Australian Politics
13 August, 2024
Agreement with Mayor Trevor Pickering wanting to ban "Welcome to Country"
It seems stupid tokenism to me too. Why do I need someone to welcome me to my own country? My family have been here for generations -- JR
Trevor Pickering, mayor of Croydon Shire Council in north Queensland, isn’t holding back on his views – and many Aussies are in furious agreement.
The topic of Welcome to Country – and whether it is overused – remains a lightning rod across Australia.
Mr Pickering said he is utterly convinced the huge majority of Australians would understand how people whose families have lived on a piece of country for 100 years might feel a little confronted by having someone “welcome’ them on a regular basis to the place they already live.
His views sparked a passionate response.
Many readers were quick to congratulate him and insisted he raise his hand for Prime Minister.
“Get rid of WTC – we’re all over it! And fed up listening to it! And truth telling – exactly wot is that,” Ted wrote.
Others said the whole issue needs to be resolved, while some claimed it’s up to him to get with the times on the debate.
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Wind energy enters its mid-life crisis
When I first heard that China was installing a two-headed wind turbine, I thought the Babylon Bee was having a laugh.
The Mingyang twin-rotor floating wind turbine platform isn’t a prank, it’s another grotesque evolution of the ‘Net Zero’ at any cost philosophy which has started creating sea monsters.
More likely, it’ll be a speed bump in the ocean – a metal iceberg – a bit of jetsam bobbing about while the world goes to war over wobbly lines in the South China Sea.
Articles praising the installation insist that it’s built to withstand 287 km/h winds, leaving ‘plenty’ of safety over the strongest record typhoon in the area of 260 km/h – but they add a bit of wriggle room by insisting that ‘weather systems are flying off-kilter as climate change continues to advance’.
Remember, if it ends up in bits, you gotta blame ‘climate change’.
If you’re like me and thought this green fable sounded familiar, you may remember the Donghae TwinWind Project planned for the coast of Norway in 2021. The same technology is on track for the Celtic Sea (with support from the UK government) due for completion in 2030.
There have been other designs for twin-headed rotors. A Chinese-made land-based turbine experienced a dramatic failure in which it caught fire after two months.
My point is not that technology is always perfect, only that I’m glad these new air-mounted machetes will be a long way out to sea and not hovering over unsuspecting cows in a paddock.
Besides, two-headed turbines are nothing compared to the ‘wall of wind turbines’ – or as I like to call it – ‘Resident Seavil’.
A Norwegian company has decided to mount 117 turbines on some scaffolding. It’s the stuff of nightmares if you identify as a seagull.
Wind Catching Systems’ wall of turbines dubbed ‘Windcatcher’ has won certification from the world’s leading technical authority on wind power – DNV. At 300 metres high and 350 metres wide, you can only imagine the engineering that will need to go into securing it to the ocean floor.
To me, it feels as if we’re entering the mid-life crisis version of wind energy where everything has to be bigger and have more sharp spinning bits. The crazier, the better. This behaviour is more common than you think. The dinosaurs entered a size-based arms race, and so do our bros at the gym when they skip leg day and end up walking around like they have implanted their girlfriend’s silicon breasts under their biceps.
Back in the real world, Australia’s previously approved wind farms are being cancelled as landholders and communities nix their support.
A 55-turbine wind farm application near Armidale tabled by Ark Energy has been withdrawn when nine residents changed their minds.
The Clean Energy Council seemed surprised, saying: ‘I haven’t heard of too many instances where landholders have changed their minds.’
They might need to get used to the word ‘no’. Despite these projects paying property owners a fortune per turbine (presumed to be around $35,000 per turbine per year), the reality of these turbines is harder to live with.
Not only that, neighbouring farms get nothing despite shouldering a major imposition from wind farms – not least of all, how they look. This creates community tension.
Suddenly mountain ranges are being interrupted by dozens of skyscraper-sized turbines. Farmland is blanketed in solar panels. Battery farms sprawl out across the landscape. And worst of all, ugly and intrusive transmission lines are being draped across properties – not only destroying the natural beauty of these areas – but also creating a fire hazard. You remember all those little wildlife walkways draped over the freeway to help nature navigate highways? What a cruel joke these environmental projects are in light of Net Zero.
Big Wind is not fitting the Utopia of ‘green energy’ that people were promised.
With households struggling to feed their families, images of Australia’s world-leading farmland being covered in solar panels has raised questions about whether the government’s obsession with Net Zero and use of public money to prop up these projects is the right thing to do.
Shouldn’t we be helping the agricultural sector return to profitability after decades of abuse and neglect? That way they wouldn’t be tempted by Big Green barons to calve up Australia’s most important agricultural resource.
These renewable energy projects might be flashy and eye-catching, but getting the fabric of civilisation right is the most important thing.
The fat has come off the Australian economy.
There is no more room to waste public money or squander our natural resources on ‘feel good’ technology.
Cheap power, plentiful food, and a self-sufficient nation must top the list if we’re going to make it through the next century without becoming a vassal state of Pacific communists who have used the shiny lure of ‘Net Zero’ to hook our single-minded, short-sighted political class.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/wind-energy-enters-its-mid-life-crisis/
***************************************************Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate is under official investigation for improper conduct – for jokingly calling a fellow councillor a “ranga”
To me it just means red-haired -- JR
He faces potential disciplinary action after the state’s council watchdog upheld a complaint that the term “ranga” refers to an orangutan, is associated with “discriminatory feelings” and Cr Tate’s use of the word was “not funny” and “extremely derogatory”.
The mayor has vowed to fight the matter, saying he “had no idea that the term ‘ranga’ was offensive to some people”.
The probe follows the complaint to the Office of the independent Assessor into lighthearted comments the mayor made at a media conference in April after the council elections.
Cr Tate was asked his views on a Facebook post by Surfers Paradise MP John-Paul Langbroek who welcomed new councillor and close friend Joe Wilkinson by describing him as “ranga”, with the hashtags “#diversity” and “#multiculturalism”.
The mayor responded by saying he “didn’t even know he (Cr Wilkinson) was a ranga” but it was good for the Coast’s “diversity”.
Cr Tate said former councillor William Owen-Jones had retired and “he was a ranga”.
“You know, lose one ranga, get another ranga. What the hell. That’s what the Gold Coast is all about,” he told journalists.
Mr Owen-Jones also weighed in, posting on Mr Langbroek’s Facebook page: “Wait til they start picking on the elected representatives with the hyphenated names … #RangasRuleTheWorld”.
But an anonymous complainant did not see the humour and lodged an official gripe with the OIA.
It recently wrote to the council to say it had assessed the complaint and confirmed it as a suspected breach of the councillor code of conduct.
The OIA said Cr Tate was suspected of having contravened standards of behaviour requiring councillors to “treat people in a reasonable, just, respectful and non-discriminatory way”, to “treat fellow councillors, local government employees and members of the public with courtesy, honesty and fairness” and “have proper regard for other people’s rights, obligations, cultural differences, safety, health and welfare”.
“While the conduct may well be argued to be in jest or intended to be humorous, it was considered in assessing this matter that the term (ranga) was still capable of being discriminatory and unreasonably causing offence to particular groups,” the OIA said.
“The complaint raised various concerns about the use of the term “ranga” by the mayor, including its references to orangutans.
“The complaint also made reference to other similar terms often used which are also associated with ‘discriminatory feelings’ and how others in the public eye have been dealt with as a result.
“The complaint referred to the mayor’s behaviour as ‘not funny’ and ‘extremely derogatory’.”
The OIA noted it was “not the first time” Mayor Tate had made comments in the media that were “considered discriminatory to others”.
It said it had referred a complaint to the council in 2021 after Cr Tate said: “You wouldn’t want to put a Chinese (person) next to someone who’s got a cat, you know. She might be breakfast’.
The OIA noted Cr Tate had apologised for that comment as a “poor joke” and the matter was discontinued, but “the nature of such comments make it particularly relevant for Mayor Tate’s fellow councillors to consider and decide if the commentary is in line with the community’s expectations for an elected official”.
The OIA has referred the “ranga” complaint to the council to investigate. If found guilty, Cr Tate could face a range of sanctions including having to issue another public apology or a be issued with a misconduct warning.
Contacted for comment, Cr Tate vowed to defend the complaint and said he was “disappointed that the OIA has seen fit to have this matter further investigated”.
“When I went to school, people with red hair were called ‘Blue’ and sometimes particularly tall people were called ‘Stretch’,” he said.
“With my Asian heritage, I was often called more colourful things. I had no idea that the term ‘ranga’ was offensive to some people and I certainly did not intend to cause any offence. In using the term, I was actually responding to a direct question from a journalist.”
Cr Tate said he respected the OIA’s role but questioned the use of taxpayer and ratepayer-funded resources to investigate such “time-consuming and costly” complaints.
“I will be defending the allegation that I have committed a conduct breach and I am seeking (legal) advice in that regard,” he said.
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Life insurance in spotlight as living costs hit households hard
Surging living costs are threatening to rob Australians of the ability to afford life insurance, a new study has found.
Insurance safety nets for death, disability and income protection cover are being stretched by battered household budgets, poor understanding and lack of accessible advice as Australia’s supply of financial planners dwindles.
Commissioned by the Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI), the independent study involved more than 5000 people.
It found more than two-thirds are concerned that cost-of-living pressures will affect their ability to pay for cover.
Almost one quarter of Australians would consider cancelling life insurance because of cost pressures, three-quarters did not realise that it could include mental health cover, and women were feeling the squeeze more than men, it found.
CALI chief executive Christine Cupitt said “people are crying out for help in making decisions about their life insurance, but they don’t have enough qualified people to turn to”.
“When they do find a way to obtain that advice, they are basically waiting in line to pay on average $3000 to see a financial adviser,” she said. “Half of new business last year was written by 480 financial advisers, so there’s a real crisis here in terms of people able to access that comprehensive advice.”
The report underpins the push for fast passage of federal government legislation allowing insurers to provide simple advice on products. It is hoped that consultation and draft legislation will occur within months.
The report says cost-of-living pressures are “coming from every direction” and this makes financial resilience more important than ever. “Women disproportionately feel that cost of living has impacted their ability to maintain insurance cover compared to men,” it says.
Social researcher Rebecca Huntley, who led the study, said a combination of Covid, cost of living and natural disasters over the past five years had prepared people to expect the unexpected and seek resilience.
“We know that women are much more aware of all of the cost-of-living increases across the board,” she said.
“Increasing school fees, increasing streaming services, whatever it might be, they’re more at the coalface of that, so they see what that means.
Independent Senator David Pocock believes the life insurance industry in Australia “wants to be regulated” after calls for a ban on them discriminating against people based on DNA.
“The cost of living is an existential threat. In 20 years of research – and I’ve lived through global financial crises – it’s never been this bad, and there’s no expectation that it’s going to end any time soon, even with an interest-rate cut.”
The lack of knowledge about mental health cover from life insurance could be addressed by more open discussions, Dr Huntley said.
“It probably is something that policy makers and the insurance industry more broadly haven’t really spoken about as much,” she said.
CALI says last year life insurers paid more than $12bn to more than 91,000 people, but millions remain unprotected.
“We know we have a growing underinsurance problem,” Ms Cupitt said.
She said the trigger points for taking out life insurance or reviewing your cover included key life milestones such as having children, signing up for a mortgage and starting a business.
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related. I hope she recovers soon from her encounter with Guillain-Barré syndrome
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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