By Denis Bright

Nothing excites the electorate more than the voice of our leaders’ messages of hope over adversarial politics. Prime Minister Albanese has been busy consolidating with art in media releases over the holiday break.

The press conference in Sydney on 3 January 2024 was a sign-on for more duties that are usually beyond the scope of a Prime Minister:

Happy New Year everyone. In 2024 I’m very positive as we enter the new year. And later this morning I will be briefly attending the beginning of David Warner’s last test match at the SCG. And I do hope, if it hasn’t happened already, whoever knows anything about the missing caps – David Warner has represented Australia on more than one hundred occasions. The baggy green caps belong to him. He has earnt them and they should be returned.

The press conference continued to cover vital issues about living standards and skilling the nation. There was a promise of 300,000 fee-free TAFE places during 2024. The MYEFO spirit continued with a promise of more commitment to cost-of-living-relief in the 2024-25 budget scheduled for 9 May.

What a contrast to the political statements from Prime Minister Morrison exactly two years ago. In a live interview from Kirribilli House to Sarah Abo on the Today Show, discussion moved to the leadership skills of then Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese:

Well, he’s always full of complaints after the fact. I’ve found with the Leader of the Opposition. He’s like that person on the Monday morning who always says what the coach should have done and what all the players have done. But you know, I don’t think you want that bloke running the team at any time.

The current press conference marginalized adversarial politics. Responding to a journalist’s questions Prime Minister Albanese offered New Year on several fronts:

What we want is to take pressure off people who are feeling pressure as a result of global inflation. This has had an impact. Australians, of course, were hit by the pandemic and then they were hit by global inflation, which was a result of two global impacts. One was the ongoing supply issues related to the pandemic, and the second of course, was the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine that had an impact on prices here as they did right around the world. So, we’re very conscious about those cost-of-living pressures. That’s why we have introduced a range of measures, including fee-free TAFE, but in addition to that, our energy price relief plan, our plan that has made an enormous difference in reducing the price of medicines. That’s why we’ve also undertaken increases in rent relief, for example, the largest increase in rent assistance for 30 years, along with other measures that we took assisting single mums, assisting others.

Peter Dutton as Opposition Leader received just one mention from the Prime Minister at the press conference and in response to a journalist’s question:

JOURNALIST: Did you reflect over the break over any changes you would like to see in the way the Government operates in the New Year?

PRIME MINISTER: We continue to engage in a positive way. We’ll continue to put forward our positive plans for the nation. Continue to point out that Peter Dutton has no solutions and nothing positive to offer the nation.

More mention of the Opposition or the Opposition leader merely fosters a return to unproductive pollical polemics. This outcome would be detested in households, comfortably-off and disadvantaged alike. The recovery of Labor’s primary vote would be inhibited.

Having outperformed on budget estimates from May 2023 as recorded in MYEFO 2023, the Labor Government can perhaps consider more generous cost-of-living relief measures. Some review of the rate of delivery of Stage 3 tax concession might even be possible. Fully implemented on the Morrison Government’s formula would cost around $69 billion over the forward estimates period (to 2026-27), and around $313 billion over the medium-term projection period (to 2033-34) according to ATO estimates. Adjustments for bracket creep can still be accommodated at the lower end of the taxable income stage where households deserve a 30 per cent income tax rate.

Most voters would surely welcome a review of the background to Australia’s commitment to the Iraq War in 2003 which brought thousands of Australia’s out onto the streets in protest in 2003. Prime Minister Albanese cautiously did not pre-empt the results of the inquiry chaired by Dennis Richardson:

I do want to make some comments about the release of documents that takes place every twenty years. The process there is that documents are provided to the National Archives of Australia three years in advance. So, the documents for what occurred in 2003 were provided in 2020 by the then Morrison Government to the National Archives of Australia. It’s clear that there were some Cabinet records missing from that transfer from the Government. Some 78 Cabinet records were not transferred to the National Archives. The public service has now, within days of being notified of that, provided the remaining documents to the Archives, and the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has commenced an independent review that will be conducted by Dennis Richardson, as to how this failure in 2020 to provide all the appropriate documentation occurred. Let me make it very clear of what my government’s position is. Australians have a right to know the basis upon which Australia went to war in Iraq. Australians lost their lives during that conflict and we know that some of the stated reason for going to war was not correct in terms of the weapons of mass destruction that was alleged Iraq had at that time. Australians do have a right to know what the decision-making process was, and my Government believes that this mistake must be corrected, that the National Archives of Australia should release all the documentation that has been provided to them, having account for any national security issues, of course, upon the advice of the national security agencies.

Unless more investigative journalism is hastened on the background to the LNP’s AUKUS defence deal in 2021, readers will need to wait until the early 2040s before details just maybe available of the background to the nuclear-powered submarine acquisitions.

The AUKUS deal was announced in an imperious style on 16 September 2021 with the imprimatur of Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden. The statement offered strategic aspirations without details of forthcoming contracts an advanced warning about future costs. Later Australian government officially estimates the cost of the program to be between $268 billion and $368 billion over the next 30 years. These far-ranging estimates include:

• Acquisition of submarines: Purchasing at least eight nuclear-powered submarines, either directly from the US or built in Australia with US and UK assistance.
• Infrastructure and facilities: Upgrading existing facilities and building new ones to support the operation and maintenance of the submarines.
• Operational costs: Fuel, crew training, and ongoing maintenance throughout the lifespan of the submarines.

The press conference on 3 January 2024 provides just a peek into the need for more openness in government processes. The media team handled this press conference with outstanding professionalism. The complex issues were communicated in stages after that less than nerdy reference to David Warner’s stolen cricket cap. Perhaps the chase is a negative metaphor against unnecessary secrecy in government.

Can this openness ease the current fragmentation shown by recent national opinion polling? Currently, support for the Greens is completely offset by preferences from far-right parties back to the LNP?

Perhaps the solutions require much more than offering a higher standard of new clips to promote a more thorough understanding of the processes of government so that populist whims and soft media discussions do not determine outcomes relating to living standards and Australia’s stamp in geopolitics.  

The killing of an Australian-Lebanese national Ibrahim Bazzi, his Lebanese wife Shorouq Hammoud, and his brother Ali Bazzi by the Israeli Defence Forces in a missile strike in southern Lebanon, has been an object exercise in selective outrage, selective ethical concern, and, generally speaking, selective morality. 

The strike took place on a home in the neighbourhood of Al-Dawra in the town of Bint Jbeil, said to belong to the Bazzi family. On paper, the case demands investigation, explanation, even reparation. But the Australian government has pounced on an opportunity to ignore the killing of Ibrahim and his wife – both civilians and intending to head back to Sydney – and focus on the background of Ali Bazzi instead.

In his December 28, 2023 press conference, the Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus noted “the announcement made by Hizballah claiming links to one of the Australians killed. We are seeking to establish facts.” The context to essentially excuse the killings is then sketched: “Hizballah is a listed terrorist organisation under Australian law”; there was “daily military activity in southern Lebanon, including rocket and missile fire, as well as airstrikes”; Australians in Lebanon should leave “while commercial options remain available.”  

On Ali’s connections, Dreyfus could make much of a terrorist link that, were it to be confirmed, would make the killings, more generally, less egregious. “It’s an offence [for] any Australian to cooperate with, to support, let alone to fight with, a listed terrorist organisation like Hizballah.” But – and here Dreyfus was not drawn – it is not an offence for Australians to serve in the armed forces of a foreign country under Part 5.5 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth). 

Naturally, this would depend on the country in question, and the amoral calculus used when deciding that nonsense called the “national interest”. Australians serving with the IDF is entirely permissible, despite that army’s obliteration of Palestinian civilians in a most cavalier interpretation of international law; Australians serving with their opposite numbers are criminals, buccaneering agents who deserve what they get. 

Reserves Captain Lior Sivan, an Australian who served as an IDF tank commander, was killed on December 19 in a Hamas ambush. When news was made public of this fact, his love of Israel and personal attributes splashed the media outlets. Here was a noble human beaming with noble courage, to be garlanded and celebrated. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) sent its “condolences to his family during this difficult time and stand ready to provide consular assistance.”

When news came of the slain trio in Bint Jbeil, two civilians were forgotten in favour of the supposedly blighting attributes of the alleged Hezbollah fighter. “Of course,” stated Dreyfus, “there are examples in the past of Australians having had links with Hizballah. One of the reasons why the Australian Government has listed Hizballah, in both its arms, as a terrorist organisation, is because of the potential links to Australia and Australians.”

And what of the destruction of civilian life in this conflict, with thousands of instances of it in Gaza, and a rising toll in Lebanon? The Australian government, Dreyfus insisted, had “consistently called for civilian lives to be protected and we have consistently raised our concerns about the risk of this conflict spreading.”   

Peter Cronau, a veteran ABC producer and investigative journalist, makes the point about the relevant processes that need to take place: an investigation followed by the laying of charges; the collection of forensic evidence by the Australian Federal Police and Australian Defence personnel from the Australian embassy in Lebanon; the gathering of evidence “regarding who issued the orders, selected the targeting, and who fired the weapon, using all the intelligence and resources available to Australian officers working at Pine Gap base.”

The role of Pine Gap, a primarily US-run satellite surveillance base located to the southwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, is potentially critical, given its role in furnishing geolocation data to Washington and, in some cases, its allies regarding distant military operations. Targeting data for drone strikes, for instance, has been something of a favourite.

Cronau’s suggestions are credible, and invoking links with Hezbollah by Dreyfus are expedient forms of dismissal. Similar steps of investigation and inquiry were, after all, taken in attempting to identify who and what was used in the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014. The downing of the flight resulted in the loss of 298 lives, including 38 Australians. Much ink and time was expended on identifying the allegedly relevant military personnel involved, the supply chain of the Buk-TELAR missile system, not to mention the repeated insistence on the part of the Australian government that action be taken against the Russian separatists and the Kremlin for their misdeeds. 

Canberra proceeded to impose targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on four of the personnel. “These sanctions,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong stated in a media release, “demonstrate the Australian Government’s ongoing commitment to hold to account those responsible for the downing of Flight MH17.”

For all this, Australian nationality is a soupy, thin concept. Its protections are limited, unreliable and arbitrary. When brandished with a certain political preference and bias, it is cherished, a convertible currency in the international stock exchange of diplomacy. We think of the Iranian-detained Australian-British national Kylie Moore-Gilbert who was, for reasons never fully explained, exchanged for a number of Iranian operatives jailed in Thailand over a miscellany of bungled assassination attempts against Israeli officials and targets. Rarely has an Australian Prime Minister, a Foreign Affairs minister, or DFAT, been so busy over the fate of one of their citizens. 

We contrast such extravagant efforts with the treatment offered individuals as David Hicks or Mamdouh Habib, seen by the Australian political class as Islamic refuse (converted or born), and therefore deserving of torture and punishment by other powers. To that can be added death by missile strike, as well.

By Denis Bright

The projections in The Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook (MYEFO 2023) offered a peek into our national financial future for the New Year and beyond.

MYEFO 2023 was released by our financial leaders with strident and confident expectations on 13 December 2023.

These future concerns were offset by the improvements in most indicators since delivery of the Australian budget on 9 May 2023.

The good news enabled our financial leaders to clasp their MYEFO 2023 papers more tightly.

The MYEFO papers were a collective badge of honour for the Albanese Government with the prospect of two consecutive budget surpluses and some evidence that the slow-down in the global economy might result in a softer landing than expected some months ago.

Percentage Australian Domestic Economic Projections

Walter Frick of the Harvard Business Review (27 December 2023) offered a more positive interpretation of short-term prospects for the global economy. Financial journalists at Reuters (22 December 2023) were also upbeat as the New Year approached. Investors had transferred funds from hedge-funds to other S&P financial options. Nearer to home, China’s economy is likely to grow at close to 5.5 per cent in 2024 according to Forbes Asia (23 November 2023). All these developments make the OECD projections for 2024-25 a trifle dated.

The growth and diversification of the Chinese economy helped to carry Australia and even the US through the GFC more than a decade ago.

These vibes are returning in 2024-25. The Biden Administration seems to be moving towards Win-Win trading and investment links with China again after cooling potential disputes over the Taiwan Strait and those uninhabitable rock outcrops known as the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Australian investment ties under the federal LNP were increasingly with the financial capitals of the older developed world in the US and Britain. Interested readers may wish to check out the innovative presentation of this data by ABS as released on 3 May 2023.

Despite short-term budgetary improvements, Australian public sector finances still present real challenges.

MYEFO 2023 was cautious about unsustainable trends in our public finances. Our financial leaders have spotted these emergent problems.

Loose fiscal policies would worsen the situation in the event of an economic slowdown in the mid-2020s.

Commentators are now expecting a lighter correction in the global economy than our financial leaders anticipated several months ago.

MYEFO 2023 still justified that optimum balance between government spending, public capital works and essential private sector investment that the budget set in place on 9 May 2023. The caution paves the way for new options in the budget ahead in 2024.

LNP overstates Labor’s commitment to public sector spending. Government spending as a share of the national economy peaked at 31.3 per cent of GDP in 2020-21. It is now 25.7 per cent of GDP in MYEFO estimates for 2023-24.

Trendlines in Major Australian Government Spending Priorities

For a Labor government that is striving for an extended term in office, the investment multiplier offered by private sector investment is the crucial variable in our economic and community development. Chart 2.8 from MYEFO 2023 showed just why this is a transitional time for the Australian economy in the post-mineral boom era. New patterns of investment are required for changing times.

Strategic considerations on the expansion of our investment ties with China is an inherited liability from the Morrison Government. Such assessments were quite alarmist. Our US strategic allies are quite adept at playing games of economic diplomacy with compliant countries like Australia. Economic diplomacy usually trumps strategic policies as national elections approach in Taiwan on 13 January 2024 and the Primaries commencing at home in the US. Very few voters perceive that peaceful days should be marred by strategic scares and preparations for new conflicts.

Each US administration welcomes purchases of US Treasury Bonds by the Chinese Government. The American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation has highlighted the global distribution of Chinese investment to mid-2023 without any negative comments.

US commercial symbols are a regular feature of Chinese streetscapes as noted by Business Insider:  

There has been at least one bright spot for Beijing when it comes to foreign investment: American fast-food chains have decided a market of 1.4 billion people is simply too delicious to pass up.

KFC China’s parent company opened its 10,000th restaurant in China this month and aims to have stores within reach of half of China’s population by 2026. McDonald’s is planning to open 3,500 new stores in China over the next four years. And Starbucks invested $220 million in a manufacturing and distribution facility in eastern China, its biggest project outside the U.S.

Media monitoring by Google Bard claims that Chinese financial institutions have invested between $A$1.3-$1.5 trillion in US Treasury Bonds to October 2023. This is the world’s second largest foreign equity in US treasury Bonds after Japan.

Public education campaigns by key federal financial departments and the varied Labor-oriented think-tanks might deliver a broader range of investment options for future discussion in Australia.

US economic diplomacy is less timid. The resources of the US Trade Representative in Washington routinely monitor all free trade agreements with countries like Australia for lapses in commitment to neoliberal values which have been embedded into these global trade and investment agreements.

Australia can do better in advancing our own economic diplomacy. This is one area in which Australian Governments could tune into US policies. Australia is a major global economy with a GDP that is half the size of its British counterpart. Our per capita income here is 40 percent higher than in Britain.

Let the lyrics from the Inner Circle foster real change agendas to confront old colonial cringes as proposed by the Inner Circle Band from Jamaica.

When war criminals can daub canvasses in blithe safety, rake in millions of dollars in after dinner speeches and bore governments to death with their shoddy words of wisdom, the world is not so much as it should be, but merely as it is. Former US President George W. Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and tag along bore, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, remain at large, despite their respective countries wagging fingers of disapproval at authoritarian regimes for defying the rules-based international order. Never a more fitting trio in terms of abusing international law could you find.

In 2003, this culpable troika sneered, ignored and soiled such international institutions as the United Nations, the rule of law, the legacy of the Nuremberg trials, and a number of conventions, by invading Iraq. The country, weakened and crippled by years of sanctions, leaving its hospital system crushed with bulky lists of dead children (all worthwhile, according to the late former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright), was apparently a mortal threat to Western civilisation. 

The Baathist regime, led by Saddam Hussein, was purportedly armed to the teeth with a doomsday inventory of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that he was bound to use at any given moment against freedom loving types in Washington, London and Canberra. (It is true he had previously had such weapons, much of it supplied by Western arms corporations with the blessing of intelligence agencies such as the CIA.) He had, apparently, refused to disarm, obdurate in the face of United Nations weapons inspectors. And he had flirted with those evil representatives of cataclysmic eschatology, al-Qaida, despite being hostile to such millenarian groups. The report card, spottier than ever in the shadow of the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the United States, suggested that he had to go. The results: lusty sectarian violence, a catastrophically devastating, often imbecilic occupation by US-led forces, the seeds of emboldened fundamentalism, the offshoot movements such as Islamic State, and multigenerational trauma. 

With another new year beckoning, the Australian National Archives have released approximately 240 cabinet papers from 2003 on the decision-making process behind a number of policy decisions. A few snippets are offered regarding road to war. Cabinet’s National Security Committee had kept an eye on developments in Iraq, though the released materials do little to reveal what, precisely, took place in conversations between Howard and Bush. 

In September 2002, one document notes how “cabinet noted an oral report by the prime minister on his discussion with the president of the United States on the American position in relation to efforts by Iraq to secure and maintain weapons of mass destruction.” A fortnight later, the then-foreign minister Alexander Downer, is noted as furnishing cabinet with an “oral report” regarding “developments” regarding the proposed UN Security Council resolution on the Saddam regime’s “possession of, and attempts to secure or maintain, weapons of mass destruction, and on the prospects for passage of the resolution.” That such oral revelations were not accompanied by thick, detailed submissions, is telling about the obedient, inevitable train of thinking afflicting the Howard government. A war, started by Washington, would come, and Canberra would be along for the ride.

By March 2003, Howard was demanding action. He informed members of his cabinet that Bush had issued Saddam with an ultimatum of thuggish import. “Saddam Hussein and his sons,” the US president stated, “must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing.”

Howard was drunk with intelligence assessments from the United States, including such claims that Iraq had put out feelers for yellowcake in Niger. Couple this with such stretched confections as non-state terrorist actors, hankering for WMD spoils from sponsor states, and the prime minister was swooning. In 2013, his cringeworthy apologia given to the Lowy Institute reflected on the fictitious Niger angle as “unmistakable” in its “strength”. Had it been accurate – a sly way of escaping the prosecutor’s legal brief – and Saddam “left in place, only to provide WMDs to a terrorist group, for use against the US, the Administration would have failed in its most basic responsibility to protect the nation.” When crooks of state are found out, they tend to cite public duty as appropriate justification.

As far as legality for any military intervention outside the formal channels of authorisation of a UN Security Council, Howard was armed with a memorandum signed by a first assistant secretary from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and his equivalent from the Attorney-General’s Department. Fantastically and irresponsibly, the cod ordinary advice suggested that Australian involvement in an invasion would be entirely legal, given the Saddam regime’s recalcitrance in not allegedly complying with previous Security Council resolutions. It seems that the public servants in question, instead of offering a panoramic view about the pitfalls of a dangerous adventure in the Middle East, were merely keen to satisfy the bloodletting urges of their political paymasters.

The cabinet minute from March 18, 2003 showed agreement from the Attorney-General with the spurious reasoning of the first assistant secretaries. It also noted that the Australian Governor-General, Peter Hollingworth, holder of that old office of the British empire as the monarch’s representative, had been consulted. Approval from him, however, was not mandatory. 

Cabinet, won over with no evident demurral, and previously buttered up by oral reports, approved the measure to commit Australia to another failed military mission of murderous, bungling incompetence. The United States would receive no resistance in getting its pound of Australian flesh for an illegal enterprise, and the Australian public, many of whom had participated in some of the largest anti-war demonstrations the country had ever seen, would be ignored. 

By Andrew Klein  

It occurred to me the other night how many revenue-raising bodies now exist in Australia. There is a plethora of taxes and levies upon the people that sometimes defies imagination. The other interesting fact being that many of these entities have been sold to private interests, that paid handsome fees in advance for the right to collect such taxes and levies (thus giving governments a temporary yet handy cash flow – often used together with the words of retiring public debt).

These entities have connections with overseas interests and range all the way from private prisons and prisoner transport (imprisonment being the most severe levy any member of the public is liable to) to the operation of tollways and means of communication between people and so much in between. Then there are all those ‘fine’ collecting bodies, private entities but state-sanctioned.

Miss paying your train fare, you don’t get a chance to have a chat with a nice customer service person but meet an enforcement officer. Now given that these Private Public Transport Providers are ‘private’ entities, I asked myself if this was not a case of a civil debt rather than a criminal matter. This is just my own perception and possibly flawed given the extent of current legislation and the crossover between bodies created by legislation or those of a common law history (the Sheriff’s Office) and even the Public Trustees Office that deals with intestate matters and the management of monies deemed to be in the hands of those labelled as unfit to manage their own affairs.

There are so many bodies that ensure compliance with a huge body of law, but few that offer to guide a person through them. Legal Aid is always struggling to meet the needs of those facing charges (innocent until proven otherwise – yet we give a ‘discount’ to those pleading guilty). The language used by those in public office wobbles between the language used to give the impression that there is a persistent state of war and one that mimics the babblings of infants trying to soothe one another under the supervision of a not very pleasant nanny.

Basically, we have created a new social/commercial class in Australia. I would call them ‘Tax Farmers’: entities that have bought to right to impose taxes and levies on the population without offering credible redress or due process to challenge the imposition of such financial burdens. Such Tax Farmers appear to operate in the dark, unknown personally to most of us. On the other hand, the collection agencies work on broad daylight setting up roadblocks to seize cars for unpaid fines and there is a trickle upward effect even from the utility bills that we pay to companies that act as middlemen rather than selling something they have actually created.

When you see the population as a huge ‘Tax and Levy Farm’ forever focused on ensuring compliance and collecting monies for non-compliance there are two serious matters raised. One is the ugly reality that simply living and doing ordinary things, an act of innocent non-compliance creates criminals with records and debts to those entities.

The second is that there must be a huge amount of money generated by this process of tax/levy farming that is never questioned, so where do all these funds go?

How long can any state sustain such a disconnected and openly callous system before it collapses and if it does start to fail because there appears to be a never-ending shortfall of monies available for the public good, what penalties will be imposed on those entities that act as farmers in name but have no idea as to how to look after the health of the flock (the population).

I get the impression that much of the money collected appears to be extortion by a more civilized name, the ubiquitous ‘Non-Compliance Penalty Notices’.

The CSIRO and AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) released the draft update to their annual ‘GenCost’ – cost of energy generation – report in the past week. It pointed out nuclear energy generation wasn’t particularly cheap and was hardly the ‘silver bullet’ to drive Australia’s decreasing reliance on coal energy generation into the ground. As the report is in draft, there is the provision that someone with sufficient knowledge and evidence in the area could point out to the CSIRO that they erred in the compilation or presentation of the evidence used to argue their point of view. It is also unlikely that the update would have been issued unless there was a good chance that no substantial changes would be made. 

Energy generated from renewable sources is cheaper than energy generated from nuclear energy by quite a margin, the GenCost report has found. Unsurprisingly, the Energy Minister welcomed the report as it broadly aligned with the government’s publicised objective to move energy production away from coal and gas to fully renewable sources. The Opposition was less welcoming, with Energy Spokesperson Ted O’Brien claiming the government was ‘weaponising’ the report to argue that nuclear energy generation wasn’t viable in Australia.

O’Brien claims the report looks at the issue through an ‘investment’ lens rather than a ‘consumer’ lens. He is splitting hairs. Either he has forgotten simple economics or he isn’t letting the facts stand in the way of a good story. Inherently, companies exist to generate a financial return on investments made by their shareholders. It is called profit. If a company doesn’t make a profit, it will eventually use up all its financial resources and ask shareholders for more or declare bankruptcy. The investors need the consumers to purchase their product rather than similar alternatives. The purchase price typically is higher than the cost of the inputs to the product, which is returned to the investors as profit. Maybe O’Brien might like to discuss how the two ‘lenses’ are different.

As Katherine Murphy noted in The Guardian 

The CSIRO’s new analysis this week noted conventional nuclear power is now cheaper than it used to be. But it also points out that some of the low-cost nuclear found overseas has either been “originally funded by governments” or was at a point where capital costs had been recovered. This allows plants to charge less for their generation because they don’t have to recover the costs of new, commercial, nuclear deployment. Given we don’t have existing generation here, this isn’t an option for Australia.

While we are on facts, here’s another one. The only company to have a small modular nuclear power plant [O’Brien’s favoured option] approved in the United States has recently cancelled its first project due to rising costs.

O’Brien isn’t the only one who should know better trying to talk down renewable energy production. Gina Rinehart is one of Australia’s wealthiest people. She provides considerable funding to the IPA (Institute of Public Affairs) which is a conservative leaning ‘think tank’ and apparently a nursery for upcoming conservative politicians. 

Rinehart must be happy with her investment in the IPA as she is currently spruiking some research from the organisation that states that at least one third of Australia’s arable land will be required to generate sufficient electricity once the last coal and gas fired power stations are closed down  The research was released to the world by the IPA using the well-known academic peer reviewed journal “X”, formerly “Twitter”.

The problem is the research misses a few facts. Michael Pascoe is a finance writer for The New Daily. He asked a couple of economists who work for the Australia Institute to review the IPA’s calculations and they found  

The IPA assumes renewables need to replace the total primary energy from fossil fuel use instead of the actual delivered energy – the stuff that counts, what we get to use.

“Most of the energy from fossil fuels is lost as heat,” explain Messrs Saunders and Ogge. “For instance, for coal at least 60 per cent of the primary energy from coal in coal power is lost as heat, at least 40 per cent from gas.

“Renewables do not have to replace the waste heat from fossil fuels, just the delivered energy, which is significantly less than half the primary energy figure which includes waste heat.

Pascoe goes on to suggest (correctly) that the land required for renewable energy production doesn’t have to be prime arable land, although sheep apparently like the shade provided by solar panels and will in return help to keep the grass under control.

So what is it with conservatives and renewable energy? Leaving aside the discussion around conservatives views on climate change and emissions reduction for a minute, is the concern that renewable energy is far more democratic? After all, you and I can install solar panels on the roof of our house with possibly a battery in the garage and to an extent dictated by energy regulations, finance and availability we can eliminate or at worst reduce significantly our requirement to purchase commercially generated electricity. It really doesn’t help the business model of the extractors of fossil fuels who have until now had a captive market.

It isn’t only electricity generation profits that are at risk here. The increasing uptake of electric vehicles is reducing ongoing demand for petrol and diesel, as evidenced by some traditional petrol retailers installing EV charging facilities. The problem for the retailers is that EV charging can be done at home from the solar panels and batteries, so we are far less dependant on their services. The EV can, in some cases, also be used a a battery to reduce the domestic dependence on commercially generated electricity as well.

On top of conservatives being told that fossil fuel extraction will be subject to far less demand and consequently be far less profitable, it breaks the business model they know and understand. And thats the real problem here. It’s a brave new world which is far more democratic than large companies having the monopoly on the ability to generate electricity. Even though most of us have hesitation when it comes to change, most of us either embrace it because we see the possibilities or learn to live with it. 

Society will adapt as demonstrated when the ‘horseless carriage’ gained supremacy over the carriage with horses. Arguably, the change made the world far more democratic as the costs of running a horseless carriage were far less than a stable of horses. We all got used to carrying a small computer that could also make phone calls around in our pockets or bags very quickly as well.

There may be really good arguments for alternatives to renewable energy – but O’Brien hasn’t given us one yet and Rinehart frankly should have pulled her funding if the IPA can’t do far better than the drivel they have presented as ‘research’ on this occasion. It’s time to put up or shut up.

The failure of the United States to convince the Australian government to send one vessel to aid coalition efforts to deter Houthi disruption of international shipping in the Red Sea was a veritable storm whipped up in a teacup. The entire exercise, dressed as an international mission titled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is intended as a response to the growing tensions of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.

Washington has made no secret of the fact that it wants to keep Iran away from Israel’s predations by deterring any provocative moves from Teheran’s proxies. But Israel’s murderous war in the Gaza Strip is not exactly selling well, and a special coalition is being seen as something of a distracting trick. But even within this assembly of states, the messages are far from uniform.

France’s Defence Minister, for instance, has promised that its ships would remain under French command, supplementing an already pre-existing troop presence. Italy’s Defence Ministry, in sending the naval frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea, has its eye on protecting the interests of Italian shipowners, clarifying that the deployment would not take place as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Likewise Spain, which has noted that EU-coordinated and NATO-led missions took priority over any unilateral Red Sea operation.

To that end, the Australian government has been unusually equivocal. In recent months, the tally of obedience to wishes from Washington has grown. But on the issue of sending this one vessel, the matter was far from certain. Eventually, the decision was made to keep the focus closer to home and the Indo-Pacific; no vessel would be sent to yet another coalition effort in the Middle East led by the United States.

The sentiment, as reported in The Guardian Australia, was that Australia would reduce its naval presence in the Middle East “to enable more resources to be deployed in our region.” In doing so, Canberra was merely reiterating the position of the previous Coalition administration.

In October 2020, the Morrison government announced an end to the three-decades long deployment of the Royal Australian Navy in the Middle East. Then Defence Minister Linda Reynolds revealed that Australia would no longer be sending a RAN ship to the Middle East on an annual basis, and would withdraw from the US-led naval coalition responsible for patrolling the Strait of Hormuz by 2020’s end.

It was good ground for Australia’s current Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to build on. In his words, “We’ve actually consulted our Australian Defence Force heads about these matters and with our American friends. That’s why you’ve seen no criticism from the US administration.” When pressed for further clarification about the allegedly inadequate state of Australia’s naval capabilities, the PM simply affirmed the already guaranteed (and dangerous) commitment of Canberra to “the Indo-Pacific, a fairly large region that we look after” with “our American friends.”

The warmongers were particularly irate at the modest refusal. Where there is war, they see no reason for Australia not to participate. And if it concerns the United States, it follows, by default, that it should concern Australian military personnel and the exercise of some fictitious muscle. This slavish caste of mind has dominated foreign policy thinking in Canberra for decades and asserted itself in an almost grotesque form with the surrender of sovereignty to the US military industrial complex under the AUKUS agreement.

The Coalition opposition, displeased with Albanese’s decision, had no truck for diplomacy. Lurking behind their reasoning were script notes prepared for them by the US-Israeli concern that Iran, and its Houthi allies, be kept in their box. “Is Mr Albanese seriously claiming that Australia can assert diplomatic influence over the Houthi rebels?” asked the Shadow Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie and the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor.

In the Murdoch press, two-bit, eye-glazing commentary on Australia neglecting its duties to the US war machine in distant seas could be found in frothy fury. Here is Greg Sheridan, more cumbersome than ever, in The Australian (paywalled): “We are saying to the Americans and the Brits – under AUKUS we expect you to send your most powerful military assets, nuclear submarines, to Australia to provide for our security, but we are so small, so lacking in capability and so scared of our own shadow, that under no circumstances can we spare a single ship of any kind to help you protect commercial shipping routes – from which we benefit directly – in the Red Sea.”

The Royal Australian Navy, Sheridan splutters, is simply not up to the task.  One of its eight ANZAC frigates is almost never in the water. The RAN is short of crews and short of “specialist anti-drone capabilities.” The implication here is evident: the government must, in the manner of Viv Nicholson’s declaration on her husband winning the football pools in 1961, “spend, spend, spend.”

Paul Kelly, another Murdoch emissary also of the same paper, was baffled (paywalled) about the “character” of the Labor government when it came to committing itself to the Middle East. The Albanese government should have been more bloodthirsty in its backing of Israel’s war against Hamas. It dared back, along with 152 other UN member states, “an Arab nation resolution calling for ‘an immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ – a resolution, given its wording, that was manifestly pro-Palestinian.”

What struck Kelly as odd, suggesting the glaring limits of his understanding of foreign relations, was that Australia did not commit to the coalition to protect shipping through the Red Sea because it does not have the naval capability to do so. But armchair pundits always secretly crave blood, especially when shed by others. And to have members of the RAN butchered on inadequate platforms was no excuse not to send them to a conflict.

Aspects of Sheridan’s remarks are correct: Australian inadequacy, the fear of its own shadow. The conclusions drawn by Sheridan are, however, waffling in their nonsense. It is precisely such a fear that has led the naval and military establishment fall for the notion that Canberra needs nuclear-propelled boats to combat the spectre of a Yellow-Red Satan to the north. With a good degree of imbecility, an enemy has been needlessly created.

The result is that Australian insecurity has only been boosted. Hence more military contracts that entwine, even further, the Australian military with the US Armed Forces. Or more agreements to share military technology that give Washington a free hand in controlling the way it is shared. In history, Albanese’s refusal to commit the RAN to the Red Sea will be seen as a sound one. His great sin will be the uncritical capitulation of his country to US interests in the Indo-Pacific.

By guest columnist Tess Lawrence

One man’s terrorist is another terrorist’s man.

Algerian-born Abdul Nacer Benbrika’s notorious name is synonymous with a foiled terrorist plot to bomb an AFL Grand Final at the MCG among other targets in Melbourne and Sydney, including government offices, Crown Casino, the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor plant.

Prosecutors also presented evidence in the Victorian Supreme Court, of plans to assassinate then Prime Minister John Howard because of the Iraq War.

Benbrika a big-noter and Osama bin Laden fan

A big noter and Osama bin Laden fan, Benbrika’s release from prison has caused outrage and debate in the wider community, including those within the Muslim community who, like many non-Muslims, view him as a divisive and corrupting figure, a trouble-maker, a skilled groomer and manipulator of vagrant minds searching for a cause, a mentor, a father figure.

He was a predator who could fill the vacuum of a seemingly aimless existence of disaffected younger men, with his perversions of religion texts and societal hatreds, mostly towards so-called ‘western civilization ’and fellow Australians.

Whether Benbrika is still all these things, one cannot say. And therein lies the rub.

Benbrika was a Jihadist cult leader and though his terrorist cell comprised relatively few in number, a single terrorist can wreak havoc upon thousands of innocents as we well know.

Moreover, his cell had tangible and ideological links with other groups and pop-up terrorist cells that even contrived to carry out terrorist acts in retaliation for Benbrika’s imprisonment, all in the name of Jihad.

Actually, Jihad is the Arabic word for ‘Struggle’

Here I ought point out that the Arabic word ‘jihad’ simply means ‘struggle’.

In contemporary parlance we are more used to the term referring not only to religious struggle and context, but also warring by terrorists, or social discrimination at times between the differing ‘dialects’ of Islam, in much the same way as discrimination exists within Jewry and Christianity, ergo, conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Operation Pandennis brought Benbrika undone

Benbrika and his cohorts were finally brought undone by Operation Pendennis. Formed in 2004, it was a collaborative effort by Victoria and New South Wales Police, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Much information also came from concerned citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

On September 15, 2008, Sunni Imam Abu Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr was convicted by the Supreme Court of Victoria of being a member of a terrorist organisation and directing the activities of a terrorist organisation.

On Tuesday morning in the Victorian Supreme Court, Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth granted Benbrika’s release on an extended supervision order for a year (and not the three years requested by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus) with strict compliance conditions, mere weeks after the High Court found that the Morrison government’s Home Affairs minister, now Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, had unconstitutionally revoked Benbrika’s Australian citizenship.

Lazy Sussan puts her stilettos in it

The raft of conditions includes a curfew, the restricted use of mobile and other devices, undergo mandatory psychological treatment and de-radicalisation programs and the wearing of an electronic monitoring device.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan (aka TGWT – ‘this goes with this‘) Ley, one of Peter Dutton’s frontline Bark Squad predictably attempted to whitewash the Coalition’s role in the legal and legislative meanderings that ultimately led to Benbrika’s release.

But lazy Sussan should have thought it through. Clearly, she hadn’t read Justice Hollingworth’s judgement, because what Her Honour had to say was scathing about the previous Morrison Government and Home Affairs in particular.

All roads lead to Home Affairs and Peter Dutton

Because as usual, all roads lead to Home, as in Home Affairs – and No Man Peter Dutton.

Check this out: 

HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS v BENBRIKA [2021] HCA 4

10 February 2021

Today, the High Court answered a question reserved for the consideration of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria that had been removed into the High Court. The question concerned Div 105A of the Criminal Code (Cth) (“the Code”), which empowers the Supreme Court of a State or Territory, on the application of the Minister for Home Affairs (“the Minister”), to order that a person who has been convicted of a terrorist offence be detained in prison for a further period after the expiration of his or her sentence of imprisonment. The Court held, by majority, that the power to make a continuing detention order (“CDO”) under s 105A.7 of the Code is within the judicial power of the Commonwealth and has not been conferred, inter alia, on the Supreme Court of Victoria contrary to Ch III of the Commonwealth Constitution.

On 15 September 2008, Mr Abdul Nacer Benbrika was convicted by the Supreme Court of Victoria of being a member of a terrorist organisation and directing the activities of a terrorist organisation. At trial, the Crown case was that Mr Benbrika and others were members of a Melbourne-based terrorist organisation that was fostering or preparing the doing of a terrorist act in Australia or overseas. Mr Benbrika was sentenced to an effective term of imprisonment of 15 years with a non- parole period of 12 years. His sentence expired on 5 November 2020. On 4 September 2020, the Minister commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of Victoria, seeking a CDO in respect of Mr Benbrika. On 24 December 2020, it was ordered that Mr Benbrika be subject to a CDO to be in force for a period of three years.

Mr Benbrika’s principal argument relied on the principle, articulated in Chu Kheng Lim v Minister for Immigration (1992) 176 CLR 1 and derived from the separation of powers provided for by the Constitution, that, exceptional cases aside, the involuntary detention of a citizen in custody by the State is penal or punitive in character and exists only as an incident of the exclusively judicial function of adjudging and punishing criminal guilt (“the Lim principle”). It was contended that the scheme for preventative detention provided for by Div 105A neither complies with, nor falls within a recognised exception to, this principle and so may not be conferred as federal judicial power.

A majority of the Court held that a scheme that is appropriately tailored to protecting the community from the singular threat posed by terrorist criminal activity is capable of coming within an exception to the Lim principle analogous to other established exceptions that share a purpose of protection of the community from harm, such as detention of those suffering from mental illness or infectious disease. Taken as a whole, particularly as the power to make a CDO under Div 105A is conditioned on a judge being satisfied not only that the risk of the commission of certain offences is “unacceptable” but also that no other, less restrictive measure would be effective in preventing that risk, the division is rightly characterised as directed to ensuring the safety and protection of the community from the risk of harm posed by the threat of terrorism. Accordingly, Div 105A validly confers the judicial power of the Commonwealth on the Supreme Court of a State or Territory.

• This statement is not intended to be a substitute for the reasons of the High Court or to be used in any later consideration of the Court’s reasons.

Please direct enquiries to Ben Wickham, Senior Executive Deputy Registrar Telephone: (02) 6270 6893 Fax: (02) 6270 6868
Email: enquiries@hcourt.gov.au Website: www.hcourt.gov.au

Three years ago this month, Peter Dutton, mutton dressed up as ram, without the rosemary, was the Minister for Home Affairs. And on this particular Wednesday, 25^th of November, he was participating in a joint press conference with the former American Ambassador to Australia, Arthur Culvahouse Junior.

You probably haven’t heard of Culvahouse Junior. That’s because he was a President Donald Trump appointee. Junior was the bright spark who picked Sarah Palin as John McCain’s Vice-Presidential running mate. But I digress.

Dutton revokes Benbrika’s Australian citizenship

Serious matters were to be discussion – child exploitation, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, as well as not so serious matters – the US/Australia alliance (they who must be obeyed) and a former Finance Minister, the political traitor Mathias Cormann.

We shall spare you the treacly fawning by Dutton and quote from the transcript on Dutton’s website: 

PETER DUTTON:

Thank you very much Ambassador.

I just wanted to update you in relation to a matter that’s currently before the court, but in November 2005, Abdul Nacer Benbrika was arrested as part of Operation Pendennis, some of you will have a memory of that.

The court heard that Benbrika spoke of killing 1,000 people to achieve the groups objectives. He was charged with possessing a thing connected with the preparation of a terrorist attack and in February 2009, the Supreme Court of Victoria sentenced Benbrika to 15 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 12 years.

His sentence was comprised of one term of seven years for intentionally being a member of a terrorist organisation, one term of 15 years for intentionally directing the activities of a terrorist organisation, and one term of five years for possession of a thing connected with the preparation of a terrorist act.

Benbrika appealed his conviction sentence, as you’d know, but today I can confirm that on the 20th of November I cancelled the Australia citizenship of convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika.

He’s the first individual to have lost his citizenship onshore under the terrorism related provisions of the Australian Citizenship Act of 2007 and given Benbrika no longer holds Australian citizenship, he’s granted an ex-citizen visa by operation of law, under the Migration Act.

Benbrika has been notified of his citizenship loss and he’ll remain in prison whilst an interim detention order is enforced, pending the courts consideration of the application for a continuing detention order.
I do want to pay tribute and thank all of the law enforcement officers and agencies who worked on Operation Pendennis. This was the most significant counter-terrorism investigation in Australia’s history and it no doubt saved countless lives.

I can confirm today, also, that 20 dual-nationals cease to hold Australian citizenship as a result of their engagement in terrorist conduct, but he is the first onshore, as I point out…

The High Court restores Benbrika’s citizenship

And we have to point out that, of course, the High Court restored Benbrika’s Australian citizenship.

Convicted terrorist Benbrika walks free as blame game begins:

In September, 2011 I compiled an essay on suicide bombers that also referred to Abdul Nacer Benbrika.

First published on Independent Australia, I wrote that:

“… Benbrika’s limited and malevolent fundamentalist intellect is particularly disturbing. People that know him tell me he is incapable of a sensible discussion on anything outside of his obsessive compulsive revulsion and demonising of non-believers among which he includes moderate Muslims…”

Benbrika has fathered seven children and is now a grandfather. To the best of my knowledge and from information from Muslim intelligence, he has been on the dole all the while, since he overstayed his initial visa. We must never begrudge children the benefit of parent(s) being on the dole.

Effectively, this homegrown terrorist would have ‘grown‘ on the public purse. In other words, we the people have been funding his terrorist cell.

“He’s never done a day’s work in his life,” one Muslim leader told me. The AIM Network has also been informed that the majority of Benbrika’s cult mates were ‘on the dole’. I am deliberately using the word ‘dole‘ because that is how Muslim contacts have referred to the government benefits Benbrika has received for decades.

From 2011:

Benbrika. Infected with hatred for West in whose imperfect arms he enjoyed daily embrace

He seems to have suckled constantly off the Australian welfare teat to provide for himself and his wife and seven children and yet his language is infected with hatred towards Australia and Australians and ‘the West’ in whose imperfect arms he has enjoyed daily embrace…

Did Benbrika get paid in prison? Do we have a right to know how much he had in his prison bank account?

Moreover, as a prisoner, Benbrika would have received monies if he had undertaken work within the prison system. It will surprise many to know that there is no limit to the amount of money a prisoner can have in their account.

Do we have the right to know what Benbrika had in his prison bank account? I’m curious to know if his account earns interest; if they are shariah compliant?

We now republish in full the 2011 article on terrorists and predator Abdul Nacer Benbrika, that captures community concern at the time of his sentencing: 

Suicide bombers need to be studied like other murderers

Suicide bombers: Masturbating blood in the dark. 

IT IS the hate that dare not speak its name.

But I will name it and I will try to shame it. It is the hate that masquerades as the love for Allah.

It is the hate that manifests in the barren bowels of barren men with matching intellects; whose ideological impotence feeds on a Viagra readily manufactured by the conjoined twins of sex and violence.

It appears on the assembly belt in a package mostly indistinguishable from all the other packages.

That is the beauty of it.

It walks and stalks paupers and those who would be kings alike.

It is a responsive and unquestioning servant to a needy and often seasoned master whose sexual gratification is dependent upon the subjugation of often younger prey; an age old powerplay, surely.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, and Howard, Bin Laden and Abdul Nacer Benbrika extolled others to violence and despatched youth to war against the human family.

It appears as an automaton incapable of independent thought.

Lured with the promise of unearthly bounty, its gullibility harvested by grim reapers who gather their spent seed and spread it equally upon their greedy quivering mouths and reputations.

It has a brain but does not think.

It has eyes but does not see.

It has a heart but it doesn’t miss a beat. It has blood, but if you cut it, it does not heed. It even has a conscience but this has been sold into slavery for an empty silken purse made with the tattered fabric of inhumane bondage and debts that never have to be repaid. Micro-finance not required.

What is it?

You know it. I know it. The world knows it well. Too well.

‘It’ is the suicide bomber.

The links between fundamentalist religious zealots and power and sex and violence is known and noted.

Before the crazies start strapping on their designer terrorist suicide jackets to shut me up, let me say this: I feel the same way about all FRZs. And that includes alleged professed Christians and Muslims and Jews and Infidels.

Allah. It’s Arabic for God. It’s not Muslim for God

And while we’re at it, can we just get this straight about the word ‘Allah’.  It’s Arabic for God.

It’s not Muslim for God. So we can all use it. Muslim, Christians, Non-believers, alike.

It’s no more a Muslim word than God is a Christian word.

I’m researching a book about the pornography of sexual violence specifically linking terrorism and suicide bombers. War porn. We don’t have to go overseas to identify these links. Let’s pop into our own backyard shall we? And why are we terrified of discussing this subject in Australia and opening up a public conversation?

For example, the more one studies the lexicon of Algerian-born convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika, the more one realises the important role manipulating repressed sexuality has as essential armoury in his toxic interpretation of Jihadism.

We (not me) used to say one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Now we (not me) say one man’s suicide bomber is another man’s martyr. The promise of 72 virgins awaiting these suicidal martyrs, presumably with open legs as well as open arms, remains a serious inducement of recruitment for these doomsday cults.

I ponder about what’s in it for women suicidal martyrs – 72 virgin males? I don’t think so.

Fat chance. Either side of the great Sirat.

Anyway, I hope they’re faux virgins who have had their hymens restitched — these spoils of whore.

I know, I’m a killjoy, but why would you want your first sexual encounter to be with a coward?

Heaven’s virgins, like those of us on earth surely deserve as it is in heaven – heroes, champions, darling men and women who make love not hate and angels who frolic in same sex marriages and where unbaptised innocent babies who died with souls stained by mortal sin are not double-parked in Limbo and where you can meet wealthy stinkers who fast tracked their way into Heaven with Plenary Indulgences.

Then again, as far as most religions go, we of the second-class sex generally get a bum rap. I’m speaking as a prolapsed Catholic. I know these things. Il Papa doesn’t fool me just because he gave Macka (Mother Mary MacKillop to you) a Vatican gong.

Et cum spiritu tuo

Those Vatican dudes who wear the Magenta Galibayas have so much in common with their Taliban brothers. They still think women are unclean and won’t let us share the wine and be priests in case we menstruate on the Altar while we’re turning water and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus.

Do you get that? It’s magic. It’s not a metaphor. Not symbolic. It is the miracle of the Mass.

We all know the once excommunicated (for insubordination) Mother Mary liked to hit the turps every now and then. Let it be. A minor storm in a hiccup, I would have thought, given the well-stocked cellars of the Brothers and Priests. All top shelf stuff. Let the Holy Spirits be upon you.

Et cum spiritu tuo.

That woman has always been a saint in my eyes.

The reality was she still did more in a day than the blokes did in a month of Sundays, at a time when it was a Mortal Sin to miss Mass on the Sabbath and believers used to fret about all those innocent babies in Limbo. I still do.

Did those bubs stay on when the Dogma didn’t? Any frequent flyers?

Back to Benbrika. Remember Attorney-General Robert McClelland’s expedient attempt to bring some hollow kudos to the Labor Government (the original charges against Benbrika and others were laid under the Howard Government).

McClelland imprudently described Australia’s biggest terrorist trial as our “most successful terror prosecution” inviting justifiable criticism about political interference and outrage from the Opposition, civil liberties groups and lawyers for the men; fuelling the on-going debate in this country about terror laws and freedom of speech.

In 2008, Benbrika and several others were found guilty of terrorism related charges. Last week in Melbourne, Justice Terry Forrest ruled that a second trial involving Benbrika and others would be an abuse of process and opppressive.

The evidence before the Court in the seven-month trial in 2008, reminded us all that whilst economic deprivation undoubtedly oils the mechanics of recruiting younger terrorists as disposable human waste and foot soldiers — most of Benbrika’s acolytes within the inner sanctum would not be classed as economically deprived.

Benbrika’s limited and malevolent fundamentalist intellect is particularly disturbing. People that know him tell me he is incapable of a sensible discussion on anything outside of his obsessive compulsive revulsion and demonising of non-believers among which he includes moderate Muslims.

Benbrika. Infected with hatred for West in whose imperfect arms he enjoyed daily embrace

He seems to have suckled constantly off the Australian welfare teat to provide for himself and his wife and seven children and yet his language is infected with hatred towards Australia and Australians and ‘the West’ in whose imperfect arms he has enjoyed daily embrace.

In this, Benbrika has local and overseas counterparts.

It is chilling to read transcripts and hear tapes of him deftly verbally seducing his younger disciples – religious paedophilia, most surely, of another kind. He uses those programming techniques favoured by a number of cults. First de-construct. Then re-construct. Listen to the Terrorist Whisperer’s seductive vocal caress.

Little forensic analyses have been completed on the psychological construct of self-appointed leaders/Imams such as Benbrika and his international siblings. The latter, in particular, get their rocks off by getting younger men and kids to literally get their rocks off in suicide bombings. What’s going on here?

And have you noticed that so often in the terrorist’s suicidal foreplay that a visit to the local brothel or freelance prostitute (a la the September 11, 2001 terrorist hijackers) seems a mandatory prerequisite before meeting the Creator? Why is that, I wonder?

Governments shy from investing funds in this specific field of research and yet uber intelligence personnel tell me there are valuable counter-terrorism technique clues embedded like shrapnel in this endeavour. It is not an unknown discipline, after all.

So often, terrorists portray suicide bombers as heroes. What would happen if they were portrayed instead as losers, inadequate performers? As gutless beings – reduced to the status of genocidal mass murderers, serial killers, criminals.

Consider Hitler and the efforts of the Allies to dissect his sexual proclivities and the debates in academe about the impact of his single testicle on his psyche. Did Hitler have balls? He had but one, according to what a member of the Russian Schmersh team present at the autopsy told me. And she walked around with bits of his jaw in her handbag for days. But hey, is it about the testosterone count? Or is it about the manipulating of psychosexual DNA. Cowards don’t need balls. Like bullies.

These thugs, this death coach Benbrika and his convicted lackeys, should be stripped from hiding behind any facade of religion. (It should be noted that Benbrika’s cell was exposed because of the vigilance and concern of members of the Muslim community informing and working with the authorities.)

The homoerotic sadism inherent in despatching others to kill on one’s behalf needs to be properly dissected and examined.

This is considered valid when profiling so-called ‘civilian’ serial killers and those who incite others to murder on their behalf.

So why do we shirk from applying this level of scrutiny to terrorists and home-grown terrorists?

The likes of Benbrika … masturbating blood in the dark

Some people love to watch people having sex. Some people love to watch people die. Some people get off on watching people kill other people. And we know some people just love those suicide videos; pornography of violence; snuff movies. The likes of Benbrika and his ideological brothers masturbating blood in the dark.

Their philosophies are bereft of love, hope, joy, friendship, compassion, peace, sheer lust for life and affection for their human brethren. They display an inability to empathise with suffering. There is no sense of a shared humanity.

They promulgate a version of religion incapable of withstanding scrutiny, argument, debate, challenge, humour, ridicule, from believers and non-believers alike.

They instigate fear and suspicion within their own communities, intimidating those who do not adhere to their fundamentalist criteria.

They are psychopaths with Lecter-like inclination. You might notice that Benbrika and other so called ‘mentors’ never advocate strapping on a suicide vest themselves. No sirree, Abdul. Do as I say, not as I do not. Bin Laden would never have said ‘my turn, brothers’. These dudes don’t believe their own rhetoric. They know it’s a load of bollocks.

They defecate on the dreams of ordinary Muslims

Most of all, they defecate on the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Muslims. I don’t much care that they are anti-Christian, anti-Jew, anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist, et cetera. They are entitled to their opinion. But they are anti-life. They are anti-humanity. And they are certainly anti-Muslim.  Terrorists murder and maim more Muslims than they do Infidels.

A night ago from Kabul came information of the suicide bombing of former Afghani President and Chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Berhanuddin Rabbani whilst meeting with Taliban leaders.

Reports state one of the suicide bombers may have hidden the bomb in his turban.

What utter cowards. How they must have feared Rabbani; too scared to even speak with him and prepared to desecrate the code of hospitality, protection and honour offered in his home.

Such bombings should not be regarded as a triumph but as a measure of the terrorist’s ideological impotence.

The many wars within ‘The War’ in Afghanistan have little to do with even religious ideology, but everything to do with power and corruption and money and drugs.

Muslim terrorists … Brothers in arms with Irish Christian terrorists

Their brothers in arms might well be the likes of Irish Christian terrorists, who killed many more Christians in their zenith and may never have killed a single Muslim, insofar as ‘The Troubles’ are concerned.

And, like their Muslim terrorist brethren, Christian Irish terrorists are anti-life, anti-humanity. And they are certainly anti-Christian. Do you get my drift?

Oh yes, Al Qaeda would have been quite at home in Omagh that terrible day in Market Street, August 15, 1998. It became human meat market street, littered with the body parts of the innocent dead and dying and hundreds of injured.

The thing is, Christian yarns are full of martyrs who seemed to revel in being flayed alive and burned at the stake, plucking their own eyes out – or bringing it on themselves, being flogged, the gory stories scaring the bejeezus out of wee kidlets.

Crucified half-naked Christ – Image riddled with homoerotica

And look at those statues and pictures of the crucified half-naked and splayed Christ, the blood trickling down his forehead from the crown of piercing thorns and oozing from the nails driven into his open palms and crossed feet; sometimes Christendom’s ultimate martyr is bound with rope, in bondage to his scriptured fate. Then there is the coup de amazing grace — that gash in his side from the spear. The entire image is riddled with undeniable homoerotica.

The ecstasy far outstrips the agony.

For some reason these days Christians – and the rest of us, on the whole, don’t seem to have as much enthusiasm for martyrdom or suicide missions as our Muslim counterparts.

Maybe the former are just not that interested in meeting virgins in the afterlife. Maybe they figure they can meet more virgins here on earth.

Or maybe they’re just not as sexually desperate as suicidal bombers.

In reaction to the UN Security Council’s passing of a watered-down resolution instead of calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Oxfam Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Sally Abi-Khalil said:

“The failure to call for a ceasefire after five days of deliberate delays and dilutions of the resolution is incomprehensible, and utterly callous. It is a profound dereliction of duty from an organisation established to uphold the UN Charter to maintain peace, and protect lives. 

“It actively denies over two million Palestinians – many of whom are now starving as a risk of famine looms – respite from the relentless bombardment and siege they have endured for nearly two and half months. 

“An immediate and permanent ceasefire is the only way to deliver humanitarian aid at the scale and speed urgently needed, end the horrendous loss of life and ensure the safe return of hostages.

The US’s removal of calls to suspend hostilities shows just how out of touch its policies are with the urgency and terror that Palestinians are experiencing. Its actions in the Security Council demonstrate the US’s increased isolation from the global consensus.”

Australians should be wondering why the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), one of the country’s proudest think tanks, has just established a body promoting nuclear energy that appears to have little to justify it. If the CIS truly believes in the project, surely it would have sought a leader with a stellar resumé?

Earlier this year, environmental journalist George Monbiot warned that the chance of simultaneous harvest failures in the world’s major breadbaskets was “much worse than we thought.” He poured his fury onto the old industries deploying as many Atlas Network-style “junktanks (‘thinktanks’), troll farms, marketing gurus, psychologists and micro-targeters as they need to drag our eyes away from what counts, and leave us talking about trivia and concocted bullshit instead.”

The 500+ global “partner” bodies of the Atlas Network have, for decades, been forming metastasising entities such as “think” tanks to create the sense of a chorus of academic or public support for the junk science and junk political economies that serve their funders. The primary goals have been to liberate plutocrats from any tax or regulation, and fossil fuel bodies have been amongst their most prolific donors.

By contrast with the billions spent to “stop collapse from being prevented,” the effort to prevent Earth systems collapse is led by people “working mostly in their own time with a fraction of the capacity.”

The Atlas strategy involves networking promising ultra-free market spruikers with the astonishing sums of money that fossil fuel and similar industries spend to promote their goals. The spruikers can be trained and cross-connected. Some are helped to create benign-named bodies that describe themselves as think tanks or academic institutes (beachheads) in universities. They found fake grass roots bodies (astroturfing) to pressure politicians into believing that there is public support for a policy. Youthful scholars or strategists co-opted and funded by the machine go on to export the work into politics and the media.

One Australian example is the founder of the Australian Taxpayer Alliance, Tim Andrews. He was a graduate of the Koch Associate Program, a year-long training program at the Charles Koch institute, and worked at the Atlas-partner Americans for Tax Reform for two years. Koch is one of the most significant figures in the Atlas Network’s spread. Andrews is now a member of the UK Atlas Partner, the Taxpayer Alliance Advisory Council.

High profile mining figures in particular unite many of these bodies. In Australia, Hugh Morgan’s name, for example, is present in many of their histories. He assisted Greg Lindsay in turning the CIS from a “part-time hobby” into the more serious institution that it became. Morgan was described in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1985 as “the most important conservative figure in Australia. He is not merely an outspoken captain of industry, he is at the centre of a large and growing network of activists who are seeking to reshape the political agenda in this country.”

In America there is an extensive web of such networks and bodies that interact together. The Atlas Network is important for its international forays into 100 countries, working to infect debate with this American ideology that overwhelmingly promotes the right of corporations to extract resources at any cost to the nation exploited.

The CIS claims to encourage “debate among leading academics, politicians, media and the public.” It announces itself to be “proud to be associated with some of the greatest leaders in business and academia as visiting lecturers or as CIS members, staff or Directors.”

The CIS tended to maintain the dignity that mission statement conveys. It has traditionally acted in the background by contrast with the blowsy, brawling Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). The contrast is even starker with the farcical LibertyWorks Inc which created the local Trumpist circus, the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). These two Atlas partners are best known for devising “low” strategy campaigns identifiable as a “war on woke.”

The HR Nicholls Society, like the CIS, pitched its campaigning as “high” strategy: intellectually framed and directed at the upper echelons of civic debate. West Australia’s Mannkal Economic Education Foundation is tightly connected with the Mont Pelerin Society. Queensland’s Australian Institute for Progress, the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance and the Australian Libertarian Society are all amongst the benign-sounding bodies that have been recorded as partners to Atlas.

The Bert Kelly Research Centre, which was linked to the Family First ultraconservative movement, and the Bennelong Society, which acted to fight any First People policy apart from assimilation, are defunct Atlas-connected operations.

Bennelong (denying First People’s self-determination) and HR Nicholls’ (shackling workers) shared a post box and phone number with the Lavoisier Group which continues to post climate denial material. The websites for Lavoisier and Bennelong were designed by a functionary at the IPA.

GetUp! was founded to give the electorate a voice against Dark Money in 2005. This challenge to state capture could not be allowed to stand: to counteract the progressive electorate’s voice, figures associated with the CIS established Advance Australia. As Advance, it led the No campaign for the Voice referendum, reflecting fossil fuel money’s fear of First Peoples’ rights working in cooperation with environmental goals. Dr Jeremy Walker highlighted the Atlas connections and strategies involved while investigative journalist Anthony Klan tracked the people and money that connect the various shadowy bodies that spawned from the parent.

It is not CIS’s fault that this tawdry astroturf collective shared founders, funders and “researchers” with the more dignified CIS.

The CIS Communications Director Karla Pincott recently informed that the CIS was not founded nor funded by Atlas, neither of which has been asserted. Amongst the body’s proudly “public record” and “peer-reviewed” research, she claimed that the CIS’s only “carbon research to date has recommended a carbon tax.”

In the light of this comment it is interesting that the CIS has just announced the creation of its new “CIS Energy Program” which “will offer tangible energy solutions to address concerns about climate change, focusing on nuclear power and the clean energy transition.”

With CIS’s proud tradition of proclaimed reputable research, one would imagine that such a program would be led by a notable figure in the energy field, perhaps a leading academic or professional.

The figure selected to head up this project describes himself as “not a professional with any sort of industry inside experience” nor does he have any “particular credentials.” Instead he is a “kind of interested, enthusiastic layperson.” He says he “sort of stumbled across” the Twitter (X) debate and “threw my two cents in.” While he has a physics degree, he sums himself up thus: “I follow things on Twitter a little bit. I’m interested in economics. I’m interested in energy. I’m interested in physical systems. I’m interested in military technology.” When discussing his climb to relevance as a Twitter debater this year, Morrison said, “I barely even know…I know a couple of the energy debaters.” One would imagine that a person selected to head up a CIS research project would know the thought leaders in the field.(1)

Morrison’s latest video production is much more sophisticated than earlier efforts.

Incidentally, a 16 year-old who is another leading voice via “Nuclear for Australia” has been harnessed by Sky News for the Coalition.

Tom Switzer, departing presenter of the ABC’s “Between the Lines” gave the youth the full 55 minutes of his show. Switzer is also executive director of the CIS where he announced his thinktank’s new “Energy Program” as an opportunity to use the “market” to drive clean energy goals instead of “pitting economic growth against climate goals.” He did not speak to how Morrison himself was selected.

The Liberal Party is promoting the “small modular reactor” as an alternative to renewables. It has long been established that this is a distraction rather than an affordable change. It is believed that the LNP and associates’ support for nuclear power is another in the long list of distractions that the fossil fuel industry has funded to delay and prevent change.

Figures from “think” tanks are platformed on current affairs programs and quoted as though they have expertise. Their important or benign-sounding bodies’ names give gravitas to their declarations. Their donors are generally concealed and thus their intent can be treated with some suspicion.

On the 18th December, Chris Kenny on Sky hosted “CIS Energy Program Director Aidan Morrison” as a “data scientist” who has conducted an “expert review” of the grid planning. Morrison’s study, in Kenny’s summary, “has concluded these documents play all sorts of tricks to try to ensure that renewables look like the cheapest option, when in fact they’re not.” (2)  Kenny stated Morrison’s data science “work has been so impressive he’s just been appointed to head up the Energy Research Program for the Centre of Independent Studies.” Kenny incorrectly accuses that the renewable energy push has “already caused huge supply problems and cost increases in our electricity grid” and is “now set to make problems even worse.” The pair both criticise the exclusion of nuclear as a solution, portraying it as an ideological decision rather than a pragmatic one. Kenny uses Morrison’s work to conclude: “we have expert confirmation that it might not even work. We might not have enough energy available when we need it. An energy rich country without enough energy…What a shambles.”(3)

Australia must legislate to ensure that such bodies are transparent about funding. Charity status should only be granted to bodies that work with integrity. Figures who represent these bodies ought to be labelled at every appearance as representing vested interests if they cannot meet the required standard for integrity.

Fossil fuel has delayed the global community acting in a calm and relatively painless way last century, in order to ensure it extracts profit as long as possible. Far North Queensland is right now experiencing unprecedented floods, another in a concatenation of “unprecedented” catastrophes. It will soon be too late. We are long past tolerating delaying strategies.

If “think” tanks want to be treated as having credibility, then this new “CIS Energy Program” is a troubling signal.

And we truly hope their mission statement remains: “The Centre for Independent Studies promotes free choice and individual liberty, and defends cultural freedom and the open exchange of ideas.”

Postscript: The Leader made an incorrect assertion about the new Gencost report on a 2GB interview on the 21st December criticising it for examining costs through an investment lens. That incorrect assertion was later repeated by a senior Liberal figure.

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(1) This is Morrison’s full introduction to himself when asked to provide his relevant background to be a guest on a podcast about baseload energy. I have cleaned it up for clarity by removing repetition and most linguistic fillers. The sound was quite distorted at some points but I listened to it repeatedly to achieve the fairest representation of Morrison’s words. “I’m not a professional with any sort of industry inside experience or anything like yourself. I’m a data scientist at the moment. I work writing computer code to trade in futures and other assets. So I don’t have any special technical insight other than [physics degree?] which I suppose helps in deciphering some of these things. So I’m an …kind of interested, enthusiastic layperson. People can hold that against me if they want but I hope they do their best to focus on the arguments and engage with them as opposed to just writing off [people and credentials?] on me. I do have a physics degree. I studied [at ANU…?] I’ve always been a bit of a fan of nuclear power since I studied nuclear physics. I found that it was a really compelling thing. All the solutions to make the problems, which it has, well managed, just seem extremely elegant, extremely satisfying. And I think when you engage with those from a physics perspective, it’s easy to get quite excited by it. But so I follow things on Twitter a little bit. I’m interested in economics. I’m interested in energy. I’m interested in physical systems. I’m interested in military technology. I have a little nascent, fledgling YouTube channel called Miltechntac that I’m working on getting some more videos out for. But yeah, that’s me. I just sort of stumbled across this and threw my two cents in.”

(2) Morrison’s review of renewable’s arguments in the same podcast sounds like this: “Their whole model and what they’ve done there to me is totally opaque and it could be a complete and utter mess. I don’t think I can fix it by just adding in one thing. Maybe it’s right though, and I can’t see exactly other ways in which it’s clearly wrong. I’ve got a few ideas actually. But they need to come back and produce a credible and transparent model that does incorporate all the costs we actually incur for those later stages of renewables, not riding on sunk cost. And there could be other problems still maybe, but they can start with this that they have definitely not included the cost of building the infrastructure up to 2030…”

(3) Threats to the power grid remain rare. The warning in NSW last week was the result of two units at the Mr Piper coal power station being offline, one unexpectedly. The blackout did not eventuate. Power prices have largely resulted in massive windfall profits for the gas sector. The other talking points spread by nuclear boosters are addressed in the latest Gencost report just released.

It is important to remember Brandolini’s Law.