Showing posts with label Turnbull Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turnbull Government. Show all posts

Sunday 8 October 2017

Australian Bureau of Statistics has carriage of the national voluntary same-sex marriage postal survey - a visual answer to the question "What could possibly go wrong?"


Images of just some instances highlighting predictable issues concerning the Turnbull Government’s national same-sex marriage voluntary postal survey……..
















But wait, there’s more…….




There were 16.0 million electors on the Commonwealth Electoral Roll as of 30 August 2017,

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics by 29 September 2017 only est. 9.2 million of these people had returned a completed voluntary same-sex marriage postal survey form.

Another 13.6 million completed and returned forms would see a survey response rate no politician would dare argue with if he or she hoped to keep their seat at the next federal election.

If over 90 per cent of enrolled electors could turn out to vote for a national song in 1977, surely just as many could get their finger out in 2017 and answer one simple question: "Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?"

The same-sex marriage survey closes in 30 days time at 6pm local time on Tuesday, 7 November 2017. Survey forms received by the Australian Bureau of Statistics after this will not be counted in official results.

What Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull didn't say when he announced Australia's new space agency


ABC News, 30 September 2017:

Australia is building three new satellites that will conduct audio and visual surveillance for the Defence Force.

The Federal Government has given $10 million to the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra space team to complete the project.

Work on the first satellite is already underway and is scheduled for lift-off next year.

The device, which is known as a Cubesat, is the size of a loaf of bread and weighs about four kilograms.

University of New South Wales Canberra space director Professor Russell Boyce said, while small, the spacecraft had a big task ahead.

"It's got an onboard capability to listen to objects on the surface of the earth, in particular we are interested in ships, so it's assisting the defence force in maritime surveillance," Professor Boyce said.

Another two satellites, each twice the size of the first satellite, are scheduled to be completed by 2019.

"They will not just have the software to find radio, but also some optical telescopes and cameras," Professor Boyce said.

Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said the data collected from the satellites could assist military spy planes with their work, and help detect asylum seeker boats. [my yellow emphasis]

BACKGROUND


Tuesday 3 October 2017

Under Turnbull Government's new plan "38 out of 44 marine parks will be open to trawling, gillnetting and longlining, 33 will be open to mining, and 42 exposed to the construction of pipelines"



Canberra Times, 17 September 2017:
In the corridors of Parliament House that day, as I met MPs of every stripe, I felt a great sense of promise, even pride. And it seemed for a while such hope was not misplaced. In 2012, after an exhaustive scientific process and wide community consultation, Tony Burke declared a system of marine national parks, one of the biggest and best in the world, the most significant conservation gain in Australian history.
That took courage. Because it put science before politics, prudence ahead of expediency. And it was popular. But as soon as he came to power in 2013 Tony Abbott announced an immediate moratorium on these parks and instigated a review. The purpose was purely political. To delay implementation, corrode consensus and deny the science. A move straight out of the culture warrior's playbook.
After decades of forward-thinking leaders, the nation had fallen into the hands of a man whose loyalties were only to the past. It was a low moment. But Abbott's reign was as brief as it was fruitless. It was a relief to see him replaced in 2015 by a man who'd actually done things, who believed in the future. Malcolm Turnbull did not scorn science. He seemed to understand the value and fragility of our natural estate. So there was new hope the marine parks review would now be expedited and redirected towards real conservation outcomes. With coral reefs bleaching and miners pressing for even more coal ports and seabed to drill, the need for protection had only grown more urgent.
Well, that moment of promise is long gone. Turnbull's period in office has basically been a hostage drama. The bargain he made with powerbrokers rendered him captive to the party's most illiberal wing, and if his performance on climate, energy and marriage equality aren't evidence enough, last month's announcement that marine parks would be slashed beyond all recognition puts it beyond dispute.
The agents of inertia control his government. And what's worse he's looking like a hostage who's begun to identify with his captors. How else to explain his radical lurch backwards on parks? The draft management plans recently released for consultation by Josh Frydenberg don't just signify the gutting of the national system, they represent the largest removal of protection for Australian wildlife in our history. What the government is proposing is a nihilistic act of vandalism. Forty  million hectares of sanctuary will be ripped from the estate. That's like revoking every second national park on land. Under its new plan, 38 out of 44 marine parks will be open to trawling, gillnetting and longlining, 33 will be open to mining, and 42 exposed to the construction of pipelines. In total defiance of the scientific advice upon which the original system was designed, 16 marine parks will now have no sanctuary zones at all.
The science shows that partial or low-level protection simply doesn't work. What the government is putting forward will radically diminish protection of habitat. It will also undermine sustainable regional economic development. What began as a quest for excellence based on the best possible science is now so miserably degraded it's turned the greatest step forward in marine conservation into a regime that doesn't even aspire to be second-rate.
Draft management plans for Australian marine parks/reserves:
                                                                         



South-west Commonwealth Marine Reserves draft management plan

As one South Australian voter put it after reading about the Turnbull Government's intentions; FFS ! These guys are proof that there are no time machines. Otherwise someone from the future would come back and mulch the pr*cks. (quote supplied)

Voters in NSW North Coast electorates should be aware that:
* Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan supported this review and to date has never voted against his party’s position in the House of Representatives. Therefore it is highly likely that he will vote for any government bill which will reduce marine park and marine reserve protections.
*Nationals MP for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker supported this review and to date has never voted against his party’s position in the House of Representatives. Therefore it is highly likely that he will vote for any government bill which will reduce marine park and marine reserve protections.
* Labor MP for Richmond Justine Elliot does not support a reduction in marine parks and marine reserve protections.

Brief background


The Turnbull government has released draft management plans for the nation's marine parks that amount to an "unprecedented roll-back" of protections, a coalition of 25 environmental groups say.

The long-awaited draft plans were released on Friday and propose changes to the 3.3 million square kilometres of Australia's protected offshore regions expanded in 2012 by the Gillard government.

The area of marine parks open to fishing would jump to 80 per cent from 64 per cent now, if the changes were to pass through parliament, WWF-Australia said.

"This is a huge step backwards for marine protection," Richard Leck, WWF's head of oceans, said. "Australia used to be seen as a global leader in marine conservation. That will no longer be the case if these proposals are implemented."

Other proposed changes would strip Shark and Vema reefs of  marine national park status, while Osprey reef - one of the world's premier dive sites - has lost more than half its protection, Tony Burke, Labor's environment spokesman said.

"Five years ago, Labor make the second largest conservation decision in history. Today the Turnbull Government announced the largest undoing of conservation ever," Mr Burke said….

Of particular concern to the green groups is the Coral Sea Marine Park, where a substantial area previously given the maximum protection had been reduced……

Ms Grady said the government had chosen to ignore the science contained in independent reviews that backed the original zones.

"All Australians will be justifiably distressed to know that science evidence supporting an increase in protections for marine life has been thrown out the window," Darren Kindleysides, director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said.

Thursday 28 September 2017

Get ready for an Australian Space Agency says Prime Minister Turnbull & Minister for Education and Training Birmingham


Mock-up of UNSW ISAT (size is approx. that of a bread loaf) leaving the International Space Station, 2017
Medianet Logo
AAP Logo
 Medianet Release



25 Sep 2017 4:56 PM AEST - Get ready for an Australian astronaut




Get ready for an Australian astronaut
The announcement Australia will finally create its own space agency has opened the door for a long-held dream for many: a home-grown Australian astronaut.
"Until now, anyone wanting to become an astronaut had the odds stacked against them," said Andrew Dempster, Director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research (ACSER) at the University of New South Wales. "They had to become citizens of a another country, like the US, and then work hard to get into a space agency like NASA. That won't be the case any more: in fact, the first home-grown astronaut may only be years away. And he or she has probably been dreaming about this for years."
Two Australian-born astronauts have flown into space: Paul Scully-Power and Andy Thomas, but both had to become US citizens to do so. Scully-Power, from Sydney, was an oceanographer who flew as a payload specialist in 1984 while working for the US Naval Undersea Warfare Centre; Thomas, from Adelaide, is an aerospace engineer who served as a NASA astronaut on shuttle missions from 1996 to 2005.
An Australian space agency would not only allow Australians to train and fly as astronauts, but more importantly, coordinate national efforts and act as the central contact point for nation-to-nation requests for collaboration in space missions and projects. At present, when such requests come, they are often passed on to Geoscience Australia, the CSIRO or the Bureau of Meteorology, which are world-class at users of space facilities but largely unqualified in building, launching and operating in space.
"We're responsible for one-eighth of the world's surface in meteorology and air traffic control, and we've got the second lowest population density in the world, so space is probably more important for Australia than virtually any other country," said Dempster. "In the civilian sphere, Australia should be number one in space, but we're just nowhere near that.
"The good news is that the nature of the space industry is changing. We're moving into an era where access to space is cheaper and easier than ever before. We don't need big, clunky space agencies and giant satellites – we can skip all that and move straight to this more dynamic, disruptive environment. And we're already doing that."
In April, three Australian satellites – first in 15 years– blasted off from Cape Canaveral and were deployed in May from the International Space Station. Two were built at ACSER: UNSW-EC0 and INSPIRE-2 (the latter a joint project with the University of Sydney and the Australian National University), along with SuSAT, built by the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia.
Each of the 'cubesats' is the size of a loaf of bread, weighing less than 2 kg, and will carry out the most extensive measurements ever undertaken of the thermosphere, a region between 200 and 380 km above Earth, a poorly-studied zone that is vital for communications and weather formation.
ACSER also built space GPS hardware and software for Project Biarri, cubesat mission by Australia's Defence Science and Technology Group that is part of a the Five Eyes defence agreement with Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The satellite was also launched this year.
"We've got more hardware in space today than Australia's had in its history," added Dempster, who is also a member of the advisory council of the Space Industry Association of Australia. "This shows what we can do in Australia in the new world of 'Space 2.0', where the big expensive agency-driven satellites are being replaced by disruptive low-cost access to space.
 Having a space agency isn't about spending loads of money on giant satellites. We can build constellations of small satellites for probably less than it costs to build one big satellite. So it's a completely different business environment and there is a lot of investment in the area. The cubesat side of the business is growing at 20% a year," he added.
Australia's space industry is estimated to be worth US$3-4 billion and employs about 11,500 people. "But we need a space agency to grow this," said Dempster. "We've got only 2% of the global space market, but we should have 4% based on Australia's proportion of global GDP. So there's a real opportunity there, because we have the skills and there are Australian companies operating in this area, but no national coordination."
LINKS TO VIDEO, IMAGES AND BACKGROUND
  • PHOTOS: Stills of UNSW engineers in the control room; on roof with antennas and cubesat model; UNSW-EC0 and INSPIRE-2 cubesats; launch of cubesats from ISS; the Dutch radio telescope, etc.
  • VIDEO EXPLAINER: Dr Elias Aboutanios and Prof Andrew Dempster explain the QB50 mission and what the satellites will seek to explore.
  • BACKGROUNDER: The goals, flight, deployment and instruments of the three Australian satellites.


Distributed by AAP Medianet


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© Australian Associated Press, 2017  


Australia replies with unadulterated joy…….













Wednesday 27 September 2017

Thousands of Queenslanders will have their Centrelink payments quarantined with a compulsory cashless welfare card in 2018



Thousands of Queenslanders will have their Centrelink payments quarantined when a compulsory cashless welfare card is brought in next year.

The Federal Government has announced the controversial card will be rolled out across the Wide Bay region, including Bundaberg and Hervey Bay.

Under the scheme 80 per cent of a person's welfare income is quarantined on a debit-style card, which cannot be used on alcohol, gambling or to withdraw cash.

It will apply to people under the age of 35 who receive dole and parenting payments.

The Wide Bay region has an est. resident population of 144,098 people living across 4.5 million hectares, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The 2016 Census revealed that only 22 per cent of the population stated they had any formal further education after high school and 27.5 per cent stated that their gross weekly incomes were less than $650. Half of those 15 years of age and older had incomes below $500.

In July 2017 Wide Bay had an employment rate of 60.8 per cent, an overall unemployment rate of 8.7 per cent and a youth unemployment rate of 23.6 per cent, according to the Australian Government Labour Market Information Portal and the Queensland Government Statistician’s Office.

Last year in Queensland there were 6.1 unemployed people for every job vacancy.

The number of businesses operating in the Wide Bay region has been slowly declining for at least the last five years, with the largest industry clusters being agriculture, construction and retail. The last data published shows barely 21,451 businesses – many of which would be owner operated having no employees or only a small number of employees.

In the Wide Bay region this expansion of the Indue cashless debit card program will initially be imposed on est. 6,700 people in Hervey Bay.

Hervey Bay has a population of 56,678 residents, with only 24.8 per cent of the population having any formal further education after high school and half of the population having personal incomes of less than $478 per week.

Families with children make up 48.4 per cent of all family groups and youth unemployment in Hervey Bay mirrors the broader Wide Bay region.

Eventually the cashless debit card program is expected to directly affect up to est. 20,478  individuals as it is rolled out across the region in 2018 and, the flow-on effect will touch their families and local businesses.

A media release by the Minister for Human Services and the Member for Hinkler stated as a principal reason for introducing the cashless debit card into the Hervey Bay community:

The consultations also revealed significant problems with alcohol, drugs and gambling, particularly among young families.  Many community sector leaders were concerned that money meant for children was not being spent on them. The card will ensure that money meant for children will not be spent on alcohol, gambling or drugs.

However, I’m not quite sure that 2016-17 crime statistics for the Qld Police District of Wide Bay-Burnett actually reflects this view.

As it is the Turnbull Government’s intention (sometimes openly stated) to force people off Centrelink’s books by controlling how welfare recipients spend their benefits, I think I can safely say that by the end of 2018 the Liberal Member for Wide Bay Llew O'Brien may find that he was only a one-term wonder in federal parliament and the Nationals Member for Hinkler Keith Pitt may also find that two parliamentary terms is his limit.

"You can opt out of it [the card] by getting a job."
Minister  for Human Services and MP for Aston Alan Tudge
21 September 2017

Tuesday 26 September 2017

What exactly is the point of this Indue Limited cashless debit card, Prime Minster Turnbull?


Dept. of Social Security and Dept. of Veteran's Affairs data reveals that by June 2017 there were est. 10.1 million Australians receiving some form of federal government assistance which involved regular or periodic cash transfers into their bank accounts.

The Turnbull Government intends to control how est. 7.5 million of these people spend these transfers by placing the money in cashless debit card accounts and restricting the availability of actual cash to 20 per cent of  the transfer amount.

This income management scheme is being rolled out nationally under the guise of an unrestricted 'trial'.

However the justification for this scheme is beginning to crumble under closer scrutiny.

News.com.au, 14 September 2017:

WELFARE recipients spend less on alcohol as a portion of their income than all other Australians, new figures show.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics this week released its household expenditure statistics report, breaking down how Australians spend their money.

And it’s managed to crush a few stereotypes with the data.

The report shows that Aussies overall spend more than half of their average weekly spend on goods and services on basics, covering things like housing, food, energy, health care and transport.

Aussies spend an average $846 of the weekly household spend of $1,425 on these items and service.

Included in these basics are food and non-alcoholic beverages, but booze is counted separately, and the results make for some interesting reading.

Australians whose main source of income was from government pensions and allowances, were found to spend an average of $12.14 out of their $677.19 on alcoholic drinks, or 1.8 per cent.

Overall, Australian households on average were found to spend $31.95 of their $1425.03 weekly spend on alcohol — a total of 2.2 per cent.

Those whose main source of household income came from their employer, or their own business, were each found to spend 2.5 per cent of their weekly household spend on booze, and those whose income fitted into the “other” category indulged 2.5 per cent of their weekly budget.

The findings come amid a government push for a cashless welfare card that quarantines a large chunk of Centrelink payments and can’t be used to pay for alcohol, cigarettes, or gambling.

It seems Turnbull, Abbott and Co have just lost the excuse that welfare recipients as a group are heavy boozers.

Well, I hear you say; then it must be that they need their incomes managed because they all smoke like chimneys. Except tobacco sales have been falling for years and its’s not as easy to find a low-income or unemployed smoker of any age as it once was.

Or if they don’t have the first two ‘vices’, then it must be all those lottery tickets they purchase that show a need to control their finances. But the facts set out in Australian Gambling Statistics 32nd Edition (p.93) show that households in Australia might have spent as much as 0.002% of their disposable income each year on Lotto or the like. Hardly a national scandal.

But what about those ubiquitous poker machines? Well again according to Australian Gambling Statistics 32nd Edition (p.152) households really go overboard there - they actual spend per capita around 1.057% of their annual disposable income on this form of gambling and in the last 20 years on record this figure has never climbed higher than 1.808% annually. In dollar terms this means that welfare recipients are probably spending between $0 and $5 per week on electronic gambling.

So if most people receiving welfare payments don’t constantly have a drink in their hand and a fag on their lips while they look up the Lotto results and if they're not all hunched over poker machines on a daily basis – what exactly is the point of this universal cashless debit card?

Of course! It has to be because most of these 7.5 million welfare recipients are relatively poor - which is an obvious character defect requiring punishment coercive correction according to those financially comfortable right-wing politicians in Canberra and their fellow travellers.

Friday 22 September 2017

More wheels are falling off the Turnbull Government train


BuzzFeed News, 14 September 2017:

Australia's immigration detention regime is facing a crisis in healthcare staffing following the resignation of the surgeon-general of the Australian Border Force (ABF), and the departure of three senior medical staff on Nauru.

Rumours have circulated online for several days that the surgeon-general of the ABF, Dr John Brayley, who oversees the healthcare of asylum seekers in immigration detention, had resigned.

BuzzFeed News has now confirmed that the surgeon-general resigned last week. A senior immigration department source confirmed his resignation, although the department has declined to comment.

Brayley's department email now has an indefinite out-of-office message. His phone has been switched off and is no longer receiving voicemail. His Linkedin profile has also recently removed his position as surgeon-general as his current occupation.


Brayley's resignation comes at a difficult time for the department. The ABF is continuing to face allegations of medical treatment failures at detention centres. A whistleblower on Nauru recently warned that pregnant women on Nauru were being denied terminations.

The department is also facing further internal changes in the lead up to the creation of the new Home Affairs department that will see the ABF merge with agencies including the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

Brayley's position — and extensive background in medicine — placed him uniquely to manage healthcare matters in the department and recommend appropriate clinical care for asylum seekers. But his position as surgeon-general also made him a focal point for criticism. He routinely received correspondence from advocates about asylum seeker healthcare matters.

Any decent federal government with an ounce of compassion would end this terrible situation on Manus and Nauru islands.