Iluka folk lobbied long and hard for a local ambulance station

Iluka residents finally get a firm state government commitment to build an ambulance station in their small coastal town.

The Daily Examiner, 20 June 2019, p.1:

Iluka Ambulance Group organiser Anne McLean said it was the words that Iluka needed to see.

“Projects to commence prior to March 2023, including Iluka Ambulance Station (ETC $10 million)” sit pride of place under the election commitments section of the NSW Budget.

“It’s the news Iluka needed,” Ms McLean said. “Six months have gone by and there’s been nothing. And (husband and co-organiser) John and I have been still nipping at their heels. We haven’t given up. We’ve been constantly at them.”

Ms McLean said she was happy to hear the news from member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis on Tuesday morning, and had been busily answering questions from the media all that morning.”

“Chris has been great through the process, he rang and had a chat,” she said. “But we have been saying that Iluka got behind them because of the ambulance, and it’s good to see the validation of that faith, and see it move along.

“It’s been a crazy morning.”

Ms McLean said she had been told they were looking to find a suitable site, and then to put it out for community consultation.

“I don’t think they’ll have much trouble getting people to say ‘yes’,” she said.

Ambulance NSW yesterday confirmed the process was under way, and planning would continue this year and into next year.

“In 2019-20 detailed service planning will progress; site acquisitions studies will be finalised and a suitable site acquired subject to the findings of these studies; design will be finalised; and a development application submitted,” a NSW Ambulance spokesperson said.

“Construction would be anticipated to commence in 2020-21 following tendering and awarding of the work. The construction timeframe is estimated to take about two years to complete.......

Tears before bedtime under The National Strategic Action Plan for Pain Management?

Painaustralia says of itself that it is “Australia’s leading pain advocacy body working to improve the quality of life of people living with pain, their families and carers, and to minimise the social and economic burden of pain on individuals and the community”.

On 11 June 2019 it released a copy of The National Strategic Action Plan for Pain Management having convinced the Morrison Coalition Government that this plan is the bee knees when it comes to pain management.

If the following article is anything to go by it will be tears before bedtime for many chronic pain suffers as the plan does not contain any mention of actually increasing the number pain specialists practicing in Australia or of attempting to lower wait times to see such specialists.

Currently NSW Health only lists 35 pain management services in the state and most of these are attached to metropolitan public hospitals.

Instead people experiencing acute and chronic pain are to be offered 10 Medicare-funded group services and 10 individual services each calendar year, with access to telehealth pain management advice for regional areas where pain management services are not available.

As for pain management using prescribed medications – that is apparently going to be more difficult to access as Painaustralia and the Morrison Government are alarmed that opiate prescriptions in rural & regional Australia have risen in the last ten years. 

Seemingly conveniently blind to any relationship between increased prescribing and low GP numbers, smaller often poorly resourced public hospitals, a reliance on what might be termed 'flyin-flyout' medical specialists who prefer not to live in those rural or regional areas their patients inhabit and the economic tyranny of distance for the patient.

The Daily Examiner, 18 June 2019, p.8:

Doctors will be sent back to school to be re-educated about treating chronic pain and patients given a Medicare boost under a new national strategy.

The first national pain strategy launching today also calls for a national one-stop website to be set up to educate people about how to manage pain without drugs and where to find help.

“There is a screaming need here because pain is a significant burden on the economy, on society and the health system,” Pain Australia chief executive Carol Bennett said.

More than 3.24 million Australians are living with chronic pain and many are becoming addicted to opioid medications while they wait up to four years to see a pain specialist for help.

Last year Australians paid $2.7 billion in out-of-pocket expenses to manage their pain and missed 9.9 million days of work because of the condition.

The new strategy funded by the Federal Government and developed by Pain Australia wants pain to be treated in the same way as mental health, with Medicare funding up to 20 medical and group sessions to help people get it under control. It also calls for a new certificate in pain medicine for GPs and other health professionals that would require six months of study.

The consultation work that took place around the development of the new plan found doctors’ knowledge about the latest pain management techniques was out of date.

“For lower back pain people are popping pills and having surgery but for the last 15 years we’ve known you’ve got to get moving and rehabilitate yourself with physical management,” Ms Bennett said.

Anti-inflammatory medications should not be used for more than a few days and long-term strengthening of the muscles, good nutrition and sleep were the key to treating the problem rather than drugs, she said.

Instead of helping patients manage pain in this way, doctors were prescribing increasing amounts of dangerous and addictive opioid medicines.

SNAPSHOT: Employment, underemployment & unemployment in NSW & Northern Rivers Region - April & May 2019

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Labour Force, Australia, May 2019:

·         Australia's trend estimate of employment increased by 28,400 persons in May 2019, with:

·         the number of unemployed persons increasing by 5,800 persons;

·         the unemployment rate remaining steady at 5.1%;

·         the underemployment rate increasing to 8.5%;

·         the underutilisation rate increasing to 13.6%;

·         the participation rate increasing to 65.9%; and

·         the employment to population ratio remaining steady at 62.5%. 

In New South Wales, May 2019

Total employed person – 4,167,000 persons of which est. 31% are employed part-time

Total underemployment rate – 12.2%

Total unemployed person – 197,500 persons of which est. 68% were looking for full-time work

Total unemployment rate – 4.5%.

State Electorates in Northern Rivers, April 2019

Clarence Electorate – 58,169 employed persons, unemployment rate 8.2% and youth unemployment rate 20.5%, with negative annual employment growth of -2.7%

Lismore Electorate – 83,833 employed persons, unemployment rate 6.1% and youth unemployment rate 10.2%

Richmond-Tweed Electorate – 115,668 employed persons, unemployment rate 4.5% and youth unemployment rate 8.9%.

Former Grafton man terrorism trial date set for May 2020

The Daily Examiner, 15 June 2019, p.1:

The Australian man accused of the Christchurch mosque killings smiled as survivors of the shooting were told he would be pleading not guilty to 51 charges of murder and 40 of attempted murder.

Brenton Tarrant, 28, pleaded not guilty to all charges yesterday morning when he faced New Zealand’s High Court by video link. It means he will stand trial in May next year over the attack.

Dozens of survivors and family members of the victims packed the court to hear whether the man accused of the shootings would defend himself.

Some were visibly nervous during the hearing. Others were in tears. They reacted in shock when the not guilty pleas were made.

Two further courts and some 200 seats were set aside for the public, with police maintaining a heavy presence through the building.

Tarrant is facing a terror charge, 51 counts of murder and 40 of attempted murder over the March 15 attacks on worshippers at two mosques.

Tarrant was not in the courtroom but was shown via video from Paremoremo Prison in Auckland wearing a grey sweatshirt.

This is the accused’s first hearing since early April.

The terror charge against Tarrant, laid last month, is the first in New Zealand and legal experts say it could potentially lead to a complex trial.

But Christchurch’s Muslim community has welcomed the decision by prosecutors to acknowledge the attacks as an act of terrorism.

Tarrant was remanded in custody to face a review hearing on August 16.

He is being held in New Zealand’s only maximum security jail and prison staff say he has no access to television, radio, newspapers or visitors.

The courts last week dropped a ban on local media publishing pictures of the former Grafton resident’s face.

At Tarrant’s last appearance, the court ordered he undertake a mental health assessment to see if he was fit to stand trial.

A trial date has been set for May 4 [2020] which was confirmed by Justice Cameron Mander…..

It doesn't matter how many times or in how many ways the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government is told Australia is facing a climate emergency Coalition MPs & Senators just won't listen

Here is yet another warning that all is not well......

ABC News, 12 June 2019:

Nearly a billion people are facing climate change hazards globally, with the Asia-Pacific region housing twice as many people living in areas with high exposure than all other regions combined, a new report has revealed.

In the annual Global Peace Index released on Wednesday, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said an estimated 971 million people — including more than 2.4 million Australians — live in areas with high or very high exposure to climate hazards including cyclones, floods, bushfires, desertification and rising sea levels.

The top nine countries facing the highest risk of climate hazards were all Asian nations with the Philippines topping the list, followed by Japan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China.

IEP founder and executive chairman Steve Killelea told the ABC that many of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region also have weaker coping capacities for natural disasters.

"Pacific Islands are going to be massively impacted by rising sea levels," Mr Killelea said, adding that they would be the first affected because of their proximity to the equator.

In Australia, the main risks come from hurricanes and cyclones in the north, rising sea levels in the south and east, as well as drought and desertification which is already affecting thousands of farmers, he said.

PHOTO: The regions most at risk from climate hazards are Asia-Pacific and South Asia. (Supplied)

Climate hazards exacerbate conflict and migration

The report — which ranks 163 countries by measuring internal safety and security, militarisation and ongoing conflict — included climate change risks for the first time this year to evaluate links between climate hazards and violence.

It found climate pressures can adversely impact resource availability and affect population dynamics, which can impact socioeconomic and political stability.

"When you start to get massive effects from climate change you start to get large flows of refugees," Mr Killelea said, adding that this migration can increase instability and the impact of terrorism on host nations.

Mr Killelea listed several countries where climate change has caused or exacerbated violence including Nigeria, where desertification has led to conflict over scarce resources, Haiti in the aftermath of multiple hurricanes and earthquakes, and South Sudan, where the drying of Lake Chad has exasperated tensions.

In 2017, over 60 per cent of total displacements around the world were due to climate-related disasters, while nearly 40 per cent were caused by armed conflict……

[my yellow highlighting]

In the Global Peace Index 2019: Measuring peace in a complex world Australia only ranks 13^th on the global peace scale, having fallen one place since 2018 mainly because of ‘’Militarisation, namely weapons imports, military expenditure (% GDP), and nuclear and heavy weapons. The incarceration rate in Australia also rose”.

Australia had a 31 percentage point gap between the per cent of men and women who feel safe walking alone, the highest gap in all surveyed countries – a dubious honour it shared with Moldova.

The most peaceful countries in the world in 2019

1. Iceland 🇮🇸
2. New Zealand 🇳🇿
3. Portugal 🇵🇹
4. Austria 🇦🇹
5 . Denmark 🇩🇰
6. Canada 🍁
7. Singapore 🇸🇬
8. Slovenia 🇸🇮
9. Japan 🇯🇵
10. Czech Republic 🇨🇿#GlobalPeaceIndex@GlobPeaceIndex @ipinst pic.twitter.com/QWuEAVdDr6

— General Knowledge (@BORN4WIN) June 14, 2019

Domestic Violence in the NSW Northern Rivers Region in 2019

According to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in the year to March 2019 there were 202 Domestic Violence (DV) assaults recorded in the Clarence Valley Local Government Area (LGA), compared to 30,063 DV assaults recorded state-wide.

In the same time period elsewhere in the NSW Northern Rivers region:

Tweed LGA - 344 recorded DV assaults
Richmond Valley LGA - 141 recorded DV assaults

Byron LGA - 115 recorded DV assaults

Ballina LGA - 124 recorded DV assaults

Lismore LGA - 227 recorded DV assaults

Kyogle LGA - 55 recorded DV assaults.

Three domestic violence related homicides were recorded in the Northern Rivers region for the year to March 2019 and 44 domestic violence related homicides state-wide.

An unenviable statistic, having 6.81 per cent of all NSW domestic violence related homicides occur within the Northern Rivers region.

None of the Northern Rivers domestic violence related homicide victims were juveniles.

Australian mainstream media learns another lesson as to why racism is bad policy

BuzzFeed News, 13 June 2019:

Channel Seven has failed in its bid to strike out a lawsuit brought by a group of Aboriginal people who say they were defamed during a now infamous panel discussion on breakfast TV show Sunrise about adopting Indigenous children.

Yolngu woman Kathy Mununggurr and 14 others from the remote community of Yirrkala, including adults and children, are suing the TV network after they were depicted in blurred overlay footage that played during the segment in March 2018.

In the discussion, hosted by Samantha Armytage, commentator Prue Macsween said of the Stolen Generations that “we need to do it again, perhaps”, and then-radio host Ben Davis said Aboriginal kids are getting “abused” and “damaged”.

The comments made by the all-white panel provoked protests outside the Sunrise studio in Sydney's CBD.

Mununggurr and the adults suing argue they were identifiable in the footage and that by playing it during the discussion Sunrise had suggested they abused, assaulted or neglected children, were incapable of protecting their children, and were members of a dysfunctional community.

The children suing say the program defamed them by suggesting they had been raped and assaulted, and were so vulnerable to danger that they should be removed from their families.

The group is also suing for breach of confidence and breach of privacy, as well as misleading and deceptive conduct and unconscionable conduct under the Australian Consumer Law.

The TV network tried to strike out all aspects of the lawsuit in a Federal Court hearing on Wednesday afternoon, but was slapped down by Justice Steven Rares, who said all the issues could and should be argued at trial…..

"This is about an Aboriginal community. They’re all very close. The neighbours know each other, they all know each other," the judge said.

"You’ve got a whole community up there, most of whom will be able to recognise each other, obviously some of whom who watch Sunrise, or whatever the show is called."…...

Rares accepted there was an argument that Davis and the radio station 4BC were being promoted during the segment, but was less convinced when it came to Macsween.

“To me she’s a nobody. I’ve never heard of her and I’ve got no idea what contribution she possibly could have made to the program,” he said.

Nonetheless Rares sided with Catanzariti and declined to strike out the claim.

Seven's attempts to strike out the remaining claims of breach of confidence, breach of privacy and unconscionable conduct were similarly rejected.

Seven was ordered to pay the costs of the hearing.