Category: Australia Alone

Aboriginal Australia, Australia, Australia Alone, Australia's Shame, Australian Constitution

What happened to Indigenous Rights? The world will judge Australia harshly – Pearls and Irritations

Sunrise in Australia; a dramatic contrast of red and black behind the gold disc of the sun; the image is reminiscent of the iconic Australian Aboriginal flag.

The World viewed Australia as Voting No to Indigenous Rights and Voting No to Palestinian Rights. That makes us unique and exceptional assholes even among colonizing nations.

We should not be surprised if as a consequence of the defeat of the referendum the world judges us harshly, accusing us of bad faith and hypocrisy. The extraordinary fact that our international commitments were rarely, if ever mentioned, in such a consequential debate suggests, at least, that the face that we turn to the world is very different from the one we present to the domestic electorate, and that international documents we sign up to are kept from sight rather than explained and publicised.

Source: What happened to Indigenous Rights? The world will judge Australia harshly – Pearls and Irritations

Australia, Australia Alone, Australia's pride, Australia's Shame, Australian Constitution

Australians will miss a once in a century opportunity if we shirk a referendum on an Indigenous Voice – » The Australian Independent Media Network

It is possible. So this is not just the “time to listen to the Voice and act”. It is the time to tell the powers-that-be what sort of Australia we want. We all have a lot to lose if we shirk this referendum and politicians and dissenters should be held to account if they intercede to prevent the emergence of a constitutionally enshrined Voice.

Australians will miss a once in a century opportunity if we shirk a referendum on an Indigenous Voice – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Australia Alone, Uncategorized

2019 Was The Year The World Burned | HuffPost Australia

A man walks on a farm as flames approach near the town of Taree, 215 miles north of Sydney, on 14

via 2019 Was The Year The World Burned | HuffPost Australia

Australia Alone, Uncategorized

In Down Under Abbey, the political class is taking it easy

The better Australia’s economy, the worse its politics. The bigger its boom, the smaller its politicians. And the greater the crisis in the world, the more trivial the crises that consume Canberra.

Australia’s economy has entered its 28th year of growth, unprecedented for any developed country.
At the same time, its federal Parliament pitched itself into its most dismal performance since coup fever took hold with sudden ferocity in 2010.

via In Down Under Abbey, the political class is taking it easy

Australia, Australia Alone, Australia's Shame

The Veiled Threat: Australia’s Campaign Against New Zealand Refugee Policy – » The Australian Independent Media Network|( When a thug remains a thug)

The response from the Australian Immigration Minister was characteristically sinister and appropriate for a former police officer. With barely veiled menace, Peter Dutton suggested that New Zealand “would have to think about their relationship with Australia and what impact it would have”. “They’d have to think that through, and we’d have to think that through.”

via The Veiled Threat: Australia’s Campaign Against New Zealand Refugee Policy – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Australia Alone

Heatwave: ‘Worst possible’ fire conditions for NSW, as parts of QLD expected to hit 47C – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)| Climate Denier Andrew Bolt says it’s cool

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service urges residents to prepare for catastrophic fire conditions before it’s too late as temperatures across the country are set to break records.

Source: Heatwave: ‘Worst possible’ fire conditions for NSW, as parts of QLD expected to hit 47C – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Australia Alone

Pauline Hanson: Just a case of right place, right time

Pauline Hanson’s big idea is that Australia is under relentless attack from minorities that swamp us without assimilating.

Source: Pauline Hanson: Just a case of right place, right time

Australia Alone

Premiers, chief ministers unite to sign declaration calling for Australian head of state – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

All but one of Australia’s state premiers and chief ministers sign a declaration calling for an Australian head of state.

Source: Premiers, chief ministers unite to sign declaration calling for Australian head of state – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

"For Coal", Australia Alone, G20

Canada has don a turn around on Tony so much for BBF and brotherhood. Harper saw the light.

Stephen Harper and Tony Abbott

Stephen Harper changes mind, saying he is prepared to contribute to UN fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change Last year Tony Abbott and Stephen Harper had jointly dissented from support for the Green Climate

Canada – one of the few countries previously in line with Australia’s opposition to the international Green Climate Fund – now appears to have changed its mind, with Tony Abbott’s close friend prime minister Stephen Harper saying he is preparing to make a contribution.

Abbott has defied global pressure to commit to the fund, designed to help poor countries adapt to climate change, because Australia is already spending $2.5bn on its domestic Direct Action fund and providing $10bn in capital to a so-called “green bank” – which he is trying to abolish.

World leaders forced Australia to include stronger language about the Green Climate Fund in the G20 communique – and during the summit Barack Obama pledged the US would contribute $3bn to it and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, offered $1.5bn. But soon after the conference was over Abbott indicated it would make no immediate difference to Australia’s position.

On Sunday Harper said Canada was preparing to make a contribution to the UN fund, the Globe and Mail and other Canadian media outlets reported. He did not nominate an amount.

Last November, Abbott and Harper “made history” by jointly dissenting from support for the Green Climate Fund in a communique from the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

Speaking after a meeting on Sunday night with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, Abbott said Direct Action – which funds Australia’s domestic emissions reduction, not international efforts – was already “quite a substantial fund”. He also cited the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which he is committed to abolish.

“We also have a Clean Energy Finance Corporation which was established by the former government and there is $10bn in capital which has been allocated to this,” he said. “In addition to those two funds a proportion of our overseas aid, particularly in the Pacific, is allocated for various environmental schemes including schemes to deal with climate change. So, we are doing a very great deal and I suppose given what we are doing we don’t intend, at this time, to do more.”

Environment minister Greg Hunt tried to compare Obama’s $3bn commitment to the international fund to be spent in poor countries with Australia’s $2.5bn spending on its own domestic policy, saying that if the Direct Action fund was implemented in the US “on a like for like basis it would be the equivalent of a $25bn fund”.

Neither Abbott nor Hunt ruled out making a contribution to the fund at some time in the future and it is understood the Department of Foreign Affairs, which leads Australia’s international climate negotiations, has been considering a donation. The fund is seen as a critical part of a successful outcome at the United Nations Paris conference next year, which will discuss a global emissions pact to take effect after 2020.

But Abbott’s trenchant opposition to the fund is seen as an impediment to any contribution. He has publicly disparaged it as an international “Bob Brown bank” – another reference to the CEFC, which he wants to abolish but he also cites as evidence of Australia’s climate action.

As revealed by Guardian Australia, Abbott told world leaders at the Brisbane summit that as the leader of a major coal producer he would be “standing up for coal”.

The communique references demanded by other leaders, including Obama, were reluctantly accepted by Australia at the last minute. They included a call for contributions to the fund and for the “phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.

An EU spokesman reportedly described the climate negotiations with Australia as being like “trench warfare”. Other officials said it had been “very difficult” and protracted.

Speaking to the media after the summit, Abbott downplayed the importance of the fund. He took a similar line on the greenhouse reduction pledges unveiled by Obama and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, immediately before the summit.

He said all nations “support strong action … to address climate change”, but added: “We are all going to approach this in our own way and there are a range of [climate] funds which are there.”

Obama and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, both urged G20 countries to contribute to the Green Climate Fund. In the end, at Australia’s insistence, the communique called for contributions to financing funds “such as the Green Climate Fund”.

Hunt suggested a regional rainforest fund, to which Australia recently pledged $6m, could substitute for contributions to the Green Climate Fund.