The Shirtfront (non) Event

News.com.au 11 November 2014:

However suggestions Mr Abbott would ‘shirt-front’ the Russian President appeared to fall flat.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by the Russian state news agency, scoffed when asked if Mr Abbott delivered on his promise.

“It appears that he did not try,” Mr Peskov said….

Despite his threat to “shirt front” Mr Putin, it was the tough man Russian President who appeared to give the cold shoulder to Mr Abbott when they were seen together.

While it was hardly akin to the threatened AFL-style collision, the body language between Mr Abbott and the Russian President was far from friendly.

Mr Putin turned away from Mr Abbott and the pair barely made eye contact when they were seated next to each other at the first formal leaders meeting on the outskirts of Beijing yesterday.....

What Russia thinks of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott

Tweeted by StopToryTerror ‏@daveyk317 

Denton, Texas: the birthplace of fracking just banned this gas extraction method

The West Australian 7 November 2014

Denton, Texas, has an estimated population of 123,000 people and is within the Barnett Shale, one of the larger gas fields in America.

It reportedly has 272 active fracking wells, with 212 additional wells within it’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Denton gas industry infrastucture

On 4 November 2014 over 58% of its eligible residents voted to ban any further fracking within city limits. The people had finally had enough.

The evacuation of houses and diversion of flights at the city airport near a well blowout in April 2013 was probably the one straw too many for some of theses voters:

Air quality samples were gathered when the incident was nearly over. Fort Worth-based Cudd Well Control, which EagleRidge first contacted at 5:30 a.m., had arrived at 11 a.m. and capped the well at 3:39 p.m., according to state documents.

One 30-minute air quality sample was collected downwind at 3:21 p.m. and another 30-minute sample was collected upwind at 4:11 p.m., according to state records.

The downwind sample detected 46 of the 84 hazardous air pollutants tested for, including benzene and ethylene dibromide, or EDB. Upwind, the sample detected 27 of 84 chemicals. Neither benzene nor EDB was detected upwind, state records showed.

Within 12 hours of the vote results being announced the gas industry and its political supporters mounted a legal challenge to this ban and went to the 53^rd District Court of Travis County seeking a permanent injunction.

The application for this injunction has an unusual twist - referring to the gas leases on public land as “the school kids' minerals”.

Presumably the school kids actually living in Denton are supposed to tolerate, for the common good, the level of air pollution which may be experienced within the environs of these gas wells.

*Photographs found at Google Images

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