Are koalas on NSW North Coast now facing local extinction?

SBS News, 9 December 2019:

Paul the koala in the ICU recovering from burns at The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital on November 29, 2019. Source: Getty

NSW parliament's upper house will hold an urgent hearing on the extent of damage to the koala population from the recent bushfires, with 2,000 feared dead. 

An inquiry into koala populations and habitat in NSW is expected to hear evidence that more than 2,000 of the native Australian marsupial may have died on the state's north coast in recent bushfires. 

The state parliament's upper house inquiry will hold an urgent hearing on Monday to discuss the extent of damage to the koala population from bushfires. 

Thousands of hectares of koala habitat across northern NSW and southeast Queensland have been destroyed in the recent bushfires. 

Koalas are listed as vulnerable in Queensland, NSW and the ACT, largely a result of habitat clearing......

A dehydrated and injured Koala receives treatment at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital. Source Getty

North East Forest Alliance president and ecologist Dailan Pugh is expected to give evidence on Monday that more than 2,000 koalas may have died and up to one-third of koala habitat on the state's north coast may have been lost in the fires..... 

Port Macquarie Koala Hospital's clinical director Cheyne Flanagan and Indigenous fire practitioners are also due to give evidence, as well as representatives of the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment....

The Guardian, 9 December 2019:

Photograph: Supplied by Jimboomba Police

Mark Graham, an ecologist with the Nature Conservation Council, told the inquiry that koalas in most instances “really have no capacity to move fast enough to get away” from fast-moving crown fires that spread from treetop to treetop.

“The fires have burned so hot and so fast that there has been significant mortality of animals in the trees, but there is such a big area now that is still on fire and still burning that we will probably never find the bodies,” Graham said.

The crown fires which have torn through broad expanses of NSW north coast forest, a known biodiversity hotspot, were unprecedented.

“We’ve lost such a massive swath of known koala habitat that I think we can say without any doubt there will be ongoing declines in koala populations from this point forward,” Graham said.

Science for Wildlife executive director Dr Kellie Leigh told the hearing there was no resources or planning in place to save koala populations in the Blue Mountains from fires currently threatening the region.

“We’re getting a lot of lessons out of this and it’s just showing how unprepared we are,” Dr Leigh said on Monday.

“There’s no procedures or protocols in place ... even wildlife carers don’t have protocols for when they can go in after fire.”

The Blue Mountains fires have already hit two-thirds of the northern population the organisation has studied and one-third of the Kanangra-Boyd National Park population, Dr Leigh said......

Echo NetDaily, 9 December 2019:

Prior to the current bushfires koalas were at risk of major population decline through habitat loss and logging but with significant areas of their habitat being burnt out by bushfire many of the previously stable colonies are on the verge of collapse. Recognising the disastrous impact that the fires are having on koala populations a call is being put out to the NSW government to stop logging of koala habitat.

A number of groups appearing before today’s NSW Legislative Council inquiry into koala populations and habitat in New South Wales have requested the committee actively call on the NSW government to put in place a moratorium on logging koala habitat across public and private lands as an emergency response to the loss of thousands of koalas and their habitat due to wildfires....

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More news about one NSW Northern Rivers fireground; "people came in droves" to defend the rainforest

Nightcap National Park in August 2012. Image: Kris Excell, Flickr 

Watch ABC TV "7.30", Community Defenders help fight rainforest bushfires here (5 mins. 17 seconds).

When more than 40 bushfires raged across New South Wales last month, one community gave fire fighters some welcome support.

It happened in and around Mt. Nardi, Nightcap National Park and Nimbin in the Northern Rivers region.

The local volunteer Community Defenders worked "their guts out" according to a NSW Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS) crew leader. 

"And I'm so proud of them. Without the volunteers we would not have contained this fire."

Hearing that the World Heritage-listed Gondwana rainforest was under threat people from miles away "came in droves" to help the defenders protect that forest.

It is believed that at least one hundred people were working with the Rural Fire Service crews on duty during November.

ABC News, 9 December 2019. Image: Felix Schafer-Gardiner

While the Rural Fire Service volunteers fought the fire on the frontline, the Community Defenders did the work behind the scenes. 


In the past, the fire service would have tried to do both.

"The communities sought good and strategic advice from us and they worked with us", [NSWFRS] Captain Mantscheff said.

"Huge control lines were being consolidated and constructed.

"Their marvellous feats of endurance to drive them and construct six-lane highways that would make it very difficult for the fire to get across.

"It made our firefighting job so much safer.

"It bought time and no one lost a home there because of the work that was being done.

"Man oh man, they stepped up in such a way that we, all of us in uniform, were just completely blown away and continue to be because they're still out there now."

One NSWRFS volunteer tweeted about everyone working on that fireground in November; "It was an absolute honour and privilege to work alongside all those people".

Fire did eat into the national park, but it did not destroy it all.

In December fire ignited in the Mt Nardi area again and as of 10 December 2019 it was listed as being under control. The local community continues to help.

It's hard to decide if Australian PM Scott Morrison is tone deaf or coldly callous

via Richard Chirgwin, 8 December 2019

via Daily Mail (UK), 21 November 2019

Bushfires that are unstoppable and relentlessly merge into mega fires. In NSW alone over 2 million hectares burnt out to date and 724 homes lost (276 more fire damaged) along with more than a thousand out buildings now just ashes.  Six people confirmed dead as we enter the second week of the fourth month of major bushfire activity in the state and hazardous air quality has seen a spike in hospital presentations for respiratory problems.

Yet this is Scott Morrison's attitude as captured by The New York Times (online), 6 December 2019:

Australia Burns Again, and Now Its Biggest City Is Choking.....

In Australia, however — where the air in Sydney was ranked among the worst in the world last month — Prime Minister Scott Morrison has resisted.

“The response has been to double down on denialism,” said David Schlosberg, director of the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney.....

Instead of addressing the public’s concerns, Mr. Morrison has suggested that some forms of protest should be outlawed, while refusing to meet with retired firefighters who have warned for months that more resources are desperately needed to battle the blazes.

On Friday, Mr. Morrison merely acknowledged that the haze in Sydney “has been very distressing to people.” He recommended downloading an app that tracks the fires.

Asked about a new report questioning Australia’s stewardship of the Great Barrier Reef, which is being killed by climate change, he repeated a false assertion that Australia’s carbon emissions are declining (scientists have shown that they are still rising).

Some critics are starting to wonder how long the government’s position can last......

Grafton civil rights law firm has a win in the High Court of Australia which should stop NSW Police from unlawfully arresting people for the sole purpose of questioning them when there was no intention at the time of arrest to bring them before a magistrate

The Grafton civil rights law firm of Foott Law & Co. had a win in the High Court of Australia on 4 December 2019 in the matter of a 2013 wronfgul arrest. 

In this lengthy progession through the lower courts to the High Court solicitor Joe Fahey was assisted by Dominic Toomey SC, Dallas Morgan and Dean Woodbury.

The High Court dismissed the appeal in State of New South Wales v Robinson and ruled concerning the power of a police officer to arrest a person, without a warrant, under s 99 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW) ("the Act") when, at the time of the arrest, the officer had not formed the intention to charge the arrested person with an offence. A majority of the High Court held that s 99 of the Act does not confer a power to arrest a person in such circumstances.....

The High Court unanimously held that in New South Wales, at common law, an arrest can only be for the purpose of taking the arrested person before a magistrate (or other authorised officer) to be dealt with according to law to answer a charge for an offence ("the single criterion"). Nothing in the Act displaced that single criterion. An arrest under s 99 can only be for the purpose, as soon as is reasonably practicable, of taking the arrested person before a magistrate (or other authorised officer) to be dealt with according to law to answer a charge for an offence. A majority of the High Court held that it followed that the constable did not have the power to arrest Mr Robinson pursuant to s 99 when, at the time of the arrest, the constable had not formed the intention to charge him. The arrest was unlawful.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison creates his own personal 'Canberra Bubble'

It is looking more and more as though Scott Morrison is intent on surrounding himself with those that can be relied upon to think exactly as he does on any topic.

Encouraging a bubble of 'yes men' à la Trump, thereby discouraging alternative perspectives and eliminating dissent.

The Australian, 7 December 2019:

The Prime Minister has assembled a team to drain the swamp his way. Scott Morrison is building a new power bloc around his leadership, dismantling the old “Canberra club” with a network of friends, confidants, bureaucrats and trusted allies tasked with reshaping Australia’s political, cultural and policy direction….

While not publicly visible or involved in the day-to-day running of the Prime Minister’s office, Morrison’s two close friends outside of politics, David Gazard and Scott Briggs, are perhaps as influential as anyone.

Central to Morrison’s strategy has been the purge of the public service…..

Leading the reform agenda across the whole of government is the new Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet head Phil Gaetjens, Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo, Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, Infrastructure and Transport tsar Simon Atkinson, Social Services chief Kathryn Campbell, and David Fredericks, tapped to head the new Department of Industry, Energy, Science and Resources. The links to Morrison are as stark as some of the links these new mandarins have to each other.

Gaetjens was installed as Treasury secretary from his role as then-treasurer Morrison’s chief of staff, the same job he held in Peter Costello’s office. The two would speak regularly and became close. Gaetjens represented the first move in the changing of the guard when he was installed as DPMC head after Martin Parkinson was told his term would not be extended. As part of this week’s APS clean-out, Parkinson’s wife Heather was one of the five secretaries told their services were no longer required…..

The Australian, 6 December 2019:

Mr Morrison retains a tight-knit group of friends and advisers, led by businessman Scott Briggs and former Liberal staffer David Gazard. Yellow Brick Road chairman Mark Bouris, Macquarie Group managing director Shemara-Wikramanayake, former prime minister John Howard, political strategist Lynton Crosby, former business colleague Adrian Harrington, former NSW police commissioner Andrew Scipione, former Liberal MP Warwick Smith and developer Harry Triguboff are considered key sounding boards for Mr Morrison. His former flatmates Stuart Robert and Steve Irons, both MPs promoted by Mr Morrison, are also close to the Prime Minister….

A senior government source said “there is no Big Bang” but the “principles and direction have been set for people to get on board or get out”.

“Some agencies will resist, citing the need for special treatment, but they’ll more often than not find themselves in the same position as the goat which is tethered in the Tyrannosaurus Rex enclosure,” the source said.

Key department chiefs who have been promoted have direct links to Mr Morrison and with each other.

They include Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Phil Gaetjens, Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo, Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, Infrastructure and Transport tsar Simon Aktinson, Social Services head Kathryn Campbell, and David Fredericks, tapped to head the new Department of Industry, Energy, Science and Resources…..

The Weekend Australian can reveal that many of the new senior mandarins have close links with Mr Morrison and personal connections through previous roles in Treasury, Defence and politics.

Mr Pezzullo, Mr Atkinson, Mr Kennedy, Mr Fredericks and Productivity Commission chairman Michael Brennan have previous experience working together. Mr Morrison worked closely with Mr Pezzullo and Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell in setting up and operating Operation Sovereign Borders.

Ms Campbell — a senior Army Reserves officer who worked across multiple departments — also had contact with Mr Morrison in delivering the Coalition’s major welfare reforms.

The Power List also reveals the inner workings of Mr Morrison’s office, with Dr Kunkel and Mr Finkelstein leading a team of close advisers including Mr Shearer, head of communications Andrew Carswell, Liberal Party federal director Andrew Hirst, national security adviser Michelle Chan and executive officer Nico Louw.

Insiders said Dr Kunkel, who ran Mr Howard’s cabinet policy unit before shifting to the private sector, acted as the “gatekeeper” and “decision maker”, while Mr Finkelstein took charge of “networking, speaking to stakeholders and keeping in touch with backbenchers and ministers’ offices”.

Financial Review, 6 December 2019:

Shortly after the federal election, I had a conversation with a figure at the very centre of the government. As we raked over where the election had left the political conversation, I noted the Prime Minister’s repeated emphasis on getting on with delivering services to Australians in his public statements.

Did this suggest that a politician so driven by marketing memes had detected a weariness with the ideological wars of politics among disconnected voters, and recognised political self-interest in shaping both the government’s message, and its agenda, around the basics of government service delivery? Did this mean the government might abandon some of its ideological warfare against institutions?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” this person snorted. “If anything, this government is more ideologically driven than Abbott. They want to win the culture wars they see in education, in the public service, in all of our institutions, and they’ll come for the ABC too, of course. There will be a big cleanout at the top of the public service, but Morrison will wait for a while to do that. They believe the left has been winning the war for the last twenty years and are determined to turn the tables. Morrison will just be craftier about the way he goes about it.”

Is Morrison building such a large political fortress so that he can refuse to acknowledge climate change for his entire prime ministership, whilst at the same time merging church and state where ever and whenever possible?

Is he intent on becoming an autocratic president in practice rather than a democratic prime minister?

Does he intend to forcefully shape Australia into his own personal image of what New Jerusalem looks like?

What a backburn looked like in one section of a northern NSW mega fire

News.com.au, 8 December 2019:

2:26 pm December 8, 2019 

Photo perfectly captures firefighters' bravery 

Ally Foster 

A photo of three firefighters battling a blaze in NSW's north has earned praise from hundreds of social media users.

The picture shows National Parks and Wildlife Service fire fighters Matt McClelland, Ray Dayman and George Barrott-Brown working to backburn a fire in Washpool, near Grafton.

The men appear to be surrounded by flames as they face the blaze in front of them.

"Back burns are conducted as part of fire containment strategies, at the direction of the incident controller," the National Parks and Wildlife Service wrote on Facebook.

Picture: Kyle Gibson 

"While the photo gives the impression they are surrounded by fire, they are highly trained staff, working within safer burnt ground, with a clear path of retreat."

The incredible photo gained hundreds of comments, with many people thanking the men for their bravery.

"Just looks so overwhelming. You all do an amazing job, putting your own lives on the line to keep everyone else safe," one person said.

"You are all incredible and brave. Thanks for all your efforts," another wrote.

One added: "This photo taken by Kyle Gibson of a fire near Grafton NSW gets me choked up. The bravery of firefighters is unmeasurable."

165,000 “fake news” posts with 14.3 million interactions on 21 co-ordinated accounts that Facebook Inc. let slip by without close scrutiny

The Guardian, 6 December 2019:

The message from Israel arrived on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon for 36-year-old Beau Villereal.

At his family’s sprawling 42-acre property outside Live Oak in Florida’s rural north, Villereal sat alone in his bedroom trawling for news about Donald Trump to share on the rightwing Facebook  page he runs with his mother and father.

The messenger, who gave her name as Rochale, asked Villereal to make her an editor of Pissed off Deplorables, a self-described “pro-America page” that feeds its thousands of followers a steady diet of pro-Trump, anti-Islam content.

“I totally understand you,” she wrote. “I’m from Israel and this is ... really important to me to share the truth.

“Please give me a chance for a day.”

About 1,000 miles north in Staten Island, New York City, Ron Devito was tapping away on his laptop to the 20,000 followers of his pro-Trump Facebook page, Making America 1st, when he received a similar message, this time from someone using the name Tehila.

“She pitched to me that she was a good editor, she could provide some good content to increase likes and views on the page,” Devito told the Guardian. “Could I just give her a chance and let her post her stuff, right? So I figured, ‘What the heck, give it a shot’.”

Villereal and Devito weren’t the only ones. Over the past two years, a group of mysterious Israel-based accounts has delivered similar messages to the heads of at least 19 other far-right Facebook pages across the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, Austria, Israel and Nigeria.

A Guardian investigation  can reveal those messages were part of a covert plot to control some of Facebook’s largest far-right pages, including one linked to a rightwing terror group, and create a commercial enterprise that harvests Islamophobic hate for profit.

This group is now using its 21-page network to churn out more than 1,000 coordinated faked news posts per week to more than 1 million followers, funnelling audiences to a cluster of 10 ad-heavy websites and milking the traffic for profit.

The posts stoke deep hatred of Islam across the western world and influence politics in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US by amplifying far-right parties such as Australia’s One Nation and vilifying Muslim politicians such as the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the US congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

The network has also targeted leftwing politicians at critical points in national election campaigns. It posted false stories claiming the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said Jews were “the source of global terrorism” and accused the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, of allowing “Isis to invade Canada”.

The revelations show Facebook has failed to stop clandestine actors from using its platform to run coordinated disinformation and hate campaigns. The network has operated with relative impunity even since Mark Zuckerberg’s apology to the US Senate following the Cambridge Analytica and Russian interference scandals.

When the Guardian notified Facebook of its investigation, the company removed several pages and accounts “that appeared to be financially motivated”, a spokesperson said in a statement.

“These pages and accounts violated our policy against spam and fake accounts by posting clickbait content to drive people to off-platform sites,” the spokesperson said. “We don’t allow people to misrepresent themselves on Facebook and we’ve updated our inauthentic behaviour policy to further improve our ability to counter new tactics.”

But this comes too late for some of the network’s victims. Australia’s first female Muslim senator, Mehreen Faruqi, felt the full force of the network in August last year, when 10 of its pages launched coordinated posts inciting their 546,000 followers to attack her for speaking in parliament against racism….

It begins with a single post, curated by Israel-based administrators.

The post typically has an attention-grabbing headline and links to an article that mimics the style of a legitimate news story.

It employs a blend of distorted news and total fabrication to paint Muslims as sharia-imposing terrorists and child abusers, whose existence poses a threat to white culture and western civilisation.

It is then published almost simultaneously to the network’s 21 Facebook pages, which have a combined 1 million followers across the globe….

The Guardian conducted an analysis to confirm the extent of coordination across the network, checking where posts were identical in content and similar in publication time across different pages.

The network published 5,695 coordinated posts at its height in October 2019, receiving 846,424 likes, shares or comments in that month alone.

In total, the network has published at least 165,000 posts and attracted 14.3 million likes, shares or comments. The content is amplified further by other far-right Facebook pages, including those run by the rightwing UK Independence party (UKIP), who share it organically.

The posts link back to one of 10 near-identical websites masquerading as news sites with generic titles like “The Politics Online” and “Free Press Front”. Ad-heavy and poorly designed, the websites feature “stories” that usually combine slabs of copied text intermingled with unsourced opinion and graphic imagery.

Although Facebook Inc. asserts it removed several accounts it appears that only five account pages have been taken down and, even after the far-right network was outed by the newspaper a number of the “controlled” accounts are still displaying content.

The Guardian podcast with journalist who did the spadework is here.

Flashing hate symbols is not OK

Anti-Defamation League, media release, 26 September 2019:

The “OK” hand symbol – Begun as a hoax by members of the website 4chan, the OK symbol became a popular trolling tactic. By 2019, the symbol was being used in some circles as a sincere expression of white supremacy. Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant flashed the symbol during his March 2019 courtroom appearance soon after his arrest for allegedly murdering 50 people in mosques in Christchurch.

It's not just white terrorists or your garden variety right-wing racists who are flashing this hate sign - it looks suspiciously like public figures are also deciding it is fun to flash.

Here are two images and one video. A group photo which includes the Australian Prime Minister's wife on the far right (from a Liberal Party of Australia tweet), another of a Sky News broadcaster live on-air and, video of segment of Sky News program.

Twitter image

Snapshot taken from Twitter image

Image on Twitter 3 December 2019

Paul Murray choosing a side #AusPol #WhiteSupremacist pic.twitter.com/Lox6uxov0D

— Jean Hay, likely voted for the Greens (@hayjeans) December 3, 2019

Even the Australian Bureau of Meteorology rain radars are finding they are impacted by NSW bushfires

This tweet is from the Director of ABC News on 6 December 2019:

The ⁦@BOM_au⁩ satellite map over this significant part of NSW suggests desperately needed rain .. but unfortunately, all of the activity picked up here is bushfire smoke. Extraordinary. #NSWbushfires ⁦@abcnews⁩ ⁦@NSWRFS⁩ pic.twitter.com/zZry4r1mLk

— Gaven Morris (@gavmorris) December 6, 2019

How brand names are faring in Australia in 2019 - best and worst list

Every year the Brand Institute releases its National Reputation Health Report which is a quantitative study of Australia’s 100 most recognisable companies, devised to measure the reputation of leading brands and companies with a presence in Australia.

The 2019 report is based on a survey of 2,000 respondents who views on brand image, operations, products and services, social responsibility, innovation, communication, financial performance and customer values are sought.

These are the overall brand rankings for 2019:

100 reputations in order of level of community respect, 9News, 5 December 2019

Top 10 Most Respected Company Reputations in Australia 2019

1. Google - technology
2. Bunnings - retail
3. Samsung - technology
4. Apple - technology
5. Qantas - airlines
6. Woolworths - grocery/supermarket
7. Microsoft - technology
8. Toyota - automative
9. Office Works - retail
10. RSPCA - charity/non-profit

Top 10 Least Respected Company Reputations in Australia 2019

1. Centrelink - services (at -29 this brand also comes third last when assessed for social responsibility & at -26 is considered the poorest run corporation)
2. Adani - natural resources
3. Tiger Airways - airlines
4. Monsanto - other
5. Malaysia Airways - airlines
6. Exxon - natural resources
7. EA Games - retail
8. dodo - telecommunications
9. Zara - retail
10. NBN - telecommunications

It is worth noting that media giant News Corp was the 15th least respected brand name in Australia

According to 9News, 5 December 2019:

In the battle of the retail giants, Woolworths in 6th beat Coles in 11th spot while Kmart came in at 19th ahead of Aldi in 20th......

Bendigo Bank took out 55th place before the big four was lead by Westpac in 56th, CBA 61st, ANZ 70th and NAB 73rd.

IGA was the only bank to place in the top half of the list, coming in 44th position.

But it was Centrelink who came in dead last position after a damaging year of revelations about its disastrous debt recovery program, known as robodebt.

Because the Morrison Government is dominated by closet climate change deniers Australia will soon have no friends in the South Pacific

First Prime Minister Scott Morrison's intransigent climate change denying cost Australia the goodwill of the smaller South Pacific islands.

Now his refusal to turn, face the facts of climate change and take meaningful action is highly likely to increase the severity of climate change impacts on our near neighbour and oldest regional ally, New Zealand.

The Times, 7 December 2019:

New Zealand’s retreating southern glaciers are facing a new threat: clouds of orange soot from bushfires in Australia. Scientists said that the ash which fell on the pristine snow this week from 1,200 miles away across the Tasman Sea could absorb more heat and melt snow faster this summer, as one climate disaster accelerates another.

Andrew Mackintosh, an expert on glaciers and climate at Monash University in Melbourne, said: “If it stays on the surface then it will certainly enhance melt. If fire frequency, ash and dust transport increase, there is a chance that this will hasten the demise of New Zealand glaciers.”

New Zealand has 3,173 glaciers, ranging in age from est. 18,000 years to est. 1.2 million years.

Around 8 February 2019 bushfire smoke from Tasmanian bushfires mixed with dust storm particles from the Australian mainland reached the south island of New Zealand, turning the surface area of affected glaciers pink.

By 10 November smoke was covering the entire south island and potentially dropping brown ash on up to 3,155 glaciers, with those affected glaciers now pinkish red.

On 11 November 2019 smoke from Australian bushfires potentially reached 18 glaciers in New Zealand's north island.

As the 2019 Australian east coast fire season is not expected to end before March if we are fortunate and June if we are not, in all probability New Zealand will experience more ash falls from across the Tasman Sea. 

Its citizens will be perfectly within their rights to shun Australia for its government's gross negligence.

Clarence Valley CWA branches doing their bit for firefighterd & bushfire victims

Grafton & South Grafton CWA branches are cooking for the firegrounds.

Clarence Valley Independent, 4 December 2019

The Maclean branch of the CWA has been busy sewing mittens and pouches for wildlife injured in the bushfires, using pure cotton and woollen materials donated by Clarence Valley residents.

Food Care at Good Intent Shopping Centre on Armidale Rd, South Grafton, which sells low cost food to those that need it, is also offering free of charge brand new clothing to fire victims. The store is open Wednesday, Thursday & Friday from 9am to 1pm.