Yet another election lockout for Australian PM 'Scotty From Marketing' Morrison?

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic Queensland holds a state election from Monday 19 October 2020 to Saturday, 31 October 2020 and, now the Australian Electoral Commission will also be obliged to hold a by-election in the federal seat of Groom in south-east Queensland.

IMAGE: Google Images

However, the man who is out to convince his own political party and the world that only he wins elections in Australia across the first two tiers of government, Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison (left), will apparently not be able to campaign on the ground. 


NZ Herald, 18 September 2020:

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be banned from entering Queensland for the duration of the state election campaign unless he is prepared to pay A$2800 ($3046) to quarantine for 14 days in a government facility. 

Nearly seven weeks after he last entered the sunshine state, there is no sign that the Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will lift the border bans before the October 31 election. 

Queensland's border ban will effectively stop the Prime Minister, Labor leader Anthony Albanese and any other frontbenchers from entering the state for the duration of the election unless they are prepared to spend a fortnight in quarantine.....

ABC News, 18 September 2019:

Toowoomba-based federal MP John McVeigh has resigned from politics, effective immediately. 

He said he made the difficult decision to quit politics so he could concentrate on caring for his wife Anita, who has been suffering from a major illness. A federal by-election will now have to be held in the Groom electorate. 

Groom (Toowoombah & Darling Downs) has been held by the Liberal-Nationals Coalition since 1984 and is currently considered a very safe Liberal Party seat. 

The result of this forthcoming by-election will probably come as no surprise, but expect Scott Morrison to up his attacks on Labor, increase his media appearances and indulge in more scaremongering ahead of the by-election polling day. 

IMAGE: Gold Coast Bulletin

John McVeigh (right) lost his post as federal  Minister for Regional Development, Territories and Local Government in 2018 when Scott Morrison became prime minister and been a backbencher ever since. 

Like many other Coalition federal MPs, Mr. McVeigh has been the subject of allegations concerning improper allocation of federal government funding.

Cartoons of the Week

Cathy Wilcox

Jon Kudelka

Abject apologies. Due to illness there are no North Coast Voices posts until 20 September 2020

Getting old is both a medieval trial by ordeal  and modern physical endurance test. 

Hopefully North Coast Voices blog will make it to the next New South Wales local government, state and federal elections. 

The blog will return on 20 September 2020.

Australian federal & state governments are preparing to exploit large gas resources that are still in the ground

The Australia Institute, “Weapons of gas destruction: Lifting the lid on greenhouse gas emissions from Australian fossil gas projects and resources” September 2020, excerpt from Discussion Paper summary:

The fossil gas industry in Australia tripled production from 1990 to 2010 and then from 2010 to 2019 production tripled again. Nearly all of the new production was exported. Australia has become the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) and one of the world’s biggest gas producers. Australia’s gas and coal exports make Australia’s the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world, after Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Over the decade to 2018 Australia was responsible for most of the growth in LNG, and a third of the growth over the last 20 years, more than any other country Australia’s share of global gas production soared in recent years, even as its share of global proven gas reserves levelled out.

Australian Government publications list 22 new gas production and export proposals across Australia with an estimated gas production capacity of 3,368 PJ pa. Governments and companies are preparing to exploit further gas resources in the ground that are larger still.

Despite calls for decarbonisation be central to the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the Australia government is proposing policies and subsidies for what it calls a “gas fired recovery”. From an economic and employment perspective, this makes little sense. There are many low cost ways to reduce gas consumption, and the industry, despite its size, employs few Australians. Expanding fossil gas production also threatens to release large amounts of greenhouse gases.

Burning fossil gas releases carbon dioxide (CO2). In addition, extracting, processing transporting and exporting fossil gas is also highly emissions intensive, and already responsible for more than 10% of current Australian emissions, on official government data. A large portion of these emissions come from gas burned by LNG facilities.

Australian LNG facilities burn around nine percent of all gas they receive to help liquify the remaining gas for export. Gas consumption in LNG facilities is double the size of whats consumed by Australian households and about as large as what is consumed by Australian manufacturing.

Another major climate impact is ‘fugitive’ emissions from flaring, venting and leakage. The true impact of these emissions is larger than officially reported. Fossil gas is made up mostly of methane, itself a greenhouse gas with much greater heat trapping potential than CO2. While methane is more powerful than CO2 over a 100 year timeframe, which is the conventional basis for comparison, methane traps far more heat over the nearer-term (a 20 years horizon). A small amount of methane loss greatly increases the climate impact of fossil gas.

Many recent studies show rates of methane loss much higher than the Australian government’s official figures, especially in unconventional gas production, such as coal seam and shale gas where techniques like hydraulic fracturing are required. Methane loss at rates observed in recent studies of large US shale gas fields range from 2.3% to 3.7%, at the higher end delivering a near-term climate impact equivalent to doubling the emissions of the burnt gas. Reducing and avoiding the release of methane emissions is essential to meeting the Paris Agreement climate goals.

There are 22 major new gas projects proposed by companies and listed by the Australian Government’s Office of the Chief Economist. The analysis here converts the supply capacity into common units for comparison and aggregation. The proposed projects are spread across the country and are of various sizes, types and stages. The largest projects are offshore fields designed for gas export, especially off Western Australia’s coast. The single largest project, Woodside’s Browse / Burrup Hub Extension, would involve piping gas from a large new gas field nearly 1000km through new undersea pipelines to an onshore facility for export…...

Murdoch and Costello's "recycled press releases by government spin doctors being passed-off as journalism or entertainment clickbait pinched from elsewhere and dressed up as original news content, isn’t going to cut it"

The Northern Rivers Times, 10 September 2020:

If there was ever an indicator that the media is not a one-size-fits-all model, it’s happening right now in Australia. 

And given the monopoly one media organisation has in this country, it’s a pretty reasonable assumption (on the author’s part at least, having been part of said organisation up until a couple of months ago), that they are driving the campaign to make online giants Google and Facebook pay to use Australian news on their platforms. 

But who exactly will benefit from charging Facebook and Google? All Australian media, or just those luddites struggling to implement their particular business model in today’s online media climate. 

Despite what the Federal Government, or more aptly their friend Newscorp, might be proposing to challenge the Facebook and Google news sharing platforms, not all news being shared is created equal..... 

While the media industry preaches that paying for journalism is a must to ensure quality and accountability remains at its bedrock, it’s no guarantee you are going to get either if you do. 

Recycled press releases by government spin doctors being passed-off as journalism or entertainment clickbait pinched from elsewhere and dressed up as original news content, isn’t going to cut it. 

Expecting people to pay for what they can read for free elsewhere isn’t going to cut it. Demanding trust rather than delivering it, isn’t going to cut it. 

Original, well-researched, unbiased, investigative journalism might. And if it doesn’t, well what’s left hardly constitutes journalism does it....

Read the full article here at Page 5.

NSW Koalas Need Your Help - NOW! Phone or email a state government pollie today

Nort East Forest Alliance, media release, 10 September 2020:

Liberals need support to save Koalas from National Party

The North East Forest Alliance is calling on people who want core Koala habitat to be identified and protected from logging to contact the Liberal Party and encourage them to resist National Party bullying.

The Koala State Environment Planning Policy (SEPP) was introduced by the coalition in 1995, with the then National Party member for Ballina, Don Page, claiming credit for it, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.

"The SEPP basically requires the preparation of Koala Plans of Management (KPoM) that identify core Koala habitat. These are required to be prepared for individual Development Applications over core Koala habitat, though the emphasis is on Councils preparing shire wide Koala plans.

"Where Councils identify core Koala habitat it is identified as Sensitive Regulated Land and therefore can't be cleared under an exemption, and is excluded from logging under the Private Native Forest logging codes.

"This has been intended since the first 1994 Koala SEPP, yet the Koala inquiry identified that over the last 25 years only 6 comprehensive KPoMs have been approved, and these are mostly just for parts of Local Government Areas, and mostly don't identify core Koala habitat.

"The bipartisan Koala Inquiry found that the regulatory framework for private native forestry does not protect koala habitat with the theoretical protections for koalas 'weakened substantially, or indeed non-existent, when practically applied'.

"In 2019 the Coalition adopted a revamped Koala SEPP that tries to make the process for identifying core Koala habitat workable.

"Since then Timber NSW have been worried that if Councils identify core Koala habitat then they won't be able to log it, and have been targeting the National Party in a campaign to overturn the SEPP.

"The current threat by the National Party to resign from the Coalition is all about trying to make the identification of core Koala habitat unworkable so that it can continue to be logged and cleared.

"Koalas had declined by over 50% on the north coast since the Koala SEPP was first introduced 26 years ago, then in 2019/20 30% of their high quality habitat was burnt, with losses of 44-100% of Koalas from firegrounds. Since 2015 clearing of native vegetation has doubled, with no consideration of Koalas.

"Wild Koalas will likely go extinct in NSW by 2050 if the National Party continue like this.

"NEFA are asking people to email or phone the offices of Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Planning Minister Rob Stokes and Environment Minister Matt Kean to thank them for helping protect Koalas against National Party bullying. Encourage them to provide support to Councils to complete the mapping of core Koala habitat across NSW within 5 years.

"NEFA are also asking people to email or phone the offices of north coast National Party representatives to protest their attempts to remove protections for Koalas, such as Geoff Provest (Tweed), Chris Gulaptis (Clarence), Gurmesh Singh (Coffs Harbour), Leslie Williams (Port Macquarie), Melinda Pavey (Oxley), Stephen Bromhead (Myall Lakes) and Upper House representative Ben Franklin.

"We need to show that the community supports Koala protection" Mr. Pugh said.

Parliamentary contacts are at:

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/members/Pages/all-members.aspx

The Northern Rivers Times goes from strength to strength

An independent newspaper which came into being in the wake of News Corp's shutdown of regional print newspapers, The Northern Rivers Times has well and truly established itself.

The child of Heartland Media's Jeff Gibbs, it is a pleasure to read.

It's good to see the advertisers come onboard and at $2 a copy this weekly newspaper is cheaper than print versions of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Daily Telegraph and The Courier Mail.

Not only that, The Northern Rivers Times is free online where it can be read in digital format or downloaded for more leisurely perusal.

The 10 September 2020 issue can be read at  
https://issuu.com/heartlandmagazineaus/docs/the_northern_rivers_times_edition_10

and the newspaper archive is at https://issuu.com/heartlandmagazineaus.