Australia’s media under threat
“Media outlets have faced attacks in the form of centralisation of private ownership, funding cuts to public broadcasters, and potential prosecution of journalists, including News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst.”
One of the report’s authors, Geoffrey Watson, SC, former counsel assisting the Independent Commission Against Corruption, said he had been shocked by how quickly the brutal type of politics that evolved in the United States and the United Kingdom, and partly led to the ascendancy of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, had taken root in Australia.
“One day you see the judiciary attacked and the next someone in the media,” said Mr Watson, who is a director of the Centre for Public Integrity. “On the third day it might be the CSIRO, they even attack our scientists. Some people don’t recognise it as the same problem, but it is all part of the same disease.”
He said the effectiveness of the media in Australia as a watchdog was not only threatened by personal and legal attacks by the government, but by regulations that had allowed ownership of newspapers to be reduced to an effective duopoly.
The report, entitled “Protecting the Integrity of Accountability Institutions”, said that a range of institutions – including the judiciary and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the public service, integrity commissions such as the ICAC, statutory authorities such as the Human Rights Commission and the Fair Work Commission, and the CSIRO – had all been targeted in recent years by interested parties seeking to undermine their independence and public trust.
“These institutions are important not only because they ensure actual accountability, transparency and good governance but because they build confidence and trust within the Australian community,” it said. “When this confidence and trust is diminished, divisiveness and conflict increase. This impacts social cohesiveness and the economy, and the welfare of all Australians suffers. Ultimately, as international experience has shown, it is a threat to democracy itself.”
It cited as examples of interference attempts by federal ministers to influence the Victorian Court of Appeal in 2017 terrorism cases, sustained funding cuts and personal attacks on the ABC, and the de-skilling of the public service through the outsourcing of up to 50 per cent of government departments to contractors.
The report listed a series of principles that needed to be respected in order to protect the independence of the threatened institutions. They include protection from political retribution, secure and sufficient funding, secure tenure of senior officials and public access to advice to the government from accountability institutions, as well as the creation of an effective federal integrity watchdog.
The Centre for Public Integrity, a independently funded think tank, was formed earlier this year in part to champion the case for a such a body. The report comes in the midst of a campaign by Australian media, including the Herald and The Age, to defend the public right to information in the face of increasing attempts by government and government agencies to suppress information, prosecute whistleblowers and criminalise legitimate public interest journalism.
MP Sonja Terpstra and Victoria’s Labor government stand by existing bans on nuclear activities
Sonja Terpstra, State Labor Member for Eastern Metropolitan Region “….The Victorian Government and I do not support the state parliamentary inquiry into the use of nuclear energy. We stand by our existing ban on nuclear power and are committed to retaining the Victorian Nuclear Activities (Prohibitions) Act 1963.
It makes no sense to construct nuclear power stations in Australia. They present significant community, environmental and health risks, not to mention the ongoing and yet unsolved problem of the disposal of nuclear waste. Instead through the Victorian Labor Government’s ambitious Victorian Renewable Energy Target, we are giving the renewable energy sector the confidence needed to invest in the clean energy projects and jobs that are crucial to our future….”
New political party Reform WA wants nuclear power as an option for Western Australia
New political party Reform WA wants nuclear power as an option for Western Australia
240 conservation scientists call on Australian government to strengthen environmental protection laws
Letter by 240 leading scientists calls on Scott Morrison to stem extinction crisis, More than 240 conservation scientists sign open letter warning PM that 17 Australian native species face extinction in next 20 years. Guardian, Adam Morton Environment editor @adamlmorton, Mon 28 Oct 2019 More than 240 conservation scientists have called on Scott Morrison to drop his opposition to stronger environment laws and seize a “once-in-a-decade opportunity” to fix a system that is failing to stem a worsening extinction crisis.
With the federal government due to this week announce a 10-yearly legislated review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, the scientists have signed an open letter to the prime minister urging him to increase spending and back laws to help protect the natural world from further destruction.
The letter says three native species have become extinct in the past decade and another 17 could follow in the next 20 years. More than 1,800 Australian plants and animals are formally listed as threatened with extinction, but the scientists say this is an underestimate.
“Our current laws are failing because they are too weak, have inadequate review and approval processes, and are not overseen by an effective compliance regime,” the scientists say.
“Since they were established (in 1999), 7.7m hectares of threatened species habitat has been destroyed. That’s an area larger than Tasmania. Meanwhile, the number of extinctions continue to climb, while new threats emerge and spread unchecked.”
Environmental law was a point of difference at this year’s election, with Morrison pledging to limit “green tape” that he said cost jobs while Labor promised a new environment act and a federal environment protection authority.
Lesley Hughes, a distinguished professor of biology at Macquarie University, member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and a signatory to the letter, said environmental protections had been consistently wound back over the past decade, most often by conservative governments.
She said it was having a significant impact, pointing to the 2016 state-of-the-environment report that found Australia was facing multiple environment changes and lacked a national policy that established a clear vision for the protection and sustainable management of the country’s natural heritage.
She also cited a WWF assessment that ranked eastern Australia as one of the world’s top 11 deforestation hotspots. Australia was the only developed country on the list.
“It’s a very grim picture,” Hughes said. “This letter is a pre-emptive strike to say this is an opportunity to do it better, this is not an opportunity to weaken and dilute the existing weak laws.”
Morrison’s pledge not to increase environmental laws came as a United Nations global assessment found biodiversity was declining at an unprecedented rate, with one million species across the globe at risk of extinction and human populations in jeopardy if the trajectory was not reversed.
The environment minister, Sussan Ley, said the review of the EPBC Act was an independent process that would encourage submissions from a wide variety of perspectives……. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/28/toughen-environmental-laws-to-stem-extinction-crisis-scientists-tell-morrison
Attorney General Christian Porter backs laws that restrict journalists’ reporting
 Material from raid on journalist’s home ‘may be used to prosecute’, The Age, By Dana McCauley October 25, 2019 — Attorney-General Christian Porter has launched an extraordinary intervention in a High Court case over raids by Australian Federal Police (AFP) on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst’s home, asking the court to block a move to destroy material that may be used for future prosecution.
Mr Porter, who has sought to reassure media companies fighting for press freedom that he is “seriously disinclined” to approve prosecutions over public interest journalism, said in a joint submission to the court that the AFP was still weighing up whether to refer the matter to prosecutors. “If charges are laid, the data seized from Ms Smethurst’s phone may well be important. In those circumstances, the court should not order that the data be destroyed,” Mr Porter’s joint submission with the Australian Federal Police said. “It should leave it to the trial judge in any future criminal prosecution to determine whether that material will be admitted.” Australian media outlets – including Nine, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – have united with a ‘Right to Know’ campaign to warn against growing censorship, calling for reforms to shield whistleblowers and journalists from prosecution. Mr Porter has asked the court to uphold the validity of the AFP raid warrant and secrecy laws that restrict journalists’ reporting, which News Corp and Ms Smethurst are challenging. AFP officers raided Ms Smethurst’s home in June over a story published in the Sunday Telegraph a year earlier, in which she reported on a government plan to allow the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on Australian citizens for the first time. News Corp and Ms Smethurst argue the raid breached the implied freedom of political communication in Australia’s Constitution because the prohibition on publishing classified information was not limited to “inherently harmful” disclosures and gave the government “unconstrained discretion” to protect information, even if it was “merely embarrassing”…….. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security inquiry into press freedom will report at the end of November……… On Friday, the information watchdog launched an investigation into the Home Affairs department’s compliance with freedom of information laws after it emerged the department was failing to release documents within the legal deadline in one out of four cases. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/material-from-raid-on-journalist-s-home-may-be-used-to-prosecute-20191025-p534cr.html |
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South Australian Labor comes out swinging against nuclear waste dump selection process
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Deputy Opposition leader slams federal government’s nuclear waste site selection process, Transcontinental, Amy Green 25 Oct 19,
“We are utterly opposed to the process,” says Deputy Leader of the Opposition Susan Close regarding the current federal approach to a national radioactive waste facility in regional South Australia. “We understand there is a need to do something with Australia’s domestic waste but they have gone about it so badly that they have put the community off. “They haven’t done the due consideration that they ought to be doing of what the possibilities physically are.” At a recent state conference, the South Australian Labor Party adopted a policy contesting the federal government’s site nomination and selection process. They have called for full transparency, broad public input and best practice technical and consultative standards.
Ms Close condemned the federal government’s current approach to building a potential facility at sites in Kimba and Hawker. “It is a federal issue but we just have a view about it that they have gone about it in an appalling way,” Ms Close said. “They get to make the decision, we don’t have have any capacity even if we were in government to do anything, but what they have done is asked landholder if anyone wants to have this and left the Aboriginal community out. “For some reason, the only three sites they are looking at are in South Australia which is very strange.” Federal Minister for Resources Matt Canavan said thethree potential sites in South Australia were all voluntarily nominated and the facility will only be built where a community broadly supports it…….. Premier Steven Marshall has maintained a stance that radioactive waste management is a federal issue and the state government has remained quiet during the drawn out process. With community ballots now underway in the District Council of Kimba, and one scheduled later this year for the Flinders Ranges Council, Ms Close has accused the Marshall government of being “asleep at the wheel”……. “This is just part of a pattern that the Marshall Liberal government doesn’t seem prepared to have any kind of argument with the commonwealth govt and that is to the detriment of South Australia’s interest.” The Transcontinental reached out to the state government for comment, but did not receive a reply. https://www.transcontinental.com.au/story/6454080/state-labor-party-weighs-in-on-nuclear-debate/ |
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Angus Taylor repeats misleading claim on carbon emissions yet again
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Angus Taylor repeats misleading claim on carbon emissions yet again https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-24/zombie—angus-taylor-emissions-abatement-kyoto-protocol/11630780
RMIT ABC Fact Check
Posted Thu at 9:21am As the nation continues to grapple with drought and unseasonably early bushfires, climate change remains a point of political focus. The Morrison Government has repeatedly claimed the Coalition — through its own hard work — turned around Australia’s poor record on greenhouse gas emissions that it says was inherited from the former Labor government. The latest Coalition MP to make such a claim is Energy Minister Angus Taylor.
Senior Coalition figures, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, have made similar claims on numerous occasions. Why this claim is misleadingFact Check previously examined this claim and found it to be misleading. Among other things, the so-called emissions “deficit” referred to by Mr Morrison was taken from an October 2012 report, and merely represented a forecast of the greenhouse gas reductions needed to hit Australia’s 2020 target at that time. Soon after the Coalition came to office, it became apparent that emissions under Labor’s carbon tax had been lower than expected in a report released in September 2013, which superseded the 2012 report. Government officials also for the first time factored in a significant “carryover” from the overachievement of Australia’s 2012 target. Since then, emissions have been lower than anticipated as a result of soaring power prices, the states’ adoption of renewable energy and the closure of coal-fired power stations, including Victoria’s Hazelwood plant. The bottom line is, when it comes to achieving Australia’s 2020 Kyoto target, the Coalition actually “inherited” a relatively strong position from Labor. In 2013 and 2014, when Labor’s carbon tax was still in force, Australia was significantly ahead of the target for those years. Over time, as emissions under the Coalition have steadily risen, the gap between actual emissions and the target has gradually narrowed. As experts noted in our previous fact check, the Coalition’s “direct action” fund did achieve some abatement at a reasonable price, but a comparatively modest amount. For these reasons, Fact Check judges the claim repeated by Mr Taylor this week once again to be misleading. |
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Australia’s environment department is unlawfully withholding documents from the public
The Transparency Project Freedom of information Environment department illegally withholds thousands of FOI pages
More than 10,000 pages of documents have not been made public, including records on Adani and the Angus Taylor grasslands saga , Guardian, Christopher Knaus @knausc Wed 16 Oct 2019
Australia’s environment department is unlawfully withholding more than 10,000 pages of freedom of information documents from the public, including internal records on Adani and the Angus Taylor grasslands affair.
The department has failed to place documents on its FOI disclosure log for the past 10 months, meaning material it has released to individual applicants is not visible to the wider public.
The failings, first reported by the Mandarin, are a breach of FOI law, which compels government agencies to publish documents online within 10 working days of giving them to the initial applicant.
It means more than 10,000 pages have not been published on the log, including internal records on its decision to approve the controversial groundwater plan for the Adani coalmine and on Taylor’s interactions with an investigation into land-clearing by a company he and his family part-owned.
Guardian Australia understands the department’s conduct has been the subject of an official complaint to the information watchdog, the office of the Australian information commissioner (OAIC). The OAIC typically does not comment on ongoing investigations………
Peter Timmins, a lawyer and highly-regarded FOI expert, said it showed a broader problem with the federal government’s attitude toward FOI.
“It shows a broader problem really about the state of FOI if we have agencies that can disregard quite clear obligations to make documents released publicly available on their disclosure log,” Timmins said. “The broader problem is that I think without appropriate leadership – and that really is at the highest level of government – about the importance of transparency and integrity, we see these breaches occur.”…….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/16/environment-department-illegally-withholding-thousands-of-foi-pages
Once again, Aaron Patrick subtly slants this story in the pro nuclear direction.
Mr Forshaw, who chaired an inquiry into the replacement of the Lucas Heights reactor, on Monday said that he didn’t regret Parliament’s decision, and isn’t convinced that nuclear can compete with other energy sources on cost.
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Read down to the article’s later paragraphs (in red) to get a better picture
 of what is really going on. AND –
The man who helped ban nuclear has second thoughts, https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/the-man-who-helped-ban-nuclear-has-second-thoughts-20191021-p532n4 Australian Financial Review Aaron Patrick, Senior Correspondent, Oct 21, 2019 Twenty-one years after the Federal Parliament banned nuclear power, one of the senators responsible would like Australia to have another look at the energy source.
In 1998, Michael Forshaw, a Labor senator, agreed to a Greens proposal to insert a clause into a proposed law on nuclear safety that prohibited using nuclear power to generate electricity. Now, as parliamentary inquiries at the federal level and in NSW and Victoria investigate nuclear power, Mr Forshaw is one of a number of Labor figures open to reconsidering whether nuclear can play a role in combating climate change. “I think the debate is good because there have been people who have been the strongest environmentalists for many years who now say nuclear is a clean source of energy,” he said in an interview from the Sutherland Shire, where he is a councillor. “Nuclear energy is certainly on one case cleaner that some of the more traditional forms of energy, such as coal-fired power stations. But the problem is of course what do you do with the nuclear waste. We still haven’t got to Australia settling on a site for the waste we currently produce.” Pro-nuclear advocates regard the events of late 1998 as one of the great, unheralded missteps in the history of energy policy. The medical industry was desperate for the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor – then located in bushland west of Sydney – to continue because it produced radioisotopes vital for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. The 40-year-old reactor needed to be replaced, and the government wanted to merge the Australian Radiation Laboratory and the Nuclear Safety Bureau into a single independent regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, according to a brief history by Bright New World, a pro-nuclear lobby group. The Greens and Australian Democrats decided to tap into anti-nuclear sentiment coursing through society by raising concerns about where the nuclear waste would be stored. The Greens, which wanted to attract votes from the bigger Democrats party, saw a political opportunity to demand that the new law would state that it did not “authorise the construction or operation” of a nuclear power plant or uranium enrichment facility. As a junior Labor spokesman for health, Forshaw had responsibility for the legislation in the upper house. On December 10, not long before the Senate broke for lunch, he announced that the Labor Party had agreed to the proposal, ensuring it would pass. “We understand that there is no either medium-term or long-term intention on the part of the government to proceed to construct such facilities,” then senator Forshaw said. “On that basis alone, one would think that the government should be prepared to support this amendment.” Needing the Senate’s support to replace the ageing Lucas Heights plant with a new Argentinian reactor, prime minister John Howard’s government didn’t bother opposing the clause. Only 10 of the 76 senators were present for the vote, including three from the Greens and Australian Democrats. “The rest just accepted it without any opposition,” the Bright New World history says. The process took six minutes. Eleven hours later the law was approved by the House of Representatives, without a vote, at the direction of health minister Michael Wooldridge. “I believe the amendments agreed to by the Senate will strengthen this legislation,” Dr Wooldridge told the lower house. Waste concerns lingerMr Forshaw, who chaired an inquiry into the replacement of the Lucas Heights reactor, on Monday said that he didn’t regret Parliament’s decision, and isn’t convinced that nuclear can compete with other energy sources on cost. The Greens senator who proposed the ban, Dee Margetts, wasn’t well enough to answer questions, a party spokeswoman said. “I am sure she would believe it is still the right decision though,” she said. “Dee never wavered in her stance on issues.” Mr Forshaw said political agreement was needed on a central location to store nuclear waste for hundreds of years. Once that was settled, a rational debate about the cost and benefits of nuclear power would be appropriate, he said. We should store our own. That’s the requirement under international agreement. It’s a real travesty we haven’t been able to sort that out. “If we can’t get governments to make a decision about where to make a long-term nuclear storage facility – if we can’t get that right I think we are a long way from making a reasoned decision on something like a nuclear power station.” Other figures from the left who have expressed conditional support for nuclear energy include University of Queensland economist John Quiggin, Industry Super Funds chief economist Stephen Anthony, green-energy advocate Simon Holmes a Court and Australian Workers Union national secretary Daniel Walton. The Labor Party remains adamantly opposed, and environment spokesman Mark Butler has already begun to stoke fear among voters about the risk of nuclear reactors. Former NSW premier Bob Carr, who was an early Labor Party supporter of nuclear power, said he had become pessimistic about overcoming public opposition. “If a continent can’t settle on a location for a toxic waste incinerator despite 30 years of discussion, can you really tell me which locality is going to put its hand up to host the country’s first nuclear power reactor?” he said on Monday. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration estimated in 2013 that nuclear power prevented 1.8 million deaths between 1971 and 2009 by displacing coal and other polluting sources of energy. |
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A Media Freedom Act for Australia?
work, https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-a-media-freedom-act-heres-how-it-could-work-125315?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2022%202019%20-%201440613637&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2022%202019%20-%201440613637+CID_dab722b5Rebecca Ananian-WelshSenior Lecturer, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of QueenslandOctober 22, 2019 Australians picked up their morning papers yesterday to find heavily blacked-out text instead of front-page headlines. This bold statement was instigated by the “Your Right to Know” campaign, an unlikely coalition of Australian media organisations fighting for press freedom and source protection.A key reform advocated by a range of organisations and experts – including our research team at the University of Queensland – is the introduction of a Media Freedom Act. Unlike human rights or anti-discrimination legislation, there is no clear precedent for such an act.
So what exactly might a Media Freedom Act look like and is it a good idea?
Raids and response
It was the June raids on the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC’s Sydney headquarters that revealed the fragile state of press freedom in Australia. Two parliamentary inquiries into press freedom are on foot, with public hearings before the Senate committee starting last Friday.
Parliament will soon face the question: can we protect national security without sacrificing that cornerstone of liberal democracy, press freedom? If so, how?
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s immediate response to the raids was to state that journalists would be prosecuted if they received top-secret documents. A month later, Dutton issued a ministerial directive to the AFP that emphasised the importance of press freedom and the need for restrained action against journalists.
Attorney-General Christian Porter’s subsequent directive was more moderate, ensuring that he would have the final say on whether journalists would be prosecuted on the basis of their work “in a professional capacity as a journalist”.
These directives may reflect a burgeoning appreciation within government of the importance of the press in ensuring democratic free speech and accountability.
However, the laws that undermine press freedom by targeting journalists and their sources remain on the books. These laws include many of the now 82 (and counting) national security laws enacted since September 11 2001. This is more than anywhere else in the world and some of these laws grant the government uniquely severe powers of detention and interrogation.
A Media Freedom Act could serve three key roles, making it an appropriate and advantageous option in the protection of national security, press freedom and democracy.
Recognise the fourth estate
First, a Media Freedom Act would recognise and affirm the importance of press freedom in Australia. This recognition would support the fourth estate role of the media and demonstrate Australia’s commitment to democratic accountability and the rule of law. It would carry the weight of legislation rather than the relative flimsiness of ad hoc directives.
In this way, a Media Freedom Act would represent a clear commitment to the public’s right and capacity to know about how they are governed and power is exercised.
The act would also recognise that press freedom is not an absolute, but may be subject to necessary and proportionate limitations.
A culture of disclosure
econd, it would support a transition from a culture of secrecy to a culture of disclosure and open government across the public sector. This role could be served by requiring the public sector (including law enforcement and intelligence officers) to consider the impact of their decisions on press freedom and government accountability and to adopt the least intrusive option that is reasonably available.
This requirement echoes Dutton’s directive. It is already part of the law of Victoria, the ACT and Queensland, where free expression is protected within those jurisdictions’ charters of rights. Like the charters, a federal Media Freedom Act would aim to bring about a cultural shift and contribute to the gradual rebuilding of trust between government and the media.
At federal level, the parliament must already consider the impact of a new law on freedom of expression under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act. A Media Freedom Act could reinforce the importance of parliament and the public sector considering the impact on press freedom when it debates and enacts new laws.
Journalism is not a crime
Third, and most importantly, a Media Freedom Act would protect press freedom by ensuring legitimate journalism was excluded from the scope of criminal offences.
It is important that this be in the form of an exemption rather than a defence. This has no substantial legal impact. But, crucially, an exemption conveys that the journalist had not engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
It also places the onus on the prosecution to prove the exemption doesn’t apply. This therefore alleviates the chilling effect on press freedom caused by the threat of court action.
The framing of the protection will attract debate (what, after all, is a journalist? And what is journalism?).
A good starting point is the existing journalism defence to the general secrecy offence in section 122.5 of the Criminal Code. For that defence to apply, the person must have:
- dealt with the information in their capacity as a “person engaged in the business of reporting news, presenting current affairs or expressing editorial or other content in news media”
- have reasonably believed that engaging in the conduct was in the public interest.
A single act or many amendments?
A Media Freedom Act is not a panacea; it would not avoid the need for a detailed review of Australia’s legal frameworks for their impact on press freedom.
In particular, protections for private sector, public sector and intelligence whistleblowers need attention. Suppression orders and defamation laws also have a serious chilling effect on Australian journalism. However, the present approach of considering dozens of individual schemes for their discrete impact on press freedom, and seeking technical amendments to each to alleviate that impact, is cumbersome, illogical and destined to create loopholes.
Australia’s national security laws are uniquely broad and complex. At present, an inconsistent array of (notably few) journalism-based defences and exemptions from prosecution are scattered across these laws. Inconsistency leads to confusion, and overlapping offences make it even more difficult for journalists to know when they are crossing the line into criminal conduct.
The imperative to protect press freedom is fundamental and deserving of general recognition and protection. In light of these concerns, our international obligations and the rule-of-law concerns for legal clarity, consistency and proportionality, it is time for a Media Freedom Act.
Momentum grows for the rescue of Julian Assange
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Growing calls for Australian government to defend Julian Assange https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/10/19/assa-o19.html?
fbclid=IwAR2smK6ChQzsIB7Ndld4N_No68RpVViDz5V-RH7qTiYfWmFWFdqkThOA-DQ
By Oscar Grenfell, 19 October 2019 Over the past week, several prominent public figures, including federal members of parliament, have called on the Australian government to fulfil its obligations to defend WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange, including by taking steps to prevent his extradition from Britain to the US.The statements come in the lead-up to British extradition hearings in February, that will decide whether Assange is dispatched to the US. He faces a maximum sentence of 175 years in an American prison for exposing US war crimes and diplomatic intrigues. There are concerns within the Australian political and media establishment that the refusal of successive governments to defend Assange, an Australian citizen and journalist, has generated widespread anger and opposition. The fear in ruling circles is that if Assange is extradited, or if his parlous health continues to deteriorate, the latent support for him will coalesce into a political movement against the entire official set-up. In a statement to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, independent MP Andrew Wilkie declared that Assange is “an Australian citizen and must be treated like any other Australian. He was not in the US when he provided evidence of US war crimes in Iraq. He can’t possibly have broken their laws.” Wilkie said that if Assange is extradited to the US, he “faces serious human rights violations including exposure to torture and a dodgy trial. And this has serious implications for freedom of speech and freedom of the press here in Australia, because if we allow a foreign country to charge an Australian citizen for revealing war crimes, then no Australian journalist or publisher can ever be confident that the same thing won’t happen to them.” He concluded by stating: “Put simply, he must be allowed to return to Australia.” Wilkie, a former intelligence agent who resigned to speak out against “weapons of mass destruction” lies used to justify the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, has previously condemned the assault on democratic rights. In 2010 and 2011, he made statements and spoke at public events in defence of Assange. Alongside the Greens and a host of civil liberties organisations, however, Wilkie has largely remained silent about the WikiLeaks founder’s plight for a number of years and has boycotted all actions taken in his defence. Wilkie said that if Assange is extradited to the US, he “faces serious human rights violations including exposure to torture and a dodgy trial. And this has serious implications for freedom of speech and freedom of the press here in Australia, because if we allow a foreign country to charge an Australian citizen for revealing war crimes, then no Australian journalist or publisher can ever be confident that the same thing won’t happen to them.” He concluded by stating: “Put simply, he must be allowed to return to Australia.” Wilkie, a former intelligence agent who resigned to speak out against “weapons of mass destruction” lies used to justify the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, has previously condemned the assault on democratic rights. In 2010 and 2011, he made statements and spoke at public events in defence of Assange. Alongside the Greens and a host of civil liberties organisations, however, Wilkie has largely remained silent about the WikiLeaks founder’s plight for a number of years and has boycotted all actions taken in his defence. Joyce, a populist who has sought to build a base of support in rural areas, was well aware of the sentiments in favour of Hicks among workers in regional centres and country towns. He played a role in the sordid agreement brokered by Howard, which saw Hicks returned to Australia in 2007. Hicks was forced to serve out a bogus prison sentence in Australia and was banned for a year from speaking to the media. In comments to the media on Monday, former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr hinted at the concerns animating the comments in defence of Assange by such figures from within the political establishment. Carr told the Sydney Morning Herald that ordinary people would be “deeply uneasy” about the prospect of an Australian citizen being handed over to the “living hell of a lifetime sentence in an American penitentiary.” He criticised current Foreign Minister Marise Payne over her claim that she made “friendly” representations on behalf of Assange to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo has denounced Assange as a “demon” who is not entitled to any democratic rights and labelled WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” Carr stated: “I think the issue will gather pace, and in the ultimate trial there will be a high level of Australian public concern, among conservative voters as much as any others.” In his strongest comments in defence of Assange yet, Carr declared: “We have an absolute right to know about American war crimes in a conflict that the Australian government of the day strongly supported. We wouldn’t know about them except for Assange.” Carr is no political innocent. During his decades in the Labor Party, he functioned as a secret informant for the US embassy, beginning in the 1970s. He was a leading minister in the Gillard Labor government which refused to defend the WikiLeaks founder and instead pledged to assist the US campaign against him. That Carr has spoken out now is a measure of the fears within the ruling elite that the defence of Assange will animate millions of workers, students and young people in the coming period. In keeping with the central role of Labor in the US-led pursuit of Assange, no prominent current figure in the party has joined the calls for him to be defended. When the WikiLeaks’ founder was illegally expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy and arrested by the British police in April, Labor MP Tanya Plibersek shared a Tweet denouncing his supporters as “cultists.” Julian Hill, a little-known federal backbencher representing a working-class electorate in outer Melbourne, is the only Labor MP to have spoken out. He told the Guardian on Thursday that Assange is “an Australian and, at the very least, we must be vigorously consistent in opposing extradition to countries where he might face the death penalty.” Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded this week by blandly declaring that Assange must “face the music” in the US. Senior government ministers have previously maligned Assange, repeating the lies concocted by the US intelligence agencies to discredit him. Liberal Senator James Paterson attempted to provide a more sophisticated argument for the government’s refusal to defend Assange, telling the Sydney Morning Herald last week that both Britain and the US were “rule-of-law countries.” Paterson piously stated: “This is not the case in many other countries in the world. Sadly, we know there are Australian citizens detained right now in China and Iran who are not facing free and fair legal systems … and the Australian government does have a greater obligation to assist those citizens.” The suggestion that the Australian government has a responsibility to defend its citizens in some jurisdictions, but not in others, is a legal fiction that has no basis in Australian or international legislation. Paterson’s statements, moreover, fly in the face of repeated warnings by United Nations officials and human rights organisations that Assange’s legal and democratic rights have been trampled upon by the British and US authorities. Paterson’s comments point to the real reason why successive Australian governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, have joined the US-led vendetta against Assange. Their participation in the attacks against him has gone hand in hand with unconditional backing for the US alliance and support for Washington’s military build-up in the Asia-Pacific region, in preparation for war against China. The record demonstrates that no faith can be placed in any section of the political or media establishment to defend Assange or any democratic rights. All the official parties and institutions in Australia are implicated in the persecution of the WikiLeaks founder. They will take action only to the extent that they fear the political consequences if they do not. Workers, students and young people must be mobilised as part of an international movement demanding the immediate freedom of Assange and all class war prisoners. This is the only way that an Australian government will be forced to uphold its responsibility to prevent Assange’s extradition to the US and allow him to unconditionally return to Australia. |
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No benefit to Australia in planning for nuclear power – Tilman Ruff
Nuclear Promises, by Tilman Ruff, Back on the political agenda in Australia, but for what benefit? ARENA, 17 Oct 2019
In 2006 the Howard government commissioned nuclear enthusiast and former chair of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Ziggy Switkowski to undertake a review of nuclear power for Australia. …..
Switkowski’s review recommended twenty nuclear power stations up and down the east coast of Australia. Perhaps mostly intended as a political wedge for Labor and a distraction, proposed postcodes were not forthcoming from the government. At the first shadow cabinet meeting just weeks after its 2007 loss to Labor, the Coalition quickly and quietly dropped the nuclear-power dalliance that had proved distinctly unpopular.
So why are there currently four inquiries under way federally, in New South Wales and Victoria, looking for prospects to resurrect a decomposing corpse? If there were a level playing field, nuclear power would have been cremated a long time ago. The findings of recent inquiries and decisions in Australia and internationally underline this point.
A July 2019 report by the German Institute for Economic Research found no role for nuclear power in battling the climate catastrophe, given nuclear power’s innate connection with nuclear weapons: ‘…nuclear energy can by no means be called “clean” due to radioactive emissions, which will endanger humans and the natural environment for over one million years’. All nuclear energy production, it went on to say, ‘harbors the high risk of proliferation’. Its survey of the 674 nuclear power plants built between 1951 and 2017 showed that,
private economic motives never played a role. Instead military interests have always been the driving force behind their construction… In countries such as China and Russia, where nuclear power plants are still being built, private investment does not play a role either.
The study found that, even ignoring the expense of dismantling nuclear power plants and the long-term storage of nuclear waste, private investment in nuclear power plants would result in significant losses: ‘investing in a new nuclear power plant leads to average losses of around five billion euros’. It concluded that ‘nuclear energy is not a relevant option for supplying economical, climate-friendly, and sustainable energy in the future’.1
A December 2018 report by CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) found that the cost of power from small modular nuclear reactors would be more than twice as expensive as power from wind and solar PV with some storage costs included (two hours of battery storage or six hours of pumped hydro storage).2 …….
In 2016 the highly pro-nuclear South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission found that nuclear power was not economically viable.4 While most recently, in January 2019, the Climate Council, comprising Australia’s leading climate scientists and other policy experts, issued a statement arguing that nuclear power reactors ‘are not appropriate for Australia and probably never will be’:
Nuclear power stations are highly controversial, can’t be built under existing law in any Australian state or territory, are a more expensive source of power than renewable energy, and present significant challenges in terms of the storage and transport of nuclear waste, and use of water.5
So what’s going on? Objectively, nuclear power is uniquely associated with a litany of profound dangers. Now that it is already at least twice as expensive as solar and wind power plus storage, each with negligible downsides, a natural death should have occurred long ago.
The current flurry of promotion of nuclear power in Australia seems to have several drivers. It is a convenient distraction for a government beholden to vested fossil-fuel interests, with no serious energy policy, overseeing still-ballooning Australian greenhouse-gas emissions. It is a sop to ideologues claiming credit for bringing the Coalition unexpectedly back to power. And it is a little nod to the goblins that keep alive the potential need for Australia to acquire its own nuclear weapons, recently given a fillip by Hugh White and a large amount of airplay.
So it is necessary to remind ourselves of some of the reasons that the most hazardous way to boil water to make electricity has no place here, or anywhere.
Nuclear power fuels nuclear proliferation It was recognised way back in 1977 by the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, which preceded the expansion of commercial uranium mining in Australia, that nuclear power contributes to an increased risk of nuclear war, and that ‘this is the most serious hazard associated with the industry’…..
Australian history underscores the inseparable ‘Trojan horse’ consequences. The government of Prime Minister John Gorton commenced construction of Australia’s first nuclear power reactor at Jervis Bay in New South Wales in the late 1960s, largely to accelerate Australia’s capacity to build its own nuclear weapons. Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) chair J. P. Baxter spoke of ‘the indissoluble connection between the peaceful and military uses of nuclear materials’. A briefing to the minister for the interior in 1969 stated: ‘From discussions with the AAEC officers it is understood that in establishing the Australian nuclear power industry it is desired to provide for the possibility of producing nuclear weapons…’.10 Gorton later admitted: ‘We were interested in this thing because it could provide electricity to everybody and it could, if you decided later on, it could make an atomic bomb’…….
As the costs of nuclear power have risen to become more than twice as expensive as either wind or solar power with storage, it has become increasingly obvious that some governments maintain civilian nuclear infrastructure and workforce expertise principally to support their nuclear-weapons programs and naval propulsion, including nuclear missile–carrying nuclear-powered submarines. Such governments include those of France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States
Nuclear reactors create enormous radiological hazards over geological time Every phase of the nuclear fuel chain from the mining of uranium to radioactive waste disposal emits radiation and involves risks to health and the biosphere. In seventy years, no deep geological repository or other final disposal solution for highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors is operating. The capacity of any repository to effectively and reliably isolate waste from the biosphere for a million years and keep it secure from use in radiological weapons over periods orders of magnitude longer than the longevity of any previous human institution cannot be sure. And this is a significant impost on future generations.
In addition to many near-misses, at least fifteen accidents have occurred involving fuel or core damage, with substantial risk of uncontrolled radioactive release, in a variety of reactor types in Canada, Germany, Japan, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and the United States. …….
Nuclear reactors and their spent fuel pools contain large amounts of radioactivity that is more long-lived than that produced by nuclear weapons. Both require continuous cooling. Unlike the several layers of engineered containment around nuclear reactors, spent fuel pools have no containment other than a simple roof over them. At the Fukushima Daiichi plant severely damaged in the 2011 nuclear disaster, 70 per cent of the total radioactivity at the site was in the spent fuel pools…….
The web of links between nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, and the materials that power both are deep and inextricable. Nuclear power cannot solve our climate crisis, and it aggravates the existential danger posed by nuclear weapons. Jumping out of the climate-crisis frying pan and into the fire of radioactive incineration, nuclear ice age and famine is a lose-lose dalliance with extinction. Promotion of nuclear power as a claimed climate-friendly energy source is a lose-lose proposition. As noted in 2010 by the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, ‘Nuclear war is a terrible trade for slowing the pace of climate change’.17 Nuclear power is pushed along because of powerful vested interests and a desire to keep powder dry for nuclear weapons. The twin concurrent existential threats of climate disruption and nuclear war demand win-win solutions. A healthy and sustainable future for life on earth requires that we rapidly transition to renewable energy systems and net zero carbon emissions, and that we prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons, with the utmost urgency. https://arena.org.au/nuclear-promises-by-tilman-ruff/
Prime Minister Scott Morrison caught out pretending about renewable energy
Morrison ‘pretending on renewable energy’, Herald Sun,
According to Mr Butler, renewable energy investment had collapsed by more than 50 per cent in the first half of the year.
He said Prime Minister Scott Morrison had been caught out pretending Australia was leading the world on renewable energy investment.
“(This is) against the advice of his own government department,” Mr Butler told reporters on Saturday.
“Power bills are going up (and) wholesale prices are up by 158 percent since 2015 alone, according to the Grattan Institute.
“Because of this collapse in renewable energy investment, thousands of good, well-paying jobs in that industry, which are growing everywhere else around the world, are also now at risk.”
In September, the Clean Energy Council announced it feared power prices would rise if the federal government did not extend the renewable energy target. The group said new renewable energy investment projects plunged this year, after reaching a high in late-2018……..https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/morrison-pretending-on-renewable-energy/news-story/48b7e0e29cc88e693fb16ea73eb0a6b3
Scott Morrison on the drought (“Climate” is a dirty word)
Scott Morrison says drought the Coalition’s ‘first call’ – but makes no mention of climate
Prime minister suggests Coalition may commit to extra funding relief in Liberal party federal council speech, Ben Doherty, @bendohertycorro, Sat 19 Oct 2019 The Guardian
Scott Morrison has indicated the federal government might be prepared to commit extra relief funding to drought-stricken communities, reaffirming the drought is the government’s top priority.
In a triumphal speech to the Liberal party’s federal council in Canberra on Saturday, Morrison again said the drought was “the most pressing and biggest call on our budget”.
“It is the first cab off the rank, the first thing we sit together and say, ‘Once we have done everything we can in this area, then we can consider other priorities’…….
The prime minister did not mention the climate crisis while detailing the government’s three-phase drought response package thus far: the farm household allowance for eligible farming families; the drought communities program dedicating $100m to councils affected by the drought; and long-term drought resilience plans, including money for new dams and the drought future fund. ………
The government has been criticised by Labor for moving too slowly on the drought. Accusing the government of “six years of inaction”, Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon has called for a bipartisan drought war cabinet to be established.
“What began as crisis for our farmers fast moved to a crisis for our rural townships, which are literally running out of water,” he said. “And I fear that we now are fast approaching a threat to our food security … We need to sit the major parties down together and to start making some pretty significant decisions.”
The drought response has also been questioned by some councils, including Moyne shire in south-west Victoria, which was given $1m despite not being in drought and whose mayor said he wanted to refuse it……. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/19/scott-morrison-says-drought-the-coalitions-first-call-but-makes-no-mention-of-climate
Australian government’s “entrenched” anti-climate attitude – John Hewson
John Hewson slams Coalition on climate change while business takes lead reducing emissions, ABC, NSW Country Hour, 20 Oct By Joshua Becker
Key points:
- John Hewson takes aim at the Government’s policies and its “entrenched anti-climate sentiment’
- The former Liberal leaders argues that regenerative agriculture can offset a large amount of future emissions
- Academics say government policy might be less influential than market forces as companies move faster to reduce emissions
“We don’t have a sense of urgency to achieve these emission [reduction] targets,” he told the Australian Farm Institute Roundtable in Canberra.
“There’s an entrenched anti-climate sentiment in the Government at the moment, and indeed government ministers are not turning up at events if they have the word ‘climate’ in the title.
“The comments made by the Prime Minister at the UN, that we are going to meet our emissions targets, was a gross misrepresentation and was staggering for someone in his position.”
Dr Hewson, who is now the chair of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, said he would like to see regenerative agriculture form part of the solution.
“Regenerative agriculture can offset a very significant portion of our future emissions, and I’m staggered that is not being recognised by the National Party,” he said.
“It would have a lot of benefits for regional Australia; a farmer could earn carbon credits or a stream of income for sequestering carbon on their farm.”
Is agriculture prepared to be part of the solution?
Large multinational food companies are moving to adopt new targets to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The Sustainable Food Policy Alliance, which represents companies like Nestle, Unilever, Mars and Danone, has backed calls for companies to use their political influence to push governments to implement a science-based policy agenda.
Some academics believe this marks a shift in the global effort to combat climate change, when companies are moving faster than governments to reduce emissions.
Richard Eckard, a professor of agricultural sciences at the University of Melbourne, said government policy might be less influential than market forces.
“In the past six months, I’ve been back and relooked at all these companies’ sustainability statements and noticed that they’ve all switched to absolute emission reduction targets in line with the Paris Agreement,” he said.
“Some of them have interim steps to get there, but all of them are aiming for carbon-neutral food production by 2050.”…… https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-10-19/hewson-slams-coalition-on-climate-change-as-business-takes-lead/11617292
1 This month
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 