Tuesday 14 May 2019
Quality of Australian television & radio will take a dive under a re-elected Morrison Government
The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 May 2019:
The ABC is facing
"inevitable" job cuts and programming disruption if the Morrison government
is returned to power, the national broadcaster's new managing director has
warned.
In his first interview
in the new job, David Anderson told Radio National's Patricia Karvelas that
planning for two possible budget scenarios was at the top of his to-do list,
after establishing a new leadership team.
One of those options is
a budget in which the ABC's indexation funding is frozen for the next three
years.
"If the Coalition
is returned, then we have an $84 million budget reduction over the next three
years," Mr Anderson said.
"Having been
through a number of budget reductions to this point, I don’t see how we can
avoid staff cuts and, I think, disruption to our content. I think it’s
inevitable."
None of the options
available for finding $84 million in savings were great, he said.
Labels:
ABC radio,
ABC television,
entertainment,
funding,
government policy
UN-UNESCO Global Assessment Report: "The loss of species, ecosystems and genetic diversity is already a global and generational threat to human well-being."
Smithsonian.com, 6 May 2019:
Our world is losing
biodiversity, and fast. According to a report released today by the United
Nations, up to one million species could face extinction in the near future due
to human influence on the natural world. Such a collapse in biodiversity would
wreak havoc on the interconnected ecosystems of the planet, putting human
communities at risk by compromising food sources, fouling clean water and air,
and eroding natural defenses against extreme weather such as hurricanes and
floods.
In the sweeping
UN-backed report, hundreds of scientists found that biodiversity loss poses a
global threat on par with climate change. A 40-page “Summary for Policy Makers”
was released in advance of the full report, which is expected to be published
later this year and span nearly 2,000 pages. The document calls the rate of
change in nature “unprecedented” and projects that species extinctions will
become increasingly common in the coming decades, driven by factors such as
land development, deforestation and overfishing.
“The basic message is
the same as what the scientific community has been saying for more than 30
years: Biodiversity is important in its own right. Biodiversity is important
for human wellbeing, and we humans are destroying it,” Robert Watson, the
former chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) that produced the report, said during a press
conference on Monday.
To produce the report,
145 biodiversity experts plus hundreds of other contributors compiled
information over three years from 15,000 sources. For years, scientists have
been sounding the alarm about biodiversity’s dramatic decline in what some have
dubbed the world’s sixth
mass extinction event. This die-off, however, differs from the other five
in its central cause: humans.
As the global assessment
confirms, human activity is a major driver of biodiversity decline among
the millions of species on Earth. The report ranks some of the
top causes of species loss as changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation
of organisms (like hunting or fishing), climate change, pollution and invasive
alien species (often introduced by human travel across ecosystems).
The current global rate of species extinction is already “at least tens to
hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years,”
and it’s expected to keep accelerating.
All in all, human action
has “significantly altered” about 75 percent of the world’s land environment
and 66 percent of its marine environment, according to the report. Insect
populations have plummeted in tropical forests, grasslands
are increasingly drying out into deserts, and pollution along with ocean
acidification is driving
many coral reef ecosystems to the brink.
The destruction of
biodiversity at all levels, from genes to ecosystems, could pose
significant threats to humankind, the report says. In addition to affecting
human access to food resources, clean water and breathable air, a loss of
species on a global scale could also clear a path for diseases and parasites to
spread more quickly, says Emmett Duffy, a biodiversity expert with the
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center who contributed to the report.
“Historically, a lot of
us have thought about conservation and extinction in terms of charismatic
animals like pandas and whales,” Duffy says. “But there’s a very strong utilitarian
reason for saving species, because people depend on them. There’s an
environmental justice aspect.”
The effects of
biodiversity loss won’t be distributed equally, either, the researchers found.
The most devastating impacts would disproportionately affect some of the
world’s poorest communities, and the report concludes that the decline in
biodiversity undermines global progress toward the Sustainable
Development Goals, milestones set by the U.N. General Assembly in 2015 to
reduce global inequality…..
IPBES Global
Assessment Preview,
excerpt:
Important
aspects of the Global Assessment
Building upon earlier IPBES assessment
reports, especially the recently-released Land Degradation and Restoration
Assessment and the Regional Assessment Reports for Africa, the Americas,
Asia-Pacific and Europe and Central Asia (March, 2018), the Global Assessment:
• Covers all land-based ecosystems
(except Antarctica), inland water and the open oceans
• Evaluates changes over the past 50 years — and implications for our economies, livelihoods, food security and quality of life
• Explores impacts of trade and other global processes on biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Ranks the relative impacts of climate change, invasive species, pollution, sea and land use change and a range of other challenges to nature
• Identifies priority gaps in our available knowledge that will need to be filled
• Projects what biodiversity could look like in decades ahead under six future scenarios: Economic Optimism; Regional Competition; Global Sustainability; Business as Usual; Regional Sustainability and Reformed Markets
• Assesses policy, technology, governance, behaviour changes, options and pathways to reach global goals by looking at synergies and trade-offs between food production, water security, energy and infrastructure expansion, climate change mitigation, nature conservation and economic development
• Evaluates changes over the past 50 years — and implications for our economies, livelihoods, food security and quality of life
• Explores impacts of trade and other global processes on biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Ranks the relative impacts of climate change, invasive species, pollution, sea and land use change and a range of other challenges to nature
• Identifies priority gaps in our available knowledge that will need to be filled
• Projects what biodiversity could look like in decades ahead under six future scenarios: Economic Optimism; Regional Competition; Global Sustainability; Business as Usual; Regional Sustainability and Reformed Markets
• Assesses policy, technology, governance, behaviour changes, options and pathways to reach global goals by looking at synergies and trade-offs between food production, water security, energy and infrastructure expansion, climate change mitigation, nature conservation and economic development
What the CSIRO
and climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au
state about coastal New South Wales:
KEY MESSAGES
·
Average
temperatures will continue to increase in all seasons (very high confidence).
·
More
hot days and warm spells are projected with very high confidence. Fewer
frosts are projected with high confidence.
·
Decreases
in winter rainfall are projected with medium confidence. Other changes are
possible but unclear.
·
Increased
intensity of extreme rainfall events is projected, with high confidence.
·
Mean
sea level will continue to rise and height of extreme sea-level events will
also increase (very high confidence).
·
A
harsher fire-weather climate in the future (high confidence).
·
On
annual and decadal basis, natural variability in the climate system can act to
either mask or enhance any long-term human induced trend, particularly in the
next 20 years and for rainfall.
At its ordinary monthy meeting of 23 April 2019 Clarence Valley Council passed the following resolution:
Monday 13 May 2019
Only 5 more sleeps until federal polling day across Australia & Newspoll still predicts that the Morrison Coalition will lose government
This is the 54th consecutive Newspoll in which Labor leads on a Two Party Preferred (TPP) basis.
The last time the Coalition scored a higher TPP than Labor was on election day in 2016.
Primary Vote - Coalition 39 (up 1 point) Labor 37 (up 1 point)
Two Party Preferred (TPP) Vote - Coalition 49 (unchanged) Labor 51(unchanged)
Voter Net
Satisfaction with Leaders - Scott Morrison 0 (up 1 point) Bill Shorten -10 (up 8 points)
Newspoll results 11-12 May 2019, published 13 May 2019 |
If an election was held today then Labor would form government with 77 House of Representatives seats to the Coalition's 68 seats.
Both Pauline Hanson's One Nation and Clive Palmer's United Australia Party would have 0 seats in the Lower House.
Based on preference flows at the June 2016 federal election Antony Green predicts that Labor will gain the electorates of Robertson (NSW), Gilmore (NSW), Flynn (Qld), Ford (Qld) and Capricornia (Qld).
All five of these electorates were held by either the Liberal Party or Liberal-National Party at the 2016 election.
Previous Newspolls
Previous Newspolls
Labels:
elections 2019,
poll,
statistics
This move by Murdoch’s News Corp has Scott Morrison’s political paw prints all over it
Standing in
the shadows pulling the strings of those willing to make spurious or defamatory
claims about a political opponent worked so well for the interim Prime Minister
and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison
in the past that he appears to be doing it again.
Last time the
efforts of his political puppets cost News
Corp tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs and like last time The Daily Telegraph is the
Liberals vehicle of choice.
The smear campaign
revealed……..
The
Saturday Paper,
11 May 2019, excerpt:
Midweek, Murdoch’s
Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph went for broke. On page one, it
ran a story under the headline “Mother of invention”, and set out to destroy
what it said was hailed as Shorten’s “election-winning moment”. It accused him
of omitting the fact his mother went on to enjoy an illustrious career as a
barrister. The paper said he had failed to disclose that his mother graduated
law later in life “and [practised] at the bar for six years”. It said the Labor
chief had only told half the family story. If that were the case, however, he
left out the half that gives even more potency to his mother’s legacy.
One senior Liberal wondered who was the genius on their
side who thought it a good idea to prompt the Telegraph’s ill-considered
and cockamamie attack. Gallery journalists confirm the “Libs were shopping the
story around on Tuesday”.
Melbourne’s Herald Sun, unlike its Brisbane
stablemate, The Courier-Mail, refused to take it. Scott Morrison played
the innocent bystander.
He told reporters it was a “very upsetting story” and he can understand that
Shorten would have been “very hurt by it”. That was an understatement. The
opposition leader was furious.
For 10 minutes during a
half-hour press conference on Wednesday, Shorten spoke of his mother’s
achievements. Fighting back tears, he told of a woman in her 50s with grey
hair, who, even though she topped her law school, could not get a law firm to
take her on for articles. When she eventually got to the bar, she struggled for
briefs – “she got about nine briefs in her time”. Far from fulfilling her
dream, as the Murdoch hatchet job claimed, she went back to education. The
partisan attack on the Labor leader opened the way for him to hit back at one
of the Liberals’ biggest vulnerabilities: their failure to promote more women
through their parliamentary ranks. Their most high-profile and credible woman,
Julie Bishop, has quit. She won’t be at the party’s Mother’s Day launch on
Sunday to support Morrison, the man who blocked her run for the leadership.
Shorten says the experience of his mother – “the smartest woman I’ve ever
known” – is why he believes in the equal treatment of women.
News Corp sources say the Tele has another
story on their news file to throw at Shorten. It is highly defamatory and
legally dubious.
The desperation that led to the attack on Shorten and his mother’s memory may
give them pause to think about running it. As one Labor campaign worker says,
“It’s difficult to know where the government ends and News Corp begins.” [my
yellow highlighting]
Phase Two of the smear campaign.......
A scurrilous, below-the-radar whispering campaign has broken through onto social media.
News Corp cries poor - wants local government funding
The comment of tweeter @Greg_MarineLab says it all:
"How very NewsCorp!
Begging for a taxpayer handout while never paying any tax & subverting
democracy...."
News Corp unsuccessfully lobbied a number of South Australian councils and, like the City of Tea Tree, Campbelltown, Playford and Salisbury councils didn't want to prop the Murdochs up when in all probability it would mean raising rates.
InDaily, 3 May 2019:
InDaily has confirmed with several sources a senior delegation of
News Corp executives, including South Australian executive general manager Ish
Davies and Messenger Newspapers editor-in-chief Nadja Fleet,
approached four north-eastern councils in March requesting significant
investment – totalling at least $1.6 million over two years – to keep the print
run of the local North Eastern Weekly afloat.
It has only taken the Murdoch's 32 years to run this once independent group of community newspapers into the ground.
Labels:
begging letter,
funding,
local government,
News Corp
All drink driving in NSW to result in immediate loss of licence from 20 May 2019
NSW Transport for NSW,
media release, 6 May 2019:
Immediate loss of
licence for all drink drivers
All drink driving
offenders can now immediately lose their licence under tough new penalties
announced by the Minister for Transport and Roads Andrew Constance today.
From May 20 drink
drivers who are first-time, lower range offenders will receive an immediate
three month licence suspension and fine of $561.
“This means anyone
caught drink‐driving
in NSW, at any level, including low-range, can now lose their licence
immediately,” Mr Constance said.
“This reform makes it
clear if you break the law, you will pay the price. We are taking a
zero-tolerance approach to drink and drug driving.”
Under the new laws,
simpler and more certain penalties will also apply for drug drivers.
Offenders who drive with
the presence of illicit drugs for the first time will receive a $561 fine and a
three month licence suspension if the offence is confirmed by laboratory
analysis.
Alcohol related crashes
claimed the lives of at least 68 people on NSW roads last year, accounting for
nearly one in five road deaths, including 55 lives lost on country roads.
Fatalities from crashes
involving a drug driver accounted for similar numbers of deaths.
“Drivers who have an
illegal level of alcohol in their blood or have used illegal drugs have no
place on the road,” Mr Constance said.
Assistant Police
Commissioner Michael Corboy said this reform will protect all road users by
ensuring swift and certain penalties.
“Alcohol is one of the
major factors in crashes that kill or injure people on NSW roads.The 0.05 blood
alcohol limit has been in place for almost 38 years. There are no more
excuses,” Assistant Commissioner Corboy said.
Labels:
drink driving,
law,
New South Wales
Sunday 12 May 2019
Portrait of a Dangerous Smirking Fool
Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison, ABC "7.30", 6 May 2019: “Do I think the United Australian [sic]
Party is a bigger risk than….the Labor Party and the Greens. No I don’t”.
Image: @_sara_jade |
Junkee, 6 May 2019:
Scott Morrison appeared
on the ABC’s 7.30 tonight and said some very questionable things, but
one in particular stood out: our Prime Minister reckons that a 100 percent
renewable energy target is more of a risk to Australia than anything Clive
Palmer and his United Australia Party has to offer.
Morrison shared this
view after 7.30 host Leigh Sales pressed him on why
the Coalition chose to make preference deals with Pauline Hanson’s One
Nation and Clive Palmer’s UAP this election.
Labels:
#ScottMorrisonFAIL,
elections 2019
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