Australia 2018: It's not looking good for the Morrison Government

News.com.au, 23 October 2018:

IT’S not looking good for the Coalition.

New polling analysis has revealed the Morrison Government is facing an election wipe-out, with a drop in support across every mainland state and every voter demographic since Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister in August.

Analysis of four Newspolls since the August 24 leadership coup, published by The Australian this morning, reveals a potential loss of up to 25 seats across Australia based on two-party preferred swings since the 2016 election, with eight held by current frontbenchers.

It comes after a shocking 19 per cent swing against the Liberal Party at the Wentworth by-election on Saturday.

Swings against the Morrison Government of up to 5% in Queensland and 7% in South Australia are tipped.

While on the NSW North Coast pundits are suggesting that Nationals MP Kevin Hogan will have to fight hard to keep the Page federal electorate and that Nationals-held Cowper is also up for grabs.

Kevin Hogan is still mired in that ridiculous charade where he declared himself as an independent MP sitting on the cross bench in August 2018.

Despite the fact that:

a) he is still a member of the National Party of Australia;

b) remains the Deputy National Party Whip in the House of Representatives;

c) remains Deputy Speaker in the House of Representatives;

d) was preselected by the National Party as its candidate in Page for the forthcoming federal election; and

e) has always voted at the direction of the National Party both before and after his spurious move to the cross bench.

According to Hogan himself; “I’m still a Nats MP – I still advocate and lobby for our community through the normal channels”.

Australia is now in the 39th week of 2018....

....and 56 women have died violent deaths to date this year in Australia.

At this rate a total of 69 women will be dead by New Year's Eve 2018.

This is far too many. Far, far too many.

Remember these women when you go to vote in state or federal elections in 2019.

Image from Destroy the Joint

Morrison Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government begins to position itself for forthcoming federal election

No, the Morrison Coalition Government has not suddenly developed empathy for others, a genuine understanding of its obligations under international law or a measure of respect for Australian courts.

Sensing the growing threat to its chance of holding onto government Messrs. Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton are finally allowing very ill children detained in offshore detention on Nauru to enter Australia for medical treatment.

The first child to arrive appears to have reached Australia two days ago and was reportedly immediately intubated and placed on life support on landing in Australia.

ABC News, 22 October 2018:

Australian Border Force officials have revealed 11 children were transferred off Nauru today for medical attention, with another 52 minors remaining on the Pacific island.

Officials have amended the figure to 11 after initially saying it was 16.

The update comes as the federal Greens float a compromise agreement that could allow families to resettle in New Zealand with their families.

The Federal Government has indicated it may accept New Zealand's offer to take up to 150 refugees, but only if legislation passes Parliament ensuring people sent to offshore detention can never travel to Australia.

Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo said that legislation, which has been sitting in Federal Parliament since 2016, would close a "back door" to dissuade further boat arrivals.

According to the latest figures, there are 652 people on Nauru, with 541 classed as refugees and 23 as failed asylum seekers. The status of another 88 is yet to be determined.

The United States has accepted 276 people as part of a resettlement deal and rejected an additional 148.

There is growing pressure from crossbench MPs for the Government to accept New Zealand's offer, with incoming independent Kerryn Phelps describing the issue as a first priority.

The Greens are now open to considering a travel ban for the group, but only if all children are first brought to Australia for medical treatment, and restrictions only applied to the cohort sent to New Zealand.

"We need to put the politics aside and look after these children, who are being traumatised and brutalised right now," leader Richard Di Natale told the ABC.

"If resettlement after that means resettlement in New Zealand with limited restrictions, just on that group, that's something we will consider.

"What we won't consider is putting bans or restrictions [on] those people who have been left behind.".....

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Cabinet at the Wentworth By-election Debriefing

Wentworth Downfall https://t.co/LqxMv2CaHL

— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) October 22, 2018

 Captions

0:00.50-0:03.25

Every polling booth has been wrapped in plastic

0:04.00-0:05.50

We took down their posters everywhere

0:05.65-0:07.50

and put ours up, here and here

0:08.00-0:12.00

The Blueshirts are out in force on every street

0:12.10-0:15.50

It's been a show of strength, we couldn't have done anything more.

0:17.50-0:19.00

The natural order has been restored

0:19.00-0:21.50

Wentworth will remain a blue ribbon Liberal seat.

0:24.75-0:26.50

Mein Morrison

0:27.50-0:28.50

There's been a swing...

0:31.00-0:33.50

...of more than 20% from the LNP

0:34.00-0:36.00

Kerryn Phelps has won

0:53.00-0:58.50

All the leftards who said we should run a female candidate in Wentworth, go outside with the women.

1:13.00-1:15.00

What is wrong with these Eastern suburbs' bastards?

1:15.25-1:17.75

We are Wentworth's born to rule party

1:18.75-1:23.25

This is a nightmare: Independent, Jewish AND gay.

1:25.25-1:28.00

And to top it all off, she's a woman!

1:29.25-1:31.00

It's like the politically correct quadrella from Hell!

1:31.50  -  1:34.00

We have held this seat since federation

1:34.751:37.75

That's 1901, long before lesbians were even invented!

1:37.50-1:40.50

I thought she wasn't running because she had HIV, why is she even here?!?

1:40.50-1:42.75

That was just a vicious rumour we tried to start last week.

1:42.75-1:46.25

Well now we're as popular as needles in strawberries... with chlamydia

1:46.50-1:48.80

We were trying to appeal to the party's conservative base

1:48.80-1:52.00

Why not something clever like, "Wentworth, where the bloody hell are you?"

1:53.00-1:54.50

We got our tax cuts through, 5% unemployment,

1:56.00-1:57.75

we gave everyone a bagel

1:57.75-2:00.50

and every surf club a pile of money, except for that schmuck at Tamarama.

2:00.50-2:03.50

No soup for you, Mr ALP surf club president Tim Murray!

2:04.50-2:08.00

We risked WW3 moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem

2:08.75- 2:13.50

and pissed off every Muslim between here and the Arctic circle

2:14.00- 2:16.75

and despite ALL that, they still didn't vote for us!

2:17.50- 2:21.75

We backed that ranga clown Hanson that it's #oktobewhite

2:27.00-2:29.00

No-one told me Sharma was Indian

2:30.50- 2:34.00

Tony and Potatohead didn't think this one through

2:34.50- 2:36.50

Cash splash? It was like a golden shower of cash!

2:41.00-2:42.50

20%? That's the biggest swing

2:43.00-2:47.50

since they hung that wop bastard Mussolini

2:48.50-2:53.00

I blame Halal Mal, his traitor son and the Dickhead for Warringah

2:54.00-2:56.00

We're going to have to lift our prayer game this Sunday

2:56.50-2:59.75

I grew up in bloody Wentworth, my cop dad used to arrest lesbians

3:00.00-3:02.50

Why didn't they elect us?

3:04.75-3:07.50

Don't give up Julie, you might get Veterans' Affairs

3:14.25-3:16.25

It's all good fellas

3:19.25-3:23.25

Don't worry, keep your chins up

3:25.55-3:26.75

We can reinstate Barnaby as Deputy PM

3:31.50-3:33.75

We'll get the band back together.

3:40.75-3:46.25

We exhumed John Howard for this campaign, we could try Menzies next time

3:46.50-3:49.00

After all, I'm a marketing genius, right?

3:53.75-3:56.00

It's not easy being a white male.

This private member's bill signals an ongoing threat to forests on the NSW North Coast and elsewhere in the state

This is Austin William Evans, NSW Nationals MP for Murray since 14 October 2018 when he won the seat on the back of a by-election after fellow Nationals Adrian Piccoli resigned.

On 18 October 2018 Evans introduced a private member’s bill in the NSW Legislative Assembly titled, National Parks and Wildlife Legislation Amendment (Riverina) Bill 2018 or An Act with respect to certain lands in the Riverina region reserved under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 or dedicated under the Forestry Act 2012; and for other purposes.

As yet no text of this bill is publicly available.

However, there are no prizes for having guessed that this bill seeks to revert  the Murray Valley National Park to a state forest to allow timber harvesters back in.

According to state parliamentary records the Bill lapses in accordance with Standing Orders on 19/4/2019.

Austin Evans has told the media he hopes to have a second recording of the bill before the end of the year and expects Berejiklian Government MPs to support it.

The 41,601ha Murray Valley National Park was declared in July 2010 and is part of the largest continuous red gum forest in the world, this region hosts a unique ecosystem with over 60 threatened native animal species and 40 threatened plant species. It is also an important place for Aboriginal people.

Make no mistake Evans’ bill represents the unsustainable native timber industry’s desire to make inroads into the wider national park system.

In fact it made sure it never really left the Murray Valley National Park, having received milling timber via so-called ''ecological thinning'' of sections of the park since 2012.

Given the number of national parks and reserves in the Northern Rivers region it is time to put pen to paper and remind Premier Gladys Berejiklian that growing the total area covered by the national park system, as well as reining in broad scale land clearance and/or extensive logging in rural and regional areas, is one of the easiest ways to mitigate against rising state greenhouse gas emissions.

The Berejiklian Government has already walked back from the transfer of 23,000 hectares of low productivity state forests to the national park estate and presented a whittled down version of the National Park Estate (Reservations) Bill 2018 which passed both Houses on 17 October 2018.

Although under this passed bill an est. 2,200ha of state forest will become part of the national park estate in January 2019 and and further est. 1,791 of state forest will be rededicated as state conservation areas, the total amount of protected viable koala habitat is limited.

In an effort to redress this, amendments were proposed which include the creation of the Great Koala National Park.

As of 18 October 2018 both NSW Greens and NSW Labor support the Great Koala National Park proposal and, if there is a change of government at the 23 March 2019 state election, we should see a genuine start to placing protection on enough viable habitat to begin to reverse the koala's decline towards local extinctions.

While I was away Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison........

....continued his Trumpification of the Liberal Party of Australia with predictable results.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, aka Shouty McShoutface, October 2018

TIMELINE

1.  Despite considerable public debate concerning the phrase "it's OK to be white", the Morrison Government supported this divisive white supremacist-inspired motion in the Senate on 15 October 2018:

Following strong community backlash Morrison and Co blamed their support of this motion on an "administrative error".

2. Stood silent after his newly appointed environment minister Melissa Price insulted a former president of Kiri Bati on 16 October 2018 and later misled the House.

3. On 17 October 2018 announced a review of the Australian Government's long held position on Israel-Palestine conflict by suggesting that a) Australia should consider supporting Jerusalem as the official national capital of Israel and b) should consider moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - thereby offending the entire Muslim world including one of our trading partners with whom we are currently negotiating a lucrative free trade agreement.

4. On the same day he announced a review of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) relating to Iran's nuclear program, in order to see if it remains the best vehicle to address the international community’s concerns. Signalling a possibility that before the year is out he will follow Donald Trump and withdraw support for the Plan.

5. On a bit of a roll, Morrison ended the day by throwing out the broad definition of science as the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experimentt - telling an audience peppered with published scientists that; the great magic of science, if you like. It starts with belief*.

6. Topping it all off, seven months out from a federal election, by forgetting to renew his scottmorrison.com.au domain name registration  and finding out on 19 October 2018 that it is now owned by Jack Genesin who appears to work for IT firm Digital Eagles.

7. He then went on to lose an unloseable by-election in the seat of Wentworth which had been held by Australian conservative MPs since its inception over 117 years ago in January1901. After campaigning for the Liberal Party candidate in this seat held by his immediate predecessor Morrison managed to produce a swing in Wentworth against his government of more than 19 per cent - possibly one of the largest loss margins in federal by-election history.

NOTES

* BELIEF 1. An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. 1.1 Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion. 1.2 A religious conviction. 2. Trust, faith, or confidence in (someone or something)

When you are on a low income and you rent governments have a tendency to place you in the too hard basket when it comes to clean renewable energy schemes

The Australian Census found that in 2018 the NSW state population stood at 7.48 million people.

An est. 826,922 or 31.8 per cent of these individuals lived in rental accommodation.

Over 15.2 per cent of NSW renting households are paying between est. 25.1% and 50% or more of gross weekly household income in rent.

These people cannot afford to enter this new Berejiklian Coalition Government renewable  energy scheme, because as renters they have no real security of tenure and would be permanently foregoing a $285 annual  low income household rebate with no hope of recouping the initial $3,500 solar panel installation cost when their landlords refuse to renew the lease or sell the property.

Indeed, I rather suspect that like other home solar power incentive schemes certain categories of renters would be ineligible to even apply.

Energy NSW, 28 September 2018:

The NSW Government has announced $15 million in clean energy funding for a new solar program aimed at saving low-income households hundreds of dollars each year on their power bills.

Acting Secretary of the Department of Planning and Environment, Dr Liz Develin said up to 3,400 households are expected to take part in the voluntary program which will see homes receive 2.5 kilowatt solar power systems if they forgo their Low Income Household Rebate.

The trial scheme will be rolled out in five selected State regions that will maximise the benefit of solar for local households.  The regions are: Sydney – South, Central Coast, North Coast, Illawarra – Shoalhaven and South Coast.

“The bill savings from the rooftop solar trial are expected to be close to double the value of existing rebate savings with an average bill reduction of $600 per household per year. This means that households who choose to participate in the program could be around $300 better off each year,” Dr Develin said.

“The program is entirely voluntary and eligible recipients will be able to reap the benefits of the program by transferring off the rebate program in return for a rooftop solar system.

“We know energy bills are placing pressure on low-income consumers, so we must ensure that we are doing everything we can to offer support for struggling households.”

The latest round of clean energy funding has now seen a direct injection of over $170 million into providing energy bill relief for households and businesses, including in regional NSW.

For more information about the solar program go to: www.energy.nsw.gov.au