So you think that next year's federal election campaign will be just like other federal election campaigns in the Northern Rivers region? Not if those sitting on the Opposition benches in the Australian Parliament have their way

October 2023 found many adults in the est. 315,775-strong resident population of the NSW Northern Rivers region eager to believe the misinformation, misdirection and downright politically-inspired lies and racial slurs being put about by the Liberal-National Party Coalition and Advance Australia for much of that year.

So much so that 62.32% of all of Northern Rivers voters felt comfortable at the national referendum to metaphorically spit in the faces of est.14,879 other Northern Rivers residents whose ancestors had lived in Australia for at least the last 40,000 years.

For that 62.23% life seemingly went on as before after the referendum vote. With no thought that they themselves, except for their barely disguised animosity towards First Nations peoples, were not the homogeneous group they thought themselves to be.

For the last national census revealed that 40,240 people who were living in Northern Rivers region were born overseas and 12% had only arrived in Australia within the 5 years prior to 2021.

In fact the Northern Rivers resident population contains migrants from over 90 different counties around the globe, speaking at least 50 different languages other than English in their homes.

Now the success of the negative divisive "No" campaign in the lead up to that national referendum vote appears to have encouraged the Liberal-Nationals Coalition to contemplate a national campaign along similar disruptive lines for the federal general election due next year.

However, based on the performance of the Opposition in Parliament and elsewhere, this time the bogey man employed is likely to be 'migrants'.

 It will be migrants who will be held responsible for the high house prices, rising rental costs, increased cost of living pressures and spike in domestic violence in Australia. With the Labor Party solely responsible for their supposedly increasingly high numbers, including an unspecified number of allegedly violent asylum seekers who have been left to roam at will.

So now, instead of being encouraged to hate on est.14,879 of their fellow community members, the Coalition and Advance Australia will be encouraging Northern Rivers voters to hate on up to 40,240 of their neighbours and work colleagues. To form a negative opinion on those community members who come from a non-English speaking background and, in particular on the over 4,000 who only arrived in Australia during the last seven years.

If as many people living in the two federal electorates covering the Northern Rivers region again embrace the thinly disguised racist rhetoric of another 'fear' campaign, then we are all in for yet another sustained attack on social cohesion and local community spirit by the Liberal-Nationals Coalition, supported by Advance Australia and other shadowy pressure groups.

Australia is now less than twelve months away from a federal general election and we are being warned of what is to come in the 2025 election campaign

"GO HOME YELLOW DOG"
Construction site in Melbourne
ABC News, 3 April 2020

Neo- Nazis marching in Ballarat, December 2023
The Age, 3 December 2023

Just a small sample of the casual #racism I sometimes cop as an Arab Australian journalist 🤌🏽

Notice how polite I was to him before he declared immigrants are the root of all problems.

I was covering a hit and run by the way…but I guess the culprit is always “immigrants”. pic.twitter.com/Q7tI0l15XU

— Nabil Al-Nashar | نبيل النشار (@NabilAlNashar) March 6, 2024

The Saturday Paper, 1 June 2024:

Editorial

In defence of Laura Tingle

The statement from Justin Stevens is eight sentences long. If crabs could write, their words would be as chinless and scuttling.

Nowhere does the ABC’s news director attempt to support his political reporter. Nowhere does he try to engage with the truth of what she said the weekend before.

Laura Tingle’s remarks, he claimed, “lacked the context, balance and supporting information of her work for the ABC and would not have met the ABC’s editorial standards”. Those standards, he said, served a vital role. “Laura has been reminded of their application at external events as well as in her work and I have counselled her over the remarks.”

Tingle had made the mistake of saying what is obvious: Australia is a racist country. It was settled on the racist fiction of terra nullius. It federated over racist concerns. It developed policies unique in their racism and was horrifyingly late in dismantling them.

Race has defined most elections in the past three decades. It is an ever-replenishing anxiety, an excuse for policy failures and a salve for lost primacy. The Voice referendum was lost to racism and the racket was so old and familiar that campaigners were told they couldn’t mention it.

“We’re a racist country, let’s face it,” Tingle said last weekend. “We always have been and it’s very depressing and a terrible prospect for the next election.”

That last point is important and the reason for the backlash that has followed. Right-wing politicians and the right-wing press are preparing for an election fought on race. Peter Dutton has never campaigned on anything else. He does not know how.

The purpose of the attack on Tingle is to license what will be said once the campaign is under way. It is a warning about what will happen to people who stand up against what will be an ugly and vicious attempt to win office through fear. Dutton’s budget reply speech was an opening salvo. He had no qualms about linking migration to the housing crisis, despite limited evidence to support this. He added on schooling and childcare and queues at the doctor. Migrants were also the cause of congestion on roads.

Almost all these lines once belonged to John Howard. He saw the double benefit of racism: the creation of an other you could campaign against and who you could blame for all your own failures. Underfunded healthcare stopped being his problem and became the fault of refugees. Traffic on the M4 became an issue of border security. His strawman wore blackface.

Tingle’s statement last weekend made another point about Australia: racism is almost never punished, but the people who name it almost always are. This is especially true if they are women or if they are not white.

The status quo depends on an agreement not to mention what is obvious. Racism is too central to the project of Australia. For people such as Dutton and those in the Murdoch press, it is too big to fail. That is the truth behind what Tingle said and it is the reason it needed to be said.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on June 1, 2024 as "His strawman wore blackface".

***********

NOTE:

Australian society was not always so shy of admitting its racism. The last slave known to have been sold was an Aboriginal house servant in northern Australia, a fact admitted by the then Minister for Home & Territories in 1927.

While more than one Aboriginal female child was human trafficked and sold as a house servant as late as the beginning of the 20th Century. Along the Australian east coast sea route from south-east Queensland to Tasmania and from Tasmania to the southern coast of mainland Australia.

SEE: https://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com/2020/06/australian-prime-minister-scott.html

Tweet of the Month

 

Former US president Donald J. Trump leaving the New York Supreme Court after being found guilty of 34 felony counts in a unanimous verdict delivered in The People of the State of New York v Donald John Trump (Criminal) on 31 May 2024 AEST.

Meme of the Month

 

Source of meme unknown

X/Twitter 31 May 2024

Cartoon of the Week

 

Matt Golding

Science and expert advice does not favour the creation of a nuclear power industry in Australia

 

Since 2018 the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has produced an annual report updating the costs of electricity generation, energy storage and hydrogen production, titled GenCost.

The report encompasses updated current capital cost estimates commissioned by AEMO and delivered by Aurecon, a design, engineering and advisory company, with the aim of providing projections of future changes in costs consistent with updated global electricity scenarios which incorporate different levels of achievement of global climate policy ambition.

This year the 131 page 2023-24 final report was released on 22 May 2024 and its Executive Summary opened with these words:

Technological change in electricity generation is a global effort that is strongly linked to global climate change policy ambitions. While the rate of change remains uncertain, in broad terms, world leaders continue to provide their support for collective action limiting global average temperatures. At a domestic level, the Commonwealth government, together with all Australian states and territories aspire to or have legislated net zero emissions (NZE) by 2050 targets.

Globally, renewables (led by wind and solar PV) are the fastest growing energy source, and the role of electricity is expected to increase materially over the next 30 years with electricity technologies presenting some of the lowest cost abatement opportunities.

Under Outcomes of 2023‐24 consultation was this interesting observation:

GenCost received the highest volume of feedback to the consultation draft in its history with 45 written submissions and many participating for the first time. This input has led to several changes, the most significant of which being the inclusion of large‐scale nuclear in the report for the first time. GenCost has also increased wind generation costs and developed a revised approach for including solar thermal generation costs on a common basis with other bulk supply technologies.

Consultation continues to be a valuable way of improving the quality of the report given that no single organisation can cover the breadth of technologies explored. Feedback can take the form of suggestions and questions. Given the volume of feedback it has not been possible to individually address every question raised in the body of this report. However, we have now added Appendix D which addresses the major common questions and answers.

The report noted: A majority of submissions to the 2023‐24 consultation process requested the inclusion of large‐scale nuclear in addition to nuclear small modular reactors (SMR) that had been included in GenCost since its inception in 2018.

It would appear that the Leader of the Opposition & Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Dutton and Coalition's Shadow Minister for Agriculture & Nationals MP for Maranoa David Littleproud, may have rallied the troops in the hope of fashioning the final report into a useful tool to deploy during the next federal general election campaign due to kick-off sometime between January - April 2025 for a May election date.

Based of the report's Appendix D Frequently asked questions the likely aim of some submissions received appears to have been to create a more feasible future for nuclear energy electricity production and supply than was contained in the earlier draft report. Along with refurbishing the reputation of coal-fired electricity generation.

With admirable restraint, considered and detailed answers were given to all of the following queries:

1. Why does GenCost not immediately change its report when provided with new advice from experts?

2. Why are disruptive events and bifurcations excluded from the scenarios?

3. Why is no sensitivity analysis conducted and presented?

4. Why did you use the capital cost of a single failed project in the United States for your representative nuclear SMR cost (the UAMPS Carbon Free Power

Project)?

5. Do you assume Australia continues to rely on overseas technology suppliers or are you assuming Australia develops its own original equipment manufacturing capability?

6. Why does GenCost persist with the view that technology costs will fall over time when there are many factors that will keep technology costs high?

7. Why is the uncertainty in the data not emphasised more?

8. Why include an advanced ultra‐supercritical pulverised coal instead of cheaper, less efficient plant designs?

9. Why is the economic life used in LCOE calculations instead of the full operational life?

10. Coal and nuclear plants are capable of very high capacity factors, why do LCOE calculations not always reflect this?

11. Why do LCOE calculations not use the lowest historical capacity factors for the low range assumptions?

12. Why were all potential cost factors not included in the LCOE calculations?

13. What is the boundary of development costs? Is it only costs from the point of contracting a developer before commencing construction?

14. How is interest lost during construction included in GenCost?

15. Why do other studies find higher costs than GenCost for integrating variable renewables in the electricity system?

16. Why are integration costs not increasing with VRE share in 2023 but increase in the 2030 results?

17. Why do other studies show the cost of storage increasing more rapidly with higher VRE share?

18. Why are the cost of government renewable subsidies not included in the LCOE calculations for variable renewables with integration costs?

19. Why is a value of 100% applied to the fuel efficiency of renewables in the LCOE formula?

20. Why do you apply only one discount rate or weighted average cost of capital to all technologies?

21. Why did you take the maximum and average of existing generator prices to create the high and low range greenfield coal prices?

22. Why do you not include high and low ranges for economic life?

23. Why are your low range capacity factors for coal and renewables closer to the historical average capacity factor?

24. Why use historical 2023 coal and gas prices that are impacted by the Ukraine War for 2023 LCOE estimates instead of a longer time series?

25. Why does GenCost only conduct LCOE analysis instead of system cost to society analysis?

26. If GenCost shows renewables are cheaper, why are electricity prices higher in Australia and in countries transitioning to renewables?

The completed final report would not have been to Messrs. Dutton and Littlerpoud's liking as, although there are no known technical constraints to deploying large-scale nuclear generation units, it would require that Australia commits to a continuous building program and only after an initial higher cost unit is constructed would capital cost of a large‐scale nuclear plant come in at $8,655/kW, based on 2023 pricing.

While an estimated electricity cost range for large‐scale nuclear generation under current capital costs and a continuous building program is $155/MWh to $252/MWh

None of which could begin to be put in place in the estimated timeline before 2040.

The Financial Review's political editor observed on 22 May 2024:

Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plans have suffered a setback with the CSIRO estimating the nation’s first large-scale nuclear power plant could cost as much as $17 billion in today’s dollars, and would not be operational until at least 2040.

This is the current reality of Australia's electricity generation mix. Click on the images below to enlarge the graphs.

Comparative Capital Costs of Current Generation Technology

Key Changes In Capital Costs In The Past Year

The GenCost 2023-24 final report can be downloaded at

https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Final_20240522.pdf

The Making Of A Client State: did Israel capture Australia between September 2016 and May 2022?

Australia is well-known as a committed supporter of the United Nations since its inception and, as a very early supporter of the partitioning of Palestine in order to create the State of Israel.

However, was the general public aware of just how vested the former MP for Wentworth and the former MP from Cook were in the Commonwealth of Australia's relationship with the State of Israel?

To the point that by May 2022 the inequity built into the Israel- Australia bilateral economic relationship in trade and investment was running at a crude ratio of billions:millions in Israel's favour and the number of Israeli companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) made it the tied third largest source of foreign company listings. 

The Turnbull - Morrison Federal Government Years Sept 2015 to May 2022

In 2016 Austrade established an innovation Landing Pad in Tel Aviv, as part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda.

Since 2017, Australia and Israel have expanded cooperation on national security, defence and cyber security

Defence officials began annual strategic talks in 2018 and in early 2019, Australia appointed a resident Defence Attaché to the Embassy in Tel Aviv. Leveraging Australia and Israel's respective areas of expertise, cooperation on national security continued to develop, including on aviation security with Home Affairs as the lead Australian agency.

Australian Trade and Defence Office established in Jerusalem in 2019 facilitating trade, investment and defence industry partnerships.

In 2020, Australian investment in Israel totalled nearly $1.6 billion and Israeli investment in Australia was $585 million, mostly centred in the innovation sector.

In 2021, two-way goods and services trade amounted to approximately $1.34 billion, of which Australian exports were worth $325 million and imports from Israel $1.02 billion.

AUSTRALIA & ISRAEL HAVE SIGNED:

• Working Holiday Agreement (2016)

• Technological Innovation Cooperation Agreement (2017) which includes a bilateral funding program to enable cooperation between Australian and Israeli companies

• Air Services Agreement (2017)

• Memorandum of Understanding on defence industry cooperation (2017)

• Memorandum of Understanding on cyber security cooperation (2019)

• Double Taxation Agreement (2019)

[DFAT Israel Country Brief, retrieved 29.05.24]

When it came to the pointy end of defence materiel required it appears that the then Coalition federal government was negotiating on assumptions concerning Australia's national defence requirements not having bothered to conduct an Australian Defence Force Posture Review - apparently relying instead on an outdated 2012 document.

Perhaps the ease with which Israel appears to have inserted itself into Australia's national security architecture may be explained not just by these two former prime ministers but also by the ministers appointed to Defence or Defence Industry portfolios during those years.

Those Australia-Israel MOUs and agreements mean that Australia purchases or leases a range of defence materiel, technology and services from the Israeli defence industry and is in some form of arrangement concerning the sale of arms and armament parts to Israel. 

As a nation Australia is reaping bitter fruit now that Israel is conducting a punitive war on the entire Palestinian population of Gaza.

ABC News, 9 April 2024: Details of an agreement struck between Australia and Israel on defence industry cooperation will not be released publicly over concerns the information could damage Australia's "international relations"....Following a three-month process, the defence department formally rejected the application, arguing that the document, which contains sensitive diplomatic information, is exempt under FOI legislation....

The document within the scope of this request contains information which, if released, could reasonably be expected to damage the international relations of the Commonwealth," the Defence Department said in a letter explaining its decision....

"The document contains information communicated to Australia by a foreign government and its officials under the expectation that it would not be disclosed," a Defence official wrote.

BRIEF BACKGROUND

MALCOM BLIGH TURNBULL

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said without the support of many in the Jewish community, “I may never have got into parliament, let alone become prime minister.” Recalling Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Australia in 2017 – the first by an Israeli prime minister – Turnbull said, “I’d always enjoyed Bibi’s company. He’s a tough, Machiavellian politician – he couldn’t have survived as long as he has without being so.”...“He has a very clear-eyed view of the Middle East. His only goal is for Israel to survive and to prosper. And he’ll do whatever deals, take whatever twists and turns that he needs, to achieve that.”

SCOTT JOHN MORRISON

Then Liberal MP for Cook & Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison flagged moving Australia's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, copying Donald Trump's controversial proposal, in a shift that appears timed to coincide with the Wentworth byelection - October 2018.

Said he went to Israel because 'Jewish Australians need to know that their cause is a right one'

Then Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison labelled ceasefire call a ‘play from Hamas’ while visiting Israel alongside former UK prime minister Boris Johnson - December 2023.

Then Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison accused UN of antisemitism and applying double standards against Israel - Sydney rally, February 2024