After claiming “official” discussions with Pfizer had only started in December, Health Minister Greg Hunt has finally confirmed that the government met with Pfizer last July to discuss purchasing the Pfizer vaccine. Sources say Australia was given options for as many doses as needed to be delivered in January this year, yet government officials turned down the offer Callum Foote reports.
Source: Government’s “appalling” error, rejects offer of 40 million Pfizer doses in July 2020 – Michael West
A Liberal-led committee has told the Morrison government its plan to change the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) so it can fund a broader range of technologies including some using fossil fuels could be illegal. The standing committee for the scrutiny of delegated legislation has written to the energy minister, Angus Taylor, expressing concern that his proposal to change Arena’s remit without legislation goes beyond what the parliament envisaged when it passed laws to create the agency.
Australia’s competitiveness drops to lowest level in 25 years: WCY 2021 Australia has fallen four places to 22nd in a global ranking of the competitiveness of 64 nations released today. It is Australia’s worst result in 25 years. CEDA Chief Economist Jarrod Ball said our performance in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2021 showed we could not afford to stand still, despite our early success in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and recent strong economic recovery. “Australia cannot waste any time getting match-fit for the post-pandemic era,” Mr Ball said. “The rankings show business will need to do a lot of the heavy lifting, with business efficiency leading Australia’s slide in the rankings, driven by a lacklustre 58th place for management practices. “We are among the lowest-ranked of 64 nations on company agility, entrepreneurship, customer satisfaction and credibility of managers.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has now echoed misleading economic claims that advance the Morrison Government’s position, writes Alan Austin.
Source: The Bureau of Statistics misleads Australians on the economy
The pettiness of the Dutton /Morrison autocracy is plain to see.
Biloela’s Muruguppan family will be released from Christmas Island and allowed into the community in Perth, but the federal government is still blocking them from permanent resettlement or returning to their Queensland home.
Source: Biloela family to be released from Christmas Island, but no permanent visa
Nearly half of students at public schools are considered disadvantaged – either living remotely, with a disability, having an Indigenous background or from a low socio-economic background – compared to just 20 per cent at private schools, yet private schools receive far more government funding. Trevor Cobbold reports.
Source: Governments back privileged in education, public schools bear burden – Michael West
We could provide you with dozens of individual examples of ministers from Tudge to Pitt, Fletcher and Tehan all lying openly in parliament and misleading parliament about the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) but we won’t. Instead, we will focus on what happened during the last CDC “bill process” in the Senate in December 2020 as it’s fresh in everyone’s minds and offers perhaps the clearest insight into just how little trust anyone can place in this policy, and in those who are promoting it.
What the Fuck? To pull this family out of the miserable bog our government has dropped them in, we need no “courage,” no “ifs” no “buts” and no Old Testament-type laws to hide behind. No “thou shalt nots!” It is simply evil to do the inhumane thing, the barbaric thing, the thing that is done in the darkest heart of a jungle. It is a quintessential part-and-parcel of being human. –– ADVERTISEMENT –– It’s what humans do.
Source: This word “courage” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
This is dumb timing when Morrison heads to the G7 summit in London this weekend to discuss global security with leaders like United States president Joe Biden. At the very time he urges G7 leaders to show unity against autocracy, he exaggerates the divisions at home.
Asked a straight question about border controls and drug imports, Morrison blamed Labor for blocking three draft laws that would help the police stop transnational crime. But he was too eager to start a political fight. And he got some of his facts wrong. This has gone down badly on both sides of politics. One Labor MP calls Morrison’s remark a kind of “vandalism” against the PJCIS. “Everyone knew it was bullshit, and it was cheap,” he says. Liberals also know the Prime Minister was out of line. The Prime Minister blamed Labor for blocking transnational crime laws and got some of his facts wrong. The PJCIS does not get along easily, but it gets along.
And here we have Morrison bagging the PJCIS committee which holds a Liberal majority and with who Labour agrees with most of the time. Morrison is either dumb or he believes his media audience is. Sales men rarely think in the rush of selling a lame horse.
Source: Morrison uses international crime bust to target Labor but misfires
Tensions with China resulting in economic sanctions are the result of Australia’s blind allegiance to the USA that began decades ago, writes Bruce Haigh.
Source: Australia is in denial over one-way relationship with U.S.
A $600m gas power plant promised by the Morrison government is not needed and has no prospect of generating enough revenue to justify its cost, according to a new analysis. A report by Victoria University’s energy policy centre suggested the case for the Hunter Valley plant, to be built by the publicly owned Snowy Hydro with taxpayers’ funds, failed on several grounds.
Many long-term issues plaguing the NBN could’ve been avoided if it was an all-fibre network, writes Paul Budde. RECENTLY, IT was reported that a new Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Commissioner, Anna Brakey, said: We’ve got an opportunity to have a look at the regulatory framework and to make sure, that we efficiently use the NBN. If we set prices too low, there would be overuse of the NBN. And as a result, that would require more investment that just would not be efficient. It would not be valued by people because we priced it too low in the first place. But if we set the price too high, there will be underuse of the asset and potentially bypass. So, without a doubt, I think, getting the NBN regulatory framework, giving that attention and coming up with a new [special access undertaking] or revised SAU, is by far my biggest priority for this year. It’s astonishing to hear from the ACCC that they think that the “NBN could be overused” and that “customers would not value it anymore”. The ACCC is mandated to act on behalf of the consumers, not the NBN company. The fact that she is in favour of protecting the NBN in the knowledge o
Source: Concerns about NBN overuse highlight Coalition Government’s failings
Unlike other vaccine rollouts, the Morrison Government’s COVID vaccine rollout hasn’t been distributed by the states, but by Liberal-aligned private companies. Andrew P Street follows the money.
Source: Morrison’s vaccine rollout fail: Mates versus the states
Another Senate Estimates session brings another culture war attack on the ABC. This time it is the revelation that Government senators are apparently monitoring the Twitter feeds of prominent ABC journalists to see what they “like” and using this information to accuse them of… oh, who knows what, this time?! It’s becoming both tedious and absurd.
Source: The Coalition’s absurd and undemocratic war against the ABC
The ABC’s economics reporting is becoming as bad as in Rupert Murdoch’s tawdry tabloids and Fairfax/Nine pro-Coalition pamphlets. Alan Austin reports.
Source: ABC News economics department shows incompetence with false information
Deloitte Access Economics’ claims about Australia’s economic recovery were repeated verbatim by media outlets, although many were based on cherry-picked data and mixed verified GDP figures with unverified data in a classic apples with oranges comparison. Alan Austin takes a closer look.
Source: Propaganda Machine: Deloitte skews fact on economy, media laps it up – Michael West
In his address to the Australian Business Economists on Tuesday 18 May, Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy said (page 1): “Australia’s economic recovery from the pandemic has been… ahead of any major advanced economy as at the end of 2020.” In fact, Australia is badly lagging many advanced nations on the critical indicators, as analyses of comparable economies have proven. Independent Australia asked Dr Kennedy: ‘Do you accept that South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Denmark, Israel, Norway and New Zealand are major advanced economies comparable with Australia and all had stronger or similar annual GDP growth and lower jobless rates at the end of 2020?’ His office replied: ‘The Secretary’s ABE speech was rigorously checked beforehand and is based on the latest available data and Treasury’s most recent forecasts.’ Australia’s post-COVID economic recovery lags behind comparable nations Australia’s post-COVID economic recovery lags behind comparable nations It is not just Scott Morrison and his ministers disseminating dubious data. The head of at least one federal department is making factually questionable assertions of a political nature, writes Alan Austin. Ken
Already, Kennedy’s incorrect assertions are being used for tawdry party political purposes. It also now appears Treasury is the source of many of the Treasurer’s false assertions. This really should stop.
Source: Incorrect ‘facts’ now emanate from Scott Morrison’s federal departments
This year, Four Corners, the longest-running, most lauded and consequential program in Australian television history, turns 60. But will the ABC pluck up enough courage to throw a party? No doubt the Prime Minister, should he be invited, will send his apologies. Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Prime Minister Scott Morrison.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Tensions between the ABC and the government have once again boiled over, despite Scott Morrison coming to high office with the best intentions to steer well clear of the ABC controversies his predecessors delighted in stoking.
Source: Scott Morrison 4 Corners: ABC versus the government is a song that remains the same
The new Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme has stood behind a plan to introduce independent assessments for people with disabilities by the end of the year, but conceded in budget estimates hearing the original plan needed more work. National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Linda Reynolds told senate estimates on Friday afternoon it became clear when she took on the portfolio there was “significant concern” about the independent assessment process and the way it was being communicated.
NDIS independent assessments will be introduced this year despite concerns and mistrust
A secret marketing strategy to convince Australians to support a controversial overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) says the federal government must be “seen” to have listened to concerns of disability groups, who will be targeted with an extensive campaign. A leaked communications and engagement strategy from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which administers the $26 billion scheme, reveals an aim to announce a legislation date in late August. It also aims to combat any backlash from the disability community through what Labor calls an “expensive multi-media spin campaign”.
Source: Secret NDIS report warns of backlash unless government is ‘seen’ to have listened
Why the LNP can’t be trusted. Their politicians are little more than ‘guns for hire’ opportunists and careerists taking advantage of what seems the best path for them to gain advantage for themselves at any one time. Men without any real conviction or plan the least able to be trusted to give the public service rather than service them. The concept of a ‘common good” shrunk.
Former finance minister Mathias Cormann has called on the world’s richest nations to develop an “ambitious and effective” plan to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in his first speech as head of the OECD.
Source: Mathias Cormann calls for ‘ambitious’ plan to reach net-zero emissions
Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt has supported the opinion of Education Minister Alan Tudge that the Australian history curriculum is ‘hateful’, writes A L Jones. “NEO-MARXIST RUBBISH”, says a NSW Cabinet minister of the new draft national curriculum. And the Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge agrees with Andrew Bolt that the history section is biased against our Western heritage and should include, for example, “what bad things Aborigines did to Aborigines”. Mr Tudge said in a Sky News interview with Bolt:
“I do get concerned that students don’t have a firm understanding of how we did become this rich, egalitarian, free, Western-liberal democracy… If you don’t understand that, then you’re less likely to value it and defend it.”
What a load of crap by these two hypocrites not judging, but protecting their history of Australian mythical facts from critical eyes and wanting to retain dogma rather than encourage reasoned research and critical analysis of the reality of our varying past perspectives . The 500 years of colonial western history is writ large in the crippled African continent, the tragedy of the Latin Americas run by serial dictators, a middle east left in tatters totally repressed with the hate caused by caused by the West, and then there’s Australia walked over by jackboots that remain largely in place today and ruled over by white supremacists. If any nation or culture were to be regarded as having done the most to lift billions to a better state of being in the fastest possible time then China is light years ahead of us. Even India has accelerated improvement since casting off the shackles of Western Colonialism. Maybe not as fast as China it might be argued but nevertheless fast enough for us to see just how far the West had held them back for hundreds of years.
What Aborigines did they did it to each other not globally or to the rest of the world. To suggest they wouldn’t have changed without European invasion is typical of White supremacist arrogance. The instruments of the torture used by the West are now “pay to see” items in European tourist centers. We can see what we did to each other and to others without a second thought using “god’s name” as justification. Things we did to those we self righteously decreed were “lesser humans” and that these two bastards pretend today never existed let alone be taught to the next generation. Our museums are filled with the trophies gained by rape, pillage, slavery,pain and slaughter done, but not to be emphasized or taught or remembered in their “heroic” but false history of the world.
The LNP and Murdoch media hand in hand are found here preaching “Cancel Culture” not just antiseptically editing the past but any form of critical theory, reasoned research or analysis in search of truth. That is an excercise far too dangerous for them because the next generation just might want to reexamine the values taught them and change things for the better when realizing the worst of our past. Hitler believed in the the Bolt and Tudge principle of education as well.
The one thing that strikes me is these ultra-conservatives always combine the notion of Western Culture with Christianity with it’s then inferred god given right to their historic truth. It’s tied very much to the notion of the ‘elect’. A notion In line with the preachings of other religious extremes and cults. Groups like today’s neo-Nazis, Trumpsters, Moonies, ISIS, and other anti-democratic, authoritarians. People like Bolt and Tudge who want to turn our schools into unenlightened fundamentalist christian equivalent of Madrasas teaching only their orthodoxies. Beneath their suits beats the rise of yet another Inquisition and a return to the heart of darkness.
This is an interesting podcast relevant to what we see happening today https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-cult-of-trump/id1551582052?i=1000523783469 The Cult of Trump
(ODT)
Source: Right-wing media backs Alan Tudge on ‘leftist’ history curriculum
New documents show the government negotiated the controversial $80m Watergate deal directly with the Cayman Islands company founded by Energy Minister Angus Taylor. The Department failed to notify the Senate. Jommy Tee investigates the email trail between the Department, then overseen by Barnaby Joyce, and secretive Switzerland director and Taylor associate Connor Maloney.
When he launched his defamation action against the ABC over an article reporting a claim of historical rape against him, Christian Porter boldly indicated he looked forward to going into the witness box to clear his name. His lawyers said: “Mr Porter will have and will exercise the opportunity to give evidence denying these false allegations on oath”. In the event, he never got near the witness box. On Monday Porter settled for an ABC acknowledgement it hadn’t intended to suggest he was guilty, regretted some had read its article that way, and did not contend the accusations against him could be substantiated to a legal standard.
Source: View from The Hill: Porter decides it’s time to ‘fold em’ in ABC defamation case
Christian Porter just doesn’t know when to leave sleeping dogs lie – he just has to have another twist of the tail, another kick in the guts. After agreeing during mediation to withdraw his expensive defamation action against the ABC and their investigative journalist, Louise Milligan, to wear his own legal costs, not to insist that the ABC report in question be taken down and not to receive any of the damages he had been hoping for. He took these body blows like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail responding that this was just a scratch, a mere flesh wound, and that the ABC had been forced into a “humiliating backdown”.
Source: A Humiliating Backdown – Really? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The ABC has doubled down on its defence of the Four Corners article at the centre of a now-defunct defamation case brought by Christian Porter, with the public broadcaster stating it does not regret its reporting and stands by the story. The former attorney general on Monday dropped his high-stakes defamation bid against the ABC, holding a press conference in which he sought to claim he had forced the broadcaster to back down, despite not securing an apology or retraction. Far from ending hostilities between the parties, the deal to drop the case has sparked a fierce war of words between Porter, the ABC and the Four Corners journalist Louise Milligan, who broke the original story. After the ABC agreed to add an editor’s note on its story saying it “regretted” that some readers had “misinterpreted” the article “as an accusation of guilt against Mr Porter”, the former attorney general insisted the public broadcaster had been forced into a “humiliating backdown” and had admitted to regretting the “sensationalist” article. But the ABC hit back, saying it “has not said that it regrets the article” and “stands by the importance of the article”.
The current surge in COVID-19 cases in Melbourne is a result of the Morrison Government’s mismanagement of the pandemic and vaccine rollout, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
Source: Morrison Government facing the consequences of vaccine rollout disaster
Today we discovered that no-one knows how many aged care workers have been vaccinated.It seems that we do not know how many aged care workers had been vaccinated, as there seems to be no-one keeping track of who has received the vaccine, and who hasn’t. According to the Department of Health, work is now “underway” to survey aged care workers at the nation’s facilities (read: literally counting heads).
Source: There’s no record of vaccinated aged care workers – » The Australian Independent Media Network
A Senate hearing has descended into a fiery stand-off after Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck admitted the federal government still doesn’t know exactly how many staff in Victoria have had COVID doses. It’s now 100 days into the federal vaccination rollout, and federal health officials have admitted that 21 aged-care homes across Australia are yet to receive even a single dose of vaccine – while the number of vaccinated staff may be as low as 8 per cent. Health department officials could only confirm that around 32,000 aged care workers, out of 366,000 nationally, had gotten their first doses – but stressed this was a “minimum”, and that many more workers would be vaccinated, but they weren’t sure how many exactly.
Source: ‘Extraordinary’: Less than 10 per cent of aged-care workers fully vaccinated
As they enter the “circuit-breaker” lockdown, Victorians are entitled to be dismayed by the multiple failures in Australian government pandemic policies that have required the use of such blunt but necessary measures to contain this outbreak. By the end of 2020, the Australian people had done the hard work required to achieve sustained zero local transmission of Covid-19. Victorians had endured a 15-week winter lockdown that eliminated Australia’s most serious and deadly outbreak of Covid-19. Having done so well in the emergency phase of the pandemic response, Australians were entitled to expect that the federal government would rapidly implement policies on quarantine and vaccination critical to securing these magnificent achievements, and to bolster our defences against the virus.
Yesterday, Canberra again promised that we’ll be vaccinated by Christmas. Yet, three months into the rollout and only 1.9% of NSW has had both doses.
Despite official accounts showing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, its contribution to the climate crisis has increased over the past 15 years once areas beyond the federal government’s control – the drought and emissions from land and forests – are excluded. Scott Morrison told a climate leaders summit hosted by the US president, Joe Biden, last month that Australia had cut its emissions by 19% since 2005. The prime minister said it was “more than most other similar economies” had done and the country was “on the pathway to net zero”. An analysis by the Australia Institute found the reduction in emissions over the past 15 years was largely due to two major shocks beyond government control – the drought and the pandemic – and mostly historical changes in the amount of CO2 released from the land and forests. Fossil fuel and other emissions not linked to the land or agriculture sectors – those from electricity, industry, mining, transport and landfill – actually increased by 7% prior to Covid-19. The institute found on this basis Australia had done much less to reduce emissions than several comparable countries, including the US, UK and members of the European Un
The ABC reported this week the Senate inquiry found “government agencies should have to prove ‘real and serious’ harm caused by the publication of classified intelligence and information before a criminal investigation can be launched”. Donate today and support non-profit news. The Senate inquiry’s report said: Without such a requirement, the provisions would be susceptible to overuse, misuse or even abuse. In particular, the absence of an express harm requirement can lead to circumstances where a journalist is prosecuted for a very minor or trivial ‘dealing’ with classified information. When giving evidence to the inquiry, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was asked to provide any examples of when a publication had demonstrably harmed Australian national security. ASIO could not produce a single example.
Source: It’s time for the government to walk the talk on media freedom in Australia
In one of the most uninspiring and regressive budgets ever, the Morrison Government, among other backward moves, has continued its eye-watering bolstering of the fossil fuel industry, throwing good public money after bad policy. There is little doubt that if this Coalition Government had been in power when it was discovered that the Earth was a sphere, it would have held on to the flat Earth theory, fervently ridiculing all evidence to the contrary. This is because, in all likelihood, it would already have invested in exorbitantly priced tours to find the ends of the planet and then provided tax breaks for the shonky tour operators.
Source: The Coalition, where all revolving doors lead to outdated fossil fuels
The Federal Government has never been so corrupt, writes Richard Gillies. THE LIST OF corrupt decisions that the Liberal-National Coalition has made is 124 items long and growing. In all but a few cases, there have been no consequences for offending members of the Government.
Source: Corruption thrives in Federal Government as media turns a blind eye
The Budget cash splash in aged care has rendered the Royal Commission a political stunt as the billions in extra funding are not tied to reform measures or direct care and food for elderly Australians. Dr Sarah Russell reports.
The federal government will direct its Snowy Hydro power corporation to build a $600 million gas-fired power plant in the Hunter Valley, ignoring calls that the investment is unneeded.
Source: Morrison government bankrolls $600m Hunter Valley gas plant
The federal government has appointed a former News Corp executive who once proposed a back-office merger of Australia’s two public broadcasters as a new member of the ABC board. Former News Corp and Foxtel boss Peter Tonagh, who led the government’s 2018 ABC and SBS efficiency review, former Seven executive and Australia Post board member Mario D’Orazio, and Fiona Balfour, a former chief information officer at Qantas and Telstra, will join the board. The five-year appointments are effective immediately and put an end to a lengthy process that was scrutinised by the ABC for its delays.
Source: ABC board joined by Peter Tonagh, Fiona Balfour and Mario D’Orazio
Documents released under Freedom of Information reveal Australia approved 103 military export permits to UAE and Saudi during the Yemen war – and denied just three permit applications. Michelle Fahy investigates Australia’s escalating export trade in weapons with the Saudi dictatorship, in defiance of its international commitments.
The Liberal Party has escaped accountability for its corruption for too long and the Australian public should speak up now, writes Grant Turner.
Source: Morrison’s corrupt LNP would crumble under a royal commission
It is embarrassing enough that the government is even considering PEP11, the proposal to drill for gas directly off the coast of Australia’s most populous beaches and wealthiest economic zone. The final decision rests with Resources Minister Keith Pitt. Luke Stacey and Michael West report.
Morrison is right – but not for his vacuous rhetoric. Future generations will judge us on what we deliver. Just as they judge us today on what we do rather than whatever our government might say – and then pretend it didn’t say or try to crabwalk away from. The inaction of this government to honour its obligations to its citizens in its travel ban on those trapped in India – or its chicanery on energy or climate change, its betrayal of its stewardship, or duty of care of the planet for future generations, is an indictment of its motives to seek and hold power for its own sake and a travesty of democratic principle and responsibility to its people. It is also a declaration of moral bankruptcy.
Source: Blood on your hands, Prime Minister? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Climate science tells us the world will likely need negative emissions technology – drawing CO2 from the atmosphere – if it is to meet the objectives agreed in Paris six years ago. The emissions from the gas burned at the new plant will ultimately add to the CO2 in the atmosphere, and they are avoidable. To borrow a phrase, you cannot offset your way to zero.
Government should focus on ‘disaster mitigation rather than clean-up’ as climate change events increase, industry experts say
At least 13 former Liberal MPs and political staffers have been appointed to plum federal government jobs since the start of the year, including a former deputy mayor given a 26-year-long, $10 million post at the Fair Work Commission.
Source: ‘Year of the mate’: At least 13 former Liberal MPs, staffers given plum jobs
And in true Orwellian Doublespeak, Prime Minister Scott Morrison used the war footing to paint himself as the champion of peace. Michael Tanner reports. It’s been a while since the government actually announced a policy and that drought looks set to continue. Because even though there was blanket media coverage of the fact that the federal government is planning a big budget spend, the government once again delivered that announcement via “a cosy briefing to a tight crew of chosen Canberra-based journalists“. And the cosy crew dutifully did their bit, with near-identical articles posted almost simultaneously late on Wednesday night, each regurgitating Josh Frydenberg’s draft speech, with reports of what the Treasurer “will say” littered throughout their publications. The only difference this time from previous drops was that the circle has expanded beyond The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Age/SMH, The Conversation, ABC and The Guardian. Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids are now also getting looped in, with The Adelaide Advertiser, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The Courier Mail all getting the drops, all running segments of the Treasurer’s upcoming speech,
“Equally, that should not come at the expense of dishonouring our Western heritage, which has made us the liberal democracy that we are today. We have to get the balance right and I’m concerned that we haven’t in the draft that’s been put out.” Under the proposed changes, unveiled by the national curriculum authority on Thursday, children will be taught that First Nations’ people experienced British colonisation “as invasion and dispossession of land, sea and sky”. References to Australia’s “Christian heritage” were also removed out of the civics and citizenship syllabus in favour of terms such as secular and multi-faith.
Source: Alan Tudge ‘concerned’ about colonisation emphasis in proposed curriculum changes
A glance at Angus Taylor’s track record somewhat explains the lunacy behind his latest plans for climate action.
Source: ANDREW P STREET: Questioning Angus Taylor’s sci-fi emissions plan
