Is coaching for exams beneficial?

The writer below is broadly right. There is no substitute for inborn IQ.  The results one gets from IQ can however be influenced to some extent by the child's environment. Families who send their kids to coaching probably already provide a good opportinity for intellectual development, however

The revamping of the selective high school entry examination will inevitably be viewed as an attempt to make the test less coachable. But why do we have such a problem with coaching?

When it comes to academic performance, Australian culture places a premium on natural ability. Yet in other endeavours, such as sport, we have no problem with systematic training. Few look at a star football player and remark bitterly: “Well, his mother was taking him to training since he was four.” Likewise, the ballerina who practises diligently 12 hours a week is a source of admiration for her dedication.

Even children feel the stigma, with many gifted students underplaying their amount of study in the belief that you are not really smart if you have to put in effort. Academic success that appears to come easily is more highly valued than that which is the result of hard work.

There is a perception among many that undeserving children who have been coached from an early age are stealing places at selective high schools from naturally bright students. Often coupled with racist undertones, this argument in part stems from a certain streak in mainstream Anglo-Australian culture which hates a “try hard”.

Coaching, many feel, confers an unfair advantage. This is certainly true from an economic perspective. Students whose parents can afford years of tutoring may gain an edge over an equally bright child whose parents lack the means for extracurricular support. Yet this applies to most fields of endeavour. Our footy star and ballerina also need parents who are able to pay for coaching.

So there’s a certain hypocrisy at play when parents are criticised for providing academic coaching but admired for supporting their child’s dream with other forms of coaching.

But before you rush out and enrol your child in the closest coaching college to get that “academic advantage”, consider the following. What can coaching focused exclusively on test preparation really do for your child?

Research tells us it can reduce test anxiety. If you have never sat a test before, then you are probably going to be nervous, especially if your parents and peers have whipped you into a frenzied belief that this is the most important exam of your life.

Most Year 4 students sitting the Opportunity Class exams have only had one experience of a formal assessment, NAPLAN, so the experience of going to a large hall at a different school can itself be overwhelming.

If you have sat tests before, then you know what to do and what to expect. You know how to manage your time and not spend too long on one question. You know that tests start with easy questions and that the harder questions are at the end. You know that you should read the whole question before answering. You know that with one minute to go, you should fill in “C” for any multiple choice you have not answered.

These are techniques that coaching colleges are adept at drilling and as the government's selective high school review confirmed in 2018, they could make the few marks’ difference between getting a place or not. However, they are also techniques you can learn by practising with a $15 book from your local newsagent.

I am yet to see any research that shows that coaching of any description can turn a child of average ability into a gifted child. Nor is there any evidence that children who have been coached wouldn’t have got into selective high schools on their own merits – and saved their parents a great deal of money in the process.

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Folau only player not to take a knee as Super League returns

Catalans coach Steve McNamara has defended Israel Folau after the controversial former Wallaby was the only player not to take a knee before a Super League clash in England.

Folau’s Dragons were hammered 34-6 by a St Helens side boasting the returned James Graham, former North Queensland premiership winner Lachlan Coote and former Golden Boot winner Tommy Makinson in Super League’s first match back from a five-month lay-off.

‘‘As a club we are completely against racism and all for equal opportunity,’’ McNamara said after the match. ‘‘But there were some players and staff who made the decision not to take the knee, that was based on personal choice and we decided we would respect anyone’s personal choice on the matter.’’

Sporting competitions across the world have paid tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement since returning to action after the coronavirus shutdown including the NBA, Premier League and AFL.

Orlando's Jonathan Isaac, who is also an ordained minister, was the first NBA player not to kneel for the national anthem when that competition returned to action last week.

"Absolutely I believe black lives matter. A lot went into my decision ... kneeling or wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt don't go hand in hand in supporting black lives. I do believe that black lives matter, I just felt like it was a decision I had to make, and I didn't feel like putting that shirt on and kneeling went hand in hand with supporting black lives," Isaac said at the time. He was also backed by his coach Steve Clifford.

Folau's decision to remain on his feet drew attention on social media and was far from the first time the cross-code star has found himself in the firing line.

Super Rugby's all-time leading tryscorer, Folau's religious views first caused major controversy in April 2018, when he was asked by a follower on Instagram what God's plan was for homosexuals.

One year later he posted a meme warning that, among others, homosexuals were destined for hell, leading a code of conduct hearing with Rugby Australia, who had months earlier signed him a lucrative new four-year contract.

Folau settled his unlawful dismissal case with RA in December, which saw the governing body apologise to the 31-year-old former Melbourne Storm and Brisbane Broncos speedster.

He signed with Catalans the following month, returning to the game where he made his name for the first time since 2010.

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Irrigators pushed for 'primacy' over the environment in water allocations

NSW's main irrigator lobby group pressed the Berejiklian government to place the state's water plans above the federal law and sought to tap water earmarked for the environment.

The demands are detailed in a letter obtained by the Herald and The Age the NSW Irrigators Council (NSWIC) sent to the state's senior water bureaucrat in April.

At the time, the government was putting final touches to new water sharing plans it has since submitted to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority for accreditation.

The irrigators sought the insertion of words that would "confirm primacy" of the plans over the 2007 Commonwealth Water Act, a move environmental lawyers say would trigger legal challenges.

The council also backed a narrowing of the definition of what constitutes so-called planned environmental water, a call it noted Water Minister Melinda Pavey had taken up.

The irrigators thanked the Planning Department for the removal of some environmental water rules, citing the Murrumbidgee River as one example.

The push to identify and allocate "underused" water for farming use may also open the way for legal challenges if such changes run counter to the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Claire Miller, interim chief executive of the NSWIC, said her organisation stood by the letter's contents.

Emma Carmody, special counsel for the Environmental Defenders Office, said while it was normal for a lobby group to advocate its members' interest it was surprising to see them seek water sharing plan provisions at odds with the basin plan and Water Act.

"Water sharing plans are subordinate legal instruments," Dr Carmody said. "Like all subordinate legal instruments, they sit under, and must comply with, overarching statutes, not the inverse."

Independent NSW MP Justin Field noted the council had recently complained in a letter that their concerns were not being addressed. This leaked document, though, was "proof that they are being heard at the highest levels of government and are getting their way".

"This letter spells out that the Irrigators Council have successfully lobbied to remove significant amounts of water designated for the environment and these changes have made it into the final water sharing plans without other stakeholders having the opportunity to comment," Mr Field said. "That is an outrageous process."

The call for primacy of the state plans over the federal laws was "a gobsmacking request that shows them as bad-faith actors in the implementation of the entire basin plan", he said.

A spokeswoman for Ms Pavey said the government had "consulted widely on all changes to the state water sharing plans" over the past three years.

Other groups consulted included the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, key Aboriginal groups such as the Murray Lower Darling Indigenous Nations and Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations organisations, environmental interests and local councils.

"It shouldn’t be a surprise that the NSW government is committed to creating water policy that benefits water users, including the environment," the spokeswoman said.

It comes as the recently released Living Planet index found the numbers of such fish had plunged 76 per cent globally since 1970, including 59 per cent in Oceania.

Lee Baumgartner, an ecologist at Charles Sturt University and a lead researcher for the project, said fish numbers for many species in NSW were less than 10 per cent of their pre-European colonial times.

"We're dealing with severe water deficiencies," he said, some of which were caused by dams and other interventions.

"By fixing rivers for fish, you are by default fixing them for irrigators," Professor Baumgartner said.

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Indigenous activist who forced Coon cheese from the shelves now wants Pauls to scrap 'Smarter White' milk brand - because it's offensive to Aborigines



An indigenous rights activist who succeeded in having the Coon cheese brand scrapped will now campaign for Pauls to rename its 'Smarter White' milk.

In July, Dr Stephen Hagan convinced Canadian dairy giant Saputo to axe an 85-year-old moniker, named after American cheese ripening pioneer Edward William Coon, because of its racist connotations.

The former diplomat and academic, who now works as a social justice consultant, has now called on Pauls's French parent company Lactalis to replace the 'Smarter White' label, which has been used to sell low-fat milk since 2002.

'Aboriginal people are saying that there's an inference that it's for smart, white people, not for smart, black people,' Dr Hagan told Daily Mail Australia.

'There's a lot of Aboriginal people who take offence, who don't drink that milk because of the interference that it's 'smarter white'.'

Dr Hagan said 'these enlightened times' of the Black Lives Matter movement meant a name change was 'worthy of consideration'.

The soy milk drinker said lots of Aboriginal people had raised the matter with him. 'I recall having conversations with people who don't buy that because of the connotation 'white people are smart',' he said.

'A lot of people have raised it with me: they asked the question about the Smarter White milk - 'Why couldn't it just be Smarter Milk? Why does it need to put the 'white' in there?'

'If enough people want to bring it to my attention, I'm happy to write a letter to the owners of Pauls and say, 'Look, will you consider changing the name?'.'

Pauls's French owner Lactalis declined to comment. 'Unfortunately we're unable to make any further comment,' a spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.

Indigenous Alice Springs town councillor Jacinta Price described the call to rename Smarter White milk as 'utter nonsense'.

'I don't know a single Indigenous Australian who is offended at all by milk being called 'Smarter White',' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'Indigenous Australian have far greater issues to be concerned with than the name of a brand of cheese named after its founder or what's written on a carton of milk.'

Ms Price, who ran as a Country Liberal Party candidate at last year's federal election, said affluent activists 'whose lives are easy' were inventing issues to feel like victims instead of addressing family violence and sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities.

'I'd advise anyone who chooses to be offended by such a ridiculous proposition to assess their priorities,' she said. 'The victim mentality is unhealthy and completely unhelpful in attempting to address the real issues.'

New South Wales One Nation leader Mark Latham described the campaign as idiotic and pondered as to whether cows would have to be killed for producing white milk.

'Kill all the cows for producing white milk? When he invents black milk he'll be smarter too.'

Hours earlier, Mr Latham has posted an image of a popular Pauls diary product to take a dig at left-wing, cancel culture activists. 'Surprised the mob haven't cancelled my favourite milk,' he said on Facebook.

'Evidence of the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of cancel culture where evil snowflakes randomly select their next victim.'

Mr Latham, a former federal Labor leader, isn't the only critic of corporate political correctness.

Peter Russell-Clarke, a former ABC-TV chef who fronted Coon commercials during the early 1990s, last month slammed Saputo's decision to kill off the cheese name that debuted in 1935 under Kraft and the Fred Walker food company.  'I think it's ridiculous,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'Are we going to change the name of the raccoon, do you think?

'Should we cut off the beaks of cockatoos to make sure the black beaks aren't offensive to the white of the cockatoo?'

Russell-Clarke said Coon's owners should be more concerned about maintaining the quality of their cheese than ditching an 85-year-old name to 'suit the whim of the time'.

The 84-year-old former host of ABC-TV's 1980s Come and Get It program has a grandson of African heritage and said ditching the Coon cheese brand would do nothing to address racism.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

'Quantum shift': Ambitious new targets to improve Indigenous lives

Targets are all very well but how are they going to be met?  Nobody knows. We have only vague generalities below and it has all been tried before.  The truth is that Aborigines have been going downhill ever since the missionaries were forced out

Even the missionaries could do only so much.  Aborigines have some eerie abilities at perception and memory but they have one of the lowest average IQs in the world, and it shows.  Their educational performance is disastrous and that is fatal


Ambitious targets to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians by lifting school attendance, employment rates and university enrolments while dramatically lowering the number of children in out-of-home care and behind bars will be unveiled on Thursday.

A new national agreement on Closing the Gap, which sets 16 new national socio-economic targets to track progress, will put community-controlled Indigenous organisations at the centre of efforts to redress inequality between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and the broader community.

The plan will commit federal, state and local governments and a coalition of 50 peak Indigenous organisations to a significant reduction in suicides as well as a pledge to reduce the Indigenous adult incarceration rate by at least 15 per cent among adults and at least 30 per cent among juveniles by 2031. It will also aim to dramatically reduce the number of Indigenous children in out-of-home care in the next decade.

After more than 10 years of failings in many of the key targets, new independent and state-based reporting of results will be put in place. This will include the Productivity Commission undertaking an independent three-yearly review on progress, complemented by an independent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led review.

The agreement has been written in a collaborative process overseen by Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt and Pat Turner, convener of a coalition of 50 peak Indigenous organisations.

Mr Wyatt said the historic plan would for the first time bring shared responsibility and joint accountability to efforts by governments, councils and communities to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the results are not good enough as he releases the Closing the Gap report vowing to make changes.

He said the new agreement represented a "quantum shift" from a decade of failings.

"Every word has been considered and debated, every target has been considered and debated," Mr Wyatt said. "We know that the best outcomes are achieved when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are equal partners with governments and when they have a direct say in how we are going to be successful in driving the desired outcomes."

The annual Closing the Gap report, released in February, showed a staggering failure to meet targets in improving levels of Indigenous childhood mortality, life expectancy, school attendance and employment.

The new agreement will focus on four priority reforms to change how governments work with Indigenous Australians, establishing formal partnerships and shared decision making, transforming government agencies, and improving and sharing access to data and information to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to make informed decisions.

Ms Turner said it would be the first time First Nations people would share decision making with governments on Closing the Gap.

"Our country has unforgivable gaps in the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians in all aspects of life including mortality, chronic disease, disability rates, housing security, education, employment and wealth," she said.

"These gaps have burdened our people and caused the erosion of health and well-being of generations of First Nations Australians. The national agreement represents a turning point in our country's efforts to close these gaps."

Federal and state governments agreed on draft targets in December 2018 for education, economic development and health as well as planning a new goal to reduce Indigenous incarceration within a decade.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the agreement was a new chapter. "The gaps we are now seeking to close are the gaps that have now been defined by the representatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This is as it should be," Mr Morrison said. "By focusing our efforts on these more specific, practical and shared objectives we can expect to make much greater progress.

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New Zealand axes travel bubble plans with Australia

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says a trans-Tasman travel bubble with Australia is now a “long way off”, given Australia’s new position in the fight against COVID-19.

After Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews declared a “state of disaster” including harsh new restrictions, Ms Ardern said the country was no longer in a position to be thinking about a corridor across the ditch.

Speaking on The AM Show on Monday, the New Zealand Prime Minister said it will likely be “several months” before a trans-Tasman bubble will even be considered, let alone put into practice between both nations given the number of coronavirus cases in Victoria.

“The trans-Tasman bubble, obviously not anytime soon,” the Prime Minister told The AM Show on Monday.

“One of the things that we set as part of our criteria, is anywhere where we have quarantine-free travel, they have to be free of community transmission for a period of time – 28 days. That is going to take a long time for Australia to get back to that place, so that will be on the backburner for some time.”

Previously, a trans-Tasman bubble between both nations had been tipped for an opening anywhere from July to August, but it is now likely that will be delayed by months.

“Their numbers at the moment are very high. Dan Andrews himself said they were looking like being in that position for months, which is why they’ve gone into the lockdown,” she said, noting an exact time frame of a trans-Tasman corridor was “very hard to predict”.

In an interview with Newshub last month, Ms Ardern said she was eyeing off a corridor with the Cook Islands, given its zero reported coronavirus cases and proximity to New Zealand. The conversation comes as soaring coronavirus case numbers continue in Melbourne and fresh outbreaks sweep parts of NSW.

“It’s clear to us that opening up with Realm countries, keeping in mind they are New Zealand passport holders, will come before any opening up with Australia,” Ms Ardern told Newshub.

The Cook Islands, with a population of just over 15,000, is one of the few countries in the world that has reported no COVID-19 cases during the pandemic.

Ms Ardern would not comment on a possible timeline for a travel bridge with the South Pacific nation but said New Zealand airports were already working on the logistics of allowing for the influx of travellers.

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UNSW under fire for deleting social media posts critical of China over Hong Kong

The University of New South Wales is facing criticism over the deletion of social media posts seen to be critical of Beijing, after an online backlash and coverage by Chinese state media.

The official UNSW account on Friday tweeted an article that quoted Human Rights Watch's Australia director and adjunct law lecturer Elaine Pearson as saying: "Now is a pivotal moment to bring attention to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Hong Kong".

Several hours later, a further tweet was posted by UNSW reading: "The opinions expressed by our academics do not always represent the views of UNSW."

"We have a long & valued relationship with Greater China going back 60 years. "UNSW provides a welcome & inclusive environment & is proud to welcome students from over 100 countries."

Both tweets were later deleted.

The article posted to the UNSW Law website, entitled China needs international pressure to end Hong Kong wrongs, extensively quoted Ms Pearson.

Ms Pearson told the ABC the article was removed from the UNSW website on Saturday, but is now able to be accessed.

Chinese students reportedly wrote to the Chinese embassy calling for it to pressure the university into deleting the article and associated posts.

Ms Pearson said she was seeking clarification from UNSW about what happened.

"I did not write the article … I have my views on recent developments in Hong Kong and what the international community should do," Ms Pearson said.

"Clearly that hit a nerve for some pro-Chinese Communist Party supporters who aggressively and collectively pressured the university to remove the story."

The state-run Global Times tabloid reported that the tweet's deletion "failed to buy Chinese students" and that "they are still negotiating with the university, and demanding an apology for its twitter post".

"It's incredibly concerning to see an Australian university succumb to pressure to abandon their core values of academic freedom and free speech on campus," said Victorian Senator James Paterson in a statement. "UNSW is sadly just the latest example of how relationships with the Chinese Communist Party is compromising our universities.

Labor Senator Tony Sheldon tweeted: "How can @UNSW call itself a university if they allow this to happen? When respected voices like @PearsonElaine and @hrw are being censored we have a big problem."

"This is a genuinely harmful bit of imposed censorship — an entirely factual article about the dire situation in Hong Kong, removed for no good reason by @UNSW out of cowardice," tweeted deputy editor at Foreign Policy magazine, James Palmer.

"Should be a mini-PR disaster for them," he said.

In the article, Ms Pearson called the recent introduction of a controversial national security law in Hong Kong the "death-knell of the 'one country two systems' arrangement", referring to a system intended to give greater autonomy to the city after its governance was transferred from Britain to China in 1997.

Several teenagers were arrested in Hong Kong under the new laws last week.

"Safeguarding the human rights of Hong Kong citizens should not be something that should be controversial," she told the ABC.

Ms Pearson is a frequent critic of the Chinese Government's human rights record, including crackdowns on pro-democracy protests and the mass incarceration of Muslims in Xinjiang.

Ms Pearson said Human Rights Watch had documented threats to academic freedom in Australia resulting from Chinese Government pressure and "called on universities to ensure robust protection of academic freedom to deal with those threats".

Neither the Chinese embassy nor UNSW responded to the ABC's requests for comment.

The controversy comes amid deteriorating ties between Canberra and Beijing and reflects growing concern about the impact on academic freedom from Australian universities' heavy reliance on revenues from Chinese international student fees.

Students from mainland China account for almost a quarter of the UNSW cohort, numbering some 16,000 and representing a whopping 68.8 per cent of all international students, while the university has strong business and research ties to China.

University of Sydney sociologist Salvatore Babones has estimated that UNSW derives 22 per cent of revenue from Chinese international students' course fees.

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More funding needed in government push to cut 'green tape': industry

Resource and agricultural industries are welcoming plans to cut "green tape" and speed up project development by handing control of some elements of national environment laws to state governments, but they say changes cannot come at the expense of wildlife protection.

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley announced in July plans for a "one-touch" regime that transfers to states the Commonwealth's legal responsibilities for protecting threatened species and ecosystems in assessments of major projects that come under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Ms Ley has ruled out financial support to help the states conduct extra work under a new system. But she has said states would have to show they could meet the standards required under the act, which include assessing complicated, long-term impacts of activities such as land clearing, coal mining or sinking wells for gas production, and impacts on flora, fauna and the water table.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable welcomed the opportunity to speed project approvals and said the mining industry relied on a "strong social licence" and for environmental assessments "to be done properly".

"The single-touch system is a huge opportunity because it gets rid of duplication and complexity in different systems that exist between state and federal governments," Ms Constable said. "But the department or body that has carriage of compliance must have the right amount of resources."

Federal administration of the act has fallen short since it was created in 1999. The list of threatened species and ecosystems has grown by a third – from 1483 to 1974. More than 8 million hectares of threatened species' habitats have been cleared in that time, mostly for project development, but 93 per cent of these were not assessed under the legislation.

A report last month from the Commonwealth Auditor-General found the Environment Department failed to protect endangered wildlife or manage conflicts of interest in development approvals, and 79 per cent of approvals were non-compliant or contained errors.

National Farmers Federation chief executive Tony Mahar said green tape was a "huge concern" for the farm sector, with uncertainty about different state and federal processing discouraging investment in activities that should be simply and quickly assessed, such as clearing regrowth of invasive species from a property.

"It is limiting innovation and expansion of farms. Put simply, people don't know what they can and can't do," Mr Mahar said.

He also called for more funding to bolster the system.

"Of course there needs to be more funding, for better engagement with industry about the act, and to make sure the regulations are working they way they were intended," Mr Mahar said.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said the proposed changes could "improve certainty and flexibility for business, environmental groups and communities" and "provide greater flexibility when circumstances change while ensuring environmental protection is maintained".

The government's plans were announced in response a review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act by former competition regulator Graeme Samuel, who found the national laws were “not fit to address current or future environmental challenges” and that for industry they are "ineffective and inefficient".

Last week Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his initial meeting with state leaders had been "really positive" and he was confident that negotiations with state governments would lead to agreement for a new regulatory regime.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Government warned on Chinese state involvement in Australian power grid

This is rather paranoid.  A transformer does just one simple thing:  Change the voltage of an electrical current.  There is no scope for China to subtly change that in some way.  It either supplies the correct voltage or is does not.  And if it does not you will soon know it.

It is true that electricity supply lines can transmit messages.  They do that all the time. But a transformer that added a gadget  to receive and transmit messages from China should be detectable.  Putting through a pulse to burn out such a gadget before installation should also be possible

And the bottom line is that the Chinese firm would lose all its sales if it were to get up to tricks


The federal government is being urged to conduct a review of Chinese state involvement in Australia’s electricity grid and consider the removal of some equipment amid fears of remote sabotage.

Influential South Australian senator Rex Patrick is behind the push as Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows China has overtaken Vietnam as the main supplier of transformers for the Australian electricity network in recent years.

Transformers are crucial parts of the grid that convert alternating current from one voltage to another, powering households and energy-intensive factories.

In 2018-19, Chinese companies supplied 29 of the 70 transformers imported by Australia. Of these, 16 were for use in Victoria. The Andrews government signed a memorandum of understanding with China in 2018 to participate in its controversial Belt and Road initiative.

The rise in China-sourced transformers has occurred since Beijing’s State Grid Corporation bought stakes in electrical transmission network companies SP Ausnet and ElectraNet, as well Melbourne-based retailer Jemena, in 2013.

Prior to those deals, in 2011-12, China supplied just eight of the 135 transformers imported into Australia. Vietnam supplied 33.

The increasing reliance on Chinese-built transformers has raised fears about the vulnerability of Australia’s electricity grid to foreign interference.

In May, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order to place tight restrictions on the use of foreign-sourced equipment in the electricity grid because of rising fears about the possibility of remote attacks and sabotage.

While Mr Trump’s executive order referred only to “foreign adversaries” targeting the US power system “with potentially catastrophic effects”, it was widely interpreted to be aimed at China and Russia.

Mr Trump’s order stated “the unrestricted foreign supply of bulk-power system electric equipment constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States”.

US authorities last year seized a large Chinese-built transformer en-route to a substation in Colorado and transported it to a government laboratory for inspection. The Chinese company that built this transformer also provides them for the Australian network.

Western security agencies fear foreign-built transformers could have malicious electrical components surreptitiously installed that could potentially allow another country to interrupt power supply on a whim.

Cyber-security expert Paul Dabrowa said it was possible for a foreign government to badly damage Australia’s electricity grid within two minutes. “It could take months to repair the damage … there’s open-source material about experiments that have proven this is possible,” he said.

Senator Patrick said the recent moves in the US to limit the potential for foreign influence in its electricity grid should encourage Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to use his powers under the Critical Infrastructure Act to reduce the risk to Australia.

“At the same time, the Australian government needs to bring forward its proposed changes to Australia’s foreign investment laws and commit to require the divestment from Australia’s power grid of all involvement by companies owned, controlled or significantly influenced by the Chinese government,” he said. “Given the change in Hong Kong’s status, such a policy should extend to companies registered in Hong Kong.”

Senator Patrick said particular attention should be paid to the State Grid Corporation representatives on the boards and in the executive ranks of its Australian electricity companies. Jemena’s executive team features a former deputy mayor of a Chinese city. To hold such an official position requires membership of the Chinese Communist Party.

In 2016, then treasurer Scott Morrison blocked a bid by the State Grid Corporation and Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure from buying a 99-year lease on a 50.4 per cent stake in NSW electricity distributor AusGrid. Mr Morrison said at the time that the decision was in the national interest and was backed by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Victorian electricity distributors Powercor and Citipower are majority-owned by Hong Kong-based CK Infrastructure. Although CK Infrastructure is privately owned, its chairman, Victor Li, is a member of the 13th Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Committee.

The Home Affairs Department said it had increased funding and introduced laws in 2018 in recognition of the risk of foreign influence in the national electricity grid.

Jemena said it operated in accordance to stringent rules under Australia’s “extremely robust” foreign investment regulatory regime. Its shareholders had no direct control over the day-to-day operations of the business and its directors adhered to “strict governance procedures”, it said.

Powercor said its executives were all Australian citizens and no one on its board was a Chinese Communist Party member.

Both Jemena and Powercor said customer details were kept in Australia.

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Australia backs plan for world’s biggest solar farm to power Singapore

The world's longest extension cord!  This idea has been kicking around for years but both the cost and possible politically motivated attacks on the thing make it just a dream

The Australian government has assigned major project status to a proposed A$22bn plan to build the world’s biggest solar farm in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) and send the electricity through a 3,700-km-long undersea cable to Singapore where, promoters say, it will meet 20% of Singapore’s demand for power.
The 12,000-hectare solar farm, to be located near the town of Elliott in NT’s Barkley Region, will be visible from space, says Sun Cable, the start-up company formed to develop the scheme.

Electricity will be stored in a 30GWh battery – the world’s biggest, according to Sun Cable – allowing transmission at night.

From Elliott, the electricity will be sent by cable 750km to the coast at Darwin to begin its submarine journey to Singapore.

Sun Cable, which secured its first round of investor funding in November, believes the operation, called Australian-ASEAN Power Link (AAPL), can be up and running in 2027.

A final investment decision has yet to be made, and the scheme still needs various approvals.

However, in May this year Sun Cable awarded a contract to the company Guardian Geomatics to survey the ocean floor along the proposed cable route.

The company said the AAPL would link to Indonesia in the future, as well.

Sun Cable chief executive David Griffin told Australian broadcaster ABC that the project is feasible thanks to the emergence of high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) cable technology, which transmits electricity efficiently over long distances.

The government announced the award of major project status on Thursday, 29 July.

“This project draws on Australia’s world-class solar technology and our high-tech manufacturing capability to export renewable energy on an unprecedented scale,” said Karen Andrews, Australia’s Minister for Industry, Science and Technology.

She said the project would create 1,500 jobs during construction, and 350 ongoing jobs.

If it goes ahead, a new solar panel factory would be built in Darwin, with the panels made there coming to Elliott by the existing railway.

David Griffin called the government’s recognition a “significant milestone” for the AAPL.

It grants companies the support of Australia’s Major Projects Facilitation Agency, including a single entry point for federal approvals and help with state and territory approvals.

“This project is helping to grow a new industry, utilising intercontinental HVDC submarine transmission systems, to supply renewable electricity to major load centres in the Indo-Pacific and support the region’s low-emissions goals,” Griffin said.

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Apocalypse soon?

Joe Hildebrand

Right now we are lucky enough to still live in a generally orderly world but it would be foolish to assume that this will always be so.

It is not as though the signs aren’t there. Only a couple of years back the world was losing its mind over a potential nuclear war between the US and North Korea. Now we look back at those almost irradiated days with a dewy-eyed nostalgia.

In the past few months alone the USA, the once imperfect and impervious anchor for global stability, has been bisected twice over.

First it was between health and the economy – the axes of which are far more intertwined than the hard left or hard right are capable of seeing.

And then superimposed across this, like a giant pizza-cutter, was the racial divide that has tormented America’s history and psyche for so long and is now more jagged than ever.

Indeed, the US resembles more a giant bowl of gumbo, complex writhing masses of social and economic problems that have simmered over centuries. America is a dish that cannot be unmade.

But that is not how either the hard left or hard right see it, and that is why we may soon all be beyond Thunderdome and beyond salvation.

Crisis heightens the senses and sharpens our prejudices. In public debate almost every aspect of life in the US and Australia is now channelled through an increasingly partisan and extreme ideological lens.

A minor but telling example is the response to a couple of comments I posted within an hour on social media during the week.

The first noted that contact-tracing had been far more successful in NSW than in Victoria.

The second noted that aged care is a federal government responsibility.

Both statements were entirely factual and incontestable – indeed they ought to have been almost painfully banal. And yet each of these basic facts, easily verifiable and beyond dispute, were flatly denied by activists on either extremes with diehard conviction – even as each applauded the other with cheers.

This is obviously just a salient microcosm. All over the world in once advanced liberal democracies truth has been replaced by ideology, even in critical matters of life and death.

Already in America wearing a mask is for many not so much a matter of personal protection than a declaration of personal conviction. Those on the left both don and champion masks in the name of solidarity while those on the right eschew and condemn them in the name of freedom.

Meanwhile so-called peaceful protesters demand justice by setting fire to courthouses and so-called fascists and anti-fascists both take to the streets with guns. Make of that what you will.

In many areas the land of the free has descended into all-out anarchy and yet innumerable influential elites deny such urban wastelands are even real because they’re too busy tweeting about how important it is to stay home. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect tinderbox at the base of the ivory tower.

As it happens, the other day I was listening to a man whose German grandfather had kept a diary during the Third Reich recording the various atrocities and lies the Nazis had committed and begged his grandson to make it public at all costs.

Soon, the man observed, there will be no human on Earth who can recall those times. There will be no living memory of how easily the world can slip into the insanity of mass ideology that defies the power of reason, a world in which the deluded belief systems of fascism and communism led to wartime slaughter and genocidal death camps.

There was a sense at the end of last century that we had transcended these base ideologies and that rational centre left/right liberal democracy was the inevitable norm. Yet much of the partisan commentary that passes for political debate today could have been delivered via a warplane leaflet drop on the eastern front.

In short, we are confronting a universal and entirely apolitical threat which may yet be as deadly in the response it provokes from us as it is in itself. It is a threat that demands the most measured, rational and intelligent response and yet it confronts us in an era where hard facts have been atomised by angry opinions. The things we have learned are now outweighed by the things we have forgotten.

And the land of the blind can never see the apocalypse coming.

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Victorian coronavirus schooling rules for year 11 and 12 VCE students 'inflexible', unions say

Whining teachers again

The Victorian Government's requirement for all year 11 and 12 students to attend school in person is causing anxiety for school principals and making staff concerned for their safety, unions representing the education sector say.

Prep to year 10 students in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire have been learning from home since July 20.

Currently Victoria's VCE and VCAL students, as well as special school students, are required to attend school in person.

But the Australian Education Union (AEU) and the Independent Education Union (IEU) say the policy is inflexible and "failing our school communities".

There are 72 schools across Victoria which are currently closed due to coronavirus: 61 government schools, nine Catholic schools and two independent schools.

Nineteen early childhood services are closed.

The unions want the State Government to give school principals more flexibility and the power to implement home learning programs for their students when required.

AEU Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said many union members were concerned about their safety and the safety of their students.

"It is leaving our principals with the responsibility to manage incredibly difficult circumstances for their schools, without having the capacity to make important decisions," she said.

The Victorian Government's rationale for keeping year 11 and 12 students on campus was to avoid VCE students falling out of step with their counterparts outside of the locked-down areas.

But Ms Peace said many parents were keeping their children home because of health concerns anyway, particularly in special schools.

"So we already have significant inequity, because those students who are at home are not receiving a formal learning program — our kids with disabilities, in special schools, are receiving no learning program," she said.

Departmental guidelines were getting in the way of principals doing "the right thing", the general secretary of IEU Vic-Tas Debra James said.

"Too many people are required to be on campus when they could easily be working from home, and principals who are trying to minimise the number of staff or students in the senior secondary area are getting pushback," she said.

Ms Peace said some secondary schools had tried to implement flexible arrangements for their VCE students, such as keeping year 11s at home for part of the week.

But she said the Department of Education and Training told those schools to reverse those decisions, and other proposals put forward by the union had been rejected.

"We cannot have a circumstance where principals are trying to manage the growing anxiety and stress among their staff and students and parents, and yet they are not trusted to make very sensible decisions about how to manage their staff on site."

Ms James pointed to a senior secondary school in Melbourne's western suburbs which had recorded positive cases among students and staff and where a partner of a staff member was in ICU.

"This is serious stuff … we believe there is a different way, a better way, and this should be seriously looked at," she said.

The union leaders also said delays in contact tracing were causing a high level of "stress and anxiety" for schools.

"We've heard stories about people sweating over email all weekend, wondering if they should be preparing remote learning classes for their kids or whether they should be preparing to be on site, face to face," Ms Peace said.

"We can't sustain those kinds of workloads, we can't sustain that stress for our school communities."

Education Minister James Merlino said the settings in place at schools in Victoria were based on the Chief Health Officer's advice.

"Schools already have the flexibility at the local level for staff to work remotely and to provide learning support for students on extended absences," he said.

"Having VCE and VCAL students and those with a disability onsite ensures that those most impacted by remote learning still have access to face-to-face learning."

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Australia is on track to become the first country in the world to order Google and Facebook to pay for news content after a landmark code was unveiled

Tech giants will be forced to pay Australian media companies for their content and be forced into binding arbitration if parties can not agree within a three-month window.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg revealed the ACCC’s news bargaining code in Canberra, saying it was designed to create a “level-playing field” for Australian media businesses that were forced to work with the powerful multibillion-dollar firms.

The code comes one year after the ACCC handed down the results of an 18-month investigation into digital platforms that recommended tech giants share revenue obtained “directly or indirectly” from news content on their platforms, which generate billions of dollars in advertising every year.

“It’s about a fair go for Australian news media businesses, it’s about ensuring that we have increased competition, increased consumer protection, and a sustainable media landscape,” Mr Frydenberg said.

“Nothing less than the future of the Australian media landscape is at stake with these changes.

“It became apparent to us a number of months ago that we weren’t making progress on that critical issue of payment for content.  “Hence we are moving down the path of a mandatory code. A mandatory code that governs those relationships and covers issues such as access to user data, the transparency of algorithms used by the digital platforms for the ranking and the presentation of media content, as well as of course payment for content.

“We want Google and Facebook to continue to provide these services to the Australian community which are so much loved and used by Australians.

“But we want it to be on our terms. We want it to be in accordance with our law. And we want it to be fair. And that is what has motivated us with this mandatory code.”

The ACCC code of conduct will require Google and Facebook to compensate commercial news media businesses for the use of their content, with negotiations due to be settled within three months.

If they cannot reach an agreement, Mr Frydenberg said negotiations would go to “binding final-offer arbitration,” and laws are expected to be introduced to Parliament within months.

Mr Frydenberg said the code would also include substantial penalties if Facebook and Google sought to break the new rules, including fines of up to “$10 million per breach or three times the benefit obtained or 10 per cent of annual turnover, whichever is greater”.

“I think this is a better set of recommendations and a better pathway going forward than what we’ve seen elsewhere,” Mr Frydenberg said. “It’s the product of 18 months worth of work, extensive consultation, and our law will set up for a more level playing field.”

The news code will also force Google and Facebook to share some data with news businesses, including warning them about changes that affect the way they show local news content, and create a way for media organisations to contact the international firms.

Despite a long wait for its creation, the news code could make Australia the first country to force multibillion-dollar tech giants to pay media organisations for the use of their content after failed attempts overseas.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the regulator “observed and learned from the approaches of regulators and policymakers internationally that have sought to secure payment for news”.

“There is a fundamental bargaining power imbalance between news media businesses and the major digital platforms, partly because news businesses have no option but to deal with the platforms, and have had little ability to negotiate over payment for their content or other issues,” he said.

“We wanted a model that would address this bargaining power imbalance and result in fair payment for content, which avoided unproductive and drawn-out negotiations and wouldn’t reduce the availability of Australian news on Google and Facebook.”

Mr Sims also dismissed suggestions that Google could remove Australian news from its news portal and search results to get around the laws due to the way the code was structured and the fines built into it.

“That won’t make one jot of difference to this mandatory code,” Mr Sims said. “We really hope the platforms also recognise that this is a move whose time has come.”

But Google Australia and New Zealand managing director Mel Silva slammed the draft code, saying it did not offer “incentives” for digital platforms to innovate, did not take into account web traffic Google provided to Australian news outlets, and put Google services in Australia at risk.

“The Government’s heavy-handed intervention threatens to impede Australia’s digital economy and impacts the services we can deliver to Australians,” she said.

News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller welcomed the announcement, however, and called the draft code a “watershed moment to benefit all Australians,” as it had the potential to secure a future for Australian news providers.

“The tech platforms’ days of free-riding on other peoples’ content are ending,” Mr Miller said. “They derive immense benefit from using news content created by others and it is time for them to stop denying this fundamental truth.”

Mr Miller said the draft code of conduct also ensured Google and Facebook could not “walk away from negotiations with news creators” as they had done in the past.

Media and legal experts say the ruling could deliver an important “lifeline” to an industry vital to Australian democracy and one that had been hard hit by the growing dominance of two international firms.

Swinburne University social media senior lecturer Dr Belinda Barnet said Australian newsrooms had been “pummelled by digital giants” in the online advertising market and ensuring they received a fair cut of revenue was “critical to keeping democracy alive” and Australians informed.

But she warned there was still a risk the tech giants could seek to get around the new rules, simply to avoid setting an international precedent in Australia that could be used by other countries.

SOURCE  






Promising South Australian vaccine could be ready in ‘three or four months’

Adelaide scientists have been working overtime on a new vaccine which has already shown promising results after clearing its first phase of human trials. The drug named COVAX-19 was trialled on 40 volunteers earlier this month.

The vaccine is showing promising signs it “could actually save lives”, the developers of the vaccine said, who also predict it could safely be used in humans immediately.

In fact, vaccine developer Professor Nikolai Petrovsky claims there’s no reason it can’t be used in Victorian aged care homes now.

“We have something that we believe already has shown it can potentially save lives,” he told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.

“The data suggests it’s highly effective, we just need to finish the clinical trial programs and then seek approval for it.

Appearing on Sunrise, Professor Nikolai Petrovsky described the update as “very exciting”.

“Safety data from the clinical trials shows the vaccine isn’t showing any problems at all and is inducing the right type of immune response,” he said.

Mr Petrovsky said the vaccine had been shown to produce “very strong” antibodies which kill coronavirus in monkeys, ferrets and mice, and had been proven to induce an antibody response in humans.

While the Australian government “knocked back” Mr Petrovsky’s request for help funding the trial, he said he’s already negotiating with the Canadian and UK governments for funding.

SOURCE  







One in three schools agree to phonics reading check as critics sound alarm

One in three NSW public primary schools have signed up to an August trial of the controversial year 1 phonics screening check, in a sign of educators' growing support for a phonics-heavy approach to teaching reading after decades of bitter debate.

Some 518 of the state's 1600-odd government schools and 49 Catholic schools will do the check between mid and late August. Teachers will spend five to seven minutes with each student to listen to how they blend sounds to read 40 words.

"It will give us a lot of information," said Michelle Looker, the k-2 assistant principal at Kingswood South Primary. "I think it's really helpful."

It comes as the new K-2 curriculum arising from the NSW Curriculum Review is expected to embed a phonics – or sounding out of words – approach as the preferred way of teaching children how to read.

The debate over early reading instruction remains one of the most brutal in education. Opponents of the phonics check, who support an approach called balanced literacy, said they were disappointed so many schools had volunteered.

Both sides agree phonics is part of learning to read. But advocates of so-called synthetic phonics say learning to read is like cracking a code; students need to first learn the relationships between letters and sounds, then how to blend those sounds together to read whole words.

The phonics check is based on this approach, and includes 20 so-called pseudo or non-words such as "flisp" to check that students really know their letter-sound combinations, and don't just recognise the words because they have been repeatedly exposed to them.

Advocates of balanced literacy, which has been the dominant approach to reading instruction in schools and university education departments for decades, say synthetic phonics makes children read robotically, and argue finding meaning in words from the outset is paramount.

They say sounding out words, while valuable, should not be given too much emphasis, and disapprove of the check's pseudo words.

The NSW Department of Education's evidence centre in 2017 backed synthetic phonics as one of the keys to teaching reading effectively, and the department has been offering teachers training in how to use it.

The recent NSW Curriculum Review called for a "detailed and explicit" curriculum for the teaching of reading and pointed to influential research by Macquarie University cognitive scientists on the importance of synthetic phonics.

Phonics advocate Jennifer Buckingham said large number of schools signing up to the check was "a big deal".

"A couple of years ago we were having debates about whether the phonics check was a good idea, there was all this misinformation about the pseudo word component, all without much foundation," she said.

"The fact that 500 schools want to participate means that the right information is finding its way into schools about the value of doing this assessment."

Kingswood South Principal Sandra Martin said the school had a strong synthetic phonics program, and had seen students make progress in literacy as a result.

"We thought anything that could give us more information about how our students are progressing was worth doing," she said. "We can use it to see where our children are at, and that can help our teachers plan."

The learning support co-ordinator, Stephanie Lewis, said the check would involve students reading 20 real words and 20 pseudo words. "It shows us the strategies kids are using to decode a word," she said.

"Sometimes we don't know whether they know that word and are just remembering it. When we use the pseudo words, we can see that they are using those phonics skills to decode the word rather than relying on their memory."

The only other state that uses a year one phonics check – long advocated by the federal Coalition government – is South Australia. "[That trial] identified students struggling with decoding that they'd pegged as really good readers," Dr Buckingham said.

Balanced literacy proponent Robyn Ewing, a professor emerita of education at Sydney University, said she was disappointed that so many schools had signed up.

She said phonics strategies were important, but not helpful if "they're not making meaning and sense of what they're doing," she said. "It boils down to meaning – understanding that it's about meaning-making first."

SOURCE  






AUSMIN a thrilling, unexpected triumph for Trump admin.

This AUSMIN meeting was a triumph for the Trump administration which was rightly thrilled and probably a little surprised that Australia agreed to the White House’s request to come to Washington.

At this volatile moment in history, Australia has become the model ally for which the US is looking when it comes to confronting a rising and increasingly belligerent China.

The face-to-face annual AUSMIN meeting and press conference between the respective foreign and defence ministers – Mike Pompeo, Mark Esper, Marise Payne and Linda Reynolds – gave the administration the chance to loudly tout what Australia has done on China and in doing so, send a message to other US allies to copy Canberra’s lead.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a series of recent speeches, has been pleading with more democratic allies to stand up to Beijing, even if it hurts them economically.

From Washington’s perspective, Australia has ticked all of these boxes and more. It even led the US in banning Huawei and introducing foreign interference legislation several years ago.

More recently, the Morrison government has won plaudits in Washington for its call for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus.

In the face of persistent threats and intimidation from Beijing, the government this month boldly declared China’s absurd and hegemonic territorial claims in the South China Sea to be illegal.

It has also angered Beijing by suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and offering citizenship options in Australia for residents of Hong Kong in response to China’s push to remove freedoms and human rights protections.

Each of these moves have led to threats of reprisals – sometimes implemented – from an increasingly angry Beijing. But they have been carefully watched and warmly welcomed by the US which views China through a dramatically different lens than it did just a few years ago.

During this US election China is under attack from both sides of politics in the US. It has no friends in Washington.

Donald Trump, who has waged a long and still unfinished trade war with Beijing, sees China as largely to blame for the coronavirus which has destroyed the US economy and severely harmed his chances of re-election.

His administration, led by Pompeo, has clashed with Beijing over Huawei, over its unfair trading practices and over its cyber warfare amongst numerous other issues.

It has tried to call China out over these many issues but has been frustrated by the sometimes tepid support it has received from many other allies, particularly in Europe.

Which is why Washington is so pleased that Australia has been willing to openly call Beijing out on some of these issues despite the obvious risk of economic reprisal.

Australia is not saying whether it will take the next step in challenging Beijing by joining the US Navy in freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.

For now that may be a step too far, especially as China policy in the US becomes increasingly politicised as the US election creeps closer.

But at the AUSMIN press conference, Pompeo and Esper’s comments contained more ‘thank you’s’ than a wedding speech as they rattled off the list of Australian efforts to hold China accountable for its behaviour.

This was an AUSMIN meeting that went beyond the usual platitudes because both countries are so deeply engaged right now with the question of China.

Among the thanks you’s was the fact that two Cabinet ministers, two department secretaries and the CDF amongst others now have two weeks quarantine to face upon their return.

So was it worth the trip? The Americans certainly think so.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

African women lived it up at a cocktail bar, Thai restaurant and NINE other venues after lying about flying into Queensland from Melbourne - and they may have sparked a major COVID-19 cluster

A coronavirus-infected teenager enjoyed trips to a cocktail bar and a Thai restaurant after returning to Queensland from Melbourne and lying about where she had been.

There are fears Olivia Winnie Muranga and Diana Lasu's extraordinary disregard for COVID-19 rules could spark a Victoria-style outbreak in Queensland, which recorded its first community transmission in two months on Wednesday.

The pair, both 19, arrived together in Brisbane from Melbourne via Sydney on July 21 and made false declarations on their border paperwork. They are expected to be fined $4,000 each.

A third woman who travelled with the women from the Victorian capital has already been fined and is awaiting her test results for coronavirus.

It is believed all three lived the high life around Brisbane for eight days, going to work, visiting restaurants and bars. 

A third woman who tested positive to coronavirus yesterday is believed to be the 22-year-old sister of one of the teenagers.

Ms Muranga went to work for two days at Parklands Christian College in Park Ridge, south of the city. She called in sick and went to see a doctor on Saturday who told her to get tested immediately.

She didn't do so until Monday.  Instead she continued to attend venues in Ipswich and Brisbane, including going to a Thai restaurant in Springfield on Sunday and a Southbank cocktail bar on Monday.

On Thursday Queensland's Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said the women are now involved in an ongoing police investigation. Authorities will probe how the women were able to travel from Melbourne to Brisbane despite the border closure, and whether they used fake names and contact details on their declaration passes.

Investigators will also probe whether the women were at party during their stay in Melbourne which was attended by about 20 people. The gathering was broken up by police, who issued fines totalling $30,000.

Ms Muranga is a cleaner at Parklands Christian College in Park Ridge. The school's principal Gary Cully confirmed a coronavirus-infected cleaner worked for three days last week.'The staff member was on site last week and then rang in sick and then that's when the trace program started,' Mr Cully told The Courier Mail.

'As far as I'm aware they were not symptomatic while they were onsite and then called in sick the following day and then the next week were tested.' 

Shopping centres, restaurants, a school, and a church they visited will shut while authorities scramble to conduct contact tracing.

The pair took flight VA863 from Melbourne to Sydney and flight VA977 from Sydney to Brisbane, 21 July

Scores of the women's contacts will be forced to isolate, and aged care facilities in the Metro South Health region will re-enter lockdown.

The incident prompted Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to announce all Sydneysiders will be banned from entering the state from Saturday. 'There will be a thorough police investigation here but now we have to act as a community and in the areas where the chief health officer says need to be closed, will be closed and I urge people in those areas when that list goes out later on today to please ensure that if you are feeling sick you must go and get tested,' she said.

Queensland residents returning will have to isolate in a hotel for 14 days at their own expense.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young called the pair 'reckless' and said she was 'very disappointed'.

Health Minister Steven Miles said there was a large amount of contact tracing that needed to be done with the community as well. 'These young women have gone about their business within the communities that they live in and so there will be a large amount of contact tracing to be done, largely within it the Logan and Springfield areas, including shopping malls, restaurants and a church.'

The pair's entry into Queensland is the subject of a criminal investigation, with penalties for lying on your declaration form incurring fines of $4,003 or six months in jail.

There are now eight actives cases left in Queensland following three new cases on Wednesday.

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A report from more than 150 experts and affected community members has called on the government to punish climate change enablers

Climate skeptics would like to see this go to court.  The case would collapse like a house of cards when the full weight of scientific evidence about global warming was led

In a sobering study released this week, Australia was revealed to have lost nearly three billion animals due to the devastating Black Summer bushfires.

The fossil fuel industry has “pushed Australia into a new bushfire era” and should pay for the carnage inflicted from blazes and other disasters across the country, former emergency leaders, climate scientists and doctors have declared.

The Emergency Leaders for Climate Action (ELCA), a group of more than 150 experts and affected community members, have called on the Federal Government to impose a levy on those contributing to climate change.

As part of the 165 recommendations, the group wants a climate disaster fund set up to cover the massive costs associated with natural disasters.

The rising impact of global warming evidenced in the summer’s devastating and extensive bushfires has created the need to “fundamentally rethink how we prepare for and manage this growing threat”, former Fire and Rescue NSW Commissioner Greg Mullins said.

“This plan outlines practical steps that all levels of government can take right now to better protect communities,” he said, who is also a Climate Councillor.

“It’s important that the Federal Government takes these recommendations seriously and acts on them urgently. “First and foremost, the Federal Government must tackle the root cause of climate change by urgently phasing out fossil fuels to reach net zero emissions.”

The declaration comes ahead of the royal commission report into the destructive bushfire season which is due to be handed to government next month, which Mr Mullins hopes will include provisions for a climate response.

The cost of extreme weather events is growing towards a total annual bill of $39 billion by 2050, Deloitte Access Economics partner Nicki Hutley said, who also contributed to the report.

“Climate change, which is fuelling more severe extreme weather events and worsening bushfire danger, has serious economic consequences,” she said.

“Reducing emissions, building community resilience, and boosting emergency resourcing can help us avoid huge economic impacts and damage in the future, while creating clean new jobs right now.”

The report comes as the government faces increasing pressure to invest in a major green energy plan, with groups from across the political spectrum declaring an investment is imminent to help propel the economy out of the virus crisis.

Once the iconic divide between conservative and progressive politicians, activists and lobby groups say the need for action on climate change has reached a boiling point with evidence of environmental damage now being undeniable.

“The pressure is growing and the larger picture is a lot of the Coalition members, Liberals and Nationals, do support this transition and understand it ultimately will happen,” Coalition for Conservation chair Cristina Talacko told news.com.au.

“It’s not a question of debating the ideology behind climate anymore, we’ve gone totally past that, now it’s about what’s good for Australia, what’s going to give us resilience because we don’t want the droughts and the bushfires.”

Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie said calls for a green energy policy overhaul is coming from most segments of the community but insists there are still hurdles within the party led by Scott Morrison, who once famously brandished a lump of coal during Question Time.

“There are a few dinosaurs in federal parliament but the amount of support that’s now coming from state governments, from business, and from industry will be irrepressible,” she told news.com.au.

SOURCE  







Firefighting tactics should change as climate warms, say fire chiefs

Blaming the fires on global warming is just propaganda.  Australia's biggest fires were many years ago. The important thing is to get a more effective response to the fires. And for that the measures called for below are a step in the right direction

Australian bushfire fighters should change tactics to focus on early detection and extinguishment of blazes rather than their containment as climate change has altered the nature of fires on the continent, an expert group has recommended.

Former Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner Greg Mullins said that in the hotter and drier conditions more common in Australia due to global warming, containment was more difficult or impossible at times – and on high-danger days, firefighters should seek to detect and put out fires as fast as possible.

The change in tactics would require increased funding by governments so bushfire authorities could use early-warning technologies including thermal-imaging drones and satellites and increase the number of highly trained airborne firefighting teams of the sort that defended the famous grove of ancient Wollemi Pines in the Blue Mountains.

Further, on such days, aircraft should be deployed as soon as fires are detected, said Mr Mullins.

A shortage of airborne firefighting equipment means they are often not deployed until firefighters on the ground have surveyed the fire, by which time it was often too late, Mr Mullins said.

He was commenting on the release of a report into the fires drafted after a summit of emergency, local government and community leaders, economists, academics and climate scientists earlier this year.

He called on the federal government to purchase new purpose-built firefighting aircraft such as the CL-415 Superscooper, an amphibious aircraft that can land on any large enough body of water and collect 6000 litres of water in 18 seconds. He noted that during the summer fires, many aircraft deployed on the NSW South Coast had to return to the RAAF base Richmond to refill.

The recommendations were among 165 developed during the summit hosted by the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and the Climate Council earlier this year who gathered to develop plans for bushfire response, readiness and recovery in an era of increased fire danger.

Underscoring all the recommendations was a call for all governments, the private sector and community groups to work together to immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are rapidly moving to a climate outside the range of human experience," says the summit's report Australia Bushfire and Climate Plan.

"This is driving an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme events and disasters including out-of-scale bushfires. Addressing greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas must therefore be the highest priority because changes in our climate are increasing the bushfire threat and reducing the effectiveness of current hazard reduction strategies."

The report has also called for improved co-ordination between firefighting authorities and the Australian Defence Force.

"Often you'll have the military saying to fire services, 'what do you need', but fire services have no idea what Defence has to offer," said Mr Mullins. Better co-ordination will be critical in fighting future fires, he said.

"You don't want soldiers fighting fires, they are not trained to do it. But they have huge capacity in engineering, in logistics. They have air bases and infrastructure. Every person they put in the field releases a firefighter to do their job."

The group also called for reforms to insurance practices in the face of increased disaster risks, and recommended that the federal government map extreme weather risks street by street across the country and identify areas where under- and non-insurance was placing recovery at risk.

It called for the establishment of a permanent independent insurance price monitor either with the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission or as a stand-alone entity.

The group also called for the creation of a national climate disaster fund to help preparation and recovery efforts to be funded by a levy on fossil fuel producers.

SOURCE  






Horticulture giants warn fruit and vegetable prices could rise due to labour shortage

Border closures really are a problem here

The horticulture industry has warned fruit and vegetable prices could rise up to 60 per cent and 127,900 jobs are at risk across the economy as the backpacker workforce faces being decimated due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a new parliamentary submission, the industry says the loss of the foreign harvest workforce, which includes young people from Europe and South East Asia on working holiday maker visas, would cut Australia's GDP by $13 billion while slashing the value of the horticulture industry by $6.3 billion.

To address feared shortages in coming months the horticulture industry has called for a special one-off $1200 payment funded by the federal government to lure Australians from the cities to work on farms at harvest time.

The workforce concerns are outlined in a submission from the Australian Fresh Produce Alliance (AFPA) to federal Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Migration's "Inquiry into the Working Holiday Maker Program". The industry group consists of fresh food heavyweights including ASX-listed Costa Group and privately owned Perfection Fresh.

The working holiday maker program accounts for about 80 per cent of the harvest labour workforce, and the industry is concerned that COVID-19 border closures and restrictions could severely disrupt the number of backpackers able to work in Australia.

Tens of thousands of backpackers have left Australia this year and the industry fears this trend will continue.

Australian farmers need to continue to secure a workforce to harvest fruit and vegetables for Australian families.

Michael Rogers, CEO of Australian Fresh Produce Alliance
The Australian Fresh Produce Alliance has proposed the $1200 payment to harvest workers only be paid after they complete three months of work. The group has also called for a $1200 induction support payment for businesses who hire workers under this arrangement, also paid after three months.

"The AFPA has obtained data from member companies, other growers and labour hire companies that indicates from March 2020 to June 2020 these companies received 23,000 inquiries for work. Only 8 per cent of these inquiries were made by Australian citizens and permanent residents," the submission says.

The economic calculations about job losses and prices come from modelling by Deloitte Access Economics, commissioned by the Australian Fresh Produce Alliance. The 127,900 job loss estimate includes lost harvest worker roles, as well as the impact on other sectors from a dramatically smaller harvest including in transport, food manufacturing and retail.

The Australian Fresh Produce Alliance fears that without a backpacker labour force, fruit and vegetables would be left to wither and rot, or crops would not be planted because of labour force concerns.

Darren Gray explores how society sources its food, investigating how apples get from the orchard to your table.

It is also asking for the number of harvest workers coming to Australia via the Seasonal Worker Program and Pacific Labour Scheme increased from 12,000 to 15,000 per year.

"Australian farmers need to continue to secure a workforce to harvest fruit and vegetables for Australian families. And we have a current and very real challenge that we will have a shortage of workers," said the group's chief executive Michael Rogers.

Michael Simonetta, chief executive of fresh produce giant Perfection Fresh, said backpackers had been a vital horticulture industry workforce for years.

"Now it's absolutely critical to us and the horticulture industry to harvest the crops that we grow, to feed Australia and our neighbours to the north," he said.

Asked what would happen if working holiday maker harvest workers disappeared, Mr Simonetta said: "Our industry would be devastated. We wouldn't be able to pick all the crops that growers are labouring over and investing a lot of money in.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Ridd Case: IPA Welcomes Historic High Court Appeal

Ridd was fired for challenging Greenie lies about the Great Barrier Reef

The Institute of Public Affairs has welcomed the announcement that Dr Peter Ridd will appeal the judgement in the case of James Cook University (JCU) v Peter Ridd to the High Court of Australia. Dr Ridd is seeking to reverse the 2-1 decision of the Federal Court of Australia, which overturned the earlier decision in the Federal Circuit Court, which held that Dr Peter Ridd was unlawfully dismissed by JCU.

“This is an historic appeal. It will be the first time that the High Court has been asked to adjudicate on the meaning of intellectual freedom,” said Gideon Rozner, IPA Director of Policy.

“The fundamental issues of free speech at Australian universities, the future of academic debate and freedom of speech on climate change are all on the line in this historic High Court appeal.”

“This has been Australia’s David vs Goliath battle. Dr Peter Ridd on one side backed by the voluntary donations of thousands of ordinary Australians, and JCU on the other side who with taxpayer funds secured some of the most expensive legal representation in the country in Bret Walker SC to stifle the free speech of one of its own staff.”

Dr Peter Ridd, a professor of physics at JCU, was sacked by the university for misconduct for questioning in the IPA’s publication Climate Change: The Facts 2017 the quality climate change science surrounding the Great Barrier Reef, and for public statements made on the Jones & Co Sky News program.

Dr Peter Ridd today reopened his Go Fund Me page, appealing to thousands of mainstream Australians to once again support his historic fight for free speech on climate change.

“Peter Ridd’s fight is representative of every Australian who has been censored, cancelled or silenced,” said Mr Rozner. “Alarmingly, the decision of the Federal Court shows that contractual provisions guaranteeing intellectual freedom do not protect academics against censorship by university administrators. This is a point where the IPA and the NTEU are on a unity ticket.”

“James Cook University’s actions prove there is a crisis of free speech at Australian universities. Many academics are censured, but few are prepared to speak out and risk their career, particularly if faced with the prospect of legal battles and possible bankruptcy.

“The case has identified a culture of censorship when it comes to challenging claims surrounding climate change and the Great Barrier Reef. JCU to this date has never attempted to disprove claims made by Dr Ridd about the Great Barrier Reef,” said Mr Rozner.

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Ideological fervour must not trump good public policymaking response

Victoria's inability to contain the coronavirus outbreak brought on by hotel quarantine failures risks becoming NSW's problem too. There are indications that by the end of this week NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian may face some tough choices. The
question is, will she make a similar mistake to Victoria? By letting ideology restrict her options to contain the spread of the coronavirus. By not locking the state down in part or in full — swiftly enough.

The Victorian experience has been hampered by a centralised public health bureaucracy: old-fashioned, slow and unwieldy in response to a virus that rapidly takes hold. It's a sharp contrast to NSW, where the decentralised public health system is fit for purpose: able to rapidly deploy contact tracers and pop-up clinics in order to not lose control of the situation too quickly.

Contact tracing in Victoria has been ineffective and centrally organised. Pop-up clinics haven't opened up quickly enough. The state's Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, sits too far down the health bureaucratic food chain —three rungs below the minister —to make decisions quickly enough to see action fluidly follow. Despite an impressive career, Sutton isn't a career public health clinician, in stark contrast to NSW CHO Kerry Chant. 

The centralised structure of public health in Victoria is a hallmark of how Dan Andrews likes to do business. The system 'has been years in the making, dating right back to the now Premier's time as the responsible minister during the Bracks government.

The harsh lockdown Andrews announced became his only option to try and regain the initiative against a virus that shows little mercy. However, because of the many system faults, Victoria is starting the fightback a long way behind. As of yesterday, there were 1583 cases still under investigation, which speaks to the poor contact tracing out of Victoria, not helped by the COVIDSafe app not working as effectively as promised, if, indeed, it's working at all. The six-week hard lockdown became a necessary evil for Victorians precisely because of the failures in Health Victoria's old-fashioned structures.

Polemicists on the right might like to mouth off about the hotel quarantine failures, which to be sure were the trigger for this disaster. But the magnitude of it has grown exponentially because of the structural failures outlined above. And those failures are
ideological — red meat for right-wing critics of Andrews.

The Liberal government in NSW now has its own ideological choice. Does it reject a lockdown because of its stated desire to keep the economy open, risking the spread of the virus getting out of control? Or does it recognise that even though a lockdown goes against the Liberal Party's mantra of opening the economy back up, in the long run, failure to contain this latest contagion will do more economic harm than a short (and perhaps limited) lockdown?

Andrews let his ideological preference for centralised power get the better of him, to the detriment of Victorians' health. For the same ideological reasons, he found re-embracing the lockdowns easier to stomach. The command-and-control nature of it suits his style. The economic cost of lockdowns are not front of mind.

Berejiklian can't let her ideological opposition to lockdowns be her undoing, especially when the decentralised public health structure in NSW has so comprehensively shown up the Victorian model. Like it or not, lockdowns for NSW might be the lesser of evils, for both health and economic outcomes. Sadly, the behaviour of some NSW residents has shown that if the virus becomes established, it may spread even more quickly than in Victoria.

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee has been presented with modelling highlighting this. NSW still has a chance to contain the virus. It may even get lucky and tiptoe through unscathed, because of its decentralised structures. But if it doesn't, NSW will need to let good public policymaking guide its response, not the ideological fervour of the government of the day.

From "The Australian" of 22.7.20





Coronavirus: Hospital breakthrough removes the fear factor

A story of globally significant medical ingenuity has emerged from the rubble of Australia’s ­second coronavirus wave, as doctors and nurses use a local invention to better treat patients and protect staff.

Western Health and Melbourne University this year helped create a world-leading ventilation hood that is placed over victims, with the twin benefit of protecting staff and improving treatments.

Associate professor Forbes McGain has received the results of an initial study into the effectiveness of the hood, which is designed to contain the droplet spread of the coronavirus.

Dr McGain, who works for Western Health, said the study feedback from the first 20 patients had been “overwhelmingly positive”.

Many thousands of healthcare workers globally have been infected with COVID-19 while trying to save the lives of the sick and dying.

The ventilation hood separates medical staff from the patient without losing line of sight and contains the droplets.

For Dr McGain, an intensive care specialist at Melbourne’s Sunshine Hospital, the first obvious benefit is in the wellbeing of nurses and doctors. “The nurses in particular feel safe,” he said.

“That’s the most important thing for the hood. The nurses aren’t as worried nursing and caring for quite unwell patients.”

The hood, which effectively creates a bubble around the ­patient, also enables staff to provide less invasive therapies and improved interaction with those being treated.

Some 17 of the hoods are being used in Victoria as the medical world starts to struggle with the increasing load of the virus.

There is rising interest in the device from other hospitals and it has presented as a significant opportunity for local manufacturing and potential global exports.

The ventilation sucks air away from the patient but restricts the flow of droplets, with the hood acting as a barrier. It also enables other intensive care machines to function without compromising the safety of the staff.

The project was made possible with the support of Melbourne University’s School of Engineering, led by professor Jason Monty.

“We only have 17 of these hoods at the moment but more can be made,” Dr McGain said. “There is an opportunity for expansion with local manufacturing.”

There are 32 coronavirus inpatients at Sunshine Hospital with four in intensive care.

Western Health research nurse manager Sam Bates said the presence of the ventilation hoods was embraced by staff: “They are just so excited to see it.”

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NAPLAN, attendance and aspiration best indicators of HSC results

Researchers have developed a system that predicts students' final High School marks with more than 90 per cent accuracy using information such as their year 9 NAPLAN results, their HSC subject choice and their year 11 attendance.

The University of Newcastle academics say their findings raise questions about whether the final two years of school that are now devoted to HSC courses and exams with predictable results could be better spent on deeper learning and more focused career preparation.

But critics argue using NAPLAN to determine students' future would just shift Higher School Certificate stress from year 12 to year 9, and say the HSC is not just about ranking and testing students, but also giving them a strong education regardless of their social background.

A team led by Professor John Fischetti, pro vice-chancellor of the university's faculty of education, developed a system that analyses information about students, such as NAPLAN results, family background, aspiration and attendance, to estimate how they would fare in their HSC.

After feeding in the results from 10,000 students across 10 years in 14 subjects, Professor Fischetti found it could predict students' exact HSC mark in each subject with 93 per cent accuracy.

The researchers began with 41 different variables, but narrowed them down to the most influential 17, which included the amount of time students had spent in Australia, their school's demographic index, and whether the students chose HSC subjects that challenged them.

"We anticipated that [the most influential factor] would be their marks all the way through, their teacher marks, assigned marks," Professor Fischetti said. "But it actually turned out that the year 9 NAPLAN, your year 11 attendance, and your year 11 course selection were most influential. We factored in some demographic information, but those three became critical."

Professor Fischetti said the analysis showed the importance of students mastering literacy and numeracy, which is tested by NAPLAN. English language skills were also important, as was aspiration, shown by a willingness to choose subjects that challenged them.

"It puts the pressure on, that primary education really does cover on [literacy and numeracy]," he said. "If students leave primary school weak in them, they struggle to catch up. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but we found it's that 7 per cent [whose result cannot be predicted]."

Professor Fischetti argued the approach to the final two years of high school could be changed, to give students greater depth in their learning or focus on their passions, rather than study for an exam in which their results were predictable.

His comments come as a new, federally commissioned report on post-school pathways has recommended students curate a learning profile, focusing on non-scholastic skills as well as academic results, as a way of reducing focus on the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, which is based on HSC results.

"[The HSC] is not wasted time, but we haven't taken advantage of it in the ways we could," he said. "Our exit outcome is a score on an exam, not the habits of learning."

However, Tom Alegounarias, a former chair of the NSW Education Standards Authority and president of its predecessor the Board of Studies, said educators had always been able to predict the likely outcomes of students.

"Some students achieve results that are not predicted, and that's an important part of a meritocratic process," he said. "Particularly for disadvantaged students, we should not be defining their prospects even in part as a function of their socio-economic background."

Greg Ashman, author of The Truth About Teaching, said year 9 NAPLAN assessments were not high-stakes tests at present. "As soon as they are used to determine university entrance, you'll have all the pressures of year 12, only three years earlier," he said. "It also seems unfair on students who may improve over those three years and it creates a licence for those who are so inclined to learn little in that time."

Professor Fischetti said students spent 10 years gathering the knowledge and skills they would need to do well in year 9 NAPLAN, so it would not involve the same pressure as a two-year, high-stakes HSC program.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here