Australian Politics
Dutton commits to defunding Environmental Defenders Office under Coalition government
The Coalition will strip funding from the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) if it wins the next federal election, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has promised.
The EDO is an environmental legal centre that runs litigation and offers legal support in climate change and environment cases.
Federal funding to the non-government organisation was cut by former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2013 but reinstated by the Albanese government when it came into power.
The government committed to providing $8.2 million to the EDO over four years, with the rest of its revenue received from state and territory governments or philanthropy.
But the EDO has recently worn criticism for its conduct in court. Federal Justice Natalie Charlesworth ruled the group had confected evidence and coached witnesses in its legal challenge of a Santos gas project in the Timor Sea.
In the wake of that case, Mr Dutton vowed to revive the Abbott-era cuts if the Coalition won government.
"They have obviously been discredited in a recent federal court case but the federal government has had nothing to say about it," Mr Dutton told resources groups in West Australia this morning.
"The same activists are now seeking to use the courts to thwart Woodside's $16.5 billion Scarborough offshore gas field project here in WA.
"It does stymie existing projects and it does stop new endeavours from taking off. "We think it needs to be defunded."
Mr Dutton's commitment follows a pledge by the LNP in Queensland to pull state funding for the EDO if it wins the next election, and calls from former WA Liberal premier Colin Barnett for the group to be abolished altogether.
On Tuesday, EDO chief executive David Morris wrote to supporters acknowledging the court had been critical of "some aspects of the handling of the case", and said the office was treating that with the utmost seriousness.
"We are reviewing the judgement carefully but as the matter remains before the court, we are limited in making further comment," Mr Morris wrote.
"While this decision was devastating for EDO's clients and deeply disappointing for EDO and supporters like you, our determination to continue providing public interest legal services to communities across the continent is unwavering.
"We provide these services in circumstances where, were it not for EDO, access to environmental justice in Australia would be seriously diminished."
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The hate-filled Aboriginal industry
I have had enough of the Aboriginal industry and the posturing, harassment and denigration that it hurls at everyone else. And I have had enough of its latest destructive offshoot, the campaign against Australia Day. And I have already had enough of the latest campaign for which we are clearly being softened up, namely that the next governor-general should be an Aboriginal or, to use the latest piece of nonsense, that he or she should be someone from the so-called First Nations.
To start with that nomenclature, it is utterly absurd to refer to Aboriginal tribes as First Nations. They were never nations because they have never had any of the attributes that the word has meant to convey and it is false to pretend that they have. That is not to diminish their culture or traditional way of life, which I for one would like to preserve. It is simply to give the thing some sort of rational basis rather than the fantasy world on which the notion of First Nations is built.
Then there is the equally absurd notion that the European arrival in Australia was an invasion. Even if you do not believe Australia was terra nullius at the time, as I believe it was , and no matter what the High Court says about it, the factual reality is that this country was not settled until 1788. There was at the time a general understanding among civilized nations that there was a right and a duty to settle what were largely uninhabited territories and give their people a chance to share in the better life that modern society could give them. The British, and those who came later in waves of immigration, did exactly that, and they were a great success.
Obviously, there were blemishes in the settlement. But the motive behind settlement was good and its benefits were enormous and cancel out the blemishes a thousand times over. Of course, the Aboriginal industry will never accept that argument, because settlement was effected by the European race and to say that the European race could do anything decent or worthwhile is anathema to it.
I happen to believe that white settlement brought great benefits and opportunity to Aboriginals. Indeed, we should forget about Sorry Day and implement a Thank You Day, when Aboriginals and all Australians can give thanks for the bounty, prosperity and national identity we have received for being part of European civilisation.
In any event, if the settlement was an invasion, there is a very obvious and simple way of undoing it and atoning for it, and one that is still available to the do-gooders who have seized on the Aboriginal issue to denigrate all Western civilisation: give the land back, starting with the suburban block to give everyone a chance to share in that noble project. Strange, but I have not found a solitary Australian who will take part in such a gesture. Instead of that, we are content to blame the present generation for every perceived shortcoming of all previous generations, which is grossly unfair and does not help a single Aboriginal to better their lives. Rather, it turns the mainstream Australian population against them, as we saw with the Voice.
Worse still, this hectoring is now destroying our national identity and I worry for the future. No sporting match, no cultural event, no civic activity and no celebration is now safe without uncoupling it from any recognition of Australia Day or any suggestion that it might be an event of which Australia should be proud. And that attitude is utterly destructive for building a national spirit and identity. Just how bad this has become has just been seen by the abuse of Peter Dutton for daring to oppose Woolworths’ virtual ban on products for Australia Day which it presents under the deceitful guise of being a commercial decision. Dutton should be commended for taking a stand and he is emerging as the first Liberal leader with backbone since Tony Abbott. And here is a better policy to defend Australia Day: no money, absolutely none, for any municipal council or other body, private or public, while it will not celebrate Australia Day.
Like me, you probably feel that you could and should have objected to the unrelenting trend to debase Australia. But I have changed and am making my own protest and I hope you will. I have found that, surprise, I can actually live without shopping at Woolworths and without patronising the Nova Cinemas and Readings Bookshops in Melbourne for their abuse of our national day. I assure you: it gives you a great feeling of liberation.
It is said, of course, that our appalling record is shown by failures on Aboriginal health, education, housing and incarceration. There are simple solutions for all of these ills, if only our governments had the guts to use them. The answers are very straightforward. Health: stop taking drugs and start eating decent food. Education: go to school. Housing: start saving up. Incarceration: don’t commit the crime.
On the next governor-general, to say that he or she must be an Aboriginal is tokenism of the worst order. It is based on racism and should be abhorred. It would do as much damage to Aboriginals as was done by the discredited Voice. The appointment is by the Crown, the same Crown that made our national settlement; so how can the same Crown now deny the legitimacy of that settlement?
Finally, on a note of optimism, there is now a new challenge, the proposed treaty which should be opposed with the same vigour that defeated the Voice because it is just as bad, and for very good reasons. Only governments can make treaties. A nation cannot make a treaty with itself or its citizens. And we all know what the lobby will try to include: control over development and the use of land; more tokenism; the right for one race and its non-elected representatives to have more power in government decisions to all other races and to the prejudice of all other races. If you can defeat the Voice, you can defeat the so-called treaty. But only if you try.
We are losing our nation. Even the so-called national broadcaster now maintains that the news comes from Gadigal country, a completely offensive assertion that suggests it is not even part of Australia. The way we are going, Aboriginals may well be the First Nations. But Australia will become the Lost Nation. That is a tremendous sadness and it should be opposed in every way.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/01/brown-study-281/
******************************************************Anthony Albanese’s broken tax pledge does not make up for losses in cost-of-living crisis
Anthony Albanese’s broken tax pledge would return less than 10 per cent of the real disposable income average earners have lost per week, as a leading economist warns bracket creep is more damaging to workers than interest rate hikes.
As the political battle sharpens over competing tax relief plans for “middle Australia” and the Prime Minister refuses to apologise for his broken election promise, the Coalition has released analysis of national accounts data showing the government has presided over a fall in real disposable income for average earners now amounting to $153 a week.
However, Labor’s new tax model, which reduces the size of tax cuts to higher-income earners to redistribute to lower-wage earners, would deliver only $15 extra a week to an average earner beyond the original stage three cuts. The opposition claims the data exposes the revised tax plan as providing “a drop in the ocean” in addressing the cost-of-living and inflation crisis the Albanese government claims it is addressing with its plan.
The Australian understands the Greens are considering demanding that Labor raise the $18,200 tax-free threshold in order to win the party’s support on the stage three rewrite in the Senate.
The Coalition’s fresh attack on Labor’s stage three broken promise comes as EQ Economics managing director Warren Hogan claimed bracket creep had a worse impact on workers over the past two years than the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 13 interest rate hikes.
A separate analysis of the national accounts by Mr Hogan showed total mortgage interest repayments increased by $18bn a quarter in the two years to September, from about $11bn in the three months to September 2021 to $29bn in the three months to September 2023.
This is compared to the quarterly increase of $26bn in income tax paid over the same period – from $65bn to $91bn a quarter – although high migration numbers have also been a factor in the workforce tax figures. “This government has basically spent its first 18 months in office blaming the RBA for all the misery out there when it is actually income tax that has gone up more,” Mr Hogan said.
“Bracket creep has had a bigger impact on middle-income Australia than the RBA’s interest rate hikes.”
The Coalition’s analysis of national accounts data from the December 2023 quarter shows real net disposable income per person fell by 8.6 per cent in the first 18 months of the Albanese government.
For an average income earner this is a decline in take-home pay of just under $8000. The primary drivers of the hit to net disposable income have been rising prices, rising mortgage payments, falling real wages and bracket creep.
The Coalition claims an average earner would receive just $804 more under Labor’s policy – $15.46 a week – than it would under the existing tax laws.
Opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor claimed this was less than 1 per cent of their annual wage and returned just 10 cents for every dollar they had lost to cost-of-living pressures.
The opposition analysis is based on the difference between what the average full-time wage earner on a salary of around $95,000 would have received under the existing stage three tax cuts as legislated by the former Coalition government and Labor’s new model, which it will need parliament to pass before July 1.
The analysis assumes a 3.5 per cent rise in real wages and a 9.4 per cent rise in prices amid population growth of 3.5 per cent.
This amounted to a loss in real net disposable income of $7953 a year. “Labor is selling their broken tax promise as a solution to the cost-of-living crisis,” Mr Taylor said. “Labor’s failures on workplace relations, energy, housing and tax are driving up the cost of living for all Australians.
“Rather than boost productivity and rein in spending to control inflation, Labor has broken its core election promise to raise taxes. Anthony Albanese has sold his integrity and started a class war for a 10c election sugar hit. Bracket creep is the tax increase nobody voted for. Labor’s broken promise entrenches bracket creep in our tax system.
“Remarkably, it is a tax cut that increases taxes by $28bn on more than four million Australians. Labor is trying to tax its way out of inflation and hardworking families are paying the price.
“Strong economic management, not broken promises, is the only way to provide relief to middle Australians from Labor’s cost-of-living crisis.”
A spokesman for Jim Chalmers accused Mr Taylor of “fumbling around for the usual incoherent excuses to play politics with our bigger tax cuts for middle Australia”.
“This is why nobody takes Angus Taylor seriously. He says he’s for lower taxes then opposes bigger tax cuts for more people to help with the cost of living,” he said. “All those words and he still can’t explain why he wants higher taxes on middle Australia to fund even bigger tax cuts for those on the highest incomes.
“This shows once again his mindless negativity is no substitute for economic credibility, and he will harm not help the workers and families of middle Australia.
“If the Liberals really understood how tough people are doing it in middle Australia they wouldn’t be opposing more help for them via the tax system.”
Mr Albanese on Sunday continued to defend his broken election pledge, having promised in opposition to not relitigate the stage three tax cuts, which he previously supported. He said new legislation would be introduced in “coming weeks” with parliament due to return on February 6.
It would unwind the existing tax cuts – which were due to begin on July 1 – and replace them with Labor’s revised model. Labor will need the support of the Greens, which are hostile to tax cuts, and two of the Senate crossbench – or rely on the Coalition not to stand in the way of the changes.
“We are putting our plan to the parliament and we are hopeful of getting support. We will talk to people across the parliament,” Mr Albanese said Sunday.
“We’ll put it first to the House of Representatives. We will put it to the Senate. And I’m very confident that people will look at the two plans … one of which leaves a whole lot of people behind.
“All those people, the part-time workers, the renters, the people earning under $45,000, (it) leaves them behind and gives them nothing.”
He said the 13 interest rate hikes – 12 of which have come since Labor was elected in May 2022 – had been the driving factor in his change of mind.
“Well, the challenge and the clear obligation that we had was to not put further pressure on inflation. So that was the context here. That was the problem with, you could hand out, the easy politics is to hand out cheques.”
However, the Prime Minister appeared unable to clearly define what salary a person needed to be earning to be considered part of “middle Australia”, despite his claim Labor’s tax model was aimed directly at this group. His comments come after repeatedly defending the stage three tax cut overhaul by arguing the changes will overwhelmingly benefit middle Australia, which is doing it tough in cost-of-living pressures.
“So that, for the average family (that) earns $130,000, instead of getting just $1000, they’ll be getting $2600. That makes a substantial difference to them. So our choice, very clearly, is to give every taxpayer a tax cut. We have done that. We have aimed the biggest benefit … squarely at middle Australia.”
The Coalition has yet to confirm its position on whether to oppose the changes or incorporate them in a broader election tax package that would also reinstate the original stage three cuts.
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Forensic lab’s latest failure
After years of catastrophic problems, revealed by The Australian’s Shandee’s Story podcast, Queensland’s forensic laboratory is undoubtedly overwhelmed in retesting a backlog of about 100,000 samples from more than 30,000 criminal cases dating back to 2007. But its management must do better at prioritising urgent tasks. As Sarah Elks and Michael McKenna reported on Saturday, the lab is taking months to formally identify and release the bodies of a couple killed in a plane crash in October, forcing their grieving son into financial distress and delaying his parents’ funeral.
Private pilots Alwyn, 73, and Jenny Rogash, 75, died on October 28 when their light plane crashed in dense, mountainous bushland west of Mackay, after taking off from Townsville. DNA forensic testing was ordered by the coroner before a death certificate could be issued. Their son, Bryan Rogash, wants his parents’ funeral to go ahead and to deal with his parents’ estate. He can do neither, however, without his parents’ remains or a death certificate. Mr Rogash, 38, is a military veteran who was injured during his RAAF service and is unable to work.
Authorities are relying on a sample of bone to formally identify the couple. But since December 2022, bone samples have not been able to be processed at the lab, forcing Forensic Services Queensland to send them to an Australian Federal Police testing centre interstate. Such poor service is not acceptable. The Miles government needs to intervene.
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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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