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Tuesday 3 May 2022
Monday 2 May 2022
Federal Election 2022: what about our ABC?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORBH2Fjd2Ro, 14 February 2022
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| Original logo IMAGE: Logopedia |
The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) was established as the national public broadcaster in 1932 by an Act of Parliament.
It was formed as a publicly-owned politically independent and fully accountable entity offering a media service to the general public.
Originally funded from radio and later television license fees, in 1973 the funding model was changed to direct federal government funding.
In 1983 it’s name was formally changed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The ABC Charter contained in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 requires the Corporation to provide innovative and comprehensive radio and television broadcasting which contributes to a sense of national identity, informs, educates, entertains and, reflects the cultural diversity of the Australian community.
It was made exempt from federal government efficiency dividends (created as a cost saving measure by way of annual funding reductions) when the Hawke Labor Government introduced these dividends in 1987-88.
Since 1989 the ABC has been funded by a three-year appropriation known as the triennial funding system.
The first assault on this triennial funding system came in 1996 when the Howard Coalition Government removed $55 million from the ABC triennial budget.
At the September 2013 federal election the Abbott Coalition Government came to power and within its fist year in office it commissioned an efficiency review of the ABC and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) a separate public television broadcaster created in 1980.
This review was ideologically-driven by a new hard-right prime minister, Tony Abbott, whose broad political agenda included gradually withdrawing federal government from provision of a wide range of services, either through privatisation (via direct sale or leasing to private corporations) or by cost-shifting onto the states.
The review reportedly identified $60 million in savings across both the ABC and SBS. It was used by the Abbott Government to commence direct funding reductions and funding reductions by way of efficiency dividends. Abbott stopped short of implementing the merging of ABC and SBS facilities, pay-for-view for certain ABC online services or proposed entering into a new online service with a commercial media organisation as partner, but nevertheless these remain as recommendations in the redacted “Draft ABC & SBS Efficiency Study” dated April 2014. The Abbott Government then released a 9 page executive summary of the review dated 14 May 2014. The ABC countered by releasing unredacted pages from the Lewis review.
The Turnbull and Morrison Coalition governments continued to drain funding from the ABC, while antipathy towards the public broadcaster grew to ridiculous levels within both Coalition parties.
At the Liberal Party annual federal council meeting in June 2018, attended by at least 100 Liberal MPs, Senators and party members, there was an overwhelming vote in favour of a motion to sell the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in its entirety, with the exception of maintaining the Rural Department which is seen as supplying a service which is in the national interest and, is viewed as supporting the interests of powerful rural & regional backers of the Liberal and National parties. That motion has never been rescinded.
Interviewed in the days following that annual council meeting, Treasurer Scott Morrison made a point of saying that it is the ABC's job to defend itself against claims of left-wing bias. "It's not for me to defend the ABC or promote the ABC. I fund the ABC as Treasurer and we do that every year. And I think there are concerns out there in the Australian people about that and I think it is up to the ABC to demonstrate that they are not doing that."
In the 2018-19 Budget Prime Minister Turnbull & Treasurer Morrison froze ABC funding until 2022.
So that by 2020 a Per Capita study revealed that across the three triennial periods which have occurred to date in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years, the ABC will have lost over $738 million. The last of these cuts being $10 million removed from the ABC operational budget in the Morrison Government's 2021-22 Budget.
In the 2022-23 ‘Election’ Budget Prime Minister Morrison & Treasurer Frydenberg have increased the ABC’s fourth triennial funding period (July 2022 to June 2025) by $87.2 million – with $45.8 million of this going to the Enhanced News Gathering program leaving only an additional $14 million a year until end June 2025 for all other ABC radio and television programming & operating costs.
The government has also announced it will impose new reporting conditions on both public broadcasters, including statements of expectation requiring them to detail the levels of Australian content, and other key services. The Statement of Expectations for the ABC can be found at:
The almost irrational hatred Liberal MPs display toward the ABC is never ending and this month reached an unbelievable height with this from Liberal MP for Wentworth Dave Sharma who is standing for re-election on 21 May 2022:
“Finally they nail their colours to the mast! ‘Your’ ABC is running a candidate in Wentworth.”
Sunday 1 May 2022
A reminder that climate change and pandemic risk are here to stay
"As climate change reshapes life on earth, it may also become the single biggest upstream driver of pandemic risk." [Colin J. Carlson PhD, Georgetown University, Centre for Global Health Science & Security, 28 April 2022]
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| IMAGE: Colin J. Carlson, @wormmaps Click on map to enlarge |
nature, 28 April 2022:
Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk
Colin J. Carlson, Gregory F. Albery, Cory Merow, Christopher H. Trisos, Casey M. Zipfel, Evan A. Eskew, Kevin J. Olival, Noam Ross & Shweta Bansal
Abstract
At least 10,000 virus species have the capacity to infect humans, but at present, the vast majority are circulating silently in wild mammals1,2. However, climate and land use change will produce novel opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically-isolated species of wildlife3,4. In some cases, this will facilitate zoonotic spillover—a mechanistic link between global environmental change and disease emergence. Here, we simulate potential hotspots of future viral sharing, using a phylogeographic model of the mammal-virus network, and projections of geographic range shifts for 3,139 mammal species under climate change and land use scenarios for the year 2070. We predict that species will aggregate in new combinations at high elevations, in biodiversity hotspots, and in areas of high human population density in Asia and Africa, driving the novel cross-species transmission of their viruses an estimated 4,000 times. Because of their unique dispersal capacity, bats account for the majority of novel viral sharing, and are likely to share viruses along evolutionary pathways that will facilitate future emergence in humans. Surprisingly, we find that this ecological transition may already be underway, and holding warming under 2 °C within the century will not reduce future viral sharing. Our findings highlight an urgent need to pair viral surveillance and discovery efforts with biodiversity surveys tracking species’ range shifts, especially in tropical regions that harbor the most zoonoses and are experiencing rapid warming.
Saturday 30 April 2022
Tweet of the Week
Breaking: Girard state forest defended!
— Australian Forests and Climate Alliance (@AFCA_Forests) April 26, 2022
A NSW blockade on Jukembal land today to prevent the logging of native forest. https://t.co/KGBFI2mtWd
Girard state forest is one of the last significant wildlife corridors between the Border Ranges NP and Bundjalung NP#worthmorestanding pic.twitter.com/JCPFxn09Xd
Friday 29 April 2022
Australian Federal Election 2022: and the economic outlook gets gloomier for us all
Bottom line, cost of living and other economic pressures are not going to ease anytime soon, with almost half of all businesses now passing on cost increases to customers.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), media release, 28 April 2022:
Source: Business Conditions and Sentiments, April 2022
More than half (57 per cent) of all businesses experienced increases in the cost of doing business over the three months to April 2022, with almost a quarter (21 per cent) reporting costs had increased to a great extent, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Consistent with the results from March, most of these businesses had seen increases to the cost of fuel or energy (83 per cent) and the cost of products or services used by the business (82 per cent).
ABS Head of Industry Statistics, John Shepherd, said: “More than half of the businesses with higher costs (52 per cent) did not increase their prices. For those that did increase prices, 42 per cent had partially passed on costs and 6 per cent had fully passed on the increases to customers.”
Businesses also provided information about other actions they had taken in response to increased business costs.
“Over a third (39 per cent) of businesses had made changes to their operations or processes and 17 per cent had renegotiated payment terms with customers and suppliers,” Mr Shepherd said.
The results also provided information about business staffing levels. One in five businesses (18 per cent) did not have enough staff in April 2022, consistent with findings in January 2022.
More than four in five businesses (84 per cent) with staff shortages were unable to find suitable staff, rising from 69 per cent in January. Uncertainty due to COVID-19 was less likely to be an influence on staffing levels (36 per cent compared to 62 per cent in January).
Further information, as well as insights into supply chain, are included in Business Conditions and Sentiments.
Second Term of the 2022 academic year, education still disrupted for students in flood damaged Northern Rivers schools
Across the Northern Rivers region this week Term 2 began for primary and high school students.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 2022:
Flood-hit schools face years of disruption
...it will be anything but business as usual for many students in the Northern Rivers. The devastating floods that hit the region in February caused mass disruptions and meant thousands of children missed weeks of in-person learning. For many students, school won’t return to normal for months, or even years, after the floods forced classes off-site for the foreseeable future.
Nine public schools in the region were significantly damaged and earmarked for rebuilding along with several Catholic and independent schools, and many more were damaged. At Lismore’s Trinity Catholic College, which has almost 1000 students, all but eight rooms were inundated by floodwaters and the damage bill is expected to top tens of millions of dollars.
Universities and community groups have opened their doors to displaced students.
At Lismore’s Trinity Catholic College, which has almost 1000 students, every room but eight was inundated with water and the damage bill was expected to top tens of millions of dollars.
Trinity Catholic College in Lismore was almost completely destroyed by floods.
Read the full article here.
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