Author: peterimrich
The coalition LNP have simply become Trumper Republicans with no imagination of their own. They don’t simply want to trash Aussie votes but our system.
The Coalition’s voter ID bill may discourage people from voting and “no evidence” has been provided regarding how it could prevent fraud, a parliamentary committee has warned. The joint committee on human rights, chaired by Nationals MP Anne Webster, issued the warning in a report on Wednesday. It called on the special minister of state, Ben Morton, to explain how the bill would be effective and its impact on vulnerable groups.
The ultimate goal is to “steal a Nations votes” by creating System where voting is reduced to a pantomime as seen in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, and what the Republicans conservatives propose for the USA. Simply put a One Party Autocracy where opposition is reduced to tokenism in An Oligarchic Autocracy. Their loss should it ever occur is evidence of a rigged system. Evidence of their unacceptance of loss is proof of Democracy Lost
If we don’t need it, why does the government want it? “Voter suppression” is the call from the left on that. The government, it’s alleged, is copying straight from the Republican Party’s US playbook, manipulating the law to disenfranchise voters who are less likely to support conservative candidates, such as the poor and marginalised. Specifically, in America, Black people. Here, likewise. After all, which section of the Australian population is most likely to have difficulty producing ID on polling day? Make it harder to vote, and they won’t.
The analogy is imperfect, because of compulsory voting. The actual negative impact of voter ID requirements is likely to be vanishingly small, given that the proposed law does make it very easy to comply. However, that’s not an argument in favour of the law.In the absence of any stated or apparent rationale for bringing in voter ID (beyond the meaningless assertion about public confidence), it’s fair to look for a more cynical explanation. Some have suggested that this is the first step by the Coalition down the path of undermining public confidence in compulsory voting with a view to eventually pushing for a change to voluntary voting.
Source: Voter ID legislation: the Senate needs to reject this bad, unjustified law
Morrison along with the Fossil Fuel Industry haven’t changed they have simply moved from denial to less head-on tactics to delay climate action. Lomborg seems to get dragged out for an airing every time Cop comes around and Morrison has simply adopted what Abbott tried to make respectable as far back as 2015. It simply failed Lomborg’s Coppenhagen Consensus Council was seen for what it was. A promoter of Do-Nothing Governments.
Lomborg’s true value for the polluter industry and its fellow travelers in right-wing media is that he provides a thin veneer of seriousness and sincerity about climate change on one hand, while advocating climate inaction on the other. This cynical stance mirrors that taken by the fossil fuel industry, which has shifted tactics away from outright denial toward subtler forms of climate delay.
Coal baron and Liberal donor Trevor St Baker is ripe for Scott Morrison’s electric vehicles (EVs) subsidies. Callum Foote reports on the commendable materialisation of a Coalition climate action technology. EVs won’t kill the weekend, and there’s every chance they won’t kill the Coalition’s friendliness to its mates. While the details of the big EV step-up are still being eked out to an eager Australian public, there is a bright future for a Liberal donor in this technological wonderland.
The media has been stunned with Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s majestic backflip, sorry “pivot”, on Electric Vehicles (EV), having just announced the Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy which centres on $250 million to build charging stations for EVs.
This is a first in the PM’s globally ridiculed Technology Roadmap because EV technology has actually been invented – unlike other unspecified future technologies upon which the Coalition is relying. Moreover, it is an unusually concrete announcement for the Coalition in that EV technology – unlike clean coal and clean gas (carbon capture and storage or CCS) – has a shot at working commercially.
It is therefore commendable that Scott Morrison, in the wake of Glasgow’s COP26 climate conference, has finally moved to embrace an authentic policy. Although, while typically short on detail, and long on Scomoesque public relations stunts, it appears that the spending may be targeted at least one prominent Liberal Party donor.
Australia’s plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 does not involve a phase-out of coal, and ( PM Morrison says): “Australia’s coal and gas export industries will continue through to 2050 and beyond, supporting jobs and regional communities.”
“The pressure on Australia, both international and domestic, is just going to keep growing. And the cost will be felt not just in the loss of international reputation, but economic damage as the rest of the world moves faster, and starts to impose border tariffs on Australian exports.”
While Morrison says there is “no line in the sand”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said he hopes the event will be a line-in-the-sand moment that would see “all the countries in the world … move off coal”.
Source: Coal plan in draft COP26 may be ‘rude shock’ for Scott Morrison
He and Tony Abbott lead Australia’s most Don’t-Do Nope Nope Nope Governments ever. They get’s paid $500,000 for Doing Nothing. It just Won’t Do.
I think it’s very much a case of what Scotty said about how problems would be solved by “can-do capitalism; not don’t-do governments”. Yes, well, just as he doesn’t hold a hose, he can now add that his party “don’t-do government”.
Source: Breaking: Scott Morrison Had A Shave This Morning! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Each cubic metre of lunar regolith contains 1.4 tonnes of minerals on average, including about 630 kilograms of oxygen. NASA says humans need to breathe about 800 grams of oxygen a day to survive. So 630kg oxygen would keep a person alive for about two years (or just over). Now let’s assume the average depth of regolith on the Moon is about ten metres, and that we can extract all of the oxygen from this. That means the top ten metres of the Moon’s surface would provide enough oxygen to support all eight billion people on Earth for somewhere around 100,000 years. This would also depend on how effectively we managed to extract and use the oxygen. Regardless, this figure is pretty amazing! Having said that, we do have it pretty good here on Earth. And we should do everything we can to protect the blue planet — and its soil in particular — which continues to support all terrestrial life without us even trying.
Source: The Moon’s top layer alone has enough oxygen to sustain 8 billion people for 100,000 years
In a string of defamation lawsuits, Coalition MPs Barilaro, Dutton, Porter, Laming and others have let loose on citizens to suppress loose tongues, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.
Source: Kings of defamation: Porter, Laming, Barilaro, Dutton et al
Last weekend, Elon Musk used a twitter poll to make a political point, and it exploded in his and other Tesla investors’ faces.
Source: Elon Musk’s Extraordinary Twitter Poll | The Smirking Chimp
Thanks Tony Abbott you legacy of putting the brakes on Australia with your “Nope Nope Nope” policy approach now “Slow Slow Slow” govenments don’t do progress style maintained by Scott Morrison is coming into relief and the skidmarks self evident. Climate, the NBN, the ABC, Welfare, Health, Education are just among some areas spiralling down since 2013. Yet, domestically the fix is still in with Murdoch and Ch9 domestically blowing smoke declaring us great and going in the right direction. Is it any wonder Morrison hates going overseas because when he does that fake greatness is laid bare for all to see. We were lauded and admired the 2nd best economy on the planet during and post GFC, and then in 2013 along came the L fucking NP and put an end to that progress felt by all Australians.
The technology in the Coalition’s cut-down version of the NBN cost up to three times more than originally forecast and was closer to the initial estimated cost of a revised version of Labor’s full-fibre plan, according to figures the government has sought to keep secret for almost a decade.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has built a reputation for being a liar and a hypocrite, with his lies now causing tensions between foreign partners. Back in 2019, managing editor Michelle Pini pointed out ten reasons why Scott Morrison is unfit to lead and needs to be voted out as soon as possible.
Source: Flashback 2019: 10 reasons why Scott Morrison is actually a hypocrite
My thought for the day Have we reached the point in politics where TRUTH is something that politicians have persuaded us to believe, “Like alternative facts” rather than TRUTH based on factual evidence, arguments and assertions. ( John Lord )
Morrison’s “Christian Majority ” in Australia is under 10%. It’s a false flag flown by the LNP to ensure that though religiously divided the active Christians, Muslims are there for him. Religious freedom exists and has improved in our Secular State which under our Constitution guarantees the Separation of Powers. Protestants no longer battle Catholics who today dominate our politics but are still an Australian minority. While historically Christian Replacement might be real its hasn’t been by any other religion but who gives a fuck agnosticism. Any “protection of religion in legislation is is a return to the flip side, and a license for the return of systemic bigotry”. The title sounds fair but it sure as hell is looking like Texas is coming to Australia.
71% of Australians say religion is not personally important to them and 62% do not belong to any religious organisation. Only 23% say they do belong, and only 15% are actively involved.
I don’t see our democracy as a political plaything preserved for Morrison, the Murdoch monopoly and their mates behind the scenes. They cherish the notion of “quiet Australians” because listening to hard truths is inconvenient. My view is different. If we value our democratic rights, we should all be very noisy indeed.
The Australian government’s policy response to the climate crisis was ranked last in an assessment of 60 countries released at the global climate summit in Glasgow. The Morrison government’s lack of policies, high per capita greenhouse gas emissions, weak targets, low levels of renewables and high levels of energy use, saw the country given an overall ranking of 54 among individual countries. Australia’s resources minister, Keith Pitt, said this week that, as a major fossil fuel exporter, the country would continue to produce as much coal as other countries will buy. On the sidelines of the Cop26 talks, Australia has refused to sign a pledge to cut emissions of potent greenhouse gas methane, dismissed calls to phase out coal, refused to improve its 2030 targets, but has promoted gas, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen as solutions.
Australia’s climate policies have been ranked last out of 64 countries and the nation among the worst offenders for emissions, renewables and energy use.
Source: Australia ranked last for climate policies, 58th overall out of 64 countries
Morrison’s we do nothing Mantra sure fits the addictive failure of the LNP to achieve the best economic and cleanest energy outcome possible..
The takeover bid for Sydney Airport all but done, a takeover frenzy grips the sharemarket. Investors, foreign and local, know Australian governments are an easy touch, that they allow their citizens to be pillaged, that some of them actually believe the bankers’ myth that privatisation means efficiency. Michael West reports.
Source: Addicted to privatisation, addicted to failure – Michael West Media
In particular, glacier mass loss over the past two decades in western North America has accelerated, with losses in the past decade that were four times greater than the decade before. This acceleration coincides with warm, dry conditions over some of the region’s largest icefields, namely those in the Southern Coast Mountains of British Columbia.
Source: 2021 was a bad year for glaciers in western North America — and it’s about to get much worse
Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to use hydrogen to prolong coal-fired power as Australia is blasted by a key ally as “a great disappointment” on climate change.
With the coming of the LNP in 2013 the Government budget for Science and Research into anything Climate Science project or Clean energy one was cut. Any ideas for research need not apply. “Go find your funding in the private market place”. The CSIRO came close to being dismantled and climate related shown the door.
Meanwhile PM Tony Abbott tried to install Dr Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus Center into any Tertiary Institute that would take him with a $4m carrot. The CCC had been kicked out of Denmark and no longer the favoured spruiker of America’s Kings of Coal the Koch Bros because he was too globally recognized as a mere propagandist. The incentives for renewable energy in Australia the world’s best placed nation for clean energy development were abandoned to the private market which today PM Scott Morrison still spruiks as the world’s best practice.
Is it a coincidence that 40,000 University academics lost their jobs and weren’t declared eligible for JobKeeper? That Education is one of the most casualised job sectors in Australia and that we have become the laggards of scientific R&D in the OECD? No, because that appears to be the LNP’s vision of a ” great do nothing government”. Yet has 100 coal projects ready to be funded along with gas and oil on it’s books moving forward. In fact SANTOS was the primo government supported attraction in the Australian pavillion at COP26. All in all Morrison made Australia look like Philip Morris which is claiming it intends to UNSMOKE the world with “more tobacco”. Australia’s Fossil Fuel Industry Santos etal claim they intend to DECARBONISE it by selling “more gas” aided by the LNP.
Federal support for developing a green fuel export industry is growing slowly. However, industry and financial consortia have been investing rapidly in green technologies and plants.
Source: How can Australia get cracking on emissions? The know-how we need is in our universities
“What I said I didn’t say and if I did it no longer applies because who knows what I might say tomorrow. Please just look at the fucking pictures” in the LNP fliers run by Rupert Murdoch and Peter Costello.
After demonising Labor’s policy on electric cars before the 2019 election, the federal government has put electric vehicles at the centre of a new “Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy” to be released by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday.
Source: Scott Morrison spruiks electric vehicles – but rules out subsidies and an end-date for petrol cars
Last weekend, hundreds gathered at Sydney’s Town Hall in support of LGBTIQ rights and by extension, in protest against NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. Bearing signs that read ‘no right to discriminate’, the group drew attention to proposed legislation embodying what they considered to be the politician’s homophobic agenda. But how warranted is this fear? And what exactly do Dominic Perrottet’s family values mean for the future of diverse Australian families?
Source: Dominic Perrotett set to prioritise ‘family values’ during his tenure
School principal, Alan Tudge, addresses the students of Tudge Christian College and Military Might for primary school-aged students.
Israel’s business in the free world and the free world’s up take.
In a modest effort to disrupt the global spyware market, the United States announced last week that four entities had been added to its blacklist. On November 3, the US Department of Commerce revealed that it would be adding Israel-based companies NSO Group and Candiru to its entity list “based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers.”
No Israeli government is likely to entirely abandon companies that make annual sales of $1 billion in the business of offensive cyber. The efforts by governments the world over to attack encrypted communications while trampling human rights on route have become unrelenting. In that quest, it matters little whether you are a citizen journalist, a master criminal, or a terrorist. Those deploying the spyware rarely make such distinctions.
Source: Blacklisting the Merchants of Spyware – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Barack Obama condemned Donald Trump and the Republican Party for active hostility to climate science. Obama said it was discouraging that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin had chosen not to attend COP26. He called on the world’s youth to keep active and to vote as though their lives depended on it. The UN was forced to defend the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists at the climate talks.
Source: COP26 Glasgow summit: Barack Obama condemns Donald Trump, China, Russia over summit failures
Fox Nation, Fox News’ online streaming platform, is hosting “Patriot Awards 2021” in Florida on November 17 with strict COVID-19 vaccine/testing requirements for entry. At this event, all attendees must show either a vaccine card or a negative COVID-19 test taken prior to the event.
Fox News has joined the right-wing attack against Sesame Street over a TV special that ran Saturday morning on CNN to help answer kids and parents’ questions about getting vaccinated against COVID-19, which the CDC now recommends for children aged 5-11. Fox’s attacks have just served to highlight the network’s own ongoing hypocrisy — practicing safe pandemic policies internally while urging its audience to resist those measures as part of a destructive culture war.
Apologies to Alec, but close your eyes and you’ll think this guy is the real deal.
Source: SNL Finally Has a Truly Great Trump Impersonator – Mother Jones
With nothing but scandal after scandal not knowing what to do this government is following the footsteps of Trump’s Republicans and it’s obvious. Cobble the vote whereever possible and ensure the most vulnerable who the won’t help can’t vote. They are desperate to appear like a government rather than what they are, a ship of fools.
But while requiring IDs may materially help them in some close electoral contests, this is better read as a symptom of the Australian right’s stunning lack of imagination.
Australia has no voter fraud problem but the Coalition wants to look like it’s doing something
A proposal to tighten voter ID laws emanated from the Liberal party room last week.
It resembles many initiatives of the Morrison government, and most of the ideas which have emerged from Australian conservatism more broadly in the past decade or more, in that it is opportunistic, unoriginal, and so unnecessary as to be baffling.
It does not appear to be a response to anything that is actually happening in Australia.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Australia, where compulsory voting and universal electoral enrolment make voter fraud at scale almost inconceivable.
The first thing Tony Abbott’s LNP did when it came into government just 8 years ago was was to cut and abandon investment into “scientific research” 40,000 Academics have lost their jobs and were not, I repeat not included in the Morrison LNP JobKeeper program. Here we have the PM who has stepped outside the country and made us the laughing stock of the world. Here we have him praising scientists for their ability to be Uber drivers.
Morrison is a man of many words however irrelevant ones in the world in which we live. Fast to learn nobody attended his address in Glasgow. He’s hiding behind science and technologies that are yet to exist and not funding ones that do. Stalling for the pocket sake of his donors making us pay and declaring it’s not a tax. Hard hats and High viz don’t make him anymore convincing.
Australia risks losing jobs to other countries if it fails to lift its below-average spending on research and development, a peak science body has warned, amid Scott Morrison’s vow to promote “technology not taxes” on climate policy. Australia invests just 1.8% of its economic output in research and development, well behind the OECD average of 2.5%.
Barnaby Joyce has dipped into a water infrastructure fund to grant $5 million to a company well-connected with Tasmania’s Liberal Party elite so they can build a 7km pipeline under Hobart’s Derwent River to water a newly planned, privately owned golf course, reports Callum Foote.
Source: Using water wisely, Barnaby? Or another dicey deal in the pipeline? – Michael West Media
Australia is languishing yet again with a shaky climate policy. We were late to the party in our commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and some suggested the Prime Minister had to be strong-armed by the Queen and Prince Charles to attending the UN COP26 meeting last week. And the government’s “uniquely Australian” plan to get to net zero looks woefully inadequate, relying on future technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere that will burden us with crippling costs – and with little prospect of it working at anywhere near the scale required.
Source: The coal hard facts: the economics and the science refute the so-called ‘Australian way’
An international laughing-stock who has given offence to three powerful nations, Morrison returns home with his reputation in tatters. His government will never be trusted by any other nation. It’s the most disastrous trip overseas ever taken by an Australian PM. Above all he’s been called out for what he is, a liar. Morrison’s so used to lying at home and getting away with it given this nation’s tamed corporate media monopoly that he is furious that he’s been called on it – and by another leader, no less who has put the lie to his attempt to lie about his lie. The text the PM’s office released to media does not corroborate Morrison’s claim that France knew all along that Australia would go back on its word and abandon its contractual commitment. While the UN’s COP26 may prove disappointing in its capacity to achieve binding commitments from enough nations to cut carbon emissions enough to keep to the 1.5 degree increase in temperature agreed in Paris, on a local level it has been of great benefit to Australia in exposing to the world the duplicity and dishonesty of its mining corporation puppet-government. Forget the hard hat and Hi-Vis, Morrison and his corrupt, rorty government
Dutton sets the example on how to become the worst Health, Immigration and Defence Australia has ever seen. Never getting or timing things right yet he’s the man who would be King
In a radio interview this morning, the man who is suing a refugee advocate over a six-word tweet said France should grow up and stop being a baby about it. “Now is not the time to be sensitive. Not while people out there are saying unkind things about me on Twitter,” the Defence Minister said.
Source: Dutton tells France not to focus on hurt feelings unless they are his | The Shovel
Regardless of the court battle to prevent his extradition to the U.S., there appears to be little hope for Julian Assange — the Americans are relentless.
As Winston Churchill said about appeasing a power-hungry authoritarian ruler, “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, it will eat him last.”
Source: Feeding the Crocodile: Do Any Republicans Still Support Democracy?
For all the benefits wrought by the information revolution, social media has become a tool of dictators. Its profit-driven, surveillance-based business model favours those with deep pockets and deadly motives. In the first of two articles, cybersecurity expert and human rights activist Manal al-Sharif suggests way to invent the digital world for the better.
Source: Social media: time to turn around the weapons – Michael West Media
JEERING SCOTT MORRISON’S BLA BLA BLA PLAN ” THE AUSTRALIAN WAY”
As diplomats from wealthy countries continue to say “blah, blah, blah” at COP26, over 100,000 people growing increasingly impatient with empty promises and inaction marched through Glasgow on Saturday, with thousands more hitting the streets in cities around the world during roughly 300 simultaneous demonstrations on a Global Day of Action for Climate Justice.
Source: More Than 100,000 Take to Streets on Global Day of Action for Climate Justice
18 year old Greta Thunberg nailed shamed and revealeled Scott Morrison , his Plan, and his slogan “The Australian Way” with her simple rebuttal ” Bla Bla Bla ”
The Paris Agreement doesn’t even mention coal, oil or gas, which is why a movement has been launched for a Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation treaty, modeled on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Much of the energy and direction in the climate justice movement is coming from young people around the world. Greta Thunberg, the 18-year-old Swede who sparked the global Fridays for Future student strike movement, slammed the decades-old climate negotiations at a “Pre-COP” in Milan last month: “Build back better, blah, blah, blah. Green economy, blah, blah, blah. Net zero by 2050, blah, blah, blah….This is all we hear from our so-called leaders: words that sound great but so far have led to no action. Our hopes and dreams drown in their empty words and promises.” These global youth leaders, including Brianna Fruean from Samoa and Vanessa Nakate of Uganda, bring personal, frontline experiences with the climate emergency and a deep commitment to intersectional organizing and global justice to their work. “It’s now up to people,” Asad Rehman concluded. “People power is the only solution that’s left.”
Source: At COP26, It’s People Power vs. Fossil Fuel Dinosaurs | The Smirking Chimp
Biden isn’t scattered or weak or a do-nothing. His will be the most domestically transformative presidency perhaps since that of Johnson, just on the basis of what he has already accomplished. This is why I suggest we call him Fighting Joe, to combat the unfair image conveyed by the corporate news organizations that miss Trump.
Worker action exposed systematic wage theft within Australia’s largest university and forced management to pay staff the millions that had been stolen from them.
Source: Australia’s Largest University Stole $8.6 Million From Workers’ Wages
Given the numbers that this entails Slavery remains a fact in America.
Often pulled out of Black and Latino hubs, incarcerated people bolster white rural districts — but remain banned from casting ballots.
Source: Prison Gerrymandering Draws Districts Around People Who Can’t Vote
The real lesson from Tuesday’s election results is that Democrats must earn back the trust of working Americans. And the best way of doing so is to make clear whose side they’re on. The wealthy and privileged have socked away a record amount of the nation’s wealth. They must now pay their fair share to fix the rest of the nation.
An array of legal investigations into the business run by former President Donald Trump picked up new steam in the last two weeks. From Scotland to the tony New York City suburbs, Trump’s sprawling empire is facing new threats on at least three fronts.
Source: Trump Faces New Legal Threats on Both Sides of the Atlantic – Mother Jones
It’s always about the money and Jones at 80 no longer warranted the cost.
Culture has little or nothing to do with Sky before or after dark, they are paid influencers and are selling a product. Selling a product “subscribers” to Foxtel boosted by overseas financing as they are failing to impress here in Australia alone. Andrew Bolt is certainly not doing the heavy work he’s simply the organ grinders monkey. Murdoch has Americanised Australian politics and modelled Sky on Fox News USA. However the pool in Australia is much smaller than it is in America.
So staff they employ tend to be on the last legs of their careers and have few places to go. Bolt’s been Murdoch’s monkey for some 30+ years with a distaste for journalism he represents the past, certainly not the future. Like Jones Bolt has seen better days not because he was ever talent but rather there to be trained. He was the over zealous a loyal corporate leech. The tic too frightened to try himself out anywhere else. He’s fed off the Murdochian teat his whole career. Whenever he did try a little independence he failed to shine. Kicked off 2GB we saw him set up his own weekly podcast dragging his poor son Dom into his “I’m the master of my own universe”. The Andrew Bolt self-produced podcast that lasted 5 episodes. His blog sold as as “Australia’s most read political blog” now gets undated posts as often a every 2 months and here he is telling us his culture isn’t being cancelled. Andrew Bolt sure as hell is and soon he will be to. Because Andrew Bolt isn’t Piers Morgan just as Scott Morrison isn’t Biden, Macron or Johnson or even a sideshow attraction in the Murdoch global tent. He was merely a temporaryin non profit backwater a fillin, a stop gap in a bygone era. Look closely you could always see the cobwebs on Bolt who for 20 years told us the planet was “cooling” “Science was a religion” and “White Australia was the Right Australia”
When News Corp unveiled plans for Piers Morgan to headline an international prime time talk show we flippantly said “Move over Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Peta Credlin – there is a new conservative loudmouth in town”. Sadly, for one of these Australian conservative loudmouths at least, our prediction appears to have come true.
olddogthoughts 
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