Quotes of the Week

”Homosexuality was decriminalised in NSW in 1984. The first state or territory to take homosexuality out of the criminal code was South Australia in 1975 and the last was Tasmania in 1997.” [Julie McCrossin writing on ABC News, 23 September 2017]

“There are around 3,000 reported snakebites each year in Australia, resulting in 500 hospital admissions and an average of two fatalities.” [The Flying Doctor Service, 5 October 2017]

“In the first few months of 2017, more than 440,000 Australians have donated to a GoFundMe, demonstrating the staggering increase of people engaging with social fundraising across the country.”  [The Northern Star, 3 October 2017]

WAKE UP, PRIME MINISTER! A Frustrated Voter Calls on the Australian PM to Redeem Himself

Tony Abbott, in speaking arrant nonsense in the speech he delivered to a collection of climate deniers in the UK recently, has given you a great chance to redeem yourself in relation to climate change action and energy policy.  Abbott has shown how idiotic he is and how indifferent he is to the national interest as well as being totally inconsistent with much of what he espoused when he was Prime Minister.  So why do you keep kowtowing to his silliness and the silliness of his mates?  Why are you reluctant to adopt a clean energy target as recommended by the Chief Scientist? 

You’ve kowtowed to Abbott and his cronies incessantly for months and months – and it’s got you ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE.  They are not going to let up on you – and you’ve lost an enormous amount of public goodwill by your craven behaviour.

It’s time that you took charge and rejected the idiocy of the Liberal and National dinosaurs who want to prevent any more movement towards renewables.  How many of these Abbott-loving clowns are there anyway?  Surely the majority of the Liberal members (If not the Nationals - who are another matter entirely) want to have a bipartisan agreement on climate and energy.  Surely the sensible members of the Government want to give the community and business certainty about the way forward. And surely the more reasonable members of your Government can see that it is IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST TO SECURE A BIPARTISAN AGREEMENT ON THESE IMPORTANT MATTERS.  That is really the only way forward – and it’s what the majority of the community and business want.

If you get a bipartisan agreement with the opposition, it surely won’t matter if Abbott and his dinosaur cronies cross the floor. 

Another matter you should be considering (as I imagine you would be as a politician and a PM in deep trouble) is how history will see you as a leader and your term as PM.  Currently it’s not looking good.

Wake up, Prime Minister, and redeem yourself!

Climateer

NSW North Coast

GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration. Longer posts will be considered on topical subjects.

File this one under 'Who's guarding the guards?'

The politicians forming Australian state and federal governments assure us they are upright, ethical people with histories as pure as the driven snow. They tell us their advisors are trustworthy beyond doubt and their senior public service appointees & finance/security consultants ditto. While their big business mates like Gina, Twiggy and Co are genuinely true blue and philanthropic.

Yet, as step by step these same politicians lead us towards authoritarian governance and Big Brother mass surveillance, their feet of clay can’t help but show.

North Coast Voices readers may remember that SMEC Holdings Limited (now SMEC and Surbana Jurong) has been a favourite of Malcolm Turnbull's since he was the Minister for the Environment and Water Resouces in the Howard Government ministry.

This company provided an error-ridden desktop study for Turnbull supporting damming and diverting water from NSW North Coast river systems, with a preference for visiting this environmental vandalism on the Clarence River system.

It is now allegedly a corrupt multinational corpration.

The Age, 4 October 2017:

An arm of the company tasked with advising the Turnbull government on its signature infrastructure project, Snowy Hydro 2.0, has been banned by the World Bank for alleged bribery and corruption, prompting further calls for a federal anti-corruption watchdog……

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull poses for a photo during his announcement of Snowy Hydro 2.0 in March.

Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Engineering company SMEC had five of its subsidiaries banned by the World Bank last week after an investigation into "inappropriate payments" linked to projects in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. 

SMEC was chosen to undertake the $29 million feasibility study back in May and the work is due to be finished by the end of the year. The firm was selected by the state and federal government-owned Snowy Hydro corporation, which runs the current power plant.

Last year, Fairfax Media revealed the details of some of the allegations around improper payments involving SMEC, including allegedly corrupt dealings between the firm and Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena when he was a cabinet minister in 2009.

Those dealings and others are still under investigation by the federal police.

This is one wealthy individual audited by the Australian Taxation Office - venture capitalist and independent consultant to business & government for over twelve years, Anthony ‘Tony’ Castagna.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October 2017:

Anthony Castagna's company helps protect the cyber secrets and detect financial crimes within the world's most powerful institutions, including the Serious Fraud Office in Britain, US Homeland Security, the Australian defence force, ASIC, even the Office of the President of the US.

Now the Sydney-based co-founder and chairman of Nuix, majority owned by Macquarie Bank, faces a potential 20-year jail term after being charged with tax evasion and dealing with the proceeds of crime.

Dr Castagna, 70, has been the target of two of Nuix's major clients: the Australian Federal police and the Australian Tax Office through Project Wickenby, their long-running tax probe.

The charges relate to payments from Macquarie Bank which were allegedly channelled into offshore companies controlled by his cousin Robert Agius, who was sentenced to a non-parole period of 6 years and 8 months' jail in 2012 for operating unrelated tax avoidance schemes via his Vanuatu-based accountancy firm.

In addition to Dr Castagna's criminal charges, the ATO is pursuing him for unpaid taxes and penalties in excess of $10 million.

For decades, the tech guru has been a rainmaker for Macquarie Bank. The bank has ploughed millions of dollars into his cyber security and forensic services company Nuix. A totally owned Macquarie Group subsidiary owns more than 70 per cent of Nuix and over the last year Macquarie advisors have been talking up a billion-dollar float of Nuix on the Australian stock exchange....

Dr Castagna, who denies any wrongdoing and is vigorously defending the charges....

Donald J. Trump: “Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!”

No matter how hard he tries US President Donald Trump just can't keep the Russia issue behind closed doors.

It keeps seeping out into the public domain via mainstream and social media.

Reuters, 5 October 2017:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The special counsel investigating whether Russia tried to sway the 2016 U.S. election has taken over FBI inquiries into a former British spy's dossier of allegations of Russian financial and personal links to President Donald Trump's campaign and associates, sources familiar with the inquiry told Reuters.

A report compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele identified Russian businessmen and others whom U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded are Russian intelligence officers or working on behalf of the Russian government.

A spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller declined comment. The FBI also declined comment.

Three sources with knowledge of Mueller's probe said his investigators have assumed control of multiple inquiries into allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election to benefit Trump, a Republican.

Russia has repeatedly denied any meddling in the election.

Two officials familiar with the investigations said that both Mueller's team and the Senate Intelligence Committee are seeking any evidence that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort or others who had financial dealings with Russia might have helped Kremlin intelligence agencies target email hacking and social media postings undermining Trump's election opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

On Wednesday, the Senate panel's chairman Richard Burr told reporters that the issue of whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia remains an open question.

Prof. Seth Abramson, University of New Hampshire, 4 October 2017:

FACT: the number of votes Russia needed to flip in Michigan and Wisconsin (out of 7.5 million votes total) to give BOTH to Trump was 16,900. pic.twitter.com/5RfAZGSIOx

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) October 4, 2017

Trump's response is typical……

MEDIA MATTERS for America, 5 October 2017:

President Donald Trump urged Congress to begin investigations into the U.S. media, which he baselessly claimed was fabricating stories in order to damage his presidency, in a Thursday morning tweet with authoritarian overtones.

"Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!," the president tweeted just before 7 a.m. EST.

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!

9:59 PM - Oct 5, 2017

 28,38728,387 Replies  12,30112,301 Retweets 48,15748,157 likes

Trump's tweet came the morning after the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- which has been investigating what U.S. intelligence agencies have determined was a Russian propaganda effort aimed at disrupting the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor --confirmed those conclusions and warned that the Kremlin's effort to influence U.S. elections is ongoing. At a news conference detailing the progress of their investigation, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), the committee's chairman, said that the issue of whether Trump's associates had colluded with Russia "is still open."

Trump has long been defensive about the question of whether Russia aided his election, and has termed the special counsel's investigation into whether his associates participated in that effort a "witch hunt." And his constant attempts to undermine and delegitimize the press are one of the rare throughlines in his chaotic administration. Critics have noted that this effort parallels those made by authoritarian leaders…..

Deaths caused by Australian immigration policies in 2017

Monash University, Border Crossing Observatory:

The Australian Border Deaths Database maintains a record of all known deaths associated with Australia’s borders since 1 January 2000.

The database was begun by Professor Sharon Pickering and Associate Professor Leanne Weber as part of BOb’s Deaths at the Global Frontier project, culminating in the publication of the book Globalization and Borders: Death at the Global Frontier in 2011.

The Border Crossing Observatory continues to periodically update The Australian Border Deaths Database in line with the methodology detailed in Globalization and Borders: Death at the Global Frontier. 

The most recent version records deaths at the Australian frontier for the period 1 January 2000 – August 2017, with a recorded 1,995+ border deaths. [my yellow bolding]

Deaths in 2017 to date:

8-Mar-17 New Zealander, male - suspected suicide by hanging in Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre.

7-June-17 Matthew Taylor, New Zealander, male - committed suicide in New Zealand, a year and a half after his deportation under s501 of the Migration Act. He was in a desperate situation in New Zealand with limited support and ties to the country following his return. He moved to Australia with his family as a toddler and had never left Sydney until his deportation following his prison sentence for a string of minor offences. He has a young child in Sydney and his immediate family still live there.

3-July-17 (week beginning) Majid Hassanloo (brother of Saeed Hasanloo), 39 years old, Iranian, male - found dead in the house he was minding in Sydney from a suspected drug overdose. Majid was released from detention in December 2015 but was not offered adequate support. His psychological deterioration was profound.

7-Aug-17 Hamed Shamshiripour, 31 years old, Iranian, male - found dead in the forest near the Australian-run East Lorengau refugee transit centre on Manus Island. Suspected suicide.

Have those who believe climate change is real become a silent majority in Australia?

On 4 October 2017 Australian mainstream media began to publish articles predicting increases in summer temperatures, with 50C extremes becoming common by the end of the century.

The articles spoke of associated increased health risks and heat-related urban infrastructure stress. They mentioned a study published in the science journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Given much of the Australia population experienced the heat extremes of the summer of 2015 these articles should have been speaking to believers when it came to the impact of climate change.

Instead on that Wednesday the comments section of many of the online versions of these articles were choked with anti-science, anti-climate change sentiments. None of those making negative comments appear to have read the research mentioned.

A year earlier, on 26 September 2016, ABC News had reported:

A survey of more than 2,000 Australians by the Climate Institute has found 77 per cent believe climate change is occurring and 90 per cent believe the Federal Government has a responsibility to drive action on it.

The research showed most Australians trust the scientific evidence of climate change and believe there are job and investment opportunities in renewable energy.

If recent reader comments in mainstream media are any indication believers are now becoming a relatively silent majority.

Have they lost heart in the face of successive national leaders like the blindly destructive Abbott and weak-kneed Turnbull?

BACKGROUND

Lewis, S., King, A, & Mitchell, D. (2017) Australia's unprecedented future temperature extremes under Paris limits to warming:

Abstract

Record-breaking temperatures can detrimentally impact ecosystems, infrastructure, and human health. Previous studies show that climate change has influenced some observed extremes, which are expected to become more frequent under enhanced future warming. Understanding the magnitude, as a well as frequency, of such future extremes is critical for limiting detrimental impacts. We focus on temperature changes in Australian regions, including over a major coral reef-building area, and assess the potential magnitude of future extreme temperatures under Paris Agreement global warming targets (1.5°C and 2°C). Under these limits to global mean warming, we determine a set of projected high-magnitude unprecedented Australian temperature extremes. These include extremes unexpected based on observational temperatures, including current record-breaking events. For example, while the difference in global-average warming during the hottest Australian summer and the 2°C Paris target is 1.1°C, extremes of 2.4°C above the observed summer record are simulated. This example represents a more than doubling of the magnitude of extremes, compared with global mean change, and such temperatures are unexpected based on the observed record alone. Projected extremes do not necessarily scale linearly with mean global warming and this effect demonstrates the significant potential benefits of limiting warming to 1.5°C, compared to 2°C or warmer.

Plain Language Summary

Extreme temperatures affect ecosystems, infrastructure, and human health. Understanding how climate change is impacting climate extremes and how extremes will change under future global warming are important scientific research questions. Previous scientific studies have focused on how current temperature extremes have been impacted by climate change, or on how the frequency of these current extremes will change in the future. This study takes a different approach and examines how the severity of future temperature extremes might change in the future. We assess the possible severity of Australian temperature extremes under the limits to warming that are described in the Paris Agreement (1.5{degree sign}C and 2{degree sign}C of global warming above the period prior to industrialization). This study finds that the magnitude of future temperature extremes for Australia does not necessarily increase at the same rate of global warming. The severity of possible future temperature extremes simulated by climate models in this study poses serious challenges for preparedness for future climatic change in Australia. For example, daily temperature extremes of 3.8{degree sign}C above existing records are simulated for Australian states, even under the ambitious Paris efforts to curb global warming.

Lewis, S., King, A, & Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S. (2017) Defining a New Normal for Extremes in a Warming World:

Abstract

The term “new normal” has been used in scientific literature and public commentary to contextualize contemporary climate events as an indicator of a changing climate due to enhanced greenhouse warming. A new normal has been used broadly but tends to be descriptive and ambiguously defined. Here we review previous studies conceptualizing this idea of a new climatological normal and argue that this term should be used cautiously and with explicit definition in order to avoid confusion. We provide a formal definition of a new climate normal relative to present based around record-breaking contemporary events and explore the timing of when such extremes become statistically normal in the future model simulations. Applying this method to the record-breaking global-average 2015 temperatures as a reference event and a suite of model climate models, we determine that 2015 global annual-average temperatures will be the new normal by 2040 in all emissions scenarios. At the regional level, a new normal can be delayed through aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Using this specific case study to investigate a climatological new normal, our approach demonstrates the greater value of the concept of a climatological new normal for understanding and communicating climate change when the term is explicitly defined. This approach moves us one step closer to understanding how current extremes will change in the future in a warming world.

Full text here. PDF version here.

Lewis, S. & King, A. (2015) Dramatically increased rate of observed hot record breaking in recent Australian temperatures:

Abstract

Persistent extreme temperatures were observed in Australia during 2012–2014. We examine changes in the rate of hot and cold record breaking over the observational record for Australia- and State-wide temperatures. The number of new hot (high-maximum and high-minimum temperatures) temperature records increases dramatically in recent decades, while the number of cold records decreases. In a stationary climate, cold and hot records are expected to occur in equal frequency on longer than interannual time scales; however, during 2000–2014, new hot records outnumber new cold records by 12 to one on average. Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 experiments reveal increased hot temperature record breaking occurs in simulations that impose anthropogenic forcings but not in natural forcings-only experiments. This disproportionate hot to cold record breaking rates provides a useful indicator of nonstationarity in temperatures, which is related to the underlying mean observed Australian warming trend of 0.9°C since high-quality records began in 1910.

Full text here.

The new Abbott Manifesto is now online

http://tonyabbott.com.au/, snapshot taken 11 October 2017

Let's Make Australia Work Again

"We need to give the public something to hope for; we need to give our own people something to fight for." - Tony Abbott

A plan to win the next election

Fix the Parliament. Reform the senate – make it a house of review, not a house of rejection – to end the gridlock and make Australia work again.

Live within our means. Stop all new and frivolous spending to fix the budget and stop ripping off our grandchildren.

Take the pressure off power prices. End further subsidies of intermittent and unreliable energy.

Make housing more affordable. By scaling back immigration to migrants who can make a contribution from day one.

Make Australia safe. Keep Jihadis off the streets. Stop hate-preachers. Make better use of the armed forces. Let police shoot-to-kill to save innocent lives.

Celebrate Australia - don’t run it down. End funding for bully bureaucracies and welcome straight talking.

Every line in this divisive six-point manifesto flags real danger to a nation hoping to remain an open, free and peaceful multicultural society based on democratic principals and equality before the law.