Cartoons of the Week

 

Cathy Wilcox

McToons

David Pope

Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan gets annoyed by a university handbook for lecturers and tutors

 

Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan (left) took to Facebook, media releases and an email to certain constituents this month, after getting his undies in a knot over Australian National University (ANU) Gender Institute and Centre for Learning and Teaching co-releasing the "Gender-Inclusive Handbook" for tertiary education lecturers and tutors. 

I guess you can take the failed investment officer/financial adviser off Sky News & the business studies teacher out of the classroom and send him into federal politics, but perhaps his electorate shouldn't have expected him to actually exercise his brain once he arrived in Canberra. 

Sometime in the last seven years he has apparently joined the 'It's political correctness gone mad!' brigade. 

Hogan's voting record already shows us that he is not exactly a friend to the university system. He was for raising undergraduate and post-graduate course fees, as well as against increasing government funding for university education and definitely for political interference in how research grants are awarded.

This is how one Murdoch daily metropolitan and one local Murdoch rag pumped up Hogan's media release:

And this was an NBN News snapshot of part of his Facebook rant:

As usual he is missing the main thrust of the issues outlined in the handbook - which is how to support all students in their learning experience.

The handbook can be found at: 

https://genderinstitute.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/2021_docs/Gender_inclusive_handbook.pdf

*Image of Kevin Hogan found at news.com.au

A virulent cancer lodged in the the heart of Australian society - News Corp

U.S. citizen Keith Rupert Murdoch
Media magnate & founder of News Corp
IMAGE: Google Images

The New Daily, 12 April 2021:

As the federal Senate convenes its latest hearing on the inquiry into media diversity, with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull as its headline act on Monday, it has been revealed News Corp owns nearly 60 per cent of the metro and national print media market.

The company also earns 40 per cent of TV revenues, and is part of a profitable trio controlling a mind-boggling 90 per cent of metro radio licences…..

On the eve of the Senate inquiry, a study by University of Sydney academics found how densely Australia’s media ownership is concentrated.

“News Corp is the unchallenged dominant player,” wrote Associate Professor of Communication Benedetta Brevini and PhD candidate Michael Ward.

“The predominance of News Corp in cross-media settings is unprecedented in liberal democracies.”

The report, commissioned by activist group GetUp!, found News Corp had a 59 per cent share in the metro and national print media markets, when measured by readership.

The authors said that compared to just 25 per cent in 1984.

Nine Entertainment, which owns the former Fairfax papers including the Sydney Morning Herald, has “a combined 23 per cent readership share”, the report details.

“The dominance of News Corp and Nine’s media ownership extends beyond print to other media platforms,” the authors said.

“Just three corporations – News Corp, Nine, and Southern Cross Media (and their associated entities) – control almost 90 per cent of the lucrative metropolitan radio licences across the country.”

That’s in addition to the 40 per cent of total Australian television revenue that News Corp earns, when taking into account free-to-air and subscription revenues.

The authors note this is “almost double that of second-place holder Nine”.....

The full GetUp! report is at https://d68ej2dhhub09.cloudfront.net/2810-GetUp_-_Who_Controls_Our_Media_.pdf

Quote of the Week

 

"Climate change continues to influence Australian and global climate. Australia's climate has warmed by 1.44 ± 0.24 °C over 1910–2019, while southern Australia has seen a reduction of 10–20% in cool season (April–October) rainfall in recent decades."  [Australian Bureau of Meteorology, 13 April 2021]

State of Play 2021: Gender Pay Gap in Australia

 Australian Government, Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 26 February 2021:

Calculating the Gender Pay Gap

Australian gender pay gaps are calculated by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA, the Agency). The GPG is derived as the difference between women’s and men’s average weekly full-time equivalent earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings….

Unless otherwise stated, all measures of the gender pay gap are expressed as a percentage (%) based on average weekly ordinary time earnings for full-time employees (trend data), with changes over time provided as the percentage point (pp) difference.

It should come as no surprise that in the years 2010 to 2020 the trend gender pay gap peaked in November 2014 during Tony Abbott’s term as Australian Prime Minister, when women on the average adult full-time weekly wage were paid 18.5 per cent less than men – that represents est. $282.8 less than men they were paid each week for their labour.

Over the following three years the difference between the male and female average weekly adult full-time wage fell to $238.0.

On becoming Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison presided over an Average weekly ordinary time cash earnings, full time adults, original for November 2018 which saw a difference of $222.9 between the male average weekly adult full-time wage and the female average weekly adult full-time wage. In November 2019 that difference was $223.5 less in the female average weekly adult full-time wage. While in November 2020 there was a difference of $223.1 between the male average weekly adult full-time wage and the female average weekly adult full-time wage.

WGEA states that the November 2020 seasonally adjusted gender pay gap was 13.4 per cent - showing women earned on average $242.20 less than men in that month.

Although Scott Morrison bragged this week about that 13.4 per cent he was careful not to quantify that percentage in dollar terms.

He does not seem to be making much of a difference on the ground for women when it comes to the average experience of the gender pay gap.

Scott Morrison & Co went on a spending spree at taxpayer expense after he became Australian Prime Minister

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2021:

Flying politicians and dignitaries around the country on VIP jets cost taxpayers almost $20 million in two years up to June 2020, new flight records show.

Federal politicians ordered 1940 VIP flights between July 2018 and June 2020, at a cost of $17,177,562, an analysis by The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald of RAAF flight data found. The governor-general and other dignitaries including Prince Harry pushed that bill up by $2 million to $19,577,402, adding 395 flights.

The new flight data shows during the peak of the 2020 black summer bushfires, then-defence minister Linda Reynolds travelled from Perth to Canberra twice in five days, costing taxpayers $69,000 for her flights alone.

Ms Reynolds returned early from a holiday in Bali on January 3, 2020, having departed Australia quietly a week after Prime Minister Scott Morrison came back from his Hawaiian holiday amid public outrage at his absence during the bushfires.

Ms Reynolds chartered a VIP plane that can carry 30 passengers to fly her and two others from Perth to Canberra on Saturday, January 4, 2020, for a press conference to announce the rollout of 3000 army reservists to help with the bushfire crisis…...

The use of VIP jets has been controversial recently as Mr Cormann was flown around Europe in a RAAF VIP jet that costs about $4000 an hour to operate as he campaigned (successfully) to be the new secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Prime Minister Morrison defended Mr Cormann clocking up more than 20,000 kilometres campaigning for the job at taxpayers’ expense.

In February, the Herald and The Age revealed then-home affairs minister Peter Dutton charged taxpayers more than $36,000 to charter a jet to Tasmania to announce $194,000 worth of grants for CCTV systems for two councils during the 2018 Braddon byelection campaign.

Mr Morrison, Mr Dutton, Stuart Robert and Josh Frydenberg billed taxpayers almost $5000 in December 2019, for a private jet trip to Sydney on the night of Lachlan Murdoch’s Christmas party, the Guardian reported in December last year.

The group left Canberra after 6pm, attended the party at Bellevue Hill then returned to Canberra before 9am the next day.

And during the last federal election campaign, Mr Morrison’s bus tour of Queensland was not as grounded as it seemed after it was revealed he and his staff were using VIP jets to cover large stretches of the journey to Townsville.

The election campaign bill for VIP jets for both parties, between April and May 2019, cost taxpayers $6,645,318 for 444 VIP flights.

Berejiklian Coalition Government washing its hands of any responsibility for the past 74 years of urban development on NSW floodplains?

Macleay River flooding from the air
IMAGE: Macleay Argus, 21 March 2021

In all but ruling out largescale buybacks of housing on NSW floodplains, a cynical Berejiklian Coalition Government is obviously feeling safely protected by the 1979 Environmental Planning and Assessment Act s2.28 liability exemption clause.

As well reassured there will be no blowback on local government due to protections for councils and staff inserted by a predecessor, the Fahey Coalition Government, in the 1993 NSW Local Government Act s731-s733 liability exemption clauses covering flooding and bushfires. Later helpfully reinforced by another predecessor the Keneally Labor Government in 2011, to cover indemnity against lack of action or planning decisions taken that were known to increase risks of climate change impacts.

In between these two pieces of legislation, the Carr Labor Government even tossed in the 2002 Civil Liability Act to add to the circumstances in which liability could generally be avoided.

The proof of the ease with which the Berejiklian Government is passing the buck back to homeowners for the past 74 years of urban development on floodplains is found in the current Coalition state government’s response to widespread flooding in New South Wales during March 2021.

Vulnerable communities in north-east NSW might think on the Berejiklian Government’s reluctance to seek genuine solutions to increasing floodplain risks due to climate change-induced alterations to seasonal weather patterns, the contribution to flooding made by erosive wave patterns with rising seas and, natural disaster events.

The Guardian, 10 April 2021:

Urban planners and water scientists have urged the New South Wales government to offer to buy back thousands of homes in flood-prone areas of western Sydney, as overdevelopment sets a trajectory for the number of uninsurable houses in the city to surge.

Infrastructure NSW has acknowledged residential property buybacks would be “effective” to mitigate flood risk in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley and across western Sydney, but the government agency has said such a scheme would incur “very significant social and economic costs”.

The call for buybacks, from the urban thinktank the Committee for Sydney, followed floods in March that inundated parts of western Sydney after Warragamba Dam spilled over, and wreaked havoc across NSW and south-east Queensland.

By Tuesday, the insurance bill for the floods had risen to $537m, from 35,845 claims, as affected residents continue to lodge damage with their insurers.

The Committee for Sydney’s resilience director, Sam Kernaghan, believes the insurance bill for March’s floods will rise to $2bn and says it will ultimately cost the NSW government too as it foots the bill for emergency services and recovery relief services as insurer of last resort.

The committee has issued a plea for the state’s recovery and rebuilding to seriously consider not “reestablishing homes, farms and businesses in this increasingly hazard prone location”.

“The bill will be enormous… [instead] we have an opportunity to use that money differently to support western Sydney residents and businesses for the long term,” the committee said, calling for the billions to be spent rebuilding to focus on a voluntary home purchasing scheme “that supports residents to move out of the way of the floods”.

“Funded by state government, this scheme would provide a mechanism for residents to sell flood risk properties to the government at market rates,” the committee said, noting a similar scheme put in place after the 2011 Queensland floods that saw Brisbane city council purchase $35m in flood-affected land, with properties transformed into parkland.

Kernaghan believes there is a strong argument to buy back about 5,000 to 7,000 homes in western Sydney – not all of the 55,000 to 77,000 that are estimated to need to evacuate during a one in 100-year flood event….

The committee is also calling for more thorough mapping of flood plains in Sydney to help long-term planning, as well as transferrable development rights similar to the model used in Norfolk, Virginia – a US city sinking more than 3.5mm a year – and strengthening evacuation routes to help existing communities in the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain…..

“If nothing is done to address this escalating risk from extreme weather and climate change, by 2100 Sydney will have a projected 91,000“uninsurable” addresses — the most of any city — with over five times as many uninsurable properties in 2100 than in 2019,” he said.

“Regardless of what Sydney decides to do, the question before western Sydney is this: do we really want to continue to put people in the flood plain? Previous governments ignored the science, hoping it would be all right. The result has been tragedy for thousands of people.

“The recent floods should make it clear it is not responsible to put people where they will be exposed to this level of harm ... It’s time for Sydney to look at a long-term plan to reduce the cycle of disaster.”

Dr Ian Wright, a water scientist at Western Sydney University who previously worked as a scientist for Sydney Water studying the Sydney basin flows, also supports the concept of home buybacks.

Wright has been a vocal part of the chorus of water scientists warning of the impact overdevelopment had on the recent floods.

As large swathes of western Sydney that were previously bushland and soil – which absorb water before flooding – had been paved over and roads and hard surfaces built to support new suburbs in recent years, there is increased runoff and flood risk to communities lower down. Residents in western Sydney complained of this issue as their homes, which had seen out previous floods, succumbed to the recent deluge…..

The NSW planning minister, Rob Stokes, referred the Guardian’s inquiries to environment minister Matt Kean’s office, which referred it to Infrastructure NSW.

An Infrastructure NSW spokeswoman said the government had considered buybacks to mitigate flood risk, including in its Hawkesbury-Nepean flood strategy released in 2018.

“However, in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley, large-scale compulsory acquisition across entire suburbs would be necessary for this to be effective and would have very significant social and economic costs,” she said. [my yellow highlighting]

Aerial shot of  the Hawkesbury River in flood
IMAGE: ABC News, 21 March 2021