"Accord" proposals won’t do anything to fix our universities

JUDITH SLOAN

Through the years I have become something of a dab hand at reading government reports. They are almost always far too long, badly argued and littered with carefully chosen photographs. I figure I can save my readers the trouble of wading through these tomes by simply cutting to the chase.

The final report of the Australian Universities Accord, at around 400 pages, is dubious and unhelpful. It is built on a highly unconvincing premise and works its way from there. On the basis of a bit of arm-waving by a consultant and asking around, the panel concludes the tertiary education attainment rate must rise from its current figure of about 60 per cent to at least 80 per cent of the workforce by 2050. For those aged 25 to 34, the proportion with a univer­sity education must rise from 45 per cent to 55 per cent by 2050.

Let’s face it, other guesses are equally plausible. After all, artificial intelligence is about to cut a swath through the workforce, meaning many university-educated workers may be out of jobs as machines replace their roles. And just in case you think it’s simply those who undertake repetitive, low-level jobs who are in the firing line, it seems AI can be highly creative and solve problems, to boot.

There is also the important issue of credentialism. It’s not as though jobs always require a university education – or indeed completion of school. But university education creates its own momentum by giving a head start to other applicants without qualifications. It doesn’t actually add to productivity, it simply alters the pecking order. To the extent that this is the case, the government – aka taxpayer – shouldn’t be investing even more in university education, particularly certain courses.

The accord makes much of the lack of equity in the admission to universities. Those from poor socio-economic backgrounds, those from regional areas and First Nations students are much less likely to go to university, let alone complete a course, relative to their better-off city-based cousins. Reflecting the backstory of federal Education Minister Jason Clare, who was the first in his family to attend university, the panel makes several suggestions to “expand opportunity to all”.

But here’s the rub: many students simply are not suited to university study and it is selling them a pup to suggest university is the best post-school pathway for them. I once taught economic statistics to university students with low entry scores – it was a nightmare. Most of them struggled, many lost self-confidence and a reasonable chunk failed. My advice to many of them was to consider alternative opportun­ities, such as becoming a tradie.

We have had a recent experiment with allowing universities to enrol any student they deem to have the necessary qualifications – the so-called demand-driven system of enrolments. Of course, “necessary qualifications” is a rubbery concept and allowing self-serving universities to set the entry standards is really akin to handing the keys to the chook house to the fox.

It is clear what happened when the demand-driven system was in full flight: the participation in higher education of marginal groups increased but the rate at which they completed courses was significantly below those with higher marks. According to higher education expert Andrew Norton, “students with ATARs (year 12 ranking) below 60 are twice as likely to drop out of university as students with ATARs over 90”. He estimates that those who fail to complete a university course are, on average, stuck with a debt of $12,000 to pay off.

Working backwards from the accord’s arbitrary targets, students with an ATAR as low as 45 will now be expected to go to university. And this in the context of sliding school performance across the past two decades.

Rather than accept that most of these students simply are not suited to university study, the panel wants additional funding, foundation courses, study hubs and the like. On the face of it, this just looks like a waste of resources given there will be plenty of jobs in the future that don’t require a university education.

Is someone with a bachelor of arts in cultural studies really more qualified than a plumber?

The one recommendation of the report that gave me a good laugh deals with the establishment of a higher education future fund. At this rate we’ll have future funds for everything. The source of funds will be a tax on our best universities – probably the Group of Eight – with the federal government matching their contributions. It’s a bit like how the Australian Football League operates: penalise the top teams to level out the competition. It’s really a form of socialism.

While this might make some sense for a football code, it makes no sense for a university system that should be focused on attaining global excellence. Why would we want to tax the best universities to spray money around with unknown outcomes? If I were heading up one of the Go8 universities I would be objecting in the strongest and loudest terms.

As is the case with most government reports, there are suggestions for more reviews and new bureaucratic agencies. There should be a centre of excellence in higher education and research (refer to previous paragraph); a survey on the prevalence of racism in higher education; and a First Nations-led review of higher education.

The most significant is the proposal to establish an Australian tertiary education commission, “a statutory, national body to plan and oversee the creation of a high quality and cohesive tertiary education system to meet Australia’s future needs”. You will be pleased to know one of the functions will be to negotiate “mission-based compacts for universities”, whatever that means.

The reality is we have had such agencies in the past and they haven’t worked well. Where does the minister sit in all this, let alone the federal Department of Education? The appointed commissioners often get ahead of themselves and the outcomes are often extremely disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong here: I think there is plenty wrong with the Australian university system.

Many of our universities are too big; they are clones of each other but of highly variable quality; and many offer a very poor offering to domestic students. The links with vocational education are patchy at best.

But the 400-page accord report is not the path to fixing these problems: indeed, most of the recommendations would make them worse and cost the taxpayer a small fortune. Obviously, the notion of opportunity cost has not been front of mind to the panel. The government would be ill-advised to spend even more money on a bloated, poorly performing sector based on made-up targets.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/accord-proposals-wont-do-anything-to-fix-our-universities/news-story/721a79f7d7a0214f66bec711172d1c68

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3rd SA Council Replaces Acknowledgement of Country

A local government authority in Australia has replaced the Acknowledgement of Country with a simple two-line welcome at the start of meetings.

Mayor Patrick Ross pushed to make changes to the operating procedures at meetings of the regional Naracoorte Lucindale Council in South Australia’s southeast.

A new statement to open Council meetings now reads, “We acknowledge and respect our complex history. We welcome everyone to build our future together.”

This replaces a statement that acknowledged the traditional owners of the land and the deep feelings of Aboriginal peoples toward the country.

“We acknowledge and respect the traditional owners of the ancestral lands of the Limestone Coast. We acknowledge elders past and present and we respect the deep feelings of attachment and relationship of Aboriginal peoples to country,” the original statement said.

Commenting on the changes, Mayor Ross said the Naracoorte Lucindale Council was acting on behalf of all residents and ratepayers.

“To that end, a general acknowledgement of our history and an inclusive welcome is what is desired by our community,” he said according to Council minutes (pdf).

“According to the LGA handbook, a welcome may be a simple welcome—some include a prayer and others make statements around what they wish to achieve within a meeting regarding collaboration.

“Elected Members have read a pledge and signed up to represent their community for a term of 4 years. The community has an elevated expectation of the Elected Members to do just that and therefore I see no reason to continue to reiterate that which we have agreed to do.”

Further commenting on the change, Mr. Ross said all statements should be kept simple.

“The modern society which we live in is so diverse in culture, language and religion, that either an omission or inclusion may be divisive, and therefore I’m happy to put forward this proposal,” he said.

The motion was carried six votes to four. A prayer at the opening of council meetings which did not mention God has also been removed.

“We gather to make decisions for our community. May we use only our best skills and judgement keeping ourselves impartial and neutral as we consider the merits and pitfalls of each matter that is placed before us and always act in accordance with what is best for our community and our fellow citizens,” the prayer read.

Reconciliation SA said it was “deeply disappointed” that the majority of elected members of the Council voted to replace the Acknowledgement to Country. CEO Jason Downs said erasing the existence of a culture to “keep things simple” is not a good position for a region that relies on tourism.

“We see this as walking back progress and signaling a lack of understanding of the significant and important role of First Nations culture,” Mr. Downs said.

“When you remove Acknowledgements to Country and Elders you remove visibility and you diminish the importance of First Nations in our Country’s 65,000 year history. We are the only country to lay claim to the world’s oldest living culture. For those unaware, Naracoorte is derived from First Nations language.”

Mr. Downs said when individual ideology impacts on a community’s future and business growth, there is cause for concern.

“We support all our Allies and First Nations people and will continue to challenge the ongoing demise of First Nations position in South Australia,” he said.

“Reconciliation SA extends its hand to the elected members and council staff for a workshop to provide context, advice and perspective on the importance, relevance and need to embrace the rich cultural history of our country.”

‘Praiseworthy’: One Nation MLC Sarah Game

However, One Nation member of the South Australian Legislative Council, Sarah Game, welcomed the move in a statement posted to X on March. 4.

“The Naracoorte Council will replace its Acknowledgement of Country with a more inclusive statement that reflects the entire community. The council’s alignment with the community they serve is praiseworthy,” she said.

City of Playford and Northern Areas Council in South Australia have also passed motions in recent months to replace the Acknowledgement of Country

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/3rd-sa-council-replaces-acknowledgement-of-country-5600454?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=medium-0

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How low can Covid catastrophists go?

Who’d have guessed that there would be two startling revelations about the great Covid over-reach in the space of about a week, upholding claims previously dismissed as conspiracy theories and misinformation?

First came a peer-reviewed scientific study which linked Covid vaccines to a range of serious health disorders. It was soon followed by the Queensland Supreme Court ruling that vaccine mandates imposed on police and ambulance workers in the state were unlawful.

Both provided a welcome dose of reality after the worst days of lockdowns and vaccine roll-outs when we were bombarded with the message that the jabs were ‘safe and effective’. Years later, we know for certain that they do not prevent contraction or transmission of the virus and there’s an acknowledged chance they could cause serious harm and even death.

Some of us have been aware of this for a long time, but vaccine promoters, including Big Pharma and government bureaucrats, insist that the risk is ‘very low’, the acknowledged disorders are ‘rare’, and that vaccines provide the best means of protection against Covid.

But how low is ‘very low’ and how ‘rare’ is rare? Let’s look at the latest findings from the largest vaccine safety study to date conducted by the Global Vaccine Data Network. A research division of the World Health Organisation, it reportedly looked at 99 million vaccinated individuals across six continents.

The study confirmed connections between Covid vaccines produced by Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca to several serious but ‘rare conditions’.

According to a report in Forbes:

While the side effects are serious, the chance of experiencing them is low. Some highlighted increases include a 6.1-fold increase in myocarditis from the second dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Cases of pericarditis had a 6.9-fold increase as a result of the third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. There is a 2.5-times greater risk of developing Guillain-Barré syndrome from the AstraZeneca vaccine along with a 3.2-times greater risk of developing blood clots from the same vaccine. There is a 3.8-times greater risk of getting acute disseminated encephalomyelitis from the Moderna vaccine, and a 2.2-fold increase in the AstraZeneca vaccine.

When choosing to get vaccinated, it is important to weigh the benefits and risks of the vaccine. Information like this makes it easier to make the right choice…

Well thanks, but my wife and I made that choice a few years ago and we remain very glad we did, given there are some still trying to pedal the message that a six to seven times chance of contracting a serious heart condition is ‘low’.

I’m reminded of the old Chubby Checker hit Limbo Rock, ‘How low can you go’? Much lower than that, if you want to convince people the vaccines are safe – let alone effective.

My own long-term scepticism possibly has links back to my first job after leaving high school many moons ago, when I undertook a pharmacy apprenticeship in a very busy regional pharmacy.

Maybe it didn’t help when I was questioned by a detective when a patient died after taking a sleeping mixture I had dispensed, even though I was later cleared after forensic tests showed the medicine contained the correct level of ingredients and the poor bloke had swallowed an overdose. But possibly the last straw had something to do with a drug I had dispensed many times to pregnant young women suffering morning sickness. Finally, the authorities woke up to the fact that the ‘cure’ – thalidomide – was causing horrific birth defects. Sound familiar?

Fast forward to February 2021, when the novel Covid vaccines were rolled out in Australia after being developed and approved in record time without long-term human trials. Manufacturers were granted immunity from liability for subsequent mishaps despite some of these companies having records of huge fines for past problems.

There were also experts, including highly qualified epidemiologists, sounding warning bells, particularly in Europe and America. Some adverse events might only become apparent months or even years after the jabs were administered, but that was dismissed as ratbag conspiracy theory, disinformation, and misinformation.

Well not any more, and hopefully the Queensland Supreme court ruling that some of these vaccine mandates were unlawful will lead to justifiable and wide-ranging compensations.

As Rowan Dean wrote in The Spectator Australia, ‘The news, of course, is to be welcomed. It is the first crack in the dam wall and will hopefully be followed by significant class actions and further court cases…’

Here, here! And let’s hope that the issue does not become bogged down in appeals courts by a government with a guilty conscience and deep pockets.

Finally, my short-lived dispensing career was never a waste of time and it actually saved one of our young son’s lives when a pharmacist dispensed the wrong medication which I recognised as a potent heart drug that could have stopped his from beating!

Again, that’s another story.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/how-low-can-covid-catastrophists-go/

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Unusable solar farms in the NT

Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler says government-owned Power and Water Corporation could purchase four privately owned solar farms across the Top End in a bid to finally bring them online.

The handful of solar farms were built near Katherine and in Darwin's rural area. However, they have been sitting disconnected from the Top End grid for at least four years.

Power and Water has long held concerns about bringing the facilities online, fearing their power generation could be volatile and destabilise the Darwin-Katherine grid.

When asked whether the solar farms could be purchased by the NT government, Ms Lawler said: "That's a possible option."

"We need to be able to control the energy that comes from those, so it is an option," she said.

Ms Lawler said the solar farms the government was interested in buying were currently owned by energy company ENI, but she refused to provide an estimated cost.

The comments sparked criticism from opposition shadow treasurer Bill Yan, who questioned whether such a purchase would be the best use of taxpayer dollars. "The more important point is, can we afford to buy these things," he said.

He also criticised the NT government's renewable energy rollout, saying the construction of these solar farms before infrastructure could handle them was "putting the cart before the horse".

"Territory Labor led all these contracts to companies to build all these giant solar farms across the Top End," he said.

"All of a sudden, the territory government found out they couldn't hook them up. The grid wasn't stable enough."

The architect of the NT's "Roadmap to Renewables", Alan Langworthy, last year criticised the government's handling of the transition to 50 per cent renewables by 2030, saying "unrealistic" regulation was stymieing the commissioning of solar projects.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/nt-government-flags-possibility-of-buying-idle-solar-farms-from-private-operators-amid-renewable-energy-push/ar-BB1jl3Nb

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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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Kochie tells renters to ‘love your landlord’

Unusual wisdom in a public figure

Former Sunrise host David Koch has weighed into the rental crisis debate, urging renters to “love your landlord” and instead point the blame at governments.

Writing for The Nightly, Koch said it may sound like “heresy, but tenants should direct their anger towards all three levels of government — not their landlords — when it comes to skyrocketing rents”.

“Governments, not landlords, have been derelict in not foreseeing and planning to avoid this rental crisis,” he said.

“It’s complex and there is no silver bullet solution. But so-called ‘greedy’ landlords are being unfairly targeted as the scapegoat. You probably have one in your family, or among your friends, and I bet they have increased the rent to cover rising loan repayments. But vilifying property investors is going to make the crisis a whole lot worse. The reality is many of those landlords are now saying it’s simply not worth it and are selling up, which just adds to the problem.”

Koch noted that there were around 2.2 million landlords in Australia, according to Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data, or one fifth of the population, the vast majority of whom own just one investment property.

“They aren’t property moguls, they’re ordinary Australians trying to build a nest egg,” he said.

He argued the reason rents were rising — in some cases by more than 50 per cent — was not “greed” but a combination of “rising interest rates, a lack of new developments because of a shortage of land, delays in approvals, banks reducing borrowing capacity, and developers going broke”, as well as “a lack of commitment from governments to develop enough affordable low-cost rental housing”.

Koch did not mention Australia’s record immigration intake of 518,000 net overseas arrivals last year, which a growing number of experts have conceded is a key driver of housing demand.

He echoed comments last month from billionaire property developer Harry Triguboff, who said a large reason developers were going broke was the lack of investors due to the low net return of about 2.5 per cent.

“The only way to quickly resolve the rental crisis is to love your landlord and encourage more property investors to make more stock available,” Koch said.

“So when debating the merits of negative gearing, be careful what you wish for. Between 1996 and 2021, private investors provided 1.1 million rentals. Community groups added 41,000 but there was a reduction of 53,000 in government properties. Rather than castigate landlords, governments should be trying to match them in the amount of new properties coming onto the market.”

He added that the federal government’s “much-vaunted $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund will only provide an additional 30,000 social and affordable homes which is tiny compared with what is needed”.

“So private investors will have to continue to do the heavy lifting,” he said.

The piece, for Seven West Media’s newly launched online news site, received mixed reaction online.

“The Nightly — off to a flyer delivering bangers,” former union boss Tim Lyons wrote on X. “Perspectives we don’t hear from new, interesting voices.”

Another user wrote, “This daring pro-boomer pro-landlord position is exactly the sort of fearless principled stand that has been missing from the Aussie media landscape. Well done to the editorial team at The Nightly.”

Anne Crarey, executive general manager of property services at Little Real Estate, told news.com.au last month that the rental crisis was “only getting worse” and “I don’t see anything on the horizon that’s going to change where we’re at”.

Ms Crarey also argued the solution to the crisis has to be “encouraging people to be buying investment properties”.

“I don’t foresee any other way out of it,” she said.

“I don’t think the government’s going to be able to build what we need to build to make the rental crisis go away, so the solution firmly lands with the government in regards to making incentives to invest in properties more enticing.”

Australia’s rental crisis has seen a “marked escalation” with an increasing number of suburbs recording the “highest possible distress score”, according to Suburbtrends’ February Rental Pain Index.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/kochie-tells-renters-to-love-your-landlord/news-story/b9721bb398d1fed9e552342d728a7f42

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Incorrectness of ham sandwiches in schools

How ridiculous can you get?

With one in four Australian children classified as overweight or obese and an Australian state limiting the amount of ham sold in schools, what's on offer at the tuckshop is again in the spotlight.

What is sold in state school tuckshops or canteens is governed, or at least guided, by policies set out by state and territory government departments.

Queensland's is called Smart Choices and is run by the state's education department.

In New South Wales it's the Healthy School Canteen Strategy run by NSW Health and South Australia employs the Right Bite Food and Drink Supply Standards developed by its department for education.

What's central to them all is a "traffic light" system that classifies foods and drinks into green, amber and red categories.

According to most policies, red items like pies, pizzas and pastries should only be supplied twice per school term.

Amber items like burgers, muffins and lasagne shouldn't dominate menus, and green items like fresh fruit, vegetables and reduced fat dairy products should make up most items available.

Debate about healthy eating at school often flares up in term 1, but this year it's been helped along by Western Australia's review of its traffic light system which has resulted in ham being shifted into a new red category.

The Queensland Association of School Tuckshops (QAST) said it's time the Sunshine State's policy, which was written in 2007 and updated in 2016 and 2020, was also reviewed.

Ms Wooden said a QAST audit in 2022 examined the menus of more than 250 school tuckshops and found none were fully compliant with Queensland's traffic light system.

"At the moment, we know that the policy is not being implemented the way it should be [and] there's no incentive or mechanism to make sure that it is."

Principle nutritionist with Health and Wellbeing Queensland Matthew Dick said Western Australia's new rules on ham at school tuckshops were in line with expert advice.

"They want to limit it to two times per week, which is exactly the same message we as nutritionists are giving," Mr Dick said.

"Don't rely on ham all the time. It's okay as an occasional filling in your sandwiches but relying on processed foods like ham, bacon and sausages can start to become a problem."

Mr Dick said ham and processed meats were often high in fats, salt and additives and are considered carcinogens by the World Health Organisation.

"Long-term consumption of processed foods can contribute to cancers in people and that's one of the real concerns with them."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-04/tuckshop-menus-explained-school-food-nutrition/103521758

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A reality check for climate alarmists: net zero is impossible

A stable energy supply sourced from wind and sunshine was obviously impossible from the beginning but the Left have always had big problems with the obvious

One of Australia’s richest mining magnates, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, says you can already feel climate change, it has caused “deaths, devastation and hardship” all around the world already, Australia has “run out of time” and he knows how to fix it.

Forrest’s prescription promises “economic growth over generations” along with “full employment” and a “pristine environment” with “cheap energy being produced everywhere in our country”. Too easy; the only resource lacking, he says, is the “courage to get on with it”.

To deliver this energy and environmental nirvana he wants the coal, oil and gas industries to be “taxed out of existence”. Strangely, he does not include his own iron ore industry, which relies on fossil fuels for extraction, transport and blast-furnacing into iron and steel.

This simplistic combination of rampant alarmism and magic pudding economics is not rare. It is omnipresent in the rantings of Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, Greens leader Adam Bandt, Extinction Rebellion and the teals, but it is unusual coming from a titan of industry, albeit one in receipt of substantial government subsidies here and abroad for “green hydrogen” projects.

We were warned by the weather bureau and climate alarmists last spring that this summer would be extraordinarily hot and dry. Given that all turned out to be a damp squib, they are turning their forecasts a little further afield with the Nine Entertainment newspapers (in cahoots with the Climate Council) offering an online tool this week to show us how many days over 35C we can expect in our suburbs in 2050 and 2090.

It is as if these people have become so bored by the lack of public debate about their Chicken Little claims that they have opted for self-parody to amuse themselves. Not only do they seek to raise the fear of Gaia over these long-range predictions, they implore us to “take action” to make sure our particular postcode can keep the mercury below 35C for a day or two more in the summer of 2090.

The Greens voters of Penrith and Broadmeadows might be pretty cheesed off in 2090 when it still turns out that it’s only those affluent coastal postcodes that get the sea breeze. The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald might encounter some sweaty subscribers with buyer’s remorse in the autumn of 2091.

In this climate of fearmongering and idiocy we need more reality checks. For starters we might ease the sense of crisis by levelling with the public that the prime reason many heat records have been broken in Australia in recent decades is because the Bureau of Meteorology revised most of its early temperature records downwards and because it ignores any records before 1910, thereby eradicating from calculations known hot periods such as the Federation drought. (It argues this was scientifically valid and necessary, but the fact it has been done is worth sharing more widely, for context if nothing else.)

Still, temperatures will do what they will, and global emissions are still rising. It is a scientific fact that whatever Australia does on emissions cannot affect global climate, and natural climate variations can easily override any human interventions, good or bad. From the upper echelons of state and federal governments we are fed two strands of argument that are seldom challenged. The first is the alarmism and the other tells us renewables are the only way to deliver the emissions cuts required.

“So, while moving towards a renewable grid is a massive transformation,” Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen says, “it is necessary for our economy, for our energy security and for the climate. Stop the delay, distraction, deception and denial. Get with the program.”

Clearly we need to address the practical reality of moving to net zero, and the pretence that this can be done easily without a heavy economic cost. We can start with the International Energy Agency, which works closely with the UN and is all on board with the net zero zeitgeist. In its Global Energy Transitions Stocktake it recognises that “half the emission reductions needed to reach net zero come from technologies not yet on the market”. Got that? We cannot ever get to net zero unless we develop technologies that are “under development” or yet to be invented.

Czech-Canadian scientist Vaclav Smil is the author of 40 books mainly focused on outlining complex realities and dilemmas. His 2022 book How the World Really Works contains bad news for those climate activists who just want to “do something” about climate change and believe the solution is easy – just decarbonise.

“The real wrench in the works,” warns Smil, is that “we are a fossil-fuelled civilisation whose technical and scientific advances, quality of life and prosperity rest on the combustion of huge quantities of fossil carbon, and we cannot simply walk away from this critical determinant of our fortunes in a few decades, never mind years.”

He is not a complete pessimist, just anchored in the reality: “Complete decarbonisation of the global economy by 2050 is now conceivable only at the cost of unthinkable economic retreat, or as a result of extraordinarily rapid transformations relying on near miraculous technical advances.”

This is because we rely on fossil fuels not just to generate most of our electricity but to fuel our road, rail, air and sea transport, heat homes, power industry, mine minerals, create chemical and plastic products, manufacture fertilisers and grow food. While wealthy countries such as ours can make some expensive changes to improve efficiency and reduce emissions, more than half of the world’s population is still racing to get the energy it needs, massively expanding global energy demand.

“Annual global demand for fossil carbon is now just above 10 billion tons a year,” writes Smil, “a mass nearly five times more than the recent annual harvest of all staple grains feeding humanity, and more than twice the total mass of water drunk annually by the world’s nearly eight billion inhabitants – and it should be obvious that displacing and replacing such a mass is not something best handled by government targets for years ending in zero or five.”

Other practical realities deepen the dilemma. The challenges for renewables relate largely to scale and efficiency. Smil again: “Large nuclear reactors are the most reliable producers of electricity, some of them now generate it 90-95 per cent of the time, compared to about 45 per cent for the best offshore wind turbines and 25 per cent for photovoltaic cells in even the sunniest of climates – while Germany’s solar panels produce electricity only about 12 per cent of the time.”

Other researchers have tried to quantify the mineral resources needed to manufacture enough turbines, solar panels, batteries and electric engines to get to net zero.

In his paper Mining for Net Zero: The Impossible Task, Alan G. Jones finds we will have to dramatically increase the mining effort, which is already higher than at any time in history.

“For example,” Jones writes, “one estimate is that there needs to be as much copper mined over the next 20-25 years as has been mined to date.”

Another geoscientist who has been based in Finland and Australia, Simon Michaux, has warned about the scale of replacing fossil fuel energy with renewables and hydrogen. “So, we are discussing bringing in a power system significantly larger than the one we have now,” Michaux reminds us, “with power systems that are not as effective and more expensive.”

Michaux has run detailed calculations on all the key resources such as lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt required globally, and the amount we are capable of extracting. The results are sobering.

“We don’t have enough mining production or mineral reserves to manufacture the first generation of renewable technology,” he finds.

But it is even worse than that because, as he points out, all the kit, from wind turbines to solar panels, from electric engines to batteries, will have to be replaced within 10 to 25 years, and again and again.

Chris Greig, a senior research scientist from Princeton University in the US, has costed the transition for Net Zero Australia. “Such is the level of investment required to build out new-generation storage facilities such as batteries and pumped-hydro, and transmission lines, that up to $1.5 trillion will need to be deployed by 2030 to put Australia on track to meet its 2050 commitments,” declares the study he co-authored. That is an amount proximate to the size of our entire GDP to be invested over just the next six years. Good luck.

And if the resources, innovation and funding required do not make this all fanciful enough, try considering the land, approvals and practicality of installing it. Bowen has boasted about needing to install 22,000 500-watt solar panels every day for eight years, as well as more than one 7-megawatt wind turbine every day connected by at least 10,000km of new transmission lines across the same period.

Most of this will be in regional and coastal communities that do not want them. And all of it, spread diffusely across the country, will be vulnerable to disruption by storms and bushfires.

Yet they seriously try to argue that nuclear power, sited compactly on existing industrial/generation sites, requiring no additional transmission lines, will be too slow and expensive.

It is time to take the ideology and fantasy out of energy policy and address the reality.

The climate and renewables zealots are in denial.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/a-reality-check-for-climate-alarmists-net-zero-is-impossible/news-story/9bc08179967d266774c53bfed7876a16

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‘Extreme Risk’: Australia’s Oldest Hot Water Company Says Grid Not Ready for Net Zero

One of Australia’s oldest manufacturers of hot water system suppliers, Dux Hot Water, has warned a Senate inquiry that demand for electricity will increase faster than projections, meaning moves to shut down coal-fired power stations are too risky for the stability of the grid.

When it was acquired by Noritz in 2015, the Japanese company said Dux had an annual turnover of around $70 million (US$45.8 million).

It is the oldest water heater manufacturer in Australia, and provides a full range of electric water heaters encompassing electric storage, gas storage, gas continuous flow, solar, heat pump, and commercial water heaters.

In its submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into Residential Electrification, Dux said it “fully supports the government’s net zero emissions by 2050 target” but it believes the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) estimate for how much electricity the country uses is too conservative.

It points out that since the AEMO study in 2002, the Victorian government has banned gas connections in new homes and apartments this year. Victoria is Australia’s largest gas-connected market.

“Supply chains are shifting to electrical appliances sooner than was previously expected. The market is aware of a clear signal of electrification,” Dux said.

“Australians already have an incredibly high demand for electricity. In November 2022 ... an International Energy Agency report show[ed] Australia to be the world’s second-largest [per capita] consumer of electricity in 2020. Australia’s demand for electricity will accelerate with the replacement of gas appliances.”

As a result, the government should be wary of closing coal-fired electricity generation stations too soon, the company said, pointing out that Australia is still very reliant on electricity from that source.

In 2023, at least 50 percent but typically over 60 percent of the National Energy Market was powered by coal.

Closing Coal Power Stations Has Pushed Prices Up: Dux

“Electricity producers and their stakeholders are motivated to close coal-fired power stations and justifiably reluctant to invest capital into their maintenance,” the company said. “Hazelwood power station in Victoria closed back in 2017 resulting in a huge spike in wholesale electricity pricing.”

It quotes the Australian Energy Regulator (AER): “In Victoria, average spot prices for 2017 were up 85 percent on 2016, and up 32 percent in South Australia for the same period. New South Wales and Queensland were up 63 percent and 53 percent respectively.”

Further closures will only exacerbate the issue, Dux said.

“Liddell power station in NSW closed in April 2023. Origin has provided the required regulatory notice to close Eraring power station in August 2025. This is Australia’s largest power station supplying 25 percent of NSW’s electricity.

“Similarly, AGL has announced the closure Loy Yang in Vic and Bayswater in NSW. The NSW and Victorian governments are aware of the heightened supply risk and negotiating for some of these coal-fired power plants to remain open at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Not Ready for a Full Renewable Transition

There were also shortfalls in storage capacity for renewables and in the transmission network.

“Renewables like solar and wind energy are weather dependent, so Australia needs significant firming capacity for when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun doesn’t shine. Sufficient firming capacity from batteries, gas-fired power stations and pumped hydro doesn’t currently exist,” Dux asserts.

“Australia’s current transmission network, especially in NSW and Victoria is based around centralised power generation in the La Trobe or Hunter Valleys. Renewable energy solar and wind farms aren’t in these same locations.

“They’re located in areas like Central West NSW, New England, Bendigo, Ballarat and require 10,000 kilometres of new 500kV transmission lines to be connected in this decade. Difficult land owner consultations, planning delays, skills and materials shortages have made for slow progress,” the submission says.

The company also complains that conflicting signals from the government have made it very difficult for manufacturers to plan.

For instance, electric storage water heaters are banned in new homes in the National Construction Code 2022 (NCC), despite there currently being no restrictions on their installation in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania.

“I don’t know that you could identify an appliance subjected to the heavy hand of government more than a water heater. In 2007, the Australian government announced a proposed ban on electric storage waters from 2010 in favour of gas.

Electrification of products represents a u-turn in policy direction. Hundreds of thousands of new homes have been built with gas appliances over the last two decades,” said Dux CEO Simon Terry.

Referencing Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s prediction that the energy market will be ready to deliver 82 percent of power from renewable sources by 2030, the submission asks: “If 82 percent of the electricity supply in less than a decade is going to be from renewable sources, why is the installation of electric storage water heaters still restricted in some states” noting that South Australia first outlawed new installations of electric water heaters in 2008, meaning over 95 percent of installations over the last 15 years were of continuous flow gas water heaters.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/extreme-risk-if-coal-fired-power-stations-closed-too-soon-dux-hot-water-systems-5589951

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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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Sydney University abandons maths prerequisites in diversity push

I think this is a step in the right direction. I was always bad at maths at school but became a capable computer programmer using a demanding language called FORTRAN, which literally means "formula translation". A line of FORTRAN code looks very much like a line of algebra. And I did write programs requiring up to 5-dimensional matrices.

So I was good at something maths-related that would normally have required a maths prerequisite. But I would have been blocked by such a prerequisite these days. Prerequisites are simply too rigid to account for varying patterns of abiity in students

The University of Sydney is ditching the advanced mathematics prerequisites for scores of degrees in response to the declining number of HSC students taking the subject.

Vice chancellor Mark Scott said maths teacher shortages meant too many students could not study the subject in year 12, providing a barrier for diverse students to study at the university.

“Mathematical skills and knowledge are vital for students to succeed at university and thrive in the workplaces of the future,” he said.

“Yet through no fault of their own, many students don’t have the opportunity to take advanced mathematics at school, a situation exacerbated by ongoing maths teacher shortages that affect some schools more than others.”

The prerequisite change, to begin next year, is a reversal of much of the changes brought into effect in 2019 that introduced two unit maths prerequisites for 62 degrees.

That was supposed to address falling enrolments in maths and lift academic standards at the university.

However, the latest data from the NSW Education Standards Authority shows there were almost 10 per cent fewer students taking advanced maths in 2023 compared to 2018.

Scott, a former NSW Education secretary, said the university would provide “bespoke mathematics support” which would include tailored assistance and advice, preparatory workshops and bridging courses to catch students up.

The change will mean degrees including commerce, science, medicine, psychology, veterinary science and economics will no longer require students to have undertaken advanced maths in year 12.

Degrees in engineering, advanced computing and pharmacy will retain the mathematics prerequisite.

From next year, year 12 students who achieve a Band 3 or higher in advanced mathematics will also be eligible to receive an additional point towards their selection rank under the university’s Academic Excellence Scheme.

University of Canberra University associate professor Philip Roberts, a rural education specialist, said a lack of access to advanced mathematics was a huge issue, particularly in regional and low SES areas.

“Our research shows that schools which have larger numbers of low SES students are not studying advanced maths at the same rate as schools which have higher SES students,” he said.

He said teacher shortages were making the issue worse, but that it was also driven by a perception by students they would score better in general maths.

Roberts said even when universities did not have calculus-based mathematics prerequisites, students who did not take HSC advanced maths were still behind their peers who had once they started their degrees.

“Advanced maths also contributes more to their overall ATAR, so a lack of access limits their opportunities of getting into uni,” he said.

University of Sydney deputy vice chancellor (education) Professor Joanne Wright said it was clear it was harder for some students to access higher-level mathematics simply because of where they are from.

“Schools in regional and remote locations are significantly less likely to offer advanced and extension mathematics,” she said.

“Our new approach responds to these realities of the student experience today and ensures we’re better equipping students for their university studies and careers.”

She said new tools were being developed to identify gaps in students’ knowledge, including a pilot of a diagnostic tool designed to match students with the most appropriate learning support services when they enrol.

“Regardless of their starting point, all our students will have the opportunity to complete their studies with the same level of mathematics skills and knowledge,” Professor Wright said

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-university-abandons-hsc-prerequisites-in-diversity-push-20240301-p5f918.html

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Government silencing Australians in the name of human rights

The Australian Human Rights Commission wants to hear your views on dangerous male sex offenders being allowed to identify as women and be held in women’s prisons. But only if you’re in favour of it…

Our highly paid, taxpayer-funded Human Rights Commission would love to hear your thoughts on males demanding to be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Providing you’re all for it, obviously.

Many would argue that bureaucrats in Canberra have long given the impression that they don’t want to interact with the general public who pay their salaries, but rarely has it been so explicitly spelled out by the bureaucracy.

‘Please note that only subject-matter experts are invited to submit,’ the AHRC specifies in its new consultation about ‘threats to trans and gender diverse human rights’.

‘Please note that we are unable to accept submissions from non-specialists in this area.’

The ‘expert’ category, says the AHRC, includes activists and academics. The AHRC’s ‘non-specialists’ covers women, girls, parents, and anyone not inside the elitist bubble who decided that it’s ‘progressive’ to undermine sex-based rights and the reality of sex.

The effect of this anti-democratic pronouncement is that more than 22 million Australians are being told by the Human Rights Commission we’re neither qualified nor welcome to be involved in their consultation. Never mind that the Commission has a legislated duty to ensure it acts with regard for ‘the indivisibility and universality of human rights’ and ‘the principle that every person is free and equal in dignity and rights’.

Which brings us to the key question: What are these ‘trans and gender diverse human rights’ that the AHRC says are under threat? Do they mean the asserted right for a male to enter women’s spaces or facilities without consent? The AHRC can’t, or won’t, say. They’re asking for a select group of people to tell them about the supposed opposition to human rights, despite not being able to specify what these human rights are. That reveals the activist agenda that is really at play here.

The debate at the centre of gender ideology is a very important public policy matter. Women have long had access to single-sex sports and certain services or facilities that are necessary to protect privacy, dignity and safety. Advocates of self-ID policies argue that males who identify as women must be allowed to access these female spaces, whether or not the women who rely on those spaces consent. Extraordinarily, many of our elites have decided to go along with the fringe idea that women’s consent doesn’t matter in this context.

Since human rights are indivisible, universal, and equally available to all, the AHRC cannot seriously suggest that there is a human right for a specific group of males to enter a space or sport designed specifically for females. So why hasn’t the AHRC made clear in its terms of reference that opposition to males demanding that right is in no way a ‘threat’ to human rights, but in fact a majority-held position that Australians are perfectly free to advocate in a democracy?

The AHRC is a taxpayer-funded body with significant powers and authority. Yet this consultation is straight out of the playbook of hard-left activist groups and media platforms that have actively targeted women for abuse. I’m one of millions of Australians who believes that women and girls should be entitled to single-sex sports and spaces. Because activists and virtue-signalling elites can’t mount a rational argument against this position, they simply scream that anyone supporting single-sex sports is ‘anti-trans’ or an ‘extremist’, or campaigning against ‘trans rights’. It’s a laughably misleading tactic, or at least it would be if it hadn’t been adopted by much of the media and bureaucracy, and in doing so given abusive men the green light to unleash hideous abuse and threats against women. There’s no excuse for the AHRC not to be aware of this, yet now they are adopting the exact same tactics by setting up a witch hunt against Australian women who have stood up for women’s sex-based rights.

Let’s be very clear here: the AHRC is actively seeking input from male activists who have campaigned for the rights of dangerous male offenders like ‘Lisa Jones’. And they are asking for these men to complain how women are a ‘threat to trans and gender diverse human rights’ for pointing out Lisa Jones is actually a dangerous paedophile and repeat sex offender who should never be referred to as a woman by media or placed in a women’s prison.

Worse, the AHRC are actively preventing women from putting in a submission to point out this is exactly what has happened in Australia under the banner of ‘trans rights’. Their terms of reference makes clear that a submission from a female prisoner about the dangers of placing male sex offenders in women’s prisons would not be accepted by the AHRC.

Once again under the Albanese government, the tropes of ‘dis- and misinformation’ are being used to shut down legitimate debate and free speech. When seeking the votes of the Australian people, Albanese himself conceded that a woman is an adult, human female. It is his government’s subsequent efforts to silence Australians, for holding that same position, which is extremist, radical, and a danger to democracy.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/government-silencing-australians-in-the-name-of-human-rights/

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Why new green jobs are at risk if old industries die

All the post-pandemic talk of resurrecting Australia’s manufacturing sector and securing local supply chains seems like a lifetime away, amid talk that yet another manufacturer could go quietly into the night this year.

The fate of Qenos’s Melbourne and Sydney manufacturing plants is not yet set in stone, and the fact that the company – owned by China National Chemical – has recently spent money rebuilding a cooling tower at its Botany Bay plastics plant offers hope not all of its Australian facilities will be closed.

But if one or both of the plants are shuttered, they will join a raft of major plant closures since all the hullabaloo about securing domestic supply chains during the pandemic – including Incitec Pivot’s Gibson Island fertiliser plant in Brisbane, Exxon’s oil refinery in Melbourne’s Altona, a similar facility owned by BP in Kwinana, south of Perth, and Alcoa’s alumina refinery also in Kwinana. Similar threats hang over BHP’s nickel smelter in Kalgoorlie and refinery in Kwinana.

All of these plants are old, sub-scale by global standards, and suffer – compared to international competitors – from higher labour, gas and energy costs, and from rising pressure to comply with environmental standards.

But the threat to Qenos’s local facilities is also a timely reminder of the knock-on effects of the closure of manufacturing plants.

Tight gas markets have played a part in Qenos’s troubles – its gas bills reportedly doubled in 2023. But the major cause of its most recent problems was the shuttering in 2021 of Exxon’s Altona refinery, which supplied the LPG used as a feedstock for Qenos’s plastics production lines.

That happened under the previous Morrison government – and amid plenty of warnings about the downstream effects of its closure, including from Qenos, which was forced to close half the lines of its own production facility in the wake of the exit of the Exxon plant.

Any decision by BHP to close its Kalgoorlie nickel smelter will also ripple through the broader WA mining industry. The smelter supplies sulphuric acid, a by-product of its operations, to other parts of the state’s mining industry – and, in particular, to Lynas’s new cracking and leaching plant outside of Kalgoorlie.

As Lynas boss Amanda Lacaze said, the manufacturing and processing industry in Australia is an ecosystem, not a collection of unrelated operations.

And perhaps more important is the loss of the technical know-how that comes with the closure of these type of facilities.

Much is made of the loss of blue-collar jobs in manufacturing. But workers in these types of plants need substantial technical skills to keep these plants open, along with the expertise of chemists and a host of other professionals. And, despite the hype around “green jobs” in energy, hydrogen, lithium and rare earths, it is difficult to build that kind of expertise from scratch.

Companies that rely on gas for power and as an input are caught between the pressure to ditch fossil fuel extraction and the political and commercial cost of requiring gas producers to reserve more production for the domestic market.

Those pressures may mean that Australia is destined to shed the remaining industries that are dependent on petrochemical products as a feedstock.

Saving Australia’s remaining manufacturing and chemicals industries – and building new ones – will take actual policy designed to attract investment, backed by long-term support from successive governments of both political persuasions.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/talk-of-qenos-closure-highlights-the-risk-of-letting-manufacturing-industries-quietly-die/news-story/76fc21cd8481ff32e73998965e6d9674

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How I found myself agreeing with cash king Bob Katter

Caitlin Fitzsimmons

I’ve found myself in furious agreement with Queensland politician Bob Katter about one issue – that businesses should accept cash.

Last month Katter was fired up because a cafe in the Australian Parliament House initially refused to accept his $50 note, telling him it was a cashless business. Katter told them it was too bad for them because cash was legal tender, and they legally had to accept it.

He went on Sky News to explain himself. “If you have a cashless society, the banks control your life, you’re not able to buy a loaf of bread without permission from the banks,” Katter said. “It’s bad enough now but it will become infinitely worse.”

Like most Australians, I lost the cash habit at some point in the past decade, content to tap away to pay for everything from coffee to groceries. I often have no cash in my wallet.

Recently, though, I’ve been trying to change that. I started noticing that more and more retailers, especially cafes and small shops, were imposing surcharges for card payments. Being the former Money editor of this masthead, I knew how quickly little amounts can add up. I’ve also been finding that an increasing number of businesses no longer accept cash. I’ve encountered this several times in the month since Katter’s run-in at the Canberra cafe.

On the Saturday before last, I was unfortunately not at the second Taylor Swift concert, having failed to find tickets. Nor was I at the Bondi Beach Party, murdering the dance floor with Sophie Ellis-Bextor. But I was at the Capitol Theatre, seeing the entrancing Australian Ballet production of Alice with my daughter.

I was surprised to find that the bar at the theatre is cashless. The bartender informed me that this was stated in the terms and conditions of sale when I bought my tickets. The website confirms the policy but does not state a reason.

Earlier in February, I came across the same phenomenon at Spice Alley, off Broadway, where there is a collection of small food stalls and shared tables in a central courtyard. I wanted to give my teenagers cash, so they could go and choose their own meals, but the stalls were all cashless, forcing us to go one by one. One of the stallholders told me that Spice Alley management did not allow them to take cash, but customers could load currency onto a cashless payment card at a central cashier. The Spice Alley website says the policy is to improve “speed of service, safety and hygiene”.

Like Katter, I thought cash was legal tender and that businesses had to accept it. It turns out we were both wrong. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website states that businesses can choose which payment types they accept, but consumers have to be informed before they make the purchase.

Informing customers can be as simple as a sign at the cash register, or a notice on a website, which feels like a loophole. There’s no doubt card payments are convenient, but we’re all paying the price, and we should have a choice.

A cashless society is not a globalist conspiracy, but it is a capitalist one because the banks and other financial institutions are making a fortune from card payment fees.

How much exactly? I’m glad you asked.

Reserve Bank figures show, in the year ended December 2023, there were about 3.6 billion credit and charge card transactions and 11 billion debit card transactions in Australia. The business is charged a merchant service fee every time someone pays with a card. Sometimes they have a package deal, but on average, it ranges from 0.35 per cent of the transaction for eftpos to 1.69 per cent for Diners Card. The merchant acquirer – the big four banks and newcomers such as Stripe – and the card issuer all get a cut.

Businesses are legally allowed to pass on the cost directly to consumers in the form of a surcharge. My hunch that surcharging is becoming more common was on the money: businesses passed on a surcharge to consumers on 7 per cent of transactions in 2022, up from 5 per cent in 2019. The median surcharge was 50c per transaction.

My rough and ready calculation is that Australian consumers are directly paying $511 million a year for the privilege of paying with a card. The rest of the time, the retailers pay instead – and consumers pay indirectly.

Lance Blockley, the managing director of The Initiatives Group, a payment consultancy, estimates that Australian businesses are charged $5.8 billion a year – $3.5 billion for credit and charge cards and $2.3 billion for debit cards.

In Katter’s Sky interview, he made a leap from talking about cash to warning against “intermittent power” aka renewable energy. At this point, he lost me. He’s wrong about renewables, but not about cash.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-i-found-myself-agreeing-with-cash-king-bob-katter-20240226-p5f7wv.html

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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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Fears of ‘mass bleaching event’ at the Great Barrier Reef as 1100km impacted

We get this scare every 2 or 3 years. The fact is that the reef is a living thing that waxes and wanes, as it has done for hundreds of thousands of years. Some recent years have seen record HIGH levels of coral growth

Heat stress is causing widespread bleaching across the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.

Surveys by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science showed the beaching was “extensive and fairly uniform across all surveyed reefs”.

Corals are a colony of marine invertebrates and they have a symbiotic relationship with algae.

They can turn completely white when water warms or cools dramatically, and they react by expelling the algae.

It doesn’t mean the corals will certainly die, but rather the bleaching makes them more susceptible to disease and hampers reproduction.

However, severely bleached corals are likely to die if the water temperature remains too high for too long. They can recover if the temperature stabilises.

James Cook University (JCU), stated in a press release last week that scientists had spotted the first signs of serious bleaching with “moderate to severe coral bleaching” seen offshore east of Rockhampton at the Keppels.

The bleaching was discovered during routine surveys in the tourist hotspot, which is also critical for recreational and commercial fishing.

Researchers believe fish are becoming less abundant around the Keppels due to factors including bleaching and overfishing.

The Guardianreports that bleaching had been seen across a 1100km stretch of the Great Barrier Reef from the Keppels in the south to Lizard Island in the north.

Of the 27 sites inspected at the Keppels, “most sites showing signs of bleaching”, with only corals in deeper waters unimpacted by the heat stress.

Scientist Dr Maya Srinivasan, from JCU’s Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER), said the water temperatures around the Keppels were well above average, hitting 29C on multiple days.

“I have been working on these reefs for nearly 20 years and I have never felt the water as warm as this,” she said.

“Once we were in the water, we could instantly see parts of the reef that were completely white from severe bleaching. Some corals were already dying.”

She observed that the corals could recover if the water cooled. “We did see the temperatures begin to drop towards the end of the trip,” she added.

The Bureau of Meteorology warned in its recent climate outlook that temperatures were expected to be above the median for most of the country over the next few months due to record warm oceans globally and a weakening El Nino.

The current bleaching could be the seventh mass bleaching event to hit the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef in recent history.

Mass bleaching events were observed on the Great Barrier Reef — which is listed as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World — in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020, CNN reported.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/fears-of-mass-bleaching-event-at-the-great-barrier-reef-as-1100km-impacted/news-story/bc3d90b18d5ca90b6f527f380e688bbf

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Angry nurses rally at Gold Coast University Hospital, demand jobs back

A vindictive bureaucracy at work. They don't like admitting that they were wrong

Dozens of placard-waving nurses and other healthcare workers took part in the rally outside Gold Coast University Hospital on Saturday.

It followed fury this week after The Courier-Mail revealed leaked Queensland Health emails telling a veteran nurse that “we are unable to re-employ any staff who were officially terminated” for refusing the jab.

Queensland Health boss Michael Walsh said the edict was incorrect and wrote to all hospital and health services in the state on Friday telling them there was no directive not to reinstate sacked workers.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman this week repeatedly denied there were any barriers to hundreds of workers who refused to comply with the vaccination mandate from returning to work.

But nurses protesting on the Gold Coast said they were still struggling to get their jobs back.

They included 23-year veteran intensive care nurse Michelle Williams, who said she tried to reapply at the major hospital she was sacked from in 2021 but was told there were no vacancies - only to see a job ad for a position.

“It’s frustrating, it’s really frustrating,” she said. “Patients are suffering and they’ve got very junior staff looking after them. “There’s so many of us with so much experience and our experience is just going to waste.”

Ms Williams said Ms Fentiman needed to “stop lying to us”.

“We want to come back to work, we’ve done nothing wrong except not follow this one (vaccine) direction,” she said. “We’re not criminals. We’re people who love our jobs, we love looking after patients and we just want to help people. “We just want to come back to work and do what we love doing, and that’s helping people get better.”

Ella Leach, secretary of the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, said Ms Fentiman had not responded to an invitation to attend or at least endorse the rally.

Ms Leach said the minister had been sent the names and experience of 350 sacked health care workers who wanted to return and “Shannon should be reaching out to them directly” instead of making them reapply.

“There’s just zero excuse … we want her to take some actual action,” she said.

“These people were born to be nurses and health professionals - they want to work. It doesn’t make them happy hearing that the system’s crumbling, it makes them desperately angry and upset. “All they want to do is work.”

Ms Leach was herself sacked from Queensland Children’s Hospital for refusing the vaccine - in January this year, four months after the mandate was lifted, and despite being seven months’ pregnant. She launched unfair dismissal action against Queensland Health.

Ms Leach said many sacked healthcare workers who had reapplied for jobs with Queensland Health were still being rejected because of their “disciplinary action history” in refusing the vaccine.

“These people have decades of experience and they are desperately needed,” she said.

Ms Leach said 6000 nurses were predicted to retire in 2024 but Queensland Health was hiring nurses from interstate or overseas, with incentives of up to $70,000.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/angry-nurses-rally-at-gold-coast-university-hospital-demand-jobs-back/news-story/37d0412f8b3f3371999b35dc15483c12

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The incorrectness of clothing

To cope with the outrageous creep of authoritarian behaviour and inescapable globalism, sometimes citizens of the West refer to themselves as ‘peasants’. Call it a bit of lingering British gallows humour.

Increasingly, that is exactly how the Labor Party views Australians – as the ‘peasantry’. Our ancestors, who lived under the thumb of feudal lords and warring barons, paid less tax. You, and your family, are among the highest-taxed people to live and it is about to get worse.

No matter how hard Australians work, Labor’s greed has erected a perspex ceiling on wealth which it lowers a notch every year, pushing the middle and working classes down.

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese talks about ‘closing the pay gap’ between men and women (gendered terms Labor can only define when there’s an election on the horizon), it is being done by making both poorer.

Equality in poverty, that is the mantra of socialism – Labor’s eternal paramour.

The beauty of capitalism has meant the creation of cheaper markets and cut-price products. These have helped to maintain a level of comfort in challenging economic times. Selling these cheap, admittedly inferior, products has kept a generation in work and the economy ticking over. It’s not perfect, but it is better than looking down over the edge of the gulag, shovel in hand, dirt blowing in your face.

As long as there is a free market, there is hope for recovery. There is hope for freedom.

While these markets make our lives livable, the World Economic Forum (and the ‘desperate to please’ political leaders hanging on their every word), have decided that this cheap capitalism is a threat to the planet because it creates ‘evil carbon emissions’.

I suggest it is a threat to their political power.

The list of carbon restrictions grows every day. Last week we learned that Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has found a new capitalist foe to conquer – fast-fashion.

Alarm bells first rang at the World Economic Forum with the headline, Suits you – and the planet: Why fashion needs a sustainability revolution. It was a report based on the moaning of two ‘experts’ who insisted that 20 per cent of wastewater is produced by the fashion industry and 10 per cent of global emissions. These statistics rather miss the point that something, somewhere, will always be responsible for emissions. Humans need to wear clothes and the Australian Union movement made it impossible to manufacture them domestically where we’d have more control over the environmental result. Instead of regulating China, they are coming after Western retailers.

‘We cannot afford the trajectory of fashion increasing to maybe as much as 25 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 … how do we take out fossil fuels from the fashion industry?’

Of course, the ‘change needs to be radical … we have to reduce production and consumption of fashion by between 75 and 95 per cent. We’re not talking about snipping a bit off’.

The report is casually talking about destroying the fashion industry that keeps the clothes on your back.

That report was written in 2021 and subsequently ignored during the Covid years when the imminent threat of the evil fashion industry vanished for a while.

The ‘burn it to the ground’ rhetoric of the WEF has since camouflaged itself as ‘Fashionomy’, wearing the sheep’s wool of the new favourite buzzword ‘circular economy’.

‘Sharing the circular economy knowledge and the negative impact of the fashion industry will help people to be a part of the second-hand clothes cycle, and clothing repair shops can become the new option to encourage customers not to waste their money. If the community reduces textile waste, makes savings in the family economy, and helps the growth of the local economy, we will see an impact on the development of a sustainable lifestyle, helping mitigate climate change, and supporting sustainable cities.’

Notice the change in language? If the government knocks 95 per cent of the retail industry out, and all those jobs along with it, we won’t see a ‘growth in the economy’.

With no original ideas, Ms Plibersek has warned the clothing industry – one of the largest employers in Australia – that it must ‘turn its back on fast-fashion’ and if it doesn’t mend its ways, well, the ever-loving State will be forced to intervene.

‘Government is not sitting on our hands on this issue. The federal government has put the fashion industry on a watch list,’ said Ms Plibersek.

A watch list? Like a Stalinist watch list where government critics were lined up and quietly disappeared?

Her speech was a regurgitation of the World Economic Forum’s statistics from 2021, which is no doubt where Labor sourced them.

‘It’s the responsibility of government and the fashion industry to examine how we can be more sustainable in design, the materials used, and the role of the circular economy in extending the lifespan of the garment.’

Well, it’s only the ‘role of government’ to interfere with business if we’re talking about a fascist regime. I will leave you to decide if that describes Labor’s choice of words.

‘As an industry, there needs to be environmental sustainability of business models and the way products are marketed.’

This speech was part of Ms Plibersek’s ‘ultimatum’ to the fashion industry, although One Nation does not remember the Labor Party mentioning these demands during their election campaign. It’s an urgent ultimatum created five seconds ago – a doomsday that didn’t exist until Ms Plibersek decided it did at the launch of the Australian Fashion Council’s new initiative ‘Seamless’, which is another hopeless layer of bureaucracy we believe will punish and micromanage Australia’s fashion industry. A group of busy-bodies with infinite demands.

‘Seamless’ wants its members to pay a 4-cent contribution to the program for every item of clothing imported or created. According to the ABC, this is worth $36 million a year – and $60 million if they get their wish and make the clothing tax mandatory. Every single cent of which has been taken from the retail industry.

‘Improved affordability of clothes is a good thing. Parents shouldn’t have to choose between a new pair of school shoes and paying the electricity bill.’

What was that, Ms Plibersek?

Is the Environment Minister aware that the cost of school shoes isn’t the problem – it’s the nearly doubled cost of energy thanks to … Labor’s ‘green’ energy agenda? Australian parents know exactly what’s causing the cost of living crisis. Don’t blame the fashion industry for Mr Bowen’s expensive errors. If kids don’t have shoes to wear to school, you can thank the high priests of Net Zero.

But why this sudden assault on one of Australia’s most important industries?

We may speculate that this is Labor pivoting from electric vehicles after it became obvious that Europe – and thus Australia – will not be transitioning to ecars. Labor is desperate for a distraction to stop the press from calling them liars, so why not attack retail?

Well, there are good reasons to leave retail alone.

The clothing industry in Australia is worth $23.2 billion. It employs (directly) 121,000 people – and probably another 100,000 in industries dependent on its success such as IT, transport, storage, cleaning, accounting, training, surrounding cafes … the list goes on.

There are more than 16,300 businesses, most of them small to medium, many run by family entities. As of August 2023, fashion retail was paying out $4.9 billion in wages.

Which, we must remind Ms Plibersek, is heavily taxed and helps top up the coffers of the State.

The fashion industry was severely damaged by government interventions during Covid. Countless generational family businesses closed. People ended their lives having seen their life’s work evaporate overnight on the whim of health advice. The margins which used to drive a healthy industry have been cut by greedy shopping centres, excessive power costs, increased wages, and the introduction of impossible Fair Work complexity – not to mention rising manufacturing costs, fuel costs, and green tape. All of these things have meant that businesses in the fashion industry are barely scraping by. That said, the fashion industry is trying, so hard, to survive.

A sensible government would be desperately searching for ways to salvage those businesses that survived the great Covid culling. Perhaps they might consider cutting the excess taxes, or tearing up red tape?

Instead, Ms Plibersek has put her high heel on the head of Australia’s fashion industry and pushed it down under the surface of Net Zero to suffocate on bureaucracy.

‘If it’s the fashion industry that makes the profits, then it must be responsible for doing better by the environment.’

That’s a very communist-style thing to say. Does Ms Plibersek apply that rule to the renewable industry as it cuts down our old-growth forests, rips apart private farmland, and clogs up our seas with cement and steel? Or does the government hand out billions in subsidies?

‘And for those who manufacture in Australia, it means thinking hard about what they can do to create and sell products that have a longer shelf life, while still being affordable.’

Spoken by someone lacking experience and understanding regarding how the price of a clothing item is created.

How does Ms Plibersek expect the (very few) Australian fashion manufacturers to pay their staff more, cover excessive energy prices, pay additional taxes, pay more for transport, more for rent, more for storage, more for materials, more for IT services, more for accounting services, more for HR bureaucracies, and additional costs for the environment – all while lowering the cost and eventual sale price of the product?

If Ministers cannot understand basic maths they should not be proposing complex policies with the ability to decimate one of the most important industries in this nation.

The unintentional consequences of this cannot be overstated.

It is reckless, cheap, and nasty politics aimed at painting the fashion industry as the new climate criminal. An industry that Labor has been desperately trying (and failing) to unionise against the wishes of family-run entities and small businesses.

What is Ms Plibersek’s end result? An Australian industry dominated by union workhouses with a ‘Net Zero’ sticker on the front where citizens can choose which hessian bag they want to wear?

‘I have suits from an Australian designer that uses lots of remnant fabrics that would otherwise end up in landfill,’ said Ms Plibersek.

Has she walked down the poorer end of George Street where fast-fashion is packed wall-to-wall? There she would see students and the elderly picking out jeans for $5 and jackets for $12. Those customers know these aren’t the best clothes around, but fast-fashion allows them to have a wardrobe of sorts to distract them from the otherwise nightmare reality of surviving Labor’s Net Zero revolution.

If those stores vanish, people may be able to afford one pair of jeans – jeans with patches and repair marks – the same set of clothes worn until they fall to rags like the peasants of old living in a threadbare world.

‘I repeat what I said in June last year: I am watching. If I’m not happy with industry progress, I will step in and regulate.’

Did you hear that? That government is watching. The government is threatening you. The government will come after you.

Keep that in mind when the next election rolls around.

Ms Plibersek is coming for the clothes on your back

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/retail-outrage-plibersek-wants-the-clothes-off-your-back-ill-be-watching/

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Vilifying Israel is the left’s new form of anti-Semitism

The Left actually hate us all. Jews are just a scapegoat

Henry Ergas

When the crowds, wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags, gathered in Sydney immediately after October 7, their chant wasn’t “where are the Zionists?”; it was “where are the Jews?”. Nor were the writers and artists whose names and details were recently “doxxed” by Hamas’s local supporters targeted for being Zionists; they were targeted for being Jews.

And if angry protesters surrounded Raheen in Kew the other night, it wasn’t because it was a Zionist hub; it was because it is owned by Jews.

Now, as we reel from the news that a pro-Palestinian militant in Melbourne allegedly kidnapped and tortured a man, there can be one question and one question only: How has it come to this?

That Labor is less culpable than the Greens for fanning the flames of hatred is beyond doubt; however, as the party of government, it cannot avoid its responsibility. Anthony Albanese has repeatedly claimed, with palpable sincerity, that the government aims at balance; but whatever its intentions, it has, at best, appeared equivocal – and, at worst, has risked encouraging the rage against Israel that is undeniably a rage against Jews.

Time and again, it has called on Israel to respect international law, with the implication that it hasn’t. Time and again, it has lamented the plight of the people of Gaza while ignoring the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes by rocket attacks that, starkly violating international law, target schools, hospitals and homes.

But all that is mere kindling. If the fire has burned so high and spread so fast, it is because there is, on the Australian left, a dense undergrowth of anti-Semitism on which the blaze could feed.

That anti-Semitism is not the conventional Jew-hatred that marked the Australian labour movement from its earliest days. Explicitly based on repulsive stereotypes – Jews, wrote the Sydney Worker in 1932, are naturally “unscrupulous, callous, resourceful, insidious and cunning” – the traditional anti-Semitism centred on denunciations of “Shylock” and “the money power”.

Reaching fever pitch in the Depression, which the Labor press blamed on “the London Jews” who “conspired with the Bank of England” to protect their “fat rake-off”, it resurfaced, in the late 1940s, during the battle over bank nationalisation. Discredited by the Holocaust, that anti-Semitism was eventually consigned to a shadowy existence on politics’ lunatic fringe. Yet the underlying pathogen survived. Mutating into a new form, it obtained a fresh lease of life in the intellectual chaos of the 1960s New Left and, later, of Corbynism.

The new form’s essence was simplicity itself: each and every one of the traditional anti-Semitic tropes – Jewish arrogance, vindictiveness, tribalism, unbridled desire to dominate and the global tentacles with which to do so – was projected on to the state of Israel. What could no longer be said directly about Jews could, it seemed, be said with impunity about the Jewish state; and, by implication, about the Jews who were its champions. At the same time, just as traditional anti-Semitism cast Jews as the uniquely evil source of the world’s ills, so this new variant cast Israel not as a complex society with real people embroiled in internal and external conflicts, but as a caricatural representation of all that is illegitimate in the international community.

Responsible, according to prominent British academic Jacqueline Rose, for “some of the worst cruelties of the modern nation state”, the Jewish state stood as a fundamental obstacle – if not the fundamental obstacle – to a better world. It goes without saying that Rose made no attempt to test her contention, as any comparison to historical reality would have demonstrated its complete absurdity. All that mattered, for her countless disciples, was the conclusion that so monstrous an evil could only be cured by being eliminated.

The existential fight to the finish between “the Jew” and the “healthy elements” in society that permeated traditional anti-Semitism was thereby seamlessly transposed into the disease’s new form. There was, however, an additional feature of the variant that became increasingly pronounced as its prevalence grew. In conventional anti-Semitism, “World Jewry” was the West’s mortal enemy.

But in anti-Semitism’s new guise, the Jewish state, far from being the West’s “Other”, was transformed into the distilled, if entirely mythologised, image of what the radicals viewed as the West’s most despicable features. Israel was not the West’s antithesis; it was its apotheosis.

Here, after all, was a country that, in an age of appeasement, rejected fashionable pieties, defending itself from every attack. In a world of disposable selfhood, where you are whatever you want to be, it remained stubbornly attached to an identity gained by birth and forged by faith. And most of all, at a time when the “nowheres” were triumphant and the nation denigrated as a straitjacket, it harboured an intense, widely held patriotism.

There was, however, even worse: like Australia, Israel bore the indelible stain of “settler colonialism”. But rather than cringing apologetically, it celebrated the country the settlers had built: a country that, for all its faults, is a prosperous democracy in a world of tyrants, provides world-class education and healthcare to all of its citizens and that cherishes life, instead of worshipping, as the Islamists do, at the shrine of death.

Little wonder then that it provokes our leftists into uncontrollable fury. Consumed by self-loathing, trapped in a vision of Australia that imputes perpetual virtue to themselves, perpetual guilt to everyone else, they cannot forgive Israelis for standing proud. And when they act out their tantrums, it is not just at Israel that they are shouting. It is at all those who believe Australians too should stand proud, and unashamedly defend the achievements of our country, our culture.

Israel deserves our support. In the end, however, it will take care of itself. As for the Jews, we know hatred. Yet we also know the strength of faith and the power of resolve.

But what about Australia? Each civilisation, said Edward Gibbon, breeds the barbarians it deserves. Ours, brimming with rage, are no longer at the gates – they have stormed the citadel and seized important parts of the commanding heights. Marching arm in arm with the Islamist apologists for terrorism, their calling card is venomous threats and poisonous anti-Semitism.

However, as the incidents accumulate, each more shocking than its predecessors, they may finally have gone too far, inciting the reaction we desperately need to have. Nothing can erase the horrors of recent months. But if we fail to act on their lessons, it is us, not the barbarians, history will call to account.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/vilifying-israel-is-the-lefts-new-form-of-antisemitism-under-a-different-guise/news-story/987cb3dc4e554a11f9c7330f24be892c

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Nothing ‘false’ about my choice to be a stay-at-home mum

By JANET ALBRECHTSEN

I thought we were done with misery-guts feminism. It turns out not by a long shot. This week prominent director Diane Smith-Gander claimed women were making a “false” choice to stay home to care for kids. She was quoted as saying women were being forced to make this “false choice” by taking on lower-paid work in order to care for children. She bemoaned a society that perpetuated a “gender stereotype that Dad goes out to work and Mum stays home with the kids”.

Reading that took me back to a conversation from my late 20s. Some girlfriends, all young mums of little kids, were hanging about a playground by a Sydney beach one morning. Kids playing, shrieking, grubby little mouths and dirty feet, one kid probably crying because there is always a kid crying.

The young women spoke in hushed tones, swearing each other to secrecy. We agreed never to tell anyone quite how much we loved staying at home caring for our noisy, messy, beautiful little children. The pact was a joke. But only partly.

We knew better than to rave in public about loving being stay-at-home mums – for two reasons. Hanging about playgrounds, wiping little noses and hands and bums wasn’t what we were meant to be doing after graduating from university with fine degrees, suiting up and working hard for big flash law practices and other professional firms. The other reason was we didn’t want our husbands edging us out of a role we loved.

I turned my back on a legal career with a big law firm because I wanted to be at home with my kids. If someone had offered me a heap of money to return to work when they were babies, I would have said “no thanks”. That’s not for me, that’s not what we want for our kids. So I stayed home, had help with the kids, worked from home and earned less.

There was nothing false about these choices. Nothing coerced or unpleasant, which is the underlying message in Smith-Gander’s claim about false choices.

Some years later, I was encouraged by a senior politician to stand for a safe seat in politics. It was flattering. I had the full support of my husband. But I decided against that, too. I didn’t want to be a member of a political party. More important, my kids were moving into their early teens and while they most assuredly didn’t think they needed me at home, I suspected they might. I didn’t want what the books call “quality” time because you can’t pick and choose those moments when kids need you most.

So I remained at home, writing, managing work and deadlines, and being there for the quotidian challenges and enchantments of children pushing the envelope in different ways.

One afternoon, racing to finish some work at home in my office, one child kept coming up behind my chair with questions about sex. That was the inconvenient moment she picked for The Talk. I was busy, so to tide her over I plucked from the shelf beside me a book that I had bought months earlier in anticipation of this moment. The book was possibly meant for an older age bracket.

Being a fanatical reader, she appeared to devour it faster than she did Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Soon enough she was lurking behind my chair again, seeking clarification, stumbling over a big new word from one of the later chapters that I wrongly assumed she wouldn’t get to so soon. I wished my office was not at home.

I was far from the perfect mum, but that’s not the point. Each of us makes deeply personal decisions, tweaking this, changing that, as the years go on. We fumble through, mostly doing our best, in the belief that the decisions we make to work or look after kids, or both, are the best ones.

There are many trade-offs, of course. If we go to work, we miss out being at home with children. The more time we spend at home, the more we trade from our working lives. The sliding scale doesn’t render our decisions any less free, informed – and thrilling.

Many highly educated women I know started out in interesting, well-paying jobs, on paths to stellar, clever careers, but chose to step away. Working long hours in big professional careers, jumping on planes maybe for a meeting here, a meeting there, eating croissants on International Women’s Day with like-minded women, nannies for during the week, and on weekends, is not for everyone.

Many women, including me, would rather wipe the bums of many babies than live like that. My choice to alter the trajectory of my career, trading potential professional success for raising kids, was a no-brainer because raising three children will always be, for me, life’s greatest success.

Not every woman can choose to stay at home with their kids. I freely acknowledge my good fortune in being able to make my choice. There are many women for whom the choice to stay at home to care for little children is much more financially difficult than it was for me. But to demean any of these choices as false is obnoxious paternalism. It’s also deeply insulting to women who would have loved to have had children and would have loved to have stayed home to care for them.

So why does Smith-Gander presume to speak for women? How can she and her ilk possibly know about our lives, our personal decisions, our deepest desires, what we value? It is terrific that this high-profile corporate woman has risen to the top of her chosen fields. Given Smith-Gander is older, perhaps she experienced some big and nasty hurdles to get there. Good on her for pulverising them. I have nothing but respect for her choices. Her views about stay-at-home mothers, well, that’s another matter.

How great it would be if respect were reciprocated. Instead, there is an underlying assumption that caring for kids is a second-rate job, a forced and false choice. It’s a common affliction among gender ideologues to perpetuate miserable generalisations. Their message is that caring for kids is a burden. They never, ever talk about it as a prize.

The Albanese government’s National Strategy to Achieve Gender Equality discussion paper, from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, devotes a chapter to women who “bear the burden of care”. The joyless language perpetuates this idea that caring for little children is a rotten choice. It asserts that “patterns of care” are “generally driven by social and economic structures that reflect and reinforce gendered care norms”. Nowhere does the paper mention that many women desperately want to stay at home to care for children. Norms be damned. Many of us make that choice from meandering paths.

I wasn’t mentally prepared to fall pregnant at 27. I thought I had a lingering stomach bug. I fainted with shock when the petite female doctor told me it was a baby. For months I could barely say the word pregnant. I was annoyed at these foreign big breasts that arrived many months before the baby did. Why the rush? My reticence turned into a fierce desire to stay at home to care for our kids.

For some, the deep, primordial tug from a newborn child defies ideology and ambition. It can’t be measured in dollars. We are bombarded with the work side of the equation: we are told women need to work to maintain an identity, to exist on equal terms with men, to support the family and to maintain their own financial independence.

But the culture of “I work, therefore I exist” denies the falling in love with baby so central to most women’s experience. I would have fought off my husband like a banshee if he’d said he wanted to stay at home and care for our kids. He did stay at home for many, many weeks, and those periods were some of the most special times of our lives.

There is a misery to the views of Smith-Gander and other gender ideologues that is untethered from the privilege and pleasure of caring for kids. The ideologues pine for a wretched world where men and women all work exactly the same way and every workplace is made up of equal numbers of men and women, and women’s choices to live differently are demeaned as false.

The other glaring omission from all these discussions about women and work is the wellbeing of children. Back in 2017 there was a kerfuffle when American psychoanalyst Erica Komisar published Being There: Why Prioritising Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters. As The Wall Street Journal reported at the time, one agent told her they wouldn’t touch a book like that. Conference organisers disinvited her because her book, they said, would make women feel guilty.

Alas, as a society, we still don’t seem interested in exploring whether having a mum – or dad – at home in the early years is best for a young child.

The Prime Minister’s Gender Equality paper repeats recent Australian Institute of Family Studies data showing that, as at December 2021, women in 54 per cent of families usually looked after the children, while 40 per cent of families reported equal sharing of responsibility. Only 4 per cent of families reported that a man usually or always looked after the children.

In other words, even with women pouring out of universities at higher rates than men, leaving with more degrees than men, filling the professions in equal numbers, many women continue to embrace what Anne Roiphe in A Mother’s Eye calls the “whole complicated warm messy frustrating dear and dreadful business of raising children”.

Change is afoot, of course. And if gender ideologues treasured the important job of caring for young children instead of treating it as a chore, maybe more men would choose to do it sooner.

For good reasons, Western women have spent years telling the patriarchy where to get off. Why would a man presume to know what we want? It’s time to let that go. Right now, the biggest enemy of women’s choices is a small group of professional women who have the temerity to tell women what we really want.

Is there a polite way to say “f..k the matriarchy”?

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/my-secret-truths-as-a-stayathome-mother/news-story/c09f3f8859966a1e463dc6e97f88b091

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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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