Australian Politics

Rising number of men ignore domestic violence orders

I am not going to be popular for saying this but we need to recognize what lies behind attacks by men on ex-partners, murder-suicides in particular. It the man's sense of loss. Usually the pair have had a relationship that the man is pleased and proud about, accompanied by a probably realistic feeling that if he loses that relationship he will never be able to get another such relationship. So when a woman takes that away, he is hugely angered by the loss. And anger does often motivate violent and revengeful behaviour.

So that does point the way towards a possible solution to the problem. In brief, the man's needs should be recognized and all possible steps taken to minimize his sense of loss. I am not going to say exactly what steps should be taken as that will vary with the individual circumstances but one simple thing that could work well in some cases would be for an ADVO to trigger a visit by a social worker to talk to the man in a supportive way. That should be automatic and urgent immediately an ADVO is granted. Ever since Freud, psychiatrists have recognized the curative power of talk and that may be all that is needed to save the woman's life in some cases

I hasten to add that what I have just said does not in any way reflect my own experience. My four marriages all ended amicably and even now at age 80, I still have an attractive girlfriend

Domestic violence offenders are increasingly disregarding ADVOs at alarming rates in NSW, new analysis shows. The first three months of the order are the most dangerous period for victims.

The Herald’s analysis of ADVOs over a five-year period has found a rise in the number of offenders breaching ADVOs even amid a police crackdown, while punishments are becoming less severe.

The number of orders breached was up 35 per cent from 17,057 to 22,969 in the five years to 2023.

The proportion of offenders being sent to jail for breaching an ADVO, when that was their principal charge, also showed a decline, according to NSW Criminal Courts Statistics from July 2018 to June 2023.

Over the same period, fine penalties increased as a proportion of court outcomes from 12 per cent to 21 per cent from 523 to 1412.

However, this data fails to capture every ADVO breach in NSW, as it counts only those defendants who have been found guilty of and sentenced for breaching an ADVO if that is their main offence.

The danger period for victims, the analysis found, was the three months after an ADVO was issued. The rate of ADVO breaches or domestic violence reoffending was highest in these three months.

Last year, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found that extending the length of an ADVO from 12 to 24 months was linked to a decrease in the probability of further DV offending. However, longer ADVOs were associated with significantly higher breach rates.

Experts say the increase in breaches is concerning and that it could be reflecting a combination of more actual breaches, a rise in breach reporting, as well as a targeted police crackdown on domestic violence, including the formation of a squad targeting the worst offenders.

Domestic Violence NSW senior policy officer Dr Bridget Mottram said the perpetrators of violence were often at their most angry and vengeful in the immediate aftermath of an ADVO being taken out. She said the rise in reporting of breaches to police and more proactive policing also would have resulted in the number of offences increasing.

“It’s also an element of boundary testing – the perpetrator seeing what they can get away with, which a breach charge reasserts the boundaries for,” she said.

“It’s significant to note, as well, that the NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team have found that most women who are murdered by a previous partner had ended their relationship within three months of the homicide. This is an exceptionally dangerous time and where it’s imperative that we have systems in place to keep victim-survivors safe.”

Man raped ex-wife as children slept next door

In another disturbing example of an ADVO failing to protect a woman, one offender broke into his ex-wife’s home several months after being handed the order and raped her for hours as their children slept in the next bedroom. Sentencing documents released by the NSW Supreme Court detail how the offender, who had recently separated from his wife, had been barred from going near the victim or finding out where she lived.

His breaches started with texts asking if he could visit her house to pick up a scooter for their child. On another date, he asked to collect a beach towel. The mother declined both requests.

On October 25, 2021, he asked the young child where his mother lived, and after hours of drinking, he broke into the house and walked into his ex-wife’s bedroom.

The sentencing remarks read: “She came face to face with the offender, who grabbed her by the throat and said, ‘hello [woman’s name]’.

“It caused the victim pain. The offender pushed the victim towards the bedroom, leading her by holding her throat, and said, ‘guess I’m really going through with this after all … My heart is racing’.”

He was sentenced last month to a maximum of 12 years in jail.

Women’s Legal Service NSW principal solicitor Philippa Davis said police and courts must take all breaches seriously.

“If victim-survivors are not believed, or they are told it is just a ‘minor’ or ‘technical breach’, the seriousness of the ADVO is downplayed, and this can lead to perpetrators continuing to disregard the ADVO,” Davis said.

While Davis was pleased to see an increase in the number of ADVO applications being made by police, she said the legal service consistently heard from clients who felt police failed to respond appropriately to their reports of violence.

“[This data] doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t capture those circumstances where police don’t take action,” she said.

Davis said a combination of factors might cause repeat offending within the first few months of an order being issued.

“For some, it could be a lack of understanding as to the particular orders and the restrictions placed on what they can do and where they can go,” she said.

“For others, though, it will be a blatant disregard for the AVO as they continue to assert power and control over a victim-survivor and ensure she continues to fear for her safety and that of her children.”

The Herald recently joined police on a four-day domestic violence blitz as they arrested 226 people for serious offences.

At the time, Superintendent Danielle Emerton, commander of the domestic and family violence registry, said police treated all ADVO breaches seriously.

She said her team used criminal profiling to detect “dangerous offenders” who posed an elevated threat of causing serious harm to victims and they performed regular compliance checks on offenders serving out ADVOs.

The Herald also recently revealed Lismore man James Harrison had been served an ADVO to protect his ex-partner, doctor Sophie Roome, three months before he allegedly killed himself and their two-year-old son.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-m-not-going-to-stop-until-she-s-dead-rising-number-of-men-ignore-domestic-violence-orders-20240527-p5jguk.html

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

Deck was stacked as CSIRO estimated the cost of nuclear power

The cost of nuclear energy is twice the cost of renewables, so sayeth the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. But why is the CSIRO in the non-scientific game of providing assumption-driven estimates of the cost of generating electricity in different ways?

On the face of it, it looks like a bit of buck-passing by the Australian Energy Market Operator, which enlisted the assistance of the CSIRO some years ago. This is a task for engineers, economists and accountants – not scientists.

Modelling is not science, and estimating costs is also not science. By rights, the CSIRO should have declined the request. Its reputation has been markedly sullied.

Let’s consider the latest version of the CSIRO’s GenCost report. As with all modelling, it’s a case of garbage in, garbage out. The assumptions in it range from the plausible to the absolutely ridiculous.

The most glaring errors in the report are the assumptions about the upfront costs of nuclear plants, their rates of utilisation and their lifespans. The assumption on the capacity of wind power is also laughable and the assumed lifespans of both wind and solar are too long.

It looks suspiciously like a tail-wagging-the-dog exercise: how to ensure that nuclear power looks extraordinarily expensive compared with the preferred renewable energy option of the federal and state governments.

The fact that Australia is the only country of the largest 20 economies in the world not to have nuclear power didn’t seem to awaken the curiosity of the CSIRO team. Should we be assuming that all their governments are simply stupid by having such an expensive form of generation?

And how could it be the case that a very large number of countries are now aggressively investing in more zero-emissions nuclear plants?

Indeed, our main ally, the US, has a target of tripling the amount of nuclear power by 2050.

The international figures are clear: countries with high wind and solar shares in their generation of electricity actually have relatively high electricity prices. They include Germany, Britain, Spain, Denmark and Italy, as well as the states of California and South Australia. By contrast, those countries with very low renewable shares have the cheapest electricity: Russia, United Arab Emirates, Korea and India.

It is worth pausing here to briefly outline the methodology of the GenCost report. It uses levelised cost of electricity, or LCOE, as the key metric – a measure that includes both the cost of installation as well as the expected lifetime of the asset. The cost of the fuel is added, which is zero for wind and solar but material for other means of generation.

The capacity factors of different means of generation are then taken into account. They should vary between 25 and 33 per cent for wind and solar but the GenCost report has onshore wind at 48 per cent and offshore wind at 52 per cent, which are both clearly errors. The capacity factor for nuclear should be in the 90s but in one scenario, the CSIRO puts the figure at 53 per cent, another clanger.

But the key is this: the LCOE is the wrong measure to use. What is required is a system-wide LCOE because of the inherent intermittency of wind and solar and the inviolable objective of 24/7 power. When the wind blows and the sun shines, the cost of generating electricity by these means is very low. But because the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun sets, expensive back-up (or firming) is required.

This back-up must be added to the cost of both wind and solar. And account must be taken of both extended wind droughts and cloudy periods – short-duration batteries will simply be inadequate. In practical terms, the option of long-duration, affordable batteries simply doesn’t exist and affordable pumped hydro is not possible in this country.

Last year’s GenCost report was a major hit job on the highly prospective Small Nuclear Reactors which are still being developed, although Canada is further down this path than other countries.

By choosing just one pilot scheme in Utah that was subsequently abandoned, the report was based on the worst-case scenario. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this was quite deliberate. This time, the decision was made to include tried and tested large-scale nuclear plants in its comparison of generating costs. The upfront costs of building nuclear plants are very substantial and they can also take some years to complete. There are also quite a few examples of cost blowouts and delays – in Finland and the UK, for example.

The GenCost report uses the relatively successful example of Korea’s nuclear program to estimate the expected capital cost of a large-scale plant. The figure is put at $8700 per kilowatt, which sounds reasonable enough. But the figure is then arbitrarily doubled because it would be the “first-of-a-kind” in Australia. It is simply asserted that “FOAK premiums of up to 100 per cannot be ruled out”.

This is absurd. After all, Australia would be importing the expertise from experienced players were nuclear plants to be built here. And as the nuclear energy industry enjoys a significant renaissance around the world, the number of companies and the depth of talent involved are increasing markedly. By the time Australia is in a position to consent to nuclear plants, it is inconceivable that the FOAK would be double. This assumption makes a substantial difference to the final results.

Stung by the criticism that previous GenCost reports failed to take into account the cost of transmission needed to get renewable energy to the grid, this latest version makes some effort to do so. But instead of focusing on the entire cost of transmission, which feeds into retail prices, only the cost of additional transmission is included in the analysis. Again this is a bias in favour of renewable energy.

Of course, one of the advantages of nuclear plants is that they can be located where existing transmission lines exist; the cost of foregone investment in transmission by rights should be included as reducing the cost of nuclear.

They can also last more than 80 years, even though the GenCost report bizarrely gives them a lifespan of 30 years. Solar and wind are assumed to last 25 years, which is far too long.

Of course, no serious investors would take much notice of the GenCost report or any of the other selective pieces of analysis put out by various government departments. Their analysis would be based on carefully derived figures subject to sensitivity analysis. The key now is for both the federal and state government bans on nuclear power to be lifted so the potential investors can sharpen their pencils and get to work.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/deck-was-stacked-as-csiro-estimated-the-cost-of-nuclear-power/news-story/2aaa0a5be23b3f09f363a6b3ce19af32

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

Islamist ‘invasion’ is already happening by stealth

There are similarities between the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Intifada protesters shouting “from the river to the sea” in response to the war between Israel and Hamas. For a start, the original Taliban knew almost nothing about their own country or history except that which they were fed by manipulative, charismatic cult-like leaders.

While Australia sent more than 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan during the 20-year War on Terror, with 41 killed, hundreds wounded, and countless with invisible scars, little did we know, the Taliban were building a base right here in our own country.

The literal translation of Taliban is “student”. During their origin in Afghanistan these students were obsessed with cleansing their society through brutal enforcement of sharia law. Its leadership also provided a sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, who planned the September 11 attacks from his Kandahar compound.

In Australia today, we are witnessing the emergence of a new form of Taliban on our streets, at political conferences, universities and at places where Jews may gather. While their claims appear to be about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, this is a moral cover. Their real aim is to extend the Islamist global insurgency’s power and influence. Their narrative is based on conspiracy, humiliation, justice, oppression, survival and duty. All cosy intellectual affiliates of the modern left-wing, victim-based movements overrunning Western institutions.

Of course, most of these spoilt, lost little souls in Australia are far from being anything like the warriors of Afghanistan: they wouldn’t last five minutes in a Ghazni village. Their privileged cries would be met with stones of justice.

Anyone who participated in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force there will tell you the Taliban maintained and extended control of towns and villages by co-opting or killing the three nodes of leadership – political, security and religious. This is the classic insurgency framework. In a northern Cote D’Ivoire town bordering Mali, I created a community web of protection around these nodes of leadership as they were threatened by al-Qaeda affiliates in their attempt to assume a new region of control. The immediate reaction to this anecdote might be that we are in Australia; not Afghanistan or some far flung African borderland. But it doesn’t matter – the application of this insurgency framework is the same. And not only Australia. Look at this year’s local government elections in the United Kingdom where Islamist candidates shouting “Allahu Akbar” won several seats.

In Australia we have growing numbers of Islamist sympathisers and Jihadist supporters changing the minds of Federal and State politicians, universities and senior leaders across civil society, business and the media. Our foreign policy is changing because of this influence.

What we missed in the War on Terror, but what the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Hamas understand, is the most transformative components of conflict are moral and mental. Being a member of the Taliban is a state-of-mind. The weak can be lured by fantasies. This is the jihad we are witnessing in Australia and other Western countries October 7. Governments assumed our national security and our freedoms could be protected by a strong defence force, borders, and police. As if like a gas, without front or back this movement bypassed all of that. It didn’t even need to sneak in.

One of the least known, yet most strategically influential al Qaeda figures was Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al Suri, arrested during a 2005 counter terrorism raid in Pakistan. No other individual did more to transform al-Qaeda’s strategy into a globalised umbrella. Now jihad is becoming mainstreamed into many aspects of Western society, involving not just physical acts of terrorism, but also the kind of struggle we see around Western cities.

Abu Musab al Suri recognised there would need to be a great mobilisation to achieve mass participation in a jihadist movement. He saw the Palestinian Intifada as the “prototype” but on a broader basis reaching the home of the American invaders and their infidel allies from every race and place.

The phenomenon has been successful because it is coinciding with the denigration of everything that made the West great since the Enlightenment. This includes the slow removal of borders through the creation of anti-sovereignty constructs such as the “Global South” and mass migration. These debase the value of our citizenship. Even Afghans know not to, as they say, let snakes live in your sleeve.

Our own democracy is being cultivated, coerced, and co-opted to support one of the most anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-Christian movements in the world. We have every right to question this Intifada movement in Australia. Because none of this came via Chinese, or Russian or Iranian cruise missiles, battleships, or drones. It is by our own ruling class of elites who are even making us question freedom of speech. Some people realise videos of priests being stabbed in our suburbs awakens the busy mums and dads and grandparents to the fact that something is not quite right.

The gut-wrenching irony of it all is we sent some of our best this country produces to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. We convinced ourselves the fight was over there. If only we knew a sanctuary for Islamist extremism was being built right here. A sanctuary to undermine all that is good, and decent and generous about Australia.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/islamist-invasion-isalready-happening-by-stealth/news-story/804054469c512f75d6a2ad7dd7b5c4d8

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

Fears key trades overlooked for new skilled visa

Quite insane. Probably the result of union pressure

The building industry has raised concern it will be worse off than initially thought under Labor’s shake-up of skilled migration, amid fears that key trades such as plumbers and plasterers will not even make the second tier visa stream.

Master Builders Association chief executive Denita Wawn has urged the government to ensure all trades are included under the new core skill visa stream, after a draft list of confirmed eligible occupations overlooked bricklayers, cabinet-makers, stonemasons, painters and roof tilers.

Instead the trades were included on a list of professions under “consultation” to decide if it will be included in the new visa category, which was announced under Labor’s review of the migration system.

Tradies were also carved out of the highest paid visa stream for workers earning more than $135,000, following pressure from the union movement.

Ms Wawn said without an adequate workforce of skilled tradespeople the government would not reach its goal to build 1.2 million homes in five years.

“It seems inconsistent with all the data that departments and government agencies are putting out that we’ve got such a massive shortage of tradies,” she said.

“The government funded Build Skills Australia recently said we need 90,000 trainees in 90 days to be able to build the 1.2 million homes.

“And yet, we’re still on a consultation list for many of the trades for immigration when we know immigration is so incredibly vital.

“It’s definitely perplexing as to the process.”

Australian Hotels Association chief executive Stephen Ferguson has urged the government to include chefs and cooks on the list of occupations eligible for the visa, after the occupations were also included on the list for consultation.

“At present, there is still no certainty that chefs and cooks will be included in the final migration eligibility list,” he said.

“With over 12,000 chef and cook vacancies, it would be a massive loss to the hospitality industry if they were not included in the final list.”

The warnings come amid mounting concern the Coalition’s plan to cut net migration to 160,000 next year, will lead to cuts in the number of overseas skilled workers arriving in the country. Labor has also predicted net migration will fall to 260,000 next financial year.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar warned that dramatically tightening migration could damage the economy, urging both sides of politics to “avoid a boom bust cycle”.

“We need a reasonably stable, sustainable level of migration coming in,” he said.

“We don’t want to bust now. We’ve had a boom in the last 12 months, as we’ve swung out of Covid and the pandemic impact as the borders reopened, they’ve got to get back to a sustainable level.

“There’s got to be some changes to the migration program to get it to that level.”

He cautioned against slashing international student intakes as a measure that would harm the nation’s “largest non-commodity export industry”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/fears-key-trades-overlooked-for-new-skilled-visa/news-story/f9774335a70ac29425d7474ceba4cae9