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Thursday, 20 July

12:26

Climate Change: Getting it done No Right Turn

Back in May, the government signed a $140 million deal with NZ Steel to halve its emissions by 2030. Now, they've followed it up with a $90 million subsidy to Fonterra to bring forward its scheduled emissions reductions:

The Government has announced it will partner with Fonterra in an attempt to cut coal use in the dairy industry, and reduce agricultural emissions.

The relationship will see the dairy giant commit to cutting coal usage across six of its manufacturing sites which it says will result in 2.1 million tonnes of early C02e reductions. This equates to taking 120,000 cars off the road.

The changes are expected to deliver 2.69% of all New Zealands required emission reductions between 2026-2030.

This is not as good a deal for us as NZ Steel - the cost of the cuts is $43/ton, vs $16.20/ton for NZ Steel, and there's no subsidy which can be cut to offset costs. Its also morally repugnant that we're further subsidising Aotearoa's worst polluter, to do something that the market looked certain to force it to do anyway. But on the gripping hand, we need to cut emissions as quickly as possible, and this gets it done. And there should hopefully be a nice side-benefit of killing off a bunch of coal mines too.

The important thing now is to rip those savings right out of the ETS to ensure they actually happen, rather than just being emitted by someone else. Otherwise, the government just paid $90 million to shuffle emissions around and make a dirty company look good.

12:00

No pride in prejudice Independent Australia

No pride in prejudice

In order to progress as a peaceful and compassionate society, we must break free from the shackles of centuries of racism and bigotry, writes Frances Letters.

ONE NIGHT in Kathmandu long ago, I met a young man who, in a few shocking moments, upended my world forever. He came slipping into my life like two hands that silently gripped my head and twisted my face towards a light I had no wish to see.

A light I can never now unsee.

It was 1969. The hippie age was sweeping the Earth. A rollicking new cry rang out: Wake up, you boring old farts! Life can be brilliant truly joyful and open if only we let it!

For the new young seekers after truth, India and Nepal were the cool places to be. I had my doubts. Universal love was a fantastic idea, of course  flowers did look groovy in long flowing hair. But could they really change the world?

In hippie-heaven Kathmandu, however, I'd decided to give the new creed a try: to blithely fling myself into those swirling, technicolour waters.

It almost seemed to work. Day flowed into night there, with the slow passing of the hashish pipe around dark, smoky rooms. Camaraderie was everything. In dreamy groups we swam through the hours, smiling gently together.

That evening Id settled down at a long wooden table in a noisy Tibetan eating house. Friendly faces beamed welcome: an old Irish artist with cascading white hair; an enormous Black GI deserter from the Vietnam war; a feisty Navajo girl and her Japanese boyfriend; two bearded students from Oxford; a few earnest rich boys from New Delhi. Instant soul-mates all! What a blessed, loving human family.

A young guy squeezed in beside me. Longish hair, brown eyes, easygoing brown face. There was something very appealing about his gentle smile as our eyes met. In his jeans, embroidered Indian shirt and string or two of wooden prayer beads, he could have been anyone from anywhere.

Around the circle came the chillum, clouds of hashish smoke a living halo around it. I sucked long and deep, then, exchanging beatific smiles, passed it on to my new companion.

Someone began to trill on a bamboo flute. A drum took up the beat, then whatever was to hand: guitars, bells, g...

11:47

Lazy language damages our present and risks our future The AIM Network

Labels have power. They shape the way we know the world. They allow people to see actions with greater clarity or distort our understanding to make things unrecognisable. When war involves collateral damage, the label strips the incident of shredded flesh and wailing orphans. By labelling the near elimination of abortion access a Pro Life

The post Lazy language damages our present and risks our future appeared first on The AIM Network.

10:00

The end, my friend freef'all852

The end, my friend

Punk music was the natural death throes of rock music,

And it should have ended there, like the big-bands ended,

And the smooth crooners of the fifties and sixties ended,

But it didnt..because there was still money to be made,

Heaps of it!

So now we have the extension of the Glam-bands following,

Extraordinary extravaganzas of lights, costumes and dancing..

Ohand I do believe there is a person somewhere in there..

Singing!

But it is just the same with stories and poetry,

Where, after decades of war and depression; reason,

Lost its hold on the mind of humanity..and absurdity,

Claimed a rightful place in literary interpretation,

So that Godot got sick of waiting and Heller wrote Catch 22,

In reaction to a total lack of common sense in governance,

And Ginsberg wrote his screaming Howl of despairing provenance.

Legitimate commentary on an illegitimate society,

Extrapolated to the nth degree in theatre and film,

Where Fellini perfected the genre, save for the subtle Blow-up,

And WE, of that generation, tore up the rule-book.

Now, like the doof-music equivalent, we have faux storytelling,

Of brain-farts that are not even really stories, but rather truncated,

Exposs of limited imagination

And then there are the poems

What can we say of the new poetry?

Cryptic?

Is it cryptic?..who can saybecause it seems de rigueur to confuse,

I bet one could take a clue from a cryptic puzzle and turn it i...

08:00

Dan 'Spoil-Sport' Andrews tells British Empire Games to take a long jump Independent Australia

Dan 'Spoil-Sport' Andrews tells British Empire Games to take a long jump

Dan Andrews may have killed the British Empire. Hopefully, opines managing editor Michelle Pini, it's really rather long overdue.

NO ONE gets the shock jocks, Murdoch rags and outraged keyboard warriors frothing at the mouth quite like Victorian Premier Dan Andrews.

Damned if he does and excoriated if he doesnt, this week, Dan has again incensed all of the above. How dare he cancel the British Empire Games from our deserving colonial outpost? What was he thinking saving billions of dollars? Doesnt he realise we must keep doing things in the same way theyve always been done, even if it bankrupts us?

What a spoil-sport!

Enter stage Right, the following choice samples:

Played by a conman, Dan Tehan raged about Andrews on Sky.

'Commonwealth Games 2026: Why Dan Andrews and the woke mob will never kill the Comm Games,' declared the Herald Sun sagely.

And our personal favourite, former Liberal Senator Amanda Vanstones eloquent and considered summation of Andrews on the ABC, as a dumb bum.

But perhaps the best example of Andrews ability to fire up the shock jocks comes via this typically inane commentary from Neil Mitchell who can be heard here pressuring Andrews to cancel the Commo...

07:48

In which the pond has to issue a trigger warning, with petulant Peta a gathering storm and the craven Craven attention-seeking yet again ... loon pond

 


Lately the pond has been doing a lot of surfing of climate change porn. It's deeply disturbing but strangely compelling, and there's a lot of it about on the full to overflowing intertubes this past week, what with fires in Greece, and supercharged heat everywhere, unless it happens to be supercharged rain and floods. 

Just this morning the pond looked at the Graudian and was reminded yet again 'We are damned fools' ...




Meanwhile, the entire concept has been buried in the cornfield by the reptiles, unless it involves nuking the country or dire warnings about the price of electricity, while an ominous summer looms. 

As usual, the warnings are accompanied by snaps of the beloved - coal-fired power stations - and wicked wind farms, this way coming, as noted in the business section of the lizard Oz this morning ...


 ...

00:15

Qld 'whiteshoe brigade' developer Graeme Ingles, and Goldcoral Pty Ltd, determined to continue pursuit of the Iron Gate Development proposal in the face of a community which has been resisting development on this site since the 1990s North Coast Voices

 


Echo, 19 July 2023:


Evans Heads locals and other concerned members of the public form the Northern Rivers have raised concerns over Richmond Valley Councils (RVC) apparent lack of preparation to defend the controversial Iron Gates appeal currently underway in the Land and Environment Court (L&EC) in Sydney.


The development application (DA) was rejected by the Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) in September 2022. An appeal was immediately launched by Gold Coast developer Graeme Ingles. Ingles has been trying to regain approval for residential development of the site since his approval was stripped by the L&EC in 1997 after illegal clearing and other works were done at the site. Remediation was required by the L&EC of approximately $2 million, however, this work has never been done by Ingles.


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Wednesday, 19 July

20:10

Labour says "fuck transparency" No Right Turn

Last month, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee reported back on the Inspector-General of Defence Bill making numerous changes which significantly improved the transparency and credibility of the Inspector-General. When I posted about this, I said that NZDF was likely to be unhappy with this, and that

the danger now is that the Minister will listen to them and abuse Labour's majority to undo the committee's recommendations and restore the coverup regime.
Unfortunately, this seems to be exactly what has happened. Defence Minister Andrew Little has introduced a supplementary order paper which unpicks key amendments made by the committee. The SOP will:
  • Allow the Minister to censor the Inspector-General's reports;
  • Reverse the presumption of transparency and make investigations private by default;
  • Remove the IGD's investigations from the coverage of the OIA.

The result will be an "inspector" which is effectively a stooge of the Minister, which exists to cover up rather than bring to light NZDF wrongdoing. And the Inspector-General will lack credibility as a result.

If this passes, I'd hope that a pro-transparency party will put an "Inspector-General of Defence (Transparency and Credibility) Amendment Bill" in the ballot. Meanwhile, the sooner we get back to "normal" MMP politics and coalition government, so governments have to actually listen to Parliament rather than over-ruling it by the whip, the better.

17:37

Information on the number of littering and parking fines issued Requests or responses matching your saved search

Response by Randwick City Council to Laurence Poulter on .

Awaiting classification.

Have you booked your free tix to watch the Matildas at our FIFA Women's World Cup live site? ...

16:00

The Alliance Party should lead the economic debate by ending its Brexit Reversal Policy "IndyWatch Feed Politics.eu"

The UK governments formal accession to the CPTPP trade area this weekend should be the catalyst for the Alliance Party to review its Brexit reversal policy.

On Sunday, the Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenock signed a treaty which gives the UK access to the 12 trillion Indo Pacific trade bloc and a chance for the UK to expand beyond the confines of the European Union. Admittedly this is one of the very few trade-deal successes that we have witnessed over the last seven years since Brexit.

The CPTPP, also known by the catchy name of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership comprises Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam and many other Pacific Rim countries. According to a new government report one in every 100 workers are employed in a company headquartered in a CPTPP member state and 35 billion of CPTPP investment is in the South East of England alone.

This trading arrangement also presents a positive opportunity for Northern Irish businesses, particularly in manufacturing, machinery and transport equipment. We have some truly awesome companies in Northern Ireland to take advantage of these trading links, including Wrightbus in Ballymena and ALMAC and other manufacturers in the Craigavon area.

Even though the Asia Pacific region is arguably the fastest growing area in the world, some have expressed concerns that the CPTPP could eventually weaken produce standards in the UK as companies look to maintain and expand their market share. One example of this is the deviation in food production standards between the EU, UK and CPTPP bloc and the use of pesticides. Whilst there is no immediate requirement for the UK to amend their standards, over time CPTPP encourage alignment.

Despite these longer-term risks, membership of the CPTPP should be welcomed in Northern Ireland as it presents more trading opportunities for our businesses. This is also a reason why I believe the Alliance Party should revise its Brexit policy and demonstrate, once again, that it is the grown-up party of business and the centre ground.

In its 2022 Assembly Election manifesto the party stated that it wishes to re-join the EU at the earliest opportunity, however, to realise its other manifesto commitment to make Northern Ireland the most innovative and dynamic regional economy in Europe I believe a change in policy is required.

During the EU / UK negotiations Alliance correctly claimed that the EU backstop, the NI Protocol and the Windsor Framework were all the negative out-workings of Brexit, but this debate is now over. I believe the party would be in a much stronger position if it was to solely champion the new opportunities presented by dual market access to both the EU and UK markets by ending its priority to reverse Brexit.

As they say, you cant ride two horses at the same time or cant have your cake and eat it.

Reversing this policy woul......

14:25

Documents relating to Iain Andersons appointment as Commonwealth Ombudsman Requests or responses matching your saved search

Request to Commonwealth Ombudsman by James Andrew Douglass. Annotated by James Andrew Douglass on .

Partially successful.

IC review reasons: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/application_for_ic_review_foi_20#outgoing-20857

12:00

Incarceration even more cruel to the neurodivergent Independent Australia

Incarceration even more cruel to the neurodivergent

While imprisonment is a barbaric form of punishment, it's far more cruel to those suffering from mental disorders or intellectual impairment, writes Gerry Georgatos.

Prisons and secure mental health hospitals are crammed with people with various cognitive and neurodiverse conditions.

Many are indefinitely detained. All the while, they are not supported. To the Australian nation, these souls are invisible. But to those of us tormented by close witness of the grim reality, the affected are discriminated against, condemned and locked up.

There is no public register for these indefinite detainments. There are likely thousands of Australians trapped indefinitely in harrow.

Their hearts broke, struggling to understand whats going on, of strange commands, of dense and violent dreams savaging the mind. Theres no expert support in the prisons and inadequate support in forensic hospitals which mimic prisons or Dickensian lunatic asylums. In the mad blasphemous squat that is a cell, lifes brief light can be extinguished. Dead on the inside and a paupers burial.

Prisons are ungodly beasts, hard for the average incarcerated soul to understand and impossible for other types of neurodiverse people who do not understand the world as the majority do.

It is my experience, in general, that people come out of prisons in worse conditions than when they commenced the situational trauma of incarceration.

Be patient with things of this world, it is all too often said, as if to quell rebellion. The wait makes the affected old before their time. We incarcerate like never before, demanding quiet in the darkness. As if its their fault they live and breathe. For certain types of neurodiversity, prison is a perpetual torment.

There are those among the incarcerated whose emotional and intellectual quotients are childlike-akin, who do not offend by malintent. The intellectually impaired Marlon Noble was an incarcerated soul who, with the incumbent West Australian Attorney-Generals support John Quigley was freed on the grounds of his comparatively diminished intellectuality.

I remind of...

09:30

Enrolment growth forces NT redistribution back to the drawing board The Tally Room

The Northern Territory Electoral Commission published its draft boundaries for the 2024 Legislative Assembly election back in May, but that process will now have to start over due to tremendous enrolment growth in some parts of the Territory in recent months in the lead up to the Voice referendum.

The NTEC announced two weeks ago that there had been a substantial amount of enrolment growth concentrated in some parts of the Territory from mid-April 2023 (when the quota for the redistribution was struck) until the end of June 2023.

Overall the size of the electoral roll grew by 4,631 voters, which was 3.1% growth across the Territory. The average electorate has an enrolment of roughly 6,000 voters, so that is quite a substantial increase.

What makes this particularly difficult is that the enrolment growth is concentrated in some areas, although it is a good news story as it suggests an improvement in the dismal enrolment rate in the federal seat of Lingiari.

The growth in urban areas (Alice Springs, Darwin and Palmerston) was quite modest, at just 1.4%, while the remaining nine seats grew by 6.3%.

Indeed if you exclude Goyder and Katherine, which experienced only modest growth, the remaining seven seats increased their enrolment by 7.7%.

68% of the growth during those two and a half months has been concentrated in those seven seats. Those seven seats have gone from 27.8% of the territory total enrolment to 29% in just ten weeks.

This growth has apparently been caused by a major push in the Federal Direct Enrolment Update (FDEU) program from the AEC. We dont yet have the AECs data on enrolment by division in June, so I havent been able to see if there are broader trends. Up to the end of May, Lingiari appeared to be one of the few seats to have a shrinking roll.

At an individual level, this will definitely cause some of the newly drawn seats to no longer fit within the quota. The NTEC has published the updated enrolment statistics based on the old 2020 boundaries, not their previous draft 2024 boundaries, but we know that the seat of Mulka, which was previously 9.2% above the average and was left untouched by the redistribution, is now 15% above the average and will definitely require a redraw.

Individual electorates can be above or below quota without causing broader issues, if that population deviation can be balanced out by the neighbouring seat. But when whole regions are collectively under or over quota that forces bigger changes.

For this next chart, Ive grouped electorates in the same categories I used when analysing the older enrolment data in March.

...

08:00

Haptic technology allows us to feel the future Independent Australia

Haptic technology allows us to feel the future

The growth of haptic technology in various applications is creating a more immersive experience in fields such as gaming, science and prosthetics. Paul Budde reports.

OVER THE LAST few months, I have written articles about 5G, 6G (2030s) and even 7G (2040s). In my research of these articles, I increasingly have come across the use of haptic technologies. So I started to look into the relationship between haptic technology and new mobile technologies.

Already 5G and even more so, 6G and 7G, offer higher data rates and lower latency than previous generations of wireless technology. This makes them ideal for applications that require real-time communication, such as haptic feedback.

Haptic feedback is the use of touch to create a more immersive experience. It can be used in a variety of applications such as gaming, virtual reality and telepresence. 5G and 6G can provide the high data rates and low latency that are required for haptic feedback to be used in these applications.

There are a number of different haptic technologies available, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Some of the most common haptic technologies include:

  • Vibration motors: These motors vibrate to create a sense of touch. They are relatively inexpensive and easy to use, but they can be limited in terms of the range of sensations they can provide.
  • Linear actuators: These actuators move back and forth to create a sense of force. They are more expensive than vibration motors, but they can provide a wider range of sensations.
  • Haptic gloves: These gloves u...

07:58

In which comrade Dan scores an Empire biscuit tin, but the pond manages to dig up one certifiable loon to keep its struggling reputation alive ... loon pond

 


Inevitably the reptiles were full of it today, in both the digital and tree killer editions ... though the pond was astonished and delighted to hear that the tree killer edition is no longer being given away by Qantas in the lounge, and instead the reptiles had settled for their headlines being displayed on screens, which amazingly were no longer featuring Sky news  ... but enough already, first the news of the day ...




The pond has no idea on which planet a story about comrade Dan cancelling the games is an EXCLUSIVE, what with it being all over the shop and subject to extensive and deeply tedious analysis, but reptiles gotta pretend to be the first around the block and hitting the tape in good style ...

As the pond is something of a lizard Oz site of record the tree killer edition should be noted ...




Down below in the comments section, the story was also all the go ...


06:45

NATIONAL REFERENDUM 2023: from this point onwards it may be less safe for people of goodwill to venture into public spaces - so tainted with malice and misinformation has the debate become courtesy of those parliamentary dissenters North Coast Voices

 

For months now the entire country has known the exact wording of the national referendum question and text of the constitutional amendment which will create a permanent advisory body composed of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander representatives of the First Nations peoples of Australia.


National Referendum Question


A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.


Do you approve this proposed alteration?


**********


Text of additional clause to be inserted in the Constitution if referendum question is answered by a double majority in the affirmative


...

06:00

A Robodebt response from a leader full of loathing The AIM Network

So incensed was I with the Leader of the Oppositions response to the Royal Commissions report into the Robodebt Scheme that for a brief moment, I actually felt sorry for him. However, in an equally brief deliberation, I realised that it was us, the people, that my sorrow was better directed. We deserved more than

The post A Robodebt response from a leader full of loathing appeared first on The AIM Network.

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Tuesday, 18 July

17:32

Yes and No and a Bit of Mischief ! The AIM Network

The official Yes and No pamphlets are out and a hard copy will hit your mailbox any day. But in the meantime there is already controversy over some of the claims. This AEC website gives both arguments.  The No campaign has been accused by Professor Greg Craven of cynically using his early remarks to portray

The post Yes and No and a Bit of Mischief ! appeared first on The AIM Network.

17:21

Monday Message Board (running late) John Quiggin

Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.

Im now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, Ill post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.

16:00

Contrary to Coalition claims, business is booming across Australia Independent Australia

Contrary to Coalition claims, business is booming across Australia

The latest facts on business turnover from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) refute the Governments critics, as Alan Austin reports.

*Also listen to the "https://open.spotify.com/episode/7bRoUUVRRoFmEALUp55x3j" target= "_blank">HERE.

IT MAY BE too soon to applaud the Albanese Government for transforming Australias sclerotic economy into a socialist paradise for workers which is simultaneously brimming with opportunities for courageous capitalists. But we are now getting an idea of the direction the economy is taking. So far, pretty impressive.

Construction expanding

Construction turnover across Australia has surged 17.6% through the 12 months from May 2022 to May 2023 from 112.5 index points to 132.3. This is the ninth consecutive month that construction has shown an annual lift above 11.0%. Thats according to last weeks ABS analysis titled Monthly Business Turnover Indicator.

This is the first run of nine months with construction turnover surging at that level since this ABS series began in 2010.

Measuring the business environment

This series is an experiment the Statistics Bureau has been conducting since October 2021, using turnover data from the Australian Taxation Offices business activity statements collected since January 2010. It uses 13 of the 19 main industry classifications accepted internationally, using seasonally adjusted numbers. Index values are produced for each month for all industry sectors so we can observe changes between any two time periods.

The base month, where the index values are 100.0, is July 2019. More deta...

14:22

$6M grant opportunity for Australias youth The AIM Network

Carers Australia Media Release Australias most vulnerable are grappling with cost-of-living pressures that are affecting families and the countrys young people. As families seek to minimise costs, more young people are taking up a carer role for friends and family. The $6 million Commonwealth Government grant provides added financial aid and support young people to

The post $6M grant opportunity for Australias youth appeared first on The AIM Network.

13:13

Fadden. Good Result For Dutton; Great Result For Labor The AIM Network

There have been quite a few articles about the Fadden by-election telling people: The Honeymoon Is Over For Labor. Actually there have been a number of pieces written speculating about how the honeymoon is over for about ten months now. Ok, people, one does have to stick with this analogy and ask: If the honeymoon

The post Fadden. Good Result For Dutton; Great Result For Labor appeared first on The AIM Network.

12:36

More privilege problems for Labour No Right Turn

This afternoon Parliament will debate the report of the (powerful) Privileges Committee on Education Minister Jan Tinetti's misleading the House. But it looks like another (former) Minister is in trouble as well: Parliament's Registrar of Pecuniary Interests has reported back on their inquiry into Michael Wood, finding that Wood had not complied with his responsibilities. Along the way, the Registrar also found that Wood had lied to the public about his compliance:

Noting that his pecuniary interests had been the focus of intense media scrutiny and comment, I then showed Mr Wood a video clip of an interview he gave on 8 June 2023, the day the inquiry was announced. Apart from expressing the hope that clarity and transparency would emerge from the inquiry, Mr Wood had stated that I have also followed up and corrected the Register of Pecuniary Interests going back to 2017. I put it to Mr Wood that that statement was not correct, as there had been no amendments made at all to his previous returns, for the entire period since February 2017. What did he mean by that comment to the media? He replied that he must have misspoken in the heat of the press scrum. He thought he might have mixed up the Standing Orders and Cabinet Office requirements.
Wood does not look at all good from this. Its one thing to make a careless mistake, front up, and fix it. Its quite another to refuse to fix it, despite constant reminders, for two years, then lie to the public about what you're doing. Voters in his electorate can draw their own conclusions about his honesty and fitness for office.

Wood's case will now be considered by the (powerful) Privileges Committee. Of course, given that Labour has four of the eight places on the committee, and will effectively be judging one of its own, I don't think the public can expect any justice from them. The problem of course is that if Labour gives Wood the proverbial (powerful) slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket, it makes the entire pecuniary interests declaration system pointless, with a consequent impact on Parliament's credibility.

12:00

Dumping doubts: Releasing Fukushimas wastewater Independent Australia

Dumping doubts: Releasing Fukushimas wastewater

Controversy surrounds the fate of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, with some so-called experts claiming its release to be safe. Dr Binoy Kampmark reports.

NOTHING SAID by the nuclear industry can or should be taken at face value. Be it in terms of safety, correcting defects or righting mistakes, or in terms of construction integrity, there is something chilling about reassurances that have been shown, time and again, to be hollow. 

The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) disaster has forever stained the Japanese nuclear industry. Since then, the site has been marked by over 1,000 tanks filled with contaminated water that arises from reactor cooling. The attempts by the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc (TEPCO) to decommission and clean the plant have also seen a daily complement of 150 tons arising from groundwater leakage into the buildings and systems involved in the cooling process.

According to Japans Nuclear Regulation Authority, the gradual 1.3 million or so tons kept in those tanks into the Pacific over three decades is something that can be executed without serious environmental consequences. This was a view that was already entertained in 2021, expressing confidence that the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) being used in cleaning the contaminated water would be effective. Of primary concern here is the presence of a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium, the presence of which is a challenge to remove.

There are various questions arising from this, not least...

08:00

Children casualties in war over gender transition Independent Australia

Children casualties in war over gender transition

Activists and the media are turning trans issues into controversy instead of helping to find ways to treat gender dysphoria in children, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.

AT THE CENTRE of the recent Four Corners program, Blocked, is research conducted at Sydney's Westmead Childrens Hospital on the treatment of children presenting with gender dysphoria. This is defined as the feeling of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related characteristics.

The Westmead research can be read here and here.

The Westmead team, along with researchers in Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom (all countries where the use of puberty blockers has been wound back) argues for a trauma-informed biopsychosocial model of treatment for gender dysphoria, prior to or instead of the gender affirmative model which offers puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone therapy and...

07:04

In which the pond races through the Tuesday groaning and a serve of the armchair general because it already knows the reptile catechism by heart ... loon pond

 


Make no mistake - the pond has enjoyed the discussion of chooks, knowing that we're living in a time of the battle of the planet of the chooks and they must stay in their cages, or else we'll all perish. It's not just the price of eggs, it's the way having fiendish chooks out of their cages puts the world at risk.

The pond would also like to have devoted more time to Barners' splendid move to Armidale of a regulator which turned out to be absolutely spiffing - dare one say almost Tamworthian? - idea. But that story seems to have been shunned and disappeared to the cornfield by the reptiles.

And the discussion of the size of the backyard needed for an SMR has made the pond wonder if it own backyard might be fit for purpose... and that luckily brings the pond to today's most excellent groaning.

It always pleases the pond to see a coal-loving denialist develop a sudden yearning for climate science, if only the solution is to nuke the country to save the country, and save the planet ...

Dame Groan is on hand to show the pond and stray readers how it's done.




The best thing about this groaning? It has to be its numbing familiarity.

The pond has seen the reptiles groan about the need to nuke the country a squillion times, and there's no need to get involved in an argument about it. Instead the pond can admire Dame Groan as she goes about the business, pretending she's deeply serious about climate science and really cares about emissions, if only she can nuke the country ...



06:00

Pacific seasonal workers: not the new blackbirds "IndyWatch Feed Politics.pg"

Kirstie Petrou and John Connells new book Pacific Islands Guestworkers in Australia: The New Blackbirds? is an important publication. It is the first book on the Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) now part of the broader Pacific Australia Labour Mobility or PALM scheme which, since 2007, has allowed Pacific Islanders to work on Australian farms. It is an interesting read, but a flawed account.

In the first five chapters the book moves through the history of migration from the Pacific to Australia. Chapters 6 to 9 are on seasonal workers experiences, often negative, in Australia and on returning home. Chapter 10 is on COVID-19, chapter 11 on the comparison with blackbirding, and chapter 12 concludes.

From chapter 5 onwards, the book has a strong focus on Vanuatu with some reference to other Pacific countries. Timor-Leste receives very little attention, despite its third-place ranking in the number of seasonal workers sent.

Overall, the authors have a positive view of the SWP. They say that it appears to be a triple win (p. 416) good for employers, workers, and their countries. They write that on balance, the SWP benefits most people most of the time (p. 413).

Nevertheless, despite this summary positive verdict, the book has quite a negative tone. This is for five reasons.

First, the authors style is ambivalent, and they distance themselves from their own positive verdict. The concluding paragraph of the book summarises the SWP not in the positive terms quoted above but as asymmetrical, ephemeral and occasionally exploitative (p. 449).

Second, the authors frame the SWP as a cheap source of labour for agricultural employers (p. 104). In fact, SWP workers are paid on casual rates which are 25% above the minimum wage. The range of other costs and obligations incurred by approved employers, such as providing welfare support for the workers, makes an SWP worker an expensive employment option. Research in 2018 showed that non-wage costs per hour were higher for seasonal workers than for backpackers. Many growers still prefer lower cost backpackers, international students, undocumented workers and absconding SWP workers.

Third, the focus in the chapters on SWP workers in Australia is on the problems they have faced. The analysis is too reliant on anecdotes. The reader is presented with a series of snapshots at different times and places, at different stages of evolution of the SWP, and indeed from other seasonal wor...

04:12

And this week brought another Newspoll..... North Coast Voices

 

On Saturday 15 July 2023 there was a federal by-election in the Queensland electorate of Fadden a safe seat for the Coalition having been held at 16 out of the 17 federal elections since the electorate was created in 1977.


The by-election was caused by incumbent Stuart Robert, a former minister in the Morrison Government resigning in anticipation of being named in the Report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.


As predicted the LNP candidate, Gold Coast City councillor Cameron Caldwell, won ...

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Monday, 17 July

23:59

Unauthorized Entry: The Truth about Nazi War Criminals in Canada, 1946-1956 Review "IndyWatch Feed Politics.us"

Anna Paulina Mayerhofer (alias US Congresswoman Luna) has claimed to be part Jewish, but her grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, was a Nazi German Wehrmacht soldier, who moved to Canada in 1954. Her Roman Catholic grandfather was one of many ethnic Germans, who were (shockingly) allowed to immigrate to Canada, as well as to the US and Australia after the Second World War. The post-war German immigrants to Canada appear to have been imported primarily as workers in agriculture, mining, and lumber industries, as well as domestic servants. Whereas there were many displaced ethnic Germans after the war, because they were chased from most territories under Soviet control, Heinrich Mayerhofer, was from Bavaria, which remained in West Germany, so wouldnt have been among the millions displaced. The US and Germany actually paid to help move Germans to Canada and elsewhere. Mayerhofer-Luna wants to block aid to Ukraine. Like her grandfather, Putins friend, former German Chancellor Schroeders father fought for Nazi Germany. Putin loves to surround himself with German speakers.

If they wouldnt have allowed Germans to immigrate, then they wouldnt have had so many war criminals.

From 1945 to 1961 inclusive, 2,099,641 immigrants came to Canada. The peak years were 1951 with 194,391 immigrants and 1957 with 282,184. Of the 2,099,641 immigrants, 625,235 were from the British Isles, 285,382 from Italy, 258,029 from Germany, 162,878 from the United States, 155,644 from the Netherlands, and 79,429 from Poland. Other smaller groups were the French, Yugoslavian, and Ukrainian. See: CANADAS IMMIGRATION POLICY, 1945 1962, by G. A. Rawlyk https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/58908/dalrev_vol42_iss3_pp287_300.pdf

Obrist on Margolian, Unauthorized Entry: The Truth about Nazi War Criminals in Canada, 1946-1956 by Howard Margolian. Unauthorized Entry: The Truth about Nazi War Criminals in Canada, 1946-1956. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. viii + 327 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8020-4277-4.
Reviewed by Urs Obrist (University of Toronto)Published on H-Canada (October, 2002)
A Significant Contribution to the Discussion of War Criminals in Canada
Even though the debate on the admission of Nazi war criminals to Canada after World War II seemed to have reached its apex in the mid-1980s, with the investigation of the Jules Deschnes Commission and its inquiries on war criminals, the issue has continued to stir historical interest in the 1990s and beyond.[1]

This recent publication by Howard Margolian, Unauthorized Entry, revises the widely held view that Canada has been a safe haven for Nazi war criminals. Margolian is a Canadian historian with a special interest in the history...

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Friday, 14 July

11:37

Tenders involved in Shoulder Construction Work with Paver - Pullabooka Road Requests or responses matching your saved search

Response by Weddin Shire Council to Miranda on .

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Hello Miranda,   Please find below a list of the businesses who submitted tenders for RFQ T1.11.24 - Shoulder Construction Work with Paver - Pul...

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Thursday, 13 July

11:14

ex-Army Sikorsky S-70A-9 Black Hawk helicopters Requests or responses matching your saved search

Response by Department of Defence to JP on .

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OFFICIAL Good morning JP,   In response to your recent FOI request; please see response below and documents attached.   I am looking for th...

09:06

Tenders involved in Shoulder Construction Work with Paver - Pullabooka Road Requests or responses matching your saved search

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  Hello,   Thank you for your email.  If you are receiving this email, this is receipt of your correspondence to Weddin Shire Council and we ack...

09:05

Tenders involved in Shoulder Construction Work with Paver - Pullabooka Road Requests or responses matching your saved search

Request sent to Weddin Shire Council by Miranda on .

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I would like to access the name of the companies who tendered for the Shoulder Construction Work with Paver - Pullabooka Road. Yours faithfully,...

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Tuesday, 11 July

15:21

Documents relating to Iain Andersons appointment as Commonwealth Ombudsman Requests or responses matching your saved search

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OFFICIAL   Dear James Andrew Douglass   I refer to your request to the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman made under the Freedom of Informat...

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Monday, 10 July

20:30

ex-Army Sikorsky S-70A-9 Black Hawk helicopters Requests or responses matching your saved search

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I am happy for my request to be handled administratively. Yours sincerely, JP

07:55

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OFFICIAL Good morning, Thank you for your attached email seeking access to documents, under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).   T...

Tuesday, 14 March

17:29

Charging for FOI Requests or responses matching your saved search

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