North Coast Environment Council: Global Statement Against Wood FiredPower Stations, 24 October 2018 by clarencegirl on Scribd
https://www.scribd.com/document/391698905/North-Coast-Environment-Council-Global-Statement-Against-Wood-FiredPower-Stations-24-October-2018Wednesday 31 October 2018
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's hypocrisy as a self-professed Christian and as a politician gets called out
Kelso
Lawyers, 23
October 2018:
On 22 October 2018,
Prime Minister Scott Morrison apologised to the thousands of survivors of
institutional child abuse.
There’s no refuting the
power of a sincere and considered apology. As Mr Morrison delivered his apology
from Parliament yesterday, emotions were high and many tears were spilled. He
made promises of a National Museum for a place of remembrance and a commitment
to “bring some healing to our nation and to learn from our past horrors.”
Yet, there was something
off about his speech. As Mr Morrison acknowledged the good work of Julia
Gillard’s Royal Commission and the commencement of the National Redress Scheme, it became apparent that this was
one big advertisement for the widely criticised National Redress Scheme,
dressed-up as a national apology.
The sentimental words
and heartfelt delivery by the Prime Minister were not enough to mask the stench
of the hypocrisy in the air. “The National Redress Scheme… recognises the
impact of past abuse and provides justice for survivors,” he said. Mr Morrison
went on to list the ways in which child abuse impacts victims, acknowledging
that some turn to drugs and crime. He stated, “A sorry from a nation that seeks
to reach out in compassion into the darkness, where you have lived for so
long”, adding that “One survivor says it was like becoming a stranger to your
parents – mental health, illness, self-harm and addiction followed.”
At one point, Mr
Morrison paused and questioned, “Why was our system of justice blind to
injustice?” As he lamented over the failings of the past in one breath, and
praised the National Redress Scheme in the next, his own blindness to present
day injustice was more apparent than ever.
Might it be the log in
his own eye impeding his sight?
For a Government which supposedly
understands the plight of institutional abuse victims, the Scheme which it
created is tragically and inexcusably unjust. Despite the clear connection
between childhood trauma and substance abuse and crime in adulthood, the
National Redress Scheme seeks to specifically exclude victims with a criminal
history from redress. Nowhere in its recommendations, did the Royal Commission
propose excluding victims on this basis.
This is only one example
of bias and injustice in the National Redress Scheme. In reality, it is an obstacle course designed to reduce liability for
Churches and Institutions. It’s not what Julia Gillard intended.
Fortunately, victims
still have hope as the National Redress Scheme is only one option for
compensation. [my yellow highlighting]
Tuesday 30 October 2018
This is the man and politician that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison seeks to emulate
Make no mistake, former Immigration Minister, former Treasurer and, current interim Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is consulting the political playbook of this narcistic, entitled, pathological lying, corrupt, misogynist, racist and socially, economically & politically destructive U.S. president, Donald John Trump......
 |
| US President Donald J Trump Image The Australian |
Birds of a feather flock together
A public servant who sees being out-of-step with Australian values as a virtue
Gary Thomas Johns is a former Labor politician and current full-time Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) since December 2017.
At the time of his appointment he was also Director of the Australian Institute for Progress and an Adjunct Professor at the Queensland University of Technology Business School.
Senator @jennymcallister asks the charities commissioner whether he's disavowed his comments that Aboriginal women on welfare are "cash cows".— Yarns (@BuzzFeedYarns) October 25, 2018
"Absolutely not". pic.twitter.com/nj6kBTeOqi
BuzzFeed
News, 25
October 2018:
The boss of Australia's
charity regulator has refused to back down from his earlier description of
Aboriginal women as "cash cows", while claiming that including an
acknowledgement of country in his email signature would make him seem biased.
Appearing before Senate
Estimates on Wednesday evening, the head of the Australian Charities and
Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), Gary Johns, was questioned about his recent
decision to remove the acknowledgement of country from the commission's email signatures.
Until a few months ago,
his own signature and that of some of his staff had included an acknowledgement
of country, beginning with "we acknowledge the elders". The practice
of acknowledging country is common across the public service.
Johns said he was trying
to avoid looking biased, as the commission oversees both Indigenous and
non-indigenous charities and he is a "commissioner for all
charities".
"It worried me, the
term 'we acknowledge', because it refers to the commission," he said.
"I took the view that ... using the words 'we acknowledge' imply that the
entire commission was, if you like, acknowledging one group of charities and
not others," he said.
"The words raise
the perception of bias that I'm not treating all charities the same," he
said. "I think that's plain on the face of it."
Johns raised the issue
with ACNC staff whose signatures contained an acknowledgement of country, but
left them the option of changing "we acknowledge" to "I
acknowledge". One staff member objected, and Johns says he took no
disciplinary action against her.
Labor senator Jenny
McAllister said to Johns that the acknowledgement "doesn't in any way
speak about charities ... Traditional owners are not charities". Johns
said that it "refers to Indigenous people", and McAllister replied
that Indigenous people were "people and citizens", not charities.
"To be an
Indigenous charity, you need a number of Indigenous people on the board, so to
all intents and purposes they are," Johns replied, pointing to the
charitable purposes of organisations such as Reconciliation Australia, which he
said only apply to Indigenous people.
Johns' appointment to
ACNC commissioner in December 2017 was controversial,
partly because of his public stance on Indigenous issues.
In a 2015 appearance
on The Bolt Report Johns said that
Aboriginal women were "used as cash cows. They are kept pregnant and
producing children for the cash". He has argued that women on welfare
should have to take contraception. He has also criticised Indigenous
not-for-profits, describing Recognise,
an organisation that campaigned to raise awareness and support for
constitutional recognition of Australia's First Peoples, as "the
officially sanctioned propaganda arm of the Australian Government" in his
2014 book The Charity Ball.
In his estimates
appearance Johns said he had "absolutely not" disavowed those views.
"I'm quite public," he said in response to questioning from
McAllister. "I've written for 30 years about a whole range of matters. Why
would I seek to disavow any of that?"
McAllister asked whether
he had done anything to "dispel any perception of bias" that his
previous comments might have created.
"No, and I don't
need to as the commissioner," he replied……
Shadow minister for
charities and not-for-profits Andrew Leigh, who previously started
a petition calling on Johns to resign, said it was
"disappointing" that Johns had "publicly confirmed during a
parliamentary hearing in his role as the charities commissioner that he still
holds these opinions". He described Johns as "drastically out of
touch with the Australian community".
"What remains to be
heard is [the government's] explanation of how he can possibly remain [at the
ACNC] given his comments," Leigh said.
Monday 29 October 2018
Morrison Government whittling away at health & safety requirements in live sheep export trade
“Space
allocation per animal must be based on allometric principles and increased by
at least 30% for sheep that weigh 40 to 60 kg (based on a k-value of 0.033).
The typical sheep sent to the Middle East is an adult Merino wether in this
weight range. This increase in space (k = 0.033) is the minimum amount needed
to alleviate adverse welfare outcomes, and must be implemented across all body
weights and all months of the year…. Irrespective
of stocking density, thermoregulatory physiology indicates that sheep on live
export voyages to the Middle East during May to October will remain susceptible
to heat stress and die due to the expected extreme climatic conditions during
this time. Accordingly, voyages carrying live sheep to the Middle East during
May to October cannot be recommended.” [Submission
from the Australian Veterinary Association, May 2018]
Between January and September 2018 Australia exported 973,651 live sheep.Dep of Ag admitted at #Estimates hearings (p.70) that their recent decision to increase stocking densities will mean only 50% of sheep can lie down at same time over 3-4 week voyage. They're either expecting sheep to timeshare their lying arrangements or lie on top of each other. pic.twitter.com/HxdiCf6uzu— Jed Goodfellow (@JedGoodfellow) October 26, 2018
The majority of these sheep were exported by sea for slaughter at destination and, the size of each sea shipment ranged from 498 animals up to 68,039 animals.
It is not unusual for sheep deaths on these voyages to number in the hundreds.
Overall sheep mortality for the first 6 months of the year ran at 0.61% as of June 2018.
That represents almost 6,000 sheep which died due to the stress of the sea voyage and conditions on board the export vessel from January to June.
One can reasonably expect sheep mortality rates to rise given the Morison Government's recent decision to increase sheep density numbers on board export vessels.
A decision it apparently arrived at after the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources & Nationals MP for Maranoa David Littleproud had announced that the government had accepted all 23 recommendations in the Review of conditions for the export of sheep to the Middle East during the northern summer report.
From 1 November 2018 the floor space per adult sheep will be reduced by 11.5% going into projected November temperatures ranging from 22 to 37 degrees Celsius across Middle Eastern destination ports.
It is worth noting that the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) has not published any analysis of current animal welfare standards in the last 5 years and the version of Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock in operation to date appears to be the 2011 version.
Australian media now report that the Morrison Government is stalling on legislating tougher penalties for exporters who breach live export regulations and, that Nationals MP for New England and disgraced former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce claims that 99.7% of sheep arrive at their export destination in the same or better condition than when they left.
So according to Barnaby only 0.3% of exported sheep suffer a loss of condition.
An interesting claim, given official sheep mortality is calculated at 0.61% of the live cargo being transported.
It seems that some of Barnaby's sheep are miraculously born-again sometime during those sea voyages,
Scott Morrison's favourite facile sound bites
Australian (interim) Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison speaks like the failed advertising industry executive that he is,
By now his favourite slogans and their meanings are becoming obvious,,,,,,
The New Daily, 21 October 2018:
“We believe in a fair go
for those who have a go.” (Those making money deserve to make more money.)
“We believe that the
best form of welfare is to have a job.” (Welfare should be cut back.)
“We believe it is every
Australian’s duty to make a contribution and not take a contribution.”
(Everyone on social welfare is a bludger – a particularly telling twisting of
John F. Kennedy’s “don’t ask what your country can do for you, but what you can
do for your country”.)
“And we believe this,
you don’t rise (sic) people up by bringing others down.” (Taxation is bad and
progressive taxation is particularly evil.)
Add to these the following:
"You don't get children off Nauru by putting more children on Nauru through weaker border protection policies," (I will not let the children on Nauru leave to resettle elsewhere with their
families, even though resettlement in third countries is one of the aims of Australia's offshore detention policy)
"[I want] to see how we can get greater investment in what I call 'fair dinkum power'; that’sthe stuff that works when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’tblow." (let’s
ignore the science behind renewable energy and pretend that other OECD countries
haven’t successfully integrated high levels of renewable energy into their
national power grids)
Sunday 28 October 2018
On past performance it will only take state and federal National Party politicians and their mates a couple of years to drain Morrison's $5 billion Drought Future Fund
On 26 October 2018, in the face of ongoing allegations of financial gouging of the public purse and mismanagement of water resources in the Murray Darling Basin, Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison unveiled his $5 billion Drought Future Fund at a summit attended by farmers, economists, industry bodies and state and federal ministers in Canberra....promising measures to drought-proof the nation's agriculture sector. The first $3.9 billion of the scheme, which would operate similarly to the Medical Future Fund, is to be paid for out of a pool of money originally intended for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
What a brilliant idea.
Rob an already underfunded disability sector and the vulnerable people who depend on its services in order to beef up a proposed drought future fund,
What can possibly go wrong?
Well, on past history it will likely take National politicians and their mates about two years to empty this new fund - with little to no drought-proofing to show for the taxpayer dollars they manage to redirect towards their own businesses.
The
Age, 26
October 2018:
The Nationals' federal
treasurer Peter Schwarz is accused of gouging much of the $850,000 he was
paid by Australia’s largest drought-proofing project and calling
in favours when pressed to account for the taxpayer cash.
As Prime Minister Scott
Morrison launches his drought summit, leaked government files reveal that Mr
Schwarz banked the taxpayer subsidies in November 2011 and then spent years
resisting efforts from water officials to get him to or use it for its intended
purpose – saving water.
The frustration of the
Goulburn-Murray Water authority with the conduct of Mr Schwarz – who as well as
being the Nationals key federal fundraiser is also running in next month’s
Victorian election – is exposed in dozens of damning leaked authority files.
The files provide a case
study of issues which are front and centre at Mr Morrison’s drought summit and
which are being examined by drought envoy and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce: using
taxpayer funds to help farmers deal with drought, and, questions about whether
backroom favours or mismanagement are undermining drought-relief efforts.
Among the leaked files
is a July 15, 2016 memo from a water authority lawyer summing up his view of Mr
Schwarz’s conduct after he joined hundreds of other farmers given cash incentives
as part of Australia’s largest water saving initiative, the Connections
Project. The project aims to help restore the Murray Darling water system.
The lawyer stated that
after Mr Schwarz received $850,505 in 2011 – divided into $473,000 for on-farm
water-saving measures and $300,000 to buy a neighbouring property – he ‘‘failed
to perform any of the obligations despite having received the payment … in
full.’’
‘‘The Schwarzes have
spent much of the ensuing period attempting to make a case that, notwithstanding
they entered into the agreement and received payment, they should not be bound
to perform,’’ the July 2016 legal memo states.
The leaked files also
reveal that Mr Schwarz sought to call on his personal relationship with a
controversial high-ranking water official, Gavin Hanlon, and an unnamed
‘‘minister’’ to ‘‘support [his] cause’’.
Mr Hanlon was a senior
Victorian water official who was headhunted by the NSW government as its
irrigation chief. He quit his NSW post in 2017 after revelations of questionable
dealings with farm lobbyists, sparking an ongoing
investigation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption……..
In a statement to
Fairfax Media, the water authority said that seven years after it gave Mr
Schwarz the funds, the stand-off over with him has been "substantially
resolved." It is understood that Mr Schwarz and Goulburn-Murray Water have
finally agreed that he will use the funds for water savings, but no work has as
yet been done.
The files reveal intense
frustration inside Goulburn-Murray Water not only about Mr Schwarz’s conduct
but the authority’s inability to recoup taxpayer funds.
A note written by an employee
in April 2014 states that: ‘‘Peter told me on a number of occasions he would
prefer to deal with higher GMW management and would not be accepting the
agreement he had previously signed.’’.......
BACKGROUND
SBC
News, 1
December 2018:
The NSW public has a
right to know whether a senior government executive, fired over her alleged
involvement in the Murray-Darling water theft scandal, received a six-figure
payout, the opposition says.
A report into water
theft in the Murray-Darling Basin, released on Thursday, confirmed that along
with top bureaucrat Gavin Hanlon's public resignation, a second executive was
fired for her role in the alleged misconduct.
AAP understands the
senior executive is a former National Party staffer and irrigation lobbyist,
who was appointed to a senior job within the Department of Primary Industries
in 2015.
Opposition water
spokesman Chris Minns said the Berejiklian government should confess whether
the executive had received a golden handshake on her way out the door......
In September, NSW
Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair said misconduct proceedings had
started against Mr Hanlon.
Mr Hanlon was forced to
resign as the Department of Industry director general in September following
allegations of misconduct, including promising to share internal government
documents with irrigation lobbyists in 2016.
Thursday's independent
investigation into NSW water management and compliance report, authored by Ken
Matthews, said the second senior executive is alleged to have also been
involved in the teleconference.
According to her
LinkedIn profile, the executive was a policy officer for lobby group Southern
River Irrigators between 2011 and 2013 before becoming an advisor to federal
senator Simon Birmingham for a year......
Thursday's report comes
less than a week after both NSW and Queensland were slammed by a Murray-Darling
Basin Authority (MDBA) review into water theft and regulation.
That inquiry found both
states regularly failed to make sure irrigators complied with the
Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and weren't transparent about their failures......
The
Guardian, 27
September 2018:
A former water industry
lobbyist preselected by the New South Wales National party to
lead its Senate ticket in the next federal election has suggested examining
Barnaby Joyce’s proposal to release more water for irrigators.
Once a lobbyist for
Murray Irrigation, Perin Davey won the No 1 spot on the NSW National party’s
Senate ticket earlier this month, after the longtime Nationals senator and bank
campaigner John “Wacka” Williams retired and the former Nationals deputy leader
Fiona Nash resigned over her dual citizenship.
Davey was part of the
teleconference with NSW government water official Gavin Hanlon, when he
allegedly offered documents stripped of the department logo to help irrigators
lobby against the Murray-Darling basin plan.
Hanlon resigned
following the revelations, which were referred to the NSW Independent
Commission Against Corruption. The former water minister Kevin Humphries was
also referred to the state watchdog. Icac makes it a practice not to
comment any current investigations. Davey said she had not been interviewed by
Icac and Guardian Australia does not allege any wrongdoing.
The meeting was exposed
in the 2017 Four
Corners episode that reported allegations
that water was being harvested by some irrigators in the
Barwon-Darling region of the Murray-Darling
basin to the detriment of the environment and downstream communities.
Joyce, the former
agriculture minister, had nominated
Davey to the board of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority but, as a
result of the fallout from the program, Davey
asked Joyce to withdraw her nomination.
Davey, who now runs her own government
relations company, said she was simply participating in a teleconference
and that it was not unusual......
North Coast Voices:
13 MARCH 2018
Only
a handful of NSW landowners to face court over Murray-Darling Basin water theft
allegations? The NSW Government will prosecute several people over alleged
water theft on the Barwon-Darling, eight months after Four Corners investigated
the issue. WaterNSW has named the people it is taking to the Land and
Environment Court over alleged breaches of water management rules.
13 APRIL 2018
Alleged
irrigator water theft heading for the courts? A
cousin by marriage of the current Australian Minister for Agriculture and
Water Resources David Littleproud, John Norman, finds his agricultural
business practices under scrutiny...
30 APRIL 2018
What
the Australian Government didn’t want the UN to publish During Nationals
MP for New England Barnaby Joyce’s disastrous sojourn as Australian Deputy
Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources the federal
government began a successfull campaign to have the United Nations delete
all criticism of Australia’s $13bn effort to restore the ailing Murray-Darling
river system from a published study.
Saturday 27 October 2018
Tweet of the Week
OMG now I’ve heard it all. I was just discussing the positives of solar energy with a Trump supporter at lunch.— Little Jackie Paper #FBR (@s_schuckman) October 23, 2018
He said it sounds good but what happens when we start to use up all the sun’s energy and it gets darker and colder on Earth. 🤯
Friday 26 October 2018
We were robbed in Wentworth and it's all Malcolm's fault!
Now let me
see….how did it all go down again?
There are
eighty-five parliamentarians in the federal party room representing the parliamentary arm of the Liberal Party of
Australia.
Leadership of
the party has been a political football since December 2009 when Tony Abbott ousted Malcolm Turnbull. Winning this leadership spill by one vote to become Opposition Leader.
Almost six
years later in September 2015 Turnbull returned the favour by replacing Abbott
as leader, when Abbott became a terminally toxic prime minister less than three
years into the job. Turnbull won that leadership spill by ten votes and became prime minister.
What followed
was over two years of relentless vindictive payback directed at Turnbull by Abbott and his
cronies.
Then Peter Dutton threw his hat in the ring on
21 August 2018. He lost this attempt to topple Turnbull and replace him as prime
minister when Turnbull called a leadership spill and Dutton lost the spill by
thirteen votes.
Another motion
to spill the leadership was passed by five votes on 24 August 2018.
This vote
effectively sacked Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister and the leadership contest
was then between Peter Dutton and Scott
Morrison.
Morrison became
the current (and very interim) prime minister on the back of just five votes that same day.
On 31 August 2018
Turnbull made good on his promise to resign from parliament and, a by-election
was called for the seat of Wentworth which had been held by conservative
politicians since its inception in 1901.
Scott
Morrison campaigned in the Wentworth electorate on behalf of his party’s
candidate, David Sharma.
On 20 October
2018 the Liberal Party lost the by-election to an Independent candidate Kerryn Phelps, with a swing against the
party of over 19 per cent.
The Morrison
Government is now a minority government, having lost its one seat margin in the
House of Representatives.
So who is the
Liberal Party blaming for their by-election defeat? Why it appears to be all Malcolm's fault.
The
Daily Telegraph, 24 October 2018:
PRIME Minister Scott
Morrison is “done with” Malcolm Turnbull and will no longer ask
the former leader to represent Australia at international conferences.
Senior Liberal sources
told The Daily Telegraph that while the PM would not rescind the decision to
send Mr Turnbull on official duties next week at a conference in Bali, it would
be the last request. “Scott has said to a number of senior Liberals that he doesn’t
want anything further to do with Malcolm,” the source said….
In September, Mr
Morrison asked Mr Turnbull to represent the Australian Government at the ‘Our
Ocean Legacy’ conference in Bali next week — a decision that has been met with
a backlash from Liberal and National MPs after the former Prime Minister did
not even send a tweet backing the Liberal Party in the by-election caused by
his resignation…..
The pair had been
communicating regularly over WhatsApp prior to Mr Turnbull’s decision to reject
Mr Morrison’s request to help Liberal Party candidate Dave Sharma campaign
against independent Dr Kerryn Phelps in Wentworth.
Mr Turnbull, who told
journalists yesterday he was “out of partisan politics”, was initially invited
to attend the conference by the Indonesian Government in March when still prime
minister.
After the August
leadership spill, Mr Morrison said he was unable to attend the conference, so
asked Mr Turnbull to still go. It was understood to be an “olive branch”
extended to the former leader.
All of Mr Turnbull’s
travel and accommodation costs will be covered by taxpayers during the trip.
“I did request the
former prime minister to represent us at that conference, and he’ll be there
representing the policies of our government,” Mr Morrison said yesterday.
His office later issued
a statement denying that Mr Turnbull had been banned from representing
Australia at such events, adding that Mr Morrison “will be seeking to maintain
a positive relationship with the former PM as he would do with any other former
PMs”.
“Mr Morrison rejects the
suggestion made to the Telegraph,” the statement said. “The decision to invite
Mr Turnbull to represent Australia was initiated eight weeks ago after direct
discussion with President Widodo of Indonesia and was well received by the
President.” However, Nationals MP and former deputy prime minister Barnaby
Joyce said Mr Turnbull may be “sulking” after losing the leadership and should
not represent Australia at the conference, especially given his refusal to
campaign in Wentworth.
“It is a problem and
there should have been a bit more thought put into this” Mr Joyce said. “I
think he’s angry about losing his job — one can only presume some sulking. I
suggest that probably gives us a very good reason not to send him to Bali.”
The
Wentworth by-election has still not been officially declared, with the Australian
Electoral Commission still counting postal votes yesterday. Dr Phelps’ lead
dropped by 74 votes to 1552 as Mr Sharma secured 55 per cent of the postal
votes counted yesterday. He needed upward of 70 per cent to dent the margin.
Mr Morrison defended the
pending result, saying that while the Liberal vote in the eastern suburbs seat
dropped by about a third so did the Labor and Greens vote.
Fronting the Coalition
party room for the first time since Saturday’s by-election, Mr Morrison hit
back at calls from moderates in the party for action on climate change and the
urgent removal of refugees from Nauru.
“We’re not shifting to
the left or the right — it’s not hokey pokey politics,” he told the closed door
meeting.
“We will continue to be
a strong centre-right government with strong centre-right parties focusing on
the things that matter.” Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, whose
leadership has been under pressure from renegade Nationals, urged MPs not to
be “spooked” by the result in the once-safe Liberal seat.“What they think in Double
Bay is not what they think in Dubbo,” Mr McCormack said.
One political
thumbnail draws attention to what Morrison & Co were loathe to mention during their public blame gaming.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
24 October 2018:
By the way, Malcolm was
in a no-win position – if he had campaigned he would have been accused of being
disruptive and a distraction - of crowding out Sharma.
Morrison wanted his
letter of support but wouldn’t allow Turnbull to mention the circumstances of
his demise, so, no go.
Next, move on to
Morrison’s horror personal contributions to the campaign – the lingering image
of him hugging
a lump of coal; his defence of advertising on the
sails of the Opera House, wanting to see not just horse racing but also car
racing; his mishandling of the issues of funding and independence of the ABC
generated by the
dismissal of chief executive Michelle Guthrie; his multiple positions on
the treatment
of gay students and teachers; the white supremacist/neo-Nazi parliamentary
vote; announcing the possible shift of our
embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (even after most devout
Jews in the electorate would have already pre-voted, to avoid having to do so
on the Sabbath); the possible rejuvenation of a New Zealand deal on
refugee resettlement; and then, finally, the assertion that a Kerryn Phelps
win meant “instability”, conveniently ignoring the instability in his own party
that had resulted in the byelection in the first place.
All this shooting from
the hip, attempting to spin the issue, assuming some resonance with some
identified constituency, only compounds the electoral cynicism and mistrust. So
much for the new, marketing/PR-type jockey - so much for Morrison's skills as a
retail politician. Clever sound bites and stunts have a limited life. Voters
want authenticity, substance and outcomes. This was a clear message from
Wentworth.
Morrison’s calamitous
performance wasn’t helped by Barnaby Joyce’s
grubby attempt to rekindle his leadership ambitions, nor by Environment
Minister Melissa
Price insulting former Kiribati President Anote Tong.
Apart from denying any
responsibility for all this mess, the most disturbing aspect of the
government’s response to the Wentworth result has been its failure to recognise
the significance of issues that dominated the campaign, such as climate change....
Thursday 25 October 2018
OUR ABC: the fate of public broadcasting is in your hands at the 2019 federal election
Use your vote wisely.......
abc.net.au, 23 October 2018:
Statement by David Anderson, Acting Managing Director of the ABC, to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
Thank you Senators.
I am appearing today as Acting Managing Director of the ABC. It is a privilege to be in this role, overseeing one of Australia’s most loved and respected cultural institutions.
There is no doubt Senators will have many questions about recent events and strategies. I will do my best to answer them in my acting capacity and from my management position. Accountability is part and parcel of being a national broadcaster.
So too is independence. I have already stressed in my early conversations with employees that the great faith and trust the community invests in the ABC is built on the foundation of independence.
The ABC is funded by government and it is ultimately answerable to the people of Australia. They are the ones who expect us to report without fear or favour, to live up to standards of quality and excellence, to shun commercial and other agendas, to hold the national conversations and to reflect the nation back to itself.
The other absolute I have, as a long-term content manager within the Corporation, is the primacy of content. Across the ABC’s history we have been adept at using technology to improve the ways we bring our programs and services to our audiences.
Even in my time at the national broadcaster, the distribution platforms and channels we use have changed dramatically. They will need to change even more over the next decade as we seek relevance and reach in a challenging digital media landscape.
But it is the content that we carry on those platforms that ultimately matters.
Vibrant new kids’ programs that delight and educate our children;
Agenda-setting journalism that shines a light into dark corners and holds regulators and lawmakers to account;
The rich, direct and often lifesaving conversations we have with our regional and rural audiences;
The insightful work of Radio National;
Our commitment to the promotion and support of cultural endeavours, particularly music, the arts and creative communities;
Colourful dramas like Mystery Road that use local actors, local crews, local locations and local stories to entertain us;
And our ability to unite the nation, whether it be on Australia Day, the approaching Remembrance Day/Armistice celebrations or through our in-depth coverage of the drought;
And this week, of course, the Invictus Games.
It is the distinctive content that makes the ABC unique and a priceless national asset.
While the recent weeks have been testing, I am very proud of the passion and energy shown by our 4000 employees. They have not been distracted. They remain committed to serving Australians.
As the Acting Managing Director, my early objective has been to work with the Board, bring stability to the organisation, demonstrate leadership and to press for the resourcing we need to deliver the Charter remit and the services the community expects.
I note there has been a lot of talk recently about ABC budgets and future demands. I would like to bring these facts to the table:
20 per cent of the ABC Budget is actually fixed costs for transmission – the infrastructure that delivers our programs to audiences across the nation.
The $84 million efficiency cut over three years comes on top of the 2014 decision to cut the ABC budget by $250 million over five years. The cumulative impact of these measures is a significant reduction in our operating budget at a time when we are facing rising costs of production and the need to increase our investment in digital products.
We have been given no certainty about the future of funding for a program that directly employs 81 journalists, including specialist reporters and outer suburban bureaus such as Geelong, Parramatta and Ipswich.
As a long-serving content manager and leader, I can personally attest to the financial pressures affecting the Corporation. I can vouch for the efforts of management to maximise every dollar spent on audiences and to plough efficiency savings into content.
I am making it clear to stakeholders that the next triennial funding round, scheduled for resolution in next year’s Budget, should be used as an opportunity to reposition the ABC for the future.
If the ABC is important now in bringing diversity to the media landscape, then it will be even more essential over coming years in providing quality, independent, local content to Australians. The ABC will be the innovator. We will provide the creative jobs that are necessary for this new era. We will continue to provide the highest quality independent journalism.
Thank you. I am happy to take questions.
Twitter, 24 October 2018:
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