So you think you're hard done by because Abbott & Co told you so?

The top 20 per cent of people have five times more income than the bottom 20 per cent, and hold 71 times more wealth. Perhaps the gap between those with the most and those with the least is most starkly highlighted by the fact that the richest seven individuals in Australia hold more wealth than 1.73 million households in the bottom 20 per cent. [The Australia Institute, Income and wealth inequality in Australia, Policy Brief No. 64, July 2014]

This year sees tax rates and tax reform debated in the media once more, with Prime Minister Abbott reiterating that his is a government that believes in lowering taxes and Treasurer Hockey repeating that Australian workers pay almost half their earnings to government as tax.

So do Australians spend the first six months of the year working for the government with tax rates nearly 50 cents in the dollar as Joe Hockey asserts?

If the Australian Taxation Office Individual income tax rates for Australian residents is correct this would only come close to happening if your personal taxable income is many millions of dollars per year.

At half a million in taxable income annually, tax payable by an individual worker without family (including the Medicare and Temporary Budget Repair levies) would only reach an est. 42.05% and, in fact would be less than that once any Australian Tax Office (ATO) refund is deducted.

For many workers their personal income tax might look something like this.

Estimated individual tax payable in 2014-15

Income of $18,200 – pay no income tax as this amount is the upper limit of the tax free threshold applicable to all individual taxpayers before taxable income can be calculated

Taxable income of $37,000 – pay $3,610 income tax (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $80,000 – pay $17,332 income tax (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $180,000 – pay $54,547 income tax^ (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $250,000* – pay $86,047 income tax^# (before any ATO tax refund)

Taxable income $500,000* – pay $198,547 income tax^#  (before any ATO tax refund)

* taxable income in highest individual tax rate after the first $180,000 of taxable income

^ does not include the 2% Medicare Levy surcharge applicable at this level of taxable income

# individual taxpayers with a taxable income of more than $180,000 per year will have additional tax withheld by their employer (2% Temporary Budget Repair Levy) from 1 July 2014 to 1 July 2017

+ the majority of all tax refunds range between $1 and $1,999, the second largest refund band is between $2,000 and $3,999, with the highest refund band being $10,000 dollars or more

NB. All figures based on Australian Tax Office Individual income tax rates for Australian residents 2014-15 and Taxation Statistics 2011-12 (refunds)

Right-wing attacks on the ABC continue. This time Gerard Henderson's tilt at Media Watch & Professor Chapman backfires spectacularly

Weighed under by budget cuts and loss of an international platform the Australian Broadcasting Commission, everybody's Aunty, must wonder when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's flying monkeys will cease their attacks on its integrity.

Fortunately some of those who become collateral damage in the war on public broadcasting bite back publicly, as did Simon Fenton Chapman AO BA(Hons) (UNSW), PhD (USyd), FASSA, HonFFPH (UK).

Professor Chapman in Crikey on 23 February 2015:

Over the weekend and this morning, The Australian's Gerard Henderson and Simon King spent a lot of ink explaining to readers that I have "as much authority to discuss health affairs as I [Henderson] do. Namely, Zip."

Their readers needed to be told this because last week Media Watch tipped a very rancorous bucket over The Australian's reportage of a "study" from Victoria by acoustic engineer Steven Cooper that involved just three households of altogether six long-time complainants about the local wind farm. There was no control group. Here and here are critiques of the many manifest inadequacies of his report.

I was one of four people quoted by Media Watch in the program, and this got our Gerard very excited. He wrote to the program:

"Media Watch's decision to associate Professor Chapman with the words 'expert' and 'scientific' gave a clear impression that he is qualified to assess scientific research. However, Paul Barry neglected to advise Media Watch viewers that Simon Chapman had no scientific or engineering or medical qualifications. He has a BA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales and a Ph.D. from Sydney University. Dr Chapman's Ph.D. is in Sociology. In other words, Simon Chapman has no qualifications to assess the research of the acoustic engineer Steven Cooper … Media Watch misled its viewers last Monday by implying that Professor Simon Chapman is an 'expert' who is 'scientifically' qualified to assess the heath effect on humans of wind farms. The fact is that Simon Chapman has no formal qualifications in science or medicine or engineering."

This morning Simon King went one better with his discovery that ""He does not have a PhD in Medicine". In fact, I do have a PhD in medicine. Here's a list of 14 of us who graduated in 1986 with … wait for it … a "PhD in medicine", as King could have read if he'd checked my CV (line 1, page 3) or asked me.

I did my PhD in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (that M word again). The duffers on the Order of Australia committee also seem to know that I contribute to health and medical research. My citation reads "for distinguished service to medical research as an academic and author".

King and Henderson appear to know nothing about the nature of contemporary expertise and how nearly all complex problems in health and medicine today involve researchers from different disciplines working together. In my school in the faculty of medicine there are staff who are biostatisticians, historians, psychologists, ethicists, economists, epidemiologists, and social scientists. Only some — probably a minority — have undergraduate degrees in medicine. Henderson's primitive understanding of expertise begins and ends with the possession of an undergraduate degree…..

Steven Cooper, whose CV has no mention of any PhD or undergraduate degree in medicine, until recently referred to himself as "Dr Cooper" on his home page. I look forward to The Australian covering this…..

Read the rest of the article here.

Santos' Gladstone LNG expansion proposal involves significant scientific uncertainties according to Federal Government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee

The industrialisation of rural and regional landscapes continue with Santos planning more than 6,000 water hungry gas wells operating for an estimated 30 years across 10,676 square kilometres in Queensland.

The Abbott Government has been in possession of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee’s final report on the Gas Fields Development Project since December 2014, sometime after which it was made publicly available on the Committee’s website.

ABC News 19 February 2015:

Top experts are warning of significant scientific uncertainties arising from a massive coal seam gas expansion proposal in Queensland.

The ABC has obtained a report from the Federal Government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee, which flags a concerning lack of information in project documents and says more work needs to be done on Santos's Gladstone LNG expansion proposal.

The proposed expansion covers 10,676 square kilometres and has the potential to include more than 6,000 gas wells across central Queensland.

"The scale, the early stage and the geographic extent of the proposed project development, together with other significant coal seam gas projects in the region, creates considerable scientific uncertainty about impacts on surface water and groundwater and associated ecosystems," the IESC report said.

According to the report, the potential impacts include:

* Reduced water supply to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems, including Great Artesian Basin discharge and watercourse springs and endangered ecological communities.

* Changes to groundwater and surface water quality due to direct project activities and management of co-produced water.

* Cumulative impacts of Surat and Bowen basin activities (particularly coal seam gas and coal mining) on groundwater pressures and lag-time effects on water.

The IESC also warned the hydroecological information (including ecological water requirements of systems) was "inadequate" for understanding potential local ecological impacts.

"Methods applied are appropriate to understand regional impacts, particularly cumulative water drawdown," the Committee said.

"However, the methods used are not sufficient for understanding local-scale impacts, particularly to ecological assets.

"Recognising the considerable information provided in the project assessment documentation, the IESC is concerned that relevant data and information from investigations and monitoring from the [Gladstone LNG] Project and Joint Industry Programmes have not been incorporated in the project assessment documentation for [this latest] development."

There is also the matter of weather during cyclone season......

This is the Santos facility at Curtis Island, Gladstone QLD:

Then there is the matter of weather conditions during cyclone season.....

On 19 February 2015 7News reported:

Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) spokesman Patrick Quirk said ships would be moved away from Gladstone Harbour this morning as a precaution. "We have about 11 ships in the port and 23 ships at anchor and they'll be asked to clear the area," he said. "We have some LNG tankers also in the area and they'll go to sea to weather the storm."

The Financial Review on 20 February 2015:

Ports in Mackay and Gladstone had been shut down in preparation for the cyclone. Gas company Santos said all of its staff on its GLNG liquefied natural gas project had been moved off Curtis Island, near Gladstone, with workers moved into cyclone-proof accommodation. Bechtel, which has built the three gas processing plants on Curtis Island, said the projects would remain closed until the weather improved.

The truth about Tony Abbott's war on terror? Part Two

Alan Moir political cartoon

From time to time snippets of truth concerning Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s expensive war on terror appear in the media. 

This is another example.......

News.com.au 21 February 2015:

TONY Abbott suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq, with 3500 Australian ground troops to confront the Islamic State terrorist group.

Flanked by his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, in a meeting in Canberra on November 25, the Prime Minister said the move would help halt the surge of Islamic State in northern Iraq.

After receiving no resistance from Ms Credlin or his other staff in the room, Mr Abbott then raised the idea with Australia’s leading military planners. The military officials were stunned, telling Mr Abbott that sending 3500 Australian soldiers without any US or NATO cover would be disastrous for the Australians.

They argued that even the US was not prepared to put ground troops into Iraq and it would make Australia the only Western country with troops on the ground…..

The Iraq idea was not the first time Mr Abbott had suggested a military intervention by Australia’s armed forces. The Australian reported in August that in the week following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine by Russian-backed militia, Mr Abbott suggested sending 1000 Australian soldiers to secure the site of the crash….

Australia’s leading military planners also argued against that proposal, telling Mr Abbott there were serious problems with the plan: Australian soldiers would not be able to speak either Ukrainian or Russian, and the Australian troops would have difficulty distinguishing between Ukrainians and Russian militia.

The truth about Tony Abbott's war on terror? Part One

Note: Mr. Abbott has since denied  that he had raised the idea of Australia unilaterally intervening in Iraq. This denial appears to hinge on whether he had made a 'formal' request for advice on this matter - presumably as opposed to any informal discussion. However, since Mr. Abbott is a self-admitted purveyor of untruths it will be up to the reader to decide if he denial is believeable.

The Daily Examiner makes unforgivable factual error

The myriad of typos over the years one can laugh at – after all who doesn’t suffer from fat thumb from time to time.

However, errors of fact are a different matter.

In both its print and online version of the newspaper The Daily Examiner asserted this on 24 February 2015:

[my bolding]

This is sloppy reporting at best and at worst a deliberate distortion of fact. Quite frankly I’m hoping is was some off-site subbing which caused this blunder.

It was only two days before that The Daily Telegraph, not known to favour Labor, reported:

The indexation change was announced in the May budget. Welfare groups and Labor argue it will cut pensions by $80 a week within 10 years. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, this amounts to a $23 billion cut to the cost of the age pension by 2023. [my red bolding]

A leading seniors advocate COTA Australia issued a media release on 21 August 2014 which stated:

“If only the CPI had been used since 2009 the Pension would already be $30 per week or $1,560 per year less, and that gap grows to over $80 per week / $4,160 per year in 10 years, and keeps growing. That’s a huge amount for Pensioners who already often have to make choices between heating, decent food, medications and a basic gift for their grandchild’s birthday. “This measure is extremely harsh and goes beyond even that which was recommended by the Commission of Audit….” [my red bolding]

On 22 May 2014 The Guardian reported:

The report, A Budget that Divides a Nation, says pensioners on aged and disability support payments would lose about $80 a week by 2024 after having their payments indexed to CPI. [my red bolding]

The Daily Examiner is telling its readers that pensioners will only lose $8 dollars a year when in fact the change in indexation reduces the value of the aged pension by an est. $416 in 2017 when the change come into effect and, this increases to an est. $4,160 per year by 2025.

Metadata Retention: in which the Prime Minister of Australia says any old thing which pops into his head

The Sydney Morning Herald on 19 February 2015 reported assertions made by Prime Minister Tony Abbott concerning his government's plan to introduce mass telecommunications and information technology surveillance of the Australian population:

The Abbott government's controversial data retention scheme will cost an estimated $300 million to set up, with telecommunications consumers expected to foot almost half the total cost through higher bills.

The government wants legislation passed by March requiring telecommunications companies to store customer metadata for at least two years.

Under the government's proposal, phone and internet firms would be forced to store details such as the time and place of phone calls, and the origin and destination of emails. It does not include the content of communications.

Responding to calls to release the cost of the scheme, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Wednesday that it would cost less than one per cent of the estimated $40 billion value of the telecommunications sector to establish.

Mr Abbott said that the price of not storing electronic communication records is "incalculable" and would lead to an "explosion in unsolved crime".

Fairfax Media understands the government's calculations for setting up the scheme are approximately $300 million, based on an industry analysis by professional services group PwC. [my red bolding]

There will be an explosion of unsolved come across the country if Abbott & Co are not allowed to introduce universal surveillance of Australian citizens? 

Surveillance that stores raw digital data about the daily lives of all citizens. Data which federal government security agencies, police and every revenue raising state or federal government agency or statutory authority can access without a warrant.

So if persons committing criminal offences have had the upper hand because there is no mass surveillance to date, why is it that crime has not spiralled out of control before now?

If police need these additional mass surveillance powers to do their job effectively, why do NSW Police currently solve a high percentage of homicides and why was the NSW prison population in 2014 rising without these powers?

If landlines, mobile phones and the Internet are so vital to the commission of major crimes, how is it that I live in an area with a relatively high rate of Internet connection in the home (58% with public access points also available) but stable to lower recorded major criminal offences trends and, New South Wales as a whole showed no significant recorded major offences upward trend in the September Quarter 2014.

If there was thought to be a direct correlation between no mass surveillance and unsolved crime, I suspect the fact that around 62 percent of individuals before NSW local courts already plead guilty in the absence of such surveillance might call that assumption into question.

As would the fact that the number and percentage of criminal convictions are increasing in NSW lower and higher courts without continuous two-year metadata retention being available to police without a warrant.

This may be a somewhat simplistic yardstick used to measure the veracity of the federal government position, but it does indicate the likelihood that Tony Abbott was spouting arrant nonsense for the benefit of the camera.

Prime Minister Abbott also made a National Security Statement on 23 February which included this sentence:

The government's Data Retention Bill – currently being reviewed by the Parliament – is the vital next step in giving our agencies the tools they need to keep Australia safe.

However, access to metadata without a warrant apparently would not have stopped the violent Martin Place siege or kept the seventeen hostages safe during their 16 hour ordeal.  

The Martin Place Siege: Joint Commonwealth and News South Wales Review report clearly outlines these facts:

the perpetrator of this fatal siege was known to national security and police agencies for most of the eighteen years he lived in Australia;

his Internet and social media presence was being monitored and assessed;

there were at least 18 calls from members of the public to the National Security Hotline between 9 -12 December 2014 concerning the offensive nature of the content on his public Facebook page; and

with the exception of the suspension of a website and certain criminal charges before the courts, relevant authorities did not act to contain the perpetrator based on the information in their possession before 15 December 2014 because he was not considered a threat to national security.

This example places into doubt this second reason Tony Abbott recently gave for the need to implement a mass surveillance scheme.

High Court of Australia: state of play in the matter of NSW Independent Commission against Corruption v. Cunneen & Ors

For those interested in how the appeal, Independent Commission against Corruption v. Cunneen & Ors is progressing, see document links below.

North Coast Voices’ regular readers might recall that it was Cunneen v Independent Commission Against Corruption which caused the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption to delay its final reports concerning Operations Credo and Spicer.

Documents

09/12/2014 Application for special leave to appeal

12/12/2014 Hearing (Single Justice, Sydney)

16/01/2015 Written submissions (Applicant)

16/01/2015 Chronology (Applicant)

02/02/2015 Written submissions (Respondents)

02/02/2015 Chronology (Respondents)

13/02/2015 Reply (Applicant)

04/03/2015 Hearing (Full Court, Canberra

*The due dates shown for documents on this page are indicative only