Australian Council for International Development Media Release

Australia’s peak body for international humanitarian organisations welcomes the United Nations Security Council’s resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and release of all hostages as a crucial turning point in the war.

Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) CEO Marc Purcell said it marked a significant breakthrough despite the United States’ decision to abstain from voting.

“This passage of this binding resolution, following four failed attempts since the start of the war, shows global leaders are no longer willing to accept the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, many of them children, as collateral,” he said.

“The US’ decision to abstain is disappointing, particularly since it put forward its own failed proposal for a ceasefire just days ago. It is essential the US use its influence and relationship with Israel to obtain a permanent ceasefire.

“We are hopeful the passage of this resolution overnight marks a crucial turning point in the war that has killed nearly 32,000 civilians through bombing, starvation and dehydration.

“It is vital that both the state of Israel and militant groups immediately lay down arms to allow for the passage of humanitarian assistance, which is still being blocked from entry into Gaza, and the release of all hostages.”

ACFID is urging the Australian government to commit additional and ongoing funding for the humanitarian response in Gaza and the West bank, including for Australian non-government organisations providing lifesaving assistance.

Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA) Media Release

A Federal Parliamentary committee report into the perceptions and status of vocational education and training offers mixed outcomes for students, according to the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA), the peak body representing independent skills training, higher education, and international providers.

The report highlights the need to provide students with clearer information on their study options, something welcomed by ITECA.

“The recommendations that emphasise the need to provide students with a single, trusted source of information on education, training, and careers are welcomed by ITECA,” said Troy Williams, ITECA Chief Executive.

The nature of the report, which focuses on the public provision of skills training, will concern around nine in ten students who choose to study with an independent Registered Training Organisation (RTO). The report overlooks the significant positive role of independent RTOs across the nation and data from the National Centre for Vocational Education and Research (NCVER) highlights the significant role of independent RTOs:

• 89.4% of the 4.5 million student enrolments are with independent providers.
• 87.3% of students in remote, rural and regional Australia are with independent providers.
• 78.3% of Indigenous students are with independent providers.

“It’s unfortunate that the report overlooks the fact that when it comes to providing Australians with quality skills training, independent RTOs do the heavy lifting. They support most students across Australia, including those with higher level qualifications and more than half of apprentices and trainees,” Mr Williams said.

Many Australians looking to gain the skills to enter the workforce or reskill to help them get a better job would be left behind if the government takes up many of the report’s recommendations. ITECA believes that the reforms need to support students studying with both independent RTOs and public TAFE colleges.

“The report contains many recommendations that merit consideration but as these recommendations are not student-focussed, potentially millions of students will be left behind,” Mr Williams said.

“The report is largely silent on the role of independent RTOs with a commitment to quality, and this is alarming. In this respect, the reforms in the report look set to leave behind Indigenous students as well as students from remote, rural and remote Australia as the vast majority of these students study with independent RTOs,” Mr Williams said.

Although comprehensive, ITECA argues that the parliamentary committee’s report lacks a cohesive vision that would strengthen the skills training system.

“There was the opportunity for the parliamentary committee to recommend some landmark reforms that recognised the complementarity of independent RTOs and public TAFE colleges. That this opportunity has been overlooked means that many reforms that would have put students at the heart of the skills training system are possibly off the table,” Mr Williams said.

By James Moore

There are only 1500 people living in Brooklyn, Iowa, situated along the old transcontinental route of U.S. Highway 6 and north of Interstate 80, east of Des Moines. Calling itself a “community of flags,” Brooklyn does not have a profile that might suggest violent crime. Mollie Tibbetts certainly would have had no fear when she went out for a jog on the humid summer evening of July 18, 2018. The University of Iowa student and former cross country runner for her high school, she had been watching dogs while staying at her boyfriend’s brother’s house. Mollie Tibbetts did not return from her run.

Her body was not discovered until a month later in a nearby cornfield. She had been stabbed nine times, including once in the head, and was covered with cornstalks. A reward fund for information on her whereabouts had quickly grown to $400,000 but a surveillance video turned up evidence that led to an undocumented worker named Cristhian Bahena Rivera.

Prior to the arrest, Vice President Mike Pence met with Tibbetts’ family during an event in Des Moines and publicly said, “I just want Mollie’s family to know: You’re on the hearts of every American.” Pence was not publicly heard from subsequent to the discovery of Mollies’ body or the reporting that her killer had been in the country illegally and working on farms in Iowa.

Mollie Tibbetts

As her disappearance became a national story, Mollie Tibbetts’ family had to suffer her persona being dragged through the political grinder as a victim of a mismanaged border that enabled Rivera’s entry into the U.S. The Trump administration, determined to take advantage of the tragedy, saw a “political gold mine” in the young woman’s slaying. In fact, Trump incited a rally in West Virginia on immigration after learning Tibbetts’ killer was an undocumented worker. While he called national immigration laws a disgrace, he made no mention of crimes committed by his former campaign manager Paul Manafort or his political fixer Michael Cohen. Manafort had been convicted that day and Cohen had entered a guilty plea just hours earlier.

Even members of Tibbetts’ family pushed back against demonizing all immigrants through the actions of a few. Her aunt pointed out that “evil comes in all colors,” and even the libertarian Cato Institute resisted Republican efforts to make the victim’s life a touchstone for political goals on immigration. “This terrible murder is already feeding into a political firestorm,” the Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh wrote. “People with a political axe to grind, those who want to distract from the recent conviction of Paul Manafort and plea deal for Michael Cohen, want to convict all illegal immigrants of this murder in the court of public opinion, not just the actual murderer.”

Trump was not just distracting from the crimes of his administration that were reported that day, but he was seeking more public support for his border wall fantasy. Mexico’s refusal to pay for it and the resultant cost in billions for American taxpayers was a consistent reminder that, while in office, he was busily breaking another campaign promise regarding immigration. In fact, Trump’s hundreds of executive orders on the issue, according to the Migration Policy Institute, were not even remotely close to the impact he had predicted on immigration, and he was concluding his term of office with little to show as an accomplishment.

“But as the Trump tenure nears its end, analysis of immigration data shows that, despite public perception to the contrary, the administration’s policies have not led to a marked drop in the number of permanent immigrants, temporary foreign workers, international students, and those receiving asylum in the United States – at least not yet. In other words, with the exception of refugee admissions, there has not been a dramatic, across-the-board “Trump effect” attributable either to the administration’s policies or rhetoric on immigration levels.”

Out of office, the Trump party does not hesitate to continue turning tragedy to potential political leverage. The family of Laken Riley also regrets the way their daughter’s murder has been used to foment anger over the question of immigration. The 22-year-old nursing student, like Mollie Tibbetts, was out for a jog on campus when she was kidnapped and murdered by an undocumented immigrant. Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan who had entered the country illegally near El Paso, had a previous arrest record in New York City, and was also arrested in the Georgia murder through the use of surveillance video. Riley’s name, which has been attached to a 2024 immigration bill, has become another flashpoint on the issue as Trump’s followers use her as an example of Biden’s failures on the border. Her father, Jason Riley, told NBC that he regrets the posturing to help the Republicans.

“I think it’s being used politically to get those votes,” he said. “It makes me angry. I feel like, you know, they’re just using my daughter’s name for that. And she was much better than that, and she should be raised up for the person that she is. She was an angel.”

Laken Riley

Trump can hardly be expected to perceive his tsunami of hypocrisies and contradictions when nothing exists in his consciousness other than his putative greatness. His crimes, readily apparent to Americans, are, to him, persecutions. Immigrant crime is a horror, he argues; political crime does not exist other than in the form of witch hunts, which, history proves, sometimes find witches. Despite the great sadnesses of the Tibbetts and Riley murders and their stories being used as an immigration whipping post, there has never been any indication that migrant crime is worse than that of naturalized citizens. A study released last year by Ran Abramitzky and Stanford University reveals that first-generation immigrants are not more likely to be incarcerated for crimes than U.S. born citizens, and that has been the case for the past 140 years. In fact, they are 30 percent less likely to be imprisoned than American citizens, and when compared to often unfairly prosecuted Blacks, immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated.

“From Henry Cabot Lodge in the late 19th century to Donald Trump, anti-immigration politicians have repeatedly tried to link immigrants to crime, but our research confirms that this is a myth and not based on fact,” Abramitzky, the report’s author said.

Facts tend to have nothing to do with U.S. politics in 2024, however. When the current American president entered the congressional chambers to present his State of the Union message, he was confronted by a Georgia congresswoman wearing a Trump MAGA hat and a tee shirt bearing the command, “Say her name,” a reference to Laken Riley. There are continuing and fumbling attempts to place the blame for Riley’s death at the foot of the president and his policies. The accusers remain oblivious to the fatalities and sustaining harms done by Trump’s policies and his acolytes, who remember only those they consider worth recall. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who hopes to become head of Homeland Security if Trump is reelected, has yet to publicly speak the name of the soldiers or immigrants who have died as a result of his border circus known as Operation Lone Star.

A 20-year-old Texan, Specialist Demtrio Torres, used his service weapon to kill himself in October of 2022. The Texas Military Department took two days to release his name, and Abbott still has not spoken it, nor has he mentioned the four previous suicides, or any of the other accidental deaths. In fact, Abbott refused to even confirm that Torres was deployed to Operation Lone Star, undoubtedly hoping the public might assume he was on some other mission. A total of ten troops have died in the border fiasco and Abbott has offered them only anonymity, not honor. Five of the dead have turned their own hand against themselves and committed suicide. Troops are increasingly overcome with an open-ended deployment that leaves them with no clues as to when they will return to their families, jobs, and normal lives. Those five found another way to end their angst. Regardless, no state flags have ever been lowered to half staff nor has the governor made any graveside appearance to offer respect and comfort to families. Instead, he goes on social media and unabashedly blames President Biden for the death of Laken Riley.

Pfc. Joshua Cortez, meanwhile, was denied a waiver of his involuntary call up, which led to tragedy. Cortez had been offered what he described as a “lifetime job” with one of the nation’s largest insurance companies. According to the Army Times, his senior commander refused to relieve Cortez of his duty, and 36 hours later he was found dead inside of his car in a parking lot in Northwest San Antonio.

Pfc. Joshua Cortez

The first casualty was Sgt. Jose L. De Hoyos, discovered dead by self-inflicted gunshot wound in Laredo. He had been a member of the 949th Brigade Support Battalion’s headquarters company. First Sgt. John Crutcher, meanwhile, had been on a temporary hardship waiver to help his wife deal with a disabled brother who was in a wheelchair. She had undergone surgery and was incapacitated, and Crutcher was seeking an extension on his waiver until the household situation could be stabilized. Overcome when he, too, was denied, the top NCO for B Company, 3rd Battalion, 144th infantry, killed himself. One of the platoon leaders under Crutcher’s command, 1st Lieutenant Charles Williams, was on a pass a month later when his death at home was ruled a suicide. Four guard suicides occurred in an eight-week cluster.

First Sgt. John “Kenny” Crutcher

The other casualties happened when a soldier cleaning a gun had it accidentally discharge and kill a fellow guard member; there was a fatal motorcycle accident in Laredo, a blood clot that killed a service member after a long security posting in a record heat wave, and a drowning when Spc. Bishop Evans jumped into the Rio Grande to save two struggling immigrants. His death was largely a consequence of Abbott’s failure to provide the leadership to properly equip the people he has put at risk. Evans had no flotation device and can fairly be described as a victim of a hastily planned deployment and inexplicably delayed requisitions.

Guardsmen were supposed to be provided with ropes and ring buoys to save people in trouble, and themselves, but the equipment had been delayed and was not yet supplied when Evans, an artilleryman, jumped into the Rio Grande to save two lives. Instead, he drowned, and his body was not recovered until four days later downstream. According to the Army Times, the essential gear for water safety was not requested until 11 months after the launch of Operation Lone Star. Prior to the Evans tragedy, no flotation devices or water rescue training were offered to troops, even though they were put in a position of having to almost daily extract people from the Rio Grande.

Texas troops, however, are not the only souls lost to anonymous death as a consequence of the militarization of the Mexican frontier. Racial profiling by law enforcement along the border prompted high speed chases that killed at least 74 people and injured another 129 during a 29-month period. Just three months ago, Human Rights Watch, using Department of Public Safety Data, released a study that showed unnecessary vehicle chases increased by more than 1000 percent since the launch of Greg Abbott’s border exhibition. The study cited cases involving 7 bystanders becoming fatalities as law officers chased drivers for minor moving violations. One of the dead was 7-year-old Emilia Tambunga, who was with her grandmother, Maria, as they were going out for ice cream. A vehicle being pursued by a Crockett County Sheriff’s deputy ran a red light and rammed into them. Neither Trump nor Abbott have said her name because they either do not know it or do not care.

The situation is likely to get worse. The Abbott and Trump controlled Texas legislature passed a law to give state and local officers the power to arrest illegal immigrants. How to know if someone with brown skin is in the country without proper documents is not clear. Not being White and living on the border, which is more than 90 percent of the population, becomes an even greater liability. In some cases, however, migrants can be charged with felonies, and law enforcement can take them to the border for return to Mexico. The measure abridges the powers of the federal government and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which is empowered by the Constitution to manage immigration and border protection. A legal challenge to the Texas immigration law is being heard in a conservative federal court, and, even though it is abundantly clear Texas has superseded national law, the appeals court has a record of rulings that are compliant with radically conservative thinking. Mexico has said, however, it will not accept any immigrants back to its soil unless they are citizens of Mexico, which will certainly increase international tensions with America’s largest trading partner.

American politicians continue to create more problems than they solve.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

By Callen Sorensen Karklis

The election results of the local government elections are in. Some will be despairing on both the progressive and conservative sides in some key areas around the state, while others on each side will be content with the results. One thing despite it all is obvious: QLD Premier Steven Miles should be very worried about the October State Election! If he is to win re-election, he needs to do more to listen to the community. This comes after Labor loses its safest seat in Wynnum Manly ward which has never been non-Labor in 80 years on a local level and the state seat of Ipswich West.

In Brisbane the Greenslide didn’t quite occur just yet on a local level, but they did win two seats, gaining Paddington with Seal Chong Wah with 51% of the vote on TPP while Trina Massey held the Gabba easily at 61% of the vote, with a good showing in 5 BCC wards with potential to win a further three seats in Walter Taylor, Central, and Coorparoo wards at the 2028 BCC elections. The substantial swing to the Greens means they could give the state seats of Greenslopes, Miller, and Cooper a good go. The loss of the safe seat of Wynnum Manly ward in Brisbane’s southeast is a serious blow to the ALP. The LNP’s Alex Givney won the seat with 52% of the vote, helped by former Labor leader and Cr Peter Cumming’s retirement after his drink driving episode and Sara Whitmee not being known enough in the community upon her appointment, which created the perception of a left faction.

But the ALP has gained a win in the seat of Calamvale with the election of Emily Kim with 51% of the vote. The ALP also had swings to it in four wards: Runcorn, Northgate, Marchant, and Holland Park. It’s clear that if Labor and the Greens want to govern a future Brisbane City Council (the 5^th biggest government in Australia) they inevitably will have to govern together in a coalition like the ALP and Greens have done in Tasmania, and the ACT historically. They will both have to swallow the pill for the greater good. Together both could win back 15 seats if they campaigned on a shared policy platform that appeals to more voters.

Adrian Schrinner (LNP) has easily been re-elected with 56% of the vote compared to Labor’s Tracey Price on 44% on TPP and Jono Sri on 19% of the primary vote. The Greens policy platform on cost of living, housing crisis and Olympics issues served them well, while the LNP clearly benefited from a growing anti-Labor sentiment in the community tied to the state and federal sphere during tough economic times; a lesson for Labor. As the LNP looks likely to hold council for 24 years by 2028, which could generate a “It’s Time” factor by then.

In Ipswich the LNP’s Teresa Harding easily won re-election, particularly after the controversial former Labor Mayors in that city of the past decades. Despite this, Labor did secure a sizeable opposition there. Former Ipswich West MP Jim Madden won 32% of the vote. Jacob Madsen won 29.75%. And former ALP bloc Your Voice; controversial Paul Tully and Nicole Junic were easily re–elected in division 2 and controversial former Labor Mayor Andrew Antoniolli in division 3. The ALP did, however, win the Logan City Council Mayoral race with Jon Raven becoming Mayor with 55% on TPP while all the ALP’s existing three other Crs were re-elected. In Moreton City Council, Labor saw Jim Moloney easily win Mick Gillam’s seat, while LNP aligned Mayor Peter Flannery contested the Mayor of Moreton City Council.

Labor’s Dan Stewart in Gympie could be trouble. Labor has held Mackay easily while Townsville has seen the fall of Labor’s Jenny Hill from the top job with former One Nation member Troy Thompson securing 47% of the primary vote. Labor is likely to lose Mt Isa’s Danielle Slade to small business owner Peta Macrae. Labor has held on to Rockhampton with Tony Williams re-elected. On the Sunshine Coast Labor’s Taylor Bunnag secured 46% of the vote in a surprise win. It looks likely that former Seven News reporter Rosanna Natoli will win the Mayoralty on 27%, while the LNP’s Tom Tate has easily won re-lection, winning a 4^th term.

In Bundaberg, Independent Helen Blackburn defeated former LNP MP and Mayor Jack Dempsey with 58% of the vote, and in Redlands Jos Mitchell and Cairns Amy Eden, two Teal Mayors have won the vote. Eden, Mitchell, and Blackburn all campaigned on transparency, integrity, and cutting waste issues.

In Redlands it was a particularly toxic council election due to the antics of former controversial federal MP Andrew Laming running a smear campaign against Jos on the back of the LNP also endorsing unofficially Cindy Corrie for Mayor. Corrie worked for the former controversial LNP Mayor Karen Williams who infamously crashed her car into a tree and ditch drink driving. Laming attempted to label Jos as a Greens funded candidate despite pulling support from people from all parties and walks of life. Jos’ legal team were successful in challenging the misinformation with a supreme court injunction. Laming blitzed the electorate with signage and billboards reminiscent of Clive Palmer’s tactics to flood the electorate in advertising. Laming’s attempt to campaign on several state issues such as the hospital crisis, cost of living crisis, native title (after the failure of the Voice referendum) and youth crime detracted from what City Council can achieve which is roads, rates, and rubbish issues. This cost Laming greatly particularly as Jos Mitchell built an army of volunteers in community engagement at a grassroots level.

Jos’ success in turning the blue-collar working-class areas in Alexandra Hills, Capalaba, Redland Bay door knocking, leafleting the marinas for the bay islands, canvassing at shopping centres and train stations, and letterboxing everywhere paid off, while also articulating a simple message ensured a win. Jos didn’t allow coordinated smear campaigning to distract her from fake troll accounts and pages spreading misinformation, while bad press didn’t help Laming. As most thought a safe bet in voting for Jos and an ex-police officer and prosecutor were a safe bet rather than the antics of spent politician of 18 years with little to show for their time in office.

If Labor can coordinate a way forward for consultation with the community on the Olympics planning, the cost of living and housing crisis, the best it could hope for is potentially securing a hung parliament as its best option with the Greens securing supply or possibly the Katter’s in north QLD. But then again if it doesn’t there is a real risk the State LNP – lead by David Crisafulli – could secure power in late 2024 with a small majority if the Local Government elections can be used as an indicator for the next six months.

As of early March 2024, the LNP are polling on 51–54% on TPP compared to Labor’s 46–49% with the Greens on 12–13% with PHON at 7–8% with the real prospect of them picking up another seat as well riding off the back of the No vote in Qld in the Voice referendum in late 2023. What is clear to me is there has been a profound anti-establishment sentiment in the air and voters aren’t happy with both major parties.

References:

Antony Green (ABC’s chief election analyst) ABC News <https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/bcc/2024/results?filter=all&sort=az> accessed 21/03/2024

Australian Greens <https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=957667205726971&set=pb.100044511003150.-2207520000> accessed 22/03/2024

ECQ website Qld Local Government Results. <https://results.elections.qld.gov.au/2024QLGE> accessed 21/03/2024

Redlands Community News, Victory Parties Across the Southeast <https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=430907876259426&set=a.280446161305599> accessed 22/03/2024

Be wary of what Washington offers in negotiations at the best of times. The empire gives and takes when it can; the hegemon proffers and in equal measure and withdraws offers it deems fit. This is all well known to the legal team of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, who, the Wall Street Journal “exclusively” reveals, is in ongoing negotiations with US Justice Department officials on a possible plea deal.

As things stand, the US Department of Justice is determined to get its mitts on Assange on the dubious strength of 18 charges, 17 confected from the brutal Espionage Act of 1917. Any conviction from these charges risks a 175-year jail term, effectively constituting a death sentence for the Australian publisher.

The war time statute, which was intended to curb free speech and muzzle the press for the duration of the First World War, was assailed by Wisconsin Republican Senator Robert La Follette as a rotten device that impaired “the right of the people to discuss the war in all its phases.” It was exactly in time of war that the citizen “be more alert to the preservation of his right to control his government. He must be most watchful of the encroachment of the military upon the civil power.” And that encroachment is all the more pressing, given the Act’s repurposing as a weapon against leakers and publishers of national security material. In its most obscene incarnation, it has become the US government’s political spear against a non-US national who published US classified documents outside the United States.

The plea deal idea is not new. In August last year, the Sydney Morning Herald pounced upon comments from US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy that a “resolution” to the Assange imbroglio might be on the table. “There is a way to resolve it,” the ambassador suggested at the time. Any such resolution could involve a reduction of any charges in favour of a guilty plea, subject to finalisation by the Department of Justice. Her remarks were heavily caveated: this was more a matter for the DOJ than the State Department or any other agency. “So it’s not really a diplomatic issue, but I think there absolutely could be a resolution.”

The WSJ now reports that officials from the DOJ and Assange’s legal team “have had preliminary discussions in recent months about what a plea deal could look like to end the lengthy legal drama.” These talks “remain in flux” and “could fizzle.” Redundantly, the Journal reports that any such agreement “would require approval at the highest levels of the Justice Department.”

Barry Pollack, one of Assange’s legal representatives, has not been given any indication that the department would, as such, accept the deal, a point he reiterated to Consortium News: “[W]e have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case.”

One floated possibility would be a guilty plea on a charge of mishandling classified documents, which would be classed as a misdemeanour. Doing so would take some of the sting out of the indictment, which is currently thick with felonies and one conspiracy charge of computer intrusion. “Under the deal, Assange could potentially enter that plea remotely, without setting foot in the US.” Speculation from the paper follows. “The time he has spent behind bars in London would count toward any US sentence, and he would be likely to be free to leave prison shortly after any deal has concluded.”

With little basis for the claim, the report lightly declares that the failure of plea talks would not necessarily be a bad thing for Assange. He could still “be sent to the US for trial”, where “he may not stay for long, given the Australia pledge.” The pledge in question is part of a series of highly questionable assurances given to the UK government that Assange’s carceral conditions would not include detention in the supermax ADX Florence facility, the imposition of notorious Special Administrative Measures, and the provision of appropriate healthcare. Were he to receive a sentence, it would be open to him to apply and serve its balance in Australia. But all such undertakings have been given on condition that they can be broken, and transfer deals between the US and other countries have been plagued by delays, inconsistencies, and bad faith.

The dangers and opportunities to Assange have been bundled together, a sniff of an idea rather than a formulation of a concrete deal. And deals can be broken. It is hard to imagine that Assange would not be expected to board a flight bound for the United States, even if he could make his plea remotely. Constitutional attorney Bruce Afran, in an interview with CN Live! last August, suggested that a plea, taken internationally, was “not barred by any laws. If all parties consent to it, then the court has jurisdiction.” Yes, but what then?

In any event, once on US soil, there is nothing stopping a grand volte face, that nasty legal practice of tagging on new charges that would carry even more onerous penalties. It should be never forgotten that Assange would be delivered up to a country whose authorities had contemplated, at points, abduction, illegal rendition, and assassination.

Either way, the current process is one of gradual judicial and penal assassination, conducted through prolonged proceedings that continue to assail the publisher’s health even as he stays confined to Belmarsh Prison. (Assange awaits the UK High Court’s decision on whether he will be granted leave to appeal the extradition order from the Home Office.) The concerns will be how to spare WikiLeaks founder further punishment while still forcing Washington to concede defeat in its quest to jail a publisher. That quest, unfortunately, remains an ongoing one.

Science & Technology Australia Media Release

The Australian economy would be $100 billion bigger and boosted by 42,000 new jobs by hitting a target of investing 3% of GDP in research and development, new analysis by the nation’s peak body for science and technology has found.

Speaking at the National Press Club today, Science & Technology Australia President Professor Sharath Sriram will make a powerful case for rapidly reaching the 3% target to turn Australia into an innovation nation, reveal how to create an innovation ecosystem that will secure the country’s economic future, and warn of the consequences of failing to do so.

Professor Sriram is a research rockstar and a commercialisation champion based at RMIT. His work connecting industry and researchers has created more than $9 million in commercial partnerships for his university, and spurred innovations including smart bedding products for aged-care support, a wearable device for continuous molecular monitoring, and miniature biosensors for monitoring respiratory illnesses.

He will deliver the address as the centrepiece of STA’s Science Meets Parliament (SMP). Now into its 24th year, SMP brings hundreds of scientists and technologists from all around Australia to Canberra for two days of professional development focused on navigating the policy architecture and getting their science into the hands of decision makers.

Australia’s spending on research and development as a percentage of GDP has been in decline for more than a decade. We now spend less than 2 cents in every dollar on economy-boosting R&D. The US spends more than double Australia’s investment, and South Korea almost triple.

“If we were investing that 3 per cent of GDP in R&D right now, the economy would be $100 billion and 42,000 jobs better off. And this is a conservative estimate,” said Professor Sriram.

“To maintain our standard of living, Australia must increase R&D expenditure to 3 per cent of GDP as fast as we can.”

Key to the success of that plan will be a connected innovation ecosystem that smoothly takes great Australian ideas, turns them into products and services, and draws maximum value for society.

“The three parts of our innovation ecosystem need to work in cohesion – universities and research institutes generating ideas, businesses transforming and adopting them, with government championing the efforts with strategic incentives and driving efficiencies.”

“Creating this ecosystem is crucial. Failing to build it will have big consequences.”

“If we fail to diversify, if we don’t become an innovation-driven economy, then we will be a nation of consumers rather than creators. We will end up paying an ever-increasing rent to the rest of the world.”

“Unless we become a smarter country, we’re doomed to become a poorer one.”

By James Moore

“If you want to know the secrets of existence, do the math. There is no other way. There is only one truth, the truth of mathematics. It is the infallible, absolute truth. All truth-seekers come in the end to mathematics. Pythagoras got there first. It’s time for everyone else to join him and hear the Music of the Spheres. Are your ears attuned to the perfect notes of the universe? Only the gods can hear the divine music. Are you one of them?” – Thomas Stark, The Sheldrake Shift: A Critical Evaluation of Morphic Resonance.

Origination of the idea is still confounding. Maybe the cause was my endless fascination with the natural world, rhythms of the seasons, mysteries of the sky, mountains beyond mountains, and glorious desert lights. I only knew that I had never seen a total eclipse of the sun, and one was supposed to cross the North American continent one August day in 2017. In fact, the shadow was to mark a track northwest to southeast across the U.S. and turn midday into the dark of night, which was a phenomenon I wanted to experience. The location nearest to Austin was almost a thousand miles distant, and according to coordinates, sitting in the midst of a Nebraska cornfield.

I called Gary, who loves motorcycling almost as much as I.

“Hey, I want to go see the eclipse,” I said.

“It’s not coming anywhere near us, is it?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘near.’ Is Nebraska included in that term?”

“Not exactly. Is that the closest? Where you can experience the ‘totality?’”

“Yeah, I wanna go. Nighttime in the middle of the daytime will be an amazing experience.”

“Isn’t it like 48 hours from now? And, not to repeat myself, but in Nebraska?”

“Yeah, let’s ride up there.”

“Seriously? It’s August, and 110 degrees, and we’re old guys.”

“All true. But at least we can still act like we aren’t, and usually do.”

“I don’t know, man. Lemme think about it and call you back.”

The next morning, just after dawn, we were rolling north of Austin on U.S. Highway 281, up through the Hill Country and the Bosque River Valley to pick up the Chisholm Trail Parkway to Fort Worth and beyond to the Interstate through Oklahoma. There was no real plan more detailed than just putting miles under our wheels until we ran out of daylight. We would find a campground, probably near the Kansas and Nebraska line, sleep in our tents, and get out early the next day for a few more hours to reach the path of totality.

There are places you can go and natural events to be experienced that take you closer to the world as it is. In the Australian Outback, beneath the shining coal curve of a night sky, a sense arrives that you are falling into the stars and the Southern Cross is almost at hand. There is nothing but you and the planet turning beneath your feet and you think you know and feel things you did not before the night arrived out there beyond human intervention. Up on the Great Divide in the Rocky Mountains, the stars seem to come up from an unseen valley and rise with a haste as if they were consciously chasing the sun from the sky. Nightfall on the South Rim Plateau of Big Bend National Park will drape you with constellations that create a night eternally different than any other you will ever live.

By the time we crossed the Red River on the Oklahoma border, the temperature was already past the century mark. Our goal for the day was to ride 650 miles to Salina, Kansas, where we would camp and leave early the next morning for a spot in Central Nebraska. The mileage was ambitious even in the best of motorcycle weather and the dry, 100-plus degree wind scouring the prairie was drawing moisture from our bodily determination to get as close as possible to the eclipse path. We were stopping every 100 miles to drink fluids to prevent dehydration but the previous summer I had learned even that simple protocol could be inadequate. On a ride down from Colorado with my bride sitting pillion, I had experienced 75-mile-an-hour vertigo in the July Texas heat. My view of the horizon began to teeter and flip. I was able to stop the motorcycle without falling, get the kickstand down, and dismount, but could not stand upright. Eventually, an ambulance took me to a hospital for an overnight of scans and IV drips.

“I hate the Interstate,” Gary said over the helmet intercom.

“Me, too, but in this case, it serves our purpose. Gets us far, fast.”

“I’m rethinking this a bit,” he said. “Maybe the heat is giving me unexpected clarity or something. But it seems a long way to go for a little over three minutes of excitement.”

“No turning around, man. We’re halfway across Oklahoma. More than halfway to Salina.”

“Let’s get off here and get something cold to drink.”

The American Interstate is a bane and a benefit. The hissing roar of rushing tractor-trailers and family sedans never ceases while suggesting endless commerce produced by the concrete. Somewhere near Salina, we would pick up a more sedate two-lane into the oceans of cornstalks and find our place to await the mysterious minutes of the total eclipse of the sun. After gassing up the bikes, we found shade next to the quick stop’s wall and guzzled water between bites of a microwave burrito with the texture of industrial cardboard.

“Pretty glamorous, eh?” I asked Gary.

“Yeah, only Kansas could be more amazing. I wonder what their microwave Mex food is like.”

“Never thought you’d have such adventure, did you?”

“Anything is possible in Oklahoma, ya know?” He tossed his burrito wrapper. “Let’s go. Beautiful Kansas awaits.”

The transition from day to night across the plains states is a process that often feels like it might be measured in almost geologic time. In Kansas, under clear skies, the planet feels like it slows on its axis to facilitate an appreciation of the celestial magic. Pastel blue begins to fade and become tinged with orange and then deepened with purple and mixtures of colors not clearly distinct as one but stunning in a combined clarity. We were, however, too busy to notice while looking for our tent sites in the dark at a commercial campground and discovered they were gravel parking slots. The circumstance was intolerable after 14 hours of suffering in the sun on a motorcycle and we found hotel rooms a few miles distant.

We ended up the next morning at an intersection of two roads not far from the Nebraska community of Belleville. The county chip seal cut through long fields of tall corn and we parked the motorcycles at a country convenience store. Above the ticking of the stopped engines, we were close enough to hear the shuffling of cornstalks brushing against each other in a rising breeze. Families were arriving in farm trucks and sedans, setting up lawn chairs and ice chests in the ditches by the road. A few tractors materialized out of a section of crop and stopped with a diesel rattle. Conversations were muted and I thought there was a sense among the small gathering that they were expressing reverence for the approaching moment. Gary and I sat a bench by the gas station and walked into a clearing as the light began a rare midday diminution.

There did not seem a shadow. Instead, it was if a giant rheostat that controlled the sun was twisted down to reduce illumination of its subject planet. A few children squealed with glee but I was concentrated on the grasshoppers, fooled by the darkness and chirping wildly in the cornrows. Birds nearby began to coo and sing with their evening rituals and the entire universe appeared to pause and listen for the music of the spheres. I did not dare even glance at the corona. I am monocular and have but one good retina and I was not willing to risk its rods and cones for a glimpse of the moon’s transit between the Earth and Sun. Just one quick look can cause damage to vision and two will almost certainly burn the thin tissue at the back of the eye that provides imagery to the brain by capturing light. In just over three minutes, nature gave back the light with the same predictability of a passing cloud. Engines started, ice chests thumped closed, car doors slammed, a few horns blew, power lines hummed, and the world wagged on.

The natural world is as kind and gentle as it is dangerous and cruel. As a TV correspondent, I witnessed communities destroyed by floods and hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes with a capricious kind of brutality. There was great horror in the suffering of those scenes but also marvel at the power of destruction, which is not accurately measured with dollar signs and damage estimates. Nonetheless, I have no memory of ever not being drawn to the trails and canyons and rivers and deserts and the mysteries of just being, my constant amazement at the miracle of all existence. I remember standing next to the Colorado River on a sandbar at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and staring at the water and thinking about the millions of years the river had been running to cut that deeply into rock. What also struck me was that throughout unknowable millennia from the instant I observed those racing waters and standing wave rapids, the Colorado, if unbothered by humans, would still be doing the same thing I was witnessing, running unto the sea.

My instinctual love of nature was probably a perception of it as a refuge from a troubled childhood and it did not find an expression until I came across a unique literary work during my collegiate years. On the Loose was a kind of diary, written by two brothers, Terry and Renny Russell, about their youth spent wandering seashores and national parks and any western landscape distant from civilization. Their poetic text and stunning photos became a touchstone for the nascent environmental movement after it was published by the Sierra Club and sold more than a million copies. Mine is worn from frequent rereads but still serves as a catharsis when I convince myself there are too many complications in all our lives, and their burdens cannot be eased. Nature, the Russell brothers, argued, resolved all such contentions.

“One of the best-paying professions is getting ahold of pieces of country in your mind, learning their smell and their moods, sorting out the pieces of a view, deciding what grows there and there and why, how many steps that hill will take, where this creek winds and where it meets the other one below, what elevation timberline is now, whether you can walk this reef at low tide or have to climb around, which contour lines on a map mean better cliffs or mountains. This is the best kind of ownership, and the most permanent. It feels good to say ‘I know the Sierra’ or ‘I know Point Reyes.’ But of course you don’t-what you know better is yourself, and Point Reyes and the Sierra have helped.”

An eclipse, like all of nature’s majestic endeavors, can fill a soul with edifying conclusions. Eclipses are rare and those with totality even more scant and scattered across history’s timeline. One is coming for my home in the Texas Hill Country and the odds indicate the moon shadow is not likely to pass this spot for another 375 years. On April 8th, I will not need to jump my motorcycle and chase a cosmic experience down lost highways. Instead, I will step out my door and stand by the back gate and watch the darkness cross the land. If I were as smart as the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, I would reduce the experience to numbers, and listen. He was convinced the great movements of the sun and planets and all the stars in the sky created an eternal hum he described as “the music of the spheres.” I wish that I could sing along.

But I am grateful to have a chance to listen.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

Oxfam Australia Media Release

International community resorts to sea routes and air drops rather than challenge Israel for systemically undermining unfettered access of relief

Israeli authorities have rejected a warehouse full of international aid including oxygen, incubators and Oxfam water and sanitation gear all of which is now stockpiled at Al Arish just 40 km away from the border of 2.3 million desperate Palestinians in Gaza.

The aid originates from many humanitarian organisations around the world and has been rejected over weeks and months as result of an unpredictable and chaotic regime of approval, scanning and inspection, ultimately controlled by Israeli authorities. The reasons for rejection are not clear, says Oxfam.

In a new report today, Oxfam said this rejected aid was just one example of an overall humanitarian response that Israel has made so dangerous and dysfunctional as to be impossible for aid agencies to work at the speed and scale necessary to save lives, despite best efforts.

Oxfam says that Israel’s government ultimately bears accountability for the breakdown of the international response to the crisis in Gaza. It is failing in its legal responsibilities to the people whose land it occupies and breaking one of the key provisions demanded by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – to boost humanitarian aid in light of the risk of genocide in Gaza.

Oxfam believes that people living in Gaza will suffer mass death from disease and starvation far beyond the current 31,000 Palestinian war casualties unless Israel takes immediate steps to end its violations.

“The ICJ order should have shocked Israeli leaders to change course, but since then conditions in Gaza have actually worsened,” said Oxfam Middle East and North Africa Director, Sally Abi Khalil. “The fact that other governments have not challenged Israel hard enough, but instead turned to less effective methods like airdrops and maritime corridors is a huge red flag, signalling that Israel continues to deny the full potential of better ways to deliver more aid.”

“Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it. We believe that Israel is failing to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide,” Abi Khalil said.

Oxfam’s report “Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction” identifies seven crucial ways that Israel is actively preventing the delivery of international aid into Gaza and punishing all Palestinians living in Gaza by deliberately depriving them of life and safety.

The report says that Israeli authorities:

• Only allow aid in via two crossings into Gaza – at Rafah and KarmAbu Salem/Kerem Shalom – despite having total control to open more, thereby creating avoidable choke points for aid;
• Are leading a dysfunctional and undersized inspection system that keeps aid snarled up, subjected to onerous, repetitive and unpredictable bureaucratic procedures that are contributing to trucks being stranded in giant queues for 20 days on average;
• Are routinely and arbitrarily rejecting items of aid as having “dual (military) use”, banning vital fuel and generators entirely along with other items vital for a meaningful humanitarian response such as protective gear and communications kit. Much rejected aid must go through a complex “pre-approval” system or end up being held in limbo at the Al Arish warehouse in Egypt;
• Have cracked down on humanitarian missions, largely sealing off northern Gaza, and restricting international humanitarian workers’ access not only into Gaza, but Israel and the West Bank including East Jerusalem too.

Israel has allowed 15,413 trucks into Gaza during the past 157 days of war. Oxfam says the population of Gaza needed five times more than that just to meet their minimum needs. In February, Israel allowed 2,874 trucks in – a 44% reduction from the month before.

Israel’s actions are also undermining international aid by its continued military assault inside Gaza, unparalleled in terms of intensity, brutality and scope – and which Israeli leaders themselves have called a “total siege” – as Oxfam highlights:

• Israel’s assault has caught Gaza’s own aid workers and international agencies’ partners inside a “practically uninhabitable” environment of mass displacement and deprivation, where 75% of solid waste is now being dumped in random sites, 97% of groundwater made unfit for human use, and the Israeli state using starvation as a weapon of war;
• Israel has rendered nowhere in Gaza safe amid the forcible and often multiple displacements of almost the entire population, which makes the principled distribution of aid unviable, including agencies’ ability to help repair vital public services at scale;
• Its attacks are disproportionate and indiscriminate upon civilian and humanitarian assets – including people – such as solar, water, power and sanitation plants, UN premises, hospitals, roads, and aid convoys and warehouses, even when these assets are supposedly ‘deconflicted’ after their coordinates have been shared for protection.

“The state of Israel has created the perfect storm for humanitarian collapse and only the state of Israel can fix it,” Abi Khalil said.

Celine Maayeh, the Advocacy and Research Officer for one of Oxfam’s partner organisations in Gaza, Juzoor for Health and Social Development, said:

“Juzoor has been overwhelmed with support from all over the world, but we’re so frustrated in our helplessness and inability to actually get enough aid into Gaza. For the first few weeks, we managed to procure whatever we could get our hands on from local markets. Now, there is almost nothing — no resources, no supplies. In the North the situation is beyond dire. There’s been an alarming increase in cases of malnutrition among children in the last month, and yet the only food the team is able to find to feed people living in 45 shelters is some vegetables. There is an indisputable, man-made, intentional deprivation of aid that continues to suck the life out of any and all humanitarian operations, including our own.”

Oxfam is calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end the death and suffering because the measures intended to protect civilians or give them aid are not working. Armed Palestinian groups must release the civilian hostages they hold unconditionally. Displaced people should be allowed to return home in safety.

Other states are obliged to take all diplomatic, economic and political actions necessary to prevent genocide in Gaza, to enable more aid and to prevent the possibility of Palestinians being forcibly displaced outside of Gaza. States should discontinue their arms sales and other forms of security assistance that would facilitate the risk of genocide and ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity by Israel upon Gaza.

Oxfam says that Israel’s 16-year illegal blockade had already left Gaza in a weakened state. “The international community has failed both Palestinian and Israeli people by ignoring the root causes of this decades-long conflict,” Abi Khalil said. “It is abundantly clear that military force cannot resolve this, but only intensify the cycles of violence.”

“Israel must lift its total blockade of Gaza and belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory and we call on all parties – finally – to work toward a fair, just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians grounded in international law,” she said.

It will come as little surprise that colossal Apple has been favouring its own music streaming service in snuffing and stuffing competitors. The company, it has been alleged, has prevented app developers from informing users of less expensive methods to purchase subscriptions outside the scope of Apple’s own services. Its cosmos was all.

Central to these claims is the ongoing battle between Apple and the Swedish music streaming service, Spotify, a largely amoral gladiatorial encounter of drain, pinch and seizure that saw the latter draw customers away from Apple’s iTunes. Territorial skirmishes have ensued over the years, with gains and losses evident on both sides. In 2015, Apple’s release of its own streaming service, Apple Music, enraged Spotify as an anticompetitive move. The tech behemoth, so the charge went, was able to undercut the prices of competitors as it could avoid paying the same App Store fees as others.

Not to worry. Spotify initiated its own assault (paywalled) in 2019, marked by disbursing US$500 billion worth of funds at podcast start-ups, in the process acquiring such outfits as Gimlet and Anchor. And as this was happening, a façade of decency was erected, keeping the battle between the two companies in boardrooms and backrooms.

Then came the tidal turn. Apple, along with the other apocalyptic agents of Big Tech, started becoming the source of much ire for politicians in the EU. The latest success by Spotify to convince the European Commission that Apple’s restrictions and fees imposed on developers wishing to list their apps in the App Store were too onerous, is merely one example of European disgruntlement.

Spotify’s 2019 filing with the European Commission against Apple’s practices was described by the company’s CEO and founder, Daniel Ek, as necessary so “that companies such as ours [can] operate in an ecosystem in which fair competition is not only encouraged, but guaranteed.” In his view, Apple’s introduction of various rules to the App Store had “purposely” limited choice and stifled innovation “at the expense of the user experience – essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately advantage other app developers.”

In its response at the time, Apple self-glorified, praising its own contribution to technological civilisation. Monopoly masquerading as benign, technological diversity is a form of reasoning familiar to all monopolists who tolerate competition on their terms. But for the company, Spotify had been less than clean on its dealings, “keeping all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem – including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers – without making any contributions to that marketplace.”

The European Commission was not to be convinced. The fine of 1.84 billion euros was imposed on Apple for its ban on developers from “fully informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services outside of the app.” In a statement from the EU’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager, the company was said to have “abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store.” This was achieved “by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services outside the Apple ecosystem.”

Ek was delighted, suggesting that an industrious punter had gotten exactly what he wanted. Apple, in no uncertain terms, had “decided that they want to close down the internet and make it theirs, and they view every single person using an iPhone to be their user and they should be able to dictate what that user experience should be.” In this modern game of tech robber barons and conquistadores, mumbling about human experience is hardly convincing. The feeling here is that Spotify and Apple treat their user base as mice chasing cheese in a maze. Apple lacks the glint and shine of virtue, but Ek is not exactly a knight in brilliant, shining armour.

In a statement responding to the Commission finding, the crew at Apple were combative, surly and resentful. “The decision was reached despite the Commission’s failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm and ignores the realities of a market that is thriving, competitive and growing fast.” Despite eight years of investigating Apple’s corporate conduct, no “viable theory” had been “yielded” on “explaining why Apple has thwarted competition in a market that is so clearly thriving.”

There were also barbed words reserved for Spotify, a company with “the largest music streaming app in the world”, and one engaged in “more than 65” meetings with the Commission “during this investigation.” While Apple’s treatment is hardly bound to exercise the tear ducts, there is something smelly about conduct verging on connivance on the European side of the bargain – in this case, of a patriotic, underhanded sort.

Apple also suggested that Spotify had been an App Store triumph, something they were always bound to say. “They have a more than 50 percent share of the European market, and on iOS, Spotify has an even higher share than they do on Android.” The European Commission, it was felt, had intended this as an effort to enforce the Digital Markets Act (DMA) ahead of it coming into force.

Other questions have also been asked. If one is really looking at an open internet concept (such an idea has always been a glorious fancy and a deceiving fluff), the feeling that Spotify has been aided by a regulator in terms of its own market arrangements is hard to dispel. “Ironically, in the name of competition,” claims Apple, the “decision just cements the dominant position of a successful European company that is the digital music market’s runaway leader.” The mask of digital patriotism has been unmasked, and we await where the next blow will come from.

ActionAid Media Release

2023 was another landmark year for electric transport in Australia with rapid growth in both EV sales and charging infrastructure, according to the Australian Electric Vehicle Industry Recap 2023 released today.

The Recap, produced by the Electric Vehicle Council finds:

• EV sales (including both battery EVs and plug-in hybrids) grew by 120%
• The total Australian EV fleet surpassed 180,000 electric vehicles
• Charging infrastructure locations increased by 75 per cent on the previous year, with 348 locations added across Australia

The Recap also contains details on the top 20 EV models sold, an update on how Australia is tracking against the EVC’s recommended target of 1 million EVs by end of 2027, and the launch of a national EV ownership survey in collaboration with the University of Sydney.

The Recap also includes analysis of media claims about a slowdown in EV sales in the US, which the report finds has been vastly overstated.

“Most of the commentary about a slowdown in the US has come from those with an interest in talking down the growth of EVs, when the reality is electric car sales are still going strong in America,” said EVC chief executive Behyad Jafari.

“Naturally, as the total number of EVs sold continues to become ever larger, achieving the same levels of annual growth in percentage terms becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. The growth in EVs between 2021 and 2022 in the US was 66 per cent while in the most recent year it was 46 per cent. 46 per cent is extraordinary annual growth in any market.”

Mr Jafari noted that extending the benefits of EVs to a broader cohort of Australians would requiring ongoing policy reform.

“After a long period of anticipation last decade, it’s now genuinely exciting to see the electric vehicle revolution now rolling out all over Australia,” Mr Jafari said.

“EV drivers are everywhere and if you talk to them they’re typically effusive about their decision. Not having to worry about petrol prices or regular maintenance, and enjoying a more fun driving experience tend to top the reasons given for satisfaction. And our cities and towns are benefiting with less and less air and noise pollution.

“To sustain this positive trajectory we need sensible reform. The federal government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standards are a crucial step that finally brings Australia into line with the rest of the developed world. This move will see Australian drivers finally being given the same kind of choice offered to Americans and Europeans.

“EVs are no longer a novelty, they are a core part of everyday Australian lives. Hopefully the abundant benefits of switching to an EV will be embraced by millions more Australians as the decade progresses.”

Parliament of Australia Media Release

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) today tabled its Advisory Report on the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia’s Military Secrets) Bill 2023.

The Committee’s unanimous report recommended that the Bill pass and made four recommendations for the Government’s consideration including:

• assessing the existing legislation and procedures and whether they sufficiently cover working or training for paramilitary organisations and militias by former defence personnel
• providing the Minister for Defence with the ability to determine by legislative instrument classes or categories of non-former Defence members that are not required to apply for an authorisation – for example, in cases where a company has been approved to provide goods under the Defence Export Control (DEC) arrangements
• assessing how existing legislation and procedures covering former National Intelligence Community officers and their work for foreign governments should be strengthened, and address the need for further legislation

The Bill would amend the Defence Act 1903 to regulate the work that certain former defence staff members can perform for or on behalf of a military organisation or government body of a relevant foreign country, without a foreign work authorisation.

Mr Peter Khalil MP, Chair of the PJCIS, said “Once passed, this Bill will deal with the potential of former defence staff members revealing sensitive defence information and placing Australia’s national security at risk. In addition it provides our allies with more confidence that securing sensitive military information is at the forefront of the Australian Government’s national security thinking.”

Further information on the inquiry can be obtained from the Committee’s website.

How delicious is political hypocrisy. Abundant and rich, it manifests in the corridors of power with regularity. Of late, there is much of it in the US Congress, evident over debates on whether the platform TikTok should be banned in the United States. Much of this seems based on an assumption that foreign companies are not entitled to hoover up, commodify and use the personal data of users, mocking, if not obliterating privacy altogether. US companies, however, are. While it is true that aspects of Silicon Valley have drawn the ire of those on The Hill in spouts of select rage, giants such as Meta and Google continue to use the business model of surveillance capitalism with reassurance and impunity.

In May 2023, the disparity of treatment between the companies was laid bare in a Congressional hearing that smacked the hands of Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pinchai with little result, while lacerating TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. “Your platform should be banned,” blustered Chair Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The ongoing concern, and one with some basis, is TikTok’s link with parent company ByteDance. Being based in China, the nexus with the authoritarian state that wields influence on its operations is a legitimate concern, given national security laws requiring the company to share data with officials. But the line of questioning proved obtuse and confused, revealing an obsession with themes resonant with McCarthyite hysteria. On several occasions, the word “communists” issued from the lips of the irate politicians, including regular references to the Chinese Community Party.

Alex Cranz, writing for The Verge, summarised the hectoring session well: “Between their obsession with communism, their often obnoxious and condescending tone, and the occasional assumption that Chew was Chinese, despite his repeated reminders that he is Singaporean, the hearing was a weird, brutal, xenophobic mess.”

TikTok, for its part, continues to tell regulators that it has taken adequate steps to wall off the data of its 150 million users in the US from ByteDance’s operations, expending US$1.5 billion in its efforts to do so. A January investigation by the Wall Street Journal, however, found that “managers sometimes instruct workers to share data with colleagues in other parts of the company and with ByteDance workers without going through official channels.” How shocking.

Cranz might have also mentioned something else: that the entire show was vaudevillian in its ignorance of US government practices that involved doing exactly what ByteDance and TikTok are accused of: demanding that companies share user data with officials. If he is to be forgotten for everything else, Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures on the National Security Agency’s collaboration with US telecom and internet companies on that point should be enshrined in posterity’s halls.

The PRISM program, as it was called, involved the participation of such Big Tech firms as Google, Facebook, YouTube and Apple in sharing the personal data of users with the NSA. Largely because of Snowden’s revelations, end-to-end encryption became both urgent and modish. “An enormous fraction of global internet traffic travelled electronically naked,” Snowden remarked in an interview with The Atlantic last year. “Now it is a rare sight.”

The US House of Representatives has now made good its threats against TikTok in passing a bill that paves the way for the possible imposition of a ban of the app. It gives ByteDance a six-month period of grace to sell its stake in the company, lest it face a nationwide block. Whether it passes the Senate is an open question, given opposition to it by certain Republicans, including presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Other politicians fear losing an invaluable bridge in communicating with youthful voters.

On March 13, however, the righteous were shining in confidence. The House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, claimed that the bill would lessen “the likelihood that TikTok user data is exploited and privacy undermined by a hostile foreign adversary” while Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher declared that the US could no longer “take the risk of having a dominant news platform in America controlled by a company that is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.” The subtext: best leave the despoiling and abuse to US companies.

The blotted copybooks of such giants as Meta and Google have tended to only feature in morally circumscribed ways, sparing the model of their business operations from severe scrutiny. On January 31, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave a farcical display of rant and displeasure over the issue of what it called “the Online Child Exploitation Crisis.” Pet terrors long nursed were on show: the mania about paedophiles using social media platforms to stalk their quarry; financial extortion of youth; sexploitation; drug dealing.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) made much of Zuckerberg on that occasion, but only as a prop to apologise to victims of Meta’s approach to child users. The Meta CEO has long known that such palliative displays only serve as false catharsis; the substance and rationale of how his company operations gather data never changes. And the show was also all the more sinister in providing a backdrop for Congressional paranoia, exemplified in such proposed measures as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has rightly called KOSA a censorship bill which smuggles in such concepts as “duty of care” as a pretext to monitor information and conduct on the Internet. The attack on TikTok is ostensibly similar in protecting users in the US from the prying eyes of Beijing’s officials while waving through the egregious assaults on privacy by the Silicon Valley behemoths. How wonderfully patriotic.

By James Moore

There was a line, but we pretended it did not exist. That was the best way to get through each day as we came of age. In our factory town, there were the laborers and the management, and the families in our neighborhood supplied the muscle and bone to build the cars rolling out onto the American road. Mostly, our fathers were from below the Mason-Dixon Line and bending their backs to an assembly line felt like no great chore and paid immensely better than chopping cotton. Until the unions, laborers could not afford to own what they built for others.

A great, gray factory separated our fortunes. After World War II, it had begun manufacturing cars but retained its name as the Tank Plant. Sherman tanks were assembled, tested, and shipped out of the facility in Southern Lower Michigan. Great pride was taken in delivery of the armored attack vehicles to Allied troops moving across the European and African continents. Blue collar workers of both sexes, not carrying guns, felt the importance of their contributions. The families living on our side of the vast structure, after the war, were the welders and fabricators and drill operators and people with modest skills and growing families.

Managers of the workers, foremen and shop executives, and businesses that thrived by serving the factory’s needs for raw materials and services, lived on the other side of the Tank Plant. Their homes were middle and upper middle class but when we were inhabiting 800 square feet tract houses, the contrast was startling. I did not ever enter those grand houses, except for rare moments when invited by a classmate, and I was always afraid to brush against the wall and looked at my feet to make certain I did not track the floors. In one of the wealthiest neighborhoods, there was golf course that held a big professional tournament and as I dragged my pro’s bag around the course I looked at the magnificent homes that lined the fairways and wondered how such money was accumulated.

The Tank Plant, Grand Blanc, Michigan, 1945

I had no understanding of how class distinctions evolved, or why my situation was so dramatically different from the overwhelming majority of the other students in my school. When I saw them in their new cars and down jackets in the winter time, though, I understood there were economic and educational forces at work that made our lives abundantly different. My mother carried burgers and open-faced sandwiches as a waitress at a short order restaurant and my father lifted bumpers out of a metal press and stacked them on pallets for delivery to the assembly line. Neither ever drew a breath without worrying about money, how to pay for school clothes, the oil delivery truck that filled up the tank out back to run the furnace in the middle of the house, groceries, electricity, and the burdensome monthly mortgage of $62.50 on a $10,000 VA loan.

I only have memories of wanting to leave and five decades later I still do not want to go home, though I infrequently visit. Our little house had neither space nor money to make life enjoyable and when the snow piled up the window frame and we were unable to leave, I felt as if I might be trapped for the rest of my existence. When the roads became passable after a blizzard, we often wore old socks on our hands for gloves and stuffed them into our pants pockets before we got off the bus at school because we did not want our classmates to know our modest deprivations. Such humiliation is hard to endure when both of your parents are working 60-hour weeks and still cannot afford to properly clothe their six children. I was angry because I listened to too many people talk about opportunities my struggling parents never encountered in their American life.

To get away from all this, I took to the highway when I graduated high school at age seventeen. I was less afraid of strangers on the road than I was of my father’s thundering right hand or his snapping razor strop and the kitchen drawers he tossed through the living room window when he could not control the anger he possessed after how his life had unfolded. These were factors I was unable to explain to drivers who stopped to offer a ride when I stood by the pavement with my thumb cast into the traffic. I did not want to offer up any background, I just wanted to put miles of road behind me and keep moving westerly. The questions kept recurring, though.

“Hop in kid. Where you going?”

“Out west. Maybe California, if I can get there.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.”

“You look like you weigh maybe 140 pounds. Somebody could hurt you. Do your parents know what you are doing or where you are going?”

“My mother does. She cried when I left, but she knew I had to go.”

“Why’d you have to go? You like sleeping under bridges and in cornfields more than sleeping under the roof at your parents’ house?”

“No mister, but it ain’t that simple. Honest.”

I remember that conversation with a trucker near Scottsbluff, Nebraska, out near the Wyoming line. He was not just big in the middle like a man who sat and ate and worried all day but his arms were large with rounded muscles and the more questions he asked the more afraid I became. When he stopped talking, he kept looking over at me as if he were making an assessment as to whether I was crazy or if I might be able to escape. I never knew which.

“Hey, can you let me off up here, a few miles down the road? I kinda want to spend time in Wyoming, hiking around.”

“What for?”

“I like history, you know, westward expansion and that stuff. I want to see that Independence Rock that’s around here somewhere. Lots of people traveling on wagon trains left their names and initials carved into the rock. There are even still ruts where all the wagon trains went by.”

“Okay, kid. Whatever you want. But you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure.”

He reached across the bench seat in the cab and patted my knee. I did not look at his face but I wanted out of his truck.

“You can go all the way to California with me, if you want. I could use the company. I’ll get you a few meals, too. Road gets lonely when you live on it.”

“No, no,” I said. “I’ve got to get off here. I’m doing research, see, about Manifest Destiny, you know, when all the Europeans went over the mountains and wiped out the Indians on the way.’

“Manifest destiny, huh? Okay, kid. Whatever ya want.”

Independence Rock, Oregon Trail, Wyoming

The truck slowed in the breakdown lane and my hand was on the metal frame of my backpack before he had engine-braked to a full stop. I opened the door and dropped the nylon pack to the ground, thanked him quickly, and jumped out behind my gear. I reached up and swung the passenger door closed and heard the air brakes hiss as he released them and dropped the cabover into gear.

I walked away from the Interstate and did not look back because I wanted to be certain the 18-wheeler was moving west with its load of refrigerators. About five minutes later, I turned around and went back and quickly got a ride in the bed of a pickup that was going south of Casper toward Independence Rock. When I finally jumped over the tailgate and onto the road, I was disappointed at the famous formation I had read about in school. I thought it looked a bit like a giant turtle and was oddly insignificant to have become a place of such import in American history.

The rock was covered with the names of an estimated 5000 travelers who had moved past it on their way west during the 1800s. I had already begun to think if it as a place of hope because every wagon train that had gone west from Fort Laramie included people who had survived attacks by indigenous peoples, endured winds and rain and floods and hunger, but had pressed onward to whatever they had envisioned might exist for them in Utah or the Willamette Valley or the California coast. The granite outcrop became a kind of bulletin board for travelers on the Oregon Trail, who carved inscriptions of their names and dates and observations as they began the long, dangerous climb toward the Great Divide.

On July 26, 1849, J. Goldsborough Bruff

“… reached Independence Rock … at a distance looks like a huge whale. It is being painted & marked every way, all over, with names, dates, initials, &c – so that it was with difficulty I could find a place to inscribe it.”

Pioneer Inscriptions, dated 1850

The name was derived from a Fourth of July celebration at the site in 1830 by a group of fur trappers. Even as a 17-year-old in his first summer of wandering, I knew I was in a spot both sacred and profane. The Plains Indians certainly did not want to tolerate the strangers transiting lands they had roamed freely in time beyond memory and they often fought desperately, and futilely, to stop the increasing numbers of white transgressors. The emigrants, though, were too numerous and did not stop coming and their determination outweighed their fears. The trail was also fraught with perils of disease like small pox and yellow fever and dysentery from bad water, and had claimed thousands of lives, but the survivors remained hopeful of a life they were barely able to describe or define.

Even though I wondered if there were ghosts still hovering nearby, the spirits of travelers who had died with their unrealized aspirations somewhere near the rock, I still walked off to find a place to unroll my bag and sleep. There did not seem to be many tourists about and traffic was hurrying to bigger national parks with grander views. I belonged where I found myself at the end of that day. I, too, was determined to make it over the Divide, if only by hitchhiking the next morning, but as my eyes grew heavy and the wind came down off the Rockies, I was also unable to see my future. I felt, though, the power of all the hope that had led those souls of long ago to that rock.

And I was anxious to move further west.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.