Meet the Indue Class Warfare Card

Think the Australian Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government is not seriously considering a national roll-out of the Indue Cashless Debit Card?

Do you think that living many hundreds of kilometres in any direction from current debit card trial sites proves that that the Liberal Party's head hater of the poor and vulnerable is not yet planning to specifically target you and your family?

Recently noticed that your bank's ATM now has a function icon which allows the limited use of these particular debit cards in order to facilitate a person's ability to access the paltry 20 per cent of a welfare payment which can be paid out in cash under this punitive income management scheme?

https://youtu.be/9RZSTx9khWw

Rescuing flying foxes across Northern NSW & Southern Queensland in the current drought

The Daily Examiner, 23 September 2019, p.10:

As WIRES becomes inundated with sick and starving bats, residents are being urged to give them a helping hand.

A bat starvation event is occurring across Northern NSW and Southern Queensland as WIRES works hard to nurse sick and starving back into health.

WIRES officer Linda Harrison said she had been receiving a large number of flying foxes, particularly juveniles, which were severely undernourished.

The lack of blossoms due to a combination of worsening drought conditions and continued destruction of the natural habitat went some way to explain the event.

“I have had them come in near dead. They are just starving, there is just no food out there for them,” she said.

“A big part of that is the amount of clearing that has been done – 200 years ago this would not have affected them near as much as it what it is now because there would have been more trees out there.”

Ms Harrison said the lack of blossoms meant the bats were starting to look for alternative food sources and were increasingly being found in backyards and trees lower to the ground.

“They are flying in and finding a food source and because they are just so worn out they are staying where they are,” she said.

“People are finding them in their backyards because they don’t have the energy to go anywhere.

“They do have a fairly specific diet but at the moment they are eating anything.”

Ms Harrison said while the bats should be left alone, there were a few things people could do to give them a helping hand, including putting fruit out on string for the bats to have a feed.

“As a rule we don’t usually encourage people to feed them but at the moment they are eating anything and we are doing what we can to keep them alive,” she said.

“Cut up some soft fruit or hang some fruit on bits of rope.”

Despite some rainfall in the last week, Ms Harrison said she was expecting the problems to continue and flying foxes were not the only animals having a hard time.

“I think I am in for a long couple of months, this is going to go on for a while. I think we are in for a long summer.”

“You can see there are more kangaroos coming into people’s yards around South Grafton, they are just coming in for fresh grass.”

WIRES rescue line: 1300094737.

Did Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on a taxpayer funded official visit to the United States intend to push a Pentacostal agenda?

Prime Minister & MP for Cook Scott Morrison has been outed in US media for apparently wanting Australian taxpayers to fund a trip to Washington DC for a named paedophile enabler.

The Washington Post,  20 September 2019:

Weeks before Mr. Morrison’s arrival in Washington, the standard advance-planning process hit a bump in the road.

Mr. Morrison was determined to bring as part of his delegation Hillsong Church Pastor Brian Houston —the man he frequently refers to as his “mentor” —but the White House vetoed the idea, telling his office that Mr. Houston was not invited, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Brian Houston in 2015 was censured by the Australian government’s royal commission into child sexual abuse for failing to report his father, Frank Houston, to police for the alleged sexual abuse of children in his church. The highly publicized child abuse commission ran four years. Before his death in 2004 aged 82, Frank Houston confessed to sexually abusing a boy in New Zealand three decades earlier, and was immediately removed from ministry by his son.

Brian Houston defended his behavior at the time of his censure. He didn’t respond to a request for comment for this article.

After several rounds of discussions across the 14 time zones between Washington and Canberra, Mr. Morrison agreed to leave the pastor at home, according to several people familiar with the matter.

BACKGROUND

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Case Study 18: Australian Christian Churches, October 2015 Final Report - The response of the Australian Christian Churches and affiliated Pentecostal churches to allegations of child sexual abuse - includes William Francis “Frank” Houston and Pastor Brian Houston.

The Sydney Mornign Herald, 8 October 2014:

Hillsong Church leader Brian Houston allegedly told his father's sexual abuse victim that he brought the crime upon himself by tempting his abuser.

The victim, given the pseudonym AHA, told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he was molested by Mr Houston's father, Frank Houston, for a number of years from the age of seven......

In 1998, AHA's mother disclosed the abuse to a senior pastor at the Emmanuel Christian Family Church, who said she would refer it to the Assemblies of God hierarchy instead of the police.

Shortly afterwards, Frank Houston, then aged in his late 70s, got in touch with AHA to offer financial compensation.

AHA said Frank Houston told him: "I want your forgiveness for this. I don't want to die and have to face God with this on my head."

They met at McDonald's in Thornleigh where AHA was asked to sign a food-stained napkin in return for a cheque for $10,000.

When Brian Houston, the national president of the Assemblies of God in Australia from 1997 to 2009, became aware of allegations against his father he suspended him from the church.

The commission heard a meeting of senior Assemblies of God members was called and it was decided that the allegation would be kept confidential. When other allegations of abuse involving six boys in New Zealand came to light, it was decided that Frank Houston would retire, without the exact reason being made public.

Frank Houston, the founder of the Sydney Christian Life Centre which merged with the Hills Christian Life Centre to become Hillsong Church, died in 2004......

The Guardian, 21 September 2019:

Frank Houston abused up to nine boys in Australia and New Zealand.....

20 September 2019 Student Strike 4 Climate in the NSW Northern Rivers

On 20 September 2019 at gatherings large and small across Australia during the Global Climate Strike  in excess of an estimated 300,000 people met to protest government and industry inaction in the face of global climate change.

Approximately 268,500 of these people participated in all eight capital cities.

Incredible pictures as Australia’s gathering for the #climatestrike
This is the huge crowd building up in Sydney.
Australia is setting the standard!
Its bedtime in New York...so please share as many pictures as you can as the strikes move across Asia to Europe and Africa! pic.twitter.com/7eAPUQPq5C

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) September 20, 2019

Protests were reportedly also held at another 104 cities, towns and villages.

Echo NetDaily estimates close to 6,000 students and supporters participated in Byron Bay, 3,400 in Lismore and 1,580 in Pottsville.

In Grafton 200 people listened to stern words directed at prime minister and parliament.......

The Daily Examiner, 21 September 2019, p.3:

With more than 200 people marching down Prince St, it would be hard to deny something is building.

Supported by a sizeable contingent of adults, students in the School Strike 4 Climate marched through the Grafton CBD to protest inaction on climate change.

In a rousing speech in Market Square, strike leader and Year 12 student Shiann Broderick called out Prime Minister Scott Morrison and said a select few were benefiting from coal projects that were “sacrificing our future”.

Ms Broderick sent a clear message students would not be backing down after Mr Morrison and others in the community had earlier criticised the strikes. “We will not restrict our activism to out-of-school hours because this is the only way to make you listen,” she said.

“You are unhappy that we are not at school but I would be at school today if I didn’t have to teach you how to do your job.

“You say you don’t support schools being turned into parliaments but I think we should turn the parliament into a school since you so obviously need educating.”

With the crowd buzzing, Grafton High student Oskar Robertson said he was “sick and tired” of not having a say in decisions affecting his future and was “tired of old men in suits deciding on things that won’t even affect them”.

He too urged the crowd to keep up the fight against those who continued to “pass up our future for money”.

“If they don’t heed our demands and pass us off as some dumb kids trying to get off school for the day, we will shout so loud we will rock Parliament House to its foundations,” he said.

“We don’t want dirty coal and gas, we want clean energy that won’t poison our lungs and the lungs of the earth, that won’t send us hurtling towards an extinction event.”.......

Bushfire forces temporary part closure of Yuraygir National Park in the Clarence Valley

Department of Planning, Industry and Environment & NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, media release, 18 September 2019: 

Bushfire forces temporary part closure of Yuraygir National Park

Following last week's destructive bushfires part of the Yuraygir National Park, including a section of the iconic Yuraygir Coastal Walk are temporarily closed. 

A National Parks and Wildlife Services spokesperson said 6600 hectares of private property and 4000 hectares of Yuraygir National Park burned in the Shark Creek 2 fire. 

"The walking track from Mara Creek Picnic Area, just south of Angourie to Lake Arragan is closed while the site is being managed," the spokesperson said. 

"Mara Creek Picnic Area and Shelley Headland Camping Areas are also closed. 

"The rest of the Yuraygir Coastal Walk, from Lake Arragan to Red Rock remains open. 

"Angourie Bay Picnic Area and all other visitor areas within Yuraygir National Park are still accessible to the public." 

"Unfortunately, the fire damage extended to the toilets, a bridge, numerous elevated walkways, signs, picnic tables, seating, fencing, bollards, staircases and drainage structures across the park," the spokesperson said. 

"NPWS will continue to assess the damage and address safety hazards including burnt structures and trees as a priority. 

"We're urging the public to put safety first and to be patient until works to repair damage commence. 

"The damage is significant and will take some time to restore. 

"In the meantime, we're investigating temporary solutions to allow the public access to the park. 

We will keep everyone informed of these decisions once they are made."

"We'd like to acknowledge the work of the NPWS and RFS (Rural Fire Service) crews who worked tirelessly with significant support from dozers and aircraft to contain the fire."

ENDS

Are some homeless people being denied access to affordable housing in Australia also?

It would be foolish in today's political environment - and with society seemingly drifting mindlessly further to the right each decade - to reject the propostion outright that this would not be occurring somewhere in Australia today.......

The Guardian, 17 September 2019:

Homeless people are being denied access to affordable housing because social landlords are routinely excluding prospective tenants who are deemed too poor or vulnerable to pay the rent, a study has revealed.

Research by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) found that “screening out” of homeless applicants nominated for newly available lets was widespread, as housing associations and local authorities increasingly ration their shrinking stocks of social homes.

In many cases nominees were refused a home because of the likelihood they would accrue major rent arrears after moving on to universal credit, because of the probability they would be hit by the bedroom tax or because the benefit cap had made them a financial risk.

Others were rejected after social landlords identified they had unmet mental health or addiction problems, often because of cuts to local NHS and housing support services. Individuals with unmet support needs were regarded as “too high a risk to tenancy sustainment”, the CIH said.

Homeless people were at risk of being caught in a “catch-22 scenario”, the CIH said, with some landlords’ letting practices creating a “perverse situation where the reasons why people may need access to social homes the most can often become barriers to accessing them”.

Some housing associations demanded that prospective tenants who would be moving on to universal credit pay a month’s rent up front, an impossible requirement for many homeless people. Landlords have been badly hit by rent arrears caused by tenants’ five-week wait for a first universal credit payment.

Faye Greaves, the CIH policy and practice officer, who wrote the report, said: “For decades, we have failed to build enough homes, and our welfare safety net is no longer fit for purpose. More and more people are turning to local authorities and housing associations for help to access social housing.

“But that leaves housing providers having to find a balance between people in acute need, local priorities and their need to develop sustainable tenancies. What we found is that relying solely on processes can end up having the opposite effect to that intended.”

It called on ministers to launch a major social housing building programme and scrap right to buy. There has been a net loss of 165,000 social homes in England since 2012, the CIH estimates. It adds that 90,000 of the 340,000 new homes needed every year should be set at social rent. In 2017-18 only 6,434 homes were built for social rent.

The findings will concern critics who believe some housing associations are becoming increasingly estranged from their charitable mission to house homeless people. Many were set up in the late 1960s on a wave of public outrage over growing homelessness typified by the famous BBC drama Cathy Come Home.

Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of Crisis, called for proper scrutiny of social landlords’ letting practices: “Having a safe and stable home is a human need, and this report paints a sorry picture of the difficulties that people who are homeless, or who are at risk of becoming homeless, face in accessing this basic right.”

Pre-tenancy screening is causing tension between housing associations, which want to minimise the damage to their balance sheet of taking on tenants at risk of rent arrears, and councils, which want to exercise their right to nominate social tenancies to reduce growing numbers of homeless people on their books.

The research did not ask what happens to homeless people who are refused social tenancies but the assumption is that most will continue to be housed in high-cost and often unsuitable temporary accommodation in the private sector. Local authorities in England spend nearly £1bn a year on temporary accommodation.

In recent years cuts to government grant funding have meant housing associations have adopted more commercial, profit-orientated approaches, resulting in some being accused of concentrating on building homes for private sale and “affordable rent” at the expense of the people they were set up to help.

The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said its members were committed to providing homes for those most in need and on the lowest incomes but action was needed to reverse the “dire shortage of social rented housing caused by decades of underinvestment”.

David Bogle of Homes for Cathy, a group of housing associations dedicated to restoring the sector’s commitment to ending homelessness, welcomed the report. “Housing associations and local authorities need to be given additional support to develop new social homes and to allocate those homes to those who are homeless and in greatest need.”......

Report: CIH: put people before process when allocating social housing, 17/09/2019

Thought of the Week

If you combine photos of Australian political players Joyce, Abbott, Dutton and McCormack in a soup pan you have the makings of a simple borscht - beetroot, onion, potato and dill. [Anon]