Cometh the rain, cometh the cane toads

Cane Toad eggs & tadpoles
Image: The Conversation, 31 August 2011

The Daily Examiner, 25 March 2019, p.13:

With a solid drop of rain falling in the coastal area of the Clarence Valley last Friday night, cane toads will be taking up this much overdue opportunity to reproduce their kind, much to the disappointment of those who are working hard to control this pest.

Landowners can help by simply inspecting their dams, ponds and any temporarily flooded areas for toad spawn (long strings of eggs that do not float and resemble jelly shoes laces) or toad tadpoles (typically jet black in colour and seen ‘grazing’ in shallow, warm water schooling in tight schools or clusters).

The consistent effort of CVCIA volunteers and increasing effort by landowners at Micalo Island has seen numbers of toads plummet over the last three seasons and this season to date round-ups have collected an average of 328 toads compared to 397 and 764 in the 2017/18 and 2016/17 seasons, respectively.

The best time to inspect such water bodies is during daylight hours when the sun is high and visibility into the water is at optimum levels and anyone who believes they have found toad spawn is encouraged to remove it immediately while other signs of toad breeding should be reported to either Clarence Landcare on 66435009 or CVCIA Landcare on 0477616210 or email scott@cvcia.org.au.

This Friday night CVCIA Landcare’s effort will return to Yamba Golf Course where volunteers will meet in the southern car park at 7.30pm and any interested persons are most welcome to come along.

Adult Cane Toad
Rhinella marina
Image: Australian Museum

Taking the xenophobic temperature of the NSW Northern Rivers region

These quotes below give an indication of what Pauline Hanson's One Nation political party (PHON) believes and acts upon.

Given the chance, Pauline Hanson's One Nation will initiate a referendum to amend this race based section of the Constitution. …We must rid ourselves of Native Title and just as laws are made by and for the people so can they be amended…. Under One Nation policy the issue of Aboriginality would no longer exist as benefits by virtue of race would no longer exist. [Pauline Hanson, Longreach Speech, 11 September 1988]

I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. [Pauline Hanson, First Speech in Australian Parliament, excerpt, 1996]

The indigenous population is experiencing boom growth in Australia. One only has to be recognised as an Aboriginal community to be accepted as an Aboriginal. Identifying as an Aboriginal has definite financial advantages, as Aboriginality allows them to claim a share of the booty of the native title scam as well as various other publicly funded perks not available to other Australians. [Pauline Hanson, Hansard, 2 June 1998]

Pauline Hanson has compared Islam to a disease Australians need to vaccinate themselves against….. "Let me put it in this analogy - we have a disease, we vaccinate ourselves against it," she said on Friday. [The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 March 2017]

The number of Muslims in Australia doubled in the decade from 2006 to 2016 through immigration and the high numbers of children born to Muslim families. If we do not draw a line in the sand against immigration from Islamic countries, the influence of Muslims in this country will continue to grow and Australia will continue down the path of Islamisation. [Pauline Hanson, Hansard, 17 August 2017]

Mark Latham could be forced to pay out more than $100,000 in legal costs and damages after agreeing to settle defamation proceedings brought against him by the ABC journalist Osman Faruqi. Faruqi, a former politics editor of pop culture site Junkee and a former Greens candidate, launched his libel action last year after the former leader of the Labor party accused him of “aiding and abetting Islamic terrorism” and fostering “anti-white racism in Australia”. The comments were made across Latham’s Outsiders webpage, YouTube, the Rebel Media webpage and a post on Facebook. [The Guardian, 26 November 2018]

One Nation NSW would force DNA tests on every person claiming Aboriginal heritage to qualify for government assistance. NSW One Nation Legislative Council candidate Mark Latham said the policy would weed out "the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aboriginal". [Mark Latham, 9 News, 12 March 2019]

Outlaw the new Left-wing discrimination against men, boys, Christians and white people… [Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, 10 Point Plan, March 2019]

We’re not even allowed to own guns in Australia for the self-protection of women….It’s insane. We’ve been importing all these Muslims into Australia….Some really dangerous people. They are just breaking into people's homes with baseball bats and killing people. Basically, stealing everything they own. Gangs. Our county's going into chaos. [Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Qld party official Steve Dickson, YouTube, 26 March 2019]

According to Prof.Kevin M. Dunn (UWS); Between 1996 and 1998, the Federal Government commissioned an inquiry into racism in Australia (see DIMA, 1998:1). The results of that inquiry are not publicly available, and purposefully so. I presume that the research found racism to widespread, and that it also found there to be geography to it.

Because there is little hard information and, what exists is not readily available, it is notoriously difficult - if not impossible - to work out the number of people who hold xenophobic or racist world views in any given population.

However, the NSW Legislative Council election on 23 March 2019 does open a window on that part of the Northern Rivers population who are 18 years of age and older and registered to vote in state elections.

The window exists because although no candidate from the far right, nationalist, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation stood for election to the NSW Legislative Assembly (Lower House) in the four Northern Rivers state electorates, PHON had 17 candidates standing for election in the NSW Legislative Assembly (Upper House). 

State-wide PHON had received 220,847 votes or 5.93% of all 3.72 million Upper House ballots recorded as of 22:58 pm on 26 March 2019. [See: https://vtr.elections.nsw.gov.au/home]

So how did the Northern Rivers region fare in relation to the state percentage of voters who were willing to support xenophobic and racist ideology only eight days after an Australian was arrested for a murderous terrorist attack on worshippers in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand?

In the Ballina electorate 1,713 voters cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW Legislative Council – 3.66% of all Upper House ballots cast in that electorate.

While the Clarence electorate saw 3.441 voters cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW Legislative Council – 8.94% of all Upper House ballots cast in that electorate. 

And in the Lismore electorate 2,556 voters cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW Legislative Council – 5.69% of all Upper House ballots cast in that electorate.

At the same time in the Tweed electorate 1,933 voters cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW Legislative Council – 6.76% of all Upper House ballots cast in that electorate.

These figures appear to support the contention that there is a sub-population in the Northern Rivers region which is markedly ethnocentric and willing to vote for an openly racist political party.

This willingness has helped to elect former federal MP Mark William Latham as One Nation's first member of the NSW Parliament. He sits for a maximum term of eight years in the Upper House which will provide him with the protection of parliamentary privilege for some if not all of his frequently divisive nationalistic ideological statements.

Given that in past years a number of academic papers discussing the geography of racism have identified "Northern" NSW, the "North Coast", "Mid-North Coast" and "Richmond-Tweed" as having a relatively high number of markers for ethnocentrism and/or racism, one has to wonder if this current support for an openly racist political party represents more than just the ongoing existence of xenophobia and racism in Northern Rivers communities - that perhaps it might represent a widening acceptance and further entrenchment of such attitudes across the valleys.

The Great Australian Ugliness: how supporters of conservative political parties act on polling day

so at lunchtime I stopped at an IGA this is in the semi-rural seat of Hawkesbury on the very fringe of north-west Sydney and it has all these fridges and freezers stacked with south Asian food dahl and curries and samosas. The man at the counter is maybe 60yo wearing a turban

— Ingrid M (@iMusing) March 25, 2019

A few hours later I am back on duty and the man from the IGA in the Sikh turban and his wife (I assume) who is also wearing clothes from her culture arrive and the Liberals and SFF who are all sitting together say go home Mohammad hahahaHAHAHA

— Ingrid M (@iMusing) March 25, 2019

Australia’s national science agency CSIRO will release a new biocontrol agent in a bid to help save rainforests from an invasive South American weed

Wandering trad (Tradescantia fluminensis)
Image: yarraranges.vic.gov.au

CSIRO, news release, 22 March 2019:

Wandering trad (Tradescantia fluminensis) has become a significant environmental weed in parts of eastern Australia where it forms dense carpets on forest floors, smothering native vegetation and clogging waterways.

CSIRO senior research scientist Dr Louise Morin said weeds like wandering trad had a significant economic, environmental and social impact in Australia.

“Weeds are one of the biggest threats to Australia’s unique environment – in many areas across Australia they are damaging native vegetation, which threatens whole ecosystems including native wildlife,” Dr Morin said.

“Last year Australia spent almost $30 million protecting the natural environment from weeds. In the agriculture sector, weeds cost the industry more than $4.8 billion per year.”

“The fungus is spread through spores and needs the leaves of the wandering trad to survive – if there is no wandering trad to infect, the fungus dies,” Dr Morin said. 

“We know from decades of research in this field, that specialised fungi, like the leaf smut, have specific genes that enable them to successfully infect and cause disease only on single or a narrow range of plant species. “So we look at plants that are related to wandering trad including native plants to make sure the fungus will only infect the weed.” Wandering trad has infested native forests across eastern Australia, from eastern parts of NSW and south-east Queensland, to the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria where the biocontrol agent will first be released.

NOTE

Wandering Trad is not to be confused with a similar looking plant Commelina diffusa which is native to south-east Queensland and north-east NSW. The native plant has blue flowers (usually flowering in autumn) and a slender tapered leaf, unlike the weedy species Tradescantia albiflora (which has fleshier, rounded, glossier leaves). The native plant is not an environmental weed.

Commelina diffusa
Image: Qld Dept. of Agriculture and Fisheries

Far-right white supremacy is not about to crash & burn in Australia - instead it reached peak extremism on 15 March 2019

How homegrown white supremacist groups reportedly influenced the Australian terrorist who allegedly killed fifty worshippers in two New Zealand mosques on 15 March 2019.........

ABC News, 23 March 2019:

Three years before the mass shooting in Christchurch, [name redacted] was lavishing praise on prominent Australian far-right nationalist Blair Cottrell, referring to him as "Emperor".

The ABC's Background Briefing has uncovered an archive of comments from the accused mosque shooter, which were posted on the now deleted Facebook pages of Australian far-right groups United Patriots Front (UPF) and True Blue Crew (TBC).

The comments give an insight for the first time into [name redacted]'s early radical views.

[name redacted], 28, is facing trial in New Zealand for his alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch last week— part of which was live streamed on his Facebook page.

At this stage, [name redacted] has been charged with one count of murder.

But in the wake of the massacre, his social media accounts were wiped from the internet, leaving very little information regarding the connections he made with individuals and groups on the far-right that operate prominently online.

What remained were fragments and digital impressions of a well-travelled young man who frequented hate-filled anonymous messaging boards and was deeply engaged in a global alt-right culture.

Although the shooter claimed in a manifesto uploaded before the attack that he was never a member of any group, the archive verified by Background Briefing reveals an allegiance to a number of high-profile Australian far-right figures.

And while specific details remain murky, these revelations about [name redacted]'s interactions with domestic far-right groups shed light on a young man captivated by white nationalism and its high-profile figurehead, Mr Cottrell.

Mr Cottrell emerged as a public figure in 2015 for his opposition to a mosque in Victoria and a graphic stunt in which he performed a mock beheading.

Since then he has become the highest profile leader of Australia's alt right.

For many he is the symbol of the so-called "white resistance" in Australia and is the figurehead for a movement that in recent times has been defined by its virulent anti-Islamic views.

Before the Facebook page of his group, the UPF, was deleted, it had more than 120,000 followers, and the data reveals [name redacted] also followed the group.

[name redacted]'s comments, dating back as early as April 2016, showed the Australian-born man was a vocal supporter of then UPF-leader Mr Cottrell.

In the information, [name redacted] made more than 30 comments on the UPF and TBC pages over a 10-month period.

Although there are no screenshots of his comments on the UPF and TBC pages, Background Briefing has verified their authenticity by comparing the archive's preserved metadata — including Facebook ID numbers and timestamps — against other public posts shared by UPF and TBC supporters.

This allowed us to connect names to comments.

In one instance, metadata shows that when members from the UPF violently clashed with counter-protesters in Coburg in 2016, [name redacted] felt compelled to respond to Mr Cottrell's critics online.

"Communists will get what communists get, I would love to be there holding one end of the rope when you get yours traitor," [name redacted] posted….

In the video, Mr Cottrell and Mr Sewell are seen wearing neat collared shirts and grinning ear-to-ear as they described Mr Trump's victory, declaring it as the end to political correctness and "Marxism" in the US.

[name redacted] was online celebrating with Mr Cottrell and Mr Sewell.

"Simply one of the most important events in modern history," [name redacted] commented on the live video.

It was here that  [name redacted]was most effusive in his support of Mr Cottrell and the movement.

"Globalists and Marxists on suicide watch, patriots and nationalists triumphant — looking forward to Emperor Blair Cottrell coming soon," he wrote.

[name redacted] made similar comments months earlier, when Mr Cottrell appeared on national TV.

"Knocked it out of the park tonight Blair," he wrote.

"Your retorts had me smiling, nodding, cheering and often laughing.

"Never believed we would have a true leader of the nationalist movement in Australia, and especially not so early in the game.

"Would gladly stand behind you."

[name redacted]'s comments in the same period also demonstrate he was invested in the rivalry between the country's far-right groups.

He directed anger at one of the UPF founders, Neil Erikson, and former UPF leader Shermon Burgess and called them "useful idiots".

"Leave the nationalist leadership to Blair and the TBC, or be named obvious plants and traitors," [name redacted] wrote in July 2016 on the TBC Facebook page.

Those comments and their metadata were archived in text form by an anonymous source when those pages were still active on Facebook.

As far as we know the ABC is the only media outlet with access to the archives.

The last activity we have from [name redacted] on the UPF Facebook page is from January 2017, in response to a post discussing Mr Cottrell's impending appearance in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court over staging a fake beheading in Bendigo two years earlier.

[name redacted] was one of more than 200 people who commented on this thread in support of Mr Cottrell.

Mr Cottrell and two other former UPF members were found guilty of inciting serious contempt of Muslims in September 2017.....

....a donation had been made to UPF in [name redacted]'s name some years earlier.....

Michael Edison Hayden is a senior investigator on white supremacists' digital strategies for the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), a non-profit which is tracking hate crimes across the US and the world.

He said the Christchurch shooting was a "new reality" where the views and statements of the extreme far-right were having a profound reach on young disaffected men.

He said the accused shooter's manifesto and social media strategy was more "self-aware and performative" than anything he had seen.

"It's a signifier he was immersed in this culture of radicalisation, that he is speaking to them and he is responding to what he's seen from them and what he wants them to see," Mr Hayden said.

Mr Hayden said race-related killings from far-right personalities around the world were often based on fears about being replaced by immigrants and having their white identity erased.

"Once you get the idea you're being eliminated, once you integrate that into your everyday way of thinking, they feel like violence is being inflicted against them day in and day out," he said.

"Which is, of course, a complete perversion of the truth."

 All this raises the question ; How many other men living on the NSW North Coast and elsewhere in Australia share [name redacted]'s world view?

Insurance industry continues to warn that ability to insure property may breakdown due to ongoing impacts of climate change

The Guardian, 22 March 2019:

Insurers have warned that climate change could make cover for ordinary people unaffordable after the world’s largest reinsurance firm blamed global warming for $24bn (£18bn) of losses in the Californian wildfires.

Ernst Rauch, Munich Re’s chief climatologist, told the Guardian that the costs could soon be widely felt, with premium rises already under discussion with clients holding asset concentrations in vulnerable parts of the state.

“If the risk from wildfires, flooding, storms or hail is increasing then the only sustainable option we have is to adjust our risk prices accordingly. In the long run it might become a social issue,” he said after Munich Re published a report into climate change’s impact on wildfires. “Affordability is so critical [because] some people on low and average incomes in some regions will no longer be able to buy insurance.”

The lion’s share of California’s 20 worst forest blazes since the 1930s have occurred this millennium, in years characterised by abnormally high summer temperatures and “exceptional dryness” between May and October, according to a new analysis by Munich Re.

Wetter and more humid winters spurred new forest growth which became tinder dry in heatwave conditions that preceded the wildfires, the report’s authors said.

After comparing observational data spanning several decades with climate models, the report concluded that the wildfires, which killed 85 people, were “broadly consistent with climate change”.

Nicolas Jeanmart, the head of personal insurance, general insurance and macroeconomics at Insurance Europe, which speaks for 34 national insurance associations, said the knock-on effects from rising premiums could pose a threat to social order.

“The sector is concerned that continuing global increases in temperature could make it increasingly difficult to offer the affordable financial protection that people deserve, and that modern society requires to function properly,” he said.

Australian Prime Minister literally runs away from an awkward question

BREAKING: Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison shuts down media conference when confronted about boasting to colleagues in 2011 he was going to 'cash-in' on rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia. He fled because public record since shows he did pic.twitter.com/fMDBdqToPN

— Alt-Rupert (@TheMurdochTimes) March 20, 2019

 Junkee, 21 March 2019:

Scott Morrison’s been having a bit of a shocker lately, and yesterday was no exception. After a journalist appeared to catch him in a lie at a press conference, our esteemed Prime Minister responded by abruptly ending the conference and fleeing.

ScoMo’s Great Escape took place after journalist Samantha Maiden asked him about a bit of a touchy subject: a 2011 report that he urged the Coalition to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment as part of an election strategy. Morrison has repeatedly denied saying this, and has been telling media that his colleague Greg Hunt backs him up — on the record.

Except, as Sam Maiden pointed out at the press conference, “the problem with that is that Greg Hunt did not attend the meeting” where Scott Morrison reportedly made the comments in the first place. She went on to point out that those who actually did attend the meeting told the Sydney Morning Herald that Morrison had made the comments, but before she could finish the sentence ScoMo cut her off.