One doesn't have to look very hard to see where Turnbull & Co's budgetary spending money is coming from

Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison is waxing lyrical about the state of government finances ahead of next week's 2017-18 Budget announcements. 

Tax cuts for low and middle income earners, company tax cuts, increased infrastructure spending and no increase in the Medicare Levy - all on the back of increased taxation revenue.

But that is not quite the whole truth. The Abbott and Turnbull governments have been steadily reducing the safety-net income and living conditions of welfare recipients for years in order to increase the budget bottom line.

It has been reported Scott Morrison has found over $8 billion in savings in the forthcoming Budget and one can guess where a significant portion of those 'savings' have been found given past history.

A walk down memory lane.......

Exhibit One

Australian Parliamentary Library, 2014:

The 2014­–15 Budget proposes to change indexation arrangements for the Age Pension, veterans’ pensions, Carer Payment, Disability Support Pension and Parenting Payment (Single) so that payment rates are only adjusted by movements in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The measure will save $449.0 million over five years…

The budget savings from this measure arise from lower growth in the rate of payment provided to pensioners. Effectively, pensioners will receive a lower payment over time than they would have had the indexation method not been changed. Lower payments also affect the impact of the pension means test with less people likely to qualify for a payment under the income and assets test over time…

The Government estimates that $1.5 billion will be saved over four years through a freeze on the income and asset test threshold for all Australian Government payments. The thresholds for Family Tax Benefit, Child Care Benefit, Child Care Rebate, Newstart Allowance, Parenting Payment (Single and Partnered) and Youth Allowance will not be subject to annual CPI indexation for three years from 1 July 2014…

A further change to the pension means test, lowering the deeming thresholds, will accrue minor savings of $32.7 million for one year of operation (in 2017–18) but significant savings in the years beyond the forward estimates.....

Exhibit Two

The Australian, 5 December 2016:

The Turnbull government is ramping up efforts to claw back $4 billion believed to have been ­incorrectly paid to welfare recipients, issuing debt notices worth $4.5 million every day in a bid to rein in the ballooning welfare bill.

The Australian has learned a new automated system that matches a welfare recipient’s ­details with information from the Australian Taxation Office is generating 20,000 “compliance interventions” a week, up from 20,000 a year before the crackdown came into effect in July.

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge said the new system, which is expected to generate 1.7 million compliance notices to welfare recipients over the next three years, was helping to meet the government’s debt recovery targets.

“Our aim is to ensure that ­people get what they are entitled to — no more and no less. And to crack down hard when people ­deliberately defraud the system,” he told The Australian…..

In the 2015-16 budget and midyear budget update, the government estimated $4bn in welfare benefit overpayments were likely between 2010 and 2018. Budget papers forecast that the government will achieve savings of $1.7bn over five years through debt recovery….

In March 2015 the Reserve Bank cut its cash rate and cut it twice more by December 2016 and the big banks had followed suit. However, the Turnbull Government cut deeming rates for pensioners once only. The base deeming rate continues to date at 1.75% while CBA pensioner security account interest ranges from 0.50% to 1.10% for a good many age pensioners - giving the government a sly and petty saving over time.

Exhibit Three

In 2017 the waiting period for new claimants of New Start Allowance, Youth Allowance and Special Benefit was increased to a minimum of four weeks for those aged under 25 years and Youth Allowance age eligibility restricted in a  federal government omnibus bill.

This bill also applied further eligibility restrictions to Family Tax Benefit payments, removed the pensioner education supplement,  the annual education entry payment assisting with education expenses for eligible recipients, and and the requirement for employers to provide Government-funded parental leave pay to their eligible long-term employees and other measures. 

Total savings were est. $2.37 billion over six years.

The Department of Social Services has confirmed about 86,600 part-rate age pensioners had their pension cancelled as a result of the assets test changes that came into effect on January 1, 2017

Exhibit Four

In the 2016-17 financial year previous changes to the Disability Support Pension resulted in est. $1.5 billion in government savings. Further savings are expected in projections out to 2027-28.

The Guardian, 27 April 2018:

The federal government has created a “false economy” by restoring the budget bottom line through cuts to the disability support pension and potentially pushing more people into homelessness, a leading economist has said.

Speaking at a budget preview forum hosted by Industry Super Australia in Melbourne on Thursday, the Industry Super chief economist, Stephen Anthony, said the federal budget position had improved due to business receipts and cuts to personal benefit payments, particularly the disability support pension.

“The problem here of course is we’re seeing this spill out on to our streets in terms of homelessness,” Anthony said. “I’d say there’s a bit of a false economy occurring there and I’d ask the tax office to consider the models that they’re using and their reliability because the flipside of what they’re doing is causing a lot of social damage and social harm.”

The Turnbull government has tightened the eligibility criteria for the disability support pension, which the Australian Council of Social Services (Acoss) says resulted in a 63% drop in successful claims for the the pension between 2010 and 20116.

People who are not successful in claiming the disability support pension but are still unable to work have been pushed on to unemployment benefit Newstart, which pays $170 less per week…..

He said even a modest surplus was dependent on the government resisting the temptation to spend money in what is likely to be the last budget before the next federal election, saying “we don’t want to see tax cuts … we need tax reform, not necessarily tax cuts”.

The treasurer, Scott Morrison, this week announced he had scrapped a planned $8.2bn increase to the Medicare levy to fund the national disability insurance scheme, saying strong economic growth in the past 18 months meant it was no longer necessary.

The government has also telegraphed a personal income tax cut to address cost-of-living pressures in an environment of stagnant wage growth.

Anthony said the current budget parametres anticipate that annual wages growth will return to more than 3%, a projection that he said is unlikely to be met.

What the Australian Government didn’t want the UN to publish

During Nationals MP for New England Barnaby Joyce’s disastrous sojourn as Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources the federal government began a successfull campaign to have the United Nations delete all criticism of Australia’s $13bn effort to restore the ailing Murray-Darling river system from a published study.

It seems the Turnbull Government did not want the world to know, or Australian voters to be reminded, that it had placed long term water sustainability in four of its eight states and territories in jeopardy.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations draft report in question was the following:

C.J. Perry and Pasquale Steduto, (25 May 2017), DOES IMPROVED IRRIGATION TECHNOLOGY SAVE WATER? A review of the evidence: Discussion paper on irrigation and sustainable water resources management in the Near East and North Africa

Abstract

The Near East and North Africa (NENA) Region has the lowest per-capita fresh water resource availability among all Regions of the world. Already naturally exposed to chronic shortage of water, NENA will face severe intensification of water scarcity in the coming decades due to several drivers related to demography, food security policies, overall socio-economic development and climate change. Irrigated agriculture in the Region, which already consumes more than 85 percent of renewable fresh water resources, will face strong challenges in meeting augmented national food demand and supporting economic development in rural areas. Countries of the NENA Region promote efficient and productive irrigation as well as the protection and sustainable management of scarce and fragile natural resources, particularly water, in their national plans. Through the Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity, FAO is providing support and focus to efforts in confronting the fast-widening gap between availability and demand for fresh water resources. A key question to address is: how can countries simultaneously reduce this gap, promote sustainable water resources management and contribute effectively to food security and enhanced nutrition? The traditional assumption has been that increasing irrigation efficiency through the adoption of modern technologies, like drip irrigation, leads to substantial water savings, releasing the saved water to the environment or to other uses. The evidence from research and field measurements shows that this is not the case. The benefit at the local “on-farm” scale may appear dramatic, but when properly accounted at basin scale, total water consumption by irrigation tends to increase instead of decreasing. The potential to increase water productivity— more “crop per drop”—is also quite modest for the most important crops. These findings suggest that reductions in water consumption by irrigated agriculture will not come from the technology itself. Rather, measures like limiting water allocation will be needed to ensure a sustainable level of water use. The present report provides the evidence needed to open up a discussion with all major stakeholders dealing with water resources management on the proper and scientifically sound framework required to address jointly water scarcity, sustainability and food security problems. A discussion that has been disregarded for too long.

C.J. Perry stated at Research Gate on 25 April 2018 that:

Government representatives from the Australian Embassy in Rome disagreed with the research findings for the Australia section summarised in the original report. FAO, in response, welcomed the opportunity to improve the report. Dissemination was put on hold and the report was removed from the FAO website pending inclusion of additional material relevant to the Australian section. In a series of exchanges, no empirical evidence was presented to support the Australian authorities’ claim that the investment program in the Murray Darling Basin has generated substantial water savings and environmental benefits. This left the global principles and conclusions set out in the original report unchallenged, while the results from Australia remained contentious. Therefore, it was decided that the best solution to the matter was to withdraw the Australian section from the publication and let the Discussion Paper to be available again on the web. The original and current versions of the report both invite submissions of additional case studies, information and analysis to WSI@fao.org.  Cases documenting technical or policy interventions where irrigation water has been released to environmental or other uses will be particularly valuable.

The suppressed section in the original draft of this UN report would have been identical or very similar to this version of the text:

4.1 AUSTRALIA

Document(s)

System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (SEEA-Water) (United Nations Statistics Division, 2012); Water Account Australia 2004–05, (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006); Droughtand the rebound effect: A Murray–Darling basin example (Loch and Adamson, 2015); Understanding irrigation water use efficiency at different scales for better policy reform: A case study of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia (Qureshi et al., 2011); Water Reform and Planning in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia (Grafton, 2017)

…………………………………...........................................................................................

Context

Australia has led the world in the introduction of water rights in a context of extreme resource variability.

This in turn has provided the basis for managed trading between sectors and locations, and valuable lessons regarding potential problems as previously under-utilized entitlements are sold and used, and of “stranded assets” if significant volumes of water are traded out of an area. More recently, evidence suggests that subsidy programmes to “save” water seem to have been ineffective, poorly conceived and un-prioritized.

…………………………………...........................................................................................

Highlights

The Murray Darling Basin (MDB) is widely recognized for its advanced standards in water resources management—in particular the system of tradable water rights that allows transfer of water on short term or permanent leases subject to evaluation of third party impacts by the regulatory authorities.

Australia participated in the formulation of the United Nations (UN) System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water. This framework accounts for water withdrawn from “the environment” (rivers, aquifers), use of that water in various sectors, including transfer between sectors (for example a water utility supplying a factory or town), consumption through ET, and direct and indirect return flows to the environment and to sinks. Trial implementation of the framework was planned in Australia, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics had already in 2006 issued guidelines referencing the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (UN- System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for

Water (SEEAW) system), which was to be applied to the reporting of the 2004-5 national water accounts.

However, the following statement from the introduction to Chapter 4 of the 2004-5 National Water Accounts for Australia5 is apparently at variance with one critical element of the SEEAW approach—namely the distinction between consumptive and non-consumptive uses:

This chapter examines the use of water within the AGRICULTURE industry in Australia. Water used by this industry includes livestock drinking water and water applied through irrigation to crops and pastures. Since the AGRICULTURE industry does not use water in-stream, or supply water to other users, total water use is equal to water consumption.

Elsewhere in the Accounting Standards it is stated that:

It is believed that leakage to landscape from surface water resources such as rivers and storages occurs in the MDB region; however, reliable volumes are not available, and currently there is no suitable quantification approach to estimate these volumes.

Does this assumption of zero return flows matter? Indeed it does: Australia is now embarked on a massive (AUS$ 10bn) programme to save water for the environment, including subsidies to farmers for hi-tech on farm investment. Savings are estimated on the basis of typical application efficiencies (e.g. flood irrigation 50 percent, drip 90 percent), so a farmer with a water entitlement of 100 water units, switching from flood to drip would be assumed to consume 50 units at present, which would require a delivery of only 50/0.9 (55.5) units after conversion. The “saving” of 44.5 units are then divided between the farmer and the environment. Of the 22.25 units going to the farmer, he consumes (with the new technology) approximately extra 20 units. So on-farm water consumption is expected to increase from 50  units to 70 units (and return flows are diminished by approximately the same amount), in apparent direct contradiction to the programme objectives. In some cases, such return flows will be non-recoverable outflows to saline groundwater; in other cases, where irrigation is close to rivers or where groundwater is usable, the return flows are recoverable and cannot be counted as “savings”. However, the current evaluation of investments includes no apparent basis for assessing whether subsidized introduction of hi-tech systems will actually release water to alternative uses, or simply increase consumption by the extra amount allocated to the farmer. A more comprehensive implementation of UN-SEEAW—where return flows to the environment are specifically accounted for—would have addressed this problem.

Other authors have identified the issue. Qureshi et al. (2011) point to the problem of ignoring return flows, and the danger of focussing on local “efficiency”, while Loch and Adamson (2015) go on to identify the “rebound effect” whereby when water deliveries to the farm are more valuable, the demand for water actually increases.

Most recently, writing in a Special Issue of Water Economics and Policy that addressed many of the complexities of managing water scarcity in the Murray Darling basin, Grafton (2017) made the following key observations regarding the Australian experience with providing subsidies for on-farm improvements in irrigation technology:

* About USD 2.5 billion of taxpayers’ funds used for improving farm irrigation has primarily benefitted private individuals;

* These investments have had no discernible impact in terms of reduced water use on a per-hectare basis, or release of water to alternative users;

* The buyback of water rights from willing sellers was the most effective use of taxpayer funds to release water to alternative uses;

* Investments in irrigation to raise “crop-per-drop” productivity had failed to deliver water savings on a basin scale.

5 http://www.water.gov.au/Publications/ABS_Water_Account_2004-05_Chpt4.pdf

NOTE: Full draft report Does improved irrigation technology save water.pdf

It only took five little words....

Some people should never be allowed near a public discussion and Institute for Public Affairs Deputy Director John Roskam is one of them.

This was John as a ABC TV Q&A panel guest on Monday 23 April 2018.

Working hard makes you free. 
Ouch!

Memory immediately flies back to... 

Arbeit macht frei

Work sets you free.

A phrase forever linked to Nazi ideology.

HTLV-1 Infection: “I suspect we would have dealt with the problem before now if it was in Sydney”

The Guardian, 24 April 2018:

Researchers say HTLV-1 is more widespread across central and northern Australia than previously thought. Dr Lloyd Einsiedel is an infectious diseases clinician with the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute based at Alice Springs hospital.

“We cover all the way out to the western desert and we have patients from northern South Australia, and it’s endemic throughout our entire catchment area of a million square kilometres,” Einsiedel says.

“So it’s very suggestive that we have a major problem and it really pays no attention to borders, these very artificial constructs of Europeans.”

Einsiedel worries there will be “significant mortality” over the next five to 10 years from HTLV-1 related bronchiectasis (lung disease). The region already has the highest reported prevalence of adult bronchiectasis in the world.

I suspect we would have dealt with the problem before now if it was in Sydney

Dr Lloyd Einsiedel

Einsiedel says testing and treatment are a priority. There also needs to be a public awareness campaign in Aboriginal languages, and all remote area health workers need to be educated too.

However, HTLV1 presents a unique set of problems.

First, the world doesn’t know enough about it. In the early 1980s, HTLV-1 and HIV were discovered around the same time but HIV was a major global emergency that rightly got attention. HTLV-1 was thought to be asymptomatic; people might carry it their whole lives and never show any adverse effects. Five to 10% of patients might develop fatal lung disease or leukaemia in later life but most would be fine. A map of the world’s HTLV-1 hotspots reveals another clue as to why it’s so neglected. [my yellow highlighting]

Guardian graphic | Source: ECDC

Read the full aticle here.

Turnbull Government has just placed a multinational corportion with an appalling human rights record at the first contact interface with the National Disability Insurance Scheme

“It has a history of problems, failures, fatal errors and overcharging”  [Senior Appleby compliance officer quoted in The Guardian on the subject of Serco, 7 June 2017]

If the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) didn't have enough internal structural problems to deal with along comes the UK-based multinational Serco Group.

A group implicated in: human rights abuses in prisons and immigration detention centres it has managed; poor to unsafe health service delivery including at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, overcharging for services rendered under government contracts, fraudulent record keeping and manipulating results when there was a failure to reach targets; mishandling of radioactive waste and labour rights abuses.

The Guardian, 23 Apri 2018:

Disability rights groups, Labor and the Greens have slammed a decision to hire the multinational outsourcing giant Serco in a key role administering the national disability insurance scheme.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) announced on Friday afternoon that Serco, a company with a chequered corporate history, would help run its contact centres under a two-year contract.

The decision would put the company at the frontline of the NDIS, interacting frequently with people with disability and service providers, many of whom are still grappling with a vast, complex and sometimes confusing scheme.

 “Sourcing our contact centre services from Serco will give ongoing flexibility, responsiveness and value for money,” the NDIA said in a statement.

But the decision has outraged disability rights campaigners, who say Serco’s poor history abroad and its lack of experience in disability should have precluded it from any role delivering the landmark scheme. 

People with Disability Australia co-chief executive, Matthew Bowden, said he was “gravely concerned” that Serco would, like other third-party providers, fail to uphold the values, objectives and principles underpinning the NDIS.

“We have no details on what expertise Serco have in providing communication services for people with disability, or why the NDIA has decided to outsource such a vital part of its services,” Bowden said.

“The NDIA needs to hire more staff and make their communication avenues with people with disability more transparent. Instead, they are offloading their responsibilities, and requirements, to deliver services to people with disability.”

Paralympian Kurt Fearnley was among those expressing concern at the decision, saying Serco would be “racking their brains on how they can bring lived experience of disabilities into their workplace”.

“The NDIS will be worthless if people with disabilities aren’t at its core!” he tweeted.

Just because it is beautiful.....(36)

Red-winged parrot

Aprosmictus erythropterus
Male

Native to northern Australia and New Guinea

The male is bright lime green with black back,deep blue rump & yellow tipped green tail

Female .has a smaller wing patch, dark green back and a paler rump

Photograph by David Marle

via @ParrotOfTheDay

Quotes of the Week

“He’s nothing but a pre-Fitzgerald corruption inquiry Queensland walloper”  [An anonymous Liberal MP speaking of Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton, quoted in The Saturday Paper by journalist Paul Bongiorno, 21 April 2018]

“The Liberals complaining that ASIC is sleep is rich considering who administered the fucking anaesthetic.”  [Journalist Richard Chirgwin, Twitter, 23 April 2018]

“At the same time, returns to the AEC show that these same corporations paid a total of $21,733,192 in political donations to political parties with Westpac standing out with donations totalling of nearly $12 million during the 2014-15 financial year alone.“  [Campaigner Rosie Williams, in “What can open data tell us about Australia’s major banks?”, 20 April 2018]