So you think you're hard done by because Abbott & Co told you so?

The top 20 per cent of people have five times more income than the bottom 20 per cent, and hold 71 times more wealth. Perhaps the gap between those with the most and those with the least is most starkly highlighted by the fact that the richest seven individuals in Australia hold more wealth than 1.73 million households in the bottom 20 per cent. [The Australia Institute, Income and wealth inequality in Australia, Policy Brief No. 64, July 2014]

This year sees tax rates and tax reform debated in the media once more, with Prime Minister Abbott reiterating that his is a government that believes in lowering taxes and Treasurer Hockey repeating that Australian workers pay almost half their earnings to government as tax.

So do Australians spend the first six months of the year working for the government with tax rates nearly 50 cents in the dollar as Joe Hockey asserts?

If the Australian Taxation Office Individual income tax rates for Australian residents is correct this would only come close to happening if your personal taxable income is many millions of dollars per year.

At half a million in taxable income annually, tax payable by an individual worker without family (including the Medicare and Temporary Budget Repair levies) would only reach an est. 42.05% and, in fact would be less than that once any Australian Tax Office (ATO) refund is deducted.

For many workers their personal income tax might look something like this.

Estimated individual tax payable in 2014-15

Income of $18,200 – pay no income tax as this amount is the upper limit of the tax free threshold applicable to all individual taxpayers before taxable income can be calculated

Taxable income of $37,000 – pay $3,610 income tax (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $80,000 – pay $17,332 income tax (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $180,000 – pay $54,547 income tax^ (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $250,000* – pay $86,047 income tax^# (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $500,000* – pay $198,547 income tax^#  (before any ATO tax refund)

* taxable income in highest individual tax rate after the first $180,000 of taxable income

^ does not include the 2% Medicare Levy surcharge applicable at this level of taxable income

# individual taxpayers with a taxable income of more than $180,000 per year will have additional tax withheld by their employer (2% Temporary Budget Repair Levy) from 1 July 2014 to 1 July 2017

+ the majority of all tax refunds range between $1 and $1,999, the second largest refund band is between $2,000 and $3,999, with the highest refund band being $10,000 dollars or more

NB. All figures based on Australian Tax Office Individual income tax rates for Australian residents 2014-15 and Taxation Statistics 2011-12 (refunds)

Right-wing attacks on the ABC continue. This time Gerard Henderson's tilt at Media Watch & Professor Chapman backfires spectacularly

Weighed under by budget cuts and loss of an international platform the Australian Broadcasting Commission, everybody's Aunty, must wonder when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's flying monkeys will cease their attacks on its integrity.

Fortunately some of those who become collateral damage in the war on public broadcasting bite back publicly, as did Simon Fenton Chapman AO BA(Hons) (UNSW), PhD (USyd), FASSA, HonFFPH (UK).

Professor Chapman in Crikey on 23 February 2015:

Over the weekend and this morning, The Australian's Gerard Henderson and Simon King spent a lot of ink explaining to readers that I have "as much authority to discuss health affairs as I [Henderson] do. Namely, Zip."

Their readers needed to be told this because last week Media Watch tipped a very rancorous bucket over The Australian's reportage of a "study" from Victoria by acoustic engineer Steven Cooper that involved just three households of altogether six long-time complainants about the local wind farm. There was no control group. Here and here are critiques of the many manifest inadequacies of his report.

I was one of four people quoted by Media Watch in the program, and this got our Gerard very excited. He wrote to the program:

"Media Watch's decision to associate Professor Chapman with the words 'expert' and 'scientific' gave a clear impression that he is qualified to assess scientific research. However, Paul Barry neglected to advise Media Watch viewers that Simon Chapman had no scientific or engineering or medical qualifications. He has a BA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales and a Ph.D. from Sydney University. Dr Chapman's Ph.D. is in Sociology. In other words, Simon Chapman has no qualifications to assess the research of the acoustic engineer Steven Cooper … Media Watch misled its viewers last Monday by implying that Professor Simon Chapman is an 'expert' who is 'scientifically' qualified to assess the heath effect on humans of wind farms. The fact is that Simon Chapman has no formal qualifications in science or medicine or engineering."

This morning Simon King went one better with his discovery that ""He does not have a PhD in Medicine". In fact, I do have a PhD in medicine. Here's a list of 14 of us who graduated in 1986 with … wait for it … a "PhD in medicine", as King could have read if he'd checked my CV (line 1, page 3) or asked me.

I did my PhD in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (that M word again). The duffers on the Order of Australia committee also seem to know that I contribute to health and medical research. My citation reads "for distinguished service to medical research as an academic and author".

King and Henderson appear to know nothing about the nature of contemporary expertise and how nearly all complex problems in health and medicine today involve researchers from different disciplines working together. In my school in the faculty of medicine there are staff who are biostatisticians, historians, psychologists, ethicists, economists, epidemiologists, and social scientists. Only some — probably a minority — have undergraduate degrees in medicine. Henderson's primitive understanding of expertise begins and ends with the possession of an undergraduate degree…..

Steven Cooper, whose CV has no mention of any PhD or undergraduate degree in medicine, until recently referred to himself as "Dr Cooper" on his home page. I look forward to The Australian covering this…..

Read the rest of the article here.

Santos' Gladstone LNG expansion proposal involves significant scientific uncertainties according to Federal Government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee

The industrialisation of rural and regional landscapes continue with Santos planning more than 6,000 water hungry gas wells operating for an estimated 30 years across 10,676 square kilometres in Queensland.

The Abbott Government has been in possession of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee’s final report on the Gas Fields Development Project since December 2014, sometime after which it was made publicly available on the Committee’s website.

ABC News 19 February 2015:

Top experts are warning of significant scientific uncertainties arising from a massive coal seam gas expansion proposal in Queensland.

The ABC has obtained a report from the Federal Government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee, which flags a concerning lack of information in project documents and says more work needs to be done on Santos's Gladstone LNG expansion proposal.

The proposed expansion covers 10,676 square kilometres and has the potential to include more than 6,000 gas wells across central Queensland.

"The scale, the early stage and the geographic extent of the proposed project development, together with other significant coal seam gas projects in the region, creates considerable scientific uncertainty about impacts on surface water and groundwater and associated ecosystems," the IESC report said.

According to the report, the potential impacts include:

* Reduced water supply to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems, including Great Artesian Basin discharge and watercourse springs and endangered ecological communities.

* Changes to groundwater and surface water quality due to direct project activities and management of co-produced water.

* Cumulative impacts of Surat and Bowen basin activities (particularly coal seam gas and coal mining) on groundwater pressures and lag-time effects on water.

The IESC also warned the hydroecological information (including ecological water requirements of systems) was "inadequate" for understanding potential local ecological impacts.

"Methods applied are appropriate to understand regional impacts, particularly cumulative water drawdown," the Committee said.

"However, the methods used are not sufficient for understanding local-scale impacts, particularly to ecological assets.

"Recognising the considerable information provided in the project assessment documentation, the IESC is concerned that relevant data and information from investigations and monitoring from the [Gladstone LNG] Project and Joint Industry Programmes have not been incorporated in the project assessment documentation for [this latest] development."

There is also the matter of weather during cyclone season......

This is the Santos facility at Curtis Island, Gladstone QLD:

Then there is the matter of weather conditions during cyclone season.....

On 19 February 2015 7News reported:

Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) spokesman Patrick Quirk said ships would be moved away from Gladstone Harbour this morning as a precaution. "We have about 11 ships in the port and 23 ships at anchor and they'll be asked to clear the area," he said. "We have some LNG tankers also in the area and they'll go to sea to weather the storm."

The Financial Review on 20 February 2015:

Ports in Mackay and Gladstone had been shut down in preparation for the cyclone. Gas company Santos said all of its staff on its GLNG liquefied natural gas project had been moved off Curtis Island, near Gladstone, with workers moved into cyclone-proof accommodation. Bechtel, which has built the three gas processing plants on Curtis Island, said the projects would remain closed until the weather improved.

The truth about Tony Abbott's war on terror? Part Two

Alan Moir political cartoon

From time to time snippets of truth concerning Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s expensive war on terror appear in the media. 

This is another example.......

News.com.au 21 February 2015:

TONY Abbott suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq, with 3500 Australian ground troops to confront the Islamic State terrorist group.

Flanked by his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, in a meeting in Canberra on November 25, the Prime Minister said the move would help halt the surge of Islamic State in northern Iraq.

After receiving no resistance from Ms Credlin or his other staff in the room, Mr Abbott then raised the idea with Australia’s leading military planners. The military officials were stunned, telling Mr Abbott that sending 3500 Australian soldiers without any US or NATO cover would be disastrous for the Australians.

They argued that even the US was not prepared to put ground troops into Iraq and it would make Australia the only Western country with troops on the ground…..

The Iraq idea was not the first time Mr Abbott had suggested a military intervention by Australia’s armed forces. The Australian reported in August that in the week following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine by Russian-backed militia, Mr Abbott suggested sending 1000 Australian soldiers to secure the site of the crash….

Australia’s leading military planners also argued against that proposal, telling Mr Abbott there were serious problems with the plan: Australian soldiers would not be able to speak either Ukrainian or Russian, and the Australian troops would have difficulty distinguishing between Ukrainians and Russian militia.

The truth about Tony Abbott's war on terror? Part One

Note: Mr. Abbott has since denied  that he had raised the idea of Australia unilaterally intervening in Iraq. This denial appears to hinge on whether he had made a 'formal' request for advice on this matter - presumably as opposed to any informal discussion. However, since Mr. Abbott is a self-admitted purveyor of untruths it will be up to the reader to decide if he denial is believeable.