Tweet of the Week

 

Mellifluous poetry pic.twitter.com/QW3Abm6f3d

— Benjamin Millar (@BenjaminMillar) April 13, 2021

 

Cartoons of the Week

 

Cathy Wilcox

McToons

David Pope

Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan gets annoyed by a university handbook for lecturers and tutors

 

Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan (left) took to Facebook, media releases and an email to certain constituents this month, after getting his undies in a knot over Australian National University (ANU) Gender Institute and Centre for Learning and Teaching co-releasing the "Gender-Inclusive Handbook" for tertiary education lecturers and tutors. 

I guess you can take the failed investment officer/financial adviser off Sky News & the business studies teacher out of the classroom and send him into federal politics, but perhaps his electorate shouldn't have expected him to actually exercise his brain once he arrived in Canberra. 

Sometime in the last seven years he has apparently joined the 'It's political correctness gone mad!' brigade. 

Hogan's voting record already shows us that he is not exactly a friend to the university system. He was for raising undergraduate and post-graduate course fees, as well as against increasing government funding for university education and definitely for political interference in how research grants are awarded.

This is how one Murdoch daily metropolitan and one local Murdoch rag pumped up Hogan's media release:

And this was an NBN News snapshot of part of his Facebook rant:

As usual he is missing the main thrust of the issues outlined in the handbook - which is how to support all students in their learning experience.

The handbook can be found at: 

https://genderinstitute.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/2021_docs/Gender_inclusive_handbook.pdf

*Image of Kevin Hogan found at news.com.au

A virulent cancer lodged in the the heart of Australian society - News Corp

U.S. citizen Keith Rupert Murdoch
Media magnate & founder of News Corp
IMAGE: Google Images

The New Daily, 12 April 2021:

As the federal Senate convenes its latest hearing on the inquiry into media diversity, with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull as its headline act on Monday, it has been revealed News Corp owns nearly 60 per cent of the metro and national print media market.

The company also earns 40 per cent of TV revenues, and is part of a profitable trio controlling a mind-boggling 90 per cent of metro radio licences…..

On the eve of the Senate inquiry, a study by University of Sydney academics found how densely Australia’s media ownership is concentrated.

“News Corp is the unchallenged dominant player,” wrote Associate Professor of Communication Benedetta Brevini and PhD candidate Michael Ward.

“The predominance of News Corp in cross-media settings is unprecedented in liberal democracies.”

The report, commissioned by activist group GetUp!, found News Corp had a 59 per cent share in the metro and national print media markets, when measured by readership.

The authors said that compared to just 25 per cent in 1984.

Nine Entertainment, which owns the former Fairfax papers including the Sydney Morning Herald, has “a combined 23 per cent readership share”, the report details.

“The dominance of News Corp and Nine’s media ownership extends beyond print to other media platforms,” the authors said.

“Just three corporations – News Corp, Nine, and Southern Cross Media (and their associated entities) – control almost 90 per cent of the lucrative metropolitan radio licences across the country.”

That’s in addition to the 40 per cent of total Australian television revenue that News Corp earns, when taking into account free-to-air and subscription revenues.

The authors note this is “almost double that of second-place holder Nine”.....

The full GetUp! report is at https://d68ej2dhhub09.cloudfront.net/2810-GetUp_-_Who_Controls_Our_Media_.pdf

Quote of the Week

 

"Climate change continues to influence Australian and global climate. Australia's climate has warmed by 1.44 ± 0.24 °C over 1910–2019, while southern Australia has seen a reduction of 10–20% in cool season (April–October) rainfall in recent decades."  [Australian Bureau of Meteorology, 13 April 2021]

State of Play 2021: Gender Pay Gap in Australia

 Australian Government, Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 26 February 2021:

Calculating the Gender Pay Gap

Australian gender pay gaps are calculated by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA, the Agency). The GPG is derived as the difference between women’s and men’s average weekly full-time equivalent earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings….

Unless otherwise stated, all measures of the gender pay gap are expressed as a percentage (%) based on average weekly ordinary time earnings for full-time employees (trend data), with changes over time provided as the percentage point (pp) difference.

It should come as no surprise that in the years 2010 to 2020 the trend gender pay gap peaked in November 2014 during Tony Abbott’s term as Australian Prime Minister, when women on the average adult full-time weekly wage were paid 18.5 per cent less than men – that represents est. $282.8 less than men they were paid each week for their labour.

Over the following three years the difference between the male and female average weekly adult full-time wage fell to $238.0.

On becoming Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison presided over an Average weekly ordinary time cash earnings, full time adults, original for November 2018 which saw a difference of $222.9 between the male average weekly adult full-time wage and the female average weekly adult full-time wage. In November 2019 that difference was $223.5 less in the female average weekly adult full-time wage. While in November 2020 there was a difference of $223.1 between the male average weekly adult full-time wage and the female average weekly adult full-time wage.

WGEA states that the November 2020 seasonally adjusted gender pay gap was 13.4 per cent - showing women earned on average $242.20 less than men in that month.

Although Scott Morrison bragged this week about that 13.4 per cent he was careful not to quantify that percentage in dollar terms.

He does not seem to be making much of a difference on the ground for women when it comes to the average experience of the gender pay gap.

Scott Morrison & Co went on a spending spree at taxpayer expense after he became Australian Prime Minister

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2021:

Flying politicians and dignitaries around the country on VIP jets cost taxpayers almost $20 million in two years up to June 2020, new flight records show.

Federal politicians ordered 1940 VIP flights between July 2018 and June 2020, at a cost of $17,177,562, an analysis by The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald of RAAF flight data found. The governor-general and other dignitaries including Prince Harry pushed that bill up by $2 million to $19,577,402, adding 395 flights.

The new flight data shows during the peak of the 2020 black summer bushfires, then-defence minister Linda Reynolds travelled from Perth to Canberra twice in five days, costing taxpayers $69,000 for her flights alone.

Ms Reynolds returned early from a holiday in Bali on January 3, 2020, having departed Australia quietly a week after Prime Minister Scott Morrison came back from his Hawaiian holiday amid public outrage at his absence during the bushfires.

Ms Reynolds chartered a VIP plane that can carry 30 passengers to fly her and two others from Perth to Canberra on Saturday, January 4, 2020, for a press conference to announce the rollout of 3000 army reservists to help with the bushfire crisis…...

The use of VIP jets has been controversial recently as Mr Cormann was flown around Europe in a RAAF VIP jet that costs about $4000 an hour to operate as he campaigned (successfully) to be the new secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Prime Minister Morrison defended Mr Cormann clocking up more than 20,000 kilometres campaigning for the job at taxpayers’ expense.

In February, the Herald and The Age revealed then-home affairs minister Peter Dutton charged taxpayers more than $36,000 to charter a jet to Tasmania to announce $194,000 worth of grants for CCTV systems for two councils during the 2018 Braddon byelection campaign.

Mr Morrison, Mr Dutton, Stuart Robert and Josh Frydenberg billed taxpayers almost $5000 in December 2019, for a private jet trip to Sydney on the night of Lachlan Murdoch’s Christmas party, the Guardian reported in December last year.

The group left Canberra after 6pm, attended the party at Bellevue Hill then returned to Canberra before 9am the next day.

And during the last federal election campaign, Mr Morrison’s bus tour of Queensland was not as grounded as it seemed after it was revealed he and his staff were using VIP jets to cover large stretches of the journey to Townsville.

The election campaign bill for VIP jets for both parties, between April and May 2019, cost taxpayers $6,645,318 for 444 VIP flights.