The Supreme Court in Britain has solved the conundrum of our age and we can all go back to watching the Block or the Bachelorette without the nagging worry about bakers and gay cakes: what a relief!
A judge of Britain’s Supreme Court has upheld an Appeal from a baker who refused to incorporate the message “Support Gay Marriage” on a cake he was making for a gay couple.
The judgement stated inter alia that: “Nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe.”
Simple really, isn’t it?
It was never in dispute that it remains unlawful to discriminate against a customer based on that customer’s sexual, religious, political or any other personal belief or attribute: you just can’t do that. But, if the customer wants you to incorporate a message on the cake that is personally objectionable to the baker based on a well-founded and conscientious belief he or she holds, then it is absolutely the right of the baker to refuse to lift his or her piping-bag to comply with your wishes.
So, let’s assume for the sake of argument that you are a left-handed, lesbian, line-dancer with a fetish for little men with odd moustaches and snappy salutes and you request that your lamington slice be fashioned in the shape of a swastika with the legend ‘Heil Hitler’ etched across it in hundreds and thousands. The baker is well within his or her rights to refuse to do so if he or she is not a fan of the main proponent of an Aryan master-race. However, that is the only basis on which you can be denied service. If you select the default lamington slice with no adornments, your personal characteristics and attributes cannot stand between you and your chosen chocolate and coconut treat.
Now, it can get complicated. If for instance you go into your local bakery and ask for a three-tiered, iced wedding cake with two little men (or two little ladies) on top. The baker may stop you right there and is justified, on this British Supreme Court ruling, to say to you: ‘no problems with the cake, sport, no problems with the three tiers and the icing but I will not, for religious and reasons of conscience place two blokes on the top: one bloke or one bloke and a lady or one bloke and a dog, at a pinch, but not two blokes’. So, we have a problem but not one that is insoluble.
A progressive baker with his eye on the bottom-line could, for instance, place a cardboard box near the front door to the shop with an assortment of little Lego type people and he could look the other way or get on with fashioning the swiss-rolls while you select your chosen adornments: who’s to say what you may choose and it’s got nothing to do with the baker or anybody but you!
Bakers are not the gatekeepers of our society, you may well say but they have the right at law to discriminate when it comes to promulgating a belief which they do not share. There are however degrees of what is acceptable to the reasonable baker and his conscience. For instance, if you order an apple-crumble and ask for the message ‘Peter Dutton Rocks !‘ piped across it, it is quite reasonable for the baker to refuse to do so. Not because apple crumbles don’t lend themselves to icing but because the statement is patently untrue and misleading.
Now that we’ve sorted that one we can get back to the Bachelorette and ask the question that is troubling the nation: why do these blokes all have tight little suits? Did their Mum throw them in the washing machine and have they shrunk? And what happened to their socks, could they still be lurking in the washer?
The Federal Government has unveiled a plan that will settle certain classes of new migrants [to be known as drones] in regional areas for up to five years after their arrival in Australia. These will be required to work as indentured labour and will not be able to leave their servitude until the five-year term of indenture has been served to the satisfaction of their masters.
Minister for Population and Cities, Alan Tudge laid out the plan to bust congestion in Australia’s biggest cities – Melbourne and Sydney – in a speech in Melbourne on Tuesday.
The proposal is to introduce a mandatory regional settlement plan for some unskilled and semi-skilled migrants, to be known as drones who will be expected to live and work in a designated regional area for five years before being permitted access to our major cities.
Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dildo Dutton, revealed that a vast majority of newly arrived migrants – 87% are currently settling in Sydney and Melbourne and this would no longer be tolerated by the Morrison government. When asked how the government proposed keeping these people from coming to our capital cities, Mr Dutton told the assembled media that he had all the tools at his disposal to maintain checks on people: drones he said would be fitted with microchips on arrival in Australia, before they were sent to their allotted regional domicile. Should they then stray beyond the boundary confines of their domicile the microchip would initiate an alert and the drone or new-chum as he prefers to call these migrants would receive a severe physical reprimand. When asked by the media in what form this reprimand would be delivered, he gave that creepy smirk that we have witnessed in recent times and said, “they don’t call me Dildo Dutton for nothing …”
Mr Dutton noted that, as a further means of restricting the movement of new-chums he would be adopting some of the valuable lessons that Australian Border Force (ABF) had learned on Nauru and Manus islands; these included torture, deprivation and humiliation. He also pointed to the 2015 Operation Fortitude where ABF officers had planned to randomly check people’s visas at Flinders Street Station and at taxi stands in Melbourne to weed out undesirables: an operation Mr Dutton sadly lamented was called off after so-called human rights activists campaigned against Australia becoming a police state. Similar operations he noted would be carried out on an ongoing basis throughout Australia to ensure that people were kept in their designated places.
Asked if prime minister Morrison approved of this radical and seemingly discriminatory immigration policy, Mr Dutton reminded the assembled media that he had already removed one prime minister for disobedience and he was not beyond doing so again should the circumstances warrant: with that he clicked his heels, raised a salute in the now familiar Heil Trump, turned abruptly and marched from the press conference as the clock struck thirteen !
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It reads like the outline for a John le Carré spy novel but this one is real and it actually took place in our own backyard. It has all the ingredients : crooked politicians, spies masquerading as aid workers and dressed up in high-viz jackets and hard hats – you can get in anywhere in that kit and a clipboard gives you real authenticity – the planting of electronic listening devices in the parliamentary offices of a neighbouring fledgling nation, a good guy and his lawyer and a vindictive government minister.
You are probably across the main story but as the matter is now going before the courts, possibly in a closed hearing, here are some of the details which, of course are highly confidential and should go no further than you and me.
2004 It appears that ASIS operatives including Witness K posed as aid workers, deployed by Ausaid who were involved in the construction of the Palacio Governo in Dili, Timor-Leste. This was the building in which the Timorese Prime Minister and Cabinet held their meetings. During the course of construction, it seems that ASIS agents placed surveillance devices in meeting rooms which allowed them to listen in to Timor Leste’s Cabinet discussions. This is where it departs Le Carré and takes on a script directly from Maxwell Smart. We cannot reveal the name of the minister involved for legal reasons but let’s call him Dolly. What Dolly wanted was to listen in on the deliberations of the Timor Leste government and their legal advisors and glean information on Timor Leste’s negotiating position on the maritime boundary and the future carve up of the Greater Sunrise revenues in the oil and gas negotiations. This ploy would it was hoped give the Australian Government critical information about Timor Leste’s negotiating strategy, providing it with a substantial but hugely unfair advantage.
2005 The negotiations continued and, in May, a joint agreement was reached on a formula for revenue sharing from Greater Sunrise. Timor Leste got more money but caved in to Australia’s demand that the maritime boundary issue should be indefinitely deferred.
As a safeguard to any external interference, Dolly then ensured that Australia withdrew from the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. We were concerned that any determination by such international forums could result in the bulk of the oil reserves being allocated on the Timor Leste side. So the cards were stacked against Timor Leste and the negotiations inevitably favoured Australia on the maritime boundaries covering the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea. The chief beneficiary of this action appears to have been the private consortium led by Woodside, which eventually ended up with exactly what it was after.
2007 Following the Howard Government’s loss at the 2007 election Dolly left parliament and purely as a remarkable concurrence of events and circumstances obtained a highly paid consultancy with Woodside, the company responsible for exploiting the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea : they call it serendipity, but is that another word for corruption ?
Witness K, who had been part of the ASIS team engaged in bugging the Timor Leste government’s offices was evidently concerned about what had happened in Dili and whilst not a whistle blower, he took the ethical route and reported the events to his statutory watchdog – the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) – concerned about the legality of the operation. The Inspector-General agreed that Witness K’s evidence could be disclosed in any related legal proceedings.
2012 – 2013 The Timor Leste Government still not satisfied that the boundary issue had been resolved briefed lawyer Bernard Collaery (Collaery was a former Deputy Chief Minister and Attorney-General in the ACT legislative assembly) to represent its interests in relation to the Sunrise dispute. Witness K briefed him on his complaint to the Inspector-General covering disclosures he might make in any future legal proceedings.
The Timor Leste government took its concern about Australian surveillance and the commercial disadvantage it had suffered to the only available international forum, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. It declared that it wished to withdraw from existing treaty commitments, citing the surveillance activity as evidence of Australia’s bad faith in the conduct of the preceding negotiations as to the maritime boundary.
The Timor Leste Government decided to call Witness K to strengthen its argument at Court. However, the Australian Government acted quickly to cancel K’s passport to prevent him from leaving the country and providing his evidence and ASIO officers raided both Witness K’s and Collaery’s homes and offices and removed computers and documents including an early draft of Witness K’s affidavit on the surveillance of East Timorese Cabinet deliberations, together with Collaery’s legal advice as to Timor Leste’s entitlements and suggested legal arguments to support their claims.
The former ASIS officer Witness K was supposed to give evidence at the permanent court of arbitration in the Hague, but was unable to leave Australia because his passport had been seized in 2012 (it was later returned on appeal).
2017 Finally, in September of 2017 the dispute over Timor Sea oil and gas revenues that has been depicted as a David and Goliath struggle was settled after conciliation proceedings in the Permanent Court of Arbitration sitting in Copenhagen, and a deal that satisfied both parties was finally achieved.
2018 But that was not to be the end of the matter. In June 2018 the commonwealth director of public prosecutions laid criminal charges against Witness K and Collaery for conspiring to breach section 39 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001. Under this Act, it is prohibited to even reveal instances in which ASIS breaks the law.
There were clearly grudges held by the Liberal Party and they were out to show that they would not be snubbed. So, it seems that the minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton (the man who would be our prime minister today had not Scomo come through like Steven Bradbury when other contestants had fallen by the wayside), referred the matter to then to Attorney General George Brandis to go after the messengers, Collaery and Witness K. Brandis put the thing in his bottom draw and as the matter could not proceed without his approval, as the chief law officer in the land, nothing further happened. However, as soon as he had vacated the position of AG to take up the role of our man in London – coincidentally, taking over from our old mate Dolly – the question of shooting the messengers was again raised with the incoming AG, Christian Porter who had no problems in approving the prosecutions.
Perhaps one of the most chilling aspects of this whole affair was when reporters asked Porter why the real perpetrators of this squalid act were not being prosecuted. He gazed into the distance and replied, in an act of wilful ignorance, that he did not understand the question. “I am not the prosecutor, nor is the government the prosecutor,” Porter said. “I am not the judge nor the jury in this matter, and nor is the government.”
So, these two men of good conscience are to be prosecuted for bringing to the notice of the authorities and the Australian people that an act of debased political infamy and overreach had been committed in what amounts to international commercial espionage far worse than the Watergate revelations that brought down an American president. This has the imprimatur of our minister for Home Affairs all over it and like a Queensland copper gone rogue he is letting us know that he will not tolerate troublemakers.
At the present the matter is before the ACT magistrates court where Witness K and Collaery were charged with conspiring to share information covered by section 39 of the Intelligence Services Act, covering secrecy and the unauthorised communication of information. The charges could see each man spend up to two years in jail.
Much of the case is shrouded in secrecy, and both Witness K and Collaery have been served with a national security order preventing them from discussing the case or court proceedings. Whilst the preliminary hearing was open to the public, the Federal Attorney-General is expected to request that much of the evidence be heard in secret.
Welcome to the Brave New World of Australia in 2018 where the rule of law is used to cover up wrong-doing, keep us in our places and protect those in power !
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Remember how, back in April 2016 then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull breathlessly announced that all 12 of Australia’s next fleet of submarines would be built in Adelaide from Australian steel, with France winning the hard-fought global race for the $50 billion contract – and shutting out the Japanese to whom Tony Abbott had already given a wink and a nod?
It was, of course, all part of a political game for Malcolm to cement his position as our newly minted PM and on 8 May, judging the political climate to favour him, he announced that he had visited the Governor-General, who had agreed to a request for a double dissolution of both houses of our parliament for an election to be held on July 2 2016. His rationale, you may recall, for calling a Double Dissolution election was that his legislative program was being hampered by a recalcitrant Senate: well, that didn’t work out too well did it?
Now we learn that the hastily crafted French contract hasn’t actually been signed and Defence Minister Chrissy Pyne this week spat the dummy and won’t even talk to or meet the visiting French delegation. It’s taking on the characteristics of a Monty Python sketch and we can probably expect the French to respond to Pyne with a classic French insult along the lines of :
“I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal-food-trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”
Be that as it may, the ABC have reported – News Corp seems to have missed it again – that :
“The Government has grown so frustrated with the French company selected to build Australia’s next fleet of submarines that Defence Minister Christopher Pyne refused to meet top officials visiting the country this week.”
Naval Group was selected in 2016 to build 12 submarines for the Australian Navy, in the country’s largest-ever defence contract worth $50 billion.
The ABC understands Mr Pyne will only meet the chief executive of the majority French state-owned company once a crucial document, the strategic partnering agreement (SPA), has been signed.
Negotiations on that document have stalled and it is feared they may not be resolved before next year’s federal election.
Defence and industry figures have told the ABC that France and Australia will not be ready before 2019 to sign the document, which is needed before detailed design contracts can be finalised, and submarine construction begins. Defence Minister Christopher Pyne pulls a face as he listens in the House of Representatives
Sources familiar with the process say a goal to sign the vital SPA during a visit to Adelaide this week by French Minister Florence Parly has slipped off course, with fundamental differences that may not be reconciled before early next year.
Concerns over warranties and technology transfer are believed to be the main sticking points in the tough negotiations between the Australian Commonwealth and French-owned Naval Group.
The knock-on effects of delay on the SPA, which covers the guiding terms and conditions that govern the submarine program, and the likelihood of a federal election being called in the first quarter of next year threatens to create a “perfect storm” of uncertainty, with some risk that it could ultimately sink the French project entirely.”
It is worth remembering that the first of these submarines is not due to come into service until 2030 and that’s only if everything goes to schedule.
I’m thinking that it may well be appropriate to start preparing an apology now for delivery to our children and grandchildren for a political decision made in 2016 to save a prime minister’s scalp – who has since been decapitated by his own colleagues – and for which they will have to pay.
Out of a habit that dates back to 1964, I still trot along to the local newsagent each Saturday morning to get my copy of The Weekend Australian. Over the years in several overseas postings I would have to wait until Monday morning to get my copy after it had been air-freighted to its destination at great additional cost : I remember a newspaper vendor in Singapore being very annoyed that there were so many newspapers in Australia that she was obliged to stock, one for every state capital and a couple of extra thrown in for good measure.
Nowadays The Australian and TheWeekend Australian seem to have lurched to the Right as I seem to have been dragged to the Centre although I’m still a little confused about Right and Left .
Anyhow, here are a couple of snippets that I picked up on today over a espresso and a piece of carrot cake.
We’ve been reading and hearing recently that Peter Dutton appears to have a penchant for admitting au pairs [defined as :a young foreign person, typically a female, who helps with housework or childcare in exchange for food, a room, and some pocketmoney.] into Australia even though they arrive with the wrong visa and with the stated intention of working for one of Dutton’s mates. In an idle moment I wondered why Mr Dutton didn’t extend his broad discretion to gardeners or dog-walkers or other such useful bods. Well, Matthew Denholm in the Oz has a breathless and exclusive exposé that seems to explain it all.
It appears that the well heeled families in the leafy suburbs of our inner cities have worked out that despite the massive subsidies that taxpayers give to child-care centres such as those operated by Mr Dutton and his family it’s still a costly exercise to plant their offspring in long daycare and it can be much cheaper to bring in a young foreign person ideally from Europe and it just requires a phone call to Pete (old mate, long time no see !) to facilitate this.
According to the Oz, long day care [8am to 6pm] runs in at about $125 a day per child or $1250 for a five day week pour les deux enfant. Whereas, you can pay an au pair around $300 a week plus bed and board (evidently the don’t each much and can get by on a croissant and lentils on alternate days) and you get the kids looked after, they learn a European language, the beds are made, the dog walked and dishwasher emptied. The main drawback is that they do seem to attract young males so it pays to keep the hose handy but otherwise, an absolute snip and you don’t even have to join the Liberal party, but a donation is always welcomed.
Other columnists are saying that Morrison must seize his mandate and resist any pressure to go to an early election and he must focus on his agenda : anything wrong with that statement ?
Another snippet from The Weekend Australian is in a weekly opinion piece from that well known humorist and raconteur, Gerard Henderson who is busily rewriting history for us : he tells us when talking about the many failings of Malcolm Turnbull – a man he held in great esteem just two weeks ago – that Shorten and Labor had successfully framed Turnbull as a multi-millionaire who lived in a harbourside mansion and was out of touch with average Australians and that this contributed to Malcolm’s demise. Gerard has a track record of inexactitudes, indeed David Marr has to make a cameo appearance on Insiders periodically just to keep Gerry on the straight and narrow.
Of course,as we all recall, it was former Abbott minder Peta [don’t call me Pete !] Credlin who coined the term Mr Harbourside Mansion for Turnbull, nothing to do with Labor.
Have a good weekend !
PS :If you have been concerned about my use of French words in this oeuvre and you think I am being pretentious twit, all I can say is : pretentious ? moi ? absolumentpas !
I’m slightly suspicious about the motivation for a year 4 student to make an issue of not standing or singing Advance Australia Fair at school assembly. Her main objection, or that of her parents, appears to be that the national anthem “completely disregards Indigenous Australians.” She said “when it says ‘we are young’ it completely disregards the Indigenous Australians who were here before us for over 50,000 years.When it was originally written, Advance Australia Fair meant advance the white people of Australia.”
The Year 4 student said the decision to take a stand was made “mostly” by herself but the subject had been discussed with her parents. Piffle ! I would suggest that her parents had a lot to do with this and that they provoked the school into giving her lunch time detention on Friday for her protest.
The school has noted that it already provides alternatives for students other than attending assembly and singing the national anthem based on sincerely held conscientious objections. Several religions object to saluting a national flag, singing a national anthem or other such demonstrations of nationalism ; notably the Jehovah Witnesses. It seems that the school were quite prepared to excuse a child from assembly based on conscientious grounds and that a polite letter from the parents to the Head would have facilitated this without the national media hoo-hah that inevitably followed her public protest.
Whether the song itself is suitable is a moot point and many of us would agree that Advance Australia Fair as a national song is a shocker but at least the original lyrics were changed before it was officially adopted in 1974 by the Whitlam government : incidentally, Whitlam was sacked by Sir John Kerr the following year – coincidence ? – I don’t think so !
Did you know, for instance, that the second verse was originally :
When gallant Cook from Albion sailed, To trace wide oceans o’er, True British courage bore him on, Til he landed on our shore. Then here he raised Old England’s flag, The standard of the brave; “With all her faults we love her still” “Britannia rules the wave.” In joyful strains then let us sing Advance Australia fair.
Good grief ! That’s enough to get up the nose of any year 4 student and could probably raise the ire of toddlers across the nation.
An then you have this:
For those who’ve come across the seas We’ve boundless plains to share
Well, not quite, but you can see the problem, how can you get this to scan :
For those who’ve come across the seas – We’ll lock ’em up on Manus !
The whole thing is an absolute shemozzle but I note that the NRL have compromised with their players and before any grand-final they substitute the official lyrics with rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb sung in a mumbling sotto voce and whilst that may be a solution for the footie, I don’t think you can apply it satisfactorily to school assemblies.
Definitely, we need to change this national anthem to something more acceptable to our primary students and to the kindergartens of Australia who are after all incubating the future citizens of this nation.
We demand another postal plebiscite, Scott Morrison and we’ll stamp our feet and hold our breath until we get one !
Personally I’m voting with Men at Work :
I come from a land down under Where beer does flow and men chunder Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover, yeah.
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If you were to believe the spin coming from the department of Home Affairs [a division of Dutton’s Ministry for Deception] you would have to believe that the asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru have adapted well to their new island home and that in no sense are they detained or restrained. Indeed, according to Dutton, they can walk freely around the island – it takes about ten minutes – whenever they like. They do, however, have to watch out for flying rocks thrown by locals but, what the hell, I hear that’s a problem for diners in Lygon Street Melbourne also.
We are told that on Nauru they have been getting jobs, some have opened restaurants and corner shops and all the kids are going to school everyday and absolutely loving their new life .
Those who have been living in tents for the past five years, are in fact camping out we are assured and on Nauru everything is hunky-dory and minister Dutton has done an amazing job and should really be prime minister in recognition of his endeavours, but let’s not go into that.
But, then we hear that during the Pacific Islands Forum currently underway on Nauru that a journalist from TV New Zealand – the ABC were banned – Barbara Dreaver had been apprehended by Nauru police because she was caught speaking to asylum seekers who evidently were out for their ten-minute walk. Ms Dreaver said she was detained for four hours and her phone was confiscated. She was later told that she had breached her visitors’ visa which only allowed her to report on the forum and not to talk to anybody else or engage in any other form of journalism.
Had she been in Australia and had a mate she could have sought ministerial intervention over her visa. It would only take a quick phone call to the minister for her to gain permission to undertake any activities that took her fancy including those of an au-pair or nanny, but no such freedoms existed on Nauru.
Then we hear that, the week before the Pacific Islands Forum asylum seekers were moved out of the detention centre and the mouldy, unhygienic tents were demolished : the tents at regional processing centre 3 (RPC-3) were erected five years ago, and at least 100 people have continued to live in them since the facility was opened in 2015.
Sources on Nauru say that contractors for Australian Border Force were seeking to ensure there were no asylum seekers and certainly no children living in tents behind the camp fences when foreign leaders and visitors arrived. Previous requests from families to be re-housed have repeatedly and consistently been ignored.
One observer on the island said “If it was right for people to live in mouldy, dirty, insecure tents for five years, why is ABF [Australian Border Force] so fearful to show it and be proud of itself? Why do they abolish the hell they made and hide it?”
In June a third asylum seeker or refugee died by suicide on Nauru, and comes only three weeks after a Rohingya refugee on Manus Island killed himself.
Twelve people have died from injuries or illness sustained in offshore processing centres since the facilities were reopened in late 2012.
A spokesman for Australian Border force said: “the department is aware of the death in Nauru today, 15 June 2018. Further enquiries should be referred to Nauruan authorities”. Nauruan authorities advised that : “it is Australia’s responsibility, it happened in their camp”.
The apparent confusion over who is responsible for those detained on Nauru (and Manus) has been carefully and intentionally nurtured by Peter Dutton to the extent that even today the Nauru government are being blamed for defying an Australian court order and blocking the medical evacuation of a refugee requiring urgent treatment for post-traumatic stress and a major depressive order. This is despite the Australian Federal Court finding that the failure to transfer the woman left Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and the Australian government in breach of court orders previously made.
There is something seriously wrong on Nauru and the Department for Home Affairs and despite there being no effective rule of law on the island we can anticipate that once these people have been released and settled in a third country we will face a massive class action for unlawful detention – as was the case with the Manus detainees that cost the Australian taxpayer seventy million dollars in damages plus costs – and further payouts probably well after Dutton is just a nasty memory and a stain on our body politic.
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.” – Mark Twain
Among the disturbing things about conservatives is their constant push to cut taxes with the inevitable and wholly foreseeable result of reducing community services which the conservatives say can be passed over to the private sector should they see a profit in taking them over. These warriors for private enterprise frequently confuse the rest of us with their disdain for universal healthcare but their insistence that private health insurance companies receive massive public subsidies, their dislike for publicly funded education and their demand that private education facilities be substantially funded from the public purse, their dislike of public broadcasting while they quietly slip millions of public money into the pocket of a US based mogul. They are also obsessed about cheaper electricity but have no energy policy, don’t like renewable alternatives and they will not talk about climate change yet bemoan the impact of drought. And it seems they are still annoyed with Malcolm Turnbull for allowing a marriage equality plebiscite (despite it being the brainchild of Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton). So, why did they get rid of Malcolm ? Because he was Malcolm.
Part of their ideology is sometimes that small government is a panacea to all of our woes and they rush headlong into cutting taxes but fail to acknowledge that the taxes we pay at local, state and commonwealth levels are part of our social fabric : we understand and expect that we will receive in return for our taxes services in the form of national infrastructure, education and health services and that’s why we don’t object to reasonable levels of taxation.
Did you note that the only policies that Peter Dutton was able to offer us in his quest to become our leader was a cut to the GST on electricity. What he doesn’t seem to acknowledge is that GST is a tax collected by the commonwealth on behalf of the states. It is not meant to be a punitive measure, it is part of the necessary imposition that we accept as part of the social contract to ensure our community services are retained and enhanced. The states have very few means of collecting revenues as most have been subsumed by the commonwealth over time and whilst it may be popular to selectively cut GST to favour particular constituencies the inevitable result is less in the way of state services.
The other rather odd thing that Dutton promised was a cut in immigration, this coming from a man who has been our titular immigration minister for the past five years : it was his job to oversee the national immigration program and come up with policies that were appropriate to the nation’s growth and in line with our capacity to provide the necessary infrastructure to accommodate our growing population. Instead, he uses immigration as a dogwhistle !
Whilst on Dutton, you may recall that his part ownership of child minding centres through a trust was questioned relative to our constitution which, by section 44 (v) precludes a person from sitting in our parliament if they have an agreement whereby they receive any benefit directly or indirectly from the commonwealth : in other words a conflict of interests. In a hasty opinion put together by the Solicitor General Stephen Donaghue he states that Dutton is “not incapable” of sitting as a member of our parliament, but that there is still “some risk” the high court might find he has a conflict of interests : not a ringing endorsement !
The Solicitor General in noting that there is “some risk” that the high court might find Dutton has a conflict of interests is in part due to the “substantial size of the payments” from the commonwealth in the form of subsidies to the childcare centres. He said it “is impossible to state the position with certainty” on Dutton’s eligibility as he had “been briefed with very little factual information.” Have a look here.
From July of this year there were significant changes to the child care subsidy arrangements including the payment of these subsidies directly to child care providers rather than to parents – I can see no record in Hansard of Dutton abstaining from the parliamentary vote on this legislative change considering his obvious and apparent conflict of interests. I again refer you to the observation by the Solicitor General concerning the substantial size of the payments from the commonwealth to the Dutton child care centres.
It now seems that Dutton will get another cabinet position under the brand new Morrison government and whilst these positions have not at time of writing been revealed, it has been hinted that Dutton will return to Home Affairs and yet his eligibility to sit in our parliament remains untested by the high court : why is that ?
If Dutton does return to the cabinet what does that say about cabinet loyalty and the chaos he brought about in our parliament and the damage to our reputation internationally as a stable democratic nation. Is that all forgiven so easily ? Remember it was he and Abbott who sought to bring down the prime minister of Australia and they are not above doing it again when it suits them.
This conservative quest for cutting taxes and resultant lower revenues to government was brought home to me recently, when our local council advised that an important road bridge [built originally in 1932] would not be maintained and would be closed to public access and when funds permitted, demolished. When there was a public outcry they could only say that austerity at all levels of government meant that there was no longer money available from state or federal sources to look after this type of infrastructure, and of course private enterprise was not interested as it was not a profit generating asset : so the community loses an amenity at the altar of conservatism !
Ironically, this bridge was built in 1932 as a government funded project to provide economic stimulus and work for those unemployed as a result of the global depression prevailing at that time.
I only mention this because, as we see government revenues diminished well into the future as income and other taxes are reduced we will hear from the conservatives that they no longer have the funds for social infrastructure and, confusingly, they will tell us that Labor is all about increasing taxes.
Nothing it seems has changed !
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The National Energy Guarantee (NEG) we are told is all about bringing down the electricity prices paid by consumers whilst at the same time paying lip service to reduce our CO2 emissions. This latter objective is a little bit Ho-Hum as our prime minister is currently going to extreme lengths to appease the climate change deniers (and hold on to his job) and is likely to drop emission reduction targets altogether in the next few days, so for the moment let’s focus on bringing down prices.
It is electorally popular to have a policy of reducing household energy prices, the government have come out boldly and told us that with their NEG we can expect that the average household to start saving $550 a year on their electricity bills commencing 2020 and each year thereafter. But that headline-grabbing number won’t appear in any legislation neither will it feature as part of the ‘guarantee’. Indeed, only $140 of that saving is loosely linked to the NEG, the other $400 has got to come from somewhere else but it’s not clear where.
What the government are quite happy to sweep under the rug at the moment is the very sensible recommendation of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (the ACCC) who have said that electricity pricing should be transparent at the point of sale. What the ACCC are proposing is that we strip electricity pricing of the mystique that free market competition has brought to it. Their recommendation is to abolish standard retail contracts from big electricity retailers and replace them with “default market offers” set by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). The regulator would be given the power to set the maximum price for the default offer in each state or territory, a form of price regulation imposing a price cap for consumers. The price set by the AER would represent the efficient cost of supply in a given region, including a “reasonable margin” for retailers from which they could discount should they wish to do so. Designated retailers would be required to supply electricity to consumers at the default price on request, or in circumstances where the consumer has not taken up a market offer. The default offer would contain simple pricing transparency for easy comparison purposes and would include minimum payment periods, optional paper bills (at no extra cost) and access to bill smoothing (spreading your estimated yearly energy costs over regular monthly installments : for example, if you estimate your annual outlays at say $1200 but with the concentration being during the winter [or summer depending on which end of the country you live] you will be able to pay at a pre-agreed rate of say $100 a month.)
This recommendation by the ACCC is simple and straightforward and will we are told bring down household energy costs and bring much-needed transparency to an industry that has thrived on obfuscation and the ability to gouge customers by intentionally making their pricing regimes obscure, unclear and unintelligible.
Toquote the ACCC, their recommendation on default pricing would have the effect of:
Moving average residential customers who are still on the range of current ‘standing’ offers to the new ‘default’ offer could result in savings of $500 to $750 per annum (25-35 per cent). Similarly, small and medium businesses could save $1450-$2250 (30-35 per cent) per year by moving to a standard ‘default’ offer. Currently over 20 per cent of small businesses are on high ‘standing’ offers.
Whilst Labor have embraced the ACCC recommendations, the coalition have been less than enthusiastic with some on the far right of the coalition comparing this form of price transparency to rampant socialism.
At a time when our prime minister is poised to be unceremoniously dumped by a rabid right-wing mob led by Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce, like a bunch of extras from the Living Dead, salivating at the prospect of tearing down Turnbull and installing a potato in his stead – it is suggested that he will bypass the recommendations of the ACCC just to appease these knuckle-draggers. For us, the consumers, it is critical that we force the government to focus on and to adopt this eminently sensible recommendation from the ACCC.
Thefull ACCC report is hereand the recommendation in question is under Chapter 12 Recommendation 30.
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Unless you have been hiding under your doona for the last week and singing la la la, with your fingers in your ears, you could not help but be aware of the odd happenings in the life of Labor parliamentarian Emma Husar.
Our own version of Lois lane [Alice Workman at BuzzFeed] has been on the case for us just so that you don’t miss anything that is likely to titillate you over your cornflakes. But it was these breathless revelations that got me intrigued and I had to have a closer look into this matter [that wasn’t intended to be a pun but, you decide]. One of the allegations against our Emma was that :
“It is alleged that you and [redacted] attended Mr Jason Clare’s office at Parliament. Mr Clare was sitting on the floor playing with his son. [Redacted] alleged that he was sitting opposite you and that on three occasions you spread your legs, revealing that you were not wearing any underwear. [Redacted] felt that your conduct was deliberate, proactive and targeted towards Mr Clare.”
Another allegation possibly from a distressed male staff member was that ‘Husar had her right breast against his left shoulder and arm for about 10–15 seconds. On another occasion in September, he alleged Husar rested her right breast on his arm’.
How on earth are you expected to respond to allegations of that sort beyond perhaps observing that she is clearly not favouring one breast over the other – no workplace discrimination there !!
The media really piled on when video was taken of one of Husar’s staffers walking her dog and horror of horrors picking up after the dog ; can you imagine how they would have reacted had the staffer not picked up ?
These allegations, and others have been leveled against Ms Husar and submitted to her for comment by barrister John Whelan who has been commissioned by the NSW Labor party to look into these matters. Whelan is an experienced professional in dispute resolution. The questions he was asking of her were based on numerous allegations made against Husar by former staffers and other well-wishers.You can read more about them here : Labor MP Emma Husar Is Accused Of Sexual Harassment And Diverting Thousands Of Dollars Into Her Personal Bank Account
According to BuzzFeed Over 200,000 words of evidence have been given by at least 20 witnesses in the Whelan investigation so far ‘and nearly all the witnesses have given evidence anonymously’, evidently out of fear of repercussions from the powerful Right faction of the NSW Labor party.
Wait a minute, anonymous allegations, how can that be ? How can an individual be expected to respond to often salacious allegations of misconduct when the accuser refuses to be identified ? If BuzzFeed is correct and ‘nearly all ‘ of these allegations of wrongdoing are coming from anonymous sources, the person against whom the allegations are being made (Husar) is surely at an immediate disadvantage by being prevented from adequately examining his or her accusers, and fundamental natural justice is denied.
This confidential questionnaire from investigator Whelan to Husar appears to have been leaked to the media and you have to wonder if some of these anonymous accusers are supplying the media feed. Husar is expected to respond to these allegations within days and we can only hope that her responses will not be leaked by a well-wisher before the investigation is concluded.
Cutting through the salacious aspects of this issue it seems clear that it is factionally fuelled within the NSW Labor party with lots of side-line barracking and encouragement from the Liberal party who seem to be trying to link this to their kill Bill campaign. It appears that no matter what, the future of Husar as an effective member for her electorate on Lindsay has forever been tarnished and yet again we see the risks that people, in particular women, take when they aspire to public office.
The increase to the Farm Household Allowance (FHA) announced by the prime minister over the weekend is welcomed in rural and regional areas where farm incomes have been smashed by the ongoing drought.
At the present, the FHA allows families to access a payment equivalent to the unemployment benefit, worth about $16,000 a year. This will increase by $12,000 as an additional lump sum available to families (with $7,200 for single households).
Significantly, the government has also lifted the threshold for means testing of family farm assets – land, buildings, machinery, vehicles etc. – from $2.5million to $5million.
The FHA is, as the name implies, a living allowance, to put bread on the table, pay for electricity, school fees, insurance and other living expenses. It is not designed to cover on-farm operating expenses like freight and feed as these are separately covered by other programs as part of the overall government spending on drought measures totalling $576 million.
These measures are applauded as are the mental health and financial counselling services being offered by the government but it is worth raising a couple of points and inconsistencies in government thinking when it comes to entitlements.
Anybody on an age pension is aware of the constant push by some conservative politicians to include the family home in the asset means-test for the aged pension. The argument being that these folk are in some cases asset rich because of the value of their family home and thus they should forfeit their entitlement to an aged pension. If the same rationale were applied to farmers the argument becomes a nonsense as farmers need their assets to perform their business functions and why should they sell assets to obtain a government benefit – just as, it could be argued, why should a pensioner be forced to sell the family home to qualify for an aged-pension.
It’s also interesting to note that the Family Household Allowance has historically been linked to the national unemployment benefit yet, the government appears to be acknowledging that this benefit is insufficient to live on and thus, in rural and regional situations, needs to be supplemented by an additional annual payment of $12,000 ; but not so for those unemployed in the wider community, why is that ?
I don’t begrudge rural families getting access to government funding in times of dire need but I am concerned about those who are struggling to get by on the dole who will not get a leg-up or pensioners who are constantly targeted as rorters because they want to access their entitlement to an aged pension and live out their days in the family home.
It’s about consistency and equality and probably the ability to lobby ; the squeaky-wheel principle, some would say.
Let’s just hope that for some it rains soon and, for others, that the sun continues to shine!
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I had started to put together an article showing how Greg Hunt, in his insistence that the My Health legislation would not allow the police and others to access our private healthcare records without a court order, was wrong. Fortunately the AMA and other concerned bodies have brought the minister to his senses and he has finally acknowledged that the legislation as it stands does not require a court order for our personal records to be accessed and he has promised to introduce legislation to amend the act.
The worrying thing is that it took so much effort to demonstrate to Hunt that he was wrong and even then, he blamed it on Labor.
Greg Hunt and the Australian Digital Health Agency have repeatedly said that “no documents will be released without a court order” but the claim had been contradicted by the parliamentary library and now then the Queensland Police Union.
To be clear the legislation says that :
Section 70 Disclosure for law enforcement purposes, etc.
(1) The System Operator is authorised to use or disclose health information included in a healthcare recipient’s My Health Record if the System Operator reasonably believes that the use or disclosure is reasonably necessary for one or more of the following things done by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body:
(a) the prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of criminal offences, breaches of a law imposing a penalty or sanction or breaches of a prescribed law;
(b) the enforcement of laws relating to the confiscation of the proceeds of crime;
(c) the protection of the public revenue;
(d) the prevention, detection, investigation or remedying of seriously improper conduct or prescribed conduct;
(e) the preparation for, or conduct of, proceedings before any court or tribunal, or implementation of the orders of a court or tribunal.
The act defines the System Operator as :
(1) The System Operator is:
(a) the Secretary of the Department; or
(b) if a body established by a law of the Commonwealth is prescribed by the regulations to be the System Operator—that body.
So, before I went to print, the minister conceded what was obvious to all bar him : it should not have taken so much effort to get him to read the act that he administers and yes, minister, it was an ALP piece of legislation to which the coalition subscribed. But that’s not the point !
Malcolm Turnbull declared that the by-election in Longman was a test of leadership between himself and Bill Shorten …
He went on to tell ABC Brisbane radio that the contest was not just between candidates Trevor Ruthenberg and Susan Lamb, “It’s a test of the parties, but it’s really about the people of Longman deciding whether they want to vote for Bill Shorten and his higher taxes, fewer jobs, lower wages and less economic growth:
“The contest is between me and Bill Shorten as the prime minister and the opposition leader,” Mr Turnbull said.
Turnbull now has a very difficult decision to make: whether to resign as leader of the Liberal party or leaves it to a party room challenge from a reinvigorated right-wing who cannot wait to claim his scalp.
The result in Longman (and Braddon, and Perth, and Fremantle and Mayo) is a repudiation of Turnbull and the Liberal party who have thrown everything at Shorten over recent weeks and vastly outspent the Labor party. As prime minister, having put his leadership squarely on the line, his position as leader is now untenable and if he places his future in the hands of his colleagues we can expect him to be dumped and that will give us Peter Dutton and the Abbott rabble followed closely and inevitably by the demise of the Liberal party.
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Super Saturday is largely about dual-citizenship and the Labor party. Why do you think that is, why are no Liberal politicians being challenged over their citizenship ? Well, clearly that is a rhetorical question as we all know that Liberal parliamentarians are chosen form on-high : born to rule dont’cha know.
Lucy Gichuhi, the Kenyan senator is however an interesting case study having originally been elected to represent Family First and then been encouraged to jump ship to the Liberals who, through their SA branch pre-selection process have now given her the potentially unwinnable fourth place on their Senate ticket.
Whilst Turnbull came out strongly to support Ann Sudmalis, representing the Division of Gilmore in New South Wales, who was also being challenged for pre-selection, he has been noticeably silent when it comes to Gichuhi which is quite surprising when you consider that she brings to the Liberals two things they lack : ethnic diversity and that she is a woman.
Perhaps the answer lies in the ongoing dual-citizenship debacle. Gichuhi considers that she automatically lost her Kenyan citizenship when she became an Australian citizen in 2001. However, it seems that in this she may have been mistaken following comments recently from the University of Nairobi professor Edwin Abuya, a constitutional expert who says Gichuhi should have formally applied to Kenya’s nationality affairs minister to renounce her Kenyan citizenship when seeking sole Australian citizenship.
Simon Birmingham tried to muddy the waters by saying that the high court had deemed Gichuhi as eligible to replace Bob Day as a South Australian senator in the federal parliament when the Family First senator resigned after a constitutional breach concerning the lease of his Adelaide office. Certainly the high court were satisfied that Gichuhi had been properly chosen to enter the senate but they were not asked to make a determination on her citizenship and the high court only ever answers the questions they are asked and Turnbull doesn’t want this question asked.
When the SA Branch of the Liberal party gave Gichuhi the fourth and potentially unwinnable position on their senate ticket for the next election you could have anticipated that Turnbull would come out strongly to support her but that has not been the case. It now seems that the possibility of another dual citizenship debacle is too great a price to pay for the Liberal party, evidently outweighing the much needed diversity she brings to a party who desperately need representation from people of her gender and ethnicity.
Personally I believe that Lucy Gichuhi has much more to offer our parliament and the Liberal party than the likes of Georgina Downer but it doesn’t seem that the SA branch of the Liberal party see it that way and Turnbull will not discuss dual citizenship anymore : he’s moved on.
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Longman is a federal electorate in Brisbane’s north held since the 2016 election by Susan Lamb for Labor. Lamb was born in Mackay, Queensland of a British father and Queensland born mother. Her own legal advice confirmed that she obtained British citizenship by descent at birth. So, she applied to renounce her British citizenship before nominations for the 2016 election closed, but she did not enclose sufficient evidence of her British citizenship so her application to the UK Home Office to renounce British citizenship was rejected.
In a scenario reminiscent of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party she was told that before she could renounce British citizenship she first had to prove that she was a British citizen, which she couldn’t largely because she had never held a British passport or visited Britain. After the election, she provided some additional documents, but her application was still rejected as she couldn’t provide her parents’ Marriage Certificate – her mother was born in Queensland (in 1948), her father was born in Edinburgh in the UK (in 1945) so the need to prove that they were in fact married became a critical factor in establishing citizenship by descent : her father had passed and she had not had any contact with her mother since she was a child when her mother had left the marriage. She believed, in the circumstances, that she had taken all ‘reasonable steps’ to renounce a citizenship that she never really considered she had.
But constant haranguing from the government, in particular Christopher Pyne, forced her resignation and the by-election, now part of the Super Saturday by-elections to be held on 28 July; she will again stand for the Labor party. Pyne was jubilant when she resigned and considers his role in her demise to have been the highlight of his political career and for once he could be right.
So, what makes a by-election in this Brisbane seat so important? Well this seat together with Mayo (SA), Braddon (Tas), Fremantle (WA) and Perth (WA) were all held by Labor except Mayo which was Centre-Alliance and if they swing to the LNP it could be a trigger for Turnbull to go to an early federal election based on the rather spurious notion that the electorate are recognising the superior economic skills and popularity of this coalition government (and an endorsement of Turnbull’s tax cuts to all and sundry).
Normally the incumbent government would argue that a by-election is all about local issues and the local candidate but just the other dayTurnbull whilst visiting Longman said this:
“The … contest is between me and Bill Shorten as the prime minister and the opposition leader.”
Now, did he say that because he wanted to distance himself from the coalition candidate or was he capitalising on his so-called personal charisma with the electorate and Shorten’s lack of popularity?
Trevor John Ruthenberg is the coalition, LNP candidate having previously been part of the Queensland state government led by Campbell Newman. When Newman was sent packing by the people of Queensland in 2015, Ruthenberg lost his state seat of Kallungar (again, in Brisbane’s north) to Labor. Newman’s government were about as popular as a dose of herpes and Ruthenberg, some consider, is tainted by that association.
Ruthenberg had been in the Royal Australian Air Force and completed a trade as an airframe fitter. Prior to being elected, he was an Executive Officer to the Lutheran Church of Australia in Queensland. He had already worried Liberal party bosses when he allowed himself to be drawn into a debate on climate change and had refused to clarify whether he believes climate change is happening, after saying that he had a different “understanding of the science” when confronted about the link between burning coal and global warming. His position, of course, is in line with Liberal party policy and the dictates of the IPA but coalition policy is not to discuss the issue: he should have taken his lead from Georgina Downer who is contesting Mayo in South Australia for the Liberal party and who just pulls up the doona whenever climate change is mentioned.
Big Trev as he is evidently known had also caused a ripple when the Courier Mail reported that he had not won an Australian Service Medal as he had claimed on a website but rather an Australian Defence Medal, which is awarded to people who have completed at least four years of service. The Australian Service Medal to those in the know is an entirely different decoration to recognise prescribed service in peacekeeping and non-warlike operations, in such places as Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Bougainville etc. Whilst Ruthenberg has apologised for his ‘oversight’ some consider that any former service person would have had a clear understanding of the difference between the two decorations.
So, Longman is going to be interesting and for Turnbull pivotal. How the preference deal between One Nation and the Liberals and the robocall endorsement of Mark Latham for Pauline Hanson and her candidate will work out remains to be seen. In typical One Nation style their candidate, Matthew Stephen, comes with baggage and has had his Queensland Building and Construction Commission wall and floor tiling licence suspended seven times for not paying his fees or his creditors. His most recent suspension was for February and March this year, while Pauline Hanson’s party were in the process of vetting his suitability to run at the election.
Watch this space and see how the good folk in Longman formulate their vote.
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