Tweet of the Week

 

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— Caitlin (@LacyMartini) February 17, 2021

 

Cartoon of the Week

 

Cathy Wilcox

'Scotty from Marketing' Morrison creates a digital divide for Facebook users

 

In which Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (left) demonstrates why his career in promotion and advertising barely lasted ten years across four separate employers…...

Facebook Inc. first began its NEWS FEED in 2006 and by 2020 everyone of its est. 2.45 billion active users worldwide could expect to have around 300 news items in their daily feed.

Now est. 16.5 million of those active users living in Australia will lose all access to Facebook’s News Feed.

Facebook Inc, 17 February 2021:

In response to Australia’s proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.

The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter…..

Over the last three years we’ve worked with the Australian Government to find a solution that recognizes the realities of how our services work. We’ve long worked toward rules that would encourage innovation and collaboration between digital platforms and news organisations. Unfortunately this legislation does not do that. Instead it seeks to penalise Facebook for content it didn’t take or ask for.

We were prepared to launch Facebook News in Australia and significantly increase our investments with local publishers, however, we were only prepared to do this with the right rules in place. This legislation sets a precedent where the government decides who enters into these news content agreements, and ultimately, how much the party that already receives value from the free service gets paid. We will now prioritise investments to other countries, as part of our plans to invest in new licensing news programs and experiences.

Others have also raised concern. Independent experts and analysts around the world have consistently outlined problems with the proposed legislation. While the government has made some changes, the proposed law fundamentally fails to understand how our services work.

Unfortunately, this means people and news organisations in Australia are now restricted from posting news links and sharing or viewing Australian and international news content on Facebook. Globally, posting and sharing news links from Australian publishers is also restricted. To do this, we are using a combination of technologies to restrict news content and we will have processes to review any content that was inadvertently removed.

For Australian publishers this means:

• They are restricted from sharing or posting any content on Facebook Pages

• Admins will still be able to access other features from their Facebook Page, including Page insights and Creator Studio

• We will continue to provide access to all other standard Facebook services, including data tools and CrowdTangle

For international publishers this means:

• They can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences

For our Australian community this means:

• They cannot view or share Australian or international news content on Facebook or content from Australian and international news Pages

For our international community this means:

• They cannot view or share Australian news content on Facebook or content from Australian news Pages

The changes affecting news content will not otherwise change Facebook’s products and services in Australia. We want to assure the millions of Australians using Facebook to connect with friends and family, grow their businesses and join Groups to help support their local communities, that these services will not change.

We recognise it’s important to connect people to authoritative information and we will continue to promote dedicated information hubs like the COVID-19 Information Centre, that connects Australians with relevant health information. Our commitment to remove harmful misinformation and provide access to credible and timely information will not change. We remain committed to our third-party fact-checking program with Agence France-Presse and Australian Associated Press and will continue to invest to support their important work.

Our global commitment to invest in quality news also has not changed. We recognise that news provides a vitally important role in society and democracy, which is why we recently expanded Facebook News to hundreds of publications in the UK.

We hope that in the future the Australian government will recognise the value we already provide and work with us to strengthen, rather than limit, our partnerships with publishers.

* Photograph of Scott Morrison found at Google Images

The National Water Reform Draft Report has been released - now is the time for concerned Australians to speak up and loudly

If there is one thing that Australians know well by now, it is that state and federal governments frequently take from major reports only those points and recommendations which fit with their own political world view and/or those that can be easily distorted to meet the expectations of their party's financial backers - thus ensuring that little positive change occurs .

Water is the basis of life, without it communities perish and nations go into decline. That is one of the hard facts facing Australia as the impacts of climate change start to bite.

It is time for people to stand up in defence of this country's river and ground water systems and make sure governments understand that the environmental, economic and cultural vandalism they have supported in the past will no longer be tolerated in the present or the future. 

Australian Government, Productivity Commission:

National Water Reform Draft report 

This draft report was released on 11 February 2021. This draft report assesses the progress of the Australian, State and Territory governments towards achieving the objectives and outcomes of the National Water Initiative (NWI), and provides practical advice on future directions for national water reform. 

You are invited to examine the draft report and to make a written submission or brief comment by Wednesday 24 March 2021. 

 Make a submission or Make a brief comment 

The final report is expected to be handed to the Australian Government by the end of June 2021.

Download the draft report

• National Water Reform 2020 - Draft report (PDF - 2256 Kb)
• National Water Reform 2020 - Draft report (Word - 2897 Kb)

The Conversation, 11 February 2021:

Most Australians know all too well how precious water is. Sydney just experienced a severe drought, while towns across New South Wales and Queensland ran out of drinking water. Under climate change, the situation will become more dire, and more common. 

It wasn’t meant to be this way. In 2004, federal, state and territory governments signed up to the National Water Initiative. It was meant to secure Australia’s water supplies through better governance and plans for sustainable use across industry, environment and the community. 

But a report by the Productivity Commission released today says the policy must be updated. It found the National Water Initiative is not fit for the challenges of climate change, a growing population and our changing perceptions of how we value water. 

The report’s findings matter to all Australians, whether you live in a city or a drought-ravaged town. If governments don’t manage water better, on our behalf, then entire communities may disappear. Agriculture will suffer and nature will continue to degrade. It’s time for a change.

The report acknowledges progress in national water reform, and says Australia’s allocation of water resources has improved. But the commission makes clear there’s still much to be done, including: 

• making water infrastructure projects a critical part of the National Water Initiative 

• explicitly recognising how climate change threatens water-sharing agreement between states, users, towns, agriculture and the environment 

• more meaningful recognition of Indigenous rights to water delivering adequate drinking water quality to all Australians, including those in regional and remote communities, especially during drought 

• all states committing to drought management plans.

Read the full article here.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 2021:

A new national water reform report is inundated with positivity. But a closer look leaves you with a sinking feeling.

A glance at the draft report on national water reform from the Productivity Commission reminds me of the repeated judgment from old Mr Grace, the doddering owner of the department store in Are You Being Served? as he headed for the door: "You've all done very well!"

Its review of the progress of the National Water Initiative signed by the federal and state governments in 2004 - encompassing agreements on the Murray-Darling Basin - is terribly polite and relentlessly upbeat.

Apparently, governments have made "good progress" in having "largely achieved" their reform commitments. All that remains is just the need for a teensy-weensy bit of "policy renewal".

This mild-mannered stuff and congratulatory tone bear no resemblance to my memories of meetings of angry farmers railing against stupid greenies and other city slickers; of their insistence that the immediate needs of irrigators and irrigation towns along the river take priority over the river system's ultimate survival; of state governments' insistence on favouring their own irrigators over those in states further down the river; of federal and state National Party ministers happy to slip farmers a quiet favour, turning a blind eye to blatant infringements of the rules; of federal Labor ministers who, even with no seats to lose in the region, were unwilling to make themselves unpopular by standing up for the rivers' future.

I remember that the Howard government spent billions helping individual farmers make their irrigation systems more resistant to evaporation and seepage when all the benefits went to the farmer and none to the river system.

I remember all the infighting between government water agencies, and the mass fish kills during the recent drought in NSW and Queensland, for which the managers of the system accepted no responsibility.

Fortunately, reporters are adept at ignoring all the happy flannel up the front of government reports and finding the carefully hidden bad bits. And we have the assistance of water experts, including Professor Quentin Grafton, of the Australian National University, whose summary of the report in The Conversation is headed: "Our national water policy is outdated, unfair and not fit for climate challenges."

"If governments don't manage water better ... entire communities may disappear. Agriculture will suffer and nature will continue to degrade," he says.

The report's proposal to make "water infrastructure developments" a much larger part of the National Water Initiative is a critical way to keep governments honest. For years, state and federal governments have used taxpayers' dollars to pay for farming water infrastructure that largely benefits big corporate irrigators, Grafton says.

Last year the Morrison government announced a further $2 billion for its Building 21st Century Water Infrastructure project. Such megaprojects, he says, perpetuate the myth that Australia - the driest inhabited continent on Earth - can be "drought-proofed".

When governments signed the original initiative in 2004, they agreed to ensure investments in infrastructure would be both economically viable and ecologically sustainable. But many projects appear to be neither.

The report notes, for example, that building the Dungowan Dam in NSW means "any infrastructure that improves reliability for one user will affect water availability for others". The "prospect of 'new' water is illusory". Projects that aren't economically viable or ecologically sustainable can "burden taxpayers with ongoing costs, discourage efficient water use" and create long-lived impacts on communities and the environment", the report warns.

Equally disturbing is that billions of dollars for water infrastructure are presently targeted primarily at the agriculture and mining industries, while communities in desperate need of clean drinking water miss out, Grafton says.

Luckily, the report isn't so house trained as to avoid mentioning the gorilla the Morrison government prefers not to notice. There's a lot about the consequences of climate change. It says droughts will likely become more intense and frequent and, in many places, water will become scarce.

In Grafton's summary, the report says planning provisions were inadequate to deal with both the millennium drought and the recent drought in Eastern Australia. The 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan, for instance, took no account of climate change when determining how much water to take from waterways.

The present federal government actually dismantled the National Water Commission in 2015, so we no longer have a resourced, well-informed agency to "mark the homework" and make sure the reforms were being implemented as agreed, Grafton says.

In 2007, the worst year of the millennium drought - and the year John Howard feared he'd lose the election if he didn't match Labor's promise to introduce an emissions trading scheme - Howard remarked that "in a protracted drought, and with the prospect of long-term climate change, we need radical and permanent change".

Professor Grafton says we're still waiting for that change. "If Australia is to be prosperous and liveable into the future, governments must urgently implement water reform."

Throwing a cat amongst the pigeons ahead of the September 2021 NSW local government elections

 

Clarence Valley Independent, 17 February 2021:

Dr Ian Tiley. Image: Contributed

One way or another, Clarence Valley Council’s first mayor, Dr Ian Tiley, will be a key participant in the upcoming September 4 election of the valley’s next set of councillors.

Doctor Tiley, who is currently the mayor of Armidale Regional Council (ARC), said he is giving “serious consideration” to running for council.

“I clearly recognise that I’m not a young fellow anymore,” he said, “[and] I’ve got to look after my health and things like that, [but] I believe there’s a dire need of reform of Clarence Valley Council and I believe I can make a contribution to the reform process.

“I’ll be encouraging good people to run for council.

“The Clarence Valley Council, in my view, can achieve a whole lot of good for the people it represents, but it will need to change the way it operates.

“I still live in Maclean and am a Clarence Valley person, [but] for various reasons I stayed up here [in Armidale] longer than anticipated, but my heart is in the Clarence Valley.”

Previously, Dr Tiley served as mayor of the former Maclean Shire Council from 1997 to 2000 and was the first mayor of the merged Clarence Valley Council from 2005 to 2008.

Dr Tiley was appointed administrator of ARC in 2015, when Armidale Dumaresq and Guyra councils were merged, and held the role until September 2017.

With the ambition to lead ADC, he was subsequently the first elected, however, he “didn’t become the mayor and things deteriorated at council over a period of time”.

“On June 12 last year, the Minster suspended the council and installed an interim administrator,” he said.

“At that time, the mayor, deputy mayor and two other councillors resigned.

“On December 12, the Minister returned the council.

“We had an election for mayor and I was elected unopposed.”

Doctor Tiley said his ambition, in the short time between now and the implementation of the caretaker mode for NSW councils (four weeks prior to the election), was to meet the requirements of a performance audit.

“We have financial protocols to observe – that’s a tough situation but I’m using my experience to try and get the council back as a trusted and functioning entity,” he said.

“But it’s my intention to come home.”

The Tweed Valley may be extensively explored for gold and minerals if NSW Deputy-Premier and Nationals Leader John Barilaro has his way

 

Tweed Valley IMAGE: nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au

On 30 September 2020 Gold Belt Pty Ltd (registered August 2020) announced that in late August it had applied for an exploration licence covering a 118 square kilometre corridor, approximately 33kms in length as the crow flies, from Bilambil Heights in the north to Dunbible in the south of the Tweed local government area. 

This corridor also includes Cobaki, Bilambil, Terranora, Bungalora, Duguigan, Tumbulgum, Duroby, Tumbulgum, Condong, Kielvale, Fernvale, Stokers Siding, Dum Dum, Uki and the outskirts of Muwillumbah. 

Exploration is for metallic minerals including gold, silver and copper and the Tweed is not the only NSW region Gold Belt and, a small cluster of other mining companies registered in Narellan NSW, are seeking to explore.

https://commonground.nsw.gov.au/#!/title/ELA%206115/1992

Google Earth snapshot showing terrain, 15 February 2021

On 15 October 2020 the Echo NetDaily reported that; ‘These areas include densely populated and rural areas and include the town drinking water catchments of the Clarrie Hall Dam and the Bray Park Weir, the Tweed River, the State Significant Coastal Lake of Terranora Broadwater, and important sugar cane growing areas that are highly vulnerable to any impacts on land availability due to production viability of the sugar mill,’ explains Cr Milne in the notes.

‘Tweed Shire recognised as one of Australia’s 8 National Iconic Landscapes and an internationally significant environment with the highest biodiversity in NSW but the highest number of threatened species in Australia.

‘Tourism is an important economy for the Tweed and any impact of these values through such mining activities would be highly detrimental to its tourism reputation.

‘There has been vehement opposition from the Tweed Community to mining activities in the past in regards to Coal seam Gas Mining and Commercial Water Extraction with these activities now prohibited in the Tweed Shire.

‘This mining application is highly inappropriate for such a sensitive and significant location as the Tweed Shire.’…..

Echo NetDaily, 15 February 2021:

The application for a mining exploration licence that covers a large swathe of the Tweed Shire continues to raise concerns for Tweed Shire Councillors and residents.

The application, that was lodged in early October 2020, covers 118 square kilometre corridor from Bilambil Heights in the north to Dunbible in the south. It relates to the exploration of metallic minerals including gold, silver and copper.

At the previous Tweed Shire Council meeting (4 February) Councillors noted that the Minister for Regional NSW had responded to their letter in mid-October that objected ‘in the strongest terms to the Exploration (Minerals) Licence Application ELA 6115 in the Tweed Shire’.

While there is no exploration on private land without the written consent of the landholder and no exploration in National Parks or nature reserves Mayor Chris Cherry (Independent) said mining consent on council land needed clarification.

Mayor Cherry told the meeting that she had ‘heard very strongly that people don’t want the mining to happen’.

The majority of councillors, with Cr Pryce Allsop (Conservative) against, voted to write back to the minister ‘to reiterate our deep concerns with regards to gold exploration/mining in the Tweed Shire due to the international significance of the environment and scenic landscape of this Shire, and…’ that the Council does ‘Not support gold exploration or mining activities on Council owned land and any requests for such, including for owners consent to lodge an application, or request for access must be brought to a Council meeting for determination.’

Courts can rule for mining

Councillor Katie Milne (Greens) clarified that while access arrangements are required for the mining exploration to take place on private land a landholder cannot always refuse consent.

‘It is shocking for a lot of people to find out that while they get compensated they don’t have the right to say no. If the negotiation between the landholder and mining company is not successful then it can be taken to court for approval,’ said Cr Milne.

‘It could be a very big and concerning issue for what is actually an internationally environmentally significant area. The Gondwana rainforest (UNESCO world heritage) is the best example (of the most extensive area of subtropical rainforest) in the world. I think sometimes the state government does not remember that we are an internationally significant environment. We have a very big duty to protect this area. Any mining – including water, sand, and gas – all has a very large impact on our landscape.

‘The land area covered (by the mining exploration licence) is absolutely vast – if it gets approved we may be in the shock of our lives.’

BACKGROUND

NSW Deputy Premier & Nationals MP for Monaro John Barilaro proves once again that he doesn't understand that mining & overdevelopment has marked downsides for communities in north-east NSW  16 February 2021

Barilaro, the stealthy empire builder in 2020 22 November 2020

Dispatches from the Australian Koala Wars 21 September 2020

NSW Deputy Premier & Nationals MP for Monaro John Barilaro proves once again that he doesn't understand that mining & overdevelopment has marked downsides for communities in north-east NSW

On 3 February 2021 NSW Deputy Premier, Minister for Regional New South Wales, Nationals MP for Monaro and apologist for unrestrained land clearing, logging of our remaining native forests, barely regulated urban development and mining in sensitive water catchments, John Barilaro, relaunched the government’s three-year-old 20-Year Economic Vision for Regional NSW at Sanctus Brewing Company, in Townsend in the Lower Clarence Valley.

Now that so-called economic vision for the North Coast originally relied heavily on expansion & diversification of tourism and agriculture – but with Barilaro’s ‘vision refresh’ of this 20-year plan he is now pushing the barrow for his mineral ore mining, coal seam gas drilling, native timber logging and land developing mates.

Under the guise of a state government response to the CVOVID-19 pandemic the push to overturn the moratorium on coal seam gas mining in the Northern Rivers region from the Clarence Valley up to the NSW-Qld border no longer talks of “gasfields” but hides the intent behind the terms “resources for regions” and the stealthy push to divert Clarence River catchment water is secreted behind the term “water security” and a Mole River dam.

Last year north-east NSW discovered one of the legislative mechanisms Barilaro plans to use to lay waste to this region and it wasn't pretty - involving as it does the possible extinction of a unique Australian species, the Koala.

His speech of 3 February 2021 confirms he still intends to lay waste.

Clarence Valley Independent, 10 February 2021:

Deputy Premier John Barilaro kindly allowed the Independent to ask two questions before he adjourned to the media wall, where the press corps awaited.

GH: In November 2020, Clarence Valley Council resolved to, and I quote, “oppose mining in the Clarence River catchment [and] … seek the support of both state and federal governments, to impose a moratorium on further mining exploration licences and to cancel existing licences”, largely due to the threat it poses to the Clarence River (the lifeblood of the valley’s key industries, tourism, agricultural and fishing): how will the NSW Government protect the valley’s tourism, fishing and agricultural sectors from any potential mining disaster if the government continues encouraging miners to explore for minerals that will be in demand as we transfer towards renewable energy?

JB: If you were listening to what I said earlier, that is going to happen naturally. We’ve always had coexistence with mining, agriculture [and] our coastal and environmental habitats – we’ve always done this, protect the environment and find ways to do it. The whole mining world is going to change in time; we’ll go with that. We’ve identified where coal mining will continue in this state; other areas have been ruled out. It was our party that ruled out coal seam gas.

GH: The minerals of interest in the Clarence Valley are those you spoke about regarding renewables.

JB: And it’s very possible, but you talk about mining in a way that it is bad, that it can’t be done in a safe way. So my answer is we’ll continue to do what we’ve always done: work with the communities, work with the mining sector and make sure that we only mine in areas we are comfortable with.

GH: But I said it was Clarence Valley Council that made the [no mining decision] decision.

JB: Sorry, I missed that.

GH: And soon there will be a 10,000-plus signature petition tabled in parliament on the issue, from local people.

NOTE: Mr Barilaro made no comment regarding the petition.

GH: You also talked about keeping kids in the community. Your ‘Economic Vision for Regional NSW’ emphasises moving more people into the regions, however, yesterday’s ABS figures show there has been a record amount of city to region migration. This, in turn, has exponentially increased property prices (as MC Mat Moran alluded to in his speech), which, in turn, increases the cost of rental properties. Given that people in the regions earn substantially less than their city counterparts, how will the government address the property market imbalance as cashed-up city dwellers purchase properties and make it harder to find affordable accommodation or purchase property in certain regions?

JB: With property comes jobs, with industry comes jobs. You want to attract more people into the regions; councils have got to unlock more Greenfield sites, more supply, to put downward pressure on prices. What we’ll do and have always done…. And I’ve been speaking with the planning minister about his work with local government, about the supply side of the development arm of residential property. The reality here is we want to see the future of the regions grow; to do that you have to attract the people to the regions. Otherwise, government services are cut, or government services are not invested in – this is the fine balance. I’m not going to limit the opportunities for the regions because we have an issue around the price of property, when we know we can resolve that through more Greenfield sites. Again, good planning gives better outcomes.

GH: So it’s a long-term strategy?

JB: Yes, long-term, thank you.