Morrison Government still refusing to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions

The Guardian, 31 March 2019:

Cuts to carbon emissions from vehicle efficiency standards have been left out of government projections for meeting Australia’s Paris climate commitments, indicating the policy has been shelved.

The office of the transport minister, Michael McCormack, said the government had not made a decision on “how or when” standards to cut carbon pollution from vehicles might be implemented.

After almost five years of submissions a spokesman said the government “is not going to rush into a regulatory solution” with regards to vehicle emissions.

New data shows Australia’s emissions from transport are soaring and projected to be 82% higher in 2030 than they were in 1990.

Australia lags behind the rest of the world in setting vehicle efficiency standards, with most countries in the OECD adopting policies to reduce emissions and improve the efficiency of cars.

The ministerial forum on vehicle emissions was set up under the Turnbull government in 2015, and stakeholders are frustrated at the lack of progress.

Fact sheets produced by the government that set out how it intends to reach Australia’s emissions reduction targets under the Paris agreement suggest any policy on vehicle emissions standards has been abandoned.

In 2015, the government produced a graph indicating it expected to achieve cuts of about 100m tonnes between 2020 and 2030 through vehicle emissions standards.

The government’s latest climate package contains no mention of this, and projects only about 10m tonnes of abatement through an electric vehicle strategy, with no reference to vehicle emissions standards....

Did Morrison & Co send your chance of getting a decent pay rise up in smoke?

“Brace yourselves Australia — everyday things are about to cost more, and your chance of a pay rise has gone up in smoke” [News Corp Journalist David Ross writing in news,com,au, 8 March 2019]

Well it had to happen. After five and a half years of an Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Coalition Government the nation has reached what is known as a per capita recession.

This hasn’t occurred since the Howard Government’s last full year in power.

Almost sixty per cent of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product comes from consumer spending and five and a half years of deliberate wage suppression by both the federal government and the business sector means the majority of consumers have little to spend.

The economy has been markedly slowing under Scott Morrison’s economic policies, first as federal treasurer then as prime minister.

Annual growth has now fallen to just 2.3 per cent according to the Reserve Bank.

This slowing has a cascade effect.

All economists news.com.au spoke to suggested the per-capita recession would hamper wage growth and — combined with increasing costs of living — make things more expensive.

“It’s a feeling of lethargy in the economy rather than outright collapse, It makes it very hard for wages to pick up when the economy is depressed,” Mr Koukalas said.

Sad statistics are generated by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's war on the poor & vulnerable

Liberal MP for Cook Scott John Morrison has been a Cabinet Minister since 18.9.2013, was Minister for Social Services from 23.12.2014 to 21.9.2015, then Treasurer from 21.9.2015 to 26.8.2018 and now Prime Minister of Australia since 24.8.2018 – these are the sad statistics he leaves in his wake.

The Australian, 21 February 2019:

As Department of Human Services secretary Renee Leon faced heated questioning about the controversial “robodebt” program — which averages reported income and generates debts to current and former welfare recipients — she said it is not known whether people have taken their own lives due to the program.

“There is not an elevated death rate among the cohort who have received a debt notice. It’s not to say we are not troubled that people die,” Ms Leon said…

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said the numbers are particularly troubling because 663 people out of the 2030 had “vulnerability indicators” attached.

Of the 2,030 people who died after receiving a Centrelink Online Compliance Intervention letter (‘robodebt’ ) which was generated sometime between July 2016 to October 2018:

102 were aged 16-25 years;

327 were aged 26-35 years;

347 were aged 36-45 years;

466 were aged 46-55 years;

536 were aged 56-65 years;

251 were aged 66-80 years; and

1 was aged 81-100 years.

By gender 637 of these welfare recipients were Female and 1,393 Male.

“If death rates remained similar throughout the period July 2016 - October 2018 ... approximately 6% of all deaths of 16-35 year olds in Australia occurred for people who were subject to Centrelink #robodebt compliance.” [Dr Ben Eltham on Twitter, 22 February 2019]

BACKGROUND

Gilbert Sullivan QC weiting in the Herald Sun, 21 February 2019:

The Model Litigant Policy of the Commonwealth is a direction issued by the Attorney-General under the Judiciary Act.

The claims reported to have been made by Centrelink are said to target 1.5 million people and aim to claw back $4.6 billion in what are alleged to be overpayments of welfare.

The claims date back to 2010 and Centrelink demands the repayment of what it alleges to be overpayments caused by the understatement of income; but it knows very well that it is unable to prove these claims.

Centrelink has destroyed its records and is entirely dependent on information obtained from the Australian Taxation Office. It divides the gross annual income obtained in this way by 26 to calculate what it terms an “apportioned actual income”.

It then proceeds to claim the difference between the fortnightly income declared by the payee and the apportioned actual income as an understatement by the recipient which it then claims as a debt.

It is only by sighting pay-slips or bank statements that the accuracy of the declared fortnightly income can be verified. Centrelink’s claims rest on it proving that the fortnightly income was falsely declared.

It can only succeed if it can prove this on the balance of probabilities. The ATO information on its own is worthless and needs a point of comparison in the form of contemporaneous records. Annual income does not translate into fortnightly income.

The absurdity of this methodology is obvious.

A full-time student in 2010 on a youth allowance may well have had a part-time job to support their studies. Some weeks they may have earned, say $150, other weeks nothing.

They may have entered the work force full-time in the last two months of the financial year and earned say, $8000.

Dividing the yearly income by 26 cannot establish a dishonest understatement for the weeks the student earned $150 or nothing. Without the contemporary records, no understatement can be proved.

This methodology is in breach of model litigant obligations in a number of respects.

First, the mathematical basis underpinning it is invalid and known to be so by Centrelink; and the maintenance of a claim known to be invalid is a fundamental breach of the obligation to act as a model litigant.

Second, to imagine that casual employees retain pay slips from 2010 is ludicrous; many of the employers from that time no longer exist and it is inconceivable that anyone can produce pay-slips.

Further, while some bank records are obtainable, they are archived and expensive to obtain. Placing the onus on a recipient to procure bank statements is yet a further breach of model litigant obligations.

There is no reason why Centrelink could not obtain these records by subpoena or otherwise. Furthermore, the actions of Centrelink reverse the onus of proof which, of itself, is a breach of model litigant obligations.

MammaMia, 21 February 2019:

“It was demeaning, embarrassing, and if it wasn’t for my son… I considered suicide.”

“It was dehumanising. I had only lost my husband months before… I was grieving.”

These two sentences represent how two women, from two different walks of life, in separate states felt – when they received a Centrelink debt notice.

Or more exactly what happened when they tried to deal with the fallout of a Centrelink debt notice……

The Centrelink letters are sent out through an automated system. In the old system, it equated to about 20,000 a year, but thanks to a new system in 2016 – it’s generating 20,000 letters a week.

Gabriella* received one of those letters just last year.

She received it when she was trying to come to terms with the death of her husband who had died in a boating accident a few months before.

She was left with two young children trying to work out how to move on with life.

She had never received anything from Centrelink, she hadn’t needed to. But Centrelink had sent her $13,000 in weekly increments, and they wanted their money back.

“The stress… I was already dealing with enough… I knew I didn’t owe them money,” she told Mamamia.

Turns out Centrelink had been sending her money that she hadn’t applied for – which had been bouncing back for months.

“I made a phone call first, they realised they’d made a mistake. But she [the person on the phone] couldn’t fix it.”

She was given a different number.

“I spent hours on the telephone waiting for them to answer [to help]. It’s impossible to get through,” explained Gabriella.

So instead, she was forced to take a day off work and go into the Centrelink office itself.

“She looked at me like I was lying,” Gabriella told Mamamia, of the moment she explained her story – yet again.

Gabriella is most frustrated at the time and effort she had to put in to fix this wrong. A wrong that was made by an automated letter, and which cost her a days’ wage, and almost cost her $13,000.

“I am grieving, but I am pretty stable… my head is pretty OK. But there are people who get these letters and they are not OK,” said a teary Gabriella.

“I am actually in the mental health industry, so I am probably more equipped than a lot at noticing triggers in myself. But what if I wasn’t?

“My situation never should have happened, if there had been a human being looking at my account they would have realised it was bouncing back.”

“It was dismay. It was a shock to the system. It is scaremongering, they don’t explain anything, and it’s very… dehumanising,” she said of her experience..........

The lies Liberals tell on the subject of aged care

The Australian, 7 February 2019:

Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt was handed a departmental briefing report showing the “winners and losers” from the Coalition’s $2 billion savings drive in the aged-care sector shortly after Scott Morrison announced a royal commission and denied funding cuts.

Documents obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws show the proportion of “losers” almost tripled to 53 per cent following the budget savings revealed in late 2015.

In the three-year period to 2018, aged-care services that had been classified as “winners” almost halved to 47 per cent, according to the brief sent to Mr Wyatt.

A series of “hot issue briefs, question time briefs and general briefs” sent to Mr Wyatt last year acknowledged the budget hit to the Aged Care Funding Instrument — which is the basic taxpayer care subsidy paid to all nursing homes — together with “increasing cost pressures will be putting pressure on the sector”.

Mr Wyatt was also made aware of reports of “cut backs to staffing”. At a press conference announcing the royal commission into aged care in September, the Prime Minister was questioned about two cuts to the ACFI in the 2015 mid-year economic update and the 2016 budget but denied any had been made.

“No, no, the Labor Party said that. I don’t accept that,” he said. Two days later, a question time brief prepared for Mr Wyatt offered advice on what to say if asked about funding cuts to ACFI.

The ministerial brief also contains a breakdown of funding changes by domain, revealing that average annual taxpayer subsidies per resident increased by just $400 between 2016-17 and 2017-18 despite the growing frailty and complexity of Australians as they enter residential aged care older than ever before.

For the first time, funding for the two areas that provide extra boosts for nursing home residents with significant behavioural problems and complex healthcare requirements went backwards by $300 a person.

The peak body for aged-care providers, ahead of the April 2 budget, has urged the Coalition to include an additional payment of almost $700 million each year.

“This estimate reflects a range of factors, including the value of foregone indexation (through ACFI),” Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) says in its pre-budget submission, seen by The Australian. “This is approximately a 5.2 per cent increase in residential care funding in 2019-20, noting that this is difficult to calculate as forward estimates for residential and home care are no longer separately reported.” LASA said it considered the money to be a “down payment” and a notably larger funding boost might be needed following the findings of the royal ­commission.” The commission, which is due to release its interim report in Oct­ober and the final version by the end of April 2020, has already highlighted the widespread industry practice of “doping” nursing home residents, which doctors, nurses and consumer groups attribute to overworked staff. [my yellow highlighting]

Less than 15 weeks out from a federal election and the Morrison Government continues to pile on the debt

According to the Australian Office of Financial Management as of 1 February 2019 the Australian Government’s gross public debt stood at est. $540.82 billion – up from $277.34 billion on 30 September 2013.

So in the space of 5 years and 4 months the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government increased the nation’s gross public debt by est. $263.48 billion. 

That represents a rough average of over $4 billion borrowed from domestic and foreign sources for each month the Liberal-Nationals Coalition has been in office.

On Monday 4 February 2019 the Morrison Government will borrow another $400 million (not to be repaid till 2028) and on Wednesday 6 February another $900 million (not to be repaid till 2030) - $1.3 billion over three days.

Heaven only knows how much more debt Morrison & Co will pile on before the May 2019 federal election.

According to Stephen Koukoulas voters can add that additional $1.3 billion to this 28-year debt repayment schedule for just 29 per cent of the total public debt Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison racked up to date:

$19.0 billion - Nov 2029

$12.0 billion - May 2030

$13.9 billion - Apr 2033

$6.95 billion - Jun 2035

$12.0 billion - Apr 2037

$8.0 billion - Jun 2039

$3.6 billion - May 2041

$13.0 billion - Mar 2047

How old will you, your children or grandchildren be before this debt is paid off?

Another thing for NSW voters to remember as they cast their ballot in the 2019 state and federal elections

The Shenhua Group appear to have first approached the NSW O'Farrell Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government in 2011-2012 concerning its plans to mine for coal on the Liverpool Plains, a significant NSW foodbowl. 

This particular state government was the subject of not one but two investigations by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) - Operations Spicer (2014) and Credo (2014). 

After he was found to have misled the independent commission Premier O'Farrell resigned as Premier in April 2014 and as Liberal MP for Ku-ring-gai in March 2015. Similarly the then NSW Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for the Central Coast, Special Minister of State and Liberal MP for Terrigal Chris Hartcher resigned as government minister in December 2013 after he was named in ICAC hearings and left the parliament in March 2015.

On 28 January 2015 the NSW Minister for Planning and Liberal MP for Goulburn Pru Goward granted development consent for a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Shenhua Group, Shenhua Watermark Coal Pty Ltd, to create and operate an open cut mine on the Liverpool Plains. 

On 4 July 2015 then Australian Minister for the Environment and Liberal MP for Flinders Greg Hunt ticked off on the Abbott Government's environmental approval for Shenhua Watermark Coal to proceed with its mining operation.

Glaringly obvious environmental risks associated with large-scale mining in the region and vocal local community opposition had led to a downsizing of the potential mine site, for which the  NSW Berejiklian Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government paid the Shenhua Group $262 million in compensation.

ABC News, 31 July 2015, projected new mine boundaries

However, in July 2018 the Berejiklian Government renewed Shenhua’s mining exploration licence.

Given that on the successive watches of the O'Farrell, Baird and Berejiklian governments instances of mismanagement and/or corrupt conduct in relation to water sustainability, mining leases and the environment have been reported one would think that an abundance of caution would be exercised.

Instead we now learn that that Shenhua Watermark Coal has been allowed to vary development consent conditions for the open cut mine on the edge of the flood plain and, it is looking increasingly like pro coal, former mining industry lawyer, current Australian Minister for the Environment and Liberal MP for Durack, Melissa Price, will wave through these variations on behalf of the Morrison Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government. 

Thereby placing even more pressure on the already stressed surface and underground water resources of the state.

The Liverpool Plains are said to be a significant groundwater source in the New South Wales section of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Lock The Gate Alliance, 8 January 2019:

The NSW Government has allowed mining company Shenhua to alter its development approval for the controversial Watermark open cut coal mine in the Liverpool Plains, near Gunnedah, which will enable work on site to begin without key management plans being approved.

Despite the NSW deal, Shenhua is still not able to commence work under the Federal environmental approval until two important management plans, including the crucial Water Management Plan, have been approved by the Federal Government.

Now local farmers are afraid that the Federal Environment Minister, Melissa Price, may be about to follow the NSW Government lead and vary the approval to allow Shenhua to start pre-construction for their mine without the management plans that were promised.

Liverpool Plains farmer John Hamparsum said, “We’re disgusted that the NSW Government has capitulated to Shenhua yet again, and amended the development consent to let them start pre-construction work without the crucial Water Management Plan in place.

"They have repeatedly stated that the best science would apply to this mine before any work was done, and now they’ve thrown that out the window.

"We’re calling on the Federal Environment Minister, Melissa Price, and New England MP, Barnaby Joyce to now step up and promise that not a sod will be turned on this mine until the full Water Management Plan has been developed and reviewed by independent scientists.

"This mine represents a massive threat to our water resources and our capacity to feed Australia, and if the National Party has any respect for agriculture they need to act now and deliver on their promise that the best science will be applied.

"We won’t accept creeping development of this mine and weakening of the conditions that were put in place to protect our precious groundwater," he said.

Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Georgina Woods said, "It’s been four years since the NSW and Federal Governments approved Shenhua’s Watermark coal mine on the Liverpool Plains and there are still no management plans in place.

"Instead of upholding the conditions of Shenhua’s approval, the NSW Government has watered them down so that Shenhua can start work without these crucial plans in place.

"The community has a long memory and will not accept Governments changing the rules to the benefit of foreign-owned mining giants over local farmers," she said.

The former Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, made a strong commitment that a Water Management Plan for the project would not be approved unless the Independent Expert Scientific Committee was satisfied with it.

The amended NSW approval can be accessed here.

A legal perspective on the issues surrounding water management by Dr Emma Carmody, Senior Policy and Law Reform Solicitor, EDO NSW and Legal Advisor, Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, is included in the December 2018 issue of Law Society Journal,  Managing our scarce water resources: recent developments in the Murray-Darling Basin.