Saturday 31 August 2019
Quote of the Week
"Donald Trump is unfortunate proof that it does actually matter who gets elected. His policies are just bad for the world." [Journalist Greg Jericho, The Guardian, 25 August 2019]
Friday 30 August 2019
Australian Bureau of Statistics more interested in telling a good story in mainstream & social media rather than presenting the real facts to readers
The Guardian, 28 August 2019:
References to wealth inequality reaching its peak in 2017-18 were removed from an Australian Bureau of Statistics press release to help craft a “good media story”, according to internal documents.
The emails and drafts show the ABS issued a separate income inequality media release in July to create a narrative of “stable” inequality despite wealth inequality on the rise, with one email noting the ABS did not want to “draw attention” to a bad result for the poorest households.
A spokesman for the ABS has denied any interference by the Morrison government or the suggestion it sought to misrepresent data, which was all strictly factual, arguing media releases “aim to showcase key findings” with journalists free to draw their own conclusions from other data.
On 12 July the ABS published two media releases titled “Inequality stable since 2013–14” and “Average household wealth tops $1 million” which copped criticism for failing to explain that the richest 20% of households have got substantially richer over time.
In the first release the ABS acknowledged that “there was a marginal increase in wealth inequality in 2017–18 and that wealth continues to be less equally distributed between households than income amongst Australians”.
An earlier draft, produced under freedom of information, states that wealth inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient, “is at its peak now (0.621) since it was first comprehensively measured in 2003-04 (0.573)”, a phrase later deleted after a direction to “focus on income over wealth”.
Another draft states that although the increase in wealth inequality over the previous two years was “not statistically significant … it is a significant increase compared to 2011–12 (0.593) and 2003–04 (0.573)”.
An email on 26 June notes that the lowest quintile has seen “a significant change” from 2015-16 to 2017-18, down from 0.8% of all household wealth to 0.7%, or an average of $37,900 per household down to $35,200. Its unidentified author notes: “I’m not sure that we want to draw attention to this though.”
The phrase “the lowest 20% controlled less than 1 per cent of all household wealth, with average wealth currently at $35,200” was retained in the final release, without noting the deterioration.
The final release also notes “the wealthiest 20% of households still held over 60% of all household wealth, now averaging $3.2 million per household” without noting the growth over time from $1.9 million in 2003-4.
In an email on 7 July, the ABS director of household economic resource surveys notes a person whose name is redacted had suggested two media releases be issued: one for wealth and a second for income data “where we can present more of a story that inequality is stable”.
“She is also requesting that it is this story (inequality stable) that gets tweeted first on the day of release,” it said.
Another undated email suggests the ABS is “still able to craft a good media story despite more recent data showing a changing picture”..... [my yellow highlighting]
NSW irrigators still have their heads buried deep in the sand of dry river beds
Ahead of the NSW Local Government Annual Conference to be held from 14-16 October 2019 irrigators' demands are becoming evermore unrealistic in the face of growing surface water shortages due to drought and climate change.
And once again damming and diverting water from the Clarence River system is mentioned.
One has to wonder if the irrigators in the article below realise that, at the point where all the main river tributaries have contributed to the Clarence River flow, water height was only 0.89 metres or slightly less than 3 feet on 28 August 2019, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology which publishes recorded river heights for NSW Northern Rivers.
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| Water NSW graphs |
Further upriver at Tabulum water height was recorded as only -0.04 metres.
The wide full river that these irrigators see on the Internet only runs from Grafton to the sea (approx. 52 kms as the crow flies) and all that way it is saline because the lower river is tidal and that additional undrinkable water volume comes from the ocean.
The Irrigator, Leeton NSW, 27 August 2019, p.5:
Community leaders agreed to work together to "claw back" water from the NSW government at a Build More Dams meeting recently.
The meeting attendees agreed to lobby the state government to return "voluntary contributions" of water, which have been siphoned from MIA irrigators since 2002.
Irrigators had been giving up five per cent of their high security allocations and 15 per cent of their general security allocations, which translates to billions of dollars worth of water - and magnitudes more in today's water prices. Griffith City Council and Leeton Shire Council's mayors also agreed to support the lobbying efforts and urge other councils within the Murray Darling Association to join suit.
Leeton's mayor Paul Maytom was present at the meeting.
The committee also agreed to lobby the state government for a feasibility study into the Clarence River diversion scheme that was suggested by engineer David Coffey.
The scheme would capture Clarence River water in dams and pump it into the Murray Darling system.
The third and final motion agreed upon by the committee was to take an official stance and throw their support behind a royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
The committee will be joining the ranks of the NSW Farmers Griffith branch, which has also recently thrown their support behind a royal commission.
Thursday 29 August 2019
Castillo Copper pays out $96k in enforceable undertaking after allegedly contravening NSW Mining Act during activity on its Clarence Valley exploration lease
The Daily Examiner, 28 August 2019, p.3:
The companies behind mining exploration at Cangai have had to pay more than $90,000 after breaching their license.
Total Minerals Pty. Ltd. and Total Iron Pty Ltd. put forward a $91,000 Mining Act enforceable undertaking which was accepted by the NSW Resources Regulator on Monday in relation to series of serious compliance issues back in November 2018.
The alleged breaches included unauthorised drilling, not disposing of drilling waste properly and failing to prevent erosion and chemical or fuel spillages, resulted in both companies being issued suspension notices.....
Resources Regulator Acting Director of Compliance Steve Orr said mining authorisations carried strict compliance responsibilities. “The community expects companies like Total Minerals and Total Iron to be aware of their legal and environmental obligations and have appropriate systems in place to ensure compliance,” Mr Orr said.....
It was also noted that both companies which are wholly owned subsidiaries of Castillo Copper Ltd. had taken steps to rehabilitate the affected sites at a cost of “about $300,000”.
An enforceable undertaking once agreed to avoids any potential prosecution for allegedly identified breaches of the conditions of a mining exploration licence.
A total of 16 offences were alleged by the Resources Regulator who included this notice to be published by the mining company as part of the enforceable undertaking accepted on 21 August 2019:
Spring is not likely to bring much joy for those watching the skies for rain and cool weather in NSW
Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), Drought, 7 August 2019:
Rainfall deficiencies have affected most of the New South Wales, Queensland and South Australian parts of the Murray-Darling Basin since the start of 2017.
These longer-term deficiencies extend to parts of the New South Wales coast, particularly in the Hunter and Illawarra districts, and to much of the eastern half of South Australia from Adelaide northwards.
The deficiencies have been most extreme in the northern Murray-Darling Basin, especially in the northern half of New South Wales, where areas of lowest on record rainfall extend from the Great Dividing Range west as far as Dubbo and Walgett.
Some of the largest rainfall deficiencies have occurred in the upper catchments of some of the major tributaries of the Darling, including the Macquarie, the Namoi-Peel and the Border Rivers.
The 31 months from January 2017 to July 2019 has been the driest on record averaged over the Murray-Darling Basin (32% below the 1961-1990 average), as well as over the northern Murray-Darling Basin (38% below average) and for the state of New South Wales (33% below average).
All three regions rank second-driest on record, for the 25 months from July 2017 to July 2019, and the 19 months from January 2018 to July 2019; only the 1900-02 peak of the Federation Drought has been drier.
The last 31 months have also been the driest on record averaged over the Macquarie-Bogan, Namoi, Gwydir and Castlereagh catchments, with the last three also driest on record for the last 19 months.
The dry conditions of the last three years have been particularly acute during the cool season, which is important in many regions for generating runoff.
Rainfall for the period from April to September was less than 50% of average in both 2017 and 2018 in 14 of the 30 rainfall districts of New South Wales.
In 13 of these 14 districts, rainfall from April 2019 to date is also less than 50% of average.
The Central Western Plains (North), which encompasses Nyngan, Trangie, Gilgandra and Coonamble, has had less than one-third of its average cool-season rainfall in all three years.
Another area of longer-term rainfall deficiencies affects Gippsland, in eastern Victoria, and the east coast of Tasmania. Both the West Gippsland and East Gippsland districts have had their driest 31 months on record, with a substantial area of record low rainfall in central Gippsland centred on Sale and Bairnsdale.
Drier and warmer conditions are expected over much of mainland Australia from September through to November 2019, according to BOM.
A drier than average spring is likely for most of Australia, except the western coastline and far southeast.
NSW DPI Drought Maps, 26 August 2019:
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