It's not easy being a healthy, mature forest red gum in 2021

 EchoNet Daily, 22 February 2021:

The forest red gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis) has been there longer than the Freckles Early Childhood Learning Centre in Tweed Heads West but the impact of the ibises who are roosting there at night are leaving their deposits on the ground. While this is entirely natural for the birds it has been a cause of concern for the Childcare Centre and Tweed Shire Councillor Warren Polglase (conservative) put forward a Notice of Motion (NoM) at last Thursday’s Council meeting (18 February) to have the tree removed.

While Cr Polglase acknowledged that the tree had been there before the childcare centre and that the ‘25 page arborist report was full of jargon’ that he didn’t understand he felt it should be removed at the cost of the Freckles Childhood Centre…….

‘We should be active and take the tree down,’ Cr Polglase told the meeting.

The forest red gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis). Photo Aslan Shand.

Lights, wind, action

An amendment was put forward by Mayor Chris Cherry (Independent) and seconded by Cr James Owen (Liberal) to ‘investigate the treatment of the ibis with lighting and try to deter ibis from roosting in the tree’ according to Mayor Cherry.

Both Cr Owen and Mayor Cherry both highlighted the magnificence of the tree.

‘The forest red gum is a magnificent tree at 1.6m in girth. The arborist report shows the tree is of exceptional health with less than one per cent of [decay] in the crown. I went with an open mind. I thought could be in bad condition. I really want to find a solution that addresses the issue for the early learning centre but doesn’t require the removal of the tree.’

Cr Owen thanked Cr Polglase for bringing the issue to the councillors attention and that he had been working on the issue with the childhood centre for over 12 months.

‘The primary concern [from the childcare centre] was the Ibis,’ Cr Owen told the meeting.

‘This alternative [motion] seems a possible way to go. I have been down several times – I haven’t seen any fallen branches. I have seen a lot of ibis droppings… Chopping the tree down is a last resort though it may be what occurs further down the track. I think it is a sensible approach to protect such a magnificent tree.’

Councillor Katie Milne sought that the investigation of wind spinners as well as lighting as a way to deter the ibis from nesting in the tree. She pointed out to the council that the forest red gum is a ‘is a primary koala food tree and important seed dispersal.

‘We have been advised there is minimal health risk with the tree. We have to have a policy, and we do have a policy, and we should abide by our policy’ pointed out Cr Milne…..

The amendment was carried with Deputy Mayor Reece Byrnes, and Crs Allsop, and Polglase voting against.

For now the tree will remain – but if the attempts to disperse the ibis fail it will once again be in line for removal.

Forty-one NSW towns are part of the initial rollout of the national vaccination program commencing on Monday 22 February 2021

 

Well today is the day....Monday 22 February 2021.

Australian Department of Health, media release excerpt, 18 February 2021:

Australia’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program will commence from next week. People in priority groups who are most at risk and who need protection the most – will receive a vaccine first.

The rollout will begin with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and following the approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on Tuesday, will include the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine from early March.

The initial priority groups include aged care and disability care residents and workers, frontline healthcare workers, and quarantine and border workers.

A full list of the initial national rollout towns can be found at

https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/initial-towns-suburbs-and-hubs-for-covid-19-vaccine.

This is a list of the 41 NSW towns which will be part of the initial rollout of the national vaccination program:

Alstonville, Austral, Ballina, Bangor, Barden Ridge, Blacktown, Collaroy, Collaroy Plateau, Corrimal, Cronulla, Dean Park, Emu Plains, Engadine, Glenfield, Gosford West, Heathcote, Illawong, Jamisontown, Marayong, Minto, Mortdale, Mount Austin, Narrabeen, Orange, Peakhurst, Penrith, Penshurst, Point Clare, Port Macquarie, Prestons, Roseland, Springwood, Stanwell Park, Tarrawanna, Terrey Hills, Thirroul, Umina Beach, Wagga Wagga, Warriewood, Woonona, Woy Woy.

This is Prime Minister #ScottyFromPhotoOps getting one of the first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine injections one day ahead of official national vaccination program rollout and, I kid you not, he applauded himself afterwards accompanied by clapping from Health Minister Hunt & others pic.twitter.com/xHl6e9CTD4

— no_filter_Yamba (@no_filter_Yamba) February 21, 2021

 

 

How NSW Northern Rivers hospitals are coping with COVID-19 restrictions backlog of elective surgeries

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted on Australian public hospitals with regard to elective surgery and the impact played out thus......

Australian Government, Australian Institute of Health & Welfare:

In terms of elective surgery, following a decision by National Cabinet, restrictions applied to selected elective surgeries from 26 March 2020 including:

• Temporary suspensions of all urgency Category 3 procedures and selected urgency Category 2 procedures.

• No restrictions applied to Category 1 procedures and exceptional Category 2 procedures.

• Similar restrictions on elective surgery were in place through the private sector.

On 16 September 2020 The Sydney Morning Herald reported that:

NSW's elective surgery waiting list has blown out to more than 100,000 patients that will take at least six months to clear after national cabinet's moratorium on non-urgent operations triggered an unprecedented backlog.

A staggering 10,563 patients were overdue for their elective surgeries on June 30, nearly 20-times the number of overdue patients on the same day in 2019, the latest Bureau of Health Information report shows.

Operating theatres are running at up to 115 per cent their pre-COVID activity levels to get through the state's waiting list that hit 101,026 patients on June 30 – a 20 per cent jump (an additional 16,896 patients) compared to June 30 last year.

Patients needing cataract surgeries, total hip replacements, and ear, nose and throat surgeries were waiting up to 55 days beyond the clinically recommended timeframe, the report released on Wednesday showed…..

More than 10,500 people were waiting for knee or hip replacements at the end of September, according to the quarterly Bureau of Health Information report, up more than 22 per cent from the same time in 2019.

According to NSW Health Care Quarterly, Trend Report of September 2020:

July to September 2020 had the largest number of patients on the waiting list for urgent and semi-urgent procedures of any quarter over five years.

The number of patients on the waiting list for nonurgent procedures was up 30.0% (17,803) over five years, from 59,319 in July to September 2015, to 77,122 in July to September 2020. However, it decreased from its highest level in April to June 2020.

By 9 December 2020 The Sydney Morning Herald was reporting that:

Orthopaedic surgeries were not only running behind, with 27 per cent occurring later than clinically recommended, but also had larger than usual wait lists at the end of September, up 21.3 per cent for knee replacements and 25.6 per cent for hip replacements compared to 2019. Usually on-schedule eye surgeries were also hit hard.

On 19 February 2021 elective surgery wait times were again in the news:

Waiting for elective surgery can be a postcode lottery in NSW, with waits as long as 375 days at some country hospitals but just days in the city.

So how are public hospitals in the Northern NSW Local Health District faring?

Given that this health district has a significant retiree population, by way of example I looked at three elective surgeries which appear to occur with relative frequency in older people.

PUBLIC HOSPITAL ELECTIVE SURGERY MEDIAN WAITING TIMES IN NORTH-EAST NSW

Lismore Base Hospital:

Hip Replacement - the median wait was 83 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 127 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 102 days.

Total knee replacement - the median wait was 150 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 229 days by 2016-17 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 142 days.

Currently Lismore Base Hospital patients tops the state for the longest wait for knee replacement - a median 375 days - with 63 per cent of patients waiting more than a year. 

Shoulder joint replacement - the median wait was 14 days in 2016-17 and blew out to 16 days by 2018-19 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 14 days.

Ophthalmology - the median wait was 323 days in 2011-12 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 341 days, the highest median waiting time in the last nine financial years.

Between July and September 2020 a total of 1,360 unspecified elective surgery procedures were performed.

Grafton Base Hospital:

Hip replacement - the median wait was 6 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 77 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 67 days.

Total knee replacement - the median wait was 10 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 145 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 135 days.

Shoulder joint replacement - the wait was 8 days in 2016-17 and blew out to 11 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at less than 5 days.

Ophthalmology - the median wait was 285 days in 2011-12 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 326 days, the highest median waiting time in the last nine financial years.

Between July and September 2020 a total of 652 unspecified elective surgery procedures were performed.

The Tweed Hospital:

Hip Replacement - the median wait was 65 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 130 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 119 days.

Total knee replacement - the median wait was 114 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 201 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 197 days.

Shoulder joint replacement - the median wait was 24 days in 2016-17 and blew out to 28 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 22 days.

Ophthalmology - no patients listed between 2011-12 and 2019-20.

Between July and September 2020 a total of 1,084 unspecified elective surgery procedures were performed.

Murwillumbah District Hospital:

Hip Replacement - the median wait was 39 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 48 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 30 days.

Total knee replacement - the wait was 53 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 59 days by 2017-18 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 30 days.

Shoulder joint replacement - the median wait was less than 5 days in 2019-20.

Ophthalmology - the median wait was 323 days in 2011-12 and blew out to 336 days by 2014-15 and latest figures for 2019-20 stand at 128 days.

Between July and September 2020 a total of 438 unspecified elective surgery procedures were performed.

Casino & District Memorial Hospital:

Performs limited orthopaedic procedures predominately as day surgery.

Does not currently perform ophthalmology surgery.

Between July and September 2020 a total of 252 unspecified elective surgery procedures were performed.

Maclean District Hospital:

Provides a small number of elective orthopaedic list procedures once a month.

Does not currently perform ophthalmology surgery.

Between July and September 2020 no elective surgery of any type occurred.

Ballina District Hospital:

Does not currently perform orthopaedic or ophthalmology surgery.

Between July and September 2020 a total of 307 unspecified elective surgery procedures were performed.

Byron Central Hospital:

Does not currently perform orthopaedic or ophthalmology surgery.

Kyogle, Bonalbo, Nimbin and Urbenville Multi-Purpose Services:

Do not currently perform surgery.

NOTE:

All statistics were found at the Australian Institute of Health & Welfare.

Tweet of the Week

 

pic.twitter.com/DTuGdnyS7J

— Caitlin (@LacyMartini) February 17, 2021

 

Cartoon of the Week

 

Cathy Wilcox

'Scotty from Marketing' Morrison creates a digital divide for Facebook users

 

In which Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (left) demonstrates why his career in promotion and advertising barely lasted ten years across four separate employers…...

Facebook Inc. first began its NEWS FEED in 2006 and by 2020 everyone of its est. 2.45 billion active users worldwide could expect to have around 300 news items in their daily feed.

Now est. 16.5 million of those active users living in Australia will lose all access to Facebook’s News Feed.

Facebook Inc, 17 February 2021:

In response to Australia’s proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.

The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter…..

Over the last three years we’ve worked with the Australian Government to find a solution that recognizes the realities of how our services work. We’ve long worked toward rules that would encourage innovation and collaboration between digital platforms and news organisations. Unfortunately this legislation does not do that. Instead it seeks to penalise Facebook for content it didn’t take or ask for.

We were prepared to launch Facebook News in Australia and significantly increase our investments with local publishers, however, we were only prepared to do this with the right rules in place. This legislation sets a precedent where the government decides who enters into these news content agreements, and ultimately, how much the party that already receives value from the free service gets paid. We will now prioritise investments to other countries, as part of our plans to invest in new licensing news programs and experiences.

Others have also raised concern. Independent experts and analysts around the world have consistently outlined problems with the proposed legislation. While the government has made some changes, the proposed law fundamentally fails to understand how our services work.

Unfortunately, this means people and news organisations in Australia are now restricted from posting news links and sharing or viewing Australian and international news content on Facebook. Globally, posting and sharing news links from Australian publishers is also restricted. To do this, we are using a combination of technologies to restrict news content and we will have processes to review any content that was inadvertently removed.

For Australian publishers this means:

• They are restricted from sharing or posting any content on Facebook Pages

• Admins will still be able to access other features from their Facebook Page, including Page insights and Creator Studio

• We will continue to provide access to all other standard Facebook services, including data tools and CrowdTangle

For international publishers this means:

• They can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences

For our Australian community this means:

• They cannot view or share Australian or international news content on Facebook or content from Australian and international news Pages

For our international community this means:

• They cannot view or share Australian news content on Facebook or content from Australian news Pages

The changes affecting news content will not otherwise change Facebook’s products and services in Australia. We want to assure the millions of Australians using Facebook to connect with friends and family, grow their businesses and join Groups to help support their local communities, that these services will not change.

We recognise it’s important to connect people to authoritative information and we will continue to promote dedicated information hubs like the COVID-19 Information Centre, that connects Australians with relevant health information. Our commitment to remove harmful misinformation and provide access to credible and timely information will not change. We remain committed to our third-party fact-checking program with Agence France-Presse and Australian Associated Press and will continue to invest to support their important work.

Our global commitment to invest in quality news also has not changed. We recognise that news provides a vitally important role in society and democracy, which is why we recently expanded Facebook News to hundreds of publications in the UK.

We hope that in the future the Australian government will recognise the value we already provide and work with us to strengthen, rather than limit, our partnerships with publishers.

* Photograph of Scott Morrison found at Google Images

The National Water Reform Draft Report has been released - now is the time for concerned Australians to speak up and loudly

If there is one thing that Australians know well by now, it is that state and federal governments frequently take from major reports only those points and recommendations which fit with their own political world view and/or those that can be easily distorted to meet the expectations of their party's financial backers - thus ensuring that little positive change occurs .

Water is the basis of life, without it communities perish and nations go into decline. That is one of the hard facts facing Australia as the impacts of climate change start to bite.

It is time for people to stand up in defence of this country's river and ground water systems and make sure governments understand that the environmental, economic and cultural vandalism they have supported in the past will no longer be tolerated in the present or the future. 

Australian Government, Productivity Commission:

National Water Reform Draft report 

This draft report was released on 11 February 2021. This draft report assesses the progress of the Australian, State and Territory governments towards achieving the objectives and outcomes of the National Water Initiative (NWI), and provides practical advice on future directions for national water reform. 

You are invited to examine the draft report and to make a written submission or brief comment by Wednesday 24 March 2021. 

 Make a submission or Make a brief comment 

The final report is expected to be handed to the Australian Government by the end of June 2021.

Download the draft report

• National Water Reform 2020 - Draft report (PDF - 2256 Kb)
• National Water Reform 2020 - Draft report (Word - 2897 Kb)

The Conversation, 11 February 2021:

Most Australians know all too well how precious water is. Sydney just experienced a severe drought, while towns across New South Wales and Queensland ran out of drinking water. Under climate change, the situation will become more dire, and more common. 

It wasn’t meant to be this way. In 2004, federal, state and territory governments signed up to the National Water Initiative. It was meant to secure Australia’s water supplies through better governance and plans for sustainable use across industry, environment and the community. 

But a report by the Productivity Commission released today says the policy must be updated. It found the National Water Initiative is not fit for the challenges of climate change, a growing population and our changing perceptions of how we value water. 

The report’s findings matter to all Australians, whether you live in a city or a drought-ravaged town. If governments don’t manage water better, on our behalf, then entire communities may disappear. Agriculture will suffer and nature will continue to degrade. It’s time for a change.

The report acknowledges progress in national water reform, and says Australia’s allocation of water resources has improved. But the commission makes clear there’s still much to be done, including: 

• making water infrastructure projects a critical part of the National Water Initiative 

• explicitly recognising how climate change threatens water-sharing agreement between states, users, towns, agriculture and the environment 

• more meaningful recognition of Indigenous rights to water delivering adequate drinking water quality to all Australians, including those in regional and remote communities, especially during drought 

• all states committing to drought management plans.

Read the full article here.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 2021:

A new national water reform report is inundated with positivity. But a closer look leaves you with a sinking feeling.

A glance at the draft report on national water reform from the Productivity Commission reminds me of the repeated judgment from old Mr Grace, the doddering owner of the department store in Are You Being Served? as he headed for the door: "You've all done very well!"

Its review of the progress of the National Water Initiative signed by the federal and state governments in 2004 - encompassing agreements on the Murray-Darling Basin - is terribly polite and relentlessly upbeat.

Apparently, governments have made "good progress" in having "largely achieved" their reform commitments. All that remains is just the need for a teensy-weensy bit of "policy renewal".

This mild-mannered stuff and congratulatory tone bear no resemblance to my memories of meetings of angry farmers railing against stupid greenies and other city slickers; of their insistence that the immediate needs of irrigators and irrigation towns along the river take priority over the river system's ultimate survival; of state governments' insistence on favouring their own irrigators over those in states further down the river; of federal and state National Party ministers happy to slip farmers a quiet favour, turning a blind eye to blatant infringements of the rules; of federal Labor ministers who, even with no seats to lose in the region, were unwilling to make themselves unpopular by standing up for the rivers' future.

I remember that the Howard government spent billions helping individual farmers make their irrigation systems more resistant to evaporation and seepage when all the benefits went to the farmer and none to the river system.

I remember all the infighting between government water agencies, and the mass fish kills during the recent drought in NSW and Queensland, for which the managers of the system accepted no responsibility.

Fortunately, reporters are adept at ignoring all the happy flannel up the front of government reports and finding the carefully hidden bad bits. And we have the assistance of water experts, including Professor Quentin Grafton, of the Australian National University, whose summary of the report in The Conversation is headed: "Our national water policy is outdated, unfair and not fit for climate challenges."

"If governments don't manage water better ... entire communities may disappear. Agriculture will suffer and nature will continue to degrade," he says.

The report's proposal to make "water infrastructure developments" a much larger part of the National Water Initiative is a critical way to keep governments honest. For years, state and federal governments have used taxpayers' dollars to pay for farming water infrastructure that largely benefits big corporate irrigators, Grafton says.

Last year the Morrison government announced a further $2 billion for its Building 21st Century Water Infrastructure project. Such megaprojects, he says, perpetuate the myth that Australia - the driest inhabited continent on Earth - can be "drought-proofed".

When governments signed the original initiative in 2004, they agreed to ensure investments in infrastructure would be both economically viable and ecologically sustainable. But many projects appear to be neither.

The report notes, for example, that building the Dungowan Dam in NSW means "any infrastructure that improves reliability for one user will affect water availability for others". The "prospect of 'new' water is illusory". Projects that aren't economically viable or ecologically sustainable can "burden taxpayers with ongoing costs, discourage efficient water use" and create long-lived impacts on communities and the environment", the report warns.

Equally disturbing is that billions of dollars for water infrastructure are presently targeted primarily at the agriculture and mining industries, while communities in desperate need of clean drinking water miss out, Grafton says.

Luckily, the report isn't so house trained as to avoid mentioning the gorilla the Morrison government prefers not to notice. There's a lot about the consequences of climate change. It says droughts will likely become more intense and frequent and, in many places, water will become scarce.

In Grafton's summary, the report says planning provisions were inadequate to deal with both the millennium drought and the recent drought in Eastern Australia. The 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan, for instance, took no account of climate change when determining how much water to take from waterways.

The present federal government actually dismantled the National Water Commission in 2015, so we no longer have a resourced, well-informed agency to "mark the homework" and make sure the reforms were being implemented as agreed, Grafton says.

In 2007, the worst year of the millennium drought - and the year John Howard feared he'd lose the election if he didn't match Labor's promise to introduce an emissions trading scheme - Howard remarked that "in a protracted drought, and with the prospect of long-term climate change, we need radical and permanent change".

Professor Grafton says we're still waiting for that change. "If Australia is to be prosperous and liveable into the future, governments must urgently implement water reform."