Political Cartoon of the Week

David Rowe, cartoonist

Just because it is beautiful........(16)

Listen to the nocturnal solo song of a Pied Butcherbird (with another Pied Butcherbird and an Australian Magpie in the background), recorded by Hollis Taylor near Trephina Gorge in Western Australia in August 2016. [http://www.audubon.org/]

Click on link to listen: http://www.audubon.org/sites/default/files/eathan_-_trephinagorgehollistaylor2016b-2.mp3

One Nation Leader Senator Pauline Hanson appears to be labouring under a new and rather strange delusion

One Nation Leader Senator Pauline Hanson appears to be labouring under a new and rather strange delusion – that Julian Assange is being held captive as a political prisoner in the Embassy of Ecuador in London and has been convicted of a serious criminal offence in the United States of America in absentia.

Rather oddly she fails to mention the fact that in 2012 he breached English bail conditions and this is the reason he cannot leave the embassy as he will inevitably be re-arrested due to an outstanding extradition request in relation to a Swedish investigation into rape allegations.

To date Assange has not been formally charged with any offence in Sweden or America, therefore their are no grounds for the out-going U.S. president to offer him the "presidential pardon" suggested by Hanson or the president-elect to consider doing so once he assumes office.

The current legal impasse may be getting closer to a resolution without Senator Hanson’s intervention, as Sweden’s public prosecutor’s office has confirmed that it will finally question Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London sometime this week.

Productivity Commission criticized over focus of superannuation inquiry

MEDIA RELEASE

7/11/2016

Super inquiry should look to the best, not second rate, systems

The Productivity Commission should focus on the world’s best retirement income systems rather than consider inferior models in its review into default superannuation settings, warns Industry Super Australia.

The retirement income systems of Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia are currently ranked first, second and third respectively in Mercer's 2016 Global Pension Index. Yet, Chile (ranked 8) and New Zealand (no

ranking) are being held up as exemplars in the Productivity Commission’s review process.

In its submission to the review, released today, Industry Super highlights key features of the successful Danish and Dutch systems that are already evident in Australia’s high-performing industry, corporate and

public sector default funds. (See table below.)

Specifically, they are:

• Trusted providers run on a not-for-profit basis only for the benefit of members;

• Industry or multi-industry funds generally affiliated with or approved by industrial parties;

• Wholesale rather than retail in structure to leverage scale and minimise costs.

Industry Super Australia chief executive, David Whiteley, said the focus on New Zealand’s and Chile’s pension systems had set the Productivity Commission review off on the wrong foot.

“The touchstone of a world class pension system comes down to the culture and values of the providers,” said Mr Whiteley.

“The best systems– just like Australia’s best performing funds – involve employers and employee representatives working together to deliver income security for retirees. They are not about generating profits for banks and financial institutions,” he said.

“The approach to superannuation in Denmark and the Netherlands - along with the part of Australia’s system built and maintained by unions and employers - is internationally lauded.

“The key difference is that these systems and institutions put member interests above those of others, including shareholders”.

“Super is different to banking and industry super funds are deliberately different to bank super funds,” he said.

The track record of for-profit entities in superannuation systems is poor, and, in Australia, regularly dogged by scandals. In the past week it was revealed the major banks’ wealth management arms will have to pay up

to $170 million in compensation to customers who were charged for services they never received. A separate analysis conducted by Rainmaker for ISA found that retail and bank-owned super funds have gouged up to $1.8 billion in fees by delaying the transfer of accounts to cheaper MySuper products.

“Official APRA data shows the for-profit retail sector has underperformed industry super funds and other not-for-profit funds by almost 2 per cent a year on average over the last decade. The retail model has

comprehensively failed to deliver fair outcomes for members,” said Mr Whiteley.

“What separates Australia from the best systems is that we allow for-profit funds to participate, despite clear and serious conflicts of interest and an unwillingness to act on them”.

Industry Super Australia supports the role of the Fair Work Commission in determining workplace default funds.

The Productivity Commission has been tasked with developing alternative models for a formal competitive process for allocating default fund members to products. Its draft report is due in March

2017.

For further information, including a copy of the submission, contact Phil Davey 0414 867 188

Industry Super Australia provides research and advocacy on behalf of 15 not-for-profit industry funds who, in

turn, are the custodians of the retirement savings of five million Australians.

The opinions above are those of the author in their capacity as spokesperson for Industry Super Australia (ISA). ISA, the authors and all other persons involved in the preparation of this information are thereby not giving legal, financial or professional advice for individual persons or organisations. Consider your own objectives, financial situation and needs before making a decision about superannuation because they are not taken into account in this information. You should consider the Product Disclosure Statement available from individual funds before making an investment decision. Industry Super Australia Pty Ltd ABN 72 158 563 270, Corporate Authorised Representative No. 426006 of Industry Fund Services Ltd ABN 54 007 016 195 AFSL 232514

The Bentley Effect showing at Yamba Cinema, 6.30pm Saturday 19 November 2016

After drilling fifty wells under the radar, in 2010 the CSG industry arrived unannounced, to drill an exploratory well in the peaceful Keerrong Valley in the Northern Rivers. A group of concerned neighbours investigated and alarm bells rang out across the region as the community’s immune system was triggered- the sleeping dragon was awoken.

A trickle of environmentalists and local farmers soon grew to a torrent of concerned citizens from all walks of life - business people, activists, grandmothers, teachers, musicians, nurses, local indigenous mob – and through this unlikely alliance, a wide-scale social movement was born.

Following a series of increasingly dramatic blockades, Metgasco, an unconventional gas exploration company, threw down the gauntlet. They announced their plans to commence drilling a “conventional gas” well on a farmland property in Bentley, a peaceful stretch of country, just 12 minutes’ drive from the township of Lismore.

The community’s response has now become the stuff of legends. From out of this cow paddock rose a highly organised, self-governing tent city – complete with meeting halls, kitchens, cafes, toilets, nurseries and strict codes of non-violent conduct. But with an undertaking of this scale, and in such an energy-charged environment, conflict and drama was inevitable, and there were many challenges as strong personalities clashed, cultures collided and emotional strains were pulled to breaking point.

Labelled by the government as ‘radical extremists’, these people, however, were not your usual suspects. Here at Bentley stood an army of mainly once conservative, every-day Australians uniting with their entire community to fend off the mining threat and protect their land, air and water. They felt they had no choice.

The bravest locked themselves onto cement fixtures blocking the way into the site. Each morning they gathered before dawn at ‘Gate A’ to rally together, set themselves to the tasks of the day and sing the songs that would become their protest anthems. High-profile musicians gave regular pop-up concerts to the delight of the campers, “Simmos” and day-trippers alike. Metgasco and their political supporters rallied too and a growing police force waited in Lismore for orders to break up the blockade. A daily sms message was sent out with the latest intelligence and the community showed up in droves, time and time again, to face the music. The stage was set and over 850 riot police with horses were on standby in Sydney, with orders to remove the protectors.

Told through the eyes of the protectors over a four-year period and intercut with fresh insight from some of the world’s leading social commentators, this now famous standoff at Bentley forces us to ask the question- what is truly valuable? [https://www.facebook.com/thebentleyeffectmovie]

THE BENTLEY EFFECT - one screening only

Q&A after movie

DATE: Saturday 19 November 2016

TIME: 6.30pm

TICKET COST: $20 & $10 for children under 12 years - on sale now

VENUE: Yamba Cinema

13 Coldstream St,

Yamba NSW 2464

PH: (02) 6646 3430

In U.S. President-Elect Donald J. Trump's own words......

The New York Times, 9 November 2016

On  8 November 2016 Donald J. Trump became president-elect of the United States of America by being first past the post in achieving over the required 270 Electoral College votes – achieving 279 to Clinton’s 228 votes.

In the popular vote by registered American voters Clinton gained 207,039 more votes than Trump.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/266038556504494082

Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States on 20 January 2017, a fixed date required by law.

Was Barack Hussein Obama the last president of the United States of America?

Have the American people swapped a democratically elected president for a democratically elected fascist despot?

I may not be the only person wondering…..

The New Yorker, 9 November 2016:

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY  
David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker since 1998

The electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world.

ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER MUNDAY

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.

There are, inevitably, miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court; an emboldened right-wing Congress; a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been repeatedly demonstrated. Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties of Other whom he has so deeply insulted. The African-American Other. The Hispanic Other. The female Other. The Jewish and Muslim Other. The most hopeful way to look at this grievous event—and it’s a stretch—is that this election and the years to follow will be a test of the strength, or the fragility, of American institutions. It will be a test of our seriousness and resolve.

Early on Election Day, the polls held out cause for concern, but they provided sufficiently promising news for Democrats in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and even Florida that there was every reason to think about celebrating the fulfillment of Seneca Falls, the election of the first woman to the White House. Potential victories in states like Georgia disappeared, little more than a week ago, with the F.B.I. director’s heedless and damaging letter to Congress about reopening his investigation and the reappearance of damaging buzzwords like “e-mails,” “Anthony Weiner,” and “fifteen-year-old girl.” But the odds were still with Hillary Clinton.

All along, Trump seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow to the spirit; it is an event that will likely cast the country into a period of economic, political, and social uncertainty that we cannot yet imagine. That the electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness, his disdain for democratic norms, is a fact that will lead, inevitably, to all manner of national decline and suffering.

In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and “essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”

Trump ran his campaign sensing the feeling of dispossession and anxiety among millions of voters—white voters, in the main. And many of those voters—not all, but many—followed Trump because they saw that this slick performer, once a relative cipher when it came to politics, a marginal self-promoting buffoon in the jokescape of eighties and nineties New York, was more than willing to assume their resentments, their fury, their sense of a new world that conspired against their interests. That he was a billionaire of low repute did not dissuade them any more than pro-Brexit voters in Britain were dissuaded by the cynicism of Boris Johnson and so many others. The Democratic electorate might have taken comfort in the fact that the nation had recovered substantially, if unevenly, from the Great Recession in many ways—unemployment is down to 4.9 per cent—but it led them, it led us, to grossly underestimate reality. The Democratic electorate also believed that, with the election of an African-American President and the rise of marriage equality and other such markers, the culture wars were coming to a close. Trump began his campaign declaring Mexican immigrants to be “rapists”; he closed it with an anti-Semitic ad evoking “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”; his own behavior made a mockery of the dignity of women and women’s bodies. And, when criticized for any of it, he batted it all away as “political correctness.” Surely such a cruel and retrograde figure could succeed among some voters, but how could he win? Surely, Breitbart News, a site of vile conspiracies, could not become for millions a source of news and mainstream opinion. And yet Trump, who may have set out on his campaign merely as a branding exercise, sooner or later recognized that he could embody and manipulate these dark forces. The fact that “traditional” Republicans, from George H. W. Bush to Mitt Romney, announced their distaste for Trump only seemed to deepen his emotional support.

The commentators, in their attempt to normalize this tragedy, will also find ways to discount the bumbling and destructive behavior of the F.B.I., the malign interference of Russian intelligence, the free pass—the hours of uninterrupted, unmediated coverage of his rallies—provided to Trump by cable television, particularly in the early months of his campaign. We will be asked to count on the stability of American institutions, the tendency of even the most radical politicians to rein themselves in when admitted to office. Liberals will be admonished as smug, disconnected from suffering, as if so many Democratic voters were unacquainted with poverty, struggle, and misfortune. There is no reason to believe this palaver. There is no reason to believe that Trump and his band of associates—Chris Christie, Rudolph Giuliani, Mike Pence, and, yes, Paul Ryan—are in any mood to govern as Republicans within the traditional boundaries of decency. Trump was not elected on a platform of decency, fairness, moderation, compromise, and the rule of law; he was elected, in the main, on a platform of resentment. Fascism is not our future—it cannot be; we cannot allow it to be so—but this is surely the way fascism can begin.

Read the rest of the article here.

The government's attack on Australian Human Rights Commission president continues unabated

On 28 May 2013 a small group of students sought to use facilities at the dedicated Oodgeroo Unit within the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and were asked to leave.   

The subsequent comments of one or more QUT students on Facebook resulted in a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission by a university administrative employee under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

Conciliation between the parties under the auspices of the Commission failed by August 2015 and, the employee then made application to the Federal Circuit Court Of Australia in Prior V Queensland University Of Technology & Ors to seek what she obviously thought was justifiable legal remedy.

The judgment dismissed that part of the application brought against three students under s18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. However the remainder of the matter involving a fourth student and the university and its named employees is next before the court on 21 November 2016 in what appears to be a directions hearing.

The Turnbull Government leaped on this summary judgment to continue its public attack on Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs – which had commenced in earnest in February last year - culminating this month in Malcolm Bligh Turnbull raising the possibility of sections of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975  being reviewed and possibly amended and suggesting that the Commission had damaged its credibility.

A swift response came from the Australian Human Rights Commission in the form of a media release on Monday 7 November 2016:

There has been considerable public interest in the Commission’s complaint handling processes under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986.  There has been particular interest In the Commission’s handling of complaints under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. 

In relation to the recent QUT case, it is a matter of public record that the Commission terminated this matter in August 2015. The Commission has had no role in the subsequent law suit in the Federal Circuit Court.

At no stage does the Commission initiate or prosecute a complaint. If the Commission receives a complaint in writing alleging a discriminatory act, the Act provides that the Commission must investigate the facts and attempt to conciliate the matter.

The Commission’s focus is on resolving disputes so parties can avoid court proceedings. Of complaints where conciliation was attempted, 76% were successfully resolved in 2015-16.

Only 3% of complaints finalised by the Commission were lodged in court. For example, of the over 80 complaints finalised under the racial hatred provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act last year, only one proceeded to court at the initiation of the complainant.

In the 2015-16 reporting year the average time it took the Commission to finalise a complaint was 3.8 months. In that same reporting year, 94% of surveyed parties were satisfied with the Commission’s service.

The Commission has no judicial powers, and it makes no legally binding determinations as to whether unlawful acts have occurred. The Commission has no statutory power to prevent a complainant proceeding to court once the Commission terminates the complaint. 

The Commission has provided advice to successive governments and Attorneys-General on amendments to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act.  In particular, the Commission has asked for amendments to streamline the process by raising the threshold for accepting complaints.

Refutation of the Turnbull Government's position is also found elsewhere.

Excerpts from Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Official Blog, 7 November 2016:

This is all the Australian Human Rights Commission and/or Professor Gillian Triggs’ fault

No it isn’t. The AHRC is not a party in the Prior litigation. Professor Triggs is not acting for Ms Prior (Ms Prior has engaged her own solicitors and counsel). And the student respondents were not in the case because the AHRC put them in there; they were in there because the applicant, Ms Prior, sued them when proceedings were commenced in the Federal Circuit Court in October 2015.

Applicants bring proceedings for discrimination (including under section 18C), not the AHRC. There is one applicant in the proceedings and it is Ms Prior.

If the claims were lacking in substance, the AHRC should have thrown them out – they should never have got to the Court

In order to bring a claim for unlawful discrimination under Federal legislation, the AHRC is the first step in the process. A complaint is made to the AHRC, and the AHRC will then try to resolve the complaint by assisting the parties to reach an agreement for resolution. If the complaint can’t be resolved, the AHRC “terminates” the complaint, and the complainant can then take the terminated complaint off to the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court to start a court case.

The AHRC cannot decide discrimination claims, because the AHRC is not a court – it doesn’t have any judges and it doesn’t have the power to impose a resolution on the parties to the complaint. The AHRC cannot decide that a complaint is hopeless and should go no further. The AHRC cannot decide that a complaint will invariably succeed and award damages to the complainant. The function of the AHRC is to investigate (and, if possible, to conciliate), not to decide. The deciding needs to happen in a place where Federal judicial power can be exercised, namely, in the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit Court.

It is true that there are many different grounds on which the AHRC (acting through a delegate of the President of the AHRC) can “terminate” a complaint (which is the necessary precondition for the matter to go to a Federal court). Those grounds include that the delegate “is satisfied that the alleged unlawful discrimination is not unlawful discrimination” or “is satisfied that the complaint was trivial, vexatious, misconceived or lacking in substance”.

According to press reports, Ms Prior’s complaint was terminated on the more commonly used ground that the delegate was “satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect of the matter being settled by conciliation”.

Shouldn’t the AHRC should have taken the harder line? For two reasons, no.

The first is that it wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference. Ms Prior’s right to commence court proceedings would have been exactly the same regardless of the ground on which the complaint was terminated by the delegate. Ms Prior decided, presumably with the benefit of legal advice from the experienced firm of employment lawyers who are acting for her, to commence proceedings against all of the respondents. That was a choice which the AHRC could not have denied her, regardless of what view was expressed by the President or her delegate as to the merits of the claim at the time the complaint was terminated.

The second is that Ms Prior’s complaint is still continuing against four of the respondents (including QUT, who are also represented by highly experienced employment lawyers). Those respondents did not seek to have the claims against them struck out summarily, which suggests that Ms Prior’s claim as a whole could not be properly have been described, at the time the complaint was terminated, as hopeless.

The case proves that section 18C is terrible and must be abolished

Good luck trying to make that one work, given the basis on which the respondents succeeded in convincing the court to dismiss the claims against them. The two respondents who succeeded on the basis of the Court’s analysis of section 18C succeeded on the basis that (a) their Facebook posts were not made “because of” Ms Prior’s (or anyone else’s) race and (b) the posts were not reasonably likely to give rise to offence, insult, humiliation or intimidation.

In making those findings, the Federal Circuit Court expressly referred to the jurisprudence of section 18C to the effect that the section does not extend to “mere slights” but requires “profound and serious effects”. (This is jurisprudence which needs to be mostly ignored in order to advance the case that the words “offend” and “insult” somehow create an overly broad restriction on free speech).

The final respondent succeeded on the basis that there was no evidence that he had made the Facebook post alleged to constitute the breach of section 18C, which has nothing to do with the section, and everything to do with orthodox principles of establishing a “no case to answer submission”. In any litigation, successful defendants will feel aggrieved at having been put to the time and expense of defending claims which failed. However, the fact that a claim fails does not mean that the law used to bring the claim should be demolished.

No-one sensibly suggests dismantling the law of defamation every time a defamation plaintiff loses, or suggests tearing up the law of torts every time a personal injury plaintiff is unsuccessful. For the same reason, it is hard to see any sensible legal basis to suggest that the decision of the Federal Circuit Court last Friday should affect anyone other than the parties to the claim. If only the ability to distinguish “sensible legal basis” from “nonsense” was a precondition to publishing on the topic of section 18C . . .

Australian House of Representatives in November 2016: "It's like deja vu all over again"*

This makes it three times in less than ten weeks that the Turnbull Government has managed to make itself a laughing stock on the floor of the House of Representatives since the 45^th Parliament was opened on 30 August 2016.

News.com.au, 7 November 2016:

IT HAS happened again.

The Government today has again accidentally backed a motion criticising itself.

This time the support was for a demand that the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull cease “short-changing pensioners”.

The first to recognise the impending Government snafu was Labor’s Anthony Albanese, who was sitting at the table of the House of Representatives.

He watched, almost open mouthed, as LNP member for Wright, Scott Buchholz, seconded a motion which had just been moved by Labor’s MP for Lindsay, Emma Husar.

Fortunately for the Government the motion didn’t get to a vote and was adjourned. It had no substantial consequences.

But it recalled a similar incident on October 13 when Revenue Minister Kelly O’Dwyer accidentally waved through an amendment to a multinational tax bill which called on the Government to “explain why it has failed to close tax loopholes and increase transparency in Australia”.

BRIEF BACKGROUND

ABC News, 13 October 2016:

The Federal Government has been embarrassed by a procedural bungle in Parliament, after accidentally endorsing a bill amended by Labor, which criticised the Government.

Minister for Revenue and Financial Services Kelly O'Dwyer was seeking to pass the International Tax Agreements Amendment Bill 2016 through the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

But Ms O'Dwyer accidentally endorsed a second reading amendment put forward by shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh.

The amendment calls on the Government "to explain why it has failed to close tax loopholes and increase transparency in Australia".

After some confusion, Ms O'Dwyer appeared to support the amendment, facilitating its passage through the House of Representatives.

Manager of opposition business Tony Burke said it was the first time in the history of federal parliament that a second reading amendment had ever been supported.

The Australian, 2 September 216:

The Coalition is reeling after the Prime Minister’s grip on power was dealt a severe jolt when his majority government became the first in five decades to lose a series of procedural votes on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Leader of the House Christopher Pyne has conceded it was a “stuff up” that he said would never happen again as Mr Turnbull hit out at those MPs, including cabinet ministers Peter Dutton and Christian Porter and Justice Minister Michael Keenan, who did the “wrong thing”.

“I’ve read the riot act to them, their colleagues will all read the riot act to them, they’ll get the riot act read to them more often than just about anyone could imagine,” Mr Turnbull told 3AW radio.

“They’re in charge of themselves. Two of them were cabinet ministers and one of them was a minister. They’re grownups, they’re experienced parliamentarians, they knew they should not have left and they left early because they thought they’d get away with it (but) they’ve been caught out, they’ve been embarrassed, they’ve been humiliated, they’ve been excoriated and it won’t happen again.”

* Quotation attributed to Yogi Berra, U.S. professional baseball player, 1925-2015

The Murder of Medicare in Australia

Labor’s Medicare Locals integrated health care scheme ceased operations on 30 June 2015 when the Abbott Government replaced it with the Primary Health Networks scheme.

The Abbott and Turnbull governments’ grand plan for further ‘reforming’ Medicare service delivery swam into view on News.com.au and other media platforms on 30 March 2016:

SEVEN MILLION people in the country with chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer will have to enrol with a single medical practice under a revolution in GP care to be announced by the Prime Minister today.

Patients will get to choose the GP practice that will co-ordinate all of the medical, allied health and out-of-hospital services they need.

And those with multiple chronic illnesses will get a care plan individually tailored to meet their needs.

Instead of paying their doctor a fee for service every time they receive treatment for their chronic illness, the government will give doctors a quarterly lump sum payment to care for the patient.

A fee for service will still be paid when the patient sees the doctor for other illnesses such as the flu or broken bones or other acute illnesses.

And the performance of doctors will be checked by the government via a new information bank that will measure patient outcomes at a local level and highlight areas for improvement.

Malcolm Turnbull says enrolling patients in a single medical home will help keep people with chronic diseases out of hospital by giving them evidence-based treatment.

This it turns out was merely announcing stage one in the introduction of the Health Care Homes model, which in October 2016 saw Prime Minister Turnbull and Health Minister Ley officially announcing the selected regions, based on Primary Health Network boundaries, for Stage One implementation of Health Care Homes. These include: Perth North, Adelaide, Country South Australia, South Eastern Melbourne, Western Sydney, Tasmania, Nepean Blue Mountains, Northern Territory, Brisbane North, as well as Hunter, New England and Central Coast in New South Wales.

The Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network includes, but is not limited to, the following locations: Armidale ,Bulahdelah, Cessnock, Forster, Glen Innes, Gosford, Gunnedah, Inverell, Moree, Muswellbrook, Narrabri, Nelson Bay, Newcastle, Quirindi, Tamworth, Taree and Tenterfield.

Therefore in NSW the scheme will be initially implemented in three primary health care networks which stretch from western Sydney through to the NSW-Qld border.

By 4 November 2016 this scheme had quietly morphed in right-wing political backrooms into this according to the Herald Sun:

THE nation’s sickest cancer patients and people with diabetes and other chronic illnesses will get a maximum of $1795 worth of GP care a year funded by Medicare under a revolution in the way doctors are paid.

And Medicare will fund just five extra visits to the doctor if these people need medical attention for issues aside from their chronic illness under the Turnbull Government’s Health Care Homes model.

Doctors were expressing deep concern about the adequacy of the payment levels that were released without consultation with medical groups on November 4.

“The modelling is concerning and potentially leaves the whole program at risk of falling over because of being underfunded from the beginning,” AMA vice president Dr Tony Bartone said.

The Health Care Homes policy is a signature government policy which it claims will solve the woes of the Medicare system by providing comprehensive care for one in five Australians who have a chronic illness, keep them out of hospital and save the health system money.

Patients will have to enrol with a single GP practice to get a new form of wrap around health care under the model but Doctors are worried they’ll get less money than they receive now to care for the sickest patients.

Currently doctors are paid on a fee for service model and get paid $37 by Medicare every time they see a patient for a standard 20 minute visit, they get paid more for longer visits.

There are no limits on how many times a patient can see a doctor and get a Medicare rebate.

Under the new model patients with the least complex chronic conditions will get $591 a year worth of GP care, those with a slightly higher level of complexity will get $1,267 worth of GP care and the most complex patients will receive $1795 worth of care.

The sickest 12 per cent of patients account for 40 per cent of Medicare benefits and on average they receive 51 services a year, Dr Seidel said.

The maximum funding under the government’s health care homes model is only enough to cover 48 GP visits a year, or less than one per week.

Dr Seidel says a patient with diabetes and an infected leg would need to visit the GP at least three times per week to get it dressed.

The RACGP had asked the government to provide doctors with an extra $300 per patient per year on top of existing funding to make the new Medicare model work.

The current funding suggests doctors will be receiving less than they currently get.

Dr Bartone said the Health Care Homes model was based on a long standing method of paying GPs for caring for war veterans.

So now we all have a slightly clearer picture of how multi-millionaire Malcolm Bligh Turnbull and his fellow travellers intend to further pervert Medicare’s aim of providing universal health care.

Those with a chronic or complex medical condition will be tied to one general practitioner or medical practice and be restricted as to how many times a year they can see their doctor. Bulk billing is not guaranteed if that is not the policy of the medical practice/GP with which they are enrolled and, if they require more than 48 standard GP visits a year they may possibly be forced to pay the full cost of any additional ‘chronic illness’ visits . As for any other type of illness or injury they might experience – only five extra GP visits a year will be covered by a Medicare rebate [See update below].

At the moment participation on the patient’s part is allegedly voluntary, however if they agree to enter the Health Care Homes scheme they are forced deeper into the Abbott and Turnbull Governments’ insecure national database and ongoing government data retention scheme.

According to the Australian Dept. of Health, enrolment of up to 65,000 patients begins in 2017 and implementation of services delivery begins on 1 July that same year and continues through to the end of stage one on 30 June 2019. During this initial stage, Health Care Homes services will be limited to Medicare-eligible patients with two or more complex or chronic conditions.

Ongoing evaluation and refinement of Health Care Homes is also promised which probably means that, like e-Health aka My Health, the scheme will cease to be opt-in and become opt-out - or possibly even mandatory.

The Turnbull Government intends to fund Stage One of Health Care Homes by redirecting $93 million in MBS funding between 2017-18 and 2018-19 and providing an additional $21.3 million over the next three years to establish the design principles, IT systems and provide the training needed to assist health care providers to transition to the new system.

Thus far, this new scheme appears to offer no enhanced or additional health services to the chronically ill or those with complex medical conditions - it presents as nothing more than another federal government cost-cutting measure wrapped up in a public relation bow.

Stay tuned for the next instalment in the ongoing saga, “The Murder of Medicare”.

UPDATE

Turnbull Government backs down on capping number of extra GP visits for illness or injury not related to patient's chronic or complex medical condition. However, all other Medicare 
limits impacting on health services delivery to chronically ill patients appear to remain.

News.com.au, 9:35pm 8 November 2016:

The cap on doctor’s visits was revealed on Friday when the government announced details of its keystone Health Care Homes trial.

The trial will see 65,000 chronically ill patients in 200 GP practices enrol with a single GP practice for all their health care.

The Health Department revealed doctors would be given an annual budget of between $591 and $1795 a year to care for these patients, a budget doctors say amounts to a pay cut.

And in a fact sheet the Department of Health said:

“Enrolled patients can still access fee-for-service billing for a small number (up to five) of episodes of care not related to a patient’s chronic conditions”.

On Monday, in a tweet, Health Minister Sussan Ley denied there was a cap of five visits.

“No limit to Medicare fee for service under health care homes. 5 appts departmental guide only. Opt in not capitation. Co-designed with docs!”

Mysteriously, and without a new press statement, wording of the department’s fact sheet on Health Care Homes was changed on Monday to remove the five visit rule:

“Enrolled patients can still access fee-for service episodes of care not related to a patient’s chronic condition”.

Yesterday Ms Ley tweeted “Capped visits were never on the table”.

In response to an inquiry a spokesman for Health Minister Sussan Ley said the Department of Health said it had “changed its fact sheet on payment information”.

“The Department amended it to make it clear that there is no hard cap or limit on the capability of GPs to bill MBS services not related to an enrolled patient’s chronic conditions. The Department says it had nominated five as a notional number for planning purposes for these services and that it was based on clinical advice. The number of fee-for-service episodes of care will not be capped or restricted and will be monitored during stage one of Health Care Homes,” he said.

"This is sacred land": noting Lakota resistance at Standing Rock, Dakota, U.S.A.

A reminder that standing up for community and against powerful mining interests is never easy no matter where in the world you live.

Inquisitr, 29 October 2016:

Amnesty International and the United Nations have announced that they are sending officials to investigate allegations of human rights violations at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.

Amnesty International announced Friday that they were sending a delegation of human rights observers to monitor the response of law enforcement against DAPL protesters after concerns mounted about increasingly violent actions towards the peaceful protesters.

Telesur, 29 October 2016:

Owners of the North Dakota Access Pipeline have been warned that they risk legal liability over several instances of human rights abuses against peaceful Native American and environmental activists opposing the US$3.8 billion pipeline, as militarized law enforcement have increasingly used violence and repression at protest camps.

The joint letter released Friday by five environmental and legal advocacy organizations said that the joint owners of the pipeline “have a corporate duty under international law and the laws of the United States to respect human rights and to avoid complicity in further human rights abuses.”

The advocacy groups said that in recent weeks the situation in the Standing Rock camp “has deteriorated further,” making reference to recent violent crackdowns by law enforcement and security personnel on peaceful protestors.

Twitter, 31 October 2016:

  

I was shot by militarized police WHILE interviewing a man on camera at #StandingRock…and here's the footage. #NoDAPL  pic.twitter.com/4DRwNPkfZ9

— Erin Schrode (@ErinSchrode) November 3, 2016

Facebook post:

Erin Schrode at Standing Rock, ND.

52 mins · Cannon Ball, ND, United States 

Speechless. I was shot by militarized police WHILE interviewing a peaceful man at Standing Rock live on camera. I woke up this morning with the thought that I may have that very footage – and broke down in reliving the 40-second horror before my own eyes. Warning: it's very very difficult to watch and sent me into quivers and tears, even without the compounding historic trauma that Native Americans face.

I do not wish to divert focus away from the bravery of the Water Protectors, from the power of nonviolent direct action, from the people fighting for their lives and for our futures – but I want you to witness the indiscriminate use of excessive force firsthand. Many have said that militarized police firing a rubber bullet at a female reporter was a fabrication, provoked by violence, or otherwise merited, including a Morton County, North Dakota press release. That is a lie; we have proof and eyewitnesses (cc Josh Fox, Matt McGorry, Jordan Chariton, Josue Rivas, Evan Simon, Josh Fox, Wes Mekasi Horinek, Kendrick Sampson, Doug Pineda, Doug Good Feather and countless more).

I was standing innocently onshore, not making any aggressive gestures, never exchanging a single word with the police who fired at my lower back from their boat. Peaceful souls were seeking to cross the river to hold a prayer circle on Army Corps public land, but halted by over one hundred hostile military police armed with and deploying tear gas, pepper spray, batons, and rubber bullets, as well as assault weapons and the threat of jail, only one week after 141 individuals were brutally arrested. I was shot at pointblank range, dozens were maced and pepper sprayed in the face, hundreds faced freezing waters. There were no arrests or deaths and I will be okay physically, but the safety and wellbeing of many peoples and lands remain in danger, for present and future generations.

Thank you for your prayers, for your action in calling upon our President, government and Department of Justice to halt this atrocity immediately, for showing up and donating to support this fight for human rights, for the environment, for peace. Please continue to pray for the strength and protection of all peoples, for the physical pain, for the emotional trauma, for the desecrated land. #StandWithStandingRock #NoDAPL

Maced. Tased. And put into cages.

The UN is investigating human rights violations against #NoDAPL activists at Standing Rock: pic.twitter.com/OqmcUUZLCs

— Fusion (@Fusion) November 3, 2016

Senate finds Attorney-General Brandis sought to undermine rule of law in Australia

Australian Senate, Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, Inquiry into the  Nature and scope of the consultations prior to the making of the Legal Services Amendment (Solicitor-General Opinions) Direction 2016, 8 November 2016 – majority view:

4.9 It is the committee's view that the Attorney-General has sought to undermine the rule of law in Australia by failing to adequately consult the Solicitor-General and constraining the independence of the Solicitor-General….

4.27 The committee makes the following recommendations:

Recommendation 1 

4.28 That the Senate disallow the amendment to the Direction or the Attorney-General withdraw it immediately, and that the Guidance Note be revised accordingly.

Recommendation 2 

4.29 That the Attorney-General provide, within three sitting days, an explanation to the Senate responding to the matters raised in this report.

Recommendation 3 

4.30 That the Senate censure the Attorney-General for misleading the parliament and failing to discharge his duties as Attorney-General appropriately.

Full report here.