How will Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Barnaby Joyce & Nationals MP Kevin Hogan handle local opposition to Turnbull Government's move to lower penalty rates?

Electorates in Northern New South Wales, such as Page and New England have an long-established tourism component in their local economies.

Both full-time, part-time and casual retail and hospitality workers play a big part in the tourism industry in these rural and regional areas, so it is interesting to note that local opposition to the Turnbull Government’s less than subtle move against weekend penalty rates in the retail and hospitality sectors is obviously on the radar of local voters.

The Australia Institute:

Polling in key Liberal and National Party seats shows strong opposition to reducing Sunday penalty rates for retail workers, according to new ReachTEL polling commissioned by The Australia Institute.

Polling conducted across the electorates of Page, New England, Warringah and Dickson on 17th December shows that between 65% and 79% of people in these electorates want Sunday penalty rates in the retail industry kept the same or increased.

“The research underscores the political difficulty any Government faces if they allow Sunday penalty rates to be cut,” said Ben Oquist, Executive Director of The Australia Institute.

“Furthermore the consequences for lowering Sunday penalty rates for the macro economy need to be considered. Lowering the take-home pay for many low paid employees, who are more likely to spend most of their income, could lower the amount of spending in the economy with negative flow on effects for economic growth and employment,” said Mr Oquist.

Page MP Kevin Hogan initially called these local concerns a beat up.

However, with media reporting the possibility that Page and Richmond workers losing a minimum est. $12.2 million and $11.8 million in total income respectively, this was perhaps not the wisest choice of words to use in an election year.

Given that in his own electorate 74.6 percent of all those of all those surveyed and 56 per cent of those Nationals supporters surveyed wanted penalty rates to increase or stay the same, attempting to brush aside valid concern in this way looks foolhardy to say the least.

Hogan appears to have realised this by 29 December and changed his tune when speaking to a Daily Examiner journalist: "I'm very cognisant that penalty rates are very important to many people who don't earn a lot of money….For a lot of people any extra benefit they get is very important to them. I'm yet to be sold there is an economic benefit in cutting penalty rates."

A statement that only the gullible would accept at face value, as his parliamentary voting record shows that he has never once voted against Abbott or Turnbull government legislation or spoken up strongly in the House of Representatives against their policies.

The Minister Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce, takes a different tack by saying that any changes to workplace laws including penalty rates would be taken to an election.  

With 70.7 percent of all those of all those surveyed and 56.9 per cent of those Nationals supporters surveyed wanting penalty rates to increase or stay the same, he will have to work hard to convince his own electorate that reducing these rates is not going to hit the New England economy hard.

Across rural New South Wales a partial abolition of penalty rates in the retail and hospitality sectors would result in workers losing between $118.9 million p.a. and $220.0 million p.a. with a  loss in disposable income of between $53.8 million p.a. and $106.2 million p.a. to local economies, according to research conducted by The McKell Institute.

Stocktake of waterbirds in eastern Australia has shown the lowest breeding level on record

ABC News 27 December 2015:

A stocktake of waterbirds in eastern Australia has shown the lowest breeding level on record.

The annual aerial survey, conducted by the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of NSW, confirmed a dramatic long-term decline in the number of waterbirds.

Director Richard Kingsford said that over 33 years of counting, average numbers had fallen more than 60 per cent.

The trend continued in 2015 with a further drop compared to the previous three-to-five-year period.

"This is the second lowest number of waterbirds we've seen in that 33-year period and it's symptomatic of the real impacts of this drought that's occurring across the eastern half of the continent," Professor Kingsford said.

The survey covered all the major rivers, lakes and wetlands from Queensland down through New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, including the Murray-Darling Basin and the Riverina.

The team found the Macquarie Marshes and Lowbidgee wetlands were only partially filled, most rivers in the Murray-Darling Basin were also relatively dry, with little wetland habitat on their floodplains, and all the large lakes in the Menindee system were dry.

The Lake Eyre and Cooper Creek wetlands were mostly dry except for a small area to their east, while important wetlands in the Lake Eyre Basin including Lakes Galilee, Yamma Yamma, Torquinnie and Mumbleberry were dry.

Waterbirds were concentrated in relatively few important sites, with only four wetland systems holding more than 5,000 birds: Lake Killapaninna, Lake Allallina, Paroo overflow Lakes and Coolmunda Dam.

Most alarmingly, the total breeding index of all 50 species combined was the lowest on record and well below the long-term average……

Professor Kingsford said climate change also needed to be taken into account.

"For these wetlands, they rely on that water staying around so animals and plants can go through their life cycles, but if you've got less of the water actually coming in at the top end and when it gets to the wetland there's a high evaporation rate then it's really challenging in the long term as well," he said.

"So a whole series of targets have been set and the big challenge is: did we get enough water for the environment over the next 15 to 20 years?"

He warned that if the regulators did not find the right balance, the wider community would pay a hefty price.

"We know in the millennium drought, for example, when there wasn't enough water for the Lower Lakes and the Coorong, governments had to put their hands in their pockets to spend $2 billion to actually rescue that system," Professor Kingsford said.

"We currently have a dredge parked in the mouth of the River Murray which is trying to keep it open — a service that the environment used to do for nothing, and that's costing taxpayers up to $100,000 a week."

He said the birds were a barometer, indicating declining health of the whole ecosystem.

University of NSW, Centre for Ecosystem Science, Aerial Survey of Wetland Birds in Eastern Australia - October 2014 Annual Summary Report

Blogging the 2015 Aerial Survey.

Click on the survey route to read a blog post or the arrow button on the top lefthand side to access the list of blogs.

Peter Dutton - the gods' gift to the Labor Party in 2016

This has to come under the heading ‘You couldn’t make this up”, as yet another Turnbull Government minister reveals his contempt for women:

Twitter, 3 January 2016

The Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2016:

PETER Dutton, the minister who once resigned from the frontbench via SMS, yesterday labelled a female journalist a “mad f ... king witch” in a text — and then sent it to the journalist instead of the colleague it was intended for.

The Immigration Minister last night outed himself as the MP who had sent the blistering text about Sunday Telegraph political editor Samantha Maiden after reading her coverage of the Jamie Briggs affair.

The text message ended a horror week for the government after Mr Briggs was forced to resign from the frontbench for allegedly trying to kiss a junior public servant during a boozy night in a Hong Kong bar while on official ministerial business. The text was supposed to be sent to Mr Briggs after Maiden’s story outing the dumped minister for sending photos of the public servant he had taken on his phone, to colleagues.

Mr Dutton, who immediately apologised to Maiden after he realised he had sent the message to her, outed himself in a bid to avoid other colleagues being listed as suspects after Maiden refused to reveal the author of the text.

The minister, successful in protecting Australian borders, said he would cop the incident on the chin.

“I apologised to her straight away, which she took in good faith,’’ he said. “Sam and I have exchanged some robust language over the years so we had a laugh after this. I’m expecting a tough time in her next column.”

Maiden said she had accepted Mr Dutton’s apology and was “not offended by his mobile phone malfunction”. The pair have known each other for more than a decade.….

UPDATE

Prime Minister Turnbull not amused by Dutton’s latest blunder……

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 January 2016:

Senior cabinet member Peter ­Dutton has apologised for calling a female journalist a “mad f. king witch” over her coverage of fallen junior minister Jamie Briggs’s ­exploits in Hong Kong.

The Immigration Minister ­yesterday admitted that he sent the message to the political editor for News Corp Australia’s Sunday papers, Samantha Maiden, after she ­reported Mr Briggs had sent colleagues a photograph of the diplomat who complained about his behaviour at the Stormies Bar in late November.

It is understood Mr Dutton ­accidentally sent the text message to Maiden instead of Mr Briggs in what was intended as a show of support for the besieged South Australian MP…..

Malcolm Turnbull is understood to regard the derogatory comment more seriously, describing it privately as “completely ­inappropriate”.

Maiden’s reporting was highly critical of Mr Briggs and his supporters, and also revealed that the former cities minister had ­accepted first-class flights and gifts of champagne and wine during his parliamentary career. While denying he sent the photograph of the diplomat and his chief of staff, ­Stuart Eaton, at the Hong Kong bar to the media, Mr Briggs said he had shared it with some colleagues ­before and after the complaint in an attempt to highlight the ­“informal” nature of the night.

The Community and Public Sector Union said the breach of the woman’s privacy was ­“disgraceful”.

Although the journalist in question is obviously having fun......

Australian Health Minister and Liberal MP Sussan Ley has some explaining to do

It is bad enough that women in rural and regional areas comprise one third of all female cancer suffers and have on average poorer cancer survival rates than their metropolitan counterparts, now they face this as well...........

Perth Now, 27 December 2015:

WOMEN with breast cancer are being denied a Medicare rebate for expensive MRI scans which others with football injuries, headaches and back pain receive.

The rebate — rejected recently by the government’s Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC) — contributes to the bills of up to $30,000 many women face for their breast cancer.

“MSAC did not support public funding for these indications due to of uncertain clinical effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and financial impact” the committee ruled.

It reckoned approving a rebate for the test — worth up to $2000 — would cost the health system around $9 million.

It’s the latest example of Medicare failing cancer patients when they need it most….

Breast surgeon Professor Christobel Saunders one of the surgeons trying to obtain a Medicare rebate for MRIs says around one in 10 women have tumours that can’t be properly seen on mammograms or ultrasound….

“About 10 per cent of women require it and it helps us plan surgery and determine whether we need to do a lumpectomy or a mastectomy.”

“We know breast MRIs work. We have been using them for 20 years they are the most efficient way of telling the full size of the tumour,” she says.

Professor Saunders was part of a group of surgeons who made an application to the governments Medicare services advisory committee which determines which medical procedures attract a Medicare rebate.

She believes MSAC may have over-estimated the number of women who would get an MRI when deciding to reject the rebate.

MSAC granted a Medicare rebate for breast MRIs for just two of the eight indications requested.

It is recommended for women whose cancer had spread to the lymph nodes where conventional scans failed to show the source of the tumour.

And MRI guided biopsy is also recommended in patients with suspected breast cancer where the tumour only identifiable by MRI.

But it rejected breast cancer MRIs for six other indications.

Besides breast MRIs the Turnbull Government has slated another 22 Medicare items for removal from the rebate list in this round of cuts: another 6 diagnostic imaging items, 9 items in ear, nose, and throat surgery; 5 items in gastroenterology services, 1 obstetrics item and 1 thoracic medicine item.

Health Minister Sussan Ley is telling all and sundry that doctors themselves recommended these items, however the medical profession does not appear to be so uniform in opinion as Ley implies.

Given that December 2015's MYEFO contained more health funding cuts, the Liberal-Nationals ideological attacks on Medicare and free access to public health services appears set to continue until they have dismantled enough of the safety net system as will enable their MPs to commence creating an inequitable U.S. style health care system.

This is the type of medical treatment just such a system delivers:

Barbara Dawson via Twitter

Sometimes it just takes a hug to make us realise that Australia is not a bad and dangerous place to live

Snapshot found on Twitter in December 2015

Global warming and climate change are very real - unless you are staunchly sticking your head in the sand

That perennial verbal battle over the existence of climate change continued in The Daily Examiner letters section right up to the end of last year.

These views were published on 14, 17 and 23 December 2015 and, as usual Perring and Ibbotson didn't let little things like science and historical fact get in the way:

Ted's a believer

TED Strong is that fanatical, one-eyed believer in the IPCC version of anthropological causes for climate change who hails from up river and John Ibbotson is the more liberal-minded sceptic from the lower river with an open view on the science pertaining to IPCC modelling and its overall veracity.

Ted Strong would well know that the IPCC "bible" has been rewritten many times to cover up some of the more elaborate porkies put forward by many of the elite scientists.

I notice Ted Strong uses the words "almost and probably" when stating "almost every mainstream climate scientist on the planet" and, when addressing the matter of whether scientists can tell the difference between steam, smoke and CO2, he says, "I think they probably can".

That is typical, never a definite statement, always it's almost, probably, perhaps, maybe, could occur, may happen, appears to be, and so on.

Will there ever be a climate change disciple who will stand up on his hind legs and say the words, "I swear on my life that I am absolutely certain beyond all doubt that what the IPCC predicts is going to happen, will happen".

Move over Tim Flannery!

Fred Perring

Halfway Creek

Denying reality

At last, after decades of procrastination, and despite the urging of Clarence Valley 'experts' who assure us climate change is a 'con', the Paris climate deal has been signed and delivered, giving us hope for a cleaner, more sustainable future.

Yet still the anti-climate change rubbish continues to be published on your letters to the editor page.

For example Fred Perring's letter (DE 14/12) harangues Ted Strong for his pro-climate change beliefs, describing him as a "fanatical one-eyed believer".

Coming from Fred, that gave many of us a good laugh, because anyone who has read Fred's on-going diatribes would have to put that comment in the "pot calling the kettle black" category.

Never have I encountered anyone as one-eyed and unwilling to accept a contrary opinion than Fred, with the possible exception of John Ibbotson, who Fred describes as a "more liberal-minded sceptic".

For several decades, thousands of climatologists, and scientists have contributed to the enormous body of evidence that now exists, warning us of the realities of climate change.

In Paris, the United Nations, the political leaders of more than 200 countries, and the leaders of the world's major religions, joined in accepting that scientific evidence, and have vowed to work together to clean up our collective act.

With that overwhelming endorsement of the science, we have to marvel at the egos of those who, with no relevant qualifications whatsoever, continue writing letters, not

only denying the reality of climate change, but ridiculing anyone asking that action be taken to reduce atmospheric pollution.

John Edwards

South Grafton

Who is denying reality?

Thank you John Edwards (17/12) for the compliment. Top of the class. Wow!

As Einstein once remarked that "No matter how great my theory is, if one person can demonstrate that it is wrong then it's back to square one."

Taking six of the AGW-green theories and see how they've stood up in practice:

The sea levels are going to rise 12 or 25 or 100m. So far they've risen about 0.25m in the last 150 years.

In Oz it's never going to rain again so we must build desalination plants. Oops. Lots of rain and floods and the dams are over flowing.

Get your kids to play in the snow because in 10 years there won't be any. Really!

The oceanic islands are going to be swamped resulting in 20,000,000 eco refugees. So far it has been found that most are stable or increasing in size, and number of accepted eco-refugees stands at zero.

That there will be worldwide famine because of all this CO2. Plants love CO2 and the world's food production continues to grow.

Temperature: The AGW folk rely on 100 computer models, based on green theory and CO2.

When compared to the actual satellite temperatures (which are hard to fiddle) 99% of the models can't get within two standard deviations of the actuals. In other words they're crap.

I could go on with more but you get the idea.

John, it would be appreciated if you could respond with some of the great AGW theories from years ago, which have actually been proven to be scientifically correct in practice. I won't hold my breath.

And John you obviously don't understand the difference between science, politics, religion and the power of money, which drives this AGW shemozzle.

John Ibbotson

 Gulmarrad

Dear Prime Minister Turnbull, You need to do a lot better in 2016 and beyond....

In 1990 Australia’s national greenhouse gas emissions were estimated at 547.7 Mt CO2-e for that year. That represents 32.1 tonnes of CO2-e emitted for every person in a population of 17.06 million spread across approximately 7.69 million km².

Australia’s annual emissions for the 2014-15 financial year were est. 549.3 Mt CO2-e. Up 0.8 per cent on the year before.That’s 18.75 tonnes of CO2-e emitted for every person in a population of 23.7 million. [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Population Size And Growth & Greenhouse Gases, Dept. of the Environment, Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2015, australia.gov.au]

Therefore, national greenhouse gas emissions data showed an estimated rise of 1.6 Mt CO2-e when comparing 1990 & 2015 and, the reason the per capita count fell appears to have been influenced by the fact that the national total is now divided among more residents across the country.

Basically, federal and state governments have spent the last 25 years bringing the nation’s emissions level back to somewhere near 1990 levels, when the reality of climate change impacts strongly suggests that Australia should have driven the emissions level well below that figure by now.

After all, in 2012 the European Union (EU), with land mass of approx. 4.42 million km² and a population then estimated at 503 million inhabitants, managed to reduce its total annual greenhouse gas emissions by est. 19.2 % (EU28 countries) and 15.1% (EU15 countries) when compared with its 1990 levels. This represented a combined total difference of 1,731 Mt CO2-e from those 1990 levels [Europa.eu,2015 & Annual European Union greenhouse gas inventory 1990–2012 and inventory report 2014].

The Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government went to UN COP21 in 2015 and, in front of world leaders, merely offering to keep Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions at between 26-28% below the 2005 level of 584.2 Mt CO2-e by 2030 is dangerously deluded behaviour [Dept. of Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2015, Australia’s 2030 Emission Reduction Target, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Greenhouse Gases].

Essentially the Australian Government told the entire world it was not prepared to do anything more than window dressing in the face of a growing global crisis.

If you don't act quickly and decisively on climate change, it will be to your enduring shame Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.

Note: Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) emissions totals are excluded from the national total due to relatively high levels of uncertainty at this stage of the data collection cycle.