Clive Palmer’s UAP to host controversial Covid sceptic

Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party will host a series of coronavirus vaccine conferences next month headlined by controversial American cardiologist Doctor Peter McCullough

Nations across the globe have “completely de-emphasised and almost obfuscated” effective coronavirus treatments in their public health approach to the pandemic, says professor of medicine Dr Peter McCullough.

Doctor Peter McCullough has been heavily criticised for controversial views on the coronavirus, with calls from some quarters for Australian immigration officials to deny him a visa to enter the country.

Numerous health officials and websites have criticised Dr McCullough, who gained widespread attention after an appearance on the podcast of American personality Joe Rogan where he made a series of provocative claims, including that the pandemic was planned as part of a conspiracy.

Several health industry websites have devoted sections to debunking Dr McCullough’s claims, which include statements that masks were useless against Covid and that test subjects in an Australian vaccination trial contracted HIV.

However, speaking on the Gold Coast on Tuesday, Mr Palmer said it was time to hear different points of view on the pandemic and vaccines and he expected conferences on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast to sell out. He said Dr McCullough was a “well respected” cardiologist with “impeccable” credentials.

Mr Palmer, a high-profile opponent of coronavirus vaccines, said he was told he “had six hours to live” at one point during his own Covid health battle, but was treated with alternative therapies in hospital.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/clive-palmers-uap-to-host-controversial-covid-sceptic/news-story/4063d5cf3a1ad01267160ea48e9f4e57

*****************************************************

Australia’s education crisis of ‘dumbed-down twaddle’

As a year 12 student, school has been a common denominator in every aspect of my life for almost as long as I can recall. From my very first day of prep, my enthusiasm to learn only ever grew, as my thirst for contestable knowledge flourished through the nurture of the critical thinkers whom I was privileged to be surrounded by.

As the years progressed, and the curriculum proved to be intellectually baseless – void of engaging research opportunities and lacking any trace of wholesome substance – I came to the realisation that learning, flourishing, and developing into an exceptional human was a practically impossible task to complete in a school system designed to remove individuality from students.

The impersonalisation of the classroom has ultimately led to the disengagement of many students. Unfortunately, such disengagement has extended from the classroom to the very essence of the acquisition of knowledge, resulting in consistent and substantial decreases in academic achievements across most grades in NSW and the nation.

Last week I had the privilege of interviewing two exceptional secondary teachers, Kon Bouzikos, president of the Australian Classical Education Society, and Sarah Flynn O’Dea, founder of Logos Australis, on my podcast The Next Candidate. With knowledge gleaned from frontline classroom experiences, both Kon and Sarah claim to have found the solution to our current education crisis in the classical mode of education.

In 2022 almost 13 per cent of boys in year nine did not meet the minimum reading standard assessed through NAPLAN exams in NSW. With schools not only readily accessible but also mandatory in Australia, such statistics ought to horrify every reasonable citizen, regardless of their parental status.

The statistics are not mere numbers, they are Australia’s future. They are real boys- and girls who are on the verge of graduating secondary school without the ability to read a basic novel. I have personally interacted with several stage 6 students who attend both public and independent schools, yet are not capable of reading a standard news article due to a lack of focus and vocabulary.

The statistics, in themselves, prove the issue lies within the very structure of the education system rather than the providential ability for one to attend school.

Reflecting on the disengagement in the classroom, Sarah referenced esteemed 20th-century education reformist, Charlotte Mason, who spent her career advocating for students to read rich literary works rather than textbooks, or what she referred to as ‘dumbed-down twaddle’.

‘She (Charlotte Mason) spoke about a great table that is laid out with a fine feast, and that as teachers and parents as well, are to lay before our children a fine feast of the very best ideas that have been produced throughout human history and let the children develop a storehouse of ideas’.

In doing so, Sarah claims that students naturally grow an interest in the subject matter being learnt, which subsequently results in heightened academic achievements. She also claims that the obsessive focus on the academic results achieved by students misplaces the priorities of the educator.

‘Academic achievement is a byproduct of education, it shouldn’t be the primary goal’.

The gravity of the misplacement of priorities by the system is felt by every student regardless of age. From the first day of kindergarten we are taught that As are good, everything else is bad. Excluding parental encouragement, the methodology to achieve such results is scarcely noted. I admit to getting close to full marks on assessments in which I knew very little of the unit content. We have reached a point in our education system where the ability to regurgitate mundane facts (which are becoming increasingly opinion-orientated), in a rubric-accepted structure, is all that is required to be considered an academic high-achiever. The acquisition and application of knowledge is rarely, if ever, the focus of our practised school system, doing students, and subsequently Australia’s future, no favours.

The classroom is not a place to learn, it is not a place to flourish. From the first day of school to the very last, the emphasis on achieving a good HSC result and getting a boxed job is repeated until the point in which most students subconsciously accept it as their fate, toe the line and fuse their thirst to learn. I have been tempted to do so countless times. The mental energy required to push against the grain to allow oneself the human experience of critical thought, is often exhausting, but the cost of not doing so is greater. To concede defeat and fall into line is certain to erode a student’s spirit until they become nothing more than a mere tax-paying statistic. The fact our school system has forced countless students onto this path is nothing short of a national disgrace.

During the interview, Sarah reflected on a poem recited to her as a child by her year one teacher, Square and Brown Inside. In recalling its attached innuendo, she explained that she supposed that ‘it was my teacher’s way of communicating to us that the classroom is not the place to flourish’.

In reflecting on the contrast of being the teacher herself, she explained that:

‘There are all these mixed messages in the system that we should be fulfilling our potential in the school system … telling our young people to dream and believe and hope, yet the system doesn’t produce the knowledge or skill set to do that.’

Controversies have frequently arisen regarding the recent trend of pushing LGBTQ+ ideologies, climate narratives, Critical Race Theory, gender identity theory, and other forms of politically motivated activism in classrooms, promoted by state-implemented curriculums.

Many Australian parents, teachers, and organisations have lobbied against the move, promoting the right to education rather than indoctrination. As a student, I can attest to the fact that every subject is infused with countless political activism, ranging from unquestionable ‘equality’ stances, based on mere human opinion, to apparent ‘climate science’ which assures us that we have a short, miserable life ahead of us if we don’t convert to the cult of Marxist-environmentalism. To have the audacity question such narratives would often see a student shunned as a ‘phobe’ or ‘ist’ of sorts in accordance to the syllabus and its related ‘learning resources’.

Sarah explains how reintroducing the classical mode of thought, both in the classroom and in greater society, could result in disagreements being settled with cognitive discussions rather than childish taunts.

‘What we are looking for is to reconstitute the concept, and the practices of civil discourse, which is what our civilisations and great prosperity have been founded on. (…) What we are faced with in the highly political (form of education) is a kind of foe intellectualism, to me it is quite superficial.’

When considering the uniformed, stringently enforced social justice approaches, Sarah, claims that, ‘We can’t look at the layers or the nuance of individual experience, we are looking at this very reduced kind of black or white, us or them kind of (mentality). To me it is not academic, it is not intellectual, we don’t want to deny that there is a place, especially as Christians, for social justice but I think it is time to reclaim some of that territory and re-frame it from a deeper place’.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/australias-education-crisis-of-dumbed-down-twaddle

**********************************************************

The minister for net zero and dystopian hellscapes

‘Australians, you shall decarbonise. Electricity bills shall go up, energy security shall go down, and damage to the environment shall be ignored – a cabal of global elites has made this decision for you. As Net Zero Minister, I declare that state cooperation is assured; debt has no consequence; spending has no limit; markets have no meaning. Your opinions are irrelevant and participation is mandatory. The Minister has spoken; you shall comply.’

Imagine if Chris Bowen, Australia’s Energy Minister, delivered such a dystopian speech… In reality, we are not far off, because these words accurately describe the Australian government’s stance on emissions reduction. Would the speech win any votes? Unfortunately, it would. Thanks to a decades-long propaganda mission, there are many people convinced that our total dependence on fossil fuels will bring about the end of the world. Combined with the comfort and security of a largely peaceful and prosperous West, senses are dulled and comfort breeds weakness.

But is the world ending? Certainly not in a physical sense. The world is greening; whales and polar bears are flourishing; the Great Barrier Reef is expanding; and we grow so much food we can afford to waste a good proportion of it. What does appear to be ending is political stability. Elon Musk, new owner of the planet’s digital town square – Twitter – acknowledged that all the conspiracy theories about Twitter are true. He released damning evidence of US government agencies censoring debate on social media platforms, deliberately manipulating information on the key topics of election integrity and Covid vaccines. It raises the question – how often is the renewables and climate change debate similarly censored and manipulated by agenda-riddled technocrats?

In roughly equal measures, people are moving diametrically away from the political centre. As Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams said recently, there are two movies showing on the same screen. He’s observing that people are seeing the same information and coming to completely different conclusions. Ironically, that’s something on which most people would agree.

Destroying successful economies is no easy feat. However, historical records show that top-down ideology, centralised bureaucratic control, higher taxes, and curtailing production are quite effective. Markets will not voluntarily create the massive oversupply of wind and solar required to meet arbitrary targets, so Western economies are being swamped by bureaucracies intent on increasing market regulation and intervention. Energy security – once sought after, even if not assured – is slipping away without any policy or commentary from the media to arrest it.

Most big businesses are encouraging the end of reliable low-cost electricity, yet lobby groups – such as the Business Council of Australia, who ‘represents Australia’s largest employers’ – align perfectly with government narratives on emissions reduction. Corporations are lining up to buy power purchase agreements to avoid being punished by the government’s safeguard mechanism – a tool used to add costs to our largest industries, soon to be weaponised to reduce the output of many more businesses.

Politicians, dancing to the tune of their activist advisers, foster the rot. As the ‘deplorables’ of New South Wales ponder more electricity rate rises, their energy minister announced nation-leading emissions reduction targets just days after the state’s Premier promised a Venezuela-like intervention in the coal sector. However, arbitrary price caps on coal and gas have almost no ability to reduce the cost of electricity.

In the final weeks of 2022, a raft of interventionist energy policies were announced around the country. A state government electricity bureau and the world’s largest battery storage targets in Victoria; the world’s largest pumped hydro scheme, plus SuperGrid, in Queensland; an 82 per cent federal renewable energy target; and this is on top of electric vehicle incentives, hydrogen subsidies, and state renewable targets.

Beyond the Godzilla-like demolition of markets, state and federal governments are colluding to kill resource investments with taxes and reservations. Queensland’s rejigged coal tax now whips 40 per cent off the top tier of coal profits, causing Japanese and Korean diplomats to express concern, Glencore and BHP to halt new developments, and Senex to pause their billion-dollar domestic gas project in Queensland. Looming over the horizon are Tanya Plibersek’s promised changes to the EPBC Act, guaranteed to further reduce Australia’s attractiveness as an investment destination.

Politicians of all flavours, but particularly Greens and Teals, are openly cheering any anti-human de-growth outcome that slows resource investment; while simultaneously screeching for more taxes, higher targets, and ironically cheaper resources. We find ourselves watching idealist amateurs attempting to appease the United Nations, but only succeeding in eroding wealth and security, and reducing living standards for generations to come. What is required to tip the balance the other way? I don’t believe Musk’s ongoing social media exposé will move the dial far enough – people are too willing to buy into the emissions reduction narrative without testing or even seeking the evidence. Their minds are made up.

Despite the grim scene, I hold out hope that the enormous cost of the renewables paradigm – a cost borne financially and environmentally – will soon become so obvious that politicians will find some courage, constructing policies based on logic, and improving human prosperity. In other words, do their job. It can’t come quickly enough.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/the-minister-for-net-zero-and-dystopian-hellscapes/

****************************************************

The ABC Massacres History Yet Again

John Henningham

The ABC seems to have invented a genocide by English colonists in the Caribbean. A story on Barbados’ cruel history as a slave island reported that slaver descendants, such as actor Benedict Cumberbatch, could be pursued for compensation and included an assertion that the indigenous population was slaughtered by the English:

This horrific claim is not supported by any evidence. According to historians the original population was depleted in the previous century by Spanish slave raids, with the remaining people fleeing to other islands to avoid being pressed into slavery. The island was effectively uninhabited when the English claimed it in 1625. Two years later, some 80 colonists and 10 slaves took up permanent residence.

Anyone reading the ABC story who turned to Wikipedia for more information would have found the following in the entry on Barbados: “In 1627, when English colonisers arrived in Barbados, they slaughtered the local indigenous inhabitants and claimed the island for themselves.”

These are the words of the ABC story! The ABC did not take the quote from Wikipedia — it was the reverse. The source for the assertion in Wikipedia was, astonishingly, the ABC news story about Cumberbatch. Someone (a Wikipedia contributor screen-named Afa86) added the ABC “revelation” to the crowd-sourced encyclopedia in a textbook example of how false news spreads and becomes part of received history.

Barbados was occupied from about 1600BC by different Amerindian groups. For a thousand years until the 1500s the Arawak, and then the Carib, lived on the island. The Britannica’s entry on Barbados, written by University of the West Indies professor of history Woodville Marshall and two fellow contributors, makes clear the fate of the original population:

The island was depopulated because of repeated slave raids by the Spanish in the 16th century; it is believed that those Indigenous people who avoided enslavement migrated to elsewhere in the region. By the mid-16th century — largely because of the island’s small size, remoteness, and depopulation — European explorers had practically abandoned their claims to it, and Barbados remained effectively without a population.

Fortunately the assertion of indigenous slaughter was removed from Wikipedia a day after publication by a sharp-eyed American veteran editor of Caribbean heritage with the screen name CaribDigita. In justifying deletion the editor commented: “You need a reputable reference that talks about a ‘slaughtering’ in Barbados.”

CaribDigita’s bio says: “In more recent times I’ve been been seeking to calm down conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’ being added to Wikipedia by showing relevant parallels or add references to their sources to help keep this tool from becoming like the National Enquirer.”

The story was amended yesterday (January 22), possibly in response to my request to the author, Recbecca Armitage, via Twitter for evidence of annihilation of the native population by English colonists. The amendment concedes that the population was largely depleted before the arrival of the English, but continues the unsubstantiated claim of genocide: “They slaughtered the remaining inhabitants and claimed the island for themselves.”

Perhaps the ABC needs to employ CaribDigita as a fact-checker.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/media/2023/01/the-abc-massacres-history-yet-again/

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************

Why are property investors quitting a market where rents are rising 25 per cent?

One answer: Government. As one intance, Queensland landlords are not allowed to ban pets from their property. But pet smell is a huge issue at the time of re-letting. It may make a landlord spend thousands on carpet replacement. That eats up most of the income from a pet-loving tenant. It's too big a risk. So rather than wear such losses many landlords will sell up

In every city across Australia the rent crisis is hitting hard. Anyone who needs to rent finds out very quickly there is very little on offer and prices are rising rapidly.

For property owners, however, it’s a red-hot market. The single biggest risk for private investors in property investment – the risk of missing rental income – has effectively been removed.

But private investors are quitting this lucrative market in droves; As Hayden Groves, the president of the Real Estate Institute of Australia puts it, “investors have been running for the hills”.

Why are investors giving up when capital city asking rents are rising by 25 per cent a year?

The reality is that vacancy rates – the key measure in judging the rental market – sit near 1.8 per cent in Sydney and Melbourne and less than 1 per cent in some other cities. To take the city of Perth as an example there is a vacancy rate of 0.5 per cent.

If you ask property owner groups such as the REIA or the Australian Landlords Association why are private owners quitting? They generally point to the same thing – excess regulation.

This is a state by state issue but it is clear that tenant rights are reaching something of a high water mark in Victoria. While in Queensland a particularly controversial effort to pull in money from property owners beyond the state if they also had property in Queensland shows how far state bureaucracies will go to tax property investors. (The idea has since been canned by Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick.)

It is also clear that some investors who held property through the pandemic – and its associated emergency rulings such as the moratorium on evictions – were sufficiently troubled by changing regulations that when the chance came to take profits in 2022, they moved fast.

However, most investors can look though such issues if the investing terms are attractive. Moreover, it’s not all bad news from state administrations. In NSW the Perrottet government has introduced an alternative to stamp duty where land tax is paid progressively – the measure is currently aimed at first home buyers.

Will it work? You bet it will.

The early statistics show that any way a buyer can avoid stamp duty, they will do so. It is estimated that more than half of the projected annual level of applications to the NSW scheme were received in its first week of operation.

At best the Perrottet government’s move may spell the beginning of the end for a notoriously regressive property tax.

It could also be a key factor in an eventual turnaround in property prices in NSW. Some analysts expect this could happen by the end of this year, largely on the basis that the state had recorded the sharpest falls to date.

Socially, the existence of a super low rental vacancy rate is bad news – it triggers homelessness at the bottom end of the market and considerable stress across the entire housing system.

Some might not like the fact that private property owners control the market but they do — and that is not going to change anytime soon. Indeed encouraging investors to return to the market should be welcomed. Though searching for encouragement in this area will most likely be futile.

Instead the investors who move earlier may well be the ones that get the biggest rewards and even if they have to wait longer for a turnaround, rental income will certainly not be a problem.

In this market you can literally rent anything.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/why-are-property-investors-quitting-a-market-where-rents-are-rising-25-per-cent/news-story/ee286c7fae4c533f6e6acec534e8b467

*******************************************************

Australian Manuka honey producers score legal win over New Zealand producers in Europe, UK

It is said that they sell 10 times as much Manuka honey as they gather these days so I am glad that I have some of it from way back. I have used it with apparently positive results

Australian manuka honey producers have scored a win over their trans-Tasman rivals after New Zealand producers backed out of legal action aimed at preventing them from using the descriptive word.

A group of New Zealand manuka honey producers have been attempting to block their Australian counterparts from using the word "manuka" in export markets around the world since 2016.

Manuka honey from both countries is sold for hundreds of dollars a kilogram, and is included in a range of medicinal products because of its anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties.

Australian manuka honey is used in lozenges, throat sprays, and eczema creams, as well as cosmetic products.

The New Zealand Manuka Honey Appellation Society recently backed out of an appeal before the United Kingdom's High Court, as well as similar legal action in the European Union, meaning Australian producers were free to call their product "manuka honey" in those valuable markets.

The UK Intellectual Property Office had previously ruled in favour of Australia.

Both parties are still waiting to hear the outcome of a hearing held in 2021 before the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand.

The NZ Manuka Honey Appellation Society argues manuka is a Māori word, and has attempted to trademark it in their home country, as well as the USA, UK, EU, and China.

It was seeking exclusive use of the word via a trademark, a move that's been rejected in the USA previously.

The plant that produces the pollen used by bees to make manuka honey, Leptospermum scoparium, grows natively on both sides of the Tasman.

The Australian Manuka Honey Association, which has appointed two Māori board members, has demonstrated the word has been used in Australia to describe the plant and the honey produced from its pollen since the 1930s.

It has also abstained from using a macron over the "a" in its branding.

Association president Paul Callander said the legal victory would have significant benefits in the sizeable UK and EU markets.

"This victory provides our industry with a noble precedent against some in New Zealand who are attempting to monopolise the term manuka honey for their own commercial gain," Mr Callandar said in a statement.

"Australian growers have every right to use the word to describe their produce as upheld by the UK Courts."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2023-01-23/manuka-honey-legal-win-over-new-zealand-in-europe-uk/101876528

*************************************************

Price of devon a stark illustration of cost-of-living pressures on families

I ate a lot of it as a kid. We called it "Windsor" sausage. It was OK with mustard pickles

It has many alter egos — devon, fritz, polony — but there’s always been one ­constant with the humble manufactured meat roll: it was cheap as chips.

Now, in an unsavoury — and perhaps the most telling — example of cost-of-living pressures gone mad, the price of the classic school lunch box staple has hit nearly $10 per kilo, just as parents are stocking up on supplies for the new school year.

At Woolworths this week, sliced Hans devon is being advertised at $9.85/kg, and it is $9.60/kg at Coles.

It’s a far cry from the luncheon meat’s heyday. In the ’70s and ’80s it was snapped up by budget-conscious shoppers for just $99c a kilo, and often slapped on to a white bread sanger with a dash of tomato sauce for the kids’ school lunch.

The current sky-high price of the perennial product sparked outrage on the “Meanwhile in Australia” Facebook page this week, as families felt the pinch of price rises across the board.

Krisi, from Lake Macquarie, wrote: “My kids love devon. I remember buying $2 worth and it being a huge pile.”

For Davina, it was the perfect cheap eat in a time of need: “Back in the early ’90s my husband and I lived on that for three days as we were saving for our first home and had no money until payday.”

Queenslander Sandra remembered buying devon and tomato sauce rolls at tuckshop for threepence, while fellow Queenslander Courtney labelled it “the bogan sandwich”.

“I used to get sent to the corner store for 20 cents worth of devon. Enough slices for the whole family (four kids) sandwiches for several days,” said Melbourne resident Susan.

Not everyone’s a fan, with many on the site likening it to dog food, even “floor scrapings”, but one Sydney manufacturer says it doesn’t always deserve the bad rap.

Pendle Hill Ham and Bacon business manager Sunny Singh said high-quality devon was manufactured on site, and sold in slices at the associated meat market.

“The price of products like devon are increasing and that’s because most other costs are rising — labour costs, the price of ingredients, even the clips we hang products with are more expensive,” he said.

“However, as manufacturers our products are a lot cheaper than elsewhere — at the moment we’re selling devon for $6.99 a kilo.

“Most people want sliced devon, not the whole roll, but it’s not as popular as it once was.”

The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed last week that Australia’s inflation rate was 7.3 per cent, and that food and non-alcoholic beverages increased 9.4 per cent in the 12 months from November 2021.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/nsw/price-of-devon-a-stark-illustration-of-costofliving-pressures-on-families/news-story/51205966b217930999a87409af74947c

*******************************************************

Calls for Victoria to join other states to outlaw duck hunting

Hunting is one of humanity's oldest food gathering acts. It is basically human. So it is popular

Victoria’s government has been hit with fresh calls to completely outlaw duck shooting in a move that would bring it in line with other states.

The practice is illegal in Queensland, NSW and in Western Australia, where recreational duck shooting was banned more than 30 years ago.

Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell argued Victoria’s current rules leaves the state leaps and bounds behind its counterparts.

“I think duck shooting is one of Victoria’s greatest shames,” she told NCA NewsWire.

“We like to call ourselves the progressive state in Victoria, but we are left behind Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales in terms of getting the start here.”

The duck shooting season in 2022 allowed a daily bag limit of four birds and went for 90 days from last March.

Ms Purcell said the practice can often be forgotten by metropolitan Victorians as it largely takes place in remote areas.

“I think it’s one of the most obvious and blatant forms of animal cruelty that legally exists in the state,” she said.

“I think in a way that because it happens in regional and remote parts of Victoria ... every person doesn’t get to see what they do to these birds.”

There is believed to be a divide in opinion among senior government MPs about what to do about the practice with Premier Daniel Andrews hesitant to make any changes.

“As an issue, there is a genuine split within the caucus and there are senior ministers who want it stopped. There is momentum there for a change,” one insider told Herald Sun.

“However, the premier has been reluctant to go ahead with a ban in the past and it is likely to come down to his call.”

A state government spokeswoman said decisions on the topic were get to be made and all discussions remained ongoing.

“A decision will be made on this year’s duck season after thorough consideration,” she said.

An RSPCA survey from 2022 revealed nine in of ten Victorians said they would never shoot a duck.

There were a total of 23,000 hunters licensed in Victoria last year, according to the Game Management Authority.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/science/calls-for-victoria-to-join-other-states-to-outlaw-duck-hunting/news-story/a38b5a8e923d702dce5866498ea809b0

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************

Fatal heart attacks have surged in Australia. Here’s why

The pandemic has caused a surge of fatal cardiac arrests in Australia, as delayed care and COVID’s damaging effect on the heart drives a major uptick in serious heart issues.

More than 10,200 Australians died of ischemic heart disease in the first eight months of 2022 – that is about 17 per cent higher than would be expected in a normal year.

According to an analysis of mortality data by the Actuaries Institute, about 2300 deaths from ischemic heart disease over 2021 and 2022 are considered excess, which means they fall outside the expected natural range.

“Deaths with ischemic heart disease really involve blockages of the blood vessels. And when you have blockages in the blood vessels you then damage heart muscle, and your heart fails, and it can go into cardiac arrest, which means that it essentially stops,” said Professor Steve Nicholls, director of the Victorian Heart Hospital.

Leading heart disease experts say the death statistics are concerning but not surprising. For years, cardiac deaths have been the leading cause of death in Australia. The pandemic has only increased the risk factors.

“It’s kind of the last straw,” said Professor Tom Marwick, director of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute.

“The camel’s back was straining under the burden of risk factors, and then we have an infectious disease on top with a bunch of inflammation, hey presto we get an increase of cardiovascular events.”

Coronavirus has been implicated in an increased risk of cardiovascular problems, with a study published in the prestigious science journal Nature finding that rates of heart attacks and stroke were substantially higher in military veterans who had recovered from COVID-19, compared to those who hadn’t had the disease.

A recent Australian study also found hospitalisations from myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (swelling of the membrane surrounding the heart), pulmonary embolism, heart attack and stroke were significantly more frequent after COVID‐19.

While rare cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been linked to COVID vaccines, the Therapeutic Goods Administration says most people get better within a few days. Experts say vaccination is considered especially crucial for those with risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

The number of excess deaths in Australia surged to 15,400 in the first part of 2022.

While the majority of these deaths were from COVID-19, the nation is also seeing significantly elevated rates of deaths from diabetes, strokes and ischemic heart disease.

Cardiologists believe the increased deaths from ischemic heart disease are likely linked to the damaging effects of COVID, but also delayed diagnoses, prevention and treatment through the pandemic.

‘The camel’s back was straining under the burden of risk factors, and then we have an infectious disease on top ... hey presto we get an increase of cardiovascular events.’

Nicholls, a cardiologist, said the heart wards in public hospitals were very busy.

“So it’s not just that a lot of people are dying, but we’re seeing a lot of people at a whole range of different stages of [heart] disease,” he said. “One of our concerns early on in COVID was that we were going to miss people early [in heart disease] and then people would tend to present later.”

Nicholls said everyone should talk to their GP about getting a heart health check.

“We know the major risk factors for heart disease. We know that’s high blood pressure, it’s high cholesterol, it’s diabetes, it’s smoking, it’s obesity, and it’s a family history. You can’t do anything about your family history, but you can do something about everything else.”

Dr Amanda Buttery, the Heart Foundation’s clinical evidence manager, said there had been a reassuring surge in 2022 in the number of Australians getting heart checks, following marked decreases through lockdowns and the first Omicron wave.

November 2022 saw a record number of heart health checks claimed.

However, Buttery said the foundation remained quite concerned about mounting international evidence of a connection between long COVID and cardiovascular disease.

“COVID-19 infection worsens pre-existing heart conditions, and increases the risk of developing more than 20 heart conditions including heart attack, blood clots, heart failure and stroke,” she said.

“COVID infection in Australia grew substantially in 2022. We are yet to see the full impact of this in health data.”

The Actuaries Institute, the body that represents the actuarial profession in Australia and which evaluates and manages the financial risks faced by businesses, has also cited delays in emergency care caused by pressure on hospital systems as a possible factor in the country’s excess deaths. In Victoria, at least 33 people died from emergencies that were linked to delays in answering triple-zero calls or lengthy ambulance waits between December 2020 and May 2022.

However, Professor Tom Marwick said data he had seen on heart attack mortality suggested that may not be as big a factor as expected.

“Surprisingly, it shows that the mortality is just the same as pre-COVID. In other words, for people that got to the hospital, the outcomes are the same. The issue is, of course, the people that didn’t get to the hospital and the people who missed care and are presenting with more progressive disease now.”

Marwick said he remains very concerned that many of those most at risk of a heart attack don’t have a regular GP. He said Melbourne’s west, which has been disproportionately battered by COVID-19 outbreaks, was also one of the hotspots for heart attack. The area has fewer GPs per person.

At least 17,717 Australians have died of COVID. There have been 14 deaths linked to COVID vaccines from more than 64 million doses administered in Australia. One of those was a fatal case of myocarditis in a young woman where an expert vaccine safety group concluded a COVID vaccine was likely related, alongside several other factors.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/fatal-heart-attacks-have-surged-in-australia-here-s-why-20230117-p5cd22.html

******************************************************

Solar panels are leading an energy revolution, but recycling them isn't easy

Almost every day, Anthony Vippond's solar recycling plant in Melbourne's north receives dozens of used solar panels.

In the car park, multiple tilting towers of the devices, held together by tie-downs, take up the spaces.

Right now, a lot of them come from schools as the state government upgrades or replaces about 500 solar panel systems.

Others come from businesses, homes or solar farms from rural Victoria.

Some have large holes shot through the middle, others are smashed, but most have no damage at all and have been cast aside because they are not as efficient as they once were.

All those used panels have to go somewhere, and it cannot be landfill; Victoria, South Australia and the ACT have banned solar panels ending up in landfill — they have to be taken to e-waste drop off points to be recycled.

It was a move made to stop heavy metals in the panels from leaching into the earth, and — with roughly 26,000 tonnes of solar panels predicted to be thrown away every year in Victoria from 2035 — to force industry to innovate.

But recycling solar panels is not straightforward. "They are laminate, they're stuck together, they're glued," Mr Polhill says.

To be reused, solar panels need to be broken down so each component — including glass, aluminium, copper, plastic and silicon — can be separated. And that takes a lot of heavy machinery to achieve.

Some of those materials can then be sold and used in new products.

Various companies in Victoria and South Australia are trialling different methods of breaking down solar panels from using chemicals and heat, to dry processes and computerised mechanical systems.

They each say their process is better than the one next door. But all have admitted one thing: the margins are not great.

Most solar recyclers strip and sell the aluminium from the frame, try to extract as many valuable metals as possible, then stockpile the rest.

Mr Polhill says at the moment, "it would be cheaper to put them into landfill than to recover them".

"Over the last few years companies have started to invest in recovering other materials but that is in its infancy and those materials have a very small market," he says.

But, there is one part of a solar panel that could change that: nano silicon. Silicon is found within the black and grey panels that capture sunlight.

And when refined into its purest form, nano silicon, it can sell for about $64,000 per kilogram. It is a ubiquitous substance used in everything from mobile phones and concrete to rubber, plastic, and computer chips.

Until now it has been tricky to reduce silicon down into its nano particles without using harmful chemicals like hydrochloric acid and nitric acid.

But researchers from Deakin University in Geelong say they have figured out a way to do it that is cheap, effective and safe for the environment. Researchers at the university started investigating their theory in 2019 and have repeatedly tested and reviewed the process to prove it can work and be scaled up for commercial use.

"Compared to other processes around the world, my process is really environmentally friendly," Deakin senior research fellow Mokhlesur Rahman says.

Dr Rahman says he's also discovered a way to combine nano silicon with graphite to create longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries for use in products like electric cars.

It is a breakthrough that could make recycling solar panels a far more viable industry.

Back at his recycling plant, Mr Vippond has been trying to create new products like sleepers and furniture from solar panel products, but says a way to easily and cheaply extract and sell nano silicon would be a game changer.

"Getting the best recovery out of the solar panel is probably more paramount than any other product just in relation to that [environmentally conscious] category that it comes from," he says. "Some of the work like Deakin University and others are doing in their research is quite incredible."

But Mr Polhill is sceptical. "How do we take that research and create a business model — that's the real nut to crack in this," he says.

"Recycling solar panels in Australia is in its infancy. So it needs continuous investment from both industry and from government to support this developing market and some of the technologies as well."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-22/solar-panel-recycling-nano-silicon-extraction/101865624

*****************************************************

Qld school mask mandates gone, but concerns over lasting effects of learning from home

This year promises to be the first uninterrupted 40-week state schooling schedule in three years, but concerns are mounting that some students may have emotional and behavioural control issues in the classroom post-pandemic.

Experts have flagged suspicions that remote learning has impacted children, particularly those who began their schooling in 2020 and became used to periods of being educated at home and mask wearing.

“One factor massively missed in the Covid space is those self-regulation skills,” Australian Catholic University early education expert Kate Highfield said.

It comes after major Covid-19 disruptions, mask rules and remote learning plagued the 2020 and 2021, with the first two weeks of term 1 2022 only for the supervision of vulnerable students and children of essential workers, to avoid pupils returning to school at the peak of a wave.

All students didn’t return until February 7 and the school year was not extended.

Dr Highfield said emotional and behavioural control issues could arise as a result of the lack of consistent in-class experience.

“It’s the child being able to work out what they need to focus on when their teacher is talking and there’s other distractions” she said.

“Children went from a 25 to 30-person classroom, to being at home with a parent, so they haven’t been practising self-regulation or behavioural adaptation.

“It also ties in with emotional wellbeing – can the child articulate if they are stressed or anxious? So we have these extra waves of social and emotional needs.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/queensland-education/qld-school-mask-mandates-gone-but-concerns-over-lasting-effects-of-learning-from-home/news-story/d18d934335b4e3cbccb5888d34828068

****************************************************

Australia Day time to see our country through new migrants’ eyes

Peta Credlin

To make the most of this new year, I reckon all of us should collectively make two resolutions: first, to count our blessings more; and second, to be less negative about our magnificent country.

Where I holiday, on the bay, just south of Geelong, there are lots of migrant families. Over summer, they were on the beach, usually three generations, and the one thing you almost never heard was whinging about Australia.

In fact, when you think about it, you hardly hear any of the usual complaints – that Australia is basically a racist, sexist and homophobic country – from anyone who’s a recent migrant. I guess that’s because they only came here because they could tell that the good far outweighed the bad. Certainly, there was enough good in this country, compared to their place of birth, to justify all the disruption involved in making a new life in a far way land.

Isn’t that worth thinking about as we prepare to celebrate another Australia Day: that a country with a quarter of its people born overseas – a higher percentage than any other – must have so much going for it when so many people are voting with their feet to get here?

No one has to come here. The fact that so many do, and are so glad to have won the lottery of life when they make it, should make all of us proud; even as we do our best to make a great country even better.

As usual, in the build-up to this Australia Day, there’s been the usual complaints about the date. We can’t celebrate Australia Day on January 26, it’s said, because that’s insensitive to the Aboriginal people who were here first.

Lots of woke public companies have told their staff that they can take-off a different day if they don’t regard January 26 as a day to celebrate. Others, like Kmart, have now banned the sale of Australia Day merchandise adorned with our national flag.

And while polling this week showed that more than twice as many Australians regard January 26 as Australia Day rather than “invasion day”, more people under 30 saw it as a day of shame, doubtless because of politically correct brainwashing in our schools.

Can you imagine Americans running the Fourth of July down like this?

For a long time, we celebrated Australia Day as a long weekend, not the actual day itself. But in 1994, all states and territories came together (quite rightly) to mark Australia Day on January 26 because, it was then thought, pride in our country demanded no less. How is it that only a couple of decades after reaffirming the importance of this day to our nation, we’ve got activists and elites pushing their agenda of shame rather than unity?

It’s true that British settlement ultimately meant doom for a hunter-gatherer way of life. And that there was violence on the frontier of settlement. And that many of the settlers looked down on Aboriginal people. This was the case with colonial settlements – French, British, Dutch, Belgian and others at this time – across the globe. Yet it’s also undeniable that Governor Phillip’s official instructions from London were to “live in amity” with the original inhabitants and that white men were hanged for the murder of black people as early as 1838, after the notorious Myall Creek massacre, showing that justice was colourblind under our imported rule of law.

We can rethink history but we can’t change it. We certainly can’t undo the British settlement and the subsequent development of Australia; so the best way forward – surely – is to make the most of it, especially given that the country that’s evolved here is a magnet to people from all over the world.

When Governor Phillip raised the flag and toasted the king on January 26, 1788, it didn’t just mark the beginning of the dispossession of the original inhabitants as the haters would have us believe. It marked the arrival on this continent of a civilisation even then distinguished, however imperfectly, by the rule of law, respect for individual rights and the demand for representative government.

It was the beginning of a country that has so far transcended the racism and systemic brutality of those times that people identifying as Aboriginal have a greater representation in our parliament than they do in the population; and have been elected because their fellow Australians have regarded them as suitable, regardless of race. It’s another sign of how little race is held against anyone in modern Australia.

So whatever might be in need of improvement, let’s stop running down our country for something it’s not. And let’s stop quibbling about the date for celebrating our country, keep it on the day that modern Australia began and, if you ever need reminding about how good it is here, ask a new migrant.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/peta-credlin-australia-day-time-to-see-our-country-through-new-migrants-eyes/news-story/049b89f811d932166ea1826d2a8e8ef1

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************

A racist medical regulator?

Rubbish! It is easy to cry "racism" when a minority person suffers harm but the facts in the case below mainly suggest a communication breakdown and the doctor concerned was unfairly treated.

The authorities in the matter of Aboriginal Miss Dhu were not negligent. Seeing that she was ill, they took her to hospital several times. The doctors however had difficulty finding what was wrong, not because of ill-will but because of the characteristic difficulty Aborigines have in communicating with whites.

For instance, it is a reflexive custom for Aborigines to say what they think their questioner wants to hear. So a question such as "Are you OK now?" would get a Yes reply even if such a reply were inaccurate.

And it does appear that her repeated unsuccessful visits to hospital had made the guards impatient and suspicious, which is why they were a bit rough with her towards the end but which is also an understandable response in the circumstances.

Clearly, nobody was aware of the difficulties that communication with Aborigines can pose. So if there are any lessons to be learned it is to improve that understanding, either by employing experienced Aboriginal intermediaries or by having all staff trained by people who really know Aborigines and their culture well. It really is an art.

I note that the doctor who saw her was from India. That could well have amplified the communication difficulties. One often hears of problems arising from a "communication breakdown" but this would appear to be a particularly unfortunate example of it

The doctor who declared a young Indigenous woman fit for police custody shortly before her death was almost cleared of professional misconduct by the national healthcare regulator, in what insiders say is one example of systemic racism within the organisation.

Noongar woman Hannah McGlade, a former board member at the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), is one of those concerned about the case and said she was speaking out to draw attention to “double standards” in the way Indigenous patients and practitioners were treated.
Former AHPRA board member Hannah McGlade has accused the national healthcare regulator of racism.

Former AHPRA board member Hannah McGlade has accused the national healthcare regulator of racism. Credit:Tony McDonough

McGlade resigned from AHPRA about five months ago after an unsatisfactory response when she raised concerns internally. She is now calling for reform, including the implementation of a separate investigation process for medical complaints involving Indigenous people.

“Aboriginal people are dying in this country because of racism in healthcare,” McGlade said. “AHPRA has a long way to go in addressing its own culture of racism.”

The allegations come after The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed this week that AHPRA is grappling with ongoing claims of bullying, a “toxic” workplace culture and pressure to work through a backlog of complaints that investigators fear is putting the public at risk.

AHPRA chiefs declined an interview on Tuesday, but a spokesman said the organisation was half-way through implementing a strategy to improve the system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

McGlade was the only Indigenous representative on AHPRA’s national medical board during the regulator’s investigation into the medical treatment of Dhu, a 22-year-old Indigenous woman who died in police custody in South Hedland, Western Australia, in 2014.

The death of Dhu, whose first name has been withheld for cultural reasons, triggered national protests and debate around institutionalised racism.

After being arrested and detained for unpaid fines, Dhu complained about pain and was taken to the hospital where her symptoms were dismissed as exaggerated or faked.

One treating doctor involved in assessing her, Vafa Naderi, failed to check her vitals or order an X-ray but instead noted “behavioural issues” and declared her fit for police custody.

The 2016 coronial inquiry would later find an early prescription of antibiotics to treat her broken rib, which had become infected, could have saved her life, and the doctors had made judgments based on preconceived ideas about Indigenous people.

However, when AHPRA conducted its own investigation into Naderi, an independent expert found while his conduct was unprofessional, it did not constitute professional misconduct, according to McGlade. There was disagreement between AHPRA boards about how to proceed. A legal firm was prepared to accept the expert’s advice, and pursue lighter disciplinary action, until McGlade intervened.

“I was the only member of the medical board who said: ‘This is not right. His conduct was so serious, it contributed to the death of a young woman. This is professional misconduct’,” McGlade said in rare public comments on AHPRA’s board deliberations.

McGlade had challenged the board and AHPRA’s commitment to reconciliation and had been asked to leave the room, accused of having a conflict of interest because she was Aboriginal, she said. But McGlade persisted and eventually persuaded the board to push for harsher action.

“It took the only Aboriginal person with a backbone to say – is that fair? Is that the right decision?” she said.

AHPRA ultimately referred Naderi to the WA State Administrative Tribunal and in June last year, Naderi was fined $30,000 – the highest penalty available under the law.

But he was not deregistered, nor were the nurses involved in Dhu’s treatment, who similarly failed to take her concerns seriously.

“That doctor got a slap on the wrist and he was still working,” said Dhu’s grandmother, Carol Roe, who gave permission for Dhu’s image to be used.

“My granddaughter was in agony. They should have looked after her, treated her with respect.”

A spokesman for AHPRA did not respond to questions about McGlade’s comments or penalties for the nurses who treated Dhu, but said her death “demonstrates the serious and tragic consequences of racism in our health and justice system”, and highlighted the regulator’s work to penalise Naderi.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-not-right-ahpra-racism-claims-after-dhu-s-doctor-almost-let-off-20230118-p5cdcn.html

****************************************************

‘Queensland is so big, daylight saving just doesn’t work’

I don't want anybody messing around with my clocks nor do most Queenslanders. We have already voted on it

Daylight saving. Introduce these two words into conversation and, just like that, you have a lively spar of opinion. It’s the great Queensland debate. Are you for daylight saving or are you not?

Long a vexed issue, those for and against are mostly divided between the state’s more populated southeast corner and the state’s vast west and north.

An incredible array of pros and cons come into play – from annual time zone anarchy at the Coolangatta-Tweed Heads border and the reported billions of dollars in lost business revenue, to health and lifestyle factors.

Depending what research you are looking at, or who you are talking to, daylight saving gets people out playing with their kids, away from the TV and spending money at local businesses; or it isolates farmers who work until dark regardless of the time on the clock.

It is good for energy consumption because we turn our indoor lights on later but does this mean we use air conditioners more?

It has been attributed to an increase in heart attacks and sleep disturbances and causes anarchy when putting young children to bed. Conversely, it may also lower obesity rates, result in fewer car crashes and animal strikes and less crime.

It is also a simple matter of geography. Young children (and consequently their parents) are up with the birds that start chirping and squawking at a sunrise that hits Brisbane in December from 4.44am (with an uncivilised pre-dawn glow from 4.18am); while Mount Isa in the state’s north west corner doesn’t see sunrise at the same time of year until almost 6am.

Simply, daylight saving gives us a better quality of life or a worse one. It is to be welcomed; or avoided at all costs.

Whatever your view, this contentious and ongoing debate rears its head almost every summer when the rest of Australia’s east coast winds forward their clocks by one hour. Can the Sunshine State ever find its way to a resolution?

Daylight saving was first used in Australia in 1917 during World War I as an energy-saving measure, and again during World War II.

Tasmania introduced daylight saving in 1967, and in the Australian Capital Territory and all states (except Western and South Australia), it was trialled from October 1971 to February 1972.

All states – except Queensland, WA and the Northern Territory – then adopted it, with three time zones becoming five from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/qweekend/queensland-is-so-big-daylight-saving-just-doesnt-work-new-push-for-vote/news-story/accf347b55ae06d020425d5321d57a96

***************************************************

Ashamed of Australia Day? Then don’t take the extra day off

Federal Labor has joined academia and enlightened corporates to tell bureaucrats they can opt to “work” Australia Day if the occasion triggers them, and claim a day in lieu when airfares are on sale.

While Albo claims it’s “fine to have some flexibility”, Australia Day has now been cheapened to an extra day off for academics, corporates and bureaucrats, guilt-tripped into a mythical misnomer of what the day represents, righteous about an erroneous view completely out of historical context.

We should acknowledge a terrible, suppressed history, but should not commit the counter-crime of forgetting the truth of the man behind it, whose remarkable tenacity birthed a free nation.

Thursday is not, as some activists will tell you, the day when Captain Cook invaded Botany Bay, but the anniversary of Governor Arthur Phillip’s landing, who, enlightened beyond his contemporaries, actively sought Indigenous advisers, trade and enforced law for convicts and Indigenous people to live harmoniously.

Australia Day is not, as some activists claim, a day that has been only celebrated since 1994 but has been marked every year since Phillip arrived with convicts and a garrison to guard them, woefully under-resourced.

As far back as 1818, government labourers were given a day off and “one pound of fresh meat” “as a “just tribute to the memory of that highly respected and meritorious officer”.

For an “invader,” Phillip chose Indigenous confidantes to translate and dine with, named land after them — including Manly and Bennelong — and even as the slave trade boomed globally, ensured the local population here did not meet the same fate.

When a man speared him through the shoulder at Manly, his order was: “No reprisals; it was due to misunderstanding”.

He was dismayed when his convict entourage at Parramatta were “so unthinking, or so depraved, as wantonly to destroy a canoe belonging to a fine young man”, noting it ended any chance of commerce between them.

He hung his countrymen for the crime — which seems counterintuitive if he was an invader. Phillip believed the Indigenous to be British citizens protected by law — in stark contrast to colonists enslaving native populations across the rest of the world.

Most surprising is that the colony survived famine in such dire straits that convicts were hung from trees for stealing when the alternative was starving.

As the rhetoric builds each Australia Day, we risk forgetting why we have it at all.

As far back as 1818, it was to celebrate a man who navigated uncharted seas with a fleet of prison ships of poor convicts into an unfamiliar land, afforded little help from Britain to build a penal colony that has evolved into the free nation we have today.

He built houses and roads, raised crops and stock, all with unskilled convict labour who didn’t know how to farm or want to be here, and soldiers who endlessly complained about the temperature (42C in the shade), sun, mosquitoes and lack of food, fought with each other and allowed convicts to abscond.

We don’t execute hungry flour thieves as we did in 1798 any more, but judging Phillip’s executions then with the eyes of today would be like judging Indigenous men documented in the same period for killing their wives with blunt force trauma, treating them as possessions, not people, under the tribal conditions of the same time.

It would be an outrage to say that their descendants today are in line with the culture of then. So why do that to Governor Phillip and the unfortunate souls on the First Fleet?

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/ashamed-of-australia-day-then-dont-take-the-extra-day-off/news-story/3edea2e48538fc9d20524870b8563e57

*****************************************************

Labor’s new tax on those that wear hi-vis to work

In the past week Greta Thunberg was “arrested” for trying to stop the expansion of a coal mine that would bulldoze the abandoned German town of Luetzerath. While a German Greens Government is desperately trying to increase the supply of reliable energy, even against the wishes of St Greta, our Labor-Greens government announced a $15 billion tax hit on our energy producing and consuming businesses.

The Labor Party does not call it a tax, instead preferring the Orwellian moniker of a “safeguard mechanism”. The safeguard mechanism would make 215 Australian businesses reduce their carbon emissions by 5 per cent a year. They will have to pay a capped price of $75 per tonne to do this.

Over the next 7 years until 2030 these businesses will have to reduce their emissions by 205 million tonnes. At $75 a tonne, which is three times the cost of Gillard’s carbon tax, this amounts to a $15 billion new tax to do business in Australia. (The $75 capped price will probably prevail because in Europe carbon credits trade at over $100 per tonne and in New Zealand the price is already at $70 a tonne.)

Former Labor MP, Joel Fitzgibbon, admitted that Labor’s policy was a carbon tax. Like all carbon taxes it will increase the cost of living. Airlines will be made to pay the tax. You will be made to tick the green box on your plane ticket under Labor.

But this new carbon tax will be paid mostly by the mines and factories in regional Australia. The tax will hit 63 coal mines, 22 iron ore mines, 35 gas production facilities and what is left of our manufacturing of steel, aluminium and fertilisers. It is not a good idea to tax the industries that make our nation prosperous.

Over 84 per cent of the carbon emissions covered by Labor’s carbon tax come from businesses in the regions even though only 30 per cent of Australians live in the regions.

Labor’s new carbon tax is a tax on those that wear hi-vis to work.

Queensland is hit hard by Labor’s new carbon tax. A third of the 215 businesses are in Queensland despite the fact we only have 20 per cent of Australia’s population. Queensland businesses are set to pay an extra $4 billion in tax, a much higher burden than the just $700 million that will be paid by Victorian businesses.

It is Queensland’s mining industry that is keeping our nation afloat. Coal is once again Australia’s largest export but the thanks it gets is to pay more tax to prop up a bloated Canberra bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, Labor’s policy lets the banks off scot-free. Banks are large emitters themselves due to the energy use of their data centres.

However, under Labor’s policy, emissions from the use of electricity is inexplicably ignored. If Labor had included emissions from electricity use, three of the four big banks would have carbon emissions over the 100,000-tonne threshold and have to pay the tax.

So Labor’s climate policy taxes the jobs in the hi-vis industries of mining and manufacturing, while turning a blind eye to the emissions created by jobs in suits.

And those hi-vis industries, guess who they will have to buy the carbon credits from? That’s right, the banks. No wonder the banking industry is one of the loudest supporters of Labor’s climate plan.

Labor has tried to claim that this new tax will not hurt business or jobs because other countries want us to reduce carbon emissions and if we do not we will lose their custom. However, this argument is completely undermined by Labor’s own suggestion that we will now need to introduce carbon tariffs on imported products to offset the costs of their carbon tax on Australian businesses.

If Labor’s new carbon tax actually helps Australian businesses sell products to climate conscious customers, why would we need a tariff to provide them protection against low cost goods from countries that do not impose a carbon tax?

This just proves that this new tax is another blow to Australia’s manufacturing industries. The biggest winner of Labor’s carbon tax will be China, who will take more of our manufacturing jobs as they continue to build coal fired power plants like they are going out of fashion.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-labors-new-tax-on-those-that-wear-hivis-to-work/news-story/f6d7d6cbead600e1535f10958d60407a

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************

Australian Police News

Yes. I do run a blog under the title above. See it here

It is just a separate place where I gather together posts from this blog that concern the police. There is a search box at the top of the blog which enables you to search for any name you may be interested in. It is at present up to date as of the end of last year.

*********************************************

Low-rent behaviour by greedy landlords is feeding the rental crisis

I guess I am wasting my time commenting on the screed by the Leftist Jenna Price below but I would like to point out a few things anyhow. The key to her plaint is in the very title of her article: "Low rent".

It is absolutely true that low rent properties are often of a poor standard. Landlords who keep their propetties at a high standard CANNOT AFFORD to charge low rents.

Let me give an example: In my days when I had 6 properties to rent out, I kept them all at a standard that I would myself be happy to live with. And I always brought them up to a high standard before I put them into the hands of agents

My reward for that? In one YEAR my income from one 5 bedroom house after all repairs and maintenance had been paid for was $500. And I had many thousands invested in that house. I sold it. It was an impossible investment.

It's an extreme example but costs are a big problem for a landlord and emptyheads like Jenna Price have no idea of them. So the idea that landlording is a lucrative racket is way off. Do I sound "greedy"? It's just Leftist hate-speech below.

So "you pays your money and you takes your choice". If you are ready or able to pay only low rent, you will get a property that the landlord cannot afford to keep up to a high standard. He would do his dough if he did. The rent is low BECAUSE the property is undesirable

"Forcing" the landlord to upgrade the property would almost certainly lead him to increase the rent he asks -- so he can get a return on his investment -- and that might be exactly what poor people do NOT want. It would REDUCE their options. Government "protection" can easily worsen rather than help the situation. But in her Leftist mental straitjacket, Jenna Price has not thought of that


My mother’s advice was that I should buy a house. That was 1983. That advice is no longer fine or even possible for most, Bank of Mum and Dad notwithstanding. Many mums and dads are now still paying off their own mortgages.

We were desperate to avoid increasingly rapacious landlords or their proxies, otherwise known as real estate agents. Toilets only flushed by bucket. Floorboards on the verge of perishing. Terrifyingly unpredictable electrical faults. Forty years on, stories from some renters are the same as my own.

I’ve watched generations deal with some rentals barely fit for human habitation. How long will it be before a renter sues a landlord for the harms caused by black mould or because the ceiling has fallen in because of unrelenting rain? Many landlords and agents have no interest in spending money to maintain the properties which generate their wealth. There is hardship for those who inhabit these cash castles and too many distressing cases for our collective good conscience.

Landlordism has gone wild in this country, enabled by real estate agents. The state government ignores the problem. It’s been in power since, what, 2011 and finally “outlawed” unsolicited rental bidding in November. That stops the agent from explicitly soliciting but doesn’t prevent accepting higher bids from prospective tenants.

What governments should do is ban “no grounds” evictions (code for we are getting rid of you because you can’t afford our rent increase). That’s at least a NSW Labor election promise (and one Victorian Labor has – more or less – legislated). Is the NSW government planning on anything at all after a decade? It’s like pulling teeth trying to get a commitment.

“These laws are currently under review and an announcement is expected shortly,” a spokesperson for Fair Trading tells me. Every time governments introduce the prospect of reform, vested interests go ballistic. “It will force landlords out of the market,” they may cry. “It will discourage property investors.” None of that’s happened.

We have a terrible rental crisis in this country, worsened by the slow rate of construction completions during COVID. But the real problem is this – owning investment property is a sure way to turn a profit. Landlords don’t recognise their responsibility in providing a basic human right – the right to have somewhere safe to live. Here’s the bigger problem. Most tenants only have relationships with real estate agents who rarely act in the tenants’ best interests. Their responsibility is to the landlord. No one has the best interests of tenants at heart.

An exaggeration? In August last year, one real estate agency bragged about its biggest rent increase of the week. It later apologised because it was sprung for bad behaviour. In October, another agency urged landlords to consider raising rents by more than 20 per cent.

Ask around for rental stories: homes which can’t be locked, gas leaks, water leaks from baths, showers, toilets, broken windows, mould, faulty wiring, ovens which never work, not even on day one, no insulation. Comedian Mark Humphries tweeted he was in his second-straight rental property where the owner refused to bear the cost of connecting to the NBN. A reminder that improvements to the property remain with the property, owned by the landlord.

Then we’ve got the behaviour of the agents. Readers have supplied horrific examples of rudeness, of refusal to respond to urgent requests and, creepily, of agents wandering around the rental property taking photos willy-nilly. Contracts professor at the University of Melbourne Katy Barnett says renters have a right to be worried.

“I doubt agents are even considering privacy concerns,” she says. Sure, you can ask how the photos are stored and how long they’ll be kept for but if someone can’t get back to you about your broken toilet, doubt you’ll be getting a response on privacy breaches.

One in three Australians rent. The rules which surround renting are wafty as. It should be a scandal but states and territories are clearly beholden to Big Landlord (and federal governments are sadly cowed by the “negative gearing is my wealth right” crew).

Michael Fotheringham, managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, says rental vacancies are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years. A three per cent vacancy rate is healthy. Right now, it’s about one and a bit. Queues at opens are right out the door.

Complaints to the NSW Tenants Union have doubled in 12 months. Complaints to Fair Trading have increased by 10 per cent in 12 months. But complaint numbers mean little – most tenants are too terrified to complain in case they get booted. As NSW Tenants Union CEO Leo Patterson Ross says, consumers can’t do the enforcement themselves. That should be an independent third party (also promised by NSW Labor but let’s see if it can stand up to Big Landlord).

Landlords are addicted to profits and not to a sustainable housing model. OK, #notalllandlords but too many to mention. They don’t get to face the heartbreak of the people who make their money for them. Landlords didn’t get into the business to provide a basic human right, they did it to make money. And that’s our problem right there.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/low-rent-behaviour-by-greedy-landlords-is-feeding-the-rental-crisis-20230117-p5cd95.html

******************************************************

NSW loves coal

NSW will introduce a domestic coal reservation policy to keep the lights on and ease an energy crisis gripping the east coast, in a move expected to open a new battle with major coal miners.

The Australian understands NSW Treasurer Matt Kean will issue orders requiring the majority of the state’s thermal coal miners to reserve up to 10 per cent of their output for NSW power stations by the end of the month, under a new clampdown designed to head off potential supply shortfalls this year.

The orders represent an expansion of rules introduced in December requiring only some coal miners to reserve production for the domestic market, included alongside a $125-a-tonne cap on the price of coal sold to local power providers. They could draw in major producers such as BHP, Whitehaven Coal and Yancoal.

The reservation scheme will aim to dodge a gas strike by ­energy producers and retailers, frustrated by a lack of clarity after the Prime Minister imposed a price cap and code of conduct on the industry. However, the move could split the NSW coal industry, with those companies already subject to domestic reservation orders likely to welcome the move. Those not affected by current orders are likely to be outraged by the decision.

“This coal cap scheme will see NSW doing our part at the request of the Albanese government to contribute to the national solution of this national problem,” Mr Kean said.

“I know those currently ­providing coal for the local market will appreciate that companies enjoying super profits on the back of the war in Ukraine will now do their part for the domestic market. Of course they should provide Australian production for Australian consumers.

“These new arrangements will help even the playing field among coal producers.”

The NSW government is consulting with the additional ­companies. The new orders are likely to require them to contribute about 7-10 per cent of their production to the domestic market. Coal still provides up to 60 per cent of generation needs in the state even as NSW looks to phase out the fossil fuel and replace it with renewable energy supplies.

The Australian understands NSW estimates its generators will need about 22 million tonnes of coal to keep operating through 2023. About 18 million tonnes of that total is already contracted in long-term supply contracts with a small group of miners, including Glencore, Peabody, New Hope Corporation and Centennial.

Under orders issued in late ­December those producers were required to offer at least 18.6 million tonnes of coal into the domestic market at a maximum price of $125 a tonne for coal with a calorific value of 5500 a kilogram. That is the equivalent of $136.40 for high-grade coal exported to international markets from NSW mines, which generally grades 6000 calories per kilogram.

Mr Kean, who is also the ­Energy Minister, has decided to widen the domestic reservation policy to meet a potential supply shortfall, after complaints the ­December orders put an unfair burden on a small group of ­producers.

The Australian understands Mr Kean now intends to require all NSW thermal coal producers to supply into the domestic market – effectively establishing a domestic coal reservation policy for the state.

The move is likely to draw in major producers such as BHP, Whitehaven Coal and Yancoal, who are not currently required to supply NSW power stations beyond any existing contracts.

Mr Kean’s move is not necessarily a permanent impost on the state’s coal industry, as coal-­supply requirements will slowly diminish over the next decade as the state phases out its reliance on coal-fired generation.

It is believed sections of the coal industry have argued that coal is ultimately a state-owned resource, and the burden of supplying NSW power stations should be shared more evenly among the state’s miners.

Most of the mines supplying into long-term contracts with NSW power stations do so as a ­requirement of deals to privatise state-owned operations in the 1980s and 2000s. Private companies that invested in greenfield operations did so with export markets in mind, and are unlikely to welcome any impost on the price they could receive on international markets.

BHP’s Mt Arthur mine is expected to produce 13 million to 15 million tonnes of coal in the current financial year. Yancoal’s NSW mines produced about 23 million tonnes of coal in 2021.

The Australian understands the new orders will not require miners to break existing export agreements if their mine production is fully contracted, and coking coal mines such as South32’s Illawarra operations and Sanjeev Gupta’s Tahmoor mine are not affected by the new rules. AGL Energy’s Liddell coal plant is due to close in April, with Origin Energy’s Eraring station to shut as early as August 2025.

The final NSW coal power plant will be shut by 2040 at the latest after EnergyAustralia’s decision to bring forward the closure date of its Mt Piper facility by at least two years in a bid to hit new green climate targets.

Coal facilities are increasingly having to switch off during daytime hours when high solar supplies undercut them on price.

Mr Kean has been warning the state’s coal plants will exit early as the fossil fuel struggles to compete.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/coal-reservation-scheme-to-keep-the-lights-on/news-story/3a5162f5d461c03b68e4b01860ba5161

***********************************************

Fears as crackdown on regional alcohol sales rejected

"Regional" my foot! It's a ban on sales of booze to Aborigines that they are talking about. Bans have been tried before but simply lead to "sly grogging", which reduces money for food

A plea for severe alcohol restrictions across Australia’s northwest has been rejected by the West Australian liquor umpire, allowing the McGowan Labor government to persevere with a banned drinkers register that was independently assessed as a failure in September last year.

Former WA police commissioner Chris Dawson, who is now the state’s Governor, began pushing for an unprecedented crackdown on alcohol sales in the north in 2019.

To support his case, he supplied evidence about alcohol-fuelled violence and testimonials from frontline workers and an opinion from the state’s chief medical officer, Andy Robertson, who recommended the government consider either barring or restricting the sale of mid- and full-strength alcohol across the state’s north.

The decision by the new WA ­director of liquor licensing, Lanie Chopping, to allow bottle shops to continue to sell full-strength takeaway alcohol in far north Kimberley and Pilbara towns follows an almost four-year dispute over the best response to alarming rates of alcohol-related violence and dysfunction in those regions.

WA Liquor Minister Reece Whitby said Ms Chopping was independent and made her decision after “a very thorough process and consultation”.

“There is no easy fix. This is a longstanding, complex issue and the banned drinkers register trial is one of a number of initiatives the McGowan government is using to address alcohol abuse,” Mr Whitby said.

“We’ve listened to the feedback from all stakeholders – including licensees, police and community services – to help strike the right balance that will be accepted by the broader ­community.”

The McGowan government is now attempting to fix the banned drinkers register which it began trialling in 2020, possibly by making it more closely resemble the one in place in the Northern Territory.

In the NT, there is also a floor price on alcohol.

According to an interim assessment of the banned drinkers register by the University of WA published in September last year, there had been no discernible reduction in crime almost two years after the rollout began in the Pilbara. The report found there were too few people on the register. By last week, there were still just 90 people banned in the Kimberley, which has a population of 38,000, and just 92 people banned in the Pilbara, which has a population of 63,000.

The report found those who were banned could easily get friends to buy for them or go to a bottle shop that did not participate in the trial. Another problem was that bottle shops could decide if they wished to even check whether a customer was banned before serving them.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder Mayor John Bowler backed the banned drinkers register when the McGowan government began trialling it in the WA goldfields in March last year, but he has been disappointed with the outcome.

“In its current form, it is totally ineffective,” he told The Australian on Tuesday. “The one thing that was working – the cashless debit card – they took away.”

In the Kimberley, Ms ­Cho­pping has endorsed pandemic-era purchase limits for all towns.

For example, a person can buy a maximum of three bottles of wine, one carton of full-strength beer or a bottle of spirits per day, or a combination such as a bottle of wine and half a carton of beer.

Police can still impose temporary bottle shop bans in response to a particular event or crisis, as they have done in the Kimberley.

Aboriginal elder Ian Trust, who runs the Wunan Foundation in Kununurra, said he initially backed blanket bottle shop bans in the Kimberley. “The biggest losers in towns and communities where alcohol is a problem are children and old people who come from families who are caught up in a cycle which they cannot get out of,” Mr Trust said.

“If blanket alcohol bans are not imposed, it makes sense to make sure the banned drinkers register does work – especially in cases where the safety of children is involved or the individual has been found guilty of multiple cases of domestic violence.

“If we want to get serious about addressing the social issues … alcohol management will need to be front and centre of our strategies along with housing and employment opportunities.”

Broome shire president Harold Tracey said a broader banned drinkers register and scanning to stop individuals from purchasing their daily limit at multiple bottle shops would help address the region’s alcohol issues. “The next thing is about getting funding into rehabilitation centres and sober-up centres,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/fears-as-crackdown-on-regional-alcohol-sales-rejected/news-story/8a75131a4d22c7ba1a209f088d53bb7f

*********************************************

Bankstown MP Tania Mihailuk moves from Labor to One Nation

A NSW politician has blamed “woke” Labor for her decision to defect to One Nation just weeks out from the state election.

Former renegade NSW Labor MP Tania Mihailuk has announced she will defect to One Nation just weeks out from the NSW election.

Ms Mihailuk, the member for Bankstown, says the Labor Party has “lost its way to the left wing extremists and property developer mafia”.

“Chris Minns as Premier and a Labor Government will see NSW go both woke and broke,” Ms Mihailuk said.

“I know the true agenda of the people sitting currently sitting on Chris Minns’ front bench - they are from the extreme left. We simply cannot afford to have Labor controlling both Chambers of parliament.”

Ms Mihailuk has been sitting as an independent in parliament since quitting the Labor Party in last October.

On Tuesday, she announced she is seeking preselection in Mark Latham’s party for an upper house seat.

In a statement, former the Bankstown Mayor highlighted NSW Labor’s stance on a number of issues as the reason behind her shock move, including claims that some Labor MPs “want drug legalisation and gender fluidity teaching in schools”.

“I totally oppose these policies and will do everything that I can to stop their agenda from passing the Upper House,” she said.

In a speech in parliament when she resigned from the party, Ms Mihailuk accused the party of corruption, claiming Canterbury-Bankstown Mayor Khal Asfour was linked to corrupt former Minister Eddie Obeid.

A report by Canterbury-Bankstown Council found that Mr Asfour had no relevant relationship with Eddie Obeid or his son Paul.

Ms Mihailuk also said One Nation was the “only party” focused on the cost of living crisis and energy bills, claiming the major parties were creating an “unnecessary scare campaign against coal and nuclear energy”.

“NSW is rich in natural resources, but Labor wants to ban coal and forestry and this will send electricity prices and the cost of building materials to record highs.”

The self-described “proud Christian” said freedom of religion was another reason for her move to One Nation.

“South West Sydney communities like those in Bankstown have the highest observance in faith, be it Christianity, Buddhism or Islam, but freedom of religion is a toxic notion to the inner-west left wing hipsters that set Labor Party agenda on social policy.”

https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/politics/bankstown-mp-tania-mihailuk-moves-from-labor-to-one-nation/news-story/6a263fb26677b91ab9ce4e04fc8626ad

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************

Youth crime crisis has led to soaring crime rates in Alice Springs

Alice springs has a large Aboriginal settlement nearby and young Aborigines often show little respect for the law. Crime for them is often a form of entertainment. Under Leftist pressure, police are required to go easy on them

A local in Alice Springs has penned a heartbreaking letter begging authorities to 'fix all this criminality' as a youth-led crime crisis sees local jails hit breaking point.

In a letter to the outback town's paper, Alex Morelli wrote that he believes the time has come for locals to fight for their safety after crime rates exploded.

'When will someone do something to fix all this criminality?' he pleaded.

'Last night, I called the police, because a woman was screaming, shouting and throwing rocks in the Eastside.

'Tonight, while I was driving along the main road (McDonald Street) a bunch of kids threw rocks at my car.'

He told Daily Mail Australia the intention of people throwing rocks was 'not like fun'.

'The way they do it, it intends to injure someone.'

Mr Morelli said Australians from other cities have no idea how dangerous Alice Springs feels.

'I lived in Brisbane, then on the Sunshine Coast, and then moved to Alice Springs. I always found Australia such a safe country, but here I am not feeling safe at all.

'When I tell people in other parts of Australia what's happening here they don't believe me.'

Alice Springs is the only Australian town in the 20 most crime-affected locations on earth, coming 17th according to surveys collected by Numbeo.

The other towns to make the top 100 were Rockhampton at 36th, Cairns at 69th, Darwin at 79th and Townsville at 96th.

In 2022 government statistics showed Alice Springs has triple the national average for recorded assaults, 2556 per 100,000 people, compared to 790 for the whole of Australia.

Alice Spring's rates of assault represented a 36 per cent jump on the previous year.

Domestic violence assaults went up 45 per cent, alcohol-related assaults up 46 per cent, property damage was up 54 per cent, car thefts 37 per cent and house break-ins up 24 per cent.

Leader of the Northern Territory opposition, Lia Finocchiaro said in a speech last month that Alice Springs businesses are closing with staff too afraid to go to work.

'Behind the eye-watering crime statistics are families living in fear and business owners are being pushed to the brink.'

'They are 'at breaking point because the financial, physical and emotional costs are just too much to bear.'

As of January 2023 the outback town's only prison is stretched beyond capacity and police are forced to house convicted criminals in police stations.

The Alice Springs Correctional Centre, which has reached its capacity of 650 inmates, is being expanded to add another 80 beds by the end of 2023.

'It is now evident that with the annual trend, more and more prisoners are being held within the watch house,' the jail's general manager Bill Carroll wrote in an email to staff.

Last month the ABC reported a youth crime crisis was engulfing Alice Springs.

Some of the shocking behaviour included youths driving 'head first' at police patrols in order to coax them into high-speed pursuits, the ABC reported.

Some of the young offenders were treating police interaction as a good social media content by livestreaming pursuits for their social media accounts.

In late 2020, NT Police Assistant Commissioner Martin Dole, compared the cat-and-mouse antics of Alice Spring teens to a the classic violent game Grand Theft Auto.

'It’s one-upmanship type behaviour, it’s very much a dangerous game,' he said.

'It needs to be stopped, and it needs to be stamped out.'

Mr Morelli believes it's time for Alice Springs locals to hit the streets to make a point publicly about the safety issues they face.

'It's time to protest and demonstrate against this current situation!' Mr Morelli said.

'Lots of people are leaving for that reason, and the town is become even more unliveable.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11641945/When-fix-town-Read-locals-heartbreaking-plea-fix-crime-Alice-Springs.html

*****************************************************

Mainstream media now totally woke

We are living through arguably one of the greatest divides the Western world has ever experienced and on the night of December 2, 2022, this divide went nuclear, courtesy of Elon Musk. It’s the great Mainstream Media (MSM) divide and it consists of a disconnect between those who consume news from MSM exclusively and those who consume news from both mainstream and so-called ‘alternative’ news sources.

Those who consume MSM exclusively remain oblivious to a plethora of important news stories; at the tip of the iceberg are the Hunter Biden Laptop scandal in America and the Rotherham grooming scandal in the UK. This lack of knowledge of these two stories alone is appalling and indeed unprecedented in living memory.

Speak to an average Australian who consumes only MSM news and they will not have heard of Rotherham. Nor would they be remotely aware that Hunter Biden has a long history of business dealings in Ukraine. Rotherham and Hunter Biden are vital news stories Australians have a right to be made aware of as they navigate child safety and the cost-of-living crises – the latter being widely attributed to the war in Ukraine.

Knowledge is power; if your only source of information is from MSM in 2022, you are disempowering yourself and your family, essentially voting in an information void. A revolution is currently taking place in the Fourth Estate and to their detriment, the majority of people are unaware of it.

In his address at the Claremont Institute on October 13, 2020, Tom Klingenstein argued that the Democratic Party had been taken over by its radical wing and that ‘Republicans are not doing a good job explaining the stakes’.

Given MSM openly flaunts its left-wing bias and Woke ideology, it is impossible for Republicans (or any similar Conservative party) to explain anything at all to the public through that source. Klingenstein’s speech itself was not widely heard by Republicans, let alone swing voters or the many Democrat party members who had become frustrated with the current radical left trend of their party. One had to be on the ever-moving Twitter, following the right accounts at specific moments in time, to catch a glimpse of a speech that deserved a worldwide audience. This is virtually impossible for the average person to do.

Klingenstein and others of that year created political and cultural waves – but these waves could only be felt online. The real world and MSM remained untouched. What should have been a tsunami petered out in the MSM world of ‘do not amplify’.

Investigative journalism, meaning the facts, has been erased Soviet-style by MSM, resulting in Westerners living in a society of haves-and-have-nots regarding what is happening in the world. This divide can be seen between party members, family members, and friends alike, throwing people into parallel world views, dictated by whether or not they consume news via MSM exclusively. At least when they built the Berlin wall we had the physical evidence in front of our eyes that we were divided. Nowadays, it would be Photoshopped out.

Traditionally in the West, we have placed an almost sacred trust in the Fourth Estate – that it will unbiasedly report to the public news they need to know in order to hold their governments accountable. Due to this long-held trust in the Fourth Estate and reliance on MSM, large portions of the public don’t even have the advantage Donald Rumsfeld described in 2002 of being aware that there are ‘… unknown unknowns-the ones we don’t know we don’t know’.

And so it goes, seemingly forever, an almost pointless void between people on the MSM/alternative news parallels, and like all parallel lines in Euclidean geometry, never the two shall meet. It feels like a big bang, in the same metaphor, with the MSM and alternate news sources growing further apart. Fortunately, it’s the latter that seems to be expanding at a faster rate.

On December 2, 2022, Musk decided to give the voting public a hint of what they don’t know they don’t know, if you follow my drift. Laura Ingraham summarised: ‘Musk had bought Twitter not realising he was in fact buying the largest Democratic Party Super Pac.’ Once he did realise this, he decided to share this revelation with the world, tweeting American journalist Matt Taibbi’s expose of the Democratic Party’s communications with Twitter staff in 2020 regarding censoring the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. In doing so, Musk exposed the chasm between MSM and alternate news reporting, the former’s sins of omission particularly.

Westerners are accustomed to journalists using MSM as their credentials. However in 2022, the credentials are found in the content of the news itself. Primary sources are king, and indeed king makers amongst the new breed of citizen journalists, Andy Ngo being the perfect example of this.

Edmund Burke first coined the phrase ‘Fourth Estate’ in 1787 to highlight the power journalists and news media held.

Thomas Carlyle quotes Burke in stating there were ‘three estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter’s Gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all’. Power corrupts and as Musk has shown the world, the MSM that has for decades dominated the Fourth Estate has no interest in serving anything but its masters. Journalism, as formerly understood, ceased to be. There is not even the pretence of impartiality anymore in the MSM. As it stands, the Second and Fourth Estates are in collusion to such a degree that authoritarian regimes and their tactics come to mind, actually, throw in the First and Third Estates as well.

Ignorance is currently bliss, but the longer this media exclusion zone with its selective censorship continues, the worse the clean-up will be. If not addressed, this chasm will drive a potentially insurmountable wedge through society and dictate geopolitics for the next decade. It has the potential to be as, if not, more dangerous than Woke ideology

Forget occupying Mars, Musk needs to occupy the Fourth Estate with citizen journalists who will challenge the stranglehold the elites have over the media, by bringing them to a mainstream audience. The digital world can provide a printing press for anyone. Citizen journalists can challenge the status quo, we just need to tune our antennas in their direction and accept that the MSM is gone with the wind.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/msm-gone-with-the-wind/

****************************************************

PM is told 'you're losing people' on the Voice to Parliament

He's trying to pull a swifty: Get people to vote on something that can be twisted into extreme policies after the event

Anthony Albanese has compared the Indigenous Voice to Parliament to the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a combative radio interview.

The prime minister was questioned about the details of the proposed advisory body at least six months ahead of a referendum on its creation.

For 21 minutes he tried explain that the gritty detail of how the Voice would function was yet to be determined, and the referendum would ask a simple question.

Opponents of the Voice fear the referendum could become a 'bait-and-switch' in which the public gives approval only to find out later what that means in practice.

Mr Albanese tried to allay those concerns by using the bridge analogy first made by indigenous leader Noel Pearson about the difference between the vote and subsequent detail-laden legislation.

He said the referendum was like deciding whether or not to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge without getting lost in arguments over how many lanes it would have or what the tolls should be.

Radio 2GB host Ben Fordham insisted Australians were entitled to see details of the planned 'bridge' before they made a decision on whether or not to proceed.

Mr Albanese said a detailed report by Professors Marcia Langton and Tom Calma released in July 2021 put forward potential models for the Indigenous Voice.

The report goes into great detail about how it would work, both at a local and national level, and the PM previously said the Voice would be based on it.

'Go have a look at the report, it is 260 pages long. it goes through [detail about] the national and regional Voice,' he told Fordham.

Fordham said Australians should not be required to read 260-page report of proposals in order to know what they were being asked to vote on.

Mr Albanese said he would answer if he could get a word in between the questions. 'It (the report) envisages two people from each state and territory and a group of people specifically representing remote communities,' he said.

When Mr Fordham interrupted to ask how they would be chosen, Mr Albanese accused him of 'not being interested in the answer'.

Eventually Mr Albanese explained that, in NSW as an example, there was already work being done to establish a local Voice with members elected by indigenous people in that state.

Members of the national Voice would be chosen from those representatives, along with those of other states and territories.

The prime minister did not rule out legislating the Voice into existence even if the referendum failed, as the vote was specifically on whether the body should be enshrined in the constitution, not on whether it exists at all. 'If Australians say no, there will be no constitutional change,' he said

The radio host asked several specific questions, including whether Voice members would be paid and if it would have an office in Canberra.

Mr Albanese insisted 'the question before the Australian people is a really simple one'. 'Our constitution doesn't go to whether there is an office somewhere or not, it doesn't even have the office of prime minister in it,' he said.

'He said all of the 'serious detail' will be included in legislation that would be voted on in the House of Representatives and Senate.

The PM accused Mr Fordham of already knowing this but seeking to mislead listeners. 'You could come up with 50 theoretical questions about a whole range of issues to undermine what is a very simple principle,' he said.

'And the second is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people asked us to have a process, and what they wanted that process to come up with is the Uluru Statement of the Heart in 2017... which is asking for a Voice.'

Mr Fordham insisted he was posing the questions that many Australians had about the referendum. 'Please don't tell me what I know and don't know... I'm genuinely asking these questions,' he said.

Mr Albanese also refuted claims members of the Voice or others could take the government to court for not acting on its advice, or if they were not consulted on particular legislation.

The PM in November said the referendum would be held in the second half of this year, with analysts tipping October as the most likely month.

That gives the government nine months to make its case and draw up plans for the Voice that voters could use to make their decision.

Mr Albanese said there would be a parliamentary inquiry into what words would be added to the constitution, which voters could make submissions to.

Parliament would then make a final decision through legislation in the lead-up to the referendum being called.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11646579/Anthony-Albanese-stoush-Ben-Fordham-Indigenous-Voice-Parliament.html

************************************************

The green mining boom is as gritty and dirty as every other boom

Chris Bowen’s ambition to turn Australia into a renewable energy export powerhouse stalled last week when the giant Sun Cable Australia-Asia PowerLink entered voluntary liquidation.

It seems that exporting rays of sunlight to Singapore is as difficult as it sounds. Writing a convincing business plan to install millions of solar panels in the Northern Territory, capturing their intermittent output in giant batteries and sending this through thousands of kilometres of underwater cables is a formidable challenge, even if it’s backed by two renewable energy devotees with very deep pockets.

Australia’s best hope of cashing in on the global clean-energy boom stems not from the thought bubble of a hirsute software entrepreneur, but from the sweat and genius of its mining engineers. Kalgoorlie is at the centre of the so-called green mining boom. It is fast becoming the Dallas of clean energy by doing what it does best: digging up dirt, extracting minerals and sending them to market. The WA outback is to lithium-ion batteries what Texas is to oil. It is rich in deposits of lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements for which global demand is insatiable.

Finding the half tonne of minerals contained in a Tesla battery requires digging up 250 tonnes of dirt, which is good news for a town that makes its money that way. Global car manufacturers have been competing to secure deals with Australian lithium miners. Last July, for example, Ford Motor Co bought up a third of Liontown Resources’ production and threw in a $300m loan facility to expand Kathleen Valley mine, 350km north of Kalgoorlie.

The love for electric vehicles, however, like the love of sausages, is severely tested by seeing how the object of one’s affection is made. The green mining boom is as gritty and dirty as every other boom that has graced the WA goldfields region since the discovery of gold in 1893. Surrounding roads are lined with road trains hauling ore, giant earth movers, chemicals and explosives. Massive new creators are transforming the natural landscape, but this time the wilderness campaigners don’t seem particularly bothered.

The new green job opportunities we have been frequently promised are as dirty and sweaty as the old ones. Ardea Resources plans to employ 500 people over the 25-year life of its Kalgoorlie Nickel Project’s integrated nickel manganese cobalt battery material refinery hub, assisted by $119m in investment by the former federal Coalition government. They will be driving a fleet of 120-tonne excavators and 90-tonne trucks at 13 open-cut sites at Goongarrie Hill, 80km from Kalgoorlie. They will process ore in high-pressure acid-leached autoclaves. The resulting discharge will be filtered and the solids dry-stacked.

This energy-intensive, chemical-thirsty and land-hungry process adds to the substantial carbon debt that is attached to every electric vehicle. If the unrefined ingredients of a single EV battery were to be transported by train to Esperance, they would fill at least four wagons. Figures produced by car manufacturers show an electric vehicle must be driven for approximately 100,000km before its overall emissions are lower than an equivalent diesel or petrol vehicle.

These material realities of the imagined transition to a green economy are discounted by the renewable energy lobby. As US policy analyst Mark P. Mills bluntly points out, no energy system is actually “renewable” since all machines require the continual mining and processing of millions of tonnes of primary materials and the disposal of hardware that inevitably wears out.

Mills estimates that compared with hydrocarbons, the machines to produce renewable energy require a 10-fold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy.

Mills calculates that by 2050 the quantity of worn-out solar panels will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste together with more than three million tonnes a year of un-recyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tonnes per year of batteries will become garbage.

The failure to offset the costs against the supposed environmental benefits of renewable energy is part of the dodgy accounting clean-energy advocates would like us to ignore. They turn a blind eye to the 8000 tonnes of steel required to generate a terawatt of electricity with solar panels. They look the other way while 8000 tonnes of concrete are delivered by a conga-line of trucks and poured into the ground to support wind turbines with the same capacity. Coal, gas and nuclear require something less than a tenth of those basic raw materials to generate the same amount of power.

The truth seldom acknowledged by advocates of renewable energy is that reducing dependence on hydrocarbons by shifting to wind, solar and batteries alone will dramatically increase our dependence on minerals. The assumed benefits of decarbonising the electricity grid must be offset against corresponding increases in mining and processing.

In 2005, the mining sector produced 9 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020 it was 20 per cent. While the sector has been making considerable strides in reducing emissions, there is no scalable technology available to achieve the massive gains a target of net zero by 2050 requires.

The task will be even harder if we want to bring more of the processing onshore, as we must if we are to avoid increasing our energy dependence on China, currently by far the world’s biggest processor of lithium and other critical minerals.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/green-rejection-of-nuclear-a-load-of-garbage/news-story/10db9f5087f63923138452f5832fa458

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************