Turnbull & Co fiddle while Australia burns

ABC News, 9 February 2017

As the effects of climate change begin to bite in Australia, the Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison refuses to rule out using money set aside in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to fund a new generation of coal-fired power stations.

With the nation facing the prospect of extreme Summer temperatures with no end in sight, he then brings a lump of coal into the House of Representatives on 9 February 2017 and extolls the virtues of this dirty fossil fuel:

This is coal. Do not be afraid. Do not be scared. It will not hurt you…..It is coal that has ensured for over 100 years that Australia has enjoyed an energy-competitive advantage that has delivered prosperity to Australian businesses and has ensured that Australian industry has been able to remain competitive in a global market.

Journalist Lenore Taylor writing in The Guardian two days later on 11 February 2017:

Since it’s our job to point out things like that, here are a few facts that undermine the “coal comeback” PR strategy that started rolling out sometime last year:

Renewable energy is not “causing” blackouts. They’re primarily due to the (incredibly complicated) energy market that wasn’t designed or isn’t being run to cope with a higher proportion of renewables, and is throwing up perverse incentives that mean South Australia can have a blackout while generators are sitting idle. It would seem obvious that the answer to this problem is not to abandon all incentives for renewable energy but rather to fix the market and the rules. Cars probably got bogged when they started driving on roads designed for horses and buggies too, but it wouldn’t have been wise to respond by trying to stop the roll-out of automobiles. And New South Wales – a state that gets a very small proportion of its energy from renewables, was also facing the prospect of blackouts on Friday, which sometimes happen during peak demand but also undermine the Coalition’s simplistic arguments.

Renewables cannot take the blame for the recent rise in prices. Queensland, which also has a tiny proportion of renewable energy, has had price spikes that added an astounding $1bn to wholesale power prices just since the beginning of this year. South Australia, cited by the federal Coalition as the terrible case study of what Labor’s renewable energy policies might do, has had just a few. The Queensland price spikes are also vastly higher than those felt in South Australia last July, which were described as an emergency, according to an analysis by Dylan McConnell from Melbourne University. Weirdly, no federal ministers have been berating the Queensland government over its (fossil fuel) choice of energy source.

coal-fired power stations are not going to be built. You don’t have to go to greenies for that assessment – it is also coming from the AI Group, which represents Australia’s manufacturers, and from the Australian Energy Council, which represents the big electricity and gas businesses that generate and supply most of our energy, as well as from the head of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation – who has expert knowledge of lending to the energy sector. Business knows climate change is a thing, and that locking in emissions from a new coal-fired power station for 50 years, no matter how efficient it is and how lovingly the current ministry can carry around lumps of coal, is incompatible with our long-term climate commitment and therefore an unacceptable investment risk. When really pressed, the only way experts can imagine the construction of a new coal-fired power station is if the government pays for it, or signs a contract indemnifying the company paying for it from the impact of future climate policy. And no sane government would do that. You’d only do that if you suspected the world was about to decide climate change was a hoax or at least not so much a problem, which might explain where some of the Coalition’s coal boosters are coming from. 

Even if they were built, power from new highly-efficient coal-fired power stations would not be cheaper. In fact, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has calculated that they would be the most expensive, and dirtiest, form of power available, costing more than solar, wind and gas-fired power.

Governments could always reduce the strain on the system and help avoid blackouts by reducing energy demand but schemes to reduce demand at times of peak power usage (such as, say, heatwaves) were shelved after the Abbott government was elected, while programs for minimum energy performance standards seem to have been burned in Tony Abbott’s bonfire of red tape.

And finally, as business and industry and environmentalists and pretty much everyone who looks at the evidence (including, a while back, Turnbull) have been saying for years, the very best thing governments could do to encourage investment and a sensible low-cost transition to cleaner generation is come up with a bipartisan policy, such as the energy-intensity carbon scheme that had bipartisan political support, the backing of industry and could have reduced power prices while also bringing emissions down. But the Turnbull government jettisoned any consideration of that in less than 24 hours, apparently fearing the response of right wingers such as Cory Bernardi. He’s now left the Coalition anyway, and it still has no climate policy.

Image via @James_Orex_Eade 

On the night of 12 February 2017 I made a salad dinner thankful that the temperature inside my home was a mere 31° Celsius and there was no bushfire smoke in the air.

That same night The Sydney Morning Herald was reporting:

Turnbull government statements blaming last year's South Australian blackout on its high renewable energy target ignored confidential public service advice stating that it was not the cause, according to emails obtained under freedom-of-information rules.

With a febrile debate over renewable energy versus coal-fired generation suddenly raging in Canberra, the revelation is set to undermine the Coalition's energy messaging and shatter confidence in its call for investment certainty through sober debate and bipartisan policy solutions.  

Advice to the government dated September 29, 2016 – the day after the whole of SA went black following a devastating storm – suggested the problem had not been the state's high reliance on wind generation, but rather because key parts of its electricity distribution network were wrecked during a severe weather event.

An email trail shows among other things a senior official from Malcolm Turnbull's department seeking an explanation for the blackout at 8.31 on the evening of the storm.

Another from 7.20 the next morning outlines subsequent discussions including a 5am phone hook-up involving departmental and political staff.

That email, sent to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's own officials and others, conveyed the first-blush assessment of the blackout including advice gleaned from the Australian Energy Market Operator: "There has been unprecedented damage to the network (ie bigger than any other event in Australia), with 20+ steel transmission towers down in the north of the State due to wind damage (between Adelaide and Port Augusta). The electricity network was unable to cope with such a sudden and large loss of generation at once. AEMOs advice is that the generation mix (ie renewable or fossil fuel) was not to blame for yesterday's events – it was the loss of 1000 MW of power in such a short space of time as transmission lines fell over."

Yet within hours of the calamity the Turnbull government was capitalising on the blackout, suggesting it was a function of the state's unsustainably high quotient of wind generation which had failed to keep working in the conditions....

Last week, another blackout in South Australia knocked out about 90,000 premises during an extreme heat event. The energy blame game intensified, even though the evidence again suggests there was adequate supply in the form of gas turbine generation, sitting idle, as the wind contribution fell to just 2.5 per cent.

With the growing realization that Summer weather patterns are likely extend into the first two months of Autumn this year, one has to wonder why the federal Liberal and Nationals MPs and senators have chosen this particular moment to totally suspend their critical faculties and, whether only a mounting death toll will force them to finally turn and face the problems climate change is creating for all three tiers of government, farming, industry, communities and families.

Groundhog Day for women's services in Australia

Since 2013 the Abbott & Turnbull Federal Governments have announced up to $1b in savings measures that are cutting community services for the people in greatest need in Australia:

*$500 million over five years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community services (Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under The Hon Tony Abbott and Senator the Hon Nigel Scullion)

*$270 million over four years from social services and a freeze on indexation of sector funding (Department of Social Services under The Hon Scott Morrison)

*$15 million from the community legal sector, which remains in place for sector support and capacity, including legal aid, community legal centres, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, and women’s family violence legal and prevention services (Attorney General’s Department under Senator the Hon George Brandis)

*Foreshadowed cuts of $197 million over three years from health (Department of Health under The Hon Sussan Ley) [Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), 13 January 2017]

The Saturday Paper, excerpt from Federal cuts to family violence reform funding, 11 February 2017:

Just before Christmas, the Women’s Legal Service Victoria was notified that $200,000 of federal funding would be shaved. The service offers pro bono advice, representation and mediation for more than 3000 women each year, women who would otherwise not be able to afford it. They consider themselves a front-line service. “We can’t keep up with demand currently,” Joanna Fletcher tells me. “And this is before the cuts.”

Fletcher is the service’s chief executive. She is both angry and incredulous. “We’re already turning people away,” she says. “And it’s sad, because our service model is about providing service to those with barriers to justice. We’re now having to make decisions about what to cut, about what the least worst options are. We are incredibly frustrated on behalf of our clients. This is very short-sighted. We know from experience that early legal assistance is vital, for the protection of women but also for quicker outcomes.”

It’s a point made by all the family lawyers I spoke to for this piece: those in the legal system without representation spend a lot more time there. As well as diminishing a woman’s protection, it is ultimately costlier, and adds to procedural logjams. “There’s incredible commitment at the state level here,” Fletcher says, “but the apparent federal commitment hasn’t been followed by a financial commitment.” 

Fletcher’s Queensland counterparts have yet to be notified whether their funding will also be cut. They will be told at the end of March, but they are already preparing themselves for the worst. There is the same anger and incredulity there. “We’re absolutely alarmed,” says Angela Lynch, the acting co-ordinator of the Women’s Legal Service Queensland. “A 30 per cent cut would be catastrophic. Currently, we can only answer 50 per cent of incoming calls on our legal hotline. This will only worsen with the cuts. So, that’s much fewer women receiving advice and assistance. We’re a core service, and yet as it is we can’t properly service all women because we’re under-resourced. This is about women’s safety. Their lives.”

She said cuts “don’t make any sense when there’s a national plan, and the PM has made announcements. It makes no sense. We are a front-line service. And we do great work, and we push our money further than any other community service that I can think of. A third of our income is raised by fundraising or corporate partnerships. Up here in Queensland, family violence is still something that’s publicly discussed. There’s the rollout here of the Not Now, Not Ever recommendations. There was the horrific reminder of its importance last week, with the murder-suicide of Teresa Bradford. There’s momentum. But I cannot understand these federal cuts.”

Teresa Bradford was killed by her estranged husband on the Gold Coast. He was out on bail on other domestic violence charges. After Bradford’s death, the Women’s Legal Service Queensland hotline experienced a 50 per cent increase in calls, a spike common in the aftermath of atrocities. “We’re already chronically underfunded,” Lynch says. “When you’re cutting front-line services, you have to ask: is the federal government really committed to reducing family violence? Now we wait. We’ll know on the 31st of March. But we’ve survived for more than 30 years. We’ll fight on.” 

Marlene Ebejer is the principal lawyer of Ebejer and Associates, and a family law specialist. She tells me the cuts will have “diabolical” consequences. “These cuts won’t save money,” she says. “Cutting funding for women’s services cuts legal mediations, which stops things getting to court. This is an atrocious outcome. Already the courts can’t cope. There are massive delays, and delays are extended by those who aren’t represented.” 

Ebejer speaks bluntly, and passionately, about the need for legal reform but tells me that to argue for change is to experience groundhog day. Every lawyer she knows has made the same points for years: in a system where intervention orders fall under the state’s authority, and family law courts are federal, there needs to be improved cross-jurisdictional coherence. She also argues for increased mediation, to decrease the number of matters before court, and for the proper triaging of matters.

Herald Sun, 15 January 2017:

DOMESTIC violence victims and their children in regional NSW could be put at greater risk when federal government funding cuts to legal aid services begin to kick in later this year.

The cuts will also force a legal centre in southern Sydney to axe a program providing free legal advice to international students and immigrants being ripped off by their employers.

The services are among more than 15 centres across the state being forced to axe programs for vulnerable people after the funding cuts take ­affect in July this year.

Elizabeth Evatt Community Legal Centre managing principal solicitor Arlia Fleming said the 19 per cent funding cut at her Katoomba centre would force a massive reduction in services to Bathurst and ­Lithgow.

“Currently we go to Lithgow and Bathurst on a weekly basis to give legal advice and we may have to reduce that to a monthly outreach,” Ms Fleming said.

“The most common cases we deal with are around family and domestic violence issues and this could mean children are left in unsafe situations ­because people feel like they have to hand over their children to someone who has been perpetrating violence.”……

Destroy the Joint, 19 February 2017:

The hypocrisy of Australian politicians is mind boggling

In March 2016, in the wake of a string of abuse of parliamentary entitlement scandals during the mercifully short Abbott Government term in office, the Turnbull Government was handed An Independent Parliamentary Entitlements System Review (February 2016) by a government appointed, five-member committee.

The review made thirty-six recommendations of which three were reportedly implemented, including recommendations that members of parliament in physically large electorates be allowed a third electorate office at Commonwealth expense, the $10 additional travelling allowance payment for travelling Ministers and office holders accompanied by their spouses be abolished.

Since then the federal government appears to have conveniently forgotten the other thirty-three recommendations – although the fact that a handful of these may not have been implemented might in part be due to decision making processes of the Remuneration Tribunal.

Although cynical voters could take the view that the lack of timely implementation is more likely due to the fact that these recommendations included clearly separating parliamentary entitlements into “remuneration” (salary package) and “work expenses” such as “travel expenses, travel allowances, vehicle allowances and electorate allowances”, as well as MP expenditure reporting to be changed to every 30 days and a clearer definition of “parliamentary business” applied.

Now in light of further alleged rorting of the entitlement system by his ministers, Malcolm Turnbull has announced the government will implement the remaining review recommendations by the end of June 2017.

Given there have been two previous reviews of parliamentary entitlements - in 2009 and 2011 - which have not even made a dent in the sense of personal entitlement which exists within the corridors of the Australian Parliament, I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation.

Especially as the Prime Minister in his press conference on 13 January 2017 was careful not to mention establishing stiff financial penalties for such blatant rorting but did mention creating an independent parliamentary expenses authority which would in effect distance government and parliament from any poor decisions made concerning implementation of the 'new' rules.

The thought of the type of person who is likely to end up on the board of this authority makes one shudder - political cronies of the government in power, MPs & senators who lost their seats or were forced by scandal to resign, former political staffers in need of an income and the worthless scions of big political donors .

The hypocrisy of Coalition Government MPs and senators (who since 2013 have consistently signed off on budget measures and legislative/regulation rule changes which border on thinly disguised class warfare) continuing to line up at the overflowing entitlement trough is quite frankly mind blowing.

While the thought of these same politicians attempting what may possibly end up being a legislative change charade, leaving them still able to use taxpayers as personal cash cows, is more than a little depressing.

* Image found on Twitter

By 2050 over 10 million customers will own distributed resources like solar, storage, home energy management systems and electric vehicles which can supply enough power to national grid to achieve zero emissions

CSIRO & Electricity Network, excerpts, from media releases, 6 December 2016:

Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap

No choice needed between Energy Security or Low Emissions – if we act now

A landmark report finds Australian energy consumers do not have to sacrifice security of supply or affordability to achieve a low emissions future, if action is taken now.

The two-year analysis by CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia has produced a comprehensive plan to keep the lights on, bills affordable and decarbonise electricity.

As Australian Governments meet to discuss energy security, the Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap confirms reliable supply can be maintained during Australia’s transition to a more decentralised, clean electricity system.

Energy Networks Australia Chief Executive Officer, John Bradley, said Australian families would be better off by $414 per year on average under the Roadmap’s suite of measures.

“The Roadmap would transform Australia’s electricity system, enabling more choice and control for millions of customers while saving over $100 billion by 2050,” Mr Bradley said.

“If we act now, the grid will be more secure and resilient, despite high growth in large scale renewables and two-thirds of small customers taking up solar and storage by 2050.”

CSIRO Chief Economist Energy, Paul Graham, said a key Roadmap finding was that $16 billion in network expenditure could be saved by 2050 if the grid buys support services from customers with onsite resources.

“Under the Roadmap, traditional network investments can be avoided where it costs less to ‘orchestrate’ distributed resources in the right place at the right time and this saves money for all grid users.

“By 2050, over 10 million customers will own distributed resources like solar, storage, home energy management systems and electric vehicles which they can use to sell grid support services worth $2.5 billion per year.

Mr Bradley said the Roadmap would require collaborative action by grid operators, governments and other parties.

“Grid operators can act directly on many parts of the Roadmap including transforming their customer relationships, service innovation, smart grid operations and developing new incentives for customers,” Mr Bradley said.

“However, a better energy future will need clear market signals. A key objective of the 2017 review of carbon policy must be securing a stable and enduring framework which will reduce the cost and uncertainty of decarbonisation.

“Australian electricity customers want an electricity future which avoids more frequent blackouts and bill shock while addressing global warming – this is their Roadmap,” Mr Bradley said.

Media contact and for a copy of the report:

Fiona Hamann, Hamann Communication (02)4573 2284/0415 191 659 fiona_hamann@hamanncommunication.com

The Roadmap Key Concept Report

Based on two years work and extensive consultation the Roadmap identifies the complex challenges facing Australia’s electricity system in the face of diversified energy supply and identifies a strategy for the future, as well as a deliverable plan to achieve it.

The report finds that with a co-ordinated plan in 2050:

• Customers retain security and reliability essential to lifestyle and employment
• Networks pay distributed energy resources customers $2.5 billion per annum for grid support services by 2050.
• Electricity sector achieves zero net emissions by 2050
• $16 billion in network infrastructure investment is avoided by management of distributed energy resources like solar and batteries
• Reduction in cumulative total electricity network expenditure of $101 billion by 2050
• Network charges 30% lower than 2016
• $414 annual saving in average household electricity bills (compared with roadmap counterfactual, business as usual, pathway)
• A medium family who cannot take up distributed energy resources is over $600 p.a. better off through removal of cross subsidies.

Residential bill outcomes for selected Australian household types in 2050 under the counterfactual and Roadmap scenarios

CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia have released this concept report, to engage with the diverse electricity industry stakeholders, who to together with networks, will play a key role in helping to deliver a more efficient and affordable electricity future to the customers the system serves.

About the Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap

Australia’s national science agency CSIRO and the peak national body representing gas distribution and electricity transmission and distribution businesses in Australia, Energy Networks Australia have partnered to develop an Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap (the Roadmap). The Roadmap is a two stage process running over approximately two years. For more information go to www.energynetworks.com.au/roadmap

Zero Net Emissions electricity - It can be done

Australia could beat its current international emissions targets and achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 according to new analysis from CSIRO and Energy Networks.

The landmark joint study, the Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap, confirms the grid can enable a zero net emissions system by 2050 and sets out measures to achieve it.

CSIRO Chief Economist Energy, Paul Graham, said that the Roadmap shows that it is possible to contribute to global targets to reduce emission while lowering the impact on household bills.

“CSIRO analysis confirms it is possible for the electricity sector to maintain a reliable, stable grid while achieving zero net emissions by 2050, in line with the aspiration of the COP 21 Paris Agreement,” Mr Graham said.

“On the way to a zero net emissions future, Australia’s electricity sector could exceed its share of current national carbon abatement targets, achieving 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.”

Energy system analysis concludes that an integrated set of measures will be required including stable enduring carbon policy frameworks and incentives to enable ‘orchestration’ of millions of distributed energy resources, like storage, electric vehicles and smart homes.

Energy Networks CEO John Bradley said the two-year Roadmap study involving hundreds of stakeholders found a national, integrated plan was needed to enable ambitious long-term abatement in the electricity sector.

“A low cost and secure transition of the electricity system depends on stable, enduring carbon policy and the Roadmap recommends an Emission Intensity scheme for the generation sector be developed by 2020,” Mr Bradley said.

“By contrast, carbon policy which could change dramatically at every election or differs in every state is a recipe for a high cost and less secure electricity service to customers.

“Analysis for the Roadmap indicates technology neutral carbon policy, like an Emission Intensity Scheme, provides least cost abatement and could save customers over $200 per year by 2030.”

Mr Bradley said decarbonisation would require transformational changes in electricity grids.

“Significant abatement is achieved by connecting millions of small scale renewables and our analysis forecasts Australia to have 6 times its current Solar PV capacity in ten years and 16 times current levels by 2050.

“The Roadmap also highlights the key role of transmission networks maintaining system stability in a low carbon future, with high penetrations of variable renewables.”

Mr Graham said the Roadmap analysis confirmed the critical role of thermal plant in balancing variable renewable energy output during the transition but this would need to be replaced over time by low emission solutions like battery storage, pumped hydro, gas fired generation with carbon capture and storage or Power to Gas hydrogen technology.

“Our current analysis points to a zero net emissions future enabled by battery storage and biomass but there is a fierce technology competition underway,” Mr Graham said.

“With so much technology innovation occurring, market frameworks which are technology neutral and allow the best solutions to emerge will deliver lower costs for customers.”

Mr Bradley said the pathway to a zero net emissions future would present significant challenges which were manageable if governments, industry and customer advocates worked together in a national approach.

“During forums involving hundreds of stakeholders, there was immense support for Australia’s electricity system to prepare itself for a zero net emissions future.

“We’re hopeful the Roadmap analysis and proposed measures will support State and Federal Governments consider these issues during the carbon policy review scheduled for 2017.”

The Roadmap Key Concepts Report has been released for external consultation. Feedback has been sought by February 16 and the program will be finalised in March 2017.

Australian Education Minister out to bully the states under the guise of fixing Gonski education funding model?

On 23 September 2016 ABC News reported:

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham says he is not expecting to broker a final deal on the highly-charged school funding debate as he meets state and territory counterparts in Adelaide today.

Senator Birmingham yesterday attacked the Gonski funding model, which expires at the end of the next school year, saying it had been "corrupted" by a patchwork of individual deals with state governments.

"The Turnbull Government is determined to right this corruption," Senator Birmingham told the ABC's AM yesterday, vowing to "replace the special deals that Bill Shorten cobbled together ... with a new, simpler distribution model where special deals don't distort a fair distribution of federal funds".

Changes to the funding model involve altering federal legislation, and it is anticipated that the Commonwealth can make the changes without the agreement of the states.

When asked if he would push ahead with changes without state support, Senator Birmingham responded that he was "not looking for a result today".

"I'm looking for informed feedback and information from the states and territories," he said.

Another education ministers' meeting is scheduled for this year ahead of COAG discussions early next year. The funding changes are not expected to the finalised until after those consultations.

Senator Birmingham said he is expecting "robust discussion" from the education ministers, some of whom have said they were blindsided by the Senator's remarks.

South Australian Education Minister Susan Close said the first she knew of analysis of the Gonski model given to the media was when she heard Senator Birmingham on the ABC.

"It's extremely discourteous," she told AM this morning.

"We've had no paper presented to us and all we are left with is trying to glean what the proposition is by listening to programs such as yours.

"It seems what he's saying is just a recasting of 'we're not going to give you the money we know you need'."

The analysis highlighted disparity in per-student funding between the states thanks to a "patchwork" of 27 deals signed under the Gonski model.

But Ms Close told AM the Gonski model never envisaged full parity between states until its sixth year in 2020.

"The view that's being put forward through this study that somehow the disparity that occurs in the transition period is a reason to stop doing it at all is a view that will be firmly rebutted by all ministers," she said.

While waiting on the outcome of this “robust discussion” it is well to remember that, given the obvious pro-private schools bias displayed by Coalition federal governments, it is highly unlikely that the Turnbull Government intends to remedy this…….

Graph taken from http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/government-funding-for-private-schools-to-outstrip-average-public-schools-by-2020-20150714-gicdjt.html

Synopsis in Bonner & Shepherd’s Private school, public cost: How school funding is closing the wrong gaps 2015 report:

Recent trends in school recurrent funding strongly suggest that over forty per cent of students in Catholic schools next year will average as much, if not more, public funding than their peers in similar government schools. Two years further on an additional forty per cent will most likely join them. Half the students in Independent schools are on track to get as much, if not more, than government school students by the end of the decade.

This finding emerges as one of the most significant to date from our analysis of My School data. We have previously shown that changes in school funding in recent years – increasingly favouring students who are already advantaged - has done little for student achievement and nothing for equity. Earlier this year we pointed to a $3 billion overinvestment in better-off students, without any measurable gain in their achievement. Now we find that state and federal governments, within four years, will be funding the vast majority of private school students at levels higher than students in similar government schools. Concerns about funding equity should now be joined by concerns about effectiveness and efficiency in how we provide and fund schools.

The apparent runaway public funding of private schools is a legacy of discredited sector-based funding which the half-hearted implementation of the Gonski recommendations hasn’t really touched - and which current school funding schemes and dreams will almost certainly worsen. While Gonski pointed to the need to close the gaps in student achievement, the only gap being closed is that between government funding of its own schools and its funding of the schools that are considered to be "private". Private schools are about to operate at a far more substantial, and previously unimaginable, public cost.

In this report we illustrate how funding has changed and how familiar claims about the relative cost of schools have become obsolete and misleading. We address questions which arise about our schools: what is public, what is private, what should be the difference between them, what obligations do and should fully-funded schools have to the public which pays to run them? Such questions have to be answered if schooling is to provide access and equity combined with effectiveness and efficiency.

The Guardian on 23 September 2016 reported that Senator Birmingham’s NSW counterpart, Adrian Piccoli, is well aware of what his own party at federal level is intending:

The New South Wales education minister, Adrian Piccoli, has warned he will publish full results of commonwealth funding cuts in new school agreements which he says would increase funding to some of the most expensive private schools while cutting funds to public schools.

“We will be making it very clear which schools will win out of any new funding model and which schools are going to lose,” Piccoli told the ABC.

“And what they are proposing is public schools are going to lose money in NSW but continuing to index some of the most expensive private schools in Sydney and across Australia by 3%. That means expensive private schools go up a minimum of 3%.”

Looking back on the Abbott-Heydon politically motivated fizzer

Professor John Quiggin writing at johnquiggin.com, 10 September 2016:

When Dyson Heydon delivered the report of the Royal Commissioner into Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, he claimed that his findings represented “the tip of the iceberg”. At the time, I commented that, given nearly $50 million of public money and lengthy hearings with the exceptional powers of a Royal Commission, the Australian public was entitled to expect the whole iceberg.

It turns out that I was too charitable. In the months since the Commission reported, a string of the charges he recommended have been thrown out or withdrawn In fact, six months later, there has only been one conviction, resulting in a suspended sentence. The only big fish to be caught since the establishment of Heydon’s star chamber has been the Commission’s own star witness, Kathy Jackson.

And the bills keep coming in. The last budget allocated $6 million more for the AFP-Victorian Police taskforce, which currently has outstanding cases against a grand total of six unionists. By contrast, taskforce Argo in Queensland, focused on child exploitation, has a budget of $3 million.

For another contrast, here are a few of the cases of alleged wage fraud, misappropriation of worker entitlements and so on that have emerged since Heydon’s Commission was launched: 7-11 ( million underpayment), Queensland Nickel, Pizza Hut, Myers and Spotless, and lots of small employers in the agricultural sector. That’s on top of the general run of sharp practice, environmental vandalism, market rigging, and dubious practices of all kinds.

It would be absurd to deny the existence of corrupt union officials and, though it is much rarer, systemic corruption, as in the case of the Health Services Union. But the continued failure of a massively expensive, politically motivated inquisition to turn up more than a handful of cases suggests that the problems are isolated, and that the real drive is to attack unions for doing the job of representing workers.

Australian Dept. of Immigration, Border Force and Federal Minister Peter Dutton damned by these findings

A ministerial portfolio, government department, contractor and officers medically negligent and/or corrupt…….

The Guardian, 28 June 2016:

Australia’s immigration department failed to appropriately oversee the multinational that provides healthcare for asylum seekers and was unable to cope with the “commercially aggressive practices” that led to numerous failures to meet medical benchmarks, a series of damning internal reviews have found.

The findings substantiated a number of key allegations published by Guardian Australia in July 2015 about the relationship between International Health and Medical Services and the immigration department.

Leaked documents showed IHMS failed to meet medical targets, deliberately included incorrect data in reports and admitted it was “inevitable” fraud would occur as it tried to meet government standards. The documents also revealed that IHMS failed to undertake working with children checks and police checks on Manus Island.

Three reviews were commissioned by the immigration department to examine the allegations. Two were internal and one was to be conducted by KPMG.

IHMS, a subsidiary of the global healthcare giant International SOS, has received more than $1.6bn in government funding to provide asylum seeker healthcare in Australia and on Manus Island and Nauru.

The detention assurance review team report, released under freedom of information, which drew together findings from the KPMG audit and the first initial internal audit, said: “Through the review processes, both internal and external reviews agree that IHMS took an approach of seeking to maximise profits, including through actively reducing opportunities for the department to seek contract abatements.”

It later continued: “There is a fundamental conflict between contractual and clinical objectives where profit and cost dictate clinical operations.”

ABC News, 27 June 2016:

Australian Border Force staff have been referred for investigation over more than 100 cases of alleged corrupt activity in Australia's skilled and student visa program.

A 7.30-Fairfax Media investigation has discovered that in the last 12 months, Australian Border Force chief Michael Pezzullo has referred 132 cases of suspected corruption inside the department to the national corruption watchdog, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI).

It comes as a former immigration official claims that a focus on boat arrivals has allowed migration crime involving people arriving by plane to flourish unchecked.

"In the border security debate, it has been easy to deflect the public's attention to boat arrivals," said Joseph Petyanszki, who worked at the Department of Immigration for 27 years and was joint head of the Department's investigation office between 2007 and 2013.

"But this fear-mongering has totally ignored where the vast bulk of real fraud is, most significantly undermining our immigration programs."

 The man responsible for this shocking state of affairs.....

Peter Craig Dutton former police officer, current Liberal MP for Dickson and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection.

A re-elected Turnbull Government will cost Australian taxpayers millions in legal fees

It seems the Abbott-Turnbull Government is incapable of learning from past mistakes……..

The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 2014:

Australia risks getting swept up in a wave of litigation by foreign corporations wishing to sue over unfavourable domestic laws, experts warn, after the government rejected a bill to ban controversial trade agreements.

A Senate committee on Wednesday rejected the bill to ban ISDS clauses from future treaties, put forward by Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson.

The clauses allow a foreign company to sue a government if it believes its laws have harmed its profit.

The rejection of the bill follows a warning by High Court Chief Justice Robert French that the provisions have the potential to challenge the power-base of the High Court and create uncertainty among litigants.

It also comes as the government negotiates one of the biggest trade deals in Australian history, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes ISDS clauses.

ISDS clauses were originally put in place to safeguard the interests of companies operating in countries that lacked rule of law. However, health organisations and environmental groups argue they pose a threat to regulation that protects a country's citizens' best interests.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the number of ISDS cases internationally has doubled in the past 10 years to 568, with claimants from the EU and United States accounting for 75 per cent of cases. 

The disputes are filed through international arbitration courts that have been criticised for their lack of transparency, and there is no right to appeal.

Professor Thomas Faunce, at the Australian National University College of Law, has described the provisions as an "affront to the rule of law".

"You have these foreign stakeholders influencing - quite openly - the policy of our society," he says. "It is a complete re-organisation of sovereignty in our country."

On 27 June 2011 Philip Morris Asia began legal proceedings challenging the tobacco plain packaging legislation under the 1993 Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of Hong Kong for the Promotion and Protection of Investments(Hong Kong Agreement). 

It took the Australian Government four years and an unknown number of dollars before the case was thrown out because of lack of jurisdiction.

A year after the Philip Morris matter began the WTO Dispute Settlement Body began establishing dispute settlement panels at the requests of Ukraine (on 28 September 2012), Honduras (on 25 September 2013), Indonesia (on 26 March 2014), Dominican Republic (on 25 April 2014) and Cuba (on 25 April 2014) in relation to Australia's tobacco plain packaging measure. The five complainants are arguing that the measure is inconsistent with Australia's WTO obligations under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 according to the Attorney General’s Department.

The Department’s website further states:

To date, a record number of WTO members (in excess of 40) have joined those disputes as third parties.

On 5 May 2014, the WTO Director-General appointed Mr Alexander Erwin (Chair, South Africa), Professor François Dessemontet (Member, Switzerland) and Dame Billie Miller (Member, Barbados) as panelists to hear the disputes. All five disputes will be heard together, pursuant to a harmonised timetable.

In response to Australia's request, the panel issued preliminary rulings on 19 August 2014 regarding the scope of the complainants' claims. These rulings were published on 27 October 2014.

The chair of the panel informed the Dispute Settlement Body on 10 October 2014 that the panel expects to issue its final report to the parties in the second half of 2016…..

Two challenges to the tobacco plain packaging legislation were heard by the High Court of Australia between 17–19 April 2012: British American Tobacco Australasia Limited and Ors v. Commonwealth of Australia and J T International SA v. Commonwealth of Australia.

On 15 August 2012, the High Court handed down orders for these matters, and found that the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 is not contrary to s 51(xxxi) of the Constitution.

On 5 October 2012 the court handed down its reasons for the decision. By a 6:1 majority (Heydon J in dissent) the court held that there had been no acquisition of property that would have required provision of 'just terms' under s51(xxxi) of the Constitution….

After all that voter’s wake up to this in Week 5 of the federal election campaign…….

The Guardian, 8 June 2016:

The Turnbull government is considering adding a controversial provision to the Japan-Australia free-trade agreement that would allow foreign corporations to sue the Australian government.

It has been negotiating with Japan’s government about the plan but no conclusion has been reached.

The provision is called an “investor state dispute settlement” (ISDS).

ISDS provisions allow foreign corporations to sue the Australian government in an international tribunal if they think the government has introduced or changed laws that significantly hurt their interests.

The tobacco giant Philip Morris used an ISDS provision in the Hong Kong-Australia investment treaty, signed in 1993, in its failed attempt to sue the Australian government over the introduction of plain-packaging laws by the former prime minister Julia Gillard in 2012.

If such a provision is added to the Japan-Australia agreement, it means all four of the major trade deals signed by the Abbott-Turnbull governments will include the same provision – the deals with Japan, China, South Korea and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes Pacific rim countries including the US.

A spokesman for the trade minister, Steve Ciobo, confirmed negotiations had begun.

“Japan and Australia have commenced the review – nothing has yet been agreed,” the spokesman said.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has also confirmed that Australian and Japanese officials have met to discuss the ISDS provision, with no decision taken.

The negotiations have been triggered by a relatively unknown clause in the Japan-Australia agreement, which was signed by the Abbott government in 2014.

The clause states that if Australia’s government signs any future trade deal with another country that includes an ISDS provision then the Japan-Australia deal would be subject to an automatic review “with a view to establishing” an ISDS provision in it.

The trigger for such a review was the China-Australia free-trade agreement, which came into force on 20 December 2015, because it included an ISDS provision…..