The thirty-eight minutes in which Hawaii thought Trump had finally pushed North Korea too far

The New Yorker, 13 January 2018:

Residents of Hawaii received this warning on their smartphone screens 

Saturday morning from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

Photograph Caleb Jones / AP

A little after 8 a.m. today, Hawaii standard time, an alert was sent to cell phones in Hawaii: “ballistic missile threat inbound to hawaii. seek immediate shelter. this is not a drill.” The message was also broadcast on local television and radio.

Nearly forty minutes passed before a second message went out: “There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. Repeat. False Alarm.” Later, the governor of Hawaii, David Ige, told CNN, “It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the changeover of a shift, and an employee pushed the wrong button.”……

Our apartment looks out over the international airport and Pearl Harbor. Whenever there’s fighter-jet activity, it goes right by our lanai. There’s been a lot of exercises recently. The local news has been reporting why so many fighter jets are running around, and the stories described the name of the exercises: Sunset Aloha. Apparently, they’re military drills. What it meant, for us, is F-22s and F-35s have been screaming through the skies over the past two weeks.

“We were sitting out on the lanai when the announcement came over the building speaker that there was an inbound ballistic missile to Hawaii. And that it wasn’t a drill. They repeated that. I got a text from a friend who’s an airline pilot who runs a Honolulu route and happened to be in town saying, ‘Did you guys see this?’ My wife called a friend of hers on the Big Island to see whether it was something that was just Honolulu, just Oahu, or the entire state. She was able to get through, and her friend said ‘Yes, it’s for the entire state.’

“At that point, we secured all the windows and all the doors. We started filling the tubs and every container we could with water. And texting family and friends. There’s been an increasing amount of information in Hawaii about what to do in case of a ballistic missile, over the last few months, clearly tied to tensions with North Korea. Everybody in Hawaii is very aware that after Guam we’re the next-closest target. We’re the only part of the U.S. that’s been a target of a military attack by a foreign power in the past century. And, of course, coming from New York, being the target of a non-military attack, that resonated with us in the worst possible way. Hawaii has also started doing monthly air-raid drills.

“It took me maybe a minute to process that this was actually happening. It was an ‘Oh my god, but I need to execute, I need to get things done’ kind of feeling. ‘Is this real? Can this really happen? They’re gonna shoot it down, right? What happens if our building collapses and we can’t get to our little girl?’

“After about five minutes, we were visibly upset. My wife was crying, and George, our daughter, wanted to know why. We asked her to come over for a family hug. We explained that we’d heard very bad news that something very, very bad was happening and it had us really, really upset. I don’t think she really understands nuclear Armageddon or ballistic missiles, but she certainly understands that Mommy and Daddy are really upset.

“We continued to fill every container we could find with water for maybe another fifteen or twenty minutes. We tried calling people. My wife tried her father in Chicago three times, got a busy signal. I texted my mother and my twenty-one-year-old daughter. We texted the rest of my wife’s family to say there’s a ballistic missile coming towards Hawaii and it’s not a drill.

“I’m not a religious person. There are no prayers to God in our household.

“At eight twenty-nine, we got a text back from my wife’s sister-in-law saying it was a hoax. Half an hour had passed, roughly. Then I checked and started seeing reports on Twitter from Tulsi Gabbard and other reps, from the governor, saying this was a false alarm. Then we got an alert over the building loudspeaker also saying it was a false alarm. Then we got the cell-phone alert. At that point, I was able to get through to my mother on the phone. She reported that what she saw on the news in the mainland was nothing until finally they said, ‘Oh, there’s a false alarm of a missile coming into Hawaii.’ Meanwhile, everyone over here is really upset and thinks they’re all going to die. Our friend the pilot was in a hotel saying the lobby was full of crying children.

“We began to relax a little and start to deal with the aftereffects of a severe adrenaline rush. I’m still shaking, though. My wife is still having waves of goose bumps and chills periodically….. 

From Twitter Moments, 14 January 2018:

New public register published as part of a federal crackdown on non-complying day care centres

This month the Turnbull Government published a new public register as part of its crackdown on fraud in the day care sector.

Australian Department of Education, Child Care Enforcement Action Register. 6 January 2018:

The Child Care Enforcement Action Register is a list of services that have been the subject of a sanction and/or immediate suspension under the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999 (the Administration Act).

In accordance with section 201B of the Administration Act, the Department of Education and Training (the department) publishes a list of services that have been sanctioned under section 200 and/or suspended under section 201A of that Act. Information published on this page only relates to those enforcement actions permitted to be published under the Family Assistance Law (FAL).

The department has established the Child Care Enforcement Action Register because it considers that information on sanctions should be available to the public. Information about the responsibilities and obligations of approved child care services and the FAL can be found on the department’s website.

The information relates to enforcement action taken by the department between 1 July 2016 and 30 September 2017.

2017-2018 (First Quarter) - last updated in January 2018:

VICTORIA (VIC)

NEW SOUTH WALES (NSW)

QUEENSLAND (QLD)

SOUTH AUSTRALIA (SA)

WESTERN AUSTRALIA (WA)

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY (ACT)

2016-2017 - last updated in December 2017:

VICTORIA (VIC)

NEW SOUTH WALES (NSW)

QUEENSLAND (QLD)

SOUTH AUSTRALIA (SA)

WESTERN AUSTRALIA (WA)

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY (ACT)

NORTHERN TERRITORY (NT)

Only one NSW North Coast service has been placed on this federal government name and shame file – Elite Edge Sports & Learning Centre at Terranora. With a suspension on the basis of “Non-compliance with State or Commonwealth Law” as of 2 June 2017.

The majority of named NSW child care centres and other services being in metropolitan areas.

As more national governments veer towards fascism the level of danger Facebook presents rises

The Trump Regime is busy dismantling democratic checks and balances in the United States, the May Government in Britain is handing powers of arrest to certain multinational corporations and in Australia federal and state right-wing politicians slavishly ape Republican and Conservative policies.

Rabid nationalism, religious extremism, contrived xenophobia, authoritarianism, contempt for human rights and disdain for democratic processes appear to be the order of the day for too many political leaders in too many 'western' countries around the world.

Smack bang in the middle of this political miasma is a vast and powerful IT multinational which wouldn’t recognise an ethic if it fell over it.

How long before the aims of modern day fascism and Facebook Inc merge?

Public Integrity, 31 July 2017:

When Chicago resident Carlo Licata joined Facebook in 2009, he did what the 390 million other users of the world’s largest social network had already done: He posted photos of himself and friends, tagging the images with names.

But what Licata, now 34, didn’t know was that every time he was tagged, Facebook stored his digitized face in its growing database.

Angered this was done without his knowledge, Licata sued Facebook in 2015 as part of a class action lawsuit filed in Illinois state court accusing the company of violating a one-of-a-kind Illinois law that prohibits collection of biometric data without permission. The suit is ongoing.

Facebook denied the charges, arguing the law doesn’t apply to them. But behind the scenes, the social network giant is working feverishly to prevent other states from enacting a law like the one in Illinois.

Since the suit was filed, Facebook has stepped up its state lobbying, according to records and interviews with lawmakers. But rather than wading into policy fights itself, Facebook has turned to lower-profile trade groups such as the Internet Association, based in Washington, D.C., and the Illinois-based trade association CompTIA to head off bills that would give users more control over how their likenesses are used or whom they can be sold to. 

That effort is part of a wider agenda. Tech companies, whose business model is based on collecting data about its users and using it to sell ads, frequently oppose consumer privacy legislation. But privacy advocates say Facebook is uniquely aggressive in opposing all forms of regulation on its technology.

And the strategy has been working. Bills that would have created new consumer data protections for facial recognition were proposed in at least five states this year — Washington, Montana, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Alaska — but all failed, except the Washington bill, which passed only after its scope was limited.

No federal law regulates how companies use biometric privacy or facial recognition, and no lawmaker has ever introduced a bill to do so. That prompted the Government Accountability Office to conclude in 2015 that the “privacy issues that have been raised by facial recognition technology serve as yet another example of the need to adapt federal privacy law to reflect new technologies.” Congress did, however, roll back privacy protections in March by allowing Internet providers to sell browser data without the consumer’s permission.

Facebook says on its website it won’t ever sell users’ data, but the company is poised to cash in on facial recognition in other ways. The market for facial recognition is forecast to grow to $9.6 billion by 2022, according to analysts at Allied Market Research, as companies look for ways to authenticate and recognize repeat customers in stores, or offer specific ads based on a customer’s gender or age.

Facebook is working on advanced recognition technology that would put names to faces even if they are obscured and identify people by their clothing and posture. Facebook has filed patents for technology allowing Facebook to tailor ads based on users’ facial expressions……

Facial recognition’s use is increasing. Retailers employ it to identify shoplifters, and bankers want to use it to secure bank accounts at ATMs. The Internet of things — connecting thousands of everyday personal objects from light bulbs to cars — may use an individual’s face to allow access to household devices. Churches already use facial recognition to track attendance at services.

Government is relying on it as well. President Donald Trump staffed the U.S. Homeland Security Department transition team with at least four executives tied to facial recognition firms. Law enforcement agencies run facial recognition programs using mug shots and driver’s license photos to identify suspects. About half of adult Americans are included in a facial recognition database maintained by law enforcement, estimates the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown University Law School.

To tap into this booming business, companies need something only Facebook has — a massive database of faces.

Facebook now has 2 billion monthly users who upload about 350 million photos every day — a “practically infinite” amount of data that Facebook can use to train its facial recognition software, according to a 2014 presentation by an engineer working on DeepFace, Facebook’s in-house facial-recognition project.

Tweet of the Week

I've never wanted to be in a gang more than this one. pic.twitter.com/9PiJIc2bOe

— Back To Nature (@backt0nature) December 29, 2017

Quotes of the Week

“In his dual careers as lawyer and merchant banker, Malcolm Turnbull has earned a reputation that inspires a mix of awe, fear and, among some, downright loathing.” [Journalist John Lyons writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, 1991]

“Of all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly, the relationship was specific to trolling behavior. Enjoyment of other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated to sadism. Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism.” [Erin E. Buckels et al, writing in Personality and Individual Differences, “Trolls just want to have fun”]

“Few New Yorkers want to play golf at a course named after a man who hailed Nazis as “very fine people” and rhapsodized over the men who fought to preserve slavery during the Civil War.” [Oliver Willis writing at Shareblue Media, 28 December 2017]

GM-free canola a winner says Gene Ethics

On 22 August 2016, Australia submitted a report to the European Union (EU) presenting the results of calculations of greenhouse gas emissions from the cultivation of canola oilseed in Australia and in December 2017 the EU approved Australian canola for import as low greenhouse gas emission produce for bio-fuel, animal feed and food.

Gene Ethics, 3 January 2018:

GM-free canola a winner
A CSIRO researcher confirms that Australian farmers achieved a $100 million per year premium, with the extra $20-$40/tonne paid for their GM-free canola. Australia has favoured EU access for its GM-free canola, by meeting Europe's tough Renewable Energy Greenhouse Gas Savings Target. Our canola offers more options for the European supply chain, as residues from biofuel production can be used for animal feed and oil for human consumption. The vast majority of Australian canola is GM-free.

 GM-free Shopping List is here.

Australian Politics 2018: and you foolishly thought things might get better this year

Well the democracy canary in the political coal mine fell senseless to the bottom of its cage this month when the Turnbull Government admitted that a high level of secrecy would surround its extra-parliamentary review of religious freedom in Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 December 2017:

Public submissions to the Turnbull government's review of religious freedom in Australia will be kept secret, in a marked departure from normal processes, according to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's department.

The department, which has control of the inquiry, said it would not publish the submissions, which is in stark contrast to ordinary parliamentary inquiries, in which most submissions are automatically released.

"Submissions to the Expert Panel will not be published online," a department spokesman said in an emailed statement. "However, where individuals provide consent, submission extracts may be included in public materials."

Late on Tuesday, however, Mr Turnbull's media team sought to intervene by suggesting inquiry chairman Philip Ruddock would decide if submissions were published. The PM's office then instructed his own department to issue a new statement to that effect.

An hour later, the department said decisions on releasing submissions would rest on "whether individuals have provided consent", but that appears impossible, because the online consent form assures people their submission "will not be published in its entirety".

It is expected the high-profile inquiry - prompted by fears about the impact of same-sex marriage on religious practice - will attract submissions from Australia's biggest churches, including the Catholic and Anglican archdioceses of Sydney and Melbourne. It presents an opportunity for religious organisations and other advocates to spell out the exact changes to the law they believe are necessary.

Mr Ruddock said when contacted on Tuesday that the panel had not discussed the publication of submissions and ultimately it was a matter for the PM's department…..

The expert panel - which also includes Australian Human Rights Commission president Rosalind Croucher, Catholic priest Frank Brennan and retired judge Annabelle Bennett - is expected to meet for the first time next Wednesday. 

However, the negative response in mainstream and social media saw the democracy canary revived and placed on life support as the secrecy provisions in the online Consent form have been changed and now only apply to all those submissions received to date.

"The Expert Panel has not yet determined a final approach to publication of submissions. Submissions already provided will not be published without the agreement of the author" 

Which given that the majority of submissions would have been received by now means that it is highly unlikely that submissions made on behalf of religious institutions will ever be published by the Expert Panel.

NOTE

The submission period for the Religious Freedom Review commenced in December 2017 and ends on 31 January 2018 with the Expert Panel to deliver its findings by 31 March 2018.

NSW Auditor-General not impressed by government agencies cyber security risk management

“Specific financial reporting, controls and service delivery comments are included in the individual 2017 cluster financial audit reports tabled in Parliament from October to December 2017.” [NSW Auditor-General, Report on Internal Controls and Governance 2017, December 2017]

On 20 December 2017 the NSW Auditor-General released the Report on Internal Controls and Governance 2017.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 28 December 2017:

Two-thirds of NSW government agencies are failing to properly safeguard their data, increasing the risk of improper access to confidential information about members of the public and identity fraud by cyber criminals.

The finding has emerged from an audit of dozens of government agencies, including those holding highly sensitive personal information collected from millions of citizens, such as NSW Health, the department of education, NSW Police Force, Roads and Maritime Services and the justice department.

While the report by auditor-general Margaret Crawford does not name the agencies failing to properly manage privileged access to their systems, it highlights the potential consequences.

"Personal information collected by public sector agencies about members of the public is of high value to cyber criminals, as it can be used to create false identities to commit other crimes," she says in the report.

"Despite these risks, we found that one agency had 37 privileged user accounts, including 33 that were dormant. The agency had no formal process to create, modify or deactivate privileged users."

Overall, Ms Crawford's report found 68 per cent of NSW government agencies "do not adequately manage privileged access to their systems".

In addition, she said, the audit determined that 61 per cent of agencies "do not regularly monitor the account activity of privileged users".

"This places those agencies at greater risk of not detecting compromised systems, data breaches and misuse," the report said.

The audit found 31 per cent of agencies "do not limit or restrict privileged access to appropriate personnel". Of those, just one-third monitor the account activity of privileged users.

It found that almost one-third of agencies breach their own security policies on user access.

The report warns that if agencies fail to implement proper controls "they may also breach NSW laws and policies and the international standards that they reference".

Read the full article here.

List of NSW Government Agencies Examined by NSW Auditor-General

Education

Department of Education

Family and Community Services

Department of Family and Community Services

New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation

Finance, Services and Innovation

Department of Finance, Services and Innovation * Specifically identified in report

Place Management NSW

Property NSW

Service NSW

Health

NSW Health

Industry

Department of Industry

Destination NSW

Forestry Corporation of New South Wales

Office of Sport

TAFE Commission

Water NSW

Justice

Department of Justice

Fire and Rescue NSW

Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales

NSW Police Force

Office of the NSW Rural Fire Service

Planning and Environment

Department of Planning and Environment

Essential Energy

Hunter Water Corporation

Landcom

Office of Environment and Heritage

Office of Local Government

Sydney Water Corporation

Premier and Cabinet

Department of Premier and Cabinet

Transport

NSW Trains

Rail Corporation New South Wales

Roads and Maritime Services

Sydney Trains

Transport for NSW

WCX M4 PTY Limited

WCX M5 PTY Limited

Treasury

Crown Finance Entity

Insurance and Care NSW

Lifetime Care and Support Authority

NSW Treasury Corporation

NSW Self Insurance Corporation

Excerpt from Report on Internal Controls and Governance 2017:

Some deficiencies were common across agencies

The most common internal control deficiencies were poor or absent IT controls related to:

user access management

password management

privileged access management

user acceptance testing.

The most common governance deficiencies related to:

management of cyber security risks

capital project governance

management of shared service arrangements

conflicts-of-interest management

gifts-and-benefits management

risk management maturity

ethical behaviour policies and statements.

President Trump still doesn't have outright victory for his policy of banning Muslim entry to USA and the legal fight opposing these bans enters its second year

The legal fight against President Donald J. Trump’s Muslim travel bans ended 2017 with another victory for the State of Hawaii et al and the fight now enters its second year on 3 February 2018.

United States Courts of Appeals – Ninth Circuit, STATE OF HAWAII; ISMAIL ELSHIKH; JOHN DOES, 1 & 2; MUSLIM ASSOCIATION OF HAWAII, INC., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DONALD J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; KIRSTJEN M. NIELSEN, in her official capacity as Secretary of Homeland Security; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; REX W. TILLERSON, in his official capacity as Secretary of State; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 22 December 2017:

For the third time, we are called upon to assess the legality of the President’s efforts to bar over 150 million nationals of six designated countries1 from entering the United States or being issued immigrant visas that they would ordinarily be qualified to receive. To do so, we must consider the statutory and constitutional limits of the President’s power to curtail entry of foreign nationals in this appeal of the district court’s order preliminarily enjoining portions of § 2 of Proclamation 9645 entitled “Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats” (the “Proclamation”).

The Proclamation, like its predecessor executive orders, relies on the premise that the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq., vests the President with broad powers to regulate the entry of aliens. Those powers, however, are not without limit. We conclude that the President’s issuance of the Proclamation once again exceeds the scope of his delegated authority. The Government’s interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) not only upends the carefully crafted immigration scheme Congress has enacted through the INA, but it deviates from the text of the statute, legislative history, and prior executive practice as well.

Further, the President did not satisfy the critical prerequisite Congress attached to his suspension authority: before blocking entry, he must first make a legally sufficient finding that the entry of the specified individuals would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). The Proclamation once again conflicts with the INA’s prohibition on nationality-based discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas. Lastly, the President is without a separate source of constitutional authority to issue the Proclamation.

On these statutory bases, we affirm the district court’s order enjoining enforcement of the Proclamation’s §§ 2(a), (b), (c), (e), (g), and (h). We limit the scope of the preliminary injunction, however, to foreign nationals who have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States…..

For all of these reasons, we affirm in part and vacate in part the district court’s preliminary injunction order. We narrow the scope of the injunction to give relief only to those with a credible bona fide relationship with the United States, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in IRAP, 137 S. Ct. at 2088. In light of the Supreme Court’s order staying this injunction pending “disposition of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is sought,” we stay our decision today pending Supreme Court review. Trump v. Hawai‘i, No. 17A550, — S. Ct. —, 2017 WL 5987406 (Dec. 4, 2017). Because we conclude that Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on their statutory claims, we need not reach their constitutional claims.

Video of closing argument on behalf of Plaintiffs-Appellees:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4701602/hawaiivtrump3closing

The matter is ongoing in 2018.

Background can be found at University of Michigan Law School, Civil Rights Litigation Clearing House.

How US President Donald J Trump made one particular book an immediate best-seller

On 3 January 2018 excerpts from a soon to be published book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” were published in The Guardian newspaper.

The following day brought news of a letter to former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon…..

ABC News, 4 January 2018:

Trump attorney Charles J. Harder of the firm Harder Mirell & Abrams LLP, said in a statement, "This law firm represents President Donald J. Trump and Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. On behalf of our clients, legal notice was issued today to Stephen K. Bannon, that his actions of communicating with author Michael Wolff regarding an upcoming book give rise to numerous legal claims including defamation by libel and slander, and breach of his written confidentiality and non-disparagement agreement with our clients. Legal action is imminent."

In the letter to Bannon, Harder, writes, "You [Bannon] have breached the Agreement by, among other things, communicating with author Michael Wolff about Mr. Trump, his family members, and the Company, disclosing Confidential Information to Mr. Wolff, and making disparaging statements and in some cases outright defamatory statements to Mr. Wolff about Mr. Trump, his family members, and the Company, knowing that they would be included in Mr. Wolff’s book and publicity surrounding the marketing and sale of his book."

Along with a letter to Macmillan Publishers (Henry Holt & Company INC) and author Michael Wolff…..

CBS News, 4 January 2018:

President Trump's personal lawyer has issued a cease and desist letter to author Michael Wolff and Wolff's publisher over the release of explosive excerpts of "Fire and Fury: Inside Trump's White House." The letter demands that Wolff and the publisher halt all publication and apologize to the president for "defaming" him.

The letter from lawyer Charles Harder, dated Thursday, comes after excerpts of Wolff's book have cast the president and much of his White House in an unflattering light, portraying the commander-in-chief as someone who does not understand constitutional amendments, and is sometimes not taken seriously by key advisers. The letter accuses Wolff and Henry Holt and Company of publishing false statements about the president. 

"Your publication of the false/baseless statements about Mr. Trump gives rise to, among other claims, defamation by libel, defamation by libel, defamation by libel per se, false light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contractural relations, and inducement of breach contract," the letter says. 

Mr. Trump, according to the letter, demands that publication of the book immediately cease, along with the publication of any excerpts or summaries. The letter also insists that a "full and complete retraction" be issued, along with an apology to Mr. Trump. 

The letter also demands a full electronic copy of the book "in searchable form" be given to Mr. Trump's lawyers.

Full text of letter here.

What happened after is that in the following order:

1. the book was published on 5 January 2018 ahead of the previously announced date and bookstores quickly sold out of hard copies on hand;

2. @RealDonaldTrump's thumbs began to work overtime as he began to tweet his displeasure commencing 6 January;

3. Steve Bannon blinked on 8 January and issued an ‘apology’; 

4. Also on 8 January lawyers for Macmillian Publishers formally replied to the 'cease and desist' letter; and

5. Macmillan Publishers (founded circa 1843) issued this pushback statement on 9 January

Macmillan Publishers’ CEO John Sargent, Twitter, 9 January 2018

The ball is now back with Donald Trump.

Will he be stupid enough to proceed to litigation?

A florid symptom of global economic and social inequality

The wealthiest 1 per cent of the world’s population owned 50.1 per cent of all global household wealth in 2017 – that is they collectively held an est. US$140.28 trillion [Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2017].

The world’s richest 500 people had a collective personal worth in excess of US$5.3 trillion at the end of that year – 3.77 percent of the wealth held by the top 1 per cent.

Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of Dec. 28, 2017:

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.

Billionaires ranked 14 to 500 with personal wealth ranging from $46.8B to $4.9B can be viewed here.

Australians on 2017 Top 500 Billionaires Index

#85 Gina Rinehart est. current worth $14.9B

#213 Harry Triguboff est. current worth $7.52B

#256 Ivan Glasenberg est. current worth $6.42B

#316 Anthony Pratt est. current worth $5.75B

#346 Frank Lowy est. current worth $5.44B

#480 James Packer est. current worth $4.22B

Ever wondered why you feel much hotter or colder than the temperature gauge indicates?

Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Thermal Comfort observations, January 2018:

We often use the air temperature as an indicator of how comfortable we will feel when involved in sports or other physical activities. However, the air temperature is only one factor in the assessment of thermal stress. In climates where other important factors, principally humidity, can vary widely from day to day, we need more than just the temperature for a more realistic assessment of comfort. However it is useful to be able to condense all the extra effects into a single number and use it in a similar way to the way we used the temperature. The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) and the Apparent Temperature are indices which attempt to do this….

Human thermal comfort depends on environmental and personal factors. The four environmental factors are airflow (wind), air temperature, air humidity, and radiation from the sun and nearby hot surfaces. The personal factors are the clothing being worn and the person's level of physical activity. Thermal sensation is also significantly affected by acclimatisation/adaptation: people living in hot climates have been shown to be comfortable at higher temperatures than those living in cooler climates.

In hotter conditions the body must shed heat to maintain thermal equilibrium. The cooling effect of evaporation of sweat from the skin becomes an important factor. The efficiency of this cooling depends on the humidity of the air. A high humidity reduces the effectiveness of evaporative cooling significantly. The amount of clothing will also affect this cooling efficiency due to its restriction of the air flow over the skin. Fabrics with low vapour permeability (those that don't "breathe") will increase the humidity of air near the skin.

In colder conditions, the body must either reduce heat loss (eg by taking shelter from the wind) or increase heat production, for example, by greater physical activity. In these conditions evaporation and air humidity are relatively unimportant factors. The cooling of the exposed parts of the body by the wind now becomes the most important external factor affecting thermal balance.

The effect of radiation is important under all temperature conditions. Excess radiation always acts to increase the heat load on a person. This can be of assistance under cold conditions, but under hot conditions it's an extra heat load that must be shed.

Of the four environmental factors, wind and radiation are very much influenced by the immediate surroundings. For example, wind speed is reduced by the sheltering effect of belts of trees and solar radiation is affected by short term localised phenomena such as cloudiness. If these factors are to be used as inputs, they are best measured on location, as values can vary significantly over relatively short distances. The remaining two factors (temperature and humidity) are less spatially variable and can be used to give an indication of the general comfort level of a region.

In order to make comparisons between areas, it is convenient to combine the effect of temperature and humidity into one index. This does not mean we can ignore the other environmental and non-environmental factors, but adjustments to the index value, either up or down, can be made to take them into account.

Most people use the temperature alone to provide some guide to the level of comfort. Generally this is quite reasonable because humidity doesn't often vary a lot, particularly in the tropics. However people moving from a less humid to more humid environment will immediately notice the effect of the greater humidity. In many sub-tropical regions of Australia the humidity is usually quite low, but occasionally can become quite high, again reducing comfort to those people not acclimatised.

The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) and Apparent Temperature (AT) are just two methods of combining temperature and humidity into a single number. In fact the real WBGT is also affected by wind and radiation, but the WBGT provided by the Bureau is only an approximation, which ignores variations of wind and radiation (light winds and fairly sunny conditions assumed). The AT can also be extended to take wind and solar radiation into account as well, though generally this is not done. In the AT values provided by the Bureau, wind is taken into account, but not solar radiation. Other indices such as the Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) and the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) can also be used.

An example of how this works on the ground:

To check thermal stress in your area on any given day go to Thermal Comfort observations index for each State or go directly to Thermal Comfort observations in each State NSW & ACT, Vic, Qld, WA, SA, Tas, NT.

January 2018: are environmental vandals in the Liberal & National parties trying to force gasfield expansions down the throats of reluctant communities?

To be eligible your project must bring new gas flow to domestic gas consumers in target markets by 30 June 2020 and can include:

*deployment of new technologies or techniques to lift existing and new well productivity

*the opening of new gas pilot and/or production or exploration wells that are either in proximity to existing gas infrastructure or can demonstrate a path to market

*better utilisation of existing or the establishment of new gas processing, storage and transport facilities

*design, construction and engineering activities directly related to bringing forward new gas supply.

[Gas Acceleration Program, Eligibility Criteria]

Liberal Senator for Queensland and Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan, media release, 20 December 2017:

Gas Acceleration Program Grant Guidelines Released

The Australian Government’s $26 million Gas Acceleration Program (GAP) will open to applications early in the new year, to further strengthen the East Coast gas market.

Guidelines for the GAP were released today, ahead of grant applications opening in January 2018.

The GAP is a significant component of the Australian Government’s $90 million investment in gas security, reliability and affordability for the Australian people.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan said the program aimed to deliver new gas supply to domestic users in markets affected by tight supply by fast-tracking new project developments.

“The GAP will offer up to $6 million to gas projects that have substantiated prospects of bringing significant new gas volumes to market by mid-2020,” Minister Canavan said.

“This funding can be used to develop new technologies or techniques to boost well productivity, for new production or exploration near existing infrastructure.  It can also be used to build new gas processing, storage and transport facilities, or for other activities that will bring forward new gas supply.

“This program is implementing our long-term goal to increase the domestic gas supply, boost competition, and improve transparency and efficiency of the gas market supply chain.

“Australian consumers need to be assured that we can access our plentiful gas resources in a responsible way. Bringing more gas to market will reduce upward pressure on gas prices and help to create Australian jobs and support investment in regional Australia.”

Applications to the GAP will be open between 15 January and 13 February 2018.

For more information, visit www.business.gov.au/gap

Media contact: Minister Canavan's office 02 6277 7180

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan quoted in The Land, 21 December 2017:

“This funding can be used to develop new technologies or techniques to boost well productivity, for new production or exploration near existing infrastructure. It can also be used to build new gas processing, storage and transport facilities, or for other activities that will bring forward new gas supply.”