NATIONAL REFERENDUM 2023: from this point onwards it may be less safe for people of goodwill to venture into public spaces - so tainted with malice and misinformation has the debate become courtesy of those parliamentary dissenters

 

For months now the entire country has known the exact wording of the national referendum question and text of the constitutional amendment which will create a permanent advisory body composed of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander representatives of the First Nations peoples of Australia.

National Referendum Question

“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

Do you approve this proposed alteration?”

**********

Text of additional clause to be inserted in the Constitution if referendum question is answered by a double majority in the affirmative

“Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;

the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

**********

On the morning of Wednesday, 31 May 2023 the second and third reading of the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 Bill occurred in the House of Representatives and was passed by a majority of the House with just 25 members out of a total of 145 members dissenting.

The parliamentary dissenters in alphabetical order were:

Birrell, Sam. J. Boyce, C. E. Buchholz, Scott (Teller)

Chester, Darren J. Conaghan, Patrick J. Coulton, Mark M. (Teller)

Gillespie, David A. Goodenough, Ian R.

Hamilton, G. R. Hawke, Alexander G. Hogan, Kevin J. 

Howarth, Luke R.

Joyce, Barnaby T. G.

Landry, Michelle L. Littleproud, David

McCormack, Michael F.

O'Brien, Llewellyn S.

Pasin, Anthony Pike, Henry J. Pitt, Keith J.

Wallace, Andrew B. Webster, A. E. Willcox, Andrew J. 

Wilson, Richard. J. and

Young, Terry J.

A majority of these dissenters took it upon themselves to organise and conduct a “No” campaign against the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament once the referendum question had been approved by a majority in the House of Representatives.

Advance Aus Ltd formerly Freedom Aus Limited, Advance formerly known as Advance Australia & Fair Australia (both associated with Advance Aus Ltd), Recognise a Better Way, Whitestone Strategic Pty Ltd, Texas-based RJ Dunham & Co, Matthew Sheahan, Vicki Dunne, Laura Bradley, Simon Fenwick, Marcus Blackmore and former Liberal MP Tony Abbott are among the companies & persons which assist the dissenters in their apparent aim to sow doubt and division ahead of the referendum.  [AFR, 10.04.23 & The Guardian, 13.07.23].

In this they appear to have had some measure of success.

According to custom, the parliamentary dissenters have also produced the official “No” campaign pamphlet titled “The case for voting No” which can be read in full and downloaded at:

https://www.aec.gov.au/referendums/files/pamphlet/the-case-for-voting-no.pdf

The first page summary text is as follows:

“REASONS TO VOTE NO – A SUMMARY

This Referendum is not simply about “recognition”. This Voice proposal goes much further.

If passed, it would represent the biggest change to our Constitution in our history.

It is legally risky, with unknown consequences. It would be divisive and permanent.

If you don’t know, vote no.

RISKY

We all want to help Indigenous Australians in disadvantaged communities. However, this Voice is not the answer and presents a real risk to our system of government.

This Voice specifically covers all areas of “Executive Government”. This means no issue is beyond its reach.

The High Court would ultimately determine its powers, not the Parliament.

It risks legal challenges, delays and dysfunctional government.

UNKNOWN

No details have been provided on how members of the Voice would be chosen or how it would operate. Australians are being asked to vote first before these details are worked out.

Australians should have details before the vote, not after.

We don’t know how it will work, we don’t know who will be on it, but we do know it will permanently divide us as Australians.

Some Voice supporters say this would just be a first step to reparations and compensation and other radical changes. So, what would come next?

DIVISIVE

Enshrining a Voice in the Constitution for only one group of Australians means permanently dividing our country.

It creates different classes of citizenship through an unknown body that has the full force of the Constitution behind it. Many Indigenous Australians do not support this.

PERMANENT

Putting a Voice in the Constitution means it’s permanent. We will be stuck with negative consequences

The content of this argument (which can be viewed at aec.gov.au/referendums/pamphlet.htm) was authorised by a majority of those members of Parliament who voted against the proposed law and desired to forward such a case. This text has been published without amendment by the Electoral Commissioner“

******

The official “Yes” campaign pamphlet from the majority of the parliamentary assenters titled “The case for voting Yes” can be read in full and downloaded at:

https://www.aec.gov.au/referendums/files/pamphlet/the-case-for-voting-yes.pdf?v=1.0

This affirmative campaign is assisted by YES23.

Examples of how the two very different pamphlets are being initially received in mainstream & social media:

Greg Craven furious no campaign used his previous voice concerns in pamphlet https://t.co/m1SHzOv11Q

— grace pettigrew (@broomstick33) July 18, 2023

 

Uluru Dialogue's Megan Davis and Pat Anderson, architects of the Voice, call the No referendum essay "cooked" and a "destructive agenda"

"The NO pamphlet has used taxpayers’ money to distribute misleading information aimed at holding our people back, all Australians in fact." pic.twitter.com/ByEC2JjWci

— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) July 18, 2023

 

"The No Campaign have clearly taken advantage of the pamphlet not being fact-checked and done more to embolden racists than they have to argue against the Voice."https://t.co/ZS7FATECqz

— National Indigenous Times (@nit_times) July 18, 2023

 

The Yes pamphlet says the "idea" for the voice, came from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.....no it didn't AT ALL.....it came from the U.N, and has been in the works for years...."Project UNDRIP"....they lie and lie through their teeth...it's NOT grassroots.

— R1nky d1nk (@RD1nk33775) July 18, 2023

CONCERNING POLLED RESPONSES IN JULY 2023 TO THE PROPOSED NATIONAL REFERENDUM QUESTION

Latest Newspoll conducted on 12-15 July 2023 shows 48 per cent of the 1,570 surveyed voters say they now intend to vote no to the proposal to insert an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Voice into the Australian Constitution.

Among surveyed voters from regional areas 62 per cent opposed the Voice proposal.

The survey breaks down by gender to 47 per cent of all males surveyed and 49 per cent of all females surveyed now oppose the Voice.

By age it appears that 59 per cent of those younger voters surveyed were in favour of inserting an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Voice into the Australian Constitution, while 46 per cent of all older voters surveyed were in favour of the Voice.

NOTE: The 15 July 2023 Newspoll as reported does not breakdown responses by state and, as a referendum affirmative requires a majority of the voting age population in a majority of states, it is possible that at this time there is still a majority in favour of the Voices in four of the seven states & territories.

And this week brought another Newspoll.....

 

On Saturday 15 July 2023 there was a federal by-election in the Queensland electorate of Fadden – a safe seat for the Coalition having been held at 16 out of the 17 federal elections since the electorate was created in 1977.

The by-election was caused by incumbent Stuart Robert, a former minister in the Morrison Government resigning in anticipation of being named in the Report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

As predicted the LNP candidate, Gold Coast City councillor Cameron Caldwell, won on the day with 49.06% of the first preference vote and 63.26% of the two-candidate preferred vote as at AEC recorded ballot count on 17 July.

Coincidentally, 14-15 July 2023 were the dates on which Newspoll conducted one of its national surveys of voter intentions.

This particular survey clearly indicated that if a general election had been held last Saturday, then MP for Dickson & Leader of the Liberal Party Peter Dutton & his Coalition cronies would remain on the Opposition benches.

IMAGES: The Australian, 17 July 2023

Click on graphs to enlarge

Here are the percentages revealed in this month’s survey.

Primary Vote

Labor – 36 (+2)

Coalition – 34 (-1.7)

Greens – 12 (+1)

One Nation – 7 (+1)

Others – 11 (+1)

Two-Party Preferred

Labor – 55 (+1)

Coalition – 45 (-1)

Performance Approval Rating

ALBANESE:

Satisfied – 52 (unchanged)

Dissatisfied – 41 (-1)

DUTTON:

Satisfied – 36 (-2)

Dissatisfied – 49 (unchanged)

BY 15 JULY 2023 LABOR'S SURVEY POSITION IN COMPARISON WITH ITS POSITION ON DAY OF 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION WAS:

Primary Vote: 3.4% higher

Two Party Preferred: 1.9% higher

Better Prime Minister:

Albanese 54% - no change

BY 15 JULY 2023 COALITION'S SURVEY POSITION IN COMPARISON WITH ITS POSITION ON DAY OF 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION WAS:

Primary Vote: 1.7% lower

Two-Party Preferred: 2.9% lower

Better Prime Minister:

Dutton 29% - 1% higher.

Climate Change State of Play in 2023: as seen from Yamba, Australia and the rest of the world

 

Yamba (pop. est. 6,388) at the mouth of the Clarence River estuary on the NSW far north coast, has an official weather station ID: 058012 which has been recording observations since May 1877 from a headline on the northside of the town.

What this relatively long history, of measuring air temperature, humidity levels, wind direction & velocity along with rainfall, is currently indicating is that from January to June 2023 monthly temperatures have been hotter than the 145 year averages.

While over the same period rainfall is so far below monthly averages that by June - the first month of Winter - rainfall was est. 125-127mm below the 145 year average for that month and occurred across only 7 of the 30 June days.

Yamba, like much of the Clarence Valley and 23.3% of the North Coast has been classified as Drought Affected on the NSW DPI Combined Drought Indicator (CDI).

NSW DPI CDI mapping as of 12 July 2023

Reading the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) webpages, it is looking increasingly likely that an El Niño event will be declared in the southern hemisphere before September 2023.

It seems that little Yamba and Australia are marching in step with the rest of the world.......

Washington Post, 13 July 2023:

The world is hotter than it’s been in thousands of years, and it’s as if every alarm bell on Earth were ringing.

The warnings are echoing through the drenched mountains of Vermont, where two months of rain just fell in only two days. India and Japan were deluged by extreme flooding.

They’re blaring from the scorching streets of Texas, Florida, Spain and China, with a severe heat wave also building in Phoenix and the Southwest in coming days.

They’re burbling up from the oceans, where temperatures have surged to levels considered “beyond extreme.”

And they’re showing up in unprecedented, still-burning wildfires in Canada that have sent plumes of dangerous smoke into the United States.

Scientists say there is no question that this cacophony was caused by climate change — or that it will continue to intensify as the planet warms. Research shows that human greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from burning fossil fuels, have raised Earth’s temperature by about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Unless humanity radically transforms the way people travel, generate energy and produce food, the global average temperature is on track to increase by more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit), according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — unleashing catastrophes that will make this year’s disasters seem mild.

The only question, scientists say, is when the alarms will finally be loud enough to make people wake up.

“This is not the new normal,” said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. “We don’t know what the new normal is. The new normal will be what it is once we do stop burning fossil fuels … and we’re nowhere near doing that.”….

Read the full article here.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 July 2023, p 22:

Natural disasters and extreme weather are thrashing the northern hemisphere as temperature records rapidly topple. Floods are overwhelming parts of Asia and Europe, fires are ravaging the US, sea surface temperatures off Europe are the hottest on record and the global average temperature has been at a record high four times in the past week.

Drought is sapping northern parts of China and heatwaves are paralysing cities at the same time deadly floods displace thousands in the south. It's just a taste of what's to come as climate change worsens.

Marine heatwaves

The ingredients for the catastrophic weather events in the northern hemisphere have been brewing in global oceans for months. In the lead-up to Earth's hottest week in recorded history, between July 3 and 9 this year, 40 per cent of the world's oceans were stewing through severe marine heatwaves.

"A big part of the fact that we've got these records occurring is because the oceans are so warm," said marine heatwave expert Associate Professor Alex Sen Gupta from UNSW's Climate Change Research Centre. "It means it's very likely that this is going to be the warmest year on record."

Much of the North Atlantic suffered the most extreme marine heatwaves in history. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called a Category 5 (beyond extreme) heatwave in waters west of Ireland as temperatures climbed 5 degrees above the June average.

The record marine heat in the Atlantic spurred the formation of Tropical Storm Bret, the most eastward ever tropical storm this early in the year. Bret churned westward and swept through the Caribbean, damaging water infrastructure in Barbados and shuttering schools in St Lucia.

The ocean heatwaves have a high chance of holding strong for months, potentially contributing to bursts of damaging rain or intensifying heatwaves in Britain and Europe; one of either extremes. The warm water will mix deeper down into the ocean and have global effects - including on Arctic sea ice - for months.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that by September, 50 per cent of the world's oceans could be experiencing marine heatwaves. The normal global rate is 10 per cent.

Weatherzone meteorologist Yoska Hernandez said the sea surface temperatures off Australia are the warmest on record, about 0.3 to 0.5 degrees warmer than last year.

Warm oceans are particularly concerning because they increase moisture in the atmosphere, which can lead to more intense rain events. In the past two weeks, major floods have swept across the US, China, Japan, Europe and Pakistan. Hernandez said the drivers behind the rain events were all separate, but all occurred in the context of climate change.

For example, the Pakistan event has been the result of seasonal monsoonal rains, with as much as six months' of rain falling in 18 hours over some cities.

The floods in the north of America have been driven by an intense front moving over the region, dumping a lot of rain. There's a lot of moisture in the atmosphere driven by the warming ocean temperatures.

In Spain, a large thunderstorm has resulted in flash flooding across Zaragoza in the country's northeast - with about 64mm falling over some parts in a few hours. This is almost the average rainfall during summer for the country.

Last week, there were four days in which Earth's average temperature reached record highs. The global average temperature hit 17.2 degrees on Thursday, July 6, surpassing the 17.18-degree record set on July 4 and equalled on July 5, according to data from the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyser. The previous record of 17.01 degrees was set on Monday, July 3.

The data relies on satellite information and computer simulations to measure the world's condition. It is, however, worth noting NOAA said it could not yet validate the data but that the agency recognised the warm period was due to climate change.

"Combined with El Niño and hot summer conditions, we're seeing record warm surface temperatures being recorded at many locations across the globe," the agency said last week.

The World Meteorological Organisation, a specialised agency of the UN, declared the El Niño event last week. It's one of the most important drivers of unusual weather over the entire globe. In the southern hemisphere, El Niño tends to have a drying effect, but in the northern hemisphere it can increase rainfall.

For most of Australia, El Niño brings dry weather, increasing bushfire risk. But in other parts of the world it leads to wetter conditions, as in southern America.

The Bureau of Meteorology is yet to formally declare an El Niño event, but is expected to do so in the coming weeks. The agency has different criteria than other international weather agencies.

Sen Gupta said it was unusual so many weather events associated with El Niño, including fires and marine heatwaves, were striking before the weather system had even formed (the system has a 90 per cent chance of fully taking hold in the second half of the year).

Countries including Australia were warned to prepare for bad fire seasons. North America is currently in the midst of its most catastrophic fire season ever, which has seen nearly 4000 fires tear across Canada. Smoke spewed from the incineration of 9.5 million hectares and caused the worst air pollution in large swathes of the US in recorded history, draping cities such as New York in orange clouds of smog last month.

Last week in Beijing, as heat records topple across Asia, the government ordered a pause in outdoor work as the city hit a 10-day streak of days above 35 degrees, at the same time floods carried off cars and destroyed buildings, killing at least a dozen people and displaced thousands more in central and southern China.

Pinpointing the effect of climate change on one weather event is a difficult science, but a network of global researchers from the World Weather Attribution zeroed in on a four-day heatwave that killed 13 people. They concluded that human-induced climate change made the deadly heat 30 times more likely. (Another 96 people died from heat-related conditions in India in June.)

Tipping point

It's a question we keep coming back to as records tumble.

Dr Nandini Ramesh, a senior research scientist at CSIRO Data61, said it's important to understand what a tipping point is.

"A tipping point is when you push something until it can't be undone and it exacerbates further warming. An example is the west Antarctic ice sheet collapsing, which would cause irreversible effects on ocean circulation and climate," she said…..

"The ocean will [have] almost constant marine heat waves if we keep on pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We have to continually update what we class as a marine heatwave or, or go to more extreme definitions."

More than 61,000 people died because of last year's brutal summer heat waves across Europe, according to a study in the journal Nature Medicine. The findings suggest that two decades of efforts in Europe to adapt to a hotter world have failed to keep up with the pace of global warming. Extreme heat had been expected that summer based on how much the planet had warmed in the past decade, the report notes. This trend is likely to continue.

"Having a warmer atmosphere makes both intense rain and heat waves worse," Ramesh said. "It will push us into temperatures that are dangerous to the human body."

Tree by tree and hollow by hollow, regional coastal villages are being made over into the almost sterile landscapes of distant metropolises

 

All up and down the NSW coastal zone local residents are involved in conversations like this and, as in this case, local government staff are well aware of what is happening.

Concerning DA 2022/0100 - tree removal and erection of a shed - at 35 and 37 Riverview St, Iluka, at the mouth of the Clarence River estuary:

Click on image to enlarge

Melaleuca quinquenervia. Current common names: Broad-leaved Paperbark or alternatively Paperbark Tea Tree.

Tree grows 10 to 15m high and can live to more than 100 years. It produces clusters of cream to white flower spikes in summer, attracting birds, bats, bees and insects. Koala have been known to shelter in mature paperbark tree stands during storms or excessive heat. 

Grows on seasonally inundated coastal & near coastal plains, along stream banks and in low-lying coastal swamps.

Melaleuca quinquenervia is found as plantings in the grounds of The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust.

Hollow in mature paperbark prior to removal on lots 35 to 37 Riverview Street, Iluka. IMAGE: Contributed

Section of a felled paperbark on site showing hollow

REMARKS:

"They are dreadful images,.. and are pretty damning of the approval process. Those hollows should have been identified prior to clearing, and normally there should have been a requirement to have an ecologist or animal rescue person present at the time of felling. Microbats also live under the bark of those Melaleucas.

Of course, as Council refused to approve the hiring of an ecologist, they have no suitably qualified person to assess DAs, and are therefore at the mercy of the developer and what they chose to tell council.

[Email 11 July 2023, copied to Clarence Valley Council, councillors and relevant staff, transcript excerpt supplied]

NOTE: Paperbark tree taxonomy and general description have been altered since this post was first published.

Fadden federal by-election, Saturday 15 July 2023 - vote count begins at approx. 6:30pm

Australian Electoral Commission vote count in the Fadden by-election in Queensland begins after close of polls at 6pm, Saturday 15 July 2023. 

The rolling ballot count should be available at:

https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-29422-159.htm

Mapping by Australian Electoral Commission

Won only once by Labor in the last 17 federal elections, Fadden is considered a safe Liberal Party seat - even though sitting Liberal MP & former Minister for Government Services in the former Morrison Government, Stuart Robert, prematurely retired approximately two months after giving evidence before the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

See ABC Chief Election Analyst Antony Green's electorate profile and comments at:

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/fadden-by-election-2023

ABC News live coverage should be found at:

https://iview.abc.net.au/