Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights still not happy with the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Public Interest Advocates and Other Matters)

Excerpts from Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Human rights scrutiny report, 25 February 2016:

2.33 Accessing telecommunications data relating to a journalist, or their employer, where the purpose is to identify a journalist's source, together with the journalist information warrant and PIA scheme, engages and may limit multiple rights, including:

* right to an effective remedy;

* right to a fair hearing;

* right to privacy; and

* right to freedom of expression.

2.35 The committee considered that the journalist information warrant and PIA schemes seek to better promote the protection of privacy and the right to freedom of expression by prescribing a warrant process for accessing journalists' information, but that the regulation may lack sufficient safeguards to appropriately protect these rights, as well as the right to an effective remedy and a fair hearing. In particular:

* the regulation does not enable the PIA to seek instructions from any person affected by the journalist information warrant;

* the regulation grants the minister discretion to provide the PIA with only a summary of further information provided to the minister or issuing authority relating to proposed journalist information warrant requests or applications, despite the intention of the regulation being to ensure PIAs are able to advocate in the public interest; and

* the regulation provides no procedural guarantees to ensure the PIA is able to make a submission on an application for a journalist information warrant prior to the issuance of a warrant.

2.38 The committee thanks the Attorney-General for his response. 2.39 The committee acknowledges that the regulations introduce additional safeguards relating to the issuing of journalist information warrants under the Act and welcomes the commitment of the Attorney-General to fulfilling Australia's obligations under international human rights law.

2.40 The committee accepts that the PIA scheme forms an important safeguard in connection with applications for a journalist information warrant. However, the committee retains some concerns with the arrangement. Notification to journalist of a proposed request or application 2.41 The Attorney-General notes that it is appropriate that a PIA is unable to seek instructions from any person affected by the journalist information warrant because applications for a warrant are interim proceedings, ordinarily conducted on an ex parte basis. This is correct. However, it is unclear how a PIA will be able to effectively represent the interests of a person subject to the warrant in these circumstances, or provide information that will relevantly weigh on the issuing authority's determination as to whether to grant a warrant.

2.42 The Attorney-General justifies this measure by noting that a party who is given advance knowledge of the application may flee a jurisdiction, dispose of physical evidence, or alter or cease certain activities, so as to frustrate the investigation. These are legitimate concerns. However, the regulation includes a blanket prohibition on the PIA contacting any person affected by the journalist information warrant. Accordingly, there is no ability for the court to weigh up the risks and determine whether, in the circumstances of the particular warrant, it is necessary and appropriate for the PIA not to have contact with any person affected in order to protect national security and community safety. Indeed, even were a court to consider it was necessary or desirable for the PIA to seek instructions in any regard from an affected person, the court is unable to order or allow that to occur.

Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Members:

The Hon Philip Ruddock MP, Chair Berowra, New South Wales, LP Mr Laurie Ferguson MP, Deputy Chair Werriwa, New South Wales, ALP Senator Carol Brown Tasmania, ALP Dr David Gillespie MP Lyne, New South Wales, NAT Ms Cathy McGowan AO MP Indi, Victoria, IND Senator Nick McKim Tasmania, AG Senator Claire Moore Queensland, ALP Senator Dean Smith Western Australia, LP Senator Barry O'Sullivan Queensland, NAT Mr Michael Sukkar MP Deakin, Victoria, LP

BACKGROUND

The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January 2016:

Lawyers with no background in representing journalists have been tasked with defending journalists' sources in a secretive warrant process under new data retention laws, documents obtained under freedom of information laws reveal.

The documents show that a month into the job, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wrote to retired judges Kevin Duggan and John Muir, appointing them as "public interest advocates". Although they are the only people able to argue against police requests for journalists' communications data in order to identify of a source, neither specialised in representing journalists or in media law.

The public interest advocate role was created under a last-minute amendment to the data retention legislation, meant to protect journalists and their sources from government access to their communications data.

Under the deal struck between the Coalition and the ALP, government agencies need a warrant before getting phone and internet data which would identify a journalist's source. But journalists are not notified that a warrant application has been made, and cannot argue against it. Instead, government-appointed public interest advocates are meant to make arguments about whether the public interest in the disclosure of the journalist's source outweighs the public interest in protecting source confidentiality.

Journalists face two years in jail if they reveal that a warrant has been sought. Justice Duggan is a criminal law specialist, who mostly presided over criminal trials during his 23 years on the South Australian Supreme Court. Justice Muir sat on the Queensland Supreme Court for 17 years.

In Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's Australia.....

It would appear that a modern-day version of slavey is flourishing in a quiet corner of this country.

ABC News, 26 February 2016:

A group of Pacific islanders are being paid less than $10 a week after deductions to pick fruit and vegetables on Australian farms by a company that sponsored their visas under a federally-run worker program.

The workers came to Australia in January as part of the Department of Employment's Seasonal Worker Program.

The group of 20 from Fiji, and others from Tonga, were taken to the caravan park in Merrigum, in the food bowl district of northern Victoria.

Most of the workers are taken by bus every morning to nearby tomato and apple farms.

They are here on 416 visas after signing contracts with AFS Contracting Pty Ltd, based in Shepparton.

Isikeli Fifita, one of the workers from Tonga, said after deductions — which included super, rent, health insurance, tax and transport — his total net pay was $9.96 for one week.

"I feel sad because there's no money to send to my family in Tonga," Mr Fifita said.

Petero Kanawabu said he expected long hours and hard work when he signed on to come to Australia under the program.

But said he, and many others in his group from Fiji, had been shocked by their payslips.

"I thought that we would come here and do a job, maybe save some money," Mr Kanawabu said.

"Even my mum cried when I told her my first payslip. I don't know what to do now."…..

Read the rest of the article here.

Homophobia rules in the Christensen universe

Photograph from The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 February 2016

George Christensen (Dawson, Liberal Party) Australian House of Representatives Hansard, 25 February 2016  via Open Australia:

I rise as a voice for the thousands of parents who have been shocked when they discovered how the ironically named Safe Schools program is indoctrinating their children. When those parents consider just how unsafe this program is, they will wonder why the federal government is allowing it to be implemented in schools, much less spending $8 million of taxpayer money to fund it.

The things that the Safe Schools Coalition Australia are recommending to school students include pornographic web content, sex shops, adult online communities and sex clubs. The Safe Schools 'All of Us' teaching resource directs students to the LGBT organisation Twenty10. On 19 January this year, Twenty10 hosted a hands-on workshop for youth on sex toys and sadomasochistic practices. All of Us also directs students to the website of the LGBT youth organisation Minus18, which produced most of the Safe Schools resources. Minus18 advised the students on chest binding, penis tucking, sex toys and sex advice such as 'penis-in-vagina sex is not the only sex and certainly not the ultimate sex'.

Minus18 links to The Tool Shed—an online pornographic sex shop offering a range of sex toys, sadomasochistic items and pornography. Minus18 recommends Scarleteen—a teen sex advice site that promotes group sex, sex toys and sadomasochism. Minus18 is an event partner with Melbourne gay bar the GH Hotel, which features erotic homosexual entertainment.

Safe Schools recommends the transgender organisation Seahorse Club Victoria, which in turn recommends the Abode fetish club. Abode is located at the same address as The Parlour Lounge sex club, which provides sadomasochistic entertainment and rooms for sex.

Safe Schools is funded via the Foundation for Young Australians, whose partner agencies implement the Safe Schools program. New South Wales partner Family Planning NSW offers detailed information on oral sex. Tasmanian partner Working It Out recommends YouTube channels featuring such things as 'Gay guy sees first transgender vagina' and 'Anal for FTMs'.

These links to sexually explicit web content and external organisations of an adult or erotic nature raise serious concerns about child safety. Further, Safe Schools provides instructions to children on how to hide their internet browsing history. It advises them to ask for restricted websites that are blocked at school—and would be blocked at home—to be unblocked by their teachers without parental knowledge.

If parents knew their children were being exposed to this type of material, they would probably not let them go to school. If someone proposed exposing a child to this material, the parents would probably call the police because it sounds a lot like the grooming work that a sexual predator might undertake. Child and Adolescent Sexual Assault Counselling Incorporated is a New South Wales peak body for child sexual assault counselling. This is how that body describes the process of grooming:

Sexualisation of the relationship through conversation and exposure of the child to sexual material such as images; taking undue interest in the child's sexual development; assuring the child of the rightness of what they are doing; telling the child the acts will not hurt them; alienating the child from their parents and family so that they do not feel close to them; and shaping the child's sexual preferences and manipulating what the child finds exciting.

That all sounds very familiar. The Safe Schools program focuses heavily on child and teenage sexual activity and sexual attractions; justifies almost any sexual activity; diminishes possible risks and harms; encourages young people to hide their activities from their parents; and provides links to adult sex clubs, adult online communities and sex shops. What is more, the program portrays all of this as normal and wraps it up in a taxpayer funded package and calls it an anti-bullying campaign. The Safe Schools program is in fact an unsafe schools program and it leaves students open to being groomed on websites advertising adult sex venues.

I commend the government for undertaking a review of this program and I call on schools using this program to immediately suspend it pending the outcome of that review. I urge all members of this House, particularly those with young children, to take a close look at what Safe Schools is delivering. I seek leave to table two documents—a diagram and an explanatory sheet illustrating the external links of the Safe Schools campaign.

Leave granted.

Australian Federal Election 2016: another opinion poll puts Labor & Coalition neck-and-neck on two party preferred vote distribution

As national polling of voter intentions begins to tighten, the Turnbull Government options are also narrowing.

The term of this House of Representatives expires on 11 November 2016 and, writs for a normal half-Senate election cannot be issued before 1 July 2016. 

Thus the first available date for a general election would be on or about 6 August 2016 - which would see Parliament dissolved and the Abbott-Turnbull Government in caretaker mode from as early as 21 June, approximately five weeks after delivering its third set of budget papers. 

Leaving Prime Minister Turnbull and Treasurer Morrison very little time to tweak any unpopular measures or errors found in their 2016-17 budget before Coalition MPs went on the campaign trail in their respective electorates.

As for a double dissolution. According to Antony Green's Election Blog:

A double dissolution of the House and the Senate under Section 57 of the Constitution cannot take place within 6 months of the end of the House's term. That means a double dissolution must be granted by 11 May 2016. Allowing for the maximum campaign shown above, the last possible date for a double dissolution election is 16 July 2016.

This timetable leaves Turnbull less than seventy days to create a situation which the Governor-General could view as urgently supporting the dissolution of both the House of Representatives and the full Senate.

Such an election would also see the Abbott-Turnbull Government in caretaker mode within days of tabling this year's budget papers.

Latest Essential Report, 1 March 2016:

Think you're paying too much for your domestic gas supply in Australia? You're right!

Who is too blame for the situation set out below?

It is not just the rapacious gas industry we should be  pointing a finger at – it’s also the pro-mining Abbott & Turnbull federal governments and successive state governments which have failed to rein in these environmental and social vandals.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 2016:

After all the heartache, trenchant opposition from local communities and a towering $1.8 billion in write-downs, AGL has jettisoned its coal seam gas program. Santos will likely to follow suit and walk away from its controversial Pilliga project.

It makes no sense after all. Like Gloucester, Pilliga gas is high-cost to produce and environmentally high-risk to extract.

Unsurprisingly, the exit of AGL has lent fresh oxygen to the spurious "gas shortage" argument run by the gas lobby. Memo to APPEA, the public relations machine of the oil and gas industry: NSW has always "imported" its gas from interstate. That is why they have things called pipes.

It was scaremongering from this very same lobby, and from AGL, spruiking their "gas supply cliff" thesis two years ago, which helped producers to whisk through 17 per cent retail price rises at the cusp of the biggest crash in global oil and gas prices in decades.

Ironically, AGL's Gloucester project would have provided only a little over 1 per cent of NSW supply anyway. It was all for nothing.

Nonetheless, and notwithstanding the present global gas glut, APPEA chief Malcolm Roberts has been hinting at price rises.

That NSW, he said, could soon be "100 per cent reliant" on other states was "a risky proposition in a tightening energy market".

In fact, the withdrawal of AGL reflects a far more profound issue; that is, the gross destruction of our national wealth which has arisen thanks to the failure of successive governments to stand up to special interest groups such as the gas lobby. We have been nationally hoodwinked, conned, played for fools.

The $1.8 billion which AGL just fracked away, may seem a large figure yet it is nothing compared with the real cost of Australia's myopic energy policy, if you could call it an energy policy at all (it blithely ignores the revolution of renewable energy).

The Gas Cartel has managed to convince the Australian public that when global gas prices are high we should pay global prices and when global prices are low we should pay 60 per cent more than the global price.

Yes you read that correctly. Australian industry is currently paying 60 per cent more than the global price for gas when Australia is the world's second largest exporter of gas and will soon be the largest…..

Australia produces gas as cheaply as anyone in the world from our globally competitive offshore gas fields. Where we are uncompetitive is in the high-cost east coast onshore CSG fields. To try to make the globally uncompetitive CSG industry profitable the gas cartel is keeping domestic prices artificially high by controlling supply.

It is, says analyst Bruce Robertson, "classic cartel behaviour" and "the relevant authorities stand by and allow this illegal activity to continue without lifting a finger".

"Our industry is moving offshore to secure cheaper sources of energy and our domestic consumers are being milked.  If you consume gas in Australia you are paying too much."

Effectively, the Australian domestic gas consumer is subsidising the unprofitable coal seam gas industry….. [my red bolding]

The Member for Fairfax voices our worst fear.........

In the House of Representatives last week Queensland MP Clive Palmer voiced the fear of many – that Malcolm Bligh Turnbull will win this Coalition Government a second term, then swiftly be deposed and replaced as prime minister for the following three years by former prime minister John Anthony “Tony” Abbott:

Mr PALMER (Fairfax) (14:21): My question is to the Prime Minister. As Australia's third-oldest Prime Minister, if you are still Prime Minister after the election, will you serve a full term in parliament or will you retire to your unit in New York and do a switcheroo with the member for Warringah, sustaining yourself with innovation and growth opportunities your investments have provided for the people of the Cayman Islands? It has never been a more exciting time to be a Cayman Islander! Are you a seat warmer? [Hansard, 25 February 2016]

Clarence Valley Council administration spat the dummy and is now hiding behind closed doors

It is often said, only partly in jest, that the form of local government Clarence Valley Council General Manager Scott Greensill favours has no elected representatives and a population of silent, almost invisible ratepayers and residents.

Since Greensill became the head of local government administration in the valley in 2011, a number of council policies have been created which in whole or part limit the ability of local people to seek explanations from council or to follow through on complaints they have lodged.

One of the most recent was Clarence Valley Council Unreasonable complainant conduct (21 July 2015):

Unreasonable complainant conduct (UCC) is any behaviour by a current or former complainant which, because of its nature or frequency raises substantial health, safety, resource or equity issues for our organisation, our staff, other service users and complainants or the complainant himself/herself. UCC can be divided into five categories of conduct:

* Unreasonable persistence

* Unreasonable demands

* Unreasonable lack of cooperation

* Unreasonable arguments

* Unreasonable behaviours

…..

Unreasonable persistence is continued, incessant and unrelenting conduct by a complainant that has a disproportionate and unreasonable impact on our organisation, staff, services, time and/or resources. Some examples of unreasonably persistent behaviour include:

* An unwillingness or inability to accept reasonable and logical explanations including final decisions that have been comprehensively considered and dealt with.

* Persistently demanding a review simply because it is available and without arguing or presenting a case for one. 

* Pursuing and exhausting all available review options when it is not warranted and refusing to accept further action cannot or will not be taken on their complaints.

* Reframing a complaint in an effort to get it taken up again.

* Bombarding our staff/organisation with phone calls, visits, letters, and emails (including cc'd correspondence) after repeatedly being asked not to do so.

* Contacting different people within our organisation and/or externally to get a different outcome or more sympathetic response to their complaint - internal and external forum shopping.

The latest to fall foul of this notion of an ‘ideal’ local government appears to be a Facebook group called The Clarence Forum, which has been effectively banned by Council administration since late 2015.

Based on current forum membership (1,193) and the written communication figure found in the article below, alleged communication between council and the forum equates to est. 1.7 instances per forum member over a two-year period.

One wonders if The Clarence Forum will call Council’s bluff and use crowd funding to raise that money the general manager is now demanding to answer letters/emails from Mr.Hagger or the group.

The story so far......

Clarence Valley Independent, online edition, February 2016:

Clarence Valley Council’s (CVC) general manager, Scott Greensill, has written to Facebook-based group, The Clarence Forum, saying its convenor, John Hagger, is taking up too much of council staff’s time answering his enquiries.

The end result appears to be that any further information requests from the forum and Mr Hagger would most likely have to be made on a formal Government Information (Public Access) (GIPA) form accompanied by a $30 fee.

Mr Hagger received a subsequent letter from the council’s organisation performance and governance unit executive manager, Kristian Enevoldson, regarding correspondence from works and civil director Troy Anderson.

Not satisfied with a response about the council’s current fleet review, Mr Hagger subsequently asked: “Please explain how answering questions asked would be against the Public Interest Test as mandated under the GIPA Act and how is there an overriding public interest against public disclosure?”

Mr Enevoldson replied: “The GIPA Act is specific to formal GIPA applications and not to informal applications, or general emails or other correspondence to Council.

“As explained in Council’s Access to Council Documents policy, if an informal application for the record is made under the GIPA Act then Council has the discretion whether or not to provide access.

“Should you then decide to lodge a formal GIPA application this would then be assessed against the GIPA criteria, including the public interest test.”

Mr Enevoldson was referring to Section 8 (3) of the GIPA Act, Informal release of government information, which states among its six clauses that: “An agency cannot be required to disclose government information pursuant to an informal request and cannot be required to consider an informal request for government information.”

The Clarence Forum, which states it is a “group dedicated to providing a platform for ideas dedicated to enriching our Valley”, had, at the time of writing, 1157 members.

Apart from Mr Hagger, there are four other moderators/administrators for The Clarence Forum.

Mr Greensill says the council’s record system has revealed that “written communications between Council and yourself [Mr Hagger and the forum] has exceeded 700” and that he is aware of “numerous telephone calls [that] are not included in these figures”.

He also states that Mr Hagger has subsequently “published the responses [on the forum] with the officer being publically named; furthermore, the response provided then has often been the subject of unfair and misinformed criticism and often taken out of context and/or misrepresented”.

“I consider that your action of publishing the responses in such a manner is contra to the good faith that has been extended to you,” Mr Greensill wrote.

Mr Hagger said that the forum is a democratic meeting place for people to discuss and air their views, based on whatever information (or not) he receives as a result of his enquiries.

“Other people are entitled to draw whatever conclusion they want based on the evidence,” he said.

“I’ve got no control over other people’s thinking.

“It’s the evidence the council themselves present.

“It’s up to council to present their case; I can’t do that for them.”

Discussions on the forum, however, are not limited to Mr Hagger’s posts – any member can post information or subjects they view as important, informative or interesting.

Mr Hagger said that his practice of posting enquiries and responses verbatim allows people to make their own judgements.

“There are some advantages with social media that just aren’t there with other media,” he said.

“It supplies a venue where the information [posted] is as raw and accurate as possible.

“The problem we often have is council’s refusal to supply more detailed documentation – that’s what we are aiming for, which is something that is missing in traditional media for various reasons; one of which is constraints of size.

“We don’t have that, we can put a 400-page document up and people can choose to read it if they have time.”

On the ‘excessive’ number of enquiries made, Mr Hagger disputes the total of 700; however, he assumes that this number includes interagency emails and other miscellaneous short enquiries.

Mr Hagger posted a record of the enquiries, he says he has made to CVC, on the forum on January 29 (along with a copy of Mr Greensill’s letter), which amounted to 63 enquiries since February 2014; however, the bulk of enquiries began in April 2015.

Mr Hagger said the council has not responded “to mail sent after the 16th of December 2015”.

Information regarding the GIPA Act can be viewed and/or downloaded from the Information and Privacy Commission NSW’s website: www.ipc.nsw.gov.au.