A salutary lesson for business concerning the dangers of participating in an interim prime minister’s frenetic electioneering…….

Virgin Australia learning the hard way that drinking the Kool-Aid offered by Scott Morrison on the federal election campaign trail is not a wise decision,,,,,,,,,

Sunday Telegraph, 4 November 2018, p.4:

Australia’s heroes — Defence Force veterans who have selflessly served the nation — will board aircraft first and be formally acknowledged before take-off in a bid to further entrench national respect.

The Digger dedication plan will take place on all Virgin Australia flights and will be announced today by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Taking Mr Morrison’s plan to provide veterans with a US-style military card that gives discounts on petrol, food and even weddings a step further, Virgin Australia will honour former servicemen and women with a priority boarding process, and alert passengers via a public announcement that heroes are on board.

Both announcements come as The Sunday Telegraph, News Corp Australia, Foxtel and HarperCollins launched a joint #thanksforserving campaign to encourage the community to honour those who served.

Mr Morrison said Virgin chief executive officer John Borghetti understood why Australians were so proud of ex-military personnel.

“We acknowledge the important contribution veterans have made to keeping our country safe and the role they play in our community,’’ Mr Borghetti said. “Once the veterans have their cards and lapel pins, they will simply need to present them during the boarding process.” It will be rolled out when the ­system of new cards — or digital ID — starts early next year.

Mr Morrison said the idea got a “thumbs up” from him.....

AAP Bulletin Wire, 5 November 2018:

The Australia Defence Association says veterans would prefer Virgin reinstate discount airfares for ex-service men and women to tokenistic public thanks.

A leading veterans' group says Virgin's plans to offer ex-service men and women priority boarding and in-flight thanks "smacks of tokenism".

The US-style idea has also been derided by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who described it as an "embarrassing" marketing ploy.

Neil James from the Australia Defence Association said practical action would be much more welcome than "tokenistic" public thanks.

"If you really wanted to thank veterans you'd reinstate the service discount abolished in the early 1980s," he told AAP.

"Some veterans would be embarrassed by this - in fact, many would be - and some of them with psychological conditions, you actually risk making their problem worse."

Mr James said the airline's idea was a symptom of a deeper problem.

"That is there are so few Australians now with any understanding of military service and war," he said.

Virgin Australia, Twitter, 5 November 2018:

We are very mindful of the response that our announcement about recognising people who have served in defence has had today. It was a gesture genuinely done to pay respects to those who have served our country. 1/3

Over the coming months, we will consult with community groups and our own team members who have served in defence to determine the best way forward. 2/3

If this process determines that public acknowledgement of their service through optional priority boarding or any announcement is not appropriate, then we will certainly be respectful of that. 3/3

When will the Federal Government realise there is a Climate Emergency?

The need for urgent and effective action on climate change is becoming a major issue in Australia .  More people are starting to realise that we are facing a climate emergency and that we are being caught short largely because of the incompetence of our Federal Government which continues to be captive to climate denialists and the coal lobby.

The message from the October 20 Wentworth byelection does not appear to have resonated with Prime Minister Morrison and others in his Government.  Morrison is equating the devastating swing against the Government with the electorate’s concern about the dumping of their popular member, Prime Minister Turnbull.  While that was certainly a factor, there were other concerns about the Government’s poor performance with a major one being its lack of effective climate action.

Despite all that Wentworth voters said about climate change (as well as the way they voted), there are Government members who claim Wentworth cannot be seen as comparable with other electorates. Wentworth is different! According to them, climate change is not a major issue elsewhere.  It will be interesting to see if this wishful thinking lasts until next year’s federal election campaign.

While Wentworth indicated the growing public concern about climate change, other recent developments in relation to climate have further shown how out of touch the Government is. 

Morrison started his Prime Ministership with the determination to assist drought-affected farmers.  But he brushed aside any linking of this latest severe drought with climate change.  However, the National Farmers Federation and an increasing number of farmers acknowledge the link and understand that simply throwing drought relief money at the problem is only a short-term solution.  Calls for discussion about land use in parts of the country are growing.   These include consideration of the viability of some forms of farming and whether farming will be sustainable in some areas as climate change impacts worsen. 

The latest data on Australia’s climate emissions for the twelve months to March 31 was released late on the Friday afternoon of the Grand Final weekend (September 28). The Government had been sitting on this data for months and quite obviously did not want it noticed – for good reason.  The report showed that emissions have continued rising as they have every quarter since the end of the carbon price in 2014. Emissions continue to increase simply because the Government does not have an effective policy to curb them.

Despite this bad result, the Prime Minister and Melissa Price, the Minister for the Environment, managed to put a positive spin on the figures.  Price claimed Australia would beat its 2020 target – an impossible achievement.   And Morrison, ignoring reality completely, claimed Australia was on track to achieve its 2030 Paris targets and would do so “in a canter”.  This is despite the analysis of experts who say we will fall drastically short unless there is an urgent change in government policy.

The recent dire announcement by the IPCC has shown just how urgent the climate issue is.  According to an analysis of the IPCC report published by the Climate Council “limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid and far-reaching transitions during the coming one to two decades – in energy, land, urban and industrial systems”.  (The aim at Paris was to keep global temperature rise well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and to attempt to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. A rise of 2°C would produce catastrophic effects.)

At war within itself, our Government just does not have either the interest in the issue or the will do what is essential - to act effectively across the board to reduce our emissions drastically. This is in spite of the Wentworth result and all the polls indicating that a growing number of people are concerned and want effective action. 

As well as concerned individuals, scientists, environmentalists and farmers, it is significant that many in the business community, who know they need to take measures to protect their businesses in a carbon-constrained world, also want effective action from the government.

Just what are the chances of the current Government coming to its senses and acting in the national interest?   At the moment that seems unlikely.  We may have to wait for a change in government - unless a grass roots campaign across the nation persuades Morrison that he has no chance of political survival unless he changes tack.

Hildegard

Northern Rivers

29th October 2018

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GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration. Longer posts will be considered on topical subjects.

Scott Morrison hits the campaign trail - complete with bus

On Saturday 3 November 2018 interim Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook (NSW) Scott Morrison announced he would be in Queensland this week.

On Sunday 4 November he announced the first of the election campaign promises for that state - $200 million towards Townsville water supply.

The bus accompanying Morrison in Queensland is allegedly being paid for out of LNP coffers. 

However it is principally a visual prop for Morrison as he rolls out his 'ocker' social media videos and announces his financial sweeteners because for most of the trip in will be empty except for its driver.

As consenting authority he has apparently signed off on the use of a Royal Australian Air Force VIP jet for most of his travel and that of his staff, so it will be Australian taxpayers paying the considerable airtravel costs as well as the hotel bills.

In 2013 the hourly operational cost of such a special purpose aircraft was in the vicinity of $50,000 plus fixed costs. How much will Defence be billing the public purse for four days of VIP air travel over Queensland to kickstart this LNP federal election campaign in 2018?

Side view of Morrison's bus complete with 'borrowed'* nickname as signature.

Note:
* There are a number of men (including businessmen and athletes) from the United States and beyond with the nickname "ScoMo" who have long established   Facebook accounts - one ScoMo going back as far as 2006.

Morrison's Taxpayer-Funded Electioneering Junket:

Day One

Morrison’s team film him standing on the sand at Broadbeach wearing a Rip Curl American-style ‘trucker’s hat’ made somewhere in Asia which was sent to him by an ‘admirer’, promising to wear more of the same in the coming week and talking up support for 'Australian' businesses like Rip Curl.

Also promising backpackers (with a billion dollars in their pockets) will have a great time working on farms bringing in crops, at the same time as introducing a workforce test so Australians are given the first chance to get that casual farm work - with no explanation about how he will manage to produce this rural nirvana except by extending backpacker and working holiday visas by three months and raising the age limit for these visas from thirty to thirty-five.

Morrison additionally pledged $112 million towards the tram extension between Broadbeach and Burleigh.

Day Two

Morrison turned up to a Maroochydore pie factory for a photo op (left), slipped in a quick doorstop, pressed the flest at thr CWA, then down to Caloundra to press the flesh again at the Sunshine Coast Turf Club where he was careful to be photographed with a Queensland beer in his hand. 

Before boarding his VIP jet to fly into Rockhampton ahead of the campaign bus.  

He could have stayed in Sydney to eat a pie, do a doorstop, have a beer at the races and fail to pick the Melbourne Cup winner without the taxpayer having to pick up such a hefty tab. 

Day Three

Still in Rockhampton, still in that silly cap and just a bit late in announcing $800 million for a local ring road project - the Queensland Labor Government announced the jointly-funded ring road in February 2018. 

Then onto Gladstone and then that VIP jet again heading to Townsville where he was scheduled to appear on a special edition of Paul Murray Live to answer voters’ questions in a forum broadcast on Sky News and WIN from 8pm AEST.

This is Morrison's third visit to Townsville in 2018 and his second as interim prime minister. Is he buying an investment property there?

Wonder how many dollars he'll have left in his election campaign Santa sack by the time the actual writs are issued?

Day Four

And the day is yet to unfold......

Yet another minister compromises the Morrison Coalition Government

On becoming Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, employing the Trump doctrine of appointing foxes to guard hen houses, retained Northern Territory Nationals Senator Nigel Scullion as Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

A politician with a long history of voting for the oppressive Intervention in the Northern Territory and the introduction of cashless welfare cards into Aboriginal communities, as well as unsuccessfully voting to weaken protections in the Racial Discrimination Act and voting against changing the date of Australia Day.

As far back as 2006 he voted for the the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill which was seen as making significant changes to the existing land rights legislation which has the potential to compromise the rights and interests of Indigenous people living inthe Northern Territory.

This is the result.....

The Guardian, 2 November 2018:

The Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, has used money earmarked for alleviating Indigenous disadvantage to fund a fishing industry lobby group he used to chair.

He approved a grant of $150,000 to the Northern Territory Seafood Council so it could argue how it would be negatively affected by land claims – claims he opposed during his time in the role.

Under the NT Land Rights Act, those who consider a land claim would have a negative impact on their business or personal interests can argue a “detriment” case about how their future access to income, land or water would suffer if the claim were approved.

A group of six land claims in the NT have been held up – some by almost 30 years – by unresolved detriment issues.

Scullion chaired the NTSC from 1994 to 2001, and gave statements or appeared in person to argue detriment in at least two of the claims.

As minister he approved grants of $150,000 to the NTSC, $170,000 to the NT Amateur Fishermen’s Association, and $165,000 to the NT Cattlemen’s Association for “legal fees, effectively … to put forward a case of detriment to the land commissioner”, as he told a Senate hearing last week.

The money was taken from the $4.9bn Indigenous advancement strategy, which is supposed to “improve the way the government does business with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, to ensure funding actually achieves outcomes” – according to the government’s website.

Parties who wish to lodge detriment claims are able to seek financial support from the Attorney General’s Department.......

This latest revelation follows close on the heels of this disastrous vote in the Senate.

NT News, 22 October 2018:

CALLS for Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion to resign have been graffitied on his Darwin office.

It comes after the Territory Senator voted for a widely-condemned One Nation motion last week declaring “It’s OK to be white”.

The motion, brought forward by Pauline Hanson, also claimed “anti-white” racism was on the rise in Australia.

The phrases have been used by far-right groups to stoke racial division.

Science never was the exclusive property of Western civilisations

News Corps goes to battle in the seemingly neverending culture wars, 2  November 2018

The Guardian, 2 November 2018:

I have recently been involved in working on a project that aims to provide teachers with some insights and elaborations on how to teach the mandated science outcomes in the Australian National Curriculum by using historic and contemporary examples from Indigenous people and communities.

The work combined various Indigenous and non-Indigenous scientists, science educators, curriculum experts, teachers, academics and editors. It looked at examples of traditional land management practices, understandings of chemical reactions and processes, astronomy, medicines and any number of fascinating topics of how Indigenous peoples have worked scientifically for millennia in Australia, and still do. It was a great project to be a part of.

I was quietly hoping this important project would fly under the radar of the ongoing culture wars that exist within Australia, but it seems that was wishful thinking.

It began with a piece on the Daily Telegraph website titled “Fire starting and spear throwing make national science curriculum”. Not quite unfortunately, it would be great if they were though.

I can see how it makes for a better headline though. “Fire starting and spear thrower are two examples of 95 different optional elaborations that teachers can use to help them meet the mandatory outcomes of the National Science Curriculum if they want to” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

"I can’t fathom the hubris required to think that after 60,000 years or so of being in Australia, Indigenous people wouldn’t have picked up a thing or two that the rest of the world could learn from."

If you want to understand the science of how a lever works, about stored energy and kinetic energy, or about mass, acceleration, inertia, and lots of other cool stuff that is mandatory in the curriculum, then a spear thrower is a great way to teach it.

And did you know that before the match was invented in 1826, most people around the world had to light fires the old fashion way? And by “old fashioned way”, I either mean by a fire saw, fire drill, fire plough, or by using flint. All of these examples can be found traditionally in Australia and you can use these methods to teach about combustion, friction, heat energy, kinetic energy, density, and any other number of cool sciencey things.

The article goes on with the standard emotive phrases we see in the culture wars: “racial politics”, “dumbing down”, “slammed by critics” – literally all just in the first sentence.

The front page of the Daily Telegraph carried the story on its front page on Friday with the headline “School Kooriculum: outrage over Indigenous school scheme”. Sure, “Kooriculum” is awesome and I am definitely stealing that in future, but there is no “scheme” and very little outrage.

There is Kevin Donnelly decrying this work as “political correctness” and claiming it is “dumbing down the school curriculum” even though, again, these resources are entirely optional, and have been created in response to requests from teachers.

Donnelly argues that “western scientific thought, based as it is on rationality, reason and empiricism, is not culturally determined”. He quotes Professor Igor Bray as saying that “science knows nothing about the nationality or ethnicity of its participants, and this is its great unifying strength”.

He talks about how Western science is “preeminent” in its value to the world, and can be traced back “through the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment to the early Roman and Greek scientists, mathematicians and philosophers”. So it seems that while science knows nothing of nationality or ethnicity, Kevin Donnelly does know that it traces back to the Greeks and Romans, and clearly thinks that what he calls “western science” is superior to all others.

Thousands of years before western science was even dreamed of, Indigenous Australians were developing a detailed and intricate understanding of, and relationship with, the world around them.

It allowed people to intimately understand the relationships of the moon and the tides, measure the equinoxes and solstices, develop a deep wealth of knowledge of plants, animals, seasons, the stars and countless other amazing feats of intellect and ingenuity that have long been denied in the ongoing narrative western civilisation has created about Indigenous peoples.

The ways in which this knowledge was interwoven with a holistic view of the world and the place of humans within it, the ways in which it was encoded and handed down through the ages is fascinating as well. Instead, Indigenous people have long been framed as primitive, backwards, deviant, having nothing of value to offer apart from free land and free labour, in constant need of saving, and deserving of countless punitive measures.

Western science can indeed trace much of its origins back to Greek and Roman societies and in exploring its rich history over the centuries, it’s not a bad idea to look at all the unscientific beliefs that were once science fact.

Read the full article by Luke Pearson here.

Fight, fight!

First shots fired in another legacy war? #InsidersExtra #Insiders @barriecassidy #auspol pic.twitter.com/juKW5uqCVE

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) November 1, 2018

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull will be appearing as the only guest on the ABC program at 8pm on Thursday, 8 November 2018.

The portfolio trainwrecks Barnaby Joyce caused when he was in the ministry continue

It became obvious even before he lost leadership of the National Party of Australia, stood down as deputy prime minster and went to the government backbenches, that Barnaby Joyce oversaw a corrupt administration of national water resources.

Later it was revealed how he had blocked reform of the live animal export trade.

Now we find his porkbarrelling of the electorate he still holds has led to this.......

ABC News, 31 October 2018:

Australia's pesticides assessor is three months late delivering its report that reconsiders a chemical banned in other countries and linked to brain damage in children.

The report is the culmination of a 22-year process reviewing the health impacts of chlorpyrifos, a popular insecticide used in fruit and vegetable farming.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) had planned to deliver the report as part of its reconsideration process in September 2017.

However it revised its work plan and amended the deadline to August 2018.

The organisation is now saying the report will be released in early 2019.

An APVMA spokesperson blamed the delay on "the complexity of interpreting scientific information, particularly the epidemiological data", that is, the extent of health impacts caused by the chemical.

Within the organisation, just 15 per cent of chemical reconsiderations were finalised on schedule during 2017-18. The stated goal is 100 per cent.

APVMA has suffered staffing losses due to the 2016 decision by former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce to move the organisation from Canberra to Armidale, inside Mr Joyce's electorate.

The organisation declined to address whether this had contributed to the delay.