we interrupt our slide towards a racist surveillance dystopia to bring you this surprisingly honest government ad: https://t.co/TKG1mYyFzn— Scott Ludlam (@Scottludlam) August 2, 2018
Saturday 11 August 2018
Tweet of the Week
Labels:
racism
Friday 10 August 2018
The fight against Japanese whaling in the Antarctic continues....
Minke Whale Breaching at http://wildwhales.org/speciesid/whales/minke-whale/ |
Australia states its position……
Joint media release
Minister for Foreign
Affairs, The Hon Julie Bishop MP
Minister for the
Environment and Energy, The Hon Josh Frydenberg MP
2 August 2018
Australia is very
concerned by Japan’s latest proposal to lift the global moratorium on
commercial whaling at the next International Whaling Commission meeting in
September 2018.
Australia remains
steadfastly opposed to all forms of commercial and so-called ‘scientific’
whaling and continues to be a leader in seeking to strengthen the International
Whaling Commission to protect whales.
We strongly support the
30-year global moratorium on commercial whaling and will vehemently oppose any
attempts to undermine the processes that support it, including through changed
voting regimes or the establishment of catch-limits for commercial whaling.
Australia and Japan
enjoy a deep and strong bilateral relationship, but we disagree on the issue of
whales. At the Commission meeting in September, Australia will be calling on
like-minded nations to reject Japan’s proposal.
Australia has worked
tirelessly to see an end to commercial whaling. We have co-sponsored
resolutions to improve the operation and scrutiny of the Commission and its
scientific committee; we have supported the establishment of new sanctuaries
where whales can thrive in their own environment; we initiated the Commission’s
twelve-nation Southern Ocean Research Partnership supporting non-lethal whale
research; and we successfully took Japan to the International Court of Justice.
The Australian
Government will continue to advocate strongly and consistently for the
cessation of commercial whaling and so-called ‘scientific’ whaling. The science
is clear, you do not need to kill whales in order to study them.
How one Japanese
newspaper reported the issues……
The
Japan Times,
4 August 2018:
SINGAPORE – Japan
and Australia agreed Friday to make efforts to prevent their whaling dispute
from hurting bilateral relations, a government official said.
During talks in
Singapore, Foreign Minister Taro Kono briefed his Australian counterpart Julie
Bishop about Japan’s proposal to restructure the International Whaling
Commission to make it easier to resume commercial whaling.
But Australia is
strongly opposed to all forms of whaling, raising concern that ties between
Tokyo and Canberra could be strained by a practice that Japan says is a
cultural tradition.
Last month, Japan
proposed resuming whaling of some species of relatively abundant whales. The
government halted commercial whaling in 1982, in line with the global
moratorium adopted by the IWC, but has hunted the mammals since 1987 for what
it calls “scientific research purposes.”
In September 2014, the IWC
adopted a resolution saying Japan should abide by the International Court of
Justice’s ruling earlier this year that its “scientific whaling” program was
illegal and should be halted.
Bishop and environment
minister Josh Frydenberg released a joint statement on Thursday condemning the
proposal to lift the global moratorium on commercial whaling.
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
News.com.au, 30 May 2018, Japan
whaling kills 122 pregnant whales for ‘research’
Thursday 9 August 2018
YouTube begins to face the Internet's darker realities in 2018
The
Hill, 6
August 2018:
YouTube on Monday said
it had banned Alex Jones’s Infowars channel, following similar
actions taken against the controversial right-wing conspiracy theorist by other
major U.S. technology companies.
After the channel
violated YouTube's policies against child endangerment and hate speech,
Jones was banned for trying to circumvent the site's enforcement measures,
according to a source familiar with the company’s decision. The source
said Jones received a 90-day moratorium on livestreaming for violating its policies and that
he then tried to promote his flagship radio show on other YouTube pages,
prompting a permanent ban.
Is Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton value for money?
Australia's millionaire Minister for Home Affairs and Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Dutton has gathered to himself a lucrative salary worth in the vicinity of $478,068 per annum, before any parliamentary entitlements are realised.
The Prime Minister's annual salary is only a little under $50,000 more than this, while the U.S, President's annual salary is apparently around AU$70,000 less than Dutton's annual payment for services rendered.
So is Peter Dutton giving taxpayers value for the revenue dollars they supply.
It honestly doesn't appear to be the case if this audit is any indication.
Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), Report
No.45 2017–18 The
Integration of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the
Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, excerpts:
On
18 July 2017, the Prime Minister announced that the government had
decided to establish a Home Affairs portfolio which would have responsibility
for:
federal
law enforcement;
national
security;
transport
security;
criminal
justice;
emergency
management;
immigration
and multicultural affairs; and
border-related
functions.
The Department of Home
Affairs has assumed all of the department’s functions (including the ABF) in
addition to functions from each of the Departments of Prime Minister and
Cabinet; Social Services; Infrastructure and Regional Development and the
Attorney-General’s department.
In addition to the ABF,
the Home Affairs portfolio also includes the following entities:
the
Australian Federal Police;
the
Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission;
the
Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre; and
the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. …..
Conclusion
10. The Department of
Immigration and Border Protection achieved the integration of DIBP and ACBPS
and the creation of the Australian Border Force in a structural sense and is
also progressing with the implementation of a suite of reform projects.
However, it is not
achieving commitments made to government in relation to additional revenue, and
is not in a position to provide the government with assurance that the claimed
benefits of integration have been achieved.
11. The department
established largely effective governance arrangements which were revised over
time in response to emerging issues.
12. The department’s record keeping
continues to be poor.
13. The department is
effectively managing a suite of 38 capability reform projects and has developed
sound monitoring arrangements, although the Executive Committee does not have
visibility of the overall status of individual projects.
14. The efficiency
savings committed to by the department were removed from its forward estimates
and have thus been incorporated in the budget. However, the department has not verified whether
efficiencies have been delivered in the specific areas which were nominated in
the Integration Business Case.
15. Based on progress to
the end of December 2017, if
collections continue at the current rate the department will only collect 31.6
per cent of the additional customs duty revenue to which it committed in the
Integration Business Case.
16. In the Integration
Business Case, the department committed to a detailed Benefits Realisation
Plan. The plan was not implemented despite several reviews identifying this
omission. As a result, the
department cannot demonstrate to the government that the claimed benefits of
integration have been achieved….
18. Reporting to the
Executive focused primarily on integration and organisational reform, with
minimal coverage of progress in delivery of the suite of 38 capability reform
projects. Following the identification of this as a gap in the 2017 Gateway
Review, an Enterprise Transformation Blueprint was established to provide the
Executive Committee with greater visibility over the progress of activity
across the department.
19. There was no evidence
identified to indicate that written briefings were provided to the Minister on
progress throughout the implementation process.
20. Detailed
communication plans were established and implemented to support the integration
process. ‘Pulse Check’ surveys were regularly taken to evaluate staff
satisfaction and engagement with the process.
21. The audit found that the
department did not maintain adequate records of the integration process. This
finding repeats the outcomes of a substantial number of audits and reviews
going back to 2005. The department’s own assessment is that its records and
information management is in a critically poor state. The problems and
their solutions are known to the department, and it has an action plan to
address them, although numerous previous attempts to do so have not been
successful.
22. The department also
experienced a loss of corporate memory due to the level of turn-over of SES
staff, with almost half of SES officers present in July 2015 no longer in the
department at July 2017.
23. The department
initially identified possible risks to effective integration. However, regular
reporting against those risks ceased when the Reform and Integration Task Force
was disbanded.
24. The department made
extensive use of consultants to assist it with the integration process. Despite a requirement to
evaluate contracts upon completion, this did not occur in 31 out of 33 (94 per
cent) of contracts with a value of more than $1 million examined by the ANAO,
and therefore it is unclear whether these services represented value for money…..
The Assurance Partner [Third Horizon] was engaged by DIBP as a
consultant for the period 19 June 2014 to 18 June 2016 with a contract value of $2 million
The total paid to the consultant was $1.6 million. Due to the department’s
concerns with the Assurance Partner’s performance, the engagement ended early
in August 2015……
The initial allocation
of funds for the Portfolio Reform Program in the 2014–15 budget was $710.4
million.5 Additional funds were approved in successive budgets which brought
the total funding for the Program to $977.8 million. [my yellow highlighting]
BRIEF BACKGROUND
Wednesday 8 August 2018
Great Barrier Reef Foundation: waiting for the inevitable crash
Mainstream
media reports that Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull (former director Goldman
Sachs), Minister for Environment and Energy & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg (former director Deutsche
Bank Australia) and Chair of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation & Member of
the Business Council of Australia John
Schubert (former chair Commonwealth Bank) met on 9 April 2018 to discuss the
allocation of a grant valued at in excess of AU$487.6 million to the
foundation.
It was also
reported that no
officials from the Department of the Environment and Energy were present at
that meeting when the grant offer was made and apparently accepted.
Less than ten weeks later the grant was formally approved
without meeting all relevant provisions in the Commonwealth
Grants Rules and Guidelines 2017.
The Great Barrier Reef
Foundation with a staff of only six full-time employees now has no more
than 6 financial years to spend this large sum, which represents est. 69.66 per cent of funds held in the federal government operated Reef Trust since 2014 and 97.52 per cent of additional funds received by the trust on 29 April 2018.
Leaving the Reef Trust with an unspecified amount to fulfil other commitments over the next six years.
Due to obvious time constraints, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s board and corporate 'advisers' need to have
a detailed financial and project action plan for 2018-19 immediately - if not
sooner.
I suspect that I am not alone in waiting for waste of resources, duplication of effort, poorly targeted projects, lack of verifiable outcomes and other instances of mismanagement to emerge over time, given the
slapdash way this grant was put together.
Australian Government, GrantConnect:
GA ID: GA9190
Agency: Department of the Environment and Energy
Approval Date: 20-Jun-2018
Publish Date: 12-Jul-2018
Category: Natural Resources - Conservation and Protection
Grant Term: 27-Jun-2018 to 30-Jun-2024
Value (AUD): $487,633,300.00 (GST inclusive where applicable)
Ad hoc/One-off: Yes
Aggregate Grant Award: No
PBS Program Name: DoTE 17/18 Program 1.1: Sustainable Management of
Natural Resources and the Environment
Grant Program: Reef Trust
Grant Activity: Reef Trust grant to the Great Barrier Reef
Foundation
Purpose: The project will deliver activities which are consistent
with the purposes of the Reef Trust Special Account Determination to achieve
the Reef Trust Objectives and assist to protect the Great Barrier Reef World
Heritage Area.
Internal Reference ID: 100000001841
Confidentiality - Contract: Yes
Confidentiality Reason(s) -
Contract: Other: Aspects of the
Co-Financing Plan and the Communication and Stakeholder Engagement Plan
Confidentiality - Outputs: No
Grant Recipient Details
Recipient Name: Great Barrier Reef Foundation
Recipient ABN: 82 090 616 443
Grant Recipient Location
Suburb: Brisbane
Town/City: Brisbane
Postcode: 4000
State/Territory: QLD
Country: AUSTRALIA
Grant Delivery Location
State/Territory: QLD
Country: AUSTRALIA
Australian Government, Department of the Environment
and Energy - Marine:
Third
Sector, 7
June 2018:
The Great Barrier Reef
Foundation (GBRF) has confirmed one of its board directors will step down as he
faces criminal charges for cartel conduct.
Stephen Roberts, an
investment banker and GBRF board director, has been charged by the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for allegedly playing a part of a
criminal cartel during a $2.5 billion deal.
ACCC Chairman, Rod Sims,
said: “These serious charges are the result of an ACCC investigation that has
been running for more than two years.”
The charges, which
included other banking chief executives and senior staff, were laid by the
Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions and will be determined in court.
Criminal
charges relating to an alleged cartel by Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and the ANZ
have been formally laid in relation to alleged cartel arrangements relating to
trading in ANZ shares following a $2.5 billion institutional share placement in
August 2015.
Stopping coal expansions in NSW that are bigger than Adani's proposed Carmichael Mine complex
If you’re concerned about extreme weather & drought, get involved in stopping coal expansions in NSW that are bigger than Adani.— Annie Kia (@AnnieKia) August 2, 2018
Cast your ballot here:https://t.co/qEbG1rXZDU#nswpolpic.twitter.com/YVBapNOlfK
Tuesday 7 August 2018
Australian Digital Health Agency is considering adding DNA data to My Health Record
Crikey.com.au, 6 April 2018:
DNA DEBATE
The federal government’s
controversial My Health Record program is capable of storing genomic data, such
as cancer risks, using technology that both has huge research applications and
highlights privacy and security concerns.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that
genome-sequencing company Genome.One, which can track genetic variations and
therefore disease risks, has built “necessary infrastructure” for uploading
sensitive genomic data into the opt-out system.
University of Canberra privacy expert Bruce
Arnold has criticised the inherent risks of DNA-tracking technology and,
just a week after the government backdown on police access to My Health Records, today’s news as
again demonstrating a lack public consultation.
The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) which is responsibe for My Health Record gave Genome.One, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Garvan Institute, $40,000 in September 2017 to support the development of this software.
Its GoExplore™ software provides sequencing and analyses of patients’ DNA samples to assesses their risk of developing 52 hereditary conditions, including 31 cancers, 13 heart conditions, as well several other conditions where monitoring or intervention can be of benefit.
In a change of focus, Genome.One and The Garvan Institute are reportedly no longer offering clinical reporting for genetic disease diagnosis or personal health genomics in Australia. This service was priced at $6,400 plus GST, with no Medicare rebate.
Staffing numbers in Genome.One have been severely cut, new capital is being sought and, Gavan has
stated that it intends to spin off Genome.One
software into a new company in which it will be a minority shareholder.
However, Genome.One still intends to pilot its genomics technology integrated into GP practice software and on !8 April 2018 its CEO stated; “We're working with some electronic medical record providers and we're hoping that we can get a trial underway at some point this year”.
Labels:
Big Brother,
big data,
data retention,
genetics,
health,
information technology,
privacy,
safety
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