Australian Politics
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Fix the schools first
Labor knows that better educational outcomes do all manner of good, for the national economy and social cohesion. It also fits neatly within the party’s ethos, which is why if the Albanese government does become a long-term one, education reform could be one of its central achievements – if it sees this reform process through.
But we do need to ask hard questions. How well qualified are prospective university students for the studies they are about to embark on? Sadly, the answer too often is that many simply are not. Not in terms of basic literacy and numeracy, just for starters.
This points to the need to prioritise improving standards within the primary and secondary schooling sectors, but that doesn’t have to come before embarking on higher-education reforms.
The Australian Universities Accord interim report points out that the expected uplift in university students needed to fill the jobs of the future will largely happen in the 2030s and 40s, not this decade.
That leaves a small window to fix primary and secondary education in time to get prospective university students to where they need to be. It also allows time for university reforms to be carefully crafted and implemented.
The most alarming revelation attached to this week’s release of the interim report was Clare’s observation at the press club that during the past six years there had been a decline in the percentage of high school students completing year 12. How that escaped greater attention during the life cycle of the last Coalition government is perplexing.
The public school system, outside of selective schools, is underfunded and underperforms compared with the private sector. This affects the disadvantaged students the minister wants to increasingly usher into the university system. He’ll be setting them up to fail or lowering tertiary standards if they get that opportunity without the groundwork of first lifting standards at school. So we need to watch closely what happens there.
Once at university, what’s the purpose of obtaining a higher education? Like it or not, learning for the sake of intellectual advancement ceased to be a national priority long ago. The state simply sees universities as an extension of the school education system and a prerequisite to getting a job. Or, put differently, as degree factories with the purpose of giving the workforce the skilled applicants it needs and wants.
I don’t want to be too negative in making this point. It’s a global reality that is a consequence of the sector having been opened up; had it not happened most of us never would have received the benefit of access to higher education in the first place. And there are still areas of study offering classical learning.
Indeed as we survey recent ethical breaches across the business sector it’s not a stretch to see vocational benefits of learning philosophical principles at university, perhaps even the need to embed such units into courses not automatically linked with such study.
The interim report is light on when it comes to the important role of universities as institutions of higher research. We are told there is more to come on this front. It is the research that goes on in these so-called ivory towers that accounts for not only all manner of innovative advancement to benefit the modern world but also dictates the global university rankings of our institutions.
**************************************************
Beijing scores an own goal in brutal trade assault
Beijing’s brutish lunge at economic coercion may have harmed some of our primary producers, but it had an infinitesimal impact on exports and the broader economy.
If anything, it’s been an inglorious own goal for our largest trading partner – denying Chinese consumers our wine, lobsters and beef, and factories raw materials, while galvanising Australia and other free nations not to be intimidated by Sino trade aggression.
Coercive actions impose a cost, one some nations are prepared to bear if they get tangible benefits. We’re still standing and have cracked new export markets, while China has lost incalculable global prestige for this and other clumsy moves in the “wolf warrior” era.
In the first year of the pandemic, Beijing slapped punitive tariffs on Australian barley and wine; banned beef from some local abattoirs; put wheat and lobsters through more inspection hoops; ordered mills to stop buying our cotton; banned timber from certain regions; and banned some coal imports on environmental grounds.
Now in an economy-wide simulation, the Productivity Commission estimates China’s punitive actions reduced our gross domestic product by 0.009 per cent, less than one-hundredth of 1 per cent or about $225m in today’s dollars.
Sounds hefty, but Australia’s GDP is about $2.5 trillion. So the loss of output from China’s trade assault was like shutting down our economy for 48 minutes, or one-half of a Matildas’ game (with injury time).
There’s a 0.4 per cent loss in national purchasing power – known as “terms of trade” – but since early 2020 the world has given us a 25 per cent pay rise on this score.
In global trade, when a shock occurs and one door closes, others open, relative prices change, and consumers, government and the owners of capital adjust to the brave new world.
In its model, the commission explains in its recently released Trade and Assistance Review, China’s prohibitive tariffs reduce the prices Australian producers receive and leads Australian exporters to reallocate production to domestic and foreign markets.
Of course, the value of Australian exports of the five affected goods modelled – cotton, seafood, coal, wine and wood – declines.
This leads to a reduction in outputs and a reallocation of resources away from the production of these goods.
In the simulation, the prohibitive tariff reduces the value of Australia’s total exports to China by 6.7 per cent.
As China’s demand for Australian exports declines, prices decline. This makes the targeted exports more attractive to other trading partners, who increase demand for Australian exports by 2.2 per cent.
This trade diversion results in a tiny decline in the value of Australia’s total exports. Globally, there is no appreciable net effect on trade, but China’s imports from other sources increases.
The reduction of China’s demand for the affected Australian products reduces the demand for inputs to these products, which in turn reduces their price, and therefore the cost of production in Australia.
“This makes Australian products cheaper in world markets: lower production of exports to China is offset by higher production of exports to other destinations,” the review said.
“Increased production attracts foreign capital. The inflow of foreign capital offsets the decline in GDP that would have occurred, had there been no reallocation to other destinations.”
This small inflow of foreign capital means Australia’s real GDP remains stable although some of that income goes to foreigners, so our gross national product falls by one-hundredth of 1 per cent.
The commission’s review found Australian exports proved to be mostly resilient against China’s onslaught: barley and coal exporters were successful in finding other markets, for example. The value of beef and wheat exports to China did not see significant falls – likely due to the partial nature of the measures.
Some businesses paid a heavy price. There were big falls for lobsters and wine for Australian producers whose exports were centred on the Chinese market.
“That said, after initially increasing exports to their original markets, wine exporters developed new markets,” the review said. “In the case of products with limited perishability, like wine, the costs to exporters might be from deferred sales rather than not being able to sell the good at all. And some exporters may have even enjoyed an increase in the value of stock that ages well.”
Now you can take issue with the free-trade boosterism of the commission’s approach but it accords with developments in the real world.
The pain is concentrated in the targeted sectors. An important caveat is the analysis “does not take into account the costs to those directly targeted businesses of seeking new markets”.
Within Australia, the most noticeable effects are that resources are reallocated from affected producers in the primary sector to the rest of the economy. In the model, manufacturing is a beneficiary, with increased output.
That said, the simulation shows (surprise, surprise) a flexible international trading system is important in facilitating adjustments needed to minimise the effects of the trade sanctions.
“Despite short-term costs, there are often long-term gains from diversification, which supports supply chain resilience and risk management,” the commission said. “Overall, reducing Australia’s exports of the affected products results in a reorganisation of economic activity globally and within Australia.
“Although there are some costs, they’re relatively small once all economies have adjusted.”
As they say in diplomacy, looks like China may have to use honey rather than vinegar to get a win.
*************************************************
No campaign stands by Gary Johns amid controversy
Some overdue straight talking from Gary
The No campaign against an Indigenous voice to parliament is standing by Gary Johns despite growing calls for him to resign or be sacked over a series of comments and proposals that include blood tests for Aboriginal welfare recipients and a public holiday celebrating intermarriage between black and white Australians.
Liberals for Yes co-convener Kate Carnell and NSW opposition health spokesman Matt Kean, also a Liberal, said Mr Johns should quit or be forced out of his role as president of leading No organisation Recognise a Better Way because of his “repugnant” views.
It comes as a video emerges of Mr Johns, a former Labor minister in the Keating government, speaking at the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation’s Christmas party last year, in which he said: “As I have said at some places in Sydney, looking out over Sydney Harbour, words to the effect of – if this was an invasion, it was a bloody good one.
“Because we have built a wonderful liberal society which would never have been built but for a civilisation arriving here, overtaking people who were our forebears. We all were hunter gatherers but we moved on.”
In his 2022 book, The Burden of Culture: How to Dismantle the Aboriginal Industry and Give Hope to its Victims, Mr Johns sets out “16 ways to save lives and overcome Aboriginal colonisation”.
They include abolishing all annual Indigenous celebrations, including NAIDOC week, in favour of a single day commemorating the 1967 election; starting an annual event celebrating intermarriage as it is “the most common form of relations between black and white Australia”; and making all benefits and programs that are specific to Indigenous people conditional on a blood test for Indigenous heritage.
READ MORE: Settlement by whites ‘a gift to Aborigines’ | The Indigenous voice to parliament is a bad idea on so many levels
Mr Johns defended the comments on Sky News on Monday night and said he had nothing to apologise for, adding he’d prefer not to have a race-based system but if one was in place then blood tests were needed.
Leading No campaigner Warren Mundine said Mr Johns was an important part of the No campaign and he was comfortable with him remaining on the No side, despite disagreeing with some of his views.
“Gary Johns is like any other Australian. He’s entitled to his viewpoints and I’m a great believer in free speech. Now me and him, we will have discussions about that and we disagree on different angles of it but there’s no way I’m going to be calling for him to step down,” Mr Mundine told Sky News.
“Just because people complain about him and that, at least he’s honest about his approach to these things and I’m very pleased to have him on our committee and to have him as an adviser to us.”
Ms Carnell said the voice referendum was not about these sorts of things.
“We do think that the leaders of the No campaign should really publicly say to Mr Johns that this is simply unacceptable and possibly he should resign as a board member of the No campaign,” she told Sky News.
In an earlier statement, Ms Carnell said: “The statements made by Mr Gary Johns last night calling for all recipients of Indigenous benefits to be blood tested, and for the introduction of a national public holiday celebrating intermarriage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, are deeply disturbing comments that should have no place in Australian political debate.
“there should be no room in this important debate for statements that evoke deeply discredited and racially discriminatory policies and practices that have been left in the dustbin of history.”
Mr Kean and NSW opposition multiculturalism spokesman Matt Coure said Mr Johns’ remarks, including a 2007 comment that Aboriginal people would “find acceptable a period in jail as a respite from a distraught life”, had no place in the national conversation.
“His views are repugnant to everything this country stands for - fairness, decency, and respect for our fellow Australians. If Mr Johns refuses to resign from the board of the official No campaign today, the No campaign should do the decent and honourable thing and fire him,” they said.
Victorian Labor senator Jana Stewart, a Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wamba woman, has also called on the No campaign to explain whether it thinks Mr Johns’ views “are acceptable and, if not, why does he remain on their campaign committee.”
The Australian revealed last week that Mr Johns said in June that most Aboriginal people were “grateful for that gift” of modernisation and defended the work of churches and their involvement with the Stolen Generations, in comments made while campaigning against the voice.
************************************
Manjimup truffle season 'outstanding' with global demand 'off the charts'
Another truffle season in southern Western Australia has peaked, with producers saying demand for the lucrative fungus from international buyers is continuing to grow.
In the small timber town of Manjimup, 300 kilometres south of Perth, Al Blakers has been shipping his truffles to restaurants, chefs and suppliers as far as France, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Germany, Canada, the US and South Africa.
The retail prices for the fungi can range from $2,500 to $3,000, and are sought after by high-end restaurants worldwide.
As well as harvesting his black truffles, Mr Blakers Manjimup Truffles distributes product for other truffieres across the region.
"We've had a very good season so far ... quality has just been outstanding," he said.
"Everybody's having pretty bumper crops, and while we're exceeding what I was expecting, the good thing is we've found other markets to move it into and we haven't had a problem shipping it all.
"Demand is just off the charts overseas. It has been since the start of the season."
Down the road at Stonebarn Truffiere, owner Dion Range has also been experiencing a successful harvest.
"It's looking very good so far … I have no doubt that we'll be comfortably up on last year's figures," he said.
"People are loving the aroma, and the quality is probably better than we've ever seen, despite a large amount of rain we've had this season so far."
"The demand is probably stronger than it's been," he said.
"We've taken on a few more customers that we wholesale truffles to overseas and I can only see the demand increasing.
"More people are learning about truffles and more people are buying truffles, which supports the price, so there's no price pressure."
Mr Range calls Manjimup a "hidden bit of heaven" and said the conditions in the region are perfect for black truffle production.
"The microclimates, the soil types, the temperature ranges, and the rainfall time and quantity here really suit the black Perigord truffle very well," he said.
"Nobody knew when the first truffle trees were planted in the area whether it would work, but it's turned out to be very successful here.
"The averages in terms of mature truffle production in the Manjimup Shire are substantially higher per number of trees than the French and the Spanish Truffle.
"We are onto something and we're very lucky."
Mr Blakers believes demand for truffles from his part of the world stems from the quality and also recent tough seasons for the French-grown product.
"I think our big boost this year is that they had such a bad season in France last year with the drought and because they don't irrigate like we do," he said. "I'd say they're in big trouble again with the temperatures they are copping now."
The unpredictable nature of harvesting a product like truffle does make things difficult for producers to plan ahead.
"Are we going to finish early? Are we're going to see another rush period? You just don't know because you've never seen it before," Mr Blakers said.
"But the quantity this season has been quite unbelievable.
*************************************************
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
************************************************
Monday, July 24, 2023
Reforms needed for Australian universities -- but what reforms?
There seems to be an underlying goal in the article below to get more young people into universities. But it coud be argued that FEWER students should go to universities. There is much more demand for tradesmen than there is for (say) social science graduates. And the tradesmen often end up paid more.
Additionally, the emphasis on getting students from poorer backgrouds into university may well be a waste in many cases. Such students will often drop out, having achieved nothing.
Admission should be based solely on ability criteria, from senior exam results to IQ scores. The "equity" goals can be achieved by giving financial support to able students from poor backgrounds. But the demonstrated ability must be there or there is no point.
What I am suggesting is not blue sky. It is exactly what the old Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme introduced by Bob Menzies in 1951 did. I benefited from it in the '60s. I was a smart kid from a poor background and sailed through my tertiary studies with that assistance. Of the seven justices of the High Court of Australia, none was the child of a university graduate. All but one were Commonwealth scholars.
Universities are engines of the economy, producing the research and workforce that help grow GDP. But the idea of who universities are for needs to change, says federal Education Minister Jason Clare. More than half of all jobs in Australia will need higher education qualifications by 2050, compared with 36 per cent today, according to analysis released this week in the interim report of the landmark accord review of universities. That means about twice as many people will need to go to university – including students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and the regions who typically haven’t considered tertiary education as an option.
Yet the higher education sector itself is in crisis, propped up by international student fees after decades of government funding cuts, with a heavily casualised workforce and, increasingly, experts say, an excessively corporatised executive. Some warn Australian universities have lost sight of students in their scramble to stay competitive with elite institutions around the world.
To succeed, they’ve had to get bigger. The rise of the homogenous mega-university means institutions are becoming more like “supermarkets for credentials” at the cost of specialisation, according to RMIT University’s principal adviser in institutional research, Angel Calderon.
The days of university as a transformational experience are fading, says Xavier Dupe of the National Student Union. “And it started before COVID. Universities are pushing students through a degree factory and increasingly gearing study around the priorities of big business.”
What’s needed, everyone agrees, is a complete overhaul.
Big ‘spiky’ change
The accord’s interim report lays out five priority moves to jumpstart reforms: all Indigenous students will be guaranteed a Commonwealth-supported university place when they are accepted for study; 34 new study hubs will be established in outer suburbs and regional areas; and university governing boards will be overhauled to install more people with higher education experience. A key part of the former Coalition government’s controversial Job Ready Graduates Package – which was lashed by the accord panel as disadvantaging poorer students – will be dismantled, meaning students who fail more than 50 per cent of subjects will no longer lose their Commonwealth place. And government funding agreements, which had only been guaranteed until the end of this year, will be extended into 2025.
But radical reform calls for radical ideas, says Clare, and the accord panel has also laid out a raft of “big spiky” ones that could shape the sector’s next steps ahead of its final report in December. “That’s why there’s an echidna on the front cover,” Clare quipped as the report was handed down.
The review comes at a time when NSW and Victorian universities are almost universally in deficit. The exception is the University of Sydney, which has reported an operating surplus of $1.3 billion over the past two years.
The next six months, says higher education expert Andrew Norton, is where the debate could get divisive. Some ideas flagged are especially spiky, including a proposed levy on the almost $10 billion universities make annually from international student fees, that could be used to cover gaps elsewhere such as research funding and student housing. Group of Eight universities that earn the most from international students have already slammed the idea as a tax on high-achieving institutions, even as many regional institutions voice interest.
University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell questions how such a levy could be fairly applied. “It costs us a lot of money to attract international students, we then use a big chunk of their fees on teaching them or building infrastructure for them,” he says. “By the time you factor all that in, there wouldn’t be much left to tax.”
Still, La Trobe University vice-chancellor Professor John Dewar says the levy idea has “a lot of merit”. The sheer scale of the changes needed demands bold moves, he says, welcoming the accord panel’s willingness to “pressure test and wargame” such ideas now to avoid unintended consequences later. For example, “a levy could lead to the cost being passed onto the students and that’d be a shame”, he says. “It already costs a lot to come here and study.”
Norton says the levy could reinforce the perception of international students as cash cows and potentially drive away a key source of revenue for the sector. What’s clear though is that there is a resource divide between many universities and, according to the accord, universities are incentivised to maximise their international student cohort, blowing out class sizes. “This can be detrimental to the student experience,” the report says.
Rich university, poor university
Reforms down the years have tried to close the equity gap and failed. Now, the accord panel says, reaching parity requires 60 per cent more students from low socio-economic backgrounds going to university, 53 per cent more from regional areas and about 11 per cent more First Nations students.
If we’re going to get there, Dewar says, “we need to pull every lever. We haven’t really had a plan for higher education in this country. We need targets.”
Clare, who is also plotting big reforms in early education and schools, says students are being failed before they reach university. Those from poorer backgrounds are three times more likely to fall behind in school and only 15 per cent go on to get degrees. “Six years ago, 83 per cent of students in public schools finished year 12,” he told the Press Club this week. “Last year it was 76 per cent. And all of this is happening at a time when finishing school is so much more important than it was in my mum and dad’s day, or mine ... If you’re a young Indigenous bloke today, you’re more likely to go to jail than university.”
These grim figures are why Norton still sees reaching equal university participation as a “pipedream” until school results and year 12 completion rates go up. In NSW, one in three public school students are now dropping out of school. “We should be realistic about what’s achievable,” says Norton.
Equity targets have been missed before, concedes Dewar, but he senses a real momentum in the sector this time, something he hopes is matched by more serious funding and policy. An independent tertiary commission to guide the reform, another spiky idea flagged by the accord, may well be needed given the amount of taxpayer money involved. “They need to hold universities accountable for targets,” says Dewar. “They need to assure the taxpayer that the results are worth it. In a busy world, no matter how much appetite the sector might have to do something, and it does have the appetite, if you’re not actually going to have your feet held to the fire over it, then it may slip.”
A second national university, this time focusing on the regions and based on the University of California model, is another idea flagged worth a discussion, Dewar says. “Under the UC model, their campuses all have a degree of autonomy, and are big unis in their own right, but they benefit from some aggregation of function that are expensive for each university to run separately.” Others question whether a federated model is needed.
Clare has said Australia would likely need more universities and new kinds of institutions, including more specialised models, to cater to the coming demand.
************************************************
Lesbian domestic violence proves it’s not just a male problem
You may recall the campaign running on national television a few years ago. The ads were part of the Australian government’s campaign designed ‘to help break the cycle of violence against women and their children’.
It suggested that all of the perpetrators of domestic violence were strictly male. For example, the Albanese Labor government is presently funding a range of new initiatives through this budget to help deliver the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-32.
But what about domestic violence against men?
I have no intention of minimising the problem of domestic violence against women and children. One must speak out loud and clear about violence against anyone regardless of age, gender, and sexual orientation.
However, it is a myth that domestic violence is all about men hurting women in heterosexual relationships. Domestic violence is also a ‘silent epidemic’ in lesbian relationships.
As the studies of lesbian violence demonstrate, women are capable of being as violent as men in intimate relationships. Violence among same-sex couples is apparently two to three times more common than among married heterosexual couples.
For example, about a decade ago the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey reported on the lifetime prevalence of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner, focusing for the first time on victimisation by sexual orientation.
It found a victimisation prevalence of 43.8 per cent for lesbians, making it the second most affected group after bisexual women (61.1 per cent), ahead of bisexual men (37.3 per cent), heterosexual women (35 per cent), heterosexual men (29 per cent) and homosexual men (26 per cent).
A new study from Rutgers University has found a significant increase in domestic violence in lesbian relationships. The study is entitled, Sociodemographic characteristics, depressive symptoms, and increased frequency of intimate partner violence among LGBTQ people in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. It appears in the April 2023 (Volume 35, Issue 2) of the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services.
The above study used a survey of 1,090 LGBTQ+ individuals. It found that bisexual women, followed by lesbians, are the most likely to suffer from all forms of intimate partner abuse. The same study also found that, in cases of severe violence, the numbers are 49 per cent of bisexual women, 29.4 per cent of lesbian women, and 16.4 per cent of homosexual men compared to 23.6 per cent of heterosexual women and 13.9 per cent of heterosexual men.
That violence comes out more frequently in lesbian relationships both as resistance and as aggression should put aside our preconceptions of gender socialisation and roles.
Erin Pizzey set up the first refuge for battered women, in 1971. Her own experience is that women are just as capable of intimate partner abuse, in both the physical and emotional sense, as men. When she opened her refuge for battered women, 62 of the first 100 women to come through the door were as abusive as the men they had left. And when the feminists started demonizing fathers in the early 1970s, she felt morally obliged to state:
‘Women and men are both capable of extraordinary cruelty. … We must stop demonising men and start healing the rift that feminism has created between men and women. This insidious and manipulative philosophy that women are always victims and men always oppressors can only continue this unspeakable cycle of violence. And it’s our children who will suffer.’
Pizzey is part of a growing number of brave experts and scholars trying to set the record straight. Professor Linda Mills, the Ellen Goldberg Professor at New York University, said:
‘Years of research, which mainstream feminism has glossed over or ignored, shows that when it comes to intimate abuse, women are far from powerless and seldom, if ever, just victims. Women are not merely passive prisoners of violent intimate dynamics. Like men, women are frequently aggressive in intimate settings and therefore may be more accurately referred to as “women in abusive relationships” … The studies show not only that women stay in abusive relationships but also that they are intimately engaged in and part of the dynamic of abuse.’
The official figures, however, grossly underestimate the number of female perpetrators of domestic violence. Male victims are reluctant to disclose when they have been abused by women. Culturally, it is still difficult for men to bring these incidents to the attention of the authorities. It does not fit the official narrative.
Frequently men do not conceptualise the physical violence they sustain from their female partners as a crime. As noted by one worker at the charity Abused Men in Scotland (AMIS):
‘The gender role men are given in society means they find it hard to understand and recognise what is happening to them and when they do it is very difficult for them to talk about it. Regularly they begin with: “I am not an abused man” but then go on to tell the most horrendous stories of domestic abuse. Once men go into that downward spiral of control they are robbed of everything – their home, their job, their self-determination.’
Elizabeth Bates, a psychology professor at the Cumbria University (UK), explains that ‘there are a lot of men who have experienced domestic violence and don’t even report it and often don’t tell anybody’.
According to a senior research fellow at the University of South Wales (USW), male victims of domestic violence ‘fear appearing unmanly … and a failure to live up to masculine ideals’. This was the experience of the abused men she has interviewed, ‘who felt that they needed help to get to the root of these feelings’.
Due to the prevailing narrative, men who sustain intimate partner abuse face numerous obstacles. They struggle to locate anti-DV services to assist them. Help lines or shelters are often targeted towards female victims only. The male victim suffers from a complete lack of support.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/lesbian-domestic-violence-proves-its-not-just-a-male-problem
******************************************************Billionaires’ Qld gas deal hinges on controversial price cap, approvals
Surely the Qld government would not be so moronic as to block this
A $1 billion gas field expansion will power a major Queensland manufacturer, in a gas supply deal hailed as securing “long-term local manufacturing” jobs, but it hangs on environmental approvals and the Albanese Government’s controversial gas price cap.
It is part of a deal inked between companies linked to two of Australia’s wealthiest and most influential billionaires, Gina Rinehart’s Senex and Anthony Pratt’s Visy.
Under the deal, Senex’s Atlas gas field expansion in the Surat Basin will supply Visy’s packaging and recycling manufacturing operations in Queensland for 10 years from January 2026.
But, Senex paused its Atlas expansion in December 2022 in the wake of the government’s then temporary gas price cap – which has now been extended until 2025.
It is understood the expansion remains on hold while the company considers the details of the Federal Government mandatory code of conduct, which was released earlier this month.
It is also dependent on its final approvals under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Senex CEO Ian Davies said manufacturers were facing difficulties securing gas, but the Atlas would bring new supply to the market and put downward pressure on prices.
“Having gas for the manufacturing industry is absolutely paramount, and the only way that’s going to stay reliable is for there to be more investment, not less” Mr Davies said.
“More secure and reliable gas supply will help to keep Australian manufacturers in business and tens-of thousands of people in secure, well-paying jobs.”
Visy CEO Mark de Wit said the agreement would underpin the company’s investments in the state. “Visy is proud to be investing $700 million in Queensland and this agreement means we can continue to grow our manufacturing operations,” he said.
Visy is spending about $700 million to upgrade its recycling facility on Gibson Island, which is expected to remove 39,000 tonnes per year of paper and cardboard from landfill.
The value of the deal remains commercial-in-confidence.
Under the mandatory gas code of conduct, the domestic gas prices cap of $12/GJ was extended until at least July 2025, at which point it will be reviewed.
The current end point for the cap is six months before the contract is due to start.
The cap applies to domestically sold gas, not exports, but the government made a concession to industry by allowing gas companies to negotiate exemptions if they commit to increasing domestic supply.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has said capping coal and gas prices has “shielded Australians” from higher power bills and that the code struck the right balance between cost of supply.
**************************************************
Rent controls will force mum and dad investors to exit
Rent controls are poised to become a major threat to investors as the Victorian government is set to overhaul the state’s property rules.
The spectre of looming rent controls or ‘caps’ has already spooked potential investors nationwide. The Queensland state government introduced new tighter laws for property owners in April.
Property industry groups have warned that any move towards rent control will worsen the national rental crisis as it reduces the supply of available rental stock.
At the same time, a steady exit of property investors from the residential market in recent months could accelerate dramatically if government intervention is added to the mix.
Queensland recently introduced a once a year rule on rent increases while the Victorian government is reportedly looking at rules that will only allow a rental increase once every two years along with further potential caps.
Private investors own the vast majority of Australian rental property. But ‘mum and dad’ owners have been shifting out of the market as rates run higher and long-term returns continue to weaken.
For decades investors operated on the basis their would double their money every seven to ten years, but this rule of thumb was contradicted by a Proptrack report this year which showed it has taken 15 years for prices to double.
Meanwhile rental returns – despite the rental crisis – remain weak in terms of ongoing earnings with yields on term deposit accounts now competing with property income.
Investors who thought they were buying into a ‘market’ were rudely awakened by the rental mortarium that was rushed through during the Covid-19 period.
Having recovered from that period, investors now face a potential new wave of re-regulation.
A newly released report from investment bank Jarden has shown firm evidence that private investors have already been exiting the market.
Against a long-term average figure of 30 per cent, the portion of investors behind new listings has risen to 36 per cent in Melbourne and 40 per cent in Sydney.
Separately, this week the real estate group, Ray White reported a doubling of investor auctions sales.
The exit of a property investors from the market can reduce the amount available to rent as properties revert to owner occupiers.
The immediate effect will be to reduce rental vacancy rates which remain at a severely low level of less than 2 per cent across the major urban centres.
In Brisbane, where there was an exceptionally large volume of interstate landlord sales at the top of the recent cycle in 2021, the city later become the market with the worst vacancy rates in the nation.
A nationwide repeat of the Queensland experience is now on the cards as a range of state governments stand ready to move on the property market in a way that will not improve the terms for investors.
However, in Victoria where Premier Dan Andrews has indicated ‘everything is on the table’ in relation to a plan to overhaul the state’s property system, the issue is set to become acute.
Private property holders in Melbourne endured a price downturn along with Sydney investors in but they have not had the same price bounce back this year – Sydney prices moved more than six cent higher over the year to date while Melbourne prices barely inched higher at 1.1 per cent year to date.
Though renters who have faced double-digit rent increases will be sceptical over the reportedly poor returns in property.
The changing numbers in the rental market means that investors will keep pushing rents higher as their own costs – largely dominated by higher interest rates – continue to escalate.
As the Oxford Economics group reports, “higher interest rates have significantly lifted the mortgage costs for landlords who are keen to balance their cash flow through higher rental incomings – we expect rents to increase 11 per cent in 2023 and 4 per cent in 2024”.
The experience overseas especially in the UK in recent years has been that government intervention coupled with high rates has mean large numbers of mum and dad property investors have thrown in the towel – the same risk is now clearly present in the Australian market.
************************************
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
***************************************
Sunday, July 23, 2023
Man charged over alleged online threats of Yumi Stynes following Welcome to Sex controversy
There may be more to the abuse of Stynes than is mentioned below. She is a very unpleasant person. She once called the popular Kerri-Anne Kennerley a cockroach and implied that physically fit men are brainless. And Australia is full of "racists" to her. She is half Japanese but Japanese politeness seems to have passed her by. She comes across as a basically hostile person, not someone we would want writing books for children
A 23-year-old man has been charged by police over the alleged online harassment of TV and radio personality Yumi Stynes, co-author of Welcome to Sex, in the latest development in a week-long saga surrounding the teenage-focused book on sex and sexuality.
Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it all out, was published by Stynes and Sydney doctor Melissa Kang in May, but was this week slammed by Rachael Wong, chief executive of conservative organisation Women’s Forum Australia, who labelled it a “graphic sex guide for children”.
“For those saying the book is sex education, there is a huge difference between giving children age-appropriate information, and prematurely exposing them to graphic, highly sexualised material,” Wong told this masthead this week.
Big W this week pulled the book from its physical stores after its staff reportedly received abuse from members of the public. However, it is still selling the book online.
On Instagram on Friday, Stynes posted multiple screenshots purporting to show death and rape threats directed toward her since the book’s release. They are too graphic to be reported.
On the same day, a 23-year-old man was arrested and charged over alleged threats made to Stynes online.
“Officers from Leichhardt Police Area Command commenced an investigation over the alleged online threats to a 48-year-old woman,” a NSW Police spokesperson said.
“Following inquiries, a 23-year-old man was arrested at Balmain Police Station [on Friday].
“He was then taken to Newtown Police Station, where he was charged with one count of use carriage service to menace/harass/offend.”
Stynes has rigorously defended the book – which has been immensely popular, reaching the top of the Amazon charts this week, and temporarily selling out on the platform – saying the book needed to be written.
“We really have a lot of credentials [to write the book],” said Stynes, who hosts the ABC podcast Ladies, We Need to Talk. “We’ve got an army of professors, who fact-checked and contributed to the book. So for people to try and shame us or make us feel like we haven’t done the work, it’s just really misguided. It does make me think that they’re taking a leaf out of the book of Trumpism and fearmongering there.”
The book is the fourth in a series of guides for teens, with earlier publications titled Welcome to Your Period, Welcome to Consent, and Welcome to Your Boobs.
Speaking to 2GB this week, Women’s Forum Australia’s Wong said the book’s contents was “so, so disturbing”.
“Material likes this tends to destroy [children’s innocence about sex],” she said. “[Stores] need to take this book off their shelves.
“I say [to] Big W: take this book down; otherwise we’re not going to shop at your store.”
The man was granted bail and will appear at Downing Centre Local Court on Friday August 11.
**********************************************************
Why Labor’s threat to free speech must be rejected
The right to be wrong is both the most vital of freedoms and the most constantly threatened. Vital, because the freedom of expression is the guardian of every other liberty, alerting the public to the abuse of power; and constantly threatened because few temptations come more readily to governments than that of suppressing views they regard as irksome, dangerous or simply incorrect.
That is why John Stuart Mill called the freedom of thought and discussion “the most fundamental doctrine” of a free society. And it is why the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 poses so serious a threat to our democracy.
Extraordinarily open-ended, the proposed legislation’s stated purpose is to protect Australians from misinformation and disinformation that is likely to cause “serious harm” – that is, “harm that affects a significant portion of the Australian population, economy or environment, or undermines the integrity of an Australian democratic process” – where misinformation is “online content that is false, misleading or deceptive, that is shared or created without an intent to deceive”, while disinformation is misinformation that is “intentionally disseminated with the intent to deceive or cause serious harm”.
To that end, the legislation empowers the Australian Communications and Media Authority to require digital platforms to implement systems that identify and suppress any offending information.
The government’s Guidance Note suggests the legislation is comparable to the European Union’s Digital Services Act (2022); what it does not say is that the relevant provisions of the DSA apply only to “very large” online service providers. In contrast, the legislation would apply to “social media, search engines, instant messaging services, news aggregators and podcasting services”, regardless of their size and reach.
Indeed, few websites would fall outside the legislation’s ambit, giving ACMA powers whose scope has no equivalent in a liberal democracy.
Virtually none of the legislation’s crucial terms is tightly defined, nor does the legislation even attempt to distinguish questions of fact from those of opinion, creating uncertainty that can only chill the expression of controversial views. And the examples the Guidance Note gives of information it might seek to suppress – such as content that “falsely claims that specific community groups in Australia are responsible for a range of social issues” – so obviously involve matters of opinion as to simply heighten the resulting concerns.
The government has attempted to calm those concerns by claiming that “ACMA would have no role in determining truthfulness”; but that contention is plainly incorrect.
That is because the legislation effectively requires ACMA to audit whether the systems regulated entities have implemented adequately curb misinformation or disinformation. But it is impossible to see how such an audit could be undertaken without assessing the truth or falsity of the content those entities have posted.
And it is inconceivable that ACMA could evaluate complaints about false or misleading content without determining whether the content they refer to is or is not false or misleading.
The legislation does provide a number of exemptions, including for “professional news content” (but not for comments on that content) and for content produced by “accredited educational providers”. However, those exemptions merely highlight the legislation’s underlying lack of logic.
After all, if content is so manifestly odious that it should be suppressed, why would the fact that it appears on (say) a university’s website reduce the danger it poses to the community? One would, on the contrary, expect vesting the content with academic authority to increase its credibility and so aggravate the resulting harm, making the case for its suppression all the stronger.
But reliance on arbitrary distinctions is hardly the legislation’s worst flaw. In effect, the legislation gives ACMA the power to impose vast penalties on regulated entities if their systems are ineffective at eliminating what it considers mis- or disinformation. There are, however, no penalties whatsoever if regulated entities suppress information that is neither false nor harmful.
Given that asymmetry in rewards and penalties, content providers will inevitably prefer to make the error of removing information that does not merit removal to that of not removing information that does merit removal: they will, in other words, convict more “innocent” content so long as that reduces, even marginally, the likelihood of any potentially “guilty” content slipping through their net.
Yet it is hard to conceive of an outcome more starkly at odds with the public interest. In an open society, falsehoods can be – and usually are – corrected by truths; but no number of falsehoods can replace a censored truth. It is therefore far better to allow ten falsehoods to run loose than to rob the public of a single truth: which is the exact opposite of this legislation’s design and likely effect.
None of that means the issues the legislation is seeking to address should be ignored.
Even as unflinching an advocate of freedom of expression as John Stuart Mill recognised the harm certain forms of speech could inflict – and there are, of course, already laws in place that deal, for example, with incitement to violence, online harassment and vilification.
But as Mill rightly pointed out, the harm “caused by an opinion is itself a matter of opinion”. And he warned that deterring the expression of the “opinions and sentiments which happen to be in a minority” necessarily encouraged the oppressive conformism, enforced by vindictive and intolerant majorities, and the resulting intellectual “stagnation and immobility”, which Mill considered “the real danger in democracy, the real evil to be struggled against”.
That danger would, for sure, disappear were the regulator “an infallible judge of opinions”, as well placed “to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false” – but infallibility is not of this world.
Mill therefore argued that any restraints on speech should meet three conditions: parliament should precisely set out the nature of the offending speech and take political responsibility for doing so; there should be no prior censorship of that speech, but only its ex post prosecution; and every alleged breach should be dealt with individually by the courts, giving the impugned content a chance to be defended and allowing any possible harm to be assessed within the context in which it occurred.
Applying those principles to an online environment is undoubtedly challenging. But this legislation simply ignores them altogether. Vague to the point of inviting administrative arbitrariness, it involves parliament delegating legislative authority to a regulatory agency; in turn, that agency can compel regulated entities to exercise prior censorship of speech; and what review mechanisms the legislation provides are hardly capable of identifying, correcting and penalising the suppression of inconvenient truths.
Should it pass, our credibility, when we criticise dictatorships for attacking the freedom of expression, will be severely compromised. However, the greatest harm will be to the fabric and vigour of our democratic life.
“Whatever you do, keep, at all risks, your mind open,” an ageing but still passionate Mill urged his country’s youth, “do not barter away your freedom of thought” and “the liberty of expressing and publishing opinions which is practically inseparable from it”. At a time when the right to take unpopular stances is more threatened than ever, his call should ring in our ears.
*************************************************
More prosecutorial abuse
And there is no effective recourse against it. A rogue Federal prosecutor made a public announcement that ruined the lives of an innocent couple but because he interlarded everything he said with the word "allegedly" he could not be legally faulted
In the space of a few days, the couple's home was raided and they were arrested by police, close friends turned on them, and they were subjected to a barrage of vile and racist abuse from strangers.
While the online trolling came as a shock, the most frightening incident was when Mr Shehada checked his letterbox and found a Christmas card with human faeces inside.
"I was still outside the front door of my property … I found myself on my knees and I vomited," he said.
The public pile-on came after newspaper stories and a press conference organised by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), where journalists were told about childcare educators who had been charged over an alleged fraud in excess of $15 million.
Police said those involved registered fake kids — or so-called phantom children — to trick the Commonwealth into paying out large subsidies.
"This is money that belongs in the hands of our community to help care for some of our most vulnerable persons," Commander Todd Hunter told journalists on November 28, 2020.
"We allege that out of greed it has instead been used to foot the bill for extensive real estate portfolios, overseas travel and other luxury items."
The couple's faces were plastered all over the television news that night, including on the ABC. Stories showed photos of Ms Ouda sitting on a motorbike and posing in front of a Maserati.
During the press conference, Mr Hunter never explicitly said the couple were guilty of criminal offences. The veteran officer used the words "allege", "alleged" and "allegation" 15 times in his opening seven-minute address to the cameras.
Mr Hunter did not specifically name Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada either, instead saying that the "alleged syndicate leader" was a 42-year-old woman who owned a "large Victorian family day care provider". Mr Hunter also claimed a restaurant owned by the couple was allegedly being used to rort COVID-19 JobKeeper payments.
Behind the scenes, the AFP sent Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada's surnames to the media so that the details could be used to track their future court hearings.
'We did absolutely nothing wrong'
Ten months later, the AFP quietly dropped the charges against Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada.
This month, Mr Shehada told the Victorian Supreme Court the couple "knew from day one we did absolutely nothing wrong". He said he was never told why the case was discontinued by the AFP.
"Our lives were destroyed by this press conference," added Ms Ouda. "We were defamed, the entire community was turned on us and there was absolutely no foundation."
This week, the ABC also sent questions to the AFP, inquiring why the case against the pair had been abandoned. "The AFP has no comment," a spokesperson said.
Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada's frustrations were amplified because the AFP did not contact the media companies to provide the important update that the charges had been dropped. Through their lawyers, the couple sent letters to the publications asking them to take down the original stories.
By early 2023, they had commenced a new legal battle. This time it wasn't the AFP coming after Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada — the pair were seeking to turn the tables and were now suing former commander Todd Hunter and the Commonwealth for defamation, seeking a payout for damages.
Commander grilled on the stand
This month, a Supreme Court civil jury was asked to determine whether Mr Hunter's words at the press conference conveyed seven specific meanings to an "ordinary reasonable person".
The defamation lawsuit came down to a relatively simple question. From Mr Hunter's public comments alone, could a reasonable person conclude that Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada were dishonest and stole from taxpayers?
Mr Hunter, who has since retired from the AFP, rejected that suggestion. He told the jury the press conference was held to highlight the work of police, to "allay any fears" people may have had from seeing homes being raided, and to call for additional information to assist the fraud investigation.
David Gilbertson KC, acting for the couple, put a different theory to Mr Hunter. "You were by nods and winks inviting members of the media who attended the press conference to find out the names of Ola Ouda and Amjad Shehada, isn't that right?" he asked.
"I don't believe I nodded or winked at anybody," Mr Hunter replied.
Mr Hunter — whose policing career included overseas postings and coordinating major operations over four decades — was asked whether he used the press conference "to go out from the AFP on a high note".
"No," he replied flatly.
If the jury believed Mr Hunter had defamed the couple, his lawyers said they would rely on a legal defence known as qualified privilege. If required, they would argue that the press conference was an occasion where Mr Hunter was entitled to a degree of protection to speak openly, provided he was not acting with malice.
Negative publicity leaves couple 'scarred for life'
In court, Mr Shehada and Ms Ouda described the public humiliation that followed the AFP's press conference.
Mr Shehada's best friend scolded him on social media, and others made sexually-explicit comments about Ms Ouda. Their kids were bullied at school. Negative reviews were posted on Google about their Lebanese restaurant, which they later sold for a loss. Even their bank accounts were closed by ANZ and Westpac.
Mr Shehada said Ms Ouda's approval to run a childcare business was cancelled and had not been reinstated. The negative publicity meant both were still struggling to find work, he said.
During a tense cross-examination by Mr Hunter's lawyer Lisa De Ferrari SC, Ms Ouda said the ordeal had left her "scarred for life".
"We were defamed, the defamation was intentional, the defamation destroyed my life, our lives, our businesses, and that's it," she said.
When the jury retired to consider their decision, Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada stood in the sun-drenched courtyard of the historic Supreme Court precinct to ponder their futures.
A win might have resulted in a multi-million dollar payout for the couple, and potentially had a major impact on how police conducted public relations and their dealings with the media in future. A loss for Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada would pile on more misery from the previous two-and-a-half years.
At one point, Ms Ouda burst into tears and was hugged by her partner, who also broke down.
A question of meaning
On Tuesday afternoon, they were soon back in the courtroom. A verdict was in, perhaps quicker than had been anticipated.
Seven key questions were put to the jury foreperson.
Could a reasonable person conclude that Mr Hunter had identified Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada at the press conference, and made out that they were guilty of a childcare fraud? Had he outed them as criminal syndicate leaders? Did he convey that they registered phantom children and falsely claimed benefits? That they stole from taxpayers? That they committed fraud and lived a life of luxury? That their restaurant was used for further frauds? And finally, that Ola Ouda and Amjad Shehada were dishonest and unable to be trusted?
To each query, the jury's answer was "no".
It meant Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada's bid to take down Mr Hunter and the Commonwealth had fallen at the first hurdle.
The couple appeared crestfallen as they learned the defamation case would be dismissed and there would be no payment for damages. Worse still, having lost the case, Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada were ordered to pay the legal costs for the defendants.
Despite the outcome, Ms Ouda and Mr Shehada strode out of the Supreme Court defiantly, hand-in-hand.
This time, they weren't in the headlines. The story failed to make the nightly news.
********************************************************
Power bills are up but Labor is going to do more damage the energy sector
Say what you like about a Labor government but, good or bad, they don’t normally waste their time in office. Unlike the Coalition, they’ve got a bevy of friendlies in the public service to help get things done, plus an increasing number of virtue signalling corporates to sell their message, campaigning millions from their union mates and a largely compliant media that gives them the sort of positive coverage rarely afforded their Liberal counterparts.
And nowhere is this more evident than in dealing with the so-called climate emergency. The front line in the war against emissions thus far has been energy. For almost two decades, we’ve been fed an official line that renewables would make our power bills cheaper. At the election last year, the now Prime Minister even put a figure on the savings – $275 per household per year. How’s that going? Because if you’re paying the same bills that I am, they’re only going up.
But if you think the climate attacks on energy are bad, just wait for what’s coming next as the Albanese government prepares to inflict the same transformations on other parts of our economy that have already been wreaked on the energy sector.
And you will pay the price, either as taxpayers, consumers or both – that’s been estimated to cost Australia $1.5 trillion by 2030, says expert group Net Zero Australia comprised of energy specialists at the Universities of Melbourne, Queensland and the USA’s Princeton.
Last week, with all the fervour of a TV evangelist, Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced that the Climate Change Authority was now working on “sectoral net zero plans”, for the manufacturing industry, the built environment, agriculture and land, transport, and resources. These will be part of what he declared would be Labor’s “strong” 2035 emissions reductions targets, on top of the already legislated 2030 targets most energy engineers think can’t be met.
Naturally enough, this was rapturously received by the Clean Energy Council whose climate zeal happily coincides with the multibillion-dollar subsidies they’ve received for the past 15 years. Just as in energy, in these further sectors, there will soon be small armies of regulators to impose this climate socialism, plus plenty of businesses already trying to work out how they can pass the costs onto consumers.
So far, the brunt of the climate pain has been felt via power bills. It’s only now, with the coal-fired power stations that still provide more than 60 per cent of our electricity coming to the end of their lives, and with their zero-emissions replacements still largely a pipe dream, that the extent of the climate con is becoming apparent. The question is, will Australians wake up before it’s too late or will we allow government to do to agriculture, transport, mining and everything else what they have done to our energy sector and power bills?
And for what? Even if we did dramatically wind back our standard of living to save the planet, has Canberra forgotten that Australia emits less than 1.3 per cent of global CO2 emissions and let’s not also forget, that China, our main strategic competitor, has emitted more CO2 in the past decade than Britain has since the Industrial Revolution.
So what’s ahead of us as the Albanese government pushes ahead with its plans to reduce our animal herds because of their methane gasses, move us all into electric cars or onto public transport, scrap manufacturing jobs, even tell us what sort of stoves we can have?
In Britain, trying to accelerate decarbonisation has led a nominally Conservative government to ban all petrol and diesel car sales from 2030 and to decree that future domestic heating must be provided through less effective heat pumps rather than gas boilers. Here in Australia, the Victorian government is considering a ban on all gas cooktops and heaters.
Some years ago, Barnaby Joyce was ridiculed for talking about the $100 Sunday roast; and my former boss Tony Abbott for predicting the demise of Whyalla as a steel town. Yet this is precisely where we’re headed if agriculture and manufacturing must be “net zero” by 2035, given that most agricultural emissions come from herd animals and, thus far, it’s simply impossible to make “green steel” at a price anyone would pay. And no one should underestimate the quasi-religious zeal that Minister Bowen and the green acolytes who now populate so many of our institutions bring to their climate goals. Just have a look at the Voice where the Yes push is driven by so many corporates and governments despite more and more voters saying they reject it.
So far, the Albanese government’s climate convictions have been quite impervious to the reality that we still rely on fossil fuels to keep the lights on. But that same climate evangelism will lead to herd limits, car bans, manufacturing shutdowns, and mandatory changes in your home unless someone in authority is prepared to shout “stop this madness” while we still can.
************************************
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
***************************************
Saturday, July 22, 2023
The anguish and anger behind Australia’s clean energy plan
It’s known as the “energy superhighway”, a catchy slogan that holds the promise of a country on the move, speeding towards a clean energy world.
Fourth-generation Snowy Valleys landholder Dave Purcell pulls up a map of the transmission line superhighway and tries to picture what this vision of the future means for his family farm in this picturesque corner of southern NSW.
This is what he sees: eight to 14 steel towers, up to 76m-high, carrying cables that crisscross the sky above the cattle property like high-voltage cobwebs. Not just on this farm, but a line of steel on 70m easements marching up the hills and down the green valleys that surround it.
“We’ll be massively impacted,’’ Purcell says, ticking off the pitfalls as his mother Louise gazes out the window of the family home near the orchard town of Batlow.
Intrusion on prime agricultural pastures, disruption to farming practices, devaluing of their land by at least 30 per cent, hindrance to firefighting activities – that’s a big one for a family who suffered so much in the 2019-20 fires that took every blade of grass, about 70 cattle and, worst of all, the life of a family friend who was helping to save the property.
Neighbours tell similar stories, of trying to rebuild their blackened farms or razed homes while opening letters informing them that the HumeLink transmission project was coming, a more permanent alteration to their landscape.
“The timing was terrible. We were still coping with all of this when they started hounding us with phone calls day and night,’’ Purcell says. “We had to get solicitors involved. We were so devastated from the fires we couldn’t deal with them.’’
And so, like other landholders along Transgrid’s proposed HumeLink route, the Purcells simply shut their gates.
Feel-good buzzwords and superhighway slogans generated in city offices don’t mean much here in the western foothills of the Snowy Mountains. Stakeholder engagement teams with their bright smiles, soothing assurances and veiled threats of compulsory acquisition come and go, impeded by fences emblazoned with Stop signs barring access to the network operator, Transgrid.
Joe McGirr, the local NSW independent MP, says early consultation in the aftermath of the fires was unnecessarily adversarial. A bad start for a project requiring the agreement of hundreds of landowners.
The resistance runs deep. Snowy Valleys locals talk of motels and petrol stations turning away Transgrid workers; of organisations refusing the company’s offer of $5000 community grants even though they could do with the money to paint a clubhouse or buy new gear.
Behind many a “Stop HumeLink” sign there’s genuine anguish and anger. Impacted landholders will be compensated – $200,000 per kilometre of powerlines on their property, paid out over 20 years – but neighbours who have a giant tower built outside their home or business won’t.
Farmers who successfully agitated to have the route moved off their land have inadvertently pushed the 500kV lines onto outraged neighbours.
Longstanding friendships have been extinguished and neighbours divided as the winners and losers work out what has been gained and what will be lost.
There’s bewilderment that the race towards green energy will see further land-clearing and destruction of wildlife habitats, and it has widened the city and country divide. Nationals MP Wes Fang says his community is bearing the burden of “this overhead monstrosity’’ so city dwellers can have cheaper power.
“No one should minimise the consequences of ‘industrialising’ Australia’s iconic locations – would we build power lines above Bondi Beach?’’ the Snowy Valleys Council asked in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry.
Instead of speeding towards the future, HumeLink, one of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects and a critical link to connect renewable projects such as the beleaguered Snowy Hydro 2.0 to the electricity grid, has stalled in the face of community opposition along the length of the proposed 360km line from Wagga Wagga to Maragle to the south and Bannaby to the north.
Opponents have been accused of holding the country to ransom, delaying the race to build sufficient renewable electricity to replace coal-fired power stations as they close.
Transgrid says HumeLink is critical to the release of more affordable, reliable and renewable energy, but CEO Brett Redman has foreshadowed that the original $3.3bn budget has already blown out to nearly $5bn.
The federal government’s $20bn Rewiring the Nation plan requires 10,000km of new high-voltage power lines across the country’s east coast, but local communities from Tasmania to Queensland aren’t copping new overhead lines without a fight, and they’re emboldened by the HumeLink protest and the equally fierce resistance in Victoria to the VNI West project (Victoria to NSW Interconnector West).
Environmentalist Bob Brown is leading the protest against the $3.5bn Marinus Link undersea cable between Victoria and Tasmania, saying it will enable environmentally destructive projects in his state.
In the Sunshine Coast hinterland near Gympie, locals are up in arms over Powerlink’s plans for transmission lines to connect pumped hydro to the grid.
Of the country’s major transmission projects, the 900km EnergyConnect project west from Wagga Wagga to Robertstown in South Australia, connecting to Red Cliffs in Victoria, is under construction.
The gridlock threatens to derail the federal government’s clean energy transition and has forced Energy Minister Chris Bowen to establish a “community engagement review” to ensure better consultation with communities and proper handling of complaints. “It would be easy, but wrong, to dismiss those concerns as just NIMBY-ism,’’ he said in a speech last May. “In my experience, most concerned community members are not anti-renewables, anti-transmission or anti-progress. Nor, in most cases, are they opposed to the projects going ahead if their concerns are addressed.”
The HumeLink landholders who spoke to The Weekend Australian aren’t against renewables. They’re not anti-progress or rednecks. Many have spent time and money researching the options, hiring experts, looking for ways to make this work.
They know that transmission is necessary and that their properties are in the firing line, and so they have come up with an alternative plan: bury the cables.
The NSW government has responded to their concerns by holding a parliamentary inquiry into the feasibility of undergrounding the lines. More than three years into the battle, it’s given the landholders hope.
“Everyone is happy to work with them if they put it underground,’’ Dave Purcell says. “They could come on to the property and start working tomorrow if that was the option.’’
Communities divided
Mary-Jane Betts is driving across her sheep property just west of Yass, pointing out the lines of trees planted by her late dad John Betts, an early and enthusiastic Landcare member who understood the need for sustainable farming practices and regeneration.
This very afternoon her mum Nan, an active 84-year-old, is down by the creek digging up river red gum seedlings that she’ll nurture and replant elsewhere on the property. Rainbows of parrots erupt from the trees as we survey a deep gully with a generous waterfall spilling from the rocks.
A wedge-tailed eagle is disturbed from its twiggy nest and soars overhead as Mary-Jane talks about the history of this part of Derringullen Creek and its significance as a women’s area for the original Ngunnawal people.
Eight towers, each as high as the pylons on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, over of distance of 3.1km are slated for this property.
She shakes her head in disbelief that the route will cross this very gully, away from the women’s area but most likely skirting the eagle’s nest, and taking out ancient trees and newer plantings and wildlife corridors nurtured by her family.
The route, including a 70m easement, will most likely go up through the best lambing paddocks and the helicopter landing pad needed for aerial land management in the steeper, more inaccessible country.
Unlike farmers further south she has asked Transgrid’s mapping team to come onto the property, to see from the ground what can’t be spotted from satellite maps.
These generational farmers know the contours of their land as well as the features on their face. “This place is deep in our bones,’’ Mary-Jane says. “It is absolutely soul-destroying and it hurts us deeply to see what they’re planning to do and at the way we are being treated.
“I hate that this has made me so angry because we are not angry people.”
If the lines must go above ground she has come up with an alternative route within Transgrid’s 200m corridor, but it’s all up in the air, along with her plans to build a conservation trail and eco lodge down at the waterfall.
“We can’t plan anything until we know where these lines are going. We’ve had to put everything on hold while we try to fight this. I can’t tell you how bad it’s been for our health,’’ she says.
*****************************************************
Many censored social media posts did not contain Covid-19 misinformation
Many of 4000 social media posts secretly censored by government during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic contained factual information and reasonable arguments rather than misinformation, new documents reveal.
Digital posts released after Freedom of Information applications show the censored information shared facts such as the ineffectiveness of vaccines in preventing Covid-19 infection and transmission or argued against measures such as mask mandates and lockdowns.
For instance, the then Coalition government sought the removal of an Instagram post in April 2021 that claimed “Covid-19 vaccine does not prevent Covid-19 infection or Covid-19 transmission”.
That statement clearly was accurate yet the official intervention via the Home Affairs Department claimed it breached Instagram’s community guidelines because it was “potentially harmful information” that was “explicitly prohibited” by the platform.
A large proportion of posts the government targeted for removal by the digital platforms promoted wild conspiracy theories and misinformation but many others simply questioned the effectiveness of lockdowns and masks, shared information now accepted as accurate, and urged people to protest against pandemic measures.
An April 2021 tweet was challenged because it claimed “Covid-19 was released or escaped from Wuhan laboratory in China and that it was funded by the US government”.
The Home Affairs Department claimed this was “explicitly prohibited” under Twitter’s rules because it might “invoke a deliberate conspiracy by malicious and/or powerful forces”, yet American intelligence agencies have found the most likely source of the virus was the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and it has been revealed that some work at the laboratory was funded by the US.
Over three years up until last month, the federal government paid World Services Australia, an arm of London-based global communications firm M&C Saatchi, more than $1m to monitor Covid-19 posts online and alert it to controversial material.
The Weekend Australian previously revealed how the federal government, under the Coalition and later Labor, intervened more than 4000 times seeking the removal of social media posts by digital giants such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, using the companies own community standards as the trigger.
The information came to light as a result of FOI applications by Liberal senator Alex Antic.
Questions on notice from Senator Antic have now produced details of these interventions, revealing extensive efforts to suppress even factual information.
Senator Antic said this had confirmed his worst fears. “During the Covid period, Home Affairs actively sought censorship of true statements such as ‘lockdowns are ineffective’ and compelled social media companies to penalise dissent from the government’s position,” Senator Antic said.
“This is gravely concerning for all Australians who care about freedom of speech.”
One Facebook video post in January 2021 was targeted for removal because it encouraged “civil disobedience”.
It depicted a “recognised misinformation influencer” in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens “blatantly walking up to signs that ask people to maintain physical distancing and hiding them from view”.
Many other social media posts were censored for opposing mask mandates and questioning the effectiveness of lockdowns and vaccines.
This was censorship on an industrial scale, with the private contractor tasked to trawl through social media posts 24/7.
Senator Antic said the revelations were “gravely concerning” to all Australians who cared about freedom of speech.
He said this amounted to a “censorship industrial complex” and raised fears about this type of intervention being expanded under the proposed Misinformation Bill that would allow for the issuing of multimillion-dollar fines against platforms found to be hosting “misinformation or disinformation”.
“It’s never been more imperative that we protect freedom of speech in Australia and reject this bill,” Senator Antic said.
******************************************************
The great green backlash: is Labor next?
Net Zero is the politics of poverty. This dim economic reality lurking beneath all the feel-good social media propaganda about saving a planet that doesn’t need rescuing is manifesting as a serious voter backlash poised to slap left-wing parties across the backside sooner rather than later.
As the loudest champions of ‘green at any cost’, the aptly named Greens are likely to be the first party to feel the sting of public outrage. This will trickle through to the ‘wind turbines and solar panels are our God’ Teals until the mess finishes up in Labor’s lap, where it belongs. They were the chief architects of climate politics when, decades ago, it was all too easy to nominate a distant apocalypse and use its scary vista as an election boost.
‘Give us money and we’ll save the world!’
The masses lined up, wallets open and eyes closed. Everyone loves a saviour, but politicians are not deities with magical powers. Your tax dollars have about as much chance of changing the weather as New Zealand does keeping its volcanoes quiet by giving them gender-neutral pronouns.
The cost of living crisis is walking away from the Net Zero wreckage with a sober view. The existential fear in the public mind no longer relates to the stubbornly stable sea levels, or the faux colour weather maps dipped in red and orange. Too many people remember this as ‘summer’, not a disaster. When Rowan Dean’s Ice Age Watch offers a better quality weather report than the ABC, you know ‘climate change’ has run its course.
Western economies are in a mess because their leaders evoked a ‘war economy’ to handle a crisis that didn’t exist. The initial panic rustled the public purse. It was enough to force people to politely comply with restrictions on freedom while watching, without complaint, the sabotage of public assets. Yet this same citizen body has very little patience for charlatans that use perfect beach weather as an excuse to swindle hundreds of billions in public money.
How many fractions of a degree have Australian taxpayers bought themselves? Is it ‘zero’?
It’s no wonder a backlash has begun. We saw flickers of it arise during Queensland’s recent Fadden by-election in mid-July where the Liberals increased their hold amid sulking Newspolls for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The Greens sank by 4.5 per cent – which is quite extraordinary during a ‘climate change frenzy’.
Situated on the Gold Coast, Fadden would surely notice a catastrophic sea level rise. No doubt residents are watching the tide line hold steady, as it has always done.
The Coalition needed the Fadden win to stem the blood loss from repeated electoral losses up and down the country – although it would be generous to give them credit for the victory. Labor and the Greens are creating an expensive, untenable existence for Australians and as the cost of living crisis escalates the vote will flow away from left-leaning parties.
It’s a shame to see it pour into the pockets of the Liberals, who have spent the last two decades quietly cheering on the same Net Zero policies as Labor and the Greens. They had their chance to protect the Australian public from ruinous and greedy, green-tinted international socialism and instead they leaned heavily into the global prestige of being another ‘yes man’ in the UN crowd.
One Nation has stood against this eco-fascist nonsense from the beginning. We recognised immediately that global corporations and busy-body bureaucracies are misusing scary end-times propaganda for the purpose of acquiring power and gaining riches. Picking carbon dioxide – the foundation of life – as a poison worth controlling and eradicating was always suspect. Frightened citizens in the West, who took the claims of authoritative bureaucracies at face value, are starting to understand that they were duped.
No doubt the Coalition will try to bury their former life as chief propagandists for Net Zero. History will revisit the wets of the party – the Sharmas, Turnbulls, Wilsons, Zimmermans, Keans, and anyone else who empowered the Teals’ apocalyptic message – as either naive or fools. The virtue that green ideology once held is festering into a curse revealing that the darlings of the broad church were always an embarrassment to common sense and economic stability. A moderate Liberal is nothing more than another shade of Teal.
The minor win of a single seat in a by-election result consistent with trends against state and federal governments has reinvigorated Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, yet one wonders if he can see the larger picture.
Australia sits on a turn-tide. The relentless rips of Net Zero and panicky environmentalism have stilled. A grim surge of economic terror waits offshore. This time, it’s a real problem – not some fantastical delusion of a zealous school-skipping teenager. Australians can feel the change in the air and while they punished the Greens at Fadden, they’ll soon unleash hell upon Albanese’s delusional climate posturing.
Young families want to know why renewable energy companies are being given billions of dollars of support in grants while their power bills double. What happened to cheap energy?
Green energy is not cheap energy, and Australians have the power bills to prove it.
So-called green energy is a parasitic malinvestment with each claimed green-job costing at least 2.3 real jobs in the productive economy.
Voters from all walks of life are abandoning ‘green’. Traditionally environmentally-minded surfers never signed up for lines of wind turbines trashing thousands of kilometres of pristine beaches with each turbine anchored to the seafloor where their steel and concrete bodies destroy wave creation. Even the most devout among them find it difficult to look at these aquatic monstrosities with anything other than disgust.
While wind firms and desperate governments keep insisting there’s ‘no evidence’ offshore wind farms are killing whales – whale corpses are piling up. Correlation does not equal causation, yet repeated ‘co-incidence’ makes a strong case for some sort of connection either in construction or operation. Internationally, ocean groups holding ‘Whale Lives Matter’ signs are raising their voices against offshore wind – particularly in America which has seen an increase in beached whales in areas surrounding wind farm activity.
Meanwhile, Tasmania requires wind farms to shut down for five months in the year to protect the migration of parrots. It is an admission that wind turbines present a clear physical threat to migratory birds who get caught in the blades and killed. The irony of ‘environmentally friendly’ energy generation butchering wildlife is as depressing as it is typical of this current era. If coal-fired plants had a habit of slicing-and-dicing nearby wildlife, they’d be banned outright, yet ‘green’ energy is given a free pass on even the most horrific destruction.
If we delivered the broken, bloodied bodies of our birds to Adam Bandt, Chris Bowen, and Anthony Albanese’s offices, would they start caring, or is the machine of renewable energy worth too much to their mates in Beijing? Corporations fattening themselves solar and wind subsidies are unlikely to give up this position of privilege without a fight.
Australia has all the natural gifts to be a standalone energy superpower. Our energy problems are political mistakes driven by greed. That’s all green energy is – public exploitation and the belief that the green money tree will keep refreshing like the Tim Tam genie.
Public money is not infinite and public patience has run dry.
The Netherlands pushed the green delusion harder and faster than Australia, and their catastrophic collision with reality should serve as a lesson to Australia. Their government collapsed in July after farmer movements holding pitchforks destabilised the tyranny of Net Zero policy. Farmers are not giving up their land and livelihoods without a fight. Like the revolutions of old, the public can feel the grip of elitism.
In Europe, the great green backlash has begun. Australia has been put on notice as farmers, rural and regional villagers, and lovers of rainforests come out in force to protect vital natural and human habitats. These vigilantes stand against bulldozers levelling trees and despoiling homes for the scattered blights of wind turbines, vast carpets of solar panels, and dispersed swathes of transmission lines.
Those who continue to attach themselves to this failed policy will find themselves on the wrong side of history.
Australians want a secure economic future. They want a prosperous, energy-rich nation. It’s what the blessing of their birth in this wonderful country promised. It is what we are entitled to.
Once we scrape the gangrenous veneer off our political system, Australia will finally be free.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/the-great-green-backlash-is-labor-next
************************************************The Woke art of debanking men
Bettina Arndt
Last week, the National Australia Bank (NAB) announced a plan to ‘cut off’ customers found to be financial abusers, spelling out this means suspending, cancelling, or denying such people access to their accounts.
They call this ‘debanking’ – cutting off the accounts of anyone who is accused of being a financial abuser.
But how will the banks prove they are dealing with actual perpetrators of this abuse? No problem. It seems to be a case of believe women! Here’s the Australian Banking Association (ABA) explaining that their guidelines on financial abuse specify no evidence is required if a woman claims her partner is an abuser:
‘The guideline recognises that banks don’t need legal evidence of domestic violence, such as an Apprehended Violence Order, to be able to offer assistance to customers,’ said the ABA Executive.
What guarantees are there in place that this new power will not be abused or lead to the damage of, for example, an ex-hubby’s credit rating at the hands of an angry spouse? We know that messy domestic situations can be abused by both sides. This banking ploy is not yet implemented, but rather simply recommended by the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety report, Designed to Disrupt, which maps out plans to use banks as a means to tackle suspected financial abuse. No doubt feminists see this as a great idea. Others remain less enthusiastic.
‘Consider the potential to develop a process to make an adverse credit report for a perpetrator of financial abuse which can be made concurrent to correction for victim-survivor, so that there is a material consequence that impacts on the ability to get future credit,’ writes the author, a UNSW Social Science professor.
Let that sink in. What we are talking about here is banks deliberately trashing what is likely to be a man’s credit rating as punishment when that person has not been convicted, charged, and perhaps not even notified of the accusations. Doesn’t that take the cake? It provides a lot of scope for misuse.
That example is for the future, but right now we have one major Australian bank already cutting off men’s accounts and others lining up to do so. These institutions never actually admit that the new apparatus is primarily targeting men, although it is hinted at through the general wording of the proposal which leans heavily on the assumption that women are the main victims of the domestic and financial abuse this system attempts to address. By extension, men will primarily be on the receiving end of the debanking.
The carefully orchestrated campaign enlisting our banks to tackle financial abuse has been promoted by the key organisations within the domestic violence industry which are, in my opinion, shameless in their anti-male rhetoric. Major banks are also known to finance some of these organisations with large donations. Supporting domestic violence networks is one thing, employing real-world financial action against unproven accusations is quite another.
‘This kind of behaviour is a form of domestic violence. It can be an enabler for partners to keep women trapped in abusive and often dangerous relationships,’ said the CEO of the Australian Banking Association and a supporter of the venture.
Women, women, women… Bank promotions on this subject never seem to feature any male victims of financial violence, but tend to include numerous photographs of miserable, downtrodden women. A bit of equality might be nice. Given the competing sensitivities of identity, virtue signalling in this territory demands a very careful tightrope walk.
So, are men being targeted already? It’s hard to tell, but Andrew, one of my key researchers, reports an intriguing interrogation that took place after his partner transferred a significant amount of money into his transaction account, which they’d planned to shift into a share trading account. Since the amount was beyond his normal transaction limit, Andrew called the bank to arrange it. The operator put him on hold and then transferred him to her supervisor.
To his surprise, the supervisor quickly started grilling him about his partner’s transaction, asking about the nature of their relationship, how close they were, whether they had just broken up and other personal questions. Andrew explained they were friends and declined to answer further questions on the topic. He was then threatened with the possibility that both his accounts might be frozen. He passed the phone to his partner and asked her to try to sort it out. After an intense conversation, his partner convinced the supervisor not to freeze his accounts. Andrew then took the phone back and said he wished to lodge an official complaint. It was some months later that Andrew received a call from his bank saying that, after investigation, the bank wished to apologise for what had happened.
There’s no telling what was really going on here. Perhaps the bank suspected Andrew of being a money mule or involved in some sort of scam…? But the intrusive personal questions focussed on the relationship which implies this zealous bank official might have been following the official industry guidelines recommending banks be on the alert for signs they might be dealing with a perpetrator of financial abuse.
Normally, restricting a customer’s access to bank accounts would require a very high bar, such as evidence of criminality. But as this legal analysis from the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety points out, this may no longer be the case. ‘In NSW, recent legislation provides for a new coercive control offence. The NSW legislation criminalises abusive behaviour, including economic abuse, towards current and former intimate partners.’
That might just give the banks the muscle they need to justify their actions, which are certainly pushing the envelope when it comes to appropriate behaviour for a financial institution.
Clearly the banks’ lawyers believe they have found a way through any regulatory or legal hurdles. When I asked a former senior banking lawyer to examine what the banks are doing, he raised a concerning issue: ‘How do these banks defend themselves from charges that these are unfair contract terms in relation to financial products which are banned by the ASIC Act? Under recent amendments to unfair contract terms legislation to take effect in November 2023, a person such as a bank cannot include an unfair term in a standard form contract or rely on one that is already in place. Significantly increased penalties will apply for breach. One would have thought that these unilaterally imposed new terms which impose draconian consequences on affected consumers based solely on the bank’s view of the facts, with no apparent rights to appeal or prevent the action, are the very definition of unfair contract terms.’
You may like to include this vital question in letters of complaint to the big banks, particularly if you are a customer. And to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).
Please get back to me if you know of anyone who has been debanked. We are very keen to challenge the bank’s activities and need actual cases.
Note, there is an important real issue buried in the bank’s financial abuse initiatives, and that is elder abuse. Financial abuse is the most common form of elder abuse – Australian Institute of Family Studies research shows 2 per cent of elders have suffered financial abuse in the last 12 months, which compares to 1.6 per cent of people suffering this abuse from a cohabiting partner, as found in the ABS’s Personal Safety survey. But most of the banks have other priorities.
When it comes to these new banking guidelines and powers, customers are right to be concerned. Psychologists at the University of Central Lancashire, who carried out the major research available on male victims of coercive control, report financial abuse was a major issue for many of these men: ‘Half of male victims had their earnings controlled as a pattern of abuse which in some cases led to men not being able to purchase food or clothing. Men were also expected to take on the burden of all household finances as almost two-thirds of the female perpetrators refused to contribute to household bills and over half refused to work even if able to. Similar to women, some male victims were prevented from going to work, whereas almost one in three male victims were forced to go to work even when unwell.’
Hmm, can you imagine the banks cutting off the accounts of women who refuse to work or contribute to household bills? That’s clearly not going to happen. This initiative has been introduced without government oversight, parliamentary scrutiny, and community consultation. It must be stopped.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/the-woke-art-of-debanking-men/
************************************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
***************************************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
