Tuesday 22 May 2018
Noble Caledonia Limited changes the 'spin' around its "Australian Coastal Odyssey" cruise and the Port 0f Yamba-Clarence River visit
It seems that Noble Caledonia Limited has decided to downgrade its description of the delights of Iluka and is trying to hide from locals the short amount of time MV Caledonian Sky passengers will be spending on land during the ship's brief stop over.
Spot the difference.
This was a snaphot of Day 16 of the cruise itineray taken on 20 November 2017....
This is a a snaphot of Day 16 of the cruise itineray taken on 20 May 2018....
AUSTRALIA 2018: Turnbull Government continues to hammer the vulnerable
Remember when reading this that the Turnbull Government is still intending to proceed with its planned further corporate tax cuts reportedly worth an est. $65 billion. Compare this policy with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding in Budget 2018-19 which is $43 billion over four years and no dedicated NDIS funding stream established as had been previously promised.
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE
NDIA’S SPECIALIST DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION PROVIDER AND INVESTOR BRIEF
The National Disability
Insurance Agency (NDIA) presented its latest policy position for Specialist
Disability Accommodation (SDA) in a statement to the provider and investor
market on 24 April.
People with disabilities
and developers of innovative housing for people with disabilities are pleased
the NDIA has reiterated the government’s commitment to SDA in its SDA Provider
and Investor Brief. The NDIA has confirmed that the SDA funding model is here
to stay.
However, the NDIA’s SDA
Brief expresses a vision for SDA housing with a clear bias toward shared models
of housing for people with disability, presumably to reduce support costs. This
is unacceptable. You can read our joint statement here (A Rich text format is available here).
The
Australian,
16 May 2018:
The executives of the
flagship National Disability Insurance Scheme, which received guaranteed
funding worth tens of billions of dollars in last week’s budget, have launched
a crackdown on support funding to keep a lid on ballooning costs.
The razor is being taken
to hundreds, possibly thousands, of annual support plans as they come up for
review, demonstrating a new hawkish approach from National Disability
Insurance Agency bosses but resulting in the loss of funding and support for
vulnerable families. In many cases, support packages for families have been cut
by half.
The early years of the
$22 billion program’s rollout saw wild variability in the value and type of
support being granted to participants, forcing executives to come up with a way
to claw back funding that has “an impact on sustainability”. In the process,
people with disabilities and their families have been shocked by sudden
reversals of fortune….
In its quarterly report,
the NDIA noted there was a “mismatch” between reference packages — rough
cookie-cutter guides for how much packages ought to be in normal circumstances
— and the value of annual support packages which affected the financial
sustainability of the scheme.
“The management’s
response to this is to closely ensure that significant variations away from
reference amounts (above and below) are closely monitored and justified,” a
spokesman said.
“Reference packages are
not used as a tool to reduce package amounts to below what is reasonable and
necessary. Individual circumstances are considered in determining budgets,
including goals and aspirations.
“A reference package
does not restrict the amount or range of support provided to a participant, but
acts as a starting point for planners to use for similar cohorts. It provides
amounts that are suitable for a given level of support needs that has been
adjusted for individual circumstances.”
The agency has claimed
the implementation of this process has started to reduce funding blowouts and a
hearing into the scheme by federal parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on the
NDIS last Friday heard startling evidence about how widespread the new approach
is.
Donna Law, whose
21-year-old son has severe disabilities, was told by an NDIS planner: “Donna,
watch out because your son’s next plan is going to be cut by about half.”
Clare Steve had funding
cut in half by the NDIA and wanted to do another review.
“I spoke to multiple
people, because no one would actually give me the paperwork to do the next lot
of reviewing,” Ms Steve told the hearing.
“I was told by multiple
people that it was a mistake: ‘Do not go for another review.
“If you go for another
review, you could get your funding cut again’.”
ABC News, 19 May 2018:
ABC News, 19 May 2018:
Bureaucrats are reportedly working on a strategy to curb costs by tightening up the eligibility requirements after a blowout in the number families seeking NDIS support packages for people with autism.
ABC
News, 19 May
2018:
Last December, Sam's
case was one of about 14,000 sitting in the NDIS's review backlog, according to a damning
ombudsman's report this week. Then, about 140,000 participants were in
the scheme.
The review queue has
since shrunk, but the agency in charge of the world-first scheme — a
Commonwealth department known as the National Disability Insurance Agency
(NDIA) — still receives about 640 review requests each week.
Some of those requests
do not reflect badly on the NDIA. People can request an unscheduled review if
their circumstances change, for example if their condition improves.
But the agency often is
culpable when it comes to another type of review, known as an internal review.
People ask for these when they disagree with the plan and funding package they
are given.
Some reviews come from
people who feel short-changed, given the state government support they
previously received, or because of the high expectations associated with the
scheme.
But the Government is
also to blame. The NDIS's full-scheme launch in mid-2016 was a disaster.
The computer system failed. A backlog of NDIS applications quickly emerged.
Plans were then often
completed over the phone and rushed. Key staff lacked training and experience.
There was little consistency in the decisions being made.
The scheme's IT system
remains hopeless, and elements of its bureaucracy are not much better,
according to the watchdog's report.
The agency accepted all
20 of the ombudsman's recommendations, and Social Services Minister Dan Tehan
said work was underway to bust the backlog "over coming months".
* In February 2018, the
NDIA advised around 8,100 reviews remained in the backlog and the national
backlog team was clearing around 200 reviews each week. The NDIA also advised
it continues to receive around 620 new review requests each week, which are
handled by regional review staff.
* We have received
complaints about the NDIA’s handling of participant-initiated requests for
review. In particular, these complaints concern the NDIA: (1) not acknowledging
requests for review; (2) not responding to enquiries about the status of a
request; or (3) actioning requests for an internal review as requests for a
plan review.
*Participants also
complained they had sought updates on the receipt and/or progress of their
requests by calling the Contact Centre and by telephoning or emailing local
staff. They reported not receiving a response, leaving messages that were not
returned and being told someone would contact them—but no one did.
* In our view, the
absence of clear guidance to staff about the need to acknowledge receipt of
review requests is concerning. Indeed, the large number of complaints to our Office
where complainants are unclear about the status of their review indicates the
lack of a standardised approach to acknowledgements is driving additional,
unnecessary contact with both the NDIA and our Office.
* Our Office monitors
and reports on complaint themes each quarter. Review delays was the top
complaint issue for all four quarters in 2017.
* Some participants have
told us they have been waiting for up to eight or nine months for a decision on
their review request, without any update on its progress or explanation of the
time taken.
In some instances, the
participant’s existing plan has expired before the NDIA has made a decision on
their request for review. As review decisions can only be made prospectively,
it can mean a participant must go through the whole process for the new
(routinely reviewed) plan if they remain unhappy.
Monday 21 May 2018
Water raiders are eyeing the Clarence River - again
In 2007 Clarence Valley communities saw off an Australian prime minister (John Howard) and his water minister (Malcolm Turnbull) - telling them "Not A Drop".
The issue of inter-basin water transfer became an election issue that year and the National Party lost the seat of Page and the Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government lost the federal election.
Having learnt nothing from the commitment of local people in the Clarence Valley, including traditional owners, once again the water raiders have raised their heads above the parapet.
The Daily Examiner, letter to the Editor, 19 May 2018, p.14:
Clarence diversion
On April 18, 2018,
Toowoomba Regional Council in south-east Queensland resolved to submit a motion
to the National General Assembly of Local Government in June this year.
This motion calls for
the Assembly to amend Resolution 77 (Griffith City Council) which was carried
the previous year.
Resolution 77 called on
the “Federal Government to carry out a further feasibility study on David
Coffey’s “Scheme to Divert Tributaries of the Clarence River to the Murray
Darling Basin” to gather up-to-date information for investigation into this
scheme”.
The Toowoomba amendment
seeks to incorporate a pipeline from the Clarence River to Toowoomba and the
Darling Downs region into that request for federal government investigation.
Hot on the heels of this
latest push to dam and divert water from the Clarence River system comes the
NSW Legislative Council Portfolio Committee No. 5 “Augmentation of water supply
for rural and regional New South Wales” report, released on May 14.
Although informed by
Clarence Valley Council that it has resolved six times not to support diversion
of the Clarence River, this Upper House report clearly favours damming and
diverting water from the Clarence River system.
The wording may have
been slightly watered down via a motion by Mick Veitch MLC but it is still of
considerable concern: ”Resolution 40 - 6.89 The committee heard evidence from
some inquiry participants that there may be potential benefits of diverting the
Clarence River to the west.
“These inquiry
participants were of the view that there is merit to any strategy that seeks to
mitigate floods and flood damage in the Clarence Valley and provide additional
water for agriculture in the Barwon region. The committee acknowledges that
stakeholders were divided on the issue of water diversion. However, some
inquiry participants held strong views against diverting waters from the
Clarence River to the west.”
However, the draft
version of 6.89 which indicates the extent of support the dam and divert
proposal enjoys within this Upper House committee was quite frankly alarming:
“The committee notes that there may be potential benefits of diverting the
Clarence River to the west.
“There is merit to any
strategy that seeks to mitigate floods and flood damage in the Clarence Valley
and provide additional water for agriculture in the Barwon region.
“The committee
acknowledges that stakeholders were divided on the issue of water diversion.
However, the committee believes that further investigation into water diversion
schemes is warranted to consider their feasibility as a strategy to mitigate
floods.
“The committee therefore
recommends that the NSW Government investigate the feasibility of water
diversion schemes as a flood mitigation tool.”
If these sentiments are
echoed by the Berejiklian Coalition Government down in Sydney then Clarence
Valley Council, the people of the Clarence Valley and communities whose local
economies depend on a healthy Clarence River will have a fight on their hands.
Because the calls from
communities and vested interests who have managed to reduce their region’s
rivers to a series of mud puddles will grow louder and more insistent over
time.
This time around the
call is spearheaded by Griffith, Toowoomba and the shadowy lobby group,
Australian Water Exploration Company Ltd, which is apparently looking to
benefit from any infrastructure spend on a Clarence Valley dam and pipeline.
At the June National
Assembly of Local Government they will be speaking to a sympathetic audience.
Hopefully Clarence Valley Council is sending a representative to this gathering
that will strongly counter their arguments.
Judith M. Melville,
Yamba
The Turnbull Government has the solution to its poll number blues already at hand - but will it act?
lesterlost.com |
By the time
of the 2016 Census there were 200,000
more homes sitting empty across the country than there had been a decade ago.
An est. 11.2
per cent of residential properties were unoccupied, up from 9.8 per cent in
2006.
There is currently an
artificial scarcity of residential housing in this country which governments seem intent on ignoring.
Similarly homelessness
has increased in Australia and rental
accommodation is frequently beyond the financial reach of many people whose
sole income is a Centrelink pension, benefit, allowance or payment.
It has been
reported in 2018 that 250 people are turned away from crisis centres across
the country every day.
Again,
governments are not paying enough attention to the social and economic costs to
their own budgetary bottom line this growing problem will cause.
The latest Newspoll
published on 13 May 2018 was conducted from Thursday 10 May to Sunday 13 May
with 1,728 survey respondents.
It shows
the Lib-Nat Coalition’s primary vote standing at 39% to Labor’s 38%. However the Coalition trailed Labor
49 to 51 on a two-party preferred basis, with that margin the coalition's best
position since September 2016.
That is the
32nd Newspoll in a row where the Labor Opposition was ahead of the
Turnbull Government on a two-party preferred basis.
If Turnbull
& Co really wanted to turn primary and two-party preferred polling numbers
around they would announce some substantial new policy measures in the months following the 2018-19 Budget.
The phasing out of negative gearing of investment properties over a ten year period, reforming capital gain provisions and creating more tied
grants for social housing would be a good start.
Sunday 20 May 2018
A call to arms in support of Our ABC
The announcement in last
week’s budget that the ABC’s funding indexation will be frozen for three years from July 2019
is the latest in a series of extraordinary attacks by a government that
displays an unprecedented level of hostility to the national
broadcaster. It represents a real cut to the broadcaster’s operating costs
of $84m.
Added to the $254m cut over five years announced by
then-communications minister Malcolm Turnbull in November 2014, and a $28m cut to the enhanced newsgathering
service in the 2016 budget, this brings the money taken out of our national
broadcaster since the election of the Coalition government to over a quarter of
a billion dollars.
Contrast this with the
former Labor government’s approach. In 2009, when I worked in the office of
communications minister Stephen Conroy, the ABC was awarded the largest funding increase since its incorporation in 1983,
with $136.4m in new money to fund the creation of the ABC Kids’ channel and 90
hours of new Australian drama. Four years later, the ABC was given $89.4m to set up the newsgathering
service and enhance the digital delivery of ABC programs.
In addition to record
funding boosts, Conroy, arguably the best friend in government the ABC has ever
had, also ensured the ABC charters were amended to specifically require them to
deliver digital services; overhauled the board appointment process to put it at
arm’s length from the government of the day; and, in a move that enraged the
Murdoch empire, created legislation that specified that any international
broadcasting service funded by the government could only be delivered by the
ABC. This came after the government’s refusal to award carriage of the
Australia Network to News Corp in 2011, a decision that was regarded both at
home and internationally as common sense by everyone other than the owners of
Sky News.
All this is now under
attack. The Turnbull government seems determined not only to undo every measure
of financial and legislative support implemented by the last Labor government,
but to undermine the ABC’s operations so thoroughly that its ability to provide
the services its charter requires will likely be devastated.
The legislation passed
in early 2013 prevented the incoming Coalition government from reopening the
tender process to award the Australia Network to Sky – so they shut it down
entirely instead.
Five years later, the
Lowy Institute laments that “[o]nce a significant
player in what the British Council calls the Great Game of the Airwaves, the
ABC’s purpose-designed, multiplatform international services have suffered
near-terminal decline”.
"We must rise up against
this concerted campaign of funding cuts and attempts to limit the activities of
our national broadcasters"
As far as the board
appointment process goes, Turnbull as prime minister and his communications
minister Mitch Fifield are doing their best to ignore it: two recent appointees,
Minerals Council boss Vanessa Guthrie and Sydney Institute
Director Joseph Gersh, were not recommended for appointment
by the independent selection panel. Fifield is relying on clauses in the
legislation governing the appointment process that allow the minister to
appoint from outside the recommended list in exceptional circumstances, but has
publicly offered no reason why these candidates were more urgently required on
the ABC board than those recommended as more qualified by the selection panel.
It’s also impossible to
discover whether the minister has tabled the statement to parliament giving his
reasons for ignoring the advice of the selection panel, as required by the
legislation. If he has, perhaps those statements explain why Guthrie and Gersh
are the most qualified candidates to provide governance of our most trusted source of news.
Despite the selection
criteria set out in Conroy’s legislation, the ABC board now includes no one
other than the staff-elected director and the managing director, Michelle
Guthrie, with media experience and, despite the full board having been
appointed by this government, they seem unable to make a case to maintain the
ABC’s funding.
But the biggest danger to
the ABC is the government’s agenda to reduce its digital services, and it’s
here where the ABC – and, in this case, SBS as well – face a truly existential
threat. The so-called “competitive neutrality inquiry” into the national
broadcasters, currently underway, has ostensibly been launched to satisfy Pauline Hanson’s demands for an
inquiry into the ABC in return for her support for last year’s appalling package of media “reforms”, which will
reduce diversity and local content across the commercial broadcast media.
Don’t believe it for a
second. While Hanson’s hatred of the ABC will assist any future government
moves to neuter the broadcaster’s digital activities, this inquiry is yet
another gift to News Corp and the commercial media organisations, who have been
baying for the ABC’s blood since it arrived on the airwaves more than
three-quarters of a century ago.
The $30m of government money given, apparently with few strings
attached, to Foxtel last year was really just “compensation” for the fact that
the commercial TV operators got a windfall gain with the abolition of their broadcast licence
fees and
replacement with spectrum fees. This saves the broadcasters around $90m per
year (money which is forgone government revenue, by the way) so, of course,
Foxtel had to be similarly rewarded for … running a commercial business in a
competitive market.
Read the full article here.
North Coast Voices, 12 May 2018,"Time to show support for the ABC"
The ABC provides vital local news services, as well as things like emergency and bushfire warnings. Every time the Liberals cut the ABC’s funding they hurt local communities.— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) May 18, 2018
SIGN THE PETITION ⬇️https://t.co/pNIFrLik2q
Once a banker always a a banker
People need to know why Malcolm's on the side of the cheating banks.— ETU⚡️VIC (@ETUVIC) May 13, 2018
Here are the ads we're running on TV. It's not good enough that Turnbull spends all his time defending and supporting the big end of town and treats working people like trash. #auspol #banksrc pic.twitter.com/lHDatAo27Y
via @ETUVIC
There are currently fifteen [15] members of the Turnbull Government who formerly worked in the banking, finance, insurance, and/or for-profit superannuation industries and three [3] who worked for large accountancy firmss or lobbying groups.
Saturday 19 May 2018
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