Wednesday, 6 March 2019

What one woman from Australia intends to tell the United Nations about the Morrison Government's war on low income women with young children


“We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness, but don't expect us to do anything about it. We are sorry for you lower classes, just as we are sorry for a cat with the mange, but we will fight like devils against any improvement of your condition. We feel that you are much safer as you are. [George Orwell, 1933, “Down and Out inParis and London”]

If ever Australia’s captains of industry and, those elected members of the two conservative political parties they support. ever knew a period of poverty it is now so long ago that an abundance of personal income has driven all thought of it from their memories.

Thus it takes a lone woman to bring to the notice of the United Nations some of the economic and human rights injustices perpetrated by Prime Minister Scott Morrison & Co on single mothers with young children. 


Imagine having to get someone else to provide proof you aren’t shagging anyone on a regular basis and that even if you are, you aren't getting financial support. Your own word isn't good enough any more.

That’s what happens to single mothers in Australia if they want to be eligible for welfare.

There’s a lot that goes wrong for single mums in Australia. They already have difficult lives, managing kids, jobs and life on their own. And on top of all that, there are a whole range of compliance tasks in order to get benefits, from signing endless forms to applying for a ridiculous number of jobs, a huge task all on its own.

It's a miserable life for a single mother on welfare in Australia, so hard that one woman, Juanita McLaren, has decided to take her complaint all the way to the United Nations. She says the way Australia treats single mums breaches human rights and now, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, will be hearing from her directly at a UN Women’s conference in New York next week.

In fact, he will be presenting by her side. Huge honour and some of us might have put that on our credit cards. She had to crowdfund to get there.

McLaren, who has also had to get proof she’s not in a financially-bound relationship in order to be eligible for Newstart, worked full-time when her kids were little. Then her husband, who was the primary carer, left the family and now lives overseas.

“I just hit a wall and headed into casual work because there was always something happening with the kids.”

She had to ditch her part-time studies because she couldn’t manage financially on Newstart even though her studies were a pathway to getting better work.

Benefits were erratic and in one case, took eight weeks to arrive – finally some money arrived on Christmas Eve. She entered the wrong year on a form (who else has mixed up their birth year with the current year?) and was told it couldn’t be corrected over the phone.

It was all the little things on top of the poverty that motivated her to make a complaint.

In some respects, McLaren is fortunate. She’s had steady part-time work for a couple of years now, which is slightly seasonal. She remains registered for Newstart because of the off-season.

But it’s the constant battle with Centrelink, with managing her family and money, with being forced to apply for hopeless work she doesn’t want, that forced McLaren to turn to the UN. So far, it’s the Australian government and the UN in a deadlock about what’s harmful to single mothers.

For years now, Terese Edwards, the CEO of the National Council for Single Mothers, has campaigned for better financial support for her members. Edwards helped McLaren write her complaint, which was the first individual complaint using the optional protocol of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; and will be at her side when she speaks at the conference…..

Cassandra Goldie, the CEO of the Australian Council of Social Services, says single mothers are easy to target and easy to vilify.

She says it’s not just impoverishment that has been relentless, it is the way in which both autonomy and agency have been removed from single mothers in direct contrast to what’s happening in the aged care sector. And she’s not just talking about the ridiculous requirement to get someone else to guarantee your relationship status.

Here’s some shocking news: One in three sole parents and their children are living in poverty according to the latest ACOSS-UNSW Poverty report. In just two years, the rate of poverty amongst unemployed single parents rose from 35 per cent to 59 per cent.

Hopefully, the United Nations will also examine the Morrison Coalition Government's punitive ParentsNext policy.

Canberra Times, 3 March 2019:

“I don’t know how you do it!” we say to them, and in the next breath: “Here, let me make it harder for you.”

This attitude is stitched into the heart of a welfare program called ParentsNext, which can require some single parents on the parenting payment to report to the state that they have taken their children to improving activities, such as swimming lessons or story time at the local library.

If they don’t comply, they can have their payments cut off, often with no notice, and no clear line of appeal. The arbiter of complaints is also the provider, the company privately contracted by the government to administer the program.

Some mothers have reported being asked to provide photographs as proof they have attended the child-focused activities. Others report the provider phoning the library, or the local pool, to verify their attendance.

Librarians as monitors, swimming instructors as social police: it’s a level of surveillance and control that would make Orwell twitch.

The program has faced a barrage of criticism from welfare groups, and was the subject of a Senate inquiry last week.

Peter Davidson, senior adviser to the Australian Council of Social Service, says the program was previously "less heavy handed”.

I spoke to one single mother-of-three this week, 32-year-old Sarah, who had a positive experience of the program in its previous incarnation. She had a good case worker who helped her into a small business course, assisting her to set up her own florist’s business. Now she is earning some income and intends to get off the parenting payment as soon as possible.

But in July 2018, the Coalition government (then led by Malcolm Turnbull) extended the program from a smaller pilot to about 70,000 single parents, 95 per cent of them women. In its expanded form, the “targeted compliance framework”, which applies to other payments such as Newstart, was imposed on ParentsNext. It is language that would make Orwell’s fingers itch.

Davidson says about a fifth of single parents on the program have had their payments suspended.

Parents are put on participation plans, ranging from vocational training to taking their children to a playgroup or "story time". This muddies the waters between the practical objective of helping women back into work after the child-rearing and the insidious policing of their parenting.

The result is bureaucrats invigilating parents from a moral, child-welfare stance, making payments dependent on proof that parenting is being done correctly.

This is a qualitative difference from other “mutual obligation” welfare requirements, because it is not about getting people off taxpayer money. It is predicated on the assumption that parents (read: mothers) on welfare must not be as “good” as other parents.

These measures assume that the poor have different social standards than the middle class, who know the correct way to nurture children, with story time and swimming classes.

They are also cruelly detached from the chaotic reality of raising small children, where leaving the house with everyone fed and clothed is itself an achievement, but one that almost never runs to time. Some days, the bad days, it doesn’t happen at all.

This kind of compliance-and-penalty system stems from the belief that the poor are not just unlucky, but they are fundamentally different from other people; that they lack the correct values, and the rectitude to pull themselves up. This is not so far from the Victorian-era belief that Orwell upturned with his memoir: that poverty is a moral failing.

This attitude can exist only when you wilfully ignore the fact that the majority of Australians will rely on government support at some stage in their lives, with millions of us slipping in and out of the safety net as our circumstances change.....

Australian Parliament, Senate Community Affairs References Committee, Inquiry into ParentsNext, including its trial and subsequent broader rollout, public hearing, Melbourne, 27 February 2019, excerpts:

Ms Edwards [Chief Executive Officer, National Council of Single Mothers and their Children]: It is unfettered power. It is shown up in a lot of ways, even as to participants' knowledge about signing a participation plan. The participation plan is like the blueprint for the engagement. You have your goals on your participation plan and then, from that, you have the flow of your activities that are meant to support those participation goals. In theory, you're allowed 10 thinking days after meeting and developing your participation plan. What we discovered in our survey which supported what women were telling us was that they would sign it in that meeting, and they would sign it because they were so compliant because the person they were sitting in front of had the power to affect their life, in terms of their payment but also in terms of their commitments. What is not well known by participants is: there is no minimum weekly activity requirement, like mutual obligations. But, because women are so aware of those mutual obligations, they start thinking that they have a similar sort of level that they must do, and they won't upset the provider because the provider can determine the activities; they can breach them—and, as Jenny said, in the blink of an eye they can breach. If the participant disagrees with the breach, the person who umpires that is the provider—they decide whether they have operated appropriately or not. There is not one independent body that manages or oversees that process. So that is why women are compliant—they're in this, and it's like they've gone down this slippery slope into hell and the only way they can come out is if they sign and do what's required. They won't upset a provider.

Ms Davidson: They don't even know about that 10-day period. With the lack of information that people are provided, they don't know about the 10-day thinking period.

Senator WATT: The way the system is supposed to work is that people are supposed to have 10 days to have a think about the proposed plan before they commit to it.

Ms Edwards: Which implies that it's two people having a mutually equal conversation about: 'What would actually help you get to where you need to go?'

Senator WATT: Yes, but, in fact, many people feel pressured to sign there and then?

 Ms Edwards: Yes, and then what else is happening, which is where the providers are working outside of their guidelines, is that they will unilaterally change activities and times. 

Senator WATT: The providers will?

Ms Edwards: Yes. And they will do that in writing, they will do that in phone calls and they will do that in texts......

Ms Buckland [Private capacity]: I'll give you an example, and it's a complicated one, because there are many issues with it, but I was contacted by a woman who had a newborn baby—she'd had it the day before. She should be exempt from ParentsNext—

CHAIR: It's supposed to apply at the very most when the baby's six months.

Ms Buckland: Yes. So it's from 34 weeks pregnant to the child being six months that there's an exemption. She wasn't able to speak to anyone about her exemption. She was still expected to mark her attendance at an activity; she was expected to attend an appointment one-week post birth. I think that there are obviously inherent issues with that kind of system. Her payments were suspended.

CHAIR: With a newborn?

Ms Buckland: With a newborn baby......

Prof. Croucher [President, Australian Human Rights Commission]:….

The commission's submission identifies five key problems with the compliance framework of ParentsNext. I will briefly remark on two of these problems. First, the detrimental effect of punitive compliance can be unjustifiably harsh. Many of Australia's most valuable parents and children rely on the parenting payment to afford basic day-to-day essentials. This includes single mothers living on or below the poverty line. Yet, under ParentsNext, these struggling families face automatic payment suspensions. This can happen for a single instance of noncompliance with a program requirement, despite having a reasonable excuse like a sick child. In the worst cases, their parenting payment can be reduced or cancelled.

Without money to provide adequate food, clothing and shelter for your family, how can human rights be realised? How can there be human dignity? Poverty erodes the enjoyment of many human rights, such as access to education, health care and participation in public life. The current operation of ParentsNext risks further entrenching poverty and inequality in Australia. It already risks reducing a parent's resilience to the complex challenges they already face, including homelessness, domestic violence and mental illness.

The commission is also concerned that there are insufficient safeguards to prevent inappropriate compliance action. For example, some punitive financial measures are automatic. Others can be made by private commercial service providers rather than by public officials.

Secondly, the claimed success of ParentsNext is not appropriately evidence based. On the basis of the evaluation of the program to date, it is not possible to conclude that the program is achieving its aims or that it has had a positive effect which outweighs the detriment of undermining the right to social security. For example, the department's evaluation of the trial program relied heavily on a survey of participants, but it didn't disclose how many people participated in the relevant survey, and it's unclear whether the sample size was statistically significant. The design and methodology of the survey were not disclosed. The department's evaluation also draws many positive conclusions about the efficacy of the program—for example, that it increases chances of employment. However, many of these conclusions are based on the opinions of survey participants rather than on objective data.

Lastly, the commission is seriously concerned about the discriminatory impacts of the program. ParentsNext is only applied to a small and targeted proportion of people receiving the parenting payment. Women and Indigenous Australians are disproportionately affected, with women comprising approximately 96 per cent of the 68,000 participants and Aboriginal and Torres Islander people approximately 19 per cent.

The human right to social security should be enjoyed equally by all, regardless of sex, race or age. Australia's domestic legislation, such as the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 at the Commonwealth level, also protects the right to equality and nondiscrimination. It is unfair that the parents who are required to participate in ParentsNext are at risk of losing essential support, while the majority of parenting payment recipients can access their social security without meeting the additional onerous obligations of ParentsNext.....

Tuesday, 5 March 2019

The graphs that expose Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's climate change policy propaganda


Australia has a monumental problem. 

Since September 2013 the Australian Government, first under Liberal prime ministers Abbott and Turnbull and then under current Australian Prime Minster and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison, has failed to implement effective national climate change mitigation measures.

This has left the nation with an est. 695 million tonnes (or 2.9 billion tonnes) of greenhouse gas emissions it has to reduce/abate by 2021-2030 in order to meet its international obligations.

Ever since he successfully ousted the last Liberal prime minister in a 'palace coup' Morrison has been telling the world that this country will meet its Paris Agreement targets "at a canter" and that national greenhouse gas annual emissions are falling.

Both he and his ministers talk of greenhouse gas emission levels falling per capita or per head of population. All that means is that the Australian population is growing at a slightly faster rate than national emission levels are rising. It doesn't mean greenhouse gas emissions are falling.

On 25 February 2019 Morrison announced his Climate Solutions Package - mostly a rehash of old Liberal-Nationals climate policies and as yet unrealised infrastructure projects - which he rather misleadingly states will "reduce greenhouse gases across the economy".

After this 'solutions' initiatives announcement the Minister for Energy and Liberal MP for Hume Angus Taylor went on national television claiming Australia's national greenhouse gas emissions had fallen by "over 1 per cent" - omitting to point out that this quarter to quarter seasonally adjusted weather normalised change did not result in an overall decrease in total greenhouse gas emissions for the year to September 2018. 

In August 2015 the then Abbott Government, in which Scott Morrison was a cabinet minister, also misspoke when it told the United Nations that its "direct action" plan was successful and that:

The target is a significant progression beyond Australia’s 2020 commitment to cut emissions by five per cent below 2000 levels (equivalent to 13 per cent below 2005 levels). The target approximately doubles Australia’s rate of emissions reductions, and significantly reduces emissions per capita and per unit of GDP, when compared to the 2020 target. Across a range of metrics, Australia’s target is comparable to the targets of other advanced economies. Against 2005 levels, Australia’s target represents projected cuts of 50 to 52 per cent in emissions per capita by 2030 and 64 to 65 per cent per unit of GDP by 2030. [my yellow highlighting]


For this to be a genuine reduction which will help alleviate the effects of climate change it means this 695 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that are in the earth's atmosphere right now have to be removed by abatement action on Australia's part between 2019 and 2030.

At the United Nations 2018 Climate Action Summit (COP24) it was pointed out to all member countries that attempting to use old credits from the Kyoto Protocol as carryovers when accounting for ongoing emission rates will not actually bring down current global emissions levels. 

However, the Morrison Government is using old carryover credits from the Labor Government years 2008-2012 to reduce Australia's own abatement commitment by est. 368 million tonnes - bringing it down to only a 328 million tonnes reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030. Less than half of what the Australian Government actually committed to under the Paris Agreement.

The federal Dept of Environment and Energy's own data gives a more honest picture of where Australia stands on bringing down greenhouse gas emissions since 2013 than does Morrison's dodgy accounting tricks.


4. Trend emissions levels are inclusive of all sectors of the economy, including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). Removing LULUCF from caluclations will result in higher trend levels.

Only three of the eight sectors in this graph show any real improvement since 1990 and even these become somewhat static after 2013.



When it comes to the year 2018 from 1 January to 30 September, the Financial Review reported on 28 February 2019 that:

Increases in greenhouse gas emissions from growing liquefied natural gas exports, although offset by lower emissions from electricity, pushed Australia's overall carbon pollution up by nearly 1 per cent in the year to September….

Greenhouse gas emissions were up by 4.6 millon tonnes, or 0.9 per cent, in the year to September last year to 536 million tonnes, according to the quarterly update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

The gains from big declines in emissions from the electricity sector (3.2 per cent) and agriculture (3 per cent) were negated by the 5.8 per cent increase in mining and manufacturing, especially LNG exports (up 19.7 per cent), steel production (up 10 per cent) and aluminium production (up 5.5 per cent).

"Growth in LNG also strongly impacted fugitive emissions due to the flaring and venting of methane and carbon dioxide. An increase in 10 per cent in steel production in particular affected industrial process emissions," the report said…..

The bottom line is that in September 2013 Australia's greenhouse gas emissions stood at 515.1 Mt of CO2-e, having fallen from a high of 617.5 Mt of CO2-e in March 2007. 

However, emissions have steadily risen in the years following 2013 until in September 2016 they had reached 527.2 Mt of CO2-e, by September 2017 533.3 Mt of CO2-e, by March 2018 535.8 Mt of CO2-e and by September 2018 our national emissions were 536 Mt CO2-e.

No matter how many ways Morrison Government spokespersons attempt to present the figures, the fact remains that Australia's national greenhouse gas emissions began to fall steadily between 2007 and 2013 but once the Abbott Government removed the price on carbon and altered other Labor climate change policies they began to rise again and they are still rising.

To date the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has marched this country backwards towards national greenhouse gas emission levels not found since the end of 2012. 

How much further will they send us back in time if they govern for another three years? Will the national emissions total in 2022 be in excess of 545 million tonnes? A higher national total than that of the year the Abbott Government promised the United Nations it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: September 2018 Incorporating emissions from the NEM up to December 2018 can be found here.

Monday, 4 March 2019

From September 2019 onwards underwater seismic blasts will rock the Great Australian Bight around the clock over a 30,100 sq kilometre area


ABC News, 15 January 2019:

Oil and gas testing is set to take place in the Great Australian Bight this year, after the national petroleum regulator granted permission to exploration company PGS.

Environmental groups have slammed the decision to allow seismic testing near Kangaroo Island and Port Lincoln, while the tuna industry has questioned whether it is even likely to go ahead.

Seismic testing involves firing soundwaves into the ocean floor to detect the presence of oil or gas reserves….

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) granted permission for the testing to be done over a 30,100-square-kilometre area, located 80 kilometres from Port Lincoln and 90 kilometres west of Kangaroo Island.

The testing is set to take place between September and November.

The fishing industry has long had reservations about the impact seismic testing would have on the local tuna industry.

PGS has been ordered not to interfere with or displace pygmy blue whales, southern bluefin tuna, and southern right whales…..

The Wilderness Society has slammed the permit, saying the practice can deafen whales and even kill smaller marine animals.

"It's obvious that blasting massive amounts of noise constantly for months on end through a water column in a space where animals communicate and navigate and live by sound and sonar, it is obvious that this is going to have a terrible impact on those animals," the environmental group's Peter Owen said.

"I fail to see how you can actually approve this type of seismic activity in the middle of one of the most significant whale nurseries in the world.

"It's totally unacceptable."

The Greens say the seismic testing is the first step to drilling in the Great Australian Bight.

"Why on Earth would we be wanting to sink oil wells in the Great Australian Bight, put our marine life and beaches at risk and make climate change worse," senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

"We've got to be getting out of fossil fuels and transitioning to a clean, green economy."

There has been little research into the impact of seismic testing in Australia, but Western Australian researchers have found noise from seismic air guns significantly increased mortality in scallops.

Commencing on or about 1 September 2019 for an initial period of 91 days a fofeign-owned PGS survey vessel will be operating sounding equipment 24/7 in the Bight at a seismic source pressure of est. ~2,000 pounds per square inch (psi) with the two or three arrays firing alternately every 16.67 to 25 m, each with a maximum volume of 3260in. (See Duntroon Multi-client 3D and 2D Marine Seismic Survey Environment Plan at pp.24-25).

This is what happened when such testing went ahead in the Atlantic Ocean……..


Earthjustice is suing the federal government to prevent seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean. The process involves the blasting of shockingly powerful seismic airguns every few seconds for hours or even days on end and can cripple or kill marine life in the search of offshore oil or gas deposits.

Earthjustice is challenging the administration’s actions in court, and on Feb. 20, we joined a coalition of other conservation groups asking a federal judge to block the start of seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean until our case has been heard.

The tests, harmful in their own right, are just the first step in the administration’s broader plans to open up 90 percent of U.S. federal offshore waters to the fossil fuel industry, despite widespread opposition from Americans across the nation.

The Bolt name considered toxic by Sky News?


Ad News, 28 February 2019:

Sky News has confirmed to AdNews that it intentionally made the decision to drop ads from The Bolt Report in order to protect advertisers from any potential backlash.
Yesterday, The Sleeping Giants found that Tuesday night’s The Bolt Report aired with no paid ads as the host, political and social commentator Andrew Bolt, angered Australians with his defence of Cardinal George Pell.

This week Pell was found guilty by a jury for molesting choirboys as an archbishop in the 1990s.

In an opinion piece following the verdict, Bolt said Pell had been "falsely convicted" and in a preview for his Sky News show he said he ‘doesn't accept' the verdict.

Now, Sky News has confirmed to AdNews that it actively made the decision not to run ads, rather than giving advertisers the option to first to pull out, in order to prevent advertisers from being the target of public campaigning.

“Sky News is committed to providing a platform for robust debate and discussion, and is not afraid to tackle confronting and controversial issues,” a Sky News spokesperson said.

“Sky News recognised that the controversial topic of George Pell’s conviction to be covered by one of its highest rating commentators may have presented an environment that left advertisers open to campaigns by activists.

“A proactive decision was made to replace advertisements during last night’s program.”

Despite the measures Sky News took, companies have still been facing protests after The Sleeping Giants posted a list of advertisers on Sky News for the week ending 26/02/19.

So far, brands including Nib, Samsung, Procter & Gamble, Coles, McDonald’s and CommBank have had Twitter users urge them to stop advertising on Sky News.....

Sunday, 3 March 2019

Australian politicians who won't be standing at the May 2019 federal elections


Seats up for grabs...............


And seats at risk..................

The Saturday Paper, 2-8 March 2019:

According to GetUp!-sponsored ReachTEL polling in Tony Abbott’s and Peter Dutton’s seats, Warringah and Dickson, the incumbent candidates are behind. In Abbott’s case, a long way behind independent Zali Steggall, 43–57. Dutton is closer but trailing Labor’s Ali France 48–52. Both men are believed to have accumulated war chests close to a million dollars each to repel their challengers.

Sources say Liberal polling in Health Minister Greg Hunt’s seat, Flinders, has him behind a yet-to-be-named Labor candidate, 47–53. They say he has been warned he will have to spend much of his time in the seat to shore it up rather than on the national campaign. He is facing Liberal renegade Julia Banks and her open ticket preference flow could well see the Labor candidate win.

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook Inc failing to protect Australian voters from malicious or false flag sites


 PHOTO: This sponsored post caught the
attention of the AEC due to
it failing to disclose who paid
 for the advertisement on Facebook. 

(Supplied)

ABC News, 26 February 2019:

It became known as Mark Zuckerberg's "apology tour" — a string of contrite appearances before politicians in Washington and Brussels last year, where the Facebook founder vowed to stop the spread of fake news and voter manipulation on his platform.

"From now on, every advertiser who wants to run political or issue ads will need to be authorised. To get authorised, advertisers will need to confirm their identity and location," told a US Senate committee in April last year.

"We're starting in the US and expanding to the rest of the world in the coming months."

But internal documents obtained by the ABC reveal a very different message coming from Facebook's Australian headquarters.

Just months after Mr Zuckerberg's testimony, the social media giant was pushing back against efforts by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to identify the users behind potentially illegal political ads.

Almost a year later and on the eve of the federal election, Facebook is yet to bring its new authorisation rules for political ads to Australia.

The threat of political interference on social media during the campaign has become so serious that the AEC has warned Facebook and Twitter they face court-ordered injunctions if they cannot remove illegal political ads.

Facebook's attitude revealed in FOI documents

The surprisingly informal, somewhat haphazard, relationship between the AEC and Facebook is laid bare in a series of emails and other documents obtained as part of freedom of information application.

The AEC contacted Facebook after it became concerned about a mysterious group called Hands Off Our Democracy, which was paying for sponsored posts attacking left-wing groups and political parties last year.

On July 4 last year, AEC lawyer Andrew Johnson told Facebook's senior counsel Sophie Malloch in an email that the commission had received a complaint regarding Hands Off Our Democracy's Facebook page, which "does not contain an authorisation to indicate who is responsible for the page".

"Can you please advise who is responsible for the Hands Off Our Democracy Page and their contact details," Mr Johnson wrote.


"If this is not possible, we ask that this Facebook page is blocked or removed until it complies with the authorisation requirements in the Electoral Act."

Under changes introduced to the act last year, all online advertisements that deal with electoral matters must include the name and address of a person responsible for the ad.

The Hands Off Our Democracy Facebook page carried no information about who was behind the group, and a post on its own website made clear that its members had chosen to remain anonymous.


                                                                                                                    
Facebook initially appeared willing to help the AEC make sure those ads carried the required authorisation, but did not provide the AEC with any information about who was behind the page.

"I passed this along to our govt case work team as an urgent escalation to see what can be done about this page, including whether it can be geoblocked until an authorisation is included," Ms Malloch wrote in her reply to Mr Johnson.

But five days later, Ms Malloch sent a follow-up email, brushing aside the AEC's concerns.




"The Hands Off Democracy page appears to contain organic user content, rather than advertising paid for through Facebook's online advertising process, and does not seem to require authorisation," she wrote.

"If you have a different view please let me know."

Mr Johnson responded by sending a screenshot of a sponsored post by Hands Off Our Democracy, which attacked The Greens and the activist group GetUp! and did not include the correct authorisation.

"The Australian Greens and GetUp! are against laws strengthening our national security. Why? BECAUSE THEY WANT THEIR FOREIGN DONATIONS," the ad reads.

Mr Johnson said the screenshot indicated the group's page "has (or did have) sponsored content".

A series of email exchanges between Mr Johnson and Ms Malloch followed, in which the pair discussed whether the page should carry authorisation information.

But before the AEC's concerns were addressed, Hands Off Our Democracy's page disappeared from Facebook.

Finally, on August 14 — more than a month after the matter was raised with Facebook — Ms Malloch conceded that the page was indeed paying for ads.

"It appears that this page was removed by the administrator before we could take any action, but yes you are correct — the "sponsored" posts were ads," she wrote….
Australians 'interested in Donald Trump' targeted with ads.

PHOTO: Some ads were targeted toward Australians 'interested in Donald Trump.' (Supplied)


PHOTO: The Hands Off Democracy page also sponsored conspiracy posts about US billionaire George Soros. (Supplied)


Newcastle Herald, 27 February 2019:

Facebook is investigating a complaint from Port Stephens Labor MP Kate Washington who has alleged fake accounts are being used to manipulate the electoral process. 

Ms Washington has written to the Clerk of the NSW Parliament calling for an investigation into the four accounts, which she suspects may be controlled by a Liberal Party supporter.

The accounts, which appear to be owned by local constituents, have been posting in sync with Liberal Party announcements in the Port Stephens electorate in recent weeks.

The Newcastle Herald sent direct messages to the accounts on Monday morning seeking to speak with account owners.

After advising a staff member of Port Stephens Liberal Duty MLC Catherine Cusack of Ms Washington's complaint at lunchtime on Tuesday three of the four accounts responded to the Herald within an hour.

None of the profile users was prepared to speak with the Herald.

One of accounts, which appeared to be operated by a woman who said she had campaigned tirelessly for residents in the Red Zone, was deleted on Tuesday afternoon. 

Another account was deleted on Wednesday night.

So-called social media trolling and claims of harassment, from both major parties, have become common place in recent state and federal election campaigns.