The bad news for NSW North Coast regional communities just never ends

According to the Berejiklian Coalition Government’s Transport for NSW  website: The Community Transport Program (CTP) assists individuals who are transport disadvantaged owing to physical, social, cultural and / or geographic factors.  Individuals who do not qualify for other support programs may be eligible for community transport. CTP is funded by the NSW Government and aims to address transport disadvantage at the local level via community transport organisations.

In the Clarence Valley medical specialist services are rather thin on the ground and residents are frequently referred to medical practices and hospital clinics hundreds of miles away.

For communities in the Lower Clarence where a high percentage of the population are elderly people on low incomes this can frequently present a transport problem, as often there is no family member living close by to assist or the person’s peer friendship group doesn’t include anyone capable of driving long distances.

Community transport has been the only option for a good many people.

Until now…..

The Daily Examiner, 8 January 2019, p.3:

The thought of paying $200 for a trip to see her specialist about her medical condition made Yamba pensioner Gloria George glad she was sitting down when she made the call.

The 80-year-old said when she contacted Clarence Community Transport and was told the price to be taken by car to the Gold Coast for a Wednesday appointment, it could have brought on a heart attack.

Mrs George said CCT told her there was a bus service to the Gold Coast that ran on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for $70.

“My appointment was on Tuesday and the clinic I was booked into was not available on the other days,” she said.

“They said they had made cutbacks and the price to be driven to the appointment was $200.

“I’ve got a bad heart problem and I nearly fell over when they told me.

“Who can afford $200 to go to an appointment?”

Mrs George said she still has a licence, but would not feel safe driving to her appointment.

“I think I’ll be able to get a friend to drive me there and take me home again. I hope so,” she said.

The manager of CCT, Warwick Foster, said the price rise for services had come in when the government cut $250,000 from CCT’s funding when the NDIS came in last year.

“We could no longer afford to operate the bus five days a week,” he said. “And we can’t afford to drive people to appointments for the same fee we charge for the bus service.”

Mr Foster said the government subsidy for transport of $31 a trip created a juggling act for CCT to afford its services.

“Each trip, no matter the distance, is subsidised at $31,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter if the trip is across town or to Brisbane, the subsidy is the same....

Adani caught red handed breaking the rules - again

In 2017 the foreign multinational, the Adani Group, was found to have released heavily polluted water into coastal wetlands and the ocean around the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area - then lied about it.

Last Sunday it was reported to again be ignoring mining and environmental regulations and very predictably appears to be lying about its actions.

ABC News, 30 December 2018:

Mining firm Adani has unwittingly provided "persuasive" evidence for a Queensland Government investigation into allegedly illegal works on its Carmichael mine site, environmental lawyers say.

The evidence includes specifications of groundwater bores registered by Adani on a government website, which Queensland's Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) said could only be used for prohibited dewatering operations, and not for monitoring as Adani has claimed.

Adani has also confirmed it cleared 5.8 hectares of land when correcting an "administrative error" in its reporting to government, an action the EDO branded unlawful.

A spokeswoman for Adani insisted the company had acted in accordance with its environmental approvals, had not been dewatering for mining operations, and had "cooperated with both relevant State and Commonwealth departments regarding these allegations".

The Department of Environment and Science (DES) began an investigation in September to examine allegations Adani had drilled illegal groundwater bores.

Satellite and drone evidence of drilling was presented to DES by the EDO on behalf of its client, environmental group Coast and Country.

Coast and Country spokesman Derec Davies said the evidence had resulted in an official investigation by the Queensland Government.

"Adani have been caught red handed breaking the law, and then lying about it within official documents," he said.

Dewatering bores are used by miners to prepare for open cut and underground operations.

Conservationists have repeatedly warned that Adani's dewatering plans could threaten the nationally important Doongmabulla Springs.

An Adani spokeswoman said the company had drilled the bores "to take geological samples and monitor underground water levels", which she said was permitted as a stage one activity under its licence.

However, an expert has told the ABC the registrations for five of the bores that appear on a Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy website bear the hallmarks of dewatering bores, not monitoring bores.

They show the bores are constructed with steel rather than plastic casing, were considerably thicker than Adani's registered groundwater monitoring bores and ran deeper at 135 to 273 metres.

The bore reports did not include the baseline underground water level or the elevation of each bore, information considered critical for monitoring.

The five registered bores are also ascribed the abbreviation "DWB", commonly used for dewatering bores, instead of "GMB", commonly used for groundwater monitoring bores.

Read the full article here.

Aboriginal Australia discovered the variability of a bright red supergiant star in the shoulder of Orion millennia before Western science did

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 21(1), 7‒12 (2018), Bradley E. Schaefer Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, “YES, ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS CAN AND DID DISCOVER THE VARIABILITY OF BETELGEUSE”:

Abstract: Recently, a widely publicized claim has been made that the Aboriginal Australians discovered the variability of the red star Betelgeuse in the modern Orion, plus the variability of two other prominent red stars: Aldebaran and Antares. This result has excited the usual healthy skepticism, with questions about whether any untrained peoples can discover the variability and whether such a discovery is likely to be placed into lore and transmitted for long periods of time. Here, I am offering an independent evaluation, based on broad experience with naked-eye sky viewing and astro-history. I find that it is easy for inexperienced observers to detect the variability of Betelgeuse over its range in brightness from V = 0.0 to V = 1.3, for example in noticing from season-to-season that the star varies from significantly brighter than Procyon to being greatly fainter than Procyon. Further, indigenous peoples in the Southern Hemisphere inevitably kept watch on the prominent red star, so it is inevitable that the variability of Betelgeuse was discovered many times over during the last 65 millennia. The processes of placing this discovery into a cultural context (in this case, put into morality stories) and the faithful transmission for many millennia is confidently known for the Aboriginal Australians in particular. So this shows that the whole claim for a changing Betelgeuse in the Aboriginal Australian lore is both plausible and likely. Given that the discovery and transmission is easily possible, the real proof is that the Aboriginal lore gives an unambiguous statement that these stars do indeed vary in brightness, as collected by many ethnographers over a century ago from many Aboriginal groups. So I strongly conclude that the Aboriginal Australians could and did discover the variability of Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, and Antares.

Keywords: Aboriginal astronomy, variable stars: Betelgeuse, Antares, Aldebaran

Read the full paper at https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1808/1808.01862.pdf.

Original paper by Duane W. Hamacher, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University,  “Observations of red–giant variable stars by Aboriginal Australians” at http://www.aboriginalastronomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Variable_Stars.pdf?fbclid=IwAR11OnhyKIcvaxcFEJ1n5c0me9_FZtTi6mlNUfSKpa1r2wjgZ-WhMAqHU1s

Both papers are well worth a read by everyone who has ever looked up at the night skies in wonder.

Why proposed offshore mining in the Great Australian Bight matters to all of Australia

The Advertiser, 18 January 2015

BP p.l.c. is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, UK.

It operates in this country as BP Australia and Chevron.

On 11 October 2016 this multinational corporation announced it was not proceeding with its exploration drilling programme in the Great Australian Bight (GAB), offshore South Australia, in the foreseeable future.

It still owns two oil/gas exploration leases in the GAB.

The Norwegian multinational Equinor formerly Statoil Petroleum also holds two leases in the same area and intends to drill an exploratory well in one of them by October this year.

Last year in October the Morrison Coalition Government offered a new GAB acreage S18-1 for lease, with bids closing on 21 March 2019.

So it is well to remember how Big Oil views Australia…….

The Age, 6 April 2018:

Coastal towns would benefit from an oil spill in the pristine Great Australian Bight because the clean up would boost their economies, energy giant BP has claimed as part of its controversial bid to drill in the sensitive marine zone.

BP, which has since withdrawn the drilling plan, also told a federal government agency that a diesel spill would be considered “socially acceptable”.

BP made the statements in an environment plan submitted to the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority in March 2016.

The company had been seeking to drill two wells off the South Australian coast, raising fears of an environmental disaster akin to BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws, first published by London-based website Climate Home News, showed the government authority had identified serious shortcomings with BPs environment plan.

In a letter to BP, the authority said a number of statements should be removed or supported by analysis. They included BP's claim that “in most instances, the increased activity associated with cleanup operations will be a welcome boost to local economies”.

BP also claimed it had not identified any social impacts arising from the event of a diesel spill and “since there are no unresolved stakeholder concerns ... BP interprets this event to be socially acceptable”.

The Guardian, 6 April 2018:

In 2016, BP released modelling showing a spill could hit land as far away as New South Wales. The letters revealed that BP’s “worst case shoreline oiling scenario predicts oiling of 650km coastline ​at 125 days after the spill, increasing to 750km after 300 days”. Nopsema had raised concerns over BP’s ability to mobilise the people and equipment needed to clean up such a vast expanse of coast.

ABC News, 14 November 2018:

If an oil spill happened in the Great Australian Bight, it could reach as far east as Port Macquarie's beaches, two thirds of the way up the New South Wales coast, according to a leaked draft environment plan obtained by the ABC.

Under a "worst credible case discharge" scenario, more than 10 grams of oil per square metre could wash up on some of Australia's coasts, according to the document authored by Norwegian oil company Equinor.

Maps show coastal areas that could potentially be impacted, from above Sydney to Albany in Western Australia.

Environmental group Greenpeace, which obtained the leaked draft Oil Pollution Emergency Plan, said it was the first time modelling had shown an oil spill could reach so far....

BACKGROUND

Greenpeace, Crude Intentions: Exposing the risks of drilling and spilling in the Great Australian Bight [48 page PDF]

Why has Australian Treasurer & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg morphed into a frenzied Trump?

“Ultimately, a dollar of tax avoided by high income Australians is an extra dollar of tax paid by all other Australians.” [Australian Labor Party (ALP) policy document Positive plan to help housing affordability]

The Australian Labor Party has put forward a number of policies which limit the degree to which affluent groups in our society can manipulate the tax system.

These tax reform policies will:

* limit negative gearing to investment properties already negatively geared and newly built residential housing. However net income losses on existing negatively geared properties will not be able to be used to offset salary & wage income;

* cease cash refunds for excess dividend imputation credits on which the investor personally paid no tax originally and who has no current tax liability to offset with these credits;

* reduce the discount on capital gains tax from 50 per cent to 25 per cent after the deduction for any capital losses. Some assets and events are exempt from capital gains tax. These include selling your principle home, personal car, personal use assets or selling an asset acquired before capital gains tax was introduced on 20 September 1985. 
According to the Australian Taxation Office if you are an individual rather than a corporation then the Capital Gains Tax Rate is the same as your Income Tax Rate in the applicable year.

These same policies have caused former Deutsche Bank director, current Australian Treasurer and Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg (left) to morph into a frenzied Trump. Pumping out slogans, misrepresentations and sometimes downright political lies on every media platform he can access.

The Australian, 5 December 2018, p.2:

Josh Frydenberg has launched a pre-election assault on Labor’s plan to halve the capital gains tax discount, warning that hundreds of thousands of Australians will be taxed at the “highest rates” in the Western world.

Shifting his focus from Bill Shorten’s proposal to limit negative gearing to new dwellings and the “retiree tax”, the Treasurer yesterday cited government analysis that showed Australians would be taxed up to 36.75 per cent on their capital gains under Labor’s policy, up from 23.5 per cent now….¹

Labor’s 50% increase to capital gains tax will cost jobs, punish those who work hard and save, and give Australia a CGT rate much higher than other advanced economies. pic.twitter.com/W4c3pgcgCt

— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) January 4, 2019

.@JoshFrydenberg on Labor’s negative gearing: Everybody who owns equity in their home will be worse off under Labor’s policy.

This is a major tax grab by the Labor Party.

MORE: https://t.co/9fyClHfMTo #FirstEdition pic.twitter.com/H0H0WTtFV5

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) November 6, 2018

So why is Frydenberg screaming misrepresentations at the top of his lungs, urged on by the Housing Industry Association?²

Could it be because 56.2 per cent of the tax benefits from Negative Gearing go to individuals whose incomes are in the top 20 per cent of Australian incomes and only 5.2 per cent of the tax benefits go to individuals in the lowest 20 per cent of incomes?

Or because est. 75 per cent of tax savings from Capital GainsTax discounts go to the top 10 per cent of high income families?

Perhaps it’s because Self-Managed Super Funds are a major beneficiary of cash refunds for excess dividend imputation credits, with 50 per cent of the benefit to SMSFs accruing to the top 10 per cent of SMSF balances and some funds receiving cash refunds of more than $2.5 million a year?

Likely he’s screaming because all three instances represent how successfully the affluent have gamed the tax system to date and he like most right-wing politicians see such tax manipulation as a right belonging to them and their mates and, therefore have no interest in supporting a fairer distribution of the tax burden.

He also appears to be ignoring the fact that Treasury modelling of these Labor policies shows an increase in federal government revenue by $2 billion over time and, that these same policies have the potential to put downward pressure on property prices in the short-term so that genuine first home buyers might get a foot in the door with more affordable residential housing.

Bottom line is that Labor’s tax reform policies are primarily targeted at investors with a marginal tax rate (including Medicare Levy) of over 45 per cent - which roughly equates with the top 20 per cent of Australian residents with private wealth.

That is, the 'professional' investors/tax avoiders amongst the 1.16 million Australians who according to Credit Suisse in 2017 are millionaires, some many, many times over.

Footnotes

1. KPMG, Demark- Taxation of investment income and capital gains: “Interest and rental income are taxable as investment (or capital) income with a marginal tax of 42 percent (2018).” Denmark's Capital Gains Tax Rate is higher than the worse case scenario of up to 36.75 per cent under Labor which Frydenberg postulates in Para 5 of this post. Therefore Labor would not be imposing "the highest" rates in the Western world'.

2. Australian Government, Treasury, Tax- Negative Gearing/Capital Gains, FOI, 5 January 2018.

    Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen, A FAIRER TAX SYSTEM: DIVIDEND IMPUTATION REFORM, 13        

                      March 2018.

    Australian Taxation Office,  Individual Income Tax Rates 2018-2019 and CGT assets and exemptions
    National Australia Bank, Calculating and Paying Capital Gains Tax, 
     Domain.com.au, The ‘little known’ tax strategy some millennials use to amass large property portfolios,           23 May 2016.

* Photograph of Josh Frydenberg from msn.com

Australia In Decline: hearing nature's death rattle

The Guardian, 26 December 2018:

More than 50 Australian plant species are under threat of extinction within the next decade, according to a major study of the country’s threatened flora.

Just 12 of the most at-risk species were found to be listed as critically endangered under national environment laws – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – and 13 had no national threatened listing at all.

The scientists behind the research, published in the Australian Journal of Botany this month, say the results point to a need for re-evaluation of Australia’s national lists for threatened plants.

It is the first major assessment of the status of Australia’s threatened flora in more than two decades.

Plants account for about 70% of Australia’s national threatened species list, with 1,318 varieties listed as either critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable. 

Among those on the list are acacia pharangites (wongan gully wattle), banksia vincentia, caladenia amoena (charming spider-orchid), caladenia busselliana (Bussell’s spider orchid), calochilus richiae (bald-tip beard orchid) and eremophila pinnatifida (dalwallinu eremophila).

The research team assessed species that met criteria for either a critical or endangered listing at national or state levels to track their rate of decline.

They did this by reviewing all available literature on the plants – including recovery plans, conservation advice and peer-reviewed research – and conducting interviews with 125 botanists, ecologists and land managers with expertise on particular geographic regions or species.

The study examined 1,135 species, including 81 that were unearthed through the interview process as being eligible for a critically endangered or endangered listing but did not have one.

It found 418 plants had continued declines in their population and a further 265 species had insufficient monitoring information available to determine their status.

The scientists concluded that 55 species were at high risk of extinction within the next 10 years, with fewer than 250 individual plants or only a single population remaining. They found just 12 of the most imperilled species were listed under the EPBC Act as critically endangered and 13 had no listing at all.

They said there were also 56 species of plants currently on the critically endangered list that they assessed as having no documented declines or that were stable or even increasing.

“This points to a clear need for re-evaluation and standardisation of current lists, and consistent application of IUCN listing guidelines,” the study states.

“There is also a need to collect systematic, repeatable field data for most of [the] species, to back up suspected and projected declines and provide a stronger basis for investment in recovery actions.”…..

USA 2019: crazy continues to be the order of the day

SPIN, 2 January 2019:

CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

 President Trump delivered a harsh post-holiday awakening at his first cabinet meeting of 2019, holding forth for a nearly two-hour freestyle press conference in the presence of reporters.

In what amounted to a barely coherent filibuster, Trump dragged his former secretary of defense, chalked recent stock market turbulence up to a “glitch,”gave a shoutout to Kanye West, and mused that he might have made a good general himself. Most of the time, he sounded like a guy at a bus station arguing with pigeons. Behind him, ex-Fox News exec turned head of the White House press shop Bill Shine shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

In spite of his best efforts, Trump was nearly upstaged by a parody poster of himself as a Game of Thrones character with the text “Sanctions are coming.” The president initially shared the parody image on his Twitter feed in November, apparently signaling his intention to impose sanctions on Iran. On Wednesday afternoon, an actual, physical, movie-theater-sized version of the poster was laid out on the table in front of the president facing the press pool.

When the image first appeared in November, HBO issued a statement that they would “prefer our trademark not be misappropriated for political purposes.” An HBO rep told Spin the network has no additional comment.

Trump didn’t address why the poster was so prominently positioned, but he did extol the virtues of a Southern border wall while posing with appropriated imagery from a dragon soap opera that vehemently undermines that premise. “Walls work,” he told reporters. Trump is currently holding out for wall funding amid an ongoing government shutdown, leaving some 800,000 federal employees currently without pay.

TRUMP: "I had a meeting at the Pentagon with lots of generals. They were like from a movie. Better looking than Tom Cruise, & stronger. And I had more generals than I've ever seen, & we were at the bottom of this incredible room. I said, 'this is greatest room I've ever seen.'" pic.twitter.com/fTpgDXVso8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 2, 2019