Showing posts with label #TurnbullGovernmentFAIL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #TurnbullGovernmentFAIL. Show all posts
Sunday 30 September 2018
Adani Group has Morrison, Price, Littleproud & Taylor wrapped around its little finger
Since September 2013 the Australian Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government has been a rolling national disaster.
This latest episode appears to have its roots in the hard right's commitment to dismantle environmental protections.
Especially replacing Labor's "water trigger" amendment to the ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 1999 with a band-aid which fooled no-one.
ABC
News, 25
September 2018:
A farmer has been denied
access to a river system Adani plans on drawing 12.5 billion litres of water
from in what activists are calling a "double standard", documents
obtained under freedom of information laws show.
The mining giant plans
to take 12.5 billion litres of water from the Suttor River every year, nearly
as much as all local farmers combined.
Despite this amount, the
documents show at least one irrigator had their application for a water licence
rejected in 2011, leading activists to claim farmers were assessed more harshly
than Adani.
The documents also show
the modelling used by the company to predict the impacts of the water usage
ignored the past 14 years of rainfall data and, despite planning to take water
until 2077, it did not take into account the impacts of climate change.
The revelations came a
week after the Federal Government decided to assess the environmental
impacts of Adani's water take without a full environmental impact statement.
"Altogether, this
underscores how poor the decision was last week to allow 12.5 billion litres to
be taken without assessment," Carmel Flint from anti-mining group Lock The
Gate Alliance said. The group obtained the documents under Queensland's Right
To Information laws.....
Saturday 22 September 2018
Friday 31 August 2018
Will the Australian Government continue its policy of harrassment and intimidation in relation to Australia's national public broadcaster?
This was the situation before Malcolm Turnbull was politically beheaded by the hard right of the Liberal Party and Scott Morrison installed as the new Australian Prime Minister.....
Lenore Taylor
is Guardian Australia's editor. She has won two Walkley awards and has twice
won the Paul Lyneham award for excellence in press gallery journalism.
She has been
a journalist for over thirty years and covered federal politics for over twenty-two
years.
Despite being invited onto the ABC "Insiders" program as a political journalist and editor, she found that pressure appeared to have been placed on that program to remove its video of her one of comments from its Twitter feed.
Do not retweet - @JoshFrydenberg and @TurnbullMalcolm don't want this seen and told @InsidersABC to delete this clip. #auspol #reefgate pic.twitter.com/Xf4B0J7p5B— EBA Truth (@ebatruth) August 13, 2018
I raised a question on #insiders yesterday about how the reef foundation could have been so surprised by the grant if the govt had already done due diligence on it, as Josh Frydenberg revealed in the interview - this from @InsidersABC about why a tweet of my comment was removed https://t.co/VsJ2Swc4HF— Lenore Taylor (@lenoretaylor) August 13, 2018
“The comments bring into question remarks by the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, that the government did “extensive due diligence” on the foundation before awarding it close to half a billion d…” https://t.co/LSSn7ixjlw— Ellie (@elliemail) August 13, 2018
The Great Barrier Reef Foundation denies there was any prior due diligence conducted concerning the $487,633,300.00 grant.This was my call yesterday and on reflection it was a mistake. I should have quote tweeted the original tweet and provided the new information given to me by government. Apologies to @lenoretaylor. Her comments remain on iview and on the Insiders website. https://t.co/3iJHHxm6hc— Samuel Clark (@sclark_melbs) August 13, 2018
“We had to certainly demonstrate value for money and our track record,” she said.
Once this particular cat was out of the bag ABC "Insiders" decided on 360 degree change of direction or suddenly remembered what being an independent public broadcaster actually means - readers can make up their own minds as to motive.
Once this particular cat was out of the bag ABC "Insiders" decided on 360 degree change of direction or suddenly remembered what being an independent public broadcaster actually means - readers can make up their own minds as to motive.
Remembering that as federal treasurer Scott Morrison led the charge to savagely cut ABC funding, the question that needs answering now is "Will he continue to bash the ABC by allowing minsters to apply inappropriate pressure on management and staff to alter editorial decisions?"We’ve republished this tweet. It was my call on Sunday to take it down, and that was a mistake. My apologies again to @lenoretaylor. https://t.co/NyivO2sJaL— Samuel Clark (@sclark_melbs) August 14, 2018
The real reason Turnbull gave the Great Barrier Reef Foundation
$487.6 million with few strings attached and a short deadline on the spend
Picture the scene: three
men in a room, two of them offering the third the deal of a lifetime.
The pair say they will
give the man’s little outfit – which has assets of only about $3 million,
turnover of less than $8 million and just a handful of staff – a
$444 million contract, under terms yet to be negotiated. The offer comes
out of a clear blue sky, totally unsolicited by the lucky recipient. For this
little organisation, it is like winning the lottery, except they didn’t even
buy a ticket.
Such a deal would be
exceptional, even in the corporate world. It would have been exceptional even
if the pair making the offer had been, say, investment bankers, and the third
man the head of a tech start-up.
But they weren’t. Two of
them were the prime minister of Australia and his environment minister, and the
third was the chairman of a charitable organisation called the Great Barrier
Reef Foundation. All three do have backgrounds as bankers, however: Malcolm
Turnbull, Josh Frydenberg and the foundation’s John Schubert worked with
Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Commonwealth Bank respectively.
The question is why it
was done this way. Why solicit this little organisation, of which most people
would never have heard, to be the recipient of the biggest such grant ever made
in Australia? Why was the money given without tender and without any prior
grant proposal? Why, instead of providing the money a bit at a time, subject to
satisfactory performance as assessed on an annual or biannual basis, was six
years’ worth of funding provided in one lump on June 28, less than three months
after that first meeting?
Geoff Cousins thinks he
knows the answer.
Cousins is a former
president of the Australian Conservation Foundation. Perhaps more importantly,
he is a corporate boardroom heavyweight. For 10 years, he was an adviser to
John Howard.
“It’s a most cynical
piece of accounting trickery,” he says of the Barrier Reef grant.
“A piece of
chicanery. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
To explain why, he
traces back several years, to the government’s desperate attempts to persuade
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
that it was a good steward of the Great Barrier Reef, and that the reef World
Heritage area should not be declared to be “in danger”.
To that end, the
government had promised, under its Reef 2050 Plan, to invest more than $700
million in measures to protect one of the world’s great natural wonders.
“For the Department of
the Environment and Energy to grant over $440 million to a small charity that
didn’t even prepare an application form or ask for the grant is inconceivable!”
“They made a commitment,
the Australian government, to the World Heritage listing committee, to spend
$716 million on the Barrier Reef, prior to 2020,” Cousins says.
“But they have
spent just a fraction of that, and there is no way that in the remaining 18
months or less that they can reach that target, which raises the potential of
the reef being put on the endangered list.”
In Cousins’s view,
someone must have realised the trouble the government faced in meeting its
spending targets on time. His guess is Frydenberg.
“Even if you started
now, you couldn’t actually spend that money. There’s not a list, not a pipeline
of projects approved and ready to go,” Cousins says.
“So Malcolm, then
putting on … his business head, his accounting head, says ‘Well, all we’ve
really got to do is make sure the money moves from the government’s accounts to
the bank account of some other private or not-for-profit institution, then the
money is spent.’ But the money hasn’t really been spent at all. Even the CEO of
the foundation says it won’t all be spent for six years.”
If you tried that kind
of dodge in the corporate world, Cousins says, “your accounting firm would say
… they would have to qualify your accounts”.
Cousins makes a very
strong circumstantial case. It is true the federal government has grossly
underspent on its UNESCO commitment, and that the money given to the reef
foundation will go much of the way to making good on that funding promise.
It is true also that UNESCO
has become increasingly critical of the government’s performance protecting the
reef. Last year’s meeting of the World Heritage Committee noted in particular
that progress on achieving water-quality targets was too slow to meet the
agreed time frame. As it happens, the largest single item on the reef
foundation’s to-do list is improving water quality, with $201 million
allocated to it.
Read the full aticle here.
Thursday 23 August 2018
“Sneaky laws which declare you as guilty in the eyes of the law the minute the police say you are guilty” - Turnbull Government legislative overreach continues in 2018?
Sydney
Criminal Lawyers,
16 August 2018:
A Senate committee has
just given the Turnbull government the green light to nationalise a scheme that
allows government to seize citizens’ assets unless their legitimate origins can
be explained, even if the owner of the wealth hasn’t been charged with let
alone convicted of an offence.
On 6 August, the Senate
Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee recommended that the federal government pass the Unexplained Wealth Legislation Amendment Bill 2018 without
any changes.
Unexplained wealth laws
currently exist in every Australian jurisdiction, but the new scheme provides a
broader model allowing for federal and state authorities to work in
collaboration across jurisdictional borders to target serious and organised
crime.
“The scale and
complexity of this criminal threat has necessitated an enhanced focus on
cooperative, cross-jurisdictional responses by Australian governments,” home
affairs minister Peter Dutton said in the second reading speech of the bill.
However, critics of the
scheme warn that existing unexplained wealth laws undermine the rule of law and
broadening their scope will lead to a further erosion of civil liberties. And
while these laws are meant to target untouchable crime bosses, they’re actually
being used against petty criminals.
Presumption of guilt
“These beefed-up laws
bring down all the secret surveillance and the swapping of scuttlebutt
masquerading as intelligence on everyone in Australia,” Civil Liberties Australia CEO
Bill Rowlings told Sydney Criminal Lawyers.
“The unexplained wealth
laws completely overturn the presumption of innocence, which is part of our
rule of law in Australia,” he continued. “They are sneaky laws which declare
you as guilty in the eyes of the law the minute the police say you are guilty.”
Unexplained wealth laws
are a recent development in Australia. But, unlike other
proceeds of crime laws that allow for the confiscation of assets derived from
prosecuted criminal acts, unexplained wealth places the onus upon the
individual to prove their wealth was legally acquired.
“People don’t
understand, under these laws the government can confiscate your assets even if
you haven’t been found guilty of anything,” Mr Rowlings stressed.
Broadening the reach
The current Commonwealth
unexplained wealth laws were introduced in 2010 via amendments made to
the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cth) (the Act).
These laws apply where
there are “reasonable grounds to suspect” an individual’s assets have been
derived from a committed federal
offence, “a foreign indictable offence or a state offence that has a
federal aspect.”
There are three sorts of
orders that can be sought in relation to unexplained wealth. Section 20A of the Act provides that a court can issue
an unexplained wealth restraining order, which is an interim order that
restricts an individual’s ability to dispose of property.
Section 179B of the Act allows for the issuance of a
preliminary order, which requires a person to appear in court to prove their
wealth is legitimate. And under section 179E, an order can be issued requiring that the
payment of an amount of wealth deemed unlawful be made to the government.
The new legislation
amends sections 20A and 179E, so that these orders can be issued in respect to
relevant offences of participating states, as well as in relation to territory
offences. Relevant state offences will be outlined in state legislation that
enables participation in the national scheme.
Sharing it around
The legislation broadens
the access authorities have to an individual’s banking information in relation
to an unexplained wealth investigation.
Section 213 of the Act allows certain authorised
Commonwealth officers to issue access notices to financial institutions. This
provision will now be extended to states and territory law enforcement
agencies.
Proposed section 297C of
the Act outlines how federal, state and territory governments will divvy up the
seized wealth. A subcommittee will be established to distribute the money. And
while any state that opts out of the scheme will be eligible for a share, it
will be a less favourable amount.
The legislation also
makes amendments to the sharing of information provisions contained in
the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.…..
Backdoor revenue raising
The NSW government has
already introduced legislation into parliament, which enables that state
to participate in the national scheme. The legislation sets out that the
relevant offences the laws apply to are set out in section 6(2) of the Criminal Assets Recovery Act 1990.
NSW police minister Troy
Grant told parliament that the legislation allows the state to refer matters to
the Commonwealth, which then authorises the Australian federal police to use
certain NSW offences as a basis for the confiscation of unexplained wealth.
But, Mr Rowlings states
that the nationalising of the scheme will actually streamline a process that
sees the unwarranted confiscation of wealth to prop up government coffers.
“The cash seized is
paying for extra government lawyers to help seize more cash,” Mr Rowlings made
clear, “so it’s a devious upward spiral where more and more unconvicted people
will have their assets taken, and then have to prove their innocence or the
government gets their assets.”
Read the full
article here.
Wednesday 22 August 2018
And the warnings continue about My Health Record.....
Financial
Review, 13 August 2018:
One of the world's
leading experts in cyber security policy has warned the manipulation of health
data is one of his biggest concerns facing society, as debate continues to
rage about the long-term viability of the government's controversial opt-out My
Health Record.
Former Pentagon chief
strategy officer for cyber policy and newly appointed head of cyber security
strategy for data centre security company Illumio, Jonathan Reiber,
told The Australian Financial Review the health data of MPs and
business leaders would be of particular interest to cyber criminals.
"If I'm a malicious
actor wanting to cause discontent, I would be interested in that," he
said.
"If you get access
to the health information of key leaders, you can understand what they like,
who they are and what their problems are. [Cyber criminals] would want to look
at a segment of 50 to 100 key leaders in the country, figure out data for
intelligence purposes and then manipulate the data for the negative."
Earlier this month
Health Minister Greg Hunt announced that the government would redraft the
legislation surrounding My Health Record to restrict police access and allow
records to be deleted permanently.
He had previously
copped criticism for saying the digital health database had "military-grade security",
despite not having two-factor authentication protocols.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
14 August 2018:
Labor's health
spokeswoman Catherine King said the government's decision to switch to an
opt-out model, which Labor originally supported, gave rise to "a whole
range of significant privacy and security issues that we don't think were
thought of in the original enabling legislation".
"Are they then able
to opt-out when they become adults? What's happening in terms of survivors of
domestic violence and the capacity through the creation of a record by an
abusing partner, of a record for their children or agreement to a record for
their children, what security is in place to ensure that they are not
traced?"
Legal experts have
warned that the system provides a loophole for a violent person to create
a record for their child without their ex-partner's consent, potentially
allowing them to track down their estranged family's location, as revealed by
Fairfax Media last month.
Ms King also highlighted
concerns raised about access to medical records by health insurers, including
in relation to worker’s compensation claims, which the government has said will
not occur.
"We want to make
sure that's not the case and we want to make sure that's not the case under the
law," she said.
Some people may find
their My Health Record places them at risk of stigma and discrimination or may
cause safety issues.
You may wish to
carefully consider whether you want your health records held or shared if you:
*
have a criminal record or are affected by the criminal justice system
*
use or have used drugs
*
live with a lifelong transmissible condition such as HIV or hepatitis B
*
have or had hepatitis C
*
are not on treatment after it was recommended
*
are sexually active and test regularly for STIs
*
are or have been a sex worker
*
are transgender or intersex
*
are bisexual, lesbian or gay
*
have lived with mental health issues
*
have been pregnant or terminated a pregnancy
*
are a health care worker.
Tuesday 21 August 2018
Great Barrier Reef: $487.63 million to do little more than sit by the bedside of a dying reef system?
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
7 August 2018:
The Great Barrier Reef
Foundation has had some good fortune that few environmental NGOs could count
on. The $444 million it was granted by the government earlier this year dwarfs
its previous budgets by a large multiple. Having worked in two small environmental
charities of a similar operating budget and staffing to the pre-windfall
foundation, I can confirm getting so much money without even applying for it is
far beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
Still, the biggest
questions about the GBRF windfall don’t relate to its good luck in an opaque
government decision, or even its connections to the fossil fuel industry.
These
are entirely valid concerns, but they risk eclipsing the bigger significance of
the government’s move.
What we also need to ask
is: what does the foundation do? What are its outputs, its activities? And why
would the federal government be so keen to direct such a huge chunk of funding
to those activities?
At best, the
government’s massive funding dump is a long-shot attempt to save a few bits of
the reef from inevitable degradation. At worst, it’s a distraction from that
fate – and a diversion from addressing its causes.
The foundation has
standard governance structures, and the support of credible, dedicated
scientists. But what it does it essentially triage.
It’s now clear the
government understands that even in the best climate scenario, the Great
Barrier Reef will not survive in its recent form. The Department of Environment
and Energy acknowledged this just last month. Even the
Queensland tourism industry has publicly come to terms with the certainty
that the reef will continue to suffer from climate change.
Scientists have been
telling us since the 1980s that even modest climate change is a threat to coral
reefs. Corals are so sensitive to changes in temperature that even in the best
case warming scenario – achieving the 1.5 C stretch goal of the Paris Agreement
- it’s now estimated that only 10 per cent of the world’s reefs will survive in
their current form. At 2C, none are expected to escape “severe degradation and
annihilation”.
The foundation delivers
projects focused on “resilience,
restoration and innovation”.
That means doing its best to protect and restore the reef. It notes climate change is the biggest
threat, but it does not address greenhouse gas emissions, at either a local or
systemic level.
Its activities are
similar to those we’ve seen from several other reef-focused initiatives and
programs in recent years: breeding resilient corals, establishing small
refuges, developing monitoring tools, and supporting species such as turtles
and dugongs.
Projects like these have
been allocated hundreds of millions of dollars of federal government funding
through various programs over the years, including water
quality and run-off management along with contentious projects to removing Crown of Thorns
starfish, and more radical measures such as underwater fans to drive cooler
water from the depths. The foundation, for its part, reported recently on testing of a polymer “sun
shield”, noting
that the technology would only scale to smaller, “high value or high risk”
parts of the reef.
A good case can be made
that these experiments are pragmatic. Even if emissions stop tomorrow,
locked-in warming will continue to ravage the reef for the next few decades.
The foundation counts
respected research institutions among its partners, and scientists such as
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland are on its
scientific advisory board. For Hoegh-Guldberg, who sounded the alarm on the
threat of climate for coral reefs in 1999, the foundation provides an important
opportunity to educate corporations on the dire state of the Great Barrier Reef
and climate in general. Again, its scientific review processes have not been
questioned.
However, it’s important
to remember that there's no guarantee these “resilience” activities will
succeed against a backdrop of waters reaching temperatures deadly to coral.
Whether portions of a complex marine ecosystem can be preserved, and in what
form, is still very much unknown. Professor Terry Hughes, a contender for world
leading coral reef expert, is dubious; in a Nature paper he found that
water quality and fishing pressure – two key ways of improving resilience -
made little difference in the face of devastating warm surges.
BACKGROUND
WEDNESDAY, 8
AUGUST 2018, Great
Barrier Reef Foundation: waiting for the inevitable crash
Sunday 19 August 2018
The first unintended consequence of Malcolm Turnbull's perverse $487M grant to the small Great Barrier Reef Foundation surfaces
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
15 August 2018:
The Turnbull
government's claim its $444 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation
would spur private donations has been disputed by a leading coral scientist who
says funding for his own venture has dried up in the wake of the cash splash.
Charlie Veron, a marine
biologist dubbed "the godfather of coral" for discovering more than
one-fifth the world's coral species, said US donors to his Corals of the World website
dropped plans to donate $60,000 once they saw "the Australian government
was going to pour a fortune" into reef projects.
"My source of
funding has completely stopped," Dr Veron said.
Dr Veron said his
website, a decade in the making, would be crucial for any future recovery work
on the reef, such as the $100 million reef restoration and adaptation program
that will now be under the foundation's stewardship.
Dr Veron said he met
last week the foundation head, Anna Marsden, who said she "didn't have any
money that could go" to his project despite it needing $200,000, or
one-quarter of 1 per cent of the government's largesse, to survive.
"The whole thing is
just a mystery to me," he said. "It's a drop in the bucket if ever
there was one."....
A
foundation spokeswoman said Dr Veron had been one of "a number of
organisations [that] have expressed an interest" in seeking funds.
"At a recent
meeting, we advised Dr Veron that a process was being established to consider
proposals under the Reef Trust Partnership," she said. "We will
consider proposals for funding once the governance and advisory framework is
established and a process for applications has been approved."
Fairfax Media approached
Josh Frydenberg, the environment and energy minister, for comment.
"Perverse outcomes
are going to be part of a process that wasn't thought through," Tony
Burke, Labor's environment spokesman, said. "The due diligence [into the
Foundation before the grant was made] was a joke."
Mr Burke said it was
possible that less private funding would available for reef projects than
before as a result of "decision making with almost no formal
process".
The foundation
spokeswoman said that the non-profit will continue to make the raising of
private funds "a focus and responsibility, so we can amplify the impact of
the government’s investment".....
Wednesday 8 August 2018
Great Barrier Reef Foundation: waiting for the inevitable crash
Mainstream
media reports that Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull (former director Goldman
Sachs), Minister for Environment and Energy & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg (former director Deutsche
Bank Australia) and Chair of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation & Member of
the Business Council of Australia John
Schubert (former chair Commonwealth Bank) met on 9 April 2018 to discuss the
allocation of a grant valued at in excess of AU$487.6 million to the
foundation.
It was also
reported that no
officials from the Department of the Environment and Energy were present at
that meeting when the grant offer was made and apparently accepted.
Less than ten weeks later the grant was formally approved
without meeting all relevant provisions in the Commonwealth
Grants Rules and Guidelines 2017.
The Great Barrier Reef
Foundation with a staff of only six full-time employees now has no more
than 6 financial years to spend this large sum, which represents est. 69.66 per cent of funds held in the federal government operated Reef Trust since 2014 and 97.52 per cent of additional funds received by the trust on 29 April 2018.
Leaving the Reef Trust with an unspecified amount to fulfil other commitments over the next six years.
Due to obvious time constraints, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s board and corporate 'advisers' need to have
a detailed financial and project action plan for 2018-19 immediately - if not
sooner.
I suspect that I am not alone in waiting for waste of resources, duplication of effort, poorly targeted projects, lack of verifiable outcomes and other instances of mismanagement to emerge over time, given the
slapdash way this grant was put together.
Australian Government, GrantConnect:
GA ID: GA9190
Agency: Department of the Environment and Energy
Approval Date: 20-Jun-2018
Publish Date: 12-Jul-2018
Category: Natural Resources - Conservation and Protection
Grant Term: 27-Jun-2018 to 30-Jun-2024
Value (AUD): $487,633,300.00 (GST inclusive where applicable)
Ad hoc/One-off: Yes
Aggregate Grant Award: No
PBS Program Name: DoTE 17/18 Program 1.1: Sustainable Management of
Natural Resources and the Environment
Grant Program: Reef Trust
Grant Activity: Reef Trust grant to the Great Barrier Reef
Foundation
Purpose: The project will deliver activities which are consistent
with the purposes of the Reef Trust Special Account Determination to achieve
the Reef Trust Objectives and assist to protect the Great Barrier Reef World
Heritage Area.
Internal Reference ID: 100000001841
Confidentiality - Contract: Yes
Confidentiality Reason(s) -
Contract: Other: Aspects of the
Co-Financing Plan and the Communication and Stakeholder Engagement Plan
Confidentiality - Outputs: No
Grant Recipient Details
Recipient Name: Great Barrier Reef Foundation
Recipient ABN: 82 090 616 443
Grant Recipient Location
Suburb: Brisbane
Town/City: Brisbane
Postcode: 4000
State/Territory: QLD
Country: AUSTRALIA
Grant Delivery Location
State/Territory: QLD
Country: AUSTRALIA
Australian Government, Department of the Environment
and Energy - Marine:
Third
Sector, 7
June 2018:
The Great Barrier Reef
Foundation (GBRF) has confirmed one of its board directors will step down as he
faces criminal charges for cartel conduct.
Stephen Roberts, an
investment banker and GBRF board director, has been charged by the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for allegedly playing a part of a
criminal cartel during a $2.5 billion deal.
ACCC Chairman, Rod Sims,
said: “These serious charges are the result of an ACCC investigation that has
been running for more than two years.”
The charges, which
included other banking chief executives and senior staff, were laid by the
Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions and will be determined in court.
Criminal
charges relating to an alleged cartel by Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and the ANZ
have been formally laid in relation to alleged cartel arrangements relating to
trading in ANZ shares following a $2.5 billion institutional share placement in
August 2015.
Sunday 5 August 2018
Tell me again why the Turnbull Government is insisting My Health Record will become mandatory by the end of October 2018?
It is not just ordinary health care consumers who have concerns about the My Health Record database, system design, privacy issues and ethical considerations.
It is not just the Turnbull Government which has not sufficiently prepared public and private health care organisations for the nationwide rollout of mass personal and health information collection - the organisations themselves are not ready.
Lewis Ryan (Academic GP Registrar) |
* 65% of GP Registrars have never discussed My Health Record with a patient
* 78% of GP Registrars have never received training in how to use My Health Record
* 73% of GP Registrars say lack of training is a barrier to using My Health Record
* 71% of GP Registrars who have used the My Health Record system say that the user interface is a barrier
* Only 21% of GP Registrars believe privacy is well protected in the My Health Record system
In fact Australia-wide only 6,510 general practice organisations to date have registered to use My Health Record and these would only represent a fraction of the 35,982 GPs practicing across the country in 2016-17.
UPDATE
Healthcare
IT News, 3
August 2018:
The Federal Government’s Health Care Homes is
forcing patients to have a My Health Record to receive chronic care management
through the program, raising ethical questions and concerns about
discrimination.
The government’s Health Care Homes trial provides
coordinated care for those with chronic and complex diseases through more than
200 GP practices and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services
nationally, and enrolment in the program requires patients to have a My
Health Record or be willing to get one.
But GP and former AMA president Dr Kerryn
Phelps claimed the demand for patients to sign up to the national health
database to access Health Care Homes support is unethical.
“I have massive ethical concerns about that,
particularly given the concerns around privacy and security of My Health
Record. It is discriminatory and it should be removed,” Phelps told Healthcare IT News Australia.
Under a two-year trial beginning in late 2017, up
to 65,000 people are eligible to become Health Care Homes patients as part of a
government-funded initiative to improve care for those with long-term
conditions including diabetes, arthritis, and heart and lung diseases.
Patients in the program receive coordinated care
from a team including their GP, specialists and allied health professionals and
according to the Department of Health: “All Health Care Homes’ patients need to
have a My Health Record. If you don’t have a My Health Record, your care
team will sign you up.”
Phelps said as such patients who don’t want a My
Health Record have been unable to access a health service they would otherwise
be entitled to.
“When you speak to doctors who are in involved in
the Heath Care Homes trial, their experience is that some patients are refusing
to sign up because they don’t want a My Health Record. So it is a
discriminatory requirement.”
It has also raised concerns about possible future
government efforts to compel Australians to have My Health Records.
“The general feedback I’m getting is that the
Health Care Homes trial is very disappointing to say the least but,
nonetheless, what this shows is that signing up to My Health Record could just
be made a prerequisite to sign up for other things like Centrelink payments or
workers compensation.”
Human rights lawyer and Digital Rights Watch board
member Lizzie O’Shea claims patients should have a right to choose whether they
are signed up to the government’s online medical record without it affecting
their healthcare.
“It is deeply concerning to see health services
force their patients to use what has clearly been shown to be a flawed and
invasive system. My Health Record has had sustained criticism from privacy
advocates, academics and health professionals, and questions still remain to be
answered on the privacy and security of how individual's data will be stored,
accessed and protected,” O’Shea said. [my yellow highlighting]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)