Single mega complex for Murwillumbah public schools gone for good as Saffin fulfils her election promise of demerger

The Echo, 26 May 2023:

The significant issue of a merger of several Murwillumbah schools has been ongoing since 2020 when the then State Government announced via Sarah Mitchell MP that four public schools would be amalgamated into a single Kindergarten to Year 12 campus at Murwillumbah High.

It was clear from the outset that this was not something that any of the school communities wanted, yet the government continued to foist it upon students, teachers and families in the Murwillumbah area, but the government was determined to push ahead saying there was plenty of support for the project.

An election promise

Murwillumbah High School the site of the mega campus.
Image supplied

The new Labor Government said that if elected they would stop the merger and yesterday they announced their intention to do just that.

Deputy Premier of New South Wales, Prue Car, who is also Minister for Education and Early announced that the Minns Labor Government is committed to the demerger of the Murwillumbah Education Campus in consultation with the community. ‘The Member for Lismore, Janelle Saffin, and I have had an initial, fruitful and clarifying meeting with the NSW Department of Education about the needs of each of the four school sites.

‘The Department, in collaboration with myself and the Member for Lismore, is finalising plans for consultation with the community….

P&C President at Murwillumbah East Public School, Kylie Rose, said she was very pleased to see this confirmation from the Minister. ‘Our beautiful public schools will be staying open!’

‘Our community fought so hard to save our schools.

‘This statement from the Education Minister will be a great relief to many.

‘Labor went to the last election promising to keep these schools open if elected. We didn’t get a say in the previous government’s decision to close these schools but my goodness didn’t we have our say at the ballot box!’

Thank you Janelle

‘Thank you to Janelle Saffin MP for honouring her election commitment to keep all four of our public schools open.’

Ms Car said the department has stopped infrastructure-related activities on the Murwillumbah Education Campus project and will work with the community on supporting the four schools into the future….. 

MEMO TO CURRENT & FUTURE AUSTRALIAN & NSW GOVERNMENTS: The Clarence Valley Was Declared A Nuclear-Free Zone On 23 May 2023

 

It was brief, to the point and supported by Clarence Valley Council’s Climate Change Advisory Committee and Council in the Chamber.

Ordinary Monthly Meeting of Clarence Valley Council held on 23 May 2023, Minutes, p.16:

ITEM 07.23.070 NUCLEAR FREE ZONE

SUMMARY

This report forwards a recommendation of the Clarence Valley Climate Change Advisory Committee

requesting that Council consider declaring the Clarence Valley a nuclear free zone.

OFFICER RECOMMENDATION

That Council support the Climate Change Advisory Committee recommendation and declare the Clarence

Valley local government area as a nuclear free zone.

COUNCIL RESOLUTION - 07.23.070

Pickering/Clancy

That Council support the Climate Change Advisory Committee recommendation and declare the

Clarence Valley local government area as a nuclear free zone.

Voting recorded as follows

For: Clancy, Day, Pickering, Smith, Tiley

Against: Johnstone, Novak, Toms, Whaites

CARRIED

NOTE:

Heartfelt thanks to members of the Climate Change Advisory Committee for mirroring the aesthetic, social, cultural, environmental and economic values of our Valley communities and, for the work put in to achieve this outcome: Cr Greg Clancy (Chair), Judith McNeill, Leonie Blain, Helen Granleese, Stephen Fletcher, Nicholas Reeve, Phillip Hocking, Janet Cavanagh, Geoff Little, Robert Mylchreest, Clair Purvis, Ian Gaillard, Lynette Eggins, Richard Roper (CVC Staff), Ken Wilson (CVC Staff), Scott Lenton (CVC Staff), Ben Ellis (CVC Staff), Suzanne Lynch (CVC Staff), Adam Cameron (Director CVC).

North Coast Voices Notice

Due to illness North Coast Voices will not be posting again until Sunday, 28 May 2023. 

Sorry to disappoint.  

Where to from here? A perspective on the Liberal and National Coalition

The Echo, 18 May 2023, excerpts from “A case for a Lib-Nats reformation” by Catherine Cusack:

Catherine Cusack is a former Liberal NSW MLC 

Photo Tree Faerie

Trump Fatigue Syndrome (TFS) has been defined by   American Professor, John Rennie Short, as ‘a depressing sense of watching the same drama over and over again. And just like being stuck in a movie theatre watching a badly scripted and poorly produced B movie, it begins with feelings of exhaustion, then panic, with the realisation that it may never end.’ 

So I audibly groaned when a friend sent me one of Donald Trump’s latest pearlers……

The Washington Post speculated his claim that some children are ‘deservedly’ unloved by their parents, is a ‘dog whistle’ to older conservative white Americans. It resonates with those who fear increasing diversity in America, and blame the younger generation of voters for caring about climate change and voting for Democrats, like Barrack Obama and Joe Biden.

Whatever the logic, it is clear a toxic and rampant Trump is back and the hijacked Republican Party can’t control or stop him.

Being found to be a ‘sexual abuser’ only seems to have energised his base. Trump’s angry brand –denying facts, deriding minorities and bullying opponents – is likely to invade at least the next 18 months of newsfeeds, through to the November 2024 presidential election.

Emboldened fringe right wing groups

The impact in Australia has been to embolden fringe right wing groups, including neo-Nazis and evangelical Christians who, for years, have backed minor religious parties like Fred Nile’s old ‘Call to Australia’ Party. That strategy has been replaced with a clandestine USA tactic of infiltrating the major conservative parties.

For example, here in the federal seat of Richmond, where we were looking for local leadership after the floods, the Nationals selected a Pentecostal Christian candidate whose stated mission was to ‘bring God’s Kingdom to politics’.

The past week has seen extraordinary disarray and increasingly selfish behaviour derailing conservative politics. In Victoria, a religious right Liberals MP, Moira Deeming, was expelled from the Parliamentary wing of the Liberal Party after threatening to sue her own leader.

In Tasmania, two right wing Liberals resigned, putting the last Liberal government into minority, because they disagreed with a decision to fund an AFL stadium.

And here in NSW, Nationals MLC, Ben Franklin, betrayed his parliamentary colleagues, who wanted to keep pressure on Labor in the hung Upper House. In order to reduce the number of LNP votes, Labor offered Ben the highly paid, prestigious office of Upper House presidency.

By accepting, Mr Franklin has rendered the entire Liberals-National coalition irrelevant in opposition for four years.

The moral decay of conservative politics

Instead of learning from multiple election defeats, the moral decay of conservative politics in Australia seems to be accelerating.

I am one of many long time Liberals who have left in recent years, owing to a lurch to the right in policy and the unethical LNP deals, which have handed portfolios, including education, most of environment, Aboriginal Affairs, the Women’s portfolio, and even Sydney Water, to the NSW Nationals – a party so backwards they are still voting against daylight savings and in favour of subsidies to turn koala habitat into woodchips.

In Sydney, thousands of moderate Liberal voters have rejected these policies, turning instead to the Teals as representing their views better than the LNP. In regional NSW, many have turned to the Independents as an alternative to the Nationals.

Electing independent MPs is, in my view, a temporary fix for the problem. What is required is a full-scale reformation of Australian centre right politics – a reformed, or new, party that seeks to return to the patrician values of virtuous politics; cleansing itself of religious extremists and political bigots.

Dissolving the LNP Coalition agreement

Step one on the journey to reform conservative politics has got to be dissolving the LNP Coalition agreement, thus freeing both the Liberals and National Party to be true to their roots, and authentically represent their communities…….

The next year will tell if Australian Liberals have the depth and fortitude to detach from the Nationals, to choose their own path, or whether they are doomed like American Republicans to keep repeating the same Trumpian drama.

COVID-19 NSW 2023: Counting Dead People - Part 6

 

NSW Dept. of Health, @NSWHealth, 19 May 2023

In the 7 days up to 18 May 2023 the national COVID-19 death toll was in excess of 114 people.

Between Friday 12 May to Thursday 18 May 2023 61 of these confirmed COVID-19 deaths occurred in News South Wales.

There have been no 7-day reporting periods in 2023 where NSW deaths have been recorded in single digits – according to Covid Live weekly deaths over the last 20 NSW reporting periods have ranged from a low of 22 deaths (17, 24 March & 14 April 2023) to a high of 131 deaths (20 Jan 2023).

As NSW Dept. of Health no longer publishes the COVID-19 fourteen-day tables which include deaths by gender, age group and health district, there is now no way to break down current COVID-19 publicly available death data for the state or for the Northern Rivers region.

The last published table recording COVID-19 deaths by NSW local health district was for the week ending 22 April 2023 and the last published table including a Northern Rivers COVID-19 death was for week ending 15 April 2023.

From January 2023 to 15 April 2023 there have been est. 40 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the Northern Rivers region.

All that can be stated from published tables from then on is that; as of 18 May there were 252 confirmed COVID-19 cases recorded that 7-day reporting period for the Northern NSW Local Health District, spread across all 7 local government areas and, that as of the preceding 6 May the health district was recording on a “Week To Date” and “Year To Date” basis more confirmed COVID-19 cases than confirmed Influenza and RSV cases combined.

The Australian Department of Health and Aged Care released the following information on 19 May 2023:

As at 8:00 am 18 May 2023 there are 3,132 active COVID-19 cases in 453 active outbreaks in residential aged care facilities across Australia. There have been 207 new outbreaks, 38 new resident deaths and 2,751 combined new resident and staff cases reported since 11 May 2023.

[my yellow highlighting]

New South Wales had the highest number of aged care facility COVID-19 outbreaks during 12-18 May period. As well as the highest number of aged care residents & staff with active COVID-19 infections. 

Sadly, compared to other states and territories New South Wales at 14 residential facilities also had the highest number of aged care facilities reporting COVID-19 deaths among their residents. Resulting in this state having possibly the highest number of residential aged care deaths* across all Australian states and territories.

Note: 

* The actual number of NSW aged care deaths in the 7 days to 18 May 2023 is problematic as the Dept. of Health for privacy reasons reported deaths in aged care facilities in blocs of “<6”. So deaths at the 14 individual facilities involved ranged from 1-5 elderly people per facility.

See: COVID-19 outbreaks in Australian residential aged care facilities: National snapshot, 19 May 2023, APPENDIX 1

AUSTRALIA EMPLOYMENT STATE OF PLAY APRIL 2023: monthly figures reveal fewer people have full time jobs & 528,000 workers are in the unemployment queue

 

The latest Labor Force Australia: Headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked from the monthly Labour Force Survey was released on Thursday, 18 May 2023.

This survey reveals that:

In seasonally adjusted terms, in April 2023:

• unemployment rate increased to 3.7%.

• participation rate decreased to 66.7%.

• employment decreased to 13,882,100.

• employment to population ratio decreased to 64.2%.

• underemployment rate decreased to 6.1%.

• monthly hours worked increased to 1,974 million.

• full-time employment decreased by 27,100 to 9,726,500 people.

• part-time employment increased by 22,800 to 4,155,600 people.

So to recap:

Seasonally adjusted a total of 13.8 million workers remain in employment across Australia, with est. 4.8 million working less than 35 hours a week and 4.1 million classified as part-time employees.

 

While the national monthly seasonally adjusted unemployment figure stood at 528,000 persons and the unemployment rate at 3.7%. The gender breakdown for that number was 301,900 males (unemployment rate 4.0%) and 226,100 females (unemployment rate 3.3%). 

In NSW the monthly seasonally adjusted unemployment figure was 151,500 persons, being 85,200 males (unemployment rate 3.6%) and 66,300 females (unemployment rate 3.1%).

REGIONAL ESTIMATES COVERING THE NORTHERN RIVERS REGION IN APRIL 2023:

Coffs Harbour-Grafton

Employed Full-Time — 40,100 persons

Employed Part-Time — 28,100 persons

Unemployed Total — 2,800 persons

Not in the Labour Force — 55,100 persons

Unemployment rate for 15-64 years of age — 4% 

Youth Unemployment Rate 15-24 years — 6.3%.

Richmond-Tweed

Employed Full-Time — 79,800 persons

Employed Part-Time — 50,400 persons

Unemployed Total — 3,600 persons

Not in the Labour Force — 86,500 persons

Unemployment Rate for 15-64 years of age — 2.7% 

Youth Unemployment Rate 15-24 years — 5.4%.

NOTE: NSW regional estimates for all SA4 employment areas in April 2023 can be found at:

https://labourmarketinsights.gov.au/regions/all-regions-abs-sa4/. 

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), media release, 18 May 2023:

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage point (rounded) to 3.7 per cent in April, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said: "with employment dropping by around 4,000 people and the number of unemployed increasing by 18,000 people, the unemployment rate rose to 3.7 per cent.”

“The small fall in employment followed an average monthly increase of around 39,000 people during the first quarter of this year.”

Similarly, the employment-to-population ratio fell 0.2 percentage points to 64.2 per cent and the participation rate decreased 0.1 percentage point to 66.7 per cent.

“Even with these falls, both indicators were still well above pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels and close to their historical highs in 2022,” Mr Jarvis said.

Hours worked

Seasonally adjusted monthly hours worked increased by 2.6 per cent in April.

“This was because fewer people than usual worked reduced hours over the Easter period,” Mr Jarvis said.

“The last time Easter and the survey period aligned like this was in 2015, when around 60 per cent of employed people worked fewer hours than usual. This Easter it was only around 55 per cent of employed people.

“This may reflect more people taking their leave earlier or later than usual, or that some people were unable to, given the high number of vacancies that we’re still seeing employers reporting….

Underemployment and underutilisation

The underemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage point to 6.1 per cent (seasonally adjusted), following a 0.4 percentage point increase in March.

"The underemployment rate is still low in historic terms, around 2.6 percentage points lower than before the pandemic, and underpinned by faster growth in hours worked than employment," Mr Jarvis said.

The underutilisation rate, which combines the unemployment and underemployment rates, rose slightly to 9.8 per cent, and remained 4.2 percentage points lower than in March 2020.

NOTE:

The April survey reference period was from 2 April to 15 April 2023.

The May survey reference period is from 30 April to 13 May 2023.

Tweet of the Week

NEW VIDEO: “009 One Minute of King Parrots” (1m05s) https://t.co/wIeNaNlW6e It’s what it says it is. Shot a short time ago at @bunjaree.

— Stilgherrian (@stilgherrian) May 14, 2023