Australian Politics
Much to do before we close the gap
The gap will NEVER be closed. Tribal Aboriginals are just too different to adopt a white lifestyle. The nearest that was ever approaced was when missionaries managed the settlements. It has all been downhill since then. Being an old guy (aged 80) I have personally known Aborigines from the pre- and post-missionary eras and the difference is striking
The very low average IQ of Aborigines was rigorously established by McElwain and Kearney with the Queensland Test and IQ is a strong correlate of educational achievement.
In the aftermath of the divisive Voice referendum, advocates for both the Yes and No campaigns spoke about the need to continue to address the very real disadvantages faced by members of the Indigenous community.
It is important that the rejection of the constitutionally enshrined Indigenous advisory body was not seen as Australia turning its back on its first inhabitants, and is not used as an excuse to downgrade the importance of reconciliation.
The rejection of the Voice was more about the initial failure of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to explain his model, and the subsequent failure to convince a wary electorate that such a change should be constitutionally enshrined.
Thankfully, since 2008, Australia has had a mechanism to track efforts to reduce Indigenous disadvantage. The Closing the Gap strategy was introduced by prime minister Kevin Rudd’s government, in conjunction with his national apology for the forced removals of Indigenous children.
In his apology, Mr Rudd spoke of “a future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity”.
When expressed as pure data – life expectancy, education levels, incarceration – the gap was and is staggering. Targets have always been deliberately ambitious and as a result they are often missed.
The latest state government Closing the Gap report reveals we are likely to miss many major targets, but the one that has been met deserves to be celebrated.
Queensland set itself the goal of having 95 per cent of Indigenous children enrolled in preschool education by 2025. That has already been achieved, up from 82.2 per cent in 2016.
Hopefully, this one success will carry through to other targets.
At present, the following targets are on track – the proportion of Indigenous babies born with a healthy birth weight, the number of Indigenous adults in full-time employment, and increasing the total landmass controlled by Indigenous people.
However, the areas where we are lagging are shameful.
Life expectancy still lags behind the broader community – by 7.8 years for males and 6.8 for females.
Incarceration rates for adults are actually increasing, rising to 2047 per 100,000 in 2022 from 1815 per 100,000 in 2019, while the number of young people in detention has only decreased slightly.
Heartbreakingly, suicide rates are also increasing.
And year 12 or equivalent education, as well as tertiary education rates, continue to lag.
There are two things we must remember when dealing with such damning data.
Education is key. Once those targets are being met, others will inevitably follow suit over time.
And secondly, Closing the Gap is just data. It’s only through sensible policies that have the support of the broader community that this shame of Indigenous disadvantage will be erased.
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Australian Scholar Picks Apart Study Justifying Risk-Benefit of mRNA COVID Vax--Points to Mistakes & Errors
Recently, a University of Sydney professor issued a refutation to an American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) article declaring the COVID-19 vaccines being worth the risk in the omicron era. Why is this topic relevant? Because as the science unfolds it becomes clearer that the risks associated with the Omicron version of SARS-CoV-2 become less severe (although still quite transmissible) while more safety information becomes available about the COVID-19 vaccines. Not to mention the significant benefits of preexisting and hybrid immunity against Omicron. Will someone lose their job over this one as the author Down Under implies?
Recently Raphael Lataster, Ph.D. wrote “Revisiting a Risk Benefit Analysis of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines during the Omicron Era” declaring in his blog as well that “Someone may well lose their job over this one.”
The Challenged Piece
Published by Oxford University Press, the AJE is one of the top epidemiology-focused journals. A Johns Hopkins study (Kitano et al.) pointed out that COVID-19 vaccines are still worth the risk in the Omicron era, across all groups. Source.
Ironically, or perhaps not so, Professor Lataster reports that much of the study’s funding came from industry—grants from Merck and Johnson & Johnson. Of course, this doesn’t mean bias on its face but it most certainly should be noted.
Professor Lataster, a supporter of TrialSite, pointed to our attention that the AJE published a follow-up article by Lataster, who informs the world he has zero funding industry. In his rebuttal the Australian academic points to numerous issues and errors with the study.
What’s wrong with Kitano et al.?
As Lataster delineates in this study and corresponding blog:
The study employs peculiar timeframes, such as “Less than 5 months (days 14–149) after the primary 2 doses versus no doses.” No explanation is given. Recall a recent series of journal articles on counting window issues, likely leading to exaggerated efficacy and safety estimates in clinical trials and observational studies, that I was involved with.
"I note that there can be no valid reason why adverse effects caused by the vaccine, in the several months between the 1st injection and 14 days after the 2nd injection, should be ignored”, pointing to an anaphylaxis death occurring very soon after vaccination.
“The authors themselves made reference in their article to a Japanese study, Suzuki et al., which concerns deaths “within seven days after COVID-19 vaccination”, including myocarditis deaths, and found that several of these deaths did “show a causal relationship to vaccination”. Not only are the authors inexplicably omitting relevant data from their analysis, but they knowingly do also so.”
It’s not just when the counting windows begin that is the problem, but their length as well. “The authors only consider vaccine effectiveness and safety up to around 5 months after the last injection. This is problematic with regards to effectiveness as the vaccine is known to rapidly decline in effectiveness around that time and can even become negatively effective. This is also problematic with regards to safety as the vaccine’s long-term safety profile is still, by definition, unknown. We do know that the vaccines can cause myocarditis, however, a potentially long-term and deadly issue. While the authors effectively assume no myocarditis deaths due to a lack of data, there are recent studies that do provide some data on myocarditis deaths caused by the mRNA vaccines, meriting a reanalysis.”
Even with the data as limited and selected as it is, “the stated net benefits of the vaccines are minute”, as “the smallest gain was found to be 18.7 QALY “per 100,000 vaccinees in the 4–5 months after vaccination” (5–11-year-old males with no comorbidities, third dose vs. no third dose, Pfizer vaccine), or less than 2 hours per person”. “And even these are subject to the uncertainties and estimations admitted to by Kitano et al, to say nothing of the aforementioned criticisms, all of which may well reduce these QALY gains to effectively zero, or even negative figures.” Read that again. By having very limited data, and by being very selective with that data (just ignoring highly relevant data, because why not…), their stated net benefits are almost nothing. The actual net benefit could be zero, or even less than zero. Worth potentially risking your life for?
Lataster comments, “While attempting to argue that COVID-19 vaccination is still worthwhile, the authors inadvertently demonstrate that in the omicron era, COVID-19 is now extremely benign and that the potential benefits to the vaccines are minimal at best, at least in the young and healthy.”
TrialSite emphasizes the importance of critical review of journal material during the COVID-19 period, and frankly all the time. Industry bias, ever so subtle, is real and must be identified, called out, and countered.
While it's up to the reader to determine the merits of (Kitano et al.) and the Lataster refutation, it’s unfortunate that more media channels don’t encourage this kind of unbiased, objective presentation for critical review.
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It’s time for some honesty about the fall in our living standards
December is a big month for economic news, with the release of the quarterly National Accounts and the Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
While living standards are clearly slipping, in many ways inflation is the government’s friend. In all likelihood, there will be a second budget surplus next year.
What the National Accounts clearly demonstrated is that the economy is flatlining, while GDP per capita continues to go backwards. Real household disposable income declined by 1.7 per cent over the September quarter, the fourth consecutive quarterly decline. Since its peak in the third quarter of 2021, real disposable income has fallen by over 8 per cent.
The principal reasons for this dismal outcome are: inflation, rising mortgage rates and a rising tax take. While inflation abated somewhat in the quarter, interest paid on mortgages rose by close to 8 per cent while income tax paid by households also rose by close to 8 per cent.
The insufficient growth in the economy, as well as the increase in the population due largely to immigration, has sealed this depressing result. It’s hardly surprising people are feeling grumpy, something that is being reflected in the surveys of consumer sentiment.
People are digging into their savings to staunch these negative influences. The recorded saving rate was a mere 1.1 per cent in the September quarter, the lowest rate since 2007. It had been 7 per cent last year. There is now very little left in the tank to provide further buffer for hard-pressed households. These were not the set of figures Treasurer Jim Chalmers would have wished for as an early Christmas present. An advocate of measuring what matters, he must surely acknowledge that real household disposable income, which includes the impact of the government’s cost-of-living measures such as energy and childcare subsidies, is a better measure of living standards than GDP.
But the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures clearly show these cost-of-living subsidies end up as additional government spending. The National Accounts note the “government sector increased spending on behalf of households. Indeed, government spending contributed 0.2 percentage points to GDP. State and federal government social benefit schemes for households, including the Energy Bill Relief Fund and expansion of the Child Care Subsidy, were the main contributors to the rise”.
This is the ongoing dilemma for Chalmers. While he likes to rattle off the list of relief measures the government has implemented – add in free TAFE, bulk-billing incentives, cheaper medicines and the like – there is a very real danger that any additional government spending will stall the transition to lower inflation and thereby increase the risk that interest rates will stay higher and for longer. It is the principal reason there were no further measures announced in the MYEFO.
The bigger picture here is that government measures to offset cost-of-living pressures must be paid for. The overpromising by governments to the public has built up expectations that living standards can be directly protected through government action. The combination of cheap money and historically high terms of trade assisted the federal government to maintain this fantasy for a while but, sadly, chickens have a habit of coming home to roost.
It was very significant that the National Accounts indicated the terms of trade – the ratio of export to import prices – had declined by 9 per cent over the year to the September quarter and that net exports made a negative contribution to GDP in the quarter. There is a possibility the good fortune of high terms of trade is coming to an end, an outcome that will place additional pressures on the federal and some state budgets.
The triumph Employment Minister Tony Burke exhibited as a result of the passing of the same job, same pay provisions of the Closing Loopholes legislation needs to be seen in this context. The stark reality is that the resources sector has underpinned much of the largesse handed out by federal governments over the past decade or more.
Absent the investment in the sector and the high prices the world has been prepared to pay for our commodities, managing budgets, both state and federal, would have been very different.
But by crimping labour hire arrangements that have been a means of ensuring a degree of cost competitiveness for a number of resource companies, including BHP, the direction of the effect is unambiguous – less mining activities, less investment in future projects. The resource industry is a global one and the major companies allocate capital on a competitive basis around the world.
Australia suddenly looks a lot less attractive, including for the new mining opportunities presented by the decarbonisation process and leading to us supposedly becoming a “renewable energy superpower”. It beggars belief that Jim Chalmers did not seek to intervene at least to water down these provisions, but it shows what a weak position he holds in cabinet.
This was similarly on view with the NDIS deal – some would call it a stitch-up. It’s all very well shifting expenditure out of the NDIS; but if the eligible non-participants receive the same level of assistance at a similar cost, the exercise is fiscally neutral, at best.
But it gets worse, because Chalmers was forced to extend the egregious GST deal that involves guaranteeing Western Australia a fixed share of its GST revenue – 70 per cent but rising to 75 per cent – as well as ensuring the other states are no worse off. The expensive deal was due to expire in the middle of the decade, but has now been extended until the end.
Add in the pledge for the federal government to lift its health funding contribution from 40 per cent to 45 per cent and it was obvious that Chalmers was completely rolled to get a deal across the line before Christmas.
Chalmers really needs to start telling the story that the fiscal salad days are over and real government spending needs to be returned to pre-pandemic levels. The tiny gains in real wages he has been highlighting don’t override the very real decline in average household living standards.
And without productivity growth – it fell by over 2 per cent in the year ending in the September quarter – we will need to get accustomed to much lower living standards. Just expect a fight in the meantime as various groups battle for their share of the shrinking pie.
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Brisbane home goes viral for ‘outrageous’ Christmas display
One of the biggest and brightest Christmas displays in Brisbane has now gone viral worldwide, with one video amassing nearly 190 million views on TikTok.
‘Merry Strickland’ in Burpengary East has become a favourite among the Christmas lights community, with the lights getting brighter, inflatables getting higher and a display you can apparently see from space.
David Strickland has decked out his home each Christmas for four years and he said the popularity of the display in 2023 has “gone next level”.
“Aside from all the sacrifice, time and money, it really is the joy it brings - I mean what else can you create that is so magical and brings in so many people,” he said.
‘Outrageous’, ‘extravagant’ and ‘absolutely bonkers’ are just some of the words used to describe the display on 12 Bedarra Crescent and now the residence has gone viral on social media.
“It’s pretty crazy, our Facebook page has nearly 10 thousand followers and there's been TikToks with millions of views. We’re building a bit of a profile now,” Mr Strickland said.
Just this year, Mr Strickland said the house gained an additional 10,000 lights to their already 50,000-strong display, as well as an 11m inflatable Santa, a 3D holographic fan and moving beam lights.
The family have also worked with their local council to create a safe parking area down the road from the property due to the amount of people flocking to the street.
“I’m pretty much out doing traffic control every night until Christmas Eve…I think it’s a small price to pay to bring thousands in and I’m happy to do it,” Mr Strickland said.
Mr Strickland even had to get approval from the Aviation Authority for his 380 watt moving head beam lights which shoot up approximately 600 metres into the sky.
“I mean, look, I think we’re closer to space than we were last year…definitely bigger and brighter, I’ll say that,” he said.
As a child, Mr Strickland said he loved to decorate his own parent’s home and continued to do so when he moved out for the first time and now with his own family.
“It’s always been a passion and it’s grown into something even bigger than I could have ever imagined,” he added.
The display is award-winning, taking out this year’s North Side winner for 97.3’s KISSMAS competition and is a contender for the people’s choice award.
The Strickland family describe the street as “crazy scenes”, with thousands of visitors flocking hours to witness the display.
Despite the craziness, Mr Strickland said he wouldn’t change it for the world. “Honestly, it’s four weeks of the year and just hearing the joy and the screams and the excitement...people are just blown away by the scale of it and it’s a lot of fun.
“People can definitely expect next year to be just as big, if not bigger - we want to take it to the next level,” he said.
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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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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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