Wednesday 7 February 2018
As a new member of the UN Human Rights Council is Australia continuing to act the hypocrite?
For the
second time in three months the UN Special
Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights has written to the Turnbull Coalition Government
concerning its welfare policies.
Australian-born Professor
Alston has been Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights since
June 2014.
The Commonwealth of Australia was elected on
16 October 2017 as a member of the UN Human Rights Council 2018-2020.
So the
following news item is more than a little embarrassing with what it reveals about government policies.
ABC Radio RN
Breakfast, 1
February 2018:
A top UN official has
delivered a scathing assessment of Australia's welfare policies describing them
as 'punitive' and harmful to women.
Australian Philip Alston
is the UN's Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty. He accuses the government of
pursuing policies that 'stigmatise' and 'marginalise' poorer sections of
society.
In a letter sent to the
government this week, Philip raised concerns about the planned expansion of
cashless welfare cards, and their impact on indigenous communities.
The
first letter
dated 17 October 2017 addressed the Social Services Legislation Amendment
Act 2017 (Cth) (No. 33 of 2017) and concerns that it may have a negative impact
on the human rights of persons living in poverty, particularly single parents
and their children, as well as expressing concerns about proposed
drug testing of young people on unemployment benefits.
It would appear
that the Turnbull Government’s welfare reforms make nonsense of Australia’s
voluntary undertakings lodged with the United Nations on 14 July 2014
as part of its candidature for a vacancy on the UN Human Rights
Council.
Tuesday 6 February 2018
26th Newspoll loss in a row for Turnbull Government
In the same week the 2018
Australian Parliament commenced business for the year Malcolm Bligh Turnbull was just four Newspolls short of the benchmark he created when he successfully challenged
Tony Abbott in September 2015 and became Australia’s 29th Prime Minister.
As of 4
February 2018 Newspoll
shows the Coalition is just one point ahead of Labor on the primary
vote and on a Two Party Preferred basis it is four points behind.
While net satisfaction
with leaders’ performance sees Turnbull a slender four points ahead at minus
13.
Should we
expect a Libspill sometime in
April-May 2018 if the polls continue this trend? Or are the Liberal and Nationals powerbrokers going to grit
their teeth and soldier on until the forthcoming federal election?
Labels:
Australian Parliament,
Australian politics,
poll,
statistics
Monday 5 February 2018
Who can provide Coco with a permanent loving home?
What's not to love about this happy face?
"Coco" is a 10 month-old female Dalmatian-cross dog.
She has been the only dog in the household and has been rendered homeless because of the difficulty associated with keeping a dog in rented accommodation.
At the moment she is temporarily housed in the Lower Clarence Valley on the NSW North Coast and is desperately in need of a permanent home.
If you can offer "Coco" a forever home please contact Gabby on (02) 6645 7081.
Labels:
animal rights,
animal welfare,
companion animals
The Australian Face of UK-based Noble Caledonia Cruise Line
The Noble Caledonia Limited cruise line would
like the option of extending the number of its cruise days this coming October
when it boards its UK passengers on the MV Caledonian Sky for its Australian
Coastal Odyssey down the east coast of Australia.
This “small”
cruise ship of 4,200 gross tonnage, dead weight of 645t, 90.6m in length, 15.3m
wide, with a 4.25 maximum draft, will enter the Port of Yamba-Clarence River across a difficult bar at the river
mouth in a month where coastal storms and strong wind warnings are not
uncommon.
A ship with a reputation for damaging reefs will attempt this crossing in close proximity to
a culturally important reef protected by Native Title.
It will
ignore potential risk - not just to the ship and marine environment but to
race relations in the Clarence Valley should the ship’s captain collide for a third time with a mapped underwater natural feature.
Noble Caledonia
will be sending its cruise ship into the Clarence River estuary because it can –
reaping the benefit of insistent and persistent lobbying of the NSW Berejiklian Government by the international
cruise industry.
Which included meetings last year between Minister for
Roads, Maritime and Freight & Nationals MP for Oxley Melinda Pavey and Royal
Caribbean (28 February & 8 June), Carnival Australia (10
March, 8 June & 8 July), Carnival Global (21 March), Norwegian Cruise
Lines (8 June), Cruise Line International Association (8 June
& 21 June). As well as meetings between cruise ship industry
representatives and Deputy Premier,
Minister for Regional NSW, Minister for Skills, Minister for Small Business,
Nationals MP for John Barilaro, Minister
for Tourism and Major Events, and Assistant Minister for Skills, Nationals MP
for Northern Tablelands, Adam Marshall. Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events and Minister for Sport,
Nationals MLC Niall Blair and, Minister
for Transport and Infrastructure, Nationals MP for Bega Andrew Constance.
However, the then
predominately British and Swedish owner-shareholders of Noble Caledonia Limited
(UK) went one step further when they first contemplated a move into Australian
waters.
They formed a partnership with the APT
Group (owned by wealthy Victorian businessman Geoff McGeary) in 2012 - thereby
providing themselves with a number of Australian beards and the lobbying services of a
political donor to the Liberal Party of Australia who had through this partnership become a significant shareholder in the cruise line.
Meet these
alleged beards………………..
Christopher
Phillips "Chris" HALL – Group Managing Director of Noble Caledonia
Limited and Noble Caledonia Holdings Limited since 7 May 2015, as well as Group
Manager APT Group since July 2014 – allegedly still resident in Australia.
Ross
Malcolm KEMP – Group
Finance Director of Noble Caledonia Limited
and Noble Caledonia Holdings Limited since 9 October 2014, as well as Group
Finance Director APT Group since 2012 – allegedly still resident in Australia.
Sunday 4 February 2018
Russian Dolls 101: news of historic Australian security breaches discovered nested inside a more recent national security breach
Opps, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) permanently lost 707 Cabinet and National Security Committee documents between 2008 and August 2013.
The general public find out about these losses approximately four to ten years later in January 2018, when mention was made of the situation in one file document within thousands of other top-secret and highly classified documents obtained by the ABC after yet another security breach involving Cabinet papers and other classified files found in old government locked filing cabinets sold at public auction in Canberra.
Even John le Carré would have thought this plot line was nigh on unbelievable - but then he didn't know our very own federal bureaucracy.
ABC
News, 31
January 2018:
The Australian Federal
Police (AFP) lost nearly 400 national security files in five years, according
to a secret government stocktake contained in The Cabinet Files.
The Department of Prime
Minister and Cabinet regularly audits all government departments and agencies
that have access to the classified documents to ensure they are securely
stored.
The missing documents
are not the same files the ABC has obtained.
The classified documents
lost by the AFP are from the powerful National Security Committee (NSC) of the
cabinet, which controls the country's security, intelligence and defence
agenda.
The secretive committee
also deploys Australia's military and approves kill, capture or destroy
missions.
Most of its documents
are marked "top secret" and "AUSTEO", which means they are
to be seen by Australian eyes only.
An email exchange
between the cabinet secretariat and the AFP reveals the documents were lost
between 2008 and 2013……
Troop deployments in
Afghanistan and Iraq, counter-terrorism operations, foreign relations and
Australia's border protection were among the top-secret and sensitive issues
decided in the five-year period.
The cabinet
secretariat's general practice was to give up searching and write off lost
documents if they could not be found after consecutive audits, according to
another document in The Cabinet Files.
Of course it is only three or four years ago that nearly 5,000 secret, confidential and restricted documents from two major federal departments held in a "B Class" secure container ended up in a recycling yard in Canberra.
There was an internal inquiry at the time but that obviously didn't translate into accounting for the whereabouts of all secure containers/filing cabinets and safes holding sensitive documents.
Given the fact that Australia's public broadcaster actually had possession of documents in the latest security breach, rather belatedly the secutity services began to care about national security.
ABC
News, 1
February 2018:
ASIO officers have moved
to secure the thousands of top secret and classified Cabinet files obtained by
the ABC, in early morning operations in Canberra and Brisbane.
Officers delivered safes
to the public broadcaster's Parliament House Bureau and South Bank studios
around 1:00am, just hours after the massive national security breach was
revealed.
The ABC still has access
to the documents, now kept in the safes, and negotiations are still underway
between lawyers for the ABC and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet
(PM&C).
The department launched
an urgent investigation on Wednesday, after it was revealed the trove of
documents had been discovered in two locked filing cabinets offloaded to a
second-hand furniture depot in Canberra.
The Department of Prime
Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) launched an urgent investigation into how the
massive breach occurred, within an hour of the ABC revealing the trove of
documents.
But the ABC understands
the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are yet to join the inquiry.
* Russian Doll pic found at Google Images
Labels:
AFP,
data,
national security,
police
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