By Jane Salmon  

Round blue eyes, unfashionably thick brows belie the fact that Janine Kitson was extremely effective in her campaigns for natural heritage and accountability. So much so that she was voted out of Ku-ring-gai Council in 2004 only after a concerted effort from Liberal apparatchiks – at a time when Barry O’Farrell had yet to become NSW Premier.

Now, quixotically, she plans to stand for the environment, accountability, public education and broadcasting in a seat that has been regarded as “safe, blue ribbon Liberal” since Federation. Her opponent is the Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher, who despite his strong position, suffered a small but significant swing against him in the last Federal election.

Her slogan “Bradfield Can Do Better” is based on the notion that voters cannot be taken for granted. The rise of self-funded candidates who campaign on integrity and are unencumbered by deals or debt is a fairly recent phenomenon in federal politics. The emerging powerful Independent voting bloc in parliament shines a fresh light on issues. There have to be alternatives to the closed-policy and backroom machinations of the major parties. As a group, she believes that Independents can thrash out and determine outcomes crucial issues.

Janine Kitson identifies with the impact of Zali Steggall, Cathy McGowan, Helen Haines, Andrew Wilkie and Rebekah Sharkie.

While Kitson’s broad smile may have one wondering whether she is calculating enough to enter cut-throat politics, she claims to know how hard it is to win the seat. She has committed her savings as a retired teacher to the campaign. “This is about the future of every young person I have ever taught from Mount Druitt to here. We can do better than reflexive coal or gas subsidies, sloppy NBN rollouts, stranded Aussies and the appalling Covid vaccine distribution debacle.”

She claims that her resolve is strengthened by her life as a teacher and the thousands of learners she has taught from Kindergarten to HSC to senior citizens.

Her optimistic demeanour and enthusiasm cannot conceal that Kitson has strategised, fought and sustained endless campaigns to protect the ABC, public education, natural environmental features and local heritage across NSW. She knows her opponents at every level of government, through and through.

“Funding can be deployed more sensibly. Privatisation can be inefficient and short-sighted. Basic home economics misleads us to imagine that a budget is fixed and finite. But in fact, with the national economy, experience proves that there is opportunity for greater flexibility. I refer people to the work of the Australia Institute which is also independent. So many areas that would operate better under steady public funding are now the province of charities or private companies that duplicate resources over and over without solving essential problems. Australia has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. It’s not socialism so much as common sense. We can level playing fields in a targeted way to give everyone a fair go.”

“All human beings deserve respect and have the same basic needs, no matter how they are met.”

“Governments can do better at following up on the findings of Royal Commissions, too,” Kitson adds.

Kitson bridges groups from the conservative National Trust and Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment to progressives of the NSW Teachers’ Federation.

She says that economic solutions to environmental sustainability are central, given that stock dividends matter at least as much as jobs round here, to paraphrase David Marr. “Sure. We can’t run a national budget on gum leaves,” she says. “Renewable energy and reducing car dependency is possible in big cities like Sydney. Nor should we mine the nation’s food bowls. Australia ultimately need to build healthier, smarter technologies to take over from raw material extraction just for starters.”

Isn’t she a bit Anglo Aussie for a suburb attracting an influx of conservative millionaire migrants? Kitson responds that she may not be into the latest fashion trends but has taught locally, met people at local parks, run market stalls, waved from her bike and listened after tennis, led historic walking tours or hikes and simply chatted on trains. “This community is for everyone,” she said. “It’s a cliché but I’m on the ground to listen to local concerns every day, not just during election cycles.”

Indeed, it could be said that Kitson’s warmth has been a lynch-pin of community around Bradfield.

Her chief political opponents in Bradfield may argue that the area is destined to be an enclave reserved for the rich. Those who want affordable living will probably have to move elsewhere. Kitson is not indifferent. “The older flats round here make great homes for single parent families,” she says. There should be a mix of housing options to ensure fair access to leafy suburbs. Balance is all.”

Zali Steggall and Janine Kitson

Kitson herself plays host to many in her light-dappled older flat replete with nature prints, shared backyard, camellias, compost bins and storage for her bike. She still has family in the area where she attended Gordon East Public School.

What does Kitson see as Bradfield’s future? Is it a cosy anachronism gradually eroded by urbanisation or a blueprint for other areas?

“Some of my childhood was spent near Penrith. I also taught in the western suburbs. As a result, I value all that we have here even more,” she concedes. “Other parts of Sydney are tearing up the concrete and being re-planted. We should save what exists, from carefully maintained native eucalypts planted by Annie Wyatt or ancient bunya pines to the azaleas in our parks. If you have it, value it. Some of the nation’s foremost student climate activists are from this area, which augurs well.”

What else does the Bradfield area have to offer youth?

“It has amenity and access to urban facilities, study centres and jobs that area a train or bus ride away. All this is balanced by family stability. More local facilities and festivals will help manage youth boredom or alienation. We are protected from some of the vulnerabilities of young adults in regional towns if we engage more. Take this ‘we-are-all-connected’ t-shirt, a local young woman made and sold at the Lindfield East Sunday market. I bought a set because we need to get behind our youth and their enterprises.”

“A degree of financial steadiness gives us an opportunity to think beyond ourselves. Ethics matter wherever you are. We can and must afford coherent values, not one set of conditions for the privileged and to hell with the rest. That’s not what decency is.Out of sight is not out of mind.”

Kitson’s main political foes are probably the white retired rugby males rusted on to 2GB, Fox Sport and Sky. Does she herself even think about “franking credits”?

How well does she think aged care is being managed federally?
How about public health?
Can private schools be too rich?
What guarantees quality in public health and education?
Would she keep cutting the ABC in favour of Murdoch outlets?
Where does she stand on a federal ICAC?
Isn’t cronyism the domain of both Liberal and Labor?
How will the current Cabinet’s anti-China sentiment go down in Lindfield or Gordon?
How would Kitson protect local open spaces given current state laws?

And why isn’t Kitson a bog-standard Green? “The Greens have achieved a great deal as a bloc in parliament”, she says. “However, some aspects of the Greens platform, like drugs policy, are too extreme for people round here. We need more consideration and wider representation. Not every conservationist is up for radical change.”

She says she will tap into knowledge-based think tanks and canvas local opinion by surveys in a timely way.

As an educator, Kitson is confident that she can talk the public through each policy, step by step. Transparency is important and we need diversity of media ownership to encourage that.

What about preferences? Will she urge voters to put Liberals last? What will happen if she does not? Isn’t a vote for her a vote for the Libs anyway?

Kitson believes that voters themselves will join the dots and are not too lazy to deliberately place their preferences in a coherent way on a ballot form. “Every voting position counts, including on the senate form. Each vote is a message about the standard of conduct and values you are willing to accept from your elected representatives and your government. We need to think hard rather than let the major parties decide everything for us. Considered policy begins with a thought-through, thorough vote. We are not cogs in a two-party political machine. Together we can make a huge impact.”

Kitson will be launching her local campaign at Roseville Cinema on Wednesday evening with a screening of ‘The Weather Diaries’. The film was made by a Bradfield local mother Kathy Drayton with famous cinema icon Tom Zubrycki and will be introduced by prominent carbon and climate conservationist Ian Dunlop.

Tickets to Bradfield Can Do Better screening of ‘The Weather Diaries’ on Wednesday 5 May, 2021, 6pm can be purchased from fan-force.com.

By Ad astra  

This piece won’t take you long to read. Its message is clear, precise, and uncomplicated. The social media abounds with descriptors of the Morrison Government. Few are complimentary. Many are rude, even obscene. Many emanate from an adversarial viewpoint. There are few restraints on those seeking to denigrate; it’s easy to be critical when contrary views are limited. So let’s skip those, and find a descriptor that is accurate, even polite.

We need only to reflect for a moment on recent events to arrive at a conclusion.

Among the many possibilities, it seemed to me that ‘disarray’ was an apt descriptor for the contemporary Morrison Government. A Google search for the meaning of this word says: “Combine the prefix ‘dis’ meaning ‘lack of’ with array which derives from the Old French word areer (‘to put in order’), and you’ve got a mess on your hands – or a lack of order. That’s disarray.

Here’s how the Merriman-Webster Dictionary defines ‘disarray’: “lack of order or sequence”. The meaning of the word is not obscure!

How applicable then is the noun ‘disarray’ when summing up the Morrison Government?

Reflect on its actions and performance.

Take its handling of the COVID vaccine arrangements. On again, off again; confusion about which one is most suitable; uncertainty about contraindications; confusion about when and where the vaccines will be available, to whom and for whom; lack of certainty about the continuity of supplies, their sources, their arrival times, even their efficacy; lack of clarity about who will administer them and where; uncertainty about the legal responsibilities of suppliers and those administering the vaccine, a worrying aspect for general practitioners.

As The Conversation puts it: The vaccine rollout – which remember, started stubbornly late – is in disarray. A promised four million inoculations by the end of March and completion by the end of October proved wildly unrealistic. On another front, reflect on Morrison’s handling of his recent political problems: the Laming saga detailed in sordid detail under ‘Controversies’ in Wikipedia, the Christian Porter scandal, the Craig Kelly schemossle, and now the Holgate affair, which has exposed his propensity for bullying behaviour for all to see.

Need I continue? What more evidence do you need to confirm that the Morrison Government is in a state of disarray, perpetuated by a confused, conflicted, con man, who sadly is also our Prime Minister?

By 2353NM  

The company that makes a lot of the voting machines used in the recent US election is suing a number of individuals, groups and companies that manufactured and promoted the lie that the US election was rigged in part due to the algorithms used in the voting machines. The company’s allegation is that the individuals, groups and companies didn’t tell the truth, because they were claiming that the Democrats (Joe Biden) hadn’t received more votes than the Republicans (Donald Trump) in the 2020 US Presidential election.

As reported in The Guardian, Dominion is a Canadian company that manufactures voting machines that are commonly used in the USA. Their case is the claims made by Trump and his supporters are factually wrong – and therefore libellous. After filing a $1.3 billion lawsuit against a number of Trump’s supporters including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, Dominion’s lawyers filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against News Corp’s Fox News in March,

“The truth matters,” Dominion’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Lies have consequences. Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process. If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does.”

The suit argues that Fox hosts and guests “took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire” by broadcasting wild assertions that Dominion systems changed votes and ignoring repeated efforts by the company to set the record straight.

“Radioactive falsehoods” spread by Fox News will cost Dominion $600m over the next eight years, according to the lawsuit, and have resulted in Dominion employees being harassed and the company losing major contracts in Georgia and Louisiana.

Unsurprisingly, Fox News denies the claim. Another voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic has also filed a similar claim against Fox News seeking $2.7 billion in restitution.

Trump’s lawyer (for a very short time) Sidney Powell asked for the lawsuit against her to be thrown out, claiming

the defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems filed against her earlier this year should be dismissed because “no reasonable person” would believe that her well-publicised comments about an international plot against former President Donald Trump were “statements of fact.”

Dominion’s and Smartmatic’s move to sue those who have assisted in Trump’s ‘big lie’ is attempting to make them accountable for their actions, not through the political system but through the legal system. The idea is conceptually sound. The 1930’s Chicago gangster Al Capone was finally jailed for tax evasion, not the multitude of crimes he is alleged to have committed or sanctioned. Capone was only jailed because a US court ruled income received from illegal sources was still taxable!

The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government also has an issue with truth and living with the consequences of their actions. While they aren’t being sued for libel by voting machine manufacturers, you might remember Morrison blustering in Parliament late last year that the CEO of Australia Post, Christine Holgate, must go as she arranged for the purchase of Cartier watches for some of her executive team who had renegotiated the ‘Bank@Post’ contract for Australia Post and its franchisee ‘shop’ owners, producing a favourable outcome. As Dennis Atkins reports in The New Daily,

He was clearly loving himself, riding his elevated steed.
“I was appalled,” he snarked when asked what he thought of Holgate’s performance gifts to four executives who had saved small post offices from parlous times.
“It is disgraceful and it’s not on.”
Morrison turned his blokey anger on Holgate: “If the chief executive wishes to stand aside, well not wishes to stand aside, she’s been instructed to stand aside and if she doesn’t wish to do that, Mr Speaker, she can go.”

Holgate has since been exonerated by Australia Post – she acted appropriately and within the rules and has apparently engaged a large legal firm to represent her. Some leading conservative ‘opinion leaders’ such as Alan Jones and Terry McCann are saying that Morrison bullied Holgate. From Atkins’ report

In a column this week, McCann doubled down on his prediction for Morrison’s electoral fate: “There is no way, no way, the federal government is going to win the next election. What ‘won it for ScoMo’ in 2019 was not his inherent brilliance or doggedness but Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer, with a little help from Bill Shorten.”

It has long been the case that the states were the real managers of the COVID-19 response in Australia. Morrison’s attempt to ‘sell’ the concept that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout had been hamstrung by supply difficulties (which rapidly turned into a tit for tat argument with the European Union over the supply of Astra Zeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine) was a cover for his earlier ‘world class rollout’ that had been shown to be anything but ‘world class’. It certainly didn’t help when the ‘we’ll put all our eggs in the one basket process’ promoted by Morrison fell apart because of apparently rare but serious contra-indications from the Astra Zeneca vaccine causing blood clots in people’s brains. The promise of ‘everyone who wants vaccination will have it by October’ now looks as believable as former PM Abbott’s promise to increase ABC funding or Turnbull promising to address climate change. As Paul Bongiorno suggests in The New Daily

Gladys Berejiklian and Annastacia Palaszcuk made it very clear the states were responsible for 30 per cent of the distribution, the Commonwealth for the rest – and completely responsible for the supply of the vaccine.

The states ignored Morrison’s pressure to curb lockdowns and keep borders open, and that saved the health of the nation and contributed in no small way to the incipient economic recovery.

But on the vaccine planning and delivery, the emperor in Canberra has no clothes and the nation will pay dearly for longer.

Cartoon by Alan Moir (moir.com.au)

Queensland’s Treasurer, who was Health Minister six years ago claims he called for an additional vaccine manufacturing facility in Australia at the time, but was ‘laughed at’ by the Coalition Government. While retrospectivity is always 100% accurate, if the claim is true the Coalition Government on past form won’t see the wood for the trees and will attempt to ‘market’ themselves out of trouble rather than admit they ‘got one wrong.’ The Victorian Government is currently investigating the possibility of building a vaccine manufacturing facility.

There is another way. The tradition in Rotary Clubs is that members who are either business owners or managers and all members subscribe to a simple test to do business, called the 4 Way Test

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings: Of the things we think, say or do

• Is it the TRUTH?
• Is it FAIR to all concerned?
• Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
• Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

These principles have been developed over the years to provide Rotarians with a strong, common purpose and direction. They serve as a foundation for our relationships with each other and the action we take in the world.

While there are probably ‘hour a week’ Rotarians in a similar way to ‘hour a week’ Christians – who follow the teachings of their particular brand of Christianity for the hour each week they are on the church premises before reverting to the type of people that lock up refugees for years with no due process or victimise groups within society for political ends – a lot of Rotarians evidently consider and benefit from the 4 Way Test in their daily life.

Consideration of the tenets of truth, fairness, goodwill and beneficial to all concerned would be a nice change in Australian politics and who knows, may renew trust in governments generally. We all know it’s needed!!!

What do you think?

By Mellek Steel  

Today, the NSW Police Minister made two comments of note. The first was laughably incorrect, the second was absolutely terrifying.

This morning, the NSW Police Minister, David Elliott attacked a group of primary school students for hanging a Black Lives Matter poster in the wake of the George Floyd ruling. Sensationally, Elliott made the case that children were being brainwashed with anti-police propaganda, and he would be pursuing an apology from the teacher involved.

The poster, shared by GetUp! media advisor Alex McKinnon on Twitter, asks us to ‘Stop Killer Cops’ surrounded by hashtags calling for #JusticeNow and #BLM. Elliott, speaking on a morning breakfast show, said that “we don’t have a race problem here in Australia,” and we should “stop trying to teach our kids what is going on overseas is the way it happens in Australia.”

https://twitter.com/mckinnon_a/status/1384637218245865475

https://twitter.com/mckinnon_a/status/1384638029273337859

Crucially, Elliott also said that “I don’t want taxpayers’ money going into an alleged education where children are going to walk away thinking that police are somehow racist.”

I’m not suggesting that the Police Minister doesn’t have a clue, or indeed, is not telling the truth, but his statements only make sense if you disqualify the reality we First Nations people face.

In January, The Guardian’s Michael McGowan noted that while 96 children were searched in 2020, a disproportionate number of those searched (about 21%) were Indigenous, including one case in which an 11-year-old was strip-searched by police. The data also revealed that Indigenous Australians of all ages continue to be disproportionately subjected to the practice.

Karly Warner of the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service told the outlet that “forcing a child to remove their clothes is deeply intrusive, disempowering and humiliating, and especially for Aboriginal people who have too often been targets of discrimination and over-policing… the excessive use of strip-searching is causing extreme emotional and psychological harm… an unclothed and traumatic early encounter with police is something that children will have to deal with long after they’re allowed to put their clothes back on. It is unjust, it violates children’s rights, and it undermines the relationship that police have with children.”

In February, a 57-year-old Corrective Services NSW officer presented at Lismore police station on 5 February 2021 and was charged with manslaughter over the 15 March 2019 shooting death of Wiradjuri man Dwayne Johnstone, who was a detainee in the custody of the prison guard.

On the day of the fatal shooting, Johnstone had appeared in the Lismore Local Court and was denied bail over an assault charge. He later suffered a possible epileptic seizure in the holding cell at the courthouse and two Corrective Services officers took him to Lismore Base Hospital for treatment.

Johnston was being taken back to a van as he left the hospital when he elbowed an unarmed guard and made a break for it. The 43-year-old was handcuffed and shackled as he attempted to escape. And the other officer fired three shots, hitting him in the lower back with the third, which proved fatal.

As is the procedure with custodial deaths, a coronial inquiry followed. And in an unprecedented move, NSW state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan called a halt to the inquest in late October last year, as she referred the matter to the DPP to consider whether charges should be laid.

The decision to charge the guard with manslaughter is ground-breaking. It marks the first time a corrections officer has faced a substantial charge in relation to a First Nations custodial death.

A lack of accountability has long marked the aftermath of Aboriginal deaths in custody. Despite the Royal Commission into this continuing crisis handing down 339 recommendations in 1991, there have now been over 440 First Nations custodial deaths since the inquiry tabled its report.

Later the same month, undercover officers in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta were recorded assaulting a First Nations minor.

As Paul Gregoire of The Big Smoke wrote at the time: “On hearing yelling from an enclosed shopping area around the local station, a member of the public started filming as they made their way up a small flight of stairs to where the noise was coming from. There, they encountered three undercover officers and a young boy in their custody. The handcuffed Indigenous youth is screaming, as one officer has an extremely tight grip on his left wrist from behind. A number of young passers-by, as well as those known to the youth, plead with the officers to ‘stop hurting’ him. But two of the plainclothes officers blankly stare on – like they’ve heard it all before – while a third walks towards another minor filming in an effort to make them stop. The third officer approaches the person filming, waving them on. The cameraperson responds that they won’t move as the colour of the boy’s hand is changing.

“In the background, the police van can be heard approaching with its siren. ‘No. I am not moving,’ the person filming continues. ‘How old is he?’ And another young onlooker calls out, ‘He’s 12.’”

The above exists in the safe vacuum of yet more violence, as NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller famously said in June 2020 that the officer filmed throwing an Indigenous teenager to the ground during an arrest “had a bad day.“

As The ABC put it, “the incident, in which the officer kicked the 16-year-old’s feet from beneath him before dumping the boy to the ground, is now the subject of an internal police investigation, to see whether excessive force was used.”

*****

Indeed, an important point that Elliott missed is that the school children were protesting the police officers who are killers, with Derek Chauvin being the most contemporary example. However, by claiming that racial bias doesn’t exist, he’s merely illuminating his entitlement, and indeed, how he’s forever been the oppressor, and never the oppressed.

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

By Dave the Trucker  

Since 2001, twice as many ADF veterans like myself have been lost to suicide than to armed conflict. The promise of a Royal Commission seems too little, too late.

CW: The following piece discusses suicide.

After months of political pressure, Scott Morrison has finally announced a Royal Commission into the climbing rates of veteran suicide. As journalist Daniel Hurst noted, “The government had previously resisted calls for such an inquiry by saying its plans for a national commissioner for defence and veteran suicide prevention would be able to examine the problem on a rolling basis and would have similar powers to a royal commission. But the bills to set up such a commissioner as an independent statutory office holder have languished in the Senate.”

Labor has also piled on, saying the lack of a Royal Commission was “a national disgrace that more veterans have died by suicide than in war in the past 20 years, and veterans are dying at twice the rate of suicide of the general population.”

Back in November, the nation received the finer details of the war crimes inquiry report, one that Scott Morrison forewarned the population about, noting that the findings are ‘serious, grave’ and ‘warrant’ criminal investigation.

At the time, the Defence Welfare Association bit back regarding the vivid media speculation of what the hideousness may be. In conversation with The Guardian, the president of the association, Kel Ryan, said that “What we are seeing because of the inflammation of the whole issue by media it is having a detrimental effect on the welfare – the mental welfare – not only of veterans but their families and their children…the media is not helping the situation – it is speculating, it is driving speculation.”

Now, I’m not defending anyone who commits war crimes, but again, we’re discussing the mental health of veterans whilst debating something larger. It’s a conversation that we’re perennially on the cusp of discussing, but seldom pause long enough to solve it.

According to a brief prepared for the Defence Minister, twice as many active members of the ADF have committed suicide than have been lost in the Afghanistan/Iraq conflict. The data stems from research that the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) published back in January, discovering that between 2001 and 2015, there were 325 certified suicide deaths. The data that united them was that they all had at least one day of ADF service.

What we have is a systemic problem. One, according to the brief, the ADF are looking to solve. Their Defence Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy promises to “deliver on its commitment to develop a whole-of-organisation approach to improving mental health and wellbeing.”

The problem, of course, is that it is a new strategy. The program, which will carry on until 2023, will: “utilise the lived experience and recovery stories of ADF members with mental health concerns; develop options for peer support so that ADF members can support each other to access the right information and care when it is needed; implement better ways to engage families when we provide treatment and rehabilitation for ADF members with mental health conditions; improve support and access to specialist mental health services.”

The strategy was (eventually) implemented in the wake of a 2017 Senate inquiry that threw the veil back on the mental health of our veterans. Government funding (to the tune of $31 million) was pumped into the problem, and this program is the result. It’s not particularly a home run, as the measures just look to build on what already exists, plus instituting a new “veteran’s payment”, which sounds dangerously similar to the dole.

The further measures include “$2.1 million over four years for an annual health assessment for ex-serving ADF members for the first five years post-discharge and $4 million over two years to pilot a case management service for transitioning or recently discharged ADF members.”

The ADF believes that the problem is solving the how. It runs deeper than that. My question is, why did it take so long?

Having served, I think I know why. The ADF sat on the issue because they didn’t believe it was one. They weren’t going to look into it until someone forced them to. It’s an issue of culture. One where only the tough will make it, and if you return, well done, and well, you’re not really their problem anymore. Those who chose that way out were weak. No-one says that out loud, but it is certainly thought. It’s the way we’re programmed. To be able to kill, one must be strong. If you make it back, that’s your prize.

The issue of veteran well-being (beyond political point-scoring) is strangely taboo in this country. Those who served have long been cynical about our worth when we return. We’re not a big problem, we’re not even a small one. We’re routinely ignored. We’re the veterans of unpopular wars: Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. For the most part, the populace didn’t want these conflicts, so for any damage incurred fighting on the wrong side of history.

But the challenges we face should be heard, as they’re certainly real. Let me explain. The transition between the before and the after is our primary issue. It’s extremely difficult to force yourself back into the same box that you left. You can’t concentrate, your mind wanders. So, you self-medicate, drink and whatever to try and function at work, and because of that, you’re let go.

Time spent idle is the danger. You become unemployed. You feel alienated, and with that, the images you’re trying to suppress return. You’re unsure how to articulate your problems to those who wouldn’t understand, so you distance yourself. Not because it’s easier, rather it seems like the only choice. In that space, those images overcome you, and they live again. Often, the choice of death to kill them off seems logical. I know this, because I’ve felt this. I know this, because I’ve been told this. I know this, because I’ve seen it.

Two people that I know took this route. One was a surprise, the other wasn’t. The odd thing that I noticed is that discussion between vets isn’t assured. Often we say nothing, primarily to avoid setting the others off. Stoic silence is our default. It’s what we’ve been taught. And that’s what needs to change. We need to be able to discuss what we suppress.

With the above considered, the ADF’s measures could work and maybe the Royal Commission could change things. Especially to those with fresher trauma, those who haven’t completely absorbed the blow. But to those like me, where that trauma has manifested into a lifetime of destructive, negative behaviour, one where clutching to the bad, terrible and awful is normal, because you feel that you’ve deserved it, well it might be too late for us. It is certainly too late for those who felt that suicide was the only option.

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

By Gay Mackie  

Yesterday, Michelle Grattan said that: “a wronged woman with a razor-sharp mind and meticulous records is a dangerous creature.”

Grattan was speaking in reference to Christine Holgate, and what she disclosed at Tuesday’s Senate inquiry. Which is absolutely true. Another thing that is true, is the shortness of our memory.

Let me be clear, I’m not disputing Scott Morrison’s role in this, his historic treatment of women, or am I saying that Christine Holgate didn’t experience what she absolutely did; I’d like to suggest that we’ve rallied around a person we widely condemned not too long ago.

In July of 2020, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson appeared in her then-regular spot on Channel Nine’s Today program. At the time, North Melbourne’s public housing towers were enduring a snap hard lockdown, replete with police guarding the property. On the program, Hanson said: “A lot of these people are from non-English speaking backgrounds, probably English as their second language, who haven’t adhered to the rules of social distancing.”

Hanson added “a lot of them are drug addicts,” and “alcoholics” before noting if people were from “war-torn countries” they “know what it’s like to be in tough conditions”.

After losing her spot on the program, Hanson then sent a One Nation stubby holder to each of the residents of one of the towers. The issue evolved further when the head of Australia Post reportedly intervened to make sure Hanson’s mail was delivered to their intended recipients.

As The Canberra Times reported, “In an email first published by the Nine newspapers, Australia Post warned the council it would notify the police unless the parcels were delivered without delay. Australia Post claimed this did not amount to a threat and denied chief executive Christine Holgate personally intervened.”

The Sydney Morning Herald took it further, with Rob Harris suggesting that “Ms Holgate’s written ultimatum, through her senior legal counsel, came days after Senator Hanson had labelled residents of the Melbourne towers ‘drug addicts’ and ‘alcoholics‘, and at the same time Australia Post was attempting to win over One Nation’s vote to ensure a temporary relaxation in daily postal services was not overturned by the Senate.

“Ms Holgate and several senior Australia Post managers were copied into the written warning, sent from Mr Macdonald to council chief executive Justin Hanney. Australia Post sources familiar with the tense stand-off over the delivery said Ms Holgate also personally pushed for the delivery of the parcels to the residents of the tower block in exchanges with the council,” Harris wrote.

In a later statement, Australia Post said Holgate did not personally intervene.

“Australia Post confirms that Ms Holgate did not speak to Senator Hanson or One Nation on this matter, nor did she threaten Melbourne City Council.”

According to Australia Post, their response was made purely on their legal obligation to prevent interference with the mail.

Nothing political, it seems, they were just doing their job.

*****

On July 8, a Senate inquiry repeatedly asked whether Holgate’s Australia Post was monitoring their senior staff members. The questions came after a series of leaks to Fairfax, that purportedly included sweeping for bugs and checking phone records.

Per The Sydney Morning Herald, “Ms Holgate deferred her answers but in responses to questions on notice Australia Post said it had ‘a risk-based security program – including to preserve the integrity and security of confidential and sensitive information – that takes into account best practice standards’. It said details of the program were commercial-in-confidence and that, if the details were to become public, it would hurt Australia Post.”

Senator Kim Carr defined the response as legal “weasel words” confirming that the company was (allegedly) doing such a thing, one he called “highly irregular”. A spokeswoman for Australia Post declined to further comment.

As the above publication wrote, “The Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, which represents postal workers, said Australia Post should give a ‘straight answer’ to questions about staff surveillance. ‘The fact that Australia Post is avoiding answering simple questions about whether or not they have surveilled their staff is very concerning,’ said the union’s national president, Shane Murphy.”

*****

Back in 2011, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (which represented 94% of Australian pharmacies) struck a deal that would see dietary supplements be recommended alongside purchases of prescription medicines. The controversial move was (rightly) viewed as putting profits above the health of customers.

As Julia Medew of Fairfax noted, the guild “agreed to begin recommending a range of Blackmores products to patients when they pick up prescriptions for antibiotics, blood pressure drugs, cholesterol drugs and proton pump inhibitors (which are) used for gastrointestinal problems.”

At the time, the chief executive of Blackmores, Christine Holgate, told Pharmacy News they could provide ”the Coke and fries” with prescription drugs, giving pharmacies ”a new and important revenue stream.”

In response, the president of the Australian Medical Association, Steve Hambleton, said it was outrageous. He made a point of mentioning that he did not know of solid evidence backing combining dietary supplements with prescriptions.

After vituperative public scorn, the deal was withdrawn a month later. Despite this, Holgate claimed that her comments were taken out of context. “It is not about up-selling. This is about selling appropriate products to consumers,” she said.

*****

Let me be plain, I’m not doubting what Holgate experienced. I believe her, and I admire her for not holding her tongue, but I also believe that propping her up as a crusade for the greater good is spectacularly short-sighted.

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

By 2353NM  

About 12 months ago, we were asking if the world could ever return to ‘normal’ post the pandemic. Some were looking for equitable economic reform, others were looking for significant environmental reforms and others were looking for improvement in an area close to their personal experience or belief systems. Most of us were hoping for a ‘new normal’ where the world would somehow address the issues that each of us are passionate about.

Unfortunately there seems to be a large group of people that are happy with the status quo and can’t wait to get back there. You could argue that Prime Minister Morrison is amongst this group, with his ‘gas lead’ recovery, social security payments returning to almost pre-pandemic levels, a lack of reform to industrial relations, continual victimisation of some refugees and ongoing corruption (which is really what ‘pork-barrelling’ is). Despite this, and much to Morrison’s consternation and dismay – probably because he isn’t controlling the narrative – there are signs of a ‘new normal’ in an area that no one saw coming.

At the end of January Morrison presented the Australian of the Year award to Grace Tame who was a leading campaigner for the repeal of Tasmania’s law prohibiting sexual assault victims from openly speaking about the violence inflicted on them. In February, Morrison’s tone-deaf comment that he had to be told by ‘Jen’ (his wife) that there was a good reason for the moral outrage over the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in the Defence Minister’s Private Office, demonstrated how little attention he paid when announcing the Australian of the Year. You have to wonder if he read the brief (after all, he admits he didn’t read the claims against former Attorney-General Christian Porter before he sent it to the Police).

While Morrison’s comment will never rank up there with former Prime Minister Gillard’s ‘misogyny speech‘ it has reopened the discussion about sexual violence in Australia, despite Morrison ‘spinning’ his hardest to make the issue retreat in importance. As The Guardian article linked in this paragraph shows, the political reporters at the time of Gillard’s speech, some who still hold jobs in the press gallery today, completely ‘misread the room’ then as well.

By March, the media were discussing an increase in women discussing sexual assaults that were perpetrated on them, in some cases decades earlier. Higgins found the courage to share her story again and again of being raped by a senior male staffer in the Defence Minister’s personal office, together with the events afterwards that suggested to Higgins that the whole thing was going to be covered up. We also saw thousands of people parade down streets across the nation to draw people’s attention to the sexual abuse and violence perpetuated predominately on women.

Grace Tame has been using her fame wisely to discuss her story, with appearances at the National Press Club and television including ABCTV’s QandA and Network 10’s The Project. Brittany Higgins is continuing to tell her story, despite the probable personal cost of never working for a Coalition Minister again. When a former student of a private school in Sydney, Chanel Contos, asked on social media for stories from victims of abuse and violence perpetrated by school students, she was inundated. One of the private boys’ schools named in the testimonies of current and ex-school students was Brisbane Boys College. Their School Captain spoke on assembly on 18 March and probably scored his first by-line in The Guardian with an article entitled ‘Stop being boys, be human’

Boys, this speech today is different, and it is the hardest one I have ever had to write. Not because it is difficult, but because it is heartbreaking.

Too many of my friends, our friends, too many of my loved ones, your loved ones, and too many women around Australia are victims of sexual assault.

The narrative needs to change. Boys, it feels like no matter where we look, this issue is not at the forefront of everyone’s mind, but why not? Why is it like this?

and

Let me tell you the numbers. Every single week a man kills his partner or former partner. Before the age of 16, one in five women experience some form of sexual abuse. And 97% of sexual offences are from men.

This is not solely an issue of protecting women but an issue of educating men. Stop being boys, be human.

Every person in this room must not just be an advocate for equality, but in our every action and deed we have to be proactive in stopping the abuse. This starts with putting an end to slurs and derogatory comments about women. It means standing up to any man, no matter how big they are, if we see it happening. And we have to keep our mates accountable, no matter where it may be.

The full speech is available here:

In some cases women are abusive and violent to men. As Brisbane Boys College School Captain Mason Black suggests, it is a far less common occurrence then men inflicting violence on women.

The ‘new normal’ are people like Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins, Chanel Contos and Mason Black who are calling out disgusting behaviour that has been swept under the carpet for far too long in Australia. While world peace, equitable economics and a green revolution would have been beneficial outcomes from the pandemic, if treating all others as humans rather than potential conquests is ‘all’ we get – we’ve done alright.

What do you think?

By David C. Paull  

This government’s championing of a ‘gas-lead recovery’ for Australia in response to the COVID-19 pandemic sounds reasonable and pro-active to many in the public. But the blue-print for this Plan goes back further several years and as this article will show, was borne out of a desire by the gas sector to stay relevant amid growing evidence of harm to communities and the environment by this sector. The COVID-19 crisis and the economic hit Australia has endured has provided the perfect cover for this Plan to be dusted off, refined and rolled out for public consumption with the glitter of government sanction. But in doing so the Gas Cabal has revealed themselves in this last attempt to hijack the economy.

As previous revelations have shown, corruption lurks at the core of the gas sector who seem to have been the favoured child by Australian politicians and economists since they opened up the onshore Queensland gas-fields. From the start the mantra has been ‘gas is clean’, ‘gas is a transition fuel from coal’, ‘gas provides jobs and infrastructure for regions’. The fact we have now two ex-gas sector heavies parachuted into the Climate Change Authority does not change the growing amount of evidence of the profound impacts the sector has on greenhouse emissions – but is a revealing move.

Grant King has spent most of his time leading onshore gas development in Queensland with the Australian Pacific LNG joint venture, as head of Origin until he resigned in 2016. Before that he spent time with AGL, Boral and Contact Energy, APPEA (the leading lobby group for the gas sector), and the Energy Supply Association of Australia (who later rebranded as the Energy Users Association, in the minds of the Gas Cartel, users and suppliers are the same thing). King then took up the position as President of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), which he held to his recent appointment, at one point leading its ‘Infrastructure and Sustainable Growth Committee’. This committee was heavy with representatives from gas, aluminium and infrastructure companies, such as Origin, Santos, APA, AGL, Shell, BP, BG Group, Lend Lease and some of their financial backers, HSBC, Meryll Lynch and Macquarie Group.

There is no report from this committee available and any links are no longer found on the BCA website, but the composition of this committee indicate a likely intention to link Australia’s economic development with a growing gas sector.

But what about the greenhouse credentials of gas? Here’s where our second parachute into the Climate Change Authority comes in, Susie Smith. Like King, Smith has been a long-term employee of the gas industry in Australia, holding positions with Santos, more recently as their ‘Manager of Climate Change and Sustainability’ and has been the CEO of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN) since March 2017, a mainly gas sector lobby group. Prior to this she was the Chairperson, representing Santos for over 13 years with the Association. Their goal is to ensure that their sector is a key player in any policy debate on energy and climate change and that Australia and business in Australia require a ‘differential’ and ‘fair’ approach to meeting carbon abatement targets.

Of course, even better if you can actually provide significant carbon abatement measures which would help justify a future use for gas. Such is the contention from Smith and King, who co-incidentally, co-authored a report only last year for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, as part of an expert panel convened to look specifically at additional sources of ‘low cost abatement.’

And they found them, but not without a significant cost. What is being proposed is a ‘goal orientated co-investment program’, in other words, industry with its hand out. Remarkable when you consider the low levels of tax paid, royalty holidays and levels of public subsidy that has been thrown at this sector over the years. What technologies are we looking at? You don’t have to go through the report far to see the key examples they site are carbon capture and storage, industrial process heating and ‘hydrogen fuels for heavy vehicles’. And you don’t have to have a crystal ball to see that these sentiments are likely to be soon coming from our re-vamped Climate Change Authority. But what we won’t be hearing is the industry’s desire to greenwash their figures on fugitive emissions or their desire to avoid taking Scope 3 emissions into account.

King and Smith are trusted operators for the big players in the gas sector who have major expansions planned in the Northern Territory and Queensland, but the other cohort of gas up-and-comers are also being looked after. Particularly through Neville Power’s appointment to the COVID-19 Commission, now looking more like an unaccountable quasi-arm of government. His gas exploration company Strike Energy is one of several relative newcomers to the sector, such as Beach Energy and pipeline operators wanting to get a foothold like Vista and Epic. These companies are desperate for more greenfield onshore development or their future will be very short. Beach Energy is probably confident of getting some results, due in part to the ownership by Kerry Stokes, someone who is used to getting what he wants.

The COVID-19 Committee’s gas recovery plan owes a lot to that other special advisor, Australian and corporate idol, Andrew Nicholas Liveris AO. His appointment as a global trotting special energy and economic advisor to the both the Obama and Trump administrations and the Saudi King gave him all the credentials he needed to be picked by the Prime Minister. He is also Vice-chair of the Worley Services board, one of the biggest mining and petroleum service providers in the world, a company likely to benefit from any gas recovery.

His messages to the world are what made his Dow Chemical Company a corporate leader; diversify, value-add and cut regulation. Messages well received in Australia, as this is what it will take to make gas appear more rational, feed into other industries like bricks and cement, fertilizer and hydrogen production, despite each with its own level of additional greenhouse emissions.

Dow Chemical was also contracted to write an energy futures discussion paper by the US Study Centre in 2018. For those who don’t know the US Study Centre is subsidized by the American Australian Association, a pro-American business lobby, set up in 1948 by Sir Keith Murdoch, the same year he also helped set up the Institute of Public Affairs. Among other big names like Pratt and Murdoch we find Mr Liveris, currently a patron of the Association. The paper states in relation to Australia’s future energy market:

“… Institutional arrangements and property rights, free markets, infrastructure development and regulatory and policy settings all play an important role. The architecture of Australian’s energy markets also require reform, if not transformation. Get the institutional and policy settings right, and the market will transform physical abundance into economic abundance and put downward pressure on energy prices and emissions.”

That is of course assuming vast amounts of new gas are opened up, not that there should be any impairment if we follow the Trump lead and demolish environmental regulation completely. What this paper doesn’t mention are the environmental, social and greenhouse costs, but then again neither does the Morrison Government.

Looks like this is it. The Gas Cabal’s final roll of the dice, and it couldn’t be any more stacked in their favour. But Australia isn’t the US, quite yet, arguably, they are too late to save the gas sector from impending market collapse and despite all the rhetoric, it is looking increasingly like the gas emperor has no clothes in this rapidly changing energy sector.