricades/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/women-back-to-the-barricades/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Universality and the university</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> More selectivity needed for admissions, not less</i><br/>
<br/>
Recently, the Australian University Accord met to discuss the manifest failings of our tertiary education system. The result has been a predictable raft of recommendations, couched in the langue de bois of our modern class: equity, innovation, agility, et al. In other words, all the things that got us into this mess to start with. These are words that, once they start tumbling from someone’s mouth, indemnify them against the risk of being identified as a genuine mind.<br/>
<br/>
Established by the Labor Party, we should expect the Australian University Accord’s report would reflect Labor values. Those Labor values now apparently include the annihilation of the working man, with the recommendation that 80 per cent of Australians should pass through the hallowed doors of the university system. They, like everything else in a society driven by data-as-God, mistake quantity for quality.<br/>
<br/>
In one respect, they are addressing a genuine problem. As a nation we are perhaps stupider than ever; PISA results continue to decline, and our primary and secondary education systems are mutual reflections of our tertiary system. Literary references, a command of basic mathematics, a sense of history, and the ability to write coherently: these all seem blue remembered hills.<br/>
<br/>
However, furthering universal education is unlikely to fix the problems the proliferation of universal education created. For reasons entirely predictable, education proved vulnerable to the law of diminishing returns. An elite education cannot be made available to everybody; it is far easier to ensure that nobody receives an elite education. This is the cost of equity-above-all-else as a governing principle. People are not equal, and cannot be made equal. People cannot even be made to regard one another as equal. Equality, along with our obsession with data, is another false god of our age.<br/>
<br/>
The problem with the university system is not one of scarcity, but one of inflation. We bend every possible requirement to allow people the opportunity to enter university, and do everything possible to prevent them failing once they’re there. We’re one step from conscripting the population into tertiary education, and the credentials required for entry-level jobs have changed to reflect this. This is to say nothing of adolescence extended, family delayed, and earning prospects limited for several years of study. A bachelor’s degree today is the equivalent of the school leaver certificate of yesterday; people collect master’s degrees today like they collected Pokémon as children. Credentialism for most of the population represents a ticket to the middle class and social respectability, as much as potential earning power in the future. These are powerful incentives, which explain why 60 per cent of the population has been pressed into the ivory tower at some point in their lives. Yet careerism is not the only purpose the university is supposed to serve.<br/>
<br/>
Among those giving, everything produced by the university sector – certainly in the non-empirical world – has been through a peer-reviewed strainer to prevent anything original or novel emerging. They reference one another like incestuous monks and write in a bizarre argot to demonstrate their membership. Some faculties, and some universities, are worse than others. They bring to mind the scholasticism of earlier centuries, but without the rigour. And, as was the case in the Reformation, genuinely new ideas will emerge from outside the walls of what we consider epistemologically established. Many academics are reincarnations of apocryphal medieval theologians arguing about the quantity of angels that can fit on a pinhead. It is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for your average academic to produce something interesting.<br/>
<br/>
On the receiving end, the university system is no better. Every second person has a Mickey-Mouse degree from a Mickey-Mouse university, and few of them could hold an intelligent conversation with a secondary school graduate from half a century ago. Whatever the university is producing, it is not minds. But I’ve long held the suspicion that this is exactly the point. The last thing the postmodern West is interested in is a population with minds, and for most people what passes for wisdom today is browsing Wikipedia and calling out logical fallacies on Reddit. The snarky intellect of the educated Millennial or Zoomer, like a shallow and unbearably noisy stream, lacks blue water. We produce sophistry among those who should be passing on the knowledge of our civilisation, and encourage cynicism among those who receive it.<br/>
<br/>
Aside from the turgid careerism of academics and the acquisitiveness of students – perhaps sellers and buyers of indulgences is a better term – there are two obvious reasons why The Powers That Be encourage this. The first is for financial reasons. Education is big business in Australia. Only mining has a larger output share. The university system doubles as a means of laundering citizenship and immigration, and siphoning money from overseas elites adds to the cash paid over the span of their working lives by native-born graduates. The government collects more revenue from HECS than it does from the petroleum resource rent tax. No government that values its bottom line is going to advocate for less tertiary education.<br/>
<br/>
The second reason is an ideological one. The universities are captured institutions: an American report estimated that the ratio of conservative to liberal professors shifted 350 per cent in the latter direction since 1984. Even if you enter to study STEM or something vocational, they’ll still get you with the mandatory modules on diversity and Indigenous perspectives and all the rest of the postmodern religiosity we now accept as normal. The result is a braindead middle class composed of eunuchs and temple priestesses. If this sounds hyperbolic, remember how the university sector responded to the Western Civilisation courses offered by the Ramsay Centre. You’d think they’d like more money and more students, but to give them credit, occasionally their principles get in the way. Both ANU and the University of Sydney weren’t interested. They value the message above the money. Today’s liberal-Marxist elite, who live in constant terror afraid of their own shadows, will broker no competition in the world of ideas. They know it was thanks to that they got their stranglehold to begin with. They also suspect, in their heart of hearts, that their cherished ideas are terrible, anti-natural, and essentially anti-human.<br/>
<br/>
The postmodern university is a house of cards. It would be too much to expect the Australian Universities Accord to admit as much.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/universality-and-the-university/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/universality-and-the-university/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Will no one rid us of the meddlesome mandarins?</b><br/>
<br/>
It’s time to call a spade a spade. We no longer live in the democratic Commonwealth of Australia but in a federation of socialist states.<br/>
<br/>
This federation is run by nearly two-and-a-half million unelected bureaucrats who intrude into every aspect of our daily lives. If you know what’s good for you, you will obey them and keep your opinions to yourself. After all, governments know best and better that you become dependent on them rather than take personal responsibility for your misfortunes and disappointments.<br/>
<br/>
Without the public realising it, bureaucrats have successfully inverted the democratic system. They now set the policy agenda while left-leaning, elected representatives, from all sides, do their bidding.<br/>
<br/>
Form over substance is a self-serving public servant’s stock-in-trade. They are driven by woke causes, internal politics and enhanced authority. The bigger the department, the more they are paid. As well as handsome remuneration they enjoy some of the most generous work-from-home rights in the country.<br/>
<br/>
Woke activism has become a particular preoccupation. Climate change, Aboriginal causes, LGBTQIA+ observances and diversity, equity and inclusion are central to policy formulation.<br/>
<br/>
Women now comprise 50 per cent of the total federal senior executive service cohort. It is unknown how many of these appointments were appointed on merit and how many are there to fill quotas.<br/>
<br/>
Privileged employment conditions usually carry superior performance obligations. However, that remains a consummation devoutly to be wished.<br/>
<br/>
Take the head of the Defence Department, Greg Moriarty. Previously the chief of staff to prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, he received $1,006,474 last year for presiding over a department which deemed it unnecessary to inform the government of a $100 million cost over-run on a $50 million classified programme; where eight years is considered acceptable to assess urgently needed armed drones. And where, according to the Auditor-General, a $423 million cost blowout on a frigate project was due to lack of focus during the tender process.<br/>
<br/>
Recasting military culture into a gentler, more caring cohort is driving out traditional warriors. Uniformed numbers shrank by 1,161 last year leaving the ADF 3,400 under strength.<br/>
<br/>
The first object of the Australian Public Service, set out in Section 3 of the Public Service Act 1999, is, ‘to establish an apolitical public service that is efficient and effective in serving the Government, the Parliament and the Australian public’. A noble objective to be sure, but in practice there continues to be an unrelenting decline in efficiency, transparency and neutrality. For example, the Grattan Institute found since 2016, of 22 large federal government projects, just six had a business case.<br/>
<br/>
It is no coincidence that the government’s Productivity Commission reports that over the past decade growth in GDP and income per person have slipped to their slowest rates in 60 years. While not all of this is due to growth in government, it is a major factor.<br/>
<br/>
Not only does government not conform on efficiency, it also fails the apolitical test.<br/>
<br/>
Federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts chief, Jim Betts, who earns $928,340 a year, wore a t-shirt featuring the Aboriginal flag and a fist at Senate Estimates during the Voice referendum campaign.<br/>
<br/>
While not federal, many local governments lowered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to half-mast following the referendum defeat. Some fly the Palestinian flag; hardly demonstrations of political neutrality.<br/>
<br/>
Indeed, post-modern activism is observable throughout the public service. In education, politically motivated curricula have been developed to subtly indoctrinate children as young as five. State universities are intolerant of views which run counter to their post-modern orthodoxy. The government broadcaster, the ABC, is a shameless activist for socialist causes. The one million dollars a day Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s modelling and forecasting faithfully follows a global ‘boiling’ narrative.<br/>
<br/>
Socialism is also deeply imbedded in Australia’s failing ‘public’ health system. Epitomised by the NDIS, it is the result of a ‘know better’ authoritarian culture and a disdain for the laws of economics.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, as bureaucratic red, green and black tape proliferate, criminal sanctions feature with increasing regularity. This year it is estimated the number of federal employees engaged in regulatory roles will increase nine per cent overall with some agencies upping the number by 30 per cent. Since 2005, 97 per cent of new regulations have avoided parliamentary process. No wonder. Coercive powers enhance bureaucratic authority and give reasons for expansion. Political interference is unwelcome.<br/>
<br/>
The enormous cost burdens now borne by business from ever increasing environmental and workplace laws seem to matter little. After all, fewer businesses are easier to control. Australia has become a net exporter of capital, meaning investors see better opportunities overseas.<br/>
<br/>
Yet corporate Australia meekly surrenders and is now a standard-bearer for bigger government and post-modernism. Reminiscent of 1933 Germany, business leaders accept that when their organisation’s future is inexorably linked to being on one political side, they must pay close attention to the new doctrine. Crony capitalism has attractions, at least for a while.<br/>
<br/>
Although authority now resides within Marxist-Leninist bureaucracies, headline announcements are left to elected representatives. They are mainly theatre and used for election purposes. The execution is left to unaccountable public servants. Meanwhile, the ballot box has just become a place for voters to register protests.<br/>
<br/>
Where to from here?<br/>
<br/>
Buoyed by booming exports, Australian governments have bet the shop on the minerals boom continuing. It’s a dangerous bet, made more so by environmental laws which generously gift Australia’s competitors significant cost advantages. Regulatory obsession has also resulted in a massive decline in Australia’s manufacturing sector. It seems national security is the last thing on government minds.<br/>
<br/>
Unless and until a political leader with the courage and support of its party takes on the public service like Javier Milei has done in Argentina, the will of the people will not be represented, nor prevail.<br/>
<br/>
Hopefully Australia takes action sooner than Argentina did.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/will-no-one-rid-us-of-the-meddlesome-mandarins/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/will-no-one-rid-us-of-the-meddlesome-mandarins/</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-69083688360107539602024-03-07T18:44:00.001+13:002024-03-07T18:44:34.168+13:00<br><br/>
<b> The pot calls the kettle brown</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> One brown man insults another brown man. Leniu is a Samoan and Mam has some Aboriginal ancestry. Both are footballers in the Rugby League, a form of football with a mainly regional following in Australia. "Monkey" is widely held to be a very bad word</i><br/>
<br/>
Spencer Leniu has admitted to using a racist remark against Broncos star Ezra Mam in the NRL’s season-opening double-header in Las Vegas.<br/>
<br/>
Leniu, who was playing his first game for his new club, lodged a guilty plea to a contrary conduct charge with the NRL judiciary on Thursday. He now faces a long suspension after admitting to calling his opponent a “monkey”.<br/>
<br/>
“I want to apologise to Ezra and his family for using the word I did, and I am sincerely sorry to cause him such distress,” Leniu said in a Roosters statement.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ve put my hand up and want to take ownership of this. I said the word, but I didn’t mean it in a racist way. Anyone who knows me knows that’s not who I am.”<br/>
<br/>
Leniu had initially denied using a slur in post-game interviews after the Roosters’ 20-10 win over Broncos at Allegiant Stadium, telling Triple M the angry exchange with Brisbane players was “fun and games”.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/leniu-admits-to-racist-slur-against-mam-20240307-p5fam9.html">https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/leniu-admits-to-racist-slur-against-mam-20240307-p5fam9.html</a>
</p>
**********************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> Airline Fined $250,000 For Standing Down Worker Concerned With COVID-19</b><br/>
<br/>
Australian national carrier Qantas has been fined $250,000 after standing down a worker—who was an elected health and safety representative—after he raised concerns about the risk of COVID-19 to staff cleaning aircraft that had arrived from China—an action the judge described as “shameful.”<br/>
<br/>
Lift truck driver Theo Seremetidis was employed by subsidiary Qantas Ground Services (QGS) at Sydney International Airport, and was sidelined in early 2020, before which he had worked for Qantas for nearly seven years as a ground crew fleet member.<br/>
<br/>
Last year, NSW District Court Judge David Russell found the airline engaged in discriminatory conduct, ruling that Mr. Seremetidis was unfairly cut off from other staff who were seeking his help.<br/>
<br/>
“The conduct against Mr Seremetidis was quite shameful,” the judge said. “Even when he was stood down and under investigation, QGS attempted to manufacture additional reasons for its actions.”<br/>
<br/>
Last week Qantas agreed to pay Mr. Seremetidis $21,000 for economic and non-economic loss.<br/>
<br/>
On March 6, Judge Russell ordered that QGS be convicted and fined $250,000, finding that the company’s conduct involved significant culpability and was deliberate, rather than inadvertent and that QGS had “deliberately ignored” the consultation and other provisions of the Work Health and Safety Act. He said there was a “gross power imbalance” between Mr. Seremetidis and senior managers at QGS.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Seremetidis was “most conscientious” in carrying out his role as a health and safety representative, the judge found, staying up-to-date with official announcements about the pandemic and even doing research on his day off.<br/>
<br/>
Judge Russell found QGS saw Mr. Seremetidis’s directions to cease unsafe work as a “threat” to the conduct of the business, in particular to its ability to clean and service aircraft and get them back in the air, and pointed out that the role of health and safety representatives was “vital” to the protection of workers and the running of any business.<br/>
<br/>
During the hearing last year, Qantas said it had taken the action because Mr. Seremetidis had been “creating anxiety amongst the workforce.”<br/>
<br/>
It was revealed the airline had told concerned workers that the risk of them contracting COVID-19 from their work was “negligible,” and they could not “be reasonably concerned about contracting the virus.”<br/>
<br/>
Prosecutor Matthew Moir said Qantas gave priority to its commercial interests over the health and safety of its workers. But Qantas lawyer Bruce Hodgkinson argued the airline had been doing its best to deal with the fast-unfolding pandemic.<br/>
<br/>
Qantas Apologises<br/>
<br/>
A Qantas spokesperson said the airline accepted the penalties. “We agreed to compensation for Theo Seremetidis and the court has today made orders for that compensation to be paid,” the spokesperson said.<br/>
<br/>
“We acknowledged in court the impact that this incident had on Mr. Seremetidis and apologised to him. Safety has always been our number one priority and we continue to encourage our employees to report all safety-related matters.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/qantas-fined-250000-for-standing-down-worker-concerned-with-covid-19-post-5601460">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/qantas-fined-250000-for-standing-down-worker-concerned-with-covid-19-post-5601460</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> GDP figures paint a picture of a very sick Australian economy</b><br/>
<br/>
The GDP numbers paint a picture of an economy that is sick, seriously sick.<br/>
<br/>
It is an economy that is being held up – barely, held up, I should stress - by a bizarre and explosively volatile and quite simply unreliable combination of China-driven demand for our iron ore, coal and natural gas, and the utterly out-of-control flood of 1500 migrants every single day of the year, weekends included.<br/>
<br/>
In the December quarter the economy grew by just 0.2 per cent, after growing by just 0.3 per cent in the September quarter.<br/>
<br/>
Indeed, it slowed through each quarter of 2023. So over the year, the growth was a miserable 1.5 per cent. Over the latest six months it was an even more miserable annual rate of just 1 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
But when you factor in the utterly unprecedented population surge, thanks to the equally unprecedented migration flood, per capita growth was negative 0.3 per cent for the December quarter and a just horrible negative 1 per cent for the December year.<br/>
<br/>
The economy was in clear and undeniable per capita recession all the way through 2023.<br/>
<br/>
All those migrants kept the aggregate numbers positive. But it was a false positivity, with the per capita numbers, the numbers that reflect the actual reality for Australians, going backward.<br/>
<br/>
And that’s before you factor in all the other negatives from the migrant surge – the pressure on housing, on infrastructure, the complications it causes for wages and business costs, and cost-of-living.<br/>
<br/>
Now bring in China.<br/>
<br/>
But for the surge in exports (that’s, importantly, export volumes) – combined with an entirely understandable fall in our demand for consumer imports, given the terrible state of the local economy and household incomes - the overall December quarter GDP growth number would have been negative 0.4 per cent<br/>
<br/>
Let me just draw out and stress this utterly critical point.<br/>
<br/>
But for China – and more general demand globally for our coal and natural gas – our economy would have shrunk by 0.4 per cent in the December quarter.<br/>
<br/>
But for China, per capita GDP would have fallen by nearly 1 per cent – an annualised fall of close to 4 per cent. That’s recession, with a very big capital R, in terms of actual reality for individual Australians.<br/>
<br/>
Ask yourself: can we really rely on China to keep the music playing? A China, that is experiencing all sorts of problems, with all that concrete poured into ghost cities and now also export challenges?<br/>
<br/>
Yet we still have almost all our eggs, so to speak, in that basket marked ‘China miracle’.<br/>
<br/>
That, and sustained massive immigration to supply workers on the one hand, and demand for businesses from construction and housing to retail, on the other.<br/>
<br/>
And yet even with those two spigots still pouring through 2023, our economy was staggering.<br/>
<br/>
The figures further confirm what I have been writing since Melbourne Cup Day. The Reserve Bank should not have delivered that last rate hike.<br/>
<br/>
Governor Michele Bullock will have to think long and hard about what she proposes the board does next Tuesday week.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/gdp-figures-paint-a-picture-of-a-very-sick-australian-economy/news-story/99c7b7df88c2765795fdae5898717906">https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/gdp-figures-paint-a-picture-of-a-very-sick-australian-economy/news-story/99c7b7df88c2765795fdae5898717906</a>
</p>
***********************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> Origin, NSW government negotiate delay to coal-fired Eraring power station’s closure</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> East coast residents should hope they agree. Blackouts loom otherwise</i><br/>
<br/>
The planned retirement of Australia’s largest coal-fired power station will be delayed as Origin Energy holds talks with the NSW government to keep the Eraring plant open beyond August 2025, easing the prospect of blackouts hitting electricity consumers.<br/>
<br/>
Eraring, which supplies more than 25 per cent of NSW’s electricity needs, is due to shutter as early as August 2025 – though an independent expert last year concluded the state Labor government would need to strike a deal to safeguard electricity supplies.<br/>
<br/>
More than six months into the talks, The Australian understands both sides are confident that a deal will be struck, although progress is limited to a point where a deal could be some weeks if not months away.<br/>
<br/>
The extension of Eraring would ease fears that the rapid fire exit of coal from the national grid may increase the risks of blackouts, given the lack of replacement back-up power in the system.<br/>
<br/>
A deal could still fall over, underlined by the collapse in talks between the previous NSW state government which held talks over acquiring Eraring.<br/>
<br/>
Representatives for both the NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe and Origin declined to comment. Both sides negotiating have signed strict nondisclosure agreements.<br/>
<br/>
Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said last month that both sides were keen for a deal as quickly as possible. “Both sides are governed by a very strict confidentiality agreement, but I can say that negotiations are active, they’re constructive, and they’re ongoing, and both parties will want to bring that to conclusion in as timely a way as possible.” Mr Calabria said.<br/>
<br/>
Such is the confidentiality, neither party will discuss the nature of the deal though a risk-sharing agreement shapes as the only feasible option.<br/>
<br/>
Such a deal has been used by Victoria in the past as the state Labor government struck deals with AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia to keep the state’s two largest coal power stations open.<br/>
<br/>
EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn will close in 2028, while AGL’s Loy Yang A will shutter in 2035 – giving the state enough time to bring online sufficient quantities of renewable energy. The terms of both deals remain a closely guarded secret, but they are a guiding principle for any extension of Eraring.<br/>
<br/>
But the deal is complicated, compounded by a rapidly evolving energy market and a looming end to a coal cap that will likely uproot the economics of Eraring.<br/>
<br/>
The federal government in conjunction with state counterparts introduced a $120 a tonne cap on the price of coal, a scheme that drastically improved the financial performance of Eraring.<br/>
<br/>
Eraring has in recent years been losing money. A rapid rise in rooftop solar has seen wholesale prices plunge to zero or below during sunny days, which explains why Origin in 2022 announced the retirement of the coal-fired power station in August 2025 – some seven years earlier than initially expected.<br/>
<br/>
But Eraring’s fortunes changed in 2023 when the coal cap allowed Origin to recoup costs above $120 a tonne for coal, which returned the generator to profitability.<br/>
<br/>
The scheme will end in June and Origin is facing higher costs for coal that will dent the financial returns of Eraring without an unexpected move in Australia’s wholesale electricity market.<br/>
<br/>
Should it return to a loss-making entity, a risk-sharing agreement with the NSW government would likely see the taxpayer compensate Origin beyond 2025.<br/>
<br/>
Such a scheme would be politically sensitive to the Labor government which has won favour with large swathes of the electorate with its commitment to renewable energy.<br/>
<br/>
Moving to curtail political hostility, the Labor government is talking tough – insisting it will not be held hostage.<br/>
<br/>
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has highlighted Origin’s recent bumper half-year revenues as evidence of the company’s responsibility to prolong Eraring’s lifespan, a stance that caused bewilderment among those close to Australia’s largest electricity and gas company.<br/>
<br/>
Origin is a publicly traded company and law requires the management to act in the best interests of its shareholders. Prolonging Eraring might be in the best interests of NSW, but it may not satisfy shareholders.<br/>
<br/>
Despite the political posturing, Origin has the whip hand. The loss of Eraring would remove 2.8 gigawatts of capacity from the state’s energy grid, which independent expert Cameron O’Reilly in 2023 said would risk grid stability.<br/>
<br/>
Without sufficient electricity generation capacity, households and businesses in NSW would face a heightened risk of price increases and even blackouts.<br/>
<br/>
With such a risk, Australia’s energy market has positioned for Eraring staying open.<br/>
<br/>
“The NSW government is extremely concerned about reliability and affordability. They are very worried, but nobody thinks Eraring is closing in 2025,” one senior energy executive told The Australian.<br/>
<br/>
“If the market thought Eraring was closing, there would be a substantial increase in wholesale electricity prices between 2024 and 2025 and there isn’t. The only question is, however, how long it will stay open for and how many units (operating).”<br/>
<br/>
Extending Eraring, however, will undercut NSW’s energy transition timetable, critical if the state is to meet its emission reduction plans. NSW has set a target of halving emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels and reaching net zero by 2050.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/origin-nsw-government-negotiate-delay-to-coalfired-eraring-power-stations-closure/news-story/cdfac8ed659bb3c8e2fc48902b6a8ad3">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/origin-nsw-government-negotiate-delay-to-coalfired-eraring-power-stations-closure/news-story/cdfac8ed659bb3c8e2fc48902b6a8ad3</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> "Build to rent" is no solution to rental housing shortage</b><br/>
<br/>
The build-to-rent (BTR) industry, virtually non-existent in Australia seven years ago, is becoming a small part of the solution to solving housing supply issues. But BTR will never replace mum and dad investors.<br/>
<br/>
BTR’s 2017 arrival was certainly timely since demand for rental accommodation is being driven by the systemic change in living preferences, with a growing proportion of the population renting, and renting for longer.<br/>
<br/>
BTR makes up just 0.2 per cent of Australia’s housing market with the most recent report by Ernst & Young calculating just 11 developments are up-and-running, with a further 72 in the works.<br/>
<br/>
The majority of the pipeline is coming to Melbourne, followed by Brisbane, with Sydney a distant third.<br/>
<br/>
BTR apartment projects are purpose-built projects for long-term rent that do not rely on the typical off the plan pre-sales. BTR housing is held in single ownership with tenants getting the security of longer-term leases from institutional landlords, who are getting tax incentives from state and federal governments.<br/>
<br/>
The last federal budget offered a tax break from July this year for BTR foreign investors. But the industry reckons far more needs to be done to incentivise investment, saying further changes to the GST and to land tax are essential as BTR projects are at least 10 per cent more expensive to build and operate than typical build-to-sell (BTS) projects.<br/>
<br/>
To date two thirds of BTR investment has come from overseas where the product is well established. The 2023 MIPIM (Marche International des Professionnels d’Immobilier) international conference in Cannes, France, heard the rental model has been embraced in Europe and North America, but with some stigma against it in the UK.<br/>
<br/>
Attendees were told BTR must be seen as complimenting the traditional housing delivery model, rather than being in opposition. With more than 20 million housing units, the US BTR sector comprises 12 per cent of the total value of the residential sector, but 5.4 per cent in the UK.<br/>
<br/>
The Australian property consultancy Charter Keck Cramer (CKC) noted 2024 will be a “defining year” for BTR in testing the resolve and investment thesis of many BTR developers and their financiers.<br/>
<br/>
It warns capital has been harder to raise given higher risk adjusted returns after rapid rate rises and construction cost increases.<br/>
<br/>
“The role that the build-to-sell (BTS) and build-to-rent apartment markets respectively need to play in addressing the housing and rental crises cannot be overstated,” says CKC’s Richard Tremlett.<br/>
<br/>
“In comparison to the established housing, or the greenfield house and land markets, the BTS apartment market is not well understood by many policy makers. The BTR apartment market is even less understood given it is still emerging as a residential asset class.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/property/epic-fail-of-misunderstood-solution-to-rental-crisis/news-story/4ca9f5de49091d0ae9e7847cdbcb84e6">https://www.couriermail.com.au/property/epic-fail-of-misunderstood-solution-to-rental-crisis/news-story/4ca9f5de49091d0ae9e7847cdbcb84e6</a>
</p>
**************************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-54178329312882253812024-03-07T17:59:00.001+13:002024-03-07T17:59:04.952+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Why grants to students primarily benefit colleges</b><br/>
<br/>
Econ 101 instructors take note—a new illustration of the important microeconomic concept of incidence just dropped. Economists emphasize that there is a world of difference between legal and economic incidence. Legal incidence specifies who, on paper, has the right to claim a benefit or the obligation to bear a liability. Economic incidence analyzes which party receives a benefit or bears a cost in actuality. Who gets to command more or fewer resources?<br/>
<br/>
Here’s how Art Carden and I discuss the incidence of a subsidy in a forthcoming book manuscript:<br/>
<br/>
Subsidies follow the same logic. Whether the subsidy lands on the buyers or sellers is irrelevant. It sticks to whoever is the less price-sensitive side. Subsidies to corn consumers, for instance, often end up in corn growers’ pockets because they raise corn demand. Food stamps raise demand for approved foods: browsing Amazon.com for foods people can buy with funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), we find Corn Flakes, Corn Chex, Corn Nuts, Corn Pops, corn chips, corn tortillas, cornmeal cornbread mix, corn salsa, canned corn, creamed corn, and popcorn, plus all sorts of other corn derivatives like corn syrup-sweetened soft drinks and candy corn (first ingredient: sugar. Second ingredient: corn syrup). The loud part of the food stamp program is that it helps poor people buy food. The quiet part is that it passes the taxpayers’ money to corn farmers through the pockets of the poor. It’s no accident that the Department of Agriculture administers SNAP while Congress funds it through the Farm Bill.<br/>
<br/>
Economic incidence was also unintentionally illustrated via a recent Time article on the fortieth anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Grove City College v. Bell. Grove City, my alma mater and employer, had long sought complete independence from government entanglement with higher education. When Title IX was passed, as Time puts it, “complications arose.”<br/>
<br/>
The Time article reads, “On four occasions between 1976 and 1977, Grove City College refused to sign an Assurance of Compliance form needed for students to receive Basic Educational Opportunity Grants (BEOGs) and Guaranteed Student Loans (GSLs). It contended that students received federal aid, not the college.”<br/>
<br/>
The government responded by saying the quiet part out loud: Legal incidence is not synonymous with economic incidence.<br/>
<br/>
The Time article continues, “The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW, later ED), argued that the college was the ultimate beneficiary of the federal funds and needed to sign the compliance for students to receive those fund as of 1977.”<br/>
<br/>
In other words, the federal government admitted what economic analysis already knew: Student loans are “ultimately” a handout to colleges and universities. More concretely, the loans increase the incomes of college administrators, faculty, and other employees.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, subsidies pass through the “pockets” (legal incidence) of students, but they end up in the “bank accounts” (economic incidence) of schools. Put another way, student loans increase the demand for higher education, ultimately increasing its sticker price.<br/>
<br/>
In the long run, once the dust has settled, some students pay more, some pay less, resources flow to higher ed (what’s the opportunity cost?), taxpayers’ wealth falls, and society overall is poorer. A benefit to some (e.g., higher ed employees) is not a benefit to all—and in this case it’s not even necessarily a boon to students themselves.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://blog.independent.org/2024/02/29/saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud/">https://blog.independent.org/2024/02/29/saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud/</a>
</p>
******************************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> Rhode Island School District Sends 8,800 Pages of Emails to Leftist hate site</b><br/>
<br/>
When concerned mom Nicole Solas requested all emails from her Rhode Island school district to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the request turned up more than 8,000 pages of communications, and the district told her it would cost $6,629.25 for it to process the SPLC documents.<br/>
<br/>
A brief refresher: The SPLC began as a civil rights nonprofit, but has morphed into a far-left fundraising machine and smear factory. As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” it weaponized its history of suing KKK groups into bankruptcy to smear its political and ideological opponents, placing mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” alongside Klan chapters.<br/>
<br/>
Solas, a Rhode Island mother, had briefly enrolled her daughter in kindergarten in the South Kingstown School District. She withdrew her daughter after the school district sued her on account of Solas’ multiple public records requests to reveal whether the district taught kids the principles of critical race theory, a lens that teaches kids to view white people as oppressors and black people as oppressed.<br/>
<br/>
Solas told The Daily Signal that she requested “emails sent by [South Kingstown School District] employees” to “weed out spam emails automatically sent by SPLC to schools.”<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC runs an education program long known as “Teaching Tolerance.” In 2021, after the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis, the SPLC apparently decided that “tolerance” wasn’t woke enough, so it rebranded the program to “Learning for Justice.” The program has advocated for lessons that inculcate critical race theory, transgender identity, and pornographic books in schools. Last year, the SPLC added parental rights groups, including Moms for Liberty, to its “hate map,” in part demonizing those groups for opposing sexually explicit books in school libraries.<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC has bragged that it sent “over 400,000 educators” the “Teaching Tolerance” magazine, “reaching nearly every school in the country.” This language disappeared from the website, however, as more Americans look critically at the SPLC.<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC hides its radical agenda behind benign-sounding initiatives such as celebrating diversity and inclusion. Many on the Left have adopted its rhetoric.<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC’s “hate map” has caused real-world harm. In 2012, a terrorist targeted the Family Research Council for a mass shooting using the “hate map.” He told the FBI he aimed to kill everyone in the building, but the building manager prevented the slaughter, in the process sustaining bullet wounds. The shooter pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.<br/>
<br/>
Early in the 2000s, the SPLC began branding some activist groups that opposed illegal immigration “anti-immigrant hate groups” and putting them on the “hate map.” The SPLC maintains that hatred drives the movement calling for the enforcement of immigration laws, even as the Biden administration sets new records for the number of illegal aliens encountered at the southern border.<br/>
<br/>
In the past two weeks, the SPLC has demonized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, for attempting to close the border when the Biden administration refuses to do so. Abbott is attempting to enforce federal laws that President Joe Biden will not enforce, yet the SPLC claims Abbott is seeking to establish “state supremacy over the border.”<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC noted Abbott’s attempts to install razor wire between Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, and the southern border, the Biden administration’s decision to cut the wire, and the Supreme Court ruling allowing the Biden administration access.<br/>
<br/>
“This is part of Abbott’s broader anti-immigrant agenda, which includes an attempt to stop a supposed ‘invasion’ of Texas by migrants,” SPLC’s Caleb Kieffer and Rachel Goldwasser wrote. “Claims of ‘invasion’ have become a trope among right-wing lawmakers and the hard right despite dangerous similarities to the racist ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory.”<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC did not acknowledge that border agents encountered a record 3.2 million illegal aliens in fiscal year 2023 (a number larger than the combined populations of Hawaii, Alaska, and Vermont), nor that Democratic mayors are requesting help to deal with the large numbers of aliens in the country. This isn’t a “great replacement conspiracy theory”; it is a blatantly obvious fact that millions of illegal aliens are taking root in the U.S., and the SPLC’s move to dismiss critics as racist in the face of that fact should set off alarm bells across America.<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC also demonized the effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for failing to enforce immigration law and prevent mass hordes of aliens from entering the country. In an article focused on a militia group’s efforts to take border enforcement into its own hands, Goldwasser claims the militia’s action represents “a product of the anti-immigrant environment produced by the xenophobic posturing of hate groups and politicians, and the controversial impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the first Latinx and immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security.”<br/>
<br/>
Goldwasser suggested that Mayorkas faces an impeachment effort not because he has failed to enforce immigration law and prevent the border crisis, but because he is the first Latino to head the Department of Homeland Security. She used “Latinx,” a transgender neologism, in order to avoid the clear masculine ending in Spanish for “Latino.”<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC did not reserve all its vitriol for Republicans, however. Kieffer and Goldwasser noted that Biden has supported a Senate bill that included minor border security measures and changes to the asylum process in exchange for funding to Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion.<br/>
<br/>
“The bill worried immigration advocates, who viewed it as being extremely harsh and out of step for the needs of border communities,” they wrote. “The Senate relief package debacle shows the same anti-immigrant animus undergirding impeachment of Mayorkas and the standoff in Eagle Pass.”<br/>
<br/>
It seems the SPLC’s partisan attacks against pro-enforcement groups have so unmoored the organization from reality that it is unwilling to accept the blatantly obvious truth. Recent polls have showed former President Donald Trump, who currently leads in the Republican presidential nominating proces, ahead of Biden in key swing states. Americans give Biden poor marks on the border, which helps explain the president’s belated support for some immigration restrictions. Biden knows he has to make up ground on this issue, and he’s furiously working to make it seem like the border crisis is Republicans’ fault.<br/>
<br/>
Yet the SPLC hasn’t gotten the memo. It’s so focused on branding as “hateful” anyone who dares to speak the plain truth about the border crisis that it turns against Biden, the very president the SPLC brags about influencing and with whom SPLC leaders have met at least six times personally.<br/>
<br/>
The SPLC’s radical agenda of critical race theory, transgender lessons, and apparent hatred for the very idea of national borders has no place in America’s classrooms. Solas is right to demand answers from her Rhode Island school district, and parents across the country should be on the lookout for the SPLC’s influence in schools.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/03/05/is-your-kids-school-taking-tips-hate-splc-group-demonizes-response-border-crisis/">https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/03/05/is-your-kids-school-taking-tips-hate-splc-group-demonizes-response-border-crisis/</a>
</p>
****************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> "Accord" proposals won’t do anything to fix Australia's universities</b><br/>
<br/>
JUDITH SLOAN<br/>
<br/>
Through the years I have become something of a dab hand at reading government reports. They are almost always far too long, badly argued and littered with carefully chosen photographs. I figure I can save my readers the trouble of wading through these tomes by simply cutting to the chase.<br/>
<br/>
The final report of the Australian Universities Accord, at around 400 pages, is dubious and unhelpful. It is built on a highly unconvincing premise and works its way from there. On the basis of a bit of arm-waving by a consultant and asking around, the panel concludes the tertiary education attainment rate must rise from its current figure of about 60 per cent to at least 80 per cent of the workforce by 2050. For those aged 25 to 34, the proportion with a university education must rise from 45 per cent to 55 per cent by 2050.<br/>
<br/>
Let’s face it, other guesses are equally plausible. After all, artificial intelligence is about to cut a swath through the workforce, meaning many university-educated workers may be out of jobs as machines replace their roles. And just in case you think it’s simply those who undertake repetitive, low-level jobs who are in the firing line, it seems AI can be highly creative and solve problems, to boot.<br/>
<br/>
There is also the important issue of credentialism. It’s not as though jobs always require a university education – or indeed completion of school. But university education creates its own momentum by giving a head start to other applicants without qualifications. It doesn’t actually add to productivity, it simply alters the pecking order. To the extent that this is the case, the government – aka taxpayer – shouldn’t be investing even more in university education, particularly certain courses.<br/>
<br/>
The accord makes much of the lack of equity in the admission to universities. Those from poor socio-economic backgrounds, those from regional areas and First Nations students are much less likely to go to university, let alone complete a course, relative to their better-off city-based cousins. Reflecting the backstory of federal Education Minister Jason Clare, who was the first in his family to attend university, the panel makes several suggestions to “expand opportunity to all”.<br/>
<br/>
But here’s the rub: many students simply are not suited to university study and it is selling them a pup to suggest university is the best post-school pathway for them. I once taught economic statistics to university students with low entry scores – it was a nightmare. Most of them struggled, many lost self-confidence and a reasonable chunk failed. My advice to many of them was to consider alternative opportunities, such as becoming a tradie.<br/>
<br/>
We have had a recent experiment with allowing universities to enrol any student they deem to have the necessary qualifications – the so-called demand-driven system of enrolments. Of course, “necessary qualifications” is a rubbery concept and allowing self-serving universities to set the entry standards is really akin to handing the keys to the chook house to the fox.<br/>
<br/>
It is clear what happened when the demand-driven system was in full flight: the participation in higher education of marginal groups increased but the rate at which they completed courses was significantly below those with higher marks. According to higher education expert Andrew Norton, “students with ATARs (year 12 ranking) below 60 are twice as likely to drop out of university as students with ATARs over 90”. He estimates that those who fail to complete a university course are, on average, stuck with a debt of $12,000 to pay off.<br/>
<br/>
Working backwards from the accord’s arbitrary targets, students with an ATAR as low as 45 will now be expected to go to university. And this in the context of sliding school performance across the past two decades.<br/>
<br/>
Rather than accept that most of these students simply are not suited to university study, the panel wants additional funding, foundation courses, study hubs and the like. On the face of it, this just looks like a waste of resources given there will be plenty of jobs in the future that don’t require a university education.<br/>
<br/>
Is someone with a bachelor of arts in cultural studies really more qualified than a plumber?<br/>
<br/>
The one recommendation of the report that gave me a good laugh deals with the establishment of a higher education future fund. At this rate we’ll have future funds for everything. The source of funds will be a tax on our best universities – probably the Group of Eight – with the federal government matching their contributions. It’s a bit like how the Australian Football League operates: penalise the top teams to level out the competition. It’s really a form of socialism.<br/>
<br/>
While this might make some sense for a football code, it makes no sense for a university system that should be focused on attaining global excellence. Why would we want to tax the best universities to spray money around with unknown outcomes? If I were heading up one of the Go8 universities I would be objecting in the strongest and loudest terms.<br/>
<br/>
As is the case with most government reports, there are suggestions for more reviews and new bureaucratic agencies. There should be a centre of excellence in higher education and research (refer to previous paragraph); a survey on the prevalence of racism in higher education; and a First Nations-led review of higher education.<br/>
<br/>
The most significant is the proposal to establish an Australian tertiary education commission, “a statutory, national body to plan and oversee the creation of a high quality and cohesive tertiary education system to meet Australia’s future needs”. You will be pleased to know one of the functions will be to negotiate “mission-based compacts for universities”, whatever that means.<br/>
<br/>
The reality is we have had such agencies in the past and they haven’t worked well. Where does the minister sit in all this, let alone the federal Department of Education? The appointed commissioners often get ahead of themselves and the outcomes are often extremely disappointing.<br/>
<br/>
Don’t get me wrong here: I think there is plenty wrong with the Australian university system.<br/>
<br/>
Many of our universities are too big; they are clones of each other but of highly variable quality; and many offer a very poor offering to domestic students. The links with vocational education are patchy at best.<br/>
<br/>
But the 400-page accord report is not the path to fixing these problems: indeed, most of the recommendations would make them worse and cost the taxpayer a small fortune. Obviously, the notion of opportunity cost has not been front of mind to the panel. The government would be ill-advised to spend even more money on a bloated, poorly performing sector based on made-up targets.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/accord-proposals-wont-do-anything-to-fix-our-universities/news-story/721a79f7d7a0214f66bec711172d1c68">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/accord-proposals-wont-do-anything-to-fix-our-universities/news-story/721a79f7d7a0214f66bec711172d1c68</a>
</p>
******************************************************<br/>
<br/>
My other blogs: Main ones below<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://australian-politics.blogspot.com/">http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/</a> (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
******************************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-76424761960863213292024-03-06T08:28:00.001+13:002024-03-06T08:28:06.839+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> "Accord" proposals won’t do anything to fix our universities</b><br/>
<br/>
JUDITH SLOAN<br/>
<br/>
Through the years I have become something of a dab hand at reading government reports. They are almost always far too long, badly argued and littered with carefully chosen photographs. I figure I can save my readers the trouble of wading through these tomes by simply cutting to the chase.<br/>
<br/>
The final report of the Australian Universities Accord, at around 400 pages, is dubious and unhelpful. It is built on a highly unconvincing premise and works its way from there. On the basis of a bit of arm-waving by a consultant and asking around, the panel concludes the tertiary education attainment rate must rise from its current figure of about 60 per cent to at least 80 per cent of the workforce by 2050. For those aged 25 to 34, the proportion with a university education must rise from 45 per cent to 55 per cent by 2050.<br/>
<br/>
Let’s face it, other guesses are equally plausible. After all, artificial intelligence is about to cut a swath through the workforce, meaning many university-educated workers may be out of jobs as machines replace their roles. And just in case you think it’s simply those who undertake repetitive, low-level jobs who are in the firing line, it seems AI can be highly creative and solve problems, to boot.<br/>
<br/>
There is also the important issue of credentialism. It’s not as though jobs always require a university education – or indeed completion of school. But university education creates its own momentum by giving a head start to other applicants without qualifications. It doesn’t actually add to productivity, it simply alters the pecking order. To the extent that this is the case, the government – aka taxpayer – shouldn’t be investing even more in university education, particularly certain courses.<br/>
<br/>
The accord makes much of the lack of equity in the admission to universities. Those from poor socio-economic backgrounds, those from regional areas and First Nations students are much less likely to go to university, let alone complete a course, relative to their better-off city-based cousins. Reflecting the backstory of federal Education Minister Jason Clare, who was the first in his family to attend university, the panel makes several suggestions to “expand opportunity to all”.<br/>
<br/>
But here’s the rub: many students simply are not suited to university study and it is selling them a pup to suggest university is the best post-school pathway for them. I once taught economic statistics to university students with low entry scores – it was a nightmare. Most of them struggled, many lost self-confidence and a reasonable chunk failed. My advice to many of them was to consider alternative opportunities, such as becoming a tradie.<br/>
<br/>
We have had a recent experiment with allowing universities to enrol any student they deem to have the necessary qualifications – the so-called demand-driven system of enrolments. Of course, “necessary qualifications” is a rubbery concept and allowing self-serving universities to set the entry standards is really akin to handing the keys to the chook house to the fox.<br/>
<br/>
It is clear what happened when the demand-driven system was in full flight: the participation in higher education of marginal groups increased but the rate at which they completed courses was significantly below those with higher marks. According to higher education expert Andrew Norton, “students with ATARs (year 12 ranking) below 60 are twice as likely to drop out of university as students with ATARs over 90”. He estimates that those who fail to complete a university course are, on average, stuck with a debt of $12,000 to pay off.<br/>
<br/>
Working backwards from the accord’s arbitrary targets, students with an ATAR as low as 45 will now be expected to go to university. And this in the context of sliding school performance across the past two decades.<br/>
<br/>
Rather than accept that most of these students simply are not suited to university study, the panel wants additional funding, foundation courses, study hubs and the like. On the face of it, this just looks like a waste of resources given there will be plenty of jobs in the future that don’t require a university education.<br/>
<br/>
Is someone with a bachelor of arts in cultural studies really more qualified than a plumber?<br/>
<br/>
The one recommendation of the report that gave me a good laugh deals with the establishment of a higher education future fund. At this rate we’ll have future funds for everything. The source of funds will be a tax on our best universities – probably the Group of Eight – with the federal government matching their contributions. It’s a bit like how the Australian Football League operates: penalise the top teams to level out the competition. It’s really a form of socialism.<br/>
<br/>
While this might make some sense for a football code, it makes no sense for a university system that should be focused on attaining global excellence. Why would we want to tax the best universities to spray money around with unknown outcomes? If I were heading up one of the Go8 universities I would be objecting in the strongest and loudest terms.<br/>
<br/>
As is the case with most government reports, there are suggestions for more reviews and new bureaucratic agencies. There should be a centre of excellence in higher education and research (refer to previous paragraph); a survey on the prevalence of racism in higher education; and a First Nations-led review of higher education.<br/>
<br/>
The most significant is the proposal to establish an Australian tertiary education commission, “a statutory, national body to plan and oversee the creation of a high quality and cohesive tertiary education system to meet Australia’s future needs”. You will be pleased to know one of the functions will be to negotiate “mission-based compacts for universities”, whatever that means.<br/>
<br/>
The reality is we have had such agencies in the past and they haven’t worked well. Where does the minister sit in all this, let alone the federal Department of Education? The appointed commissioners often get ahead of themselves and the outcomes are often extremely disappointing.<br/>
<br/>
Don’t get me wrong here: I think there is plenty wrong with the Australian university system.<br/>
<br/>
Many of our universities are too big; they are clones of each other but of highly variable quality; and many offer a very poor offering to domestic students. The links with vocational education are patchy at best.<br/>
<br/>
But the 400-page accord report is not the path to fixing these problems: indeed, most of the recommendations would make them worse and cost the taxpayer a small fortune. Obviously, the notion of opportunity cost has not been front of mind to the panel. The government would be ill-advised to spend even more money on a bloated, poorly performing sector based on made-up targets.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/accord-proposals-wont-do-anything-to-fix-our-universities/news-story/721a79f7d7a0214f66bec711172d1c68">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/accord-proposals-wont-do-anything-to-fix-our-universities/news-story/721a79f7d7a0214f66bec711172d1c68</a>
</p>
******************************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> 3rd SA Council Replaces Acknowledgement of Country</b><br/>
<br/>
A local government authority in Australia has replaced the Acknowledgement of Country with a simple two-line welcome at the start of meetings.<br/>
<br/>
Mayor Patrick Ross pushed to make changes to the operating procedures at meetings of the regional Naracoorte Lucindale Council in South Australia’s southeast.<br/>
<br/>
A new statement to open Council meetings now reads, “We acknowledge and respect our complex history. We welcome everyone to build our future together.”<br/>
<br/>
This replaces a statement that acknowledged the traditional owners of the land and the deep feelings of Aboriginal peoples toward the country.<br/>
<br/>
“We acknowledge and respect the traditional owners of the ancestral lands of the Limestone Coast. We acknowledge elders past and present and we respect the deep feelings of attachment and relationship of Aboriginal peoples to country,” the original statement said.<br/>
<br/>
Commenting on the changes, Mayor Ross said the Naracoorte Lucindale Council was acting on behalf of all residents and ratepayers.<br/>
<br/>
“To that end, a general acknowledgement of our history and an inclusive welcome is what is desired by our community,” he said according to Council minutes (pdf).<br/>
<br/>
“According to the LGA handbook, a welcome may be a simple welcome—some include a prayer and others make statements around what they wish to achieve within a meeting regarding collaboration.<br/>
<br/>
“Elected Members have read a pledge and signed up to represent their community for a term of 4 years. The community has an elevated expectation of the Elected Members to do just that and therefore I see no reason to continue to reiterate that which we have agreed to do.”<br/>
<br/>
Further commenting on the change, Mr. Ross said all statements should be kept simple.<br/>
<br/>
“The modern society which we live in is so diverse in culture, language and religion, that either an omission or inclusion may be divisive, and therefore I’m happy to put forward this proposal,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
The motion was carried six votes to four. A prayer at the opening of council meetings which did not mention God has also been removed.<br/>
<br/>
“We gather to make decisions for our community. May we use only our best skills and judgement keeping ourselves impartial and neutral as we consider the merits and pitfalls of each matter that is placed before us and always act in accordance with what is best for our community and our fellow citizens,” the prayer read.<br/>
<br/>
Reconciliation SA said it was “deeply disappointed” that the majority of elected members of the Council voted to replace the Acknowledgement to Country. CEO Jason Downs said erasing the existence of a culture to “keep things simple” is not a good position for a region that relies on tourism.<br/>
<br/>
“We see this as walking back progress and signaling a lack of understanding of the significant and important role of First Nations culture,” Mr. Downs said.<br/>
<br/>
“When you remove Acknowledgements to Country and Elders you remove visibility and you diminish the importance of First Nations in our Country’s 65,000 year history. We are the only country to lay claim to the world’s oldest living culture. For those unaware, Naracoorte is derived from First Nations language.”<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Downs said when individual ideology impacts on a community’s future and business growth, there is cause for concern.<br/>
<br/>
“We support all our Allies and First Nations people and will continue to challenge the ongoing demise of First Nations position in South Australia,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“Reconciliation SA extends its hand to the elected members and council staff for a workshop to provide context, advice and perspective on the importance, relevance and need to embrace the rich cultural history of our country.”<br/>
<br/>
‘Praiseworthy’: One Nation MLC Sarah Game<br/>
<br/>
However, One Nation member of the South Australian Legislative Council, Sarah Game, welcomed the move in a statement posted to X on March. 4.<br/>
<br/>
“The Naracoorte Council will replace its Acknowledgement of Country with a more inclusive statement that reflects the entire community. The council’s alignment with the community they serve is praiseworthy,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
City of Playford and Northern Areas Council in South Australia have also passed motions in recent months to replace the Acknowledgement of Country<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/3rd-sa-council-replaces-acknowledgement-of-country-5600454?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=medium-0">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/3rd-sa-council-replaces-acknowledgement-of-country-5600454?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=medium-0</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> How low can Covid catastrophists go?</b><br/>
<br/>
Who’d have guessed that there would be two startling revelations about the great Covid over-reach in the space of about a week, upholding claims previously dismissed as conspiracy theories and misinformation?<br/>
<br/>
First came a peer-reviewed scientific study which linked Covid vaccines to a range of serious health disorders. It was soon followed by the Queensland Supreme Court ruling that vaccine mandates imposed on police and ambulance workers in the state were unlawful.<br/>
<br/>
Both provided a welcome dose of reality after the worst days of lockdowns and vaccine roll-outs when we were bombarded with the message that the jabs were ‘safe and effective’. Years later, we know for certain that they do not prevent contraction or transmission of the virus and there’s an acknowledged chance they could cause serious harm and even death.<br/>
<br/>
Some of us have been aware of this for a long time, but vaccine promoters, including Big Pharma and government bureaucrats, insist that the risk is ‘very low’, the acknowledged disorders are ‘rare’, and that vaccines provide the best means of protection against Covid.<br/>
<br/>
But how low is ‘very low’ and how ‘rare’ is rare? Let’s look at the latest findings from the largest vaccine safety study to date conducted by the Global Vaccine Data Network. A research division of the World Health Organisation, it reportedly looked at 99 million vaccinated individuals across six continents.<br/>
<br/>
The study confirmed connections between Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca to several serious but ‘rare conditions’.<br/>
<br/>
According to a report in Forbes:<br/>
<br/>
While the side effects are serious, the chance of experiencing them is low. Some highlighted increases include a 6.1-fold increase in myocarditis from the second dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Cases of pericarditis had a 6.9-fold increase as a result of the third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. There is a 2.5-times greater risk of developing Guillain-Barré syndrome from the AstraZeneca vaccine along with a 3.2-times greater risk of developing blood clots from the same vaccine. There is a 3.8-times greater risk of getting acute disseminated encephalomyelitis from the Moderna vaccine, and a 2.2-fold increase in the AstraZeneca vaccine.<br/>
<br/>
When choosing to get vaccinated, it is important to weigh the benefits and risks of the vaccine. Information like this makes it easier to make the right choice…<br/>
<br/>
Well thanks, but my wife and I made that choice a few years ago and we remain very glad we did, given there are some still trying to pedal the message that a six to seven times chance of contracting a serious heart condition is ‘low’.<br/>
<br/>
I’m reminded of the old Chubby Checker hit Limbo Rock, ‘How low can you go’? Much lower than that, if you want to convince people the vaccines are safe – let alone effective.<br/>
<br/>
My own long-term scepticism possibly has links back to my first job after leaving high school many moons ago, when I undertook a pharmacy apprenticeship in a very busy regional pharmacy.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it didn’t help when I was questioned by a detective when a patient died after taking a sleeping mixture I had dispensed, even though I was later cleared after forensic tests showed the medicine contained the correct level of ingredients and the poor bloke had swallowed an overdose. But possibly the last straw had something to do with a drug I had dispensed many times to pregnant young women suffering morning sickness. Finally, the authorities woke up to the fact that the ‘cure’ – thalidomide – was causing horrific birth defects. Sound familiar?<br/>
<br/>
Fast forward to February 2021, when the novel Covid vaccines were rolled out in Australia after being developed and approved in record time without long-term human trials. Manufacturers were granted immunity from liability for subsequent mishaps despite some of these companies having records of huge fines for past problems.<br/>
<br/>
There were also experts, including highly qualified epidemiologists, sounding warning bells, particularly in Europe and America. Some adverse events might only become apparent months or even years after the jabs were administered, but that was dismissed as ratbag conspiracy theory, disinformation, and misinformation.<br/>
<br/>
Well not any more, and hopefully the Queensland Supreme court ruling that some of these vaccine mandates were unlawful will lead to justifiable and wide-ranging compensations.<br/>
<br/>
As Rowan Dean wrote in The Spectator Australia, ‘The news, of course, is to be welcomed. It is the first crack in the dam wall and will hopefully be followed by significant class actions and further court cases…’<br/>
<br/>
Here, here! And let’s hope that the issue does not become bogged down in appeals courts by a government with a guilty conscience and deep pockets.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, my short-lived dispensing career was never a waste of time and it actually saved one of our young son’s lives when a pharmacist dispensed the wrong medication which I recognised as a potent heart drug that could have stopped his from beating!<br/>
<br/>
Again, that’s another story.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/how-low-can-covid-catastrophists-go/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/how-low-can-covid-catastrophists-go/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Unusable solar farms in the NT</b><br/>
<br/>
Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler says government-owned Power and Water Corporation could purchase four privately owned solar farms across the Top End in a bid to finally bring them online.<br/>
<br/>
The handful of solar farms were built near Katherine and in Darwin's rural area. However, they have been sitting disconnected from the Top End grid for at least four years.<br/>
<br/>
Power and Water has long held concerns about bringing the facilities online, fearing their power generation could be volatile and destabilise the Darwin-Katherine grid.<br/>
<br/>
When asked whether the solar farms could be purchased by the NT government, Ms Lawler said: "That's a possible option."<br/>
<br/>
"We need to be able to control the energy that comes from those, so it is an option," she said.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Lawler said the solar farms the government was interested in buying were currently owned by energy company ENI, but she refused to provide an estimated cost.<br/>
<br/>
The comments sparked criticism from opposition shadow treasurer Bill Yan, who questioned whether such a purchase would be the best use of taxpayer dollars. "The more important point is, can we afford to buy these things," he said.<br/>
<br/>
He also criticised the NT government's renewable energy rollout, saying the construction of these solar farms before infrastructure could handle them was "putting the cart before the horse".<br/>
<br/>
"Territory Labor led all these contracts to companies to build all these giant solar farms across the Top End," he said.<br/>
<br/>
"All of a sudden, the territory government found out they couldn't hook them up. The grid wasn't stable enough."<br/>
<br/>
The architect of the NT's "Roadmap to Renewables", Alan Langworthy, last year criticised the government's handling of the transition to 50 per cent renewables by 2030, saying "unrealistic" regulation was stymieing the commissioning of solar projects.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/nt-government-flags-possibility-of-buying-idle-solar-farms-from-private-operators-amid-renewable-energy-push/ar-BB1jl3Nb">https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/nt-government-flags-possibility-of-buying-idle-solar-farms-from-private-operators-amid-renewable-energy-push/ar-BB1jl3Nb</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-31888950167152438462024-03-05T14:51:00.001+13:002024-03-05T14:51:03.694+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Kochie tells renters to ‘love your landlord’</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Unusual wisdom in a public figure</i><br/>
<br/>
Former Sunrise host David Koch has weighed into the rental crisis debate, urging renters to “love your landlord” and instead point the blame at governments.<br/>
<br/>
Writing for The Nightly, Koch said it may sound like “heresy, but tenants should direct their anger towards all three levels of government — not their landlords — when it comes to skyrocketing rents”.<br/>
<br/>
“Governments, not landlords, have been derelict in not foreseeing and planning to avoid this rental crisis,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s complex and there is no silver bullet solution. But so-called ‘greedy’ landlords are being unfairly targeted as the scapegoat. You probably have one in your family, or among your friends, and I bet they have increased the rent to cover rising loan repayments. But vilifying property investors is going to make the crisis a whole lot worse. The reality is many of those landlords are now saying it’s simply not worth it and are selling up, which just adds to the problem.”<br/>
<br/>
Koch noted that there were around 2.2 million landlords in Australia, according to Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data, or one fifth of the population, the vast majority of whom own just one investment property.<br/>
<br/>
“They aren’t property moguls, they’re ordinary Australians trying to build a nest egg,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
He argued the reason rents were rising — in some cases by more than 50 per cent — was not “greed” but a combination of “rising interest rates, a lack of new developments because of a shortage of land, delays in approvals, banks reducing borrowing capacity, and developers going broke”, as well as “a lack of commitment from governments to develop enough affordable low-cost rental housing”.<br/>
<br/>
Koch did not mention Australia’s record immigration intake of 518,000 net overseas arrivals last year, which a growing number of experts have conceded is a key driver of housing demand.<br/>
<br/>
He echoed comments last month from billionaire property developer Harry Triguboff, who said a large reason developers were going broke was the lack of investors due to the low net return of about 2.5 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
“The only way to quickly resolve the rental crisis is to love your landlord and encourage more property investors to make more stock available,” Koch said.<br/>
<br/>
“So when debating the merits of negative gearing, be careful what you wish for. Between 1996 and 2021, private investors provided 1.1 million rentals. Community groups added 41,000 but there was a reduction of 53,000 in government properties. Rather than castigate landlords, governments should be trying to match them in the amount of new properties coming onto the market.”<br/>
<br/>
He added that the federal government’s “much-vaunted $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund will only provide an additional 30,000 social and affordable homes which is tiny compared with what is needed”.<br/>
<br/>
“So private investors will have to continue to do the heavy lifting,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
The piece, for Seven West Media’s newly launched online news site, received mixed reaction online.<br/>
<br/>
“The Nightly — off to a flyer delivering bangers,” former union boss Tim Lyons wrote on X. “Perspectives we don’t hear from new, interesting voices.”<br/>
<br/>
Another user wrote, “This daring pro-boomer pro-landlord position is exactly the sort of fearless principled stand that has been missing from the Aussie media landscape. Well done to the editorial team at The Nightly.”<br/>
<br/>
Anne Crarey, executive general manager of property services at Little Real Estate, told news.com.au last month that the rental crisis was “only getting worse” and “I don’t see anything on the horizon that’s going to change where we’re at”.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Crarey also argued the solution to the crisis has to be “encouraging people to be buying investment properties”.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t foresee any other way out of it,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t think the government’s going to be able to build what we need to build to make the rental crisis go away, so the solution firmly lands with the government in regards to making incentives to invest in properties more enticing.”<br/>
<br/>
Australia’s rental crisis has seen a “marked escalation” with an increasing number of suburbs recording the “highest possible distress score”, according to Suburbtrends’ February Rental Pain Index.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/kochie-tells-renters-to-love-your-landlord/news-story/b9721bb398d1fed9e552342d728a7f42">https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/kochie-tells-renters-to-love-your-landlord/news-story/b9721bb398d1fed9e552342d728a7f42</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Incorrectness of ham sandwiches in schools</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> How ridiculous can you get?</i><br/>
<br/>
With one in four Australian children classified as overweight or obese and an Australian state limiting the amount of ham sold in schools, what's on offer at the tuckshop is again in the spotlight.<br/>
<br/>
What is sold in state school tuckshops or canteens is governed, or at least guided, by policies set out by state and territory government departments.<br/>
<br/>
Queensland's is called Smart Choices and is run by the state's education department.<br/>
<br/>
In New South Wales it's the Healthy School Canteen Strategy run by NSW Health and South Australia employs the Right Bite Food and Drink Supply Standards developed by its department for education.<br/>
<br/>
What's central to them all is a "traffic light" system that classifies foods and drinks into green, amber and red categories.<br/>
<br/>
According to most policies, red items like pies, pizzas and pastries should only be supplied twice per school term.<br/>
<br/>
Amber items like burgers, muffins and lasagne shouldn't dominate menus, and green items like fresh fruit, vegetables and reduced fat dairy products should make up most items available.<br/>
<br/>
Debate about healthy eating at school often flares up in term 1, but this year it's been helped along by Western Australia's review of its traffic light system which has resulted in ham being shifted into a new red category.<br/>
<br/>
The Queensland Association of School Tuckshops (QAST) said it's time the Sunshine State's policy, which was written in 2007 and updated in 2016 and 2020, was also reviewed.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Wooden said a QAST audit in 2022 examined the menus of more than 250 school tuckshops and found none were fully compliant with Queensland's traffic light system.<br/>
<br/>
"At the moment, we know that the policy is not being implemented the way it should be [and] there's no incentive or mechanism to make sure that it is."<br/>
<br/>
Principle nutritionist with Health and Wellbeing Queensland Matthew Dick said Western Australia's new rules on ham at school tuckshops were in line with expert advice.<br/>
<br/>
"They want to limit it to two times per week, which is exactly the same message we as nutritionists are giving," Mr Dick said.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't rely on ham all the time. It's okay as an occasional filling in your sandwiches but relying on processed foods like ham, bacon and sausages can start to become a problem."<br/>
<br/>
Mr Dick said ham and processed meats were often high in fats, salt and additives and are considered carcinogens by the World Health Organisation.<br/>
<br/>
"Long-term consumption of processed foods can contribute to cancers in people and that's one of the real concerns with them."<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-04/tuckshop-menus-explained-school-food-nutrition/103521758">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-04/tuckshop-menus-explained-school-food-nutrition/103521758</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> A reality check for climate alarmists: net zero is impossible</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> A stable energy supply sourced from wind and sunshine was obviously impossible from the beginning but the Left have always had big problems with the obvious</i><br/>
<br/>
One of Australia’s richest mining magnates, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, says you can already feel climate change, it has caused “deaths, devastation and hardship” all around the world already, Australia has “run out of time” and he knows how to fix it.<br/>
<br/>
Forrest’s prescription promises “economic growth over generations” along with “full employment” and a “pristine environment” with “cheap energy being produced everywhere in our country”. Too easy; the only resource lacking, he says, is the “courage to get on with it”.<br/>
<br/>
To deliver this energy and environmental nirvana he wants the coal, oil and gas industries to be “taxed out of existence”. Strangely, he does not include his own iron ore industry, which relies on fossil fuels for extraction, transport and blast-furnacing into iron and steel.<br/>
<br/>
This simplistic combination of rampant alarmism and magic pudding economics is not rare. It is omnipresent in the rantings of Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, Greens leader Adam Bandt, Extinction Rebellion and the teals, but it is unusual coming from a titan of industry, albeit one in receipt of substantial government subsidies here and abroad for “green hydrogen” projects.<br/>
<br/>
We were warned by the weather bureau and climate alarmists last spring that this summer would be extraordinarily hot and dry. Given that all turned out to be a damp squib, they are turning their forecasts a little further afield with the Nine Entertainment newspapers (in cahoots with the Climate Council) offering an online tool this week to show us how many days over 35C we can expect in our suburbs in 2050 and 2090.<br/>
<br/>
It is as if these people have become so bored by the lack of public debate about their Chicken Little claims that they have opted for self-parody to amuse themselves. Not only do they seek to raise the fear of Gaia over these long-range predictions, they implore us to “take action” to make sure our particular postcode can keep the mercury below 35C for a day or two more in the summer of 2090.<br/>
<br/>
The Greens voters of Penrith and Broadmeadows might be pretty cheesed off in 2090 when it still turns out that it’s only those affluent coastal postcodes that get the sea breeze. The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald might encounter some sweaty subscribers with buyer’s remorse in the autumn of 2091.<br/>
<br/>
In this climate of fearmongering and idiocy we need more reality checks. For starters we might ease the sense of crisis by levelling with the public that the prime reason many heat records have been broken in Australia in recent decades is because the Bureau of Meteorology revised most of its early temperature records downwards and because it ignores any records before 1910, thereby eradicating from calculations known hot periods such as the Federation drought. (It argues this was scientifically valid and necessary, but the fact it has been done is worth sharing more widely, for context if nothing else.)<br/>
<br/>
Still, temperatures will do what they will, and global emissions are still rising. It is a scientific fact that whatever Australia does on emissions cannot affect global climate, and natural climate variations can easily override any human interventions, good or bad. From the upper echelons of state and federal governments we are fed two strands of argument that are seldom challenged. The first is the alarmism and the other tells us renewables are the only way to deliver the emissions cuts required.<br/>
<br/>
“So, while moving towards a renewable grid is a massive transformation,” Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen says, “it is necessary for our economy, for our energy security and for the climate. Stop the delay, distraction, deception and denial. Get with the program.”<br/>
<br/>
Clearly we need to address the practical reality of moving to net zero, and the pretence that this can be done easily without a heavy economic cost. We can start with the International Energy Agency, which works closely with the UN and is all on board with the net zero zeitgeist. In its Global Energy Transitions Stocktake it recognises that “half the emission reductions needed to reach net zero come from technologies not yet on the market”. Got that? We cannot ever get to net zero unless we develop technologies that are “under development” or yet to be invented.<br/>
<br/>
Czech-Canadian scientist Vaclav Smil is the author of 40 books mainly focused on outlining complex realities and dilemmas. His 2022 book How the World Really Works contains bad news for those climate activists who just want to “do something” about climate change and believe the solution is easy – just decarbonise.<br/>
<br/>
“The real wrench in the works,” warns Smil, is that “we are a fossil-fuelled civilisation whose technical and scientific advances, quality of life and prosperity rest on the combustion of huge quantities of fossil carbon, and we cannot simply walk away from this critical determinant of our fortunes in a few decades, never mind years.”<br/>
<br/>
He is not a complete pessimist, just anchored in the reality: “Complete decarbonisation of the global economy by 2050 is now conceivable only at the cost of unthinkable economic retreat, or as a result of extraordinarily rapid transformations relying on near miraculous technical advances.”<br/>
<br/>
This is because we rely on fossil fuels not just to generate most of our electricity but to fuel our road, rail, air and sea transport, heat homes, power industry, mine minerals, create chemical and plastic products, manufacture fertilisers and grow food. While wealthy countries such as ours can make some expensive changes to improve efficiency and reduce emissions, more than half of the world’s population is still racing to get the energy it needs, massively expanding global energy demand.<br/>
<br/>
“Annual global demand for fossil carbon is now just above 10 billion tons a year,” writes Smil, “a mass nearly five times more than the recent annual harvest of all staple grains feeding humanity, and more than twice the total mass of water drunk annually by the world’s nearly eight billion inhabitants – and it should be obvious that displacing and replacing such a mass is not something best handled by government targets for years ending in zero or five.”<br/>
<br/>
Other practical realities deepen the dilemma. The challenges for renewables relate largely to scale and efficiency. Smil again: “Large nuclear reactors are the most reliable producers of electricity, some of them now generate it 90-95 per cent of the time, compared to about 45 per cent for the best offshore wind turbines and 25 per cent for photovoltaic cells in even the sunniest of climates – while Germany’s solar panels produce electricity only about 12 per cent of the time.”<br/>
<br/>
Other researchers have tried to quantify the mineral resources needed to manufacture enough turbines, solar panels, batteries and electric engines to get to net zero.<br/>
<br/>
In his paper Mining for Net Zero: The Impossible Task, Alan G. Jones finds we will have to dramatically increase the mining effort, which is already higher than at any time in history.<br/>
<br/>
“For example,” Jones writes, “one estimate is that there needs to be as much copper mined over the next 20-25 years as has been mined to date.”<br/>
<br/>
Another geoscientist who has been based in Finland and Australia, Simon Michaux, has warned about the scale of replacing fossil fuel energy with renewables and hydrogen. “So, we are discussing bringing in a power system significantly larger than the one we have now,” Michaux reminds us, “with power systems that are not as effective and more expensive.”<br/>
<br/>
Michaux has run detailed calculations on all the key resources such as lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt required globally, and the amount we are capable of extracting. The results are sobering.<br/>
<br/>
“We don’t have enough mining production or mineral reserves to manufacture the first generation of renewable technology,” he finds.<br/>
<br/>
But it is even worse than that because, as he points out, all the kit, from wind turbines to solar panels, from electric engines to batteries, will have to be replaced within 10 to 25 years, and again and again.<br/>
<br/>
Chris Greig, a senior research scientist from Princeton University in the US, has costed the transition for Net Zero Australia. “Such is the level of investment required to build out new-generation storage facilities such as batteries and pumped-hydro, and transmission lines, that up to $1.5 trillion will need to be deployed by 2030 to put Australia on track to meet its 2050 commitments,” declares the study he co-authored. That is an amount proximate to the size of our entire GDP to be invested over just the next six years. Good luck.<br/>
<br/>
And if the resources, innovation and funding required do not make this all fanciful enough, try considering the land, approvals and practicality of installing it. Bowen has boasted about needing to install 22,000 500-watt solar panels every day for eight years, as well as more than one 7-megawatt wind turbine every day connected by at least 10,000km of new transmission lines across the same period.<br/>
<br/>
Most of this will be in regional and coastal communities that do not want them. And all of it, spread diffusely across the country, will be vulnerable to disruption by storms and bushfires.<br/>
<br/>
Yet they seriously try to argue that nuclear power, sited compactly on existing industrial/generation sites, requiring no additional transmission lines, will be too slow and expensive.<br/>
<br/>
It is time to take the ideology and fantasy out of energy policy and address the reality.<br/>
<br/>
The climate and renewables zealots are in denial.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/a-reality-check-for-climate-alarmists-net-zero-is-impossible/news-story/9bc08179967d266774c53bfed7876a16">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/a-reality-check-for-climate-alarmists-net-zero-is-impossible/news-story/9bc08179967d266774c53bfed7876a16</a>
</p>
*******************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> ‘Extreme Risk’: Australia’s Oldest Hot Water Company Says Grid Not Ready for Net Zero</b><br/>
<br/>
One of Australia’s oldest manufacturers of hot water system suppliers, Dux Hot Water, has warned a Senate inquiry that demand for electricity will increase faster than projections, meaning moves to shut down coal-fired power stations are too risky for the stability of the grid.<br/>
<br/>
When it was acquired by Noritz in 2015, the Japanese company said Dux had an annual turnover of around $70 million (US$45.8 million).<br/>
<br/>
It is the oldest water heater manufacturer in Australia, and provides a full range of electric water heaters encompassing electric storage, gas storage, gas continuous flow, solar, heat pump, and commercial water heaters.<br/>
<br/>
In its submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into Residential Electrification, Dux said it “fully supports the government’s net zero emissions by 2050 target” but it believes the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) estimate for how much electricity the country uses is too conservative.<br/>
<br/>
It points out that since the AEMO study in 2002, the Victorian government has banned gas connections in new homes and apartments this year. Victoria is Australia’s largest gas-connected market.<br/>
<br/>
“Supply chains are shifting to electrical appliances sooner than was previously expected. The market is aware of a clear signal of electrification,” Dux said.<br/>
<br/>
“Australians already have an incredibly high demand for electricity. In November 2022 ... an International Energy Agency report show[ed] Australia to be the world’s second-largest [per capita] consumer of electricity in 2020. Australia’s demand for electricity will accelerate with the replacement of gas appliances.”<br/>
<br/>
As a result, the government should be wary of closing coal-fired electricity generation stations too soon, the company said, pointing out that Australia is still very reliant on electricity from that source.<br/>
<br/>
In 2023, at least 50 percent but typically over 60 percent of the National Energy Market was powered by coal.<br/>
<br/>
Closing Coal Power Stations Has Pushed Prices Up: Dux<br/>
<br/>
“Electricity producers and their stakeholders are motivated to close coal-fired power stations and justifiably reluctant to invest capital into their maintenance,” the company said. “Hazelwood power station in Victoria closed back in 2017 resulting in a huge spike in wholesale electricity pricing.”<br/>
<br/>
It quotes the Australian Energy Regulator (AER): “In Victoria, average spot prices for 2017 were up 85 percent on 2016, and up 32 percent in South Australia for the same period. New South Wales and Queensland were up 63 percent and 53 percent respectively.”<br/>
<br/>
Further closures will only exacerbate the issue, Dux said.<br/>
<br/>
“Liddell power station in NSW closed in April 2023. Origin has provided the required regulatory notice to close Eraring power station in August 2025. This is Australia’s largest power station supplying 25 percent of NSW’s electricity.<br/>
<br/>
“Similarly, AGL has announced the closure Loy Yang in Vic and Bayswater in NSW. The NSW and Victorian governments are aware of the heightened supply risk and negotiating for some of these coal-fired power plants to remain open at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.”<br/>
<br/>
Not Ready for a Full Renewable Transition<br/>
<br/>
There were also shortfalls in storage capacity for renewables and in the transmission network.<br/>
<br/>
“Renewables like solar and wind energy are weather dependent, so Australia needs significant firming capacity for when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun doesn’t shine. Sufficient firming capacity from batteries, gas-fired power stations and pumped hydro doesn’t currently exist,” Dux asserts.<br/>
<br/>
“Australia’s current transmission network, especially in NSW and Victoria is based around centralised power generation in the La Trobe or Hunter Valleys. Renewable energy solar and wind farms aren’t in these same locations.<br/>
<br/>
“They’re located in areas like Central West NSW, New England, Bendigo, Ballarat and require 10,000 kilometres of new 500kV transmission lines to be connected in this decade. Difficult land owner consultations, planning delays, skills and materials shortages have made for slow progress,” the submission says.<br/>
<br/>
The company also complains that conflicting signals from the government have made it very difficult for manufacturers to plan.<br/>
<br/>
For instance, electric storage water heaters are banned in new homes in the National Construction Code 2022 (NCC), despite there currently being no restrictions on their installation in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t know that you could identify an appliance subjected to the heavy hand of government more than a water heater. In 2007, the Australian government announced a proposed ban on electric storage waters from 2010 in favour of gas.<br/>
<br/>
Electrification of products represents a u-turn in policy direction. Hundreds of thousands of new homes have been built with gas appliances over the last two decades,” said Dux CEO Simon Terry.<br/>
<br/>
Referencing Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s prediction that the energy market will be ready to deliver 82 percent of power from renewable sources by 2030, the submission asks: “If 82 percent of the electricity supply in less than a decade is going to be from renewable sources, why is the installation of electric storage water heaters still restricted in some states” noting that South Australia first outlawed new installations of electric water heaters in 2008, meaning over 95 percent of installations over the last 15 years were of continuous flow gas water heaters.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/extreme-risk-if-coal-fired-power-stations-closed-too-soon-dux-hot-water-systems-5589951">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/extreme-risk-if-coal-fired-power-stations-closed-too-soon-dux-hot-water-systems-5589951</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-21175606213519650882024-03-04T15:55:00.002+13:002024-03-04T15:55:14.032+13:00<br><br/>
<b> Sydney University abandons maths prerequisites in diversity push</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> I think this is a step in the right direction. I was always bad at maths at school but became a capable computer programmer using a demanding language called FORTRAN, which literally means "formula translation". A line of FORTRAN code looks very much like a line of algebra. And I did write programs requiring up to 5-dimensional matrices.<br/>
<br/>
So I was good at something maths-related that would normally have required a maths prerequisite. But I would have been blocked by such a prerequisite these days. Prerequisites are simply too rigid to account for varying patterns of abiity in students</i><br/>
<br/>
The University of Sydney is ditching the advanced mathematics prerequisites for scores of degrees in response to the declining number of HSC students taking the subject.<br/>
<br/>
Vice chancellor Mark Scott said maths teacher shortages meant too many students could not study the subject in year 12, providing a barrier for diverse students to study at the university.<br/>
<br/>
“Mathematical skills and knowledge are vital for students to succeed at university and thrive in the workplaces of the future,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“Yet through no fault of their own, many students don’t have the opportunity to take advanced mathematics at school, a situation exacerbated by ongoing maths teacher shortages that affect some schools more than others.”<br/>
<br/>
The prerequisite change, to begin next year, is a reversal of much of the changes brought into effect in 2019 that introduced two unit maths prerequisites for 62 degrees.<br/>
<br/>
That was supposed to address falling enrolments in maths and lift academic standards at the university.<br/>
<br/>
However, the latest data from the NSW Education Standards Authority shows there were almost 10 per cent fewer students taking advanced maths in 2023 compared to 2018.<br/>
<br/>
Scott, a former NSW Education secretary, said the university would provide “bespoke mathematics support” which would include tailored assistance and advice, preparatory workshops and bridging courses to catch students up.<br/>
<br/>
The change will mean degrees including commerce, science, medicine, psychology, veterinary science and economics will no longer require students to have undertaken advanced maths in year 12.<br/>
<br/>
Degrees in engineering, advanced computing and pharmacy will retain the mathematics prerequisite.<br/>
<br/>
From next year, year 12 students who achieve a Band 3 or higher in advanced mathematics will also be eligible to receive an additional point towards their selection rank under the university’s Academic Excellence Scheme.<br/>
<br/>
University of Canberra University associate professor Philip Roberts, a rural education specialist, said a lack of access to advanced mathematics was a huge issue, particularly in regional and low SES areas.<br/>
<br/>
“Our research shows that schools which have larger numbers of low SES students are not studying advanced maths at the same rate as schools which have higher SES students,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
He said teacher shortages were making the issue worse, but that it was also driven by a perception by students they would score better in general maths.<br/>
<br/>
Roberts said even when universities did not have calculus-based mathematics prerequisites, students who did not take HSC advanced maths were still behind their peers who had once they started their degrees.<br/>
<br/>
“Advanced maths also contributes more to their overall ATAR, so a lack of access limits their opportunities of getting into uni,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
University of Sydney deputy vice chancellor (education) Professor Joanne Wright said it was clear it was harder for some students to access higher-level mathematics simply because of where they are from.<br/>
<br/>
“Schools in regional and remote locations are significantly less likely to offer advanced and extension mathematics,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“Our new approach responds to these realities of the student experience today and ensures we’re better equipping students for their university studies and careers.”<br/>
<br/>
She said new tools were being developed to identify gaps in students’ knowledge, including a pilot of a diagnostic tool designed to match students with the most appropriate learning support services when they enrol.<br/>
<br/>
“Regardless of their starting point, all our students will have the opportunity to complete their studies with the same level of mathematics skills and knowledge,” Professor Wright said<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-university-abandons-hsc-prerequisites-in-diversity-push-20240301-p5f918.html">https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-university-abandons-hsc-prerequisites-in-diversity-push-20240301-p5f918.html</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Government silencing Australians in the name of human rights</b><br/>
<br/>
The Australian Human Rights Commission wants to hear your views on dangerous male sex offenders being allowed to identify as women and be held in women’s prisons. But only if you’re in favour of it…<br/>
<br/>
Our highly paid, taxpayer-funded Human Rights Commission would love to hear your thoughts on males demanding to be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Providing you’re all for it, obviously.<br/>
<br/>
Many would argue that bureaucrats in Canberra have long given the impression that they don’t want to interact with the general public who pay their salaries, but rarely has it been so explicitly spelled out by the bureaucracy.<br/>
<br/>
‘Please note that only subject-matter experts are invited to submit,’ the AHRC specifies in its new consultation about ‘threats to trans and gender diverse human rights’.<br/>
<br/>
‘Please note that we are unable to accept submissions from non-specialists in this area.’<br/>
<br/>
The ‘expert’ category, says the AHRC, includes activists and academics. The AHRC’s ‘non-specialists’ covers women, girls, parents, and anyone not inside the elitist bubble who decided that it’s ‘progressive’ to undermine sex-based rights and the reality of sex.<br/>
<br/>
The effect of this anti-democratic pronouncement is that more than 22 million Australians are being told by the Human Rights Commission we’re neither qualified nor welcome to be involved in their consultation. Never mind that the Commission has a legislated duty to ensure it acts with regard for ‘the indivisibility and universality of human rights’ and ‘the principle that every person is free and equal in dignity and rights’.<br/>
<br/>
Which brings us to the key question: What are these ‘trans and gender diverse human rights’ that the AHRC says are under threat? Do they mean the asserted right for a male to enter women’s spaces or facilities without consent? The AHRC can’t, or won’t, say. They’re asking for a select group of people to tell them about the supposed opposition to human rights, despite not being able to specify what these human rights are. That reveals the activist agenda that is really at play here.<br/>
<br/>
The debate at the centre of gender ideology is a very important public policy matter. Women have long had access to single-sex sports and certain services or facilities that are necessary to protect privacy, dignity and safety. Advocates of self-ID policies argue that males who identify as women must be allowed to access these female spaces, whether or not the women who rely on those spaces consent. Extraordinarily, many of our elites have decided to go along with the fringe idea that women’s consent doesn’t matter in this context.<br/>
<br/>
Since human rights are indivisible, universal, and equally available to all, the AHRC cannot seriously suggest that there is a human right for a specific group of males to enter a space or sport designed specifically for females. So why hasn’t the AHRC made clear in its terms of reference that opposition to males demanding that right is in no way a ‘threat’ to human rights, but in fact a majority-held position that Australians are perfectly free to advocate in a democracy?<br/>
<br/>
The AHRC is a taxpayer-funded body with significant powers and authority. Yet this consultation is straight out of the playbook of hard-left activist groups and media platforms that have actively targeted women for abuse. I’m one of millions of Australians who believes that women and girls should be entitled to single-sex sports and spaces. Because activists and virtue-signalling elites can’t mount a rational argument against this position, they simply scream that anyone supporting single-sex sports is ‘anti-trans’ or an ‘extremist’, or campaigning against ‘trans rights’. It’s a laughably misleading tactic, or at least it would be if it hadn’t been adopted by much of the media and bureaucracy, and in doing so given abusive men the green light to unleash hideous abuse and threats against women. There’s no excuse for the AHRC not to be aware of this, yet now they are adopting the exact same tactics by setting up a witch hunt against Australian women who have stood up for women’s sex-based rights.<br/>
<br/>
Let’s be very clear here: the AHRC is actively seeking input from male activists who have campaigned for the rights of dangerous male offenders like ‘Lisa Jones’. And they are asking for these men to complain how women are a ‘threat to trans and gender diverse human rights’ for pointing out Lisa Jones is actually a dangerous paedophile and repeat sex offender who should never be referred to as a woman by media or placed in a women’s prison.<br/>
<br/>
Worse, the AHRC are actively preventing women from putting in a submission to point out this is exactly what has happened in Australia under the banner of ‘trans rights’. Their terms of reference makes clear that a submission from a female prisoner about the dangers of placing male sex offenders in women’s prisons would not be accepted by the AHRC.<br/>
<br/>
Once again under the Albanese government, the tropes of ‘dis- and misinformation’ are being used to shut down legitimate debate and free speech. When seeking the votes of the Australian people, Albanese himself conceded that a woman is an adult, human female. It is his government’s subsequent efforts to silence Australians, for holding that same position, which is extremist, radical, and a danger to democracy.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/government-silencing-australians-in-the-name-of-human-rights/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/government-silencing-australians-in-the-name-of-human-rights/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Why new green jobs are at risk if old industries die</b><br/>
<br/>
All the post-pandemic talk of resurrecting Australia’s manufacturing sector and securing local supply chains seems like a lifetime away, amid talk that yet another manufacturer could go quietly into the night this year.<br/>
<br/>
The fate of Qenos’s Melbourne and Sydney manufacturing plants is not yet set in stone, and the fact that the company – owned by China National Chemical – has recently spent money rebuilding a cooling tower at its Botany Bay plastics plant offers hope not all of its Australian facilities will be closed.<br/>
<br/>
But if one or both of the plants are shuttered, they will join a raft of major plant closures since all the hullabaloo about securing domestic supply chains during the pandemic – including Incitec Pivot’s Gibson Island fertiliser plant in Brisbane, Exxon’s oil refinery in Melbourne’s Altona, a similar facility owned by BP in Kwinana, south of Perth, and Alcoa’s alumina refinery also in Kwinana. Similar threats hang over BHP’s nickel smelter in Kalgoorlie and refinery in Kwinana.<br/>
<br/>
All of these plants are old, sub-scale by global standards, and suffer – compared to international competitors – from higher labour, gas and energy costs, and from rising pressure to comply with environmental standards.<br/>
<br/>
But the threat to Qenos’s local facilities is also a timely reminder of the knock-on effects of the closure of manufacturing plants.<br/>
<br/>
Tight gas markets have played a part in Qenos’s troubles – its gas bills reportedly doubled in 2023. But the major cause of its most recent problems was the shuttering in 2021 of Exxon’s Altona refinery, which supplied the LPG used as a feedstock for Qenos’s plastics production lines.<br/>
<br/>
That happened under the previous Morrison government – and amid plenty of warnings about the downstream effects of its closure, including from Qenos, which was forced to close half the lines of its own production facility in the wake of the exit of the Exxon plant.<br/>
<br/>
Any decision by BHP to close its Kalgoorlie nickel smelter will also ripple through the broader WA mining industry. The smelter supplies sulphuric acid, a by-product of its operations, to other parts of the state’s mining industry – and, in particular, to Lynas’s new cracking and leaching plant outside of Kalgoorlie.<br/>
<br/>
As Lynas boss Amanda Lacaze said, the manufacturing and processing industry in Australia is an ecosystem, not a collection of unrelated operations.<br/>
<br/>
And perhaps more important is the loss of the technical know-how that comes with the closure of these type of facilities.<br/>
<br/>
Much is made of the loss of blue-collar jobs in manufacturing. But workers in these types of plants need substantial technical skills to keep these plants open, along with the expertise of chemists and a host of other professionals. And, despite the hype around “green jobs” in energy, hydrogen, lithium and rare earths, it is difficult to build that kind of expertise from scratch.<br/>
<br/>
Companies that rely on gas for power and as an input are caught between the pressure to ditch fossil fuel extraction and the political and commercial cost of requiring gas producers to reserve more production for the domestic market.<br/>
<br/>
Those pressures may mean that Australia is destined to shed the remaining industries that are dependent on petrochemical products as a feedstock.<br/>
<br/>
Saving Australia’s remaining manufacturing and chemicals industries – and building new ones – will take actual policy designed to attract investment, backed by long-term support from successive governments of both political persuasions.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/talk-of-qenos-closure-highlights-the-risk-of-letting-manufacturing-industries-quietly-die/news-story/76fc21cd8481ff32e73998965e6d9674">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/talk-of-qenos-closure-highlights-the-risk-of-letting-manufacturing-industries-quietly-die/news-story/76fc21cd8481ff32e73998965e6d9674</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> How I found myself agreeing with cash king Bob Katter</b><br/>
<br/>
Caitlin Fitzsimmons<br/>
<br/>
I’ve found myself in furious agreement with Queensland politician Bob Katter about one issue – that businesses should accept cash.<br/>
<br/>
Last month Katter was fired up because a cafe in the Australian Parliament House initially refused to accept his $50 note, telling him it was a cashless business. Katter told them it was too bad for them because cash was legal tender, and they legally had to accept it.<br/>
<br/>
He went on Sky News to explain himself. “If you have a cashless society, the banks control your life, you’re not able to buy a loaf of bread without permission from the banks,” Katter said. “It’s bad enough now but it will become infinitely worse.”<br/>
<br/>
Like most Australians, I lost the cash habit at some point in the past decade, content to tap away to pay for everything from coffee to groceries. I often have no cash in my wallet.<br/>
<br/>
Recently, though, I’ve been trying to change that. I started noticing that more and more retailers, especially cafes and small shops, were imposing surcharges for card payments. Being the former Money editor of this masthead, I knew how quickly little amounts can add up. I’ve also been finding that an increasing number of businesses no longer accept cash. I’ve encountered this several times in the month since Katter’s run-in at the Canberra cafe.<br/>
<br/>
On the Saturday before last, I was unfortunately not at the second Taylor Swift concert, having failed to find tickets. Nor was I at the Bondi Beach Party, murdering the dance floor with Sophie Ellis-Bextor. But I was at the Capitol Theatre, seeing the entrancing Australian Ballet production of Alice with my daughter.<br/>
<br/>
I was surprised to find that the bar at the theatre is cashless. The bartender informed me that this was stated in the terms and conditions of sale when I bought my tickets. The website confirms the policy but does not state a reason.<br/>
<br/>
Earlier in February, I came across the same phenomenon at Spice Alley, off Broadway, where there is a collection of small food stalls and shared tables in a central courtyard. I wanted to give my teenagers cash, so they could go and choose their own meals, but the stalls were all cashless, forcing us to go one by one. One of the stallholders told me that Spice Alley management did not allow them to take cash, but customers could load currency onto a cashless payment card at a central cashier. The Spice Alley website says the policy is to improve “speed of service, safety and hygiene”.<br/>
<br/>
Like Katter, I thought cash was legal tender and that businesses had to accept it. It turns out we were both wrong. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website states that businesses can choose which payment types they accept, but consumers have to be informed before they make the purchase.<br/>
<br/>
Informing customers can be as simple as a sign at the cash register, or a notice on a website, which feels like a loophole. There’s no doubt card payments are convenient, but we’re all paying the price, and we should have a choice.<br/>
<br/>
A cashless society is not a globalist conspiracy, but it is a capitalist one because the banks and other financial institutions are making a fortune from card payment fees.<br/>
<br/>
How much exactly? I’m glad you asked.<br/>
<br/>
Reserve Bank figures show, in the year ended December 2023, there were about 3.6 billion credit and charge card transactions and 11 billion debit card transactions in Australia. The business is charged a merchant service fee every time someone pays with a card. Sometimes they have a package deal, but on average, it ranges from 0.35 per cent of the transaction for eftpos to 1.69 per cent for Diners Card. The merchant acquirer – the big four banks and newcomers such as Stripe – and the card issuer all get a cut.<br/>
<br/>
Businesses are legally allowed to pass on the cost directly to consumers in the form of a surcharge. My hunch that surcharging is becoming more common was on the money: businesses passed on a surcharge to consumers on 7 per cent of transactions in 2022, up from 5 per cent in 2019. The median surcharge was 50c per transaction.<br/>
<br/>
My rough and ready calculation is that Australian consumers are directly paying $511 million a year for the privilege of paying with a card. The rest of the time, the retailers pay instead – and consumers pay indirectly.<br/>
<br/>
Lance Blockley, the managing director of The Initiatives Group, a payment consultancy, estimates that Australian businesses are charged $5.8 billion a year – $3.5 billion for credit and charge cards and $2.3 billion for debit cards.<br/>
<br/>
In Katter’s Sky interview, he made a leap from talking about cash to warning against “intermittent power” aka renewable energy. At this point, he lost me. He’s wrong about renewables, but not about cash.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-i-found-myself-agreeing-with-cash-king-bob-katter-20240226-p5f7wv.html">https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-i-found-myself-agreeing-with-cash-king-bob-katter-20240226-p5f7wv.html</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-66638551972066543042024-03-03T03:22:00.002+13:002024-03-03T03:24:39.664+13:00
<br/>
<b> Fears of ‘mass bleaching event’ at the Great Barrier Reef as 1100km impacted</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> We get this scare every 2 or 3 years. The fact is that the reef is a living thing that waxes and wanes, as it has done for hundreds of thousands of years. Some recent years have seen record HIGH levels of coral growth</i><br/>
<br/>
Heat stress is causing widespread bleaching across the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.<br/>
<br/>
Surveys by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science showed the beaching was “extensive and fairly uniform across all surveyed reefs”.<br/>
<br/>
Corals are a colony of marine invertebrates and they have a symbiotic relationship with algae.<br/>
<br/>
They can turn completely white when water warms or cools dramatically, and they react by expelling the algae.<br/>
<br/>
It doesn’t mean the corals will certainly die, but rather the bleaching makes them more susceptible to disease and hampers reproduction.<br/>
<br/>
However, severely bleached corals are likely to die if the water temperature remains too high for too long. They can recover if the temperature stabilises.<br/>
<br/>
James Cook University (JCU), stated in a press release last week that scientists had spotted the first signs of serious bleaching with “moderate to severe coral bleaching” seen offshore east of Rockhampton at the Keppels.<br/>
<br/>
The bleaching was discovered during routine surveys in the tourist hotspot, which is also critical for recreational and commercial fishing.<br/>
<br/>
Researchers believe fish are becoming less abundant around the Keppels due to factors including bleaching and overfishing.<br/>
<br/>
The Guardianreports that bleaching had been seen across a 1100km stretch of the Great Barrier Reef from the Keppels in the south to Lizard Island in the north.<br/>
<br/>
Of the 27 sites inspected at the Keppels, “most sites showing signs of bleaching”, with only corals in deeper waters unimpacted by the heat stress.<br/>
<br/>
Scientist Dr Maya Srinivasan, from JCU’s Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER), said the water temperatures around the Keppels were well above average, hitting 29C on multiple days.<br/>
<br/>
“I have been working on these reefs for nearly 20 years and I have never felt the water as warm as this,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“Once we were in the water, we could instantly see parts of the reef that were completely white from severe bleaching. Some corals were already dying.”<br/>
<br/>
She observed that the corals could recover if the water cooled. “We did see the temperatures begin to drop towards the end of the trip,” she added.<br/>
<br/>
The Bureau of Meteorology warned in its recent climate outlook that temperatures were expected to be above the median for most of the country over the next few months due to record warm oceans globally and a weakening El Nino.<br/>
<br/>
The current bleaching could be the seventh mass bleaching event to hit the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef in recent history.<br/>
<br/>
Mass bleaching events were observed on the Great Barrier Reef — which is listed as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World — in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020, CNN reported.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/fears-of-mass-bleaching-event-at-the-great-barrier-reef-as-1100km-impacted/news-story/bc3d90b18d5ca90b6f527f380e688bbf">https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/fears-of-mass-bleaching-event-at-the-great-barrier-reef-as-1100km-impacted/news-story/bc3d90b18d5ca90b6f527f380e688bbf</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Angry nurses rally at Gold Coast University Hospital, demand jobs back</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> A vindictive bureaucracy at work. They don't like admitting that they were wrong</i><br/>
<br/>
Dozens of placard-waving nurses and other healthcare workers took part in the rally outside Gold Coast University Hospital on Saturday.<br/>
<br/>
It followed fury this week after The Courier-Mail revealed leaked Queensland Health emails telling a veteran nurse that “we are unable to re-employ any staff who were officially terminated” for refusing the jab.<br/>
<br/>
Queensland Health boss Michael Walsh said the edict was incorrect and wrote to all hospital and health services in the state on Friday telling them there was no directive not to reinstate sacked workers.<br/>
<br/>
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman this week repeatedly denied there were any barriers to hundreds of workers who refused to comply with the vaccination mandate from returning to work.<br/>
<br/>
But nurses protesting on the Gold Coast said they were still struggling to get their jobs back.<br/>
<br/>
They included 23-year veteran intensive care nurse Michelle Williams, who said she tried to reapply at the major hospital she was sacked from in 2021 but was told there were no vacancies - only to see a job ad for a position.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s frustrating, it’s really frustrating,” she said. “Patients are suffering and they’ve got very junior staff looking after them. “There’s so many of us with so much experience and our experience is just going to waste.”<br/>
<br/>
Ms Williams said Ms Fentiman needed to “stop lying to us”.<br/>
<br/>
“We want to come back to work, we’ve done nothing wrong except not follow this one (vaccine) direction,” she said. “We’re not criminals. We’re people who love our jobs, we love looking after patients and we just want to help people. “We just want to come back to work and do what we love doing, and that’s helping people get better.”<br/>
<br/>
Ella Leach, secretary of the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, said Ms Fentiman had not responded to an invitation to attend or at least endorse the rally.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Leach said the minister had been sent the names and experience of 350 sacked health care workers who wanted to return and “Shannon should be reaching out to them directly” instead of making them reapply.<br/>
<br/>
“There’s just zero excuse … we want her to take some actual action,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“These people were born to be nurses and health professionals - they want to work. It doesn’t make them happy hearing that the system’s crumbling, it makes them desperately angry and upset. “All they want to do is work.”<br/>
<br/>
Ms Leach was herself sacked from Queensland Children’s Hospital for refusing the vaccine - in January this year, four months after the mandate was lifted, and despite being seven months’ pregnant. She launched unfair dismissal action against Queensland Health.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Leach said many sacked healthcare workers who had reapplied for jobs with Queensland Health were still being rejected because of their “disciplinary action history” in refusing the vaccine.<br/>
<br/>
“These people have decades of experience and they are desperately needed,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Leach said 6000 nurses were predicted to retire in 2024 but Queensland Health was hiring nurses from interstate or overseas, with incentives of up to $70,000.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/angry-nurses-rally-at-gold-coast-university-hospital-demand-jobs-back/news-story/37d0412f8b3f3371999b35dc15483c12">https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/angry-nurses-rally-at-gold-coast-university-hospital-demand-jobs-back/news-story/37d0412f8b3f3371999b35dc15483c12</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> The incorrectness of clothing</b><br/>
<br/>
To cope with the outrageous creep of authoritarian behaviour and inescapable globalism, sometimes citizens of the West refer to themselves as ‘peasants’. Call it a bit of lingering British gallows humour.<br/>
<br/>
Increasingly, that is exactly how the Labor Party views Australians – as the ‘peasantry’. Our ancestors, who lived under the thumb of feudal lords and warring barons, paid less tax. You, and your family, are among the highest-taxed people to live and it is about to get worse.<br/>
<br/>
No matter how hard Australians work, Labor’s greed has erected a perspex ceiling on wealth which it lowers a notch every year, pushing the middle and working classes down.<br/>
<br/>
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese talks about ‘closing the pay gap’ between men and women (gendered terms Labor can only define when there’s an election on the horizon), it is being done by making both poorer.<br/>
<br/>
Equality in poverty, that is the mantra of socialism – Labor’s eternal paramour.<br/>
<br/>
The beauty of capitalism has meant the creation of cheaper markets and cut-price products. These have helped to maintain a level of comfort in challenging economic times. Selling these cheap, admittedly inferior, products has kept a generation in work and the economy ticking over. It’s not perfect, but it is better than looking down over the edge of the gulag, shovel in hand, dirt blowing in your face.<br/>
<br/>
As long as there is a free market, there is hope for recovery. There is hope for freedom.<br/>
<br/>
While these markets make our lives livable, the World Economic Forum (and the ‘desperate to please’ political leaders hanging on their every word), have decided that this cheap capitalism is a threat to the planet because it creates ‘evil carbon emissions’.<br/>
<br/>
I suggest it is a threat to their political power.<br/>
<br/>
The list of carbon restrictions grows every day. Last week we learned that Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has found a new capitalist foe to conquer – fast-fashion.<br/>
<br/>
Alarm bells first rang at the World Economic Forum with the headline, Suits you – and the planet: Why fashion needs a sustainability revolution. It was a report based on the moaning of two ‘experts’ who insisted that 20 per cent of wastewater is produced by the fashion industry and 10 per cent of global emissions. These statistics rather miss the point that something, somewhere, will always be responsible for emissions. Humans need to wear clothes and the Australian Union movement made it impossible to manufacture them domestically where we’d have more control over the environmental result. Instead of regulating China, they are coming after Western retailers.<br/>
<br/>
‘We cannot afford the trajectory of fashion increasing to maybe as much as 25 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 … how do we take out fossil fuels from the fashion industry?’<br/>
<br/>
Of course, the ‘change needs to be radical … we have to reduce production and consumption of fashion by between 75 and 95 per cent. We’re not talking about snipping a bit off’.<br/>
<br/>
The report is casually talking about destroying the fashion industry that keeps the clothes on your back.<br/>
<br/>
That report was written in 2021 and subsequently ignored during the Covid years when the imminent threat of the evil fashion industry vanished for a while.<br/>
<br/>
The ‘burn it to the ground’ rhetoric of the WEF has since camouflaged itself as ‘Fashionomy’, wearing the sheep’s wool of the new favourite buzzword ‘circular economy’.<br/>
<br/>
‘Sharing the circular economy knowledge and the negative impact of the fashion industry will help people to be a part of the second-hand clothes cycle, and clothing repair shops can become the new option to encourage customers not to waste their money. If the community reduces textile waste, makes savings in the family economy, and helps the growth of the local economy, we will see an impact on the development of a sustainable lifestyle, helping mitigate climate change, and supporting sustainable cities.’<br/>
<br/>
Notice the change in language? If the government knocks 95 per cent of the retail industry out, and all those jobs along with it, we won’t see a ‘growth in the economy’.<br/>
<br/>
With no original ideas, Ms Plibersek has warned the clothing industry – one of the largest employers in Australia – that it must ‘turn its back on fast-fashion’ and if it doesn’t mend its ways, well, the ever-loving State will be forced to intervene.<br/>
<br/>
‘Government is not sitting on our hands on this issue. The federal government has put the fashion industry on a watch list,’ said Ms Plibersek.<br/>
<br/>
A watch list? Like a Stalinist watch list where government critics were lined up and quietly disappeared?<br/>
<br/>
Her speech was a regurgitation of the World Economic Forum’s statistics from 2021, which is no doubt where Labor sourced them.<br/>
<br/>
‘It’s the responsibility of government and the fashion industry to examine how we can be more sustainable in design, the materials used, and the role of the circular economy in extending the lifespan of the garment.’<br/>
<br/>
Well, it’s only the ‘role of government’ to interfere with business if we’re talking about a fascist regime. I will leave you to decide if that describes Labor’s choice of words.<br/>
<br/>
‘As an industry, there needs to be environmental sustainability of business models and the way products are marketed.’<br/>
<br/>
This speech was part of Ms Plibersek’s ‘ultimatum’ to the fashion industry, although One Nation does not remember the Labor Party mentioning these demands during their election campaign. It’s an urgent ultimatum created five seconds ago – a doomsday that didn’t exist until Ms Plibersek decided it did at the launch of the Australian Fashion Council’s new initiative ‘Seamless’, which is another hopeless layer of bureaucracy we believe will punish and micromanage Australia’s fashion industry. A group of busy-bodies with infinite demands.<br/>
<br/>
‘Seamless’ wants its members to pay a 4-cent contribution to the program for every item of clothing imported or created. According to the ABC, this is worth $36 million a year – and $60 million if they get their wish and make the clothing tax mandatory. Every single cent of which has been taken from the retail industry.<br/>
<br/>
‘Improved affordability of clothes is a good thing. Parents shouldn’t have to choose between a new pair of school shoes and paying the electricity bill.’<br/>
<br/>
What was that, Ms Plibersek?<br/>
<br/>
Is the Environment Minister aware that the cost of school shoes isn’t the problem – it’s the nearly doubled cost of energy thanks to … Labor’s ‘green’ energy agenda? Australian parents know exactly what’s causing the cost of living crisis. Don’t blame the fashion industry for Mr Bowen’s expensive errors. If kids don’t have shoes to wear to school, you can thank the high priests of Net Zero.<br/>
<br/>
But why this sudden assault on one of Australia’s most important industries?<br/>
<br/>
We may speculate that this is Labor pivoting from electric vehicles after it became obvious that Europe – and thus Australia – will not be transitioning to ecars. Labor is desperate for a distraction to stop the press from calling them liars, so why not attack retail?<br/>
<br/>
Well, there are good reasons to leave retail alone.<br/>
<br/>
The clothing industry in Australia is worth $23.2 billion. It employs (directly) 121,000 people – and probably another 100,000 in industries dependent on its success such as IT, transport, storage, cleaning, accounting, training, surrounding cafes … the list goes on.<br/>
<br/>
There are more than 16,300 businesses, most of them small to medium, many run by family entities. As of August 2023, fashion retail was paying out $4.9 billion in wages.<br/>
<br/>
Which, we must remind Ms Plibersek, is heavily taxed and helps top up the coffers of the State.<br/>
<br/>
The fashion industry was severely damaged by government interventions during Covid. Countless generational family businesses closed. People ended their lives having seen their life’s work evaporate overnight on the whim of health advice. The margins which used to drive a healthy industry have been cut by greedy shopping centres, excessive power costs, increased wages, and the introduction of impossible Fair Work complexity – not to mention rising manufacturing costs, fuel costs, and green tape. All of these things have meant that businesses in the fashion industry are barely scraping by. That said, the fashion industry is trying, so hard, to survive.<br/>
<br/>
A sensible government would be desperately searching for ways to salvage those businesses that survived the great Covid culling. Perhaps they might consider cutting the excess taxes, or tearing up red tape?<br/>
<br/>
Instead, Ms Plibersek has put her high heel on the head of Australia’s fashion industry and pushed it down under the surface of Net Zero to suffocate on bureaucracy.<br/>
<br/>
‘If it’s the fashion industry that makes the profits, then it must be responsible for doing better by the environment.’<br/>
<br/>
That’s a very communist-style thing to say. Does Ms Plibersek apply that rule to the renewable industry as it cuts down our old-growth forests, rips apart private farmland, and clogs up our seas with cement and steel? Or does the government hand out billions in subsidies?<br/>
<br/>
‘And for those who manufacture in Australia, it means thinking hard about what they can do to create and sell products that have a longer shelf life, while still being affordable.’<br/>
<br/>
Spoken by someone lacking experience and understanding regarding how the price of a clothing item is created.<br/>
<br/>
How does Ms Plibersek expect the (very few) Australian fashion manufacturers to pay their staff more, cover excessive energy prices, pay additional taxes, pay more for transport, more for rent, more for storage, more for materials, more for IT services, more for accounting services, more for HR bureaucracies, and additional costs for the environment – all while lowering the cost and eventual sale price of the product?<br/>
<br/>
If Ministers cannot understand basic maths they should not be proposing complex policies with the ability to decimate one of the most important industries in this nation.<br/>
<br/>
The unintentional consequences of this cannot be overstated.<br/>
<br/>
It is reckless, cheap, and nasty politics aimed at painting the fashion industry as the new climate criminal. An industry that Labor has been desperately trying (and failing) to unionise against the wishes of family-run entities and small businesses.<br/>
<br/>
What is Ms Plibersek’s end result? An Australian industry dominated by union workhouses with a ‘Net Zero’ sticker on the front where citizens can choose which hessian bag they want to wear?<br/>
<br/>
‘I have suits from an Australian designer that uses lots of remnant fabrics that would otherwise end up in landfill,’ said Ms Plibersek.<br/>
<br/>
Has she walked down the poorer end of George Street where fast-fashion is packed wall-to-wall? There she would see students and the elderly picking out jeans for $5 and jackets for $12. Those customers know these aren’t the best clothes around, but fast-fashion allows them to have a wardrobe of sorts to distract them from the otherwise nightmare reality of surviving Labor’s Net Zero revolution.<br/>
<br/>
If those stores vanish, people may be able to afford one pair of jeans – jeans with patches and repair marks – the same set of clothes worn until they fall to rags like the peasants of old living in a threadbare world.<br/>
<br/>
‘I repeat what I said in June last year: I am watching. If I’m not happy with industry progress, I will step in and regulate.’<br/>
<br/>
Did you hear that? That government is watching. The government is threatening you. The government will come after you.<br/>
<br/>
Keep that in mind when the next election rolls around.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Plibersek is coming for the clothes on your back<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/retail-outrage-plibersek-wants-the-clothes-off-your-back-ill-be-watching/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/retail-outrage-plibersek-wants-the-clothes-off-your-back-ill-be-watching/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Vilifying Israel is the left’s new form of anti-Semitism</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> The Left actually hate us all. Jews are just a scapegoat</i><br/>
<br/>
Henry Ergas<br/>
<br/>
When the crowds, wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags, gathered in Sydney immediately after October 7, their chant wasn’t “where are the Zionists?”; it was “where are the Jews?”. Nor were the writers and artists whose names and details were recently “doxxed” by Hamas’s local supporters targeted for being Zionists; they were targeted for being Jews.<br/>
<br/>
And if angry protesters surrounded Raheen in Kew the other night, it wasn’t because it was a Zionist hub; it was because it is owned by Jews.<br/>
<br/>
Now, as we reel from the news that a pro-Palestinian militant in Melbourne allegedly kidnapped and tortured a man, there can be one question and one question only: How has it come to this?<br/>
<br/>
That Labor is less culpable than the Greens for fanning the flames of hatred is beyond doubt; however, as the party of government, it cannot avoid its responsibility. Anthony Albanese has repeatedly claimed, with palpable sincerity, that the government aims at balance; but whatever its intentions, it has, at best, appeared equivocal – and, at worst, has risked encouraging the rage against Israel that is undeniably a rage against Jews.<br/>
<br/>
Time and again, it has called on Israel to respect international law, with the implication that it hasn’t. Time and again, it has lamented the plight of the people of Gaza while ignoring the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes by rocket attacks that, starkly violating international law, target schools, hospitals and homes.<br/>
<br/>
But all that is mere kindling. If the fire has burned so high and spread so fast, it is because there is, on the Australian left, a dense undergrowth of anti-Semitism on which the blaze could feed.<br/>
<br/>
That anti-Semitism is not the conventional Jew-hatred that marked the Australian labour movement from its earliest days. Explicitly based on repulsive stereotypes – Jews, wrote the Sydney Worker in 1932, are naturally “unscrupulous, callous, resourceful, insidious and cunning” – the traditional anti-Semitism centred on denunciations of “Shylock” and “the money power”.<br/>
<br/>
Reaching fever pitch in the Depression, which the Labor press blamed on “the London Jews” who “conspired with the Bank of England” to protect their “fat rake-off”, it resurfaced, in the late 1940s, during the battle over bank nationalisation. Discredited by the Holocaust, that anti-Semitism was eventually consigned to a shadowy existence on politics’ lunatic fringe. Yet the underlying pathogen survived. Mutating into a new form, it obtained a fresh lease of life in the intellectual chaos of the 1960s New Left and, later, of Corbynism.<br/>
<br/>
The new form’s essence was simplicity itself: each and every one of the traditional anti-Semitic tropes – Jewish arrogance, vindictiveness, tribalism, unbridled desire to dominate and the global tentacles with which to do so – was projected on to the state of Israel. What could no longer be said directly about Jews could, it seemed, be said with impunity about the Jewish state; and, by implication, about the Jews who were its champions. At the same time, just as traditional anti-Semitism cast Jews as the uniquely evil source of the world’s ills, so this new variant cast Israel not as a complex society with real people embroiled in internal and external conflicts, but as a caricatural representation of all that is illegitimate in the international community.<br/>
<br/>
Responsible, according to prominent British academic Jacqueline Rose, for “some of the worst cruelties of the modern nation state”, the Jewish state stood as a fundamental obstacle – if not the fundamental obstacle – to a better world. It goes without saying that Rose made no attempt to test her contention, as any comparison to historical reality would have demonstrated its complete absurdity. All that mattered, for her countless disciples, was the conclusion that so monstrous an evil could only be cured by being eliminated.<br/>
<br/>
The existential fight to the finish between “the Jew” and the “healthy elements” in society that permeated traditional anti-Semitism was thereby seamlessly transposed into the disease’s new form. There was, however, an additional feature of the variant that became increasingly pronounced as its prevalence grew. In conventional anti-Semitism, “World Jewry” was the West’s mortal enemy.<br/>
<br/>
But in anti-Semitism’s new guise, the Jewish state, far from being the West’s “Other”, was transformed into the distilled, if entirely mythologised, image of what the radicals viewed as the West’s most despicable features. Israel was not the West’s antithesis; it was its apotheosis.<br/>
<br/>
Here, after all, was a country that, in an age of appeasement, rejected fashionable pieties, defending itself from every attack. In a world of disposable selfhood, where you are whatever you want to be, it remained stubbornly attached to an identity gained by birth and forged by faith. And most of all, at a time when the “nowheres” were triumphant and the nation denigrated as a straitjacket, it harboured an intense, widely held patriotism.<br/>
<br/>
There was, however, even worse: like Australia, Israel bore the indelible stain of “settler colonialism”. But rather than cringing apologetically, it celebrated the country the settlers had built: a country that, for all its faults, is a prosperous democracy in a world of tyrants, provides world-class education and healthcare to all of its citizens and that cherishes life, instead of worshipping, as the Islamists do, at the shrine of death.<br/>
<br/>
Little wonder then that it provokes our leftists into uncontrollable fury. Consumed by self-loathing, trapped in a vision of Australia that imputes perpetual virtue to themselves, perpetual guilt to everyone else, they cannot forgive Israelis for standing proud. And when they act out their tantrums, it is not just at Israel that they are shouting. It is at all those who believe Australians too should stand proud, and unashamedly defend the achievements of our country, our culture.<br/>
<br/>
Israel deserves our support. In the end, however, it will take care of itself. As for the Jews, we know hatred. Yet we also know the strength of faith and the power of resolve.<br/>
<br/>
But what about Australia? Each civilisation, said Edward Gibbon, breeds the barbarians it deserves. Ours, brimming with rage, are no longer at the gates – they have stormed the citadel and seized important parts of the commanding heights. Marching arm in arm with the Islamist apologists for terrorism, their calling card is venomous threats and poisonous anti-Semitism.<br/>
<br/>
However, as the incidents accumulate, each more shocking than its predecessors, they may finally have gone too far, inciting the reaction we desperately need to have. Nothing can erase the horrors of recent months. But if we fail to act on their lessons, it is us, not the barbarians, history will call to account.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/vilifying-israel-is-the-lefts-new-form-of-antisemitism-under-a-different-guise/news-story/987cb3dc4e554a11f9c7330f24be892c">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/vilifying-israel-is-the-lefts-new-form-of-antisemitism-under-a-different-guise/news-story/987cb3dc4e554a11f9c7330f24be892c</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Nothing ‘false’ about my choice to be a stay-at-home mum</b><br/>
<br/>
By JANET ALBRECHTSEN<br/>
<br/>
I thought we were done with misery-guts feminism. It turns out not by a long shot. This week prominent director Diane Smith-Gander claimed women were making a “false” choice to stay home to care for kids. She was quoted as saying women were being forced to make this “false choice” by taking on lower-paid work in order to care for children. She bemoaned a society that perpetuated a “gender stereotype that Dad goes out to work and Mum stays home with the kids”.<br/>
<br/>
Reading that took me back to a conversation from my late 20s. Some girlfriends, all young mums of little kids, were hanging about a playground by a Sydney beach one morning. Kids playing, shrieking, grubby little mouths and dirty feet, one kid probably crying because there is always a kid crying.<br/>
<br/>
The young women spoke in hushed tones, swearing each other to secrecy. We agreed never to tell anyone quite how much we loved staying at home caring for our noisy, messy, beautiful little children. The pact was a joke. But only partly.<br/>
<br/>
We knew better than to rave in public about loving being stay-at-home mums – for two reasons. Hanging about playgrounds, wiping little noses and hands and bums wasn’t what we were meant to be doing after graduating from university with fine degrees, suiting up and working hard for big flash law practices and other professional firms. The other reason was we didn’t want our husbands edging us out of a role we loved.<br/>
<br/>
I turned my back on a legal career with a big law firm because I wanted to be at home with my kids. If someone had offered me a heap of money to return to work when they were babies, I would have said “no thanks”. That’s not for me, that’s not what we want for our kids. So I stayed home, had help with the kids, worked from home and earned less.<br/>
<br/>
There was nothing false about these choices. Nothing coerced or unpleasant, which is the underlying message in Smith-Gander’s claim about false choices.<br/>
<br/>
Some years later, I was encouraged by a senior politician to stand for a safe seat in politics. It was flattering. I had the full support of my husband. But I decided against that, too. I didn’t want to be a member of a political party. More important, my kids were moving into their early teens and while they most assuredly didn’t think they needed me at home, I suspected they might. I didn’t want what the books call “quality” time because you can’t pick and choose those moments when kids need you most.<br/>
<br/>
So I remained at home, writing, managing work and deadlines, and being there for the quotidian challenges and enchantments of children pushing the envelope in different ways.<br/>
<br/>
One afternoon, racing to finish some work at home in my office, one child kept coming up behind my chair with questions about sex. That was the inconvenient moment she picked for The Talk. I was busy, so to tide her over I plucked from the shelf beside me a book that I had bought months earlier in anticipation of this moment. The book was possibly meant for an older age bracket.<br/>
<br/>
Being a fanatical reader, she appeared to devour it faster than she did Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Soon enough she was lurking behind my chair again, seeking clarification, stumbling over a big new word from one of the later chapters that I wrongly assumed she wouldn’t get to so soon. I wished my office was not at home.<br/>
<br/>
I was far from the perfect mum, but that’s not the point. Each of us makes deeply personal decisions, tweaking this, changing that, as the years go on. We fumble through, mostly doing our best, in the belief that the decisions we make to work or look after kids, or both, are the best ones.<br/>
<br/>
There are many trade-offs, of course. If we go to work, we miss out being at home with children. The more time we spend at home, the more we trade from our working lives. The sliding scale doesn’t render our decisions any less free, informed – and thrilling.<br/>
<br/>
Many highly educated women I know started out in interesting, well-paying jobs, on paths to stellar, clever careers, but chose to step away. Working long hours in big professional careers, jumping on planes maybe for a meeting here, a meeting there, eating croissants on International Women’s Day with like-minded women, nannies for during the week, and on weekends, is not for everyone.<br/>
<br/>
Many women, including me, would rather wipe the bums of many babies than live like that. My choice to alter the trajectory of my career, trading potential professional success for raising kids, was a no-brainer because raising three children will always be, for me, life’s greatest success.<br/>
<br/>
Not every woman can choose to stay at home with their kids. I freely acknowledge my good fortune in being able to make my choice. There are many women for whom the choice to stay at home to care for little children is much more financially difficult than it was for me. But to demean any of these choices as false is obnoxious paternalism. It’s also deeply insulting to women who would have loved to have had children and would have loved to have stayed home to care for them.<br/>
<br/>
So why does Smith-Gander presume to speak for women? How can she and her ilk possibly know about our lives, our personal decisions, our deepest desires, what we value? It is terrific that this high-profile corporate woman has risen to the top of her chosen fields. Given Smith-Gander is older, perhaps she experienced some big and nasty hurdles to get there. Good on her for pulverising them. I have nothing but respect for her choices. Her views about stay-at-home mothers, well, that’s another matter.<br/>
<br/>
How great it would be if respect were reciprocated. Instead, there is an underlying assumption that caring for kids is a second-rate job, a forced and false choice. It’s a common affliction among gender ideologues to perpetuate miserable generalisations. Their message is that caring for kids is a burden. They never, ever talk about it as a prize.<br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government’s National Strategy to Achieve Gender Equality discussion paper, from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, devotes a chapter to women who “bear the burden of care”. The joyless language perpetuates this idea that caring for little children is a rotten choice. It asserts that “patterns of care” are “generally driven by social and economic structures that reflect and reinforce gendered care norms”. Nowhere does the paper mention that many women desperately want to stay at home to care for children. Norms be damned. Many of us make that choice from meandering paths.<br/>
<br/>
I wasn’t mentally prepared to fall pregnant at 27. I thought I had a lingering stomach bug. I fainted with shock when the petite female doctor told me it was a baby. For months I could barely say the word pregnant. I was annoyed at these foreign big breasts that arrived many months before the baby did. Why the rush? My reticence turned into a fierce desire to stay at home to care for our kids.<br/>
<br/>
For some, the deep, primordial tug from a newborn child defies ideology and ambition. It can’t be measured in dollars. We are bombarded with the work side of the equation: we are told women need to work to maintain an identity, to exist on equal terms with men, to support the family and to maintain their own financial independence.<br/>
<br/>
But the culture of “I work, therefore I exist” denies the falling in love with baby so central to most women’s experience. I would have fought off my husband like a banshee if he’d said he wanted to stay at home and care for our kids. He did stay at home for many, many weeks, and those periods were some of the most special times of our lives.<br/>
<br/>
There is a misery to the views of Smith-Gander and other gender ideologues that is untethered from the privilege and pleasure of caring for kids. The ideologues pine for a wretched world where men and women all work exactly the same way and every workplace is made up of equal numbers of men and women, and women’s choices to live differently are demeaned as false.<br/>
<br/>
The other glaring omission from all these discussions about women and work is the wellbeing of children. Back in 2017 there was a kerfuffle when American psychoanalyst Erica Komisar published Being There: Why Prioritising Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters. As The Wall Street Journal reported at the time, one agent told her they wouldn’t touch a book like that. Conference organisers disinvited her because her book, they said, would make women feel guilty.<br/>
<br/>
Alas, as a society, we still don’t seem interested in exploring whether having a mum – or dad – at home in the early years is best for a young child.<br/>
<br/>
The Prime Minister’s Gender Equality paper repeats recent Australian Institute of Family Studies data showing that, as at December 2021, women in 54 per cent of families usually looked after the children, while 40 per cent of families reported equal sharing of responsibility. Only 4 per cent of families reported that a man usually or always looked after the children.<br/>
<br/>
In other words, even with women pouring out of universities at higher rates than men, leaving with more degrees than men, filling the professions in equal numbers, many women continue to embrace what Anne Roiphe in A Mother’s Eye calls the “whole complicated warm messy frustrating dear and dreadful business of raising children”.<br/>
<br/>
Change is afoot, of course. And if gender ideologues treasured the important job of caring for young children instead of treating it as a chore, maybe more men would choose to do it sooner.<br/>
<br/>
For good reasons, Western women have spent years telling the patriarchy where to get off. Why would a man presume to know what we want? It’s time to let that go. Right now, the biggest enemy of women’s choices is a small group of professional women who have the temerity to tell women what we really want.<br/>
<br/>
Is there a polite way to say “f..k the matriarchy”?<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/my-secret-truths-as-a-stayathome-mother/news-story/c09f3f8859966a1e463dc6e97f88b091">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/my-secret-truths-as-a-stayathome-mother/news-story/c09f3f8859966a1e463dc6e97f88b091</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-64024476535516780972024-02-29T18:01:00.000+13:002024-02-29T18:01:00.411+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Queensland Supreme Court finds some Covid vaccine orders unlawful</b><br/>
<br/>
They were the three words of the week, if not of the year: ‘vaccine’, ‘mandates’ and ‘unlawful’. That was the key takeout from the decision handed down this week by the Queensland Supreme Court in a case largely financed by mining gazillionaire and political agitator Clive Palmer. Specifically, the Covid-19 vaccine mandates, implemented in the form of directions given to Queensland police and ambulance service workers, were made unlawfully, the court has ruled, partly because they didn’t take into account those workers’ ‘human rights’.<br/>
<br/>
The news, of course, is to be welcomed. It is the first crack in the dam wall and will hopefully be followed by significant class actions and further court cases. Ideally, one might hope that certain senior politicians, senior bureaucrats, doctors and corporate heads will wind up in prison for their collective roles in the grotesque Covid abuse of power, following a royal commission. However, there is the chance that the Queensland case will be overturned on appeal, as the powers-that-be attempt to reassert their censorship and crushing authoritarianism over what remains the most disgraceful period in our history.<br/>
<br/>
Alone – and we really do mean alone – among the Australian mainstream media, indeed in many instances the world media, The Spectator Australia fought from the very beginning against the vaccine mandates, the lockdowns, the mask mandates, the school closures, the banning of perfectly good (and cheap) alternative treatments for Covid and the fraudulent claims being made about the safety of the mRNA ‘vaccines’. Dismissed as conspiracy theorists, extreme right-wingers, anti-vaxxers and a whole list of other pejoratives, this magazine and its astonishing collection of writers can hold their heads high – Rebecca Weisser, Ramesh Thakur, Julie Sladden, Kara Thomas, Alexandra Marshall, David Flint, David Adler, James Allan, Rocco Loiacono, Robert Clancy, Rowan Dean and many others. Of course, there were a miserable handful of writers, and readers, who were appalled by our Covid scepticism and took their writing skills or subscriptions to other media outlets more in tune with their views. They are not missed.<br/>
<br/>
On 22 May 2021, as powerful voices and commentators within the Australian media frantically urged the government to introduce vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, we wrote on this page:<br/>
<br/>
So we will be blunt on this particular occasion: if Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Health Minister Greg Hunt or any members of the federal or ‘national’ cabinets seek to impose a ‘vaccine passport’ that restricts the freedom of movement and liberties of Australians, they will potentially be guilty of human rights abuses and even crimes against humanity.<br/>
<br/>
Any number of conventions and laws exist that make it a criminal offence for a government or its bureaucrats to coerce or make mandatory any form of medical treatment against the will of the individual. Such laws and conventions were brought in as a direct result of the atrocities of the second world war and the revolting medical experiments conducted by not only the Nazis but other totalitarian regimes against their own people.<br/>
<br/>
Make no mistake; a ‘vaccine passport’ denying liberties and restricting the free movement of Australians within their own country will be the most sinister and disgraceful act by an Australian government against its own people in our history. This is for one simple reason: governments and bureaucracies have no right to enforce or to coerce an individual to take a medical treatment or drug against the individual’s better instincts or judgment.<br/>
<br/>
In any free society, the government’s role is to persuade, not to coerce or to mandate.<br/>
<br/>
It is a fine line between encouraging or incentivising vaccination and coercing it, but telling traumatised Australians that they can, for example, only visit their loved ones or carry on their normal business if they inject a certain drug is completely unacceptable and indeed reprehensible. Persuasion is all very well. Coercion and emotional or financial blackmail are not.<br/>
<br/>
Then on 3 July 2021, we wrote:<br/>
<br/>
It is on the coronavirus that an absence of any genuine political convictions on the part of the PM and his advisers is most apparent. Devoid of a bedrock of political philosophy to stand upon, the government makes it up as it goes along, reacting, presumably, to internal polling as much as to media hysteria. It is not a pretty sight.<br/>
<br/>
Most depressing of all, as certain politicians urged people to report friends or neighbours who were flouting the rules, on 31 July 2021 we wrote:<br/>
<br/>
Welcome to the new Australia of dobbers, scolds and snitches and the self-appointed virtuous.<br/>
<br/>
Kudos to Queensland Judge Glenn Martin for having the courage and moral fortitude to put into law what was always self-evident to any self-respecting conservative. The vaccine mandates trashed every ethical, moral, medical and human rights principle in a free democracy.<br/>
<br/>
To all those individuals, not only in Queensland but throughout Australia, who lost their careers, their dignity and even their families because they resisted the mandates, you are true heroes. Every Australian owes you a huge debt for your courage, and an apology for the medieval vilification so many suffered.<br/>
<br/>
To the few brave politicians who dared to speak up against the madness, often at terrible personal or professional cost, we salute you. Craig Kelly, Alex Antic, George Christensen, Gerard Rennick, Malcolm Roberts, Pauline Hanson, Matt Canavan and others. Above all, we thank all our loyal readers who stayed the course.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/mandatory-vindication/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/mandatory-vindication/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Why we need more CEOs to speak up for profits</b><br/>
<br/>
Coles’ Leah Weckert issued an important reminder to corporate Australia: Profit is not a dirty word.<br/>
<br/>
Weckert’s comments have come right at the tail end of a resilient earnings season, and the newish Coles boss has cut through with a reminder about the purpose of her business: To look after shareholders through delivering the sharpest value to her customers.<br/>
<br/>
Supermarkets and Woolworths boss Brad Banducci in particular, have been in the firing line around profits they make.<br/>
<br/>
The big two retailers have become an easy target for claims around price gouging and anti-competitive behaviour while Australia is in the midst of an inflation bubble.<br/>
<br/>
This has now spiralled into a Greens-led Senate inquiry and a year-long Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Review into the supermarkets. These will be highly distracting for management and, like the previous ACCC review into supermarket pricing a decade ago, will probably amount to little.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone else is jumping on board with the ACTU and Queensland’s Steven Miles demanding their own probe. The claims are easy to make and always missing from the barbs is what should be the right level of profit for a business to make. No one is willing to go there and nor should they.<br/>
<br/>
Still the attack on profit from all sides of the political spectrum is a worrying trend. Businesses exist to make profit and reward shareholders. In doing so they invest money into the economy and create jobs. The trick is in the balancing act to make sure the pursuit of profit is sustainable over the long run and businesses keep one eye on their social licence to operate.<br/>
<br/>
Banducci, who this month announced his retirement, has struggled to cut through with a simple message on this point and his trainwreck interview on ABC TV only fanned the flames.<br/>
<br/>
Banducci is the architect of Woolies much-needed cultural transformation and this month conceded to The Australian he was the first to get upset with himself when he doesn’t represent his company accurately.<br/>
<br/>
In the middle of the anger, Woolworths triggered some big non-cash writedowns of its business, tipping the retailer into a heavy bottom-line loss.<br/>
<br/>
Commonwealth Bank boss Matt Comyn is the only other boss who is prepared to issue a spirited defence of profits. Comyn regularly points out his bottom-line returns go to millions of shareholders as well as generate the crucial capital so funds can be lent back out to grow the economy.<br/>
<br/>
Weckert, promoted to the top job in May last year, delivered her numbers on Tuesday which included a 3.9 per cent dip in December half net profit to $594m. The numbers show Coles is selling more, with revenue up nearly 7 per cent, but costs are crimping profit margins. Where Weckert draws the line is criticism of the windfall dollars.<br/>
<br/>
“Profits are an essential thing for any business,” Weckert says. “They enable us to continue to operate and for us that means we get to employ 120,000 people. We get to support thousands of suppliers. We pay a very large tax bill every year.”<br/>
<br/>
Coles has more than 460,000 shareholders and many of these are retail investors – the so-called mums and dads. There are millions more who benefit indirectly from the dividends through their super funds.<br/>
<br/>
The simple message Weckert will take to next month’s Senate inquiry that begins in Hobart is that Coles generates $2.60 for every $100 spent by customers.<br/>
<br/>
This is “less than 3c on the dollar,” she says, and points to her profit margins now being stable for at least the past five years, including through an inflation spike. Nor is food inflation unique to Australia, she adds, It’s are often driven by a surge in input costs such as fertilisers or wheat. Indeed, many developed economies, particularly the UK and in Europe, have seen food prices rise at a faster pace.<br/>
<br/>
Weckert says Australian supermarkets are facing more intense competition than ever as offshore giants Aldi, Costco and Amazon make big inroads. Wesfarmers’ Bunnings and Priceline, along with Chemist Warehouse, are making inroads into the non-food sector.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, supermarket customers are trading convenience over value and are using local specialists from butchers to bakers.<br/>
<br/>
The numbers show Coles now has the momentum in the sales race against its rival, Woolies. It can be argued Woolies is more distracted than it has been in years with problems from New Zealand, Big W and its looming leadership transition.<br/>
<br/>
Coles’ supermarkets sale jumped 4.9 per cent in the first eight weeks of the calendar year, while Woolworths delivered 1.5 per cent growth over the first seven weeks. This helped back a near 6 per cent jump in Coles’ shares.<br/>
<br/>
Coles says it is getting on top of the jump in theft rates it experienced last year as it invests more in checkout technology.<br/>
<br/>
This could make a big difference to its earnings line in coming halves as it continues to get theft rates down further.<br/>
<br/>
Australia’s housing and building shortage is now becoming a force on the ASX, although it has taken global players to recognise the value.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/australias-housing-shortage-is-making-waves-offshore/news-story/f2b9b64d041671509d6072b887cf8cc2">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/australias-housing-shortage-is-making-waves-offshore/news-story/f2b9b64d041671509d6072b887cf8cc2</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> Victorian blackout has lessons</b><br/>
<br/>
When the lights went out last week for 500,000 Victorians, it wasn’t all bad. Most still had natural gas to turn to for cooking and some for hot water.<br/>
<br/>
But gas connections to new homes are banned in Victoria from 2024. Clearly, the great fortune of being part of the Lucky Country, blessed with dual energy supplies, was too great a first-world burden for the socialist-left Allan state government to handle.<br/>
<br/>
It means that for these new homes, the next time the lights go out, everything goes out.<br/>
<br/>
However, Victoria’s diabolic blackout might be the best double-edged sword the state’s future could have ordered.<br/>
<br/>
What happened last week may have been the first time many youngsters couldn’t charge their mobile phones, laptops, or other electronic gadgetry. Their lives and their lifelines also went flat.<br/>
<br/>
Until then, they had been removed from reality. Until then, it was someone else’s problem…<br/>
<br/>
Only now might they think about the importance of the essential service of electricity, and better still, the importance of cheap and reliable energy. One day they will have to pay the bills.<br/>
<br/>
And so it is that there may be more power in a flat phone battery than we think.<br/>
<br/>
Only now might the Net Zero zealots begin thinking about the real world, just as theirs shatters into texting and tweeting oblivion.<br/>
<br/>
The blackouts, with the promise of more to come, might just be the real-life lesson in understanding the old saying that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.<br/>
<br/>
Schooled in Net Zero nonsense, the younger generations and their educators have largely applauded the direction of phasing out coal and pursuing a renewables nirvana.<br/>
<br/>
With eyes wide shut, they believe they are saving the world one poppycock plan at a time. They have skipped school and rallied for the cause. They have spent school hours making placards and writing letters to Ministers. Some have voted for the cause and more will follow.<br/>
<br/>
Little might they think that their increasingly battery-led lifestyle, pumped up by power, is not the life that their childhood counterparts in the Congo are living.<br/>
<br/>
Little might they think of the trees being pulled down in order to put up wind farms, or the interruption to whale migration at sea. Little might they think about what a romantic sunset could look like in years to come with industrial love on the horizon.<br/>
<br/>
Little might they think of the increasing plethora of coal-driven power, mining, and industrial operations elsewhere in the world, while Australia’s decision-makers pull the plug on ours.<br/>
<br/>
They are in the dark more than they might want to realise.<br/>
<br/>
For first-time power blackout sufferers, it won’t be the temporary death of their fridge or freezer worrying them. These days, most order-in a solution to their food problems or go to a local supermarket – backed up by diesel generators – to get a tub of ice cream on demand.<br/>
<br/>
No, it is only the absence of mobile phones, iPads, and the like that might make the younger generations understand what nobody else is telling them: reliable energy is really important.<br/>
<br/>
When they can recharge their phones – and their lives – they should google the following: nuclear energy, reliable energy, low-cost energy, and underground powerlines.<br/>
<br/>
Then they should google future job prospects in Australia.<br/>
<br/>
But it’s a bit hard to find the buttons in the dark.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/switching-on-reality">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/switching-on-reality</a>
</p>
**************************************************<br/>
<br/>
<b> What Young Australians Should Know About the Green’s Housing Policy</b><br/>
<br/>
How is it that the Greens are becoming the party of choice for anyone under 30, while also being the party most likely to destroy the future prospects of those under 30s?<br/>
<br/>
Take housing for example.<br/>
<br/>
The Greens yearn for the days when the state was the provider of miserable, cramped housing for Australians deemed too incompetent to organise their own.<br/>
<br/>
This led to housing estates and stigma, and the “poor me” reminiscences of the current prime minister. No rational person would want to go back there.<br/>
<br/>
When Liberal party founder Robert Menzies became prime minister in 1949 he began to sell off the Commonwealth’s public housing.<br/>
<br/>
The states never went that far, but despite their rhetoric, zeal for public housing waned, and the rate of building new public housing went on a long trajectory towards zero.<br/>
<br/>
Since then the market (private individuals and corporations seeing an opportunity to do a favour to someone else, and earn a living doing it) stepped in and developers provided almost all Australians with a place they could call home.<br/>
<br/>
It turns out there are hardly any Australians so incompetent they can’t secure a place of their own either to rent or to own, and that just like every other service, individuals contracting freely with each other are better at arranging accommodation for themselves than the government is.<br/>
<br/>
But this is not the world for the Greens with their retro-Marxist preferences and Che Guevara tees.<br/>
<br/>
They want to boost the public sector rental market and marginalise the private ones, and have adopted a swag of policies to this end, including the abolition of negative gearing.<br/>
<br/>
This is a serious problem for people who can’t afford to buy and who have to rent. Even with the Greens promise to build 50,000 rental homes a year, it would only represent 1.5 percent of the total rental market, which would be overwhelmingly still financed by private owners.<br/>
<br/>
The Greens claim that negative gearing keeps homeowners out of the market, but this is wrong for a number of reasons.<br/>
<br/>
Around a third of Australians rent. Some of these are permanent renters, but others are homeowners-in-waiting.<br/>
<br/>
In either case, there should be no enmity between renters and owners. But policies that handicap investors who rent, also handicap people who will be first-home buyers because it limits their renting options while they save a deposit.<br/>
<br/>
How Does It Work?<br/>
<br/>
The principle of negative gearing is that if you are going to tax investment income, an investor must be able to deduct their expenses from their income.<br/>
<br/>
If the investor owns a property in their own name, then that income includes what they earn from other sources, like their principal job.<br/>
<br/>
Most plans to abolish negative gearing tacitly admit this. They may prevent investors from deducting expenses against their other income, but they still allow them to carry forward their losses until the property becomes cash flow positive.<br/>
<br/>
This means that if the Greens were to abolish negative gearing, they don’t somehow save the whole of the deduction and bank it to government coffers. They save it, until they have to give it back in the future as deductions against future income.<br/>
<br/>
In accounting jargon, the tax amounts to the interest value of the timing difference.<br/>
<br/>
What they save is the interest they earn on the money that would have stayed with the taxpayer, if it had been allowed as a tax deduction.<br/>
<br/>
This means the value to the government is much less than most of the models that are used to justify the policy, which magically assumes the government gets the benefit of the foregone deduction forever.<br/>
<br/>
But it gets worse than that.<br/>
<br/>
We are in a situation where we need drastically more properties than we have now, which means we need to encourage people to build more houses.<br/>
<br/>
Negative gearing makes that possible.<br/>
<br/>
How much longer would it take an investor to buy a property if they decided to wait until they had a deposit that would allow them to “positively” gear the property?<br/>
<br/>
Positive gearing means that although you’ve borrowed, the property is returning enough income to give you a surplus.<br/>
<br/>
When interest rates were around 2 percent, that probably wasn’t too much longer, but now they’re more like 6 percent. It’s quite a stretch.<br/>
<br/>
So, by banning negative gearing it would mean that investors would be encouraged to take longer before they bought a house. This is the reverse of what you want when you have a housing shortage.<br/>
<br/>
Everybody Benefits<br/>
<br/>
The reason we gear most investments (and most investors and companies have some degree of gearing) is so we can do more with the same amount of capital, which is exactly what the country needs to do at the moment.<br/>
<br/>
That’s a good thing for renters, who need more properties, and also for buyers, who also need more properties.<br/>
<br/>
It’s also a good thing for the government. If investors can leverage their capital, there is more economic activity and the government gets to tax it.<br/>
<br/>
There is GST on new buildings and on renovations, and there is payroll tax on building companies, and income tax from the companies and the tradies who do the work.<br/>
<br/>
All models I have seen that favour abolishing negative gearing neglect this altogether.<br/>
<br/>
And then there is the tax on borrowings. Again, most models advocating abolishing negative gearing don’t take into account the fact that the asset producing the income still produces the same income with gearing, it just splits it differently.<br/>
<br/>
Without gearing it goes entirely to the owner, with gearing it goes to the owner and to the financier.<br/>
<br/>
But both pay tax. The owner may pay less tax than if they owned the whole property, but the financier will pay an amount that is roughly similar to the difference.<br/>
<br/>
Also, Homeowners Don’t Lose Out<br/>
<br/>
The Greens’ myth is that negative gearing squeezes home buyers out of the market because it is a tax benefit that homeowners don’t get.<br/>
<br/>
When you do the figures, it is actually homeowners who are tax-advantaged.<br/>
<br/>
While investors pay capital gains tax, the homeowner doesn’t. When it comes to real estate investment it is actually capital gains that provide the majority of earnings, particularly when gearing is involved.<br/>
<br/>
So, the homeowner is already ahead, but it doesn’t stop there.<br/>
<br/>
Homeowners also receive a benefit in that they don’t pay any tax on the “rent” that accrues to them by owning the property.<br/>
<br/>
This is an unfamiliar concept to most, but if you regard a homeowner as an investor who lives in their investment, then it makes sense to look at what rent it is they would pay to live there and see that as part of their investment return.<br/>
<br/>
This is called “imputed rent” and some countries, like the Netherlands and Switzerland, tax this as income.<br/>
<br/>
We don’t, and I’m happy about that, but it is another tax advantage that homeowners get over investors who do pay tax on the rent they receive.<br/>
<br/>
All of which means that when it comes to a contest over who can afford to pay the most for a residence, it is the homeowner that comes with all the advantages.<br/>
<br/>
The only advantage the investor generally has is that they normally already have assets they can use for a deposit, like the house they live in, and a first homeowner has to save for their deposit, but you can’t “fix” that disparity by abolishing negative gearing.<br/>
<br/>
Another Green’s Party Idea That Is Not Feasible<br/>
<br/>
The Greens also want to step beyond fiddling with the tax system to fiddling with the rental markets by imposing rent caps. We’ve been here before and they don’t work.<br/>
However, we don’t need to look at Australian history to see what a bad idea rent control is.<br/>
<br/>
Argentina has just elected a classical liberal president Javier Milei, and he has abolished rental controls in the country.<br/>
<br/>
Overnight rents dropped by 20 percent as the number of houses on the market doubled. When you fiddle with property rights, property owners make smart choices.<br/>
<br/>
The Greens complain that 10 percent of Australia’s housing is vacant (a figure which is about what it should be, given holiday houses, temporary vacancies because of property sales or rental vacancies, or people away for work or otherwise absent on holidays).<br/>
<br/>
That figure would be a lot higher under rent caps as owners make the rational decision that if they can’t make a living at the Greens “reasonable” rents, then they should hold the house off the market.<br/>
<br/>
If our millennial Australians don’t wake up soon to the Greens’ destructive ignorance about housing, they will walk into their own nightmare if they vote Greens’ policies in.<br/>
<br/>
Not just home ownership, but renting reasonable digs, will be outside their budgets.<br/>
<br/>
In that case, they may even need public housing, and just like our prime minister, in the future, they’ll be able to regale their kids with stories of how tough it was growing up in a public housing estate<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/what-young-australians-should-know-about-the-greens-housing-policy-5591519">https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/what-young-australians-should-know-about-the-greens-housing-policy-5591519</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-66601722553004964922024-02-28T14:58:00.003+13:002024-02-28T14:59:40.242+13:00<br /><br/>
<br/>
<b> Malcolm Turnbull eyes pumped hydro opportunity in the Upper Hunter</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Pumped hydro requires TWO dams. What does Mal think the dam-hating Greens will say about that?</i><br/>
<br/>
Acompany owned by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy has won a tender to develop plans for two pumped hydro projects in the Upper Hunter.<br/>
<br/>
WaterNSW has awarded a development agreement to Upper Hunter Hydro (UHH) to explore the feasibility of the projects using WaterNSW land and reservoirs in the Hunter Valley.<br/>
<br/>
The company was registered in early 2022 under the ownership of Wilcrow Pty Ltd - a Turnbull family entity that has traditionally held its pastoral properties in the Upper Hunter.<br/>
<br/>
The pumped hydro projects, which would deliver long duration storage totalling more than 1.4 gigawatts for eight to 12 hours, could power a million homes.<br/>
<br/>
Upper Hunter Hydro has been granted access to the Glenbawn Dam and Glennies Creek Dam as part of its investigation.<br/>
<br/>
WaterNSW said the company would seek to secure all necessary approvals and consent for their projects.<br/>
<br/>
Elsewhere in the region, AGL and Idemitsu are exploring the feasibility of establishing a $450 million pumped hydro project at the former Muswellbrook Coal site at Bells Mountain.<br/>
<br/>
Mr Turnbull said pumped hydro projects would provide important support for industry and employment in the Hunter.<br/>
<br/>
"Australia has abundant wind and solar generation, some of the best in the world. But the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Pumped hydro provides the long duration energy storage we need to make renewables available 24/7 and secure our clean energy future," he said.<br/>
<br/>
"Renewables development is not for those wanting instant gratification .... but it is dawning on the market that we are going to need a lot more long duration storage than we thought."<br/>
<br/>
Mr Turnbull said the Upper Hunter Pumped Hydro would proceed to a detailed design phase that incorporates "wide ranging community and stakeholder engagement" as well as "thorough environmental assessment," to secure planning approvals and backing from investors.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.huntervalleynews.net.au/story/8536191/malcolm-turnbull-investigates-upper-hunter-pumped-hydro-opportunities/">https://www.huntervalleynews.net.au/story/8536191/malcolm-turnbull-investigates-upper-hunter-pumped-hydro-opportunities/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Kudos To Mr. Nuzzo for Taking on the Feminist Status Quo</b><br/>
<br/>
It is refreshing to find Mr. Nuzzo, a lone warrior willing to call out the feminist claptrap throughout the academic world.<br/>
<br/>
There’s a four-year gap in life expectancy in Australia between men and women. So how come our peak science funding body, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), in 2022 allocated over six times more funding to research on women’s health compared to men’s?<br/>
<br/>
This glaring bias in research funding attracted the critical gaze of a Perth-based academic with a keen interest in men’s health.<br/>
<br/>
James Nuzzo is an exercise scientist, currently affiliated with Edith Cowan University, who has been busily churning out academic articles on topics like exercise neurophysiology and physical fitness testing.<br/>
<br/>
But he’s become increasingly concerned to see his discipline infiltrated by gender ideologues whining about women missing out while totally ignoring the health outcomes of boys and men.<br/>
<br/>
He’s calling out their bias and poor scholarship in a hard-hitting series of blogs on Substack (The Nuzzo Files) and podcasts.<br/>
<br/>
For instance, Mr. Nuzzo points out that we hear constant allegations about the widespread exclusion of women in clinical trials.<br/>
<br/>
In America, complaints about the neglect of women in health research led, in 1990, to the Office for Research on Women’s Health being established within the National Institutes of Health (NIH).<br/>
<br/>
Since then, annual reports from the Office reveal that women constitute 55-60 percent of all participants in NIH-funded clinical trials each year. Thirty years later, the Office is flourishing, pouring out funding for women-only projects.<br/>
Similarly, Australian governments are falling over each other to prove their commitment to improving health outcomes for women and girls—and the NHMRC funding simply reflects that consistent anti-male bias.<br/>
<br/>
This is simply one more example of the feminist claptrap now seeping throughout our academic world.<br/>
<br/>
I hear regularly from principled researchers grinding their teeth at this blatant ideology and poor scholarship. Most don’t dare put their head above the parapet.<br/>
<br/>
It is refreshing to find Mr. Nuzzo, a lone warrior willing to call it out, despite being well aware he is likely to implode his academic career in the process.<br/>
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Another Small Victory In the Bag<br/>
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Mr. Nuzzo’s most recent public skirmish in this territory involved an article in Sports Medicine written by mainly female exercise physiology students from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) claiming that “gender-based violence is a blind spot for sports and exercise medical professionals.”<br/>
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The UNSW scholars devoted their entire article presenting women as the only victims of interpersonal violence (IPV)—the single mention of men referred to their “socially determined privilege,” an alleged cause of violence against women.<br/>
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No mention of young male victims of abuse by coaches or fellow athletes, of which there have been plenty, nor of lesbian perpetrators of abuse (lesbians top the chart of rates of IPV). And not one word about the decades of research showing men and women are victims of IPV at roughly equal rates.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Nuzzo set out to put them straight, seeking to get the true facts published in a response letter in Sports Medicine. And he succeeded, but only after nearly a year of back and forth with the journal. It helped that he combined forces with Deborah Powney, the University of Central Lancashire psychologist doing work on male victims of coercive control, and John Barry, from the Centre for Male Psychology in London.<br/>
<br/>
Sports Medicine took the unusual step of submitting the letter to peer review, but the three reviewers all concurred with the critique by Nuzzo and his co-authors. Ultimately the letter was published—one small victory for proper scientific inquiry.<br/>
<br/>
Their published comment proved it was the UNSW academics who had the blind spot, by providing a summary of some of the best research showing equal gender rates of IPV victimization, which also applied in sports environments.<br/>
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Storm in a teacup, you might conclude. Perhaps. But it is a telling example of how the feminist take-over of our universities is playing out.<br/>
<br/>
The Next Generation<br/>
<br/>
We now have increasing numbers of radical young female academics and students, probably indoctrinated back in their school days, all keen on displaying their feminist credentials in their so-called scholarship.<br/>
<br/>
Increasingly, they are forcing this sludge into diverse disciplines, right across all academia.<br/>
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Worryingly, these are the teachers of the next generation, intent on convincing young women they are set for a life of persecution, abuse and discrimination.<br/>
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They are teaching our future bureaucrats who’ll be setting key policies, the future lawyers, judges, social workers, and the politicians who will be deciding where the dollars are spent.<br/>
<br/>
Their goals are transparent and the process is unfolding before our very eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Kudos for James Nuzzo for having the courage to take them on, in published articles, blogs and podcasts. It’s infuriating to read his research and discover how much we’ve been hoodwinked.<br/>
<br/>
The Big Two Globalist Agencies<br/>
<br/>
Another of Mr. Nuzzo’s published articles concerned bias against men’s issues in the U.N. and WHO. He conducted a content analysis showing consistent promotion of women’s issues whilst men are ignored. The U.N.’s sustainable development goal on “gender equality” is exclusive to females.<br/>
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The organisation observes nine International Days for women’s issues/achievements and one day for men. They operate 69 Twitter accounts dedicated to women’s issues and none for men. And so it goes on.<br/>
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DAVIA (the Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance) has launched a petition that calls on groups to “suspend their funding of the United Nations until all U.N. agencies fulfill their pledge to respect the ‘dignity and worth’ of all persons and assure the ‘equal rights of men and women.’” That’s a worthy goal.<br/>
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It’s also a pleasant change to find someone looking for the good in men.<br/>
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Mr. Nuzzo recently wrote a blog on Men: The Martyrs of Medicine. He’d unearthed a 1929 medical journal article listing the names of male doctors and researchers who died as a result of acquiring the disease they were studying or medical technology they were developing.<br/>
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Brave men who gave their lives trying to save others from yellow fever, typhus, bubonic plague, and other infectious diseases.<br/>
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It was quite a story and a welcome change to see the risk-taking, now so often labelled as ’toxic,' being promoted as valuable, even inspiring.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/kudos-to-mr-nuzzo-for-taking-on-the-feminist-status-quo-5594636">https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/kudos-to-mr-nuzzo-for-taking-on-the-feminist-status-quo-5594636</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Gender pay gap zealots care nothing for facts or fairness</b><br/>
<br/>
If we are in the business of publicly naming and shaming gender pay gap scoundrels, then the Workplace Gender Equality Agency ranks as the worst.<br/>
<br/>
Each year, this agency tops the list as worst offender when it comes to analysing the so-called gender pay gap. Each year we taxpayers pay these bureaucrats to churn out work that consistently defies logic, fairness and choice.<br/>
<br/>
WGEA’s latest report, released at midnight on Monday, has taken an underlying fraud to a higher level of wickedness. Why? Because if you are going to publicly humiliate companies, you had better have the right set of numbers to justify that exercise.<br/>
<br/>
Instead, WGEA data is as hollow as a drum, but that doesn’t stop it beating said drum for ideological purposes.<br/>
<br/>
One killer line brings down this house of cards: the data does not compare men and women doing the same job in a company.<br/>
<br/>
Think about that glaring omission given WGEA has the temerity to shame companies such as Qantas, Virgin Australia, Telstra, Woodside and Santos for being the worst offenders when it comes to the gender pay gap.<br/>
<br/>
Suffice it to say that not only would none of the companies on WGEA’s name and shame list not pay men and women differently for the same jobs even accidentally, most of them go to great lengths, through careful pay audits, to ensure men and women doing the same job are paid the same money. The gender pay gap actually has nothing to do with equity or fairness or any similar concept. It is simply a smokescreen to force social change.<br/>
<br/>
I am not going to recount WGEA figures because if you start at the wrong place you end somewhere up the garden path. And those who are of a fair mind should not buy into this fraud.<br/>
<br/>
To illustrate, WGEA’s chosen model doesn’t account for the fact more women than men prefer to work less hours, that women choose different jobs than men – in other words, that women make different choices to men.<br/>
<br/>
In other words, WGEA’s chosen measurement for the gender pay gap is unadjusted for anything that happens in the real world to explain differences between women and men.<br/>
<br/>
Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to find any serious attempt by WGEA’s bureaucrats to mention, let alone thoughtfully analyse, the different choices men and women might make. WGEA is so obsessed with asserting there are iniquitous structural inequities in our society that it is happy to doctor the data by excluding the choices of women to get to its result. For WGEA a flawed means justifies the ideological end: screaming each year about the gender pay gap and ramping up those screams by producing a list of worst offenders.<br/>
<br/>
One of the dumbest defences of its flawed model is the claim by WGEA boss Mary Wooldridge that their chosen measurement is replicated internationally. That apparently makes it just fine. “The gender pay gap is a widely used, internationally recognised measure for gender equality,” Wooldridge said.<br/>
<br/>
Consider that logic carefully. Never mind that the data is hollow, inaccurate tosh; it becomes legitimate if the same hollow, inaccurate tosh is replicated on a global scale. What WGEA appears to be saying is that the bigger this flawed agenda gets, the more untouchable and incontestable it is. It’s just as well we don’t use the same reasoning to justify international drug cartels.<br/>
<br/>
Let me put forward a different view: reproducing something rotten again and again, across countries, doesn’t make it acceptable. It makes it worse. It means there is a grand fraud afoot.<br/>
<br/>
So why is there global reliance on fake data? That’s the easy part.If WGEA and other similar activist agencies used more accurate measurements that factored in the different choices millions of women make, their agenda, activism and relevance would be in ruins. By excluding choices as relevant factors, WGEA is left with a gender pay gap caused by structural inequality. It gets to stay in business by claiming each year that the system is stacked against women and fairness.<br/>
<br/>
Given that it has been illegal for more than 50 years to pay men and women different amounts for the same work, WGEA is clearly not interested in genuine pay equality. Its aim is to confect and cement an emotive-sounding cause to justify massive social change that suits its vision of a modern society.<br/>
<br/>
But its dodgy numbers mean all it has done is create a straw man.<br/>
<br/>
Those who lap up the naming and shaming WGEA data would do well to consider the massive, centralised, disempowering social change required to eliminate WGEA’s confected gender pay gap. There are two routes. Either we insist that women work more hours, do the same kind of work as men, regardless of their choices, or we need to pay women more for less work. Which one of these social “reforms” is genuinely equitable, let alone attractive?<br/>
<br/>
Eliminating differences between men and women that contribute to different pay outcomes means effectively mandating that men and women must be 50-50 in all jobs (not just cushy jobs but garbos and gravediggers too), that men and women must be 50-50 in all university or training courses, that men and women must split 50-50 all domestic and childminding work, and must share all holidays or absences from work 50-50. We would need to eliminate differences in choices and attitudes to life, work and family between men and women.<br/>
<br/>
At the moment, the gender pay gap – as defined by WGEA – exists mainly because many women choose to work in lower-paid jobs. Therefore, to “fix” this gender pay gap, we need a societal change to reduce the number of women in lower-paid jobs. Does that mean cleaning out women from the ranks of clerical and admin roles and any other lower-paid work? Does it mean getting rid of many women in HR departments too because only that will lead to a 50-50 gender equal workplace? Only through social engineering on this colossal scale can we make men and women statistically the same in an aggregate sense to satisfy WGEA’s agenda.<br/>
<br/>
How about WGEA, with 30 female employees out of a workforce of 32 as at June last year, clean up its in-house gender inequality first before pointing the finger at others. Or has WGEA inadvertently discovered that there are some jobs that more women than men prefer to do?<br/>
<br/>
There is another way to gender pay parity that the boffins at WGEA probably prefer – simply pay women more even if they work less, and regardless of what kind of work they do. That might be social utopia for the gender equity ideologues. Revenge is a long time coming, some will say.<br/>
<br/>
I’m willing to bet that in the real world, women want to continue making their own choices, thank you very much, to work less, to work in different fields and in different roles.<br/>
<br/>
Equally, it’s not hard to guess that men might come to resent employers who paid women more money than men for working fewer hours than men.<br/>
<br/>
Either way, the change WGEA has in store for us to reach its version of gender pay parity is ugly in a free society. WGEA, noisy local accomplices such as Chief Executive Women and sister organisations globally use “gender parity” to demand equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. Their “data” is nothing more than politics, focusing on aggregate outcomes, not individual preferences.<br/>
<br/>
It is, simultaneously, a laughable and depressing insight into the current state of the Western world that we countenance taxpayer-funded bureaucracies filled with a majority of senior female bureaucrats (so much for in-house gender equality) who behave like chorus girls on a global stage singing from the same song sheet of fraudulent numbers.<br/>
<br/>
Like central planners from previous eras, the gender pay gap ideologues are the latest bunch of we-know-better-than-you emoters who sideline facts, fairness and individual choices.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/gender-pay-gap-zealots-care-nothing-for-facts-or-fairness/news-story/ca26f47b7e7007ff002d2c81e4b4e4b4">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/gender-pay-gap-zealots-care-nothing-for-facts-or-fairness/news-story/ca26f47b7e7007ff002d2c81e4b4e4b4</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Anti-Israel activist Laura Allam has been accused of organising the kidnapping and torture of a man because he worked for a Jewish employer</b><br/>
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<i> Is there no limit to Muslim insanity</i><br/>
<br/>
The 28-year-old from Fraser Rise in Melbourne’s northwest has been charged with kidnapping, armed robbery, false imprisonment, unlawful assault and assault by kicking over the alleged attack on a 31-year-old man in St Albans on February 16.<br/>
<br/>
A Victoria Police spokesman said it was alleged the man was pulled from a car near the intersection of Gladstone and Cleveland streets about 9.30pm, the Herald Sun reported on Tuesday night.<br/>
<br/>
“He was then allegedly placed in another car and assaulted and robbed before being released in Braybrook,” the spokesman said.<br/>
<br/>
The police spokesman said detectives had charged two people in relation to the alleged kidnapping.<br/>
<br/>
Police sources told the Herald Sun the man had required extensive treatment in hospital for his injuries, and that police believed Ms Allam, a well-known member of the Lebanese community, orchestrated the assault.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Allam’s alleged accomplice was a 37-year-old Brunswick man, who police said would face a string of charges.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Allam and her alleged accomplice were bailed to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on May 31.<br/>
<br/>
The Herald Sun reported that a suppression order relating to Ms Allam’s case had prevented it from publishing her image and providing certain details about Ms Allam’s advocacy work.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/antiisrael-activist-on-kidnapping-charges/news-story/cc864f5bfc278d07ac06e6a1e374125c">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/antiisrael-activist-on-kidnapping-charges/news-story/cc864f5bfc278d07ac06e6a1e374125c</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-47554651883937828072024-02-27T17:58:00.000+13:002024-02-27T17:58:02.110+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Spending Hundreds of Millions to Make a 0.1 Percent Difference to the Great Barrier Reef</b><br/>
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Hard-working Aussie fishermen, and all the people who depend on them, are about to suffer severe restrictions on their production. And all based on dubious science.<br/>
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The barramundi fishery mostly operates in the creeks and rivers, or very close to shore. Our out-of-touch government ministers have never explained how catching a barra in a creek somehow damages the Reef, which is far from shore—mostly 40 to 100 kilometers (25 to 62 miles).<br/>
<br/>
But worse is to come as governments cast their net further afield.<br/>
<br/>
As part of the UNESCO demands, the federal government has announced that it is now restricting fishing in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria to “save the Reef.”<br/>
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That area of the Gulf is 700 kilometres from the Reef and on the wrong side (to the west) of Cape York Peninsula. How can catching a barra near Mornington Island affect the Reef? Was this really demanded by UNESCO or is it being used as a convenient tool by our government to further enforce extreme green environmental policies?<br/>
<br/>
If killing the barra fishery seems like a scientific folly, the recent letter from Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to UNESCO asking that the Reef not be listed as endangered contains an even bigger indication that the government, and the science institutions upon which they base their dubious decisions, have lost the plot.<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Plibersek’s letter proudly states that government schemes costing hundreds of millions of dollars have stopped 140,000 metric tonnes of sediment reaching the Reef from farms and cattle stations in the last decade.<br/>
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That 140,000 figure sounds like a lot of mud. But in a decade, the rivers in question carry roughly 1,000 times more sediment than that out into the ocean.<br/>
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So, they reduced the sediment to the Reef by a meagre 0.1 percent—and they made it a big deal!<br/>
<br/>
Before I was fired by James Cook University after calling for better quality assurance of Reef science, my group worked extensively on the impact of sediment.<br/>
<br/>
We invented some of the instrumentation for doing this work. We took more measurements than all the other groups combined. We showed that mud almost never reaches the Great Barrier Reef, which is far offshore. And even when it does, it is in minuscule quantities for only short periods of time. Even the inshore reefs, such as around Magnetic Island near Townsville, are barely influenced by mud coming directly from the rivers fed by tropical monsoon rains.<br/>
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Government-funded scientists and managers have thus spent hundreds of millions to make 0.1 percent difference to a non-problem.<br/>
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We must hope that they do not try to scale-up their effort and completely solve a problem that does not exist. At this rate, it would cost roughly 10 percent of Australia’s yearly GDP just to manage this one environmental factor.<br/>
<br/>
Strangely, Ms. Plibersek conveniently forgot to mention that data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science show that, since records began, the reef has never had more coral than in the last two years. People might think that Ms. Plibersek was on UNESCO’s side and doing their bidding.<br/>
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The time has come for a forensic audit of the science that is being used to smash the livelihood of hardworking Aussie farmers and fishers. The government is in effect picking off industries one at a time in a classic “salami” tactic.<br/>
<br/>
The Australian Environment Foundation is organising a coalition of affected small industries to fight back, and top of the list is to audit the science.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/spending-millions-on-making-a-0-1-percent-different-to-the-great-barrier-reef-5587687?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=opinion-1">https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/spending-millions-on-making-a-0-1-percent-different-to-the-great-barrier-reef-5587687?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=opinion-1</a>
</p>
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<b> ABC health expert Dr Norman Swan admits some Covid vaccines had serious side effects after largest ever study released</b><br/>
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See<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X24001270?via%3Dihub#s0090">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X24001270?via%3Dihub#s0090</a>
</p>
ABC health expert Norman Swan has admitted the Covid vaccines produced unexpected side effects but considers them to be akin to 'winning the lotto three times in your lifetime'.<br/>
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Dr Swan was commenting on the largest ever study done into adverse reactions from Covid vaccines which was published last week.<br/>
<br/>
'They uncovered side effects they hadn’t quite expected and they did show up as a signal there,' Dr Swan told ABC interviewer Jeremy Fernandez on Monday.<br/>
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However, Dr Swan stressed that the side effects seen in the study's 99million subjects who received Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca shots were 'rare'.<br/>
<br/>
He said Guillain-Barre syndrome was a side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine that received particular attention in the study.<br/>
<br/>
He described it as a 'descending paralysis of the body that affects the nervous system'.<br/>
<br/>
'Usually in most people it is a temporary phenomenon but it can be quite serious at the time,' Dr Swan said.<br/>
<br/>
An unexpected side effect of the Moderna vaccine was acute disseminated encephalomyelitis.<br/>
<br/>
'So, this is essentially a brain inflammation usually seen in children but in this case in older people, these are largely 20 to 60-year-olds,' Dr Swan said.<br/>
<br/>
'He described the condition as 'self-limiting and quite nasty'.<br/>
<br/>
Dr Swan said that this condition was still extremely rare with only seven cases seen out of 10million injections.<br/>
<br/>
He likened the probability of getting it to 'winning the biggest lotto three times in your lifetime'.<br/>
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Asked how applicable the study was to Australians, Dr Swan said it included Aussies and people from similar countries such as Canada.<br/>
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Dr Swan has been a strong advocate for getting the Covid vaccines despite initially dismissing their likely efficacy and saying those who took them were 'guinea pigs'.<br/>
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In July 2022 the Scottish-born medical commentator revealed he had caught Covid for the second time despite having four jabs.<br/>
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The study Dr Swan was citing involved an international coalition of vaccine experts who looked for 13 medical conditions among 99million vaccine recipients across eight countries.<br/>
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They confirmed that the shots made by Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca are linked to significantly higher risk of five medical afflictions including Guillain-Barre syndrome.<br/>
<br/>
But the study also warned of several other disorders that they said warranted further investigation, including the links between a brain-swelling condition and the Moderna shot.<br/>
<br/>
However, the team says the absolute risk of developing any one of the conditions remains small.<br/>
<br/>
They said 13billion doses of vaccines had been administered and there have only been 2,000 cases of all conditions.<br/>
<br/>
Their research was published in the journal Vaccine.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13128663/ABC-health-expert-Dr-Norman-Swan-admits-Covid-vaccines-effects-largest-study-released.html">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13128663/ABC-health-expert-Dr-Norman-Swan-admits-Covid-vaccines-effects-largest-study-released.html</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Fact checkers fall out</b><br/>
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The ABC has ended its partnership with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) FactLab, with which it has operated the ABC RMIT Fact Check project for the past seven years.<br/>
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On Tuesday afternoon ABC news director Justin Stevens notified staff via email that the national broadcaster would replace the partnership with an internal fact-checking team, known as “ABC News Verify”.<br/>
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Stevens said Verify would be a “team of specialists with the ability to scale up to support our special coverage in times of crisis. It will be part of the Investigative Journalism and Current Affairs team led by Jo Puccini.”<br/>
<br/>
“In parallel with our decision to establish our own specialist verification team we have also taken the decision to not extend our current participation in ABC RMIT Fact Check when our current agreement expires in the middle of the year,” he wrote.<br/>
<br/>
Crikey understands RMIT management felt blindsided by the decision from the ABC, with sources saying it appeared that the ABC had concerns over pressure from fact-checking politicians.<br/>
<br/>
One source told Crikey that the relationship between RMIT and the ABC had become one-sided in recent years, with the university taking a lot of criticism from conservative media over the Fact Check project.<br/>
<br/>
It comes as the partnership and the ABC have come under significant pressure in recent months over accusations of bias following the Voice to Parliament referendum. In May, RMIT FactLab published a fact check of itself, refuting claims that the organisation was being “used” by proponents of the Yes campaign to “rig the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum”.<br/>
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The organisation’s participation in Meta’s fact-checking program was briefly suspended last year after its accreditation with the International Fact-Checking Network lapsed.<br/>
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The Australian reported last year that the ABC had spent $165,000 a year on the RMIT partnership since 2020, according to figures released in Senate estimates.<br/>
<br/>
In budget estimates this year, One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts asked ABC managing director David Anderson about the make-up of ABC RMIT Fact Check in relation to the Voice referendum.<br/>
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Anderson responded on notice that of the 17 articles published between June 1 and September 29, RMIT ABC Fact Check published two articles focusing on claims made by the Yes campaign or proponents, 10 on the No campaign or proponents, and five on claims made by proponents of both sides.<br/>
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Anderson said “checkable claims more frequently surfaced from proponents of No arguments than from proponents of Yes arguments” in the ABC’s media monitoring process.<br/>
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“When a Yes claim surfaced which was checkable and important to the national debate, Fact Check made sure it was covered in a timely manner.”<br/>
<br/>
A spokesperson for RMIT said in a statement that the university was “proud of the long-standing partnership” with the ABC.<br/>
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“The partnership between RMIT and ABC will conclude at the end of the current agreement [on June 30, 2024]. RMIT is committed to upholding the integrity of public information and will continue to do this through a range of activities,” the spokesperson told Crikey.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/02/21/abc-rmit-fact-check-partnership-abc-news-verify/">https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/02/21/abc-rmit-fact-check-partnership-abc-news-verify/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Australia on the brink as iron ore, nickel, lithium prices collapse</b><br/>
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CBA Mining and Energy Commodities Research Director Vivek Dhar says the collapse of Chinese property developer Evergrande “underscores” the issue with China’s property sector.<br/>
Australia prides itself in being the world’s quarry. But China is its biggest buyer. Now the collapse of the nickel industry reveals a supermarket-style price manipulation scandal is being played out on a grand scale.<br/>
<br/>
Competition is great. Until you get a winner. And that winner’s been taking performance enhancers …<br/>
<br/>
Canberra is having to fork out billions of dollars in emergency corporate aid and surrender royalty income after a slump in global nickel prices. They have fallen more than two-thirds – from a high of $US50,000 per metric ton in 2022 to about $US16,500 this week.<br/>
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Thousands of jobs are on the line as big multinational mining companies urgently review the viability of their operations across Australia.<br/>
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Mining giant BHP reported an 86 per cent slump in half-year net profit on February 20, 2024, hit by a writedown of its nickel assets and costs related to a 2015 Brazilian mining disaster. Picture: William WEST / AFP<br/>
Mining giant BHP reported an 86 per cent slump in half-year net profit on February 20, 2024, hit by a writedown of its nickel assets and costs related to a 2015 Brazilian mining disaster. Picture: William WEST / AFP<br/>
But the nickel industry isn’t the only mineral facing massive market disruption.<br/>
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Steel and iron ore prices have collapsed. As has lithium.<br/>
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The cause is the same across the board: China’s dumping huge quantities on already depressed markets.<br/>
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And that makes it unviable for competitors to continue competing.<br/>
<br/>
“Far from a hypothetical, Beijing has already used its near-monopolistic global supply-chain control of (rare earth elements) to strategic advantage against the US and Japan,” warns the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).<br/>
<br/>
Nickel is not just any mineral. It’s critical for producing high-capacity batteries, stainless steel and many other advanced alloys.<br/>
<br/>
It’s one of a host of difficult-to-mine and expensive-to-refine materials (generally classified as rare earth elements and critical minerals) that play central roles in modern electronics and high-performance technology.<br/>
<br/>
These are central to the global race to combat climate change – and rebuild militaries in the face of the territorial ambitions of Russia and China.<br/>
<br/>
But Beijing’s willingness to subsidise every step of production and bear the environmental fallout of chemical and energy-intensive processes means it’s now the source of about 80 per cent of the rare earths processed worldwide. That includes 90 per cent of lithium, 70 per cent of gallium, and 70 per cent of germanium.<br/>
<br/>
China refines about 35 per cent of all nickel output. And last year, it took control of a further 15 per cent once new Chinese-owned-and-operated plants in Indonesia came online.<br/>
<br/>
“Its incredibly low cost of processing and competitive labour market gives it an almost unassailable advantage, turning suppliers into price takers rather than price makers,” says Monash University critical minerals analyst Associate Professor Mohan Yellishetty.<br/>
<br/>
‘Dig it and ship it’<br/>
<br/>
Australia is notorious for selling off the farm and failing to value-add its food and mineral produce.<br/>
<br/>
China, however, has for decades had a single-minded focus on building market dominance.<br/>
<br/>
It’s invested heavily in building advanced industries, such as silicon chip and clean energy technologies.<br/>
<br/>
As a result, it’s now the world leader in the entire lithium extraction, refining and production chain – among others.<br/>
<br/>
“It has paid substantial environmental costs through trial-and-error innovation and has now developed dominant advantages in not just the scale of mass production, but also green technologies used in lithium processing,” Dr Marina Yue Zhang of the Australia-China Relations Institute argues in the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter. “It is debatable whether that cost should be repeated by other countries.”<br/>
<br/>
Likewise, Indonesia moved to value-add its nickel production in 2014. It went so far as to restrict exports – triggering a global price spike – while comprehensive new Chinese-owned and operated facilities were being built.<br/>
<br/>
“China also financed supporting infrastructure needed for nickel processing. Many coal-fired power plants, on which nickel smelting depends, were set up in Indonesia through China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI),” policy analyst Dr Teesta Prakash says in the Australian Institute of International Affairs’ Australian Outlook.<br/>
<br/>
“Before the ban, Indonesia only supplied raw nickel ore, valued at US$6 billion in 2013. By 2022, this figure increased to US$30 billion due to refinement.”<br/>
<br/>
Competitive chokehold<br/>
<br/>
“We should strengthen the production and supply of food and strategic mineral resources, and build a strategic base to guarantee the supply of important primary products for the country,” Chairman Xi Jinping proclaimed shortly before restricting refined gallium and germanium exports in July last year.<br/>
<br/>
Trade restrictions, embargoes and sanctions are nothing new on the world stage.<br/>
<br/>
But China seems especially willing to use its new-found economic superpower status to coerce its customers.<br/>
<br/>
Australian exports of coal, barley, wine and seafood were banned after Canberra suggested an international inquiry be conducted into the source of the Covid-19 pandemic.<br/>
<br/>
In October last year, Beijing imposed export restrictions on graphite. And that followed similar restrictions on gallium and germanium earlier in the year.<br/>
<br/>
It’s just part of an ongoing tit-for-tat trade war with the United States and the European Union. They’ve been steadily increasing restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductors – one last technological weakness China is determined to overcome.<br/>
<br/>
“Together, these announcements have been met with alarm given the dominant role China plays in the production of these minerals, as well as the minerals’ important role in the semiconductor industry and the clean energy economy,” says Atlantic Council think-tank analyst Reed Blakemore.<br/>
<br/>
Left in the dust<br/>
<br/>
“Perhaps the most pressing of these challenges is the global crash in lithium value,” ASPI warns. “Prices of lithium — Australia’s second largest commodity in committed capital expenditure through to 2030, surpassing even iron ore — collapsed in the last 12 months.”<br/>
<br/>
Australian governments have leapt at the prospect of becoming the Western world’s quarry in response to growing concerns over China’s reliability.<br/>
<br/>
Last year, Canberra committed an additional $2 billion in subsidies for miners – and processors – of critical minerals to set up shop here.<br/>
<br/>
The stated goal was to reduce reliance on China and support US attempts to revive its own neglected processing facilities.<br/>
<br/>
But the unfolding metals market price collapse is casting a long shadow over the economic viability of this strategy – without further heavy subsidisation by Western governments.<br/>
<br/>
“Judging from the supply side, Australia enjoys a powerful position in lithium,” adds Dr Zhang. “On the demand side, however, because power is concentrated in a single large buyer – China – this is a vulnerability for Australia.”<br/>
<br/>
That vulnerability is being seen in regional Australia.<br/>
<br/>
The Finniss lithium mine in the Northern Territory suspended operations in January. Other closures are expected to follow.<br/>
<br/>
BHP has written off its Nickel West division in WA as worthless. It’s preparing to suspend operations.<br/>
<br/>
Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest is also shutting down all his WA nickel mines.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, Australian lithium producers and steel refineries are also reviewing their economic viability.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mining/australia-on-the-brink-as-iron-ore-nickel-lithium-prices-collapse/news-story/85c15642b6e4a62e99df761c7dfa4964">https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mining/australia-on-the-brink-as-iron-ore-nickel-lithium-prices-collapse/news-story/85c15642b6e4a62e99df761c7dfa4964</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-9984279097230842024-02-26T16:58:00.001+13:002024-02-26T16:58:03.716+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Stamp duty stops thousands from moving every year: PropTrack, e61 Institute report</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Stamp duty is a really horrible tax that hits people when they can least afford it</i><br/>
<br/>
The removal of stamp duties could instigate 100,000 more home sales each year in NSW alone, with new research revealing a single percentage point increase to the transaction tax significantly reduces a buyer’s appetite to purchase.<br/>
<br/>
The findings from research firms e61 Institute and PropTrack revealed a 1 per cent increase in stamp duty can reduce property sales by 7.2 per cent each year as the burden of the “inefficient tax” creates an affordability hurdle.<br/>
<br/>
The research analysed the impact of then-Queensland premier Anna Bligh’s 2011 decision to nearly double stamp duty for owner-occupiers. Despite a short-term boost in the six weeks between the announcement of the change and implementation, the 2011/ 2012 financial year recorded a 9 per cent drop in the number of people moving – the equivalent of 20,000 households – and a 14 per cent decrease in people moving to the Sunshine State.<br/>
<br/>
The decision was reversed when the Newman Government won power in 2012.<br/>
<br/>
Research Manager at e61 Institute, Nick Garvin, said the economic impacts of stamp duty on employment, productivity and housing availability aren't immediately obvious.<br/>
<br/>
“Everybody knows that stamp duty is a big cost, but it’s fairly hidden because it gets charged to people at a point when they’re spending all their savings ,” Dr Garvin said.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s important to understand that there are economic effects. There are pretty strong signs that the productivity of the economy would be lifted when it’s easier for people to move and change jobs. With slowing productivity and problems with housing availability, removing barriers to job and housing mobility is critical.”<br/>
<br/>
Dr Garvin suggests that if NSW removed stamp duty, about 100,000 additional owner-occupiers would move home each year, up about 25 per cent on current levels.<br/>
<br/>
“Queensland gives us a quantification of the sensitivity of purchases to stamp duty,” he said, with the economic modelling taking into account interest rates and other influencing factors on the market at the time.<br/>
<br/>
“This is the best estimate we have – obviously different states, different points in time, the effects could vary – but we have no particular reason to think the effect in Sydney would be higher or lower.”<br/>
<br/>
Since the mid-1990s, the average stamp duties collected nationally have tripled relative to incomes. To buy in Sydney and Melbourne, the average homebuyer would need a full six months of income to cover the tax bill, which is about six times more than it was a generation ago.<br/>
<br/>
PropTrack senior economist Angus Moore said bracket creep has been an important driver of this increase in stamp duty as most states have the same tax brackets they had decades ago.<br/>
<br/>
“That means that, as home prices have increased, these brackets now capture more homes at higher tax rates,” Mr Moore said.<br/>
<br/>
“This process of bracket creep has seen us go from as few as 12 per cent of buyers paying a rate of stamp duty of 3 per cent or more in the early 1990s to 95 per cent today.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/stamp-duty-stops-thousands-from-moving-every-year-proptrack-e61-institute-report/news-story/8179b1a90973e9404f12621646d17bbb">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/stamp-duty-stops-thousands-from-moving-every-year-proptrack-e61-institute-report/news-story/8179b1a90973e9404f12621646d17bbb</a>
</p>
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<b> Nuclear, gas fuel Dutton’s tilt at green madness</b><br/>
<br/>
In 2004, Australian electricity bills were the fourth-lowest in the OECD. The wind and solar caper had barely begun, and coal and gas supplied 91 per cent of the National Electricity Market.<br/>
<br/>
Today, after 20 years of subsidy chasing by the renewable energy industry, Australia has slipped to 10th place in the OECD rankings of end-user power prices.<br/>
<br/>
Of the nine countries where electricity is cheaper, six have nuclear power stations. They are Finland, Mexico, Switzerland, South Korea, Canada and the US. Of the remaining three, the wet and hilly ones, Norway and Iceland run mostly on hydropower because that’s the way God made them. Israel, somewhat unfashionably, has stuck with coal and gas but has other things to worry about.<br/>
<br/>
So much for Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s claim that the opposition is using nuclear power as a culture-war distraction. His argument collapses at the first brush with reality.<br/>
<br/>
Nuclear is the only baseload alternative to fossil fuel for the inhabitants of a wide and flat brown land unless we care to drill down 40km through the Earth’s crust to tap geothermal energy, which even Bowen must concede is impractical. The minister’s forlorn grab for supporting evidence in his article in The Weekend Australian suggests he knows he is losing the argument.<br/>
<br/>
Until recently, conventional wisdom held that a pro-nuclear policy would be the kiss of death for the Coalition. Yet Bowen would know how quickly public opinion is changing, even within the green movement. When voters are asked if they favour nuclear power, the numbers are usually tight.<br/>
<br/>
When the pollster asks if they would consider nuclear power, however, a clear majority say yes. The readiness to consider nuclear grows when they are asked about small modular reactors, notably among younger voters.<br/>
<br/>
Bowen’s foolhardy use of statistics is unnerving, given his power to call upon the resources of a sizeable government department to stop him from embarrassing himself. He writes that “by early 2025, renewable energy will surpass coal as the planet’s largest source of energy”. As the Energy Minister should know, energy differs from electricity, which accounts for just 20 per cent of global energy use, according to the International Energy Market’s latest data.<br/>
<br/>
Wind and solar accounted for 2.2 per cent of the world’s energy mix in 2019 if we assume it is what the IEA means by “other”. If we include hydropower in the renewables basket, it rises to 4.8 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
Oil accounts for 31 per cent, down from 44 per cent in 1971, but the gap has been filled by gas (up from 16 to 23 per cent) and nuclear (0.5 per cent to 5 per cent). Coal has remained steady at 26 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
The data does not exactly leap to Bowen’s defence, even if we assume he has conflated energy with electricity. In 2019, wind, solar and biofuels generated 10.8 per cent of the world’s electricity, and hydro 15.7 per cent. Fossil thermal fuel was by far the biggest contributor at 63 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
Admittedly, the IEA’s reporting is somewhat tardy, but it would take a hockey stick curve of Michael Mann-ic proportions for renewables to overtake coal by this time next year, even if it were feasible.<br/>
<br/>
Bowen’s suggestion that nuclear projects fall like skittles is equally hard to substantiate. The World Nuclear Association lists 62 nuclear plants under construction in 17 countries. They include 26 in China. Some 440 more are listed as either planned or proposed, of which 196 are in China, 25 in Russia and five in Iran.<br/>
<br/>
Yet Peter Dutton would be foolish to assume the argument is as good as won, or that a nuclear policy is a substitute for a convincing energy policy.<br/>
<br/>
Even on the most optimistic timetable, nuclear will not be part of our energy mix before the mid-2030s and investment won’t flow without a thorough reform of the energy market.<br/>
<br/>
The short answer to almost every question is gas. The Opposition Leader will have little trouble persuading his own party room, where past battles have instilled a degree of energy literacy. He should prepare for considerable opposition from his own party at the state level, however, where many Coalition MPs have formed a unity ticket with Labor and the Greens in opposition to the imagined climate emergency.<br/>
<br/>
Dutton should not underestimate the quantity of the venom in the hornet’s nest he has disturbed by challenging the orthodoxy that prevails in the media, universities and government departments. As Tony Abbott discovered, these people are not prepared to surrender their dogma in this policy debate without a fight.<br/>
<br/>
An even more formidable opponent will be the energy industry, where a powerful combination of virtue signalling and naked self-interest has set in.<br/>
<br/>
The energy industry with few exceptions is not campaigning for fossil fuel, as renewable advocates often claim. It is busy chasing subsidies and playing with the market. It has worked out easier ways to make money than supplying customers with affordable and reliable electricity. Renewable Energy Certificates have proved be a more dependable source of revenue than the energy itself.<br/>
<br/>
Labor’s planned Capacity Investment Scheme, which is supposed to underwrite 32GW of renewal energy investment, has the added appeal of letting them make money without actually turning the generation plants on. It provides an even stronger incentive to stop nuclear before it eats their lunch.<br/>
<br/>
Over the past 10 years, the renewable energy industrial complex has grown in strength and sophistication. It channels tens of millions of dollars into grassroots campaigns in Australia, creating an almost bottomless war chest to fund lawfare and buy influence in politics. Renewable energy interests almost entirely underwrote the teal campaign in 2022. Dutton shouldn’t expect any of these so-called independents to back nuclear anytime soon, despite their claim to be the heroes putting integrity back into politics.<br/>
<br/>
Big renewables will fight almost as hard against gas, even though quick-start-up turbines are the quickest and cheapest way to firm the supply of the intermittent energy they fitfully supply. Gas threatens their investment in batteries for the same reason nuclear threatens renewables.<br/>
<br/>
The cause of common sense is not just lost. Dutton has defeated the woke Goliath once and could do so again. Corporate support for the voice, however, was mainly motivated by virtue signalling rather than crude financial self-interest.<br/>
<br/>
To use the words that turned boxing announcer Michael Buffer into a household name, “get ready to rumble”.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/nuclear-gas-fuel-duttons-tilt-at-green-madness/news-story/a262ff196775cf84fbe4179871c1e150">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/nuclear-gas-fuel-duttons-tilt-at-green-madness/news-story/a262ff196775cf84fbe4179871c1e150</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Going to univrsity is not always the right choice</b><br/>
<br/>
Students with poor grades in high school will be encouraged to go to university and set on a career path that is wrong for them, experts warn, under sweeping recommendations in the federal government’s higher education review that are coming under fire from vice-chancellors.<br/>
<br/>
One higher education expert warned that students with ATARs as low as 45 could make it into university under the blueprint for the sector outlined in the Universities Accord review’s final report, released by Education Minister Jason Clare on Sunday.<br/>
<br/>
The biggest review of tertiary education in 15 years has called on the Albanese government to double the number of university places in the next 25 years, reduce the high fees students pay in some subjects and reform the HECS loan scheme to ease the financial impact on graduates.<br/>
<br/>
The recommendations in the review will cost tens of billions of dollars over the next 25 years if fully implemented. They aim to create a highly educated workforce, with more than 55 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds having a bachelor degree or above by 2050.<br/>
<br/>
The review recommends more government funding to dramatically increase the number of disadvantaged students from poor backgrounds and regional areas at university.<br/>
<br/>
“At the moment almost half of young people in their 20s and 30s have a uni degree. But not … in the outer suburbs … not in our regions. And the accord is about changing that,” Mr Clare said. Although the report was welcomed by most universities, Australian National University higher education expert Andrew Norton warned the attendance target meant that students with an ATAR of only 45 would be going to university,<br/>
<br/>
“Historically most students with ATARs below 50 don’t go,” Professor Norton writes in The Australian. “Those who do, face a high risk of dropping out, and if they finish a reduced chance of getting a well-paid job. Nobody should be encouraged to take courses that probably won’t leave them better off.”<br/>
<br/>
While most of the recommendations are uncosted, Australia’s three wealthiest universities – Sydney, Melbourne and Monash – have slammed a key proposal to tax university income and redistribute resources from richer institutions to poorer ones.<br/>
<br/>
The report calls for all universities to pay an impost on “untied” revenue they earn through their own efforts, including international student fees, unsubsidised domestic student fees, interest and investment income, and business earnings.<br/>
<br/>
The tax, which will fall mainly on universities with high international student income, will contribute half of a $10bn investment in the Higher Education Future Fund, to pay for university infrastructure including campus buildings and student accommodation. The $5bn raised in tax would be matched by the government.<br/>
<br/>
Monash University vice-chancellor Sharon Pickering said the future fund plan would interfere with universities’ ability to deliver on the accord review’s goals of increasing numbers of disadvantaged students and building the workforce skills needed in a modern economy.<br/>
<br/>
University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell said he was concerned by the proposal. “A new tax on universities will weaken Australia’s current and future productivity, innovative potential and prosperity,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott, who is also chair of the Group of Eight universities which benefit most from international student fees, said the future fund tax plan “would hurt our reputation and our capacity to attract international students”.<br/>
<br/>
The report made no recommendations on the level of the tax but said it should only commence once a new university funding system was in place and should cease when $5bn had been raised.<br/>
<br/>
It would mainly affect five of the Group of Eight universities which have large numbers of high fee paying Chinese students – Sydney, Melbourne, Monash, UNSW and Queensland.<br/>
<br/>
Western Sydney University vice-chancellor Barney Glover, a member of the accord review panel, said the fund was “important future proofing for the sector” but there was “work to do on design and timing”.<br/>
<br/>
On Sunday Mr Clare said he had an open mind on the tax and the future fund, and would decide over the next weeks and months. “There are some universities who hate it, there are other universities who love it,” he told the ABC.<br/>
<br/>
The review called on the government to reduce the high fees student pay in some subjects, and reform the HECS loan scheme to ease the financial impact on graduates. The review says high university fees of over $16,000 a year in some fields – including humanities, communications, and other society and culture subjects such as human movement – should be reduced.<br/>
<br/>
It also urged reforms to HECS to ease the effect high inflation has on increasing the amount students owe and to reduce the financial impact on HECS debtors when their income first hits the loan repayment threshold.<br/>
<br/>
The report says banks lending practices should be reviewed so people don’t have their home loan borrowing capacity unduly affected by HECS debt.<br/>
<br/>
The review panel, headed by former NSW chief scientist Mary O’Kane, makes 47 recommendations for reforming tertiary education, aimed at dramatically increasing the number of Australians who continue education after finishing school.<br/>
<br/>
The review recommends a goal of having 80 per cent of working age Australians with at least one tertiary qualification (vocational or higher education) by 2050 compared to 60 per cent at the moment.<br/>
<br/>
It urges the government to set an achievement target of having 55 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds holding a bachelor degree or above by 2050, compared to 45 per cent now. This will require a doubling of commonwealth supported university places for domestic students from 860,000 in 2022 to 1.8 million in 2050.<br/>
<br/>
The review says universities should get more government funding for educating students with higher needs, such as those from low socio-economic status backgrounds, from regional and remote areas, and Indigenous students.<br/>
<br/>
The review also calls for more innovative types of courses such as micro-credentials and degree apprenticeships, payments to students for compulsory internships, free university preparatory courses, higher living allowances for needy students, better recognition of prior learning for people starting qualifications, and a “jobs broker” to help students find part-time jobs while they are studying in the area of their course.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/low-bar-to-entry-under-university-reform/news-story/133b1ab82dbb8828f74b1ef0a02da0fb">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/low-bar-to-entry-under-university-reform/news-story/133b1ab82dbb8828f74b1ef0a02da0fb</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Why it’s a mistake to deny the science of sex</b><br/>
<br/>
In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir wrote that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. For decades after her claim, feminists have championed the idea that social conditioning is what creates differences between the sexes.<br/>
<br/>
As little girls we are encouraged by our parents to play with dolls. As we get older we are encouraged to be decorative. From the clothes we wear to the interests we pursue, thousands of tiny interactions with the world mould us into the women we are.<br/>
<br/>
But advances in neuroscience are throwing at least some of this conventional wisdom into question. While we have known for a long time that sex may have some subtle influences on the brain (how could it not?), a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests such influences may be more expansive than previously thought.<br/>
<br/>
The landmark study, conducted by Stanford professor Vinod Menon, and with Srikanth Ryali, PhD, and academic staff researcher Yuan Zhang, PhD, took a large sample of fMRI brain scans from 1500 young adults between 20 and 35, and then tested whether deep neural networks (AI models) could detect their sex. They could.<br/>
<br/>
The AI models looked at many brain images from each person taken at different times (the brain scans were also taken from people in different regions). It found complex patterns that predicted if a brain was male or female with over 90 per cent accuracy.<br/>
<br/>
The AI could not only tell if a brain was male or female, but the researchers also created explanatory models to predict cognitive abilities based on their images. Because male and female brains are so different, separate models were needed for each sex.<br/>
<br/>
I contacted Professor Menon to ask what this meant. He told me “there were no gender differences (found) in the general intelligence factor, but response inhibition and reward sensitivity were higher in males than females”.<br/>
<br/>
There are a multitude of implications in these findings. Male brains having higher reward sensitivity and variable response inhibition may explain why males tend to be more vulnerable to addiction and ADHD, for example.<br/>
<br/>
The finding that males and females are different may strike many as intuitive and hardly worthy of journalistic attention, much like the observation that water is wet.<br/>
<br/>
One might argue quite reasonably that anyone who spends any time around children knows girls and boys are different, and that these differences are not superficial. Nevertheless, in the world of academia, simple intuition does not go very far. In the scientific fields at least, empirical claims have to be proven with data.<br/>
<br/>
Not only that, but there has been significant hostility from some quarters towards the idea that male and female brains differ at all. This hostility has been grounded in the fear that any discovery of differences will be used to reify gender stereotypes and justify discrimination against women – something female academics are naturally attuned to. Writing in Quillette in 2019, veteran neuroscientist Larry Cahill wrote: “Senior colleagues warned me as an untenured professor around the year 2000 that studying sex differences would be career suicide.”<br/>
<br/>
But sexism does not need any scientific justification to exist. The odious Andrew Tate, for example, uses social media to spread his noxious misogyny and, as far as I am aware, is not relying on any findings from neuroscience in doing so.<br/>
<br/>
Republicans in the United States are restricting women’s reproductive rights – including abortion and even IVF – on theological rather than scientific grounds. And I am not aware of the Taliban subscribing to Neuroscience News.<br/>
<br/>
In truth, sexism flourishes wherever scientific progress is suppressed, not where it is advanced.<br/>
<br/>
And ignorance about the influence of sex on the brain harms, rather than helps, women. For decades, basic research was only conducted on male cells, male animals and male clinical trial participants. Yet we know the incidence of many neurological conditions, from migraines to Parkinson’s disease, manifest differently according to sex. The failure to study how sex influences out of fear it will contribute to sexism means women miss out on having medical treatments tailored to their needs.<br/>
<br/>
The fear of acknowledging sex differences has also, ironically, given rise to another form of anti-female prejudice. Today the denial of biology has metastasised into the denial of sex itself. Trans activists argue that one can literally change biological sex, and that biological males have no physiological advantage over women in sports.<br/>
<br/>
Women are being denied the right to single-sex spaces such as bathrooms and change rooms, and new mothers are insultingly described in government-mandated protocols as “chestfeeders”. This is Simone de Beauvoir’s argument on steroids – this time used to erase womanhood altogether.<br/>
<br/>
Refusal to grapple with biological realities has hampered progress in a way that has helped no one. Indeed, the denial of sex differences has not eradicated sexism but instead has led to the neglect of women’s health needs and the emergence of new forms of prejudice unimaginable just a decade ago.<br/>
<br/>
While there may be some risks associated with new discoveries in neuroscience, these risks are outweighed by the potential benefits. As Larry Cahill has quipped: “The potential to misuse new knowledge has been around since we discovered fire and invented the wheel. It is not a valid argument for remaining ignorant.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-its-a-mistake-to-deny-the-science-of-sex/news-story/06dce2923275fa1c0522ab86fed4ded1">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-its-a-mistake-to-deny-the-science-of-sex/news-story/06dce2923275fa1c0522ab86fed4ded1</a>
</p>
*************************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-77203429187033918012024-02-25T15:53:00.001+13:002024-02-25T15:53:37.120+13:00<br><br/>
<b> Co-ed schools ‘healthy’ for teens asserts Anthony Albanese amid elite private schools’ battle of the sexes</b><br/>
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<i> This is an old, old debate but there is no denying that single sex schools have produced many notable graduates. There is some argument that single-sex schools are better for girls but not for boys. That would pose quite a policy conundrum</i><br/>
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Mr Albanese praised his old boys’ high school, St Mary’s Cathedral College in Sydney, for its decision to admit girls from Years 1 to 7, from 2025. “It’s a good thing they’ve made that decision,’’ he said.<br/>
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“I think there’s something healthy about boys and girls not being separated until they hit uni is my own personal view.<br/>
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“My son went to a co-ed school, went through the entire system at Dully and what’s now known as Sydney Secondary College, but to me as Leichardt High and Glebe High.<br/>
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“From my recollection, I remember that there would be a bit of craziness when we’d have school dances with St Bridget’s at Marrickville or Holy Cross at Woollahra, and that probably wasn’t the ideal.‘’<br/>
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Mr Albanese’s comments came after two elite private schools began a war of the sexes, over plans for Newington College to become a coeducational school after a girls’ headmaster decreed his students would never play sport with girls from a rival college.<br/>
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Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC) Sydney principal Dr Paul Burgis has cautioned that girls in coeducational schools risk being distracted by boys showing off, or joining in popularity contests to impress male classmates.<br/>
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In a note to PLC parents this month, Dr Burgis gave an assurance that their daughters would never take part in any sporting, public speaking or musical collaboration with the soon-to-be coeducational Newington College.<br/>
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“Pubescent girls benefit from being able to practice (sic) and play hard and freely, without an awareness of watching eyes,’’ he wrote.<br/>
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“No coeducational school is allowed to compete in the sport, speech or cultural programs with IGSA (Independent Girls’ Schools Association) schools.<br/>
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“I note this because if Newington is to become a coeducational school, it will need to look much further afield than the IGSA schools for its sport, public speaking and musical collaboration.’’<br/>
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The February 8 email refers parents to a link to a longer missive Dr Burgis wrote in 2022, when Newington College announced its divisive plan to become a coeducational school.<br/>
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Plans by the 161-year-old Uniting Church boys’ school to admit girls has upset an influential “old boys’’ network.<br/>
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Some “Old Newingtonians’’ have even withdrawn their bequests to the school in protest.<br/>
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Dr Burgis’s original missive – which was circulated among Old Newingtonians yesterday – noted that a successful co-ed school “needs to have a majority female population’’.<br/>
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“I hold this view because in your average group of boys, some will be likely to take on the role of gaining attention by acting counter to what it is the class is trying to achieve,’’ he wrote.<br/>
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“This may be outwardly disruptive behaviour, or it may be attention-seeking behaviour.<br/>
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“It could have the purpose of creating laughter or fun.<br/>
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“Girls are more likely to support the cultural project of the classroom, and would prefer to settle quickly, to be able to listen well, and to talk through any difficulties they might have.<br/>
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“The needs of girls can easily be set aside in a coeducational setting.’’<br/>
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The principal of PLC – which charges $42,000 a year in tuition fees for senior students – wrote that “girls learn better in single sex schools’’.<br/>
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He said the “toughest school for girls’’ is one with a “male-oriented culture’’.<br/>
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“Is it ethically a good idea to introduce girls because it could benefit boys?’’ he wrote.<br/>
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“Why … would a highly successful school for boys, with long waiting lists, choose to go coeducational?<br/>
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“They must have arrived at the belief that something in the culture of the boys is better if girls are about.<br/>
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“The change is being driven by a perception about boys, rather than the needs of girls.’’<br/>
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Dr Burgis wrote that “having boys about is an opportunity for distraction’’. “Some girls will seek to be ‘popular’ with the boys. “Others will feel the need to respond to this.’’<br/>
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Dr Burgis wrote that “it is easy for some of us males, when relaxing, to take up quite a bit of room on the lounge’’.<br/>
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“On average, we will take up more lounge space more often than our sisters,’’ he wrote. “The effect is that they will have to accommodate us. “In a girls school, girls get a comfortable seat on the lounge without even having to ask.’’<br/>
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Dr Burgis yesterday told The Australian that his memos to parents should not be mistaken for “us seeking to tell a different independent school what they should do’’.<br/>
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“Of course as a school which believes wholeheartedly in the education of girls in a single sex environment, PLC Sydney will communicate strongly and positively about the advantages of a girls only education to our families and the broader community,’’ he said.<br/>
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“We will also explain how girls only sporting programs work.’’<br/>
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A Newington College spokeswoman declined to comment on the rival school’s critique.<br/>
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The Newington College website shows that it never intended to join the girls’-only IGSA sporting contests, but plans for girls to compete in the Independent Sporting Association (ISA) contests with co-ed schools Barker, Redlands and St Andrews.<br/>
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Newington College, which charges up to $42,000 a year, will admit the first girls to preparatory and Year 5 students in 2026, but will wait until 2028 to admit the first female high school students to Years 7 and 11 until 2028.<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/newington-college-coed-plan-sparks-elite-private-schools-battle-of-the-sexes/news-story/233b905036c797f7d3f6ae633f0f771b">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/newington-college-coed-plan-sparks-elite-private-schools-battle-of-the-sexes/news-story/233b905036c797f7d3f6ae633f0f771b</a>
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<b> Inquiry Ponders How Government Can Legislate Against Climate Change Health Risks</b><br/>
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The government is hearing testimony on whether to require lawmakers to consider the ‘health and wellbeing of children in Australia’ when approving mines.<br/>
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Questions remain over how exactly the federal Australian government can define, and legislate, a climate change risk to the “health and wellbeing” of children.<br/>
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A Senate Committee is examining an amendment to the Albanese government’s Climate Change Act 2022 to require legislators to consider the health of children when making significant decisions.<br/>
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The Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2023 would also restrict approvals for mining activities related to coal, oil, and natural resources if they pose a “material risk of harm” to children.<br/>
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While medical bodies like the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), as well as several climate change activist groups, shared their views on the health risks caused by climate change, the issue of how exactly the government would legislate against this, was largely left unanswered.<br/>
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“How would you expect decision-makers to correctly identify a project-specific impact on health, in a context where the cumulative impact of emissions over many years is causing climate change? How would you see that point of identification?” said Labor Senator Karen Grogan on the morning of Feb. 22.<br/>
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In response, Dr. Catherine Pendrey, chair of the Climate and Environmental Medicine Specific Interest Group at RACGP, said her organisation would not “specifically comment on the functions of the court.”<br/>
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“I believe it’s the young people in Australia that have been taking these issues to court, rather than members of the medical profession,” she told the Senate Environment, Communications Legislation Committee.<br/>
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Senator Grogan said that she had no argument with climate change science, but was concerned about the impact of how the law would operate on the ground.<br/>
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“Will it have the intended impact? Or will it ... have unintended consequences, and limit the ability of the structures—that the Labor government’s put in place over the last 18 months—to try and ramp up action on climate change?”<br/>
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She further added, “I’m asking how you would believe an administrative decision maker would make that assessment [on the health impact of climate change?]”<br/>
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Dr. Michael Bonning, chair of the Public Health Committee at the Australian Medical Association, said there was evidence of legislators coming to conclusions based on available evidence and “utilising that going forward.”<br/>
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“As for internal administrative procedures, we obviously aren’t able to comment on that.”<br/>
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When asked the same question, Anjali Sharma, a young climate change activist, conceded it was difficult to quantify the impact of a fossil fuel project, but added that the “cumulative impact of all these decisions is what we young people will face down the road.”<br/>
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“I know that 50 years down the road—in a world that potentially has seen warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius—we will not be able to look back and point to that one specific decision that was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she said.<br/>
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‘Health Impact Assessments’ Mentioned<br/>
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Dr. Kate Wylie, from Doctors for the Environment Australia, provided, what she termed “the beginning of an answer” to the senator’s question.<br/>
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“We have Health Impact Assessments for various projects ... and they do not consider climate change impacts. We could broaden the scope of the Health Impact Assessments to include climate change, and how that impacts on children’s health.”<br/>
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Heath Darrant, national coordinator of the Australian Medical Students’ Association, concurred, saying Australia could adopt the United Nation’s Child Rights Impact Assessment Model.<br/>
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“And I know Wales used that in their [Wellbeing of Future Generation Act] that they implemented, which is a similar bill that’s being discussed here today. And New Zealand also uses the same model to come up with criteria on what constitutes an impact on health.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/inquiry-ponders-how-government-can-legislate-against-climate-change-health-risks-5592318">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/inquiry-ponders-how-government-can-legislate-against-climate-change-health-risks-5592318</a>
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<b> IR rule changes are about union power, not helping workers</b><br/>
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In six months, on or around September 1 depending on the date the parliamentary-approved legislation receives royal assent, employing casuals in most Australian enterprises will be extremely hazardous.<br/>
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There are currently around 2.6 million Australians who take up their entitlement to casual work usually as a second family income.<br/>
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By Christmas this number will be slashed, resulting in a nightmare for family enterprises and a 25 per cent reduction in pay in the pocket for a vast number of Australians struggling with rent and mortgage stress.<br/>
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Australian family businesses thrive on the flexibility of casual labour, and vast numbers of people under mortgage and rent stress use casual labour as a second job to help make ends meet.<br/>
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In my view, this new legislation shows a callous disregard by the Prime Minister for this segment of his fellow Australians.<br/>
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I emphasise casual labour has not been banned, but control over whether an enterprise is entitled to employ casual labour will be determined not by the employees or the enterprise but rather by the Fair Work Commission.<br/>
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The Prime Minister may deny he is deliberately attacking family business and those struggling with mortgage and rent stress – so let me go through, step by step, how he and the relevant minister engineered the legislation and the looming chaos.<br/>
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Remember, currently whether a person is to be employed as a casual, at least initially, is determined by the enterprise. Many employees love casual work because of the extra cash and the fact they can determine when they work, so work can be fitted into family and base job obligations.<br/>
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There is no job security or holidays, but in a an economy where there is a labour shortage this is not seen as a problem by many Australians.<br/>
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Family and other businesses can relate their labour requirements to the flexibility of customer demand. Casual labour is one of Australia’s greatest boosts to productivity and employee wellbeing. But Albanese, via his Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Tony Burke, and the loopholes in the so-called industrial relations legislation has set new rules.<br/>
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Accordingly, from the start of spring 2024, an employee will be a casual employee of an employer only if “the employment relationship is characterised by an absence of a firm advanced commitment to continuing and indefinite work”.<br/>
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What this means will be determined by Fair Work and involves looking into the minds of both the casual person and the employer.<br/>
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It is complete parliamentary nonsense, with no regard to how business and ordinary Australians operate. But the Albanese legislation gets worse.<br/>
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The above definition is then subject to further interpretation, and the ability to hire casuals must also be anchored on “the basis of the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the employment relationship … having regard to, but not limited to, the following considerations (which may indicate the presence, rather than an absence, of such a commitment):<br/>
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(i) whether there is an inability of the employer to elect to offer, or not offer, work;<br/>
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(ii) whether, having regard to the nature of the employer’s enterprise, it is reasonably likely that there will be future availability of continuing work …”<br/>
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I invite Albanese to go down to the Stanmore fish and chip shop in his electorate to explain what this means.<br/>
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But there is one chilling criteria in the Albanese legislation which actually has a clear meaning and will be used by the required union delegate, or delegates, in all enterprises to report to their union. That is: “whether there are full‑time employees or part‑time employees performing the same kind of work”.<br/>
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My layperson interpretation of this sentence is if an enterprise has a part-time or full-time employees doing “the same kind of work” as a casual employee, then the casual must be forced to take a pay cut and be employed full or part time.<br/>
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Under the legislation it seems the penalties for employing casuals do not apply until Fair Work has declared the enterprise is not entitled to employ casuals. If the enterprise continues to do so, the penalties are harsh and can total close to $100,000.<br/>
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This leaves the enterprise being forced to employ permanent part-time employees, which usually requires the rigidity of a roster. And contacting the employee out of hours to change the roster may be hazardous.<br/>
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It’s a totally different relationship, which robs both the family business and the employees of the flexibility which benefits both in the modern world.<br/>
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Of course, in some situations the predictability of a roster may help an employee, which is why when the ACTU originally suggested after a designated period of casual employment, an employee should be able choose part-time employment.<br/>
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It was a reasonable suggestion, but few would have changed because of the pay cut and lack of flexibility. Now they have no choice.<br/>
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The ACTU is now suggesting the casual premium be increased from 25 to 35 per cent (the cost differential is about 20 per cent) to “mop up” any enterprise Fair Work allows to employ casuals.<br/>
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The reason the ACTU and the unions want all people working in an enterprise to be full or part-time employees is it they are more likely to become union members, delivering the union more income plus a relationship with employees – which gives the union influence over the running of the business.<br/>
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It’s all about money and power, not worker protection<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/ir-rule-changes-are-about-union-power-not-helping-workers/news-story/c328dcb3136b4c3fb2d72a8ccdf0084d">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/ir-rule-changes-are-about-union-power-not-helping-workers/news-story/c328dcb3136b4c3fb2d72a8ccdf0084d</a>
</p>
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<b> ‘Good’ girls, ‘bad’ boys? That’s no way to make progress</b><br/>
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Nikki Gemmell says boys in the West are angry. They want power and control, she says, pointing to a Gallup poll that apparently shows young men “flinching into conservatism” while young women are embracing and facilitating social reform.<br/>
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The impetus for girls is fairness and equality, she says, a natural step for the educated. It’s why “the Taliban wants to stop females from being educated”, she wrote on the weekend.<br/>
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The impetus for boys, says Gemmell, is to preserve what they had. She claims they are hurting, raging and lost.<br/>
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Let’s put the Taliban to one side, given that in Australia girls are educated, they work, dress as they wish, vote, run companies, and become prime minister.<br/>
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Lumping girls in the good column and boys in a bad one is not helpful. The world can’t be summed up so simply. Let’s dissect two claims – one about politics, the other about gender, at the centre of Gemmell’s thesis.<br/>
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Having followed politics for a long time, I can safely say the world is more complicated than saying that conservative equals bad and progressive equals good.<br/>
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If “progressive” meant only good things, we would do away with elections right now, and make Adam Bandt leader for life. In fact, the Greens are not genuinely progressive. For starters, they harbour anti-Semites.<br/>
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This word, “progressive”, is often a crock. The progressive Greens are economic dunces; they’d wreck the economy overnight with their taxation and spending policies. We know from experience that being progressive on immigration – in other words, handing over control of our borders to people-smugglers – led to thousands of deaths at sea for desperate people.<br/>
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So-called progressive policies can be wickedly regressive. When a bunch of elites thought that granting special rights to one group of Australians was such a good idea it should be enshrined in the Constitution, the response from Australians was an overwhelming “no”.<br/>
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That No vote was the height of social and political equality: it was progressive and liberal.<br/>
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When I hear claims that “progressive” is all sweetness and light, and comes in the shade of teal, it pains me to point out that most of the teals are frauds.<br/>
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For all their kvetching about the need for more integrity in politics, and attacking low-hanging fruit such as pork-barrelling, they haven’t shown any interest, on behalf of taxpayers, in getting to the bottom of why the federal government handed over $2.4m to Brittany Higgins. Not a single injured veteran is able to secure that amount of money, no questions asked. How’s that for political integrity.<br/>
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Nice-sounding words can’t hide poor outcomes. When diversity translates into discriminating against men, the result is neither fair nor equal.<br/>
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Earlier this year, Caroline Overington reported on a bookshop owner in Melbourne who was concerned that while she had shelves of great women’s fiction writing, “positive stories with men and boys are almost missing from the mix”. We reported that women filled seven of the top 10 places in fiction writing last year. It was the same internationally.<br/>
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Women coming out on top is great news, so long as it’s not manufactured by booting men out of the mix. Sadly, it’s seen as “progressive” to do precisely that.<br/>
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Gender quotas are routinely used to fill board seats, sidelining merit. It’s easy to predict what flows: boards end up reflecting a political monoculture comprising people who think quotas make sense. That’s not genuine diversity.<br/>
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When I wrote extensively many years ago about the importance of phonics when teaching young kids to read, I discovered phonics was described by its opponents as a conservative plot to entrench the political status quo. What on Earth? We’re talking about giving the kids the building blocks to read, a necessary step so they can learn, expand their horizons, think for themselves.<br/>
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Back then, progressives believed kids learned to read by osmosis, by being exposed to words, and most schools bought their magic pudding. The steady stream of poor literacy results for Australian students reveals how regressive that progressive project has been for kids. Talk about being mugged by reality.<br/>
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According to a piece in The Financial Times about the Gallop survey, the #MeToo movement is the trigger for women moving to the progressive side of politics. Gemmell repeated the claim. So, let’s look a little closer at this recent progressive movement.<br/>
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The #MeToo movement has helped women feel empowered to report sexual assault and call out bad behaviour that falls short of assault. But not everything about #MeToo is positive. For example, the oft-repeated mantra that we must “believe all women” can only serve to undermine the presumption of innocence. That’s a dangerous path for a society committed to fairness, let alone fair trials.<br/>
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There are other, less serious, but equally boneheaded responses to the #MeToo movement. One of Sydney’s most prestigious boys schools told boys in an assembly not to use the word “moist” because it offends girls. That school and others are going co-ed because apparently boys will become civilised human beings by sharing a classroom with girls.<br/>
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The boys I know aren’t angry about sharing power, let alone classrooms. They’re not hurting, or raging, or lost, as Gemmell suggests. They weren’t born to be at the top of the tree. Nor are they hankering for cosy arrangements to continue. If I had to guess, what annoys both boys and girls – along with some of their parents – are evidence-free anti-male messages that go unchallenged.<br/>
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Sky News contributor Daisy Cousens says the MeToo movement’s celebrity activists do not actually care about…<br/>
Young men and women in Gen Z are entering a world where labels and slogans are routinely used to dumb down society. Just as people are complex, so too are political philosophies.<br/>
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For those interested in learning about conservatism as a political philosophy, there are plenty of books I could suggest. But let’s cut to the chase: being conservative means looking at what people did before us, holding on to what works and, yes, changing what doesn’t work.<br/>
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Conservatism is rooted in lived experience, to coin a phrase from the progressive zeitgeist, not crossing your fingers, closing your eyes and saying a little prayer that good intentions will translate into good outcomes.<br/>
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Now to another point about boys and girls. Gemmell claims Gen Z is “split” and living in “two separate worlds”. I looked at the Gallop results. In the US, Gallop’s news website says “a widening of the ideological gaps between men and women over time has been due to women becoming more liberal at a faster rate than men, rather than women and men moving in different ideological directions”. So, let’s take a breather.<br/>
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I must live in a different part of Australia to my colleague. Having young men and women waft through our homes for many years, I can vouch for relationships forged above politics and social movements.<br/>
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These young men and women befriend, work with, partner and marry people who have different views. The reason is simple: in most workplaces, pubs and homes, politics need not be a morality contest; ergo progressive doesn’t mean good, and conservative doesn’t mean bad. Or vice versa.<br/>
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Perpetuating a myth that girls are progressive social reformers, while boys hanker for the good old days when men ruled the world, will only help to make the world more, not less, polarised.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/good-girls-bad-boys-thats-no-way-to-make-progress/news-story/88decbcbf36cbe764d95c448ce9aebf0">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/good-girls-bad-boys-thats-no-way-to-make-progress/news-story/88decbcbf36cbe764d95c448ce9aebf0</a>
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<b> Warning over pipeline regulation review</b><br/>
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APA Group has warned a review into the regulation of Australia’s gas pipelines threatens to delay much needed investment to boost capacity ahead of looming gas shortages on Australia’s east coast.<br/>
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The industry was informed on Wednesday that the Australian Energy Regulator, under new powers over the regulation of Australia’s gas pipelines, would initiate the first in a series of reviews, starting with APA’s South West Queensland Pipeline (SWQP).<br/>
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The pipeline, which links Wallumbilla in South East Queensland to Moomba in South Australia, is a key pipeline in the transmission network connecting Queensland with the southern states.<br/>
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It is currently subject to light regulation, with an arbitration process in place to handle customer complaints, but the AER is considering whether to convert it to a “scheme pipeline”, which would subject it to full price regulation.<br/>
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The AER on Wednesday said the SWQP was chosen as the first pipeline for review “due to its importance to the east coast gas system in transporting gas between northern and southern states”.<br/>
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Speaking to The Australian after delivering the company’s half-year results on Thursday, APA Group chief executive Adam Watson criticised the “bizarre” timing of the review.<br/>
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“They’ve actually called out the reason why they’re starting there is because of the significance of it in moving gas down, which is sort of bizarre and ironic that you’ve got a gas pipeline that is so critical to energy security, and pricing that’s functioning well,” he said. “We’ve never had a single customer complaint, it’s already lightly regulated so we’ve got full transparency of pricing and everything, and yet the government is giving the regulator power to look at that to see whether or not it should be heavily regulated.<br/>
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“It is quite concerning that at a time where we need more flexibility in our energy supply, we need to be more nimble ... that they’re putting up barriers making it even harder for us to bring this transition to life.”<br/>
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The AER was given the responsibility for determining the form of regulation of Australia’s gas pipelines last March as part of new National Gas Law rules introduced by the federal government at the time.<br/>
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The review of the SWQP will be the first in a series of reviews the AER is planning to undertake over several years.<br/>
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However with Australia facing a looming material shortfall of gas on Australia’s east coast from 2028, Mr Watson said the reviews undermined the need for further investment in new supplies and infrastructure.<br/>
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“We’ve put about $700m of expansion capacity in that network at our own risk, ahead of market, to support energy security,” he said.<br/>
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“If you go to a heavy form of regulation, that form of regulation is going to cause all sorts of problems in our energy transition.<br/>
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“If we need to do an expansion, all of the decisions around that would be effectively determined by the regulator, and the regulatory processes are slow - it could take two, three, four, five years for them to determine whether or not we should bring an asset to market, by which time the problem’s already hit you in the face.<br/>
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“You feel like the goal posts are being moved on you in the middle of a pretty important game, and we’ve got to be careful that we don’t have the umpires being the only ones left on the field trying to run the energy transition.”<br/>
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APA’s underlying EBITDA grew by 5.8 per cent to $930m in the six months to December, underpinned by inflation-linked tariff increases, which resulted in a 3.4 per cent increase in revenue (excluding pass through revenue).<br/>
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Recent acquisitions including the Basslink interconnector between Victoria and Tasmania, and the Pilbara Energy portfolio of renewable energy assets, lifted the result, and supports the company’s new full-year guidance for underlying EBITDA of $1.87bn to $1.91bn.<br/>
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Statutory net profit after tax in the first half came in at $1.05bn.<br/>
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The company reaffirmed full-year distribution guidance of 56c after declaring a 26.5c distribution for the first half.<br/>
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Mr Watson described it a “solid” result, with the two recent acquisitions “in line with expectations and business cases”.<br/>
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However he renewed concerns about the policy uncertainty surrounding the role of gas in the country’s energy transition, using last week’s blackouts in Victoria as an example of the important role gas will continue to play.<br/>
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“Gas fired generation came on to save the day,” he said.<br/>
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“We lost power to about half a million homes. By our high level estimates, we think that would have been more than a million homes without power if we didn’t have gas.<br/>
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“We need to be able to bring more gas to market ... but the challenge we’ve got is when you look at things like excluding gas generation from capacity investment schemes, project approval processes, regulation.”<br/>
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<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/renewable-energy-economy/apa-group-warning-over-pipeline-regulation-review/news-story/5f62bf591bc8608d324cc966ba189a4d">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/renewable-energy-economy/apa-group-warning-over-pipeline-regulation-review/news-story/5f62bf591bc8608d324cc966ba189a4d</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
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***************************************jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-40343757071110501682024-02-22T16:11:00.000+13:002024-02-22T16:11:02.563+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> CEOs take risks if they get involved in broader social issues</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> The everlasting Glenda Korporaal (below) is right in saying that Banducci was forced out by his political amateurism. I had some dealings with Banducci a little while back and found him to be a pretty decent bloke. Wooworths may well do less well without him</i><br/>
<br/>
The sudden announcement of the departure of Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci has thrown a spotlight on the dangers of chief executives becoming involved in social issues.<br/>
<br/>
While Banducci argued that the timing of his announcement on Wednesday had long been planned and had nothing to do with his disastrous interview this week on Four Corners, or his recent involvement in the controversy over not stocking Australia Day-themed goods, the timing of his announcement means he is exiting bruised by recent events.<br/>
<br/>
While businesses have learned not to align themselves with any political party, given the real possibility of governments changing, high-profile business leaders have seen fit in recent years to become commentators on social issues of the day.<br/>
<br/>
Issues such as same-sex marriage, the Indigenous voice to parliament, the merits of celebrating Australia Day and the war in the Middle East have become areas drawing in some business leaders.<br/>
<br/>
But the pendulum may be swinging the other way, with the risks outweighing the perceived social halo – despite the prevailing corporate speak for having “purpose-led” organisations.<br/>
<br/>
As Banducci found out, when his company tried to explain its reasons for not stocking Australia Day goods this year with a statement saying that not all staff supported the celebration of the day, taking a stand on social issues can be a high risk strategy.<br/>
<br/>
The more he tried to explain the situation with full page advertisements and a media blitz, the worse it got, prompting Peter Dutton to call for a boycott of Woolworths stores.<br/>
<br/>
While the same-sex marriage plebiscite was passed with a strong majority, with many business leaders who had supported it comforting themselves that they had been “on the right side of history”, the voice proved much more socially divisive issue.<br/>
<br/>
While a majority of ASX top 20 companies publicly supported the voice, including Qantas, Wesfarmers, Coles, mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto, the big four banks and Telstra, in the end it could only garner support from about 40 per cent of voters.<br/>
<br/>
Questions have been asked at shareholder meetings about the decision by company leaders to spend shareholders’ money supporting campaigns like the voice, with several large companies kicking in as much as $2m each.<br/>
<br/>
Woolworths’ Big W was making public announcements in support of the voice during the campaign last year, but scrapped them after feedback from staff and customers.<br/>
<br/>
While corporate support for the voice went down well with the Albanese government, it generated criticism from the opposition, with treasury spokesman Angus Taylor arguing that boards and senior executives should focus on their core business.<br/>
<br/>
He said Australians had “never liked being told what to do by big business and big government”.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/leadership/flagging-support-ceos-take-risks-if-they-get-involved-in-broader-social-issues/news-story/6a56171f44c36c74310d4d62df89b108">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/leadership/flagging-support-ceos-take-risks-if-they-get-involved-in-broader-social-issues/news-story/6a56171f44c36c74310d4d62df89b108</a>
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<b> Make no mistake, PM’s resolve is on the line over return of boat arrivals</b><br/>
<br/>
PETA CREDLIN<br/>
<br/>
The last time Australia confronted a resurgence of illegal boat arrivals I had a seat at the table, and two things have always stuck in my mind from that time.<br/>
<br/>
The first was the general fear from officials that if the Abbott government didn’t stop the boats, as the Coalition had successfully done in the Howard era, we would never be able to stop them.<br/>
<br/>
The second memory was walking out of a meeting of the national security committee of cabinet – after those same officials had congratulated themselves for a sustained period of no boat arrivals – and thinking to myself: you are all the same people who sat in there under Rudd and Gillard and couldn’t stop the boats.<br/>
<br/>
The only difference between then and now was the change of politicians in the room and a prime minister with resolute determination that he would stop at nothing to defeat the people-smugglers and restore Australia’s sovereignty.<br/>
<br/>
It was a profound lesson in the power of resolve. We had it then, and under this current government it has gone missing; that and basic ministerial competence.<br/>
<br/>
Illegal migration is a scourge few countries seem able or willing to solve.<br/>
<br/>
In 2013, after 50,000 people arrived by boat under Labor, the fear was the people-smuggling trade was more sophisticated than ever, the supply chain of vulnerable people ever increasing, and the use of technology made things more challenging for law enforcement.<br/>
<br/>
As those who there at the time will attest, just rolling out the old Howard-era measures, such as turnbacks, temporary protection visas and offshore processing weren’t enough. The smuggler gangs were using new tactics deployed in other regions so new structures were put in place, including the unified command structure known as Operation Sovereign Borders and Australian-purchased orange lifeboats to take people back to Java after they’d scuttled their fishing boats.<br/>
<br/>
And it worked: from early 2014 until 2022 there were almost no illegal boat arrivals.<br/>
<br/>
That was then, though, and this is now. On top of 11 boats intercepted since the election, there have been at least two that made it undetected through to the Australian mainland: one last November, another larger vessel last week.<br/>
<br/>
And that’s not really surprising given the head of the Australian Border Force told the Senate late last year that surveillance flights were down more than 20 per cent and maritime patrols were down more than 10 per cent under the current government.<br/>
<br/>
It’s possible Indonesian people-smugglers have come up with new tactics, such as using military-style inflatables to speed boatpeople to our northern beaches, and for the smugglers to then escape back to what looks like an innocent fishing vessel.<br/>
<br/>
The government is playing down the seriousness of these border breaches. Last Friday, Anthony Albanese avoided media questions, using the Kevin Rudd-esque tactic of claiming not to have been briefed.<br/>
<br/>
I know how national security matters are handled. If the Prime Minister could not be directly contacted, his travelling team would have been, or the Australian Federal Police detail with him (their phones are always on). Either the Prime Minister was being dishonest with the media or the whole national security apparatus has gone to sleep.<br/>
<br/>
Polling already shows the electorate isn’t happy about the return of people-smugglers; it’s even showing up in younger voting demographics. Hence, this week, from the Prime Minister down, the government has been at pains to emphasise that Operation Sovereign Borders remains in place and that funding has been increased (notwithstanding the ABF testimony last year).<br/>
<br/>
This is because of the conflation we’re now being fed about onshore funding numbers versus offshore funding. And that has been borne out by the leaks that Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil is racing to put in a submission for urgent extra funding in the May budget. We can but hope this extra funding materialises because the last thing we need, as the world’s security situation deteriorates, is the revival of something akin to a peaceful invasion.<br/>
<br/>
Back in 2007 Rudd promised he’d be tough on borders, and we all know how that turned out. On Labor’s watch, there were almost 1000 illegal boats, more than 50,000 illegal arrivals and more than 1000 deaths at sea. Back then, at any one time there were an estimated 10,000 would-be illegal migrants to Australia who’d flown into Jakarta in the hope of picking up a people-smuggling boat to Christmas Island.<br/>
<br/>
If anything, the number of people willing to try their luck crossing illegally into a rich country, in the hope of a better life or, occasionally, for more nefarious purposes has only increased. Several hundred thousand people are crossing into the US every month, often swimming the Rio Grande. Last year, 30,000 people crossed the English Channel to Britain on small boats. Last year, there were almost 400,000 irregular arrivals into the EU, mostly across the Mediterranean, with nearly 3000 thought to have drowned making the attempt.<br/>
<br/>
The only way to stop people-smuggling is to make it clear their occupants will never gain permanent residency in their target country. Every people-smuggling venture that doesn’t end with boatpeople returned to their starting point is a chink in the armour. Even ending up in Nauru, as the latest arrivals have, for now, gives the smugglers something to sell – given that most boatpeople on Nauru eventually got permanent residency in a Western country.<br/>
<br/>
There’s little doubt, as Peter Dutton suggests, smugglers are now testing the government’s resolve. They’d be watching the shambles of 149 released foreign criminals, now all but sure to stay forever in Australia, on welfare, and telling prospective customers that if even murderers and sex offenders can be given a new life in Australia, they too will get their chance.<br/>
<br/>
And while the Prime Minister now talks a big game on borders, it must never be forgotten that as a senior frontbencher Albanese voted against turnbacks as Labor policy.<br/>
<br/>
It’s telling that the only senior official from 2013 who believed that Labor’s influx of boats could be stopped, and should be stopped, was then customs head Mike Pezzullo. Last year the government sacked this former Labor staffer turned bureaucrat, on flimsy grounds. Again, this is why resolve matters – because, without it, you fall at the first sign of hardship.<br/>
<br/>
The bleeding hearts who think we should just accept illegal migration as a fact of life need to be reminded that Australia is one of fewer than 30 countries in the world that permanently resettles migrants; 70 per cent of the rest of the world’s nations do not. In per capita terms, we are a world leader.<br/>
<br/>
So, we should never be ashamed of demanding the right to determine who comes to this country or resile from the fact a sovereign nation is only sovereign when it controls its borders.<br/>
<br/>
Back to resolve, do you credibly think the Prime Minister, at 60 years of age, has now rejected his lifelong convictions about illegal migration? I think we all know that middle-aged leopards don’t change their spots, but without his resolve our country is once again at the mercy of people-smugglers.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/make-no-mistake-pms-resolve-is-on-the-line-over-return-of-boat-arrivals/news-story/fe54ae9e73246d5925d1a58bb8a6fbfc">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/make-no-mistake-pms-resolve-is-on-the-line-over-return-of-boat-arrivals/news-story/fe54ae9e73246d5925d1a58bb8a6fbfc</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Commonwealth to pay coal generators nearly $1bn</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Crazy. They take with one hand and give with the other. Greenies will be livid</i><br/>
<br/>
Anthony Albanese will pay coal generators nearly $1bn in rebates under his market intervention which capped the price of coal used for electricity at $125 a tonne, according to the latest estimates from the Department of Climate Change and Energy.<br/>
<br/>
Labor’s energy market intervention was triggered in December 2022 by the need to shield Australians from rising electricity prices, which were forecast in the October budget that year to increase by about 20 per cent over 2022-23 followed by a further 36 per cent rise in 2023-24.<br/>
<br/>
Retail gas prices were also forecast to increase by up to 20 per cent in both 2022-23 and 2023-24. The government responded by working with NSW and Queensland to set a price cap on coal used for electricity generation at $125 a tonne, while imposing a price ceiling on new domestic wholesale gas contracts for east coast producers at $12 per gigajoule.<br/>
<br/>
Under the intervention, additional financial support is supplied in cases where the costs of production exceed the cost of supply under the cap. Mr Albanese initially dismissed suggestions that compensation for generators under the arrangements could rise into the hundreds of millions.<br/>
<br/>
But initial estimates provided to parliament’s cost of living committee in early 2023 by the Department of Climate Change and Energy suggested that the combined fiscal cost of the coal generator rebates to the Commonwealth, NSW and Queensland governments would be in the order of $1.5bn to $2bn, with the Commonwealth paying a 50 per cent share.<br/>
<br/>
In a letter sent on Tuesday, Department Secretary David Fredericks provided an updated estimate based on the decline in the market price of thermal coal over the past year. The new estimate was in line with the department’s initial analysis, but slightly lower than the upper figure of $2bn.<br/>
<br/>
“DCCEEW’s revised estimate of the maximum total fiscal cost of the rebates associated with the coal price caps is $1.85bn, with the Commonwealth government committed to paying half under the arrangement reached with the New South Wales and Queensland governments,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
Responding to a request for the updated figure from Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, Mr Fredericks said the new estimate was “less than the previous estimate provided to the Senate Cost of Living Inquiry in February 2023.”<br/>
<br/>
The update from Mr Fredericks suggests the Commonwealth will still need to fork out $925m for coal generators – half the estimated $1.85bn total fiscal cost of the rebates under the price cap.<br/>
<br/>
The latest update from the Australian Energy Regulator revealed the cost of producing electricity in 2023 had fallen by as much as 64 per cent in a year and that wholesale electricity prices were running closer to longer-term averages.<br/>
<br/>
The AER said milder weather, fewer coal supply issues and an increase in cheap wind and solar energy had helped drive the reduction. But it also noted another factor – lower fuel costs partly driven by the government’s intervention.<br/>
<br/>
However, Senator Canavan argued that “massive government subsidies don’t lower electricity prices to our economy. Subsidies just transfer the cost of our inept energy policies from consumers to taxpayers.”<br/>
<br/>
“To lift real wages we have to focus on lowering the costs of production. The government’s clumsy interventions have clearly chilled investment in new energy supplies in Australia. The US is doubling its LNG capacity while we remain at a standstill,” he said. “Our lack of investment in reliable energy supplies will continue to increase electricity prices for all over time.”<br/>
<br/>
Leading energy economists have recently suggested there is no longer a strong rationale to extend Labor’s coal price cap beyond the middle of 2024, given the moderation in short-term coal prices.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/commonwealth-to-pay-coal-generators-nearly-1bn/news-story/5b669a4b8a760085c9dba4d6c88cc172">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/commonwealth-to-pay-coal-generators-nearly-1bn/news-story/5b669a4b8a760085c9dba4d6c88cc172</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Stop treating child criminals like ‘little angels’, says NT Labor MP Marion Scrymgour</b><br/>
<br/>
Youth justice laws need to stop treating [Aboriginal] criminal minors as “little angels” and start applying “tough love” to lawless children, the [black] federal Labor MP representing Alice Springs has declared.<br/>
<br/>
In an extraordinary intervention against her own party’s handling of the Northern Territory youth crime crisis, Marion Scrymgour says authorities need to stop “pussyfooting around” on juveniles, that the decision to raise the age of criminal responsibility is not working, and that it is time for parents to be held accountable for their children’s actions.<br/>
<br/>
It came as NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler said in a “perfect world” she would not have children in detention facilities, and linked her opening of a new youth justice centre in Alice Spring on Wednesday to the British sending convicts to Australia in the 18th century.<br/>
<br/>
After revelations in The Australian of children as young as 10 driving stolen cars around the streets of Alice Springs, Ms Lawler said that young people had been in criminal trouble for “the whole history of Australia” and that the nation’s history was built on the convict system.<br/>
<br/>
The NT Police Association on Wednesday alleged crime statistics in the territory were “not being reported properly” and Alice Springs locals said children were getting more out of control.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Scrymgour – the federal MP for Lingiari – had her own home broken into while she was sleeping last month, and said governments needed to make serious changes to NT youth justice laws.<br/>
<br/>
“There’s got to be a rethink of how we deal (with youth crime) … a bit of tough love never hurt anyone and I think that’s what needs to come into this equation,” she told The Australian.<br/>
<br/>
“We’ve got to stop thinking we’re dealing with little angels here … When you look at those photos they’re laughing and smiling, they think it’s a joke, and it’s not, because they could have an accident and one of them could get killed.<br/>
<br/>
“We’ve got to stop pussyfooting around here and thinking that these kids are going and they’re being taken home to a responsible adult because in a lot of these cases there isn’t a responsible adult there and the reality is these kids don’t listen.”<br/>
<br/>
Ms Scrymgour did not directly call on NT Labor to reverse its decision to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 – the highest in the country – but said the policy was not working to bring down crime and that Alice Springs residents needed immediate action.<br/>
<br/>
“At the moment, obviously lifting the age of criminal responsibility isn’t working,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“The government was saying they’d done this co-response team between police and territory families. Obviously, it’s not working, if we’ve got these kids out on the street and there’s still this issue; obviously, we’ve still got problems.<br/>
<br/>
“Labor is talking about a review of the Youth Justice Act, there are some critical areas in the Youth Justice Act which can be done now … it doesn’t need to be put off for 12 months.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m not left and I’m not woke, I just think we’ve got to hurry up and stop thinking that all of these measures are working, because they’re not.”<br/>
<br/>
Ms Scrymgour’s comments come as Alice Springs locals say the rate of home invasions, incidents of violence on the streets and the theft of cars have “skyrocketed” rise despite Anthony Albanese’s visit to the area just over a year ago.<br/>
<br/>
Locals say the children – who appear to be getting younger and younger – roam the streets late at night, when they breaking into the homes of residents and commit horrifying home invasions, stealing cars and ransacking for cash and jewellery.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Lawler – who came to power only at the end of last year after her predecessor Natasha Fyles resigned, and faces an election in August – last Monday announced a review of youth justice laws as part of a public address into her priorities for 2024.<br/>
<br/>
As she was opening a $32m detention centre for juvenile criminals on Wednesday, Ms Lawler conceded the crime crisis was a failure of government, but linked youth crime to colonial history.<br/>
<br/>
“Overall, it would be the perfect world if we did not have a detention facility in the Northern Territory,” the Chief Minister said.<br/>
<br/>
“Let’s not forget the history of Australia was built on us being colonised by a detention facility from England, so we have had young people, we’ve had people in trouble with the law for the whole history of Australia.”<br/>
<br/>
NTPA president Nathan Finn on Wednesday morning claimed the Territory government was hiding crime statistics from the public as part of a “political campaign”, and that the work by police officers on the ground was “not being recorded” after the police force moved to a new $65m system.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s a smoke-and-mirrors campaign as we lead into an election where crime is the biggest issue, policing is the biggest issue, safety and security of members in the public is a big issue … and the community and the police need to know this,” he told ABC radio.<br/>
<br/>
Mr Finn said the new system was experiencing numerous glitches, including people being wrongly arrested, and that up to 200 domestic violence orders hadn’t been scheduled in court.<br/>
<br/>
“That means possibly that there are 200 plus people out there who aren’t getting the protection they require right now.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/indigenous/stop-treating-child-criminals-like-little-angels-says-nt-labor-mp-marion-scrymgour/news-story/226a1da0ac41a66d22551f9bae474de9">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/indigenous/stop-treating-child-criminals-like-little-angels-says-nt-labor-mp-marion-scrymgour/news-story/226a1da0ac41a66d22551f9bae474de9</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> ‘A cross between a damp squib and a huge con job’</b><br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government’s surface fleet plans are a dismal cross between a damp squib and a routine government defence con job.<br/>
<br/>
As predicted, the announcement from Defence Minister Richard Marles offers almost no new money and no immediate acquisition of new capabilities, but abounds in grandiloquent promises for the unaccountable distant future.<br/>
<br/>
Here are a few central facts. The government is dividing the surface fleet into tier 1 ships, tier 2 ships and others. The bottom line is we don’t get a new tier 1 surface combatant ship until the first of the Hunter-class frigates arrives at the now delayed date of 2034.<br/>
<br/>
As everyone has commented, the Hunter frigates, with just 32 vertical launch system cells, are radically under-gunned for modern warfare. Then we build six of these under-gunned behemoths so we don’t actually get a new version of a destroyer with a lot of vertical launch cells until after the sixth Hunter frigate is built and deployed – in other words, well into the 2040s.<br/>
<br/>
But, the government says, we are producing up to 11 general purpose frigates that will have lots of missiles. That, of course, is a good thing … as far as it goes.<br/>
<br/>
The government is already classifying these as tier 2 vessels. In what it will market as an act of tremendous political bravery, the government says the first few of these can be built off shore by the nation that gets the contract.<br/>
<br/>
In one sense, thank God for small mercies. But this is a very small mercy. These general purpose frigates do not yet exist, even in theory. They will have to be designed from scratch. We will no doubt add the usual crippling array of bespoke requirements. There will be a competitive tender. This will go over time. The whole process will take years.<br/>
<br/>
But if this, uniquely in our recent defence history, all goes perfectly well, the government believes it could have four of these vessels in service by 2034.<br/>
<br/>
Let’s remember, every other project we’ve done has seen massive cost blowouts and delays.<br/>
<br/>
Only in Australia could a process like that be described as buying something off the shelf.<br/>
<br/>
And let’s examine the empirical evidence for the delivery of grand defence visions.<br/>
<br/>
In 2009, the Rudd government delivered a defence white paper which said that as a matter of extreme urgency Australia needed to acquire 12 regionally superior conventional submarines.<br/>
<br/>
Here we are in 2024, 15 years later, still without a contract to build a single submarine, and only a fairly provisional and unsure agreement that we might buy one from the Americans in a decade.<br/>
<br/>
Main points from the Australian Navy review<br/>
The independent review found a $25 billion funding hole in the Navy’s surface fleet program<br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government will inject an additional $1.7 billion over the next Forward Estimates and $11.1 billion in additional funding over the next decade for the Navy’s surface combatant fleet and Australia’s shipbuilding industry.<br/>
<br/>
The Albanese Government says it is committed to “continuous naval shipbuilding” in Australia with a promise of more than 3700 direct jobs in South Australia and Western Australia over the next decade.<br/>
<br/>
Hunter class frigates and destroyers will continue to be built at Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia, and there is a plan for eight new general purpose frigates to be built at WA’s Henderson but the precinct is not currently configured for that.<br/>
<br/>
The plan will see a doubling of the Navy’s major surface combatant fleet, from 11 warships to 20 by the mid to late 2040s in addition to six semi-autonomous Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels (LOSV).<br/>
<br/>
The “larger and more lethal Australian Navy” will comprise of three upgraded Hobart class destroyers, six Hunter class frigates (rather than the initially planned nine), 11 new general purpose frigates (which will eventually replace Anzacs), six new Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels (LOSVs) and 25 minor war vessels.<br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government will have gone an entire term in government without producing any significant increase in Australian naval capability. And indeed there will be no such increase, almost for sure, for the rest of this decade.<br/>
<br/>
This is our response to the most dangerous strategic circumstances in 80 years?<br/>
<br/>
The cost blowout in the Hunter frigates of $20bn, which might have moved a prudent government to scrap that program and actually buy some real frigates off the shelf, is mainly costs that have arisen over the past two years.<br/>
<br/>
Who can imagine that the piddling bits of money the government has announced over the forward estimates will be enough to produce the entirely notional general purpose frigates?<br/>
<br/>
As for the government’s bigger funding commitments over 10 years, that’s all meaningless. Neither Anthony Albanese nor Marles will be in their current positions in 10 years.<br/>
<br/>
It’s an old, old trick for governments to announce fantastic defence capabilities in a decade or more into the future and seek to give themselves massive political rewards in the mean time. It’s still a con job.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/cross-between-a-damp-squib-and-a-huge-con-job/news-story/c516a51533694a08088d0b3ee96d7f8b">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/cross-between-a-damp-squib-and-a-huge-con-job/news-story/c516a51533694a08088d0b3ee96d7f8b</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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<br/>jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-33270740879232677722024-02-21T17:22:00.003+13:002024-02-21T17:25:41.586+13:00<br><b> ABC’s Media Watch host Paul Barry slammed by Jewish leaders over war coverage ‘analysis’</b><br/>
<br/>
<img height=300 width=550 src="https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/aa32bb6b4841bf1636ab9cfd4ba61769">
<br/><br/>
<i> That squinty "host" above is a Leftist, has always been a Leftist and will always be a Leftist. And Leftists are feline predators that do not change their spots. And from Karl Marx on, Leftists have always despised Jews</i><br/>
<br/>
Jewish leaders have expressed outrage at claims made by the ABC’s Media Watch program that the public broadcaster has been the only news outlet to “give equal coverage to both sides” in the Israel-Hamas war.<br/>
<br/>
On Monday night’s episode of Media Watch, host Paul Barry referenced “preliminary analysis” by the Islamophobia Register that showed the ABC was the only news organisation to have provided impartial coverage of the conflict.<br/>
<br/>
The analysis, by academic Susan Carland for the Islamophobia Register, was based on an undisclosed number of Instagram posts by media outlets.<br/>
<br/>
The research found that the social media posts by The Australian and 9News “all humanised Israeli victims but not Palestinians”, according to Media Watch’s interpretation of Dr Carland’s report.<br/>
<br/>
“So, what do we conclude from all this? Well, simple, really,” Barry told viewers.<br/>
<br/>
“The big Australian newspapers we looked at have failed to cover the Gaza conflict fairly, in terms of giving equal weight to the victims on each side, with the Nine papers (The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age) not too bad, but The Australian failing in spectacular fashion.”<br/>
<br/>
The Media Watch host praised other news sources, including Al Jazeera (which is funded by the Qatari royal family), for covering “human stories of Palestinian suffering”.<br/>
<br/>
But when contacted by The Australian, Dr Carland said her report clearly stated the research “should not be taken as, a definitive analysis of Australian media bias against Palestinians”.<br/>
<br/>
“As this research is limited to the Instagram posts of the six outlets, this report is also not a definitive account of the outlets’ reporting on the Israel-Gaza war, and does not comment on fairness or equality found in any of their other stories on the Israel-Gaza war on their other platforms,” the report says.<br/>
<br/>
Asked if she felt that Media Watch had misrepresented her research, Dr Carland told The Australian: “I cannot comment on the intentions of Media Watch. That would be a question best posed to them.”<br/>
<br/>
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip told The Australian that the Media Watch story was “a joke”.<br/>
<br/>
“If the subject matter wasn’t so serious, Media Watch’s report would have simply been parody,” Mr Ossip said. “Relying on sources such as the rabidly anti-Israel Al Jazeera and other highly partisan publications as evidence of the purported bias of legitimate news publications doesn’t pass the sniff test.”<br/>
<br/>
Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, said: “It’s no surprise that an ABC program like Media Watch finds The Australian’s coverage of the Israel/Hamas war to be appalling, given that much of the ABC seems to think the story of the war should be told overwhelmingly from a Palestinian perspective.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s also predictable that Media Watch neglected to mention failings by much of the Australian media to the detriment of Israel, such as the failures to cover the links between journalists and Hamas, or UNRWA and Hamas, (stories) that were highlighted by The Australian, which was typical of its overall balanced, comprehensive and factually accurate coverage.”<br/>
<br/>
Media Watch’s executive producer Tim Latham said in a statement: “We stand by our story and what we put to air.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abcs-media-watch-host-paul-barry-slammed-by-jewish-leaders-over-war-coverage-analysis/news-story/01cbae6ff804d67a63c8e2186c4ae1d7">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abcs-media-watch-host-paul-barry-slammed-by-jewish-leaders-over-war-coverage-analysis/news-story/01cbae6ff804d67a63c8e2186c4ae1d7</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> ‘We made the wrong decisions’: COVID-era mass school closures condemned</b><br/>
<br/>
Mass school closures that stretched for months during the pandemic were unnecessary and led to a cascade of social and educational problems that threaten a generation of Australian children, top education experts say.<br/>
<br/>
Governments have failed to examine the fallout from one of the most far-reaching decisions prompted by COVID-19, which disrupted the schooling of millions of students and resulted in an attendance crisis and persistent behavioural issues.<br/>
<br/>
A panel of pre-eminent Australian education experts has flagged the profound impacts that school closures during COVID-19 have had on students’ education and wellbeing.<br/>
<br/>
They called for a plan for future closures that puts the long and short-term needs of children at the centre of policy decision-making.<br/>
<br/>
The Sydney Morning Herald convened experts on education and child social development to assess the impact of COVID on students after the federal government failed to include the decision to close schools in its independent inquiry into how the nation managed the pandemic.<br/>
<br/>
They included the chair of the NSW education regulator, Peter Shergold, and the National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds.<br/>
<br/>
Schools in NSW switched to remote learning in 2020 and 2021. Strict infection controls continued to interrupt learning and social interaction for months on end.<br/>
<br/>
The COVID fallout: Education<br/>
<br/>
This month marks four years since China’s COVID-19 outbreak was deemed a public health emergency of international concern, heralding the start of a traumatic period many of us would prefer to forget. While a federal government inquiry is examining some national responses to the crisis, key decisions made by states will not be properly scrutinised.<br/>
<br/>
The Herald is concerned our political leaders have not adequately studied the lessons – good and bad – of our most recent experience, and we plan to ask tough questions over the coming months about the pandemic’s impact on education, health, border closures and lockdowns and policing. This is the first of our three-part series looking at the impact of COVID on education. The forum discussions with nine expert panellists were broken up into two sessions: one examining the wellbeing and behaviour of students, the second on academic and learning disruption.<br/>
<br/>
The panellists warned the aftershocks of the decision to close schools are still being felt in classrooms, playgrounds and homes. Some of the worst aspects were the skyrocketing truancy rate, school refusal and significant issues with student discipline and distraction in the classroom, and self-regulation in the playground.<br/>
<br/>
Shergold, a former top public servant who led an independent review into the pandemic in 2022, said the lingering effects of school shutdowns on students, teachers and parents underscored the importance of scrutinising unilateral decisions by state governments to mandate remote learning.<br/>
<br/>
In September, the federal government announced a long-awaited inquiry into the pandemic response, but school closures are not included in the terms of reference. Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has previously joined health experts in urging the inquiry to examine the social damage and repercussions of long periods of remote learning.<br/>
<br/>
“The danger of school closures, which we always knew, was that it was going to accentuate disadvantage,” said Shergold. “After the closures in early 2020, we made the wrong policy decisions about closing school systems.”<br/>
<br/>
In NSW, more than 1.2 million students either learned remotely or had minimal supervision in schools for more than five months. Schools were shut down between March and May in 2020, and then again in 2021 from July to the end of October. Hundreds of schools and childcare centres were closed again in the following months.<br/>
<br/>
Unlike in Victoria, there was minimal supervision at schools for students, but attendance was discouraged. Shergold said the unity of national cabinet fractured as state governments forged ahead with decisions to shut schools, despite the federal government urging parents to send their children to classes.<br/>
<br/>
State decisions were often politically driven, some panellists said, ignoring the risk of long-lasting impacts on young children and teenagers, especially the most disadvantaged students who were most affected by the closures.<br/>
<br/>
“It was clearly the Commonwealth position to keep school systems open,” Shergold said. “It was states that were unpersuaded, and that’s why this present inquiry seems so bizarre that we’re not going to address their policy responses. It’s a crucial part of the story and ensuring that we’re better prepared for the next pandemic.”<br/>
<br/>
He said early in 2020 there “was a fog of war, and there was ill preparation – in Australia between federal and state governments – for a pandemic”, noting it was understandable schools closed in the first months.<br/>
<br/>
But after evidence emerged that children were less likely to spread the virus, and schools were not transmission hotspots, the system-wide closures were unwarranted, he said.<br/>
<br/>
“We had Treasury pleading with us not to shut school systems. Part of the issue was that parents started to voluntarily withdraw their children from schools, and they were voting with their feet ... I think NSW reacted to that,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
The state government also faced persistent pressure from the NSW Teachers Federation to shut down in-person classes, leaving minimal staffing to support essential frontline services workers. Some of Sydney’s private schools began to defy official advice and close, putting pressure on other systems to follow suit.<br/>
<br/>
The advice provided by chief health officers was that attending school represented a low health risk to students, and studies in 2021 reaffirmed transmission between children in schools was minimal.<br/>
<br/>
Hollonds agreed the first closure early in the pandemic, which lasted seven weeks, was unavoidable, but the longer closure of 2021 was unnecessary.<br/>
<br/>
“Maybe they should have only been short term, where there was a ‘hot-spot’, not the 15 weeks we saw across all of NSW,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
She said the public debate over school closures not only ignored the needs of children, but demonised them as “germy super-spreaders”. “It felt Dickensian, some of that discourse,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
Shergold noted that the shift to online learning was implemented well across systems and schools, and effort was made to address the digital divide. But he emphasised that after the first mass closures a more targeted approach should have been taken to only close individual schools when needed.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/we-made-the-wrong-decisions-covid-era-mass-school-closures-condemned-20240214-p5f521.html">https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/we-made-the-wrong-decisions-covid-era-mass-school-closures-condemned-20240214-p5f521.html</a>
</p>
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<b> Universities attack Labor’s new industrial relations law</b><br/>
<br/>
Universities have come out strongly against Labor’s new “intractable bargaining” provision, which prevents industrial relations umpire the Fair Work Commission from reducing workers’ conditions when it resolves a bargaining impasse.<br/>
<br/>
The provision – part of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No.2) Bill 2023, which has been passed by both houses and is awaiting royal assent – allows the Fair Work Commission to arbitrate if an enterprise agreement has not been reached after at least nine months of negotiation and there is no prospect of agreement.<br/>
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An amendment, driven by the Greens and accepted by Labor, means the commission cannot make a ruling about any disputed matter that would reduce an existing employee condition.<br/>
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The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association, which is the employer association for 33 universities, says the amendment means unions will be able to effectively “grandfather” parts of an enterprise agreement that are no longer fit for purpose and that inhibit productivity gains.<br/>
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“The new law effectively strips the Fair Work Commission of the ability to genuinely address productivity-related issues,” AHEIA executive director Craig Laughton said.<br/>
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“The change to the law will result in a ‘term by term’ focus, resulting in antiquated and unproductive provisions being retained to the detriment of staff and employers.”<br/>
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Mr Laughton said all negotiation involved compromise and trade-offs.<br/>
<br/>
“From now on, this will be limited by law in Australia, with one side calling the shots and an umpire without a whistle,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“If the independent umpire can’t run community standards across the sector, which is effectively what this prohibition does, how do you get the union to the table to bargain?”<br/>
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Mr Laughton called for the law to be reconsidered.<br/>
<br/>
However, National Tertiary Education Union general secretary Damien Cahill welcomed the amendment and said it was a major win for workers.<br/>
<br/>
“Now workers will have a guarantee that any final call the workplace umpire makes when arbitrating bargaining disputes will leave no one worse off,” Mr Cahill said. “These changes will make it harder for vice-chancellors and senior executives to game workplace laws in attempts to drive down pay and conditions.<br/>
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“Unfortunately, we were seeing some universities stalling negotiations in an attempt to push for arbitration.<br/>
<br/>
“The NTEU exposed this agenda last year and it is good to see the government has responded with much-needed changes.<br/>
<br/>
“Now workers will have a guarantee that any final call the workplace umpire makes when arbitrating bargaining disputes will leave no one worse off.”<br/>
<br/>
But Mr Laughton said the new law would allow unions to hold up negotiations in the knowledge they had nothing to lose if the matter went to arbitration.<br/>
<br/>
The new provision will be tested when the next round of university enterprise bargaining starts next year.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/universities-attack-labors-new-industrial-relations-law/news-story/0f08f4e516ca6222d75f402d8e06eb3c">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/universities-attack-labors-new-industrial-relations-law/news-story/0f08f4e516ca6222d75f402d8e06eb3c</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Chris Bowen is way off track on drive for new fuel standards</b><br/>
<br/>
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is not someone who allows the grass to grow under his feet, or under the industrial-sized solar panels he is so keen to promote, for that matter.<br/>
<br/>
Early this month, he announced the government’s intention to introduce a New Vehicle Efficiency Standard for Australia. At the time, he told us Australia and Russia are the only advanced economies in the world not to have such a policy.<br/>
<br/>
After the standard is implemented here, Russia will be on its own – something that’s not likely to worry the Russian government unduly. Bowen is targeting a start date of next year.<br/>
<br/>
As is the case with many policy settings, the devil is always in the detail. It’s not just about having or not having an efficiency standard; it’s also about the parameters of the policy, other related measures and timing. Bowen plans to accelerate the implementation of the standard here by insisting we catch up to the US by 2028. This is the first problem with Bowen’s announcement.<br/>
<br/>
How these schemes work is that an overall efficiency standard (typically set in terms of CO2 grams per kilometre) applies across a manufacturer’s entire fleet for sale. On average, the standard must be met, with some vehicles above the standard and others below. Credits are generated if the standard is more than met and these are tradable. For those who cannot meet the standard, these credits can be bought.<br/>
<br/>
The expectation is that manufactures will seek to impose higher prices on vehicles that are above the standard and lower prices for those below it.<br/>
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In other words, the standard induces price cross-subsidisation so the overall standard can be met and penalties won’t be payable. Electric vehicles are highly prized in this setting. But for those models of cars with above-standard efficiency, prices will inevitably rise.<br/>
<br/>
Now if you think this is suppressing consumer sovereignty, you wouldn’t be wrong. Instead of allowing car buyers to take into account fuel efficiency as well as other characteristics, this policy deliberately restricts consumer choice to meet the government’s target. Bear in mind here that the most popular vehicles in Australia – the Ford Ranger ute and the Toyota HiLux – will massively exceed the new standard. There is speculation of price increases of between $10,000 and $25,000 for some models.<br/>
<br/>
Bowen claims everyone will still be able to buy their preferred car; indeed he expects the choice of vehicles to expand even though Australia is known to be one of the best catered-for markets for right-hand-drive cars in the world.<br/>
<br/>
The fact that there is little demand for some very small, fuel-efficient vehicles – those that are common in Europe and the UK – is mainly due to their unsuitability for families as well as being underpowered for Australian conditions. Bear in mind here that in Europe and the UK, petrol/diesel is highly taxed. The high price of petrol/diesel has been a driving force for many years determining the kinds of cars these citizens purchase. And, of course, many of these countries are the size of a handkerchief compared with Australia.<br/>
<br/>
Using his department’s assumption-driven modelling, Bowen is predicting Australians stand to save about $1000 per vehicle per year by 2028. If that sounds unconvincing, it’s because it is. For starters, most people only buy new cars occasionally.<br/>
<br/>
There are also some large leaps of faith about the take-up of electric vehicles – the real heart of this new policy – and the fact that it should be cheaper to charge a vehicle at home and drive a certain distance compared with filling up an internal combustion engine vehicle. Recent data point to it now being more expensive to use paid-for fast chargers between Melbourne and Sydney than driving a petrol-fuelled car.<br/>
<br/>
(A complication that Bowen chooses to ignore about this policy is the fact that EVs use electricity generated still mainly from coal. The modelling doesn’t take into account this second-round effect.)<br/>
<br/>
Had his department been closely watching overseas developments, he would also have been aware of significant problems emerging in a number of countries in relation to vehicle emissions standards, particularly the US.<br/>
<br/>
Notwithstanding the extremely generous subsidies available to EV purchasers and the fact that a number of the car manufacturers have aggressively switched to EVs – think here Ford, General Motors and Volkswagen – EV sales have stalled. There are said to be row upon row of unsold EVs in dealers’ premises in the US and the dealers are now loudly complaining. The Biden administration is now considering watering down its emissions standards.<br/>
<br/>
It turns out early adopters were keen to buy EVs – many had another vehicle in their garage – but demand has since slowed. The combination of high purchase prices, costly insurance and poor resale values, as well as ongoing issues with charging, has contributed to this outcome. (In the UK, this trend is, unbelievably, being blamed on an article written by Rowan Atkinson.)<br/>
<br/>
Some of the car companies are now scrambling to change direction, with GM reintroducing a plug-in hybrid model to kickstart sales as well as deal with the efficiency standard. Toyota has emerged a winner in this race, with its chief always sceptical about rapid consumer acceptance of EVs. Toyota has been a substantial investor in hybrid technology and its hybrid vehicles have emerged as commercial winners in a number of countries.<br/>
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Another clear trend in the motoring world is the increasing dominance of Chinese car manufacturers, particularly in the EV space. Their factories are churning out reasonable quality cars at much lower prices than the car companies that have dominated world sales for decades. Volkswagen, in particular, is under pressure as its strategic tilt to EV production fails to meet commercial expectations. (The fact that Chinese vehicles are constructed using cheap coal-fired electricity is again something that policymakers such as Bowen chose to ignore.)<br/>
<br/>
So what is really driving Bowen’s decision to run with this new vehicle efficiency standard with its accelerated timetable? There are number of factors at work. The first is that some of the car companies and activists have been strongly pushing this standard. Volkswagen, which was caught up in a significant emissions misreporting incident, is very keen to see the new standard implemented.<br/>
<br/>
Secondly, Bowen now realises the government’s stated emissions reduction target of a 43 per cent cut by 2030 won’t be met with current policy settings and the delayed rollout of renewable energy and new transmission lines. He is seeking some quick abatement from road transport to get closer to the target.<br/>
<br/>
As for the conclusion that the policy will return $3 for every $1 spent, pull the other one. I can come up with an equally plausible set of assumptions that leads to a negative net return. When the government report makes the fatuous claim that “the projected impact of (car) emissions on Australian’s climate outlook cannot be ignored”, you know the bureaucrats are talking through their hat. (Hint: it’s about global emissions.)<br/>
<br/>
Bowen might also be well-advised to admit that Australians love their cars.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/chris-bowen-is-way-off-track-on-drive-for-new-fuel-standards/news-story/e169093204866a5e05b55e26ae5c6874">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/chris-bowen-is-way-off-track-on-drive-for-new-fuel-standards/news-story/e169093204866a5e05b55e26ae5c6874</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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<br/>
jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-18130240336265702512024-02-20T16:56:00.001+13:002024-02-20T16:56:40.097+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Young menaces, helpless police and no solution</b><br/>
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<i> What is not said below is the the offenders are Aboriginal. Taking any measures against them would lead to cries of "racism"</i><br/>
<br/>
It’s 8pm and the dust is settling across the ranges of Alice Springs when inside the town’s industrial area a group of kids arrive at the Pickles Auctions car yard.<br/>
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They’re about to steal a car and lead police on a dangerous chase – an all-too-familiar scene here, where children as young as 10 are caught behind the wheel and immediately returned to a “responsible adult” – only to continue to reoffend.<br/>
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Dozens of cars in the yard are protected by a 2m-high fence topped with razor wire, but the kids have their eyes on one in particular. It’s a Toyota Rav 4 they’ve stolen once before.<br/>
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The first time ended badly – the car smashed up and ultimately hauled into the car yard, where it was written off by the insurance company.<br/>
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But the car is drivable – and the kids still have the keys.<br/>
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Jumping the razor wire fence, they climb into the SUV and drive it headlong into the heavy metal gate. It takes seven attempts to get through.<br/>
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Soon the car is heading towards the centre of town.<br/>
<br/>
It’s a pattern the residents of Alice Springs are well and truly used to. On one night last December, eight vehicles were being driven around town by out of control children and teenagers.<br/>
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It’s just over 12 months since this city became the focus of national attention over out-of-control crime, but on the ground, locals say it’s never been worse.<br/>
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In the early hours of Wednesday last week, there are four boys in the car: one aged 13, two aged 11, and the youngest just 10.<br/>
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The boys are yelling and screaming from the vehicle, as they speed through town.<br/>
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The driver can barely see over the steering wheel, the car mounting roundabouts, careening through red lights and on the wrong side of the road as the passengers hang out the windows.<br/>
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Helpless police sit in their cars and watch as the kids perform donuts on the council lawns.<br/>
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“You’re going to kill someone, stop,” one officer yells from his car as he flashes his torch at them.<br/>
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Eventually police try to contain the vehicle with spike strips, but report that nearby youths on foot are tipping off the occupants about the spiking locations.<br/>
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The vehicle is so badly damaged it struggles to reach its maximum speed, but on other occasions, cars have been clocked at more than 100km/h in some parts of town.<br/>
<br/>
Just before 11pm, the boys abandon the vehicle outside K-Mart.<br/>
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“With precision and skill, police located and apprehended four youths, aged between 10 and 13,” police say in a statement the following day.<br/>
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The two 11-year-olds and the 10-year-old are conveyed to their homes and “handed over to a responsible adult”.<br/>
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The 13-year-old, who was charged with theft, driving a motor vehicle without consent and damage to property, appears before a court the following afternoon. It’s his first time before the court. He sits there, apparently bored, running his hands through his hair. He does his best to avoid eye contact with anyone in the room as a police officer stands beside him.<br/>
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In applying for bail, the court hears there have been three domestic disturbances at his proposed bail address within the last month.<br/>
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His family and another family are also having a dispute.<br/>
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The following day, he withdraws his bail application. He’d rather stay in jail than live at an alternative bail address in a remote community far removed from Alice Springs.<br/>
<br/>
On average, there were 39 vehicles stolen every month in Alice Springs last year. Many of these vehicles ended up abandoned in the desert after they had been taken for a joyride or used in a ram-raid – often at a liquor store.<br/>
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Northern Territory Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says entire communities are being left to suffer and Aboriginal children are “fast-tracked into a life of crime and incarceration”.<br/>
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“This is what happens when children are left neglected, in dysfunction, without the care and supervision they deserve,” Senator Price says.<br/>
<br/>
“This is the result of division, of a new apartheid driven by Labor and their progressive Green allies so they force their agenda onto guilt-ridden Australians.<br/>
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“If you really want to close the gap, we need less grandstanding in Canberra, and more action on the ground.<br/>
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“To get real solutions, we need to hold people responsible and enforce consequences.”<br/>
<br/>
A month ago a child care centre was placed into lockdown due to “unsettled protests and riots” in the CBD, with some people armed with weapons.<br/>
<br/>
One late-night CBD proprietor – who asked for his name to be withheld for fear of reprisal – says the situation on the street is “getting worse day by day”.<br/>
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“They want to kill people, there are public beatings and fights almost every night,” the business owner says.<br/>
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“They need to do something, the government, otherwise everyone will be leaving here.<br/>
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“It’s worse than last year, it’s getting worse day by day, they have to do something for the kids.<br/>
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“This year I lost a lot of friends (who moved away), even my family is worried, they say ‘what am I doing here?’,” the person says.<br/>
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In April last year, this journalist befriended a group of youths in the early hours of the morning on the streets of Alice Springs.<br/>
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Soon after, the topic of conversation turned to stolen cars.<br/>
<br/>
They surrounded my car, and joked about stealing it and taking it for a joyride. They took a great interest in my cameras, too, while keeping a watchful eye out for police.<br/>
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“I don’t give a f..k, I can do anything before I become a man,” one very young boy said.<br/>
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“Mister, mister, look here, can you see it?” another asked, as he showed me footage from inside a stolen car. “That’s me at the front, brother.”<br/>
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“F..k the police, FTP, motherf..ker,” another said as they started playing American rap music.<br/>
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They continued to gloat about breaking into homes and businesses, using tools such as screwdrivers and angle grinders, and claiming they’ve been to “juvie” for months at a time,<br/>
<br/>
They started begging for a lift, pleading that it was cold. “We’ll go try steal a car,” one said.<br/>
<br/>
When we parted company it was 4am – and their search for trouble seemed as if it still had a long way to go.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/nations-heart-is-breaking-again-in-alice-springs-tiny-menaces-helpless-police-and-no-solution/news-story/993f4002a59f6d4324012f11ab9252c5">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/nations-heart-is-breaking-again-in-alice-springs-tiny-menaces-helpless-police-and-no-solution/news-story/993f4002a59f6d4324012f11ab9252c5</a>
</p>
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<b> Eating green ideology: official diet advice to warn of climate impact</b><br/>
<br/>
The federal government’s official advice on diets will now incorporate the impact of certain foods on climate change, sparking outrage from farmers who fear it is driven by an “ideological agenda” against red meat.<br/>
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It could lead to consumers being told to reduce steak and lamb chop intakes in favour of alternatives like chicken, which some scientists say has a lower carbon footprint.<br/>
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Red meat producers are concerned that the move by the National Health and Medical Research Council to incorporate environmental sustainability into Australian Dietary Guidelines will be based on “misinformation” and present an incomplete picture about the industry’s effect on the environment. They have called for it to be scrapped.<br/>
<br/>
The statutory authority’s dietary guidelines expert committee says the change is based on “stakeholder feedback” and has already started setting up a sustainability working group to help its review of the 2013 guidelines, due by the end of 2026.<br/>
<br/>
Red Meat Advisory Council chair John McKillop accused the NHMRC, which is responsible for funding medical research and providing health and nutrition recommendations to the government, of straying beyond its remit. “These developments are an overreach by the dietary guidelines expert committee that go well beyond the policy intent of the Australian Dietary Guidelines to provide recommendations on healthy foods and dietary patterns,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“The red meat industry has a strong story about sustainability, so our concerns are not because we believe it’s a weakness but because it’s not the role of the dietary guidelines nor is it the expertise of the dietary guidelines expert committee. The nation’s dietary guidelines should be focused on promoting public health, preventing chronic diseases and ensuring that all Australian have access to accurate and reliable information about their basic nutritional requirements.”<br/>
<br/>
Sustainability was included in an appendix of the previous guidelines, but the expert committee says “sustainability messaging should be incorporated within the revised dietary guidelines, and not included as a separate section within the appendices”.<br/>
<br/>
Mr McKillop said expanding the scope of the dietary guidelines into other non-nutritional topics would undermine their purpose and the public’s confidence in them. “This is going to make clear and simple nutritional messaging even more difficult,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
RMAC will ask the NHMRC committee to reconsider the change to the guidelines. “If they refuse, we’ll be asking the federal government to intervene as it’s starting to look like the process is running off the rails,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“The dietary guidelines review process must not be allowed to be used as a vehicle to drive ideological agendas at the expense of the latest nutritional science.”<br/>
<br/>
The dietary guidelines expert committee has defined sustainable diets as being “accessible, affordable and equitable diets with low environmental impacts”.<br/>
<br/>
In a statement, the NHMRC said including sustainability followed a “stakeholder survey” in which one in three people surveyed listed it as a priority.<br/>
<br/>
“While the 2013 guidelines included messages about the environmental impact of food choices, the placement of the messages in an appendix has made them easy to overlook,” a spokesman said.<br/>
<br/>
“Stakeholder feedback suggests there is low awareness of their existence. The revision of the guidelines provides an opportunity to improve integration of messages about food sustainability into the guidelines.”<br/>
<br/>
The organisation rejected the suggestion that incorporating sustainability messaging would undermine public confidence.<br/>
<br/>
“Developing or updating NHMRC guidelines involves a thorough review of the evidence, methodological advice on the quality of these reviews, drafting of the guidelines, public consultation and independent expert review of the final guidelines,” the spokesman said.<br/>
<br/>
“The dietary guidelines expert committee advised that recommendations for dietary patterns and food groups should firstly consider health impacts in the Australian context, followed by consideration of sustainability and other contextual factors,” the spokesman said. “This is consistent with how sustainability has been incorporated into dietary guidelines in other countries.”<br/>
<br/>
Central Queensland cattle farmer Mark Davie said industry concerns were heightened by perceived misinformation about the health impacts and sustainability of red meat production permeating media, public policy and nutritional advice.<br/>
<br/>
Mr Davie, who chairs the Australian Beef Sustainability Framework, questioned how the NHMRC could measure one food source against another while still accounting for benefits to things like soil or biodiversity.<br/>
<br/>
Meat producers are concerned that an updated version could follow rhetoric from organisations like the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which advocates for reduced livestock grazing.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/eating-green-ideology-official-diet-advice-to-warn-of-climate-impact/news-story/7deeaf36dea21fcc8a443e006312e42d">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/eating-green-ideology-official-diet-advice-to-warn-of-climate-impact/news-story/7deeaf36dea21fcc8a443e006312e42d</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Unaffordable green dream blacked out by reality</b><br/>
<br/>
When Craig Emerson has finished working out how much Woolies is gouging us for a litre of milk, perhaps he might turn his attention to the exorbitant price of electricity.<br/>
<br/>
The Prime Minister’s price-gouging tsar might ask why energy companies were cashing in on the misery of Victorians last Tuesday by charging up to $2225.50 for a MWh of electricity.<br/>
<br/>
Origin Energy chief executive Frank Calabria joined a conference of investors last week to announce underlying profits of $747m for the first half of the year, up from $44m a year earlier. Origin had grabbed a share of Tuesday afternoon’s bonanza by cranking up its gas-peaking plant at Mortlake.<br/>
<br/>
Profiteering, raising prices at times of scarcity or emergency, would be frowned upon in other circumstances. Not in the National Electricity Market, however, where the fluctuating five-minute spot price balances supply and demand 24 hours a day.<br/>
<br/>
Without it, we could expect many more unserved energy events, as the Australian Energy Market Operator initially described the collapse of half of Victoria’s electricity grid, leaving 540,000 customers powerless, many of them for days.<br/>
<br/>
Like soldiers, doctors and others who run a daily risk of messing up people’s lives, the energy business has its dehumanising euphemisms to describe the things that cause collateral damage or adverse events.<br/>
<br/>
On Tuesday, 90,000 customers were caught in friendly fire when the energy operator deliberately cut their power. The load shedding was vital to cover the drop in supply caused when six giant transmission towers on the state’s main 500kV transmission line buckled in high winds, knocking Victoria’s largest generating plant offline.<br/>
<br/>
Why a break in the line near Geelong would cause the safety switches to trip at Loy Yang, 230km away, is one of life’s mysteries. It’s like asking how a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can start a tornado in Texas.<br/>
<br/>
Weather and energy grids are chaotic systems where fixed laws govern complex interactions and feedback loops but lead to seemingly random outcomes. As the late Australian scientist Robert May once said: “Simple models can help us understand complex systems, but they are not a substitute for understanding.”<br/>
<br/>
That’s why a prediction that the average household energy bill will fall by $275 over three years by installing more renewable energy should have been treated with a bucket of salt, even if, as Anthony Albanese claims, it was based on the most ambitious modelling on anything by any opposition party in the 120-year history of the commonwealth.<br/>
<br/>
It is why you can’t draw up a grand plan for a carbon-free electricity grid on a whiteboard in Sydney and expect it to work.<br/>
<br/>
The task of grid engineers is not to design the perfect system but to manage risk. Their task does not stop when they’ve linked enough generators to supply the expected demand. They should follow the example of John Bradfield, who over-engineered the bejesus out of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which today supports a load he might not have imagined.<br/>
<br/>
The collapse of the steel towers on Victoria’s main transmission line is irrefutable evidence our current transmission network needs upgrading. We should be patient before rushing to build another 10,000km of transmission lines before we’ve found the money to give the 45,000km of lines in operation the Bradfield treatment.<br/>
<br/>
We should review the costings and technical specifications of the ones we plan to build. If we want them to last at least 50 years, underground cables may be cheaper in the long run.<br/>
<br/>
The over-engineering imperative also applies to generation. The relatively stable East Coast Grid that operated reliably before renewables came along had abundant excess capacity from coal generation.<br/>
<br/>
There was no need to synchronise DC power from wind and solar plants so fewer things could go wrong. Transmission line runs were shorter and easier to manage. Inter-connectors played an ancillary role, keeping prices low by increasing competition and balancing supply between states. They were never designed to run at full bore, as the interconnectors do now for growing periods. The 2016 blackout in South Australia occurred after storms damaged transmission lines, and the Heywood interconnector with Victoria became overloaded.<br/>
<br/>
Energy Minister Chris Bowen thinks the answer is to add more intermittent generation and hope we’ll have enough batteries installed in time to save our bacon when the sun fades, and the wind drops. Yet battery boosters should take a reality check. The NEM supplied 3.2TWh of electricity to customers in the last seven days. A mere 7.7GWh, or 0.24 per cent, was supplied from batteries. A little over two-thirds (64.4 per cent) came from coal.<br/>
<br/>
This raises the question: How will the grid be managed if Australia’s largest generator, Origin’s coal-fired plant at Eraring, NSW, closes next August as the company says it will?<br/>
<br/>
“Running baseload these days is just getting more and more difficult,” Calabria said last week, noting low prices particularly in the middle of the day, when wind and solar are eating coal’s lunch.<br/>
<br/>
No problem, say the boosters. “Analysts have said that there is no need for Eraring to stay open, given the number of new renewable and battery storage projects currently under construction,” wrote the editor of Renew Economy last week.<br/>
<br/>
Really? What analysts? When? Would they like to show us their modelling? Any government that bases its decisions on that kind of advice should be prepared for a very wild ride. Which is why NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns will do almost anything to keep Eraring open.<br/>
<br/>
The NSW government has gone to drastic lengths to ensure the state’s remaining coal-fired power stations remain supplied with coal. Coalminers are obliged by law to reserve 10 per cent of their output for domestic generators and are forbidden from charging more than $125 per tonne.<br/>
<br/>
On the one hand, the government gears policy to shut the coal generators out by privileging renewables in the NEM, pushing spot prices negative in the middle of the day. It subsidises unreliable, intermittent generators by allowing them to sell renewable energy certificates, so they can operate profitably even if spot prices fall below zero.<br/>
<br/>
On the other hand, governments are using a mixture of pleading and coercion to keep coal-power stations open because even the starry-eyed people at AEMO know the chance of blackouts will increase in NSW if Eraring closes.<br/>
<br/>
One hates to be the bearer of bad news to the Tesla drivers of Mosman, but around 80 per cent of your electricity on Saturday night was produced from black coal, more than a third of it from Eraring.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/unaffordable-green-dream-blacked-out-by-reality/news-story/e5b6f3aa87374cb4cce05992d67cd4f4">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/unaffordable-green-dream-blacked-out-by-reality/news-story/e5b6f3aa87374cb4cce05992d67cd4f4</a>
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<br/>
<b> SEQ youth crime: Chilling warning as ex-Army security guard patrols blue-chip Brisbane suburbs</b><br/>
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Desperate residents in the blue-chip Brisbane suburb of Chelmer and nearby Graceville and Sherwood are paying thousands of dollars a week for a private security guard and highly trained dogs to deter youth criminals, accusing the government of doing “jack shit”.<br/>
<br/>
Since taking neighbourhood safety into their own hands from mid-November 2023, they say the incidence of crime has dropped by up to 80 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
A young father – who said he set-up the community effort after a Sherwood mother of three had her house broken into allegedly by juveniles wielding machetes – said the government and the courts’ response to youth crime was an “absolute joke”.<br/>
<br/>
“The government is doing jack shit and people are fed up and scared,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“Once we started this and saw how much was going on, it was like, ‘holy shit, this is out of control’.<br/>
<br/>
It comes as Premier Steven Miles said he wasn’t surprised by alarming findings in a poll commissioned by The Courier-Mail showing 45 per cent of Queenslanders don’t feel safe in their home or community.<br/>
<br/>
“I know what that poll was telling us because I talk to Queenslanders and they have been saying the same thing to me,” Mr Miles said.<br/>
<br/>
But the Sherwood father said it was clear the Premier wasn’t listening.<br/>
<br/>
“The problem is getting worse but it is falling on deaf ears,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not the police’s fault, but we are refusing to stick our heads in the sand – only fools believe they won’t eventually become a target of youth crime.<br/>
<br/>
“Every single night and early morning there is something happening, whether it’s groups of kids in dark clothing on foot or cars with lights dimmed and driving slowly scoping places out.”<br/>
<br/>
The man, who has joined some patrols, receives daily reports from Walker Security, run by ex-army reservist Dan Walker, then passes updates to among 30 families each paying up to $100 per week for the service.<br/>
<br/>
Mr Walker travels in a vehicle painted camo-style and with high-vis reflective white signage and spotlights – accompanied by one of three trained protection dogs, Dutch shepherd Xee or Belgian Malinois Mercy and Captain.<br/>
<br/>
His texts include times and sightings such as this, on February 19: 0200: 5 x males in their teens, headed into park after seeing me; and this, on February 18: 2310: sedan turned around and left after seeing me on Laurel Ave.<br/>
<br/>
Mr Walker said the crime statistics didn’t lie. “Houses were getting broken into left, right and centre but this is now becoming almost non-existent when I’m on duty,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“My high-vis vehicle lights up the whole countryside and as soon as the teens see it they bugger off – we don’t want to go hands on, we aim to be preventive, but I am more than willing to deal with a situation if it presents itself.<br/>
<br/>
“Hence why I have the dogs, they will bite and hold if they have to.”<br/>
<br/>
In Chelmer, where the median price for a four-bedroom home is $1.95m, figures from the Queensland Police Service online crime map show the number of offences reported in January and February are the lowest since November 2023.<br/>
<br/>
In Graceville and Sherwood, February figures are the lowest compared with any month last year.<br/>
<br/>
The Premier met with his Cabinet in Ipswich on Monday as community calls grow for increased police presence at the Redbank Plains Town Square shopping centre where grandmother Vyleen White was allegedly murdered.<br/>
<br/>
“They have been concerned about community safety, especially concerned in the wake of that awful murder we saw at Redbank Plains just a couple of weeks ago,” Mr Miles said.<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t think those survey results (of The Courier-Mail poll) are surprising.<br/>
<br/>
“You’ll know that we’ve heard that message just by how much we’ve been focused on community safety, how much we’ve been talking about community safety.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s my job to work with the police to rebuild that sense of community safety and that’s absolutely what we’re focused on.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-qld/seq-youth-crime-chilling-warning-as-exarmy-security-guard-patrols-bluechip-brisbane-suburbs/news-story/324bc59ec372ccb127bc639aad77f01b">https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-qld/seq-youth-crime-chilling-warning-as-exarmy-security-guard-patrols-bluechip-brisbane-suburbs/news-story/324bc59ec372ccb127bc639aad77f01b</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-35219562661981672342024-02-19T17:16:00.002+13:002024-02-19T17:16:50.444+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Move to rename Magnetic Island National Park to Indigenous name, Yunbenun</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Why are our names not good enough? Why must they be renamed to please a tiny minority? Does it in fact please anybody? Our names are easier to remember, for a start. All the change achieves is for Leftists to look good in their own eyes. It also deflects attention from history and its lessons. History tends to discredit what passes for ideas among the Left so they avoid it like the plague</i><br/>
<br/>
A push by the Queensland Government to rename Magnetic Island’s iconic national park to an Indigenous name has been slammed as a ‘meaningless gesture’ by angry residents.<br/>
<br/>
The Department of Environment, Science and Innovation (DESI) is proposing to change the name of Magnetic Island National Park to Yunbenun in a nod to traditional owners.<br/>
<br/>
Yunbenun — pronounced Yuhn-beh-nin — is the preferred name for the island by the Wulgurukaba, or the ‘canoe people.’<br/>
<br/>
It’s understood the proposed renaming relates to the national park only, not the name of the island itself, but many residents fear it’s only a matter of time before that changes too.<br/>
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It comes after the state government reinstated Fraser Island’s Indigenous name, K’gari, in 2023.<br/>
<br/>
Magnetic Island resident and writer Mary Vernon anticipates a massive local backlash to the renaming. “A lot of people are concerned about it because it’s just a meaningless gesture really,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“I think people are also worried about where it might lead and the possibility of renaming the entire island.<br/>
<br/>
“I know there’s a group of people on the island who are very keen for it to be renamed, but they don’t represent the majority.”<br/>
<br/>
In a statement, DESI said the proposed change to the name of the national park “recognises the rich cultural history of the area and the ongoing, deep connection to the island for the Wulgurukaba people.”<br/>
<br/>
“DESI has recently unveiled an updated management statement for the national park, which outlines strategic directions for conserving key natural social and cultural values of the World Heritage Area,” it said.<br/>
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“This includes Wulgurukaba cultural sites and places as well as the heritage-listed World War II fort complex, significant vine thickets and the iconic hoop pine of Magnetic Island.”<br/>
<br/>
The public is invited to have their say on the proposed renaming of the national park between now and 5pm on April 19.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/townsville/move-to-rename-magnetic-island-national-park-to-indigenous-name-yunbenun/news-story/767f816f003169b44b255beef31e7fb9">https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/townsville/move-to-rename-magnetic-island-national-park-to-indigenous-name-yunbenun/news-story/767f816f003169b44b255beef31e7fb9</a>
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<b> #MeToo has driven young men into an opposing stance of bullish conservatism</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Feminism has driven men and women apart -- a loss for both</i><br/>
<br/>
We have a problem. As a species. Particularly in the western world. An ideological divide is opening up in many countries that goes to the heart of the human race, the future of us. It is a problematic divide between girls and boys, a widening philosophical gap in terms of aspiration/outlook that’s having impacts in many arenas. Not least in our high schools.<br/>
<br/>
Recent research shows that girls are becoming more progressive; boys, more conservative. The rift is demonstrated in a study from the Gallup Poll Social Series, which shows that political ideology for females aged 18-29 in countries such as the US, Germany, the UK and South Korea is veering towards a small-l liberal ideology, but boys, in opposition, are cleaving to conservatism.<br/>
<br/>
So, Gen Z is split. Two separate worlds. Of increasingly aware girls not afraid to call it out, and frustrated boys trying to deal with the new voices roaring at them. What will the future be, for all of them, together? How will these findings affect marriage rates, birth trends, the politics of the schoolyard, workplace relations, societal harmony? The new dynamic is already being demonstrated in elections here – the rise of the Teals was thanks in large part to women. The trend will continue as females search for representatives who understand them, listen.<br/>
<br/>
And ahead, an even more dramatically cleaved society. I watch, perturbed, feeling for both sides. The impetus for the girls is towards fairness and equality; a move away from subservience. A natural step for the educated, and why the Taliban wants to stop females from being educated at all. Ignorance keeps the female subjugated, in servitude to the male; it removes the threat of women with a voice.<br/>
<br/>
The impetus for boys, understandably, is to preserve what they had. Which was power and control, for millennia. My heart goes out to males because so many are hurting, raging, lost. Imagine it. A person born to be at the top of the tree, who has expected this all their childhood, and who steps into adulthood wanting this cosy arrangement to continue. But girls are now digging in their heels, saying enough, we want those chances too. Life’s been unfair for usfor a very long time, and we’re just as competent.<br/>
<br/>
Why all this now, so fractiously? A theory. The very loud #MeToo movement, which galvanised young women, has driven young men into an opposing stance of bullish conservatism. We all have to work through it, with compassion and sensitivity, until equality is normalised and young males don’t see this new way of being as a threat. But it will take many years. Generations.<br/>
<br/>
What we have now is the fulcrum, the tipping point. Boys flinching into conservatism, into what’s been comfortable and known throughout history; conservatism by nature means a cleaving to traditional models, the status quo. Progressivism is about social reform. Embracing it, facilitating it. Which is where a lot of educated young women are now and there’s no going back from it. #MeToo and the first and second wave feminist movements before it are exploding the parameters that kept females in their place.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile boys and girls retreat into their siloed worlds online, with little crossover. There’s a lack of tolerance for the “other” on both sides, a scorning and sneering at these divergent environments. Some boys find their Andrew Tates to cling to, while for girls the messaging all around them is that they can now be anything, do anything, and as well as the boys. Female teens are unstoppable and school boys have to concede some of their traditional power. But it’s messy. I feel for teachers in co-ed high schools right now, the cauldrons of this vast societal shift. What’s needed, urgently, is empathy and understanding. From both sides.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/columnists/metoo-has-driven-young-men-into-an-opposing-stance-of-bullish-conservatism/news-story/25dc565729f566e31579486553bbe9d0">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/columnists/metoo-has-driven-young-men-into-an-opposing-stance-of-bullish-conservatism/news-story/25dc565729f566e31579486553bbe9d0</a>
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<b> Company has a $2bn pipeline of retirement living projects, but says it’s being stymied by red tape</b><br/>
<br/>
The boss of EQT-backed retirement living provider Levande says the sector can play a central role in easing the country’s housing shortage, but onerous planning regimes in some states and hefty foreign investment charges in others are delaying much-needed investment in new developments.<br/>
<br/>
Kevin McCoy, who took over as Levande chief executive a year ago, said the retirement sector itself was facing a ballooning shortage of units, and fast-tracking development would help to ease that shortage, while also releasing more homes into the general housing supply.<br/>
<br/>
The Levande brand was created by Sweden-based investment firm EQT after it acquired Stockland’s retirement living business for $987m in 2022.<br/>
<br/>
Mr McCoy said EQT was looking to spend up to $2bn on new developments and redevelopments of existing sites over the next five to 10 years as it looked to cater to the rising number of Australian baby boomers reaching retirement.<br/>
<br/>
He said EQT would ramp up its investment in Australia over the next five years, by which time it hoped to deliver up to 800 new retirement units annually.<br/>
<br/>
But several obstacles currently stood in the way, he said, including lengthy development approval processes in some states and foreign investment surcharges in states including South Australia and NSW.<br/>
<br/>
“We think retirement living is perfectly placed as a product to tackle both availability and affordability,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“One of the biggest challenges is the amount of time it takes to get through development planning, getting bogged down in councils – in the construction of a village the longest period of time is spent on getting the planning permission.<br/>
<br/>
“This is a system-wide problem and so I think we should look at solutions where all housing development can get a bit more nimble.”<br/>
<br/>
Levande has a target of acquiring 20 new development sites within the next three years, following its first land acquisition earlier this month, when it snapped up a 1.75ha site in Bentleigh East, in Melbourne’s southeast, where it plans to build a new retirement community for around 400 residents.<br/>
<br/>
Mr McCoy, who spent 10 years at Australian Unity before joining Levande, said a mix of infill and greenfield developments formed part of Levande’s aggressive expansion plan, as well as redevelopments of some of the 58 villages in its portfolio, which currently had an occupancy rate of about 95 per cent.<br/>
<br/>
“Pretty central to it (strategy) is development, and in five to six years time we’d want to be bringing 500 to 800 units onto the market every year,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“The demographics are going the industry’s way. If you think of market penetration in Australia – about 8 or 9 per cent of people turning 75 are likely to choose retirement living as the setting for their next 10, 15, 20 years.<br/>
<br/>
“If you think of the people turning 75 every week as the baby boomers come through, that’s growing exponentially, and so even if market penetration holds, that demand is going to go increasingly higher.<br/>
<br/>
“And because there’s been a lag in construction for quite a few years, particularly around that Covid time, there’s a shortage of product.<br/>
<br/>
“EQT has looked at the theme of ageing, and looked at the opportunity to invest, looked at the demographics in Australia, the product of retirement living, quite a big market take-up and that’s what they’ve invested in.”<br/>
<br/>
Other projects in Levande’s pipeline include a $200m, 28-storey vertical retirement village and aged care facility currently under construction in Epping, in Sydney’s northwest.<br/>
<br/>
Redevelopments of existing sites are also part of the expansion plan, while 10 villages have been earmarked for a complete knock down and rebuild, including three projects in Melbourne and Sydney that are in advanced stages of planning.<br/>
<br/>
In Adelaide, Levande is considering investing up to $100m to convert a disused six-storey aged care facility at its Somerton Park site into retirement apartments.<br/>
<br/>
Levande owns 11 retirement villages in South Australia, and is currently running the rule over three additional development sites in the state.<br/>
<br/>
However, Mr McCoy said foreign investor surcharges on residential land and property purchases in SA and NSW made projects in those two states a little harder to stack up.<br/>
<br/>
“Because we’re foreign owned we have to effectively pay double stamp duty on anything,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“We’re trying to work with policy makers and governments and treasuries on that.”<br/>
<br/>
Recent figures released by the Retirement Living council suggest the sector is heading towards a 49,000 shortage of units by 2030.<br/>
<br/>
Retirement Living Council executive director Daniel Gannon said it was important the federal government recognised the role retirement living could play in its ambitious housing plan, given Housing Industry Association forecasts that suggest the government’s promise to build 1.2 million new homes in five years is on track to fall short by 200,000 without radical policy reforms.<br/>
<br/>
“Between now and 2030 the retirement industry requires 67,000 homes to be built to meet existing levels of demand from older Australians, with only 18,000 currently in the planning pipeline,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“These 67,000 homes would represent 34 per cent of the gap identified by the HIA, meaning retirement communities can help the government solve Australia’s housing supply problem.<br/>
<br/>
“There are currently 2 million Australians over the age of 75, a cohort which is set to increase to 3.4 million by 2024. This demographic shift will cause further pressure on housing supply, healthcare systems and an already struggling aged care sector.”<br/>
<br/>
The Retirement Living Council is also calling on state governments to set minimum land allocations for retirement communities in greenfield and master-planned developments, in a similar way to social and affordable housing targets.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/levande-has-a-2bn-pipeline-of-retirement-living-projects-but-says-its-being-stymied-by-red-tape/news-story/92ae5267eb26ce632105469bbebd37ac">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/levande-has-a-2bn-pipeline-of-retirement-living-projects-but-says-its-being-stymied-by-red-tape/news-story/92ae5267eb26ce632105469bbebd37ac</a>
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<b> Doctors fearful as rising psychosis cases linked to medical cannabis</b><br/>
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<i> Years ago I knew some people who used pot a lot. Eventually they seemed switched off most of the time</i><br/>
<br/>
A shocking numbers of patients who have never had a mental health problem in their lives are turning up to hospitals with psychosis after being prescribed popular “cure all” medical cannabis, psychiatrists warn.<br/>
<br/>
And half of those patients are at risk of ending up with serious, lifelong conditions like schizophrenia.<br/>
<br/>
In an extraordinary move, a Brisbane public hospital doctor has broken the silence on a disturbing trend showing an upswing in patients presenting with psychosis after recently being prescribed medical cannabis.<br/>
<br/>
Research from Associate Professor Stephen Parker, psychiatrist and clinical lead at the Metro North Hospital and Health Service’s early psychosis service shows one in 10 people referred to his services at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and Prince Charles Hospital for support had been prescribed medical cannabis in the three months prior, for issues like anxiety.<br/>
<br/>
The doctor said that the public perception of medical cannabis production as a harmless panacea is understandable due to extensive marketing but the risks are under-recognised.<br/>
<br/>
“Over the last 18 months I have seen more and more young people on a great life trajectory suddenly finding that their lives are falling apart after being prescribed high-dose cannabis,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
The most common cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is psychoactive, while CBD interacts with the immune and nervous systems.<br/>
<br/>
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Queensland Chair Professor Brett Emmerson is so concerned by emerging surges in psychosis cases he is calling for a ban on products that contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which can lead to psychosis.<br/>
<br/>
And the Australian Medical Association Queensland is demanding that the Therapeutic Goods Administration launches an urgent review into all medical cannabis products.<br/>
<br/>
Professor Emmerson told The Sunday Mail that the problem is statewide and the college has waved the red flag “to every possible medical board”.<br/>
<br/>
“When medical cannabis was first available it was for childhood epilepsy or pain from cancer now it’s regularly used for insomnia or anxiety when there are much better ways to treat these conditions. Now there are a large number of products available that have high levels of THC,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“I believe that a number of GP prescribers are being investigated by the Health Ombudsman,” Prof Emmerson said.<br/>
<br/>
Medical cannabis dispensaries have become increasingly accessible via brief web consultations or via self-assessment of pre-existing conditions<br/>
<br/>
AMAQ chief Maria Boulton said that members have been worried about the regulatory controls over the medical cannabis market for some time and have raised the issue with the chief health officer.<br/>
<br/>
Medical cannabis was legalised in the state in 2016 and demand has soared. There are over 700 different products on the market with oils, tablets, lozenges and creams.<br/>
<br/>
Dr Boulton said that there’s no evidence that medical cannabis is effective for some of the conditions it is being prescribed for and the effect on patients with some psychotic illnesses can be severe.<br/>
<br/>
“We need the federal and state governments to work together, as the current controls do not appear to be working to prevent harm. We need federal action from the TGA to review these products,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
A TGA spokesperson warned “the majority of medicinal cannabis products supplied in Australia are ‘unapproved’ medicines”.<br/>
<br/>
“It is important to note that the nature of unapproved medicines is that the TGA has not evaluated them for safety, quality or effectiveness,” the spokesperson said.<br/>
<br/>
Dr Laurence Kemp, Medical Lead for medical cannabis clinic Cann I Help said that there is a risk with medical cannabis with high levels of THC but it was the duty of the prescribing doctor to properly assess the correct levels for patients and also assess patients who may be susceptible to psychosis.<br/>
<br/>
“Patient selection for medical cannabis is very important and there must be robust follow up arrangements. Some people do better with the CBD element in the cannabis. It is not something that is the same across the board for everyone,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
The expert said that the black market for medical cannabis was bigger than the medical market and that was a real concern.<br/>
<br/>
“We mostly prescribe for conditions like muscular pain, anxiety and insomnia and people can get some great results,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/doctors-fearful-as-rising-psychosis-cases-linked-to-medical-cannabis/news-story/d2625e9df9851cdf2450f0de9827f191">https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/doctors-fearful-as-rising-psychosis-cases-linked-to-medical-cannabis/news-story/d2625e9df9851cdf2450f0de9827f191</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>
<br/>jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-91091709021424278762024-02-18T11:52:00.001+13:002024-02-18T11:52:16.320+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Hundreds more immigration detainees could be released in sequel to NZYQ high court ruling</b><br/>
<br/>
The Albanese government has asked the high court to rule on a major case that could extend the NZYQ ruling on indefinite detention to release hundreds more long-term detainees, including refugees and asylum seekers.<br/>
<br/>
At stake is whether people in immigration detention must be released if their refusal to cooperate has prevented them being deported.<br/>
<br/>
The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has applied to remove a federal court appeal and have it heard by the high court to settle the legal uncertainty. The commonwealth will argue for the right to continue detaining those who refuse to cooperate.<br/>
<br/>
In November, the high court unanimously ruled that immigration detention is unlawful where there is “no real prospect” of it becoming practical to deport the person “in the reasonably foreseeable future”.<br/>
<br/>
In that case the solicitor general, Stephen Donaghue, had warned that up to 340 people in long-term detention may have to be released as a result. So far 149 people have been released.<br/>
<br/>
Many of the remainder have been kept in detention because the government’s legal advice states the NZYQ decision does not require their release if deportation is being frustrated by a lack of cooperation, such as refusing to meet government officials from their country of origin or obtaining a travel document.<br/>
<br/>
The federal court has issued contradictory judgments on that point, ordering the release of Ned Kelly Emeralds on 30 November but refusing release in the case of a plaintiff known by the pseudonym ASF17.<br/>
<br/>
In both cases the government argued deportation had been frustrated – in ASF17’s case because he refused to meet with Iranian authorities to get travel documents.<br/>
<br/>
According to the judgment of Justice Craig Colvin on 11 January, ASF17 submitted that he had “no obligation to cooperate and that he has good reasons for not” doing so.<br/>
<br/>
ASF17 had said he “fears for his life if he is removed to Iran” because he is bisexual, Christian, a Faili Kurd and because he had opposed “the mistreatment of women by the government in Iran”.<br/>
<br/>
Colvin ruled that ASF17’s continued detention was lawful, refusing his application to be released.<br/>
<br/>
“Where ongoing detention is to arrange removal from Australia as soon as practicable, that lawful purpose is served for so long as there is a practicable way that the person may be removed, even if it requires cooperation from the detainee for it to be achieved,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
ASF17’s lawyers signalled an intention to appeal to the full federal court, prompting Dreyfus to apply on Thursday to have the matter removed to the high court for final determination.<br/>
<br/>
On Thursday the Coalition targeted the immigration minister, Andrew Giles, for a fourth straight day in question time over the handling of the NZYQ court case and subsequent releases from immigration detention.<br/>
<br/>
The Coalition’s attacks have been fuelled by documents tabled in Senate estimates detailing the criminal offending of those released, and the fact that seven have been charged with breach of visa conditions and 18 with breach of state or territory offences since release.<br/>
<br/>
In an unsuccessful motion to suspend standing orders on Wednesday, the opposition leader Peter Dutton accused Giles of “failing to know where released detainee criminals are”.<br/>
<br/>
In question time on Wednesday and Thursday, Giles said that “the location of every individual in this cohort is known” because they are “continuously monitored” through conditions including ankle bracelets or a requirement to report their address to authorities.<br/>
<br/>
He cited evidence from the Australian federal police at Senate estimates that there wasn’t “any difficulty knowing where they are”.<br/>
<br/>
Dutton’s motion called on “the prime minister to dismiss this incompetent minister who has proven entirely inadequate to the task of keeping Australians safe” – reiterating a demand he made in November. The motion was defeated 87 to 53.<br/>
<br/>
Earlier on Wednesday the leader of the house, Tony Burke, said the Coalition’s question time tactics were designed to avoid talking about the fact the “the government is making sure that people earn more and keep more of what they earn in tax reform”.<br/>
<br/>
Burke said “of course” Giles retains his and the prime minister’s confidence, describing Giles “a serious immigration lawyer looking after these issues”.<br/>
<br/>
In response to the motion, the home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, noted Dutton had lifted a bar to allow NZYQ, the original high court plaintiff, to apply for a visa and had failed to deport him.<br/>
<br/>
On Thursday Dutton continued to call for Giles’ resignation over his handling of the NZYQ case.<br/>
<br/>
“You need somebody who can make tough decisions and can act in our national interest and keep Australians safe,” Dutton told 2GB Radio.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/16/australia-indefinite-immigration-detention-high-court-ruling-detainees">https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/16/australia-indefinite-immigration-detention-high-court-ruling-detainees</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> The lost presunption of innocence</b><br/>
<br/>
In a sweltering, steamy Queensland summer, strange things happen when it gets too hot to handle. Violent crime was the front page of the Brisbane Courier Mail as the city was rocked by the senseless murder of a grandmother, allegedly by a 16-year-old on bail for a number of alleged offences. Several members of the Queensland Police were calling for tougher measures:<br/>
<br/>
‘Legislation must be introduced to remove the offenders from society in the interests of community safety. It can’t go on…’<br/>
<br/>
Yet the main headline could not have been more revealing in terms of the corollary to the Queensland Police position.<br/>
<br/>
In one example, a woman was held in detention for 6 years without trial or conviction, while the Crown alleged she had overdosed her child with drugs in a smoothie. The Judge took the unusual step to instruct the jury that the prosecution case relied on the evidence of another child who was ‘mentally compromised’, allegedly had a motivation to lie about her mother, and had given inconsistent testimony.<br/>
<br/>
When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts looks like a nail. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 15,182 prisoners are held in Australian jails were on remand, held without trial or a conviction. That’s an annual increase of 16 per cent and represents 37 per cent of the entire prison population. In this respect Australia is following a trend in the USA where in some counties up to 90 per cent of prisoners are pretrial detainees, often unable to afford their bail.<br/>
<br/>
Australia has imported and implemented American-style tribunals, where the normal rules of evidence don’t apply and power is ultimately left in the hands of the judge or magistrate to make a determination, based on the ‘balance of probabilities’. Often this leads to a reversal in the onus of proof, where the accused has to prove his or her innocence, rather than the prosecution proving guilt.<br/>
<br/>
According to the Australian Attorney-General’s Department:<br/>
<br/>
‘Some laws, commonly called reverse onus provisions, shift the burden of proof to the accused or apply a presumption of fact or law operating against the accused. Under international human rights law, a reverse onus provision will not necessarily violate the presumption of innocence provided that the law is not unreasonable in the circumstances and maintains the rights of the accused. The purpose of the reverse onus provision would be important in determining its justification. Such a provision may be justified if the nature of the offence makes it very difficult for the prosecution to prove each element, or if it is clearly more practical for the accused to prove a fact than for the prosecution to disprove it.’<br/>
<br/>
In 2023 there were 193 homicides in Australia, meaning 79 individuals were held in detention without trial or conviction for every 1 murder. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, 50 per cent of suicide victims were on remand at the time of their suicide. Suicide is the leading cause of death in Australia under the age of 45 and in 2023 there were 798 deaths from suicide according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.<br/>
<br/>
This means of the 15,000 or more individuals held in Australian jails without trial or conviction, 400 are likely to die from suicide. Twice as many individuals held in remand will die from suicide as a result of their experience as there are murders in the entirety of Australia. A person is 41 times more likely to die from his or her own hand than from an intimate partner. Sometimes we have to ask whether the cure is worse than the disease? Sometimes a bigger hammer is not the answer.<br/>
<br/>
In Australia, over 90 per cent of prisoners are male and evidence shows that children with absentee fathers are 3 times more likely to commit crime and to spend time in jail themselves. In Queensland every year there are twice as many Domestic Violence Orders (DVO) issued than there are male births. There are also more than twice as many DVOs issued than there are marriages. Since the introduction of the new legislation in 2012 the number of DVO violations has increased from around 65 per cent to over 95 per cent. A DVO violation potentially constitutes a criminal act and often fathers desperate to see their children unwittingly end up with a criminal conviction through such a violation. Even an innocuous inquiry about whether a rates bill has been paid may constitute a criminal act under the legislation. Normal behaviour is becoming increasingly criminalised.<br/>
<br/>
Queensland has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the country, with many prisoners being held in private jails owned by large multinational corporations from the UK and the USA returning multi-billion dollar returns. Young men are voting with their feet with almost a third choosing to remain single. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see how the institution of marriage, our cultural bedrock for more than 2,000 years, can survive such weight of legislative scrutiny. The exercise of coercive control is ubiquitous in our increasingly bureaucratised society, yet it is in only in coupled relationships that it is deemed to be a criminal offence requiring extensive jail time.<br/>
<br/>
Whilst the principle of the presumption has been sacrificed on the altar of ‘absolute safetyism’, there has been no reduction in intimate partner homicide in Queensland, no change in the incidence domestic violence, but a surge in prisoners held on remand without conviction and an unprecedented surge in youth crime throughout the state. There is a sense that the current system is exacerbating crime, if not entrenching the problem. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that individuals held in remand become increasingly likely to commit crimes, particularly sexual offences.<br/>
<br/>
The corrosive abrogation of the principle of the presumption of innocence has been relentless so that today it effectively only applies at criminal trial. The consequence for society is the erosion of our democratic rights and freedoms. Where we once believed we elected government to serve its people, it is clear that government regards its entire people as potential criminals. Just as the onus of guilt has reversed, so too has the position of government to its people.<br/>
<br/>
The vast majority of detainees accept criminal charges simply to get out of the system. Most buckle despite their innocence and accept a charge in return for ‘leniency’. In the current system it serves no purpose to expedite or resolve matters until the 11th hour because there are no pressures on the police to do so. Quite the contrary, exoneration poses a media hazard. Recently in New South Wales an innocent individual was awarded $150,000 costs by a judge after he had been held in pretrial detention for 18 months without bail.<br/>
<br/>
In a rapidly changing world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to understand what actually constitutes a crime. As in medicine the number of diagnosis in the DSM catalogue of disease has increased inexorably over the years, so too the legislative burden expands relentlessly so that the space that remains in which to retain a normal life is becoming increasingly confined. To quote Martin Luther King:<br/>
<br/>
‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/the-presumption-of-guilt/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/the-presumption-of-guilt/</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> University chiefs lecture schools on maths and science teaching</b><br/>
<br/>
University chiefs have caned schools for failing to prepare “Zoomers” for tertiary education, with domestic enrolments diving 10 per cent as Gen Z teenagers shun study for gap years, jobs and travel.<br/>
<br/>
As the Albanese government prepares to launch its landmark Universities Accord reforms, cash-strapped universities are demanding more financial assistance for students struggling to pay the rent during a cost of living crisis that is pushing poorer teenagers straight from school into the workforce.<br/>
<br/>
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott – a former teacher and director-general of the NSW Education Department – said schools were struggling with a shortage of maths and science teachers to prepare teenagers for university.<br/>
<br/>
“Students at some schools are being discouraged from attempting that more demanding maths, perhaps not linked to the ability of the student, but more the availability of staff,’’ he said.<br/>
<br/>
“There’s a chronic, entrenched shortage of mathematics teachers around the country now. I think the true shortage is often concealed because … there are plenty of PE (physical education) teachers who are being retrained in maths to just try and get a qualified teacher in front of the class.’’<br/>
<br/>
Professor Scott said universities might need to offer more summer schools and intensive tutoring to get school leavers “up to speed’’ for university degrees.<br/>
<br/>
“We are increasingly concerned, as we target students from low SES (socio-economic) backgrounds, that they are not getting the opportunity to study maths at a level that has been an important prerequisite for entry to some of our courses,’’ he said.<br/>
<br/>
“There are a range of courses, from economics and business to science and engineering, that have required maths prerequisites, that we can see fewer and fewer students reaching because fewer students are doing maths at that advanced level.’’<br/>
<br/>
Australian National University deputy vice-chancellor Grady Venville, a former high school teacher, said schools must ensure more students were taught maths and science at the highest level.<br/>
<br/>
“We’ve got kids coming right through from primary school and falling behind, and when they get to high school … they’re often not encouraged or supported to do the higher level mathematics,’’ Professor Venville said.<br/>
<br/>
“We don’t have enough highly qualified maths teaching staff (in schools), so that means it’s easier for the school to encourage the students to do an easier maths. What that does is narrow down the pipeline of students who can go into things like physics or engineering, pure mathematics and even our science subjects.’’<br/>
<br/>
Professor Scott said his sandstone university – renowned for its medicine and engineering faculties – was considering removing the prerequisite for advanced high school mathematics for some degrees. “We wouldn’t be decreasing the standards for our programs, but providing more help for students … without watering down our courses,’’ he said.<br/>
<br/>
“Perhaps more summer programs, more introductory programs, where the university takes on a greater responsibility to get students up to speed.’’<br/>
<br/>
Professor Scott said the high cost of living was discouraging students from enrolling at university, or studying full-time.<br/>
<br/>
He said the University of Sydney was lobbying the NSW government to grant it social housing development concessions to build more student accommodation.<br/>
<br/>
“When I was a student here in the 1980s, some of the cheapest accommodation anywhere in the Greater Sydney area was surrounding the university,’’ he said.<br/>
<br/>
“You could live cheaply in Glebe and Redfern and Newtown in a way that is often not possible now at all. We’re talking to our alumni about making more scholarships available that provide accommodation support.’’<br/>
<br/>
Professor Venville said university students were taking longer to finish degrees as they juggle study with part-time work or travel. She said Gen-Zs, known as “Zoomers’’, seemed less mature than previous generations of university students and were keen to take a “gap year’’ after school.<br/>
<br/>
In Brisbane, Griffith University vice-chancellor Carolyn Evans said schools were encouraging too many students to take vocational subjects, rather than the more difficult academic subjects.<br/>
<br/>
“(This) means perhaps not as many people are as well prepared for university as they used to be,’’ Professor Evans said. “We’re quite concerned about the decline in the number of students taking high-level maths and some of the harder science subjects. There are a lot of applied subjects being done at school level, which are appropriate for some students. But they don’t necessarily get a really strong foundation to go on and do some of the things that we critically need in this country … like engineering, medicine and some of the health disciplines.”<br/>
<br/>
Professor Scott noted that teenagers were dropping out of high school at the highest rate in 30 years. In public schools, 26.4 per cent of high school students had left before finishing Year 12 last year – up from 17 per cent in 2018, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed this week.<br/>
<br/>
The latest federal Education Department data shows the number of students starting a degree fell 10.4 per cent last year to a nine-year low. First-year enrolments by domestic students fell 5.5 per cent between 2018 and 2022 – a trend that is sabotaging the federal government’s ambition to increase student numbers by one-third, to 1.2 million, over the next decade.<br/>
<br/>
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said skilling school-leavers for work was “not just the job of universities’’. “We need more people to finish school,’’ he said. “We need to fully fund all schools and tie that money to the reforms that will help kids who fall behind to catch up, keep up and finish school and then be able to go to TAFE or university.’’<br/>
<br/>
Mr Clare said that “going to university opened up opportunities and makes you money’’.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/university-chiefs-lecture-schools-on-maths-and-science-teaching/news-story/0a581ae127f2d26218310f05967065d3">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/university-chiefs-lecture-schools-on-maths-and-science-teaching/news-story/0a581ae127f2d26218310f05967065d3</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Nickel isn’t worth a brass razoo without fossil fuel</b><br/>
<br/>
There is an under-reported and avoidable economic tragedy occurring in our nation’s west.<br/>
<br/>
Already 1000 nickel miners have lost their jobs and another 3000 face the same sad fate after BHP announced this week it may mothball its entire Nickel West operations. Many more small businesses and workers in the town of Kambalda (600km east of Perth) face economic ruin too.<br/>
<br/>
These hardworking Australians should not be losing their jobs or businesses. But thanks to the ineptitude, naivety and cowardice of our mining and political leaders we risk losing an entire Australian industry to Indonesia.<br/>
<br/>
Nickel West is one of the crowning achievements of our nation’s pioneers. In the 1960s, an Estonian migrant to Australia, Sir Arvi Parbo, achieved a superhuman feat. In just 18 months he and his team at the Western Mining Corporation built a mine, a refinery, a rail line and a town, and delivered nickel concentrate to Japan. Parbo’s team had to work fast because the ’60s boom in nickel prices was short-lived as nickel supplies from around the world competed to meet booming demand for stainless steel.<br/>
<br/>
Under our Byzantine mining regulations we would not have finished counting the trees for the compulsory environmental survey in 18 months. Indeed, in later life Parbo said he would never have built his nickel mine under today’s regulatory conditions.<br/>
<br/>
As in the ’60s, there has been a boom in nickel prices in the past few years, this time driven by electric vehicles (nickel is used in the batteries). BHP chief executive Mike Henry told the Financial Times in 2021 he wanted to weight “the portfolio towards future-facing commodities like potash, copper and nickel”.<br/>
<br/>
Australia and Indonesia have the largest nickel reserves. BHP backed Australian nickel because Indonesia’s laterite reserves have lower nickel content and hence take more energy to extract. In BHP’s imagined brave new green world, climate-conscious customers were going to prefer to drive an EV – filled with Australian clean, green nickel – to their next Extinction Rebellion protest. BHP’s assessment looked safe when Indonesia signed up to net-zero emissions at the Glasgow climate conference in late 2021.<br/>
<br/>
Indonesia then increased its use of coal by an astounding 32 per cent the year after Glasgow, enough coal to power five large coal-fired power stations. The International Energy Agency recently noted Indonesian “nickel production has become an important driver of coal demand”. Indonesia increased nickel production at an annual rate of more than 50 per cent last year. Prabowo Subianto, who claimed victory in Indonesia’s presidential election this week, has promised to continue the nickel policies of Joko Widodo’s government, and even expand them to bauxite and copper.<br/>
<br/>
It is embarrassing that our corporate leaders could be so hoodwinked by the cheap talk at a climate conference. Thousands of Australians will lose their jobs because Indonesia builds coal-fired power stations and we do not.<br/>
<br/>
That makes our political leaders complicit in this shambles too. Our state and federal governments sit back and let other countries take us for mugs. Other countries go nowhere near meeting their climate commitments while we honour them to the letter. We are losing our manufacturing industry thanks to the net-zero mind virus that deludes people into acting as if Australia alone can change the globe’s temperature.<br/>
<br/>
To rub salt into this wound, the Labor government imposed a carbon tax on Australian nickel in July last year (the so-called safeguard mechanism). It may be too late to save Australian nickel jobs but the least Labor could do would be to belatedly exempt the Australian nickel industry from its carbon tax. I, and some of my Liberal and Nationals colleagues, have written to the Resources Minister asking her to do this immediately.<br/>
<br/>
On coming to government, the Labor Party focused its mining policy on so-called critical (or strategic) minerals, which includes nickel. Labor has done nothing to attract new coal, oil or gas investment (even though these make up more than half of our mining exports). The (now broken) Labor promise to workers in fossil fuel industries was that it was OK if you lost your jobs because there would be lots of other jobs in nickel and other critical mineral industries.<br/>
<br/>
As resources minister in 2019, I developed the nation’s first critical minerals strategy and signed the first agreement with the US on critical minerals. We should develop these industries, but we should not develop them at the expense of our coal, oil and gas sectors. And we won’t develop critical minerals, in any case, if we do not have affordable and reliable energy supplies. Mining (especially critical minerals mining) requires a lot of energy.<br/>
<br/>
There is a reason BHP is not proposing to keep Nickel West open by converting all of its power needs to wind, solar and batteries. That is because renewable energy is not cheaper than coal-fired power. All the spin that “renewable energy is the cheapest form of power” just had a real-world test and it failed miserably.<br/>
<br/>
The Labor government’s “all eggs in one basket” mining policy has been an abject failure. Even the Biden administration ignores its climate promises. Last year the US hit a record level of oil production and it is doubling its liquefied natural gas capacity across the next five years. Last year the US overtook Australia as the largest LNG exporter. The US was smart enough to take advantage of high oil and gas prices post the Ukraine war to attract investment. This Labor government has pushed away gas investors by imposing draconian price controls and red tape.<br/>
<br/>
If the Australian government instead had rolled out the red carpet for gas, at least the retrenched nickel miners might have some other jobs to go to in Western Australia. Unfortunately, as gas prices fall we have missed the (LNG) boat. Lithium, the other great critical minerals hope, is also facing a slump in prices.<br/>
<br/>
The worst sin that has caused this mess is cowardice. Many of our corporate and political elite know how mad our net-zero goal is. But few will say so publicly. They are worried they will lose their jobs, even though their cowardice will cost the jobs of many others.<br/>
<br/>
The least the bosses could do would be to go at the same time as they lay off thousands of their workers. That would be the honourable thing to do rather than making their own workers pay the price for their errors. That would also deliver some accountability to ensure that our next leaders are more Arvi Parbo than Anthony Albanese.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/nickel-isnt-worth-a-brass-razoo-without-fossil-fuel/news-story/dc6d41f0a38156e30e779c8f16666568">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/nickel-isnt-worth-a-brass-razoo-without-fossil-fuel/news-story/dc6d41f0a38156e30e779c8f16666568</a>
</p>
************************************<br/>
<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
***************************************<br/>jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-2725367480225799652024-02-15T19:33:00.001+13:002024-02-15T19:33:55.340+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Finance guru Mark Bouris’s radical solution to housing crisis</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> This is a reasonable proposal but will not address the supply/demand imbalance. It would probably send prices higher</i><br/>
<br/>
Don’t expect the housing situation to get better any time soon. We have massive demand – fuelled by record population growth. We have low supply.<br/>
<br/>
The latest figures show that housing approvals have fallen to a decade low. The number of loans to build or buy a new home have crashed to record lows. Construction companies are going broke practically daily.<br/>
<br/>
I don’t see any genuine solutions being tabled.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, the only thing our politicians seem capable of doing is spruiking pie-in-the-sky housing targets … that I suspect even they know we’ll never meet.<br/>
<br/>
What we need are practical solutions.<br/>
<br/>
Reducing immigration to 100,000 people a year (instead of 500,000 a year) should be step one. But I think we keep international students. They are a huge export for us in the education area. This is obvious.<br/>
<br/>
Reduce demand overall, rents go down. It’s as simple as that.<br/>
<br/>
But that doesn’t help mortgage holders. They still have massive mortgages.<br/>
<br/>
They’re now paying off their mortgages at much higher interest rates. As a result, they’ve shut their wallets. And this is hurting the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on them to spend.<br/>
<br/>
So here’s a proposal: make interest payments on mortgages tax deductible.<br/>
<br/>
Hear me out.<br/>
<br/>
Let’s say you owe $500,000 on your mortgage. Let’s also say your interest rate is 7.0 per cent. That means each month you’d be paying just over $2900 in interest alone.<br/>
<br/>
Now imagine you’re in the United States.<br/>
<br/>
Over there, this $2900 monthly interest payment would be tax deductible.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, you read that correctly.<br/>
<br/>
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, mortgage holders get a “home mortgage interest deduction” that allows them to deduct interest paid on up to US$750,000 of their home loan principal.<br/>
<br/>
The deduction only applies to home loans on a primary place of residence. Fair enough.<br/>
<br/>
So why don’t Australians get the same benefit?<br/>
<br/>
If it’s good enough for the Americans, surely it’s good enough for us too?<br/>
<br/>
The PM could pass legislation on this next week.<br/>
<br/>
Sure, you’d have the boffins at Treasury lose their minds over this proposal.<br/>
<br/>
They’d say the tax offset would take too much money out of Canberra’s coffers.<br/>
<br/>
But I’d rather the money be in the hands of mortgage holders who can spend it at local businesses, invest it in good companies and save for a rainy day … instead of having it in under the control of Canberra-based politicians and bureaucrats.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/finance-guru-mark-bouriss-radical-solution-to-housing-crisis/news-story/8367758b8d5d95008039e5725e22e8fc">https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/finance-guru-mark-bouriss-radical-solution-to-housing-crisis/news-story/8367758b8d5d95008039e5725e22e8fc</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> More Sydney parents than ever opt for private schools</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> Many government schools are so dire that you can't blame them</i><br/>
<br/>
The state’s private schools are enrolling more students than at any time on record despite soaring cost-of-living pressures and fee hikes that have pushed tuition costs above $40,000 a year at numerous Sydney private schools.<br/>
<br/>
Official data released on Wednesday shows the proportion of students enrolled in NSW public schools has fallen for the fifth year running, dropping to 62.9 per cent in 2023. It is the lowest share of students attending state schools in the past two decades of reporting.<br/>
<br/>
The exodus from public schools in NSW is being driven in part by the establishment of low-fee private schools in Sydney’s north- and south-west growth corridors, where the construction of new public schools over the past decade has failed to keep pace with population growth.<br/>
<br/>
Most other states and territories have experienced a similar trend, the figures released by Australian Bureau of Statistics show.<br/>
<br/>
In NSW, 785,847 students were enrolled in public schools last year, 267,253 in Catholic schools and 195,356 in private schools. The proportion attending private and Catholic high schools is approaching half of all secondary students, rising to 43 per cent last year.<br/>
<br/>
University of Sydney education researcher Helen Proctor said the issues public schools faced were widely publicised, such as teacher shortages, which could be contributing to parents considering private options.<br/>
<br/>
“There has been a long-term disparagement of public schools, there’s been many people talking them down,” Proctor said. “It is very hard for public school leaders. If they don’t talk about the crisis and the resources, how are they going to get anything done? On the other hand, if parents hear about teacher shortages, they’re naturally going to get very worried.”<br/>
<br/>
A separate snapshot of data provided by the Association of Independent Schools of NSW shows 65,000 students, or 28 per cent of those enrolled in the private system, are attending a school that charges $20,000 or more.<br/>
<br/>
About 60,000 pupils, or a quarter of all those enrolled in the private system, attend a school with fees below $5000 a year. Another 72,000 pupils attend a school that charges between $5000 and $10,000.<br/>
<br/>
Between April 2022 and March last year, repayments on a million-dollar mortgage increased by more than $2000 a month. A survey conducted by National Australia Bank in 2022 found one in 10 parents were relying on family members, including grandparents, to pay tuition costs.<br/>
<br/>
Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney said systemic schools have grown at the fastest rate since 2013. They typically charge up to $3000 a year, with substantial sibling discounts.<br/>
<br/>
“These numbers are a huge vote of confidence from parents because parents know they get quality and affordable education, and that their children thrive in our schools,” McInerney said.<br/>
<br/>
“We provide high job prospects, further study pathways and create great citizens. It’s a massive contribution to society.”<br/>
<br/>
Association of Independent Schools of NSW chief executive Margery Evans said the bulk of the growth in independent schools was in the lower and mid-fee bands under $10,000.<br/>
<br/>
“The main growth has been low and mid-fee schools, many in Sydney’s north-west and south-west growth areas. We’ve also seen increasing numbers in regional schools including in Tweed Heads. These schools are affordable for parents paying off mortgages, and appealing because they are kindergarten to year 12 campuses,” she said.<br/>
<br/>
“There are also almost 20 faiths represented in the independent sector across 350 schools, including Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and Jewish schools. These schools provide an education that reflects parents’ values and beliefs. Forty years ago, there weren’t any Islamic schools. There are (now) 29, with 22,000 students.”<br/>
<br/>
NSW Education Minister Prue Car said over the past five years, NSW has seen the biggest drop in the country when it comes to the share of students in government schools.<br/>
<br/>
“It is no coincidence that we have had 24,000 students leave the public system at the same time the previous Government oversaw a teacher shortage crisis,” she said. “The government is undertaking urgent work to repair the states’ education system, by investing in our teaching workforce and addressing the chronic teacher shortage facing our state.”<br/>
<br/>
Mother Jasmine De Leon chose to send her youngest two children to a local private school, Norwest Christian College, near her home in Quakers Hill, partly because it was a co-educational pre-school to year 12 campus.<br/>
<br/>
“My kids have been going to the same school since they were four years old, and having that pre-kindergarten year was what really interested us,” De Leon said.<br/>
<br/>
“There is also a big sense of community and a structured environment. They also offer smaller classes and a variety of extracurricular subjects.”<br/>
<br/>
She considered having her two children sit the public selective high school test, but after five years at their current school they “had become comfortable and had established strong friendship groups.”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s also at the lower end for private school fees, and it was affordable for us and worth it when considering what the school could offer”.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/more-sydney-parents-than-ever-opt-for-private-schools-20240213-p5f4jv.html">https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/more-sydney-parents-than-ever-opt-for-private-schools-20240213-p5f4jv.html</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Drop Makarrata Commission to avoid further antagonism, says Ken Wyatt</b><br/>
<br/>
Former Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt has warned Labor against pursuing a Makarrata Commission to oversee truth telling because this would further “antagonise” Australians and stoke division, following the failure of the voice referendum.<br/>
<br/>
The first federal Aboriginal cabinet minister said embedding truth telling in school curriculums – as Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney suggested on Wednesday – would not work in isolation as a means of helping all citizens understand the nation’s history before and since settlement.<br/>
<br/>
“School curriculums alone will not do it,” Mr Wyatt said.<br/>
<br/>
“I wouldn’t go with a Makarrata Commission, not based on the African model. Because in the face of the No vote you don’t want to antagonise. I think the Prime Minister has lost a lot of kudos and ground on the voice failing. His leadership has to have a question mark over it.”<br/>
<br/>
Mr Wyatt has been a long supporter of the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart’s call for an Indigenous voice enshrined in the Constitution – followed by treaty and truth telling. He quit the Liberal Party over its position on the referendum.<br/>
<br/>
Ms Burney said on Wednesday she was still talking with communities about the outcomes of the referendum and “what the next steps would be”, but would not put a timeline on truth telling and what that could look like.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m having discussions with the cabinet about that … the issue of truth telling is incredibly important,” she told the ABC.<br/>
<br/>
“There are many, many ways in which that can happen including the school curriculum.<br/>
<br/>
“There’s not a particular model that I’m favouring at the moment … I am very open, as the government is very open, to what it might look like.”<br/>
<br/>
The Australian understands there are no discussions between federal and state governments on implementing truth-telling into curriculums, with the national curriculum not due to be reviewed until 2026-27.<br/>
<br/>
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures were already key priorities in the curriculum.<br/>
<br/>
“The Australian curriculum version 9.0 includes a range of additional content that recognises the experiences and perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” a spokesman said. “The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures cross-curriculum priority aims to deepen all students’ understanding of the histories and cultures of First Nations Australians and their knowledge of important aspects of our national history.”<br/>
<br/>
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership acting chief executive Edmund Misson pointed to professional standards that required teachers to demonstrate how they promoted reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the classroom.<br/>
<br/>
Australian Primary Principals’ Association president Angela Falkenberg said enormous strides had been taken in the curriculum over years to embed Indigenous history and culture into teaching and argued truth-telling efforts should be focused on adults.<br/>
<br/>
Kevin Donnelly, who reviewed the curriculum under the Abbott government, said he believed the pendulum had swung too far away from teaching children about Western history and values, detracting from their “national pride” as part of a left-leaning agenda.<br/>
<br/>
Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson echoed Dr Donnelly’s comments, saying: “Classrooms should remain a place for education, not a forum to foster division and activism.”<br/>
<br/>
While Mr Wyatt was a supporter of a constitutionally enshrined voice, as minister he toed the Morrison government’s line and did not pursue the measure. Instead he oversaw work on a legislated voice, resisted calls for a truth commissioner and believed in “organic and evolving truth telling” rather than formal hearings such as take place in the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa.<br/>
<br/>
Mr Wyatt said Labor should commission a series of documentaries through the ABC on Indigenous history and repurpose the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies for a couple of years to develop “historical monologues”. He believed the arts, the media, schools and universities all had a role in helping Australians learn the stories of where they live.<br/>
<br/>
“We did a fair bit of work on (truth-telling),” he said. “What I was in the process of bringing together is all of the national bodies that hold records of Indigenous Australians, seeing what they had in their collections including the film archives. I was looking at some of the work out of the frontier wars by Rachel Perkins. And then I was looking at how do we translate that into … not a catalogue, but an understanding of what history we have.”<br/>
<br/>
Mr Wyatt said all of the work he had progressed for truth telling would be available to Ms Burney.<br/>
<br/>
“The National Indigenous Australians Agency would have all of that and I’m surprised they haven’t come forward and said ‘Minister (Burney) the previous minister had us working on this stuff’,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
Voice campaigner Sean Gordon said truth telling could not occur effectively without a regional and local voice model first being set up.<br/>
<br/>
The Greens and independent Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe called on the government not to walk away from Makarrata, treaty and truth telling.<br/>
<br/>
However key architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart did not pushed for national truth-telling hearings during the voice campaign last year.<br/>
<br/>
Instead, Uluru Dialogue co-chair Megan Davis warned against “performative story-telling” led by government.<br/>
<br/>
Professor Davis advocated for local truth telling projects such as the Carrolup Elders Reference Group and its Centre for Truth-telling.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/indigenous/drop-makarrata-commission-to-avoid-further-antagonism-says-ken-wyatt/news-story/863bc6981b01393a83c573b09c0d59d9">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/indigenous/drop-makarrata-commission-to-avoid-further-antagonism-says-ken-wyatt/news-story/863bc6981b01393a83c573b09c0d59d9</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Diversity must be irrelevant when selecting judges</b><br/>
<br/>
Right now, nobody knows the religious or racial breakdown of the federal judiciary. And in the age of doxxing, that is how it should stay.<br/>
<br/>
As the Jewish community has learned, there is no shortage of racist ratbags in this country who are prepared to single out people for malicious mischief based on their race or religion.<br/>
<br/>
This is why the federal government needs to be very careful about its proposal to start collecting statistics on the “diversity” of the judiciary.<br/>
<br/>
The only possible reason for collecting data on the ethnic or religious background of judges would be to use it as a benchmark for future race-based judicial appointments.<br/>
<br/>
Collecting this data might seem well meaning, but it misconstrues the role of the judiciary, would feed racial division and would inevitably hurt the standing of the very people it is intended to benefit.<br/>
<br/>
At the moment, the community knows that all judicial officers are selected based on their ability to do the job. They are not selected because of their race, religion, sexual orientation or disability.<br/>
<br/>
They are there to do a job of critical importance. They are not there to represent anyone or provide special treatment for those of the same race or religion.<br/>
<br/>
Inherent characteristics such as ethnic background are simply irrelevant to the question of whether candidates for the bench are fit for office.<br/>
<br/>
But it is easy to see how that would change if statistics on judicial diversity were ever introduced.<br/>
<br/>
Politicians would inevitably brag about their successes on this measure, while criticising their opponents who fall short.<br/>
<br/>
Merit might remain the formal criterion for appointment – but in name only.<br/>
<br/>
The commitment to measure judicial diversity was made by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in September 2022 when he accepted in principle a series of recommendations from the Australian Law Reform Commission.<br/>
<br/>
He committed the government to promoting diversity on the bench and introducing what he described as a more transparent process of appointing judges.<br/>
<br/>
This forms the context for this week’s push by the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration to promote diversity and cultural awareness as key considerations in selecting judges.<br/>
<br/>
So with the push for diversity on the bench gathering strength, it is worth considering what sort of selection system would achieve this outcome.<br/>
<br/>
In its 2022 report on judicial impartiality, the Law Reform Commission did not recommend any particular method of selecting new judges.<br/>
<br/>
But that report does single out one proposal which, if enacted, would restrict the discretion of the attorney-general and hand real influence to an advisory panel.<br/>
<br/>
This system would have the effect of imposing a political penalty on any attorney-general who departed from a list of candidates drawn up by an advisory panel.<br/>
<br/>
The composition of the proposed advisory panels would be diversified – “potentially including lay members”.<br/>
<br/>
And if an attorney-general departed from the panel’s short list, a public explanation would be required by law.<br/>
<br/>
Instead of allowing each federal government to choose its own method of selecting judges, the method outlined in the commission’s report would be entrenched by statute.<br/>
<br/>
Compare this to the view of Marilyn Warren, a former chief justice of Victoria. In 2007 she told a conference hosted by the National Judicial College that the predominant experience was that the current appointment system had worked well.<br/>
<br/>
She warned against removing the judgment of the executive branch of government – whose core is the ministry and the Governor-General – and “imposing a mandatory community-based selection model”.<br/>
<br/>
“Transparency for the sake of satisfying modern pursuit of accessibility of process will make the process more open and public but political and, inevitably, controversial. Look at the American experience,” Warren said.<br/>
<br/>
The selection system outlined by the Law Reform Commission seems to come very close to the sort of “bureaucratisation” that has been opposed by Robert French, a former chief justice of the High Court.<br/>
<br/>
In 2017, when French retired from the court, he made it clear he supported the current system in which judicial selection is a matter for the executive.<br/>
<br/>
“The question is, first of all, should that selection process be constrained by a limitation to a number of names put up by some sort of panel? Or should the executive simply have a process by which it receives the best possible advice?” French said.<br/>
<br/>
“I am inclined personally, although there are others who would debate this, not to favour bureaucratisation of the selection process.”<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/diversity-must-be-irrelevant-when-selecting-judges/news-story/f9c423c51d3c855fc92f9ea39eb49256">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/diversity-must-be-irrelevant-when-selecting-judges/news-story/f9c423c51d3c855fc92f9ea39eb49256</a>
</p>
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<br/>
Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
<br/>
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<br/>jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32646270.post-72642190329947812302024-02-14T11:55:00.003+13:002024-02-14T11:57:10.247+13:00<br /><br/>
<b> Labor is gearing up to go negative on housing investors</b><br/>
<br/>
<i> "Negative gearing" enables well-off people to transform more income into capital than might otherwise have been possible. And anything that rich people do is automtically suspect to Leftists.<br/>
<br/>
I used negtive gearing in my time so I know exactly what it is and does. And a major effect of it is to REDUCE rents. By using other income to subsidize my property investments, I was able to accept rents that were too low to cover my mortgages and other debts.<br/>
<br/>
But lower rents seem to be bad if a landlord gets some benefit out of that apparently</i><br/>
<br/><br>
It’s a matter of when, and not if, Labor goes after negative gearing.<br/>
<br/>
And it is the “why” that informs this view.<br/>
<br/>
Labor has been historically hostile to negative gearing, and there is no evidence it has collectively changed this view.<br/>
<br/>
On the contrary, the caucus is pushing hard for it.<br/>
<br/>
Voters may have rejected it twice – in 2016 and 2019 when Labor first put its abolition on the table – but that hasn’t softened the party’s devotion to the principle.<br/>
<br/>
Politics has remained the obstacle.<br/>
<br/>
What has changed is the pressure union-dominated industry super funds have been recently applying. The industry super funds are desperate to get their claws into rental stock as a private asset class.<br/>
<br/>
The best way to do that is to get mum and dad investors out of the picture.<br/>
<br/>
If anything, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers’ weasel words over the past week have strengthened the view that Labor is tilling the soil again to have another crack at it, at some point.<br/>
<br/>
The Treasurer’s view on it is implicit in his thesis for the remaking of capitalism. He has made it his mission to leverage the wealth of superannuation to deliver on his remodelling of the economy and its institutions.<br/>
<br/>
Housing is a key part of it. And having union-dominated super funds control the rental stock of the nation – which is 30 per cent of the market – fits neatly into this ideological model.<br/>
<br/>
Industry funds are salivating over it because of the low-risk high-yield equation. As a private asset class, the valuations can also be manipulated.<br/>
<br/>
Corporatising rental stock – quasi-nationalisation – has an obvious political attraction for Labor. The party has held a long-term aversion to mum and dad property investors, a lot of whom wouldn’t vote Labor.<br/>
<br/>
The Greens understand the significance of this. It is less clear, however, why some teal independents – whose constituents are over-represented as wealthy property investors – are supportive.<br/>
<br/>
Either way, this is an issue that will be revisited by Labor at some stage. This is almost a certainty.<br/>
<br/>
Little that has been said over the past week should offer anyone any confidence that Albanese and Chalmers haven’t been working up options.<br/>
<br/>
A question is whether it would be grandfathered – as was Bill Shorten’s model.<br/>
<br/>
It is impossible to see how it could be done otherwise without forced divestiture. This would be insanity.<br/>
<br/>
Grandfathering, however, produces questionable revenue gains for the government.<br/>
<br/>
The motivation runs far deeper and is inherently more ideological. Labor’s inspiration is for a new class of public housing for renters. Under its model, the industry super funds would own the housing stock.<br/>
<br/>
Why the Albanese government would be considering negative gearing changes in the middle of a supply crisis is confounding to industry experts.<br/>
<br/>
The Henry tax review – commissioned by Wayne Swan as treasurer when Chalmers was working for him – was clear about this. It warned against any changes to taxes on housing until the supply issue was solved.<br/>
<br/>
Abolishing or curbing negative gearing is an effective increase in housing tax. And if you tax something, you get less of it.<br/>
<br/>
If Albanese’s aim is to not see a further two promises broken, its difficult to understand why Labor would be contemplating negative gearing changes as it seeks to build 1.2 million homes in five years.<br/>
<br/>
The retail politics of negative gearing are simultaneously crude and complex. Labor seeks to sympathise with first-home buyers, using the argument that young families shouldn’t have to compete at an auction with a foreign investor or a plumber seeking to buy a 10th property.<br/>
<br/>
This argument becomes impossible to sustain if the alternative is that a first-home buyer instead must compete with a pension fund seeking to buy its 10,000th home.<br/>
<br/>
In the context that government on Monday reduced tax on foreign investors to help facilitate Labor’s build to rent model, which has produced close to zero new homes, it would be inconceivable they would be seeking to increase taxes on mum and dad investors.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/labor-is-gearing-up-to-go-negative-on-housing-investors/news-story/d46cc77b9f793454b66188c6f0f1bf8e">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/labor-is-gearing-up-to-go-negative-on-housing-investors/news-story/d46cc77b9f793454b66188c6f0f1bf8e</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Frontline workers will be long-term losers under Labor’s tax cuts</b><br/>
<br/>
Sparkies, paramedics, police officers and accountants will be long-term losers under Labor’s stage three tax changes, as a major credit rating agency says Anthony Albanese’s revamped tax cuts will likely be more inflationary than Scott Morrison’s original plan.<br/>
<br/>
Under Labor’s tax changes, electricians, school principals, cops, train drivers and others will pay more tax under the proposed legislation in a decade, analysis by The Australian has revealed.<br/>
<br/>
Bigger tax cuts for middle-income earners promoted by the Prime Minister and Jim Chalmers are projected to erode over time as bracket creep captures more Australians under a higher 37c tax rate. In 10 years, Australians earning the equivalent of more than $104,000 today will be worse off under Labor’s redistribution of the tax relief.<br/>
<br/>
That leaves a wide pool of Australians, including essential workers, winning in the short term but having less money in their pockets in the future as their average tax rates push higher.<br/>
<br/>
Ahead of Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy being grilled at Senate estimates on Wednesday, an S&P Global report said while Labor’s tax cuts would have a “broadly neutral” impact on the budget, they could be more inflationary than the Morrison government’s stage three.<br/>
<br/>
“They may … be marginally more inflationary than the original tax cuts since they will provide additional funds to low- and middle-income earners,” the report, which provided an annual review of Australia’s economy and budget position, said.<br/>
<br/>
The Australian can reveal school principals will be among the first to begin paying more under Labor’s plan.<br/>
<br/>
A year after the introduction of the modified stage three, principals’ average incomes are expected to creep above the $146,486 annual salary threshold separating winners and losers.<br/>
<br/>
By 2033-34, those earning more than $104,000 today – assuming 3.5pc annual wage growth – will leave a much wider pool of Australians, including essential workers, with less money in their pocket.<br/>
<br/>
In the middle of 2027, electrical engineers, tram and train drivers will be left out of pocket as they become what Labor believes are high earners. By the end of this decade construction managers are among the occupations who will earn too much to be beneficiaries of the tax changes.<br/>
<br/>
Two years later, police and crane operators will be worse off as their average taxable incomes push towards $150,000 a year. That will be followed by accountants and vets from 2032, while fire or emergency service workers, paramedics, and electricians will be worse off from mid-2033.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/frontline-workers-will-be-longterm-losers-under-labors-tax-cuts/news-story/21396b28d6c204695661bb3b40a10047">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/frontline-workers-will-be-longterm-losers-under-labors-tax-cuts/news-story/21396b28d6c204695661bb3b40a10047</a>
</p>
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<br/>
<b> Pacific Islands Push for More University Students in Australia</b><br/>
<br/>
Going to university in Australia could become simpler for Pacific Islanders if they are considered domestic students.<br/>
<br/>
The high commissioner for Samoa, Hinauri Petana, told federal politicians the crippling cost of international student fees in Australia was curbing educational outcomes in her nation.<br/>
<br/>
“Our appeal is that, by all means, international rates should stay for who can afford it, but for the Pacific we'd like to see our own private citizens to send their children here at the same rates,” she told a public hearing into education and tourism in the Pacific this week.<br/>
<br/>
“Australia has been one of the leading countries in the world in terms of education.”<br/>
<br/>
Greater investment and assistance would help her nation in developing its own education sector, Ms. Petana said.<br/>
<br/>
Australia hosts nearly one million international students each year with most hailing from China, India, and Nepal.<br/>
<br/>
Pacific Islanders make up less than one percent, with 7000 to 8000 people on student visas.<br/>
<br/>
Yves Lafoy, representing New Caledonia, floated the idea of a set number of people that could be considered domestic students.<br/>
<br/>
“We back the concept of a quota of Pacific students to benefit from Australian fees,” Dr. Lafoy told the hearing.<br/>
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A ballot visa for Pacific Islander nations was established by the Labor government in 2023 and from late 2024 will allow 3000 people per year to receive permanent residency if they’ve been offered an ongoing job in Australia.<br/>
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People studying on the Pacific Engagement Visa will pay domestic fees and will be able to access Commonwealth student loans as well as Youth Allowance and other benefits.<br/>
<br/>
Luke Sheehy, chief executive of Universities Australia, said scholarships from individual universities and other educational programs were all options for students from the Pacific to come to Australia.<br/>
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“These are terrific and often transformative initiatives, and further consideration given to encouraging and supporting more students abroad to receive an Australian education would be welcome,” Mr. Sheehy said.<br/>
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Long wait times and exorbitant visa costs for Pacific Islanders wanting to visit Australia were also holding back integration in the region, the committee heard.<br/>
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‘It is very difficult, even to come be a tourist in Australia,” Ms. Petana said.<br/>
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‘You have to show your sponsorships, you have to show your bank account, all kinds of things.”<br/>
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Samson Vilvil Fare, the high commissioner for Vanuatu, also spoke in support of easing Australia’s visa requirements on Pacific Island visitors.<br/>
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Complicated paperwork and frustrating wait times meant people were often delayed or may not end up coming to Australia, he said.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/pacific-islands-push-for-more-university-students-in-australia-5583949">https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/pacific-islands-push-for-more-university-students-in-australia-5583949</a>
</p>
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<b> More Groucho Marx than Karl Marx: Anthony Albanese fixing the economy<br/>
<br/>
Anthony Albanese clearly believes that his turn back to the left – smashing high income earners with Stage 3 tax changes and smashing employers with new industrial relations rules – is in tune with a fundamental shift in Australian politics.<br/>
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On the face of it, the polls seem to back him in.<br/>
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The Prime Minister hasn’t paid any real price for the income tax flip flop, daring Peter Dutton to vote against a tax cut “for every single Australian taxpayer” even as he snatches back thousands from anyone on more than $146,000 a year.<br/>
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At the same time, new French-style right to disconnect rules have also landed well with, tellingly, Greens MPs sending out media releases touting their popularity on Tuesday.<br/>
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The man who in 2022 portrayed himself as a safe and moderate economic manager has gone all-in bashing bosses and the big end of town.<br/>
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In doing so, the Prime Minister has revealed himself as more Groucho Marx than Karl: “Those are my principles and, if you don’t like them, well, I have others.”<br/>
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This has the potential to be a massive mistake, both politically and for Australia.<br/>
<br/>
Time and time again, commentators have declared the end of Australia’s fundamentally centre-right politics only to be caught out, most recently in the wake of the failed Voice campaign.<br/>
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And while Albanese’s political bet has, for the moment, paid off, it is also putting the rest of the Australian economy at grave risk of serious long-term damage.<br/>
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Sure, we may not be in a technical recession, inflation is moderating and employment remains strong.<br/>
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The threat of multiple interest rate rises has, for the moment, passed.<br/>
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But household income, real wages and productivity are all going backwards, while failure to do anything about the tax system means an increasingly bloated government will continue to rely on the lazy tide of bracket creep.<br/>
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Instead of moving to reform and actually grow the economy in the tradition of Hawke and Keating, the government is pushing Whitlam-era bash-the-boss rhetoric and putting handbrakes on business.<br/>
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But the government, and many of its media enablers, are misreading the room if they think that Labor and its effective junior partners in the Greens are on to a winner with this new class warfare.<br/>
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People are anxious, absolutely. Particularly in already crowded cities like Sydney, people are looking to blame others for traffic and expensive housing and a million other houses.<br/>
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This explains the regular two-minute hates on Twitter (or X, if you will) against Balmain and Fitzroy “boomers” and NIMBY councils who are supposedly preventing benevolent developers from throwing up tons of affordable housing.<br/>
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But deeper down, people sense that a country – their country – that has more or less dodged recessions for 30 years is suddenly faced with the prospect of not just a few quarters of backwards growth but a sustained fall in living standards.<br/>
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People who grew up with the expectation of a quarter acre block (or California bungalow or inner city terrace) are now being told they will have to leverage themselves to the hilt for a train-line apartment that may or may not come with bankruptcy-inducing defects.<br/>
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And while no one ever voted for it (now there would be a referendum) both sides of politics have long adhered, more or less, to a Big Australia immigration policy.<br/>
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Huge arrivals keep overall GDP in the black, depress wages and push up property prices – though whether these are good or bad things depends on whether you’re a suburban commuter on the one hand or a politician or property developer on the other.<br/>
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Those big numbers will also impact social cohesion in ways we cannot even begin to predict, though it surely sends an odd message to those who came here seeking a better life to have their children go to school and learn how awful Australia Day is.<br/>
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Meanwhile, we don’t yet know the full details of the Albanese Government’s IR deal but we do know that unions and troublemakers are about to have a whole new set of ways to turn the screws on productive enterprises, particularly small and medium-sized ones.<br/>
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And this is before we get to the nightmare of the rushed renewables transition, which promises lower energy prices but never seems to deliver, and which in the process is forcing the country to deindustrialise.<br/>
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A devastating report out of Victoria in The Australian on Tuesday showed the direction this is heading.<br/>
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There, the Government’s anti-gas policies, taxes, regulation and the cost of doing business generally led to a net decrease of more than 7600 businesses in the last financial year in that state. This, rather than real reform, is what the Albanese Government’s new policy settings will replicate nationally, making them so dangerous.<br/>
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To return to Keating, then as now Australia is in danger of becoming what he called a banana republic.<br/>
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“If this government cannot get the adjustment, get manufacturing going again, and keep moderate wage outcomes and a sensible economic policy, then Australia is basically done for,” Keating told John Laws in 1986.<br/>
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“We will end up being a third-rate economy ... a banana republic.”<br/>
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Hard choices and real reform made sure that didn’t happen then.<br/>
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Now, though, it’s looking like back to the future.<br/>
<br/>
<p class="asset asset-link">
<a href="https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/more-groucho-marx-than-karl-marx-anthony-albanese-a-joke-when-it-comes-to-fixing-the-economy/news-story/a018681c0de2a79ee108fb4c0bd107f9">https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/more-groucho-marx-than-karl-marx-anthony-albanese-a-joke-when-it-comes-to-fixing-the-economy/news-story/a018681c0de2a79ee108fb4c0bd107f9</a>
</p>
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://dissectleft.blogspot.com">http://dissectleft.blogspot.com</a> (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)<br/>
<br/>
<a href="http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html">http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html</a> More blogs<br/>
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jonjayrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13363092874281160320noreply@blogger.com0