Yamba resident and proud Yaegl woman, Diane Randall, elected to the NSW Aboriginal Land Council as the North Coast representative

 

Australian Rural & Regional News, 20 March 2024:

Yamba resident and proud Yaegl woman, Diane Randall, has been elected to the NSW Aboriginal Land Council as the North Coast representative, one of two new faces on the council elected to protect the interests and further the aspirations of its members and the Aboriginal community.

The NSW Electoral Commission officially declared the outcome of the statewide election last Tuesday, with Ms Randall joined on the Land Council by new member, Ray Kelly, who represents the Sydney/Newcastle areas.

In her first nomination as North Coast representative, Ms Randall defeated incumbent North Coast member, Dallas Donnelly, and Tina Williams in the ballot.

“When I thought about running, I thought I would just have a go, because I knew that I was up against my cousin Tina Williams and Dallas Donnelly,” she said.

“After it was announced that I was the new North Coast Councillor I felt a lot of emotions, but I was mainly excited for the new challenge ahead.”

As a councillor for the North Coast, Ms Randall said she will represent 13 Local Aboriginal Land Councils where she has family: Baryulgil Square, Birrigan Gargle, Bogal, Casino-Boolangle, Grafton Ngerrie, Gugun Gudduba, Jali, Jana Ngalee, Jubullum, Muli Muli, Ngulingah, Tweed/Byron, and Yaegl.

Through her community involvement over the years, Ms Randall has been on boards including the Bulgarr Ngaru Medical Aboriginal Corporation, the Birrigan Gargle LALC, the Yaegl Elders Aboriginal Corporation and the Mudyala Aboriginal Corporation.

Ms Randall was also on the board of the Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council LALC for nine years and was the Birrigan Gargle LALCs chairperson for eight years, which she said provided her with invaluable knowledge on LALCs she intends to apply in her position as North Coast councillor.....

On 17 March 2024 Brazil's coastal capital Rio de Janeiro registered a record breaking city maximum apparent temperature of 62.3°C or 114.4°F

 

On Sunday 17 March 2024 the western section of the capital Rio De Janeiro recorded an ambient air temperature of 42°C or 107.6°F. However, Brazil's Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia (INMET) registered a record breaking city maximum apparent temperature of 62.3°C or 114.4°F.

In November 2023 the small city of Araçuaí hit 44.8°C or 112.6°F, according INMET. With an apparent temperature of 58.5°C or 137°F.

This is what INMET satellite infrared temperature mapping of Brazil looked like at different points on Sunday, 17 March 2024.

On 17 March 2024 Australia's capital Canberra recorded a maximum ambient air temperature of 16.6°C or 61.88°F, with an apparent temp of 15.3°C or 59.54°F.

CLIMATE CHANGE STATE OF PLAY 2024: so how hot was the surface air and sea surface on Sunday, 17 March?

 

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) on 5 March 2024:

 Australia's climate has warmed by 1.50 ± 0.23 °C between 1910 and 2023, leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events. In recent decades, there has also been a trend towards a greater proportion of rainfall from high intensity, short duration rainfall events, especially across northern Australia during the wet season. April to October rainfall has declined across southern Australia in recent decades, due to a combination of long-term natural variability and changes in atmospheric circulation caused by an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

The World Meteorological Organisation it its December 2023 "Significant weather and climate events in 2023" supplement noted:

Parts of northern Australia experienced major flooding during the early months of 2023. The remnants of Tropical Cyclone Ellie, which made landfall on 22 December 2022 in the western Northern Territory, brought major flooding to the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia and adjacent parts of the Northern Territory in late December and early January. Dimond Gorge received 355.6 mm on 2 January and 830.2 mm in the week from 28 December to 3 January. The Fitzroy River at Fitzroy Crossing exceeded its previous record level by more than a metre, and the main road bridge was destroyed, severing the only road links between the east Kimberley and areas further south and west for several months. A second major flood affected the far northwest of Queensland and eastern Northern Territory in early March. The Gregory River reached record levels and the town of Burketown was evacuated, although it ultimately escaped full inundation. Several Indigenous communities were also evacuated for extended periods. Later in the year, Tropical Cyclone Ilsa became the first category 5 landfall in Australia since 2009 when it crossed the coast east of Port Hedland on 13 April, in a sparsely populated area with limited impacts on land apart from the destruction of a roadhouse. However, much of Australia outside the tropics has had average to below average rainfall in 2023 to date, after widespread wet conditions in 2021 and 2022, and winter crop production is forecast to be slightly below the 10-year average, with a forecast 34% fall from record high levels in 2022. September was especially dry and was the country’s driest month on record averaged over the continent.

On 17 March 2024 this is how Australia was positioned in a global contest.

COPERNICUS Climate Pulse

According to the World Meteorological Organisation's State of Global Climate report the rate of global seal level rise has been 4.77mm a year since 2014. More than twice the rate of sea level rise occurring in the first decade of the satellite record (1993–2002). While CoastAdapt states; Consistent with global increases, sea levels have risen in Australia at an average rate of 2.1 mm/year over the past half century.

IMAGE: ABC News 20 March 2024

On 19 March 2024 BOM noted:

The annual global mean temperature for the 12 months from February 2023 to January 2024 was the highest on record, with Copernicus reporting that it was 1.52 °C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average.

Youth crime and crime generally are always good ways to scare rural and regional communities and a scare campaign has been running hot and cold in 2024

 

Youth crime and crime generally are always good ways to scare rural and regional communities and a scare campaign has been running hot and cold since the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOSCAR) released the state's 2023 December quarter crime statistics.

The National Party members of the NSW Parliament have been beating up these figures and supporting any group who will drink the political Kool-Aid.

On 23 February 2024 the NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley in Budget Estimates described the Country Mayors Association calls for an inquiry into regional crime as calling for nothing more than a “talkfest”.

By 14 March 2023 the political situation but not the statistics had changed.

TheCountry Mayors Association of NSW has welcomed the NSW Premier’sannouncement that the NSW Government will implement new initiativesto start to address regional youth crime.

The mayors' law and order concerns were somewhat recent given the last annual survey conducted by the CMA saw the 69 rural and regional local governments who answered this survey placing law and order low on their priority lists.

Readers of Murdoch media and local Northern Rivers newspapers may also have noticed the sudden flurry of journalistic and National Party concern about local crime rates.

The Clarence Valley Independent of 13 March 2024 was a case in point:

News of an escalation in youth crime in the Clarence Valley has gone right to the top of the Coffs Clarence Police District, with the Commander, Superintendent Joanne Schultz involved in implementing prevention and intervention strategies to prevent re-offending....

Last month, Member for Clarence, Richie Williamson joined calls by the Country Mayors Association of NSW for the Minns Labor Government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into rural and regional crime, following a spike in crime in the Clarence and Richmond Valley’s.

“The most recent data from the authorities show that youth crime continues to rise, especially for stealing motor vehicles and break and enter offences,” Mr Williamson said.

So what had changed for the Minns Government?

Well, firstly the state electorate is now only six months away from the NSW Local Government elections on Saturday, 14 September 2024 and both incumbent governments and their political opposition like to play the 'laura norder' card in an election year which sees party politics playing a significant but rarely openly stated role in council elections.

Secondly, the NSW Premier has announced new punitive legal measures aimed at youth offenders when it comes to matters like consideration of bail applications and certain increased penalties and, what better way to win support for this move and a policy of "proactive policing" of vulnerable groups than to further demonise young offenders.

Thirdly, a 'helpful' study was released by BOSCAR this month titled "Crime in Regional and Rural NSW in 2023: Trends and Patterns".

While this study openly admitted that in the last 20 years property crime had fallen by 48 per cent in regional NSW, this was seen as deficient because property crime had fallen by 67 per cent in Greater Sydney over the same period and as due to the different rates of decline, in 2023 the rate of recorded property crime was 59 per cent higher in Regional NSW compared to Greater Sydney. A most unfortunate statistical clash.

The study also stated: In 2023 the aggregate rate of recorded violent crime in Regional NSW was equivalent to the recorded rate in 2004. In Greater Sydney, however, violent crime declined significantly in the two decades to 2023 (down 20% from 2004 to 2023). The long-term decline in violence in Sydney and relative stability in Regional NSW has increased the disparity between the rate of violent crime in the regions versus the capital city. In 2023 the rate of recorded violent crime was 57% higher in Regional NSW compared with Greater Sydney.

Leaving a distinct impression that the comparisons being made are beginning to resemble the apple and orange variety and are unhelpful to anyone except state and local government politicians on the make in a local council election year.

The icing on the cake was the following paragraph, which totalled five years of crime statistics to achieve impressive numbers which are broken down in red annotations:

Four major offences, however, significantly increased in Regional NSW over the five years from 2019

to 2023:

o Motor vehicle theft (up 20% or 1,239 additional incidents) An est. average increase of 248 offences per year across 95 regional local government areas. In this category and unspecified number of youth offenders are alleged to be found.

o Non-domestic assault (up 14% or 1,825 additional incidents) An est. average increase of 365 offences per year across 95 regional local government areas. On a yearly average est. 204 were youth offenders.

o Sexual assault (up 47% or 1,505 additional incidents) An est. average increase of 301 offences per year across 95 regional local government areas. In this category it is solely adult offending.

o Domestic violence related assault (up 24% or additional incidents)

An est. average increase of 659 offences per year across 95 regional local government areas. On a yearly average est. 86 were youth offenders.

For those interested BOSCAR released a set of graphs which breakdown the trends into more specific crime categories at:

https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Publication%20Supporting%20Documents/RCS-quarterly/Supplementary%20charts%20-%20Recorded%20Crime%20Charts%202019%20to%202023.pdf

As for "stealing motor vehicles and break and enter offences" the Nationals MLA for Clarence points to in relation to youth crime, BOSCAR data for January to December 2023 show NSW Police proceeded against a total of 27 vehicle thefts in the Clarence Valley LGA, with 9 of these thefts alleged to be by young offenders aged between 10-17 years of age. While break and enter offences proceeded against totalled 33 offences, with 9 of these break and enters alleged to be by young offenders aged between 10-17 years of age.

As for motor vehicle theft and break and enter statistics for the Coffs Clarence Police District, BOSCAR shows Coffs-Grafton statistical district was considered "stable' over the last five years. With the change in motor vehicle theft being +113 thefts between 2019 and 2023 totals. While break and enter dwelling fell by -145 incidents and break and enter non-dwelling fell by -9 incidents between 2019 and 2023 totals.

From a personal perspective - yes let's all insist on higher numbers of police in all regional areas to improve crime clear up rates and because police are often spread thin on the ground during emergencies and, in the Northern Rivers region in particular we now have such events far too often.

However, does the desire to have more police in our towns mean that we need to endorse a more punitive response to young offenders by a state government and its police force?

ABC News, 18 March 2024:

Some of the country's top legal and criminal justice experts have written to NSW Premier Chris Minns about proposed bail changes. Sixty organisations signed the letter, including the Aboriginal Legal Service and the Sydney Institute of Criminology....

Amnesty International, Save the Children and the Human Rights Law Centre are also signatories to the letter, which states the premier's bail changes will "make crime worse in regional communities, not better".

"Your new policy to increase youth incarceration is a betrayal of your Closing the Gap commitments," they tell the premier....

A brief background on the Morrison Coalition Government's response to its own inquiry into the establishment of a nuclear power industry in Australia

"Australia currently has a moratorium in place that prohibits it from the ‘construction or operation’ of a number of nuclear installations, including nuclear power plants. This moratorium was introduced by Parliament in 1998 during consideration of the legislation to create ARPANSA, and at a time of strong anti-nuclear sentiment in Australia, particularly following French nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific and the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ incident." [Australian Parliament, HoR Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy, December 2019, Not without your approval: a way forward for nuclear technology in Australia, p.4]

During the term of the 46th Australian Parliament with then Prime Minister Scott Morrison leading the federal government, following a referral from the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor MP, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy resolved on 6 August 2019 to conduct an inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia.

The Committee conducting the Inquiry comprised:

Ted O'Brien Liberal MP for Fairfax - Chair

Josh Wilson Labor MP for Freemantle - Deputy Chair

Members:

Bridget Archer Liberal MP for Bass

Zali Steggall Independent MP

Josh Burns Labor MP for Macnamara

Rick Wilson Liberal MP for O'Connor

David Gillespie Nationals MP for Lyne

Trent Zimmerman Liberal MP for North Sydney

Supplementary Members:

Keith Pitt Nationals MP for Hinkler

(from 20 August 2019)

Fiona Phillips Labor MP for Gilmore

(from 17 September 2019)

In October 2019 the Committee held three consecutive hearings days in Canberra and accepted 309 submissions.

On Friday, 13 December 2019, the Committee presented its report on the Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia titled "Not without your approval: a way forward for nuclear technology in Australia" .

There were two dissenting reports included with the Committees final report - one from Labor and one Independent report.

It is interesting to note that although the final report mentioned difficulties caused in the creation of a nuclear power generation industry in Australia where none existed - including the time required to establish the prerequisite legal framework, the acquiring & training of a nuclear power workforce, the numbers of years between planning, construction & a power station coming on line and the expense of nuclear power supply at 2018 & 2019 prices - overall it was as a government initiative in favour of the establishment of a nuclear power industry.

However, the Morrison Government wrote no response to the report and markedly failed one of the most preliminary steps recommended:

1.145 The Australian Government should commission a readiness assessment.

This requires an expert body such as the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) to identify the major requirements that would need to be in place before Australia was ready to adopt nuclear energy.

For the next two years and one hundred & sixty days the Morrison Government sat on its hands.

Now four years and around 49 days after the report was left to moulder, in Opposition the rump of that government has decided it will make establishing a nuclear power industry one of its high profile policies.

Rather strangely, these days Opposition MPs rarely mention their own 230 page report as they make the new case for nuclear power.

Liberal MP for Dickson & Leader of the Coalition Opposition Peter Dutton called the CSIRO an unreliable scientific body producing "discredited" work and is now reaping what he has sown

"In the growing heat of debate over Coalition nuclear energy policy, Mr Dutton described the CSIRO’s GenCost report on the cost of electricity generation as “discredited” and “not a genuine piece of work” and suggested it was “well documented” that the CSIRO cannot be relied on." [InnovationAUS, 15 March 2024]

 

Open letter from Dr Doug Hilton, Chief Executive, CSIRO

15 MARCH 2024

NEWS RELEASE

Science is crucial to providing the data and models that allow society to tackle profound challenges; challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, transition to net zero, keeping Australian industry productive and sustainable, and protecting our unique biodiversity.

For science to be useful and for challenges to be overcome it requires the trust of the community. Maintaining trust requires scientists to act with integrity. Maintaining trust also requires our political leaders to resist the temptation to disparage science.

As Chief Executive of CSIRO, I will staunchly defend our scientists and our organisation against unfounded criticism.

The GenCost report is updated each year and provides the very best estimates for the cost of future new-build electricity generation in Australia. The report is carefully produced, its methodology is clearly articulated, our scientists are open and responsive to feedback, and as is the case for all creditable science, the report is updated regularly as new data comes to hand.

The GenCost report can be trusted by all our elected representatives, irrespective of whether they are advocating for electricity generation by renewables, coal, gas or nuclear energy.

No matter the challenge we are tackling, CSIRO’s scientists and engineers can be relied on by the community to work creatively, assiduously and with integrity.

Dr Douglas Hilton

Chief Executive, CSIRO

Some of the mainstream media headlines generated by Dutton's attempt to deny the considerable downside of introducing nuclear power stations into Australia's energy grid........

The Guardian

CSIRO chief warns against ‘disparaging science’ after Peter Dutton criticises nuclear energy costings

Douglas Hilton says he will 'staunchly defend' scientists as opposition leader repeats incorrect claim that CSIRO report does not accurately...

15.03.24

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Nation's science agency CSIRO hits back at Dutton claim that nuclear power costings were 'discredited'

The CSIRO has rebuked politicians seeking to undermine its research showing nuclear energy would be much more expensive than solar or wind...

15.03.24

The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Don’t disparage the science’: CSIRO hits back at Dutton on nuclear energy

Australia's top science agency has made a rare political intervention as CSIRO chief executive Doug Hilton defended his agency's findings on...

15.03.24

News.com.au

Nuclear question Dutton won’t answer

Peter Dutton has failed to answer a key question in a fiery clash with Bill Shorten over nuclear energy.

15.03.24

The New Daily

CSIRO hits back at Dutton's 'unfounded' criticism

Australia's national science agency has taken aim at Liberal leader Peter Dutton in a highly unusual public intervention.

15.03.24

The Canberra Times

CSIRO Chief defends GenCost report from political attack

Dr. Doug Hilton stands by CSIRO's GenCost report findings amidst political criticism from Coalition leader Peter Dutton.

15.03.24

The Age

CSIRO hits back at Dutton attack on its nuclear energy reports

Australia's top science agency has made a rare political intervention, with CSIRO chief executive Douglas Hilton defending his agency's...

15.03.24

Hunter Valley News

CSIRO boss defends scientists after Dutton attack

CSIRO chief executive officer Douglas Hilton has issued a rare public statement to urge politicians to "resist the...

15.03.24

The Wimmera Mail-Times

CSIRO boss defends scientists after Dutton attack

CSIRO chief executive officer Douglas Hilton has issued a rare public statement to urge politicians to "resist the...

15.03.24

Then on the same day the Centre for Independent Studies, a conservative seemingly pro-nuclear 'think tank' which also supported the No position in the 2023 national referendum and whose executive director just happened in 2008 to have been a senior adviser to former federal Liberal Party Leader Brendan Nelson and in 2009 was himself he a candidate to replace Nelson in his northern Sydney electoral seat of Bradfield, attempted to ride to Peter Dutton's rescue on social media with a whitewash of the Opposition Leader's comments and an interesting interpretation of the contents of CSIRO news release.

Centre for Independent Studies @CISOZ

CIS responds to @CSIRO's open letter.

"Not all criticisms are unfounded. If the CEO wants to defend the methods and conclusions of a particular report from criticism, he should do just that, rather than simply asserting that the report can be trusted when serious flaws still exist."

15.03.24

Headline and Lede of the Week

 

The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 2024