“Thanks for the tweets, Lyn!”
North Coast Voices appreciate your efforts
to let everyone know what Australian bloggers are saying.
Kind Regards,
Clarrie Rivers
Monday 24 February 2014
Wondered why quite a few faceless conservative trolls have fallen silent since 7 September 2013?
This media report might well hold the answer.
Brisbane Times 10 February 2014:
The Abbott government has quietly introduced a hardline code of conduct for ministerial staff, banning political commentary on social media sites including Twitter and Facebook.
The ban also extends to current Coalition staff writing books and newspaper articles and staff seeking "further guidance" on the new rules are referred directly to Tony Abbott's chief of staff, Peta Credlin.....
Graphic from Google Images
Pay and Superannuation Gaps Between Australian Women and Men
Australian Government Workplace Gender Equality Agency – Fact Sheets and Statistics:
This fact sheet looks at the pay and superannuation gaps between women and men by age group.
Do Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann want to reduce the number of retirement years the average Australian worker can expect before death intervenes?
In July 1908 and December 1910 when the Commonwealth age pension came into effect for men and then women aged 65 years and 60 years respectively, average life expectancy after reaching retirement age was 11.3 years for men and approximately 13 years for women.
Since then retirement age has been reset to 65 years of age for both genders.
However, according to Centrelink from 1 July 2017, the qualifying age for Age Pension will increase from 65 years to 65 and a half years. The qualifying age will then rise by six months every two years, reaching 67 by 1 July 2023.
Currently residual life expectancy for someone aged sixty-five years is 19.1 years for men and 22 years for women.
However, by seventy years of age life expectancy will drop to 15.3 years for men and 17.8 years for women with further declines in the years 80, 90 and 100.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics also notes; Since 1983 the number of deaths has increased by 1% on average annually. The steady increase in the number of deaths over time reflects the increasing size of the population and, in particular, the increasing number of older people. With continued ageing of the population the number of deaths will continue to rise, with deaths projected to outnumber births sometime in the 2030s.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states; At 30 June 2012, 76% of people aged 65 and over received an Age Pension through Centrelink or a similar payment from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. More than half (59%) of those receiving a Centrelink Age Pension received a full-rate pension.
So basically when you consider these statistics they indicate that the majority of those Australian citizens already receiving an age pension will cease drawing this pension sometime in the next 2 to 18 years.
Most of those citizens about to become eligible will likely be receiving the age pension for the next 19.1 to 22 years.
While in nine years time, everyone born after mid 1956 will on retirement only receive this pension for an estimated 17.6 to 20.3 years. That is approximately 6.3 to 7.3 years longer than those people receiving the aged pension in 1908-1910.
So when the Federal Finance Minister is reported as stating that life expectancy was 55 when the age pension was introduced, but life expectancy was now 30 years longer he is simply missing the point – the average Australian is not likely to live another thirty years beyond retirement.
And when the Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey talks of the need to raise the national retirement qualifying age beyond the current planned rise, he is being somewhat premature. Especially as the number of retirees dying by 2023 will have grown considerably.
One might suspect Messrs. Hockey and Cormann of hoping that if they raise the pension eligibility age to 70 years then, given the last calculated median age at death for both genders, around half of those applying for this pension will possibly have ceased receiving it within 8.6 to 16.6 years.
Which for the men in this group would mean that (if Hockey and Cormann prevail) they will have less years to enjoy retirement than their forebears did in 1908, while women in the same group only get around three years more than women did in1910.
Sunday 23 February 2014
Manus Island detention centre violent death - an unfolding story
SBS: Manus Island detention centre
ABC News: Manus Island detention centre tent interior
News.com.au Sunday 23 February 2014:
MORE than 200 locals
joined riot police and guards from security contractor G4S in crushing Monday
night’s uprising by asylum-seekers at the Manus Island detention centre.
Civilian residents of
the Lombrum naval base, on which the detention facility is located on Manus
Island, said when security forces felt they were being overwhelmed they asked
locals to help repel several hundred rioters.
This account explains
for the first time how there were such widespread injuries, with 77 asylum
seekers requiring treatment...
One civilian source who
entered the compound at the height of the riot saw Berati being carried by
medics.
“His skull was crushed and
his neck was broken, but I don’t know how,” said the man, who said he went in
to try and calm locals down, who were battling detainees with iron bars....
Security firm G4S handed
control of the detention centre to Transfield Services today, with both firms
promising to co-operate with the inquiry.
The Sydney Morning Herald Saturday 22 February 2013:
Australian security staff will be investigated over their role in the Manus Island detention centre riot that left one man dead and scores injured, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has conceded.
In an extraordinary statement issued late last night, Mr Morrison admitted that much of the information he had given to the Australian public since Monday’s riot was now in doubt.
The most explosive admission is the revelation that most of the violence probably took place within the detention centre's fences, rather than outside its boundaries, as Mr Morrison had previously claimed.
“I wish to confirm that, contrary to initial reports received, I have received further information that indicates that the majority of the riotous behaviour that occurred, and the response to that behaviour to restore order to the centre, took place within the perimeter of the centre,” the minister said in the statement.
“In a situation where transferees engage in riotous and aggressive behaviour within the centre, this will escalate the risk to those who engage in such behaviour. However, in such circumstances service providers must conduct themselves lawfully and consistent with the service standards set out in their contract.”
A spokesman for security company G4S, which is contracted to run security on Manus Island, flatly denied to News Corp Australia on Thursday that its staff were involved in the riot, saying: “G4S was not involved in any violence with detainees.”
Fairfax Media was unable to contact G4S on Saturday night.
On Friday, Mr Morrison said the security company would be off the island within a week, when its contract expired.
Transfield, which runs operations on Nauru, will take over security on the island.....
The Sydney Morning Herald Saturday 22 February 2013:
The Iranian man who died during violent clashes on Manus Island this week suffered a cut to the neck and head injuries, according to an employee at the detention centre who was with him before he died.
The man, who has asked that his name not be used, also said he saw another asylum seeker whose throat had been cut, and another whose face was swollen beyond recognition. He said more than one of those injured suffered gunshot wounds.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison confirmed on Friday that the deceased asylum seeker was 23-year-old Reza Barati, who arrived on Christmas Island last July and been transferred to Manus Island in late August.
The employee said he helped tend to the injured after the attack, which asylum seekers told him had been perpetrated by locals employed by security contractor G4S and police.
He said asylum seekers in fear of their lives had been pulled from their rooms, beaten and told by their attackers: ''You want freedom? We'll give you freedom tonight.''....
International Business Times Friday 21 February 2014:
The Iranian asylum seeker killed in a violent jail-break from an Australian-run detention camp in Papua New Guinea was killed by a guard working for the security contractor G4S, according to an Australian guard.
The account, obtained by News Corp, suggests local guards jumped on Reza Barati's head in a "frenzy" on Monday night, as he lay defenceless on the ground.
Barati, 23, was killed in a camp on Manus Island on Monday, after sustaining fatal head injuries as hundreds of asylum seekers pushed down a perimeter fence to escape the compound.
An Australian official has said his body will be repatriated to his family in Iran. The Australian Embassy in Port Moresby conveyed the deep sympathies of the Australian government....
The Sydney Morning Herald: Reza Berati
Scott Morrison MP, Minister
for Immigration and Border Protection
Media release Tuesday 18 February 2014:
I am advised that there
has been a further and more serious incident at the Manus Island processing
centre overnight involving transferees breaching internal and external
perimeter fences at the centre.
I am advised
non-essential staff were evacuated as a precautionary measure last night prior
to any escalation of these events, when low level demonstrations resumed.
The extent and nature of
the subsequent events and perimeter breaches is still being verified. However,
I am advised that all staff have been accounted for, our service providers are
in control of the centre and there has been no damage to critical
infrastructure or accommodation at the centre, which will enable the centre to
resume normal operations.
Confirmation of the
location of all transferees is yet to occur and face to photo checks will be
undertaken later in the morning.
I am advised that during
the events PNG police did not enter the centre and that their activities
related only to dealing with transferees who breached the external perimeter.
Once again, I am advised that G4S were able to protect critical infrastructure
and take control of the facility within the centre without the use of batons.
In addition to the
evacuation of non-essential staff earlier in the evening, transferees not
participating in these events were removed to a nearby oval for their safety,
while G4S addressed the situation in the centre.
Transferees injured
during the incident are and have been receiving treatment from IHMS at the
scene and there are a number of persons with serious injuries included in this
group.
Arrangements will be
made to transfer persons requiring further treatment offsite at the earliest
possible opportunity, where necessary, and we are liaising with local health
services to this end.
We have not been advised
of any injuries to our staff, however it is possible that some security staff
may present later in the day for minor treatment once they are in a position to
do so.
A command centre,
including PNG authorities, was established on Manus to direct our response to
these incidents on the ground, in accordance with standard procedure.
Further information will
be provided on these events once further reports have been provided and are
verified.
I will be returning with
Lt Gen Campbell directly to Canberra from Darwin at the first available
opportunity to be briefed on these events and to be available to determine
further actions as required.
Media release Monday 17 February 2014:
The government can
confirm there was a disturbance at the Manus Island centre last night.
I am advised that staff
are reported safe and accounted for and that the centre is reported to be calm.
It is reported Papua New
Guinea police have arrested a number of transferees in relation to the
incident.
Service providers have
also reported a number of transferees have received medical attention and that
there has been some minor property damage to the centre.
I am advised that
suggestions reportedly made by asylum advocate groups in relation to this
incident that transferees had been informed they would not be settled in Papua
New Guinea are false.
Further information in
relation to this incident will be provided once details can be confirmed by my
department.
Anglican Church still crying poor
Yet another organised religion which allowed paedophilia to flourish within its clergy is attempting to protect its wealth.......
Newcastle Herald 17 February 2014:
THE Anglican Church has warned the royal commission into child sexual abuse not to assume multibillion-dollar church assets can be sold to compensate abuse victims.
The warning comes in a submission to the commission from the titular head of the Australian church, Brisbane Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, and two senior church officials.
They were responding to a finding by Simeon Beckett, counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that the Anglican Diocese of Grafton had enough assets to settle abuse claims from former residents of an orphanage at Lismore in northern NSW.
From evidence presented at a public hearing in November, Mr Beckett found the diocese put its own financial interests above the needs of abuse victims.
The diocese pleaded poverty when it came to finding money for people subjected to horrifying abuse in the North Coast Children’s Home in the 1960s, yet sold considerable assets to service a debt incurred when it built a loss-making private girls’ school......
Jubilee Venn Diagrams? Clarence Valley Mayor's motives questioned
Snapshot from 6 degrees of separation:
Josh Wodak
Snapshot from On the Balance of Probabilities,
.jpg)
Letter to the Editor on Page 9 of The Daily Examiner, 17 February 2014:
On the count of three
I attended the opening on Friday night at the Regional Gallery of an exhibition by Josh Wodak titled Jubilee Venn Diagrams.
I was there because Josh had invited me and a number of other locals to be part of his project. This entailed standing in the Clarence River and draping coloured ropes or holding and throwing coloured balls which represented rising sea levels, increasing carbon dioxide levels and increasing temperature.
It was an unusual experience for me, but as a project publicising climate change I was only too happy to get involved.
There were a number of other locals there for the opening of the exhibition, but it coincided with another exhibition opening Three of a Kind by local artist Graham Mackie and his associates James Willebrant and Soren Carlbergg.
Jude McBean in her opening address described the two exhibitions and explained that Josh could not be present as he was at another exhibition opening in Sydney.
The mayor, Richie Williamson was to officially open both exhibitions, but if you listened carefully to his address, which involved numerous references to cricket, drinking alcohol and generally to being a mate of the artist Graham, you would be forgiven for thinking that there was only one exhibition on at the gallery that night. I didn't see him even enter the room where Josh's exhibition was displayed.
This is not good enough from the head of our council. It was a bit rude and insulting that he didn't make mention once to the other exhibition and begs the question did he deliberately ignore it because of its environmental flavour or did he just not do his homework and was unaware that there was a second exhibition that he was supposed to be opening.
Either way it is not good enough Richie!
I think that a public apology is warranted.
This is no criticism of the gallery, Jude McBean or the three other artists.
Dr Greg. P. Clancy
Coutts Crossing
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