Amendments to the Federal Treasurer’s media bargaining code will be tabled in the New Year.
In a nutshell, if passed, it will mean that in Australia, Facebook and Google can only publish articles from the Murdoch media, Kerry Stokes media, and Fairfax/Channel 9.
Basically, it will be ensure that the voices of independent (or dissenting) media is muffled in the lead up to the next election.
Approximately 30 online media sites and rural newspapers have joined together to fight this. There are a number of steps we need to take, with the first being an e-Petition submitted to the Parliament of Australia: Petition EN3530 – Designate Google & Facebook to support public interest journalism, as shown below:
Terms:
Reason: Under the News Media Bargaining Code Google and Facebook have struck deals with a small number of media outlets. However, they have refused to negotiate with the majority of Australian news providers – including a range of high-quality outlets that meet the criteria set out in the Code. By publishing public interest journalism these providers fight misinformation and inject expertise into the media ecosystem. Only designation by the Treasurer can bring Facebook to the negotiation table.
Request: We therefore ask the House to request that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg “designate” Google and Facebook under the News Media Bargaining Code to force Google and Facebook to negotiate payment for all publishers who genuinely serve the public interest.
e-Petitions that collect 20,000 names are scheduled for debate in the House.
If we can generate 20,000 signatures on our petition we will make sure that Josh Frydenberg and the Parliament know that a handful of deals with a few media conglomerates is not good enough. We will force the Parliament to debate both Facebook AND Google. We will apply real political pressure on the Silicon Valley do a deal with us.
Our petition has only just been lodged, and we only have until the 24th of November to collect 20,000 signatures.
We urge you to sign our petition. Independent media is fighting for its survival.
This is only Step 1 of our fight. Details of Step 2 will be published in the near future.
Thanking you in advance.
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Is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) radical? Yes. It is especially radical if we go to the roots of the word ‘radical’ which itself means ‘from the root’.
Is MMT innovative? Only in the sense that it is a synthesis of different strands of heterodox thought, though not all heterodox economists are on board.
Is it a ‘trap for the left’? No, not at all.
Is it difficult to work out what Modern Money Theory is? Only, it seems, if one has been trained in the ‘New Keynesian’ tradition that forms the so-called New Economic Consensus (NEC) in mainstream economics.
While these New Keynesians are vulnerable to the charge that their ideas are ‘not new and not Keynesian’, they are willing to recycle the line that Modern Monetary Theory is ‘not modern, not monetary and not a theory’. Unlike the New Keynesians, however, the MMTers are in on the joke.
Some may complain about the word ‘modern’, as the term can refer both to Keynes’s joke that money has been a creature of the state for ‘the past 4000 years … at least’, and to the period since 1971 when the Bretton Woods standard began to break down.
The word ‘monetary’ is used in MMT to describe the monetary system, not monetary policy – although it does have implications for the conduct of policy.
The word ‘theory’ is used by MMT in the scientific sense. A theory is a fact-based framework for describing a phenomenon.
As a fact-based framework, MMT can be harnessed by political actors of all stripes. For progressives, MMT can embolden governments to deliver an ambitious policy agenda or Green New Deal over time. The original New Deal or the Reconstruction in Australian parlance took place over more than a decade.
MMT can also appeal to conservatives. The MMT insight that government spending must precede taxation can give rise to the ‘vulgar’ – and incorrect – interpretation that taxation is altogether unnecessary in modern monetary economies. It could be argued that the New Economic Consensus and its derivatives are forms of applied right-wing MMT.
Taxation serves many important functions according to MMT. The most important is to drive demand for government money. Taxes can also be used to discourage undesirable activities or to reprofile the distributions of income or wealth.
Crucially, taxation removes spending power from groups, but it does not place any claim on real resources. Only spending claims real resources. Increasing taxation can make it easier for governments to spend on public policy by freeing up the potential for other groups to claim real resources, but taxes do not directly pay for government spending in the way this is conventionally argued.
Any discussions of how increasing or raising tax revenue is required to facilitate spending are quite misleading and misdirect the public on how to think about public money.
What has been called ‘movement MMT’ is inseparable from ‘academic MMT’ and any so-called schism is a political choice of the critic. MMT advocates do not engage in ‘motte and bailey’ strategies, so much as adherents to NEC models cannot think outside of those models. It is like fitting a square peg in a round hole. If you succeed, you will either be left with gaps or a square peg so warped that it no longer appears to be square. If you succeed in getting MMT into NEC models and there are gaps, you have missed many things MMT says, and if you succeed you have so warped MMT, it no longer resembles MMT.
“a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
MMT is one of those new scientific truths that does not fit into older models.
A major stumbling block for NEC economists is in thinking that MMT has a simplistic view of inflation, specifically that governments can increase spending as much as they like with no need for an offsetting increase in tax revenue if there is little to no risk of politically unacceptable inflation. However, as MMTers have consistently argued, inflation is more a resource distribution issue than a monetary issue. As Modern Money economist Pavlina Tcherneva puts it, when inflation arises, you find the source of inflation and ‘slay that beast.’
If inflation rears its head, look at the source. Is it a production bottleneck? Spec activity in real estate, fin markets? Does it come from other parts of the govt budget? No-bid contracts to firms? Subsidizing near-monopolies with outsized pricing power? Slay that beast. 8/n
Raising interest rates or taxes is a rather blunt distributive tool. It is there Australia erred in trying to deal with stagflation which the result of a battle of cost mark-ups between unions and businesses in response to a supply-side shock – an increase in the price of oil.
The other issue in the eighties, shortly after stagflation was Volcker’s experiment with targeting the money supply, which was copied by many central banks around the world that led to the high interest rates of that period. It only began to settle when central banks began using inflation rate targeting on a narrow band, two to three percent in Australia.
MMT’s emphasis on real resources enables it to focus on ‘the deficits that matter’. In the current economy, the preference of progressive MMT advocates is to put idle resources – which include unemployed and underemployed people – to productive and fulfilling work. The ABS estimates that labour underutilisation is as high as 13 per cent of the labour force, and this excludes discouraged workers who have abandoned looking for work altogether. The National Australia Bank measure of capacity utilisation indicates that the Australian economy has operated with between 15 and 25 per cent spare capacity since 2008.
It is nonsense to say an ambitious policy agenda like the Green New Deal (GND) will reach capacity almost immediately and cause politically unacceptable inflation. Just like the reconstruction after World War II, it will take time to implement recommended policies and should be done within resource constraints. Whilst it is true that we do have finite resources, the human species is innovative. In the transition to green production, some resources (remembering resources include people and their skills) – say, coal workers – can and will be repurposed.
We can also create new productive capacity within available resources, and these include the skills learned by the people on the job in many GND programs building their personal productive capacity.
I started this piece by agreeing that MMT is radical, and it is. It examines modern monetary systems at their root. MMT fits the pieces of economic operations into a coherent and consistent body of knowledge. Once you learn MMT, and think in MMT terms, you know more than most media talking heads on the subject of the economy. How you use that knowledge is up to you.
Darren is a leader in educating people in modern macroeconomics. He played a founding role in educating Australians via social media channels and has engaged some prominent Australians on commentary about Modern Monetary Theory. Darren is a member of Modern Money Australia, Australian Real Progressives and has been involved with the Modern Money Network. You can see more of his work at https://www.darren-quinn.net and https://www.realausprogressives.com
You can find him on Twitter @AusMMT @dquinn03
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While Malcolm Turnbull routinely advocates for climate change, we should not forget what he did and failed to do when he had the opportunity.
Malcolm Turnbull has excoriated Scott Morrison’s net zero plan, labelling it as a “con” and “distraction” authored by the coal industry. In conversation with The New Daily, Turnbull said that carbon capture and storage (which the government is relying on to cut emissions) is “a proven failure and it keeps getting run up the flagpole by the fossil fuel sector as a way to defer action.”
Turnbull has been a notable figure since leaving parliament, offering a counter to the Liberal Party’s views on climate change. He’s often led the criticism against Morrison, with most agreeing with him while wondering where all this was when he was in power.
In April, The Conversation‘s Richard Denniss asked ‘Is Malcolm Turnbull the only Liberal who understands economics and climate science – or the only one who’ll talk about it?’
At the time of the article, Turnbull was “dumped as chair of the New South Wales government’s climate advisory board, just a week after being offered the role. His crime? He questioned the wisdom of building new coal mines when the existing ones are already floundering,” as Denniss wrote.
While it’s easy to point at the image of Scott Morrison fondling a piece of coal as the pertinent point, those with longer memories will remember his stance on climate change during his stint as Prime Minister. He, of course, enlisted the Nationals to topple Tony Abbott, effectively neutering his climate policy out of the gate. As John Hewson wrote in 2016, “The broad-based electoral expectation that Turnbull would stand against all this by continuing with his ‘principled position”‘ on climate was soon thwarted, as it became clear that he had sold out to the ‘right’ and the Nats to gain their support for him to replace Abbott as PM.
“The Nats have since not missed an opportunity to hold Turnbull to account, and have run, dragging Turnbull along, a very high-profile opposition to any further development of climate policy – blaming the SA blackout on renewables, attacking Labor states over their renewable energy targets, supporting new coal mines, and now rolling Josh Frydenberg over his desire for the promised Climate Review to consider an ’emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector, which they painted as a ‘dumb’ attempt at a limited carbon price.”
In 2018, the Turnbull government gave $444 million to a freshly-funded entity called The Great Barrier Reef Foundation; its membership comprised of the former head of the Commonwealth Bank, a director of Qantas and BHP Billiton, as well as execs from Origin Energy, Suncorp, GE Mining and Boeing.
A 2017 trip to Barcaldine highlighted Malcolm Turnbull’s (self-professed) climate agnosticism. He travelled to a solar farm to reiterate to state that we should approach this nation’s energy problem by taking advantage of our great natural advantages (coal, gas), before mentioning that Maranoa (a place that has an industry for all energy theories) is an example that we should follow.
If we wind the clock forward to August 2018, The New York Times reported “Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia abandoned plans for emission targets bowing to pressure from conservatives who considered toppling Mr Turnbull’s government over an energy policy that aimed to reduce prices and bring the country into line with international climate change commitments.
“Mr Turnbull, who looked tired after a weekend of negotiating with colleagues, told reporters Monday morning that the energy policy bill, known as the National Energy Guarantee, would not be introduced in the House of Representatives because there was not enough support.
“‘We are not going to propose legislation purely for the purpose of it being defeated,’ he said.
“Critics immediately called that claim inaccurate, noting that the proposal had support from other parties. But whatever its chances, the defeat spurred intense speculation about Mr Turnbull’s future and frustration among those increasingly worried about Australia’s vulnerability to climate change and its effects, from extreme drought to bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.
“‘All it does is reconfirm that they have no interest in doing anything about climate change or the Great Barrier Reef really,’ said Jon Brodie, a well-known coral reef scientist at James Cook University.”
Which isn’t exactly true. Earlier that month, it emerged that the Turnbull government gave $444 million to a freshly-funded entity called The Great Barrier Reef Foundation; its membership comprised of the former head of the Commonwealth Bank, a director of Qantas and BHP Billiton, as well as execs from Origin Energy, Suncorp, GE Mining and Boeing. At the time, the foundation had annual revenue of about $10 million and only six full-time staff.
As The Big Smoke‘s Matthew Reddin wrote at the time, “And they’d only ever been given $12 million by the government previously, as a deal set to match the donations made at the corporate level. So, all of a sudden, a sum just shy of half a billion dollars flows into their coffers, and an org devoted to selection causes and projects “of note” can spend my tax dollars on it. But why them? Why now? Why from this government, whose other half is made up of members of the National Party, an organisation who never got a vote from anyone who thinks that climate change is real, let alone sitting members of parliament who would believe that funds and resources should be devoted to “green” causes? It doesn’t make any actual sense.”
Six months later, the National Audit Office ruled that the department “failed to comply fully with rules designed to ensure transparency and value for money.” The rules demand clear and specific objectives for the funding.
“For non-competitive grants, assessment criteria provide a transparent means of assessing whether the particular proposal under consideration is of a satisfactory standard that approving a grant would represent value for money,” auditor-general Grant Hehir wrote in his report.
As the ABC noted, “They included ambitions such as ‘improved management of the Great Barrier Reef’ and ‘management of key threats to the Great Barrier Reef’.”
He stood idly by as Australia’s world-renowned science agency, the CSIRO, announced it would cut 80% of its climate scientists, effectively ending Australia’s climate research program.
In 2020, Malcolm Turnbull toldHack that “Australia really needs to address climate change. The need is more obvious than ever. We’ve battled the forces of climate denialism in our Parliament and in our political life…I lost the leadership twice over this. I fought very hard to get an emissions trading scheme passed, and to keep it as Liberal Party policy.”
But as British environmentalist Jonathon Porritt wrote in 2016, “when Malcolm Turnbull wrested the prime ministership from Tony Abbott the international climate community breathed a deep sigh of relief. By contrast, Turnbull had done OK on climate change as a previous leader of the Liberal party, so it was assumed he would do a lot better the second time around.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. As I discovered on my latest visit, Turnbull has been utterly pusillanimous in pursuing any kind of progressive climate agenda. As part of his ‘oil on troubled waters’ strategy, he apparently decided not to take on Abbott’s climate-denying guerilla fighters and has offered zero leadership to Australia’s confused and polarised citizenry either before or after Paris.
“He stood idly by as Australia’s world-renowned science agency, the CSIRO, announced it would cut 80% of its climate scientists, effectively ending Australia’s climate research program. Turnbull is not the only politician having to deal with totally unreasonable flat-earthers. But that’s no excuse. Australia’s citizens deserve a lot better than that.”
Sadly, we know how the story ends. If we’re happy to rally behind him to fight a more contemporary evil, we should not forgive, nor forget.
This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.
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Continental Europe and China share a single landmass and the effort for both parties on a strategy to reach carbon neutral goals requires a unified strategy.
European Union President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that the European Union of 27 member states will become carbon neutral by 2050.
With such a goal to reach this also needs joint cooperation with China as carbon emissions do not have passports as they spread on the same huge landmass of continental Europe and China.
The big goal now is how the 27 member states fit in with a unified strategy with China on clean energy as China also has a goal of being carbon neutral by 2060.
At the forefront of this work in China to make strategy recommendations for a joint EU China strategy to the European Union is the European Union Chamber of Commerce China (EUCCC).
In an interview with both Vice Presidents of the European Union Chamber of Commerce, China Guido Giacconi and Klaus Zenkel, there are sticking points that the European Union needs to urgently address to reach carbon neutral goals in crucial cooperation with China.
Whilst China is making great efforts in regards to a market approach to tackling climate change in co-chairing the G20 Green Finance study Group, co-founded the Network for Greening as part of the Financial System with the Belt and Road Initiative and initiated the Mongolian Taxonomy scheme the Central Bank of Mongolia and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, much has to be done regarding a workable strategy with outcomes.
There has been great effort from China with the Billion Tree Project covering (and greening) 23 per cent of China, however with still a reliance on 70 per cent coal for energy needs, it has the ever existing problem of offsetting other efforts with producing electric vehicles which depend on coal fired electricity.
Europe has had decades of experience in transitioning away from coal with Germany making a further great leap from earlier efforts in 2000 with a massive expansion of solar and wind energy through grassroots citizen-owned power cooperatives via grants with monitored outcomes.
Spain has taken great strides in shutting down their coal industries transitioning into renewable energy and Sweden closed down its last coal power plant in 2020.
However, it must be kept in mind China is a country of 1.4 billion people and a very intensive, well-thought out strategy needs to be put in place, which the European Union can share their experience of transitioning from coal in a strategic way with China, that also takes into account China’s existing structure and local provincial government local considerations.
On a grassroots level there could be scope in relation to China’s poverty alleviation scheme of to empower local cooperatives in this scheme with clean energy initiatives as well changing transitioning the large coal Industries on a macro level to clean energy.
This could include sewage electricity generation that would greatly help rural local low socio-economic areas in China with sanitation and would complement China’s poverty alleviation scheme.
This is a big opportunity for European Union state members to roll up their sleeves and work with China on strategies in a consultancy capacity sharing their transitioning from coal initiatives in embracing local cooperatives in the process, along with the macro steps in closing down their coal industries.
In relation to the Belt and Road initiative connecting China with Europe, both the European Union and China need to have a co-operative approach that can possibly implement a mix of the European grant system for clean energy initiatives and China’s loan approach, depending on the situation of relevant Belt and Road countries.
However, with the European Union recently not ratifying a Comprehensive Economic agreement with China, buying into mostly US driven human rights accusations on China, which in my research hold little evidence, with conflicting claims, is putting humanity at a great risk in hampering a joint strategy in tackling climate change.
Geopolitical finger-pointing with agendas never helps humanity. However, a cooperative approach does.
The climate change clock is ticking close to an irreversible point for humanity and the European Union must decide.
This article was originally published on Dazza Egan Australia & China Watch Journo.
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Commonwealth Government challenged to prevent loss of Torres Strait Islands in lawsuit modelled on world’s most successful climate case
First Nations leaders from the remote islands of Boigu and Saibai in Gudamalulgal in the Torres Strait (Zenadth Kes) are taking the Australian Federal Government to court in a bid to prevent the destruction of their communities by climate change.
In a landmark class action case Wadhuam (Maternal Uncle) Paul Kabai and Wadhuam Pabai Pabai are arguing that the Federal Government has a legal responsibility to ensure Torres Strait Islander Peoples are not harmed by the climate crisis. This is the first climate class action brought by First Nations Peoples in Australia.
If successful, this case has the potential to not only protect Gudamalulgal and all Zenadth Kes communities, but also to help avert the climate crisis before it devastates communities across Australia.
“Our ancestors have lived on these islands for more than 65,000 years. But the Government’s failure to prevent the climate crisis means our islands could be flooded, our soils ruined by salt and our communities forced to leave. Becoming climate refugees means losing everything: our homes, our culture, our stories and our identity. If you take away our homelands, we don’t know who we are. We have a cultural responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen and to protect Country and our communities, culture and spirituality from climate change,” said plaintiff Paul Kabai.
“I can’t imagine being forced to leave Boigu because this island is me and I am this island. There are 65,000 years of wealth and experience here. Losing Boigu will mean losing that. If you take us away from this island then we’re nothing. It’s like the Stolen Generation, you take people away from their tribal land, they become nobodies,” said plaintiff Pabai Pabai.
Torres Strait Islander communities are on the frontline of the climate crisis and face an existential challenge due to rising sea levels driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas. If global temperatures rise by more than 1.5C then many islands in Gudamalulgal will become uninhabitable. Torres Strait Islander Peoples would become Australia’s first climate refugees.
Traditional Owners Pabai and Paul are seeking an order from the court that requires the Federal Government to take steps to prevent this harm to their communities by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The Australian Government has just set a 2050 ‘net zero’ emissions target, which experts say will not be enough to prevent disaster in the Torres Strait.
In fact, leading climate scientists who form the Climate Targets Panel calculate that Australia’s greenhouse emissions need to be reduced by 74% by 2030 (from 2005 levels) and to net zero by 2035 to keep global heating to below 1.5C and avert the destruction of Torres Strait Islander communities.
Torres Strait Islander Peoples have a proud history of fighting for their rights through the courts. Eddie Mabo took on the Government through the courts and established that terra nullius was a lie, paving the way for land rights for all First Nations Peoples in Australia.
The litigation is being supported by public interest advocacy organisation, Grata Fund and international climate law experts at the Urgenda Foundation. The case will be conducted by specialist class action and public interest law firm, Phi Finney McDonald, and the plaintiffs will be represented in court by Fiona McLeod SC.
“People across the country, and in particular First Nations communities, are already being harmed by the Government’s failure to take the climate crisis seriously. We’re proud to support Paul and Pabai as they take a stand on behalf of their communities. Everyone is entitled to defend their rights in court and we believe they have a great case that could make history,” said Isabelle Reinecke, Founder and Executive Director, Grata Fund.
“The Australian Government owes a legal duty to Paul, Pabai and all Torres Strait Islanders not to destroy their land, culture and identity. Paul and Pabai bring this action to require Australia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will prevent Torres Strait Islanders from becoming climate refugees. Phi Finney McDonald are proud to represent Paul and Pabai in their fight to save their homeland,” said Brett Spiegel, Principal Lawyer, Phi Finney McDonald.
“When we launched our litigation in the Netherlands there was a view that a case like this was impossible and had no chance of success. Instead we won, and this led the Government to adopt a sweeping set of policies to reduce emissions including, significantly, the closure of coal-fired power stations and billions of euros of investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We’re very optimistic that the same can be achieved in Australia,” said Dennis Van Berkel, Legal Counsel, the Urgenda Foundation.
A boat ramp in Boigu. Photo Credit: Talei Elu.
Read the full media releaseherefor additional information about the plaintiffs, the case, the legal team and the key climate harms in the Torres Strait.
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For someone who claims to have Australia’s best interests at heart, Prime Minister Scott Morrison makes some strange choices. He originally claimed he wasn’t going to the Glasgow GOP26 Meeting of World Leaders because it would mean he would be required to undergo another two weeks of isolation. We’ll probably never know if the change of heart was new NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s ‘let her rip’ attitude to COVID-19 quarantine or the Queen’s ‘overheard’ comment in Wales that changed his mind. Yet there was far less hesitation in attending the G7 as an observer in Cornwall earlier this year. It seems that the only benefit from physically being at the G7 was a pub crawl in Cornwall and some footage for possible use on ‘Who do you think you are’.
Could the real reason for the hesitance in travelling to Glasgow be that Morrison has nothing of value to contribute? At the G7 he was so ‘popular’ that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson felt it necessary to be at Morrison’s ‘personal’ meeting with US President Joe Biden. It’s probably fortunate that Johnson was there, as Morrison didn’t seem to make a huge impression on Biden. A couple of months later at the launch of the AUKUS agreement, Biden couldn’t even remember Morrison’s name.
Morrison is a transactional politician. He understands that to retain power he has to retain the climate change denier rump of the National Party in his government. One of the strongest members of the rump is Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. As CNNreported recently, ‘Australia’s climate policy is being dictated by a former accountant in a cowboy hat’. And they are right, Joyce is a cowboy along with Senator Canavan, the soon to retire (thankfully) George Christensen and a few others that are making Australia a ‘pariah’ nation. Joyce’s National Party is supposed to represent ‘regional Australia’ where there are many other industries apart from the one that is involved in ripping stuff out of the ground, transporting it to the coast and sending it on a nice cruise to somewhere else in the world. Most of the other industries are already concerned about changes to environmental conditions, not that you’d know it if you listen to the political party that claims the mandate to represent them. However, even the Mining Council announced at the beginning of October they support the ‘net zero by 2050’ objectives.
It’s claimed by CNN and others that Joyce claims he wants to see the figures before he can support a transition to ‘net zero’. Fortunately, the modelling is available.
Matt Ogge, an adviser at progressive think tank The Australia Institute, said Australia faces billions of dollars in economic damage without a more ambitious 2030 goal.
The UK has set a target of driving emissions 68 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.
“Glasgow isn’t about 2050 targets; the whole game is 2030,” he said.
“It’s about reducing emissions quickly within the next decade.
“2050 is worse than irrelevant. It’s a distraction allowing people to do what they want for 30 years.”
The Institute calls itself ‘progressive’, which probably gives the Nationals’ cowboys an excuse to discount the value of the research that went into the report. The Institute isn’t the only canary in the coal mine – the same The New Daily article reports Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is warning
households of a potential rise in mortgage rates unless Australia gets its act together on climate.
“Australia has a lot at stake,” he said.
“We cannot run the risk that markets falsely assume we are not transitioning in line with the rest of the world.”
Separate analysis by Deloitte Access Economists (DAE) estimates that the Australian economy could lose $3.4 trillion worth of GDP in today’s dollars by 2070 if climate change is unchecked.
More than 880,000 jobs could be lost in key industries like mining, construction and tourism, DAE found.
Regardless of any actual or believed political bias, you do have to ask the question whether the research would be any less accurate than the $60 BILLION ‘rounding error’ in JobKeeper last year, a process the cowboys must have agreed to after they studied the figures.
he was “perplexed there’s not more discussion about what’s happening in the UK and Europe with energy prices”. He went on:
A 250 per cent [price] increase since the start of the calendar year. A few days ago, 850,000 people losing their energy provider and a real concern over there about their capacity as they go into winter to keep themselves warm and even keep the food production processes going through
In a perfect demonstration of cherry picking usually producing the wrong answer, The Guardian looked at the same issue and found:
Britain was suffering more than most from global supply chain problems mainly because EU workers had left and strict Brexit immigration rules meant no more could now come in, Der Spiegel said, creating labour shortages “everywhere where the work is hard, dirty and poorly paid”.
Economically isolated, the country faces “an autumn of discontent for which Brexit is not the only reason, but a key one”, it said. “The government, however, insists none of this has anything to do with leaving the EU, sticking defiantly to its Brexit success story – even if its statements are getting more and more bizarre.”
So much for Joyce’s ‘wisdom’. Funnily enough (and further proving Joyce has no idea)
it was also “geographically selective”, with no reports of panic buying in Northern Ireland, which has an open border with an EU member state. Nonetheless, “the Brexiteers invariably find other culprits for bad news”, the paper said, and much of the UK media were more concerned by “the government’s competence in dealing with the crisis” than the “structural hurdles imposed by Britain’s new status”
The Australia Institute is correct. While it is possible to make cosmetic changes quickly, deep rooted structural change to infrastructure takes time. We can’t continue like we are until 2049 and somehow wave a magic wand and be at net zero emissions or better in 2050. It just doesn’t work like that. The sooner the climate change denier cowboys work that out, the better. It’s about time Morrison wrangled them into line.
At a critical time when farmer lobby groups should be showing leadership in order to maximise the opportunities that new climate-adapted agriculture can offer, the National Farmers Federation have decided to back with the climate-denying National Party and continue with ambit claims based on disinformation that undermines the credibility of Australia at Glasgow COP26.
Standing on her Namoi Valley property for the ABC camera the head of the National Farmers Federation (NFF), Fiona Simson states her position for giving farmers a fair go under any future international agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Key to this is idea repeated by the Nationals recently in the media by David Littleproud and Keith Pitt is to ‘reward farmers for their stewardship of the land’ but more than that as Fiona articulated to the ABC, farmers need ‘compensation’ for ‘doing the heavy lifting’ imposed on them through Kyoto Agreement, that being to retain bushland – which has resulted in a loss of income for farmers.
As Fiona put it, the obligations imposed on farmers under Kyoto has created a “festering sore created by statutory theft”. Essentially her claims follow the line that the Commonwealth made Kyoto commitments resulting in farmer’s property rights being taken away by the states to enforce these commitments, in doing so, halting land clearing and creating a surplus of credits.
As reported by the Guardian, the NFF says it supports an economy-wide aspiration of net zero emissions by 2050, but with two conditions. It says emissions reduction needs to be economically viable, and farmers must not be burdened by “unnecessary regulation”.
There is a lot to unpack here, but the NFF claims just don’t stack up.
The uptake of workable carbon sequestration schemes has been delayed
Currently carbon sequestration schemes (both for soil and vegetation) for landowners have had a limited rollout and impact. This has primarily been because the government’s failure till recently to link soil carbon with an income stream and has not provided credits for the retention of remnant vegetation, along with other practical issues of the schemes reducing their effectiveness. This has primarily been the fault of the recalcitrance of the National Party and the NFF who have generally been very cautious in supporting carbon-friendly methods.
The NFF has recently welcomed the carbon saving proposals of the Farmers for Climate Action but warned that it could not support any reforestation of ‘productive lands’, ie. lands with better soils that have suffered disproportionately higher levels of biodiversity loss.
Importantly, as reported recently in the Guardian, when the first vegetation laws to regulate land-clearing in NSW and Queensland were introduced, these had nothing to do with international carbon commitments but were due to concerns of widespread land-clearing and its impacts on biodiversity and water. Kyoto came some seven years after these laws were introduced. Despite this, Simson claimed that the government needed to compensate landholders for land clearing regulations that pre-dated the Kyoto period as a “goodwill exercise”.
Private land vegetation laws have not prevented land clearing
Despite the platitudes of Government sources and those who have accepted this dogma, the introduction of private land vegetation laws in the erly-1990s was not the end of land-clearing at all. While the initial introduction saw the levels fall to what may be viewed from an environmental perspective to acceptable levels (up to 1 million hectares a year in Queensland between 1988-1990), subsequent changes to laws in Queensland and NSW has seen levels rise. If we look at land clearing statistics since 2001, approximately 5 million hectares has been cleared Queensland, while 2.5 million hectares has been cleared in NSW in the same time (see WWF report here).
These figures include regrowth vegetation, but do not include illegal clearing undertaken outside the vegetation rules and largely unaccounted for in the official figures which is allowed clearing.
Emissions from Land use change still rising
According to the Government’s latest prediction in 2020, emissions from the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector (which includes land-clearing, or ‘forest converted to other uses’) went from a total contribution of 91 MtC02-e (second biggest contributor to electricity) in 2001 to a negative contribution as a net sink in 2020 (-18 MtCO2-e). How can this be, given the ongoing levels of land-clearing during this period with a more recent spike since 2016?
The LULCF category is broken down in the March 2021 update to the national emissions figures (below). According to the government, while grasslands, wetlands and croplands have remained more or less neutral, ‘land converted to forest’ (natural regrowth) and ‘forest land remaining forest’ have largely offset this loss from clearing. How this is the case from the graph is not clear.
Even so, the Government is predicting another rise in the LULUCF category to 2030 when it will be -5 MtCO2-e, a decrease of 13Mt equivalents (Table 2, p.13 of the 2020 Projections report).
Overall, the government states that:
“Emissions to 2030 are projected to grow four per cent above 2020 levels, driven by higher emissions from LNG production, increased transport activity, a declining forest sink … and growth in agricultural activity after a return to average seasonal conditions.”
The government is factoring in further expected carbon losses due to decline in vegetation and soil carbon. In other words, they are not at all serious about future on-farm carbon sequestration.
There has been minimal loss of ‘property rights’
A re-occurring claim by the farming lobby and the National Party is that farmers have lost property rights to secure Australia’s emissions targets. This claim arises from the assumption that farmers have every right to remove every tree and bush from their properties and that there exists no public interest which should stand in their way.
One way of looking at this is to examine to what extent land has been set aside from routine agricultural practice, or as lobbyists say, “locked up”. In fact, native vegetation laws in Queensland and NSW have to a large degree accommodated the assumptions of preserving property rights through a large number of exemptions which require no approval and an application process to be able to clear that makes most remnant vegetation and regrowth still open for clearing and modification.
In Queensland mapped ‘high risk’ zones may still be cleared upon application, though endangered regional ecosystems cannot be removed. In NSW, endangered ecosystems can be cleared under certain circumstances as this state has embraced a system of self-assessment, whereby oversight by government experts is no longer necessary.
While Queensland now relies upon prohibiting clearing from the most sensitive ecosystems, NSW relies more on conservation agreements, which are in fact, voluntary. Most private land conservation agreements entered into by landholders are now registered under the Biodiversity Conservation trust (BCT). Many of these are agreements with sunset clauses, (10-15 year agreements) while considerably fewer are ‘in perpetuity’. There are over 2,000 private land conservation agreements in NSW of various types suggesting a good uptake by landowners willing to enter such agreements.
The Commonwealth also enters into conservation agreements, but has made little contribution with only 25 such agreements currently on their books, most arising through legal actions against the landowner or by the odd large corporation as signs of goodwill.
So as the nation waits with bated breath as to the contents of the National Party’s ‘list of demands’ for Australia to take to Glasgow, ones wonders if it will contain the usual claims made by the private property and mining lobbies that have featured so strongly within the policy positions of the Party.
It has been stated in the media that senior government players have been signalling agriculture will likely be excluded from any heavy lifting on abatement – but not from the income streams associated with carbon sequestration. Setting up a carbon abatement scheme which provides incentive for landowners to retain remnant vegetation, improve soils and revegetated their properties should be the priority outcome.
However, given the ongoing farm wars based on essentially a re-write of history, misleading information and luke-warm commitments to farmers, will the position of the NFF and the National Party in fact jeopardise a legitimate voice for the agricultural sector and our chances of securing a forward-looking carbon plan for the agricultural sector? Judging by the past performance of these parties, only a fresh vision, such as championed by the Farmers for Climate Action is likely to give this country any credibility in the international sphere.
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We receive a lot of mail at The AIMN, but this suggestion from one of our readers struck a chord:
“As we are facing one of the most important and influential challenges both for humanity and the earth itself, perhaps it is time we stopped reacting and started directing our thinking and our philosophies toward new ways: Ways that are supportive, direct and empowered. You have the vision to see the truth yet you express it their way, by attacking, dividing and conquering. Let’s stand united, point out the obvious and change the minds of those masses that also reacting instead of using them as ‘weapons of our own demise’ (Christie Parrish). Now is an opportunity to work around the old systems as they fall. Do we really want to take their divisive ways forward with us? As an advocate for change and a leader in new ways of reporting, the choice is yours.
Methods have a great place but they can also impede independent thinking and progress. Diversity and personal responsibility can only be expressed once we review our reactions and then seek another way forward. Just as the systems of governance, The AIMN is run by people: People sharing their opinions, ideas and philosophical questions eagerly with others. Perhaps more discussion will eventually lead us all to more respectful and tolerant ways of communication.”
This astute reader neatly summed up Australian media: On one side of the coin we have the mainstream media telling us how good the federal government is, and on the other side of the coin we have independent media telling us how bad the government is. The irony is that we’re on the same coin. And we need to get off it.
True, independent media holds the government to account and we need to keep doing this, but let’s also turn our focus to outcomes, instead of actions and behaviours.
For example, we all know that climate change is going to make ours a harsher planet to live on for our children and grandchildren and we regularly condemn the federal government for their lack of action, while adding suggestions on what should be done to address climate change.
However, we need to be elaborating on the outcomes of affirmative action. And not just with climate change.
For example, what would be the positive outcomes if hospitals had more funding? What would be the positive outcomes for Australian businesses and families if we had a better NBN? What would the positive outcomes be if we opened our borders for more refugees? A lot of the answers would sound obvious, but we need to make them more convincing if we want to change the mindset of a country that seems to be at a very stagnant stage.
This reader makes a lot of sense, and her thoughts were appreciated.
Your thoughts, too, would be appreciated.
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If I believed in conspiracy theories, I’d be believing that on climate change the National Party and Liberal Party are playing good cop/bad cop. The Nationals can be seen as the bad cops on the basis of a number of their politicians own shares in fossil fuel corporations, or they have received benefits from generous corporations; creating a conflict of interest. Also, the Nats will hardly countenance net zero in 2050. The Liberals appear to be doing all they can to produce a policy that will be accepted in Glasgow. But, in the background the LNP are trying to reduce the stringency ofgoalsdecided atGlasgow.
Those hyperlinks come from a leakedIPCC Reportto be published early next year. Meaningful sentences from the leaked Report are – “Mitigation and development goals cannot be met through incremental change”, hence using gas as a transitional means to get to net zero does not fit in with what scientists are saying. “Delayed action increases challenges to both economic and societal feasibility after 2030”, which would appear to mean abreakdownin society in a number of countries. Not only are security matters seen as paramount,healthis also seen as an issue for millions of people.
Scientists leaked the IPCC Report on the basis that it would be a whitewashed by governments. Scientist have stated: “Concerned that aspects of its conclusions will be diluted by policymakers, a group of scientists has leaked a draft of a forthcoming IPCC report, which arguesthat to avert further climate chaos, global carbon emissions must peak by 2025 and all fossil fuel plants worldwide must be shuttered by the end of the decade.”
At any rate, the flurry of activity displays how the LNP do not have any policy to speak of, apart from try and stymie the Glasgow COP, a strategy used by them in past meetings. There are governments with fossil fuel or meat export interests that are currently trying to stifle a Glasgow agreement; stacked against climate scientists stating we do not have time for such dangerous antics.
A passing thought,Professor Richard Alleyhas found abrupt climate change displayed in ice cores has happened in a 10-year period or even less time.
Keith Antonysen has been researching climate change for decades. Apart from reading about climate science, Keith also views pseudo-science presented by contrarians. It seems that the material referenced by contrarians is continually recycled. Immense problems will be created unless real efforts are made to thwart the worst climate can throw at us. Nature bats last.
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It is clear that over the years the Nobel Peace prize has become purely a political exercise drawing criticism from many quarters.
This has been happening for quite some time.
To give but a sample of egregious examples: Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize in 1973 for negotiating ceasefire in the Vietnam War while at the same time carpet bombing Cambodia. It should be noted that North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho, also nominated, refused to accept the Prize, and for the first time in the history of the Peace Prize two members left the Nobel Committee in protest.
The 1991 recipient Ang San Sui Kyi has abandoned her saintliness and has gone on to overlook human rights abuses against the Rohynga Muslims in Myanmar.
But it truly turned into farce when Barak Obama, in power for less than eight months was awarded the prize in 2009. Obama may have slashed the number of U.S. troops in war zones, but he; “vastly expanded the role of elite commando units and the use of new technology, including armed drones and cyber weapons.” And “He launched airstrikes or military raids in at least seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.”
And it is ironic that an Age editorial last week welcomed the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa, chief executive of Rappler in the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta in Russia as an “affirmation of the important part that free and vibrant journalism plays in the preservation of democracy” and warned about the threats to free speech and fact based journalism.
Few would argue with this assertion, but the irony is that at the same time this paper and other mainstream media have done little to prosecute the same argument in the case of Julian Assange or to condemn the disgraceful failure of our government to support him. Assange’s exposure of US war crimes has left him still facing extradition and on October 27th the US will once again appeal against the British court’s decision to not extradite Assange on health grounds, and once again he faces life imprisonment or possibly worse. And we must not forget that Assange’s crime was to expose US war crimes for all to see – in other words, “free and vibrant journalism” that The Age so lauded in its editorial.
Image from myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com
However, the difference between Assange and this year’s recipients is that they did not challenge US power, in fact have connections to US interests. Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta is backed by a section of Russia’s wealthy who seek a more direct relationship with the US. Maria Ressa’s publication Rappler received substantial funding from a US organization for promoting democracy in what seems like an attempt to counteract Duterte’s pivot to China and away from the US.
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Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Media Release
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) today published its submission to the Regional Telecommunications Review 2021. The submission highlighted the concerns of telco consumers living outside Australia’s metropolitan centres and provides insight into phone and internet complaint trends.
Each year, the TIO receives around 30,000 phone and internet complaints from consumers living in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia.
The TIO is uniquely placed to share its data and insights on the telco problems experienced by regional rural and remote consumers.
Complaint data shows service reliability, poor service coverage, lack of choice, and weak or damaged network infrastructure remain key concerns for consumers living in regional, rural, and remote Australia.
Consumers in regional, rural, and remote communities rely on telecommunications services to stay connected to family, emergency and support services, work and study from home, and run small businesses.
The consequences of poor service reliability can be greater for regional consumers. Complaints to the TIO show it can take longer to repair a fault and there are fewer alternatives available when the service is out.
Service outages can also have a significant impact on businesses operating in regional Australia.
Many of these businesses rely on telecommunication services to take orders and bookings, for promotion, to order stock, to take or process payments, and for other day-to-day business activities.
Suggested improvements to telco services and infrastructure include:
Promoting a wider range of telecommunications services in regional communities through grants and other investment incentives.
Standardising mobile coverage information that is provided by telcos and publishing up to date information about what services are available in regional areas.
Offering government-subsidised mobile devices that can access both standard mobile networks and satellite networks.
Constructing communal connectivity hubs for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities offering voice, SMS, and data access to members of the community.
“Consumers living in regional communities continue to have reduced access to telecommunications services.
“Regional communities face unique challenges in having a fault repaired or being able to access an alternative service. They also face a greater risk in natural disasters, such as bushfires and floods, where reliable telco services play a critical role in co-ordinating disaster response and recovery.
“Providing better access to information about available services could allow consumers to make more informed decisions, encourage competition, and bridge the telco divide between metropolitan and regional, rural and remote Australia.”
About the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman provides a free and independent dispute resolution service for people and small businesses who have an unresolved complaint about their phone or internet service.
Consumers and small businesses should contact tio.com.au or 1800 062 058.
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As Gladys Berejiklian fronts the ICAC over Wagga Wagga, her replacement, Dominic Perrottet, allegedly approved the project.
As The Guardian noted, “One of former New South Wales premier Mike Baird’s top staff members questioned why Gladys Berejiklian wanted to spend $5.5m funding a clay target shooting range in the “safe seat” of Wagga Wagga, according to documents tendered to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).”
But while Mike Baird is set to give evidence today, we have an even juicier nugget. According to leaked internal documents, the person who eventually rubber-stamped the project was the treasurer at the time, one Dominic Perrottet.
As journalist Anthony Klan summarised, “Documents from a cache released by the NSW Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) show that just weeks before the grant was awarded to the private Wagga Wagga gun club, in August 2017, NSW Government staff were concerned about the grant process – which needed to go to the ‘Treasurer’ for approval.
“‘We need to ensure that the funding goes to public infrastructure, not to private assets on private land,’ wrote Jenny Davis of Infrastructure NSW.
“The July 8, 2017 email was to seven colleagues, spanning three NSW Government departments.
“‘The project is unusual,’ Davis wrote.
“‘The ERC (Expenditure Review Committee) minute approved it before we had ever heard of it. Our recommendation doesn’t need to go back to ERC, but it does need the Treasurer to approve it.’
“The $5.5m grant, which is at the heart of ICAC’s investigations, was approved just weeks later, in August 2017. Perrottet was NSW Treasurer at the time.”
***
The Berejiklian Government has long been plagued with scandals, including the high profile ICAC investigation into ‘dodgy dealings’ by former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire, whom the Premier admitted to having a secret long term relationship with over the course of several years.
The ICAC expanded the investigation into Mr Maguire to include an alleged ‘cash for visa’ scheme as well as further allegations he sought payment for property deals during his time as MP.
Mr Maguire resigned from the NSW Government in disgrace in 2018.
When Ms Berejiklian’s personal relationship with Mr Maguire was revealed during ICAC hearings late last year, many people suspected that the Premier knew about his ‘dodgy deals’ and chose to turn a blind eye, breaching her legal obligation to report suspected corruption within government ranks.
Under examination by ICAC, Mr Maguire repeatedly said he tried to protect the Premier from knowing too much, and that he knew that some of his activities could place her in a position of conflict.
She told ICAC she did not recall some of the conversations and text messages played to her as evidence, and despite other inconsistencies in her testimony, she has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the ICAC, although the entire saga has left her reputation tainted and her integrity in question in the court of public opinion.
***
Ms Berejiklian has also faced accusations of ‘pork barrelling’ related to the distribution of more than $25 million in Stronger Communities Fund grants, around 95% of which were allocated to councils in Coalition seats in the lead up to the last state election, which in itself is not illegal, but many voters consider it unethical.
Following the revelation that key documents relating to the allocation of these as well as other grants had been destroyed by her office, NSW State Archives and Records (SARA) conducted its own inquiry.
It found that the Office of the Premier breached section 21(1) of the State Records Act 1988 (NSW), which makes it an offence for a person to abandon, dispose of, damage, alter or neglectfully cause the damage of a state record.
The maximum penalty for this offence is a fine of $5,500.
Next time your mobile phone takes a photo of the now ubiquitous QR check in image, think of this. In 1888, the Kodak camera was first sold in the USA with the motto “You press the button, we do the rest.” People did ‘press the button’ and return the cheap camera box to Kodak for processing – at additional cost. Kodak later sold their ‘Box Brownie’ camera for $1 by supplying film at a cost that included processing as well as some of the manufacturing costs of the camera, creating a profitable ecosystem. Kodachrome’ colour film was first sold in 1935, the ‘Instamatic’ camera was first sold in 1963 and the first photo of the earth from the moon in 1966 was taken on Kodak film.
A Kodak engineer created the first digital camera in 1975. Admittedly, the image sensor was 0.1 megapixels and it took 23 seconds to capture a single black and while image on a cassette tape, but it was a start. Kodak invented the colour image sensor not long after and in 1991 developed the first digital SLR camera.
Kodak, over the entirety of its operations, made most of its money from film rolls and felt that it needed to continue and preserve the sales of its film rolls. So even when digital cameras – that Kodak helped invent – gained popularity, Kodak was still focussing on promoting its analogue products such as film rolls.
While Kodak had a great run so far, things started going downhill during the 2000s. In 2004, Kodak saw its profits dip even though its sales were at an all-time high. By the time Kodak started focusing on digital products – which it did by releasing a slew of digital cameras and printers print the images taken from the digital cameras – it was already too late to capture users who had moved on to other brands.
In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy and while the company survived, it is no longer the ‘go to’ company for general photographic equipment or products.
Recently a study from University College London determined that 95% of the currently known reserves of coal in Australia must stay in the ground to ensure there is a ghost of a chance of the planet’s warming being limited to 1.5 degrees. On top of that, we need to keep a significant quantity of gas and oil reserves where they are. Of course, the usual suspects rallied around the ‘climate change is crap’ flag, vowing and declaring that the Australian economy is reliant on coal and gas exports so we can maintain our current lifestyle, and it will always be so.
From the nation’s reliance on coal fired power to Prime Minster Morrison claiming that any transition to less climate intensive energy production will reduce jobs, effectively the strategy seems to be to dig up as much as possible and either use it or flog it off overseas while the world will still buy it.
Sounds like Kodak’s business plan, doesn’t it? The Coalition Government’s assumption seems to be if Australia is the only stable and developed country in the world with coal for sale in the future, we’ll make a killing. Instead of riding on the sheep’s back, we’ll be theoretically driving those enormous dump trucks that take the coal from the mine to the processing area, paying minimal tax and living high on the (state sponsored) hog.
However,
Earlier this year a report revealed Australia is the only OECD country to propose new coal mines on a scale so large that it will effectively double our emissions output.
Global Energy Monitor’s report found if the coal mines are built, it will be more than four times the compliant pathway needed to reach the Paris climate agreement.
The coal exporting monopoly will probably never happen. Any basic marketing or economics course will tell you that if the supply of a commodity is reduced, the price of that commodity will increase. As the cost of a product increases, alternatives are found. Morrison’s claim of a technology-based solution to Australia’s emission problems may come true – but it could also be a technological solution that means Australian coal exports are nowhere near as attractive to others as they are at the moment. Australia wouldn’t be the first to assume that the world will beat a path to its door to purchase a commodity that no one else can supply and find the reality is somewhat different.
Kodak demonstrates that not adapting to your market has consequences. Australia does have options other than digging up as much coal and gas as possible and selling it as fast as we can. Not exploring and developing alternative options is in essence a failure to future-proof our economy and dereliction of our political leaders’ duty. We don’t have a good history on innovation, as this ABC report on Australia’s participation in the solar panel manufacturing industry discusses.
As recently discussed in The Conversation, Australia can choose to capitalise on our natural advantages of plenty of land and sunshine which could generate and export renewable power and hydrogen as well as develop industries such as ‘green steel’. We even have the iron ore!
Flogging off what we have flogged off for decades and pretending there is no alternative isn’t a clever or sustainable long-term business practice. Adaption means that we take risks, but it is better than bankruptcy. Just ask Kodak.
The Cashless Debit Card is the latest iteration of a policy called “compulsory income management” (CIM) in Australia. Compulsory income management – meaning government and corporate control over all or portions of people’s social security entitlement payments, is an idea that had its roots as far back as 1982 in government, though it began in earnest in 2007, targeting over 70 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory with the roll out of the “Basics Cards” during the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) also known as “The Intervention”.
Much the same as Basics Cards, the Cashless Debit Card began its life based on the racist, classist assumptions and stereotypes of a multi billionaire, and through a raft of political lies and the manipulation of media and the public. The history of NTER is explained well here. The history of the Cashless Debit Card, is still being lived and written.
The Cashless Debit Card (aka the “CDC”) is the end result of The Creating Parity Report, written by Andrew Forrest. The CDC program currently operates across six sites – East Kimberley, Ceduna, Goldfields, Hinkler electorate, Cape York Region and the Northern Territory. Despite being introduced by government as a limited 12-month trial in one location, the policy is now in its sixth year of blanket operation and expanding rapidly.
The Cashless Debit Card takes 80% of a person’s social security entitlement and quarantine it into a third-party account.
To be specific, the LNP hands legal ownership of that 80% portion to a private (alleged) LNP-backed financial services corporation – Indue Ltd.
This leaves the payment recipient with access to just 20% of the payment paid into their personal account ‘as cash’.
This 20% is the only “lawful income” that the banks ‘see’ which has had the effect of ending access to the credit system and loans for most participants. For some payment recipients that 20% cash sum is less than $7 a day.
Despite the LNP’s media spin, Indue income management cards are not “just welfare paid out in another form.” If placed onto a card, a person’s income is strictly and actively managed by Indue Ltd and the Department, who exert control over all spending, not just over purchases of prohibited items. At any time, the Department or Indue Ltd acting independently can reject any purchase while also controlling your access to venues, from hotels/motels, and air travel, to the local school photographer and bookstores.
Despite government rhetoric, not one report on Indue income management cards or any compulsory third party income management iteration in over 14 years has shown any success from the act of quarantining peoples income.
To the contrary, extensive longitudinal studies showed increases in individual and community health problems and devastating social harms including increases in infant mortality and low birth weights, rises in domestic violence, increases in Centrelink and government dependency, culminating in the entrenchment of poverty in every roll out region.
Rising crime rates, crimes of opportunity and increases in suicides and attempted suicides of forced trial participants and people on other forms of forced income management are just some of the ‘side effects’ and have all been reported to the Senate since 2017.
The impact of increased bank and transaction fees and other financial losses forced program participants have had to endure, have also been documented multiple times in multiple senate inquiries.
Why you should care about the Indue Card:
➤ Legal and Civil Rights: Government is using the social status and economic dis-empowerment experienced by the unemployed as a means to segregate forced Indue Income Management trial participants from their communities and society as a whole. They are circumventing civil and economic rights, ‘justify’ Human Rights infringements nefariously, and even bypassing Social Security law itself.
➤ Social and economic segregation based on income source: The existence of several exemptions to existing Consumer laws and Data rules given to Indue Ltd by the Morrison government and written into the cashless welfare arrangements section of the Social Security Act, has meant that people on Indue Income Management cards have been prohibited from taking legal actions against the department on discrimination grounds, and are prevented from acting against Indue Ltd for economic losses or personal injuries. Government has provided this company with a ‘no action’ letter and other exemptions often mean complaints, while important to make, simply go nowhere. Importantly, and rather than changing laws directly, the Morrison government is simply not enforcing them for anyone captured under this policy.
➤ All of these payments: Which represent the majority of Centrelink payments, excepting DVA, are captured by this program.
➤ Human Rights Abuses: The Indue Income Management card as we cal the CDC, infringes on five articles of non-discrimination law and other articles of human rights legislation. The AHRC writing in multiple senate submissions, has stated repeatedly that this policy does not meet Australian human rights standards or obligations and that despite Government claims, these infringements on our basic human rights, are not justified.
➤ Workers: Full-time, gig, part-time and casual, and including union members are on cards right now.
➤ Targeting women, children and people with disabilities and carers: People aged 16-100 yrs and people with disabilities are on cards right now.
➤ Public money being wasted: Massive sums of public money is being preferentially given to a private corporation in payments and in contract, milestone payments and management fees. Public money is going offshore and returning via Bank of America, at significant cost to the Australian public and forced trial participants in interest losses and international banking and transaction fees.
➤ Needless duplication of service: The Indue cards were never about drugs/alcohol or welfare spending. These were just a pretext for roll out of the policy. Government already had income management in place for people the department considered ‘at risk’, it is called the weekly payments income management program. People on this program were until Dec 2020, exempt from current “trials”.
➤ Reducing community cashflow: Indue Income Management cards reduce local spending in small businesses and second hand markets, they impact and restrict the cash flow to all businesses within communities they have been rolled out in. Government is removing money from the community at a time the community needs it desperately.
➤ Housing/Homelessness Crisis: The impact of Indue unreliability in rent payments and direct debit transfers has made people homeless and reduced peoples living incomes. Hinkler electorate is now #1 for homelessness in QLD.
➤ Usurping institutional practices: In April 2019, an amendment to the legislation was made, that enabled people to “exit” the cashless debit card program. However by Jan 1st 2020 just 14 forced participants of over 12,000 had been exited and the excuses given now to thousands more for rejecting exit and well-being applications border on the inhumane and ridiculous. Exit decisions – a determination of “individual capacity to manage ones own financial and other affairs” are made in secret by DSS and usurp the role of the State Trustee and bypass all normally applicable fiduciary and guardianship rights and processes.
➤ Plans for more “inclusive” trials: Not content to expand the program to the entire NT and Cape York regions in December of 2020, the department has now included age pension in the Act, and age pensioners in Cape York are now compulsorily on the card. Both Liberal and National Party have publicly confirmed, a national roll out of this program will comments, and proceed incrementally – starting with all under 35s.
➤ Civil and Legal Rights: Among a serious if legal rights and protections suspended or removed from forced program participants under the cashless debit card program, participant privacy rights are, in practice, wholly suspended. While government continues to distract the public by stating they and Indue Ltd are bound to the Privacy Act, clauses within the 89 page Indue Ltd terms and conditions brochure state clearly that data is on sold to several nations. If people refuse to allow this data gathering process, access to the Indue Ltd account and 80% of their income, is suspended.
➤ Political lies and misrepresentation of facts: Government has gone to great lengths to misrepresent information and data concerning the trials even to the point of withholding the entire Adelaide University Report and Evaluation from the Australian Senate until after the December 2020 vote to expand the program further had taken place. The Adelaide University evaluation was a damning indictment against expansion, and documented substantial increases in Domestic Violence social harms, children at risk, increased financial stress and resulted in an 85.4% NO positive impact for the six years of program roll out overall. It also failed to provide answers to the questions demanded in legislation as to the programs suitability for expansion entirely. If those answers exist, they have never been released to the public.
Not one senator or MP who voted to expand and extend the program had read the evaluation prior to voting. The evaluation cost the Australian public $2.5M.
➤ Plans to let the banks run social security payment systems: The LNP have declared they want the Big 4 banks to take over day to day running of Indue Income Management cards. If this plan goes ahead, your mortgage holder will have the power and authority to control your every day spending.
➤ It doesn’t work to solve problems: Every report, both government and independent on the card trials to date, has shown the Indue Income Management Card has not achieved the results which are being claimed by the Federal Government.
➤ Targeting the vulnerable: The Indue Income Management cards are crippling people already bearing burdens most people wouldn’t or couldn’t bear themselves and they are bringing the spectre of active socioeconomic apartheid to everyone’s front door.
➤ You are already being impacted: Even if you are not on the card yourself, we are all still being impacted directly through:
The rising cost of Social Security, insurance, social and economic impacts of entrenched systemic poverty; mental health declines, rising crime and homelessness, the impact of overwhelmed services.
We are all impacted by the erosion of citizenship rights and liberties, the undermining of equality in the application of the rule of law; workers rights and power is being undermined. And unaccountable( to Senate) corporations are taking control of government portfolios.
Needless to say, the impact of wholesale privatisation, the wider acceptance and silence on the inhumanity and neglect of vulnerable people as well as the division this policy has created and maintained in our communities, is harming us all.
There is no sector of Australian society and no sector in the fight for social justice that is not directly or indirectly impacted by the advent and expansion of Compulsory Income Management policy.
Thanks to people who follow and support No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia and the Say No Seven group, a fight back against this draconian policy and the ideology driving it has been ongoing. Grassroots effort has contributed to the end of bipartisan support for the policy in 2017 and has included sabotaging plans for the national rollout in 2018, raising noise levels so loud that the Hinkler rollout, largest group on cards in the country, became a limited shadow of the intended policy itself, to supporting the defense of the NT expansion – also a shadow of government intentions, and the continued process of raising public awareness. Today’s grassroots involvement in the Protecting Pensioners Task Force being run by the ALP has allowed cardholders and grassroots a means through which to address major issues with senators and members of the public alike. For the last six years these groups have been fighting tooth and nail to combat the government narrative and share the facts about this policy and its impacts.
The three causes that guide the SN7 and NCWDCA are:
To amplify the voices of people being impacted negatively by the Cashless Debit Card policy.
To investigate and promote the policy’s role in the segregation of people on centrelink from the rule of law and to highlight ongoing centrelink privatisation issues.
To overcome propaganda and explain to the public the differences between simple cashless-ness and forced third party income management cards.
Members of these grassroots groups have spoken in the press, in the Senate, in the streets, out font of Centrelink offices and at market stalls across the country.
Via active fact checking of government misinformation and obfuscation, they have impacted the social narrative and myth busted their way to an ever widening informed support base. While they have had success in delaying the roll outs and impacting the roll out agenda thus far, they urgently need your support and help now more than ever.
The most important thing you can do to support them, is to take the time to get informed and learn about the local and national impacts of “life on the card”. Please share this information to all your networks and families, and let them know this card is coming to their doorsteps, too. We have very little time left to lift the roof of public awareness and urge you to gather your resources to support and participate in supporting this vital grassroots effort.
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At the same time as the state governments around Australia are trying to re-establish the ‘greater good’ by promoting COVID-19 testing when feeling even slightly unwell and vaccination (because the inconvenience of a test or injection is far outweighed by the lessening of risk of others catching the virus), the Morrison Government has redoubled its efforts to look after its mates.
John Hewson, former Liberal Party Leader and now a professor at ANU, recently discussed the concept of ‘the greater good’ in The Saturday Paper.
The concept usually relates to asking for difficult shifts in behaviour that might normally be resisted by each individual, the impact of which is argued to be overwhelmingly beneficial to at least the majority of individuals. It presupposes acceptance of standards of individual behaviour and acceptance of responsibility.
Over several decades the concept has been lost as our politics has become increasingly self-absorbed, focused on the interests of individual politicians, parties and their donors and mates. Our politicians have developed a reputation for having their “snouts in the trough” — cheating on their expenses and otherwise exploiting their claimed “entitlements”, stacking branches, even paying for party memberships to ensure sustained political support. Our governments have willingly spent obscene amounts of money in their own perceived political interest, trying to buy or shore up votes in particular seats to win or sustain government. Accountability is a fundamental requirement for the effectiveness of our democracy. It is not a choice, as Scott Morrison would have us believe, but an essential ingredient of good government.
Regarding the spending of obscene amounts of money, The New Daily recently observed that
The Morrison government gave $13 billion in JobKeeper to businesses that increased their turnover during 2020, new data has shown.
That would have been enough for us to buy 441 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine or 688 primary schools.
As Treasurer Josh Frydenberg continues to keep secret details of overpayments and other JobKeeper discrepancies, budget office data revealed on Monday that $8.4 billion in wage support went to firms that reported rising sales between July and September last year.
It followed earlier analysis that found $4.6 billion was paid to about 157,000 businesses that increased their sales between April and June.
All up, that’s $13.03 billion paid to about 200,000 companies that saw sales rise within six months of signing up to JobKeeper, according to Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) analysis of confidential tax data.
To be eligible for JobKeeper, companies had to show or predict a fall in sales when the pandemic hit, but many companies continued receiving government payments despite sales recovering strongly within months.
It’s not hard to make the argument that the concept behind ‘the greater good’ is more than fronting up at a COVID-19 testing centre when feeling slightly unwell or rolling your sleeve up to ‘get vaxxed’, it is the consideration of the needs and aspirations of the entire country and ensuring the decisions made are beneficial to the majority of the population. It’s also pretty easy to argue that 441 million Pfizer doses or 688 new primary schools have greater benefit to all of us than companies increasing their bottom line using government largesse.
The greater good is also accepting refugees into our community rather than banishing them to concentration camps on South Pacific Islands (while paying a political mate’s company billions to ‘keep them locked up’). The greater good is also protecting funding introduced by a far more progressive Coalition government to provide sufficient resources to Australia’s independent news and entertainment network (the ABC). It is also retaining and ensuring access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme as well as actively working towards net zero carbon emission across the country long before 2050 despite the luddites and conspiracy theorists in the rump of the Coalition.
Rather than budget surpluses and ‘privatisation’ of government assets and services, any government should be determining actions in terms of the common good. What is the best possible outcome for the majority of Australians?
If concessions are made to develop ‘green energy’ industries using our natural advantages of plenty of open space and sunshine/wind rather than subsidising the coal industry, the entire planet will be better off. If the government has to spend a little extra initially to resettle refugees rather than keeping them in prison, or supporting the homeless, the unemployed or those with a disability get a helping hand when they need it, we should be proud that we are doing something that is beneficial to the majority of our community. Most of those that get support when they need it end up repaying the contribution in spades. As Hewson says,
Nobody expects Morrison to hold a hose or draw up a syringe, just to lead on important issues, the resolution of which would clearly be to the greater good of our nation.
Darren is a leader in educating people in modern macroeconomics. He played a founding role in educating Australians via social media channels and has engaged some prominent Australians on commentary about Modern Monetary Theory. Darren is a member of Modern Money Australia, Australian Real Progressives and has been involved with the Modern Money Network. You can see more of his work at 
