Cartoons of the Week

Mark David

 

Tweet of the Week

 

A lot of folks have been asking for the full speech so here it is! Happy Saturday 🌞 #nswpol #auspol pic.twitter.com/XqnB34nXHd

— Rose Jackson (@RoseBJackson) May 8, 2021

 

Online violence has become the new frontline in journalism safety and women journalists sit at the epicentre of risk

Social, cultural, environmental and community activists because they are often highly visible in their own local areas have long been subject to anonymous death threats, not so anonymous menacing behaviour, nuisance calls, minor vandalism and, even after the advent of social media, defamatory whispering campaigns. 

In decades past, journalists were seemingly not as visible to the purveyors of hate within communities which were contesting local and regional issues.

Once the Internet arrived it became a vehicle which could potentially intensify the hate directed towards such activists and at times it did. Since February 2004 highly organised bad actors have turned their attention towards the mainstream media and begun ripping away at the reputations of female journalists.

Here is a recent research discussion paper which makes some interesting observations.......

UNESCO, Posetti, J. et al, (April 2021) Research Discussion Paper, The Chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists, excerpts:

INTRODUCTION

There is nothing virtual about online violence. It has become the new frontline in journalism safety - and women journalists sit at the epicentre of risk. Networked misogyny and gaslighting intersect with racism, religious bigotry, homophobia and other forms of discrimination to threaten women journalists - severely and disproportionately. Threats of sexual violence and murder are frequent and sometimes extended to their families. This phenomenon is also bound up with the rise of viral disinformation, digital conspiracy networks and political polarisation. The psychological, physical, professional, and digital safety and security impacts associated with this escalating freedom of expression and gender equality crisis are overlapping, converging and frequently inseparable. They are also increasingly spilling offline, sometimes with devastating consequences…….

The research underpinning this paper consists of: a global survey of 901 journalists from 125 countries conducted in five languages; long-form interviews with 173 international journalists, editors, and experts in the fields of freedom of expression, human rights law, and digital safety; two big data case studies assessing over 2.5 million posts on Facebook and Twitter directed at two prominent women journalists (Maria Ressa in the Philippines and Carole Cadwalladr in the UK) undertaken to validate the self-reporting of our interviewees and survey respondents with objective data; 15 detailed country case studies; and a literature review covering hundreds of scholarly and civil society research publications. A team of 24 international researchers6 from 16 countries contributed to the study……

The chilling effect

Online violence against women journalists is designed to: belittle, humiliate, and shame; induce fear, silence, and retreat; discredit them professionally, undermining accountability journalism and trust in facts; and chill their active participation (along with that of their sources, colleagues and audiences) in public debate. This amounts to an attack on democratic deliberation and media freedom, encompassing the public’s right to access information, and it cannot afford to be normalised or tolerated as an inevitable aspect of online discourse, nor contemporary audience-engaged journalism…..

A worsening crisis

Online attacks on women journalists appear to be increasing significantly, as this study demonstrates, particularly in the context of the ‘shadow pandemic’ of violence against women during COVID-19. The pandemic has changed journalists’ working conditions, making them yet more dependent on digital communications services and social media channels. The emergence of the ‘disinfodemic’ has also increased the toxicity of the online communities within which journalists work, making journalists “sitting ducks” according to the UK National Union of Journalists’ Michelle Stanistreet, interviewed for this study……

Another major issue in evidence is the role of political actors - including presidents and elected representatives, party officials and members - in instigating and fuelling online violence campaigns against women journalists. Additionally, partisan, mainstream and fringe news media can be shown to amplify such attacks, triggering ‘pile-ons’ that escalate the risks of online violence morphing into offline assault or causing significant psychological injury……

Our research confirmed that online violence against women journalists comes from State officials, and is increasingly associated with legal harassment. In Pakistan, founder of the Digital Rights Foundation, Nighat Dad, said: “The attacks are made by people declaring affiliation with the ruling party, and in the coordinated campaigns women journalists are referred to as peddlers of ‘fake news’, enemies of the people and accused of taking bribes. Some journalists [have] shared that after official harassment, their social media accounts are bombarded with gendered slurs and abuse by accounts displaying the ruling party’s flag or the Prime Minister’s picture on their accounts.” ......

These methods of attack are growing more sophisticated, and they are evolving with technology. They are also increasingly networked and fuelled by political actors. This points to the need for responses to online violence to grow equally in technological sophistication and collaborative coordination. Another point highlighted by our research: most women journalists do not report or make public the online attacks they experience, in line with low levels of reporting when it comes to violence against women more broadly. As our research participants also demonstrated, many media employers still appear reluctant to take online violence seriously. This aligns with the evident failure of the internet communications companies - whose social networks, messaging and search services facilitate much of the harassment, intimidation, abuse and threats targeting women journalists - to take effective action to address this freedom of expression and gender equality crisis…..

This study shows that male politicians will also use lawsuits as weapons against female journalists and, multiple defamation actions may be instigated by wealthy individuals who are often political donors.

Online newspapers which publish the work of female investigative journalists sometimes come under attack. In August 2020, Guardian Media Group took legal action to shut down a website generating fake Guardian headlines and byline profiles which were being shared with the trending Twitter hashtag #TrollingTheGuardian.

The full discussion paper can be read at:

https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/the-chilling.pdf.

State of Play Australia 2021: Morrison Government mismanagement of national response to the COVID-19 pandemic continues

On 22 February 2021 what should have been the biggest logistical exercise in Australia’s history got underway – the vaccination of the population against the COVID-19 global pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

“This vaccination program launches us down our path out of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Every Australian will be given the opportunity to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, free of charge that has been proven to be safe and effective by our own medical experts.” [Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, media release, 21 February 2021]

Eleven months earlier in an effort to contain the spread of viral infection within Australia, the Morrison Government had finally closed Australia’s borders at 9pm AEDT on Friday, 20 March 2020, with exemptions only for Australian citizens, permanent residents (including NZ permanent residents) and their immediate families, including spouses, legal guardians and dependants, as well as Pacific Islanders transiting to their own countries.

From the very start of the pandemic the Morrison Government had refused to take responsibility for creating/re-establishing a national human quarantine system with dedicated purposed-built quarantine facilities. 

Instead an ad hoc system of leased hotels in capital cities was established, primarily operating as quarantine sites under the control of state governments, in order to fill the unmet need to isolate those who at the time were still coming to Australia as tourists, as well as Australians returning from overseas or those transiting through Australia. This ad hoc system allowed COVID-19 to spread into the community on multiple occasions and state border closures became a feature of domestic pandemic response measures.

Commencing on 3 March 2020 there had been repeated announcements from the Prime Minister concerning the development of a COVID-19 vaccine and his government’s successful efforts up to November 2020 to secure over 134 million vaccine doses for the national vaccination program.

In Morrison’s own words “our strategy puts Australia at the front of the queue” for vaccine supply.

By February 2021 most Australians were anticipating the pledge that the adult population would be fully vaccinated by the end of October 2021.

Then we discovered how comprehensively we had been mislead.

There had never been a well-defined strategy behind efforts to obtain enough vaccine doses to provide the Australian population with protection against COVID-19 infection – just what looked suspiciously like a game of mates.

With the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine becoming flavour of the pandemic with Morrison (there was already a Liberal Party connection with that big pharma corporation and with CSL) and an early offer by Pfizer to supply Australia with its COVID-19 vaccine rejected.

Then as international circumstances changed and demand for vaccines began to exceed big pharma stockpiles, it became much more difficult for Australia to successfully compete with other nations for vaccine doses.

As for the national COVID-19 vaccination program rollout, Morrison's plan avoided using the mass vaccination expertise of state and territory departments of health and put together a pottage of primarily private sector vaccine delivery methods which failed to meet the vaccination target of 4 million people receiving their first vaccine dose in the first four weeks of the rollout.

When one looks at the identified priority groups it is clear that by 8 May 2021 only around 260,000 vaccine doses have been administered across the aged care and disability sectors and many frontline health workers were yet to receive their first vaccine dose.

The wheels really fell off the bus when the AstraZeneca vaccine was shown to produce a life threatening adverse reaction in some people days or weeks after receiving a vaccine dose - thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS).

After one woman died from TTS Morrison declared that the AstraZeneca vaccine would no longer be given to individuals under 50 years of age and, with not enough Pfizer vaccine on hand to vaccinate the under 50s Morrison declared there was no longer a fixed time table for the national vaccination program rollout and no new target would be set for when the Australian population would be fully vaccinated.

Since that early April 2021 decision to keep vaccinating those 50 years of age and older with the problematic AstraZeneca vaccine, 5 people aged between 51 and 74 years of age have been hospitalised with TTS. Bringing to 11 the number of people diagnosed with TTS after receiving an AstraZeneca vaccine dose - that is 11 TTS adverse events in approximately 1.4 million doses administered - with 5 of those 11 people being 64 years of age and older.

So this is now Australia's reality…… 

The Guardian graph showing Australia's vaccine supply as of March-April 2021:

The Guardian graph showing changing 'aspirational' targets and the 2.7 million doses gap between expected doses administered and actual doses administered by 10 May 2021:

The end result of what appears to be Prime Minister Scott Morrison's personal pandemic strategy - to offload as many federal responsibilities onto the states and territories in the hope of avoiding political blame if things go awry - is that Australia still has (i) no safe and secure national human quarantine system in place; (ii) an inadequate vaccine supply currently on hand; and, (iii)  only est. 12 per cent of its eligible population having received at least a first vaccine dose; at a time when the global pandemic is escalating in the south-east Asia region and highly infectious COVID-19 variants are spreading globally.

Morrison has created the risk that a wave of COVID-19 community transmitted infections, possibly exacerbated by a virus variant, could take off between now and the end of first quarter of 2022.

In a classic political ploy on Tuesday 11 May he began sending his MPs forth to leak his 'private' concerns that the global pandemic was more threatening now than it was a year ago, that COVID-19  remained a danger to Australia as it is "racing" through countries such as India, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea like nothing we had seen in our lifetimes. He warned his MPs against complacency.

Those allegedly private concerns and, an election campaign inspired Budget 2021-22 (that continues to leave establishing Commonwealth human quarantine stations out of federal budgets) which he revealed later on the same day, are apparently supposed to divert the attention of voters. So that we all fail to notice that it is because of his own mismanagement of the federal government's role in the national response to the global pandemic that Australia's national border will need to remain closed until well into the 2022 calendar year.

Prepare for his office to release more publicity photos of prime ministerial visits to defence force bases, walks down red carpets, chin-jutting poses surrounded by flags or twee pics with wife and children. As well as more keynote speeches to industry & assorted lobby groups, along with upbeat announcements of a better future. All scattered as media releases in order to distract both mainstream journalists and the national electorate from pondering that looming public health risk he created.

BACKGROUND

The Guardian, 22 April 2021:

Australia has received just 70% of the vaccine doses the government expected to have on hand by mid-April, according to a Guardian Australia analysis.

In a presentation published online on 14 March, the government included monthly forecasts for Australia’s expected vaccine supply, accounting for the disruptions to overseas supply that had already occurred leading up to that point.

Based on these forecasts, and figures cited by the health minister, Greg Hunt, for the number of doses received from domestic and international suppliers, there is a shortfall of about 1.8m vaccine doses.

The federal government has previously blamed international shipment delays for the slow rollout, which could take a couple of years to complete at the current pace.

However, comparing the government’s forecast with the number of doses we have actually received shows there has also been a shortfall in domestic production, with the number of locally-produced AstraZeneca vaccine doses lower than the government expected.

CSL, the company producing the AstraZeneca vaccine locally, put out a press release in February suggesting it would be able to produce 2m doses by the end of March.

On 24 March, CSL confirmed the release of 830,000 doses, and on 7 April, Hunt revealed CSL had produced at least 1.3 million doses by that point.

When asked why the 2m doses target had been missed, Hunt went into detail about the production and approval process, but did not directly answer the question.

Hunt did, however, indicate that CSL would be scaling up production, and called the production of 1.3m doses so far an “extraordinary achievement”.

It is not clear whether the March forecasts were too optimistic or if there are other issues involved.

According to people familiar with how vaccines are made, the process for creating such a vaccine involves a series of complex biological procedures and involves ongoing refinement, sometimes over several years, to reach peak levels of production.

Guardian Australia sent detailed questions about the vaccine supply shortfall to the health department, and a spokesperson said Pfizer shipments were expected to increase and CSL would produce more than 50m doses this year.

“Australia has entered into four separate agreements for the supply of Covid-19 vaccines, if they are proved to be safe and effective,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“These include agreements with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novavax and the Covax facility. Combined, these agreements will ensure access to approximately 170 million doses.

“As shipments of Pfizer and AstraZeneca are made available, they will be dispatched across Australia to vaccinate the population. Deliveries from Pfizer are expected regularly and will increase over the coming months. CSL is producing 50 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses over the course of this year.”

A CSL spokesperson was positive about production, saying: “Production of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is progressing well at both CSL Behring and Seqirus, and the teams continue work around the clock to meet our commitment to the Australian community.

“The process for releasing vaccines involves extensive safety and quality checks and no batch is released until all parties – CSL, the TGA and AstraZeneca – are satisfied that each vaccine meets the required quality standards.

“CSL is proud of our unique role in manufacturing this vaccine for Australia.”

The government has also now made figures on vaccine utilisation by states and territories available, with the most recent update on 19 April.

South Australia had the lowest utilisation rates, having administered just 59% of the vaccine doses available.

Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory both had very high rates, at 97% and 98% respectively.

Guardian Australia analysis had previously found that the smaller states were doing better in their rollout on a per-100 population basis. Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory each have administered more than four doses per 100 population.

With more vaccines on the horizon, Dr Mark Hanly from the University of New South Wales says the groundwork has to be laid now for how to administer them out.

“[Federal] and state governments need to be planning now for how they will administer 1,000,000 doses a week,” he says. “We need to plan the logistics of how to administer vaccine at a rate that can match supply once local production is up and running. If suitable vaccination facilities aren’t in place, it is possible that the bottleneck will simply shift from supply to administration.”

South Australia is the latest to announce the creation of mass vaccination hubs to speed up the rollout, something Hanly was calling for in February, even before the rollout faltered.

“Mass vaccination sites and GPs have different advantages, so a rollout that draws on the benefits of both delivery modes is likely to help us get to high levels of coverage faster than drawing on either mode alone,” he says. “All of this, of course, is contingent on supply and people’s willingness to come forward to be vaccinated.”

"I despair when I see that the new campaign to push the Dunoon Dam shows no interest in values that we all claim to hold dear...."

 

Channon Gorge again under threat by the Dunoon Dam proposal?
IMAGE: David Lowe in Echo NetDaily, 17 December 2020

Echo NetDaily, Letter to the Editor, 5 May 2021.

Nan Nicholson, The Channon

I have been an environmental activist for over 50 years (I started when I was a 15 y/o schoolgirl in Melbourne). Some would call me ‘driven’.

Starting with Terania Creek, I have been involved in many campaigns to defend our rainforests, our old growth forests, and our beautiful rural landscapes from gas mining. Now I am fighting for the life of a rainforest that would be destroyed by a dam.

In all these cases I have been propelled by a powerful love of place, and of natural beauty. I think most Australians are familiar with this feeling, wherever they live. The first Australians certainly knew about it, with depths of connection that the rest of us can probably never understand. When the land is your religion, your history, your food source, your home, your responsibility, your future and your reason for being alive – then its preciousness can’t be described.

These two issues of heritage, natural and human, are central to the Dunoon dam debate. Heritage is something that is given to pass on intact, not to destroy in wilful ignorance.

So much of our heritage has been damaged in our region. Most of our original landscape has been transformed, and only a few original, or semi-original, remnants are left to tell us of what we have lost. Our Aboriginal heritage, now the heritage of all Australians, has been whittled away, over and over, while the traditional custodians are repeatedly ‘consulted’ then comprehensively ignored. How insulting is the Welcome to Country ritual when there is not a shred of willingness to act on their stated wishes?

I despair when I see that the new campaign to push the Dunoon Dam shows no interest in values that we all claim to hold dear – our love for our remarkable natural landscapes, forests, ecosystems and species that are found nowhere else on Earth, and our supposed respect for our First Nations peoples.

The natural places of our region have been maintained and preserved for thousands of years by people whose desire to protect them is now swept aside by uninformed claims that ‘the studies are incomplete’.

Detailed ecological and heritage assessments have already established why the Dunoon Dam site is extremely important, both to scientists and to our first people. Surely we can, just once, let the natural environment, and the people who have loved it the longest, prevail.

We know that extremes of drought are coming. Knowledge about droughts from the past can no longer be relied on. One big flood can fill the dam quickly, for sure, but five years of drought and low runoff would give us 253 ha of bare dirt with not a trace of the natural beauty and the millennia of human history that it destroyed with so little need.

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is expected to remain in neutral phase at least until October 2021

Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Climate Driver Update, 11 May 2021:

Southern Annular Mode positive; El Niño–Southern Oscillation neutral

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) continues at neutral levels. Climate model outlooks currently indicate this neutral phase will last at least until October.

Oceanic indicators of ENSO persist at neutral levels, with Pacific sea surface temperatures close to the long-term average across most of the equatorial region. Beneath the surface, temperatures are near-average, with slightly warmer than average waters across much of the sub-surface. Atmospheric indicators such as the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and cloud patterns are also close to average. Trade winds have been stronger than average in the far west, but near average elsewhere.

The Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) is over the Indian Ocean region. It is forecast to move eastwards across Australian longitudes over the coming fortnight. When the MJO is active over the eastern Indian Ocean and Australian longitudes at this time of year, above average rainfall is more likely over the Maritime Continent to Australia's north. Additionally, it typically acts to strengthen easterly winds on Queensland’s tropical east coast and increase temperatures across tropical Australia.

The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) has been positive for the past week. It is expected to remain positive for the coming fortnight. SAM typically has little influence on Australian rainfall during autumn, but may have a drying influence for parts of south-west and south-east Australia over the coming fortnight.

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is currently neutral. Climate model outlooks suggest the IOD is most likely to remain neutral during the first half of winter. Three of the five models indicate negative IOD thresholds may be reached during winter or spring. The accuracy of IOD forecasts made during autumn is generally lower than at other times of the year, but improves in winter. A negative IOD increases the chances of above average winter-spring rainfall for much of southern Australia.

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. [my yellow highlighting]

Climate Model Summary for June to October 2021 at:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/model-summary/#region=NINO34&tabs=Pacific-Ocean

Next update expected on 25 May 2021

It appears that temperatures, winds, convection (rising air), and rainfall across the tropical Pacific may remain near their long-term averages, but temperatures in Australia's north may be warmer than usual and rainfall across much of southern Australia may increase from June to October.

Company behind a rejected development application on Palmers Island trying an end run around NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment’s decision?

Clarence Valley Independent, 5 May 2021:

A proposal to construct a boat-building facility on Palmers Island was eventually rejected by the Minister, however, a motion from Cr Karen Toms, to clarify Clarence Valley Council’s (CVC) “position”, resulted in a split 5-4 decision at its April 27 CVC meeting.

Councillor Toms’ motion centred on writing to the NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces to correct the record, advising that CVC is now aware that one of the alleged grounds for non-approval – “lack of any evidence that there was any support for the proposal from Councillors” – was “incorrect”.

Cr Toms also urged councillors to advise the Minister that CVC “has and does support the rezoning of [the land] to facilitate the development of a marine based industry” and that “the remediation action plan has been acted on and the contamination removed” from fill dumped at the site.

Environment, Planning and Community director Des Schroder wrote in the business paper that “none” of the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment’s reasons for rejecting the proposal “indicates that the lack of support or evidence, thereof from the council, formed the basis for the government’s decision”.

“Council had provided support for the proposal on a number of occasions, however, that support was not given the final time council considered the matter,” he wrote – councillors unanimously took a neutral position based on legal advice.

However, Cr Toms wrote in her NOM: “Councillors were not aware that remaining neutral at that time would cause the Minister to believe there was no evidence of support for the rezoning application.”

At the CVC meeting, Mr Schroder said he would have to take a question on notice when asked if the fill had in fact been remediated.

“I cannot advise that was finalised,” he said, “and there was no need to in the end”, because the proposal was rejected – that point was subsequently removed from the final decision.

Debate focussed on the accuracy of Cr Toms’ claim that the Minister had included councillors’ “lack of … support” as one of the reasons for rejecting the proposal.

Councillors wanted proof that “Monique Gibson (Executive Director, Local and Regional Planning) [had verbally] advised the applicant’s nominated [planning] officer”, who subsequently verbally advised Cr Toms that the Minister has made a decision partly based on no support from councillors.

Councillors adopted the motion, pending receiving written evidence of the “advice provided to Cr Toms”.

Cr Greg Clancy said he was “very disappointed that this issue has been exhumed”.

Cr Peter Ellem said the NOM was a “back doorway of getting into the ear of the minister”.

Cr Richie Williams said the proposal was not being “exhumed or anything like that” and that there are “five pretty strong points [for non-approval] that will remain no matter what”.

For: Toms, Lysaught, Baker, Williamson and Simmons; against Novak, Ellem, Kingsley and Clancy.