Centrelink plays dumb over cases of overpayment caused by its own error

The fact that overpayment of welfare cash transfers are caused by departmental administrative error does occur is recognised in Australian social security law and regulations.

Here is one example of this.

Dept. Of Social Security, Guides to Social Policy Law, Family Assistance Guide, Version 1.191 - Released 3 January 2017:

7.3.2.10 Waiving a Debt Arising from Administrative Error…..

Debts arising solely from administrative error

The part of a debt that can be waived under this provision is called the 'administrative error proportion' of the debt. The administrative error proportion can be up to 100% of the amount of the debt.

The administrative error proportion of the debt must have been caused or contributed to by an administrative error made by the Commonwealth, for example, a decision made by a delegate of the Secretary. If the debtor has contributed in any way to the cause of the debt, that part of the debt cannot be waived under this provision.

The administrative error proportion of the debt must be waived if:

·       the payment was received in good faith and recovery of the debt would cause the debtor severe financial hardship, or

·       the payment was received in good faith and the debt has been raised in either of the periods below (whichever ends last):

o   after the end of the next income year following the income year in which the eligibility period or event which gave rise to the payment of FA occurs, or

o   more than 13 weeks from the day the FA payment was made that gave rise to the debt.

The Dept. of Human Services (Centrelink Included) delivered $115.8 billion in payments to customers/clients in 2015–16 and obviously keeps an account of monies involved in over payments.

Prior to fully automating its data matching and payment discrepancy assessments the department indicated in its 2015-16 annual report that 1.6% of all payments were overpayments due to administrative error. [Dept. of Human Services, 2015-16 Annual Report, Part 3—Management And Accountability, Social Security And Welfare Programme Compliance, Payment accuracy, correctness and integrity, p.114]

Just last year on 20 October 2016 The Daily Telegraph reported:

The Department of Human Services overpaid 1.5 million people a total of $1.5 billion, an average of $1000 each, during 2015-16. It clawed back $920 million by deducting money owed from ongoing social security payments or tax refunds.

But it wrote off $76 million in debts that were solely due to administrative error, were less than $50 “and not cost effective to pursue’’, or in cases where the debtor was subject to “extreme and unusual circumstances that interfere with their capacity to pay’’.

The Administrative Decisions Tribunal holds transcripts of cases which come before it, including those involving overpayment by Centrelink due to administrative error.

In fact Centrelink data on administrative errors has been recorded for many years (probably since 1998-99), as this excerpt from an Australian National Audit Office report in May 2006 shows:

In 2004–05, Centrelink identified one or more errors in 4 552 of the 10 048 RSS reviews conducted, with the total number of 7 037 errors distributed across these 4 552 reviews. Centrelink RSS Reviewers determined that 78 per cent of these errors were due to customer error (that is customer action or inaction). The remaining 22 per cent were categorised as due to Centrelink administrative error (predominately incomplete processing), albeit that only 5.1 per cent of these errors (or 3.4 per cent of reviews) had an immediate impact on the customer's payment.

In 2011-12 the government waived nearly 800,000 other overpayments - totalling $37 million - that were due to administrative error or categorised as "special circumstances" according to news.com.au.

Although Centrelink is frequently expressing overpayments due to administrative errors in percentage terms it seems that there is a specific Dataset 4 which counts the number of “customers” involved. [Social Security Policy Branch, Social Security Assurance Tracking Process Error Using Sample Surveys, 2009 power point presentation]

Yet despite a range of audit information being available to the department it could not even give Senator Siewert a ball park estimation of the number of overpayments due administrative errors which occurred last financial year, according to The Guardian on 31 January 2017:

Centrelink is unable to track how many cases of overpayment are caused by government error, according to responses it provided to a senate committee.

The Department of Human Services provided a series of responses to questions posed by the Greens senator Rachel Siewert on welfare overpayments. 

Siewert asked how many of the 629,917 customers overpaid last financial year were caused through system or administrative error by Centrelink. DHS responded: “The department does not currently capture the portion of overpayments raised as a result of system or administrative error.”

Siewert described that lack of information as outrageous, saying the department appeared not to be keeping track of its own mistakes. “The government must immediately work to establish how many people accessing the social safety net received an overpayment because of an administrative error,” she said.

“For the government to not collate that information is deeply concerning. It means there is no attempt to collect data and analyse how many vulnerable people are stuck with debts they were not responsible for creating.”

Centrelink has always required those who have been overpaid to pay the money back, including when the overpayment was not their fault. That is a separate issue to complaints about the new debt recovery system, which has been criticised for allegedly wrongly pursuing welfare debts from vulnerable Australians…..

The debt recovery system is being investigated by the commonwealth ombudsman, and will also come under the scrutiny of a Senate inquiry.

Siewert’s question on notice also asked whether there was a grace period to allow more time to hand back overpayments paid due to errors by the government. The department said there was no such grace period but customers were allowed to ask for extensions or payment plans because of financial hardship.

Siewert said a grace period, at least, should be introduced. “It’s unfair that people on low incomes have to pay back overpayments when the debt is not their fault,” she said.

“I know the government is hell-bent on making life as difficult as possible for people that access the social safety net, but I think we should show a bit of humanity to people that are stuck in a situation they didn’t create.”

In my honest opinion I don’t believe that Centrelink was acting in good faith when it gave the senator that answer. Hopefully as her question appeared to be on notice Centrelink will have a change of heart and supply the figure requested.

In 1947 the Atomic Clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight & by 2016 the clock stood at 3 minutes to midnight - Donald Trump's presidency has moved its hands to 2 minutes 30 seconds

Six days after Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States of America the Atomic Doomsday Clock moved closer to Armageddon.

Image found at Business Insider Australia

It is two and a half minutes to midnight

2017 Doomsday Clock Statement

Science and Security Board

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Editor, John Mecklin

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Doomsday Clock, a graphic that appeared on the first cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as it transitioned from a six-page, black-and-white newsletter to a full-fledged magazine. For its first cover, the editors sought an image that represented a seriousness of purpose and an urgent call for action. The Clock, and the countdown to midnight that it implied, fit the bill perfectly. The Doomsday Clock, as it came to be called, has served as a globally recognized arbiter of the planet’s health and safety ever since.

Each year, the setting of the Doomsday Clock galvanizes a global debate about whether the planet is safer or more dangerous today than it was last year, and at key moments in recent history. Our founders would not be surprised to learn that the threats to the planet that the Science and Security Board now considers have expanded since 1947. In fact, the Bulletin’s first editor, Eugene Rabinowitch, noted that one of the purposes of the Bulletin was to respond and offer solutions to the “Pandora’s box of modern science,” recognizing the speed at which technological advancement was occurring, and the demanding questions it would present.

In 1947 there was one technology with the potential to destroy the planet, and that was nuclear power. Today, rising temperatures, resulting from the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels, will change life on Earth as we know it, potentially destroying or displacing it from significant portions of the world, unless action is taken today, and in the immediate future. Future technological innovation in biology, artificial intelligence, and the cyber realm may pose similar global challenges. The knotty problems that innovations in these fields may present are not yet fully realized, but the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board tends to them with a watchful eye.

This year’s Clock deliberations felt more urgent than usual. On the big topics that concern the board, world leaders made too little progress in the face of continuing turbulence. In addition to the existential threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, new global realities emerged, as trusted sources of information came under attack, fake news was on the rise, and words were used in cavalier and often reckless ways. As if to prove that words matter and fake news is dangerous, Pakistan’s foreign minister issued a blustery statement, a tweet actually, flexing Pakistan’s nuclear muscle—in response to a fabricated “news” story about Israel. Today’s complex global environment is in need of deliberate and considered policy responses. It is ever more important that senior leaders across the globe calm rather than stoke tensions that could lead to war, either by accident or miscalculation.

I once again commend the board for approaching its task with the seriousness it deserves. Bulletin Editor-in-Chief John Mecklin did a remarkable job pulling together this document and reflecting the in-depth views and opinions of the board. Considerable thanks goes to our supporters including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, MacArthur Foundation, Ploughshares Fund, David Weinberg and Jerry Newton, as well as valued supporters across the year.

I hope the debate engendered by the 2017 setting of the Clock raises the level of conversation, promotes calls to action, and helps citizens around the world hold their leaders responsible for delivering a safer and healthier planet.

Rachel Bronson, PhD

Executive Director and Publisher

26 January, 2017

Chicago, IL

It is two and a half minutes to midnight

Editor’s note: Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and new technologies emerging in other domains. A printable PDF of this statement, complete with the executive director’s statement and Science and Security Board biographies, is available here.

To: Leaders and citizens of the world

Re: It is 30 seconds closer to midnight

Date: January 26, 2017

Over the course of 2016, the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.

The United States and Russia—which together possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons—remained at odds in a variety of theaters, from Syria to Ukraine to the borders of NATO; both countries continued wide-ranging modernizations of their nuclear forces, and serious arms control negotiations were nowhere to be seen. North Korea conducted its fourth and fifth underground nuclear tests and gave every indication it would continue to develop nuclear weapons delivery capabilities. Threats of nuclear warfare hung in the background as Pakistan and India faced each other warily across the Line of Control in Kashmir after militants attacked two Indian army bases.

The climate change outlook was somewhat less dismal—but only somewhat. In the wake of the landmark Paris climate accord, the nations of the world have taken some actions to combat climate change, and global carbon dioxide emissions were essentially flat in 2016, compared to the previous year. Still, they have not yet started to decrease; the world continues to warm. Keeping future temperatures at less-than-catastrophic levels requires reductions in greenhouse gas emissions far beyond those agreed to in Paris—yet little appetite for additional cuts was in evidence at the November climate conference in Marrakech.

This already-threatening world situation was the backdrop for a rise in strident nationalism worldwide in 2016, including in a US presidential campaign during which the eventual victor, Donald Trump, made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board takes a broad and international view of existential threats to humanity, focusing on long-term trends. Because of that perspective, the statements of a single person—particularly one not yet in office—have not historically influenced the board’s decision on the setting of the Doomsday Clock.

But wavering public confidence in the democratic institutions required to deal with major world threats do affect the board’s decisions. And this year, events surrounding the US presidential campaign—including cyber offensives and deception campaigns apparently directed by the Russian government and aimed at disrupting the US election—have brought American democracy and Russian intentions into question and thereby made the world more dangerous than was the case a year ago.

For these reasons, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has decided to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe. It is now two minutes and 30 seconds to midnight.

The board’s decision to move the clock less than a full minute—something it has never before done—reflects a simple reality: As this statement is issued, Donald Trump has been the US president only a matter of days. Many of his cabinet nominations are not yet confirmed by the Senate or installed in government, and he has had little time to take official action.

Just the same, words matter, and President Trump has had plenty to say over the last year. Both his statements and his actions as president-elect have broken with historical precedent in unsettling ways. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding the US nuclear arsenal. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or outright reject expert advice related to international security, including the conclusions of intelligence experts. And his nominees to head the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency dispute the basics of climate science.

In short, even though he has just now taken office, the president’s intemperate statements, lack of openness to expert advice, and questionable cabinet nominations have already made a bad international security situation worse.

Last year, and the year before, we warned that world leaders were failing to act with the speed and on the scale required to protect citizens from the extreme danger posed by climate change and nuclear war. During the past year, the need for leadership only intensified—yet inaction and brinksmanship have continued, endangering every person, everywhere on Earth.

Who will lead humanity away from global disaster?

The full transcript can be found at http://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/Final%202017%20Clock%20Statement.pdf.

The four weeks of January 2017 saw four women die violently in Australia

Destroy the Joint, 31 January 2017

Thousands of jobs have gone from Dept Human Services & Centrelink in last five years and the headcount was down to 30,210 by May 2016

It is no accident that the post-September 2013 drive to slash public service numbers and funding was significantly impacting on the Dept. Of Human Services at the same time it sought to fully automate as much of Centrelink’s service delivery as possible.

Between its 2012-13 annual report and 2015-16 annual report the department had lost 5,628 staff due to budget cuts and make do measures were not meeting service delivery needs.

It was also foreseeable that Turnbull & Co would choose Centrelink clients as guinea pigs in an attempt at fully automating data matching with a view to further departmental cost-cutting – after all welfare clients are apparently considered the lowest of the low by a majority of Liberal and Nationals parliamentarians.

Given the fact that this federal government had also decided to be digitally ‘agile and innovative’ - which appears to be code for fast and sloppy - the debacle which followed was almost inevitable.

BACKGROUND

Government News, 2 May 2016:

Charities, welfare groups and unions have pleaded with Treasurer Scott Morrison to release the pressure on the Department of Human Services (DHS) by funding more staff and better IT systems in the federal Budget.

In a joint statement, 14 organisations: Carers Australia, St Vincent de Paul, the Welfare Rights Centre the Community and Public Sector Union, Australian Council of Social Services, Children and Young People with Disability Australia, ACT Council of Social Services, National Union of Students, Fair Go For Pensioners, Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association, People With Disability, the Consumer Action Law Centre and Financial Counselling Australia demanded the government “properly fund” the DHS to “provide the Australian public with the Medicare, Centrelink and Child Support services they need and deserve.”

DHS has fielded a range of allegations over the past year, including:

·         Centrelink bunging Youth Allowance and Austudy payments

·         Call waiting times of more than an hour to get through to Centrelink

·         One-quarter of all 57 million phone calls to Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support agencies last year going unanswered (Auditor General’s report 2015)Complaints up almost 19 per cent on last year, and customer satisfaction is down by per cent (DHS Annual Report)

·         An avalanche of customer complaints about online services, particularly myGov

·         A litany of complaints about mobile apps for child support, Medicare and Centrelink

In its statement, the coalition of not-for-profit groups said the federal Budget should:

·         Restore adequate funding to DHS

·         Invest in high quality, in-house IT systems so clients can access a reliable online service

·         Increase DHS permanent staff numbers so that claims and queries are processed quickly and clients who need over-the-phone or in-person services can get them

·         Ensure rural and regional Australia has fair access to government services.

The statement said:

“Millions of people in Australia rely on the Department of Human Services every day, for essential services including social security payments, Medicare, child support and aged care.

“Australia needs these essential services to be both accessible and of high quality, and employees of DHS resourced to do the best they can for everyone needing assistance.

“However, after years of budget cuts, DHS systems and staff are under extreme pressure.

“People who rely on Centrelink expect and deserve high quality public services. Employees in DHS must have the resources to deliver high quality public services. People are trying to do the right thing and reports changes as required, but the system is letting them down…….

The Canberra Times, 10 May 2016:

Department of Human Services officials have confirmed that 918 workers will be shed in 2016-17….

The federal government service-delivery workhorse, which runs Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support Agency, will see also see its funding reduced by $100 million year-on-year, thanks in part to a "special" efficiency cut of $20 million a year….

Mr Jenkin also confirmed the budget papers got the department's headcount wrong, reporting 30,102 when it should have been 30,210.

The department's finance boss said the staff cuts were a direct result of the budget cuts.

In the Dept. of Human Services Annual Report 2015-16 overall staffing levels were shown as:

NOTE: It is likely that as many as est. 3,796 of these staff were “non-ongoing” at the start of the 2015-16 financial year.

The results of payment discrepancies released for action in the 2015-16 financial year were:

* 109,355,545 data matches undertaken by the department [DHS Annual Report 2015-16, p.241];

* cost of the data matching program (including departmental salaries) was $8,327,500 [ibid, 243];

* 4,904 payment discrepancy notices sent out to clients and 1,657 (or 33.78%) of these notices were later found to be false debts [op.cit., p.241]; and

* an unspecified number of debt notices were waived for reasons not stated.

Since Centrelink began sending out fully automated payment discrepancy/debt notices in mid-2016 there have been 169,000 initial letters sent.

Based on Dept. of Human Services 2015-16 admissions, this suggests that at least an est. 57,088 of these letters contained inaccurate payment discrepancies/false debts which can be verified as such by paperwork held by Centrelink clients and/or their previous employer (if the business holds such records indefinitely).

Centrelink clients telling their own stories can be found at www.not.mydebt.com.au.

Out of control Yuraygir fire covers 2,351ha by 6pm, 31 January 2017

Giant plume from the Fannings Trail fire near Sandon east of Grafton lights up the midnight sky
 from the lookout at Brooms Head on Monday, 30th January, 2016: 

The Daily Examiner 31 January 2017

Only three fires were burning in the Clarence Valley on Tuesday, 31 January 2017 – two small and one large. A grass fire at Lanitza, a bushfire at Candole State Forest in the Powells Gap Rd area and, another bush fire across 2,351 ha of Yuraygir National Park in the Fanning Trail area alight since Monday morning.

Sadly there are suspicions that the state forest and national park fires may have been deliberately lit.

As the Bureau of Meteorology is predicting lower than average rainfall in parts of eastern Australia with temperatures above average though to at least April, the likelihood of more fires cannot be ruled out.

Let’s all make sure that any further fires are from natural weather events such as lightning strikes - by making sure we keep our own fires in our kitchens where they belong it hot windy weather ,as well as keeping a sharp eye out for suspicious activity in bushland or parks and reporting incidents to local police and if necessary the fire brigade.

To report a fire emergency

Call Triple Zero (000)

If you are deaf or have a speech or hearing impairment call 106

For assistance with distressed or injured wildlife call 13 000 WIRES or 1300 094 737 (Grafton and Yamba)

It's not Clarence Valley residents who are short-sighted

This is Clarence Valley Council’s week ending 27-28 notice of The Clarence Valley 2027 10 year Community Strategic Plan placed in Coastal Views on Friday 27 and in The Daily Examiner on Saturday, 28 January 2017.

As the final strategic plan will be a guide for council deliberations over the next decade it can be considered an important reference document.

Someone obviously thought this small giveaway leaflet mounted as a sign was a good idea when Clarence Valley Council sent people forth to conduct the two-page community strategic plan survey at a busy little shopping centre in Yamba on Monday, 30 January 2017.

One local resident contacted North Coast Voices saying that many local shoppers thought it was some sort of eye test program and were passing the workers by on their way into Coles and that the  people conducting the survey were reduced to calling out to shoppers asking them if they would stop and take a short survey.

When asking about the lack of adequate signage the local was told that a larger sign was being delivered on Thursday – but a further query elicited the fact that the survey ended in Yamba on the Friday.

The associated February community workshop ends an hour after the bus service stops for the night in Yamba, which is somewhat par for the course when it comes to council organisational skills.

A lesson in how not to conduct genuine community consultation.

Matthew Lyons on Donald Trump and the Alt Right

Political Research Associates, 20 January 2017:

This report is excerpted from Matthew N. Lyons’s forthcoming book, Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire, to be published by PM Press and Kersplebedeb Publishing. This report is also featured in Ctrl-Alt-Delete: An Antifascist Report on the Alternative Right….

Maybe you first heard about them in the summer of 2015, when they promoted the insult “cuckservative” to attack Trump’s opponents in the Republican primaries.1 Maybe it was in August 2016, when Hillary Clinton denounced them as “a fringe element” that had “effectively taken over the Republican party.”2 Or maybe it was a couple of weeks after Trump’s surprise defeat of Clinton, when a group of them were caught on camera giving the fascist salute in response to a speaker shouting “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”3

The Alt Right helped Donald Trump get elected president, and Trump’s campaign put the Alt Right in the news. But the movement was active well before Trump announced his candidacy, and its relationship with Trump has been more complex and more qualified than many critics realize. The Alt Right is just one of multiple dangerous forces associated with Trump, but it’s the one that has attracted the greatest notoriety. However, it’s not accurate to argue, as many critics have, that “Alt Right” is just a deceptive code-phrase meant to hide the movement’s White supremacist or neonazi politics. This is a movement with its own story, and for those concerned about the seemingly sudden resurgence of far-right politics in the United States, it is a story worth exploring.

The Alt Right, short for “alternative right,” is a loosely organized far-right movement that shares a contempt for both liberal multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism; a belief that some people are inherently superior to others; a strong internet presence and embrace of specific elements of online culture; and a self-presentation as being new, hip, and irreverent.4 Based primarily in the United States, Alt Right ideology combines White nationalism, misogyny, antisemitism, and authoritarianism in various forms and in political styles ranging from intellectual argument to violent invective. White nationalism constitutes the movement’s center of gravity, but some Alt Rightists are more focused on reasserting male dominance or other forms of elitism rather than race. The Alt Right has little in the way of formal organization, but has used internet memes effectively to gain visibility, rally supporters, and target opponents. Most Alt Rightists have rallied behind Trump’s presidential bid, yet as a rule Alt Rightists regard the existing political system as hopeless and call for replacing the United States with one or more racially defined homelands.

This report offers an overview of the Alt Right’s history, beliefs, and relationship with other political forces. Part 1 traces the movement’s ideological origins in paleoconservatism and the European New Right, and its development since Richard Spencer launched the original AlternativeRight.com website in 2010. Part 2 surveys the major political currents that comprise or overlap with the Alt Right, which include in their ranks White nationalists, members of the antifeminist “manosphere,” male tribalists, right-wing anarchists, and neoreactionaries. Part 3 focuses on the Alt Right’s relationship with the Trump presidential campaign, including movement debates about political strategy, online political tactics, and its relationship to a network of conservative supporters and popularizers known as the “Alt Lite.” A concluding section offers preliminary thoughts on the Alt Right’s prospects and the potential challenges it will face under the incoming Trump administration.

PART 1 – ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT

IDEOLOGICAL ROOTS

Two intellectual currents played key roles in shaping the early Alternative Right: paleoconservatism and the European New Right.

Paleoconservatives can trace their lineage back to the “Old Right” of the 1930s, which opposed New Deal liberalism, and to the America First movement of the early 1940s, which opposed U.S. entry into World War II. To varying degrees, many of the America Firsters were sympathetic to fascism and fascist claims of a sinister Jewish-British conspiracy. In the early 1950s, this current supported Senator Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunting crusade, which extended red-baiting to target representatives of the centrist Eastern Establishment. After McCarthy, the America First/anti-New Deal Right was largely submerged in a broader “fusionist” conservative movement, in which Cold War anticommunism served as the glue holding different rightist currents together. But when the Soviet bloc collapsed between 1989 and 1991, this anticommunist alliance unraveled, and old debates reemerged.5

In the 1980s, devotees of the Old Right began calling themselves paleoconservatives as a reaction against neoconservatives, those often formerly liberal and leftist intellectuals who were then gaining influential positions in right-wing think-tanks and the Reagan administration. The first neocons were predominantly Jewish and Catholic, which put them outside the ranks of old-guard conservatism. Neocons promoted an aggressive foreign policy to spread U.S. “democracy” throughout the world and supported a close alliance with Israel, but they also favored nonrestrictive immigration policies and, to a limited extent, social welfare programs. Paleconservatives regarded the neocons as usurpers and closet leftists, and in the post-Soviet era they criticized military interventionism, free trade, immigration, globalization, and the welfare state. They also spoke out against Washington’s close alliance with Israel, often in terms that had anti-Jewish undertones. Paleoconservatives tended to be unapologetic champions of European Christian culture, and some of them gravitated toward White nationalism, advocating a society in which White people, their values, interests, and concerns would always be explicitly preeminent. To some extent they began to converge with more hardline White supremacists during this period.6

These positions attracted little elite support, and after Reagan paleocons were mostly frozen out of political power. But they attracted significant popular support. In 1992 and 1996, Patrick Buchanan won millions of votes in Republican presidential primaries by emphasizing paleocon themes. Paleocons also played key roles in building the anti-immigrant and neo-Confederate movements in the ‘90s, and influenced the Patriot movement, which exploded briefly in the mid-90s around fears that globalist elites were plotting to impose a tyrannical world government on the United States. Some self-described libertarians, such as former Congress member Ron Paul, embraced paleoconservative positions on culture and foreign policy.7 After the September 11th attacks in 2001, the resurgence of military interventionism and neoconservatives’ prominent roles in the George W. Bush administration solidified the paleocons’ position as political outsiders.8

The Alt Right’s other significant forerunner, the European New Right (ENR), developed along different lines. The ENR began in France in the late 1960s and then spread to other European countries as an initiative among far-right intellectuals to rework fascist ideology, largely by appropriating elements from other political traditions—including the Left—to mask their fundamental rejection of the principle of human equality.9 European New Rightists championed “biocultural diversity” against the homogenization supposedly brought by liberalism and globalization. They argued that true antiracism requires separating racial and ethnic groups to protect their unique cultures, and that true feminism defends natural gender differences, instead of supposedly forcing women to “divest themselves of their femininity.” ENR writers also rejected the principle of universal human rights as “a strategic weapon of Western ethnocentrism” that stifles cultural diversity.10

European New Rightists dissociated themselves from traditional fascism in various other ways as well. In the wake of France’s defeat by anticolonial forces in Algeria, they advocated anti-imperialism rather than expansionism and a federated “empire” of regionally based, ethnically homogeneous communities, rather than a big, centralized state. Instead of organizing a mass movement to seize state power, they advocated a “metapolitical” strategy that would gradually transform the political and intellectual culture as a precursor to transforming institutions and systems. In place of classical fascism’s familiar leaders and ideologues, European New Rightists championed more obscure far rightist intellectuals of the 1920s, ‘30s, and beyond, such Julius Evola of Italy, Ernst Jünger and Carl Schmitt of Germany, and Corneliu Codreanu of Romania.

ENR ideology began to get attention in the United States in the 1990s,11 resonating with paleoconservatism on various themes, notably opposition to multicultural societies, non-White immigration, and globalization. On other issues, the two movements tended to be at odds: reflecting their roots in classical fascism but in sharp contrast to paleocons, European New Rightists were hostile to liberal individualism and laissez faire capitalism, and many of them rejected Christianity in favor of paganism. Nonetheless, some kind of dialog between paleocon and ENR ideas held promise for Americans seeking to develop a White nationalist movement outside of traditional neonazi/Ku Klux Klan circles.

EARLY YEARS AND GROWTH

The term “Alternative Right” was introduced by Richard Spencer in 2008, when he was managing editor at the paleocon and libertarian Taki’s Magazine. At Taki’s Magazine the phrase was used as a catch-all for a variety of right-wing voices at odds with the conservative establishment, including paleocons, libertarians, and White nationalists.12 Two years later Spencer left to found a new publication, AlternativeRight.com, as “an online magazine of radical traditionalism.” Joining Spencer were two senior contributing editors, Peter Brimelow (whose anti-immigrant VDARE Foundation sponsored the project) and Paul Gottfried (one of paleoconservatism’s founders and one of its few Jews). AlternativeRight.com quickly became a popular forum among dissident rightist intellectuals, especially younger ones. The magazine published works of old-school “scientific” racism along with articles from or about the European New Right, Italian far right philosopher Julius Evola, and figures from Germany’s interwar Conservative Revolutionary movement. There were essays by National-Anarchist Andrew Yeoman, libertarian and Pat Buchanan supporter Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, male tribalist Jack Donovan, and Black conservative Elizabeth Wright.13

AlternativeRight.com developed ties with a number of other White nationalist intellectual publications, which eventually became associated with the term Alternative Right. Some of its main partners included VDARE.com; Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance, whose conferences attracted both antisemites and right-wing Jews; The Occidental Quarterly and its online magazine, The Occidental Observer, currently edited by prominent antisemitic intellectual Kevin MacDonald; and Counter-Currents Publishing, which was founded in 2010 to “create an intellectual movement in North America that is analogous to the European New Right” and “lay the intellectual groundwork for a white ethnostate in North America.”14

Read further book chapter excerpts at: http://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/01/20/ctrl-alt-delete-report-on-the-alternative-right/#sthash.oATVBB5a.hKmyQJAL.dpuf

Clarence Landcare Special Environment Calendar Dates For 2017

CLARENCE LANDCARE INC, Mini Kooka E-News, January 2017:

SPECIAL ENVIRONMENT CALENDAR DATES FOR 2017

 World Wetland Day—2nd February

 World Wildlife Day—3rd March

 Schools Clean Up Day—4th March

 Clean up Australia Day—6th March

 National Ground Water Awareness Week—6th to 12th March

 World Water Day—22nd March

 ***** International Mother Earth Day & Earth Day 2017—22nd April ******

 World Migratory Bird Day—2nd Saturday in May

 National Volunteer Week—9th to 15th May

 World Oceans Day—8th June

 World Environment Day—5th June

 Naidoc Week—3rd to 12th July

 Schools Tree Day—29th July

 National Tree Day— 31st July

 National Honey Bee Day—22nd August

 Keep Australia Beautiful Week—22nd to 28th August

 National Landcare Week—5th to 11th September

 World Clean up Day— 8th September

 World Rivers Day—last Sunday in September

 Recycling Week—13th-19th November

 Pollinator Week—20th to 27th November

 International Day of Climate Action —24th October

 World Soil Day—5th December

Trump's assault on open and transparent democratic principals has begun.....

Boston Globe, 24 January 2017:

The Trump administration has instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants.

Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts.

The Trump administration has also ordered a ‘‘temporary suspension’’ of all new business activities at the department, including issuing task orders or work assignments to EPA contractors. The orders are expected to have a significant and immediate impact on EPA activities nationwide.

The EPA did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment Monday or Tuesday.

The Huffington Post, 24 January 2017:

The Huffington Post also received a message that was reportedly sent to staff Monday that seems to cover the current agency guidance on talking to the press in general, not just about the directive on grants. The memo states that the agency is imposing tight controls on external communication, including press releases, blog posts, social media and content on the agency website.

(”Beach team” refers to staffers for the new administration working at the various agencies while new leadership is put in place; “OPA” most likely refers to the “Office of Public Affairs.”)

The Guardian, 26 January 2017:

The Trump administration is mandating that any studies or data from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public.

The communications director for Donald Trump’s transition team at the EPA, Doug Ericksen, said on Wednesday the review also extends to content on the federal agency’s website, including details of scientific evidence showing that the Earth’s climate is warming and manmade carbon emissions are to blame.

Former EPA staffers said on Wednesday the restrictions imposed under Trump far exceed the practices of past administrations…..

The EPA’s 14-page scientific integrity document, enacted during the Obama administration, describes how scientific studies were to be conducted and reviewed in the agency. It said scientific studies should eventually be communicated to the public, the media and Congress “uncompromised by political or other interference”.

The scientific integrity document expressly “prohibits managers and other agency leadership from intimidating or coercing scientists to alter scientific data, findings or professional opinions or inappropriately influencing scientific advisory boards”. It provides ways for employees who know the science to disagree with scientific reports and policies and offers them some whistleblower protection.

*Image found on Twitter - possibly a Lerner graphic

Where Australians stand when it comes to Trump's travel/immigration bans of 27 January 2017

At 30 June 2015, 28.2% of Australia's estimated resident population (ERP) (6.7 million people) was born overseas [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Estimated Resident Population by Country of Birth, 30 June 1992 to 2015]

Of these a total of 166,310 individuals born in the listed countries are potentially affected by the U.S. travel/immigration ban by presidential order on 27 January 2017 [PROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES]:

Iran 53,510

Iraq 68,180

Libya 2,510

Sudan 23,380

South Sudan 4,410

Syria 13,660

Yemen 660

When one adds to this an unknown number of Australians who have travelled to these countries since 1 July 2011 and face the possibility of being denied a U.S. tourist or work visa on that basis, the number of Australia citizens and permanent residents potentially affected grows.

Smartraveller.gov.au:

Changes to entry requirements from 27 January 2017

The US State Department has advised visa issuance to nationals of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen has been temporarily suspended following the signing of the Executive Order on Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals on 27 January 2017.

Australians who are dual citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria are no longer eligible to apply for an ESTA to enter the United States under the VWP. Any of these Australians who have previously been issued an ESTA are likely to have the ESTA revoked.

Australians who have travelled to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen since 1 March 2011 will also no longer be eligible to apply for an ESTA to enter the United States under the VWP.

If you are affected by these changes and wish to travel to the United States, you will need to apply for a non-immigrant visa at a US Embassy or Consulate. Exceptions from these travel restrictions will be made for Australians who have travelled on official Australian Defence Force or Australian Government business. No exceptions will be made for government officials or ADF members who are dual citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria or Sudan.

The Secretary of Homeland Security may waive these travel restrictions on a case by case basis for travellers from the following categories: Australians who have travelled on behalf on international organisations, regional organisations or State and Territory governments on official duty; Australians who have travelled on behalf of a humanitarian NGO; Australian journalists who have travelled for reporting purposes; Australians who have travelled to Iran for legitimate business-related purposes following the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on 14 July 2015; or Australians who have travelled to Iraq for legitimate business-related purposes. Those travellers who are potentially eligible for waivers do not need to apply separately for this – an application will be automatically generated by the ESTA questionnaire.

For further information regarding the changes, visit the Embassy of the United States of America in Australia, the United States Department of State Visa Information or the United States Customs and Border Protection website. You should also speak to your nearest US Embassy or Consulate for further assistance on visa applications.

If you need to apply for a non-immigrant visa, the United States Visa Information Service for Australia encourages applicants to apply at least three months in advance of the intended date of travel.

The American Resistance has many faces - this is just one of them

ACLU PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS AND COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF, 28 January 201... by clarencegirl on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/337805663/ACLU-PETITION-FOR-WRIT-OF-HABEAS-CORPUS-AND-COMPLAINT-FOR-DECLARATORY-AND-INJUNCTIVE-RELIEF-28-January-2017

One of the temporary restraining orders granted 28 January 2017:

The Economist, 29 January 2017:

In her brief and unequivocal ruling on the evening of January 28th, Ms Donnelly wrote that Mr Alshawi and Mr Darweesh “have a strong likelihood of success” in showing that their deportation would violate their rights to due process and equal protection. There is “imminent danger”, she wrote, that “there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees, visa-holders and other individuals from nations” targeted by Mr Trump’s executive order, should it be fully implemented. Ms Donnelly thus “enjoined and restrained” the government from deporting refugees or “any other individuals from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen legally authorised to enter the United States”.

The ruling, along with similar non-removal orders from judges in Virginia and Seattle, means that nobody who was told they didn’t belong in America when they arrived on January 27th can be deported—for now—though there were reports from several cities on the night of January 28th that customs officials were disregarding the judges' orders and arranging for individuals to be sent home. It also bears reminding that these rulings are stays, not final determinations. Further judicial hearings in February will determine if the stays should be lifted. And the rulings do not come close to erasing Mr Trump’s executive order; the ban remains in effect for refugees and others who were planning to come to America in the coming days, weeks and months.

Another temporary restraining order can be found here.