"It is profoundly disturbing to witness the appalling treatment of this young woman at the Lock-Up on 4 August 2014. In her final hours she was unable to have the comfort of the presence of her loved ones, and was in the care of a number of police officers who disregarded her welfare and her right to humane and dignified treatment." [Excerpt from Western Australia State Coroner, coronial finding, 16 December 2016]
Saturday 17 December 2016
Just because it is beautiful........(20)
The lyrebird from Australia can mimic virtually any sound that it hears, including children's toys,chainsaws and the calls of other animals! pic.twitter.com/bg57Hlokz7— Strange Animals (@Strange_Animals) November 26, 2016
Friday 16 December 2016
Will the Abbott-Turnbull policy horror stories never stop?
The Liberal and National parties blindly driven by ideology and riddled with far-right extremists have altered existing social policies (sometimes out of all recognition) or created new punitive policies, which are increasing the distress of the old, the disabled, the sick, low income earners, the unemployed and indigenous people.
Here is yet another bad news story about the effect of these policies……..
ABC News, 3 December 2016:
The Federal Government's remote work-for-the-dole scheme is devastating Indigenous communities, with financial penalties causing insurmountable debt and social division, a report has found.
The Australian National University researchers described Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion's Community Development Programme (CDP) as a "policy disaster".
ANU researcher and co-author Dr Kirrily Jordan said financial penalties were being applied unfairly and an example of this could be found in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia.
"The rental arrears across the whole lands, across 12 communities, have gone up from $50,000 to $350,000, in the short space of time since CDP's been introduced," she said.
ANU researcher Dr Inge Kral said she had spent 30 years working in remote communities and the latest scheme had left people struggling to feed themselves.
"People with no money in families, there's no money for food, there's certainly no money for clothes — people are starving, people are begging," she said.
"The whole infrastructure around stores is collapsing because there isn't the reliable secure income coming in."
According to the ANU report, the Centrelink-based system is impractical and devised by Canberra bureaucrats who are out-of-touch with remote community life.
Ms Kral also said people in remote areas were not being properly assessed for the disability pension and could be on the phone to Centrelink for "days", with little regard for language barriers.
"We are not kidding. This is not made up. People sit there for days," she said.
"Someone told me a story the other day about a man who really should be on a disability pension.
"They're now without money, they're on an eight-week no-payment penalty, they haven't eaten for three days, they've got no money coming in and they can't effectively engage with Centrelink by themselves.".
The scheme applies to about 34,000 people, mostly Indigenous, across Australia and was introduced by Mr Scullion in July last year.
CDP increased the number of work hours required for welfare payments to 25 per week, for at least 46 weeks a year.
The last Question Time of 2016 and the last hurrah for Malcolm Bligh Turnbull?
The Guardian, 4 December 2016:
Parliament ended the year with a mixture of bang and whimper.
The whimper was the legislative “fight”. It says a fair bit about the way the government is travelling that the big political issue was the backpacker tax (important as it is for farmers, it is not one that should have caused such grief) and the passing of the Building and Construction Commission legislation. This has been so laughably altered from its original intent that the main issue for unions is ensuring the ABCC does adhere to the legislation – such as the requirement that the commissioner performs his or her functions “in an apolitical manner”.
The bang was a protest that disrupted question time.
There was, of course, a lot of hand-wringing over the protest – there always is when the left protests in Australia. After all, we had much the same response about disruption of democracy from the powers that be a couple years ago when students protested against Christopher Pyne during an episode of Q&A.
The protesters certainly did disrupt the proceedings of parliament, but they did no one any harm and were no danger to anyone. Their putting a stop to the proceedings of question time actually produced a net benefit to the nation’s IQ, even if only for three-quarters of an hour.
That’s not to say question time is unimportant or always brain dulling in its idiocy. There are times, mostly by accident, when something worthwhile does occur, but for the most part it is just a poorly scripted play performed by mediocre actors……
It should be noted that on Wednesday it took Malcolm Turnbull two sentences to deliver his answer about attacking the ALP, while on Thursday it took him three.
Notionally his answer was about the passing of the legislation to reinstate the ABCC, but perhaps because the legislation was so neutered he felt on surer ground to talk about the ALP’s faults rather than his government’s achievements.
The ABCC legislation, however, nicely encapsulated the government’s policy process – rushed, sloppy and actually failing to deliver what was intended.
The government was so desperate to get the legislation passed that it agreed to all manner of amendments – including those that were highly protectionist, made the commissioner’s position virtually untenable, and those that didn’t make a lot of sense……
How I’ll remember Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull during Question Time in 2016:
Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
SBS News, 6 December 2016:
Voter support for Malcolm Turnbull has fallen to its lowest level since he seized power, the latest Newspoll shows.
The Coalition heads into Christmas with its two-party preferred vote up from 47 to 48 per cent but still trailing Labor, which has notched up its sixth successive lead, on 52 per cent, the poll taken for The Australian newspaper shows.
Mr Turnbull's standing has again fallen, with his rating as better prime minister dropping two points to 41 per cent, the lowest level since he toppled Tony Abbott as leader 15 months ago.
The prime minister's standing has tumbled 18 points over the course of this year.
His margin over Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, who is favoured by 32 per cent as the preferred prime minister, has dropped from a 39-point lead in January to just nine points.
The Newspoll of 1629 voters, taken from Thursday to Sunday, shows the government's primary vote has gained one point to 39 per cent and Labor's primary vote fell two points to a two-month low of 36 per cent.
The Greens remain unchanged on 10 per cent while support for independents and other parties edged up from 14 to 15 per cent.
Thursday 15 December 2016
Yet another attempt to reform Australia's political donation rules set for 2017
ABC News, 7 December 2016:
Declared donations and payments to Australian political parties is about to top $1 billion, a new analysis of data shows.
But the true figure could be triple that because donations under $13,200 do not have to be declared.
"It's very hard to know because disclosure laws in Australia are very opaque, they're not transparent," Monash University's Dr Charles Livingstone said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if it was twice or three times as much as been declared, at least."
Dr Livingstone has studied political donations and in particular how donations made by the gambling industry have influenced public policy.
He says the current laws are "corrupt, they're opaque and they undermine democracy".
The new database has been compiled by The Greens from donations and payments declared to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) between 1998 and 2015.
The current funding and disclosure scheme has been in place since the 1984 election, but the electoral commission website only publishes returns from 1998 onwards.
An analysis by the ABC shows tracing the source of the donations is also difficult, because more than 20 per cent of the money was funnelled through organisations called associated entities.
Labor and The Greens are expected to push for reforms to political donation laws when Parliament resumes next year.
They want a ban on foreign donations and for all donations above $1,000 to be declared…..
Donations and payments declared to the AEC between 1998 and 2015 have been collated into a central, searchable database.
It includes receipts for $994,822,181 in donations and other payments called "other receipts" or "subscriptions".
The largest corporate donors over the 17-year period were:
Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd — $21,664,196
One of Clive Palmer's companies, now in liquidation, has donated to his own political party and to the Liberal and National parties.
Mineralogy Pty Ltd — $14,692,636
Another of Clive Palmer's companies that made significant donations to his own party and to the Liberal and National parties, despite reporting consecutive losses to the ASX.
Village Roadshow Limited — $5,022,263
The company made large payments to both the Labor and Liberal parties while lobbying for a crackdown on digital piracy.
Pratt Holdings — $4,609,733
Linked to Melbourne's well-connected Pratt family who made their fortune with Visy Industries, a paper, packaging and recycling company.
The most generous industries over the 17-year period were:
The property industry — $64,099,161
Financial and insurance industries — $37,078,539
Pharmaceutical/health — $12,625,078
In terms of total donations, the most generous individuals were:
Lord Michael Ashcroft — $1,772,938
A conservative UK businessman who has donated to the Liberal Party in Australia.
Graeme Wood — $1,680,795
A digital entrepreneur and environmentalist who has donated to The Greens.
Henry Ray Gillham — $1,035,900
A Queensland grazier who stood as a candidate for the Citizens Electoral Council in the 2004 federal election, but forgot to fill in his own ballot paper correctly. His donations were all to the CEC……
The searchable database Democracy 4 Sale was established in 2002 and was expanded this year. It now contains all donation receipts reported to the AEC since 1998 and includes donations which were declared by the donor but not the party.
In 2011 Australia had a Labor government and in 2016 it has a Liberal-Nationals Coalition government - see the difference
What a difference the philosophy a political party espouses makes to the physical and social environment in which they govern.
THEN……
The Australian Federal Parliament was interrupted by a group of protesters shouting 'no carbon tax' during Question Time on 11 October 2011.
This is what the Parliament House looked like after that incident – barricade free.
Photograph by Tracy Best, Saturday 24 October 2011
NOW…..
The Australian Federal Parliament was interrupted by a group of protesters shouting
'close the camps ' during Question Time on 30 November 2016.
'close the camps ' during Question Time on 30 November 2016.
This is what Parliament House looked like after that incident.
A security guard patrols the lawns at Parliament House.
Photo: Andrew Meares, The Sydney Morning Herald 1 December 2016
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