The most mocked man in the world

It probably started in earnest once the result of U.S. presidential election was declared and reached peak mock by May 2017 during Donald Trump's first overseas foray as *ahem* 'Leader of the Free World'.

Now the man who rode into the White House on the back of alternative facts lies and "fake news" is having the tables turned on him and he is being faked in return.

Here are a few fake @realDonaldTrump tweets which started life on American television during The Late Show - after Trump's follow up to his own covfefe tweet when he ran with "Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!"

So you want to drug test welfare recipients, Mr. Porter?

According to the Australian Minister for Social Services and Liberal MP for Pearce since 2013, Christian Porter; “A person who is unemployed is, based on good data, 2.4 times more likely to have addictive issues with drugs and alcohol — obviously there’s both cause and effect in there.”

While Department of Social Services (Payments Policy) Cath Halbert told a Senate estimates hearing that; "Out of 5,000 recipients who will be randomly selected for drug testing, based on available data and Department of Human Services data is that up to 425 recipients are expected to test positive to the initial test…..Around 120 recipients are estimated to test positive to a subsequent test and be referred for assessment for treatment."

A handy little DSS fact sheet informs us that drug testing at three trial sites will run for two years and that; The tests will detect use of drugs including ecstasy, marijuana and methamphetamines, including ice. However, the minister and his department remain silent as to the cost of this program.

                                                                                                                                                

We-ell…… I just don’t find any of these statements a convincing argument for drug testing a select number of Centrelink recipients on unemployment benefits commencing 1 January 2018, in the hope that just 8.48 per cent of them will initially test positive.

After all the workforce generally seems likely to have the same addictive issues and no-one is talking of drug testing them before distributing wages.

For example:

In 2013, just over 40% of Australians either smoked daily, drank alcohol in ways that put them at risk of harm or used an illicit drug in the previous 12 months; 3.1% engaged in all 3 of these behaviours. [National Drug Strategy Household Survey Detailed Report 2013]

Over 48,000 Australians were on a course of pharmacotherapy treatment for their opioid dependence on a snapshot day in June 2015.

[Opioid pharmacotherapy clients 2015]

Wastewater analysis conducted in the latter half of 2016 shows that alcohol and tobacco consumption was the highest of all substances tested in all states and territories.

[National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program Report 1, March 2017]

Declines were seen in recent use of some illegal drugs in 2016 including meth/amphetamines (from 2.1% to 1.4%), hallucinogens (1.3% to 1.0%), and synthetic cannabinoids (1.2% to 0.3%).

About 1 in 20 Australians had misused pharmaceuticals in 2016 (4.8%).

[National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2016]

While the number of politicians over the years who have allegedly been drunk in charge of a parliamentary vote is notable – everyone from prime ministers and cabinet ministers right down to lowly backbenches if a recent Google search is a reliable indicator.

Is the National Vocational Education and Training System an abject failure?

In 2011 the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act came into being. It is administered by the Dept. of  Education and Training whose current minister is the Liberal Senator for South Australia, Simon Birmingham.

The system was allegedly designed to deliver workplace-specific skills and knowledge, vocational education and training (VET) covers a wide range of careers and industries, including trade and office work, retail, hospitality and technology. 

It wasn't too long before government-owned Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges/institutes across Australia began to complain they were being starved of funding and courses in order to feed this new education strategy and private ‘colleges’ began to multiply swiftly.

Every so often one of these dodgy private colleges hits the headlines and commentators tut-tut furiously and futilely.

However, most private VET service providers don’t rate much of a mention in mainstream media so the scale of this system failure is not readily apparent, except perhaps to the many thousands of fee-paying students affected.

This is a short and incomplete list of some of the more recent private-sector failures to provide quality further education and vocational training:

ASA (Australian Sports Academy) Pty Ltd, terminated for providing incorrect information in the application.
Australian Vocational Training Academy Pty Ltd, terminated for: failure to provide compliant Training and Assessment Strategies, non-compliance with record keeping requirements; and failure to provide records and evidence to the Department upon request.
Careers Australia Education Institute Pty Ltd, terminated for: failure to properly train and assess students in accordance with training package requirements, non-compliance with record keeping and failure to provide records and evidence upon request.
Careers Australia Institute of Training Pty Ltd, terminated for: failure to properly train and assess students in accordance with training package requirements, non-compliance with record keeping and failure to provide records and evidence upon request. Careers Australia group now in voluntary administration
Industry Education and Training Services Pty Ltd, terminated for: providing incorrect information in the application.
Seluna Pty Ltd, terminated for: failure to comply with training and assessment requirements of the VET Quality Framework, and submitting training activity and receiving subsidies for learners where there was no evidence of commencement.
Western Institute of Technology Pty Ltd, terminated for: providing incorrect information in the application.
Wise Education Group Pty Ltd, terminated for: failure to meet Standards for RTOs 2015 and non-compliance with record keeping requirements.

Group314 Pty Ltd, terminated for: Termination of S and S due to previous termination of APL; and,

Donna Mere Morrell-Pullin, terminated for: providing incorrect information in the application. [my red annotation]

[http://coastcommunitynews.com.au/2017/02/terminated-vocational-education-providers-named-and-shamed/]

Conwal and Associates Pty Ltd, non-compliant with the requirements of the VET Quality Framework, registration cancelled

Online Courses Australia Pty Ltd, non-compliant with the requirements of the VET Quality Framework. registration cancelled

Australian Vocational Learning Institute, non-compliant with the requirements of the VET Quality Framework. registration cancelled

 Clover Educations trading as Cool Body Institute of Massage, not operated consistently with the applicable requirements of the VET Quality Framework, registration cancelled

AITE Pty Ltd Australian Institute of Technical Education, not operated consistently with the applicable requirements of the VET Quality Framework, registration cancelled

Get Qualified Australia-Adelaide Pty Ltd trading as Get Qualified Australia Trades Academy and Get Qualified Trades Academy, not operated consistently with the applicable requirements of the VET Quality Framework, registration cancelled

Get Qualified Australia-Canberra Pty Ltd trading as Get Qualified Australia College, not operated consistently with the applicable requirements of the VET Quality Framework, registration cancelled

Get Qualified Australia-Brisbane Pty Ltd trading as Get Qualified Australia Institute, not operated consistently with the applicable requirements of the VET Quality Framework, registration cancelled

CTM Training Solutions Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Green Pty Ltd trading as Green Training, VET services registration cancelled

Switch On Learning Pty Ltd trading as Australian Institute of Technology & Trade, VET services registration cancelled

Australian Tertiary Academy Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Equalis Pty Ltd trading as Equalis, VET services registration cancelled

Amana International Training Academy Pty Ltd trading as Zenith Education & Training, VET services registration cancelled

ASCET Institute of Technology, critically and systematically non-compliant with the requirements of the vocational education and training (VET) quality framework, registration cancelled

5 Star Training Institute Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

AJK Image Pty Ltd as trustee for The Nicole Kratzmann Family Trust trading as AKISS (Advanced Knowledge in Skin Science), VET services registration cancelled

Australia-Wide Business Training Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Childs Training Pty Ltd as the trustee for the Childs Family Trust trading as Quality Unlimited, VET services registration cancelled

Clear Fountain Pty Ltd trading as NITE School and Nationwide Instructors, Trainers and Educators, VET services registration cancelled

DJ Howle Pty Ltd trading as Onsite Training Services, VET services registration cancelled

Entertrain Institute of Technology Pty Ltd trading as Entertain Interactive Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Excellent Training Institute Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

June Dally-Watkins Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Master Group (Aust.) Pty Ltd trading as Master Group, VET services registration cancelled

Optimal Progression Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Todd Rutherford trading as Drilling Skills Australia, VET services registration cancelled

Aus-Com Training Services Pty Ltd trading as Aus-Com Training Services, VET services registration cancelled

Ausietech Investments Pty Ltd trading as Australian College of Management & Technology)

Professional Training College Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Nailtech Training Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

Project Management Partners Pty Ltd, VET services registration cancelled

[See latest regulatory decisions of Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA)] 

Gurkhas Institute of Technology Pty Ltd, registration cancelled

DIY Training Services Pty Ltd, registration cancelled

Get Qualified Australia-Adelaide Pty Ltd trading as Get Qualified Australia Trades Academy and Get Qualified Trades Academy, registration cancelled

Sage Academy Training Pty Ltd, registration cancelled

Premier Training Institute Pty Ltd, registration cancelled

Safety and First Aid Education Pty Ltd, registration cancelled

Full list of Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) decisions.

And Australia wonders why it has a skills shortage?

In North-East NSW 'a "reduced survey effort" and the dropping of a longstanding rule applying 20 metre buffers to "high-use" areas' is being proposed. How much more can a koala bear?

PHOTO: Australia Zoo in The Age

The Forestry Corporation of NSW (originally the Forestry Commission formed by an act of the NSW Parliament) is the largest manager of commercial native and plantation forests in New South Wales.

Not content with revenue of $339 million and underlying profit after tax of $36 million in 2015-16 (latest annual report) it wants to increase its harvesting range and is coming after quality koala habitat on the NSW North Coast.

ABC News, 3 June 2017:

Many of Australia's most iconic marsupials will lose protection from logging bulldozers, under a radical overhaul proposed in secret Forestry Corporation documents.

The documents, obtained by the ABC, propose the elimination of long-standing threatened species protections, such as site-survey rules, in many NSW state forests.

Intense clearing in northern regions, and increased access to protected stream-banks across the state are other major changes.

Environmentalists say if current rules are trashed, protected marsupials including koalas, wombats, quolls, and gliders will be stealthily eliminated.

"If you don't look, you don't find and if you don't find you don't protect," said conservationist Dailan Pugh, from the North-East Forest Alliance.

The conditions are part of new forestry agreements — known as Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (IOFA) — and cover four major operational areas across the state. Final details are expected to be announced later this year.

Wombats, quolls, koalas face loss of exclusion zones

PHOTO: Wombats could be "buried alive" as their burrows are crushed by machinery, Mr Pugh says. 
(Supplied)

Many iconic marsupials face additional changes in the draft proposals.

The highly endangered spotted-tail quoll faces a 70 per cent reduction of no-logging zones around breeding dens — reduced from 12 hectares to 3.5 hectares.

Wombats, another protected species, are geographically protected by a line north of the Oxley Highway, requiring a 20 metre logging exclusion zone around burrows.

But Forestry Corporation negotiators want to redraw that protective line further north to Waterfall Way — eliminating the 20 metre exclusion in a vast logging zone between Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie.

Mr Pugh said that would lead to "more wombats being buried alive, as their burrows are collapsed by machinery and falling trees".

He said environmental regulators, such as the EPA, should address declining wombat numbers by expanding current protections state-wide.

For koalas in north-east NSW, Forestry Corporation proposes a "reduced survey effort" and the dropping of a longstanding rule applying 20 metre buffers to "high-use" areas.

It says future protections are "to be developed" utilising new models to retain habitat.

Cost savings if animal surveys dropped

Currently, prior to harvest, logging companies must survey for 87 vulnerable animals, many already facing threat of extinction.

Where an animal habitat is found, operators then implement site protections such as exclusion zones before logging is approved……

PHOTO: Animal surveys normally trigger the protection of trees that may be favoured by red-tailed black cockatoos.

(Supplied: Western Australian Museum)

The author cites "significant cost saving" as a benefit of making the change.

But former Forestry scientist Robert Kooyman worried relaxing the rules around surveys would harm up to 49 animal species.

"Forest management requires that you know what it is you are managing," he said.

"While historic records provide an indication of habitat use, they are inevitably incomplete, do not reflect the dynamics of forests, and many animal species are highly mobile within their range and habitats, and follow resources."……

The Liberal Party's rednecks predictably make hay with Trump's anti-science rampage

This was what was displayed on the Prime Minister of Canada’s official website immediately after US President Donald Trump had announced his government’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada in response to the United States’ decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement

Ottawa, Ontario

June 1, 2017

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement in response to the United States’ decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement:

“We are deeply disappointed that the United States federal government has decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Canada is unwavering in our commitment to fight climate change and support clean economic growth. Canadians know we need to take decisive and collective action to tackle the many harsh realities of our changing climate.

“While the U.S. decision is disheartening, we remain inspired by the growing momentum around the world to combat climate change and transition to clean growth economies. We are proud that Canada stands united with all the other parties that support the Agreement. We will continue to work with our domestic and international partners to drive progress on one of the greatest challenges we face as a world.

“This is not only about the huge economic opportunities of clean growth and the need to address the pressing threats of climate change. This is about an ambitious and unshakeable desire to leave a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable planet for our kids and for generations to come.

“We are all custodians of this world, and that is why Canada will continue to work with the U.S. at the state level, and with other U.S. stakeholders, to address climate change and promote clean growth. We will also continue to reach out to the U.S. federal government to discuss this matter of critical importance for all humankind, and to identify areas of shared interest for collaboration, including on emissions reductions.”

This is what the Prime Minister of Australia’s official website looked like on the morning of 2 June 2017:

Not one word from Malcolm Bligh Turnbull as he cowered behind closed doors wary of offending both the climate change deniers in his own party and the US president – he left any initial  remarks to the Minister for Environment and Energy.

It wasn’t until later on 2 June that a lukewarm statement was delivered during a doorstop interview in Singapore aimed not at Trump but at his own political opponents at home :

Well the President's announcement is not a surprise. It was a very core campaign commitment of his - It is disappointing. We would prefer the United States to remain part of the agreement. We are committed to the Paris agreement. We are on track to meet our 2030 targets of a reduction in emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels. And, I should say we are doing well. Our emissions, whether measures against by head of population or by, against GDP are the lowest they've been for 27 years.

The important thing is to ensure that we maintain energy supplies that are affordable, that are reliable, secure and that we meet our emissions targets and we are on track to do just that. That's our commitment, our energy policy is grounded in economics and engineering. Not in ideology like the Labor Party’s.

That pause between Trump’s announcement and Turnbull’s response allowed the Liberal Party’s merry band of luddites enough airtime to show support for Trump’s position.

This group contained Senator for Tasmania Eric Abetz, Senator for Queensland Ian Macdonald, MP for Dawson (Qld) George Christensen and MP for Hughes (NSW) Craig Kelly. 

Which was probably what the hypocritical, pro-coal Member for Wentworth intended to happen all along

Something people in the electorates of these parliamentarians should perhaps keep in mind when they go to vote at the next federal election.

The Fools on the Hill still vainly searching for viable large scale 'clean coal' technology

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 30 May 2017:

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the Clean Energy Finance Corporation [CEFC] would have its mandate expanded so it could back fossil fuel power plants that include the technology, sometimes described as "clean coal".

The technology, which involves capturing the emissions at the source and burying them underground, was explicitly banned when the CEFC was set up under a Labor-Greens agreement in 2011.

Unfortunately for the foolish, ideology-driven Liberal MP for Kooyong & Minister for Environment and Energy and his equally foolish Prime Minister The Australia Institute released this statement on the same day:

“The Australian Government has put $1.3 billion of taxpayers’ money towards Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) initiatives since 2003, with zero large scale operational projects to show for it. A new report from The Australia Institute’s, Money for nothing, has found that despite years of generous taxpayer funding, there are no large-scale CCS projects operating in Australia and no planned coal CCS projects at any stage of development. Several proposed coal plants with CCS received federal grants, but all have since been cancelled or liquidated.” 

Opening paragraphs of The Australia Institute’s discussion paper Money for nothing by Bill Browne and Tom Swann, May 2017:

In 2007, then-Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a $100 million grant for a proposed coal plant at Loy Yang “suitable for” CCS. Turnbull said “Projects like this one … will play an integral role in helping to reduce emissions in Australia”.  Five years later, the grant was withdrawn. The operator has been liquidated.

In February 2017, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull put CCS back on the agenda. He argued as the world’s largest coal exporter, Australia has a “vested interest” in promoting clean coal, and lamented that despite substantial public investment over the years “we do not have one modern high-efficiency low-emissions coal-fired power station, let alone one with carbon capture and storage”.

 In 2009, the head of the Australian Coal Association promised that that we will “have commercial scale demonstration plants with carbon capture and storage in operation in Australia by 2015”.  In 2017 the chief national coal lobbyist said it is “pretty early days” with regards to CCS, which is “an evolving technology”.

 Despite the poor track record of coal with CCS, the Turnbull government is now proposing to fund it through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which has previously focused on commercial or near-commercial projects, mostly renewables.

In light of Turnbull’s proposal, this report outlines previous funding to CCS and how little Australia has to show for it.

Since 2003, successive Australian governments have backed their promises that CCS will preserve the coal industry with promises of public money. Over $3.5 billion has been committed towards a wide range of CCS-related projects, initiatives and programs. Over $1.3 billion was identified as actually distributed.

The government found it difficult to find projects to fund, and funded projects often failed. While funding was sometimes ‘clawed back’, other times this was not possible. ZeroGen, a proposed coal plant with CCS, went into administration despite at least $187 million in subsidies. The 99% Australia-funded Global CCS Institute backed more overseas projects than Australian ones and had extravagant operational spending.

The coal industry also announced a $1 billion CCS industry fund, which they said would match federal government spending. The fund has collected and committed only $300 million (mostly for CCS projects), and some of this fund has been spent on election campaign promotion of “clean coal”. Contributions to the fund were deducted against royalties in some states, meaning the fund was subsidised by the taxpayer.

NSW Berejiklian Coalition Government has decided that a new group will be added to those already receiving under-the-table largesse from corrupt developers

If the investigative history of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) since its inception in 1988 (as well as the existence of the Pecuniary Interest & Disciplinary Tribunal) wasn’t proof enough that everyone from ministers of the Crown, members of parliament, judicial officers, public servants, local government councillors and council administrative staff, are capable of being corrupted by rapacious developers, the Berejiklian Coalition Government has decided to increase the field for the convenience of their bagmen by adding yet another layer to the development consent process.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 2017:

Councils are set to be stripped of the power to determine development applications above a certain value in a governance shake-up that will mandate the use of independent planning panels across most of NSW….

Draft changes to the Planning Act released by then planning minister Rob Stokes in January proposed empowering the minister to order a council to use an independent panel for development applications in certain circumstances…..

it is understood new Planning Minister Anthony Roberts believes that mandating Independent Hearing and Assessment Panels (IHAPs) is an important probity measure.

The panels, which are optional at present, are used by large councils, including Parramatta and Liverpool.

Fairfax Media understands Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Mr Roberts are considering the change alongside a suite of housing affordability measures to go to cabinet this week.

The final shape of the independent panels has yet to be decided but it is likely they would operate in a similar fashion to the existing IHAPs.