A field somewhere in France

Abbott Government to dismantle Australia's U.N. refugee convention obligations by enshrining a new 'right' for government to ignore the finding of any court in the land

Australia has been a state party to the United Nations 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees since 1954, to the 1967 Protocol since 1973 and to the 1987 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment since 1989.

Yet the Abbott Government is intent on nullifying the effect these conventions and protocol have on Australian domestic law and government policy.

The Age 6 November 2014:

If passed, The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill would effectively enshrine in law the mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees who flee to our country to escape persecution, torture and death.

The legislation is the perverse creation of a Government prepared to tear up the rule of law for its own political ends. It bestows an unprecedented level of power on the immigration minister to make life and death decisions about individual refugee cases. It creates a regime where the chance of sending people back to a situation of grave danger, or even death, is a real possibility. 

It denies permanent protection to those found to be refugees, simply because of their mode of arrival to this country.  Even babies born on Australian soil to parents who arrived by boat will be denied protection, rendered stateless and detained offshore until being "resettled" in squalor and risk of attack on Nauru. We should rightly ask, if the government is prepared to be so cruel and give itself this much unchecked power over refugees, who's next?....

As well as circumventing Australian law, the bill also seeks to put the government above international maritime law, so it can send people on boats back to the country they're fleeing from, without any court oversight. 

Excerpts from the Explanatory Memorandum to The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill:

provide that the rules of natural justice do not apply to a range of powers in the Maritime Powers Act, including the powers to authorise the exercise of maritime powers, the new Ministerial powers and the exercise of powers to hold and move vessels and persons;

ensure that the exercise of a range of powers cannot be invalidated because a court considers there has been a failure to consider, properly consider, or comply with Australia‘s international obligations, or the international obligations or domestic law of any other country;

Excerpts from The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill: 

197C Australia’s non-refoulement obligations irrelevant to removal of unlawful non-citizens under section 198

(1) For the purposes of section 198, it is irrelevant whether Australia has non-refoulement obligations in respect of an unlawful  non-citizen.

(2) An officer’s duty to remove as soon as reasonably practicable an unlawful non-citizen under section 198 arises irrespective of whether there has been an assessment, according to law, of Australia’s non-refoulement obligations in respect of the non-citizen.

(1A) For the purposes of this Act, a person is also an unauthorised maritime arrival if:

the person is born in the migration zone; and

(b) a parent of the person is, at the time of the person’s birth, an unauthorised maritime arrival because of subsection (1) (no matter where that parent is at the time of the birth); and

5 (c) the person is not an Australian citizen at the time of birth.

Note 1: For who is a parent of a person, see the definition in subsection 5(1) 7 and section 5CA.

Note 2: A parent of the person may be an unauthorised maritime arrival even if the parent holds, or has held, a visa.

Note 3: A person to whom this subsection applies is an unauthorised maritime arrival even if the person is taken to have been granted a visa because of section 78 (which deals with the birth in Australia of non-citizens).

Note 4: For when a person is an Australian citizen at the time of his or her birth, see section 12 of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007.

Note 5: This subsection applies even if the person was born before the commencement of the subsection. See the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Act 2014.

22A Failure to consider international obligations etc. does not  invalidate authorisation

(1) The exercise of a power to give an authorisation under a provision of this Division is not invalid:

(a) because of a failure to consider Australia’s international obligations, or the international obligations or domestic law of any other country; or

(b) because of a defective consideration of Australia’s international obligations, or the international obligations or

domestic law of any other country; or

(c) because the exercise of the power is inconsistent with Australia’s international obligations

Subsection (1) is not to be taken to imply that the exercise of a power under any other provision of this Act is invalid for a reason of a kind specified in paragraph (1)(a), (b) or (c).

22B Rules of natural justice do not apply to authorisations

(1) The rules of natural justice do not apply to the exercise of a power to give an authorisation under a provision of this Division.

(2) Subsection (1) is not to be taken to imply that the rules of natural justice do apply in relation to the exercise of powers under any other provision of this Act.

The Samaritans backdown over Twitter spy app - for now

On 29 October 2014 The Samaritans organisation, which describes itself as the leading suicide prevention charity, launched an app for Twitter which allowed even a person’s anonymous followers to sign up for notification that the person was ‘vulnerable’. The allegedly vulnerable person having no idea that a spy app had been launched to monitor their tweets.

Organisations which had Twitter accounts could contact this charity and arrange to have the app blocked from accessing their accounts but individuals were denied this option.

Once the twitterverse became aware of Samaritan Radar the response was predominately less than favourable, as the potential for this invasive app to be abused was obvious.

Some Twitter users became angry:

Some became fearful:

On 7 November 2014 BBC News reported that the app had been suspended:

An app made by the Samaritans that was supposed to detect when people on Twitter appeared to be suicidal has been pulled due to "serious" concerns.

The charity's app was meant to use an algorithm to identify key words and phrases which indicated distress.

But in practice, some said the app made those with mental health issues feel more vulnerable.

The Samaritans apologised to "anyone who has inadvertently been caused any distress".

"We have made the decision to suspend the application at this time for further consideration," said the charity's policy director, Joe Ferns, in a statement.

"Our primary concern is for anyone who may be struggling to cope, including those with mental health conditions.

"We are very aware that the range of information and opinion, which is circulating about Samaritans Radar, has created concern and worry for some people and would like to apologise to anyone who has inadvertently been caused any distress.

"This was not our intention."…..

Despite the suspension of the app, the Samaritans' Mr Ferns defended the charity's track record experimenting with new technology.

"Samaritans has a history of innovating to meet the challenges of providing a safe, relevant and effective service to all those we exist to support and we will continue to do this and learn from the work we do.

"We will use the time we have now to engage in further dialogue with a range of partners, including in the mental health sector and beyond in order to evaluate the feedback and get further input.

"We will also be testing a number of potential changes and adaptations to the app to make it as safe and effective as possible for both subscribers and their followers."

However, the blind arrogance and rampant paternalism which led The Samaritans to launch this app now see it refusing to rule out re-introducing this spy technology at a later date.

Hopefully Twitter management will rethink its co-operation and refuse to allow Samaritan Radar anywhere near its platforms in the future.

The Clarence Valley has been down this track before with dissembling state governments and naive mayors

The Daily Examiner 6 November 2014:

A "JOINT organisation" will pool the resources and bargaining power of Clarence Valley Regional Council with three surrounding local governments.

Mayor Richie Williamson was adamant the new structure was not an amalgamation and said Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Nambucca councils would continue to exist as separate entities.

"In fact, it is the exact opposite. This is not about amalgamation in any form," he said.

"It's about a group of councils working in a regional framework."

A $5 million funding pool has been allocated to forming 15 "joint organisations" across New South Wales as part of the State Government's "Fit for the Future" local government reforms.

There have been suggestions the new organisations were a ploy to eventually replace "left-leaning" Regional Development Australia bodies in New South Wales.

Cr Williamson said he had not been told anything to that effect.

"We actually don't know much of substance about it yet. The make-up and its role are up for some strong discussion," he said.

"We need to ensure it's not simply adding another layer of bureaucracy….

In the 1990s local government councils in the Clarence Valley began cooperative management in areas of mutual interest through the Clarence Valley Local Government Committee, then a limited voluntary merger occurred in 2000 before the then NSW Labor Government forced wider amalgamation into the current Clarence Valley Council in 2004 with consequential diminution of good governance and transparency.

It is foolish to suppose that in the eyes of the current NSW Coalition Government the creation of a so called ‘joint organisation’ is not broadly comparable with the former Clarence Valley Local Government Committee (used to ‘soften’ local government opposition to merger proposals) and, therefore a possible precursor to the creation of a super council centred in one of the two largest population clusters, Coffs Harbour City or Tweed Shire.

It is equally foolish to believe that the $300,000 which this organisation would receive from the Baird Government would mitigate increased costs to Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Nambucca councils flowing from the so-called ‘joint organisation' containing four local government areas with few historical or contemporary common interests.

The Baird Government makes it clear that once the $300,000 is spent no more state funding will be forthcoming. Direct and ongoing costs to be covered by member councils of a joint organisation include employment of an Executive Officer as well as accommodation and administrative costs, where not provided ‘in house’ by a member council.

Make no mistake, the joint organisation covering the four local government areas mentioned by Richie Williamson is highly likely to be just a pilot program for the final larger joint organisation which would start in the southern Great Lakes region and end at the NSW-Qld border – covering roughly half of the NSW coastline by 2016.

At its most basic the entire process is yet another scheme aimed at continuing cost shifting by the state government and, this map gives some indication of how rural and regional super council boundaries might look if the Liberal-Nationals Coalition gets its as yet unspoken wish:

Map in Fit for the Future: Joint Organisations, September 2014

The NSW Minister for Local Government and Nationals MLA for Bathurst who is progressing this scheme is the well-named Paul Toole.

Background

NSW Government, Office of Local Government, Fit for the Future: Joint Organisations, September 2014

The NSW Nationals MP for Clarence is not happy when heckled by anti-gasfields protestors

First term NSW Nationals Member for Clarence, former property developer and former Clarence Valley shire councillor, Chris Gulaptis, is a little hot under the collar if ABC News on 31 October 2014 is reading him correctly:

The Clarence MP says he'll sue anyone who suggests he has improper ties to the coal seam gas industry.

Chris Gulpatis said he was recently confronted by someone alleging he had a conflict of interest due to time working with a company known for its CSG work.

Mr Gulpatis worked as a surveyor for LandPartners in 2006.

But he said he never worked on CSG projects.

"Well the Chris Gulaptis that worked for LandPartners as a consultant is me, but the Chris Gulaptis who worked on any CSG projects is total fabrication and lie," Mr Gulaptis said.

He said if rumours continue to circulate about CSG connections, he'll get legal advice.

"Well, I have no ties with the industry and I get very frustrated when they spread lies and innuendo and make false allegations and I would just advise people to be very careful if they do so and they impugn my reputation then I will have no hesitation in seeking a defamation action against them," he said.

Mr Gulaptis accused his critics of spreading rumours based on a 'Google' search.

"What astounds me is people have not researched my background and they come up with these false allegations and I really have to question how much they have researched the CSG industry.

"Clearly if they are fabricating stories about me I would suggest they probably fabricating stories about the CSG industry as well, I mean GOOGLE can find you a million answers," Mr Gulaptis said.

The Daily Examiner 4 November 2014:

Mr Gulaptis said a protester stationed outside his Prince St office loudly accused him of having worked for a company with links to coal seam gas mining.

He did not deny having worked for LandPartners as a surveyor until 2006 but said his job never involved in any CSG operations.

The accusations have since made their way to Facebook.

"As far as I'm concerned, that's nothing but gossip and malicious lies," he said.

"I'm a surveyor - that's my profession - and I worked for LandPartners as a consultant.

"It certainly had nothing to do with the CSG industry and I ceased working for them in 2006

"At that stage, I had never even heard of CSG and I certainly didn't work on any CSG projects."

It would appear that Mr. Gulaptis did not enjoy being heckled by someone who questioned his 2006-2007 work history with Land Partners Limited (formerly Aspect North & KFM Partnership) – a company involved in the planning, design and construction phases of the Eastern Gas Pipeline in 1999-2000.

One has to wonder if he was also questioned about his time at as a senior operations manager for Brazier Motti Pty Ltd engineering and mining surveyors in Mackay, Queensland commencing around 2009 and presumably finishing when he won NSW Nationals pre-selection for the Clarence by-election in 2011.

A position he used to enthusiastically support the mining industry:

After enjoying some time overseas, Chris moved back to Australia when a job opportunity became available in Mackay.
"I was so happy to get involved back into a community where mining was big again," he said.

“We believe the wider Mackay region has a buoyant future in terms of attracting substantial investment in the areas of property development, mining and resources and public infrastructure,” Mr Gulaptis said . “Mining has underpinned the region's economy for a long time and now the Federal Government's Nation Building infrastructure projects will provide the impetus to sustain Mackay through the current economic downturn.”

Theappointment of Mr Gulaptis marks the completion of Brazier Motti's seniormanagement team.

The Mackay region includes the Abbot Point coal port and the town has coal seam gas exploration tenements to its west, as well as some of its businesses servicing the gas industry.

When he unsuccessfully stood for the NSW federal seat of Page in 2007 Chris Gulaptis openly supported the coal seam gas industry and Metgaso Limited:

By 2012 he was in favour of Metgasco establishing a commercial tight gas¹  field in the Clarence Valley.

ABC News 26 September 2012:

A mining company with gas exploration licences for the Clarence Valley has just signed a multi million dollar deal with an energy company.

The almost $3 million dollar agreement between Red Sky Energy and ERM Power will fund drilling of up to nine gas wells.

Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis said as far as he knows it is not a coal seam gas exploration project.

"On the surface they are talking about conventional gas, I think that's a good thing," he said.

"They're talking about domestic use, I think that's a good thing.

"I think the fact that the NSW government has at long last put some regulations in place to monitor the gas industry is also a good thing.

"So it all comes together at the right time."

Mr Gulaptis said he is not yet sure how big the local gas reserve is, or what the lifespan of the project is.

"I'm not sure about the extent of the resource is but clearly with a heavy investment there must be some confidence that the resource is fairly extensive," he said.

"It could be a good thing if it is a sustainable project which delivers gas to our domestic market."

Although from time to time in recent years Mr. Gulaptis has made mild media statements opposing coal seam gas mining in the Northern Rivers region, he has only spoken on the issue twice in state parliament in three years.

The first time on 20 June 2013 he stated; I am neither for nor against coal seam gas. He is also part of a government which has renewed two of Metgasco Limited's coal seam gas exploration licences and granted the company a production licence.

He supports the idea of designated gasfields being established within the state.

One doesn't know what Chris Gulaptis said to pro-CSG Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane in October 2013, when he attended a Canberra meeting along with fellow Nationals NSW MP Thomas George and Federal MP Kevin Hogan, Peter Henderson and Stuart George from Metgasco, a representative of ERM (a major Metgasco shareholder), the head of Geoscience Australia, Richmond Valley Council General Manager John Walker, the head of Richmond Valley Water Users Group,  NORCO chair Greg McNamara, dairy farmer Leigh Sherman, tourism operator and marine biologist Wendy Craig Duncan, Regional Co-ordinator for the Lock the Gate Alliance Ian Gaillard and Bentley landholder Peter Graham.

However, after this meeting the minister was reported as stating that; the majority opinion expressed at this meeting was that the CSG industry should operate within the framework set out by the NSW government including the buffer zone, while also meeting any conditions set out by the NSW chief scientist and where farmers agree to have CSG on their land.

That Mr. Gulaptis has chosen to issue a statement threatening legal action indicates that he is both acutely aware of community sentiment against the gas industry and sensitive about his own history in the lead up to the March 2015 state election.

This move may yet backfire on him as this Facebook post shows:

1. The term “tight gas sands” refers to low permeability sandstone reservoirs that produce primarily dry natural gas. A tight gas reservoir is one that cannot be produced at economic flow rates or recover economic volumes of gas unless the well is stimulated by a large hydraulic fracture treatment and/or produced using horizontal wellbores (Holditch, 2006). Tight gas includes basin-centred gas systems, defined by Law (2002) as low-permeability, gas-saturated reservoirs that are abnormally pressured, regionally pervasive, and lack down-dip water contacts. [SA Government Dept of State Development]

How many NSW North Coast businesses, post offices, police stations and local councils use Internet-enabled security cameras capable of being exploited?

When you walk into your local supermarket to pick up some breakfast cereal or the nearest council chambers to pay your rates do you ever wonder just how benign that security camera monitoring your movements actually is?

Have you any idea if the security camera you are thinking of installing at your business premises or above your front door at home is Internet-enabled?

What about that high-tech baby monitor by the cot?

Haven’t given it a thought? Well, perhaps you should.

These three statements were taken from the websites of companies which supply security cameras for homes, offices, shops etc.:

For highly reliable CCTV surveillance in any conditions, only trust professionally installed and tested products. Protect your property and assets with this trusted visual deterrent that gives you full monitoring and recording facilities. Watch from a central location, or remotely anywhere in the world via an internet enabled device.

Monitor your home or office with high quality MJPEG streaming video. Access, monitor and record up to 16 cameras from the Internet.

TRENDnet’s security team understands that video from some TRENDnet IP SecurView cameras may be accessed online in real time. Upon awareness of the issue, TRENDnet initiated immediate actions to correct and publish updated firmware which resolves the vulnerability.

It would appear from just these thee quotes that security flaws in Internet-enabled security cameras are not only possible but can be exploited at will and, video footage either live streamed or video snapshots posted on publicly available websites.

This potentially means administrative or sales staff and ratepayers or customers may at any time find live images of themselves beamed around the world - as would anyone who had such a camera set up inside their own home.

Cameras with a pan/tilt/zoom function just add to the fun to be had by anyone taking advantage of these security flaws.

If any of these surveillance systems are linked to audio, the privacy issues multiply because your conversations might also fly around the world for the listening pleasure of strangers. 

On 8 November 2014 The Canberra Times reported that; UNSW's Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre co-convenor David Vaile said people should think twice before using internet-connected security devices. "This is a great illustration of the illusion of security coming from surveillance and in fact you're getting the opposite, you're getting increase risk of unwanted and possibly quite hostile misuse of your information,"…

Currently over 900 Australian security camera feeds (along with many of their default passwords) are currently available at one website alone, including a 4 channel Hikvision camera at Evans Head and a 1 channel Foscam camera at Lismore.

Loved that stuffed animal in a yellow outfit, Evans Head! The office mascot perhaps?

Here is a list of just some of the vulnerable security cameras brands and associated software systems:

TRENDnet

D-Link

Cisco

Linksys

IQ Vision/IQeye

3S Vision

HD Network Speed Dome

TP Link

Vivotek

Hikvision

Foscam

Milestone

Axis

Australian conservatives don't do death well

Australian Financial Review 6 November 2014:

Among life’s most reliable performance indicators, when your wife screams at you for something you’ve written, you know you’ve got a problem.

That’s what happened to the News Corp blogger Andrew Bolt when he started dancing on Gough Whitlam’s grave within hours of the great man’s death. His wife yelled at him. And with good reason.

Whitlam passed away in the early morning of Tuesday, October 21. By 8.13am Bolt was attacking him, particularly the Whitlam government’s decision to “end the assimilation project, both for Aborigines and immigrants”.

Bolt thought it was more important to vent, for the 865th time, his personal obsession with race than to show respect for the Whitlam family in its moment of grief.

He thought that abusing a fallen prime minister was more important than conveying respect for the pinnacle of Australian democracy: the office of prime minister itself.

Perhaps, in her anger, Mrs Bolt is an advocate of the timeless adage, passed down by generations of Australian mothers and grandmothers, that “if you can’t say something good about someone who has just died, don’t say anything at all”.

It’s not as if her husband is short of things to say – space fillers for this role in the media. He could have published his 539th condemnation of the ABC, for instance, or his 724th denial of climate change.

But that’s the thing about fanaticism: it blurs one’s judgment. It makes political nutters regurgitate their ideological obsessions, blind to the respectful norms of the rest of society.

While 99 per cent of people lead normal, reasonably balanced lives, in which the emotions of life and death are seen as vastly more important than party politics, inside Australia’s media bubble there’s a group of activists with a different mindset. They regard all aspects of life as inherently political.

Thus for Bolt, Whitlam’s death had nothing to do with the passing of a father, a grandfather, a brother – the mournful sorrow of a grieving family. It was solely a political event, requiring a right-wing response.

But it wasn’t just Bolt. If the sounds of fury in his household had been one-off, an aberrant domestic dispute between husband and wife, it might have been possible to ignore his vindictiveness.

Regrettably, Bolt’s response was typical of the right-wing hunting pack. Like a gang of skinheads kicking over tombstones, Gerard Henderson, Greg Sheridan, Miranda Devine and Rowan Dean also rushed into print, vilifying Whitlam within days of his death.

In a piercing commentary on his own values, Henderson said that praise of the former prime minister had made him unwell, forcing him to “lie on the floor with a wet towel on his forehead”.

This is part of a pattern in our national life – an echo of Alan Jones’s slur that Julia Gillard’s father had “died of shame”.

Australian conservatives don’t do death well……

Australian Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne, House of Representatives Hansard, 21 October 2014:

All of us will remember where we were in 1975. As Barnaby Joyce has indicated what he was doing, I will just briefly say where I was—because I was only eight. My mother was ironing and I was watching Adventure Island, which many people will remember; I remember my mother was ironing and I was watching Adventure Island, and my mother started crying. I thought: ' I wonder why my mother's crying?' I have to let you in on a secret: she was not crying out of sadness when she heard the Whitlam government had been dismissed. She was crying out of joy.