Saturday 7 April 2018

Tweet of the Week



Quote of the Week



“Homelessness is one of the most potent examples of disadvantage in the community, and one of the most important markers of social exclusion (Department of Human Services, 2002).” [Australian Bureau of Statistics, 29 March 2018]

Friday 6 April 2018

Monash Family versus Monash Forum


Members of the Monash Forum include Craig Kelly, Eric Abetz, Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce and Kevin Andrews. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen  [The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 April 2018]

The allegedly more than 20 member strong Monash Forum circulated a letter in late March 2018 emphasising the importance of coal-fired power to the Australian economy and setting out principles such as the withdrawal of subsidies for renewable energy and the advantage of new generation of “low-emission” coal-fired power stations.

It is hard to see this group as anything but a collection of far-right politically notorious, climate change denying, xenophobic, chauvinistic, historical revisionist ‘warriors’ on a mission to bring down Malcolm Bligh Turnbull and hasten Australia's decline into the worst aspects of its old 20th Century self.

Apparently a group of descendants of former army general Sir John Monash, GCMG, KCB, VD (1865-1931), as well as the Australian Returned Services League, thought along much those same lines.

Here is what these family members said:

via ABC Defence Reporter @AndrewBGreene

Are Facebook and those unethical data miners already manipulating voters in Australian elections?


Is the 'American disease' already making Australian democracy ill?

On 27 March 2018 the blog Queen Victoria observed:

During the recent South Australian election, take a guess how many Labor policy announcements made the front page of The Advertiser, the State’s only major newspaper? If you guessed zero, you would almost be right. In fact, there were only two – a promise by Labor to invest in TAFE, and even then it was half a tiny corner article, worth 36 words, with the other half given to a Liberal election pledge, and Labor’s loans for solar panels and batteries, again a handful of words, and sitting beside a Liberal promise. You’ll need a magnifying glass to spot the articles on the front pages below..

Looking at those front pages it was easy to see what Victoria Rollison meant.

But was it more than just News Corp playing Murdoch's favourite game of Labor bashing?

Earlier, on 17 March 2018 the day of the South Australian state election (which the Liberals subsequently won) journalist Mark Kenny wrote in the Weekend Australian that:

Like Turnbull in 2016, Marshall and his team have been criticised for not being sufficiently aggressive about Labor’s failings. But they have run short, sharp and effective negative TV commercials (the sort that bewilderingly never came in the federal campaign) around the theme of “I’ve had enough, Jay” which neatly captures the mood for a corrective change. This is a good example of how paid advertising can deliver tough messages if politicians are reluctant.

Yet a sense of coasting has worried many Liberal supporters and observers. When I told a group of Adelaide Liberals last month that Marshall and his team seemed insufficiently combative towards Labor and Xenophon, a front­bencher pulled me aside afterwards and showed me his phone. He argued I misunderstood their methods, that public assertions and media debates were not the main game. He showed me his i360 app, a new campaigning tool that has revolutionised the Liberals’ marginal seats campaigning.

Through i360 the SA Liberals believe they have progressed to a new level of targeted campaigning, leaping far ahead of what has been used before by either major party in Australia. If they perform well, we can expect a technological and tactical quantum leap forward at the next federal campaign.

In his quick demonstration, the MP called up a marginal seat, much like finding a suburb on Google Maps, then zoomed in to a street where pins identified addresses deemed to house swinging voters. Deeper dives on households contained genders, ages, voting intentions or lack thereof as well as policy interests. The information is collated from the party’s existing Feedback system, updates from doorknocking and calls, responses to surveys conducted via email, online or phone calls plus census data and the harvesting of social media data. This is Big Brother meets grassroots campaigning. Neither the data nor the technology is much use without quality information fed in and strong analysis leading to the right strategies, along with diligent personalised attention in follow-up visits and communications.

This is leading-edge campaigning, as i360’s website explains. “Data is the difference,” it proclaims, describing its “extensive political identification” through information collected from “in-person, phone and online surveys, as well as through partner relationships in addition to lifestyle and consumer data” purchased from “top-tier” providers. “Our data is further enhanced by our suite of predictive models, filling in gaps and helping us build the most complete profile for every individual possible,” it says.

Billionaire US Republican sponsors Charles and David Koch are major investors in the firm, which openly canvasses only for “free-market” candidates. The SA Liberals purchased a product licence and have worked with i360 to modify systems for compulsory and preferential voting. Motivated by the frustration of 2014 where, despite a huge popular vote win, just a few hundred votes in the right seats would have made all the difference, Marshall has driven this innovative approach. He and novice Liberal state director Sascha Meldrum visited the US in Aug­ust 2016 to assess the system before other campaign strategists joined the training and implementation.

If the Liberals surprise on the upside today, SA’s expertise will be immediately sought after for the looming Victoria, NSW and federal campaigns.

Long lead times help and the SA Liberals have had more than a year to build up data and, crucially, follow up on targeted voters more than once. This is where grassroots organisation, numbers on the ground and diligence are essential, lest intelligence is wasted for lack of personal politicking, but the potential for efficiency, personalised material and two-way feedback to shape policies and messages is huge. Even in an age when you can get an app for everything, no app can win you an election. And I still think public policy differentiation and aggression are crucial.But if the Liberals form a major­ity even after the unprecedented Xenophon disruption, expect to hear a lot more about i360 and data-driven campaigning.

So what exactly is i360?

This is what it said of itself at www.i-360.com on 31 March 2018:

At i360® we believe THE DATA IS THE DIFFERENCE. But what does that mean? Simply put, it means integrating data in everything we do to produce the most effective outcomes for every one of our clients.

At the core of the i360 operation is a comprehensive database of all 18+ American consumers and voters containing thousands of pieces of individual and aggregated information that give us the full picture of who they are, where they live, what they do and what is happening around them. Leveraging this and our capabilities in data science, analytics, technology development and advertising, we help clients take their efforts to the next level by embracing the concept of truly borderless data.

i360 boast of these statistics:

Snapshot of section of i360 home page, 31 March 2018

i360 has a multiple presences on Facebook eg. i360online and i360Gov.com. [IP addresses are deliberately not supplied in this post and caution is urged if readers decide to vist these pages]

i360 aslo boasts of playing a "crucial" part in the South Australian election on its 
"Newsroom" page.

This is what is said of this company elsewhere………

The Real News, 29 March 2018:

Kochs have a far more sophisticated operation called i360. And they track, as you heard in the little clip from my film, 1800 pieces of data on you dynamically and on a continuous basis. They basically know your credit card purchases, they know your cable viewing habits. This is a lot deeper into your guts and soul and privacy than even your Facebook profile from Cambridge Analytica. And also you have a very similar operation used by Karl Rove. That's the guy that was known as Bush's brain, though Bush calls him Turd Blossom. This is the, Karl Rove was the engineer of some of the creepiest and possibly illegal activities behind the Bush campaigns. He's still out there with his own database operation called Data Trust, whose main client is the Republican National Committee.

These operations do more than grab some of your private information or just your Facebook profiles. Some of their activities have actually unquestionably bent elections not just by convincing you do things, you know, their idea is to try to zombify, you know, know everything about you and manipulate you. But sometimes they go way, way beyond that in their operations to win elections….

They're targeting you because they know very personal things about you. They literally know, as Mark Sweetland says, we're not making that up as an example, it's really true. For example, i360 knows if you downloaded porn and then order Chinese food before you voted. They can use that information to manipulate how you vote. And by the way, deviously, whether you vote at all. They can convince you not to vote. That's a real powerful tool that they have. That's part of the game, is convincing you not to vote. So that's one of things that they do…..

…they can convince you. For example, a lot of the, lot of the targeting about Hillary Clinton was not to get you to vote for Trump but to get voters who, for example, voted for Bernie Sanders or others, to convince them not to vote at all. And that was very, very effective, for example, in Wisconsin, where according to a University of Wisconsin study, about 50000 people, mostly students in Madison County and Milwaukee, didn't vote because they were convinced that, that Hillary was evil enough that it just didn't matter. They may be crying now, but the but the-…..

Encourage apathy and saying that your vote doesn't matter. And that's one of the things that they're very good at. But the other is very, some of it's not too subtle, OK. For example, in Wisconsin the Koch brothers, a spinoff from i360, one of the operators there working with Kochs sent out e-mails, and sent out social , sent out e-mails to people on their databases who own guns, who live in rural areas and normally vote by mail-in ballot. And they sent them messages saying, protect your guns. And these are also all Democrats. Protect your guns and vote. Make sure you send your absentee ballot to this address on this date. The address was wrong, and the date was too late to get your vote counted. So that was one way that Scott Walker, for example, won his against his recall in the recall referendum. Then they rolled it out. The same trick. Wrong date, wrong address for your absentee ballots to minority and Democratic voters in North Carolina. And then throughout the South.

So some of this is really fraudulently stealing your vote away. And that's just, that was the i360 spinoff. Then you have Data Trust, which is Karl Rove's operation. they used an operation which I uncovered working with the Guardian and BBC called caging. And what caging is is you send letters, Karl Rove used his databases to target, for example, students, black students in black colleges who were away from their school on summer vacation. They are registered, these were students registered, for example, in the swing state of Florida. And they knew that they weren't at their at their voting addresses even though they are legal voters because they were home for the vacations. They sent letters. When the letters marked Do Not Forward came back to the Republican National Committee, those voters were challenge as not existing, and they lost their vote. They sent these letters as well to black soldiers and airmen at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. They sent letters to men at homeless shelters you don't always get their mail. And as a result they used, they used this information to challenge the right of those voters' ballots to be counted. If they mailed them in their ballots would be junked. If they try to show up to vote they were blocked from voting. That's the ugly, ugly and truly actually illegal use of these databases, and that's just some examples we've uncovered.

Well, I think that Cambridge Analytica, which is like I say, the least sophisticated, and they try to use brain massaging. By the way, they also use other tactics. One of the services that they offer, I just you know, is to is to say that they'll set up your opponent, political opponent, with hookers and tape them. So it's not just, they've got that database and then they would, of course, use their social networking thing to blow it all up. But it will have a huge impact on the 2018 election. A bigger impact on 2020.

And this includes other operations that these database guys are working on. One of them you mentioned, a guy Kris Kobach, secretary of state of Kansas. He is Trump's what I call Vote Thief in Chief. He was officially appointed to run Trump's so-called vote fraud commission. One of the databases he uses is a roll crosscheck, where he gives lists of voters he says are registered or actually vote in two states in a single election, which is illegal. He has claimed with Donald Trump that three million people voted twice, mostly voters of color. And I'm the only journalist to actually have, I have a copy of the of of his list of double voters. The three million double voters. And it's people with names like Jose Garcia, and David Lee, and John Black. These are just common names of voters of color, but not, you know, obviously not common for Republicans.

But you'll see names in this, for example, Maria Cristina Hernandez is supposed to be the same voter as Maria Inez Hernandez. That person is supposed to be the same voter who voted one in Virginia and one in Georgia. That's their claim. And those voters named Garcia and Hernandez lose their vote. On that list, two million of those accused voters, people accused of voting twice, don't have the same middle name. Two million people accused don't have the same middle name, and they are removing, this is important, they're actually removing hundreds of thousands of people from the voter rolls as we speak. In fact without, without this game, this database game called Crosscheck, which is Trump and Kobach's database, Trump would not have won in 2016…..

It's serious stuff. Because if it were simply a matter of targeted advertising, convince you to vote for their candidate, that's all right.

But Cambridge Analytica has been, their, their chiefs were caught on tape by Channel 4, one of the outlets I work with, by Channel 4 investigators in Britain, saying that they will create fake news about your opponent and use their social networking abilities and use their particular targeting of individuals, their social networking habits, to spread fake news about your opponent. And they said we can do it in a way that no one will know that we've been involved. They said they successfully did this already in other countries. We don't even know how many countries because they make a point of keeping their involvement hidden. This is very, very scary stuff. They are deliberately creating, Donald Trump's screaming about fake news, but he employed the fake news generator. That's the big problem. That's one of the very big problems of Cambridge Analytica, and I know that we have that same problem with Data Trust, i360, and some of the others.

Thursday 5 April 2018

When is the National Party going to stop attempting to turn the NSW North Coast into a barren rubbish dump?


Almost every crackpot idea - from turning coastal rivers inland, building pulp mills, establishing wall to wall gasfields, clearing forest remaining on private land through to monetising national parks and turning over biodiverse crown land to property developers - has initially been supported by some or many members of the NSW National Party. 

So I would bet my last dollar that NSW Nationals MP for Clarence, Chris Gulaptis, thinks sending the North Coast nuclear is a great idea.

Both he and fellow National, the Minister for Regional NSW and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, would be easy prey for persistent foreign and domestic lobbyists from the nuclear energy industry. 

The story so far......

The Northern Star, 31 March 2018:

THE debate on a nuclear power industry in NSW has once again reared its head.

NSW Labor Opposition has called on the Premier to intervene and put an end to the investigation by her Deputy, National Party Leader John Barilaro, into the potential establishment of a nuclear power industry in NSW.

In his speech to the Small Modular Reactor Summit in Atalanta this week Mr Barilaro said: "We need to have the discussion (about nuclear energy) and we need to have it now."

He added the discussion will take place over a "5-10 year period", before any nuclear energy options could even be introduced in Australia. 

A spokesperson for Mr Barilaro said he met with some companies in the US including NuScale and U-Battery, who are developing Gen IV reactors which will possibly be available mid 2020's, as well as the US Department of Energy to get an insight in relation to the Governments approach to new nuclear technology. 

They said "the meetings were an opportunity to learn and gain knowledge about the sector". 

The Nuclear for Climate Australia website identifies 18 possible sites for nuclear power plants in NSW - including a 250km stretch of coast from Port Macquarie to north of Grafton.

The plan envisages the 18 reactors being constructed in NSW by 2040.

Last year NSW Labor leader Luke Foley accepted Mr Barilaro's invitation to debate nuclear power and suggested Lismore host the forum.

In a letter addressed to the Premier dated June 1 2017, Mr Foley described nuclear power as "both risky and irresponsible" and said: "I accept your call for a debate and propose that we hold a public debate in Lismore to discuss the issues at stake.
"Lismore would be an appropriate location for such a debate as it is one of the most environmentally conscious communities in NSW."

But when asked if Mr Barilaro was considering the offer his spokesperson said Mr Foley was "playing politics with the issue and is completely ignorant to the issues and clueless about the technology".

"Mr Barilaro has always welcomed and encouraged discussion on the opportunity for NSW to consider the prospects, the technological advancements and associated benefits of nuclear energy.

"But any discussion should be done experts in the field...Mr Foley thinks of nuclear reactors as those seen in a Simpsons episode. 

"New Gen IV technology is promising reactors that no longer are water cooled, nor need to be located anywhere near the coast," they said.

More recently, Shadow Minister for Industry, Resources and Energy, Adam Searle MLC and Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Mick Veitch MLC, made a two day visit to the North Coast to meet with primary producers and explore potential solutions to the energy crisis.

Mr Searle said nuclear reactors would tarnish NSW's clean and green image, and threaten the reputation and emerging markets of many north coast primary industries.

"Mr Barilaro's nuclear thought bubbles were a distraction from real long term energy solutions that provide the cheapest and most sustainable forms of electricity for the community and business - which is renewable energy," he said.

"The Premier has let this debate run for too long and now needs to rule out herself any proposal to build nuclear power plants here in NSW."

He also called for the Deputy Premier to "come up to the North Coast and explain why the National Party believes nuclear reactors are the best option".
Mr Veitch said: "North Coast primary producers pride themselves on the quality of their goods and their clean and green reputation."…. [my yellow highlighting]

From Port Macquarie to north of Grafton in the coastal zone?

According to Nuclear For Climate Australia when siting a nuclear reactor:

 Some of the issues that will influence the selection of a region of interest would be:


* being near to the coast or inland bodies of water for cooling,
* having reasonable access to the grid,
* having low local population densities.
* presenting the potential to replace exiting coal or gas burning generators
* containing good regional geology for foundations.
* reasonable access to road, rail or ports for transport.

Let me see…..

Much of the NSW coastal land close to water sources between Port Macquarie and north of Grafton is between 1m and 17m above sea level. Further inland in the 100km coastal zone elevations are higher but the terrain is often unsuitable or has no road-rail infrastructure nearby.

Then there’s the Hastings River, Nambucca River, Bellinger River, Kalang River, Macleay River, Orara River, Nymboida River, Mann River, Clarence River, Wilsons River, Richmond River to name but a few in that area which regularly flood.

There are also at least four significant flood plains within the coastal range indicated by Nuclear For Climate Australia - one of which contains Grafton and northern lands beyond and another which is the largest coastal flood plain in NSW covering est.1,000 sq kms.



Where on earth do these NSW National Party ideologues think they can site a nuclear reactor on the mid-North Coast, or in the aptly named Many Rivers (Northern Rivers) region, where this will not happen?

 ABC News
ABC News
ABC News

Images range in no particular order from the Hastings River in the Port Macquarie district up to the Clarence River system and the Richmond & Wilsons Rivers in the Lismore and Ballina regions, NSW.

Liberals continue to behave badly in 2018 - Part Three


This time it was not Liberal politicians in federal government but Victorian Liberals on the state opposition benches who were behaving badly.......

The Age, 30 March 2018:

The Victorian opposition has broken a promise and reneged on long-standing parliamentary custom by breaking its ‘‘pairing’’ to vote down the Andrews government's controversial fire service reorganisation bill.

Government and crossbenchers in Parliament’s Upper House were in uproar after two Liberal members who had told Labor they could not vote or be present because of their religious beliefs suddenly arrived to vote on Good Friday morning.

‘This is ball tampering of the highest order,’’ said crossbencher Fiona Patten from the Reason Party.

She said the Coalition’s conduct would make it very difficult for her and others in minority parties to have a working relationship with the Opposition.

The controversy erupted after a marathon sitting over the government’s bid to restructure the fire services.

This is the first time the upper house has ever sat on Good Friday.

Around midnight, Ms Patten said that Liberal MP Bernie Finn had told the house he could not work on Good Friday. At the same time, Craig Ondarchie also indicated he was not going to be in Parliament House for similar reasons. One Labor MP said Mr Ondarchie had been acting like he was ‘‘holding a prayer vigil’’.

Mr Finn on Thursday night had told Parliament, in a debate about Labor pressing on with its legislation despite it being Easter: ‘‘I have long believed in: you do not work on Good Friday — any other day of the year. That is the rule. Even when my birthday falls on Good Friday, I do not celebrate it on Good Friday.’’

In a similar vein, and at about the same time, Mr Ondarchie said: "Today is the day that Jesus died. It is a very important day. Today I want to be with my church family. I want to take up your offer, as do some of my colleagues, about accepting the pair that you have offered."

A ‘‘pairing’’ is an unofficial agreement from both sides of politics that, when an MP is unable to attend a vote, allows an MP from the opposing side to also miss the vote, so numbers remain matched.

The government granted the pairs requested by the opposition and Labor ministers Philip Dalidakis and Jaala Pulford, the deputy leader in the upper house, excused themselves from the vote and went home.

Mr Dalidakis, assuming he had a pair, travelled to Sydney on Friday morning.
But when the vote occurred just after 11am, Mr Ondarchie and Mr Finn returned to the chamber.

After Mr Finn and Mr Ondarchie’s return to Parliament, Labor’s bill was defeated 19-18.

Labor Upper House MP Cesar Melham said the pair were dishonourable and ‘‘should hang their head in shame’’.

Ms Patten said that when the Mr Ondarchie and Mr Finn came back into the chamber they could not look anyone in the eye.

Labor's upper house leader, Gavin Jennings, said the government ‘‘had generously offered those pairs because we had members praying in the parliament last night to be with their families and be with their church communities on the most holy day on the Christian calendar’’.

‘‘And those people who prayed in front of us and begged us to let them go, returned after we had given them a pair – right at the death knell, was when they returned, to betray parliamentary convention.’’……

The hypocritical antics of Messrs. Craig Philip Ondarchie and Bernard Thomas C. Finn as set out in the Parliament of Victoria Legislative Council Daily Hansard:

09:55am Thursday 29 April 2018

Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern Metropolitan) (09:55) — As John 3:16 teaches us:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Today is Maundy Thursday, tomorrow is Good Friday and it is the most solemn day of the Christian year. It is the day our saviour died for us. It is the day we were redeemed from our sins by the voluntary death of God himself at the hands of man. On Good Friday, according to the gospels, Jesus was taken before Pilate in the morning, sent to Herod, returned to Pilate, was mocked and beaten, saw Barabbas released in his stead, was crowned with thorns, was condemned to death, carried the crushing burden of the cross, told the weeping women what would happen in his future, was crucified between two thieves and forgave those who crucified him. As Luke 23:34 tells us, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’, and he cried out and died. It is the most solemn day of the Christian calendar.

I close my contribution in prayer:
Jesus, Today we pause to remember your sacrificial love
That shone light into the darkness
That bore life from such emptiness
That revealed hope out of devastation
That spoke truth through incrimination
That released freedom in spite of imprisonment
And brought us forgiveness instead of punishment.
Thank you that we can now walk in the light of your life, Hope, truth, freedom and forgiveness, This day and everyday. Amen.

Approx. 23:12pm Thursday 29 April 2018

Mr ONDARCHIE — Members, the blackness that hangs over my head tonight is associated with the passing of my Lord and Saviour on this evening. At this very time on the first Good Friday Jesus had been arrested and taken before the high priests Annas and Caiaphas and it was during this time that Peter denied him. I think this place is not about being tactical for me, Mr Jennings; it is about respect. It is about respect for —

00:15am Friday 30 March 2018

Mr ONDARCHIE — I move: That the committee now report progress. In doing so I alert the house to the fact that we are now officially in Good Friday. I have made my point very clear. I do look to get some confirmation from the minister at the table, Minister Jennings, and the other minister who made an offer to members of the house that anybody who wants a pair can have a pair. This is a very religious day for me. You heard me talk about that –

00:20am Friday 30 March 2018

Mr FINN — I very strongly support the motion moved by Mr Ondarchie, and I have to say to you I have been sitting here since midnight and I feel quite ill, physically ill, to be sitting here on Good Friday when I know that I should not work on Good Friday, that this is a day of extreme solemnity; it is a very sacred day. I know there are some members on the government side who do not understand those of us of faith, but the fact of the matter is that it is beyond the realms of decency to force people to work, to breach their religious rights, as we have seen. I know there are members of the government who do not actually believe in freedom of religion — and they are showing that just at the minute. I heard Mr Jennings say that every one of us who asked for a pair would get one. Now, I want a pair because merely being here, as I say, is making me feel ill when I know I should be elsewhere. I want a pair; Mr Ondarchie has said he wants a pair. I would be very, very keen for Mr Jennings to get to his feet and clarify if the offer still stands for each and every member, as he said, who wants a pair to be given a pair. That is something that I think he has got to do, because he said it. I mean, we didn’t ask for it; he offered it, and it is only reasonable that he now clarify the situation, given that there is some significant confusion as to whether that offer was genuine. He is either fair dinkum or he is not fair dinkum. If he is fair dinkum, then we can get on with it. If he is not fair dinkum, we know that he can’t be trusted and we move on from that in my members statement today. You heard me talk about it when we broached this subject an hour or a bit more ago. This is the day that my Lord was crucified. I do not want to be here. I want to be with my family and I want to be with my church family. I find it highly disrespectful that on this very important day in my faith’s calendar we are still here. I think it appropriate, Minister, that with respect, selfishly, to me and to others who understand the importance of this day today we stop this now. We can come back to this. It is not time critical. I note that in your motion this morning on the rising of the house that we are going to reconvene early in May. We can come back and do this then. Today is the day that Jesus died. It is a very important day. Today I want to be with my church family. I want to take up your offer, as do some of my colleagues, about accepting the pair that you have offered. This is not acceptable.

Those with long memories will recall that Coalition MPs and senators have a history of attempting to distort parliamentary processes. The Night of the Long Prawns during a federal parliamentary sitting in 1974, the refusal of NSW Premier Tom Lewis in 1975 and Qld Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen also in 1975 to follow parliamentary convention and accept a nominee put forward by a political party to fill a casual vacancy in a seat which to that point in time had been held by that same party, are just three examples.