Uniting calls for new tenders on incomplete independent living apartments in Yamba and now hopes to have construction completed in late 2024

Clarence Valley Independent, 6 September 2023:

Uniting has called for tenders to complete its 50 apartment Yamba Road development after the contracted builder GCB Constructions was placed into administration. Image: Fran Dowsett

Uniting has called for tenders to complete their 50-apartment development on Yamba Road after the builder initially contracted to complete the work, GCB Constructions was placed into administration.

When GCB began work on the site in 2022 it was hoped that the development would be complete, and tenants would have moved into the apartments by Christmas 2023.

But due to the problems incurred by GCB Constructions, tradespeople have only set foot on the Yamba site this year to retrieve any tools and equipment, before the site was secured after GCB was placed into administration on July 26, 2023.

The CV Independent has been contacted by local tradespeople working on the site who say collectively they are owed more than $1 million by GCB Constructions.

The company, which was founded in Lismore, formed a Gold Coast branch, with the Gold Coast division engaged by Uniting on the Yamba project.

When the CV Independent contacted GCB Constructions Lismore office they advised they were not associated with the embattled GCB Constructions on the Gold Coast which is in administration….

A Uniting NSW ACT spokesperson told the CV Independent, Uniting had invited tenders to complete the project.

“Uniting has now terminated the contract with GCB Constructions,” the spokesperson said.

“The administrators will still be working closely with creditors (including sub-contractors and Uniting) who have been impacted by these developments.

“Uniting has invited tenders from a select group of contractors to complete the works – this tender has not yet closed.”….

“Uniting hopes to have appointed the new builder and commenced work by the end of the year, with the aim of completing the apartments by late 2024.”

BACKGROUND

To avoid confusion being sown in the minds of readers….

GCB Construction Pty Ltd website lists its three offices as being:

14E/421 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006, Australia;

Level 3/21 Lakes [or Lake] Street

Varsity Lakes QLD 4227, Australia; and

32 Barnes Avenue, East Lismore NSW 2480, Australia.

Greg Clark Building Pty Ltd website lists its two offices as being:

32 Barnes Avenue, East Lismore NSW 2480, Australia; and

Level 3, 21 Lakes Street, Varsity Lakes QLD 4227.

The websites of both companies displayed a completed Uniting Caroona Hostel 12 Bed Extension as one of their own projects here and here. However, the incomplete Yamba independent living units contract with Uniting is only listed on the GCB Construction website in the Aged Care Capability Statement.

Australia and the world are fast running out of time to limit negative impacts of climate change to spans of multiple generations rather than millennia

 

The United Nations website is very clear about what has been agreed at an international level concerning the global response required to limit the Earth’s global warming to an average 1.5°C, thereby limiting the negative impacts of climate change in intensity and time span – hopefully to spans of multiple generations rather than millennia.

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015. It entered into force on 4 November 2016.

Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

Australia is a party to the 2015 Paris Agreement, effective 4 November 2016.

However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.

That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.

To limit global warming to 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030.

All those nations which entered into the Paris Agreement agreed to participate in the global attempt to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emission by establishing firm undertakings in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

In their NDCs, countries communicate actions they will take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. Countries also communicate in their NDCs actions they will take to build resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Australia submitted its first NDC to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in 2015 and updated that version of the NDC in 2022. This update commits Australia to reducing its emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. It should be noted that in 2005 Australia’s total national greenhouse gas emissions of 559.1 million tonnes of carbon equivalent gases (MT CO²-e) was already 102.2% of its 1990 annual total of 515.9 MT CO²-e.

It could be said that even now our national reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is sluggish at best.

"For the year to June [2023], according to the preliminary numbers from the government’s latest national greenhouse gas inventory, emissions were 4.1 million tonnes above those for the corresponding period the previous year." [The Saturday Paper, 08.09.23]

 

In the year to December 2015 Australia’s “annual unadjusted” greenhouse gas emissions stood at 529.2 MT CO²-e. An artificially constructed figure because per government policy it excluded emissions from from land use, land use change and forestry. These excluded emissions would have possibly added more than 1.0 MT CO²-e bringing the national annual total to over 30 MT CO²-e in 2015.

By year to December 2022 Australia’s “actual annual” greenhouse gas emissions were recorded as 463.9 MT CO²-e. A figure arrived at by an alleged fall in emissions from land use, land use change and forestry of est. -13.6 MT CO²-e due to professed reductions in land clearing and native forest harvesting, increases in plantations and native vegetation, and improvements in soil carbon. NOTE: By year to December 2022 each person in Australia was estimated to be responsible for 17.8 tonnes CO²-e of that year’s greenhouse gas emissions total.

What Australian governments and industries has effected was a paltry national greenhouse gas emissions change of est.

-65.3 MT CO²-e spread over eight years – an average of 8.1. Or est. -95.2 MT CO²-e spread over 17 years – an average of 5.6 MT CO²-e per annum. And that change was to a significant degree on the back of the adoption of rooftop renewable energy by the general population which in the year to December 2022 was contributing to an electricity sector emissions reduction of 5.5 MT CO²-e, according to the Dept. of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Either way, leaving Australia with an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least the promised -240.4 MT CO²-e within the next seven years. That’s roughly 34.3 MT CO²-e emissions we have to cease releasing into the air, waterways and oceans each and every year until 2030 to even have a chance at surviving as a nation and a functioning society beyond that year.

Creative accounting using offsets, hiding behind green washing propaganda, pushing hard decisions further down the track into the future, just won’t work. We need to immediately tighten polluting emissions regulations & abatement requirements, begin phasing out current unabated fossils greenhouse gas and, from this point in time where we stand right now, we must refuse all new or expanded proposals for fossil fuel extraction and use.

Australian industry and corporations both foreign and domestic are laughing in our faces and, federal & state governments appear all but frozen into inaction by the magnitude of the climate crisis before us. There will be no heroes coming down from the mountains to save us, no ships arriving to sail us all to as yet undiscovered safety, no divine miracles falling from the skies.

Australia’s estimated resident population stood at 26,268,359 men, women and children in December 2022 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 

An estimated 21,461,249 of the resident population in 2022 were individuals 15 years of age and older.

By default theirs is the burden of stopping that 240.4 MT CO²-e of additional pollution entering earth’s atmosphere over Australia by 2030. That’s an extra 11.2 tonnes CO²-e per person averaging 1.6 tonne of carbon equivalent a year.

So how do we each attempt to shoulder this terrible burden? 

"Key finding 4: global emissions are not in line with modelled global mitigation pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, and there is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels." 

[United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake, Advance Version 8 September 2023, excerpt]

 

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

• UN., Climate Change, retrieved 8 September 2023
• U.N., The Paris Agreement
• U.N., Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake. Synthesis report by the co-facilitators on the technical dialogue, Advance Version 8 September 2023
• U.N., Nationally Determined Contributions Registry
• DCCEEW, Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts, 1990 onwards
• DCCEEW, National Inventory Reports
• DCCEEW, National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: Quarterly updates 2009-2023
• ABS, Australia's Environment: Issues and Trends, 2002 onwards
• ABS, Year Book Australia, 2005
• Our Word In Data, C02 Emissions
• Nature, Food, Global food-miles account for nearly 20% of total food-systems emissions, 15 December 2022

Postscript:

Stocktaking our personal emissions level and, looking at ways of reducing that average per head of population average green house gas emission excessive budget of 17.8 tonnes CO²-e, may be something we can all attempt. 

For example: 

• the average vehicle in Australia is estimated to travel 12,100 km per year or 33.2 km per day, which represents around 2.1 tonne CO²-e annually; 

• while the average household across all power supply types is estimated to consume 5,818.6kw/h of electricity each year, which can be as high as 3 tonne CO²-e annually depending on the mix of supply types per household; and

• imported food or imported ingredients have food transport kilometres attached, which in Australia's case means food importation from the European Union represents est. 1.3 MT CO²-e annually or approx. 50 kg CO²-e per capita. A serve of deli sausage from Denmark travels est. 25,000 food kilometres to reach the supermarket counter. 

Time to get cracking and shame the devils who brought us to this catastrophic pass - even if the task appears impossible and we merely so many cursed children of a condemned Sisyphus.

Sometimes {sarcastic} humour is the only defence left in an increasingly inhospitable world

 

Some social media posts use humour to criticise the supermarkets' prices.(Instagram: Grassroots Action Network Tasmania). ABC News, 8 September 2023

Coles announces new series 'Feed your family for under $1,000' https://t.co/2vRDyfgdzj

— The Chaser (@chaser) September 6, 2023

via @ChrisHeHim1

On 30 August 2023 the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its Monthly Consumer Price Index Indicator for July 2023 showing the monthly CPI indicator rose 4.9% in the twelve months to July, with the most significant price rises being Housing (+7.3%) and Food and non-alcoholic beverages (+5.6%) - supposedly offset by a fall in Automotive fuel (-7.6%). Rent was listed as rising by +7.6% and electricity rose by +15.7%. While the Insurance and financial services category was recorded at +8.5%.

It is getting harder and harder for those on low fixed incomes to afford a range of healthy fresh food, better quality dried/processed food, milk, tea, coffee, juice, condiments or even enough bread for a fortnight. Right now it feels like a visit to Coles or Woolworths costs three times as much for half the number of items.

Prices are misleading at ⁦@Coles⁩. $1.70 x 2 = $3.40. Yet Coles’ down-down “specials” show “2 for $4”. How widespread is this mathematical duplicity? ⁦@acccgovau⁩ is on the case but time for consumers to protest about theft in advertising. ⁦@hijessicayun⁩ SMH. pic.twitter.com/TqpYEmy1HZ

— Quentin Dempster (@QuentinDempster) September 6, 2023

As for medications - by the time one is standing at the pharmacy checkout prices are becoming prohibitive - over $61 for around 28 days supply of just six of the eight medications required on a daily basis is not unusual.

When it comes to those unexpected out-of-pocket expenses involving GP or medical specialist visits - those expenses often need 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' budgeting - with many GPs even charging an additional fixed fee just to put your behind on the consulting room chair. One of those chairs would bring in around an extra $240-$320 per 8hr day on top of the medical consultation fees accrued for that working day.

Of course the need for new clothing or shoes frequently loses out to all these other living expenses.

It's no wonder second-hand stores & food banks have so many customers these days.

Weeping figures commemorate 2022 flooding in the Clarence Valley

 

 

PICTURED: Nationally recognised local artist Al Stark painted four sentinels overlooking the Clarence River on the pylons under the new Harwood Bridge adjacent to Yamba Road. 

Photos by Clarence Valley Council, August 2023

History is Calling......

 

OUR NEW AD IS LIVE!

You’re the Voice that will make history.

On 14 October, we know we all can stand together with the power to be powerful.
#HistoryIsCalling, so #VoteYes. Are you in? John Farnham is.
#UluruStatement #StayTrue2Uluru #YoureTheVoice #VoteYes pic.twitter.com/4ujYd9gk0M

— ulurustatement (@ulurustatement) September 3, 2023

 

This next Southern Hemisphere Summer may bring more unwelcome news for Australia's coastal zone

 

“Climate breakdown has begun”

[U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, 6 September 2023]

NOAA Research, Global ocean roiled by marine heatwaves, with more on the way, 28 June 2023, excerpts:

This map depicts predicted marine heatwave conditions in September 2023 as generated by the Physical Sciences Laboratory’s experimental forecast model.

Credit: NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. *Click on image to enlarge*

The experimental forecast, which tracks the NOAA Climate Prediction Center’s official outlook, is based on a large ensemble of climate model predictions spanning June 2023 through May 2024….

A marine heatwave is defined as a monthly regional sea surface temperature anomaly that ranks in the top 10% of warmest months compared with the 1991–2020 average. Long-term ocean warming trends also contribute to unusually high ocean temperatures, but even with the effects of long-term warming removed, models predict 25% of the global ocean will experience sharp upward departures from more recent conditions by September…..

In this scenario it appears that the Southern Ocean waters are within a probability range of between 60-80 per cent for the occurrence of marine heatwave which might have also lead to a rise in Antarctic sea surface temperatures.

Which begs the questions:

How will the over 60km long Halloween Crack in west Antarctica react to any additional stressors on the Brunt Ice Shelf?

Will the East Coast Ice Sheet which is said to contain four fifths of the world’s ice again lose ice shelf through iceberg calving as it did with C-37 (144 sq.km) & C-38 (415 sq. km) in March 2022?

Just how big are these Anthropocene Age icebergs going to grow – given many are the size of cities already? and

How long does the Southern Hemisphere have before sea level rise beyond the Antarctic Circle increases exponentially past millimetres into metres?

BACKGROUND

NASA Earth Observatory, retrieved from website 7 September 2023:

Antarctica’sBrunt Ice Shelf Finally Breaks

January 24, 2023

In February 2019, a rift spanning most of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica appeared ready to spawn an iceberg about twice the size of New York City. The question among scientists was not if the growing rift would finish traversing the shelf and break, but when? Now, nearly four years later, it has done just that.

According to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the break occurred late on January 22, 2023, and produced a new iceberg with an area of 1550 square kilometers (about 600 square miles). The U.S. National Ice Center has named it Iceberg A-81. The berg is visible in this image, acquired on January 24, 2023, with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

The glacial ice in the shelf flows away from the interior of Antarctica and floats on the eastern Weddell Sea. (For reference, the Antarctic Peninsula and its ice shelves are located on the opposite side of the Weddell.) The shelf has long been home to the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Research Station, where scientists study Earth, atmospheric, and space weather processes. BAS reported that the station, which was relocated farther inland in 2016 as the chasm widened, was unaffected by the recent break.

January 12, 2021

The break occurred along a rift known as Chasm 1. This chasm started growing in the 1970s, followed by a period of dormancy, and then resumed growth in 2012. It continued to lengthen for almost a decade, extending by as much as 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) per year in early 2019. But even this growth spurt slowed. That is, until the 2022–2023 Antarctic summer when the chasm sped up and ultimately broke past the McDonald Ice Rumples—a submerged knob of bedrock that served as a pinning point for this part of the shelf. Several factors may have contributed to the completion of the break, including a lack of sea ice to help resist, or “push back,” against the stresses on the shelf ice in 2023.

The second image, acquired with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows the extent of Chasm 1 on January 12, 2021, about two years prior to the break. Notice several other cracks across the northeast part of the shelf. The “new crack” in that image ultimately separated in February 2021 and formed Iceberg A-74.

“The rapid formation of subsequent rifts—to long-standing Chasm 1 and 2—and recent calving to the northeast makes it clear that these shelf areas are dynamic with poorly understood stresses,” said Christopher Shuman, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County, glaciologist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The breaking (calving) of icebergs from ice shelves is part of a natural, cyclical process of growth and decay at the limits of Earth’s ice sheets. As glacial ice flows from land and spreads out over the sea, shelf areas farthest from shore grow thinner. These areas are stressed by storms and tides and thin as they are melted from above or below, ultimately making them more prone to forming rifts and breaking away.

As for the “new” Brunt, it remains to be seen how the complex floating glacial ice responds to the most recent calving event. According to Shuman: “We have no solid idea what ‘normal’ really is for this unusual ice shelf.”

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

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

Other large iceberg calvings

NASA Earth Observatory

Early on July 12, 2017, satellites captured imagery of the new, massive iceberg that broke away from Larsen C—an ice shelf on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula…..On July 13, the U.S. National Ice Center issued a press release confirming the new iceberg and officially naming it A-68.

February 22 - March 21, 2022

Collapse of the ice shelf in front of both the Glenzer Glacier (C-37) and Conger Glacier (C.38)commencing around 12 March 2022.

The pharmacists of Australia turned faces of naked entitlement towards Parliament and their own client base, jeering and yelling on Monday 4 September 2023

 

Financial Review, 4 September 2023:

Hundreds of pharmacists were in Canberra for a protest on Monday morning, and many pharmacists attended question time in white uniforms, jeering as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended Labor’s consultation over the plan.

In an already rowdy question time, Speaker of the House of Representatives Milton Dick warned people in public galleries that they were present as observers, not participants, in parliamentary proceedings and should refrain from interjecting.

But hostilities escalated dramatically when members of the group loudly exited the chamber, with many yelling at MPs on the chamber floor below in a co-ordinated exit.

Some shouted “lies” and at least one pharmacist raised his middle fingers as he walked out. The sitting was disrupted for a few minutes…..

Pharmacists leaving House of Representatives visitor's gallery after disrupting Question Time and also allegedly abusing Parliament House staff. IMAGE: Canberra Times

MPs on the Opposition benches in the House of Representatives cat calling & encouraging pharmacists in the Visitor's Gallery during Question Time on 4 September 2023. It is believed that some of the pharmacists were signed in as visitors by one or more Liberal Party MPs. IMAGE: Daily Mail

Because the industry union, Pharmacy Guild of Australia, has run such a virulent campaign against the the federal government’s reduction of prescription medicine costs to eligible consumer/patients via the introduction of 60-day prescriptions for certain medicines and because Liberal & Nationals members of federal parliament are attempting to turn this issue into a political football, there may be a need to restate what the 60-day prescription scheme entails.

Australian Government, Dept. of Health and Aged Care, 4 September 2023:

60-day prescriptions of PBS medicines

Learn about the changes to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) medicine prescriptions.

From 1 September 2023, nearly 100 common medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) will have the option of a 60-day prescription. This means many patients can now receive twice the medication for the cost of a single prescription. To qualify, patients must be:

• living with an ongoing health condition

• assessed by their prescriber to be stable on their current medicine/medicines

• have discussed with their prescriber and obtained a new prescription for a 60-day quantity of medicine per dispensing.

The changes are happening in 3 stages over 12 months and will apply to more than 300 medicines once completed on 1 September 2024.

The changes follow advice from the independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), which recommended it was clinically safe and suitable to allow 60-day prescriptions for eligible patients.

The full list of PBS medicines recommended by PBAC as suitable for dispensing in increased quantities includes some medicines for ongoing health conditions, such as:

• asthma

• breast cancer

• cardiovascular disease

• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

• constipation

• chronic renal failure

• Crohn’s disease

• depression

• diabetes

• endometriosis

• endometrial cancer

• epilepsy

• glaucoma and dry eyes

• gout

• heart failure

• high cholesterol

• hormonal replacement and modulation therapy

• hypertension

• osteoporosis

• Parkinson’s disease

• ulcerative colitis.

The full list of medicines recommended by the PBAC for 60-day prescribing is available on the medicine list for increased dispensing quantities.

Prescribers have the option to prescribe these medicines for either 30 or 60-day prescriptions, according to their professional clinical judgement.

Benefits and cost savings

Patients with a 60-day prescription for a PBS medicine may save up to:

$180 a year, per medicine for Medicare card holders who do not have a concession card

$43.80 a year, per medicine for concession cardholders….

Stage one – available from 1 September 2023

The first stage of medicines available for 60-day prescriptions will support patients stable on their current treatment and living with ongoing health conditions including:

• cardiovascular disease

• Crohn’s disease

• gout

• heart failure

• high cholesterol

• hypertension

• osteoporosis

• ulcerative colitis.

Stage one includes nearly 100 medicines and represents roughly one third of all the medicines available for 60-day prescriptions.

See the list of stage one medicines. The Department is finalising the order of medicines available in stage 2 and 3.

Medicine supply

The move to 60-day prescriptions won’t cause medicine shortages as patients will still buy the same amount of medicine annually. While eligible patients are able to buy double the medication on a single prescription, demand for medicines will remain unchanged.

Of the more than 300 medicines PBAC recommended for 60-day prescriptions, the vast majority have no shortage of supply in Australia. The Department is monitoring the 60-day dispensing medicine list and has ensured that medicines were only included in stage one if they were not in shortage or at risk of shortage.

Medicine shortages can occur for different reasons, like:

• shortages of raw material

• transport issues

• factory quality control issues

• temporary factory closures

• natural disasters.

Most shortages are short-term, temporary disruptions and often only limit some brands, strengths or formulations.

The introduction of 60-day prescriptions in three stages over 12 months reduces pharmacy disruption and let’s supply chains adapt, as eligible patients will use existing prescriptions first.

Helping to ensure good medicine supply

Pharmaceutical companies must tell the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of expected medicine shortages. This means any medicine supply not likely to meet normal or projected consumer demand at any point during the next 6 months.

The Australian Government has made changes to the Medicines Supply Security Guarantee. From 1 July 2023, medicine manufacturers must have more onshore stockholdings for chosen brands. This will help make sure there is stock onshore, ready for pharmacy delivery to meet any temporary increase in demand.

Wholesalers must deliver to any pharmacy in 24 hours (excluding weekends or public holidays) if they are running low on medicine. This applies for most medicines.

Reinvestments into pharmacy services

The government commits to supporting a thriving community pharmacy sector.

All money saved by the government from reductions in fees paid to pharmacy for supplying medication to patients will be reinvested into community pharmacy.

This is to support the ongoing vital role of the pharmacy sector and give new opportunities for expanding pharmacists scope of practice.

Note: All yellow highlighting is mine.

Read the full advice at:

https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/60-day-prescriptions