Angus Taylor lays foundation for Coalition’s economic overhaul

The Coalition has issued a pre-election warning about the growth of the care economy as it vows to drive productivity by ­returning to the economic model championed in the 1980s through lower taxes, spending and regulation.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor has used a major speech to declare the ­nation is at a similar crossroads to the one faced 40 years ago when the Hawke government began ­deregulating the economy, declaring the “consequences of getting it wrong will burden our future generations as much as the current one”.

While not being specific about the Coalition’s economic policies, despite pressure to do so from Labor, Mr Taylor said a Dutton government would reintroduce a tax-to-GDP cap, slow the yearly increase in spending to below economic growth and target a structural budget balance in the “medium term”.

He also flagged a slashing of business regulations, easing rules on the financial services sector, unwinding some of Labor’s workplace reforms while declaring the Coalition would lower taxes with the first priority being on wage earners and small businesses.

Declaring the nation needed a more “realistic economic framework” to deal with the challenges of the 2020s, Mr Taylor warned that the embracement of ­Keynesian-inspired spending to stimulate growth was contributing to inflation and doing nothing to enhance productivity.

Jim Chalmers has credited Labor’s spending with saving the nation from a recession, but Mr Taylor said government stimulus was the wrong approach to deal with the looming economic slowdown because “today’s challenges” were driven by structural and not cyclical problems.

“The traditional government response to an economic malaise is to stimulate demand,” Mr Taylor said, delivering the Warren Hogan memorial lecture at the University of Sydney.

“Slowdowns are typically assumed to be cyclical, not structural. But that is the wrong answer for today’s challenges. Structural challenges on the supply side are now hurting us badly.

“Restoring our living standards can only come from an ­expansion of the productivity ­capacity of the economy.”

Mr Taylor’s speech came after UBS Asset Management bond veteran Tim Van Klaveren warned that interest rate cuts had been delayed due to the cost-of-living support delivered by state and federal governments.

“We have both state and federal governments, particularly Queensland and Victoria, who are spending more than the RBA would like, which is creating ­demand in the economy and has kept inflation firmer than it ­otherwise would be,” Mr Van Klaveren said.

With Queensland voters heading to the polls in nine days, and elections in Western Australia and at a federal level scheduled for the first half of 2025, Mr Van Klaveren added that any additional pre-election spending threatened to further undermine the RBA’s inflation fight.

“The reality is that any new government that does come in will have to act a lot tougher on fiscal policy and spend accordingly,” he said.

Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn said Australia was facing a “higher for longer” inflationary environment, as he revealed the bank had ­handed out 132,000 tailored hardship packages in the past year. He said the economy was “still absorbing the shocks of the past few years”. While inflation was falling, it remained persistent.

In his speech, Mr Taylor said central banks and treasuries across the western world were blindsided by inflation spikes after Covid because they were reliant on “new Keynesian models” that were not adequate at “predicting inflation or delivering structural growth in prosperity”.

Mr Taylor took a shot at the inflation forecasts delivered by former Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe and Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, who he lumped among the “economics profession and policy advisers (that) have got it so wrong”.

“The idea that inflation was largely immune to surging ­demand had become a feature of most economic models, including at central banks,” Mr Taylor said. “But our old enemy from the 70s and 80s had not gone away. Inflation had just been in hiding, only to come back with a vengeance.”

With nearly two-thirds of jobs created under the Albanese ­government coming in taxpayer-supported “care economy” ­sectors including health, disability and aged care, Mr Taylor said this was adding to productivity problems. He said there had been “no labour productivity growth in the care economy for 20 years”, with productivity growth in the market sector outstripping it by 17.5 per cent since 2000.

“Rapid growth in public spending is crowding out private sector activity and investment at a time when the supply side of our economy is constrained,” Mr Taylor said. “The majority of ­employment growth is coming from the non-market sector, where there is direct public ­employment or jobs indirectly funded by governments, while market sectors are experiencing skills shortages.”

The RBA has attributed a surge in government spending – expected to hit a record 28 per cent of GDP by the end of 2025, according to Westpac – as one of the reasons why it does not expect underlying inflation to return to its 2 to 3 per cent target band until mid-2025. Mr Taylor committed to a different approach should the Coalition form government, focusing on “getting the basics right” across five key areas of reform: fiscal management, regulatory reform, and housing, energy and tax policies.

On regulatory changes, Mr Taylor vowed that the Coalition would advance plans to wind back “productivity-draining” requirements across environmental approvals, climate reporting, workplace relations, and the corporations act. “These initiatives risk reallocating resources from generating economic activity to responding to government ­departments and creating unnecessary conflict,” he said.

Businesses were spending more time on compliance than strategy and investment, he said.

He also flagged easing financial services sector rules.

“We run the risk of becoming under-banked, under-insured, and under-advised at a time our ageing population will demand more financial services, not less,” he said.

Flagging changes to tax ­settings, Mr Taylor said the ­Coalition would strive to reduce the income tax burden on families and young Australians but was scant on specifics. Backbench Liberals and Nationals have pressed the shadow cabinet to promise generous income tax cuts at the next election, as the benefits of the stage three tax cuts are unwound due to bracket creep.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/angus-taylor-lays-foundation-for-coalitions-economic-overhaul/news-story/1bd4b69f6228e14ee7a23f062a6624c8

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

Australian diary

By Liz Truss (former British PM

It is great to return Down Under after first coming here in 2019 to start trade talks. We closed the deal in 2021 and Australia is now teeming with young Brits on new working holiday visas – no longer having to toil at farms in the Outback as part of the conditions. Tariffs have been removed, righting the wrong of Britain leaving Australia in the lurch to join the European Economic Community in 1973. It wasn’t easy getting the deal past Whitehall bureaucrats who were fanatical about net zero. There were also attempts at sabotage by Conservative cabinet ministers. Graphic pictures of sheep mulesing were circulated to try to denigrate Australian animal welfare standards. But ultimately our unique historical connection clinched it. When it was pointed out that what had by then evolved into the European Union already had the access that Australia was poised to get, Boris Johnson said, ‘Who was on our side at Gallipoli?’ The deal was done.

The deal put the UK on the path to joining CPTPP – the Trans Pacific Partnership. As well as taking on China through defence agreements like Aukus, we also need to challenge its economic power. China has been getting away with intellectual property theft and gargantuan state subsidies that undermine industry in the free democratic world. CPTPP is a bulwark against these practices. Australia, the UK and allies like Japan are showing the way. The EU and US should follow.

I’m here for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Brisbane, masterminded by Andrew Cooper. It’s a pleasant 30-degree respite from rainy Britain. Leading No campaigner from the Voice referendum and CPAC board chairman Warren Mundine is also speaking. He says that 60 per cent of Australians are natural conservatives, as they voted No in the referendum. I quip that the situation is more parlous in the UK where only 52 per cent voted to leave the EU in our Brexit referendum. Nevertheless, both of our countries have a majority that, when given the opportunity, vote against identity politics and unaccountable elites telling them what to do. These voters are ready to vote for the conservative cause – less immigration, less wokery and lower costs. The problem is that too many politicians on the conservative side are chasing after the voters who have left us. We are no longer the establishment. The establishment are left-wing and those voters are not coming back – at least not in the numbers they did before. Conservatives need to turn our attention from the so-called ‘teals’ and liberal democrats towards patriotic working-class voters in industrial towns and rural areas.

A big champion of rural Australia is Nationals party Senator Bridget Mackenzie who gives a firecracking speech about Waltzing Matilda. I learn what a billabong is. Bridget is a top shot. We vow to go shooting in England – before Keir Starmer tries to ban it!

In Canberra, I attend Question Time, which for the Prime Minister is more frequent and less raucous than the UK version. I sympathise with Anthony Albanese about having to appear daily. I think even once a week takes too much time out of the prime ministerial diary! It was good to see leader of the opposition Peter Dutton, who is demonstrating strong leadership on nuclear power and taking on wokery. He must prevail in 2025.

The West is run by the left and it is weakening us. We need to start turning the tide. Keir Starmer is running Britain into the ground. In only 100 days he has given away the Chagos Islands – a vital strategic British interest, let criminals out of jail early and taken away heating allowances from the elderly. Debt is over 100 per cent of GDP for the first time since the 1960s, we have the world’s highest rate of millionaires leaving the country and the highest energy bills in the developed world. We’re not talking about the last one to leave Britain turning off the lights as there won’t be any lights to turn off.

Although Tony Abbott can’t compete with me for shortness of time as prime minister, he too wasn’t in office nearly long enough. He is a true conservative and prepared to do the tough stuff. At the Australian launch of my book Ten Years to Save the West in Sydney we talked about the challenge posed by conservatives in name only in our own parties and leftist institutions. I saw this in ten years as a government minister and as prime minister. After fourteen years of Conservative rule, taxes were at a 70-year high, immigration was at record levels and the state was spending 45 per cent of GDP. When I tried to change things in 2022 in the Mini-Budget by allowing fracking, keeping taxes low and restricting increases in welfare, I faced a huge backlash from the leftist economic establishment.

The day before the Mini-Budget, the Bank of England announced the sale of £40 billion of gilts and did not inform us about pension funds’ exposure to LDIs, derivatives that depended on interest rates staying low. There was then a spike in the gilt market which required intervention. The Bank of England subsequently admitted that two-thirds of the spike in gilts was down to trading in LDIs, for which they had oversight responsibility. By then it was too late. My government had been forced from office.

Having gone through this, I am now convinced that in order to get conservative change we are going to have to change the system. We have to drain the billabong.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/australian-diary-74/

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

‘Reconciliation’ agenda might make us feel good. But it does nothing to close the black/white gap

Janet Albrechtsen

The demand for “reconciliation” from Indigenous elites a year after the voice referendum reminds me of a famous courtroom exchange involving esteemed orator and English criminal barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall KC.

Judge: “Mr Marshall Hall, is your client familiar with the doctrine res ipsa loquitur?

Marshall: “My Lord, in the remote hills of County Donegal from where my client hails they speak of little else.”

How many Indigenous people living in squalor and disadvantage speak of reconciliation?

The man from County Donegal could at least learn that res ipsa loquitur is Latin for something that speaks for itself.

Reconciliation doesn’t have a settled meaning. It’s a slogan, a deliberately vague catch-all phrase often used by Indigenous elites to harvest white guilt for a broad “rights” agenda that included the now failed voice proposal.

There are two Indigenous projects on foot in Australia. One is called “reconciliation”. The other is called “closing the gap”. The former demands special rights for Indigenous people in the name of reconciliation. The second demands equal opportunities for every Australian.

Reconciliation secures nice job titles, influence, headlines and newspaper inches to a small group of educated and well-positioned Indigenous people. Closing the gap is dedicated to getting disadvantaged Indigenous people into jobs, making sure they live in safe homes, go to school, finish school, have access to health services, train or study for a job that will enable them to live as other Australians do, so they are equipped to take responsibility for their lives, and the families they will have.

Reconciliation premises “self-determination” on special rights, that, by their nature, divide the nation in two. Closing the gap is the richest and most empowering form of self-determination; it aims to equip Indigenous Australians with opportunities so they can determine their own life – just as other Australians can do.

To the extent that it means anything, reconciliation conjures up images of two warring parties in need of a settlement. But that is not Australia. A small fringe of activists – Indigenous and non-Indigenous, people such as Lidia Thorpe and a host of academics – may choose to think they are at war with what the High Court has said about Australia as one sovereign nation, when they demand co-sovereignty. But that’s a fringe dispute; it gets the juices flowing at UN gabfests or inside Australia’s law schools where law has been trumped by politics.

None of this helps disadvantaged Indigenous people. We know that because official Closing the Gap numbers are still bleak. It’s much easier for big Australian companies and government departments to fall for the reconciliation racket and trot out “reconciliation” slogans than it is to show genuine interest in finding solutions to Indigenous people who die younger, leave school earlier, end up in prison and live in unsafe homes at higher rates than non-Indigenous people.

How anyone can push a special rights agenda camouflaged as “reconciliation” when Indigenous kids continue to commit suicide at higher rates should be a cause for shame. This national shame is compounded by the fact that failed policies continue to dominate the Indigenous policy area. This shame will only end when every program, activity or other measure or current action is rigorously tested for success with a simple question: Does it close the gap for those in need in any meaningful way?

The Albanese government is in hiding. It talks about reconciliation and closing the gap, and is doing neither. It tried the voice and failed. It refuses to take the advice of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and conduct a thorough and brave audit of all Indigenous programs and policies. That nationwide audit should include Reconciliation Australia and its monopoly over these things called “Reconciliation Action Plans” that 2700 companies and other groups have embedded in their workplaces.

After writing about this organisation on the weekend, I have learned even more about the separatist sentiment at the heart of the “reconciliation” industry. I heard from many, many readers who work in companies that have a RAP.

One described it this way: “It’s the … equivalent of the Monty Python sketch of monks hitting themselves in the head with a block of wood in time with their Gregorian chants.” Another asked how disadvantaged Indigenous people can “gain self-determination and a bright prosperous future when everything is controlled and won by land councils and other organisations”. Another said that “reconciliation is something you want when you’ve been to uni”. It’s not front and centre for people who don’t even have personal safety.

I learned too that Gary Johns, a former Labor minister in the Keating government, has been trying to advise companies that many RAPs sanctioned by the reconciliation police at Reconciliation Australia are worse than worthless; they divide the country with a separatist agenda and do nothing to improve the lives of Indigenous people who genuinely need help.

Johns, chairman of Close the Gap Research, surveyed 62 RAPs and recorded the results earlier this year. He found a “significant” failure among many RAPS to mention closing the gap, while many focus on RA’s separatist agenda. Johns said they “favour identity over solutions”.

Johns found that the Civil Aviation Authority’s RAP introduced Indigenous language lessons and distributed Acknowledgement of Country cards to more than 800 of its staff members, while property group Stockland includes an annual “Cultural immersion” experience for staff in its RAP.

Johns wants companies and other groups to answer a simple question: Does your RAP close the gap? He found that the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, the department responsible for drafting laws, says it has adopted a RAP because “the majority of Australians are the direct beneficiaries of the removal of land and power from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”. Johns says that “despite (this department) being on their reconciliation journey since 2007, not one of their 100 staff identified as Aboriginal”.

Johns found the reconciliation journey of Victorian law firm Hives Legal includes making radical statements that sovereignty has never been ceded, “but employed no Aboriginal person on their professional staff”. “Instead, it purchased artwork for the office and children’s books for its staff.”

Johns found that some companies are doing terrific work. The Education Department in South Australia is running intensive family services programs to re-engage kids with school. But why is a RAP necessary for such work, asks Johns. “And why is this a reconciliation activity?”

Other RAPs, says Johns, are “painful to read”. They are full of sweeping assertions and radical statements that bear no relationship to their workplaces. Johns says Lend Lease’s RAP states that “data” continues to show the most successful programs to generate ‘closing the gap’ outcomes are created and delivered by First Nations community-controlled organisations”. That sounds terrific. Except, Johns notes, that “there is no evidence that this is true”.

Johns’s conclusion is that welcomes to country, acknowledgements of country, snippets of language, radical statements endorsing separatism, and Disney-like cultural training “are not likely to close the gap or reconcile anyone to anything”.

He told me this week that he has spoken with around 20 organisations that are thinking of doing a Reconciliation Action Plan. He suggested they “stop and ask: Does it close the gap?”.

Ultimately, he was met with silence. They would rather tick a box with a RAP.

Noel Pearson once addressed the need to expose the “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. It’s high time we exposed the same bigotry of low expectations pursued by groups that span big and small Australian companies, aviation authorities, government departments, local councils and even the parliamentary drafting office in Canberra.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/reconciliation-agenda-might-make-us-feel-good-but-it-does-nothing-to-close-the-gap/news-story/6aad6c196120edbe2a1b6048664c6483

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

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

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

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

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

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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

Seven Aboriginal women killed by partners in NT

Yet the Left ignore the fact that DV in Australia is mainly an Aboriginal problem. Does the suffering of black women not matter? It seems very racist to treat it that way

Northern Territory police are pleading with the community to "wake up" to an unfolding epidemic of domestic violence as investigations continue into seven deaths in less than five months.

The latest death of a woman allegedly killed by her partner prompted an appeal on Tuesday by the Territory's police Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst: "this has to stop".

"The tragedy is mounting, and that tragedy is one that the Northern Territory cannot ignore - seven matters are being investigated by the Northern Territory police as domestic homicides since 1 June of this year," he said.

"The Northern Territory cannot accept one death, let alone seven.

"It is something that the community needs to wake up to, deal with, and not accept - violence is not the answer."

Police said they had not seen this many people die "at the hands of another in a domestic situation" since the early 2000s in the Northern Territory and the vicarious trauma experienced by frontline workers, community and the public was hard to explain.

All women killed were Aboriginal and a further two women are fighting for life in Royal Darwin Hospital's intensive care unit, after assaults related to domestic violence, Mr Wurst said.

On Monday night at Lajamanu, a remote community 870km south of Darwin, a 42-year-old woman was killed in an allegedly stabbing by her domestic partner.

Mr Wurst said the man is in police custody and had been on parole at the time of the alleged stabbing, after being released from prison in April.

The woman is the third person allegedly killed in the Territory as a result of domestic violence in the past fortnight after a sistergirl was stabbed at Malak last Tuesday and another woman at Katherine the week before.

Services are calling on the Northern Territory government to urgently implement the $180 million in funding for domestic, family and sexual violence services it promised ahead of the August election.

Newly elected Greens parliamentarian and domestic violence survivor Kat McNamara said consecutive governments have failed when it comes to the provision of frontline services.

"I have said this many times before, and I'll say it again, domestic family and sexual violence is the largest social issue we face," the member for Nightcliff said in their maiden speech to parliament on Tuesday.

"Women and children are being turned away from shelters every single day.

"Those frontline services have been crying out for adequate funding for decades from both sides of politics. This is not good enough."

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

School did not discriminate against student by forcing her to wear a skirt, Queensland tribunal finds

A Queensland school did not discriminate against a female student by forcing her to wear a skirt on formal occasions, a tribunal has found.

The student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, made the complaint to the state’s Human Rights Commissioner, arguing she suffered discrimination by the new uniform policy which requires female students between years 7 and 12 to wear a skirt on formal occasions including outings, ceremonies, events and photographs.

Females are allowed to wear shorts and pants on other days, while male students wear them every day.

The father of the student argued in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal that his daughter suffered a greater financial burden because she had to buy two school uniforms and that greater care was needed to maintain her modesty in a skirt compared with male students.

The initial complaint also said she had suffered negative psychological effects from “negative gender stereotypes and gendered power relations” but this was not raised at the hearing.

“If the complainant failed to comply with the formal occasion skirt requirement she could face negative consequences of exclusion or suspension or other lesser consequences not faced by a male student,” the decision read.

In a statement the student said when wearing a skirt, “there is an extra level of thinking required about the way I move and sit, as to not expose myself”.

Her father said she had experienced “stress and anxiety” about having to wear a skirt with a large number of people around.

After the complaint was first raised with the school, the student was told she could apply for a formal exemption, but the student argued this was also discriminatory because male students did not need to.

Lawyers for the school argued that there had been no concerns expressed by other parents about any extra expense and they had skirts available on loan. They said the skirts are long enough to touch the ground when kneeling, so there is a low risk of exposure and female students were allowed to wear bike shorts, which would remove the modesty issue.

QCAT member Jeremy Gordon said the school had shown that other schoolgirls were happy to wear skirts.

“If, for one reason or another, the complainant did not want to wear a skirt on formal occasions, this view was not shared by other female students,” he wrote.

He found that the policy did not discriminate against the student.

“The evidence is insufficient to show that the formal occasion uniform policy resulted in, or would have resulted in, less favourable treatment of the complainant as a female student over male students,” he wrote.

“To put this another way, there was different treatment between the sexes, but the evidence does not show that the different treatment was unfavourable to the complainant.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/education/school-did-not-discriminate-against-student-for-making-her-wear-a-dress/news-story/8a8a7081861615108b4aa2aa4504603d

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

Two approaches to energy — which will the nation choose?

The doyen of ALP energy policy, Martin Ferguson, has called for a gas-driven power station in the Latrobe Valley in a direct policy confrontation with current Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

Ferguson, a former President of the ACTU, was Federal Minister for Energy and Minerals from December 2007 until May 2013.

The Ferguson declaration was actually made three weeks ago in a Latrobe Valley local newspaper, but the power of the declaration will reverberate around the nation given the respect Ferguson has among ALP stalwarts, many of whom realise Sydney needs gas power as much as Melbourne.

When Ferguson made the declaration, he would not have known three weeks later shadow Minister for Energy Ted O’Brien would announce a Coalition policy which would aim to change the economics of erecting gas-fired power stations in Australia.

And, following my commentary revealing there is a gas crisis looming for Victoria (and a danger for Sydney), greater clarity is emerging on where the gas will come from to relieve a looming crisis.

And if these gas production developments do not work out as planned, Ferguson has a back-up plan.

O’Brien has announced if the Coalition wins government, gas power plants will be included in the Capacity Investment Scheme. To understand how this simple announcement changes the economics of gas-driven power stations, I need to explain how the scheme works and how it would apply to gas power.

Around Australia, a large number of heavy power users, led by aluminium producers, contract with the regulators to substantially cut their power usage in times of crisis. They are paid large sums to undertake what otherwise would be an uneconomic action. It becomes an important source of revenue for many larger power users.

In a power generating community where wind and solar play a large part, gas power is a vital back-up for the times when these sources of power do not generate. But, it is uneconomic to build a power station simply to be switched on at night and when there is no wind.

Once gas power is included in the Capacity Investment Scheme, the economies of constructing a gas power station are transformed because there is a contracted regular income.

In addressing the Australian Pipelines & Gas Association Convention, O’Brien explained how his strategy differs from Bowen’s, which “puts all eggs in one basket for our energy future … one which is simply defined as a renewables-only approach”.

“No other nation on the planet has embarked on a path to decarbonise which is as radically ideological as that which this Labor Government is pursuing,” O’Brien added.

When it comes to sourcing gas, the most obvious is the vast deep underground gas deposits in Gippsland measured by Exxon and assessed by top US gas evaluators. But, further drilling is required and this cannot take place until Lily D’Ambrosio is removed as Victorian Energy Minister by the ALP government or if the state Coalition wins the next Victorian election in 2026.

It’s unlikely the present Victorian Premier would remove her friend Lily D’Ambrosio from the post. So, the nation must now go full steam ahead on the vast Beetaloo deposits in the Northern Territory.

Research by the Frontier group shows, compared to gas importing facilities operated year around, Beetaloo gas for industrial use would be substantially less expensive in both NSW and Victoria compared to using importing facilities in Port Kembla and Geelong.

While a 900km pipeline to join Beetaloo gas to the national grid is expensive, the costs can be amortised over 50 years or more. Meanwhile, extra drilling in Queensland and South Australia can fill some of the timing gap.

There is also drilling required in Gippsland outside the major project reservoir.

The Beetaloo reserves are immense and cannot only meet the demands of NSW and Victoria but can also export via Darwin.

Ferguson says if there is a problem sourcing gas for a Latrobe Valley power station, it would be possible to efficiently use brown coal to produce the gas.

Victoria’s oil and gas caverns in the Bass Strait can store carbon, and Ferguson says considerable work has already been done on the feasibility of this process.

Accordingly, the Ferguson declaration on a power station in the Latrobe Valley is backed by the opportunity to have a very low-emissions operation.

O’Brien believes gas power is an important step in making the nation’s renewables investment economic and providing security to the market.

In the O’Brien plan, the next step is nuclear power as a base load to replace coal, including a station in the Latrobe Valley which would then be restored as a major Australian industrial complex.

Most estimates show nuclear power is substantially cheaper than the offshore wind schemes being proposed for Bass Strait and the Hunter Region of NSW after the initial construction investment.

Investment in offshore wind has a limited life whereas nuclear power stations last for 60 years and beyond, so the wind power costs are amortised over a much shorter period — hence the cost disadvantage.

The next election campaign is arguably the most important in the nation’s recent history because the two parties have totally different views on our energy feature. Bowen and O’Brien will be the leaders of their party’s energy policies, and the nation will need to choose which way to go.

The ALP is under threat from the Greens and will have limited room to move in the debate.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/two-approaches-to-energy-which-will-the-nation-choose/news-story/0338c7b00e9289769b8bee43e0ea4183

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

Private schools ‘targets of Labor hostility’, says Coalition

The Coalition has accused Labor of demonstrating “hostility towards non-government schools” alongside the Greens’ “vilification” of the sector that has sparked concerns from peak bodies.

Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson on Tuesday called on the government to offer the same scholarships and grants to private schools as were available to public institutions.

As the Greens face a concerted campaign from Independent Schools Australia in key seats such as Brisbane and Ryan following the minor party’s “attacks” on the value of private schools, the opposition lashed Labor for discriminating against non-government schools.

“Labor’s discriminatory policies include limiting the $160m commonwealth teaching scholarships program to only those who work in public schools. Non-government schools are also excluded from the $25m Workload Reduction Fund under the government’s Teacher Workforce Action Plan,” Senator Henderson said.

“As a result of a government-commissioned report, there is also a black cloud over the future of tax-deductible library and scholarship funds, as well as tax incentives to support religious education in public schools.”

Senator Henderson called on Education Minister Jason Clare to extend the next round of teaching scholarships to all student-teachers and begin treating “all schools fairly and equitably”.

“In this cost-of-living crisis, how can the government turn its back on low-fee-paying private schools, particularly in rural and remote areas where workforce shortages are so acute?” she said.

The Australian understands if the teaching scholarships are undersubscribed, they are opened to teachers who want to go to non-government schools.

ISA on Tuesday revealed it would pursue a nationwide campaign against the Greens, highlighting the minor party’s “relentless and baseless vilification” of the sector.

The Australian understands independent schools will be provided with a toolkit from ISA containing campaign materials they can use if they choose to.

The Greens rubbished the campaign, declaring they simply had concerns over wealthy institutes overcharging parents.

In response to the criticism from Senator Henderson of the government’s own treatment of private schools, Mr Clare said his focus was on the public sector.

“All non-government schools are either fully funded or on a trajectory to be, and we aren’t changing that,” he said.

“However, no public school, outside the ACT, is fully funded. That’s where our focus is, working with states and territories to properly fund our public schools.”

On the Coalition’s concerns over the Workload Reduction Fund, The Australian understands non-government schools are not excluded.

Mr Clare said his government had put $16bn on the table to convince the states to sign up to the new schools agreement, and had already struck deals with Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania.

“We want to do similar deals with other states,” he said. “We also recognise that parents should have choice when it comes to schooling.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/private-schools-targets-of-labor-hostility-says-coalition/news-story/7b5dfe140c2abe8a57040d2ca6d737ef

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

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

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

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

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

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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

Youth crime down, 2000-plus busted as cops blitz entire state

There must be an election coming up

Police have nabbed 2093 youth crims and charged them with 6167 offences since widespread deployments across Queensland targeting youth crime.

Commissioner Steve Gollschewski announced the milestone after Taskforce Guardian reached 102 deployments including more than 20 to crime-plagued Townsville.

He said 252 adults had also been charged during the operations and 980 people had been diverted from the youth justice system since Taskforce Guardian began in May 2023.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Andrew Massingham, who heads the youth crime taskforce for the service, said there had been a 22 per cent decrease in youth offending in Townsville from January to September, compared to last year.

He said overall there had been a 6.3 per cent decrease in youth offending in Queensland.

Assistant Commissioner Massingham said there had been decreases in nine of the 15 police districts.

“A very important indicator to me is those numbers won’t mean anything to people continue to feel unsafe in their home environments or where they walk along in the streets in their local communities,” he said on Tuesday.

“It’s not so much the numbers for me, it’s about our high visibility presence with Guardian.

Assistant Commissioner Massingham. said police had a solid understanding of the worst offenders after the deployments.

He said serious repeat offender numbers had decreased almost 18 per cent since November last year to 388, which was about 100 less than this time last year.

Police have been tracking social media accounts of some of the youths who post their exploits online, bragging about cars they’ve stolen or crimes they have committed.

“Our digital intelligence team, which is the first in this nation, we are intercepting livestream images invariably on social media of children in stolen vehicles (and it is) is a very very key aspect to the way we deploy Guardian,” he said.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-qld/youth-crime-down-2000plus-busted-as-cops-blitz-entire-state/news-story/d82af27d92a758a8c4fd4b05e73fa4ec

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

Albo’s Orwellian Bill: Censoring free speech is dangerous, not to mention downright un-Australian

A friend of Socrates once visited the Delphic oracle to ask who is the wisest man in the world. The oracle told him that Socrates was. Socrates could not believe this, as he believed he knew men who were wiser than him, such as a politician friend of his. But when Socrates spoke to his friend he realised that the politician ‘thinks that he knows but he really knows nothing’. Socrates then went to speak to the poets and artisans but came away with similar conclusions. He then realised that, ‘The men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better.’

Things have not changed much from Ancient Greek times. We still have politicians that think they know more. Our government wants to make sure it silences the ‘inferior men’ with its new misinformation laws.

No healthy society would empower a bunch of politicians to define what is true or false. Imagine living in a country where the politicians have the gall to tell the rest of us not to lie.

The Albanese government’s misinformation laws are fundamentally un-Australian. The Australian way is to thumb our nose at authority. The Australian way is not to suffer tall poppies telling us what to do.

But the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill would see a two-tier society established when it comes to free speech. The Bill, astonishingly, exempts the media from being accused of spreading misinformation or disinformation. Just last month, the ABC was caught airing doctored footage from Afghanistan in an attempt to tar Australian soldiers as war criminals. This clear form of misinformation would be exempt from Albanese’s censorship regime.

The protection of the Australian military does not even rate a mention in the Bill. If you were going to protect a class of Australians from the spreading of lies, there is probably no more deserving group than those of us who put their life on the line to protect us.

Instead, the Bill defines ‘serious harm’ to be that which could damage electoral authorities, various identity groups, public health bureaucrats and, perhaps most amazing of all, the banks.

What marks this eclectic group out is that almost all of them have been guilty of propagating misinformation in recent years. Our banks have been found to have regularly defrauded their customers, public health authorities have admitted they lied to the public for the ‘greater good’ and even our otherwise decent electoral authorities lost 1,375 ballots during the 2013 Western Australia Senate election, causing a strange recount at the cost of $20 million.

All authorities, especially those that benefit from public funds, should be subject to free and unfettered criticism from the Australian public.

There is another more explicit way that this Bill is un-Australian. The new misinformation regime does not directly establish a government Ministry of Truth, but rather it requires social media companies to establish their own internal Ministries of Truth to police the speech of Australians.

Almost all of these social media companies are foreign-owned. I do not think we need our fellow Australians policing each other’s speech, but I definitely do not want tech billionaires in San Francisco deciding what is said in Sydney.

Of course, there is another social media company called TikTok. This Bill would deputise TikTok to apply a censorship to the Australian people. The provisions of the Bill are so broad that TikTok would have no problem in applying the Chinese Communist party censorship regime to Australians, astoundingly with the backing of the Australian government.

Authorising foreigners to control what is discussed is the opposite of what should happen. In the last parliament, I co-authored a Bill with George Christensen that would outlaw the censoring of political discussion among Australians by foreign social media companies. Not only will I do everything to try to stop Labor’s Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill from becoming law, I will re-introduce a Bill to protect Australians’ right to speak freely online.

The prospects of stopping the new misinformation regime in the Senate are not great but I would hope that my friends on the left think deeply about this intrusion into people’s rights. The current Bill is clearly designed to combat anti-Voice and anti-vaccine views. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill defines misleading information to include attacks on ‘referendum proposals’, and vaccines are mentioned eighteen times.

In the future this Bill could easily be weaponised to silence anti-war or anti-big business views. A few months ago, the Australian Conservation Foundation was briefly cancelled on X after it made some claims about nuclear energy. I thought its statements were wrong but I do not want an American social media company to have the power to silence an Australian organisation from speaking about an important public policy issue.

One of the most important reasons to allow free speech is so that we can listen and not just speak. When someone is silenced it is not just the rights of the person to speak that have been breached, it is also the rights of everyone else to listen to that person. I, as an Australian, have the right to listen to my fellow Australians, even the ones I disagree with.

A healthy society encourages the airing of different opinions. That is how we test and strengthen our own ideas. That is how we correct our mistakes. The duration of a lie depends on how quickly someone is allowed to point it out.

The government will probably ram its misinformation laws through the parliament. Ironically, laws designed to silence the Australian people will likely be passed by silencing the parliament and limiting debate.

But, even if we end up with a misinformation tsar, we should not be downcast. This desperate move is a sign that the left are losing. Every cancellation will be a vindication that we are right.

There is always a silver lining. If established, the misinformation tsar will become the best barometer of truth since the Delphic oracle. Except this time it will work in reverse.

Whatever the misinformation tsar says is false will actually turn out to be true.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/albos-orwellian-bill/

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

Class war: ‘We’ll teach the Greens’, vow private schools

Fat chance that they will be able to budge the views of hard-Left Bandt, the Greens leader. He is an old-time Trotskyite, committed to maximum destrucion of socity as we know it

Independent schools are preparing to launch a nationwide campaign in Greens and marginal electorates calling out the “relentless and baseless vilification” of private schools and urging constituents not to support parties that would abolish their funding and limit educational choices.

Independent Schools Australia revealed it would begin targeting seats held by the left-wing minor party, as well as other hotly contested electorates, following increasing criticism over the allocation of government funding to private schools.

School funding is a crucible issue for Labor and its biggest source of division with its state ALP counterparts. The Greens are expected to push for ­reforms that would slash some independent schools’ funding in any power-sharing agreement with a minority Labor government.

ISA chief executive Graham Catt said his organisation was gearing up to take the fight to the Greens, with school leaders, teachers and parents making clear “they’ve had enough of the relentless and baseless vilification of families who simply want the best for their children”.

“Parents are making significant sacrifices in a cost-of-living crisis, and we know from our ­research that families – especially in key marginal seats – feel ­betrayed by policies that threaten their educational choices,” Mr Catt said.

“With an election approaching we will be working to ensure ­families’ voices are heard loud and clear in key electorates, including those held by the Greens.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt ­declared earlier this year that his party would be fighting for more public school funding and arguing against “the continued over­funding of those very wealthy private schools that clearly don’t need even more public funds”.

The row with the ISA could be one of the Greens’ first major tests in holding the formerly Liberal Queensland seats of Ryan and Brisbane, with the potential to complicate the party’s plan to win more wealthy marginal seats off Labor, the Coalition and teal independents at the next election.

As part of research by the ISA conducted late last year, more than 80 per cent of the 2000 ­parents surveyed agreed it was important that families had the right to choose which school was best for their child.

More than 70 per cent agreed every child had a right to “some level of government funding” for their education, while 66 per cent agreed that if independent school funding was cut, the public system could not cope with the increased enrolments.

The Albanese government sought to quell concerns over a lack of funding for public schools this month, with Education ­Minister Jason Clare introducing legislation to lift the commonwealth share of state school funding by $16bn over the next decade after intense negotiations with states and territories.

Mr Catt said all students in all school sectors should be supported to “access a great education”, but that this should not result in attacks against private schools and campaigns to have their funding slashed.

“The relentless attacks against independent schools, particularly by the Greens, only hurt the families and teachers who deserve better,” he said.

“With over 700,000 students and growing, many of whom ­attend independent schools in what will be hotly contested ­marginal seats, we will be advocating strongly for these families during the election.”

The amount of government funding a school needs is based on the Schooling Resourcing Standard. The commonwealth provides 20 per cent of a public school’s funding needs, while states and territories are required to provide the other 80 per cent.

For private schools, the funding arrangement is flipped so the federal government provides 80 per cent and states and territories deliver 20 per cent.

The Greens and the Australian Education Union have ­steadily ramped up criticism against private schools in recent years, with the AEU conducting several rounds of analysis that showed disparities between private and public schools.

As part of this, the AEU ­released a report showing five elite private schools splurged more money on new facilities than governments spent on half of Australia’s public schools collectively in 2021.

Mr Catt said the majority of students in independent schools – which included specialist schools such as Muslim and Jewish institutions – came from middle to low-income families, with ­median annual school fees sitting at just over $5500.

“(These families) should be supported, not penalised, for making educational choices that align with their values and aspirations for their children,” he said.

“Over 85 per cent of capital funding comes from these families, who are taxpayers too.”

Greens primary and secondary education spokeswoman Penny Allman-Payne said private schools received $51m from the federal government every day, and yet some of the richest schools were “still gouging parents and carers”.

“It’s great to see the private school lobby highlighting the stark inequity of Australia’s two-tiered school system,” Senator Allman-Payne said “But I think many private school parents would be surprised that they want to campaign against the Greens, when we’re the only party calling out the outrageous fees that parents are being charged by wealthy private schools. Meanwhile, public school teachers are spending their own money to provide stationery for their kids – I think every parent and carer in the country knows that’s not right.”

As part of the calculation for the level of federal funding a private school will receive, parents’ “capacity to contribute” is looked at alongside other considerations, with commonwealth funding tapering off the higher the ­median income of the families whose child attends the school.

“Independent school parents are taxpayers, and yet they face criticism for choosing the best education for their children and subsidising the cost by paying fees,” Mr Catt said. “Meanwhile, families across Australia face a postcode lottery, where the quality of education depends on their location. All families should have the right to make the best educational choice for their kids, and politicians need to support – not punish – those decisions.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/class-war-well-teach-the-greens-vow-private-schools/news-story/2e469a960cde0cb0cf152e80c8ea22e9

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

Dreaming or dreamt up? Mystery of the blue-banded bee deepens



The artist behind the “blue-banded bee” mural cited by federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to justify her veto of the Blayney goldmine was a member of the main resistance group against the $1bn project, and the local government had never heard of the Dreaming story before the artwork was painted.

The Australian can reveal Brisbane artist Birrunga Wiradyuri, a Wiradyuri man whose mural was used as evidence in Ms Plibersek’s official reasons against the mine, was a regular contributor with the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation and a member up until at least this August.

The WTOCWAC’s highly disputed claims that the Blayney mine site is a place of historical and spiritual significance to local Aboriginal people are the centre of Ms Plibersek’s moves to kybosh the mine.

Amid deepening questions about the validity of the anti-mine group’s claims, it also can be revealed that the blue-banded bee Dreaming story has not appeared in any of the six ethnographic studies seen by mine owner Regis Resources and there is no public evidence of the story before 2022.

Wiradyuri declared in February 2022 that the mural on the wall of the Bathurst post office was tied to a songline east of the Belubula River. But the Bathurst Regional Council said on Monday it was not aware of the Dreaming story before commissioning the artwork.

“The subject of the art (the blue-banded bee) was developed in partnership with elders during the commission,” a spokesperson said. “Council was not aware of the story prior to this.”

Wiradyuri previously has consulted with WTOCWAC on artworks significant to the Bathurst area, with a February 2022 post on the mural tagging the group, while a June 2022 post gave its “love, esteem respect (sic) and gratitude to the Traditional Owners and Elders of the Bathurst area, the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation for their counsel and sharing of Cultural Knowledge”.

The WTOCWAC later would cite his artwork in its submissions detailing the blue-banded bee’s longstanding significance to the Blayney site on which the McPhillamys mine was to be established.

In an interview with local newspaper Western Advocate at the time of the artwork’s display, Mr Wiradyuri said he consulted with members of the WTOCWAC in its creation regarding its cultural ­significance.

“In close consultation with Aunt Wirribee, Uncle Mallyan, Uncle Yanha and Uncle Dinawan (WTOCWAC member and historian Uncle Bill Allen), the story of the bee became an artwork that evolved as we delved deeper into the storytelling process,” he said in an interview.

Documents from the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations also indicate that Wiradyuri was a member of the WTOCWAC from November 2021 to August this year, a period beginning after the artwork was commissioned until two years past its completion.

As revelations came out about his mural’s role in the decision to veto the mine and his membership of the most prominent local anti-mine group, Mr Wiradyuri was contacted for comment but had not responded by deadline.

Roy Ah-See – one of the most senior Wiradjuri leaders on the national stage and former chairman of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council – has told The Australian elders from the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council believed the songlines of the blue-banded bee Dreaming “had never previously existed”.

Significant surveys in 2021, including the Philip Clarke Aboriginal Cultural Values Mapping Report, the Lance and Kamminga report and the Sneddon cultural surveys, did not mention the Dreaming.

In her detailed reasons, Ms Plibersek said six members of the OLALC, including five Wiradyuri elders, had disputed the veracity of the blue-banded bee Dreaming in a February submission.

“Information about a public artwork by Wiradjuri artist Baranga Wiradjuri (Birrunga Wiradyuri), named the Blue Banded Bee Creation Story, was also submitted to support the validity of the Dreaming as an Aboriginal tradition,” she said in her report. “Whilst not identical, the description of the artist’s interpretation of the Dreaming is largely consistent with WTOCWAC’s explanation.”

Additional details on the Dreaming story were provided to Ms Plibersek by an unnamed Wiradyuri elder whose submission was delayed due to medical issues.

Mr Wiradyuri began painting in the 2010s, later opening his own gallery in Spring Hill, Brisbane.

He was born Robert Henderson and presented his art under that name until at least August 2018, before going by Birrunga Wiradyuri.

Originally from rural NSW, he has lived in Queensland since primary school, primarily around the Sunshine Coast.

Created in collaboration with Indigenous artists Kane Brunjes and Stevie O’Chin, the artwork’s portrayal and placement on a songline is detailed on Mr Wiradyuri’s gallery website.

“Our sacred mountain is Wahluu (Mount Panorama). There is a sacred songline that runs from Wahluu to Bubay Wahluu (Mount Stewart) and it is this songline that is portrayed in the work,” the caption reads.

“We Wiradyuri, with the counsel and guidance of our Elders, performed a healing ceremony that healed this Songline in 2018. In 2022 the production of the work was housed in Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre which is on that Songline.”

In an interview with Bathurst radio station 2BS from February 2022, Wiradyuri said the work “very much sticks to that story (of the blue-banded bee); it’s very close to us Wiradyuri”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/mural-cited-in-blayney-mine-rejection-made-in-consultation-with-dissident-indigenous-group/news-story/24dce73a3a5cd153cb915e7497197936

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

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

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

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

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

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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

Time to get rid of Indigenous reconciliation police

It's just a racket

After last year’s referendum there is a new willingness to look closely at Indigenous agendas that favour division over unity.

When Indigenous elder Marcia Langton said no Indigenous person, including her, would deliver a welcome to country if Australians voted No to the voice, the floodgates opened to lingering concerns about whether a welcome to country divided us or united us. We discovered that many Australians believed it was the former, and had grown tired of receiving mini-lectures before meetings, sporting events, school assemblies and other gatherings.

Another issue crying out for sunlight is embedded inside most Australian companies, especially the biggest ones, along with government departments, not-for-profits and other groups. There you will find a Reconciliation Action Plan. And behind this “RAP”, as they are colloquially called, is one single organisation – Reconciliation Australia.

Reconciliation Australia tells these groups how to run their Indigenous outreach programs. Within RA and the bodies that unthinkingly do RA’s bidding with their RAPs, there is a shocking misreading of mainstream Australian values. Though the referendum proposal failed, the voice’s radical separatist spirit lives on in the RAPs of thousands of groups across the country. Given that ignores the memo sent by voters on October 14 last year, it’s time we asked whether RA, and RAPs, should be abolished.

The referendum result shows that Australians overwhelmingly believe in a single sovereign Australia in which we all have equal civic rights.

At the same time, Australians have enormous goodwill for Indigenous Australians, especially those suffering disadvantage. The country has devoted vast amounts of time, money and effort to practical measures to improve the lives of Indigenous people, and we are overwhelmingly happy to devote more to such practical endeavours.

However, the latest Closing the Gap report shows that RA and the 2700 RAPs inside Australian organisations have failed to shift the needle. There are poorer outcomes in early childhood development, increased numbers of Indigenous people in prison and more children in out-of-home care, as well as more Indigenous suicides.

Life expectancy gaps are not on track, nor are school completion rates, or employment or training or tertiary education.

That Closing the Gap targets are not being met is not from lack of care among mainstream Australians. It’s down to something else.

Reconciliation is one of those words that sounds nice. But what if this word, reconciliation, has become camouflage for holding tight to a set of policies that continually fail Indigenous people? What if RA is nothing more than a shakedown racket, playing on institutional anxiety and laziness to instil in those same institutions across the country a radical rights-based agenda that has patently already failed generations of disadvantaged Indigenous people?

RA enjoys monopoly power. Just about every major company or other group wanting to signal to the rest of the country that its leaders and workers believe in reconciliation drafts a Reconciliation Action Plan agreed with RA.

Once that’s done, they will be applauded by RA for formalising their commitment to reconciliation and can parade as moral corporate citizens. Many will be at Reconciliation Australia’s gala dinner next month in Brisbane.

In 2006, prime minister John Howard launched the Reconciliation Action Plan program with professor Mick Dodson to encourage companies and other groups to effect practical solutions for Indigenous Australians. Since then, it seems that RA and its soldiers inside the environment, social and governance departments of big corporations have turned reconciliation into a covert pursuit of a ’70s-style separatist rights agenda.

What follows is hard to say and may be harder for some to hear. The focus of Indigenous activists on reconciliation and self-determination have set back the lives of the most disadvantaged Indigenous people. These are big amorphous words used by elites in the Indigenous industry – by groups such as Reconciliation Australia – to capture demands made by Indigenous groups.

And the model of modern identity politics means that when a victim group makes demands, the oppressor group must say yes because, as Damien Freeman said in this newspaper recently when explaining the voice agenda, who are the oppressors to question what victims demand?

This dismal model has certainly delivered good outcomes for elites in the Indigenous rights industry – they work in our law schools, sit on advisory committees, host radio programs, deliver speeches and fill the board of RA. The other consequence of identity politics has been to entrench even further into our body politic a rights agenda, giving short shrift to responsibilities.

Reconciliation Australia is a prime example. This not-for-profit entity is primarily funded by the federal government (through the National Indigenous Australians Agency) and various BHP entities. Its funding pie of about $10m is neither here nor there.

RA’s influence comes in controlling and giving its imprimatur to RAPs, and emphasising self-determination for Indigenous peoples. About 2700 groups have a RAP. That includes every significant Australian company – BHP, of course, but also the big banks, Coles and Woolworths, and the rest of the ASX 100, as well as the pre-eminent professional legal and accounting firms, government departments, not-for-profit entities, governmental agencies and other groups. RA offers four levels of RAP, each more activist than the former.

Many companies have the two highest levels – called Stretch and Elevate – which, according to the website, “can only be done in careful consultation with RA” due to the “specific requirements, expectations and processes”.

RA tells would-be RAP applicants that after they have paid their RAP registration fee, they will draft their RAP using one of RA’s templates, submit it to RA and “expect a minimum of 2 to 3 rounds of feedback” before RA will conditionally endorse it.

Given they are sourced from an RA template, it’s no surprise most RAPs look the same and embody principles peddled by RA from the separatist era more than 50 years ago when Gough Whitlam endorsed the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1972.

That UN instrument, applicable to every person equally, was overtaken in 2007 by the radical UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP.

As RA chief executive Karen Mundine said to a 2023 parliamentary committee looking at incorporating UNDRIP into Australian law, RA’s Reconciliation Action Plan program “has been informed by a strong commitment to self-determination, drawing on the principles of UNDRIP”. According to Mundine, the organisations with RAPs “are committed to actions to progress reconciliation and embed the principles of UNDRIP in the policies, governance and practices of those organisations”. How many board members of big Australian companies realise that their RAP embeds the UNDRIP principles in their organisation?

UNDRIP is part of that UN phenomenon where the world’s activists for a particular cause design a “one size fits all” revolutionary charter that is often grossly inappropriate for many countries.

There may be countries and indigenous peoples for whom UNDRIP, or parts of it, makes sense. Australia is not one of them.

Our federal parliament has not incorporated UNDRIP into domestic law and could never do so because it is comprehensively inconsistent with Australian law and our political framework. Even a recent Labor-Greens dominated parliamentary committee stopped short of recommending it be made binding.

For example, article three of UNDRIP provides that by virtue of the right to self-determination, Indigenous people must “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”.

Article four says self-determination includes “the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions”.

Under our Constitution every Australian has equal rights, but this UN document clearly gives special rights to indigenous people. How does that work in practice when a company or other group endorses UNDRIP?

Take Coles, for example. Its RAP prominently features UNDRIP and says the supermarket recognises the declaration’s principles and will explore how to apply them within its operations.

Did executive and board members at Coles take some time out from thinking up clever pricing strategies to read the details of UNDRIP before signing off on the company RAP? Is Coles supporting self-governing states for Indigenous groups?

Article 14 of UNDRIP demands that “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems”. Is Coles demanding a separate Indigenous school system? What about the fundamental responsibility of parents to ensure their children go to school?

How many chief executives and board members of other companies and groups understand that their RAP is a Trojan horse for a rights-based agenda that has failed generations of the most disadvantaged Indigenous Australians, especially women and children?

Or do companies sign up to RAPs without proper board scrutiny? It’s entirely possible the ESG department tells the chief executive that their company needs a RAP to be a good corporate citizen and, hey presto, a RAP – largely dictated and overseen by RA – is born.

That’s not to say all things companies and other groups commit to in a RAP are divisive or inappropriate. Coles deserves credit for supporting Aboriginal health service The Purple House, for donations of food and groceries to remote Aboriginal communities and for its training and recruitment of Indigenous young people.

But corporations could, and should, deliver all these steps to practical reconciliation without linking them inextricably to what appears to be the inflammatory separatist agenda of Reconciliation Australia.

The separatist attacks on Australian sovereignty are undoubtedly the worst features of the corporate RAPs sponsored by RA because they go to the heart of our cohesion as a society and a polity.

But plenty of other features in RAPs surely irk mainstream Australians to varying degrees. Endless claims that the land we live and work on is Indigenous land – even if it’s located in Pitt Street or Collins Street, are ubiquitous in RAPs and a constant feature of the welcomes to country we are forced to endure.

Indeed, it’s the compulsion behind RAPs, similar to how groups foisted the voice on workers, customers and other stakeholders, that will cause division.

The more aggressive corporations make no apology for their coercion. KPMG (some will say, who else) actually brags that in 2021 its national executive committee decided that Indigenous cultural awareness training would become mandatory for all staff and partners because attendance at voluntary training fell short of targets. This is terribly counter-productive. Compulsion is not even close to what reconciliation should be about.

The unforgivable shame is that by swallowing the four RAP flavours of RA’s Kool-Aid, big Australian companies, government bodies and other groups are taking the lazy and irresponsible path.

By outsourcing reconciliation to RA, Australia’s biggest companies have turned RA into the nation’s reconciliation policeman. That allows RA to guarantee that reconciliation and self-determination are far more wedded to rights agendas than practical outcomes, let alone responsibilities.

The biggest beneficiaries of this reconciliation racket are those Indigenous elites who give reconciliation directives, provide cultural training courses, sit on boards of groups such as RA, deliver welcomes to country, advise companies on how to draft a RAP and trot off to international gatherings to talk about self-determination.

How this provides any help to an Indigenous child in a violent family who hasn’t been to school for more than 100 days, has a mum who’s addicted to grog and an absent father is not obvious.

Companies and other groups don’t need RA. Forget the RA model of re-education cultural training camps in the workplace. As working adults, we can read and learn for ourselves.

If all companies, especially our biggest ones, got rid of their RAPs and instead focused on practical and generous steps towards reconciliation – scholarships, apprenticeships, support for health centres, food banks and the like – we would cheer their commitment to improving the lot of disadvantaged Indigenous Australians from the rooftops.

Corporate Australia should move out from under the shadow of RA for another reason, too. The separatism at the core of RA, and the RAPs signed by companies and groups across Australia is out of step with the result of the October 14 referendum last year when an overwhelming majority of Australians voted for unity, not division. That’s another way it saying it is time to get rid of Reconciliation Australia and its ineffective and divisive RAP program.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/time-to-get-rid-of-indigenous-reconciliation-police/news-story/98e12392df94cbdc153b4debbbf329a0

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

ACT Greens accused of ‘extremism crisis’ after candidate James Cruz’s Hezbollah post

An ACT Greens candidate has been forced to issue a clarifying statement after a social media post in which he appeared to suggest Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah should be removed from Australia’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.

James Cruz, Greens candidate for the seat of Kurrajong, came under fire after he said on X that “more and more” people were arguing that Hezbollah should be taken off the terror list, prompting Coalition calls for the Greens to address their “growing extremism crisis”.

Mr Cruz was replying to Guardian podcaster Nour Haydar, who suggested Jewish groups had led the charge for Hezbollah to be listed as a terrorist group.

Mr Cruz replied: “Remove Hezbollah from the list of terrorist organisations? You’re hearing it more and more.”

Amid a backlash over the post, Mr Cruz issued a statement saying he had only remarked that “other people have queried the listing”.

“Hezbollah is a listed terrorist organisation and the Greens are not arguing to change that,” Mr Cruz said. “I back that position of the Australian Greens.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was “utterly extraordinary” that an endorsed Greens candidate believed the remarks were appropriate, calling on the left-wing party to dump Mr Cruz from its ticket.

“Hezbollah are proscribed in Australia and around the world for very good reason – they are terrorists,” he said.

“Over a four-decade reign of terror they’ve killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and even Argentina, where they blew up a Jewish community centre in 1995, killing 84 people.

“The Greens must address their growing extremism crisis and it should start with disendorsing James Cruz.”

During a recent wave of demonstrations marking one year since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, the Australian Federal Police targeted protesters displaying the Hezbollah flag, which is a prohibited symbol due to concerns it could ignite violence.

The furore over Mr Cruz’s post came just a week out from the October 19 ACT election, which will see Chief Minister Andrew Barr pitch for another term after 23 years of Labor government.

ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said the comments raised a “sensitive and complicated issue”, but declined to comment further.

Greens sources told The Weekend Australian Mr Cruz’s X account had recently been hacked and deleted by a third party.

Conservative group Advance accused the Greens of “standing with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests”, rather than acting as a “party of environmentalists”.

“Not only do they stand with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests, they float changes to how those barbaric organisations are treated by our national security apparatuses,” spokeswoman Sandra Bourke

“The Greens aren’t who they used to be, and more and more Australians are seeing it as the Greens show their true colours.”

The stoush followed federal Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi’s refusal to declare Hamas should be dismantled.

Mr Cruz’s comments surfaced the day after revelations came to light that ACT Greens candidate Harini Rangarajan had reportedly written a blog post comparing 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to Jesus Christ.

“I’ve gone on to idolise several other martyrs – Bhagat Singh, Husayn ibn Ali, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, Balachandran Prabhakaran, Joan of Arc, Osama bin Laden, etc,” her post reportedly said.

In his pitch to voters Mr Cruz said he was drawn to run for the Greens because of the party’s commitment to end homelessness and its recognition of housing as a fundamental human right.

“Growing up in poverty and living in public housing showed me the urgent need for a society that addresses inequality and the growing housing crisis,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/greens-accused-of-extremism-crisis-after-candidates-hezbollah-post/news-story/108c0ecd5411bc97d85cf5ec8173b49f

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

The eSafety Commissioner concedes – for now

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has conceded their position regarding orders sent to X to block footage of the attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.

In April of this year, the eSafety Commissioner wrote, or should we say, ‘demanded’:

‘I am exercising my powers under the Online Safety Act to formally compel [online platforms] to remove [the footage]. I have issued a notice to X requiring them to remove this content. A legal notice will also be sent to Meta this afternoon, and further notices are likely to follow. I will not hesitate to use further graduated powers at my disposal if there is non-compliance.’

This request was made possible by the authority contained within the Online Safety Act and its new eSafety Commission set up by the former Liberal government.

Australia now sits on the map beside places such as China, Brazil, and Russia when it comes to the restriction of news stories.

Many have grown to suspect this Online Safety Act, whether intentional or accidental, constrains the independent press granting a de facto market advantage to established media giants. In doing so, it also strengthens the media’s existing political relationships.

Social media and the sudden rise of citizen journalism presents an existential threat to the media. By extension, it has weakened the control our government has over public reception to its policies. Criticism can no longer be silenced with the promise of a seat on the press bus.

Previously, online government censorship existed in the shadows through private requests made to platforms, particularly during Covid. The public suspected something was amiss, but Elon Musk confirmed the political interference after purchasing Twitter. 4,000 requests were secretly made by the Morrison government to censor posts, the majority of which turned out to be true. Was this an abuse of power, and why has there been no apology from the Liberals who today say they oppose Labor’s censorship bill? Does the current leadership regret its previous actions? We do not know. They will not discuss it.

‘The online world cannot be a cowards’ cavern where the rules of the real world do not exist,’ said then-Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. ‘Big tech and social media giants must be held to account. Our plan will force them to do more – they cannot create it, and wash their hands of all consequences of it.’

Funny. That’s how most people feel about politicians and their hair-brained policies.

Over the weekend, the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, announced:

‘Today I have decided to consolidate action concerning my Class 1 removal notice to X Corp in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. After weighing multiple considerations, including litigation across multiple cases, I have considered this option likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, especially children.’

It would be interesting to hear an elaboration from the eSafety Commissioner about how removing video footage of a news incident helped ‘keep children safe online’ when no such action has been taken to remove far more violent footage of things such as … the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

Why this footage? Why this incident? By what criteria is the censorship of the news undertaken and how, we may ask, is one piece of footage more damaging to ‘children’ than another?

Or, as many of us suspect, is ‘child safety’ being increasingly and lazily used as a means to justify the censorship of adults?

X’s Global Government Affairs account posted the following:

X welcomes the decision of the Australian eSafety Commissioner to concede that it should not have ordered X to block the video footage of the tragic attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.

After the attack, a number of X users posted video footage of the event. The Bishop himself thought the public should be allowed to see the footage. However, the eSafety Commissioner ordered X to block Australians from seeing the footage on X – even though it was available on some other platforms.

X objected but complied within Australian borders, pending a legal challenge by X. Unsatisfied, the eSafety Commissioner demanded that social media platforms censor the footage worldwide. While other social media companies did so, X fought in the Australian federal court. The court ruled in favour of X and rejected the eSafety Commissioner’s global censorship demand.

Meanwhile, X filed a legal challenge arguing that the video footage should not be blocked even in Australia. Six months later, the eSafety Commissioner has conceded that X was correct all along and Australians have a right to see the footage.

It is regrettable the Commissioner used significant taxpayer resources for this legal battle when communities need more than ever to be allowed to see, decide and discuss what is true and important to them.

Whether in Australia or around the world, X will fight for your right to free speech.

This is not the only battle for free speech being fought online. Billboard Chris is still waiting for his appeal against the eSafety Commissioner to be held next year.

The eSafety Commission brands itself as ‘empowering all Australians to have safer and more positive experiences online’ but that depends on your definition of ‘safety’, ‘positivity’, and ‘empowerment’.

What is empowering about having an unelected and unaccountable government authority deciding what we can and cannot know about our world?

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/the-esafety-commissioner-concedes-for-now/

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

The Christian vote swings against Labor

When planning for the next federal election, due by September 2025 with some pundits suggesting as early as March, Prime Minister Albanese (aka one-term Albo) cannot ignore the Christian vote, the majority of which is Catholic.

Approximately 44 per cent of Australians identify as Christian and, proven by the 2019 election when Scott Morrison was unexpectedly re-elected as Prime Minister, a significant number of such voters appear to be swayed by their religious beliefs.

Such was the impact of the Christian vote that the review commissioned by the ALP after its electoral defeat recommends the party do more to ensure its polices gain the support of faith-based voters, instead of alienating what is a key constituency.

The report concludes that in outer urban and regional electorates, especially in Queensland, ‘When all other variables are controlled for, it is estimated that identifying as Christian was associated with a swing against Labor.’

While inner-city electorates, now dominated by the Teals and Greens, champion Woke causes including Indigenous reconciliation, multiculturalism, gender diversity, and climate change – there are millions of voters who are more conservatively minded.

One only needs to look at the 60/40 vote against the Voice to Parliament to realise, as argued by the cultural critic Roger Scruton, that most people, unlike the cosmopolitan, inner-city elites, centre their lives on family, local community, and the need for social cohesion and stability.

It’s obvious that if Albanese and the Labor government are keen to attract the millions of Christian voters who will decide the electoral outcome in marginal seats across Australia, they are going about it the wrong way.

Based on existing policies, and what the government plans to do if re-elected, it’s clear the ALP government has turned its back on Christian and Catholic voters when it comes to issues like religious freedom and freedom of conscience as well as school funding.

The Albanese government’s failure to introduce its Religious Discrimination Bill to Parliament, even though the draft bill was made public in 2021, represents a serious threat to the millions of voters identifying as Christian.

Whereas current anti-discrimination legislation makes it illegal to unfairly discriminate against someone on the basis of age, sex, gender identity, race, and disability the same protection is not afforded to people of religious beliefs and faith.

While those of Jewish faith are facing a rising flood of antisemitism in Australia where they are vilified and attacked on a daily basis by those seeking Israel’s destruction, it’s also true, though less violent and less extreme, that Christians face hostility and prejudice in Australia.

Examples include Victoria’s legislation to fine and imprison priests and Christian parents for daring to counsel children about the dangers of gender transitioning. Tasmania’s Archbishop Porteous has also been punished for advocating church teachings. To this we add the ACT government’s compulsory acquisition of the Catholic-owned Calvary Hospital, public figures like Israel Folau and Margaret Court being attacked for their religious beliefs, and the head of Brisbane’s Citipointe Christian College being pressured to resign over the school’s enrolment policies.

In an increasingly extreme secular world where human rights activists and elected representatives of various left-wing political parties argue Christians must be banished from the public square, it’s obvious more must be done to protect religious freedom.

Currently, faith-based schools are exempt from anti-discrimination legislation regarding who they employ and who they enrol. Religious schools, given their primary purpose is to remain true to their faith, must have control over staffing and enrolments.

The Albanese government’s failure to ensure such rights are protected represents another reason why parents who send their children to religious schools have every reason to fear what happens next year if the ALP government is re-elected. Especially if the Greens hold the balance of power.

Education Minister Jason Clare has stated a number of times that government schools deserve greater funding while one of the ALP’s long-term supporters, the Australian Education Union, opposes funding Catholic and Independent schools.

To financially penalise parents by reducing Commonwealth funding to non-government schools threatens parental choice as well as being financially counter-productive. Catholic schools enrol 19.7 per cent of students while Independent schools, the majority of which have a religious affiliation, enrol 16.3 per cent.

The cost to government, and taxpayers, of educating students in religious schools is significantly less than the cost of educating students in government schools as non-government school parents contribute billions of dollars annually to educate their children.

Catholic school parents contribute approximately 23.6 per cent of their children’s school income while Independent school parents contribute 46.9 per cent. If such students were enrolled in government schools the cost to government and taxpayers would increase dramatically.

There’s no doubt cost of living will be the main issue at the next election but, at the same time and proven by Scott Morrison’s win in 2019, the Christian vote will also be a deciding factor.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/the-christian-vote-swings-against-labor/

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

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

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

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

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

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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

Western Sydney University chief Jennifer Westacott: ‘We will not tolerate hate speech on campus’

Western Sydney University chancellor Jennifer Westacott has slammed anti-Israel campus protesters, two of whom were arrested and charged for allegedly assaulting security guards.

“Western Sydney University condemns anti-Semitism in any form, full stop,” Ms Westacott told The Australian.

“We condemn Islamophobia, hate speech, intimidation and violence in any form, full stop. I cannot be clearer than that.

“We will not tolerate these behaviours on our campuses. This is now a police matter and we are fully co-operating with the police investigation.

“The safety and wellbeing of students is our priority. Universities should be places of intellectual challenge and the contest of ideas, but they must never be places of fear or intimidation.”

Peak Jewish groups have expressed outrage at Western Sydney University protesters who claimed to name a campus building after the slain former leader of Hamas’s political wing. In a social media comment, the protesters confirmed their banner, which read “Haniyeh’s building”, was a reference to Ismail Haniyeh, the former leader of Hamas’s political wing who was assassinated this year.

The protesters have scheduled a “cops off campus” protest on Friday at the university campus, saying two of its members were “violently arrested” in a case of “racial profiling”.

“Ismail Haniyeh was the leader of Hamas, a terrorist organisation listed in Australia, just like ISIS and al-Qa’ida,” Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive Alon Cassuto said. “Imagine students glorifying bin Laden on campus a year after 9/11.

“Failures in university leadership across Australia have emboldened students to think they can get away with glorifying a genocidal terrorist leader with no consequences. Western Sydney University must come out strongly … to condemn this behaviour and send a clear message to all students that this will not be tolerated.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry condemned the protesters for being “some of the most ignorant and brainwashed people imaginable”.

“It has taken a year for the anti-Israel movement to drop any pretence of supporting peace and Palestinian statehood,” ECAJ co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said. “It is now plain for all to see they’re only interested in war and Jewish destruction.

“In time they will undoubtedly turn up as Greens candidates or researchers for ‘human rights organisations’ but their proud support for a murderous anti-Semitic psychopath will follow them.”

Separately, University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell sent a note to students and staff on Thursday after The Australian revealed anti-Israel protesters had trespassed and protested in a Jewish physics professor’s office and left only when police were called.

Victoria Police on Thursday confirmed it had been called to remove “around 25 people” from a university staff member’s private office.

“This type of behaviour is completely and utterly unacceptable and stands in direct opposition to the values we hold as a university,” Professor Maskell wrote. “There are no circumstances whatsoever where a member of our university community should be targeted in this way.

“Everyone has a right to be safe at work and this is enshrined in law. Colleagues also have a right to be able to do their job without being or feeling threatened. Intentional acts of intimidation, violence, vilification or anti-Semitism against members of our community will not be tolerated.”

He said such acts cannot be allowed to be repeated: “I exhort everyone in our community to come together and stand against such attacks on our colleagues and our values.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/western-sydney-university-chief-jennifer-westacott-we-will-not-tolerate-hate-speech-on-campus/news-story/5a7ffbd4becdbd69c4174e312ecdab56

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

‘It’s almost beyond belief’: Findings blast Australia’s biggest carbon offset scheme

Australia’s biggest carbon credit scheme is barely removing any greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, according to a new study, despite hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into it by businesses and the government.

One of the study’s authors, Dr Megan Evans from UNSW Canberra, said the findings about the Human Induced Regeneration scheme, known as HIR, pointed to “such huge failures that it’s almost beyond belief”.

The HIR is intended to allow farmers and project proponents to reduce stock and feral animals from vast areas of rangeland Australia which, they argue, allows forest to regrow there in a way it would not otherwise.

Credits are then issued for each tonne of carbon dioxide abated by the assumed growth in trees based on a model of how the forest should regrow in those areas, plus on regular audits.

The new research from a group of ANU and UNSW scientists, led by Professor Andrew Macintosh, used historical and current satellite images to suggest there was no meaningful change between forest growth on areas that were claiming carbon credits compared with neighbouring areas.

The new paper suggests that whatever trees have grown on the 116 projects surveyed was overwhelmingly due to recent rainfall, not the human management of projects.

The study found most projects showed “minimal impact on woody vegetation cover in credited areas” even though they had already generated about $495 million in carbon credits.

Their findings were immediately rejected by another ANU scientist, natural resource management associate professor Cris Brack, who has done extensive work for the government regulator, the Clean Energy Regulator.

Brack rejected the statement that little or no abatement had taken place, saying he had “personally reviewed numerous projects across NSW, Queensland and WA”, and had access to independent assurance-audit reports that proved projects were on track.

The HIR method is the largest single contributor of carbon credits to the Australian government and private industry, with 465 projects covering 42 million hectares – an area significantly larger than Japan. Having issued 44 million carbon credits, the Australian scheme is, according to the new study, the fifth-largest nature-based scheme in the world, making these findings of global significance.

ANU professor of climate change law and policy Andrew Macintosh.
ANU professor of climate change law and policy Andrew Macintosh.Credit:Vikky Wilkes

The problem, the researchers say, is that HIR schemes are being credited on rangeland that was unsuitable because it was never cleared of forest in the first place, and is already close to its natural coverage of forest (trees above two metres tall over at least 20 per cent of the landscape).

Since 2021, Macintosh and a growing team of scientists have described the method as a fraud that would cost Australia up to $5 billion by 2030.

Their concerns have prompted a number of reviews, most notably by former chief scientist Ian Chubb. In 2023, he found the method was sound and said, “we have no reason to believe that there are substantial numbers of [Australian Carbon Credit Units] ACCUs not credible at the moment”.

But the new, peer-reviewed report, published by Macintosh and his team on Friday in The Rangeland Journal, closely analysed 116 sites in NSW, Queensland and South Australia using high-resolution satellite images.

Based on the number of carbon credits generated on the project areas, the tree canopy should have covered 30 per cent of the sites. Instead, they found the average cover was just 13 per cent. They also found the project’s management had made little difference to tree coverage.

“The areas are likely to be at or near their carrying capacity for woody vegetation, meaning any changes in tree cover are most likely to be attributable to seasonal variability in rainfall,” the report said. “Projects are being credited for regenerating forests in areas that contained forest cover when the projects started.

“Given that 2023 was the third year of a rare triple-dip wet La Niña, if the projects were performing as expected, observed levels of canopy cover across the projects would be significantly higher.”

The scientists said the real problem with this was that emitters would not alter their behaviour because they could buy offsets, then if those offsets did not produce real cuts in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Australia would not genuinely reduce its emissions.

Another of the project’s authors, Professor Don Butler from the ANU, said the government body that administers the scheme, the Clean Energy Regulator, had “let us all down terribly”.

“They’ve used hundreds of millions of dollars of public money to build a house of cards that is enabling climate inaction ... The failure of this scheme will only become more obvious as time goes on.”

But Brack, who has audited the scheme for the Clean Energy Regulator, and found it was meeting its targets, said the other scientists had got their measurements wrong.

The satellite images they used were not picking up all the extra growth, he said, much of which could only be seen from photographs or “in situation measurements” on the ground.

Brack added that projects could still meet targets if there were small trees that had not yet reached full size.

In a statement, the Clean Energy Regulator said the HIR method had been reviewed and found to be sound, by Chubb, the Australian National Audit Office and most recently by Brack who had given “strong assurance that the projects are being managed properly”.

If a project was not compliant, carbon credits already paid out were clawed back, the statement said. “We only issue carbon credits where a project can demonstrate regenerating native forest,” it said.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australia-s-biggest-source-of-carbon-offsets-built-on-house-of-cards-credits-worth-495m-20241009-p5kh3m.html

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

Some Australian states are discovering what happens when they have too much rooftop solar

What a muddle!

When Victoria basks in mostly sunny spring weather this weekend, energy authorities will be monitoring how far electricity demand ebbs. If needed, they’ll turn off rooftop solar systems to ensure stability for the grid.

Such minimum system load events, as they are called, have emerged as a new challenge as households across Australia take advantage of plunging prices for solar panels to shield themselves from rising power bills and cut carbon emissions.

The Australian Energy Market Operator issued two such alerts for Victoria during the AFL grand final weekend a fortnight ago, and warned of two for this Saturday and Sunday.

Prior to this cluster, the state’s only previous warning was last 31 December.

The public has become inured to annual alerts to possible power shortfalls during summer heatwaves or extended cold snaps during winter.

It won’t be long before the obverse – a grid strained by too little demand – is common during mild, sunny spring and autumn days, when the need for cooling or heating abates, experts say.

“It’s all going to be uncomfortably interesting for energy system people,” said Tennant Reed, director of climate change and energy at the Ai Group, noting there are “emerging rules to keep the show on the road”.

Having a grid that is supplied entirely by renewable energy is something Aemo and state and federal governments have anticipated as they step up support for so-called consumer energy resources. Australian households have already embraced rooftop solar at a pace unmatched anywhere, with more than a third generating power at home.

Many options are available to source extra demand, such as encouraging people to use more of their generation at peak sunny periods, renewable advocates say.

Hot water heaters, now often operating at night, could be switched on during the day, while certain industrial users could be given incentives to increase production, much like they are now rewarded to power down during summer heatwaves.

Still, the looming challenges aren’t small, particularly as coal-fired power plants shut.

The grid’s system strength is “projected to decline sharply over the next decade”, Aemo said in its latest 2024 Electricity Statement of Opportunities report.

From October to December is likely to be when demand sinks to its lowest for most parts of the national electricity market. (The national electricity market or Nem serves all regions except Western Australia and the Northern Territory.)

Windy, sunny spring days – much like the coming weekend in Victoria – also mean an elevated supply of renewable energy in a season of minimal heating or cooling need.

A year ago, on 29 October, Nem grid demand hit a record minimum of about 11 gigawatts for 30 minutes. Small-scale solar, most of it on residential roofs, met 52% of underlying demand.

As more homes install solar, the Nem’s minimum demand may continue to shrink at the present rate of 1.2GW each year, Aemo said.

The Nem needs at least 4.3GW of electricity moving across its transmission network. If there are “unplanned network or unit outages”, the threshold rises to about 7GW – a level that may be breached as soon as next spring, Aemo said.

“While these periods of very high distributed PV levels relative to underlying demand are currently not frequent, they will increase over time and could occur during unusual events and outage conditions,” it said.

“A credible disturbance could lead to reliance on emergency frequency control schemes which are known to be compromised in such low operational demand periods, escalating risks of system collapse and blackouts.”

However, the market has a sizeable toolkit to address those risks. South Australia, where about half the homes have solar panels, already has coped with two minimum system load events of level 3 – the most serious – on 11 October 2020 and 14 March 2021.

For the latter, SA Power Networks, a company part-owned by the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Cheung Kong Infrastructure, was ordered to turn off 71 megawatts of photovoltaic systems. It was the first such intervention by Aemo.

So-called solar curtailment is now a feature of SA’s operating system even if such an intervention is meant to be a “last resort”, the network group said.

Before such action, large-scale solar and wind farms will be turned off, as will big solar systems on shopping centres and factories. Exports of surplus solar power from homes will also be halted before the systems themselves are turned off.

According to WattClarity, a leading energy data website, SA had at least eight such rooftop solar curtailments in 2022 and 2o23.

Victoria, which introduced similar “backstop” rules on 1 October this year, says consumers can do their bit. Solar curtailment should be authorities’ last move.

“We encourage households with solar panels to make the most of their clean energy and save on bills by using their solar power during the day – whether it’s charging electric vehicles, doing laundry or running dishwashers,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.

For Victoria, the backstop mechanism won’t affect a household’s ability to consume their own solar generation. Large batteries are part of the toolkit from this spring, with storage on standby to create additional demand by charging up.

New South Wales and Queensland are expected to face similar challenges in coming years. NSW, though, is yet to start public consultation on restrictions of solar exports, with minimum load issues not forecast until late 2025 or beyond.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/12/australian-states-too-much-rooftop-solar

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

Landlords giving up: Victoria sees record fall in rental stock as investors leave the state

Victoria is experiencing the sharpest fall in rental stock since record keeping began in 1999, suggesting an investor sell-off is gaining pace.

The number of active rental bonds (a proxy for the number of rental properties in a market) fell from a little over 676,400 in June last year to 654,700 this year – suggesting there were 21,700 fewer rentals in the market.

The state has only ever recorded two quarters of rental bond falls, and both occurred in 2024.

The speed of rental stock loss also appeared to be increasing, with the total number of rental bonds dropping 1.3 per cent in the three months to May, and 3.2 per cent in the three months to June.

The new data, released by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, supports a trend identified in the recently-released Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) 2024 Annual Investor Sentiment Survey.

The survey described a "sell-off of investment properties around the nation" that was "continuing unabated" and "fuelling fears of an even tighter rental market".

The outlook may be grim for investors, but home owners appeared to be benefiting, snapping up 65 per cent of the properties investors sold, according to PIPA.

First homebuyers in Melbourne have also enjoyed months of falling prices, while most of the rest of the country has experienced continued increases.

However, the survey's 1288 respondents declared Victoria to be the "least accommodating state or territory for property investors", and Victoria and Melbourne were found to have some of the highest proportions of investors selling up.

In Melbourne, roughly 22 per cent of investors surveyed had sold at least one rental in the past year, the second highest after Brisbane.

When it came to investors selling in regional areas, Victoria also had the second highest rate, with just over 9 per cent of investors selling, just below NSW, where the figure sat at just over 10 per cent.

PIPA Victoria board director Cate Bakos said legislative changes around minimum rental standards and increased land taxes were driving investors from the state.

She said real estate agents were also reporting a higher percentage of sellers being investors.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-12/victoria-sharp-fall-in-rental-stock/104464504

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

All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

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

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)

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

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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