Every journalist,political commentator, blogger & tweeter who has ever been critical of government - be afraid, be very afraid

The Mercury, 29 July 2019: 

Last week the rise of authoritarian government was confirmed with the Morrison Government, aided by the as usual spineless Labor Party, passing legislation which would allow the Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to block any Australian from returning to this country for up to two years on the grounds they are associated with terrorism, even in the most tangential way. And as Crikey, a news site, revealed last week, the Morrison Government revealed its complete contempt for the rule of law and independent scrutiny of the power Mr Dutton now has vested in him. 

While the Counter-Terrorism (Temporary Exclusion Orders) Act, to give the law its formal name, is designed to stop Australians who have fought in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere for organisations deemed to be terrorist, from returning to this country, one section in the Act appears so broadly drafted it could be used to prevent whistleblowers, journalists and others who reveal the secrets of the US, Australia and other allies in the so-called war on terror from re-entering Australia. 

Section 10 of the Act gives Mr Dutton the power to prevent a person, aged 14 or over, from coming back to Australia for up to two years at a time on a number of grounds. 

One of those grounds is that “the person has been assessed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to be directly or indirectly a risk to security … for reasons related to politically motivated violence.” This provision is extraordinarily broad. How might ASIO think that a person is “directly or indirectly a risk to security” because of some link to terrorism, which is what politically motivated violence means. 

Does it include a whistleblower who reveals US and Australian misconduct in the context of the ongoing military operations in Afghanistan or Iraq? 

Or what about a journalist and publisher who lets the world see cables, emails and other forms of communication to and from Australian security and defence agencies and which relate to terrorist activity? 

The answer is yes, it could apply in both cases. When whistleblowers, media organisations and journalists have published material such as in the case of WikiLeaks, the Iraq War Logs, or the trove of materials that former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden smuggled out in 2013 such exercises have been labelled as irresponsible and assisting terrorism…... 

If ASIO answers yes, and of course its reasons for the assessment cannot be challenged because they are secret, then the loose wording of section 10 suggests that Mr Dutton would be prepared to issue an order preventing those individuals from entering Australia for up to two years. 

To give a minister such enormous power to interfere with the right to freedom of speech and free movement is indicative of a mindset that cares nothing for the rule of law or democracy. 

Even the parliamentary committee which looks at security legislation, and which is chaired by a Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and includes Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz, was ignored by the Morrison Government in this case. 

The committee in question, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, is a highly regarded bipartisan committee that routinely looks at security legislation and whose recommendations are adopted by government because of its expertise. 

Bernard Keane writing in Crikey last Thursday revealed that the committee had recommended that an independent person be given the role of considering banning returning citizens. 

But Mr Dutton justified ignoring the committee’s recommendation in what can only be described as an exercise in gross manipulation of the facts….. 

The Morrison Government would only accept the bipartisan committee’s recommendation if “it was in the national interest” to do so. 

In other words, Mr Dutton and the Morrison Government generally do not believe in a fundamental premise of the rule of law. It is anathema to democracy for ministers to have unbridled power when it comes to dealing with people’s lives. 

Another bad week for Australian democracy. [my yellow highlighting]

Best explanation of the digital disaster that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has inflicted on Australian industry, businesses and consumers of digital products/services, by requiring mandated government access to all encryption keys

"Barr is calling for crypto that "achieve(s) a 99 percent assurance against cyber threats to consumers". We don't know how to build that... As the graphs above show, we only know how to build either 100% or 0%" [@ErrataRob, 26 July 2019]

"How hard is it to break this [end-to-end] encryption, for data encrypted to an up-to-date standard? It has been estimated to take 6,400,000,000,000 years using a 2009-era desktop computer. Supercomputers like China’s Sunway TaihuLight are up to three million times faster than that, and can perform 93 quadrillion calculations per second, so cracking a message might be possible in only 2 million years." [Australian Parliamentary Library, 3 October 2018]

This Twitter thread contains the best explanation of the digital disaster that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has inflicted on Australian industry, businesses and consumers of digital products/services, by requiring government access to all encryption keys - mandated through the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) 2018 which became law on 9 December 2018. 

The thread explains why there is no safe 'backdoor' to bypass up-to-date encryption on the basis of perceived national security or law enforcement needs.

So in today's tweet storm, let's discuss Barr's call for crypto backdoors, where he claims citizens don't need as strong crypto as the military: "After all, we are not talking about protecting the Nation’s nuclear launch codes". This is a fallacy, which I'll show with math.

— Robᵇᵉᵗᵒ Graham (@ErrataRob) July 25, 2019

Show this thread

One of the reasons regional living is so good is the size and strength of community spirit

The Clarence Independent, 25 July 2019:

Iluka Bowls Club’s president, Ray Flaherty (4th form right, front), Ann and John McLean (centre with white t-shirts), pictured with bowls club directors and members. Image: Contributed

Iluka Bowls Club has offered to provide land for the proposed ambulance station in Iluka. 

Estimated to come with a $10million price tag, the NSW Government is currently working on “detailed service planning” and “site acquisitions studies” for the proposed station, Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis said after the NSW budget was released in June. 

The bowls club’s general manager, Nicola Donsworth, said the land is located next to the netball court on the corner of Denne and Spenser streets. 

“It would be a perfect central location, with two street accesses, next to the helicopter landing area on the sports oval and next to the skate park and, and as we know, the majority of our town’s population is ageing. 

“It may be necessary to rezone the land but it might be an offer that the council and state government might find difficult to refuse. 

“We are hoping that if this offer is viable it may speed up the process and get this ambulance station established.” Ms Donsworth said the club’s board is in favour of the idea, subject to the club members’ approval. 

Ambulance Action Group spearheads, Ann and John McLean, welcomed the offer.

“The need for an ambulance station in Iluka has become more important than ever,” Ms McLean said. “Response times are getting longer. 

“There have been many incidents where paramedics have been sent from Grafton and Evans Head, due to there not being an ambulance available in Yamba or Maclean.  
“This is often caused because the paramedics are being utilised to transport patients from Maclean to Lismore or the Gold Coast.....

The budget papers list the ambulance station as commencing “prior to March 2023”.

The unemployed in Australia have been betrayed yet again

A Liberal Party dominated Australian House Of Representatives Select Committee on Intergenerational Welfare Dependence betrayed vulnerable Australians in April 2019.

However, neither the Labor Party nor Centre Alliance can walk away from the shameful part they played in this betrayal.

The Age, 23 July 2019:

A bipartisan call to increase the Newstart allowance was removed from a parliamentary report at the direction of the Morrison government on the eve of the federal election.

As Prime Minister Scott Morrison stares down growing demands by Coalition MPs to lift the unemployment benefit for the first time since 1994, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal former social services minister Paul Fletcher intervened in an inquiry to erase a major recommendation that would have turbo-charged the sensitive issue.

The probe into the causes of long-term welfare was established by the government in mid-2018 to investigate why some Australians become trapped in the system.

The draft final report - agreed to by MPs from the Coalition, Labor and crossbench - contained a specific call to lift the Newstart payment for singles and families.

But sources said Mr Fletcher demanded to review the recommendations before they were publicly released in April and is understood to have told the committee chair - veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent - that the final report could not contain the specific Newstart recommendation.

The committee, which included Liberal MPs Kevin Andrews, Bert van Manen, Ben Morton and Rowan Ramsey, as well as Labor MPs Ged Kearney and Sharon Bird, was then hastily reconvened to change the wording of the report.

The opposition's policy at the time was to merely review Newstart rather than raise it.

Following Mr Fletcher's intervention, MPs agreed to only recommend an examination of the "adequacy of payments on young people and single parent families".

In a sign of the growing sensitivity of the issue, Mr Morrison on Tuesday warned Coalition MPs against airing personal views, telling them "government is not a blank cheque" and that they disrespected colleagues by pursuing personal policy agendas.

Amended Final Report can be found here.

Australian Parliamentary Library Briefing Book, retrieved 18 July 2019;

From 20 March 2020, Newstart Allowance will be replaced by a new JobSeeker Payment. Over time a number of other working age payments such as Sickness Allowance and Widow Allowance will end and recipients will also move to the JobSeeker Payment. The new payment will have the same payment rates and indexation arrangements as Newstart Allowance. This is part of a 2017–18 budget measure that aims to simplify the income support system. [my yellow highlighting]

247,000 coastal homes in Australia are in the firing line if sea level rises reach 1.1metres

ABC News, 22 July 2019:

The latest figures from the Department of Environment  warn a sea level rise of 1.1 metres, considered a high-end scenario, would cost $226 billion nationally by the end of the century.

If that eventuates, it would put up to 68,000 homes at risk in Queensland and the same number in New South Wales.

In Victoria and South Australia, it would be up to 48,000 homes, up to 30,000 in Western Australia and up to 15,000 in Tasmania.

Every coastal community in Australia is doing its own mapping, but Noosa may take it a step further.

The Noosa Shire is now considering how best to warn owners, both current and future, about the risk.

Councillors say the estimated 2,232 Noosa properties likely to be affected by storm flooding in 80 years' time could be told directly via rates notices.

Possible buyers may also be alerted through routine property or rates searches.

Noosa Mayor Tony Wellington said it was "a problem that every coastal council is facing around the world now — and it's an issue of defend or retreat obviously".

"What we have to look at is whether it is feasible and possible to defend property, in a worst-case scenario, or whether it is not possible, and what the cost implications are," he said.

"And then you have to ask whether all residents should be funding for protection of a few properties.

"It's a very complicated issue."

The Mayor also said it was a matter of "buyer beware" and those in low-lying areas ought to know the risks.

In 2015, a report to Byron Bay Council warned that certain homes may become "voluntary house purchases" where the council buys homes at risk of flooding "to reduce risk to life and limb"…..

The Insurance Council of Australia said climate declarations and long-term fears of flooding would not affect premiums, but actual storm or water damage could.

"If you're already at risk and climate change predicts that you will become further exposed, then your premiums over the next 30–80 years will go up to reflect changes in that risk," the council's Campbell Fuller said.

Even the current rate of global sea level rise at 3.4mm each year has the potential to impact on vulnerable coastal towns such as Yamba on the NSW Far North Coast.

Excerpt from Clarence Valley Council Yamba Floodplain Risk Management Plan, February 2009:

Flooding at Yamba can occur as a result of a combination of high flows in the Clarence River, high ocean levels, wind wave action along the foreshore or from intense rain over the local catchment. The risk to life due to river flooding is considered to be low as inundation occurs gradually and with several hours (or days) warning. Similarly, flood hazard resulting from ocean storm surge is also considered low as there is likely to be several hours warning of an event, with the peak of the storm lasting for less than a day. The Floodplain Risk Management Study indicates a storm surge warning time of 6 to 24 hours. It should be noted however that the flood hazard can become high if the low lying community to the west of the town does not respond to flood warnings as the available high ground is only accessible by Yamba Road, which is readily cut by floodwaters. The only road out of Yamba to the Pacific Highway is also inundated in the 10y ARI and greater flood events. [my yellow highlighting]

Ballina is another  coastal town on the Far North Coast. Its CBD is on the banks of the tidal Richmond River where it empties into the sea.

Sea level rise is something Ballina has been discussing for many years because for the Ballina community the evidence is right before residents’ eyes.

This was Tamar Street in the CBD in January 2018 showing saltwater intrusion at high tide.

Photograph supplied by @Captainturtle

Other Far North Coast towns and villages are also under threat of foreshore/beach erosion, wave overtopping and/or innundation, including Wooli, Belongil Beach and Clarkes Beach.

Domestic violence can be a whole lot more more than being slapped across the face or pushed into a wall - something the religious right in the Morrison Government fail to understand

It appears that the Morrison Government is not backing down from delivering $10 million in federal funding to predominately religious groups for the purpose of providing counselling for couples and couples with children where one adult is a domestic violence perpetrator and the other adult (and perhaps one or more of the children) is the victim of this violence.

By 23 July 2019, mainstream media had reported on the deaths by violence of 29 women this year.

One in every 4 Australian women experience domestic violence during their lifetime.

Shot, stabbed, set on fire, held under water until drowned, rammed by a car, beaten or hacked to death. These are just some of the ways women die at the hands of their husbands, partners or close male relatives.

However, there is one attempt to injure and kill that appears to be the most common.....

news.com.au, 26 July 2019

ABC News, 12 March 2019: 

Women who survive strangulation are up to seven times more likely to go on to die at the hands of their partner, according to recent studies in the US. 

And there are side effects that aren't always obvious to treating doctors, paramedics or police officers — everything from voice changes to blood clots, strokes and paralysis. 

Survivors and medical professionals are now pushing for increased training and awareness around non-lethal strangulation — something they say could help save lives. 

Sue* was strangled by her partner about a year ago in Queensland, and knows too well that the side-effects can be delayed, and severe. 

 "I have PTSD. I have vocal cord dysfunction," she says. "I'll get halfway through a sentence and have to stop because I can't swallow properly and I can't breathe properly because the neck just spasms because of the damage done to the vocal cords.... 

A quarter of all NSW murder victims had suffered a strangulation attack prior to their deaths.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, Strangulation injuries:

There are numerous anatomic neck structures that, when collapsed, can cause morbidity and mortality in hanging injuries. Jugular veins collapse under 4.4 pounds of pressure. Carotid arteries collapse under 5.5 to 22 pounds of pressure. The vertebral arteries will collapse under 18 to 66 pounds of pressure. The trachea will collapse under 33 pounds of pressure. The cricoid cartilage will fracture under 45 pounds of pressure. The collapse of each of these vital structures can lead to immediate death, as well as delayed complications. Damages to both anterior and posterior ligaments and cervical spine dislocations have been documented as a result of strangulation injuries. Direct spinal cord injury, hematoma, or hemorrhage can both cause immediate death and paralysis.

Acute death will ensue when compression or occlusion of the trachea occurs. In the past, this was proposed as the mechanism of mortality in most strangulation injuries. Swelling to the airway and surrounding structures may also lead to acute or delayed death. Death has been documented up to 36 hours after initial strangulation injuries. Compromise to vascular structures has been proven to cause significant morbidity and mortality. This has been proven in tracheostomy patients who have committed suicide. Death in these cases did not involve compression of the trachea or airway due to the presence of an intact tracheostomy.

Compression of the jugular veins results in acute death by causing cerebral hypoxia followed by loss of muscle tone. Once muscle tone is compromised, increased pressure is applied to both the carotid arteries and trachea. Direct compression of the carotid arteries also leads to decrease or loss of cerebral blood flow and brain death. Direct pressure on the carotid sinuses causes a systemic drop in blood pressure, bradycardia, and other arrhythmias. Consequences are anoxic and hypoxic brain injury death.

Many of the martial arts “submission holds” are known to place direct pressure to these vascular structures primarily and can result in strangulation injuries. There can be long-term consequences of strangulation injuries due to vascular compromise as well. Long-term anoxic brain injury, thrombotic stroke, dissection, and aneurysm of vessels can all cause significant morbidity. [my yellow highlighting]

Clarence Valley Council Living Sustainably Awards - nominations accepted until 5 August 2019

Clarence Valley Council, media release, July 19, 2019:

Rewards for those who live sustainably

THE call has gone out to nominate those who have made outstanding contributions to environmental sustainability in the Clarence Valley.

The Clarence Valley Council is calling for nominations for its annual Living Sustainably Awards and has categories for individuals, community groups, businesses, schools and ‘our backyard’.

The our backyard category is new and according to council environmental officer, Suzanne Lynch, has been introduced to applaud the commitment to backyard sustainability that many residents make.

“We would love to get applications from everyday people who are shrinking their carbon footprint and making a difference in their own backyards or their streets,” she said.

“This award is open to individual families or groups of residents in a street who have gone the extra mile by growing and sharing food, using renewable energy, incorporating energy efficiency and sustainable building practices, being committed recyclers, growing sustainable gardens or other great sustainable initiatives.”

The winner of the 2018 community group section was the South Grafton-based Mend and Make Do Crew and its spokeswoman, Ursula Tunks, said that for many people recycling was a way of surviving.

“The huge issue is there's more than enough to go around on this planet and there's absolutely no reason anyone should be going without,” she said.

“For us it's literally redistributing the wealth via what people throw out/donate. The environment is vital to all humans and not wasting anything is an important part of minimising the impact on all the environment.

“The award was an amazing opportunity for our team to get encouragement and acknowledgement that the work we do is valued outside our existing client agency base.”

For further information and to download a nomination form, visit http://bit.ly/2XKeACGsustainable Nominations close August 5.

Release ends.