Australian Politics
Thursday, May 02, 2024
Dr Jim’s economic elixir has left us with a hangover
Typical Leftist folly
The story, possibly apocryphal, goes that protectionism ended for the Australian economy when Paul Keating went out to buy an Italian knit cardigan and discovered it cost more than a Holden Commodore. The tariff wall had to come down and the nation joined other free traders such as the US, the EU, China and Russia.
If you believe that, I’ve got a poorly made pair of underpants to sell you at a wildly inflated price.
Last year alone, the International Monetary Fund detailed more than 1500 cases of what it euphemistically calls “subsidy variation” with the overwhelming majority of tariff hikes coming from the three largest economies.
Philosophically, the effect of trade subsidies and tariffs is to make imported goods more expensive, sometimes pricing them out of the market (think China’s punitive tariff hike on Australian wines at more than 200 per cent).
This leaves domestic production of similar or identical goods less efficient and less reliable in the absence of real competition. The benefit of a free trade environment means consumers pay less for goods of better quality. The only real benefit of tariffs is governments that impose them get to pocket the cash.
Thus the Hawke-Keating reforms gave us $20 thongs that don’t blow out whenever one breaks into a trot, and we will be forever grateful to them. In truth, these were bold and courageous reforms carried on later by the Howard government that necessarily meant Australians in manufacturing industries, especially in textiles, clothing and rubber footwear and later in automotive engineering, would lose their jobs.
There was pain and plenty of it, and pain often leads to cricket bat-toting voters unhappy with the current arrangements.
Risk taking has its limits, amid questions Jim Chalmers has got the trowel and muck out to start rebuilding the tariff wall that the Hawke-Keating governments dismantled.On Wednesday, in a speech at the Lowy Institute, the Treasurer released a new set of rules for foreign investment.
I never trust a man who refers to himself as Dr unless he can legally prescribe OxyContin. That aside, Dr Jim says it is time for the Albanese government to get the form guide out, pick a few potential winners and throw a bit of the taxpayers’ hard-earned cash around to supercharge private investment in critical infrastructure, minerals and decarbonised energy sources, while warding off present and future investments from overseas companies that put national security at risk.
The main problem is that while government has vast capital resources at its disposal, it is not very good at picking winners. Or it sometimes picks winners and then discards them when budgetary forces pull the rug out from under the winners’ feet.
It’s not so long ago that the Rudd government, promoting its green credentials, created a subsidy via rebate for homeowners to install photovoltaic cells on their roofs. The solar business boomed briefly until Rudd’s treasurer, Wayne Swan, announced the rebate that had been available to all was to be scrapped for households with an income exceeding $100,000. The net saving was a relatively piddling $50m while handing over more than $500m to the coal industry for research into the fantasy of carbon sequestration. The manufacture of photovoltaic cells in Australia collapsed almost overnight, most of it shifting to China.
Having devastated the industry then, Labor now is setting itself up as its saviour, promising $1bn in subsidies and grants to domestic production of solar panels, including in the NSW Hunter Valley where there is a lot of coal. It was an early contribution into what the government calls, no doubt with a nod to the next election, the Future Made in Australia agenda. It may as well have been called The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same.
Casting a doomsayer’s eye over the current economic environment, a large increase in public investment, with government spending already in the stratosphere, could contribute significantly to inflationary pressures and thus require intervention by the Reserve Bank, with further increases in home lending rates adding to cost-of-living pressures that will have voters reaching for the cricket bats again.
Dr Jim says other countries are doing more or less what he plans – Japan, South Korea and the US, home of the mothership of all public investment programs, Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, with a total fiscal cost estimated at $1.2 trillion, more than $500m of which is being spent to incentivise investment in renewable energy.
The Treasurer’s argument goes that if we don’t do the same relative to our economy, Australia’s economic future will sit at the bottom of the food chain. Chalmers’ sales pitch will have some force in the electorate. Recent Newspoll results reveal that Australians broadly support the notion of the nation building things. I’d argue this is a lovely sentiment but without any basis in reality.
The economic rise of China with its large, well-educated, trainable labour force as a manufacturing hub of the world is changing. One of the many economic indicators that should send a shiver up the collective spine of the Chinese Communist Party is that minimum hourly rates for labour in China stand above those in Mexico, which also has a well-educated, trainable labour force. Private investment without exception is going to shift to where the lowest unit labour cost exists.
The answer for Australian manufacturing in a tariff-free environment is to make niche, high-end, value-added goods that people need and where high labour costs can be absorbed. Throwing money at our manufacturing industries cannot change that equation. We simply cannot build photovoltaic cells at anywhere near the same unit cost as one can be made in China now and in Mexico in five years.
There may be a flicker of sentiment for the good old days when Australia made its own things (badly), but with Chalmers and Labor putting public funds in the wrong baskets it could cost the nation a hell of a lot more than an Italian knit cardigan.
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Federal Court grants ‘urgent injunction’ order stopping CFMEU blockades at Cross River Rail sites
Union thuggery costs us all in the end -- by pushing up costs
The Federal Court has granted an “urgent injunction” order stopping the CFMEU from blocking access to Cross River Rail sites.
Non-aligned workers had reported two days of blockades on project sites across the city, meaning they could not work despite not being covered by the CFMEU’s protected industrial action.
The Federal Court injunction was brought by CPB Contractors - the major contractor on the $6.2bn project - and granted late Wednesday.
A CPB Contractors spokeswoman confirmed it had sought an “urgent injunction” in response to the union’s “intimidation tactics towards people working on the Cross River Rail project”.
Union members had walked off Cross River Rail worksites for a second day on Wednesday and blocked non-union workers from accessing the site - causing tensions to erupt in a fight at the Dutton Part site.
A Queensland Police spokesman confirmed they were investigating reports of a physical altercation between two groups off Cope St at Annerley at 6:50am.
A CFMEU spokesman accused CPB Contractors of sending labour hire workers to the site to bait protestors.
“The CFMEU backs Cross River Rail workers taking protected industrial action and is keen for CPB to return to the bargaining table,” he said.
In parliament the state government was grilled over its position on the CFMEU’s conduct and new revelations Mr Miles met with CFMEU boss Michael Ravbar in March.
The meeting marked a departure from his predecessor’s ban on the union following its invasion of the Transport and Main Roads office in August 2022.
Mr Miles defended the meeting and, in the wake of the brawl vision, did not rule out future meetings.
“I don’t always agree with everything they say or do but I am always happy to meet with them,” Mr Miles said.
The Premier was asked in parliament what he would do to allow Cross River Rail workers to access the worksite without being assaulted by the CFMEU.
“Bullying and violence and intimidation should never be tolerated in any workplace, whether it is union related or not,” he said.
A spokeswoman for CPB Contractors slammed the conduct of some CFMEU members.
“We stand firm against any unlawful tactics used to intimidate workers and delivery partners supporting this essential infrastructure project for Queensland communities,” she said,
“CPB Contractors applied to the Federal Court for an urgent injunction against the CFMEU in response to intimidation tactics towards people working on the Cross River Rail project.
“CPB Contractors will not tolerate acts of intimidation towards its people or any workers on our construction sites.”
CFMEU protestors were again present outside CRR sites in Brisbane on Thursday morning, however its blockade had softened.
As of 8am, about 40 union members had settled in front of the site as more non-aligned workers entered.
As members arrived they brought camp chairs, CFMEU flags and signs while others dropped of supplies for a BBQ.
Other nonalinged workers - who it was understood can still not do their jobs due to the impacts of the strike - were sitting across the road.
Members were engaging with some non-aligned workers as they entered but talks were peaceful.
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Nation’s foreign policy is being driven by minority influence
In a new and disturbing first, immigrant communities are now driving Australia’s foreign policy in ways that are at odds with the national interest.
The Albanese government’s changing policy towards the Middle East is the result of pressure from Muslim activists. There are now three websites, which this paper reports are “circulating among political and community circles”, seeking to mobilise the country’s almost one million Muslims to use their local voting power to force the government to change Australia’s long-held and previously bipartisan support for Israel as the only liberal, pluralist democracy in the Middle East.
This was most memorably expressed in Bob Hawke’s immortal statement that if the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all mankind.
Labor frontbenchers, such as Tony Burke and Jason Clare (whose electorates are more than 30 per cent Muslim), failed to condemn unequivocally the October 7 atrocities, have supported local councils flying the Palestinian flag and have told local Muslims that they’re advocating for them in cabinet. The Albanese government only briefly suspended aid to the UN agency active in Gaza, despite clear evidence that much of it has been channelled to Hamas and that staff were involved in the October 7 killings.
Anthony Albanese was very slow to make a solidarity call to his Israeli counterpart after October 7, despite the terrorist murder of an elderly Australian, but was almost immediately in critical contact when an Israeli drone strike mistakenly killed an Australian aid worker.
Worst of all, our Foreign Minister has called for the recognition of Palestine even though this would reward the apocalyptic death cult that has been running Gaza.
This is not the first time that foreign fights have seeped into Australian politics and it’s not the first time that religious activists have influenced our public life. But it is the first time in our history that religious pressure has been put on our leaders to take a position that’s at odds with our national interests and our national values. And this eruption of ethnic politics into what’s best for Australia should be a reminder that migration doesn’t just build the country; it can change it, too, sometimes in unwelcome directions.
It’s hardly surprising that cultural roots should play a part in people’s contemporary attitudes. Think Irish Australians and the 1916 conscription debates and the involvement of the Catholic hierarchy in the anti-communist campaigns in the union movement of the 1940s, later playing out in the ALP split in 1955. What’s new now, though, is this unabashed appeal to a transcendent religious loyalty, with partisans in a foreign quarrel trying to drive a change to our national policy.
Exhibit one is the Muslim Votes Matter website: “The Muslim community,” it declares, “is the largest and among the fastest growing minority groups in Australia. Our collective voting bloc is the most valuable, yet under-utilised asset we have.” Muslim Votes Matter aims to unlock “this highly influential tool”, as the website call it, in the “over 20 (federal parliamentary) seats where the Muslim community collectively has the potential deciding vote”. That may not sound like much, says the website, but “in the last 25 years no federal government has been elected by a margin of more than 15 seats”.
It specifies 32 federal seats (all bar two currently Labor held) where Muslim votes “have the potential to move the needle” and for each one shows the Muslim vote against the seat’s margin.
Unsurprisingly, the MVM website claims discrimination against Australian Muslims, complaining that “Islamophobes” have protested against the opening of mosques and declaring that Australian Muslims “have had enough” and “will no longer tolerate bias and veiled racism”.
Harnessing religious solidarity with Marxist militant minority tactics, and cleverly pitched to culturally adrift adolescents and young adults, the aim is to have the 4 per cent of voters who are Muslim change the national position, not just on Palestine but “on a broad range of issues … which resonate most with the Australian Muslim community”.
The most critical, of course, is “Australia’s foreign policy response to the growing atrocities in Gaza”. “A more engaged Muslim voter base,” says the website, “benefits all Australians, and in particular those from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds.” Even though the website also claims to be politically independent and “solely dedicated to serving the best interests of the Muslim community in Australia”.
Then there’s My Vote Matters, a website run by the Islamic Council of Victoria that says it has “run four successful campaigns”. It says 70 per cent of Muslims are “extremely” or “very concerned” about right-wing extremism and 82 per cent of Muslims think their political representatives “don’t care” about Islamophobia. Its 2022 Victorian election scorecard heavily preferred the Greens and Labor over the Coalition.
As well there’s The Muslim Vote, urging Muslims to vote in accordance with MPs’ position on the “genocide” in Palestine. Those stated to have shown “support for Palestine” include Labor’s Ed Husic, Graham Perrett, Tony Zappia, Julian Hill, Maria Vamvakinou and Anne Aly. The “our campaign is backed by” section of the website merely says “coming soon”, although it also says “our supporting organisations enjoy the support of hundreds of thousands of Muslims”.
Muslim leaders and community organisations are not the only recent immigrant groups seeking to change Australian government policy and, sometimes, foster grievances against broader Australian society. A decade or so back, the local Indian community felt not enough was being done to protect Indian students against attacks by gangs. There are various “united front” groups active inside the Australian Chinese community in support of Beijing that were thought to have used their influence strongly against the Morrison government, particularly in online Chinese language spaces.
What’s striking, though, in this push by Muslim leaders to change Australia’s policy on the Middle East is that there’s no attempt to appeal to Australia’s long-term national interest. It’s taken for granted that what matters most is local Muslims’ solidarity with their fellow Muslims abroad.
Australia’s Muslim leaders (and also much of their communities), it seems, aren’t thinking as Australians who happen to be Muslims but as Muslims who happen to reside in Australia. If they were thinking as Australians, there would be at least as much emphasis on the return of the hostages as on an immediate ceasefire. Perhaps this is to be expected given Islam’s lack of any notion of the separation of church and state and its “death to the infidels” instinct that many local leaders seem to be playing up rather than down.
Most troubling has been the pressure put on politicians and law enforcement to change the language on Islamist terrorism: first to drop any mention of “Islamist” and call it “religiously motivated extremist violence”, and now, as advocated by an alliance of peak Islamic groups, to drop any mention of religion at all and refer to it as ”politically motivated extremist violence”.
Even when the teenagers arrested in connection with the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel quote the Koran and have images idolising Osama bin Laden. Coupled with the hate speech spewing from influential mosques and websites, we can’t pretend away the links between radical Islamist theology and terrorism.
Right now, at 765,900 last year, immigration is far too high. It is depressing wages, boosting housing costs and clogging infrastructure. And without a much greater stress on the importance of migrants joining Team Australia, we’re at risk of importing all the troubles of the wider world, of which the Gaza conflict is just the most obvious immediate example.
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Jewish students rally at University of Melbourne
Hundreds of pro-Israel supporters, many draped in Israeli and Australian flags, have gathered at The University of Melbourne.
The group is calling on educational institutions to make its campuses a safe place to be for Jewish students.
Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive officer Alon Cassuto opened the rally.
“We know that students don’t feel safe to be who they are and celebrate who they are,” he told the crowd.
“And since October 7 … anti-Semitism around the world has been on the rise.
“We’re here to say that the past seven months are not something we’re prepared to tolerate any longer. Our campuses have to be free of hate.”
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students president Noah Loven said he would not give the pro-Palestinian encampment any oxygen.
“We don’t want to lean into what they want. So we’re here to stand proud as your students and to stand together for peace,” Mr Loven said.
“In response to the troubling trend that has taken root in our academic institutions across Australia and New Zealand … Jewish students, my peers, have increasingly become targets of fear intimidation, and harassment.”
Protesters were holding signs that read “keep hate off campus” and “stand together against anti-semitism”.
Groups of police officers were stationed around the parameter of the event.
Jewish students say they are in fear of being intimidated and harassed on campus.
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students has voiced concerns and decided to take action after hearing reports of Jewish students avoiding their universities
The union is calling for a roundtable with Education Minister Jason Clare, state education ministers and vice chancellors, and are also demanding that universities implement policies that prohibit hate speech on campus.
It also demands that universities require students to show their student identification “to ensure that external extremist actors do not hijack our campuses”.
The union’s Victorian branch president Holly Feldman said she had friends at Columbia University in the US who have been harassed for being involved in Jewish life.
“The situation continues to escalate and Jewish students are distressed,” Ms Feldman said.
“It’s simply not safe for many Jewish students on campus at the moment, and it’s unacceptable that many feel they cannot attend their lectures and classes in person without fear of intimidation, harassment and violence,” Mr Loven said.
“This is not an issue of free speech – it is of vilification and the endorsement of terror.
“Some of these extreme groups are crossing the line.”
The protest, to take place on Thursday afternoon, is in response to student activists camping out at Australian campuses, including at the University of Melbourne.
Thursday will mark the eighth day members of Uni Melb for Palestine have camped out on the campus’ south lawn.
Students at the University of Sydney, University of Queensland and Australian National University are also holding their own camps.
Australian Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni has shown his support for the Melbourne outfit by attending and giving a speech, and in Sydney, Greens Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi also addressed students camped out.
The new wave of protests take inspiration from university encampments across the United States, which on Wednesday saw a heavy police presence descend on Columbia University to forcibly clear protesters out.
Uni Melb for Palestine issued a warning to students ahead of the Jewish student-led protest to “not engage with agitators or Zionists at all” and to “not divulge information/details of comrades to cops or security”.
The group are hosting a “teach in” event which will include speeches from Melbourne Law School senior research fellow Dr Jordana Silverstein and a Jewish anti-Zionist student who will discuss “Palestinian liberation from an anti-Zionist Jewish perspective”.
Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive officer Alon Cassuto said he was concerned about the welfare of Jewish students on campus and voiced his support for the demonstration.
“We warned universities last year about the manifestations of antisemitism on campuses, but the situation has gotten worse since that time,” Mr Cassuto said.
“There has been a collective absence of leadership, with appalling and intimidatory behaviour being ignored in the hope that it will go away. Instead, in the face of inaction, it’s gotten worse.”
He claimed that Jewish students are scared to complain “for fear their marks will be affected” which has resulted them to stay away from campus.
“Societal cohesion requires community and political leaders to publicly and strongly call out and push back on those seeking to undermine that cohesion,” the ZFA leader said.
“Anti-Semitism under the guise of political discourse is still antisemitism. We must be vigilant and clear in our opposition to any form of hate on our campuses.”
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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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Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Indigenous ‘carve out’: Is this a return to the ‘reading wars’?
Aboriginal children can undoubtdly reach higher standards than they do but to do that, they need good teachers not second-rate ones. Guess which they are going to get
Two cheers for recent moves to ensure trainee teachers are better equipped to teach English and literacy. Not three. Not yet anyway.
As this newspaper reported last week, all non-Indigenous trainee teachers must pass a test known as LANTITE (Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education students) during the first year of their degree. Why this hasn’t been the case forever beggars belief. And we wonder why NAPLAN scores are on the slide.
Isn’t it bleedingly obvious that basic literacy and numeracy must start on day one – for teachers and students alike?
The new standards released by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership require trainee teachers to be taught to use explicit instruction – a practical step-by-step teaching method that has been championed for years by many people who have looked closely at what works and what doesn’t.
Noel Pearson has been a terrific supporter of explicit instruction as the obvious way to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged kids with evidence-based education. In a speech to the Centre for Independent Studies in 2021, Pearson was characteristically blunt: “I want to start with one brief thing about evidence: we need no more evidence about what works.
“The evidence has been well known about what works for children’s reading, numeracy and learning generally. It is just that there has been a concerted effort to impede the known and very effective means by which children could learn in Australian schools – and it is the disadvantaged that have suffered the most.”
The evidence, said Pearson, was that direct instruction worked best for children.
The interminable delay in arriving at this point, where teachers receive early training in direct instruction, reveals how education has become a battleground where activists play and students suffer.
Many years ago, when writing about the evidence behind phonics – the explicit instruction method for teaching kids to read – I was horrified to discover that many on the loud left regarded it as some kind of political project of the right to hijack education. No kidding. The so-called “reading wars” were a shocking indictment of the education class.
Will the caveat to these new reforms prove to be yet another indictment of the education elites?
The new rules that require more rigorous literacy and numeracy training do not apply to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainee teachers. The carve-out is aimed at addressing the teacher shortages, dismal school attendance rates and educational gaps in many remote Indigenous communities.
The new standards say: “In the case of First Nations language speakers, recognition of First Nations language proficiency by the relevant cultural authority is an acceptable alternative standard.
“(University) providers must have an established process to confirm recognition of First Nations language proficiency.’’
The shortage of teachers in regional and remote parts of Australia, especially in remote Indigenous communities, is a diabolic problem for the students most in need of education to improve their life chances. There is no quick fix.
Different rules – for a time – for Indigenous trainee teachers may be needed. But if this carve-out from more effective teaching standards leads to a permanent two-tiered teaching profession, Indigenous teachers and students will suffer the most. Unless closely monitored, these lower standards for Indigenous trainee teachers risk reinforcing the curse of low expectations for these teachers and their students alike.
Apart from what this caveat means for Indigenous students, one wonders what it means for Indigenous teachers. Does it mean that newly trained Indigenous teachers who have reached the same standards as their non-Indigenous peers can teach only in Indigenous schools?
The ultimate aim should be for Indigenous teachers to be as equipped as other teachers so they can move between schools, experience different forms of education – public and private, regional and city, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
How often we see well-meaning affirmative action policies, which might make sense as special measures for a limited time, becoming permanent. Through complacency or cowardice, positive discrimination often continues long after it has become counter-productive.
Like the reading activists who were blind to the clear evidence of explicit instruction, those who favour two-tiered teaching standards now may be too invested to ever see the light that comes from evidence-based pedagogy.
As the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination recognises, there may be rare circumstances where measures of positive discrimination may be necessary, but these must not be continued “after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved” lest they become a new and permanent form of discrimination.
The education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students remains one of this country’s biggest public policy failures. Just as we don’t need more evidence about what works in schools – because we know – we don’t need more reports tracking the numbers of Indigenous educational disadvantage.
We know that Indigenous students in remote schools start well behind students in mainstream schools and rarely catch up.
We know the reasons Indigenous kids fall behind, and stay behind: dismal rates of school attendance and differences in teacher and teaching quality. We don’t need new reports, either, about the link between poverty, violence, poor health, family dysfunction and educational disadvantage. We need solutions.
Last Friday the Northern Territory’s new Opposition Leader, Lia Finocchiaro, promised to tackle the former. She committed to using income management tools, ignored by the Territory Labor government, to ensure that parents send their children to school.
“We want greater accountability and responsibility of parents in getting their kids to school because we know a lot of these kids engaging in the justice system aren’t being supported to access an education,” Finocchiaro said.
“Nothing is off the table. We have to be getting kids to school, we have to be protecting young people who are being neglected and on a pathway to crime, and we have to be giving these kids an opportunity to change their lives before it’s too late.”
On education, Pearson deserves the last word.
“Aboriginal children are no different from other human children,” he said.
“They have the same capacity and they have the same learning mechanism … there’s nothing sui generis about Indigenous children. They’re human. If they’re taught with effective pedagogy, they will learn.”
We should remain vigilant about the ultimate aim of these new literacy and numeracy reforms: to ensure they are nationwide and colourblind, so every student prospers from well-trained teachers. The education gap won’t be filled by entrenching a second-class approach to literacy and numeracy for Indigenous children.
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Enabling greenwashing: ‘Climate Active Carbon Neutral’ stamp under fire for lacking ACCC certification
A Senate inquiry has taken aim at the government’s Climate Active Carbon Neutral labelling program, slamming the initiative for promoting greenwashing, while the regulator said it could not give it a stamp of approval for the program because its rules were not clear.
The Climate Active label is being used by about 700 companies, products, buildings and events that pay an annual licence fee to call themselves carbon neutral with the government’s backing. It is administered by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW).
On Monday, the ACCC said the trademark certification process for the scheme had been suspended after several attempts at clarifying its rules.
“The ACCC has not made a final determination on the CTM,” ACCC mergers and digital division manager Tom Leuner told the inquiry, referring to the Climate Active Carbon Neutral Certification Trade Mark.
“We didn’t have clarity on the rules because they cross-referenced others. There was a bit of back and forth and they resubmitted the rules several times over a long period. Eventually they advised us that they were seeking to redo the rules and then review the whole scheme.
“They asked us to pause the assessment,“ he said, adding there was “nothing” currently stopping businesses from using the label.
“They don’t have exclusive IP use, but they can just keep using it in the meantime,” Mr Leuner said.
Documents on the Climate Active website say the stamp “confirms that a carbon neutral claim has met a robust standard and is a legitimate and visible stamp of approval”.
When asked by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young whether the statement was misleading, Mr Leuner sidestepped the question saying the regulator’s functions were in relation to consumer-facing claims by businesses.
“A government department’s claims, I’m not sure how that would interact with our, sort of, legislative functions,” he said.
Polly Hemming, a director at The Australia Institute, said the scheme facilitated greenwashing by allowing products or companies to be certified as carbon neutral through purchasing offsets, rather than cutting emissions.
“Climate Active needs to be referred to the Auditor General. There are so many administrative failures,” said Ms Hemming, who worked as a communications manager for Climate Active in 2019 and 2020.
“Not checking the offsets, EY being paid $1m by the department to carry out due diligence on the members while having those members as clients, while also assessing the veracity of the international offsets. There is so much that is wrong with that scheme.”
Ms Hemming argued the government’s scheme was encouraging greenwashing and misleading consumers into thinking businesses or products with the stamp were actively taking climate-positive actions, when that was not necessarily the case.
“It’s cheaper to pay a certification fee to Climate Active and to buy some offsets from a wind farm than it is to implement the technology that you need or go 100 per cent renewable, or change your business practice or change your business model. Effectively, it’s a really unfair situation for businesses who are trying to do the right thing.”
“If the government wants to keep a voluntary carbon offset scheme, then the most Climate Active can be described as, as it used to be, the National Carbon Offset Standard.
“All the department is saying is, these businesses have provided us with a list of their emissions for part of their businesses, and they’ve bought some offsets, and they may or may not be reducing their emissions across their value chain,” she said.
Last year, the Albanese government announced a review of the certification, originally introduced in 2017 and rebranded in 2019, with proposed updates including removing the term “carbon neutral” and implementing stricter reporting requirements.
Once that policy review is completed, the department would likely seek to re-engage with the ACCC, DCCEEW deputy secretary Jo Evans told the inquiry.
She added, however, there was nothing “unusual or improper” in continuing to use it as is.
“We take very seriously the use of our Climate Acive logo and we make sure that it is used in circumstances that comply with it,” Ms Evans said.
The department said members of the program had achieved “better emissions reductions than others” and that it was not aware of any company that had misused the trademark.
After the review is complete, all 700 businesses certified will be forced to go through a re-assessment process, Ms Evans said.
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Sydney University pro-Palestine camp shows topsy-turvy world of warriors for radical chic
Like children with matches in a summer bushland tinderbox, the pro-Palestinian protesters at our universities seem to have no idea about the lethal forces that are their playthings. Islamist extremism, anti-Semitism, Arab grievance, Jewish defiance, great power politics and social cohesion in Western liberal democracies like our own are all in the mix.
These are tensions not easily grasped or resolved by undergraduates looking for the revolutionary cause of their era. When they bandy around terms like “Israeli genocide” and “apartheid state” or talk about a colonial power usurping the rights of an Indigenous people you know that facts, history and context have no place in their considerations.
Politicians of the left in the US, Britain and here do little to chastise or correct them because they are in the ugly electoral game of courting the ever-growing Muslim vote, holding off ever more radical leftist rivals, and appealing to the young and impressionable. National values and interests play second fiddle to the spineless mathematics of political power.
At Columbia University in New York City, which has led the way in what has become a global campus campaign, Jewish students this month were advised to stay away from classes, and now the whole university has switched to a remote learning model. Even one pro-Palestinian protester, Linnia Norton, seemed shocked at the hatred they had unleashed, telling a reporter; “There were people outside of campus one time with signs that said, ‘Death to all Jews’ – that is awful and nobody should be having to experience that on their campus.”
The Students for Palestine protesters at the University of Sydney are unashamedly derivative, posting on Instagram that they have been “greatly inspired” by the movement at Columbia. They have chanted “Intifada, intifada”, cheering on Palestinian armed uprisings that have visited terrorism on Israel repeatedly since the 1980s, taking thousands of innocent lives.
Whatever your view of Palestinian aspirations and the Israeli government, no rational approach to this issue should ignore the human reality. It seems incomprehensible that these privileged students could see the Hamas atrocities of October 7 last year and the horrible war they were designed to trigger and use those events not to condemn and campaign against Hamas but to advocate the terror group’s agenda.
On Anzac Day, after bathing in the warm and reassuring camaraderie of the dawn service at Bondi, I went to the Sydney University students’ “occupation” site to see for myself. From a distance, the whole thing looked like topsy-turvy world to me. These are students who promote and enjoy sexual liberation, gender equality, embracing of gays, bisexuals and transgender people, imbibing of alcohol, and no doubt free expression, democracy and individual rights; how could they offer comfort to the Islamist extremist terror group Hamas, which would readily throw them off a rooftop on any of those counts?
And yes, like topsy-turvy world, this mob inverts logic and consistency. This is a movement that deliberately targeted Anzac Day for “glorification of war” while it refuses to condemn Hamas for instigating and continuing a war with unspeakable barbarity against civilians. The protesters do not even denounce Hamas for the way it deliberately triggered war: slaughtering 1200 people, including babies, women, teenagers and the elderly, while taking nearly 250 hostages for raping, torture and murder, with about 130 unaccounted for more than six months on.
As I walked into Sydney’s tent city I saw a sign scrawled on the walkway declaring this was the “Gaza camp”. There were Palestinian flags, tents emblazoned with “From the river to the sea” (the obliteration of Israel as a slogan), a stand for Socialist Alternative with a copy of Introducing Marxism on display, and a lot of young people milling about in Palestinian keffiyeh – clearly this lot had skipped the unit on cultural appropriation.
Unusually for people running a demonstration, they were very shy. I asked two women why they had “from the river to the sea” on their tents and they denied knowledge or responsibility for the tent daubing – I am certain if I had stuck around they would have denied it three times before the cock crowed.
Another group of students told me they would speak with the ABC or SBS but not with The Australian, and when I asked them why I saw no posters or banners calling for the release of hostages they broke eye contact and scattered without response.
When the protesters gathered for an open-air meeting, in keeping with their “people’s movement” schtick, they said they could not speak freely while I was watching and asked me to leave. Before leaving I posed the hostage question again – they offered no answer.
Why are the hostages conscientiously unremembered as a political inconvenience? Like the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, these protesters want to wipe away October 7.
It troubles me that young students can turn their backs on a family such as the Bibas family. I witnessed videoed brutality and terror from October 7 that I would dearly love to unsee, but a video of the Bibas family, without overt violence, haunts me like no other, and should haunt the free world.
On the morning of October 7 last year at kibbutz Nir Oz, Shiri Bibas, 32, is seen holding her two beautiful red-haired boys, Kfir, 9 months, and Ariel, 4. (We’ve since learned Shiri’s husband Yarden had been dragged off bleeding from the head and is believed to be dead; Shiri’s parents later were found murdered). In the video Shiri appears to be uninjured but is surrounded by Hamas terrorists telling her what to do and where to go, and she is confused and terrified, clutching her boys. Her blameless terror and fear for her boys are a violation of humanity.
This mother and her boys remain unaccounted for, with some reports suggesting they were alive early this year, and Hamas claiming they were killed later by Israeli attacks. So cowardly and depraved is this abomination that the best we can hold any slim hope for is that this woman and her two boys somehow have endured almost seven months of horror.
The only person at the university who would engage in a meaningful discussion with me was Josh Lees. He is not a Sydney University student but clearly had a leadership role at the camp.
Lees is an organiser of the Palestinian Action Group and a writer for Red Flag, the newspaper and website of Socialist Alternative which claims to be the nation’s “largest Marxist revolutionary group”. So much for student autonomy.
“What’s your view of Hamas?” I asked Lees. “It’s not about Hamas, we’re opposing the genocide in Gaza,” he diverted.
And so it went, repeatedly, with this professional activist refusing to condemn Hamas or its bloodcurdling terrorism. After five unsuccessful attempts for a view on Hamas I switched to asking about his view of what Hamas did on October 7. “My view is that nothing that happened on October 7 can possibly justify a genocide that’s been taking place,” he said.
I persisted, suggesting the point was not what the events did or did not justify but more simply, did he have a view about 1200 people massacred and up to 250 taken hostage. “You wanna ask me about something that happened six-and-a-half months ago?” he deflected.
“One human being to another,” I implored. “Do you have no view about what happened on October 7?” Silence. “You can’t find it in your heart to condemn the atrocity that occurred on October 7?” Nothing.
Eventually he muttered in rhetorical tone, “Israel can defend itself, but the Palestinians can’t?!” This was a sickening characterisation of the October 7 bloodlust as self-defence.
The conversation was abhorrent and pointless. Pushed on hostages Lees claimed Israel had 10,000 hostages – facts do not matter on this campus.
These protests at some of our most prestigious universities are deeply disturbing and metastasising across our public debate. Sydney University trumpets three values of “trust, accountability and excellence” and it champions diversity, yet it tolerates a protest demonising Jews and Israel, and encouraging armed uprising by Islamist terrorists against a liberal democracy.
This, while the Islamist extremist threat re-emerges on our shores, pointed among the young. And the type of Islamist society promoted by Hamas and like-minded groups is the most brutally intolerant version known to humankind – anathema to the claimed values of any university or Western democracy.
Columbia University proclaims its mission cannot succeed without “thoughtful, rigorous debate” that is “free of bigotry, intimidation and harassment”. But right now Jewish students and staff are being physically intimidated and blocked from attending classes, so that most are too fearful to attend.
The Sydney students chant “Intifada” and “Revolution” on social media and claim Israel is “murdering tens of thousands of people”.
The university says it wants all its students to be able to express their views and it has beefed up security as a precaution – vice-chancellor Mark Scott seems to have switched from the staff-run collective model at the ABC to a student-run collective on campus.
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NSW and Origin in talks to extend Eraring power station for up to four years
Coal, wonderful coal
Australia’s biggest coal power station may stay open for four more years, with the NSW government working on the safety net solution to head off the threat of blackouts hitting the state’s electricity users.
The NSW state Labor government and Origin have been locked in talks over the future of the Eraring coal power station for months after an independent expert urged an extension. While The Australian understands an agreement remains unconfirmed – an extension guaranteeing an extension of two years, with an option for Origin to extend the lifespan by a further two years.
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Penny Sharpe did not comment on the timescale of the extension, but confirmed no deal had yet been reached.
“The NSW Government is engaging with Origin on its plans for Eraring Power Station and will not comment while the process is ongoing,” said Ms Sharpe.
An Origin spokeswoman declined to comment on details of the negotiations, but pointed to comments in the company’s quarterly report published on Tuesday.
“We remain in discussion with the NSW government on the closure date for the Eraring Power Station,” the company said.
While sources stressed a deal could yet collapse, there has been widespread acceptance that a deal would be done – though talks have dragged on for months – amid dire warnings should Eraring shutter as scheduled from 2025.
The Australian Energy Markets Operator last year warned NSW risked unreliable electricity supplies from 2025. Market executives have also warned allowing the state’s largest source of electricity – typically producing about a quarter of NSW’s electricity would stoke prices for households and businesses, already buckling under high interest rates and soaring inflation.
But opponents to extending Eraring said NSW could have adequately replaced the lost generation, and the closure would have been a signal for would-be renewable energy developers to rapidly accelerate work.
Environmental voters are unlikely to welcome taxpayers underwriting Eraring, though the full details of a risk sharing mechanism may not be revealed.
Such a deal has been used by Victoria in the past, as the state Labor government struck deals with AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia to keep the state’s two largest coal power stations open.
EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn will close in 2028, while AGL’s Loy Yang A will shutter in 2035 – giving the state enough time to bring online sufficient quantities of renewable energy. The terms of both deals remain a closely guarded secret, but they are a guiding principle for any extension of Eraring.
Eraring has in recent years been losing money. A rapid rise in rooftop solar has seen wholesale prices plunge to zero or below during sunny days, which explains why Origin in 2022 announced the retirement of the coal-fired power station in August 2025 – some seven years earlier than initially expected.
But Eraring’s fortunes changed in 2023 when the coal cap allowed Origin to recoup costs above $120 a tonne for coal, which returned the generator to profitability.
The scheme will end in June, and Origin is facing higher costs for coal that will dent the financial returns of Eraring without an unexpected move in Australia’s wholesale electricity market.
Should it return to a loss-making entity, a risk-sharing agreement with the NSW government would likely see the taxpayer compensate Origin beyond 2025.
Such a scheme would be politically sensitive to the Labor government, which has won favour with large swathes of the electorate with its commitment to renewable energy.
Moving to curtail political hostility, the Labor government is talking tough – insisting it will not be held hostage.
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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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Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Australia’s manufacturing decline is a story of broken promises and failed industry welfare programs
Trying to make everything in your own country is called autarky. North Korea tries to be autarkic. Their average national income per head is about one tenth of what South Koreans earn. A pretty clear lesson that Albo seems not to have learned
NICK CATER
In his first speech to the National Press Club after the 2022 election, Anthony Albanese boasted that his reforming Labor government would transform Australia into a clean-energy superpower.
How so? asked a sceptical journalist from Bloomberg News. How would Australia compete against the US, Canada, China and other countries that are aspiring to be global leaders in green manufacturing? “By getting on with it,” replied the Prime Minister. Some 20 months later, the question remains unanswered: Getting on with what?
The two examples of promising green businesses the PM cited on that day have hardly stood the test of time. Sun Cable, Mike Cannon-Brookes’s proposal to build the world’s largest solar farm and link it by an undersea cable to Singapore, seems less likely to come to fruition than Clive Palmer’s plan to rebuild the Titanic. As for Tritium, the Australian company that promised to build the world’s fastest electric vehicle chargers in southeast Queensland, the less said the better. Tritium’s future won’t be built in Australia. It will be built in Tennessee, where the company has received generous assistance from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, securing a sweetheart deal to build a giant manufacturing plant.
The $15bn National Reconstruction Fund Albanese promised would kickstart the industries of the future has been in place for well over a year but has yet to issue a single grant.
The PM plans to break the impasse with the National Reconstruction Fund 2.0, optimistically named the Future Made in Australia Act. Underpinning the government’s green superpower ambition is a breathtaking complacency that assumes Australia’s natural advantages in the fossil fuel-based economy can be seamlessly swapped out for ascendancy in the brave new carbon-free world. They cannot be. Our primacy in resources was based on merely having stuff. Green manufacturing is about making stuff, which is a different game altogether.
The Albanese government has placed a speculative bet on green hydrogen as the key to our export success. It makes the fatuous claim that Australia has an abundance of sunshine that can be turned into cheap renewable energy.
In October 2022, Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced a $13.7m grant to Andrew Forrest’s company, Fortescue Future Industries, to scope the construction of a 500MW electrolyser at Gibson Island, near Brisbane. Bowen described the project’s success as “critical” to Australia’s ambition to be a green energy superpower.
Last month, Fortescue boss Mark Hutchinson reinforced the project’s importance, describing it as “a litmus test for the rest of the hydrogen industry in Australia”. Yet when Fortescue announced financial approval for a string of green hydrogen projects at the end of last year, Gibson Island was not one of them. “We’ve been working very, very hard on it,” Hutchinson told The Australian Financial Review Business Summit last month. “But it’s tough based on the current power prices when we’re looking at competing globally.”
To judge from Fortescue’s investment portfolio right now, the future may be built in Norway, northern Patagonia, Brazil and British Columbia before it is built in Australia. It may even be built in Kenya and Congo. The future is already being built in Buckeye, Arizona, where Fortescue is investing $US500m ($765m) in a green hydrogen plant it says will be up and running by 2026.
It turns out abundant sun was not such a competitive advantage in the manufacture of green hydrogen. Low taxes, fiscally responsible government and cheap and reliable carbon-free energy are far more appealing drawcards for investors.
In 2023, manufacturing in Arizona grew faster than in any other state. It includes energy and water-intensive industries such as silicon chip manufacturing, with Arizona coming from nowhere to fourth place among US states. Apologists for the Albanese government might look for excuses in the global subsidy arms race unleashed by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. They might claim Arizona has easy access to a much bigger market.
Superpower Institute Chair Rod Sims has highlighted his concerns with Labor’s Future Made in Australia Act and its lack of detail. Mr Sims questioned what the scheme aims to achieve and what its “guard rails” are. “If you don’t explain that, you can have people thinking it’s the worst of More
Yet Arizona’s hi-tech manufacturing boom started before Biden came to power and came at the expense of neighbouring California, where manufacturing is declining.
It isn’t hard to work out why. Arizona’s top state income tax rate is 2.98 per cent. California’s is 13.3 per cent. Corporate tax in Arizona is 6.96 per cent compared to 8.84 per cent in California. For energy-hungry industries such as hydrogen and the IT sector, however, the biggest attraction is the industrial electricity price: 7.47 cents a kWh in Arizona compared to 18 cents in California.
Albanese continues to talk a big game, promising jobs, industry and prosperity will flourish under the Future Made in Australia Act. Details are scarce, but the PM told ABC’s 7.30 this month there would be new government programs attached to the Act, as well as a recalibration of old ones.
Yet the long history of manufacturing decline in the past 50 years is a story of broken promises and failed industry welfare programs. The Hawke government’s generosity in granting $36m to the Kodak film factory in Victoria in 1988 (roughly $100m in today’s money) failed to stop the introduction of digital cameras or development of the smartphone. Hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at the car industry failed to save the Holden Commodore. Indeed, evidence that industry assistance programs work as intended is difficult to find.
It’s more than three decades since Bob Hawke’s Labor government eschewed industry protectionism as a means to make Australia globally competitive. Yet governments, state and federal of both political persuasions, have found it difficult to go cold turkey. The federal government’s guide to grants lists 330 different types of industry assistance. In 2019, the last year before Covid-19, the Productivity Commission calculated total government assistance to businesses at $13.9bn in tariff assistance, tax concessions and direct grants.
That is why we can say with some certainty that more government grants are no substitute for the economic discipline practised by the Republican administrations of governors Jan Brewer and Doug Ducey or the far-sighted decision of the Arizona government in the 1980s in overseeing the construction of the second-largest nuclear reactor in the US. The 3.9GW Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station remains the backbone of the Arizona electricity grid, producing some of the cheapest power in the country.
Albanese is hardly the first prime minister to enter office who has failed to learn from King Canute, instead suffering from the delusion that getting your hand on the levers of state gives you the power to alter the tides. The outgoing tide of deindustrialisation shows no sign of abating.
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Government Warned Against Alienating Men in Anti-Violence Campaign
Alienating men might produce exactly the anger you are trying to avoid
Independent MP for Fowler, Dai Le, has warned that any government campaign aimed at reducing the incidence of male-on-female violence must be “mindful of language ... because not all men are violent.”
In moving to address the increasing numbers of women losing their lives, she warned that Australia must not “alienate one group from another.”
“I’m a mother of a son. I know that we have to be mindful of our language because not all men are violent, but how we are portraying it is that men are violent against women,” she told ABC.
“How do we include the young men in our society? How do we make sure they’re educated to respect and to work alongside women? [So they] don’t feel like we are saying they’re the bad ones there.
“What language are we sending out to young men growing up in this day and age?”
She placed responsibility for the increase of violence on social media.
“We’re seeing increased violence in society, increased violence against women. And we wonder why. I think the content of social media, and I think that we need to make sure that our young people in particular are not exposed to this kind of violent content constantly because that is actually influencing them,” she said.
“In particular in this day and age whereby people are feeling so disconnected [from their] own communities, I support that kind of violent content not to be continually shared.”
Ms. Le supported the government’s position against holding a Royal Commission, saying it was not the answer.
“I don’t know if another Royal Commission would do any good. What I think the government needs to do is get the funding targeted to communities that are experiencing high domestic violence and get them implemented,” she said.
“And education to ensure that men, young boys and young girls work together to know that they respect one another as human beings.”
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Deadly nitazenes drugs spark testing centres push
I hate to sound hard-hearted about this but I am not sure that testing rooms do any good overall. They may encourage involvement with drugs and thus lead to MORE deaths rather than fewer
Drug decriminalisation advocates are pushing for more supervised drug taking centres and testing facilities to be established to curb deaths caused by a synthetic opioid up to one hundred times stronger than fentanyl.
Nitazenes, a family of synthetic opioids that can be more addictive and potent than heroin and morphine, is contributing to an epidemic of drug fatalities across North America, and is now on the rise in Australia, having been detected in Victoria, South Australia and NSW.
The drug is already having deadly effects in Victoria, with the Coroner’s Court warning the opioid had been involved in at least 16 overdose deaths in the state since 2021.
Evidence suggests that nitazenes are coming from labs in China, although its origin is not restricted to one country, and are being sold off the dark web.
Experts, including Monash Addiction Research Centre deputy director Suzanne Neilson, used the World Health Summit to call for supervised injecting facilities, drug checking sites and public education on the benefits of naloxone, a medication that can reverse overdose effects, to help battle the infiltration of the drug and its deadly impact.
“We understand that in most circumstances, people are not intentionally purchasing nitazenes, what is most common is that people are purchasing other drugs,” Ms Neilson told The Australian.
“We do have some early warning systems in place, for example nitazenes that are detected in some emergency department settings … but it is quite limited at the moment in terms of testing for nitazenes. And because we don’t have widely scaled-up drug testing, we do get sort of limited information about what’s out there at the moment.”
Ms Neilson said nitazenes can be made to be similar to fentanyl or even 50 to a hundred times stronger.
“In Australia we have had a massive increase in overdose deaths … I think there is a significant threat of a future epidemic if we do follow in the path that we’ve seen in North America and the UK,” she said.
“Once (synthetic opioids) start to enter the market, what we’ve seen is a dramatic rise in deaths. We’d really like to know what’s going on before that happens to prevent those deaths if possible.”
Global Commission on Drug Policy chair and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark endorsed the controversial medically supervised injecting rooms in Melbourne.
“This is the kind of service that people need to stay alive, to stay healthy,” Dr Clark said.
“When you go to a centre like the safe injecting room, people bring in the stuff they’ve bought on the street corner (and it’s) tested, no one is going to die.”
She voiced her support for a second supervised injecting room in the CBD to go ahead, a measure the Victorian government committed to in 2020 but that has been met with backlash from the community and local businesses.
“The bottom line is that people that are using drugs need to be safe, and that’s why the centre is so important,” Dr Clark said.
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Shareholders Reject Petroleum Giant Woodside’s Climate Plan
Shareholders of Australian petroleum giant Woodside Energy have turned down a climate plan proposed by the company’s management amid pressure from climate activists.
During Woodside’s annual general meeting on April 24, its shareholders voted on a number of issues, including the chairman position and an action plan to help the company transition to net zero.
While the incumbent chairman, Richard Goyder, was re-elected with 83.4 percent support, 58.4 percent of the shareholders turned down its climate plan.
Despite the vote on the climate plan being non-binding and purely advisory, it showed that most of Woodside’s shareholders disagreed with the company’s vision about its decarbonisation toward net zero emissions.
According to the most recent version of Woodside’s climate action plan (pdf), the company achieved a reduction in direct and indirect (scope one and two) emissions of 12.5 percent below the starting base in 2023.
The petroleum producer set targets to slash its scope one and two emissions by 15 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030.
It also planned to lift the amount of investment in new energy products and lower carbon services from $335 million (US$218 million) in 2023 to $5 billion by 2030.
After the vote, Mr. Goyder expressed his disappointment with the shareholders’ decision.
“Naturally, we’re disappointed, but respect the result,” he said.
“The vote reflects the challenges and complexities of the energy transition, and today’s outcome is one that we take very seriously.”
The chairman also noted that before the April 24 meeting, he had over 80 meetings with Woodside’s shareholders and proxy advisors in the past year where they had honest and open discussions on the climate action plan.
“We would love to be investing more money in renewable energy right now, if only we had the customers, and current customers were prepared to make the trade-offs, particularly financial,” he said during the meeting.
Nevertheless, Mr. Goyder acknowledged that many of Woodside’s customers were incurring substantial costs due to their energy transition.
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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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Monday, April 29, 2024
Greens want free IVF, label Liberals policy 'conservative and exclusionary'
This is a step in the right direction, given the falling birthrate. To support an ageing population, Australia needs all the babies it can get. And we know that IVF babies will be well treated and so fulfil their potential. It is however odd that the Greens support the idea. They used to be in favour of population reduction
The ACT Greens want assisted reproductive services to be free, condemning the Canberra Liberals policy as "conservative and exclusionary".
The Liberals announced this week they would pay up to $2000 towards IVF and certain fertility treatments for those who are deemed medically infertile.
The territory government has already fired back and said they are working on their own policy, after promising to explore options in late 2022. Labor is also expected to reveal a policy as part of its health commitments in the election campaign.
The Greens say they believe assisted reproductive services should be included in the public health system and it should be free.
"Assisted reproductive healthcare is expensive. Whether you have fertility issues, have a disability, are in an LGBTQIA+ relationship or no relationship at all, everyone should have choice and free access to start a family," ACT Greens health spokeswoman Emma Davidson said.
"The ACT Greens want a fairer public health system - where assisted reproductive services are available to everyone, for free, without the emotion toll that comes from fitting into an exclusionary definition of infertility."
Under the Liberals scheme, same-sex couples and individuals will only be able to access the rebates if they are medically infertile.
However, Ms Davidson said this would mean a person would be put through a distressing process and treatments such as IVF should be available to everyone.
"The ACT Liberals policy relies on a conservative and exclusionary view of what a family is. Canberra is incredibly diverse, and we need initiatives that reflect this to create a truly inclusive and fair community," she said.
"Not everyone can fall pregnant and it's not always because they are medically infertile. Under the Liberals policy, people will still need to go through a costly and lengthy process to be considered medically infertile which can be distressing on the individual, their partners and family."
The proposed rebates from the Liberals will cover out-of-pocket expenses of up to $2000 when undergoing IVF or certain assisted reproductive technology and up to $1000 for intra uterine insemination. The party says they are not considering a public service as part of their pitch to voters.
Opposition health spokeswoman Leanne Castley said the party had chosen to only open the scheme to those who were medically infertile as it was the biggest cohort in need of assistance.
"This is open for all Canberran families that have fertility challenges," she said this week.
"We hear from families who are struggling with infertility and believe that's the biggest cohort who do need assistance and it's just a small way we can help those families who are struggling with infertility."
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Financial Help for Uni Students on Placement Floated
Financial help might be offered to university students completing unpaid placements as part of their degrees, as unions warn failure to provide support will result in greater workforce shortages.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the federal government was considering relief for people with university debts and students undergoing required practical placements in their courses.
“We are looking at both of those things for the budget,” Mr. Chalmers told reporters on April 22.
Students studying nursing and teaching are among those required to complete unpaid placements to finish their degrees, and can be left struggling to pay bills especially during the cost of living crisis.
Last week, the prime minister suggested Labor was looking to reduce the rate of student debt indexation to stop money owed growing by more than four per cent in 2024.
Higher Education Loan Program (Help) debts are indexed to inflation, which resulted in a 7.1 percent jump in people’s debts in 2023.
Mr. Chalmers said the government acknowledged that students were under pressure.
“If we can afford to do something to help on that front, that’s obviously something we'll consider as we finalise the budget,” he said.
The Universities Accord report, released earlier in 2024, recommended the Commonwealth ensure student loans did not outpace wage growth.
NSW Nurses and Midwives Association assistant general secretary Michael Whaites said he strongly recommended paid placements for nursing and midwifery students.
They must carry out up to six months or 800 hours of unpaid clinical work in NSW, which carried immense financial pressure and at times placed students in poverty, he said.
“Failure to address this will continue to contribute to the workforce shortages that currently exist in nursing and midwifery, and this is untenable if we are to continue to deliver high quality health care in our health systems,” Mr. Whaites said.
“We hear a lot of stories of people having to ultimately drop out because they’re just not able to maintain the full amount of unpaid work, which can be as much as six to eight weeks in their final year of study, which is devastating after already having undertaken more than two years of study.”
The budget will be handed down on May 14.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/financial-help-for-uni-students-on-placement-floated-5634435
*********************************************************Ideology, education will not protect women from violent men
Only a Leftist with his childish belief in government as a cure-all would think that governments could reliably predict and stop men who kill their women
CLAIRE LEHMANN
A 28-year-old NSW woman, Molly Ticehurst, was found dead in her home last Monday. Two weeks prior, a man who had been charged with stalking and raping her appeared before court.
The police prosecutor charged him with a series of serious crimes and told the court his behaviour was “indicative of features in domestic violence offenders that we see often come to light after the most disturbing conclusions to their conduct”.
Despite this warning, he was released on bail.
Ticehurst is among 26 women who have been killed in the first 114 days of 2024. If the rate of violence continues, 2024 will be one of the worst years in recent memory for major crimes against women – with one woman murdered every four days. Despite the cries from the community to do more, and despite Anthony Albanese joining weekend rallies, there is a lack of leadership on what must be done. The current strategy isn’t working, and we need to understand why.
For the past decade or so, the focus of Australian governments has been on “primary prevention” – that is, preventing violence before it occurs. Ad campaigns that encourage boys and men not to slam doors or tell sexist jokes, as well as educational efforts in schools on “toxic masculinity”, are meant to have made a difference. But have they? It doesn’t look like it.
A recent essay co-authored by Walkley Award-winning journalist Jess Hill and UNSW criminology professor Michael Salter offers a sustained criticism of the primary prevention approach, arguing that our national strategy “outsources its results to future generations, and thus gives politicians the cover to adopt platitudes and evade accountability”.
Their central argument is a brave one: reducing inequality between men and women does nothing to reduce violence against women. The axiomatic claim that violence will disappear once inequality disappears is not supported by the evidence. They show that governments’ decades-long focus on gender equality has not moved the needle in terms of reducing violence against women. In fact, the opposite may be true.
The Nordic countries provide a warning. Those nations are all ranked higher in gender equality than Australia and other EU countries, yet also record higher rates of domestic violence and physical or sexual violence against women.
Through its National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032, the Albanese government has made the bold claim that it will work to end gendered violence in just one generation through attitude change, which is measured via surveys. But there are several problems with this plan. One of them, according to Hill and Salter, is its blanket focus on all boys and men – instead of identifying those most likely to offend.
Assigning guilt to the entire male sex may be a waste of time: “Situating all little boys as potential perpetrators not only risks diluting much-needed resources and effort, but it also invites confusion and potentially backlash from boys and young men who were never at risk of hurting their partners in the first place,” the authors write.
One reason it may be a waste of time is because the link between attitudes and behaviour is not clear-cut. We all know examples of high-profile figures (think Harvey Weinstein) whose public behaviour does not match how they act behind closed doors. Similarly, there is no good reason to think responses to a pencil-and-paper survey on attitudes will capture the future likelihood of violence.
To explain why this approach is inadequate, Hill and Salter draw attention to an alarming, yet under-reported trend. Young people aged between 16 and 24, are the most likely cohort to reject problematic attitudes regarding violence against women. Yet within this very age group there has been an alarming increase in sexual offending.
In the past, a child who had experienced sexual assault was most likely to have been targeted by an adult. Today, when a child is sexually assaulted, the perpetrator is most likely to be another child (or adolescent). If attitudes correlated directly with behaviour, we would not be seeing this trend.
Another failure of the strategy is to imagine everyone is equally capable of changing their behaviour as a result of changing their beliefs. “In our current prevention model, there does seem to be a default middle-class subject sitting at the centre of our interventions; a tabula rasa upon which we can imprint the right beliefs and attitudes,” write Hill and Salter.
Such an outlook disregards the harsh realities faced by many boys who later resort to violence. Boys who grow up to use violence are often raised in environments where violence, drug and alcohol abuse are commonplace, and where a general lack of impulse control means beliefs and attitudes are of secondary importance.
Much like teaching table manners to a person with no food, teaching proper attitudes to a person who has failed to develop self-control will be an exercise in futility. If we want to get serious about reducing violence against women, ideological attempts to assign collective guilt need to be discarded. Efforts should instead be redirected into identifying high-risk groups, and providing supports for drug, alcohol and trauma recovery. Perpetrators who have already offended, and who are at risk of reoffending, need to be locked up. They shouldn’t be let out on bail.
Believing educational materials alone can stop violence before it happens is naive. It’s unfair to victims who need governments to take real action to prevent future violence against women by perpetrators who have already been violent.
Commenting on the fact that Daniel Billings was released on bail after being charged with sexual intercourse without consent, stalking and intimidation, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said: “I’ll say from the outset that police share the sentiment of the community. This shouldn’t have happened. And sadly, it’s not an isolated case.”
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Payments for coal plants and urgent reform needed for renewables switch
Governments are facing the fact that they cannot do without coal power. Renewables have cut what coal generators can earn by selling electricity so they have to be subsidized to enable them to cover their costs and stay in business
Inadequate preparation for the energy transition and years of ad-hoc political interventions have badly damaged Australia’s electricity market, leaving governments little choice but to keep cutting deals to prop up coal-fired power plants to avoid price rises and blackouts.
When the National Electricity Market was created in 1998, coal generators dominated the energy mix, accounting for more than 80 per cent of the grid’s electricity. While the fossil fuel still makes up to two-thirds of the supply, the rollout of cheaper and cleaner renewable energy is increasingly undercutting the economics of ageing coal-fired power stations, which have been bringing forward their closure dates and are expected to have nearly disappeared from the grid by the first half of the 2030s, according to the most-likely energy market forecasts.
Governments are becoming increasingly nervous that not enough new renewable energy and storage projects are being built to keep power supplies and prices stable as the wave of coal generator closures draws closer.
The Grattan Institute’s Keeping the Lights On report warns that the energy transition is happening so quickly, and the preparation has been so haphazard, that state and federal governments must “accept this as a period of muddling through, with as many Band-Aid fixes as are necessary, to keep the lights on and prices down”.
“Australia’s great energy transition – from fossil fuels to renewables – is not going well,” said Tony Wood, the Grattan Institute’s energy director and the report’s lead author.
“Governments have lost faith in the market being able to deliver enough electricity to the right places at the right time, consumers are fuming about high power prices, and investors have been spooked by frequent and unpredictable government interventions.”
Across the eastern seaboard, officials are worried about a repeat of 2017, when the Hazelwood coal plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley gave just five months notice before it shut, citing unfavourable market conditions. The warning was too short for other companies to build replacement power generation, and a period of higher wholesale electricity prices followed.
Victoria has since struck secret financial deals with two other Latrobe Valley coal plants, Yallourn and Loy Yang A, to ensure they don’t close unexpectedly. NSW is in talks about doing the same with the Eraring plant in the Hunter Valley.
Wood expects both Victoria and NSW to cut at least one more deal to delay an impending coal closure but said governments should not continue Victoria’s practice of keeping the financial arrangements confidential. He nominated AGL’s Bayswater plant in the Hunter region, which has a scheduled closure date of no later than 2033, as a potential target for government support.
“I also wouldn’t be surprised if the government does something with Loy Yang B in Victoria,” he said.
Coal closure dates in Queensland can be directly controlled by the state government, which owns the generators in its jurisdiction.
To accelerate the build-out of vital new transmission infrastructure to link up often-remote wind and solar power regions to Australia’s major cities, Wood said governments must also urgently agree on “coordinated, pragmatic actions ... to remove roadblocks and bottlenecks to new projects proceeding”.
In addition to ensuring a smooth transition away from coal, adding more renewable energy to the grid is also a key plank of state and federal targets to reduce the output of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.
The Albanese government has set a legally binding target to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030. To do so, it aims to reach 82 per cent renewable electricity supply by the same deadline. Victoria is chasing 95 per cent renewables by 2035 and NSW is aiming for 70 per cent renewables by the same deadline.
However, Grattan argued that the seemingly counterintuitive move to prop up coal might help the clean energy switch in the long term, warning that public support for policies to cut emissions by reducing fossil fuels will wane if power prices rise and reliability falls.
Wood said the 2018 ditching of the National Energy Guarantee was a prime example of the energy chaos that contributed to the lack of preparation for coal plant closures.
The scheme was intended to coordinate the rise of renewable energy with dispatchable power from large-scale batteries, pumped hydro, or gas peaking plants, which can be deployed to rapidly fill gaps when solar and wind power aren’t available. However, the former Coalition government abandoned the policy after the party split over the role of fossil fuels.
The National Energy Guarantee followed a seismic policy shift in 2014 when the Abbott government abandoned the carbon pricing scheme imposed by the Gillard government in 2012.
Most recently, state and federal governments could not form a consensus on how to back up intermittent energy supplies from wind and solar farms, with Victoria agreeing to the use of gas-fired power in publicly funded schemes.
Wood said Australians would “not forgive our political leaders if they mess up the post-coal era”.
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Albo's Help to Buy home scheme Unrealistic
The proposed income tests for first-home buyers hoping to take advantage of Anthony Albanese’s shared equity scheme will significantly fall short of the price caps set for Australia’s two largest cities.
While new buyers could theoretically buy a home with the federal government’s Help to Buy scheme at $950,000 in Sydney and $850,000 in Melbourne, it would be near impossible for them to get a loan to cover the remaining mortgage if earning the scheme’s maximum eligible incomes of $90,000 for singles and $120,000 for couples.
Analysis by Loan Market for The Australian suggests those low to middle-income families would not meet banks’ stringent eligibility criteria to take on such high levels of debt.
The most expensive home a single on that income with no debts could purchase is no more than $408,163 in today’s interest rate environment. If they have the average university HECS debt of $24,700, their top price falls to $357,143.
Couples with a $120,000 household income and no kids were best placed to take advantage of the scheme, being able to purchase a property worth $524,490. But a family with two kids maxes out at $436,224.
The Help to Buy scheme will see the government offer a 30 or 40 per cent equity in the stake in the property, while the homeowners must be able to prove to their bank they can cover the remaining portion after providing a deposit of as little as 2 per cent.
Even after the government’s help, borrowers would have to prove to a bank they can support a loan of at least $570,000 in Sydney and $510,000 in Melbourne.
Analysis by PropTrack shows that while affordability for couples is fair, especially when compared to the rental market, the housing researcher’s senior economist Paul Ryan said it was a “moot point” if buyers simply can’t borrow those amounts.
“It might be touch and go for serviceability … I suspect that a lot of people will have to try and find homes at a lower price,” Mr Ryan said
“I mean, the median home price in Sydney is over $1m. Our Affordability Index shows there are increasingly fewer properties that you have to choose from.
“People looking to access the scheme are going to have to make concessions probably on property price and location. But, it is a very generous scheme from the government if you’re able to access it.”
Banks assess all new mortgage borrowers at the current interest rate with a 3 per cent buffer on top, to ensure repayments could still be made if interest rates were to rise. Brisbane-based Loan Market mortgage broker Mick O’Shea said this aspect would likely become the biggest challenge.
“It’s hard for first-home buyers to gather a deposit while they’re renting elsewhere,” Mr O’Shea said. “This (scheme) provides some relief there but doesn’t alleviate the challenge of borrowing capacity being where it is, when we were putting a 3 per cent buffer onto actual rates.
The Help to Buy scheme has enough spaces to facilitate 10,000 purchases annually over four years, with many in Sydney and Melbourne likely to only be able to afford units.
Promised by Labor during the last federal election, the scheme currently looks unlikely to pass the Senate without the support of the Coalition or the Greens.
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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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Sunday, April 28, 2024
‘Climate denial’ ad pulled from "The Australian" after being labelled ‘deceptive’
Coverage of this bit of censorship appears to have been censored. I can find no mention of it other than in the article below from the Green/Left "Guardian", sometimes derisively known as the "Grauniad". Censoring censorship is of course truly troubling.
The Graham Readfearn mentioned below is a long time climate alarmist. The Institute of Public Affairs is a respectable conservative think tank. The Climate Study Group appears to be a loose grouping among IPA staffers. The Ad Standards community panel "is the centre piece of the advertising self-regulatory system."
The panel appears to have found the advertisements in error on the basis of a reference by Redfearn to "attribution studies" Attribution studies are proof of causation that you have when you have no proof of causation. They fly in the face of the most basic principles of science and logic. The only way of proving cause known to science is "before and after" studies but we have only one globe and no ability to time-travel so we cannot in principle prove what causes global warming
In 1972 I had an analytical philosophy paper on causation published in an academic journal so I have some awareness of the issues here. I found no fault with Humes's idea of constant conjunction but to have constant conjunction you have to have many examples of the event and that is precisely what we do not have with global warming
http://jonjayray.com/cause.html
It is of course much easier to prove a theory wrong than it is to prove it right. As Einstein once observed, it would take only one predictive failure of his theory to prove it wrong. And there have been many failures to correlate in the history of climate change research. So what the Guardian called a "Gish gallop" (a series of faulty claims) would more accurately be called a gallop of disproof. It is a pity that the Ad Standards body ignored so many facts in favour of a nonsensical theorySo the foundation of the conclusion that the IPA was wrong is built on sand. There was no scientific evidence to say that the IPA erred and much to say that they were right. Their withdrawal of their ads would appear to be a courtesy to a voluntary body probably underaken to avoid a legal ban
For almost a decade, "The Australian" has been running “climate science denial” ads from the Climate Study Group (CSG) that claim burning fossil fuels is hunky dory and even necessary for life on Earth.
But the latest ad has been “discontinued” after Ad Standards found it contained misleading or deceptive environmental information.
Way back in 2015, Graham Readfearn (then at DeSmog, now Guardian Australia’s environment reporter) was writing about CSG’s advertisements (and their links to the Institute of Public Affairs).
Last year, Readfearn took a forensic look at some of their claims about atmospheric carbon concentration.
Someone complained to Ad Standards that CSG had “published climate denial [and] disinformation in The Australian” and that it was “indistinguishable from editorial content”.
In its judgment, the Ad Standards community panel found the ad was sufficiently marked as an ad, but “considered that the advertisement was making the environmental claim that fossil fuels can be used without concern that they will have a negative impact on the environment”.
It found the claim was “misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive” and therefore breached the environmental code.
CSG, in its defence, dished out a gish gallop of claims – essentially repeating the claims it had initially made. But in the end it acquiesced and said it would discontinue the ad.
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Federal government to spend $161million on an Australia-wide gun register after two police officers were murdered on a remote property
What alot of tokenistic nonsense! Canada tried this and had to give it up as ineffective. And Australia already has strict gun control laws
The Albanese government is set to establish a National Firearms Register - a new countrywide database designed to bolster community safety - following the tragic Wieambilla shootings in 2022.
In the federal budget, scheduled for May 14, $161.3million will be invested over four years to establish the register, with state and territory firearms management systems upgraded to be compliant with the new Commonwealth database.
The commitment follows an agreement by national cabinet in December, though the funding arrangements had become a sticking point for the reform to progress.
It is understood that South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT could each require as much as $30million to connect to a new federal database.
The tragedy at Wieambilla, Queensland in December 2022 was the catalyst to making the reform, after it was originally recommended following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre response.
On April 28, 1996 Martin Bryant killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, and another 23 people were injured. At the time, it was considered one of the world's worst massacre.
Byrant is serving 35 life sentences and more than a thousand additional years' jail without parole.
Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, and neighbour Alan Dawe were shot and killed by three Christian extremists, Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train, at their remote property in Wieambilla, 300km to Brisbane's west.
One of the perpetrators was a licensed firearms holder.
The register will allow law enforcement to assess firearms risks by providing frontline police officers across the country with near real-time information on firearms, parts and owners.
Firearms information will also be linked to other relevant police and government information, including data from the National Criminal Intelligence System.
'Once established, police will know where firearms are, who owns them, and what other risks to the community and police may exist,' a statement released by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13354197/Albanese-government-national-gun-register.html
**************************************************Do Fact-checkers Check The Facts?
Government should never have the power to determine what is or is not the truth, let alone silence dissenting views. However, what would be even worse is if unelected, unaccountable activists had this power instead.
But that is what the federal government is contemplating under its proposed internet censorship laws.
In private correspondence, released under a Freedom of Information request last year, Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland let slip to the Prime Minister how the government’s proposed ‘misinformation’ Bill would operate. The proposed law would empower the Australian Communications and Media Authority to impose huge fines on social media companies that do not censor ‘misinformation’ to the federal government’s satisfaction.
Minister Rowland confirmed that ‘fact-checking’ organisations are expected to play a central role in this new regime, so much so that Acma will be given the power to request information from ‘other persons such as fact-checkers and third-party platform contractors to monitor compliance with misinformation codes, standards and digital platform rules’. Rowland informed the Prime Minister that ‘the draft bill would give effect to this suggested change’.
The Minister has given the game away. It won’t be the social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube or X charged with the censoring. It won’t even be the faceless public servants at Acma. No, it will be these so-called ‘fact-checkers’.
Today, there are three main, self-appointed organisations in Australia claiming ‘fact-checker’ status; RMIT FactLab, AAP FactCheck, and RMIT ABC Fact Check. These organisations already have arrangements with social media companies in which they investigate ‘misinformation’ and if they render a ‘false’ verdict, the social media platforms will censor that content.
But based on Minister Rowland’s comments, ‘fact-checkers’ will in the future play an even more prominent role, as the enforcers of the government’s internet censorship laws. They, in effect, will be given the power of law to be the official arbiters of truth.
These ‘fact-checkers’ are signatories to a code of principles requiring them to be fair and neutral. This includes that they ‘not concentrate their fact-checking unduly on any one side’ of a debate. Last year, the Institute of Public Affairs investigated how well they complied with this requirement during the Voice referendum campaign. Not surprisingly, they failed miserably.
The IPA reviewed 187 fact-checking investigations which related to the Voice referendum, an enormous 91 per cent (i.e. 170) of which concerned the No campaign. 99 per cent of these were deemed ‘false’. Barely half of the other 17 investigations (concerning the Yes campaign) were deemed ‘false’. RMIT FactLab was the standout, worst offender with every one of its 41 investigations concerning the No campaign.
The IPA expanded its research to other policy areas, which revealed the Voice was not some aberration but, rather, confirmed the left-wing bias of these organisations is systemic and entrenched.
In respect to fact-checks about Australian politicians, there have been 249 investigations conducted over the past five years. 65 per cent of these investigations could be seen as favourable to the political left. Only 35 per cent could be seen as favourable to the political right. A 30 per cent margin of difference, in political terms, is enormous.
The research also looked at ‘fact checks’ into Covid-19, and climate change and energy policy. Of the 534 investigations into claims about Covid-19, a staggering 94 per cent targeted critics of official government responses, with just 6 per cent targeting advocates of the official line. So much for holding government to account!
Climate change and energy were no better. Of 153 investigations, 81 per cent were targeted against critics of the official climate change and energy agenda (that is, man-made carbon emissions are harming the planet, and we need to abolish fossil fuels and mandate alternatives in response). Every single one of these were deemed ‘false’, misleading, or missing context. Yet, remarkably, of the 20 investigations conducted by AAP FactCheck into advocates of the climate change agenda, 76 per cent were deemed ‘true’.
Again, RMIT FactLab was the worst. All of its Covid-19 and climate change investigations – 100 per cent – were targeted at critics. A level of consensus any North Korean dictator could be proud of!
It is clear Australia’s so-called, and self-appointed, fact-checkers have no interest in shining a spotlight on official government policies. Rather, they aim to attack critics and amplify official narratives.
This is not journalism. These are some of the most hotly debated and controversial areas of public policy, yet apparently to ‘fact-checkers’ only one side is worthy of investigation.
Predictably, the left-wing media have leapt to the defence of the ‘fact checkers’. An article that appeared in Crikey on 9 April claims that debunking a conspiracy theory doesn’t favour the political left or right but benefits the whole community. Miraculously, the enrichment of society so graciously offered by the ‘fact-checkers’ just so happens to involve targeting politicians on the political right, compared to the left, to the tune of two to one.
It is no surprise that left-wing journalists will attack any criticisms of ‘fact-checkers’. The utopia of the elite class – one that celebrates the modern media, academia and politics – is a world run by experts. Whether dictating where you can move during the Covid-19 pandemic, or deciding what can be said on the internet, the experts know best. With zero self-awareness, the same Crikey article claims, ‘Everything is a team sport to the outlets and politicians waging a war on fact-checkers in which “truth” becomes a trophy to be awarded rather than a fact to be established’.
But hang on, isn’t it the political left which is advocating for a system in which a select group decides on what is, or is not, ‘misinformation’ for the purpose of censoring alternative viewpoints?
Of course, the defenders of ‘fact checking’ would feel differently if these organisations were populated by conservatives. But, proving yet again the modern left is beyond parody, the author of the Crikey article once worked for AAP Fact Check!
These will be the people who determine what is true or false, and what you can or cannot say on social media.
It will, of course, be mainstream Australians who are silenced online if the federal government gets its way.
https://ipa.org.au/research/rights-and-freedoms/do-fact-checkers-check-the-facts
**************************************************Supreme Court Win for Police Constable Who Refused the COVID-19 Jab
A senior constable in Victoria who faced charges for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine has won his battle in a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court. This decision could set a precedent for others impacted by vaccine mandates in the state and around Australia.
The case centered on whether the requirement to provide evidence of vaccination status necessitated receiving a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Constable Simon Peter Shearer had been charged with a breach of discipline for failing to comply with the COVID-19 vaccination requirements outlined in the Victoria Police Manual.
The officer’s decision not to receive any dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by Aug. 16, 2022, led to an internal disciplinary inquiry initiated by the Victorian Police chief commissioner.
However, Victorian Supreme Court Justice Michael McDonald concluded this charge was unjust and should be quashed.
“The plaintiff’s failure to receive a dose of COVID-19 vaccine by 16 August 2022 did not constitute a breach of the Victorian Police Manual,” Judge McDonald said.
“Consequently, the DIO [disciplinary inquiry officer] did not have power to reprimand the plaintiff for a breach of discipline.”
In addition, the judge said the plaintiff was denied procedural fairness for two reasons.
“First, the charge did not provide adequate notice of the case the plaintiff was required to meet,” Judge McDonald found.
“Second, the DIO failed to disclose to the plaintiff issues critical to his decision to find the charge proven.”
Constable Shearer, who had been working in the legal services department of Victoria Police as a lawyer since 2013, had a medical exemption for vaccine requirements due to Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition impacting the thyroid.
According to court documents, this exemption expired in 2021.
Further, the constable went on long service leave from December 2021 to July 2022. In July 2022, Victoria’s chief police commissioner issued a new policy manual on vaccine requirements.
The constable argued that he was not required to provide his vaccination status to the police or be vaccinated to perform his duties in order to return to work.
However, on September 21, 2022, he was charged with a breach of discipline for failing to comply with the vaccine requirements of the Victorian Police Manual.
The judge has now nullified the charge, and both parties will have the opportunity to make submissions on costs.
“My provisional view is that the defendant should pay plaintiff’s costs on a standard basis, to be taxed in default of agreement,” the judge stated.
Case ‘Reaffirms Our Faith in the Justice System’: Lawyer
Principal lawyer Irene Chrisopoulidis described the result as a significant win for the plaintiff and the individuals and families affected by such policies. She said many of these individuals were unfairly and unjustly treated during one of the most challenging times in our history.
“The lives of these employees and their families, impacted by such organisational policies and decisions, resulted in lifelong effects,” Ms. Chrisopoulidis added in a LinkedIn post.
“This case not only reaffirms our faith in the justice system, it reflects the courageous and tenacious character it takes to stand up for your rights in pursuing justice. It has been our honour to represent the Plaintiff in this matter.”
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a 
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related
