Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's QAnon friend may have less reading material theses days

 

In 2018 Reddit.com shut down the original QAnon subreddit, r/CBTS_stream and r/TheGreatAwakening along with the 17 other major QAnon subreddits for inciting violence and doxing, with the last significant QAnon subreddiit r/Pedogate banned in September 2020.

Also in September as part of a broader QAnon sweep begun in July Twitter Inc permanently removed Scott Morrison's personal friend, Tim Stewart aka BurnedSpy34 from the QAnon cluster of conspiracy spreaders, for "engaging in harmful activity".

Now Facebook has extended its measures to counter conspiracy, hate, violent and militarized groups by completely banning QAnon from its social media platform.

Facebook Inc, 6 October 2020:

An Update To How We Address Movements And Organisations Ties To Violence

On August 19, we announced a set of measures designed to disrupt the ability of QAnon and Militarized Social Movements to operate and organize on our platform. In the first month, we removed over 1,500 Pages and Groups for QAnon containing discussions of potential violence and over 6,500 Pages and Groups tied to more than 300 Militarized Social Movements. But we believe these efforts need to be strengthened when addressing QAnon.

Starting today, we will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content. This is an update from the initial policy in August that removed Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon when they discussed potential violence while imposing a series of restrictions to limit the reach of other Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with the movement. Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts that represent an identified Militarized Social Movement are already prohibited. And we will continue to disable the profiles of admins who manage Pages and Groups removed for violating this policy, as we began doing in August.

We are starting to enforce this updated policy today and are removing content accordingly, but this work will take time and need to continue in the coming days and weeks. Our Dangerous Organizations Operations team will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on user reports. These are specialists who study and respond to new evolutions in violating content from this movement and their internal detection has provided better leads in identifying new evolutions in violating content than sifting through user reports.

We’ve been vigilant in enforcing our policy and studying its impact on the platform but we’ve seen several issues that led to today’s update. For example, while we’ve removed QAnon content that celebrates and supports violence, we’ve seen other QAnon content tied to different forms of real world harm, including recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public. Additionally, QAnon messaging changes very quickly and we see networks of supporters build an audience with one message and then quickly pivot to another. We aim to combat this more effectively with this update that strengthens and expands our enforcement against the conspiracy theory movement.

This is not the first update to this policy – we began directing people to credible child safety resources when they search for certain child safety hashtags last week – and we continue to work with external experts to address QAnon supporters using the issue of child safety to recruit and organize. We expect renewed attempts to evade our detection, both in behavior and content shared on our platform, so we will continue to study the impact of our efforts and be ready to update our policy and enforcement as necessary.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison continues his personal war on the poor and vulnerable

"This is a deeply ideological budget. It rewards the Morrison government's friends, and punishes perceived enemies." 

[Journalist and Reseacher Ben Eltham on Twitter, 7 October 2020]

 

Council to Homeless Persons, media release, 6 October 2020:

Federal Budget reveals millions to be cut from vital homelessness services (Homelessness Australia)

Tonight’s Federal Budget has failed to include the stimulus investment in social housing urgently needed to respond to growing homelessness and includes a $41.3 million cut to homelessness services from July 2021.

Homelessness Australia Chair, Jenny Smith says, “Tonight’s budget is devastating. In a year with huge increases in unemployment creating a surge in rental stress and homelessness, the Federal Government has chosen to slash homelessness funding.

“The Treasurer had a choice to make, and he has chosen homelessness for tens of thousands of Australian families. Without increases in social housing and with even less resources for homelessness services, many families will become stuck in homelessness for a long time.

“The Government has ignored advice from all corners: from top economists, property industry and community sector leaders, as well as popular support from the community; all calling for the Government to invest in social housing to both create thousands of new jobs each year and to deliver enormous social good.

“The failure to invest in social housing growth in the 2020 Budget follows a 10 per cent cut to housing and homelessness funding over the three years from 2017-18 to 2020-21, most of which has been cut from remote Indigenous housing.

“The 2020 Budget includes a one-off payment to Queensland for remote Indigenous housing. It also includes funding for remote housing in NT, but even with these short term funds, annual funding for housing in remote Indigenous communities is $237.2, less than half the amount of $526.6 spent in 2017-18.

“Not only has the Budget ignored the opportunity to build social housing as economic stimulus, it has revealed plans to slash a further $41.3 million from vital homelessness support in July. Despite soaring demand, tonight’s budget has put services in an impossible situation.

“Homelessness services are already under enormous strain. Last year alone, services had to turn away 253 people every day because not enough housing or support was available, and cuts to services will increase the number of people in need who are turned away.

“The economic ramifications of this pandemic will continue well past 2020. Slashing $41 million in homelessness support in July is senseless and cruel,” says Jenny Smith.

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Mission Australia, media release, 6 October 2020:

• Shocking failure to address rising homelessness or the serious shortage of social homes, particularly given COVID-19 impacts.

• Baffling silence on permanent increase to income support.

• Welcome investment in youth employment, yet more must be done to better support disadvantaged young people seeking work.

• Homelessness and housing

Mission Australia CEO James Toomey warned that the Commonwealth Government’s ongoing lack of investment in new social homes and absence of a national plan to end homelessness will push more people into homelessness.

"It is shocking that the Federal Budget hasn’t done enough to commit to long-term investment to address the serious shortage of social homes in Australia."

“Ensuring everyone has a safe and secure place to call home is a national responsibility that was ignored in this year’s Federal Budget.

“Prioritising ending homelessness in Australia still isn’t being taken seriously at a national level.

“This year has been incredibly challenging for Australia’s most vulnerable people, including people experiencing homelessness and poverty. We are deeply concerned that high levels of unemployment, the reduction in the COVID Supplement rate and the huge debts in rent deferrals that some people are accruing will lead to a huge spike in housing insecurity and homelessness.

"With this lack of commitment, there is a looming risk that even more people will be pushed into homelessness and unsafe living situations."

“Investing in 30,000 social homes within the next four years is an obvious solution that will not only help to end homelessness in Australia but will also create vital jobs in the construction industry.

“Despite a significant investment in infrastructure in this year’s Federal Budget to help create jobs, we are deeply disappointed the essential social infrastructure of social housing has been ignored.

“Particularly given 2020’s challenges, we cannot fathom why Australia still doesn’t have a national plan to end homelessness.

“At a time when homelessness is likely to increase, the Government has again deserted the needs of at least 116,000 people who are homeless and the thousands who are teetering on the edge of homelessness in severe rental stress during the recession.

“Ensuring everyone has a safe and secure place to call home is a national responsibility and was ignored in this year’s Federal Budget.

“Tackling the challenges of drought, bushfires, flood and a pandemic has distilled in our nation’s hearts and minds just how crucial a safe and secure home is for people to live, work, access education and stay well.

“We urgently need more social homes to help end homelessness in Australia. We cannot wait another year for these vital investments in the social homes that Australia profoundly needs.”

Adequacy of income support

Mission Australia CEO James Toomey said: “While forewarned, we are baffled there was no indication about the future of income support in a Federal Budget in which the Treasurer acknowledged how these payments had supported the economy.

“We welcome the two cash payments that were announced by the Government for aged, carer, family and disability welfare recipients, but this is not nearly enough to address the ongoing insecurity experienced by people relying on income support payments.

"We are left disappointed that the increasing number of people on JobSeeker have been ignored in the Federal Budget."

“The doubling of income support for people facing unemployment, from Newstart to the JobSeeker Payment with COVID Supplement, made an enormous difference to many Australians during the pandemic, including many that we serve at Mission Australia.

“With the JobSeeker COVID supplement recently reduced and no certainty beyond December yet provided, Mission Australia is one of many voices calling on the Government to secure a permanent floor to income support to keep people out of poverty and homelessness.

“Inadequate income support is incredibly distressing for the people we serve at Mission Australia. Without enough to cover the basics, they can be forced to make difficult decisions such as going without adequate food, missing out on life saving medicine, or being unable to afford transport to a job interview. Additionally, many can be pushed into stressful and unsafe living conditions as it’s all they can afford. All of this, coupled with the stressors of the pandemic, can enormously impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing.

“Turning back to $40 a day from 2021 would be a disaster for so many people around Australia. It is too low, and would return too many people to poverty and drive many into homelessness at a time when we should be supporting people’s wellbeing and taking steps towards recovery.

"As we move towards COVID-19 recovery, while people are seeking paid work, they need the certainty they’ll have enough money to put adequate food on the table, stay well and remain safely housed."

“With the numbers of people staring down the barrel of unemployment predicted to continue to rise, we need an urgent commitment from the Government to provide a permanent and adequate increase of income support payments.

“This would not only lift people out of poverty, but also help people to regain control of their lives, wellbeing and finances, as well as access transport and many other essential resources to seek and be ready for work.”

Youth employment

Mission Australia CEO James Toomey said: “We know that young people will be disproportionately affected by the recession caused by COVID-19, as they are trying to transition from education to work when there are fewer jobs available.

“The Government has acknowledged this reality with the measures announced in the Federal Budget.

"We welcome the announcement of wage subsidies for young people and hope that they will make a significant contribution in helping young people to engage in the labour market at a time of significant disruption for them."

“We also welcome the new wage subsidies for trainees and apprentices, but are concerned about what will happen after 12 months when the subsidy expires. We are also very concerned about many other people who are unemployed and severely impacted by the recession, especially those who have experienced unemployment for long periods and others who are disadvantaged in the labour market.

“We recognise the ongoing need for specialist youth employment assistance programs such as Transition to Work and are heartened by the Government’s investment of $21.9 million in this vital program.

"There remains a critical need for more targeted programs to help disadvantaged young people into work."

“Every young person in Australia should have every opportunity to thrive and have access to the services, supports, education and training that they need.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Medianet, Brotherhood of St. Laurence (BSL), media release, 6 October 2020:

TOO MANY LEFT BEHIND AS GOVERNMENT MISSES HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY

People hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic will be left behind by a recession that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg labelled a “once-in-a-century shock”. The Brotherhood of St. Laurence (BSL) believes the federal government’s budget has missed an historic opportunity to bring all Australians along in the recovery from COVID-19.

While BSL was happy to see a focus on youth employment and training, the Morrison Government has offered very little support to others in need.

“This budget falls drastically short for Australians doing it tough,” says BSL Executive Director, Conny Lenneberg. “The government showed great leadership during this pandemic with initiatives like JobKeeper and the Coronavirus Supplement. But even though this crisis is far from over, the supplement has now been cut. People around the country still need help to rebuild their lives.”

“Those who are relying on income support have been given no certainty that they won’t be back on $40 a day come January, even though the government’s own predictions show unemployment will still be above 8% at the end of this calendar year. This lack of certainty means unemployed Australian parents don’t know how they’ll cover their rent and budget beyond Christmas,” said Ms Lenneberg.

“The Treasurer said in his speech that ‘This is what it means to look after one’s fellow Australian’. But millions of people are not being looked after by this budget. When we look at the most disadvantaged groups, like single mothers and their children, there is nothing in this budget that would make them feel that anyone has their back,” said Ms Lenneberg.

The Parliamentary Budget Office revealed that the number of single mothers on the former Newstart (now named JobSeeker) skyrocketed from 7.3% in 2007 to 27.4% in 2019. This will only be made worse by the recession. That’s why BSL believes this budget should have addressed the rate of social security payments.

The Coronavirus Supplement was a lifeline for millions of people, but since it was slashed at the end of September, millions have been pushed back below the poverty line.

“It is alarming that at a time when 1.6 million Australians are relying on JobSeeker to get by, the government can hand down a budget that doesn’t talk about social security,” says Ms Lenneberg.

BSL is calling for a permanent adequate increase to JobSeeker and the establishment of an independent Social Security Commission to set, monitor and review social security payment rates, much like the one that determines the rate of pay for politicians.

“It’s time to take the politics out of social security,” says Ms Lenneberg. “Making sure this country’s most disadvantaged people can get back on their feet is far too important.”

The Brotherhood of St. Laurence is a social justice organisation working to prevent and alleviate poverty across Australia.

When Scotty From Marketing tried his hand at turning Australia into a Potemkin village

Crikey, 28 September 2020:

The PM has created a Potemkin policy village. He's learnt that it’s not whether you do nothing, it’s how you do that nothing that counts.

It’s become a media truism: the pandemic response shows that Morrison really learnt from his bushfire stumbles. But just what did he learn? It seems that Morrison learnt to control the news cycle -- it’s not whether you do nothing, it’s how you do that nothing that counts.

Moving on from the Hawaii-holidaying “I don’t hold a hose, mate” dismissal of the media, he has learnt that he needs to feed the media chooks a steady flow of announceables. He needs to look all prime ministerial for the television cameras, after the details have been shaped into the government’s preferred narrative in advance through special day-before briefings for the gallery heavyweights.

It’s Morrison’s Potemkin policy village: a facade of action thrown up to keep journalists busy. It's all colour and movement, with no substance. It's a little like the notorious village facades set up by Grigory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s 18th century court favourite, to comfort the empress that her country was richer than it was....

Sometimes Scotty From Marketing can become quite literal about his faux Russian village.

Here is Scotty pretending to erect a very, very, very small house......

And here he is mangling a wee hen enclosure.....

Flushed with success, last night he attempted to create a budget to pay for the main street and village square à la Potemkin - details of which can be found here.

Knitting Nannas across Northern NSW appalled at the decision of NSW Government agency, the Independent Planning Commission, to give Santos approval to develop an 850 well gasfield in the Pilliga Forest and surrounding farmland near Narrabri

 

Letter for Publication

NARRABRI GAS PROJECT DECISION

The Grafton Knitting Nannas Against Gas are appalled at the decision of the NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC), a NSW Government agency, to give Santos approval to develop an 850 well gasfield in the Pilliga Forest and surrounding farmland near Narrabri.

For years there has been strong opposition to this enormous project – both in the immediate area and further afield.

The Gomeroi people are concerned about the threat to aboriginal heritage; farmers fear the impact of the project on local aquifers and the recharge zone of the Great Artesian Basin; and some opponents are worried about the safe disposal of the saline water produced as the gas is extracted.

As the gasfield expands, clearing for roads, pipeline routes, well surrounds and ponds for produced water in the ecologically important Pilliga Forest, the largest temperate woodland in NSW, will cause devastating fragmentation of natural habitat creating problems for many local fauna species - including threatened species such as Black-striped Wallabies, Koalas and Eastern Pygmy-possums.

While the Grafton Knitting Nannas oppose this damaging project because of the impacts on the local area, they are also very concerned about its impacts beyond the north-west of the state.

At a time when Australia needs to urgently reduce its carbon emissions, we have mindless governments pushing for expansion of a dirty fossil fuel industry and its emissions and indulging in porkies about the necessity for this expansion.

Politicians obsessed with fossil fuels claim more gas is needed to reduce the price of gas for domestic consumption and say gas will super-charge the economy after COVID, provide huge numbers of jobs and act as a transition fuel as we move to a clean economy.

The Nannas are appalled that the three man panel of the IPC has ignored the local concerns and the climate issues and has accepted the dubious economic claims of Santos and the politicians.

We agree with those opposing this disastrous development. We say, “This fight is not over yet.”

Leonie Blain

The Grafton Knitting Nannas against Gas

October 1, 2020.

ENDS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite Santos Ltd presenting itself as an Australian company it is worth noting that by 2018 est. 76% of its shareholder voting power was controlled by subsidiaries of foreign multinational banks and foreign investment corporations.

Nationals MP for Clarence is jumping up and down about the Clarence Valley being left out of the NSW-Qld border bubble. Well the fact of the matter is that the O'Farrell-Baird-Berejilkian Government has had 9 years to reverse the error that led to the current problem & neither he, his party or the government have addressed the issue

 

Sometime in the 21st Century the New South Wales Government invited a bee into its bonnet concerning a need to amalgamate regional local government areas with a view to eventually creating mega-councils and, when that policy was not greeted with enthusiasm (indeed sometimes with open rebellion) it decided to create communities of interest containing clusters of local government areas 'sharing' resources.

Down in Sydney - somewhere between Macquarie Street and Macquarie Towers - the state government decided to overturn the genuine Northern Rivers community of interest built up over the last 179 years and reclassify the Clarence Valley as "Mid-North Coast". 

Although many in the Clarence Valley fought back against being lumped in with 'southerners' who did not share a good many of our values, aspirations or concerns, the state government kept insisting.

By 2006 only the Australian Bureau of Meteorology consistently referred to the Clarence Valley as being in the Northern Rivers region and much later the valley was included with the other historical Northern Rivers areas in the one state health district.

When it came to NSW Government agencies generally, they tended to gather data about the Clarence Valley, its communities and residents as part of the newly defined "Mid-North Coast".

We were frequently merged with Coffs Harbour when it came to recording crime, unemployment  levels, transport infrastructure and, at a regional planning level we were lumped with Coffs Harbour, Belligen, Nambucca, Kempsey, Port Macquarie-Hastings, Greater Taree and Great Lakes local government areas. 

Now the National Party members of the O'Farrel-Baird-Berejiklian Government were well aware of the fact that Clarence Valley communities never considered the reclassification was anything but a political move by a city-centric government and were instinctively refusing to turn their eyes south.

However, I do not recall any individual or combined push by Chris Gulapatis, Geoff Provest or Ben Franklin to reverse that "Mid-North Coast" label before the global pandemic intruded into the state.

So it should not come as a surprise that when the Queensland Government began to look for information about where the Clarence Valley was both geographically and socially when considering its response to COVID-19, it found us in what appeared to be a large population cluster which was too close for comfort to the outer fringes of heavily populated areas like the Hunter-Newcastle and Central Coast.

Former surveyor Chris Gulaptis can go to the newspapers calling the Clarence Valley's exclusion from the Northern Rivers border bubble "ridiculous", "bizarre, perplexing and unnecessary" but he has sat on his hands for almost nine years happily ignoring what locals had been telling him during those years - that the time would come when we would all rue the day that the NSW Government on paper ejected us from the Northern Rivers.

Cartography based solely on political ideology is a b*tch, Mr. Gulaptis. 

NSW Berejiklian Coalition Government effectively gets its public sector wage cuts in the middle of a global pandemic

 

An est. 400,000 public sector workers throughout New South Wales, including health workers and teachers in the regions, received a slap in the face this month.

According to the Headnote in NSW Industrial Relations Commission, Application for Crown Employees (Public Sector – Salaries 2020) Award and Other Matters (No 2) [2020], 1 October 2020:

Between 9 March 2020 and 29 May 2020 the Public Service Association and Professional Officers’ Association Amalgamated Union of New South Wales, the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association, the Health Services Union of New South Wales and the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (New South Wales) (collectively, “Applicants”) filed in the Commission a total of 43 applications seeking orders for the making of awards to replace, or to vary, 41 existing awards. In each case the application calls on the Commission to confer on employees covered by the existing or proposed awards an increase of 2.5% to their salaries and salary-related allowances to take effect from the first pay period on or after 1 July 2020…..

A decision not to award any increases for the year commencing 1 July 2020 may see employees under the relevant awards suffer a reduction of 0.3% in their real wages over the two year period to 30 June 2021…..

The evidence, in particular the economic evidence, adduced in the proceedings calls for restraint in the particular circumstances of the current financial year. At the same time, in the exercise of the Commission’s discretion and having regard to all of the economic considerations the Full Bench does not accept that an outcome that would see a decrease in the real earnings of employees would be fair and reasonable.

The Full Bench proposes to make awards and variations to avoid such a reduction, by awarding increases of 0.3%.....

Decision: Determination that salaries and salary-related allowances in the awards the subject of the applications should be increased by 0.3% with effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2020.

In this matter the position of the Berejiklian Government was as follows; The position of the Employers [represented by the NSW Crown Solicitor] can be summarised as contending that the Commission should award no increases to salaries and salary-related allowances, whether by making a new award or varying an existing one. Instead, the Commission should make an award or a variation in respect of each of the Joined Applications which has a nominal term of one year, which awards no increase to salaries and salary-related allowances and contains a no extra claims clause.

President Trump's Finances: living on borrowed money and avoiding income tax

Ed Wexler

The New York Times, 27 September 2020:

The Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.

The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s findings; additional articles will be published in the coming weeks…...

Read the full article here.