Abo teen gets her just desserts

It's true that she herself was probably victim of a lot of violence. Abo men are very hard on their women and children. I have seen it myself.

There has been no admission in the media (that I have seen) that she was Aboriginal but pictures of her assault clearly show the skinny brown legs of an Aborigine

Note that the assault was in Perth. Black/white relations are notoriously bad in Western Australia

A 15-year-old girl who violently attacked a pregnant mum by slamming her to the ground with her hair as she pushed her two toddlers in a pram will spend at least a year in jail.

The teenage girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faced Perth Children's Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery following the September 5 attack.

Judge Hylton Quail described the attack, which was captured on CCTV footage, as 'sickening'.

The girl was charged with six other offences in Ashfield, Midland and Midvale areas between August 30 and September 5 - including an attack on an 11-year-old girl.

The 15-year-old girl admitted to trying to rob the woman but claimed she was coerced into a series of crimes by her cousin while high on marijuana, WAtoday reported.

During the sentencing, Judge Quail addressed the normalisation of the girl's violent and anti-social behaviour caused by her dysfunctional upbringing.

'From very young she was exposed to a high level of alcohol and substance abuse,' Judge Quail said.

'She experienced a great deal of neglect and has been hospitalised on a number of occasions for serious injuries as a result of that neglect.'

The 15-year-old was sentenced to 12 months behind bars.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11463749/Pregnant-mum-attack-Perth-Girl-15-jailed-year-trying-rob-woman-pram.html

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Greenie hatred of sheep and cattle

Having flown to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop 27) in Egypt, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has been at pains to point out the Albanese government’s commitment to US President Joe Biden’s international pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.

The pledge will impel greenhouse gas-intensive industries like agriculture which, owing to the digestive systems of sheep and cattle is responsible for about half of Australia’s methane emissions, to curb their methane output.

If the target is legislated, the door would open for punitive regulatory measures to be placed on graziers running cattle and sheep.

Across the ditch, New Zealand is planning to impose a ‘burp tax’ on farmers by 2025 which, according to its own modelling, would force an estimated 20 per cent of cattle and sheep farmers and 5 per cent of dairy farmers out of business.

Such a policy in Australia would have the same result, with farmers compelled to de-stock, leading to a decline in food production and a skyrocketing of meat and dairy prices. The inevitable farm closures would devastate regional communities.

Why the Albanese government would commit to any measure that risks destabilising Australia’s agricultural industry beggars belief.

In the current geopolitical climate, the lesson could not be clearer: food security is inextricably linked to national security – a point emphasised in a recent report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute which outlines that ‘robust and resilient food and fibre production systems are critical to political and social stability’.

One need only look as far as Ukraine to see the horrific results when food supplies become weapons of war. By mercilessly blockading Ukrainian cereal exports, Vladimir Putin has plunged millions in chronically malnourished regions in Africa and the Middle East into food scarcity and starvation.

Fortunately, Australia is one of the most food-secure nations on earth. Our $83 billion agricultural industry produces enough food every year to feed Australia threefold. Surplus supplies go to our neighbours in the Indo-Pacific region – home to half of the world’s undernourished people.

The war in Ukraine, therefore, is a salutary reminder that, in any crisis to come closer to home, Australian farmers will play a crucial strategic role in bolstering not only our national resilience but peace and stability in our region.

The ASPI report argues that government and policymakers should take heed of ‘Putin’s war on global food security’ and examine how ‘national security can be threatened as well as enhanced by how we approach agriculture policy, investment and production’ in Australia.

Despite its strategic importance, few industries are as demonised by the urban green lobby or as burdened by environmental regulation as Australian agriculture, particularly the livestock sector.

Even before the methane pledge, Australian farmers were up to their neck in cumbersome environmental regulation.

Recent research from the Institute of Public Affairs has shown that the weight of Commonwealth environmental red tape, known as ‘green tape’, that farmers are forced to wade through, has grown 80-fold since 1971.

The effect has been to stifle the efficiency and productivity of Australian farmers.

IPA research shows that the Commonwealth’s environmental bureaucracy has grown at nearly three times the rate of the agricultural sector since 2000. In the same period, for every one job created in the environmental bureaucracy, 14 jobs have been lost in agriculture.

The excessive regulatory burdens placed on our farmers border on the ridiculous. To build a single irrigation pivot on private land requires no less than eight different permits.

Excessive green tape risks hampering our food security which, in times of crisis, is one of the most critical requirements to national resilience.

All of this reflects the growing tendency among policymakers to place lofty climate ambitions above the practical needs of our nation.

Despite paying for our social services, healthcare, and infrastructure, farmers – like miners – are increasingly enemy-number-one for the green climate lobby who paint them as environmental vandals. This despite the seemingly obvious fact that sustainable land management is unquestionably in the interest of every single farmer.

The reality in modern Australia is that fewer and fewer Australians have any connection to farming, agriculture or our rural regions. Worse still, few recognise that Australia is a secure, stable and safe nation largely thanks to the efforts of our farmers, both past and present. Not to mention peace in our region.

Our agricultural industry sits at the heart of our nation.

Recognising this, the Albanese government should act to cut unnecessary green tape, commit to no new taxes on farmers and, most importantly, celebrate the noble work our farmers do, not only feeding and clothing their fellow citizens but millions around the world as well.

This is now a national security priority. Just as Australia was built on the sheep’s back, so too will we rely on our farmers in any dark times to come

https://spectator.com.au/2022/11/australian-notes-324/

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Why we need nuclear power NOW: Entrepreneur Dick Smith reveals the only way Australia can reach net-zero

Millionaire businessman Dick Smith has savaged Anthony Albanese's government and demanded Australia introduces nuclear power immediately.

The philanthropist told Daily Mail Australia the government was risking 'destroying the landscape' and 'ruining people's homes' with its push for more energy through dams and wind turbines.

His intervention comes after Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen previously admitted that, to meet the government's net-zero goal, Australia would have to install 40 large wind turbines a month and 22,000 solar panels a day.

Meanwhile, Patricia McKenzie, the chair of the country's biggest coal-fired power generator and CO2 emitter AGL, has warned it would need about 98 gigawatts of new capacity to speed up the closure of its coal power stations.

She said that new capacity would be needed by 2030 to 'keep the lights on', which would put 'unacceptable pressure on energy security and affordability'.

The nation has added only about 2.2GW of capacity over each of the past five years.

Mr Smith says that nuclear power is the obvious answer to the crisis and says Australia needs a government that embraces it.

'There's no alternative to nuclear power,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'I'm a big fan of renewables but the longer we delay going to nuclear, the more carbon we'll have in the atmosphere.

'It will take 10 years to get the first nuclear power station going so we can't delay but I know this government will and that will cause problems.

'It is too expensive to store energy from renewables. For water, we'd have to have dams in our valleys, which would destroy them and then dams at lower levels. You'd need a hundred dams across the country.

'For wind, we'd destroy the landscape and people's beautiful homes with wind turbines.

'We also have to think about wind droughts. Even if we had turbines all over the country, droughts would be inevitable and with the weather changing as much as it is, it'd be impossible to predict them.'

As well as criticising the government directly, he also hit out at CSIRO, the government science agency.

'There are claims from the CSIRO that renewables plus storage are cheaper than coal,' he said.

'That is just a complete lie. Storage costs would have to come down 40 times to make renewable cheaper to store than coal.

'The claims that renewables are cheaper are just not true.'

Mr Smith did not back up his claims, which are in direct contrast to a CSIRO report from earlier this year that said solar and wind continue to be the cheapest sources of new-build electricity.

Mr Smith also rejected nuclear safety fears and pointed out that 75 per cent of France's electricity is derived through nuclear power.

Australia has just one nuclear reactor, at Lucas Heights in Sydney. The government-run facility does not produce power, it instead mostly creates chemical elements used in medicine and scientific research.

'There is a nuclear reactor in Sydney. In France, the attitude to nuclear power is completely different,' Mr Dick said.

'I know I'm fighting against the tide but the younger generation are more accepting. My generation, that lived through the Cold War, they are terrified of nuclear power. But I speak to my grandchildren and they are more understanding.

'We need a government that accepts nuclear power. Did we ever think we'd have nuclear submarines? No, but we do and now we need to embrace nuclear power. We'll have to go there one day.

'We have a serious climate change problem and we need to make a serious decision on the solution.

'Not moving towards nuclear will lead to higher temperatures, ice will melt and water levels will rise.

'It's a very hard decision to make but the whole world needs to embrace nuclear power before it's too late.'

The rapid shift to net zero emissions is now the 'law of the land' thanks to the Albanese government's ambitious climate change bill passing in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

However, commentators have begun to question if we are speeding towards a renewables wreck.

'No-one in authority has the courage and intellectual honesty to explain the magnitude of the power transition this country is forced by law to embark on and the dire consequences of its likely failure,' Peta Credlin, Tony Abbott's former chief of staff, wrote in a column for The Australian.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen admitted Australia will have to 'mine, move and manufacture immense volumes of material, energy and equipment… and to train and mobilise hundreds of thousands of skilled workers (in a) collective endeavour that is almost of unprecedented scale' to meet the government's targets.

At a forum in October, featuring chief executives from the country's top electricity companies, Alinta CEO Jeff Dimery warned power prices would rise by 35 per cent next year, pointing out it would take an $8billion investment in renewables to replace $1billion worth of fossil fuel capacity.

Origin Energy CEO Frank Calabria at the same forum said, based on current wholesale costs, electricity prices would increase sharply when new tariffs are set next July.

The government's climate change bill requires greenhouse gas emissions to drop 43 per cent by 2030 and hit net-zero by 2050.

'Coal will have to drop from supplying 60 per cent-plus of our power needs to under 10 per cent within eight years. And renewables will have to rise from supplying about 30 per cent now to more than 80 per cent,' Credlin wrote.

'In practical terms, that's 28,000km of poles and wires with the trained trades to erect it, and necessary access to farming land and property across the country.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11437695/Dick-Smith-makes-desperate-call-switch-nuclear-power.html

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Australian iron miner diversifying into rare earths

Fortescue Metals executive chairman Andrew Forrest has signalled the company hopes to open up a business mining and refining rare earths, as the iron ore giant looks to reshape its mining portfolio around metals needed for a global energy transition.

Speaking at Fortescue’s annual shareholder meeting in Perth on Tuesday, Dr Forrest said the company had “kicked off a global stream of work in South America” aimed at securing access to critical minerals.

Dr Forrest did not give any details of Fortescue’s plans to join Lynas and Iluka Resources in the race to produce rare earth metals, but suggested the company was looking for projects it could use as an integrated part of its push to deliver renewable energy generation and renewable hydrogen across the world.

Rare earths are used in a host of high technology applications, but are essential ingredients in the high intensity magnets needed to make wind turbines.

“We’ve kicked off a global stream of work in South America which secures the critical minerals, the global suite of projects which we have across the world in renewables hydrogen manufacturing, which will kickstart the green energy economy,” Dr Forrest said.

“I’ve just returned from saying really large deposits of these critical minerals.”

Fortescue’s shareholder presentation includes a slide on rare earths as part of its exploration efforts, saying they would be critical to Fortescue Future Industries projects in manufacturing, renewables and hydrogen and that entry into the industry would “bring added value for our shareholders”.

The presentation follow similar comments made by FFI boss Mark Hutchinson after the company’s September quarter production report, when he told analyst Fortescue eventually hoped to integrate its mining and manufacturing operations in a more vertical structure.

Mr Hutchinson said in October the company would initially buy batteries and other renewable energy equipment from existing suppliers, rather than developing its own manufacturing capabilities.

“But we are looking at lithium longer term and batteries and seeing what we can do, particularly with the mining capabilities in the company, and also looking at other alternatives as well like using hydrogen and even pumped storage,” he said.

Fortescue is already exploring for lithium in Portugal, and last year pegged large tracts of WA’s south west region believed prospective for nickel, lithium and other battery and renewal energy technology metals.

The company has previously been linked to the potential acquisition of operating lithium mines such as Greenbushes in Western Australia. It is also exploring for copper in the Americas and Kazakhstan.

Neither Dr Forrest or Mr Hutchinson gave further details of Fortescue’s planned move into rare earths in their presentations to shareholders.

But any move into rare earths could add to an increasingly crowded capital spending budget for the company. Iluka’s WA rare earth refinery is tipped to cost at least $1.1bn, and the company already has a ready-made deposit of high grade feedstock for its refinery contained in waste product from its former mineral sands operations at Eneabba.

Dr Forrest also flagged an acceleration of Fortescue’s spending at its Belinga iron ore project in Gabon, saying its 80 per cent owned subsidiary in the company was “closing in” on the grant of a preliminary mining licence in the country.

Fortescue first signed a deal granting the company access to the deposit in December 2021, and said in August would commit $90m over the next three years on exploration at the giant iron ore project, once owned by BHP.

“The third mapping campaign is happening right now in-country and as we speak significant areas of new mineralisation have been identified. Results are very promising and we plan to commence drilling early in 2023,” Dr Forrest told shareholders.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/andrew-forrest-flags-fortescue-metals-entry-to-rare-earth-hunt/news-story/e2da17636c6e1c765e6083a5a9915404

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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