Monday 20 February 2017

Turnbull & Co fiddle while Australia burns


ABC News, 9 February 2017
As the effects of climate change begin to bite in Australia, the Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison refuses to rule out using money set aside in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to fund a new generation of coal-fired power stations.

With the nation facing the prospect of extreme Summer temperatures with no end in sight, he then brings a lump of coal into the House of Representatives on 9 February 2017 and extolls the virtues of this dirty fossil fuel:

This is coal. Do not be afraid. Do not be scared. It will not hurt you…..It is coal that has ensured for over 100 years that Australia has enjoyed an energy-competitive advantage that has delivered prosperity to Australian businesses and has ensured that Australian industry has been able to remain competitive in a global market.

Journalist Lenore Taylor writing in The Guardian two days later on 11 February 2017:

Since it’s our job to point out things like that, here are a few facts that undermine the “coal comeback” PR strategy that started rolling out sometime last year:

Renewable energy is not “causing” blackouts. They’re primarily due to the (incredibly complicated) energy market that wasn’t designed or isn’t being run to cope with a higher proportion of renewables, and is throwing up perverse incentives that mean South Australia can have a blackout while generators are sitting idle. It would seem obvious that the answer to this problem is not to abandon all incentives for renewable energy but rather to fix the market and the rules. Cars probably got bogged when they started driving on roads designed for horses and buggies too, but it wouldn’t have been wise to respond by trying to stop the roll-out of automobiles. And New South Wales – a state that gets a very small proportion of its energy from renewables, was also facing the prospect of blackouts on Friday, which sometimes happen during peak demand but also undermine the Coalition’s simplistic arguments.
Renewables cannot take the blame for the recent rise in prices. Queensland, which also has a tiny proportion of renewable energy, has had price spikes that added an astounding $1bn to wholesale power prices just since the beginning of this year. South Australia, cited by the federal Coalition as the terrible case study of what Labor’s renewable energy policies might do, has had just a few. The Queensland price spikes are also vastly higher than those felt in South Australia last July, which were described as an emergency, according to an analysis by Dylan McConnell from Melbourne University. Weirdly, no federal ministers have been berating the Queensland government over its (fossil fuel) choice of energy source.
coal-fired power stations are not going to be built. You don’t have to go to greenies for that assessment – it is also coming from the AI Group, which represents Australia’s manufacturers, and from the Australian Energy Council, which represents the big electricity and gas businesses that generate and supply most of our energy, as well as from the head of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation – who has expert knowledge of lending to the energy sector. Business knows climate change is a thing, and that locking in emissions from a new coal-fired power station for 50 years, no matter how efficient it is and how lovingly the current ministry can carry around lumps of coal, is incompatible with our long-term climate commitment and therefore an unacceptable investment risk. When really pressed, the only way experts can imagine the construction of a new coal-fired power station is if the government pays for it, or signs a contract indemnifying the company paying for it from the impact of future climate policy. And no sane government would do that. You’d only do that if you suspected the world was about to decide climate change was a hoax or at least not so much a problem, which might explain where some of the Coalition’s coal boosters are coming from. 
Governments could always reduce the strain on the system and help avoid blackouts by reducing energy demand but schemes to reduce demand at times of peak power usage (such as, say, heatwaves) were shelved after the Abbott government was elected, while programs for minimum energy performance standards seem to have been burned in Tony Abbott’s bonfire of red tape.
And finally, as business and industry and environmentalists and pretty much everyone who looks at the evidence (including, a while back, Turnbull) have been saying for years, the very best thing governments could do to encourage investment and a sensible low-cost transition to cleaner generation is come up with a bipartisan policy, such as the energy-intensity carbon scheme that had bipartisan political support, the backing of industry and could have reduced power prices while also bringing emissions down. But the Turnbull government jettisoned any consideration of that in less than 24 hours, apparently fearing the response of right wingers such as Cory Bernardi. He’s now left the Coalition anyway, and it still has no climate policy.
Image via @James_Orex_Eade 

On the night of 12 February 2017 I made a salad dinner thankful that the temperature inside my home was a mere 31° Celsius and there was no bushfire smoke in the air.

That same night The Sydney Morning Herald was reporting:

Turnbull government statements blaming last year's South Australian blackout on its high renewable energy target ignored confidential public service advice stating that it was not the cause, according to emails obtained under freedom-of-information rules.

With a febrile debate over renewable energy versus coal-fired generation suddenly raging in Canberra, the revelation is set to undermine the Coalition's energy messaging and shatter confidence in its call for investment certainty through sober debate and bipartisan policy solutions.  

Advice to the government dated September 29, 2016 – the day after the whole of SA went black following a devastating storm – suggested the problem had not been the state's high reliance on wind generation, but rather because key parts of its electricity distribution network were wrecked during a severe weather event.

An email trail shows among other things a senior official from Malcolm Turnbull's department seeking an explanation for the blackout at 8.31 on the evening of the storm.

Another from 7.20 the next morning outlines subsequent discussions including a 5am phone hook-up involving departmental and political staff.

That email, sent to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's own officials and others, conveyed the first-blush assessment of the blackout including advice gleaned from the Australian Energy Market Operator: "There has been unprecedented damage to the network (ie bigger than any other event in Australia), with 20+ steel transmission towers down in the north of the State due to wind damage (between Adelaide and Port Augusta). The electricity network was unable to cope with such a sudden and large loss of generation at once. AEMOs advice is that the generation mix (ie renewable or fossil fuel) was not to blame for yesterday's events – it was the loss of 1000 MW of power in such a short space of time as transmission lines fell over."

Yet within hours of the calamity the Turnbull government was capitalising on the blackout, suggesting it was a function of the state's unsustainably high quotient of wind generation which had failed to keep working in the conditions....

Last week, another blackout in South Australia knocked out about 90,000 premises during an extreme heat event. The energy blame game intensified, even though the evidence again suggests there was adequate supply in the form of gas turbine generation, sitting idle, as the wind contribution fell to just 2.5 per cent.

With the growing realization that Summer weather patterns are likely extend into the first two months of Autumn this year, one has to wonder why the federal Liberal and Nationals MPs and senators have chosen this particular moment to totally suspend their critical faculties and, whether only a mounting death toll will force them to finally turn and face the problems climate change is creating for all three tiers of government, farming, industry, communities and families.

Groundhog Day for women's services in Australia


Since 2013 the Abbott & Turnbull Federal Governments have announced up to $1b in savings measures that are cutting community services for the people in greatest need in Australia:

*$500 million over five years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community services (Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under The Hon Tony Abbott and Senator the Hon Nigel Scullion)
*$270 million over four years from social services and a freeze on indexation of sector funding (Department of Social Services under The Hon Scott Morrison)
*$15 million from the community legal sector, which remains in place for sector support and capacity, including legal aid, community legal centres, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, and women’s family violence legal and prevention services (Attorney General’s Department under Senator the Hon George Brandis)
*Foreshadowed cuts of $197 million over three years from health (Department of Health under The Hon Sussan Ley) [Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), 13 January 2017]

The Saturday Paper, excerpt from Federal cuts to family violence reform funding, 11 February 2017:

Just before Christmas, the Women’s Legal Service Victoria was notified that $200,000 of federal funding would be shaved. The service offers pro bono advice, representation and mediation for more than 3000 women each year, women who would otherwise not be able to afford it. They consider themselves a front-line service. “We can’t keep up with demand currently,” Joanna Fletcher tells me. “And this is before the cuts.”
Fletcher is the service’s chief executive. She is both angry and incredulous. “We’re already turning people away,” she says. “And it’s sad, because our service model is about providing service to those with barriers to justice. We’re now having to make decisions about what to cut, about what the least worst options are. We are incredibly frustrated on behalf of our clients. This is very short-sighted. We know from experience that early legal assistance is vital, for the protection of women but also for quicker outcomes.”
It’s a point made by all the family lawyers I spoke to for this piece: those in the legal system without representation spend a lot more time there. As well as diminishing a woman’s protection, it is ultimately costlier, and adds to procedural logjams. “There’s incredible commitment at the state level here,” Fletcher says, “but the apparent federal commitment hasn’t been followed by a financial commitment.” 
Fletcher’s Queensland counterparts have yet to be notified whether their funding will also be cut. They will be told at the end of March, but they are already preparing themselves for the worst. There is the same anger and incredulity there. “We’re absolutely alarmed,” says Angela Lynch, the acting co-ordinator of the Women’s Legal Service Queensland. “A 30 per cent cut would be catastrophic. Currently, we can only answer 50 per cent of incoming calls on our legal hotline. This will only worsen with the cuts. So, that’s much fewer women receiving advice and assistance. We’re a core service, and yet as it is we can’t properly service all women because we’re under-resourced. This is about women’s safety. Their lives.”
She said cuts “don’t make any sense when there’s a national plan, and the PM has made announcements. It makes no sense. We are a front-line service. And we do great work, and we push our money further than any other community service that I can think of. A third of our income is raised by fundraising or corporate partnerships. Up here in Queensland, family violence is still something that’s publicly discussed. There’s the rollout here of the Not Now, Not Ever recommendations. There was the horrific reminder of its importance last week, with the murder-suicide of Teresa Bradford. There’s momentum. But I cannot understand these federal cuts.”
Teresa Bradford was killed by her estranged husband on the Gold Coast. He was out on bail on other domestic violence charges. After Bradford’s death, the Women’s Legal Service Queensland hotline experienced a 50 per cent increase in calls, a spike common in the aftermath of atrocities. “We’re already chronically underfunded,” Lynch says. “When you’re cutting front-line services, you have to ask: is the federal government really committed to reducing family violence? Now we wait. We’ll know on the 31st of March. But we’ve survived for more than 30 years. We’ll fight on.” 
Marlene Ebejer is the principal lawyer of Ebejer and Associates, and a family law specialist. She tells me the cuts will have “diabolical” consequences. “These cuts won’t save money,” she says. “Cutting funding for women’s services cuts legal mediations, which stops things getting to court. This is an atrocious outcome. Already the courts can’t cope. There are massive delays, and delays are extended by those who aren’t represented.” 
Ebejer speaks bluntly, and passionately, about the need for legal reform but tells me that to argue for change is to experience groundhog day. Every lawyer she knows has made the same points for years: in a system where intervention orders fall under the state’s authority, and family law courts are federal, there needs to be improved cross-jurisdictional coherence. She also argues for increased mediation, to decrease the number of matters before court, and for the proper triaging of matters.
Herald Sun, 15 January 2017:
DOMESTIC violence victims and their children in regional NSW could be put at greater risk when federal government funding cuts to legal aid services begin to kick in later this year.
The cuts will also force a legal centre in southern Sydney to axe a program providing free legal advice to international students and immigrants being ripped off by their employers.
The services are among more than 15 centres across the state being forced to axe programs for vulnerable people after the funding cuts take ­affect in July this year.
Elizabeth Evatt Community Legal Centre managing principal solicitor Arlia Fleming said the 19 per cent funding cut at her Katoomba centre would force a massive reduction in services to Bathurst and ­Lithgow.
“Currently we go to Lithgow and Bathurst on a weekly basis to give legal advice and we may have to reduce that to a monthly outreach,” Ms Fleming said.
“The most common cases we deal with are around family and domestic violence issues and this could mean children are left in unsafe situations ­because people feel like they have to hand over their children to someone who has been perpetrating violence.”……
Destroy the Joint, 19 February 2017:



Sunday 19 February 2017

President Trumble of Argentina?


First Turnbull became Trumble, then Prime Minister morphed into President and now ‘unimportant’ Australia appears to have become Argentina………

U.S. President Donald Trump, excerpt from press conference, 16 February 2017:

Same thing with Australia. All of a sudden, people are finding out exactly what took place. The same thing happened with respect to General Flynn. Everybody saw this. And I’m saying — the first thing I thought of when I heard about it is: How does the press get this information that’s classified? How do they do it?

You know what I say, when I — when I was called out on Mexico, I was shocked because all this equipment, all this incredible phone equipment — when I was called out on Mexico, I was — honestly, I was really, really surprised.

But I said “you know, it doesn’t make sense. That won’t happen” but that wasn’t that important a call, it was fine, I could show it to the world and he could show it to the world, the president who’s a very fine man, by the way. Same thing with Australia. I said “that’s terrible that it was leaked” but it wasn’t that important…..

So I’m dealing with Mexico, I’m dealing with Argentina, we were dealing on this case with Mike Flynn. All this information gets put into the “Washington Post” and gets put into the “New York Times” and I’m saying “what’s going to happen when I’m dealing on the Middle East? What’s going to happen when I’m dealing with really, really important subjects like North Korea?

We got to stop it. That’s why it’s a criminal penalty…..

Pauline Hanson gets a well-deserved "FAIL" from the grammar and punctuation police


@JohnJohnsonson obviously had a lot of fun with his red pen on 4 February 2017 J

Choice reports on life in Australia's private rental market


‘54% of regional renters are +6% more likely to face discrimination than metro renters if they have kids or pets’


Australia has traditionally been a nation of homeowners. However, as the dream of the quarter-acre block dwindles, more and more of us are renting. Between 1994-5 and 2013-14 the number of Australian households that rent increased from 25.7% to 31%.  While home ownership offers many advantages, renting is not necessarily bad for consumers or society more broadly. Many advanced economies such as Germany have low levels of home ownership. However, Australia lacks many of the protections these countries afford to renters.

Australian renters live in a unique rental market. Australia relies on small investors supported by generous tax concessions to provide nearly all of its private rental housing. Social housing (made up of public housing provided by the states, community housing provided by not for profit companies and Indigenous community housing providers) makes up less than 4% of the housing market, down from over 5% 15 years ago.

Home ownership rates continue to decline in Australia as investors buy a greater share of the housing supply which subsequently increases pressure on renting and lowers owner occupation. Australia now has lower rates of outright ownership than owning with a mortgage, and investors make up nearly half of our home purchases. Housing is subsidised by the federal government via tax concessions. Home owners face no capital gains tax while investors have a capital gains tax discount of 50% and are able to deduct loses incurred through maintenance and interest payments. Some renters are subsidised through Commonwealth Rent Assistance but it is estimated that owners receive an average of $8000 per annum and investors $4000, while renters receive $1000.

These tax arrangements distort the Australian housing market, increase competition for limited supply, inflate house prices and unfairly advantage investors over owner-occupiers and lessors over lessees. This has contributed to a shortage of affordable rental housing available to low-income households of 500,000 dwellings due to frustrated prospective owners displacing other renters from available properties.3 These issues contribute significantly to Australia’s rising rate of homelessness……

As property prices have grown faster in the cities and in certain states such as NSW, Vic and WA, more people in those areas have been entering the rental market. As a result, renters in regional areas are more likely to have been renting for over five years (79%) than those in metro areas (64%). Meanwhile more renters in WA (41%), Vic (40%) and NSW (30%), including Sydney or Melbourne (39%) specifically, have been renting for less than five years than those in Qld (24%), SA (22%) or the other states and territories (28%). This suggests that more Australians have entered the rental market only recently in Vic, WA and metro areas, notably Sydney and Melbourne……

Most renters personally pay between $201 and $400 a week (53%), with 30% of renters paying $200 or less and 16% paying over $400. Unsurprisingly this varies considerably based on location, income and other factors. For example, 49% of renters in metro areas personally pay more than $301 a week in rent versus roughly a quarter in regional areas and 42% of renters overall. This rises to 55% for renters in Australia’s two largest cities – Sydney and Melbourne. Meanwhile, in these cities almost three quarters of renters live in households where the total rent is more than $301 a week. This aligns with the Rental Affordability Index data that found the median rent in Sydney in 2016 was $480 per week……

Many regional areas of Australia are more affordable but some also display unaffordable rents, especially for low and moderate income households. East and west coastal zones often display affordability levels similar to capitals…..

Despite recent talk of an over-supply of rental properties, Australia remains a landlord’s market with three quarters of renters believing that competition between applicants is fierce. As a result, prospective renters don’t feel like they can ask for changes and need to simply take what is on offer (62%), and worry that they’ll need to offer more money if they want to secure a place to live (55%). Renters also feel like the amount of information they are required to give for an application is excessive (60%) and unreasonable (46%). This creates concerns over privacy, with some renters (45%) fearing that their information will not be handled in accordance with the law. While renters largely agree that the application process is transparent (39%), 22% do not……

A sizable minority of renters (8%) are currently living in properties they regard as needing urgent repairs. This includes one in ten of those renting a house and 11% of women. People on a rolling lease are more likely to live in a property in need of urgent repairs (14%) than those on fixed-term leases. Renters in NSW (10%) and SA (12%) are more likely to report needing urgent repairs than those in Vic (6%) and NT, Tas and the ACT (2%). Meanwhile, 30% of renters report requiring non-urgent repairs to their property.

Only a quarter of renters report not having ever experienced any problem with their current property. In fact, many renters have experienced quite severe problems. For example, one in five renters have experienced leaking or flooding while the same amount have had mould that reappears or is difficult to remove – which poses a health risk…..


While many renters have experienced problems, not all have received adequate or prompt responses from their agent or landlord. Of all renters, just under a quarter received no response at all to their request for a repair. Meanwhile 21% had to wait over a week to even get a response about an urgent repair and 23% had to wait over a month to get a response for a nonurgent repair. Not only are renters not getting timely responses, but they can also face adverse consequences when they speak up. 11% of renters copped a rent hike after requesting a repair and 10% said that their landlord or agent became angry after they requested a repair. Some renters have even faced eviction for making a complaint (2%), requesting a repair (2%) or for taking their complaint to a third party like a tribunal or a tenants’ rights organisation (2%). Renters also had experiences with landlords that would access the property unannounced (6%) and take photos during inspections without permission (5%). One in ten renters also reported that they had experiences with routine inspections being arranged at times that were inconvenient…..

The experience of renters differs depending on whether they lease directly through a landlord or through a real estate agent. Of the renters who rent through a landlord and currently need repairs to their property, 75% have raised the repair with their landlord. Eighty-four percent of people renting through a real estate agent have raised their need for a repair. People renting through an agent are much more likely to have raised the issue multiple times (62%) than those renting through a landlord (41%). Overall about a fifth of renters received a positive response (all requested repairs have or will be carried out), regardless of renting through an agent or landlord, with 8% and 7% receiving a negative response respectively. Fourteen percent of those renting through an agent did not receive any response after raising a need for repair, while 10% of those renting through a landlord did not receive any response. And of those renting through a landlord, 64% received a mixed response (having some of the requested repairs completed, others not), compared to 56% of those renting through an agent…..

Half of all renters report having experienced some form of discrimination when looking for a rental property in the last five years. This includes discrimination for having a pet (23%), for receiving government payments (17%), on the basis of age (14%), for having young children (10%) and being a single parent (7%). Discrimination on the basis of race (6%), for needing to use a bond loan (5%), gender (5%), disability (5%) and sexuality (2%) are also experienced, though are less common. Older renters are much less likely to report discrimination. In fact only 20% of renters over 65 reported having experienced discrimination at all. Even renters aged 45-64 were less (43%) likely to report having felt discriminated against. Younger renters under the age of 35 were more likely to say they’ve been discriminated against (55%) – particularly in regard to their age (22%). Men (42%) reported less discrimination than women (56%) overall, though both were as likely to report discrimination based on gender (5%). Location also appears to have an impact, with renters in the NT, Tas and the ACT (41%) less likely to report discrimination and renters in SA (61%) much more likely to.

The impact of income on discrimination is mixed. For example households earning between $70,001 and $100,000 (41%) were less likely to report discrimination, while households earning between $100,001 and $150,000 were more likely to (55%). Fifty-seven percent of households earning less than $35,000 said they had been discriminated against, 62% of households earning $35,001–50,000 and 60% of households earning $50,001–70,000. However, the nature of the discrimination people reported experiencing varied greatly – those on low incomes were much more likely to have faced discrimination for receiving a government payment, for being a single parent, or based on their race or on their disability. Households on higher incomes were more likely to face discrimination for having young kids and having a pet. Renters who have previously had a disagreement with a landlord or agent about bond are the most likely to report discrimination (75%).

Read the full report here.

Saturday 18 February 2017

Tweet of the Week


Political Cartoon of the Month


Democratic Underground