How some people started off 2017

American actor Charlie Sheen commenced 2017 with this tweet under his belt:

Dear God;

Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!



©

— Charlie Sheen (@charliesheen) December 29, 2016

Saying what half the world's leaders are probably privately hoping.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chair of the Northern NSW Local Health District Board, Hon. Dr Brian Patrick Victor PEZZUTTI, R.F.D., M.B.B.S.(Syd.), F.F.A.R.A.C.S., F.A.N.Z.C.A. is apparently starting off 2017 by contesting a penalty notice he received:

Image via that avid court watcher Clarrie Rivers

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liberal Democrat Senator for NSW David Ean Leyonhjelm entered 2017 at war with the South Australia Government and a particular News Corp journalist apparently because of unflattering media coverage:

"If the South Australia Government was a person, it would be an obese 40-year-old man with awful body odour who lives with his mother, refuses to work, and plays Xbox all day," Senator Leyonhjelm told Parliament on Wednesday. He pauses only to demand more Cheezels and iced coffee, or to complain when the lights go out."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be warned @ToryShepherd - you're open season. A photo of you even scratching your balls will go viral. https://t.co/RqSTPjc9PU

— David Leyonhjelm (@DavidLeyonhjelm) December 29, 2016

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twice-elected U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama started 2017 with only 19 days left in office but with an obvious determination to go out with a bang:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Nation Senator for Queensland Malcolm Ieuan Roberts is determined to carry on with his unbalanced United Nations bashing. WARNING his link s to known false news website:

USEXIT (pronounced: you-sex-it) is now on the cards https://t.co/Za3FgfLcAu pic.twitter.com/8dGzy6JsD9

— Sen. Malcolm Roberts (@SenatorMRoberts) December 28, 2016

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Turnbull Government came into the new year with yet another broken funding promise hanging around its neck:

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Whilst the Government has been proclaiming that it has record expenditure on infrastructure of $50 billion, the actual figure out to 2019 is $34 billion, with $8 billion into the never-never…..

JULIA HOLMAN: And Marion Terrill says that the most efficient way to boost productivity through infrastructure is to invest it in the cities.
But she says that the Government is choosing to spend significant amounts of money in regional areas and isn't focusing enough on the cities where most Australians live and work.
MARION TERRILL: Well I have found evidence of the politicised decision making for sure. You know it's hard to know what is exactly their motivation but certainly there is electoral advantage to them in spending in areas that are not particularly important to the economy, and they do do that. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Il Papa has some explaining to do this year after his annual Christmas revels did the rounds on Twitter:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking back on 2016......

Destroy the Joint count as of 20 December 2016

********************Happy New Year 2017*******************

http://www.happy-newyearimages.com/

**************Have A Merry Festive Season 2016**************

North Coast Voices wishes its regular readers and casual browsers a happy holiday season.

After a short annual break the blog will return on New Year’s Day 1 January 2017.

*Image found at pinterest.com

Australian Bureau of Statistics under Kalisch continues to prove that Census 2016 was expensive as well as a statistical and public relations disaster

Information coming out of the once-proud Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) again proves that it approached the most radical change to the national census of population and housing with an almost complete lack of understanding of the mood of the populace¹.

ABC News, 23 December 2016:

Taxpayers spent close to $200,000 to turn the Sydney Opera House green to promote the 2016 census, without any clear reference to the national survey.

The seven sails of the national landmark were lit up for two nights but did not include any information about the census, the website, a hashtag or branding.

Internal documents show it cost taxpayers $192,000 for setup, equipment hire, management and support.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) chief statistician David Kalisch described it as a "major public relations opportunity" and said it was likely to attract "social media influencers".

"This will maximise awareness and engagement with the census, and help create a national conversation," Mr Kalisch wrote in the document.

The Opera House turned green for census night and the night before but the social media conversation was dominated by the website's failure.

There was a 40-hour outage caused by four Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that had been the subject of a blame game between the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and contractors for months.

The Opera House was part of a national campaign to light up landmarks with the colour green.

The Melbourne Arts Centre, Canberra's Telstra Tower, Brisbane's City Hall and the Darwin Convention Centre were some of the 20 sites to "go green" for the census…..

The total census campaign media budget was $12 million.

#CENSUSfail is believed to have increased the cost 2016 national census by as much as $30 million.

In late September 2016 the ABS began processing and analysing the data collected to provide high-quality information for all communities across Australia. This process, including the Post Enumeration Survey (PES), will ultimately determine the overall response rate and coverage of the 2016 Census and the Independent Assurance Panel on 2016 Census of Population and Housing data sat for the first time in November 2016.

Currently ABS alleges that the national census response rate exceeds 96 per cent - comprising over 4.9 million online forms and over 3.5 million paper forms representing 8.4 million households/dwellings.

A rather strange statement by the Bureau, given it previously stated in the lead up to the census that it expected to survey close to 10 million dwellings and afterwards that there were exactly 9.8 million dwellings within the survey pool.

The failure to genuinely meet response rate requirements being papered over by the many personal forms in addition to the household ones [Senate Economics References Committee, 24 November 2016, inquiry report, 2016 Census: issues of trust, p.80].  Presumably these personal forms were official census forms which stated the person was in transit (travellers, homeless, & hospital patients) – all est.1.2 million of them if the deliberately vague assertion of the Bureau is to be believed.

The next public confidence hurdle for the failed 9 August 2016 Census comes when preliminary population and dwelling counts are released in April 2017 – given that so many people are aware of friends or acquaintances who deliberately refused to supply name and/or address or filled in their census forms with inaccurate or misleading information in an attempt to avoid having their genuine personal information retained by the federal government indefinitely in a national database for as yet unstated or unexplained purposes.

NOTES:

1. Previous North Coast Voices posts on 2016 Census here.

    Bill McLennan, 2016, Privacy and the 2016 Census.

Yet another #TurnbullGovernmentFAIL

Turnbull Government decides Australian taxpayers should fund extremely dubious, irresponsible comment……..

The Guardian, 23 December 2016:

The Turnbull government signed an agreement to make a $640,000 grant to Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre nine months after plans to establish the centre had been abandoned.

The education department may have been under no legal obligation to make the grant, documents suggest.

The funding was used to support the centre’s post-2015 UN development goals project that found limiting global temperature rises to 2C was a poor investment.

A breakdown of costs released on Thursday shows that $482,000 of the Australian funding was spent on professional fees and services including research, “outreach” and forums.

About $146,000 was spent on travel in an ambitious global project convening seminars to discuss the UN development goals in Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and New York.

The project formed the basis of Lomborg’s book The Nobel Laureates’ Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World, which is not widely available in Australian shops.

Documents released under freedom of information show the department only entered a formal agreement to fund the project as late as 21 March 2016. Based on those documents and answers provided by the education department it appears the government did not have any ongoing commitment to the project when the Australian Consensus Centre was canned in June 2015.

The government’s plan to establish the Australian Consensus Centre was put into effect in an agreement with the University of Western Australia (UWA) dated 24 March 2015.

But on 26 June 2015 the government and UWA terminated the agreement by consent because the university rejected the funds after a public backlash. The agreement created an obligation for the government to pay UWA’s reasonable costs, but did not create obligations to the CCC.

An education department spokeswoman told Guardian Australia no payments were made to UWA under the agreement.

The $640,000 grant is disclosed in a log of education grants dated 2 July 2015 but the spokeswoman said it was only added after the grant agreement was signed with the CCC on 21 March 2016.

In September 2015 it was referred to in an incoming ministerial brief to Turnbull’s pick for education minister, Simon Birmingham.

“The department has negotiated a funding agreement which will provide a one-off payment to the CCC for a total of $640,000 to cover costs incurred in relation to the establishment of the Australian Consensus Centre prior to the decision to cancel this project,” it said.

When Guardian Australia asked for a copy of the “funding agreement” with the CCC referred to in the briefing, the education department provided the 21 March 2016 agreement.

An education department spokeswoman said “payments were undertaken in accordance with the government’s funding agreement with UWA and the memorandum of understanding between UWA and the CCC”.

The department did not directly respond to questions about how an agreement between the government and UWA and a the memorandum between UWA and the CCC could create legal obligations between the department and the CCC.

If there was another legal obligation to pay the CCC, such as an equitable duty, the education department did not identify it after detailed questions, nor identify its source.

Neither the education department nor Birmingham explained why a new grant agreement was struck on 21 March 2016 if all or part of the $640,000 was owed by the commonwealth for some pre-existing legal obligation……