Morrison goes full Trump and democracy begins to suffer

Channel 9 News online, 22 November 2018:

Scott Morrison insists police need immediate access to encrypted messages to stop future terror attacks.

The prime minister says new laws giving police access to the messages must pass federal parliament in the final sitting fortnight of the year, after three men charged with plotting a terror attack in Melbourne were accused of using encrypted communications.

"Our police, our agencies need these powers now," Mr Morrison told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.

"I would insist on seeing them passed before the end of the next sitting fortnight."

He said the foiled Melbourne plot showed it was incredibly important for authorities to have powers to intercept encrypted messages on apps like WhatsApp.

Mr Morrison urged the committee examining the laws to wind-up its review as soon as possible so the laws can be passed.

The Liberal-chaired committee has scheduled three public hearings on the bill, with the final one set for December 4 - two days before parliament rises for the year.

To pass the encryption legislation before then, the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security would likely have to bring forward or abandon the hearings.

The next Encryption Bill public hearings are scheduled for 27 November, 30 November and 4 December 2018. In addition to evidence from the full five hearings there are 87 submissions the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security needs to evaluate before writing its report to Parliament.

Both Prime Minster Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton are reportedly applying pressure to the Joint Committee to throw out standard parliamentary practice and deliver its report no later than 3 December.

It appears that both theses hard-right politicians are determined to kill off democratic processes whenever they see an opportunity to do so.

Morrison Government looks at women's economic security and domestic violence

This was an Australian Morrison Coalition Government announcement mentioned in the media on 19 November 2018:

“Women experiencing domestic and family violence will now also be able to apply for early access to part of their superannuation to help cover the significant costs of rebuilding their lives….Good Shepherd Microfinance’s No Interest Loan scheme will help women at risk of domestic violence access finance when they most need it, without high interest holding back their financial recovery into the future. The loans will be able to assist with relocation, essential household items, rental bonds, or, where appropriate, debt consolidation….”  [Australian Government “Women’s Economic Security Statement”, excerpt, November 2018]

Bearing in mind that although the husband’s superannuation entitlements are considered property of the marriage these funds cannot be anticipated ahead of any court sanctioned property settlement in a divorce.

So the Ministerfor Women and Liberal MP for Higgins KellyO’Dwyer was specifically referring to anticipating a part of superannuationentitlements held in the woman’s name.

This was the situation in June 2018 according to the Australian Government Workplace Gender Equality Agency:

Women comprise 47.0% of all employed persons in Australia; 25.0% of all employed persons are women working full-time, and 21.9% are women working part-time.

Women constitute 36.7% of all full-time employees and 69.0% of all part-time employees.

Average superannuation balances for women at retirement (aged 60-64) are 42.0% lower than those for men.

As of June 2018 the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded 6.25 million females 15 years and older as being in the workforce and  315,600 females as unemployed and looking for work.

According to ASFA Research and Resource Centre, in the financial year 2015-16:

* Looking at all females aged 15 years and over the superannuation balance averaged out at $68,499 per person.

* Only 16 per cent of females had superannuation balances of over $100,000.

* When it came to all women aged 30-35 years of age the superannuation balance averaged out at $33,750 per person.

* However, 32.7 per cent of all females in the workforce reported they had no superannuation at all. That’s an estimated 2 million women Australia-wide.

When it comes to that 2 million women without super it is probably safe to assume that; a) the majority form part of the casualised workforce; b) most receive the minimum wage or less; and c) a significant number live in regional and rural areas.

A good many may also be from socially marginalised groups.

Somehow I can’t quite see that a woman being able to access part of her superannuation, or in lieu of super being able to take out a meagre $1,500 interest free loan which has to be repaid, as being of much assistance when fleeing life-threatening violence.

Not while first contact domestic violence services she attempts to access - along with DV emergency accommodation - are so chronically under resourced across the country.

A word of advice to the Morrison Government from Fiona the Bettong; Just shut up about it and fund it - just do your job and fund it - we know your every word is a lie so shhhhh just fund it.

Looking straight at you, Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan. Act like a real man and get domestic violence services in the Northern Rivers region more funding - structured to increase annually - guaranteed for the next ten years. 

I knew there was a reason why I don't watch Channel 9......

Never a fan of Channel 9 programming, this news report has turned my indifference to the existence of this television channel into active dislike.

ABC News, 21 November 2018:

PHOTO: The Block's contestants on auction day for the renovated Gatwick Hotel.   (AAP: Nine Entertainment)

The lights, cameras and crowds have finally cleared out of St Kilda following the auctions last month at the Gatwick Private Hotel, a run-down three-storey rooming house that was transformed into six multi-million-dollar apartments for this year's season of the popular home renovation show, The Block.

But as the new owners collect the keys and prepare to move in to their luxury lodgings, ABC News can reveal an "alarming" number of women who used to live at the Gatwick — a place of "last resort" for some of Melbourne's most vulnerable — are currently in jail.

Channel Nine's purchase of the 1930s mansion, which in its prime could house up to 120 people, was welcomed last year by St Kilda residents who blamed the Fitzroy Street boarding house — one of several to close in recent years as part of the area's gentrification — for local problems with "rampant" drug-fuelled violence and anti-social behaviour.

At the time, the local council and state government worked with housing services in St Kilda to find new accommodation, mostly outside the area, for its remaining occupants, who were evicted in time for filming to commence.

But many of those tenancies were unsustainable and fell through, homelessness support workers say, and because of an acute lack of crisis accommodation across Melbourne, dozens were dispersed onto the streets.

This includes at least 32 women who have since been charged and imprisoned for offences lawyers and support workers say are directly related to their homelessness — an issue that affects all genders but which leaves women particularly vulnerable.

Now, with the state preparing to head to the polls after an election campaign dominated by debate over law and order, advocates are calling on the government to urgently boost funding for crisis accommodation and homelessness services to break a vicious cycle that is causing the number of women in Victoria's prisons to soar.

One worker who runs a program supporting under-privileged women in St Kilda told ABC News that, since the beginning of 2018, 32 of her clients who were living on or off lease at The Gatwick have since been incarcerated at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, Melbourne's maximum security women's prison.

Though 17 of those women have been released in recent months, she said, 15 still remain, many of them on remand.

"There is absolutely no doubt that The Gatwick's closure has had an effect particularly on women in the city of Port Phillip," said the worker, who asked not to be named because she feared speaking out would jeopardise her organisation's public funding arrangements.

"I'm not necessarily saying that The Gatwick was the best place for people to live because there were a lot of issues — there were some deaths there, there was violence. But everybody needs a place to stay."

The majority of the worker's clients in Dame Phyllis have been charged with drug-related offences which are believed to be a result of their homelessness, she said. "Many women with involvement in the justice system offend to fund their drug habit and use substances to self-medicate," she said.

"Sleeping rough is extremely unsafe for women so many use drugs to keep themselves awake at night, which provides them with a false sense of security."

Forced homelessness is not confined to Victoria,

As the Pacific Highway Upgrade works its way up the NSW North Coast there are reports of people couch surfing after their landlords gave them notice in favour of road worker tenants capable of paying higher rents.

Tweets of the Week

Here’s the moment where the NSW Parliament voted tonight to introduce new laws to fast track children from foster care into adoption. As the Bill passed, you could hear loud jokes from Liberal members about wanting to “hurry up so we can get out of here and enjoy Christmas” pic.twitter.com/WW1p1bTbD1

— Padraic Gibson (@paddygibson) November 22, 2018

“These reforms were sprung on the legal, community & Aboriginal sectors with no notice. What limited consultation occurred in 2017 made no mention of many of these reforms, & those that were raised were opposed by a majority of stakeholders,” Leach said” https://t.co/JIkJATdluz

— Ray Wilton (@raywilton4) November 23, 2018

Quotes of the Week

“ScoMo’s blue bus is the perfect symbol of the man and his government – a brash, ostentatious cliché, non-functional and completely phoney.”  [Journalist Mungo MacCallum  writing in The Monthly, November 2018]

“Australians often over-estimate the proportion of the population that is Muslim, with Ipsos surveys finding respondents believe it is 17 per cent when the reality is 3 per cent.”  [Journalist  David Crowe,  writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 November 2018]

“Later, Fairfax Media went to another publicly-accessible area from where the Cutaway is audible. Mr Turnbull was heard to lament the Coalition was presently "not capable" of dealing with climate change as an issue, despite it being "a profound problem".”  [Journalist Michael Koziol writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 November 2018]

“If they're going to fine everyone who calls Scott Morrison a "fucking muppet" this country will never be in debt again.”  [Richard O’Brien, Twitter, 19 November 2018]

Water Wars 2018: water mining of the Alstonville aquifer suspended pending government review

BLOCKADE: Around 100 people were there for the 'Stop water mining rally in Uki' on Saturday 27 October, where residents stopped water trucks in the main street. Dave Norris/The Northern Star

Echo NetDaily, 20 November 2018:

Regional water minister Niall Blair has requested an independent review into the impacts of the bottled water industry on groundwater sources in the Northern Rivers.

And local councils have been advised to suspend approving any new applications for water mining until the report is complete in mid 2019.

The NSW chief scientist & engineer will provide advice on the sustainable groundwater extraction limits in the region, as well as advice on whether the current or proposed groundwater monitoring bores are sufficient.

Minister Blair said the NSW Government ‘recognises the pivotal role that water plays in regional prosperity and long-term growth of communities’.

‘Local community members and community leaders have made representations to me on behalf of their constituents and we are taking action,’ he said.

‘I have asked the chief scientist & engineer to investigate the sustainability of groundwater extraction in the Northern Rivers for bottling purposes.

‘Water is a finite resource and we are completing this review to make sure that water remains available into the future in the Northern Rivers catchment for all purposes including stock and domestic users and for groundwater dependent ecosystems,’ Mr Blair said.

This was Australia’s faux prime minister Scott Morrison proudly pointing out that he had been fundraising at considerable taxpayer expense

This was Australia’s faux prime minister Scott Morrison proudly pointing out that he had been fundraising at considerable taxpayer expense in order to fill the election campaign coffers of the the Liberal Party of Australia.....

The Courier-Mail, 19 November 2018, p.6:

While he was on the Queensland blitz early this month, Mr Morrison confirmed he attended fundraisers. Many of the donations came from Rockhampton and the Sunshine Coast.

“I’m meeting with supporters all around Queensland and I don’t make any apologies for that,” he said.

“We’re raising funds for our campaign to make sure Bill Shorten never becomes prime minister in the country.” Mr Morrison was the special guest at Liberal National Party fundraising events in several ­regional towns.

Here is what he was not boasting about this month……

The Saturday Paper, 17-23 November 2018:

Seven years before he was sacked as managing director of Tourism Australia – amid serious concerns about his management practices – Scott Morrison was the subject of criticism in a New Zealand audit report examining his activities as head of NZ’s Office of Tourism and Sport.

News.com.au, 14 November 2018:

A 1999 New Zealand Auditor General’s report challenged the future Australian prime minister’s handling of an independent review of the Office of Tourism and Sport (OTSp) where he was managing director.

The OTSp was a quasi-independent body offering policy advice to the New Zealand government and experienced the loss of a number of board members and officials during Mr Morrison’s tenure. He finally resigned from the job in 2000 a year ahead of his contract schedule and returned to Australia….

During Mr Morrison’s time at the helm of OTSp in the 1990s, New Zealand’s then Tourism Minister, Murray McCully, praised his input and defended importing him for the job.

“Australia actually happens to do a bit better than we do out of both tourism and sport,” Mr McCully said at the time.

But the Auditor General and the NZ Labour Opposition questioned his performance.

In New Zealand in 1999, the Auditor General found Mr Morrison had launched a PriceWaterhouseCooper review of OTSp which precluded contributions from senior staff and the board.

He had said the review was independent of them, but it seems they were not aware of this.

“Mr Morrison’s explanation came as a surprise not only to (the office’s CEO and board members) but also to the Minister himself,” the report said.

“These people had regarded the PWC report as the review referred to in the purchase agreement.”

The Auditor General’s report said the board should have been told it had a duty,  under the review arrangements, to commission its own “independent” review.

“It seems that at no point did Mr Morrison do so,” the Auditor General found.

In June 2000, the New Zealand Herald quoted the Labour Opposition’s tourism and sport spokesman Trevor Mallard as blaming Mr Morrison for problems with the OTSp and the minister.

“And a key reason for that was that it was run by Mr Morrison, an Australian who was seen as Mr McCully’s ‘hard man’,” said the report.

“Australian standards of public sector behaviour ‘are lower than ours,’,” added Mr Mallard.

He was quoted as saying: “My experience with Australian politicians is that rules and ethics are not as important to them as they are to New Zealanders.”

Mr Morrison did not respond to the claims but was supported by the Tourism Minister as “highly regarded”.

He had lifted the energy levels and the competence levels substantially above those previously servicing tourism and sport, said Mr McCully.

Australian Labor is closely examining the Prime Minister’s career before he was elected to Parliament in 2007 and the New Zealand experience could be raised.

His next job after New Zealand was as NSW Liberal Party state director but was linked to the party’s 2003 election failure.

Mr Morrison became Tourism Australia managing director in 2004 but left in 2006, again ahead of schedule….

The Saturday Paper, 10-16 November 2018:

Ever since Scott Morrison was sacked from his job as managing director of Tourism Australia in 2006, the reasons for his dismissal have been kept secret.

At the time and since, public speculation has variously attributed the now prime minister’s removal to a personality clash with his minister, a falling out over changes to the organisation’s structure, and a dispute over the agency’s contentious “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign.

But an auditor-general’s report completed 10 years ago, which has escaped public scrutiny until now, reveals that in the period leading up to Morrison’s dismissal, his agency faced a series of audits and a review of its contractual processes ordered by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, amid serious concerns about its governance.

The auditor-general’s inquiry into Tourism Australia – which followed these reviews, and was conducted after Morrison’s departure – reveals information was kept from the board, procurement guidelines breached and private companies engaged on contracts worth $184 million before paperwork was signed and without appropriate value-for-money assessments.

THE AUDIT REPORT OMITS THE NEXT EVENT IN THE CHRONOLOGY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MINISTER AND TOURISM AUSTRALIA – THAT BAILEY SACKED MORRISON THE SAME MONTH.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report examines three major contracts that Tourism Australia signed while Scott Morrison was managing director. It criticises processes in all three cases but especially the contracts for global creative development – advertising campaigns – and media placement services.

Ten years since the audit, and 13 years since the contracts were signed, those two completed contracts appear not to be listed on the government’s AusTender website, where all contracts are required to be available for public viewing.

Searches, including by AusTender staff, have failed to locate them on the site this week. Procurement rules say they must be reported within 42 days of the contracts being entered. The 2005 request-for-tender documents announcing the proposed contracts are listed…..

The audit report criticises extensively the agency’s processes for drafting, executing and managing the contracts, the opaque accounting processes involved in aspects of them and poor communication with the board and regional offices, including by service providers. It details Tourism Australia’s failures at the time to adhere to guidelines – the signing of a contract without incorporating measurable performance indicators and non-existent risk assessments or value-for-money analysis.

Tabled in parliament on August 6, 2008, the report was one of more than 40 the Audit Office had produced in the previous 12 months.

It escaped public attention at least partly because it was not among the handful that parliament’s joint committee on public accounts chose to examine further in its role as chief audit scrutineer. At the time, the committee was chaired by then Labor MP Sharon Grierson with then Liberal MP Petro Georgiou as her deputy.

When the report was tabled, Morrison was a member of the public accounts committee, which was tasked with considering it for review. He resigned from the committee six weeks after the report was tabled and, it is understood, some months before the committee formally considered it. The Saturday Paper does not suggest Morrison influenced the audit’s treatment. Grierson says that as Tourism Australia had accepted its three recommendations, and nobody on the committee raised any issues, the report was not officially examined further – standard procedure in dealing with the volume of audits each year.

The Saturday Paper lodged detailed questions about the audit report with Morrison’s office but was told he was not able to answer them in the time available.

Performance reviews of the two key contracts between 2005 and 2007 – contained in the audit – revealed Tourism Australia had failed to disclose to its own board that it had underspent $3.9 million on one of the contracts in 2006-07.

It was found that in one case invoices had been raised before the contract was signed and that in another case the price paid in some areas of a contract was “more expensive than the benchmark”.

The audit report does not mention then tourism minister Fran Bailey’s sacking of Morrison in July 2006, nor any of the alleged preceding tension between them that has been the subject of public speculation since.

But The Saturday Paper understands the events and issues the audit report outlines played a significant role in Morrison’s removal. Unconfirmed news reports have since alleged that he received a payout of more than $300,000.

Asked to comment this week on the report’s contents in relation to Morrison’s dismissal, Bailey would only repeat the one comment she has made before: “I reiterate that it was a unanimous decision to get rid of Mr Morrison by the board and the minister.”

She added: “I have always treated confidential matters as confidential.”……

Read the full article here.

The Guardian, 18 November 2018:

The Morrison government has extended emergency three-month funding contracts to 16 more financial counselling, legal aid and charity groups to keep them open over the Christmas holiday period after it cut their funding with little warning.

The move was made without fanfare, logged quietly on the Department of Social Services website on Wednesday evening.

It comes as the social services minister, Paul Fletcher, faces continued criticism for his department’s decision to overhaul funding arrangements for key community services groups in the lead-up to Christmas.

In some cases, barely two months’ notice has been given to groups to prepare for dramatic cuts in the new year – a time of year when thousands of Australian families have traditionally needed more emergency assistance and financial counselling.

 On Wednesday evening, the Department of Social Services (DSS) released a document on its website saying it would extend emergency three-month funding contracts – covering the period 1 January 2019 to 31 March 2019 – to 16 organisations that had lost their funding in the latest round of grants:

FMC Relationship Services

EACH

Uniting (Victoria and Tasmania) Limited

VincentCare Victoria

Odyssey House, Victoria

Mallee Family Care Inc

Anglicare SA Ltd

Centacare Catholic Country SA Ltd

The Trustee for The Salvation Army (NSW) Property Trust

Southern Youth and Family Services Limited

Vietnamese Community in Australia NSW Chapter Inc

The Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Q.)

C Q Financial Counselling Association Inc.

Prisoners’ Legal Service Inc

Agencies for South West Accommodation Inc.

CentreCare Incorporated

Neither the government nor the department has drawn attention to the funding extensions……