ATO grants two month deferral for bushfire victims in New South Wales and Queensland

Australian Taxation Office, media release, 18 November 2019:

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) today announced that it will grant a two month lodgment and payment deferral to taxpayers impacted by the recent catastrophic bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Andrew Watson said that people affected by the fires should focus on getting their other affairs in order and not worry about their tax obligations at this time.

“We have applied automatic lodgment and payment deferrals to postcodes impacted by the fires, meaning if you’ve been impacted by the fires you don’t need to contact the ATO or your tax professional – we’ve already done it for you,” Mr Watson said.

The quarterly Business Activity Statement (BAS) that would normally have been due on 11 November or 28 November for businesses using a tax professional will now be due on 28 January 2020.

Monthly BAS lodgers also have an extra two months to lodge and pay, with the ATO automatically extending the due date until 21 January 2020 for the form which would normally have been due on 21 November.

Aside from businesses, individuals in impacted areas who have lodged their 2018–19 income tax returns and have received a bill that would normally be due on 21 November 2019 now have until 21 January 2020 to pay.

Mr Watson added that if taxpayers are concerned about their tax obligations, they should feel free to contact the ATO on 1800 806 218 to discuss how the office can support them.

“You can also discuss your options with your registered tax professional, if you have one”.

The ATO will continue to monitor the ongoing situation and make further decisions to include additional areas and/or provide further deferrals as needed.

Automatic deferrals have been put in place for the following 16 local government areas impacted by the bushfires:

New South Wales

• Bellingen
• Clarence Valley
• Coffs Harbour
• Glen Innes
• Severn
• Kempsey
• Inverell
• Mid Coast
• Nambucca
• Port Macquarie-Hastings
• Richmond Valley
• Tenterfield
• Uralla
• Walcha

Queensland

• Noosa
• Livingstone

Employers are reminded that they still need to meet their ongoing super guarantee obligations for their employees.

Automatic deferrals do not apply to large pay as you go withholders.

The ATO is also reminding business owners at this time that it is critical to keep their Australian business number (ABN) information up to date, as it is:

• used by Emergency Services and other government agencies during times of natural disaster
• used by the Government to identify where financial disaster relief is needed to help businesses recover in disaster affected areas, and
• likely to be checked if they are applying for a grant or loan for their business.

Business owners can access, change or cancel their ABN details online at abr.gov.au.All changes made to their ABN online will take effect immediately.

The ATO has more information about help and support options on its website:

ato.gov.au/NaturalDisasters

Nimbin CWA receives gift of fridges and freezers to assist with feeding local & out of town firefighting crews

NSW state MP for Lismore Janelle Saffin, Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese and Woolworths gave practical support to the firefighting effort in the Nimbin region last week....

The bushfire burning in Nightcap National Park area, east of Nimbin, is now more than 6,200 hectares in size.

According to NSW Rural Fire Service on 19 November 2019 this fire which has been burning for over nine days is still "expected to burn for several weeks or until there is significant rainfall. During this time, the fire may burn close to properties".

More than 6,000km of fire edge to deal with in Northern New South Wales as of 19 November 2019

This is the MASSIVE task facing firefighters and the community across northern NSW. Some of these fires are expected to join in coming days. All up, there's more than 6000km of fire edge to deal with - the equivalent of flying from Sydney to Perth... and back again. #nswrfs pic.twitter.com/I6XhpwtTAZ

— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) November 19, 2019

CLIMATE CHANGE: what can the NSW North Coast expect from 2020 onwards?

The NSW Baird Coalition Government's Dept. of Planning Industry and Environment published Climate Projections For NSW in November 2014.

It remains on the departmental website as current data.

Below are some of the mapping and observations within these Adapt NSW documents as they pertain to the NSW North Coast.

Given that: 

a) Australia has already warmed by just over 1°C since 1910 with most of that warming occurring in the last 60 years; 
b) in recent decades there has been the most sustained large-scale change in rainfall in the southern half of the continent since records began in 1900 and stream flows have been decreasing since the 1970s; 
c) the number of high value Forest Fire Danger Index days have been increasing in recent decades; and
d) the number of bushfire days the North Coast has experienced since the August 2019 start of the fire season has resulted in well over 1 million hectares of forest and farmland being burned out;

add to this the fact that significant land loss in places like the Lower Clarence Valley is likely to begin at only a 0.5m rise above mean sea level and, possibly the Adapt NSW regionally specific projections need to be reworked to include Bureau of Meteorology/CSIRO data from 2014 onwards. 

Perhaps then some uncomfortable questions can be resolved.

Is it possible that climate change is beginning to speed up across eastern Australia? 

Is 2019 likely to be an anomaly which has no effect on the published climate change projections or is it the new norm and some of the 2020-2039 mapping is now just digital junk?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

NSW North Coast 2020-2039 Change In Annual Average Number of Days With Temperatures 
Greater Than 35 Degrees Celsius 

By 2030 maximum temperatures are projected to rise by 0.7 ºC and continue to rise by 1.9 ºC by 2070.....By 2030 the North Coast is projected to experience an average of 3 more days above 35 ºC per year and continue to rise to 9 days per year by 2070.......Summer will see the greatest changes in maximum temperatures, increasing by 2.1°C in the far future.

NSW North Coast 2020-2039 Change In Average Rainfall

SPRING

SUMMER

In 2020-2039 rainfall is projected to decrease in winter [-6.1%] and to increase in autumn [+8.5%] and spring [+3.3%]. A raifall decrease of -2.8% is also predicted for summer rainfall.

NSW North Coast 2020-2039 Change In Forest Fire Danger Index 

 SPRING

 SUMMER

The North Coast is expected to experience an increase in severe and average FFDI values in the near future and the far future.  The increases are projected in summer and spring. Although these changes in severe fire weather are relatively small in magnitude (up to one additional day every two years) they are projected to occur in prescribed burning periods (spring) and the peak fire risk season (summer).  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Clarence Valley kids raise $7,000 in a day for the 'firies' and Angourie village residents raised $15,950 to give to their local bushfire brigade

The Daily Examiner, 16 November 2019, p.6:

For some of the 3000 students at 15 local public schools, the best way they could help local Rural Fire Service units was to mix up their socks. 

Or even paint their hair pink. While it’s not your usual method, the students banded together yesterday in a little bit of crazy dress to raise more than $7000. 

Students were encouraged to dress up, and give a gold coin donation to go towards local units who have been busy defending our communities from recent bushfires. 

Grafton High School SRC organisers Carmen Dundon and Natasha Clausen said they wanted to do something to give the crews some respite. 

“Quite often the RFS has to go back out after fighting fires and fundraise just to support themselves, so we thought we’d help them out,” Ms Clausen said. 

Initially organised between Grafton High and Grafton Public, word soon spread of the idea, and 15 schools participated with more than 3000 students taking part. 

“It grew way more than what we thought it would,” Ms Dundon said. “But everyone knows someone who has been affected, and it’s great to see the community come together.” 

Grafton High School principal Peter South said that it was an amazing effort from the students. 

“You can see the kids very much care and feel for other kids and understand how important the RFS is in keeping people safe,” he said.

“There was no hesitation, all the schools just jumped to be part of it.” 

Mr South said many local schools had already been feeding and clothing children affected by the fires, with school communities at Baryulgil and Nymboida in classrooms at Grafton Public while their schools were closed.

“Everyone has been doing their bit to chip in,” he said.

The Daily Examiner, 16 November 2019, p.7:

Angourie residents have raised almost $16,000 for the Wooloweyah bushfire brigade to say thank you for recent efforts. 

Rapturous applause was given to the Wooloweyah Fire Brigade and NSW Rural Fires Services at Angourie as the community rallied to raise $15,950 in response to their tireless efforts during the Shark Creek bushfire. 

The recent bushfire came perilously close to the village of Angourie and Angourie Residents and Ratepayers Association Inc president Grant Jennings thanked the fireys on behalf of everyone in the seaside town.

Expressing the sentiment of the community, one resident said they were grateful to the Wooloweyah RFS and other locals who “did such a gallant job protecting our houses in Angourie”. 

Mark Evans, from Wooloweyah Fire Brigade, said the money would go towards essential firefighting equipment.

The Daily Examiner, 16 November 2019, p.7: 

The biggest cheer to come from the Nymboida residents’ meeting came after local RFS captain Paul Johnston addressed the gathering. 

But Mr Johnston said the whole community deserved the praise. “It was the way everyone worked together that got us through this,” he said. 

“People like the ‘scratch brigade’ who worked so hard over the weekend, after the fire went through, going around making things safe, took so much pressure off us.” 

Mr Johnston said half a dozen or more residents had attached tanks and pumps to the back of utes and trucks and ridden around the village, dousing pockets of fire. 

“They were our unofficial support brigade and allowed us to concentrate on the fire front,” he said. 

He said the size and speed of the fire as it hit Nymboida made it impossible to halt. 

“We could not have stopped that fire with 100 trucks,” he told the meeting. 

He was not sure how many units were working on Friday night, but he estimated at least 20.....

Readers, you too can show your appreciation of the NSW Rural Fire Service by donating directly to your local fire brigade or by going to: 

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/volunteer/support-your-local-brigade

You can also make a bank deposit to NSW RFS:

Account Name: NSW Rural Fire Service
Bank: Westpac BSB: 032-001 Account No: 171051

Queenslanders wishing to support their own rural fire services can donate at:

 https://www.rfbaq.org/donate-to-rfbaq

With 6 people burnt to death to date during the current NSW 2019 fire season, one reputable Australian journalist pointed the finger squarely at who and what is to blame

TheGuardian, 16 November 2019:

The history of climate policy in Australia is a history of self-interest, posturing and shameful inaction. Photograph: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

In a dispiriting political week like the one we’ve just had, it helps to keep things simple. Let’s begin with the organising idea of the week, where various politicians asserted, both in measured ways and unhinged ways, that it was inappropriate to talk about climate change while bushfires ravaged the country.

Let’s be clear about what this line of argument is.

It’s self-serving crap.

It is entirely possible to have a sensible discussion about climate change and the risks it poses, including the risks of longer and more intense fire seasons, and still do all the things that need to be done to protect lives and property.

We have that bandwidth. In fact Australia demonstrated amply over the course of the past few days our collective capacity to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Despite all the finger waggling from politicians, or perhaps because of it, the climate conversation happened in tandem with heroic efforts by emergency services workers to save lives and contain the damage. In fact, the most compelling part of the conversation about bushfires being a symptom of climate change was led by emergency service workers: a coalition of former fire chiefs, who point blank refused various invitations from politicians to shut up.

Given there is no law that says bushfires preclude sensible, evidence-based policy conversations, it’s reasonable to ask why this particular prohibition was asserted.

The answer to that is simple. The Coalition does not want its record raked over at a time when Australians are deeply anxious, because it’s hard to control the narrative in those conditions. The government does not want people who are not particularly engaged in politics, and who make a point of not following Canberra’s periodically rancid policy debates (and climate is the most toxic of the lot), switching on to this issue at a time where they have a personal stake in the conversation.

While Scott Morrison has acknowledged there is a link between climate change and natural disasters, and in attitudinal terms that acknowledgement is a positive development, it’s not really in the prime minister’s interests for anyone to press very assertively on that pressure point, particularly not at a time when the prolonged drought (another symptom of climate change) is already making the Coalition’s supporters restive.

Morrison doesn’t invite the climate action interrogation, because the government’s record is abysmal, and I don’t invoke that word lightly. The Liberal and National parties have done everything within their collective power to frustrate climate action in Australia for more than a decade. The Coalition repealed the carbon price. They attempted to gut the renewable energy target. They imposed fig-leaf policies costing taxpayers billions that have failed to stop emissions rising every quarter.

Lest this wrecking, self-interested, destructive behaviour seem a quirk of history – a quaint vestige of the Abbott era curtailed by the sensible man in the Lodge – be reminded that the Liberals blasted Malcolm Turnbull out of the prime ministership only last August in part for the thought crime of trying to impose a policy mechanism that would have reduced emissions in the electricity sector.

Reflections on a catastrophic week of bushfires

Not content with that, the Coalition, Morrison and his ministers, also claimed during the May election that an emissions reduction target broadly consistent with climate science would be a wrecking ball in the Australian economy. Not content with that, Morrison and his ministers characterised a sensible policy by Labor to try and encourage the electrification of the car fleet to reduce emissions in transport as a “war on the weekend”.

What Australian voters needed after the election in May was a government of whatever stripe prepared to put the country on an orderly path towards decarbonisation.

But what the Coalition needed was different. It wanted to remain in power, and one of the principle means to power it deemed necessary proved to be convincing voters in the outer suburbs and regions that Bill Shorten was crazy and shifty about climate change and would confiscate your ute.

To put this point very starkly, there was a climate election in May, and the climate lost.

I hope it’s clear by now, as a consequence of this heart-warming romp through recent political history, that the arbitrary prohibition of the week – we can’t talk about climate because the country is burning – is about politics, and about self-interest, and not about anything else.

And rather than applying false balance and blaming everyone and declaring the whole business of politics and democracy a debacle, let’s also acknowledge that everyone has certainly stuffed up at one point or another, but one political movement more than any other bears the responsibility for Australia’s failure to get on with the necessary transition to low emissions.

That’s the Liberal and National parties.

Read the full article here.

The dead to date in the 2019 NSW bushfire season

77 year-old man & 68 year-old woman burnt inside their home on Deadman Creek Road in Coongbar, Upper Clarence Valley in October

53 year-old woman burnt in her home at Johns River, north of Taree in November

elderly man found in a burnt out car at Wytaliba, east of Glen Innes in November

68 year-old woman burnt on her property at Wytaliba in November

58 year-old man burnt at the southern end of the Kyuna Track at Willawarrin, 34km west of Kempsey in November

One of the many calls from northern NSW for urgent national climate change action, that the Morrison Government appears determined to ignore

A cry from the heart......

The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November 2019:

On Friday I lost my beautiful home. I am thankful we are all alive and safe and for the few possessions we were able to salvage. Many others in the small community of Nymboida, near Grafton, where I have grown up, were not even that lucky. They have lost pretty much everything.

I feel numb. It all feels so unreal but the fire was unstoppable. I know the firefighters did everything they could to protect our house and other homes and to them I am extremely grateful.

The fires that joined up and devastated our community were not normal bushfires. For weeks and weeks fires had been burning and community efforts had been unable to get them under control.

Fires burnt for weeks in the regions around Grafton. AAP

But the nightmare really began with the sky changing colour. The blue changed to an orange glow as the fire advanced over the hill. We watched from our veranda as it got progressively darker. It felt like an apocalypse and by 4.30pm it was dark as night. We evacuated from our home on Friday afternoon, following our carefully prepared bushfire action evacuation plan.

I haven’t returned home yet (I still call it home even though it’s gone). The fires are still burning and there is still a huge threat hanging over many places. I and many of my friends don’t want to return home yet; we’re not ready to see the results of the devastation. For many of us, this is where we have lived our entire lives; the only homes we have ever known, filled with memories, have been ravaged by a firestorm that has left only the ghosts of our past.

From what I know more than 45 houses have been lost in Nymboida, it could easily be more. I’ve heard from those who witnessed it that walls of flames 40 or more metres high ravaged the landscape. Catastrophic. 

We are devastated, but we are a strong community, we’ll support each other and get through this together. So many people have been so supportive, kind and helpful; it is incredible, we are so thankful. 

Australia is on fire. The federal government must take urgent action on climate change. Scientists and firefighters have been warning about the consequences of doing nothing for so long. Surely now, with multiple fires burning throughout NSW and Queensland, Scott Morrison must realise that doing nothing is not an option any longer. 

I’m heartbroken at what’s happened but I’m also angry. I’m angry that the government is not adequately addressing the climate crisis. We thank you for your thoughts and prayers Prime Minister, but we need action. 

I am thinking at this moment of everyone in other communities affected by these fires. Please, stay safe. 

Shiann Broderick is an 18-year-old year 12 student.

Australian cardiologist Arnagretta Hunter: “On the coast of NSW this week we know there are more respiratory illnesses, heart attacks and strokes as a consequence of the terrible air pollution from the fires"

The Guardian, 14 November 2019:

Bushfire smoke blankets the morning sky in Glen Innes, NSW, on 11 November. Respiratory illnesses are rising as a result of air pollution from this week’s fires, cardiologist Arnagretta Hunter says following the release of the latest Countdown report on climate change and health worldwide. Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

The federal government’s lack of engagement on health and climate change has left Australians at significant risk of illness through heat, fire and extreme weather events, and urgent national action is required to prevent harm and deaths, a global scientific collaboration has found.

On Thursday, international medical journal the Lancet published its Countdown report, a multi-institutional project led by University College in London that examines progress on climate change and health throughout the world.

Its first two assessments were published in 2017 and 2018, with annual assessments continuing until 2030, consistent with the near-term timeline of the Paris climate agreement. Findings relating to Australia were tracked and published by the Medical Journal of Australia.

Australia was assessed across 31 indicators divided into five broad sections: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation, planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; finance and economics; and public and political engagement.

The report found that while there had been some progress at state and local government levels, “there continues to be no engagement on health and climate change in the Australian federal parliament, and Australia performs poorly across many of the indicators in comparison to other developed countries; for example, it is one of the world’s largest net exporters of coal and its electricity generation from low-carbon sources is low”.

“As a direct result of this failure, we conclude that Australia remains at significant risk of declines in health due to climate change, and that substantial and sustained national action is urgently required in order to prevent this … This work is urgent.”“We also find significantly increasing exposure of Australians to heatwaves and, in most states and territories, continuing elevated suicide rates at higher temperatures,” wrote the authors, led by Associate Professor Paul Beggs of Macquarie University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Spokeswoman for Doctors for the Environment Australia, Dr Arnagretta Hunter, agreed Australia was poorly prepared for the health challenge of climate change.

“Doctors around Australia are already seeing multiple health effects from climate change,” Hunter, a cardiologist, said.

“On the coast of NSW this week we know there are more respiratory illnesses, heart attacks and strokes as a consequence of the terrible air pollution from the fires. Doctors see the mental health effects of drought in rural communities. Patterns of infectious diseases are changing.

“Average summer temperatures in Australia have risen by 1.66C in the past 20 years, with the intensity of heatwaves rising by a third. And with the increasing temperatures over summer we know there has been increased hospital admissions with ill health. Mortality rates are also affected.”

In 2014, Melbourne experienced temperatures over 41C from 14 to 17 January, as well as 167 excess deaths and a new record set for the highest number of calls for ambulance services ever received in a day, she said. Hunter described Australia as the developed country with the most serious vulnerability to climate change through heat, fire, water shortages and extreme weather events.

“Doctors for the Environment Australia joins the loud chorus across Australia calling for the federal government to acknowledge the risk and act in proportion to the magnitude of the threat,” she said. [my yellow highlighting]

Read the full article here.

The 2019 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, 13 November 2019, can be found here.
  

Quote of the Week

"We mustn’t bring politics into the disastrous situation that was created by ... wait for it ... POLITICS"

First Dog on the Moon writing & drawing in  The Guardian, 13 November 2019

Tweets of the Week

This is the road into my village after the ferocious #LongGullyRoadFire swept through. Listen with the sound on. The sound you hear is of a normally vibrant forest after a wildfire. The almost total silence & lack of wildlife is both haunting & terrifying. #NSWbushfires #nswfire pic.twitter.com/4SclB4CK8j

— Not a Canberra Bubbler 🌲🌏🌲 (@MSMWatchdog2013) November 11, 2019

Repeat after us: "Thoughts and Prayers."@alex_c_lee @VZerbst @Jennaown pic.twitter.com/NVCX80jZRz

— The Feed SBS (@TheFeedSBS) November 11, 2019

How the world sees Australia's response to climate change

It seems it isn't just our Pacific island neighbours or other members of the United Nations which view Australia as a nation governed by backward environmental vandals intent on destroying their own country.....

https://youtu.be/m6DO3zbD83U


Channel 4 News is made for Channel 4 by Independent Television Network Ltd. Channel 4 is a publicly-owned and commercially-funded UK public service broadcaster.

It is reported that Channel 4 has a monthly audience reach of est. 79% of all UK television viewers.

This is the gist of a 13 minute news segment aired in Britain on 12 November 2019 and, which had over 17 million views on YouTube:

Despite briefly boasting more than 50% renewable power generation on its national grid this year, Australia is struggling to move on from an energy, labour and political market built on a 1950s coal-based model. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) Even as eastern Australia is consumed by flames after years of drought, the New South Wales parliament is today trying to push through a law to stop proposed coal mines from having to examine the carbon impact of the coal they’re exporting. And they’re exporting a lot. Australia's coal export market is the most lucrative on the planet, valued at £36 billion. Three people have been killed, over 150 homes destroyed, Sydney faces ‘catastrophic’ conditions, and at least 45 of the 65 fires burning through the region are out of control. Yet when Australian Green MPs suggest the industry is on the wrong side of history, they get called 'raving loonies’ by the Deputy Prime Minister. Australia is now among the very worst G20 keepers of promises made in the Paris Climate Accord. It plans seven giant new opencast pits for Queensland, even as the bush to the east is incinerated by drought caused by climate change, caused by carbon emission caused - in part - by coal.

UPDATE

The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 2019:

Sweden's central bank has sold off bonds from parts of Australia and the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta because it felt that greenhouse gas emissions in both countries were too high.

Riksbank Deputy Governor Martin Floden said on Wednesday the bank would no longer invest in assets from issuers with a large climate footprint, even if the yields were high.

This political comment says it all.......

David Rowe