Poison bubbling out of this scab on Labor

A union sells out its workers for a bribe

LABOR has long reserved the epithet “scab” — usually howled or hissed at strike-breakers to vilify those perceived to work against the interests of trade unionists.

It will now have to find a new term of abuse to apply to trade union bosses who secretly sell out their members. As the trade union royal commission has heard, the Australian Workers Union’s Victorian branch traded workers’ benefits worth about $6 million in wages and penalty rates which should have flowed to some its lowest-paid members in exchange for ­employer contributions worth $225,000 and an extraordinary political advantage within the ALP through artificially ­increased membership, which gave it more delegates at ALP conferences.

Counsel assisting the commission Jeremy Stoljar has ­detailed the 2010 agreement between the giant cleaning contractor Cleanevent under which it provided lists of names of cleaners and paid union fees to the AWU, without their knowledge and ­despite some of them already paying union dues.

The cleaners were then paid about a third of what they would have received under a more modern award. At the bottom tier, a casual cleaner was paid $18.14 an hour instead of at least $50.17 an hour, about 175 per cent more.

Cleanevent was in no doubt about the advantage of the sweetheart deal with the union bosses, with its then general manager of operations, writing in a June 25, 2012, email that the benefit to the company ‘‘by not having the EBA and ­employing labour through the modern award is circa $2 million (per annum)’’.

‘‘The $25K was part of that negotiation and was approved by (the then general manager), the $25K is an annual cost.’’

However, the secret 2010 deal revealed by the commission merely extended the 2006 agreement, with some adjustments, made when Opposition leader Bill Shorten was Victorian and national secretary of the AWU and it was Clause 39 of that original agreement which removed all protected award conditions, including penalty rates.

The 2006 agreement ­covered cleaning workers in the company’s operations throughout Australia and, under the AWU’s rule, any agreement which covers workers in multiple states must be approved by the national secretary.

The secret 2010 deal was handled by Shorten’s factional ally successor at the Victorian branch of the AWU, Cesar Melhem, now the Labor government’s Whip in the Victorian Upper House.

Labor Premier Daniel ­Andrews has taken no action against him despite the gravity of the allegations raised at the royal commission, though ­Andrews had no difficulty standing down his Small Business Minister Adem Somyurek a fortnight ago when a staff member raised allegations of bullying behaviour.

Because of Labor’s dependence on the union movement, Andrews is stonewalling on Cesar Melhem, and Shorten is also refusing to comment on the extraordinarily serious ­allegations raised in the royal commission.

There was a time when Shorten wasn’t shy of the cameras. He was impossible to keep out of camera-shot during the Beaconsfield mine tragedy and he was happy to announce that he had organised AWU ­membership for the all members of the Australian Netball Players’ Association and members of the Australian Jockeys’ Association, though it may have been news to some of the netballers and hoops who suddenly found that their associations had done deals with the AWU.

As huge amounts of money passed from Cleanevent to the AWU when the 2010 agreement was reached to extend the original 2006 deal, did money change hands then also?

At the time of the 2010 ­negotiations, Melhem seemed to think that Shorten was sufficiently clued-in on the nuts and bolts of the secret arrangements to be able to offer Cleanevent’s senior management “a special invitation to attend a small, intimate luncheon” with him, or was the secret deal to be kept hidden from the star attraction?

Shorten obviously owes it to AWU members to explain what role he had in the creation of the 2006 deal removing various award conditions, including penalty rates, as ­either Victorian or national secretary of the AWU.

Nor can the huge political advantage gained by the AWU in Labor circles be ignored. As Stoljar said, the inflated membership numbers resulting from the secret deal “leads to greater influence over ALP policy formation, greater influence over membership of powerful ALP committees and, in particular, greater influence over the selection of ALP candidates for political office.

“Instead of securing better wages or penalty rates for members, some officials may have preferred to obtain payments which strengthened the union balance sheet and which falsely inflated membership numbers,” he said.

As he reminds us, as Opposition leader, Shorten is also the “alternate” prime minister and as such he has a responsibility to come clean about his previous role as a trade union boss in a union which sold out its workers to boost its war chest and its political clout.

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New Queensland children's hospital in strife already

SERIOUSLY ill children are being turned away and surgeries cancelled at the new $1.5 billion Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital.

The no vacancy sign has gone up and staff told that Queensland’s showpiece hospital in South Brisbane is “absolutely full”.

Doctors have warned there are not enough general overnight beds as the winter flu danger period approaches when admissions are expected to soar.

Nurses and doctors broke their silence last week after serious “bed block” prevented a child from Caboolture Hospital requiring tertiary care from being admitted.

And a child from Nambour requiring specialist treatment had to be diverted to the Gold Coast because Lady Cilento was full.

The Sunday Mail was told other children en route to Lady Cilento have been diverted to the Gold Coast Hospital, Prince Charles Hospital at Chermside and the Royal Women’s Hospital at Herston.

Some doctors are exploring the possibility of flying acute patients interstate for emergency surgeries.

An email to staff on May 8 from the divisional director at Lady Cilento warned of trouble ahead: “As has been the case all week — and to be expected in the foreseeable future — the hospital is at absolute capacity. In the absence of early discharges, major surgery will need to be cancelled.”

Doctors and nurses were urged to attempt to discharge any patients they could before 10am each day. “This should be ‘usual practice’ now given the ongoing bed pressures,’’ the email said.

The crisis escalated last week when the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit became overloaded yet again.

Doctors said the crisis was due to a shortage of general overnight beds, a shortage of nurses and a lack of funding. Nurses have told their union they believe there is a shortage of up to 40 nurses in the operating theatres alone.

And some doctors have queried the arrival of student nurses who have not completed their training.

“There are simply insufficient beds to meet demand,’’ said one Queensland Health chief. “And the operating budget is inadequate.”

The hospital now has one less overnight bed than the total number of beds in the two children’s hospitals it replaced — the Royal and the Mater. Hospital planners say Lady Cilento has 92 fewer overnight beds than required to meet current demand.

Health Minister Cameron Dick referred The Sunday Mail to Fionnagh Dougan, the chief of the Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service.

Ms Dougan declined to be interviewed but said in a statement: “Elective and urgent elective surgical cases are scheduled and booked for the PICU every day but priority must be given to the emergency cases from around the state. Additional emergency and acute theatre capacity has already been developed but despite this, there will always be days or occasions when acute demand will exceed planned or expected levels.

“We understand how distressing and disruptive it can be for parents when an elective surgery is cancelled.”

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Cheating scandal: Sydney university to review medical school

The medical faculty at the University of Sydney will review one of its study units after an academic scandal which involved students falsifying records and interviewing dead patients.

A spokeswoman for the university announced it would review its year-long Integrated Population Medicine (IPM), a unit of study in the Sydney Medical Program provided by the university's School of Public Health, after it was revealed students had falsified reports that were supposed to document the experience of patients living with chronic diseases. It came to light when university staff tried to contact a patient to thank them for their involvement, only to find out they were dead.

"The faculty is conducting a review of the unit of study and its methods of assessment," said the spokeswoman.

The revelations about the medical school have brought mixed reactions from medical students who claim the unit was flawed, and from the medical fraternity, some of whom said it raised wider ethical issues.

A spokeswoman for the Australian Medical Association said it was "a matter between Sydney University and its students".

The president of the Australian Medical Students Association, James Lawler, said while academic dishonesty was an important and serious issue, from a public perspective the cheating had not put patient safety at risk.

A practising hospital doctor, Tom Forfa, said the issues had raised much wider concerns about the way that the university was selecting its medical students.

Dr Forfa said some universities around Australia were putting much more emphasis on marks and money than they did on ethics and personality traits when choosing medical students.

Dr Forfa said that the selection process at some universities did not include personal interviews and was not conducive to breeding the kind of doctors that would be ethical and honest in their future behaviours.

"There is a change required in the process of selecting future doctors," he said. "They tend to overlook other selection criteria (apart from marks) and so they are not doing due diligence when choosing future doctors."

Several medical students who contacted Fairfax Media described the IPM program as "useless" and "meaningless" and said students had made mistakes but were not cheats.

"During the IPM program, students were asked to follow up on a patient with chronic illness over the 12-month period. Some students got into a situation where their patients died several months into the follow-up and it was nearly impossible for the student to pass", one student wrote in an email.

"The options for the student were: (a) notify the faculty, obtain a new patient and restart the 12-month assignment after already having invested several months in it or (b) "be dishonest" and just get the assignment done by the end of year.

"The student chose the wrong option under the immense stress and workload of the USyd medical program."

Another said students felt compelled to "self-declare" that they had falsified dates and meetings or they would face serious repercussions if the audit found they had been dishonest but did not own up to it.

"They would be required to repeat the entirety of third year – effectively delaying graduation by two years and accruing thousands of dollars in additional university fees," the student said.

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Our $42m World Cup bid: Show me the money

THE Abbott government could kick a quick goal if it speedily provided Australian taxpayers with a full ­accounting of the $42.25 million of taxpayers’ money that was gifted to Frank Lowy’s pet soccer project — the bid for the 2022 World Cup.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon and Labor senator Sam Dastyari are poised to announce a senate inquiry into the handling of the money to sit when the senate resumes in a fortnight.

The approximately 600,000 active players who contribute fees to Football Federation Australia, the millions more followers of the round ball game across the nation, the entrenched cohorts of supporters and the millions more who have little interest in the sport but who, through their taxes, paid for FFA’s ambitious plan — all deserve more than the explanatory letter released by the billionaire chairman of the FFA on Wednesday.

“World football might just be at the dawn of a new era,” the Mr Big of Australian soccer wrote. But there will be no dawn unless there is absolute transparency.

Federal Police officers are currently evaluating allegations of the misappropriation of funds from FFA to the world body FIFA by a FIFA executive.

Fourteen top FIFA officials were arrested by US authorities in Zurich last week before FIFA’s congress, at which Sepp Blatter was re-elected president. Blatter said later he was resigning but didn’t leave the office compound.

It was later revealed that four others had already been charged, including American Chuck Blazer, formerly the second most-senior official in FIFA’s North and Central American and Caribbean ­region (CONCACAF), and a former member of FIFA’s executive committee.

In a just-released transcript of a 2013 hearing in a US court, Blazer pleaded guilty to 10 charges and admitted that he and other members of the executive committee agreed to accept bribes in connection with the selection of South Africa as the 2010 World Cup host.

He said he also helped ­arrange bribes connected to the 1998 Paris World Cup.

The only clear Australian connection to any of the allegedly corrupt parties at this time is FFA’s $500,000 contribution to CONCACAF through its Centre of Excellence in Trinidad and Tobago.
In his explanatory letter, the 84-year-old Lowy ­acknowledged the president of CONCACAF, Jack Warner, was well-known as a “colourful character” — think of all those “colourful Sydney racing identities” and you’ll get the drift.

Warner asked Australia for $4 million for the centre but someone at FFA was sharp enough to knock that down to $500,000 — and even sent a team to examine the site and hired a sports facilities consultant to prepare a report.

FFA met with CONCACAF officials to agree to the terms, the chief executive of the centre (not Warner) gave FFA CONCACAF’s banking details (not Warner’s) and the cash was transferred.

But it wound up with Warner anyway, as a subsequent investigation by two former judges and an accountant working for CONCACAF found, and it determined that he had committed fraud and stolen the money from CONCACAF, among other instances of wrongdoing over many years.

Faced with growing international disgust, FIFA threw Warner to the wolves.

But to try to and limit the fallout, the parent body then took over the CONCACAF inquiry, while secretly the US team continued its secret ­investigation, charging officials and convincing key players to rollover.

Warner wasn’t the only “colourful character” FFA rubbed shoulders with as it mounted Australia’s $42.25 million bid for the 2020 2022 World Cup. As newcomers to the international soccer sewer it needed guidance.

Which, as Frank Lowy said: “… led us to recruit, on the advice of FIFA’s leadership, consultants who ultimately proved less than effective to say the least”.

They helped FFA splash our money around the region with football-related and ­humanitarian projects calculated to win votes and goodwill from Oceania to China and Africa. It was a totally ­ineffectual use of Australian taxpayers’ funds.

Lowy justifiably feels he has been nursing a bitter grievance since Australia ­received that sole vote in ­December 2010.

Despite acknowledging paying dodgy consultants and assisting shady FIFA officials, he is comfortable with the claim that Australia ran a clean bid.

For the rest of us to be as comfortable, he must show us the books so we can be as sure that public money has been handled with due diligence and probity — FFA will ­receive a further $3 million from the Australian government this year.

The corruption and cronyism that has infected international soccer concerns all, and will not go away until FIFA is totally decontaminated.

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Convicted paedophile wins right to stay in Australia after judge substituted his own opinion for the judgment of the immigration minister

An unelected judge overruling an elected official?

A convicted paedophile has won the right to remain in Australia after the Federal Court ruled former immigration minister Scott Morrison erred when ordering his deportation.

The 60-year-old, who cannot be named, was convicted in Queensland in 2009 of three counts of indecently treating his granddaughter.

He was sentenced to two years' jail, suspended after six months.

The man was born in England and came to Australia when he was six years old.

He never applied for citizenship but his visa allowed him to remain here indefinitely.  However, in October 2014, Mr Morrison cancelled his visa.

Because the man was not an Australian citizen, the nature of his offences allowed Mr Morrison to make him a non-citizen because he failed the "character test".

The man was arrested at his Queensland home in November 2014 and taken to the Villawood immigration detention centre in Sydney.

He challenged the detention in the Federal Court arguing that he was denied natural justice.

The court ruled in his favour on Friday.

Justice John Logan quashed the decision to cancel his Australian visa and ordered his immediate release from Villawood. Further more the Government was ordered to pay costs.

Justice Logan noted Mr Morrison's actions were "not bizarre" but out of proportion.  He said it was a "jurisdictional error".  "The minister has, with respect, taken a sledgehammer to crack a nut," Justice Logan wrote in his judgment.

"His exercise of the discretion conferred on him was ... in excess of what was, in my view, necessary."

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Australia singled out as a climate change 'free-rider' by international panel

Well-done, Australia!  To be criticized by an old fraud like Kofi Annan is a badge of merit

Australia has become a climate change "free-rider", dropping off the list of nations taking "credible" action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to a panel led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

In the Africa Progress Panel's 2015 report, Australia is named along with Canada, Japan and Russia as appearing "to have withdrawn from the community of nations seeking to tackle dangerous climate change".

Australia, with one of the world's highest per capita emissions, "has gone from leadership to free-rider status in climate diplomacy", it said.

The country was on course for emissions to rise 12-18 per cent above 2000 levels after scrapping the carbon price in 2014, compared with the promise of a 5 per cent reduction by decade's end.

A separate report on Thursday by energy consultants Pitt & Sherry said Australia's emissions had jumped 1.6 per cent in the first nine months after the scrapping of the carbon price in June 2014, led by a rebound in brown coal-fired electricity production. Emissions from coal, petroleum and natural gas use are all rising for the first time since November 2011.

Australia, the US and the European Union should be aiming for deep carbon cuts by 2030 and zero emissions by 2050, while China – the largest emitter – should bring forward its planned peak, the African report said.

While the report's main focus was on the energy needs of a continent home to 600 million people without access to electricity, it noted Africa has a keen interest in reducing global warming risks given its exposure to extreme weather and widespread poverty.

"No region has done less to contribute to the climate crisis, but no region will pay a higher price for failure to tackle it," Mr Annan said in the report.

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Alan Bond: From national hero to corporate crook


When Alan Bond siphoned $30 million of the banks' money into winning the America's cup, many Australians saw that as a defensible transaction

Alan Bond, who has died aged 77, is best known for being the first non-American to win the coveted America's Cup sailing trophy, and as the biggest fraudster in Australian history.

But he kept hold of his vast ill-gotten fortune, through a secretive web of shelf companies and trusts scattered through tax havens from Switzerland to Rarotonga, all controlled by the mysterious Swiss banker Jurg Bollag.

Bond was a salesman beyond almost anything the world has ever witnessed.

Barren sand hills became prized assets to Japanese corporate giants, a blueprint for a petrochemical plan, and a block of scrubby land in the WA wilderness was an asset the state government just had to have.

But like many salesmen, he was a sucker for a deal. Whether it was Hong Kong's biggest office tower, a Gold Coast university, an historic English village or a national television network, Alan Bond was in the market.

At one stage he was duking it out with John Elliott for the title of Australia's beer baron.

Bond owned Castlemaine Tooheys, after getting his first taste for brewing through the purchase of WA's Swan Brewery while Elliott ran Carlton and United.

How did he do it? From a start as a sign writer?

The 80s heralded a new era in finance and banking. Deregulation and an invasion of foreign banks flooded the system with cash.

Money was not just easy. Bankers were banging down doors around the country, begging businessmen to take more.

Bond was happy to oblige. In an era with little transparency and minimal disclosure, he and his lieutenants paid themselves massive personal success fees every time they notched up a deal.

That was the secret to the private success. Good deal or bad, Bond raked off a massive fee from his own shareholders.

At the time, no-one cared. The bankers were delivered bonuses for extending the cash. Shareholders watched stock prices soar.

However you look at it, the 1983 America's Cup win was a masterstroke and probably the best publicity investment he ever made. It is still paying dividends.

Bond was the man who could do anything. He could harness Aussie ingenuity to beat the Yanks at their own game. He broke the longest winning streak in sport. He was a national hero.

That laid the groundwork for five years of hedonistic self-indulgence, tax avoidance on a grand scale and outright fraud.

Final conviction put him in a class of his own

It all came to an abrupt end on October 19, 1987. The merry-go-round stopped for most on the Black Monday crash. But not for Bond.

He bought the remnants of Robert Holmes à Court's damaged empire and plundered the coffers of almost every cent it had; $1.2 billion was siphoned off to plug holes in Bond Corp.

His private company Dallhold - which owned a little over half of Bond Corp - received generous payments from the public company along with art works by the likes of Manet.

Dallhold eventually collapsed owing more than half a billion dollars and Bond finally declared himself bankrupt in 1992 with personal debts of $600 million. He was convicted three times on criminal charges, one of which was overturned.

His final conviction in 1997 - for the theft of $1.2 billion from Bell Resources - put him in a class of his own when it comes to crime.

But there was never a hint of remorse or even an acknowledgement of wrong-doing. His family, meanwhile, ended up in control of a vast global property portfolio.

Eight years after his release, in 2008, he miraculously was back in the rich lists, worth an estimated $265 million with a string of mines across Africa, from Liberia to Mozambique.

A quarter of a century later, the aftershocks of his crimes continue to be the subject of judicial oversight.

Just last month, WA Treasurer Mike Nahan was considering legislation to ensure that a $1.7 billion insurance settlement - a case running through the courts for 20 years - finally would make its way to Bell Group creditors.

Still, that all pales into insignificance any time there is a mention of Ben Lexcen's winged keel and John Bertrand's brilliant tactics - which even had Bob Hawke fall off the wagon as he declared an unofficial public holiday.

C'mon Aussie C'mon. Come on.

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Labor backs down on $3bn tax cut, which puts Budget surplus back on track

LABOR has agreed to support the government in abolishing a $3 billion tax cut.

The cut, essentially an increase in the tax-free threshold, was due to take effect from July 1 and had been part of Labor’s compensation package for the carbon tax.

Labor now says the cut is unaffordable and will cause a blowout in the forecast deficit.

Opposition frontbencher Matt Thistlethwaite says Labor is taking a fiscally responsible approach by backing down.

“The budget’s in a dire position, the budget deficit in the government’s own budget papers increases from $17.1 billion to $35 billion over the forward estimates, even with this $3 billion saving being banked,” he told Sky News.

“This is a saving that we believe is in the interests of Australia and that’s why we’ve agreed to it.”

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has defended Labor’s backdown on a $3 billion tax cut saying it is no longer appropriate given the state of the federal budget.

Labor has agreed to support the government in abolishing the cut which it now says is unaffordable.

The cut would have boosted the tax free threshold from $18,200 to $19,400 from July 1. It was the last remnant of Labor’s carbon compensation package.

“This wasn’t an easy decision for the Labor Party,” he told reporters in Sydney.

“But given this is the government’s position not to have these tax cuts, and given the state of the budget deficit, the responsible thing for Labor to do is to give its support.”

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said Labor’s backdown has helped put the budget surplus back on track.

By abolishing the tax-free threshold hike linked to Labor’s former carbon pricing levy, 10 million tax payers affected from July 1 will lose less than $2 a week, Mr Cormann said.

“The budget position is now improving, we are now on a believable pathway back to surplus,” he told reporters in Perth.

Mr Cormann said Labor had finally come to their senses.

“We call on (Opposition Leader) Bill Shorten and (opposition treasury spokesman) Chris Bowen not to stop here. Keep looking at the measures we’ve put forward to repair the budget mess you left behind.”

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Whistleblowers Warn New Immigration Laws Will Boost Secrecy In Detention Centres

"New Matilda" reports below something that would normally be cause for alarm but fails to look at the bigger picture.  People who took airline flights to Indonesia from places like Pakistan and then got into boats to Australia are not impoverished and desperate refugees.  They are middle-income economic migrants who have deliberately flouted Australia's border controls, fully aware that they cannot reach the standards that Australia requires of immigrants. If it was refuge they needed, they already had it in Pakistan, Indonesia or any other Muslim country. Muslims have a duty of hospitality to fellow-Muslims.

As such they deserve no sympathy and tales of encountering hardship in Australia are likely to deter any others from coming.

I have no idea if such people are harshly treated by officials in detention centres but it seems clear that they do often treat one-another and everyone else badly.  They are unscrupulous Muslim lawbreakers after all.  It also seems clear that some claims of bad treatment arise from "plays" put on to deceive gullible observers and sympathetic Leftists, probably with the collusion of the Leftists concerned. Lying for a cause has always seemed OK for Leftists and Muslims.

So New Matilda has done us all a good turn below by amping up the apprehensions would-be illegals will feel when deciding where to go.  They now mainly seem to be going to countries in S.E. Asia, who are no pushovers.  When that option is recognized as too hard, we need for them not to reconsider Australia

Doctors and contractors who formerly worked in Australia’s immigration detention network say new legislation criminalising disclosures will have a chilling effect, and is designed to deliberately target those wishing to blow the whistle on the conditions and standards of care being provided to asylum seekers.

The Australian Border Force Bill passed the Senate in mid-May with little fanfare, and is ostensibly designed to consolidate Customs and the Border Protection Service into the Department of Immigration.

But the legislation also contained a new two-year jail sentence for employees in the Department and those working for contractors who publicly disclose information.

Dr Peter Young, a former senior employee at private health contractor IHMS – which provides medical services in on and offshore detention centres – told New Matilda there are not adequate pathways in place for whistleblowers to raise their concerns.  “I’m certainly very concerned that this legislation seems to further extend the secrecy and restrictions that affect staff working in immigration detention,” Dr Young said.

Head of Mental Health Services at IHMS for close to three years, Dr Young went public with his concerns about the impact prolonged detention was having on children, providing astounding testimony at the Australian Human Rights Commission’s inquiry in July 2014.

Aside from detailing incidents of self-harm among minors, Dr Young told the Commission he had been asked by the Department of Immigration to withdraw figures from IHMS reports that documented increased rates of psychological distress among children in detention.

Dr Young said policy makers who passed legislation discouraging whistleblowing were directly responsible for any harm that would occur as a result.  “I think that it will in some instances have a chilling effect, but the problem is that by introducing policies that make the system even more secretive and less transparent, it increases the risk of more abuse occurring and will inevitably result in more harm being done,” he said.

When the Border Force legislation was debated by the Senate, the Greens moved an amendment allowing disclosures that would not harm the public interest.  It was voted down by Labor and the Coalition, with Nick Xenophon the only non-Green to back it.

Minister for Immigration, Peter Dutton as well as Labor MPs, have previously dismissed concerns now coming to the fore about the legislation’s implications for those wishing to speak out about detention centres and their operation.

Senator Kim Carr said Labor had not been consulted on the Greens’ amendment.  “Labor supports the existing whistleblower arrangements and would oppose any attempt to dilute those protections,” he said.

“The advice we have received is that this bill does not include any provisions that would prevent an employee of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, including the Australian Border Force, from making a public interest disclosure in accordance with the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013, which is the act that provides protection for whistleblowers.”

But that hasn’t reassured critics, who point to the fact the Public Interest Disclosure Act is relatively weak, and only sanctions a public disclosure where there is an “imminent danger to health or safety” – a very high bar.

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'Blackbirding' shame yet to be acknowledged in Australia (?)

So says Emelda Davis, a Kanaka descendant. I fail to see what she is whining about.  She decries the recruiting of Kanakas from their islands and then decries sending them back. Can she have it both ways?  Not that I can see.

The undesirability of recruiting Pacific islanders to work in tropical Australia most certainly HAS been acknowledged in Australia. One of the first acts of the Australian Federal parliament was to pass a law prohibiting the practice and vigorous efforts were then made to return the Kanakas to the islands from whence they came.  Is that not acknowledgement enough or is some breastbeating now needed over 100 years later?

The Kanakas often went into hiding (sometimes among Aborigines) to AVOID being returned to Kanaky.  What does that tell us about the "cruelty" of bringing them to Australia? They obviously thought that the "cruelty" was worthwhile.  Not many avoided being returned but Emelda Davis is the descendant of some who did.  She should be thankful that her ancestors realized when they were on a good wicket

As for the Leftist myth that the recruitment of Kanakas was akin to slavery, it was anything but -- as responsible historians like Veliz and Windschuttle have pointed out, using documents from the time.  See here and here

Leftist historians are determined to convince us that our ancestors were brutes.  They were not.  If you want to find out what they were really like read Lawson's poem about the bullockies.  They were the men who opened up Australia to economic development and civilization.  My late grandfather was a bullocky and I remember him as being exactly like what Lawson described.  Unlike Leftist historians, Lawson knew what he was talking about.  He knew such men

As a second generation descendant of South Sea Islanders (kanaks) who were ruthlessly recruited (blackbirded) to serve in the most appalling conditions as plantation workers in the sugar industry of Australia, I am part of a family of activists who have sought to attain recognition and social justice for my people.

More than 55,000 people, mostly men, were brought from Vanuatu, the Solomons and eighty surrounding islands under what Australia called the indentured labour trade, which was akin to slavery. They were first brought to NSW in 1847 with an influx to Queensland between 1863 and 1904.

My grandfather was taken off the island of Tana in what is now the Tafea Province of Vanuatu in the late 1800s. He was one of the many children whose birth right of freedom was stripped from him at the age of 12 when he was taken to work in the sugar cane fields. He never returned home. The experience and belief of our South Sea Islander communities, passed down through oral histories, is that our forefathers were enslaved regardless of the pretence of contracts. Most definitely this was a legal framework for what was in fact criminal activity, which saw the early deaths of 30 per cent of these "labour recruits", buried in unmarked graves across north-eastern Australia.

It was illegal to bring children under the age of 16 unless accompanied by an adult. However, there are many community stories - including my grandfather's - which contradict those regulations.

In the 1995 documentary Sugar Slaves, my grandfather's story is told by his eldest surviving daughter, Phyllis Corowa. She describes how he escaped deportation from Australia by the 1901 Pacific Island Labourers Act, which inhumanely deported 7000 people en masse, tearing established families and loved ones apart after 40 years living in Australia.

University of Queensland professor Clive Moore has recently written of this; the wages of 15,000 deceased Islanders were used for this deportation and the low and hard-earned wages of the Islanders were used to pay part of their fare to return to the islands that in some cases had seen their entire male population kidnapped.

This was a cruel, heartless process and one of shame to all Australians.

It gives me great pleasure, however, to know that the efforts of my grandfather and our kanaka men and women contributed significantly to building the strong foundations of the sugar, pastoral and maritime industries in Australia and that we are now the third largest sugar provider in the world as well as being one of the wealthiest countries.

Our lobbying has been arduous and has fallen on deaf ears with trinkets of acknowledgement and funding. Our community is 40,000 strong, with 60 per cent Torres Strait Islanders of South Sea Islander descent due to the "labour trade" and the "Coming of the Light" (Christianity) via missionaries, and also east coast Aboriginal Australians, since 40 per cent of whom are married into or have Islander heritage.

Faith Bandler​ and our patron, the Honourable Bonita Mabo​, are amongst the most distinguished of our elders and activists.

Part of our work is to establish a forum to assist Islander communities in the Pacific to gain access to meaningful work opportunities in Australia and to reconnect with our disposed families.

We have a long way to go for the successful establishment of the Islander people within that of the great nation of Australia. It is journey to empowerment that I am proud to be part of.

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Marriage traditionalist targeted by activists

MercatorNet contributor and president of the Australian Marriage Forum, Dr David van Gend, returned from a family visit interstate yesterday to find his medical centre in Toowoomba, Queensland, vandalized with graffiti. His name was painted in black along the northern wall of his surgery, and in red letters, “BIGOT”. The matter has been reported to police.

“This sort of abuse is experienced by anybody who stands against the gay marriage juggernaut”, Dr van Gend said, “but usually it is from trolls online, not vandals on the wall of a medical centre.”

“Just the other day a good friend of mine, Lyle Shelton, who heads the Australian Christian Lobby, was called ‘a nauseating piece of filth’ by the political editor of Crikey magazine, Bernard Keane. The editor of Spiked, Brendan O’Neill, reported on the Irish referendum and said ‘Ireland’s tolerant elite now demonise anyone who opposes gay marriage’”.

Dr van Gend is an experienced campaigner in bioethical and political issues and was not shaken by the incident. He used the opportunity to point out that defenders of traditional marriage are often reviled by supporters of same-sex marriage.

“This uncivil behaviour must be nipped in the bud in Australia. It is time for leaders of the homosexual marriage lobby in the Parliament, the community and the media, to condemn this demonizing of their opponents.

“I appreciate the expressions of concern I have received today after this episode”, Dr van Gend said, “but it is an honour to cop abuse when you are defending something as important as the life between mother, father and child. That is what is at stake with same-sex ‘marriage’: it institutionalises same-sex parenting, and that means future children will be forced to miss out on either their mother or their father.

“That is unjust, and that is why our side of the debate will keep defending the truth about marriage and family – especially when we get abused for doing so.”

SOURCE




English test should be mandatory for people wanting citizenship in Australia, says Liberal MP Sharman Stone

People wanting to become citizens in Australia should have to undertake an English language test, Liberal MP Sharman Stone says, in a push to overhaul the current citizenship requirements.

Would-be citizens are currently asked 20 questions in the Australian "citizenship test" about Australia's beliefs, values, its law system and Australian people. Questions are multiple choice and require a basic knowledge of English and Australian laws to pass it.

But Dr Stone says the requirements are "slack" and not rigorous enough, supporting a suggestion in a government discussion paper released last week that would require new citizens to sit an English exam before they are announced as Australians.

The paper also suggests "standardising English-language requirements, to ensure citizens have adequate language ability, taking into account particular circumstances such as age".

Dr Stone said it was not a benefit to the individual, nor for Australia, if people cannot speak English in Australia, drawing from experience at citizenship ceremonies in her Victorian electorate of Murray where she estimates a number of new citizens cannot read, write or speak basic English.

"The citizenship service is a mockery," she told Fairfax Media.

Knowing the basics of the English language is imperative for people to be able to participate in the Australian society, including voting, jury duty or understanding "Australian responsibilities", she said.

"It makes me very sorry when people who come into my office and say they need an interpreter and are feeling alienated," she said.

But Dr Stone said the requirement had "nothing to do with racism".

"This is about people coming to Australia from a non-English speaking background, [and] not necessarily to part and wave them through," she said.

SOURCE






Choice price survey crowns Aldi as Australia’s cheapest supermarket

As always, it pays to be an alert shopper.  Woolworths' canned tomatoes, for instance -- at 59c -- are way cheaper than anyone else's.  And since they are always used in cooking there are unlikely to be any detectable quality differences.  I use them in curry. Choice is what the big two offer. If you really like certain products -- like Jatz biscuits and shredded wheatmeal  biscuits -- as I do -- you won't find them at Aldi.

DISCOUNT grocer Aldi has been crowned cheapest supermarket in a major price survey as the popularity of private labels grows. A grocery basket at the German-owned chain was up to half the cost of major brands at Coles and Woolworths, a Choice study found.

But the dominant duo’s ‘own brand’ ranges can also save their customers at the checkout.

Coles and Woolies shoppers swapping leading brands for the heavyweights’ private label equivalents cut their bill by about a third, Choice said.

“Private labels such as Woolworths’ Select and Coles brand account for 21 per cent of packaged grocery sales in Australia. This will keep going north given cost of living concerns,” Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey said.

“Reputation has improved, there are more gourmet products, and many people believe the quality is as good as name brands.

“The downside is this can impact choice if smaller or more niche brands are squeezed.”

Aldi’s basket averaged $87.68 nationally compared with big brands that cost $174.97 at Coles and $176.77 at Woolworths, excluding discounts.  IGA was most expensive at $188.61.

Olive oil, dishwasher tablets, laundry powder, frozen fish fillets and cheese blocks had the biggest price gaps.

The mid-tier Woolworths’ Select and Coles brand were used for most private label comparisons.

Choice recorded prices at 93 supermarkets across 17 Australian locations in March.

The basket of 31 items included three fresh foods and common purchases such as bread, cheese, chocolate, canned tuna, toilet paper and frozen peas.

Woolworths — which recently pledged to “neutralise” Coles on price and revamp budget private labels to better compete with Aldi — said comparing “a handful of products” was rarely an accurate way to judge prices.  “When you properly compare like for like products we offer customers a range that competes well,” it said.

Coles said households could save an average $570 annually shopping at the chain compared with six years ago, and it was “absolutely committed to further reducing prices”.

Recent Citi research found Aldi prices were 19 per cent lower than Coles brand but 23 per cent higher than Coles’ budget Smartbuy.

Aldi was 28 per cent cheaper than Woolworths’ Select, but 13 per cent more than Homebrand.

AVERAGE GROCERY BASKET PRICE

Aldi private label $87.68

Coles private label $114.24

Woolworths private label $119.40

Coles leading brands $174.97

Woolworths leading brands $176.77

Source: Choice. 28 leading-brand products or their private label equivalents across all three chains plus three fresh food items on March 7-8. Prices shown exclude specials.

SOURCE

Australia May Need to take in many Pacific islanders as their islands sink under the waves?

More nonsense from "New Matilda".  They quote all sorts of "authorities" who say that many low-lying islands will be flooded as global warming melts polar ice. Their reliance on authorities is amusing.  Leftism has always been authoritarian.  Once freed from democratic restraint, we see just how authoritarian.  What were Soviet Russia, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Kampuchea if not authoritarian?.  And the Kim dynasty in North Korea is still providing us with a graphic example of Leftist authoritarianism.

To any reasonable person, however, it is the facts that are the ultimate authority and the facts are pesky for the alarmists.  For a start, global warming stopped 18 years ago.  Even Warmist scientists like Jim Hansen recognize that.  They call the last 18 years a "pause" -- which acknowledges the halt but adds a prophecy that warming will resume.  But prophecies are so far from facts that they are almost always wrong.  So no warming means no flooded islands and no humanitarian crisis.

And even if warming does resume, it probably will not be a problem.  While there are thousands of articles online shouting the theory of submerging islands, the reality is a little different. 

Lots of low lying islands and shorelines have in fact been GROWING.  Gradual rises in sea-levels have been going on for a couple of hundred years as a correction to the little ice age but accretion of island-building material has more than cancelled that out in many places.  And it's not only Pacific islands that have been GAINING land mass.  It has even been happening in Bangladesh, contradicting many prophecies.  See here and here and here and here and here and here

Countries like Australia and New Zealand may have to provide special humanitarian visas and put in place international evacuation plans as less developed nations in the region are hit by “disasters on steroids” occurring as a result of man-made climate change, the United Nations has been told.

In a submission to the UN’s World Humanitarian Summit, the UNSW’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law has warned the impacts of anthropogenic warming are already being felt in the region, and that governments must prepare for large population displacements as the intensity of natural disasters increases.

“The people most affected are generally the most vulnerable already – the poor, living in environmentally precarious parts of the country, without the social networks or resources to get out of harm’s way early,” a written submission by the Centre’s director Jane McAdam said.

“Humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of disasters is essential, but it is ultimately a band-aid solution and is not enough.

“The cost of inaction will be higher than the cost of implementing measures to reduce displacement now, both in financial and human terms.”

Simon Bradshaw, Climate Change Advocacy Coordinator at Oxfam Australia, said it was not clear what ongoing support Australia was providing to Pacific nations to help them deal with the threat of climate change.

SOURCE






Australia turned back 65 people on boat, including a pregnant woman, police chief says

Australian customs turned back 65 people, including a pregnant woman, after their boat reached Australian waters last Tuesday, according to an Indonesian police chief.

The 65 people from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, who reportedly claimed to be asylum seekers, are in detention on the Indonesian island of Rote.

Fishermen spotted two boats floating near Landuti island in the West Rote district, 500 kilometres north-east of the Australian coast, on Sunday.

"They looked exhausted," Rote police chief Hidayat said. "One female passenger is pregnant – we took her immediately to the hospital but she is ok now."

Mr Hidayat said the migrants told him they had been caught by Australian customs on May 26, who sunk their boat. They were put in two blue and white boats, and sent back into Indonesian waters.

"The Australians provided them with food, drinks and sufficient fuel to reach Indonesian land," Mr Hidayat said.

He said the passengers included four women and three toddlers. Of the 65, 54 were from Sri Lanka, 10 from Bangladesh and one from Myanmar.

Mr Hidayat denied reports the migrants were headed for New Zealand, saying his network said they wanted to go to Australia.

"Based on information, they started off from Pelabuhan Ratu (in West Java) on May 5 and about two weeks ago I got information from our network that this boat was headed for Australia," Mr Hidayat said.

"My friends in the Australian Federal Police of course don't believe it. They said it wanted to go to New Zealand but what would these people do in New Zealand?"

Mr Hidayat said Indonesian police had arrested four of the six crew members. The captain, Yohanes, ran away. "He's part of the smuggler network in Jakarta, according to the boat crews," Mr Hidayat said. There was confusion over the whereabouts of the sixth crew member, with some suggesting he was with Australian customs, although it was unclear what that meant.

West Timor Care Foundation chairman Ferdi Tanoni said the migrants were expected to be transferred on Tuesday to Kupang, West Timor's largest town and the capital of Nusa Tenggara Timur province.

"According to the chief of immigration, the information they received was that these people wanted to go to Australia to ask for asylum," Mr Tanoni told Fairfax Media.

Although there is an immigration detention centre on Kupang, Mr Tanoni said it was full and the asylum seekers were likely to be accommodated in hotels.

A spokesman for Immigration spokesman Peter Dutton said: "The Australian does not comment on matters associated with on-water operations."

The Australian navy has repeatedly turned back boats with asylum seekers on board after Prime Minister Tony Abbott came to power in 2013 vowing to "stop the boats".

The hardline tactic was also initially employed by Malaysia and Indonesia during the recent humanitarian crisis in the Bay of Bengal after boatloads of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants were stranded at sea following a Thai crackdown on people trafficking.

The crackdown led to people smugglers abandoning the boats at sea, leading to deaths and starvation.

Malaysia and Indonesia later agreed to assist the migrants and asylum seekers and provide shelter for up to a year but insisted the international community had to help with their resettlement.

SOURCE






Australia GDP soars, but growth remains patchy

Growth usually is

Australia’s March quarter GDP report has just been released, and it’s come in well above expectations.

Over the quarter the economy grew by 0.9%, leaving the annual rate of growth at 2.3%. Analysts had been expecting a quarterly increase of 0.7% with annual growth of 2.0%.

While the headline figure topped expectations, the internals of the report were less convincing with the quarterly increase driven by a jump in inventories (+0.3ppts) and growth in export volumes (+0.5ppts). Surprisingly, final consumption expenditure, the biggest contributor to Australian economic growth, added just 0.4ppts to quarterly growth. Elsewhere general government expenditure added 0.1ppts while private fixed capital formation detracted 0.3ppts with weakness in non-dwelling construction, along machinery and equipment expenditure, overshadowing a 0.2ppts boost from private dwellings.

Although a reasonable quarterly result, ANZ economist Felicity Emmett believes the outlook for growth remains clouded.

“The outlook for business investment, both mining and non-mining remains weak. The drag from the wind back in mining investment still has a long way to run and is likely to be much sharper over coming quarters as large-scale LNG projects approach completion. Added to this is the recent weakness in non-mining investment intentions. And with growth in household consumption remaining soft, it’s difficult to see what will drive businesses to lift investment. While lower interest rates are helping with this transition at the margin, the missing ingredient seems to be confidence, both at the consumer and business level”.

SOURCE






Political fruit flies

So many politicians have evolved so quickly on same-sex marriage that it has become one of the greatest-ever experiments in Darwinian selection. US President Barack Obama took about four years to evolve. Three years later Hillary Clinton evolved within 72 hours of announcing her tilt at the presidency. It’s the political version of the ever-mutating virus in the film Contagion.

How is this possible? It took centuries, millennia, possibly millions of years for the evolution of a clear vision of marriage as a permanent, monogamous, loving, opposite-sex institution for raising the next generation of homo sapiens. And now, in a matter of weeks, Australian politicians are tumbling over themselves in their eagerness to pledge themselves to support a quantum leap in the evolution of human relationships.

The only adequate analogy for the pace of change is the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. From what I remember of high school biology, a fruit fly population can acquire new characteristics in a matter of weeks (although a penchant for same-sex unions is not yet one of them). One explanation is that their brains have only 100,000 neurons, compared to the 86 trillion possessed by the average human. Evolution is a snap if you are stupid.

Fruit flies also move in swarms, so it's not surprising that several Australian MPs have recently declared that they have seen the light, including the Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen and Ed Husic, the nation's first Muslim MP. But the paradigm case is the evolution of Tony Burke, a leading figure in the Australian Labor Party and a Member of Parliament from Watson, a middle-income Sydney electorate. Until his party lost the last election, he was Federal Minister for Immigration.

Last week he announced that he, too, had evolved on same-sex marriage.

Why? Because voters in Watson desperately want a change? No. A Morgan poll of 2010 found that “anti-gay sentiment” was focused in several areas, including traditional Labor seats in Sydney's west and southwest like Watson. In fact, 32.5 percent of those polled in Watson said that they agreed with the statement “I believe homosexuality is immoral”. Only 36 percent agreed that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children, compared to 70 percent in inner-city Sydney.

In 2011 all Federal MPs were required to consult their electorates about same-sex marriage. There was only a lukewarm response from constituents across the nation, suggesting, The Australian said, “there is still majority support for preserving marriage between a man and a woman”.

And in Tony Burke’s electorate? He didn’t bother to release the figures. As he brazenly declared in the history of his evolution, “the last time the campaign for marriage equality published seat by seat polling, the views in my part of Sydney were, as I had expected, the exact opposite of the national vote.”

So why has Mr Burke ignored the clear wishes of his electorate?

Is it because they are cave-dwellers? Because they are homophobes? Because they are morons? Perhaps all three at once? In his disdain for his homophobic, moronic, cave-dwelling constituents, Mr Burke whisks aside their wishes and declares loftily that: “The time has now come for the conversation in communities like mine to move to the fact that this change will occur.”

Yes, a politician paid about $200,000 a year to represent the wishes of his electorate really said that. What the Marxist poet Bertold Brecht put in the mouths of the cabal of crooks who ran East Germany in 1953 has come true in Canberra in 2015:

Some party hack decreed that the people
had lost the government's confidence …
If that is the case, would it not be simpler,
If the government simply dissolved the people
And elected another?

To be fair to Mr Burke, he does venture a reason: debating same-sex marriage would be “divisive”. People might say nasty, nasty things. “As this debate drags on in Australia,” he writes, “it is becoming harsher and angrier rather than kinder and gentler.”

Mr Burke’s neurons are misfiring. As Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, he knows a thing or two about being divisive. Sticking it to the Government is his bread and butter. You can even watch him on YouTube comparing the new Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop, to Dolores Umbridge, a character in the Harry Potter novels who looks like a large pale toad. 

Furthermore, a “kinder and gentler” Australia is a nice turn of phrase. But it’s not one that he invented. It comes from a speech by George H.W. Bush, the same speech in which he famously said, “Read my lips: no new taxes”. And guess what? Yup, there were new taxes. Unconscious plagiarism from a speech with the most famous political fib in American history inspires no confidence in Mr Burke’s honeyed words.

Naked political expediency, not conviction, explains the rapid evolution of Tony Burke and other politicians joining the conga-line of same-sex marriage supporters in Australia. He offers his constituents no other reason than “The best thing for community cohesion is for the debate to be settled and the law to be changed.”

Of the many obstacles to same-sex marriage he appears to be willfully ignorant: the welfare of children in same-sex unions, the denigration of motherhood, the probable commercialization of surrogacy, problems accommodating faith-based institutions, opening the door to polygamy (read about this in the New York Times), creating a generation of genetic orphans and on and on.

Can anyone really believe that the future of marriage is safe in the hands of MPs like Tony Burke? Politicians who despise the sentiments of their constituents and who treat traditional marriage as a chip in political poker are not fit to determine the future of such a momentous issue.

The only honourable political solution to the challenge of legalizing same-sex marriage in Australia is to put it to the voters, either through a plebiscite or by making it an issue in next year’s Federal election. Voters should have the last word on marriage, not politicians.

SOURCE

Waltzing "New Matilda" again:  Aborigines and Adam Goodes

The latest cannonade from the Matildas covers a lot of ground but I don't have time to comment on much of it so I will concentrate on the one issue that will get me most abused.  I find pompous and self-congratulatory Leftist rage amusing.

Matilda has a commentary on the aggressive charge towards opposition supporters by part-Aboriginal football player Adam Goodes.  It was said to be a war-dance but a prance was what it looked like to me.  An Aboriginal corroboree it was not.  It was a fairly hateful act of an ungracious player and I think the alleged Aboriginality of the action was an afterthought to excuse unsportsmanlike behaviour.

Compare what I have just said with the excerpt from the Matilda account below.  A very different story.  I have reproduced below all that the author said about the episode but there is no description of what Goodes did at all:  Only the vaguest of references.  We can't let reality get in the way of a hate opportunity, can we?  But I have watched the video of the episode a couple of times and have tried to describe exactly what I saw.  It was Goodes who was hateful.

The comment on Goodes was preceded by a wail about how badly blacks are doing generally -- and there is no doubt that they are doing very badly indeed by white standards.  But who is responsible for that?  The attendance of Aboriginal children at school is very patchy -- so much so that governments try to bribe Aboriginal parents to send their kids to school.  And the major talent of Aboriginal adults seems to be for sitting down.  They even get paid "sit down money" on occasions.

That Aborigines live very poorly by white standards has long attracted the interest of Australian governments.  And everything that could be tried has been tried -- from pernmissiveness to paternalism to just giving them things.  And nothing works.  Aboriginal behaviour patterns remain unchanged regardless of the government regimes adopted towards them.

There is something that DOES work, however.  I have had a fair bit to do with Aborigines over many years and I think most people who know much about them will admit that their behaviour has  deteriorated over the years.  I have known quite a few older Aborigines who dress well, take care of themselves generally and who could almost pass as whites.

Who were they?  They were Aborigines who had grown up on church missions. Aborigines are a very spiritual people in general and the Presbyterian church and others were influential in preaching a gospel that included not only the message of redemption from sin but also a message of redemption from Aboriginal ways.  The missionaries did not always do it consciously but they tried to make whites out of blacks.  And they had considerable success. The rampant alcoholism and abuse of women and children was rarely found on the missions.  And misbehaviour was greeted with a preachment on the resultant danger to your immortal soul.  As an atheist, I find that a bit amusing but it worked with a spiritual people.

Bring back the missionaries?  It won't happen. The only "correct" religion these days is Islam. So the bulk of the Aborigines will continue to suffer from the bigotry that denies them the one thing that might help them: Orthodox Christian Faith.


For the most part, sporting contests represent a safe space where white Australians can access black Australia, devoid of the uncomfortable truths that they have had to overcome on their path to sporting glory.

The athletic prowess of people like Greg Inglis, and Johnathan Thurston, Lance Franklin and Lewis Jetta, serves to overshadow the true reality in Aboriginal Australia – that we are behind on every health indicator, that we are shockingly over-represented in jailing rates, that our suicide and self-harm rates are a national emergency and that the rights to practice our culture and heritage are being severely undermined by governments all across the country.

The latest incident came yesterday, when Goodes celebrated a goal with an Indigenous war dance while playing against Carlton in the annual Indigenous Round.

The Daily Mail lead the charge with a shrieking headline “Goodes defends ‘war dance’ goal celebration that included pretending to throw a SPEAR at rival fans… triggering another race controversy”.

News Limited asked its readers this morning in an online poll: Did Goodes go “too far”?

The social media furore included allegations Goodes was unsportsmanlike, a wanker and aggressive.

More HERE






School lunchbox inspections ‘perverse’

A University of Queensland health expert has labelled the practice of inspecting children’s lunchboxes at school as both “perverse” and unlikely to improve children’s health.

Associate Professor Michael Gard of the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences said hysteria about childhood obesity was fuelling a range of school-based practices that infringed the rights of parents to choose how they raise and care for children.

“Panic around obesity appears to trump all other concerns in the current climate,” Dr Gard said.  “Despite quite well-known data that Australian rates of childhood obesity have changed very little over the last 15 to 20 years, this is an issue that still tends to be discussed in breathlessly apocalyptic terms.

“Yes, too many children are overweight, but the hysteria we have created is out of proportion to the problem.  “As a result, we now have a kind of Wild West situation in which some schools, often with the best of intentions, have decided to take matters into their own hands.

“In this environment, the lunchbox inspection appears to have become a quite ‘normal’ and acceptable practice.”

Dr Gard, the author of the recently-published Schools and Public Health: Past, Present Future book, said he had spoken to many parents and teachers concerned about lunchbox ‘blitzes’.  He described it as an “invasive” practice, unlikely to deliver health benefits of any kind.

“We know that many health-related activities that happen in schools make a very marginal difference to children’s health, particularly in areas such as smoking and sex education,” Dr Gard said.

“Although widely used and popular among politicians and law enforcement, the US anti-drugs program DARE has been shown to be largely ineffective.

“Rather than making a difference to young people’s drug use, DARE’s value is symbolic because it allows people to stand up and point to what they are doing to address the problem.

“Lunchbox blitzes are similar in that they make sense in the context of obesity hysteria, but without any evidence that they improve health their real impact is to shame kids at school and embarrass or outrage parents at home.

“Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of the lunchbox inspection is that it seems to rest on the assumption that the teacher knows more about what children need and how they should be parented than parents themselves.”

Dr Gard said the concern about lunchbox inspections was part of a wider debate about the public health role of schools and how far public health concerns should be allowed to infringe on schools’ educational work.

SOURCE






I oppose same-sex marriage (and no, I'm not a bigot)

We are told there are those in favour of same-sex marriage, and then there are the bigots. But allow me to make the case for traditional marriage as being between one man and one woman, writes Michael Jensen, rector at St Mark's Anglican Church, Darling Point

The passing of the Irish referendum on same-sex marriage has triggered a round of Australian advocates announcing that it is now "our turn". We lag behind the UK, many European countries, some states in the US, and (perish the thought!) New Zealand, and we ought to get with the programme.

The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, in line with the new ALP dogma, has announced that he is introducing a private members bill into Parliament next Monday. He has said:

"It's time for our laws to reflect the values of modern Australia and to include everyone as equals ... It's time for marriage equality. Whatever our religious views about marriage ... I believe we have to change this law which discriminates against adult couples on the basis of who they love."

How could anyone stand opposed? The terms in which the pro-marriage redefinition case are stated make it sound as inevitable as the dawn, and as unstoppable as the tide. And these same terms make opposing a redefinition of marriage sound primitive and even barbaric. There are those in favour of change, we are told, and then there are the bigots.

But simply saying "it's time" doesn't make an argument. Neither does the need to keep up with the O'Haras, the Smiths, and the Pedersens. Neither does the support of TV stars, comedians, or even Bono. At best, these are arguments from fashion.

It is not even the case that "all the surveys say Australians want it" is a sufficient argument. The surveys say that Australians want capital punishment. Wisely, our politicians don't listen to surveys on that issue (and I agree with them). They should exercise leadership, not follow opinion.

Could it be that if you haven't heard the case opposing a change to the marriage law, it is because the language of those advocating it has been so emotive that the contrary case can't be heard above the noise? Could it really be said that a civil disagreement has taken place? I am not confident that it has.

I would like to make the case for traditional marriage as being between one man and one woman; but to do so with some important qualifications.

One of them is this: if the Marriage Act changes, this is not the end of the world for me. There are greater causes in this world than this. I am more distressed by our inattention to children in detention, or our national greed problem, than by the possibility that the definition of marriage might be changed.

Another is that I stand adamantly against the bullying and vilification of people of minority sexual identities.

Nevertheless, I don't think that the case for change is anywhere near as convincing as its proponents think it is. The case has been made almost entirely in terms of "equality" and its alleged opposite: "discrimination". The argument is that applying the word "marriage" to some relationships and not to others is unequal treatment, and thus discrimination. These are both apparently self-evidently bad.

But it is the duty of the law to judiciously discriminate and to appropriately recognise difference with, at times, unequal treatment of things that are not the same. It isn't automatically wrong to discriminate per se.

In fact, it may be the case that offering supposedly "equal" treatment is incoherent, as it is in this case. It is crucial to notice that the proposed revision of marriage laws involves exactly that: a revision of marriage. In order to offer the status of marriage to couples of the same sex, the very meaning of marriage has to be changed. In which case, what same-sex couples will have will not be the same as what differently sexed couples now have.

It will be called marriage, but it won't be marriage as we know it. It won't be "marriage equality": it will be an entirely new thing.

This is where Bill Shorten again misunderstands what marriage is. As we now understand it, marriage is not merely the expression of a love people have for each other. It is, or is intended as, a life-long union between two people who exemplify the biological duality of the human race, with the openness to welcoming children into the world. Even when children do not arrive, the differentiated twoness of marriage indicates its inherent structure.

Now, I didn't pluck this definition from the sky, nor is it simply a piece of religious teaching. It is the meaning of marriage that emerges from all human cultures as they reflect on and experience what it is to be male and female. It is only in the last 15 years that anyone has seriously thought differently.

I prepare many couples for marriage each year. Most of them already cohabit. When I ask them about marriage, they almost always indicate that it is for them the beginning of a new family unit open to welcoming children.

A child is a tangible expression of our sexed twoness.

To remove the sexual specificity from the notion of marriage makes marriage not a realisation of the bodily difference between male and female that protects and dignifies each, but simply a matter of choice.

This is precisely what many pro-revision advocates themselves argue: that a new definition of marriage would establish marriage as a new thing altogether. As Brandeis University's E.J Graff puts it, a change in marriage law would mean that marriage would "ever after stand for sexual choice, for cutting the link between sex and diapers".

Instead of the particular orientation of marriage towards the bearing and nurture of children, we will have a kind of marriage in which the central reality is my emotional choice. It will be the triumph, in the end, of the will.

The revisionist case has not provided a clear and reasonable definition of marriage beyond saying that if two people want to call their relationship by that name, they should be able to by choice.

Now, having put that opinion forward, I fully recognise that there are many people of intelligence and good will who disagree. I do not expect to convince everyone. What I do hope is that my contribution here will not be derided as bigoted or homophobic out of hand, but that it will be seen as part of a civil discussion.

SOURCE






Global ranking underscores UQ’s international standing

Seeing both my son and I have degrees from UQ, this sort of report does tend to please me.  There are thousands of universities in the world so 51st is an honourable placing indeed

The University of Queensland is ranked 51st in the world for academic performance, according to the University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) 2014-2015, by the Middle East Technical University.

UQ Acting Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Max Lu said the University was pleased to rise a place compared to last year’s URAP rankings, particularly given the competitive environment in higher education.

“The URAP result, along with other indicators such as UQ’s top position in the Nature Index and our position as the leading Australian university for research income, is further affirmation for the excellence of UQ researchers,” Professor Lu said.

“Importantly, our researchers work hard to translate excellent research into products and services that improve the quality of life for individuals and communities, and that benefit the economy, society and the environment.

“Strength in research gives our students an important competitive edge as they learning directly from leading academics and take advantage of UQ’s national and global standing, helping them in turn to transform the world around them.”

The URAP ranking looks at 2000 universities world-wide and is based on six academic performance indicators, including quality and quantity of publications and international research collaboration.

UQ has consolidated its global standing to be well within the top 100 in the world, with several rankings in the top 50, such as the US News and World Report (47) and QS placing (43).

SOURCE







Australian regional university builds China ties
         
The University of Wollongong (UOW), Australia, received a Westpac Australia-China Business Award (ACBA) on 28 May for providing quality education and training services to the Greater China region.
UOW was named the winner of the Education and Training category at the Awards Gala Dinner held at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong.

Professor Joe Chicharo, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Global Strategy), said the award reflects on more than two decades of UOW’s strategic engagement with greater China.

“Our engagement spans deep collaborative partnerships with leading universities, research organisations and industry bodies. We also partner with government officials on professional development initiatives, providing tailored training programs in business and public administration for Beijing Municipal Government officials,” Professor Chicharo said.

Importantly, UOW was the first non-Chinese academic institution to collaborate with Baosteel, the largest government-owned steel company in China. This collaboration incorporates the AUD25 million Baosteel-Australia Joint Research Centre.

UOW has also enjoyed great success when collaborating with Beihang University. The two institutions won the Solar Decathlon China in 2013.

UOW has also fostered a teaching partnership with Zhengzhou University for more than 11 years. This partnership has seen more than 2,000 people graduate from a program with a teaching model labeled by China’s Ministry of Education as one of the most innovative and mutually beneficial models of collaboration with an international university.

In November 2014, UOW formed a strategic alliance with the Community College of City University (CCCU) in Hong Kong.

UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings, CBE, said the ACBA award was an important recognition of the University’s growing engagement with China.

”China is Australia's largest trading partner and higher education is a key part of the trade activity. The University of Wollongong is determined to be at the forefront of deepening bilateral education, business and cultural ties between our two countries  as we develop a new generation of talent to create growth in Hong Kong and Greater China more broadly,” Professor Wellings said.

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Australia to Continue Military Patrols in South China Sea

Defense Minister Kevin Andrews says Australia won’t bow to pressure from China

The Australian government has asserted its right to fly military patrols over contested South China Sea islands claimed by Beijing, but said on Sunday it hadn’t had formal talks with the U.S. on naval missions as a direct challenge to Chinese muscle-flexing.

Australia’s Defense Minister Kevin Andrews, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal from Singapore, said Canberra had sent long-range maritime patrol aircraft over the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, and would continue to do so despite the potential for obstruction from China.

“We’ve been doing it for decades, we’re doing it currently…and we’ll continue to do it into the future,” Mr. Andrews said, in one of his first foreign press interviews since assuming responsibility for Australia’s military during a Cabinet shake-up in Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s conservative government last year.

“We don’t see there’ll be any change to that operation. It’s been a long-term operation and it’s been well known by all the countries in the region,” Mr. Andrews said.

Top U.S. Navy and Marine commanders in the Pacific have been urging close-ally Australia since last year to consider joining multilateral naval policing missions in the South China Sea, potentially alongside Washington’s chief regional ally Japan, helping to reinforce the rebalance of U.S. forces to the Asia region.

But that pressure has taken a sharper edge since China began constructing artificial islands in waters claimed also by other regional nations, with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter calling on Saturday for “an immediate and lasting halt” to the expansion.

Australia Prime Minister would be briefed on security developments within the region in coming weeks, local newspapers said last week, in what could presage a change in Canberra’s position of urging all regional nations to avoid coercive action changing the South China Sea status quo.

Australia’s government is currently producing a new strategic blueprint which, when completed later this year, will guide Canberra’s approach to alliances and regional flash points. The country is also modernizing its navy and air force with new submarines, destroyers, frigates, amphibious carriers and fighter aircraft.

Mr. Andrews, who met with Mr. Carter and Japan’s Defense Minister Gen Nakatani on the sidelines of a strategic summit in Singapore on Saturday, said Australia taking a role in multilateral naval patrols had not yet come up in talks with his American counterparts.

“The U.S. haven’t talked to us about this,” he said. “At this stage, there’s been no request from the U.S. in that regard.”

Sources in both the U.S. and Australian military said talks on so-called “freedom of navigation” missions had so far been at lower levels, with the U.S. still sounding out its close ally on patrols that for Canberra could risk trade and diplomatic ties with Beijing, its major trade partner.

“Asking formally at ministerial level risks being told no,” said Peter Dean, an analyst at the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre at the Australian National University. “Australia is still making up its mind.”

Mr. Andrews said it was too early to be talking about multilateral naval patrols, given his U.S. counterpart had only laid out Washington’s position on Saturday. He said he had also met recently with China’s top envoy to Canberra.

Approval for Australia to take a role in multilateral patrolling would also, he said, require approval from senior security ministers inside Mr. Abbott’s Cabinet.

“We believe that it’s in the interests of all countries to ensure a free an unencumbered transit through international waters, which includes the South China Sea, and we will continue to transit the South China Sea including surveillance operations that we’ve been doing for close to 35 years,” he said.

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Labor MP Cesar Melhem demanded money to boost union membership, inquiry hears

THE scandal surrounding Labor MP and former union boss Cesar Melhem has widened, with another company claiming that he demanded money to boost membership.

The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption has heard that Mr Melhem made deals with companies to artificially boost union membership when he was head of the Australian Workers Union in Victoria.

Labour hire company BMD revealed today that it paid $14,300 in 2007 and $19,800 in 2010 to keep peace with Mr Melhem and the union during pay deal negotiations.

BMD also sent the AWU a list of all its employees, some of whom were added to the union’s membership without their knowledge.

Jeremy Stoljar, counsel assisting the commission, said that he would investigated the motivations for BMD’s payments to the union.  “Did the AWU’s efforts to get additional members on its register come at the expense of its existing members,” Mr Stoljar asked.

He said he would probe whether some people were signed up when they were not “truly” union members.  “It will also investigate whether persons at the AWU created or caused to be created false accounting records to conceal this fact,” he said.

Mr Melhem will be grilled by the Royal Commission into union corruption next week.

His replacement Ben Davis, who refused to pay for his legal advice, will also go before the commissioner.

Mr Melhem has also been accused in the commission hearing of signing a deal with Cleanevent that left workers $27 an hour worse off in exchange for $25,000 payments for union memberships.

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Union rules keep the young unemployed

Youth unemployment in Australia is a ballooning issue that needs to be properly addressed.  Over half a million young Australians are not in employment, education or training.

Although targeted assistance to help make ends meet and address skill shortages should not be ruled out, other market-oriented approaches must be part of the solution.

For starters, an effective way to deal with the problem in Australia would be to get rid of our byzantine system of industrial relation awards, which demands prohibitive penalty rates for young workers.

There is no compelling ethical cause for such a hindrance to youth job creation.

For young students, weekend and night shifts are predominantly the only feasible ones that do not clash with class times. For someone who is not in employment, education or training, and probably struggling to make ends meet, a Sunday work shift cannot be not deemed a plausible inconvenience. It is in fact a real blessing in which vital work ethics and basic professional skills (team work, discipline and maturity) are developed -- not to mention the extra income.

Due to a prohibitive penalty rate regime, the minimum casual pay for a 20-year-old in the lowest employee level in the fast food industry is $29/hr on a Sunday (or a substantial $46/hr on public holidays). Similar pay levels (if not higher) can also be found in many other industries that are a gateway for young job starters.

These exorbitant price floors certainly do not help the youth unemployment cause. In fact, both employers and potential young workers are penalised as would-be job positions are shut due to such interventionist, unnecessary regulation constraints.

More choice and freedom to contract at whatever rates please both parties would be the best (and fairest) form to assist young jobseekers to put a foot in the labour market. After all, there is no better welfare program than a job.

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Muslim integration

The old processes do not always work

 The new appointments to counter home-grown terrorism are a clever and politically astute move that will facilitate the national debate we need to have about Islamist radicalisation.

Australia has a long and successful track record of integrating migrants. Welcoming attitudes on the whole, combined with the determination of newcomers to make a go of life in their adopted country, mean that most migrants have self-integrated without threatening social cohesion.

Yet it appears this process has gone wrong with a significant minority of Australian Muslims. This is a difficult issue to discuss because many in the community are uncomfortable about singling out ethnic or religious groups. Hence those who raise the subject of Muslim integration are often accused of bigotry and racism.

The fact that we now have a Minister for Counter-Terrorism sends the powerful message that discussing these issues is legitimate and important. But what the policy response should be to prevent radicalisation is the more difficult question.

Part of the problem is that the integration of migrants has largely been an informal process. Common schools, shared places of worship, and inter-marriage are among the key factors that have successfully helped knit the social fabric across racial and cultural lines.

The workplace has also been an important place where barriers have been broken down and people from different backgrounds have learned to get along. Many Muslims are not exposed to these forces because they worship at the local mosque, attend Islamic schools, and marry only other Muslims.

Attention has thus been drawn to high unemployment among certain Muslim groups to suggest that social disadvantage is the major cause of radicalisation. Many are attracted to the 'disadvantage causes radicalisation' thesis but this avoids the need to think about the role played by religion.

Because secular elites tend not to take religious belief seriously as a social and political force, they assume that others also treat religion as essentially a private matter. But we can hardly dismiss the importance of religious motivations when we are considering what to do about self-professed jihadists.

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"New Matilda"

"New Matilda" is an Australian far-Left site that often amuses me by its crookedness.  I have therefore put up a separate site on which I gather together my derisive comments on their emissions.  It's called: Laughing at "New Matilda"






BIG GREENIE ROUNDUP

Five current articles below

The Church of England and Divestment from coal

Grant Goldman broadcast this editorial on Radio 2SM and the Super Radio Network at 7.10am Friday 29 May 2015

As we discussed yesterday the Church of England is part of a push to reduce Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions compared with 1990 levels by the draconian figure of 80% in the next fifteen years, which would make Australia unable to feed, house and clothe Australians.

In Britain, North America and Australia the Church of England has declared war on coal, through a combination of divestment programs and propaganda from the pulpit.

Time for some facts about coal. The gerontologist and evolutionary biologist Caleb Finch tells us that since the early 1800s life expectancy in Europe has doubled. The single greatest factor in the longevity revolution has been coal. Beginning in the eighteenth century and accelerating into the nineteenth century, coal made possible stunning increases in productivity.

Coal saved from destruction the forests of Britain which by the mid-eighteenth century were rapidly disappearing. Coal dramatically reduced pollution caused by cooking and heating with wood and animal dung. Coal permitted large scale smelting of metals. Coal made possible modern medical science and modern agriculture. Coal opened the way to commerce and freedom of movement on a scale never before imagined.

Thanks to coal, for the very first time ordinary workers who were not members of the aristocracy nor of the clergy had leisure time. Life was still tough, but thanks to coal life rapidly improved. Instead of being permanently enslaved to tasks like collecting wood to heat and to cook, women had the opportunity to learn to read and become educated or musical or artistic or political or charitable as they wished.

Coal made possible the growth of democratic institutions and, vitally important, the abolition of slavery. Nineteenth century Britain saw the flowering of culture with bands, orchestras, choirs, drama societies, literary societies, trade unions, and, of course, the flowering of the Church of England. I’ll mention some of the great hymnists of the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth century. In chronological order:

John Wesley (1703-1791)
Edward Perronet (1726-1792)
William Cowper 1731-1800
John Newton (1725-1807),
Reginald Heiber (1783-1826 v
Joseph M. Scriven (1819-1886)
Matthew Bridges (1800-1894)
Carl Gustav Boberg (1859-1940)

Thanks to coal, hymn books could be printed cheaply and thanks to coal there were trees left in the land to make the paper.

In Britain by 1860 around 400,000 coal industry workers were each producing around 175 tonnes of coal in a year for an annual total of seventy million tonnes of coal. In 1913 around 1,100,000 coal industry workers were each producing around 264 tonnes of coal in a year for a total of 290 million tonnes. This great increase in coal production coincided with wonderful progress in every aspect of society. People lived longer, ate better and their purchasing power increased year by year.

As the twentieth century dawned, coal was already popularising the wonderful blessing of electricity. The former major disadvantage of coal-fired power – sulphur dioxide emissions – was overcome with fluidised bed combustion using limestone, and coal has continued as the world mainstay of electrical power.

Tragically, 1.3 billion people – eighteen percent of the world’s population – have no access to electricity and so are deprived of all the wonderful things we take for granted. Expansion of coal production is vital as part of the energy mix necessary to offer the poor and disadvantaged of the world an escape route from poverty, misery and short life spans.

By declaring war on coal, people who purport to represent the Church of England are committing a terrible crime against the world’s poorest people.

My suggestion to the people purporting to lead the Church of England is re-read the Parable of the Talents. It’s still there in Matthew Chapter 25, verses 14 to 30.

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The $9b waste that is Australia's solar industry

It's been dubbed 'middle class welfare' of the first order, since it is typically only wealthy households that can afford to install photovoltaic (PV) solar systems, with the higher power costs hurting low income households and renters, neither of which benefit.

As a result, the Grattan Institute reckons it ranks among the worst government disasters of recent years with as much as $9 billion of the $14 billion spent on rooftop solar systems in Australia wasted.

In raw numbers, Queensland - especially the south-east around Brisbane and the Gold Coast, has led the way with the introduction of solar systems, followed by NSW and Victoria.

Splitting the data up to look at the underlying distribution by household, then more than a third of households in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth have solar, easily outstripping the more populous states.

But apart from the 'feelgood factor' does solar really make that much of a difference? Most solar electricity is produced around the middle of the day which pushes down wholesale electricity prices and hurts the big carbon emitting power generators, but solar doesn't help much at the peak demand period for electricity in the late afternoon and early evening.

And despite the optimism of its supporters, only around half of all houses may be suitable for solar systems, AGL reckons. But while the take up has been high thanks to government subsidies, only a modest portion have solar systems installed.

On AGL's numbers, without subsidies and if the changes to the network charges being debated take effect, then it could take around thirteen years for a solar system to cover the cost of purchase and installation.

But that may change if solar PV prices continue to slide, as many predict. But the real cut through for solar will come if it manages to boost the efficiency of converting solar heat into energy, which remains low.

The Grattan Institute reckons greater savings in carbon emissions could have been achieved far more efficiently with other policy measures, than the solar subsidies.

Germany also had heavy subsidies for the introduction of solar for a time, but because its subsidies applied not just to households but also industry, more than 85 per cent of its solar come from systems of more than ten kilowatts, while in Australia more than 90 per cent of the systems are small household systems. So Germany now has a quarter of global installed solar capacity, the Grattan Researchers say.

"Government's have created a policy mess which should never be repeated," it said in a study released on Monday.

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Australia welcomes UNESCO decision on Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef will not be listed as endangered but will remain under watch because of "major threats" to its health, a draft recommendation to the UN's World Heritage Committee says.

The federal and Queensland governments have welcomed the draft report released by UNESCO on Friday, with Environment Minister Greg Hunt calling it "an overwhelming endorsement" of their approaches to reef protection.

But environmental groups say the report puts both governments on notice to deliver on their promises to protect the reef.

The UN's conservation agency said it noted "with concern" the state of the reef which has had World Heritage Site status since 1981.

UNESCO warned that the "in danger" label wasn't off the cards as "the overall outlook is poor" and it urged Australia "to rigorously implement all of its commitments" and submit a progress report by December 2016.

The report said measures that represent significant progress to protect the reef included restoring water quality, "restricting major port development" and "a permanent ban on dumping of dredged material".

Mr Hunt welcomed the report, saying it recognised the "unprecedented" work by the federal and Queensland governments to protect the reef, including a ban on the dumping of dredge material and port development restrictions.

"Indeed, all references to in danger have been dropped and Australia and Queensland's efforts have been praised," he said in a joint statement with Queensland's Deputy Premier Jackie Trad and Environment Minister Steven Miles.

"This is an overwhelming endorsement, but we want to make sure that we keep the pressure up on ourselves and inviting a little bit of long-term international scrutiny, I think, is a very valuable thing,"

Ms Trad said the decision reflected the commitment made by the Palaszczuk government.

"We were elected with a mandate to save the reef for generations to come and we intend to deliver on those promises," she said.

The Queensland Tourism Industry Council said listing the reef as "in danger" would have been catastrophic for the tourism industry, as it would have discouraged tourists.

The Queensland Resources Council said the report recognised Australia's huge strides in the management of the site.

But Greenpeace said the decision by UNESCO to demand a report on progress within 18 months showed the federal and Queensland governments were on notice.

"The Australian government can't talk about protecting the reef while aggressively supporting the licensing of mega-mine and expansion of coal ports along the Great Barrier Reef coast," said Shani Tager, Greenpeace Australia Reef campaigner.

WWF-Australia's CEO Dermot O'Gorman also pointed to the measures demanded of Australia in the draft decision.

"The Australian and Queensland governments must now deliver on their promises to better protect the reef,"he said in a statement.

The 21 nations in UNESCO's World Heritage Committee will decide whether to accept the report's recommendations at a meeting in Germany at the end of June.

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The green movement’s role in the sorry Reef debacle exposes them as frauds

Last week’s UNESCO report accepted that enough has been done by Australia to stop the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.
THOSE conservationists and wacky scientists who waged a jihad against Queensland by falsely claiming that the Great Barrier Reef was in danger because of degradation and over-development should leave the state and go and live somewhere else.

With UNESCO giving the Reef a clean bill of health in a long-awaited report, the likes of Greenpeace, WWF, GetUp and the Australian Marine Conservation Society have been discredited and should not be permitted to peddle their lies in Queensland. In fact, the green movement’s role in this sorry debacle exposes them as frauds.

The UNESCO report accepted that enough has been done by Australia to stop the destruction of the Reef. The trigger for the UNESCO probe was the Port of Gladstone expansion to cater for the boom in coal and coal seam gas exports, featuring the biggest dredging project in Australia’s history. Despite heavy conditions and environmental regulations, the greenies jumped on the issue which allowed them to link coal exports to climate change and the Reef.

For the Queensland tourism industry, the possibility of a UNESCO listing of the Great Barrier Reef as endangered would have had catastrophic implications for the state. It would have sent a message to tourists that the Reef had lost its lustre. But of course, the conservationists don’t have time for the trivialities of an industry worth billions every year to the economy.

Cult-like zealotry to save the world from capitalism is all-consuming and factoring in economic effects is not part of the charter. The Greens are a major threat to the Queensland economy, fuelled by the Labor Left’s love affair
with the movement and its capacity to stop progress.

Most Greens in Queensland are watermelons – green on the outside and red in the middle. They tend to take a BANANA approach (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) to development, Their warped ideology and passion for power won’t allow them to even see, for example, a cruise ship terminal built on the Gold Coast. Not the Broadwater, not The Spit, not anywhere, thanks very much.

The Great Barrier Reef tick of approval from UNESCO has exposed the state’s eco-warriors as the kings of deceit and lies. They should not be given a platform for their views because they have proven they are not capable of being honest and candid. This win-at-all costs mentality is dangerous and their currency has now depreciated to the point where we can’t believe a word they say

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Australia primed as heartland for battery-storage revolution

Low cost, high capacity batteries alone could make solar and wind power viable but we are still a long way off that

The battery-storage wars are breaking out, with Australia in the thick of it. Tesla, while the highest profile, will not be short of combatants.

The mass popularity of rooftop solar – more than a third of Queensland houses have solar PV – and the way people pay for the power make Australia a much more attractive market than the United States.

Raghu Belur, co-founder of Silicon Valley start-up Enphase Energy, which will launch its home battery in Australia in early 2016, points to the wide gap between the typical "feed-in" tariff that a household in Australia will receive for its excess solar power and the price of power from the grid.

Prices for mains-supplied power more than four times as much as the feed-in tariff in some cases make battery storage worth a look.

Not so in the US, where electricity is charged by "net metering", so a household will pay for the power consumed from the grid over a set period of time, less any electricity they generate themselves.

The US battery market, for now at least, will be driven mostly by demand for back-up power, not economics, Belur says.

No surprise, then, about Tesla's early focus on Australia for its Powerwall system, with its sleek, coloured wall-mounted 7-kilowatt-hour or 10kWh batteries to be available in 2016.

Bernstein Research, a bull on the lithium-ion battery space, says that at $US350 ($455.46) a kilowatt hour installed capacity for the 10kWh model, Powerwall is well below the $US550/kWh it had been modelling for storage costs. In optimal conditions, Powerwall could supply power at US27¢ a kilowatt hour, ranking Tesla on the scale – though admittedly at the high end – of residential retail power prices in large markets around the world.

Bernstein describes Tesla's system as already "modestly attractive" in Australia – the 20¢ a kilowatt hour spread between wholesale and retail power prices gives a five-year payback.

But the Grattan Institute puts the realistic cost of a Tesla battery, including inverter, charger and installation, at more than $7000 in 2017, too expensive for most. It says the price would have to fall to about $1600 before it made economic sense in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, and by more in other cities.

Yet lithium-ion battery costs have fallen 94 per cent since 1991, while the energy packed into them per kilogram has increased. Bernstein sees usage costs continuing to fall by 20 per cent a year, cannibalising competing technologies for the next decade.

Belur won't talk dollar costs yet for Enphase's 1.2kWh battery, which comes with built-in inverter and software to communicate with the grid. But he insists that all up, the "plug and play" system will be competitive with Powerwall. Australia will be its global launchpad.

Meanwhile, Panasonic, a battery supplier for Powerwall and one of the "big three" lithium ion players alongside Samsung SDI and LG Chem, will launch next week an alliance with Australian electricity retailers targeting home storage.

Yet to be seen is how these suppliers align with local retailers. AGL Energy launched recently a 6kWh lithium-ion battery and is due to make larger sizes available later in 2015. Origin Energy is understood to be bringing forward its battery launch plans, potentially to the third quarter, while EnergyAustralia is in talks with Enphase on its battery, to add to their solar panel alliance.

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