Tweet of the Week

Here's part of @larissawaters' incredible speech about raising Newstart. Drop everything and watch this. #auspol pic.twitter.com/ZdK9WodIsS

— sam langford (@_slangers) July 22, 2019

This week, 40 billion tons of ice will melt in Greenland as the European heat wave moves north -- enough to measurably raise global sea levels.

This single heat wave will create a permanent change in our oceans that will linger for millennia.

We are in a climate emergency. https://t.co/ypkH6093aU

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) July 29, 2019

The NSW Northern Rivers Gasfield Free status is something the Australian Prime Minister wants to abolish

At 2:19 mins into this interview Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison signals his intention to pressure the states to lift their coal seam gas moratoriums and those existing outright bans on further exploration or gas extraction.

New South Wales and Victoria are firmly in his sights.

This means the Gasfield Free Northern Rivers is on Morrison's hit list.


https://youtu.be/RKkGg_eCIQQ

Sydney Uni Business School Professor Sandra van der Laan: Adani Group's Australia operations effectively insolvent

Image: BBC, 29.11.18

Financial Review,

The Adani Carmichael coal mine set to be built in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has courted controversy like no other project in recent memory. 

Central and northern Queenslanders and MPs alike have lauded the jobs and economic stimulus the project promises to provide. Elsewhere, others scratched their heads as to why the country needed to build a brand new coal mine right next to the iconic Great Barrier Reef. At the same time that Australia tries to meet its Paris climate targets, no less.

KEY POINTS

Adani’s Australian operations could be on the brink of collapse before its Carmichael coalmine is ever built, a forensic accountant has claimed to the ABC.

Professor Sandra van der Laan examined the limited publicly-available financial statements from the private company and concluded that the company was in “a very fragile, even perilous, financial position”.

Adani was quick to reject the claims, slamming them as “false and misleading” and the latest in a series of attacks aimed to destroy the Australian project.

The Adani Carmichael coal mine set to be built in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has courted controversy like no other project in recent memory.

Despite battling for eight years to be approved, receiving the final environmental green light last month, the project finally looked to be going ahead. 

But now, a forensic accountant has warned that the divisive Adani Carmichael coal mine could be on the brink of collapse before it even begins operation. 

University of Sydney Professor Sandra van der Laan has sounded the alarm on the project after analysing Adani’s financial standing.

“It looks to me like a corporate collapse waiting to happen,” she told the ABC. “It has all the hallmarks of the big corporate failures we’ve seen over the last 20 to 30 years.” 

She should know — van der Laan has a track record of picking corporate collapses. It was she and colleague Sue Newberry who warned in 2007 that ABC Learning, Australia’s biggest private childcare provider at the time and the world’s largest publically listed childcare company, was heading for disaster.....

“Adani Mining is in a very fragile, even perilous, financial position,” van der Laan told the ABC. “The gap between the current assets and liabilities is what’s really concerning.” 

According to Adani’s most recent financial statements, provided to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in March this year, that gap is enormous. The ABC reports that the business’ liabilities exceed its assets by more than half a billion dollars. 

Moreover, the ABC reports that the company will have $1.8 billion in liabilities come due over the next 12 months, compared with just $30 million in assets. Those liabilities are largely made up by an internal loan from parent company Adani Global on which the van der Laan says the Australian operation is reliant. That’s because the Australian mine was forced to self-fund after banks and wealth funds turned their back on it. 

“Effectively on paper, they are insolvent,” van der Laan said. "I wouldn’t be trading with them, as simple as that. I wouldn’t have anything to do with them."....

Presentations on the plight of Koala populations will be held at Maclean and Lawrence on 14 August 2019 - be there to support Lower Clarence koalas

Koala at Lawrence in the Lower Clarence Valley
Photograph supplied

Deborah Tabart, Chairman of the Australian Koala Foundation is coming to brief the local community on the plight of koalas and why we need a Koala Protection Act. 

It is amazing that we do not have such an Act to protect one of Australia’s iconic animals. As we know, koala numbers are declining and this issue is now very topical in our area, especially around Lawrence, where koala habitat trees are under threat.

Ms Tabart will be visiting Lawrence and adding the koalas there to the Foundation’s koala map. If you know where koalas are living in the Lower Clarence please come along to the presentation to make sure that all the koala habitats are added to the map. 

There will be two information sessions in the Clarence Valley on Wednesday the 14th August one at 11 AM and one at 6.00 PM. 

Maclean Branch of the NSW Country Women’s Association invites everyone to the Koala presentation at 11 AM on Wednesday 14 August at the CWA Rooms, 40 River Street, Maclean followed by a light lunch. 

A donation of $5 is requested to help with catering. Please let the CWA know via Linda if you are coming so that we will have enough chairs and lunch. Ring Linda on 02 66 47 7373 or email santilinda@aapt.net.au 

The next session is at 6 PM in the evening at the Lawrence Hall, located between the pub and the shop, with a light supper provided for free. 

Ring or text Elizabeth on 0407 883 656 or email elizabethparker96@rocketmail.com. It helps to know how many to cater for. 

These events are friendly and informal and a great way to meet interesting people. 

Bring your Koala questions and your appetite.

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”.