Federal Government
Thankfully there are those in the law profession that see the lockdowns that have been imposed upon those of us here in Australia are a violation of our individual rights. Therefore, take some time to read what Professor Augusto Zimmerman has to say.
‘As a constitutional lawyer and legal theorist who appreciates our classical liberal tradition of constitutional government I have been against the imposition of the draconian measures to fight COVID-19 since they began. I believe they are arbitrary and ultimately a gross violation of individual rights.
Of course, there never was an emergency that could justify the use of such extreme measures. Politicians have justified the incredible harm they are causing to the Australian people by getting completely drunk on their own sense of self-righteousness. Full of themselves, they proudly warned that we face a great threat but their policies have saved us from the spread of a deadly virus. The privileged members of our political class are therefore able to block our peaceful protests because they think they know better what needs to be done, and even if we are eventually oppressed, silenced and destitute as a result.
A reasonable concern for our well-being is one thing, but the actions taken by politicians during this pandemic have gone well beyond the extreme. What is happening is unacceptable and it gives new meaning to the phrase, ‘a cure worse than the disease’. Of course, some of the worst crimes against humanity have been committed by individuals who believed they were simply doing a ‘great good’. Listening to their patronising remarks brings to mind a famous quote by Christian apologist and novelist C.S. Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive… Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”[1]
The political philosophy of John Locke is particularly relevant to our understanding of the matter. Locke is known as the ‘Founder of Liberalism’ due to his immense contributions to political philosophy. In the constitutional struggle of parliamentary forces against the Stuart monarchs in 17th Century England, Locke elaborated a theory in which the primary justification for civil government rests on the preservation of our fundamental rights to life, liberty and property. Locke’s main concern in his political writings was the elaboration of a legal-political philosophy to underpin the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Locke developed a distinctly Western political tradition based on the idea that everyone is endowed by God with inalienable rights, and that no government must ever violate these basic rights of the individual. More importantly, Locke distinguished what is legitimate political power from a situation in which the exercise of power becomes despotic and/or paternalistic. As Locke himself pointed out:
“The great mistakes about government have … arisen from confounding this distinct power [political power] with another [paternal power]”.[2]
Hence, as noted by Dr Kalle Grill, “paternalism is opposed by the liberal tradition” of limited government under the law.[3]
According to emeritus professor of government Geraint Parry, one of the primary purposes in Locke’s political theory, “was to separate political power from despotic power and paternal power – in other words, to deny that there is any analogy between the political relationship and the relationships which exist between either masters and slaves or father and children.”[4] Accordingly, the paternal leader is the political ruler who does not distinguish the difference between such relationships and limits the liberty of the people with the supposed intent of promoting “their own good” regardless of their personal will. Such an attitude displays a profound disregard for the will of other individuals and it involves behaviour that reveals an attitude of superiority coupled with profound arrogance and self-righteousness.
The Australian Prime Minister is a typical paternal leader. Morrison says he is quite happy that his subjects are behaving well. He is thinking about rewarding us for our “good behaviour”. Meanwhile, he warns that there will be “many more [restrictions] in front of us before [the government] can even possibly contemplate the easing of restrictions.”[5]
“There’s got to be a reward for all of this great effort that’s going in, and there will be, but we’ve got to make sure that’s done at the right time,” the Prime Minister told Sky News.[6]
Morrison recently urged his ‘faithful subjects’ to download a phone app that allows the federal government to trace our every move. His government was initially aiming for a 40 per cent take up of control of ‘people’s movements and the people they come in contact with’.[7] While the app that the federal government developed apparently is voluntary, its introduction naturally raises concerns of such measures becoming more permanent in the future. It also raises serious privacy issues and concerns that the app will later be used for permanent surveillance. The app presently monitors people’s daily interactions using GPS. It uses Bluetooth technology to record contact with other people even if they do not know each other.[8]
Although people under 60 have an extremely small chance of dying from coronavirus, the Prime Minister strongly believes that 95 per cent of the population must take the vaccine against such a virus. His first instincts are always inherently authoritarian and he appears to have developed a visceral distrust of the Australian people. That being so, he initially wanted the vaccine to be as mandatory as possible.[9]
“I expect that it would be mandatory as you can possibly make it,” he said, adding that he is, “talking about a pandemic which has destroyed the global economy and taken the lives of … 430 Australians”.[10]
First of all, what has really destroyed our economy is the behaviour of incompetent leaders such as Morrison himself. There were far better and more efficient ways to fight this virus apart from savage bans and gross violations of fundamental rights being inflicted on the people. Second, the Prime Minister appears to ignore that Australia is a country in which the State has been conceived as deriving from the law and not the law from the State.[11] The Morrison government has no more valid powers than those explicitly granted by the Australian Constitution.[12]
Morrison’s comments about vaccination follow the signing of Australia’s first vaccine deal with drug maker AstraZeneca.[13] This vaccine has been rushed through trials and has never been successfully produced for a coronavirus: it might do more harm than good. Of course, this is the same government that told us that roughly 150,000 Australians would die from COVID-19. It is also the government that unreasonably banned therapeutics such as hydroxychloroquine/zinc, which numerous health experts say “could be our best cure” in the fight against the coronavirus. [14] Furthermore, the Morrison government has miserably failed to protect nursing homes where the highest incidence of victims of COVID-19 has occurred.
During this coronavirus crisis, our politicians seem to be driven less by a reasoned, evidence-fueled strategy of limiting the spread of the disease and the disorganisation of economic life, than by an urge to be seen to be taking action. As a result, countless people are losing their jobs, particularly in the entertainment industry. Inevitably, job losses will lead to far more homelessness, with financial pressures leading to more marriage breakdowns and a dramatic growth in crime, which always increases in times of economic crisis.
What is happening here is nothing short of deeply tragic because, in many ways and on many levels, Australians have been miserably betrayed by their own federal and state politicians. Remarkably, Locke famously argued that governments have no other end, “but the preservation of these rights, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects”. If a government exceeds the limits of its legitimate power, citizens have the fundamental right to resist.
As Locke famously put it:
“Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the rights of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence.”[15]
We should not be too hasty in dismissing Locke’s advocacy for fundamental rights and the traditional concept of lawful resistance against political tyranny. This is our classical liberal tradition and it firmly communicates that there cannot be one rule for some and another for the rest of us. Federal, state, and territory leaders in this country have been exposed for their authoritarian behaviour as there was never an emergency that could possibly justify the exercise of such arbitrary powers.
The Australian people have a lawful right to resist such acts of tyranny and demand from their ruling political class the lifting of arbitrary restrictions and full restoration of our fundamental rights and freedoms.
Dr Augusto Zimmermann PhD, LLM, LLB, DipEd, CertIntArb is Professor and Head of Law at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education in Perth/WA, and Professor of Law (Adjunct) at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney campus. He is President of the Western Australian Legal Theory Association (WALTA), and former Law Reform Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia, from 2012-2017 (appointed by then state Attorney-General Christian Porter). Dr Zimmermann was chair and professor of Constitutional Law at Murdoch University from 2007 to 2017.
[1] C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (William B. Eerdmans, 1948), 74.
[2] John Locke, The Second Treatise, (Cambridge University Press, 1960), para. 169,
[3] Kate Grill, ‘Paternalism’, in R. Chadwick (ed.) Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics (2nd ed., Elsevier, 2011). <http://kallegrill.se/texts/Paternalism%20preprint.pdf>
[4] Geraint Parry, ‘Individuality, Politics and the Critique of Paternalism in John Locke’, (1964) 2 Political Studies 1, 1.
[5] Malcolm Farr and Daniel Hurst, ‘Australian Government Plains to Bringing in Mobile Phone App to Track People With Coronavirus’, The Guardian, 14 April 2020. <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/14/australian-government-plans-to-bring-in-mobile-phone-app-to-track-people-with-coronavirus>
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Andrew Probyn, ‘Coronavirus Lockdowns Could End In Months If Australians Are Willing To Have Their Movements Monitored’. ABC News, 14 April 2020. <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/coronavirus-app-government-wants-australians-to-download/12148210>
[9] Richard Furgason, ‘Future Vaccine Should Be Mandatory, Says PM’, The Australian, August 19, 2020. <https://www.australian.com.au/nation/coronavirus-australia-live-news-fears-grow-of-sydney-hotel-breach-outbreack/news-story/cf35fb9ae2901600276fa78ee89a2dc5>
[10] Jade Gailberger, ‘Coronavirus Vaccine Should Be Mandatory: PM’, PerthNow, 19 August 2020, <https://www.perthnow.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/coronavirus-vaccine-should-be-mandatory-pm-ng-fc7dc9cd495bcc7332487c07731b4c98>
[11] W A Wynes, Legislative, Executive and Judicial Powers in Australia (Sydney: The Law Book Co, 1955), vii.
[12] For instance, whereas Section 51 (xxiiiA) of the Australian Constitution allows for the granting of various services by the federal government, this should not be to the extent of authorising any form of civil conscription. This means that no government in this country, or those acting on its behalf, is constitutionally authorised to make the Australian people take any medicament against their best will, or force children to be vaccinated in order to maintain benefit payments.
[13] Jade Gailberger, ‘Coronavirus Vaccine Should Be Mandatory: PM’, PerthNow, 19 August 2020. <https://www.perthnow.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/coronavirus-vaccine-should-be-mandatory-pm-ng-fc7dc9cd495bcc7332487c07731b4c98>
[14] Andrew Bolt; ‘I must call Prime Minister Scott Morrison to Account’, Sky News, 10 August 2020. <https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6179768424001>
[15] John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government [1690] Ch 19, Sec 222.’https://goodsauce.news/its-time-to-resist-the-paternalistic-oppression-of-australias-politicians/
This China virus is just another tool of the Marxist Leftist Lovies for their totalitarian takeover. According to these people one may do many things BUT no church meetings! Hmm, does that remind you of Communism or a Muslim governed nation?
What is the responsibility of todays politicians? Is it to ruin the electricity grid so bad that the contemporary comforts of life MUST be abandoned?
‘Once upon a time Australians enjoyed reliable and affordable power, but that was before heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar entered the scene.
Over the last few summers, Australians have been treated to power rationing and load shedding, as well as the odd mass blackout. These events have an uncanny correlation with dead calm days/nights and sunset that coincides with bursts of warm weather and rising mercury.
Summer heatwaves are part and parcel of Australian life.
Over the last four or five decades, though, an increasing number of Australians have enjoyed the benefit of reverse cycle air-conditioning, warming homes in winter and taking the ferocity out of their often-blistering summers.
Now Australians are being told to turn off their air conditioners and/or to leave home and go back to work in order to keep the grid from a total ‘system black’.’ There is more at STT on this so be sure to go there and read it and like as well. https://stopthesethings.com/2020/10/07/sweating-it-renewable-energy-crisis-means-australians-cant-run-air-conditioners-during-heatwaves/
Now, on a New South Wales government web site we, the lowly citizen, are told how we can save energy and money.
‘At Anytime
Use less hot water.
Have shorter showers. (Even if really dirty?)
Check energy rating labels when buying new appliances.
Upgrade your home insulation, windows and blinds to heat-proof your house.
Switch off appliances at the wall to use one to five percent less energy.
Switch off lights when you leave a room. (I remember this from when a child in the 40’s and 50’s.)
In summer
Use fans instead of air conditioning. (I am old enough to remember when window air conditioning was the new thing. We have PROGRESSERD now to where the POLITICIANS want us to shut them off!)
If you use an air conditioner, each degree warmer on the thermostat can save you 10%. (One wonders if the politicians offices are kept this way!)
Closing gaps and cracks around the house can save you $50 a year.
‘Zone’ your home by cooling one part of your house and cut down on cooling in other areas.
Close curtains and blinds during the day.
Cross-ventilation and open windows in the evening allow for natural breezes. (Oh, the NATURAL breeze flowing through the house along with the flying bugs etc.)
In winter
By day, let natural light in.
Close curtains and doors at night.
‘Zone’ your home by warming the rooms you use the most.
Use door snakes to stop draughts.
Rug up and use blankets. (Oh, the blankets! PILE them on to keep warm. One wonders how many blankets the politician’s family has to keep warm?)’https://energysaver.nsw.gov.au/households/fine-tune-your-home/free-ways-save-energy-and-money
These Australian politicians have ruined the energy grid and have no plan to rebuild it. We had better get online and learn how to live the Amish way!
If you by chance wake up on election day and go and vote for Sleepy Joe what kind of America will you get? ‘Those comforting themselves with the idea that a vote for Joe Biden is a “return to normalcy” are delusional. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for an America where pro-life laws are overturned, religious liberty is destroyed, American power is used to bully other nations into accepting the LGBT agenda, abortion on demand and funded by the taxpayer is considered a human right, Christian adoption agencies are forced out of business if they refuse to place children with same-sex couples, and those with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria are banned from getting the assistance they desperately desire. That would be Joe Biden’s America.’https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4308
One might get the idea that the Department of Education just may be about EDUCATION! Well, not so when it comes to the New South Wales department of Education led by Mark Scott. It seems Mark thinks PC race identity culture MUST be involved. People must be divided into tribes such as Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. It was on Thursday, 31 January 2019, that ‘Mark Scott and two members of the Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) Working Group, Claire Beattie and Darren Bell, launched the department’s first Reconciliation Action Plan for corporate staff.’ https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/strategies-and-reports/our-reconciliation-action-plan/reconciliation-action-plan/secretary-mark-scott-officially-launches-the-reconciliation-action-plan
The following is a transcript of that meeting. It is LONG but please NOTE that Clair Beattie, one of the panel, says that Australia will always be Aboriginal land. Even though you as a non-Aboriginal may have paid with your own money for the land it is not yours but it belongs to the Aboriginals. What race baiting propaganda via the NSW Department of Education. Throughout the following I will highlight certain sections as well as making some of my own remarks.
‘Good afternoon everybody, I’m Mark Scott, Secretary of the New South Wales Department of Education. Joining me today are Claire Beattie and Darren Bell, and they’re members of the department’s Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group. Can I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet. The custodians, the Gadigal people of Eora Nation and pay my respect to Elders past and present, and acknowledge the continuing contribution and connection to this land.
Claire Beattie
I’d like to welcome everyone and acknowledge that no matter where you’re meeting today, that you’re meeting on Aboriginal land. Always has been, always will be Aboriginal land.
Darren Bell
I’m a Ngunnawal/Yuinman. My family comes from Yass and the south coast of New South Wales. I’d like to pay my respects to our Elders, and our mob and say thank you to them for their continual custodianship of our cultures, our lands and our waterways.
Mark Scott
So let me talk a little bit about what we’re up to this afternoon. We’re launching the Department of Education’s first Reconciliation Action Plan, and it’s a plan for our corporate staff. So what we’re going to do this afternoon is to talk a little bit about the origins of the plan, why we’re doing it, what we hope to achieve from it and what comes next. So I’m really pleased this afternoon to be able to launch the department’s first RAP, our first Reconciliation Action Plan, and it talks about our commitment to diversity, to inclusion and to advancing reconciliation. And it gives us some practical steps, some practical actions which are going to drive our contribution to reconciliation.
The focus of this first plan is for our staff who work in corporate offices. Our corporate staff, our corporate officers and the partnerships that we have, and it’s going to lay the foundation in the department for reconciliation initiatives and we’re going to develop successive plans in the years to come with an increased focus on schools and the communities in which we serve. You can see on the screen there, a copy of this plan which has been developed in consultation with our staff and the broader community, that’s going to be the centrepiece of our work in the year ahead.
Let me talk a little bit about the first RAP that we are developing. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking and talking about this, and it’s important to remember that the RAP is an ongoing process for an organisation like us. And it provides us with an opportunity to think about what this is like as a place of work and to challenge ourselves so that we have a deep, rich cultural understanding and cultural insight. It’s important that as a department, we have that. Because we want to have deeper insight, deeper understanding deeper commitment and deeper respect.
I was very keen to develop a RAP when I joined the department from my time running the ABC. (Scott worked at the ABC which is a far Left leaning Australian Federal government supported broadcasting organization. This left leaning Marxist organization received over one billion dollars per year to spouth their Marxist agenda on the Australian people) At the ABC, we’d struggled in a number of areas, I think, in working with our Aboriginal staff, we’d failed to make key targets that we’d set on employment. And the transformational event for us in all these things was the development of the RAP. It gave us some clear targets, it gave us some clear challenges, but it forces us to think about ourselves as an organisation. About what we were like as a place to work, whether we had deep cultural insight, whether we had cultural safety. As we focused on ourselves a bit and the kinds of organisation that we were and what we wanted to be, it was amazing that we started to deliver on all those targets as well. (Scott has now divided the ABC into a tribal culture and will now work on doing the same at the NSW Department of Education)
I found it very powerful, and it was an idea I brought with me to the department. (Scott is now promoting this tribalism from the ABC to the NSW Education Department. Where are the politicians with common sense and backbone on this? Are they all asleep?) As you’d know, all around the country, major corporations and organisations like us have reconciliation action plans that are developed with Reconciliation Australia to help us reflect and to think about the kind of organisation we are, the kind of organisation we want to be and the kind of outcomes that we want to achieve for the broader community, for the organisation itself and the outcomes that we want to be able to deliver. So I saw that the important part of this plan was to start with us, to reflect on us and to think about the kind of organisation we are and that’s the start of this journey.
So what are some measures of success that we’ve identified in this our first Reconciliation Action Plan? You’ll see some of them are up there on your screen. We’re focused on employment. We want to exceed the Premier’s Priority target for doubling the number of Aboriginal people in senior leadership roles by 2025, and we want to see 3% of senior leadership roles filled by Aboriginal staff (Not whether a person is qualified or not but the tribe they identify with). We want to support and increase the number of Aboriginal people working in all positions across our department, and we want to think very creatively and deliberatively as to how we do that, how we make this a great place to work for our Aboriginal staff and how we’re providing outstanding professional opportunities to build a great career with us here in the Department of Education. (Where does a non-identifying person fit into all this? Identity race culture at its height of insanity.)
You know, we’re a big and important institution in this state. We’re probably the biggest employer in this state, so when we do things, we can make an impact. (Yes, as the biggest, because we are government, we can impact society with their own money. Communism at work!) So we want to be supporting Aboriginal- owned businesses in New South Wales. So we’re saying we want to award Aboriginal-owned businesses at least 3% of domestic contracts for goods and services issued by the department by 2021. And when you get a big organisation like us, with the kind of budget we have, that 3%, we think, can make an enormous difference to Aboriginal-owned businesses all around New South Wales (Race bait culture).
Finally and very importantly, we recognise our leadership position in this community. So for the department to be focused on national reconciliation makes an impact on the future of this nation as far as national reconciliation is concerned. No organisation is more involved in shaping the future of Australia than the New South Wales Department of Education – 810,000 students in our schools. The largest educator in the country. The future of Australia has been determined by the New South Wales Department of Education. So as we develop this RAP and then roll the activities from future RAPs into schools, what a profound impact we can have on the challenge and the importance of national reconciliation (No wonder those coming out of the education system in this age are left leaning socialists).
We talk a lot about reconciliation, it’s there in the plan, we talk about it a lot, but as an Aboriginal man, Darren, what does reconciliation mean to you?
Darren Bell
It means acknowledging past wrongs and actions. (This means white man wrongs and actions. This is the white supremacy lie in the department of education!)Because when you say sorry for something, you never do it again. And that’s what I think we need to remember, basically. (Former PM Rudd began a Sorry Day and that isn’t enough!)
Mark Scott
We need to start by that point of reflection. And part of the work that we’ll be doing as part of this RAP is reflecting, coming to deeper points of understanding ourselves (More reflection on whiteness and all the bad things that come with that whiteness!). And I’ll come back and ask you in a minute where future RAPs go on the back of this. Claire, we’ve run a consultation process to this point. I mean, we had the idea of a brand new RAP, but then went and talked with our staff and talked with stakeholders. Take us through a little bit of what that consultation process has involved.
Claire Beattie
Thank you, Mark. I’m really delighted that over 2,000 of our corporate staff have engaged thus far in our journey in RAP. You’ve joined us in mass voices like today, thank you for coming, and joining, and listening. You’ve joined us for cinema events. Some people have joined us for our Aboriginal network events. We’ve also had discussions via email to the RAP inbox. We’ve also had surveys.
One of the most interesting parts of this journey was what people said about what they expect to see in the RAP in our statement. You’ll notice the RAP statement encompasses all of the feedback we had, and some of the key messages we had was around mutual respect, integrity, cultural safety. So you’ll see that featured in the RAP as well.
I’m really proud of the journey we’ve been on, and I think we’ve walked really mindfully together, and we’ve really taken our time with listening and having really honest conversations. So I thank you for coming on this journey. It’s not finished yet. As we’ve said, there’s more steps to go. But really, there’s over 600 people online right now joining this conversation. So it’s really exciting.
Mark Scott
You talk about walking together. Explain that a little bit more. What does that mean?
Claire Beattie
I think it’s really important that we’ve paced this, that we haven’t sprinted off in a direction. Everyone is on a different part of their journey for reconciliation. Some people are new to the journey, they’ve just stepped in. They might not know a lot about Aboriginal culture or the history that we’ve had with the department (This whole reconciliation is leading the Aboriginal back into their paganism. The Dreamtime is pagan and the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ brought many out of darkness and into the light of the Lord Jesus Christ). Some people have grown up Aboriginal. Some people believe in reconciliation, some people are sceptical.
We’re all at different parts of our journey, so there’s no point in sprinting ahead and leaving people behind. We have to be patient, we have to be mindful, we have to have mutual respect and have really open conversations. One of the uncles, Uncle Greg, who’s a Darug Elder, actually talks about the reason why pianos have black and white keys, and the reason why they make beautiful music is because you play both black and white keys. So I think it’s really important that all of us come together on this journey towards reconciliation.
Mark Scott
So it’s a great opportunity, in a sense, to reset the relationship, to come to deeper understanding, establish greater respect and insight, and then to roll that into some really practical steps and strategies so we want to work our way through. We’ve had some key themes that have emerged through the consultation, and then we roll that into practical steps, because we want this to be a living blueprint. I hope that this RAP becomes really one of the very important documents, a cornerstone document of the Department of Education.
A year ago, we launched the strategic plan. I said, “I wanted that to be a living document”, and whenever I go on to schools and talking with school leaders, I’m discussing the strategic plan, and I feel it is a living document, I get it quoted back at me all the time. I want the RAP to be a living document as well, and I want you to be able to read it and to access it, and to think about what you’re doing in your corporate office, whereever you work in the department to advance the principles of the RAP and to deliver on the strategies that are outlined (Can you imagine this seems to be one of the MOST important items in the Education Department).
So let me talk a little bit about the first actions that we’re going to have as part of this RAP. The RAP as you will see, is backed up by 12 concrete actions and 52 deliverables that we’ve identified, and they’re centred around four key themes: relationships, respect, opportunities and governance. And with these themes and actions and deliverables and lots of hard work, we really want to see the development of positive two-way relationships based on trust.
We want to see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and rights valued and recognised. And we really want to be a great diversified workforce that reflects the communities we serve and is really growing the state’s first economy in a very practical and supportive way. In doing all this, we want to continue the important work we do with the AECG. For 40 years or more, the AECG has been an important partner of the Department of Education. They help us grow our insight, and to grow our effectiveness on the ground and working with community, and also helping to serve Aboriginal students and improve their wellbeing and their educational outcomes. In the year ahead, we want to work closely with the AECG to forge a new agreement with them so there can be a pathway to further partnership in the decade ahead.
Darren, we’ve got this RAP document, and I encourage people to find it, to find it online, to read and think about how we’re going to make it real in the department. What comes next? It’s great to have a document, but where does it go from here?
Darren Bell
I think one of our big articles is truth telling. We need to, like I mentioned before, acknowledge what’s happened in the past, and things like that, and ensuring that it doesn’t happen again. I think that’s a big factor in how we move forward.
Mark Scott
What do you mean by truth telling?
Darren Bell
The department had a policy called the Clean, cut and courteous policy where if a non-Aboriginal family didn’t want an Aboriginal student in their school, they can have them removed, basically. And clean, cut and courteous so you had to be, obviously, clean, cut and presentable, and courteous, and not be rude and things like that. So non-Aboriginal family didn’t want a student in a class or in the school like that, they could have them removed. That’s the sort of thing that not a lot… I’m sure a lot of people watching right now wouldn’t know that, and it still affects people who are alive today who had to undergo that policy.
Mark Scott
Including parents and grandparents.
Darren Bell
Absolutely, yeah. That sort of stuff can have quite a long-lasting effect on people, and their self-worth, and all that sort of stuff. So we need to acknowledge that sort of thing, that that actually did happen and this department did implement them at one stage. Thankfully, obviously, they’re gone now, but… (They are gone BUT! Never enough! There is always something the white people have done that needs to be corrected)
Mark Scott
So you’ve got to deal with that stuff?
Darren Bell
You got to deal with that stuff, yeah. I mean, it’s part of the healing process as well, I believe. With this RAP, we’ve instigated… Well, not instigated, it’s a bit of a harsh word, but we’ve implemented, I should say, a network, an Aboriginal corporate staff network. At that network, we had a barbecue. That was our inaugural type of thing. We had a barbecue last December, and we had our colleagues from all different state offices around Sydney come along. So we made some new friends, met up with some old friends and had some yarns. The yarns were about truth telling and things like that, that’s what we need to do, and cultural awareness training for our leaders in the department, so for our managers, and our directors, and our secretaries and dep secs. Hopefully, that would filter down to them bringing it into their teams, and overall, the department would undergo cultural awareness training. Because it’s not just about…You need to make the department a culturally safe place to work, and that benefits everyone, I think. So with our next RAP, it’s called the Innovate RAP, and that will be developed over the next two years. And we want people to walk with us on that journey. It’s a two-way street and we want people to walk with us on that journey.
Mark Scott
So opportunities this year, for cultural awareness training (The tax payer dollars pay for this CULTURE AWARENESS TRAINING!) and the executive did do a day and a half of cultural awareness training in partnership with the AECG and with leaders from our schools who came and spoke with us. And I think I can say, for every member of the executive team, it was an absorbing, a fascinating, a challenging and confronting conversation and experience. And I think many of us would have thought, we’ve done this kind of thing before. I was just amazed at what I learnt from that experience, and the challenges that came on the back of that. To actually use that insight to help make this a great place for all our staff to work. An inclusive place, a supportive place, a place where we can really lead the community and then the responsibility you have to the generations to come who are in our care every day. So we launch this RAP now for the corporate staff. Then the Innovate RAP comes in a year’s time, where the truth telling will be more a feature of that. And then, on we go with more ambitious targets and absolute clarity about the outcomes that we’re trying to achieve.
That’s the story of this RAP document. I’d encourage you, as I said, to take a look at it. There’s beautiful artwork on the front of it. And this is done by a student in one of our schools, Suzanna from Boggabilla Central School. She’s from the Gamilaraay Country, and we’re having this artwork framed. It will be featured in a prominent place at 105 Phillip Street, our Parramatta office. Some of you have already been online. Excuse me as I reach over to find the tough questions. I’ll be answering easy questions.
Mark Scott
These guys will be answering the tough questions. A really good question has come through here about Aboriginal catering companies. Great idea, but where do you start, how do you find an Aboriginal catering company?
Claire Beattie
On the intranet, live at the moment, you’ll find the RAP hub. Where it has a lot of FAQs including where to find Aboriginal catering companies, Aboriginal suppliers. It’s really important, as Mark said, that we’ve made a commitment to support Aboriginal businesses. And as we are such a massive organisation and a massive buyer of things, if we did meet that KPI of 3% of buying from Aboriginal businesses, it really would help Aboriginal economic prosperity as well. Please do check out the RAP hub, it’s live now.
Mark Scott
And Darren, where do we find more information? If I’m an Aboriginal member of staff and I want to join the network, how do I go about doing that?
Darren Bell
So what we’re looking at doing is setting up a little working group in the initial stages. Develop initiatives that we want to involve with our Aboriginal colleagues. We are looking at things like even having a social media page for the network, so people can engage in that way and talk to each other. Which is obviously, find it a lot easier to do it that way. Because I think we need this network especially because I don’t know how many of my colleagues are Aboriginal in the department, and especially in 105 Phillip Street. I sent a little broadcast email asking staff to see who’s Aboriginal. I’ve got quite a few responses which I’m really happy about. So we’re going to develop this network so we can keep abreast of these sort of things, and contribute ideas for the next RAP.
Mark Scott
And even opportunities, I guess, for staff, they might not be sure that they want to connect with the network or identify, just to even talk through some of those issues with you or other members of staff.
Darren Bell
Absolutely, yeah.
Mark Scott
A question’s come through here from Tracy. What does success look like to me, or what does a successful RAP look like?
I think it’s multifaceted. Finally, finally… What I really want to do is transform the future of Australia by shaping the lives of the young people that are in our care (DO THE PARENTS OF THE CHILDREN WHO ARE ATTENDING THESE SCHOOLS KNOW THE INTENT OF ALL THIS?). One of the things that we all must be desperate to do is to ensure that Aboriginal students in our schools have learning outcomes that are the same as any child in our care.
The gap that currently exists now is untenable, and unacceptable, and is an indictment of what has been offered by this country to young Aboriginal people. So finally, you want to fix that. But you don’t just fix that by focusing on that, you’ve actually got to be the right kind of organisation to do that. And so, I see a reconciliation, I see a cultural safety, I see the kinds of staff we can recruit and keep are all about us being the right kind of organisation to be able to deliver those results that we really fundamentally want.
But we’re a leading institution in the country and we should be leading and modelling reconciliation. Modelling being a great place to work. Modelling cultural insight and understanding and achieving extraordinary things for the young Aboriginal people in our care, in our schools. So that’s all. That’s a long journey, but you start by this kind of process that we got starting now, and we don’t rest here, as you’ve heard, we keep moving, and we keep advancing, and next year, we’ll be back with a new plan. Lots of people are asking where they can get cultural awareness training. How are we going to offer that?
Darren Bell
As far as I know, the AECG can help offer it. Like you said, you undertook the training yourself. There are other organisations. I actually see commercials on SBS, how they do it and the company that they use, things like that. But we do have, of course.
Claire Beattie
I invite people to write in into the RAP inbox. If they want to run with cultural awareness training, we’ve got a whole set of providers from the amazing Mick Gooda’s of the world; Flick Ryan, a few others that we do use that have been phenomenal in taking our staff through the journey. And it’s an emotional journey, so people have to be ready for that. There is truth telling on that journey, it can be uncomfortable. But at the end of it, it does create a more inclusive, a more welcoming workplace for all of us to come to a mutual understanding. So if you are interested in doing cultural awareness training, please write into the RAP inbox or go to the RAP hub.
Mark Scott
Just a couple more questions, and then, it’s going to be cake time. So I’ll come to the cake in a minute. Questions come through on the AECG, I did reference them earlier. Has the AECG been involved and consulted on the RAP?
We have reached out to the AECG and briefed them on this process, they wished us well on this, but we look forward to really working closely with the AECG, particularly around a new engagement and a new arrangement with them, a new undertaking with them that takes us through the years ahead. They are very very important partners in all the work we’re doing with Aboriginal students in our schools, and their network is very, very powerful and very important all around the state. Finally, I think this is just a question about… You know, it’s an education department. Why aren’t schools involved in this process? So where do schools fit in to this work?
Claire Beattie
Eventually, obviously, we will welcome schools into this conversation. I think our corporate area was a great place to start, it’s a smaller group, but it’s also a group that we can start cultural awareness training without upsetting and taking them off their job which is to be in front of students, making sure every student is known, and valued and cared for. Also, I think it was an opportunity to really engage with executive in the corporate area as well and ensure that we’re going from the top-down, it was led by you.
I can also say, Mark, and I hope that we don’t embarrass you by saying this, but how amazing it is to have a Secretary come in and say… You’ve brought it from the ABC with you, but you’ve also stood in front of this and said, “We must have this” for the reasons that you’ve just unpacked. For us, I think it’s been really refreshing to know that we have your support on this journey, and to know that from the top-down, you’re for reconciliation and you really do support the idea of having a culturally safe environment for Aboriginal people (What government leader allows money and time to be spent on this race identity PC propaganda?).
Mark Scott
And I think that’s what we all aspire to, and we know as we do that, it changes us, changes this organisation. And if you change this organisation, you change the future of the country (There it is. Changing the country! What kind of change do you think Mr. Scott means?).
Claire Beattie
Absolutely.
Mark Scott
As you said, Darren, this is a torrid, and difficult, and painful history. We need to learn from that, and understand that, and build a wonderful future for our kids and build a better Australia as a consequence of this. So thanks for your time this afternoon. I bring exciting news if you are in one of our larger regional offices, because there is cake there for you, just as there is cake here for us. Wonderful colours and the artwork that Suzanna has done which adorns the RAP is on the cake.
So I’m going to ask my two colleagues here, who have been on the RAP working party, to cut the cake. I also want to thank all members of that working party who worked so hard to wrestle down the complexities of the issues. It’s easy for me to say this is an idea, then the hard work starts. I want to thank Meg Montgomery and the team that she led to get us to this point. We’re really celebrating the start with the launch of the RAP. They’re exciting days ahead, challenges ahead, and hopefully, great outcomes for our kids and our nation as well. So please cut the cake and enjoy your afternoon. Thanks for being with us.
Claire Beattie
Thank you.
Darren Bell
Thank you. Do it together?
Mark Scott
Do it together.
Claire Beattie
Yes. Let’s do it. Thanks everyone.’https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/strategies-and-reports/our-reconciliation-action-plan/reconciliation-action-plan/secretary-mark-scott-officially-launches-the-reconciliation-action-plan
Bureaucrats are in every government. Here, in Australia ONE of the BIGGEST problems the nation faces are the decisions made by leftist, loony lovie bureaucrats! In the good ole USA ‘By now it is abundantly clear that President Trump faces furious opposition not just from the Democrats, the establishment Republicans, and the mainstream media, but from a shadowy, determined cabal of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who are deeply embedded in the government: the “deep state.” Paradoxically, the ability of such a cabal to grow and operate freely can be traced back in American history to well-meaning efforts to end government corruption — as well as to the evil act of one deranged assassin.
As Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster explains, today’s deep state is a result of efforts to reform what was known as the “spoils system.” In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president on promises to end the hegemony of a privileged aristocracy, and to drain that swamp, he would need his own men in key positions. He removed a large number of civil service employees and replaced them with men of his own faction, which came to be known as the Democracy, or Democratic Party. This came to be known as the spoils system, after the old adage “To the victor belong the spoils.” This practice led to numerous incompetent people being placed in positions of responsibility; after the Civil War, a movement grew to remedy that problem by making civil service jobs based on merit rather than party affiliation.
In 1880, a champion of civil service reform, James A. Garfield, was nominated for president by the Republicans; to mollify the Stalwarts, or Republicans who favored the spoils system, the vice-presidential nod went to Chester Alan Arthur, a man who had been fired from his job as Collector of the Port of New York by President Rutherford B. Hayes for ignoring Hayes’s civil service reform executive order forbidding forcing federal officers to make campaign contributions.
The Garfield/Arthur ticket won, and immediately as president, Garfield pushed for measures that would end it. When a scheme to steal the public revenues was discovered in the Post Office Department, he moved swiftly, firing those implicated and calling for the prosecution of anyone involved, no matter how high a position he occupied. Accompanying this was his insistence on adopting a merit-based system that would, he hoped, reduce corruption by removing federal offices from the realm of partisan politics. He did not live to see this come to fruition.
Garfield had only been president for four months when, on July 2, 1881, he and Secretary of State James G. Blaine were walking through the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, on their way to board a train to spend part of the summer in New Jersey, away from the heat of the capital. Just then, a man stepped up behind Garfield and fired his gun twice at the president, hitting him in the back and arm, and crying, “I am a Stalwart and now Arthur is President!”
That man was Charles Guiteau, who has been described in so many history books as a “disappointed office seeker” that the label has practically become a Homeric epithet. A disappointed office seeker Guiteau undeniably was, but he was much more than that. After repeatedly pressing Chester Arthur for a chance to campaign for the Garfield/Arthur ticket during the 1880 campaign, Arthur relented, likely just to end his harassment, and Guiteau delivered his speech, “Garfield against Hancock,” a single time. Guiteau thought he was owed a federal office as a result and had pestered White House officials repeatedly for a chance to see Garfield, who did meet with him at least once, and then Blaine in order to make his case for an appointment as consul to France.
Guiteau was, however, not an ordinary office seeker. He wanted a position in France but did not speak French. His sister recounted that in 1875, six years before the assassination, he had raised an axe to her with a look on his face “like a wild animal.” She explained: “I had no doubt then of his insanity. He was losing his mind.” In 1881, before the assassination, he also pressured Senator John Logan of Illinois for a federal job; Logan recounted: “I must say I thought there was some derangement of his mental organization.”
There was. As he bought a pistol and hatched his plan to murder Garfield, Guiteau wrote: “The Lord inspired me to attempt to remove the President in preference to someone else, because I had the brains and the nerve to do the work. The Lord always employs the best material to do His work.”
On September 19, 1881, Garfield died. At his murder trial, Guiteau stated that he was pleading “insanity, in that it was God’s act and not mine. The Divine pressure on me to remove the president was so enormous that it destroyed my free agency, and therefore I am not responsible for my act.”
Guiteau was not a “disappointed office seeker” first and foremost; he was a madman. That he has gone down in history as the former rather than the latter can be attributed to attempts to discredit the spoils system and advance the merits of civil service reform. Although Guiteau thought that by elevating Arthur to the presidency he was protecting the spoils system, his crime had the opposite effect: national revulsion over the killing of Garfield made civil service reform the most pressing issue of the day. The time for that reform had come at last, even as the Stalwart Arthur took the oath of office.
Rating America’s Presidents details how, when he became president, Arthur proceeded to shock the entire nation, and especially his Stalwart friends, by supporting civil service reform. His determination that he had a responsibility to do what Garfield would have done outweighed his commitment to the Stalwarts. He declared his support for civil service legislation, explaining that not he, but Garfield, had been elected president, and that he consequently had a responsibility to carry out his policies. On January 16, 1883, Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which mandated that some employees of the government would be hired on the basis of written tests, not political affiliation, and forbade the firing of government employees for political purposes.
Arthur demonstrated immense personal courage and honor in choosing to carry out the wishes of his slain predecessor rather than implement his own contrary agenda. His decision to do this effectively ended his political career, as he almost certainly knew it would, and yet he stood firm.
Whether his stance was entirely wise in the long run is a separate question. Historians take for granted that civil service reform was good for the country, and there has been no significant indication that it wasn’t until quite recently, when a president has been thwarted in numerous endeavors by an army of unelected bureaucrats within the various departments and agencies of the government, who are determined to impede his agenda in every way possible.
The proponents of civil service reform never envisioned a situation in which deeply entrenched opponents of a sitting president in the FBI, the Justice Department, and elsewhere would be determined to destroy the president — or at very least make it impossible for him to carry out his policies — and could not be removed from their jobs because of civil service regulations.
Would not government work more smoothly, and the executive branch be able to operate more effectively in the way the Founding Fathers envisioned it would, if the president were able to clear out the employees of these agencies who opposed him and replace them with people more in line with his vision?
Charles Guiteau’s madness helped pave the way for the deep state. The spoils system has no defenders today and has had none for over a century. It should have more.’https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/the_assassin_who_helped_create_the_deep_state.html
I send these to my Federal and state member here in Australia trusting they will read them and perhaps change their mind of these tax dollar wasting renewables. These members of Federal and state Parliament claim the title ‘conservative’ but have swallowed the Climate Scam poisonous lie along with most of their collogues. ‘In a post Covid world, anyone railing about carbon dioxide gas and not promoting nuclear power sounds positively unhinged.
If CO2 really was about to destroy the planet, Extinction Rebellion, Greta and her worshippers would be talking about switching to nuclear power like their lives depended on it.
Instead, for reasons that escape the logical and rational, we’re told that the only way forward is backwards: ie a life dependent upon the time of day and the weather.
Climate alarmists railing about carbon dioxide gas and not talking about nuclear power generation, can’t be taken seriously. Nuclear power is the only stand-alone power generation source that does not emit carbon dioxide gas during the process.
Whatever your views on climate change, the idea that trying to run modern, civil societies on sunshine and breezes might somehow prevent it is, of course, a complete nonsense.
Norman Rogers details the grotesque hypocrisy of those attempting to force us all to run on sunshine and breezes.
Nuclear to Replace Wind and Solar
American Thinker
Norman Rogers
13 August 2020
In the words of James Hansen, the scientist most responsible for promoting global warming, wind and solar are “grotesque” solutions for reducing CO2 emissions. Michael Shellenberger, a prominent activist, has the same opinion. Hansen and Shellenberger, as well as many other global warming activists, have come to the conclusion that nuclear energy is the only viable method of reducing CO2 emissions from the generation of electricity.
Nuclear reactors don’t emit CO2. Coal and natural gas do. Hydroelectric electricity does not emit CO2 either, but opportunities for expansion are limited. In the United States most of the good sites have already been developed.
Wind and solar are grotesque because there are many problems. Promoters of wind and solar simply lie about the problems. Reducing emissions of CO2 by one metric tonne, 1000 kilograms or 2204 pounds, is called a carbon offset. Carbon offsets are bought and sold, usually for less than $10 each.
If you build wind or solar plants to displace electricity from natural gas or coal plants, you will generate carbon offsets. Each carbon offset generated will cost about $60 if electricity from a coal plant is displaced. If electricity from a natural gas plant is displaced the cost per carbon offset will be about $160. Wind and solar are expensive methods of generating carbon offsets.
Wind and solar are not remotely competitive with coal or natural gas for generating electricity. The promoters of wind and solar lie about this constantly, claiming that they are close to competitive. The lies have two major components. They ignore or misrepresent the massive subsidies that wind and solar get, amounting to 75% of the cost. Then they compare the subsidized cost of wind or solar with the total cost of gas or coal. But wind or solar can’t replace existing fossil fuel infrastructure because they are erratic sources of electricity.
The existing infrastructure has to be retained when you add wind or solar, because sometimes the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. The only fair comparison to the compare to total cost of wind or solar per kilowatt hour (kWh) with the marginal cost of gas or coal electricity. That marginal cost is essentially the cost of the fuel.
The only economic benefit of wind or solar is reducing fuel consumption in existing fossil fuel plants. It is hard to build wind or solar installations that generate electricity for less than 8-cents per kWh, but the cost of the fuel, for either gas or coal, is about 2-cents per kWh. Wind and solar cost four times too much to be competitive.
Wind and solar run into difficulty if they are the source of more than about 25% of the electricity in a grid. Getting to 50% generally involves adding expensive batteries, further destroying the economics and the usefulness for CO2 reduction.
The only justification for wind and solar is the reduction of CO2 emissions, but wind and soar are limited and costly for this purpose. CO2-free nuclear energy can be both economical and practical. That, clearly is the reason why prominent global warming activists are advocating nuclear, rather than wind and solar to alleviate the supposed global warming crisis.
Neither nuclear nor coal is currently cost competitive with natural gas. It’s not that nuclear or coal are so expensive as it is that natural gas, thanks to fracking, is incredibly cheap. Gas that cost more than $10 per MMBtu (million British thermal units) a decade ago, now costs less than $2. Gas-generating plants are very cheap to build and incredibly efficient. A gas plant using a combination of a gas turbine and a steam turbine can turn 65% of the energy in the gas into electricity. By contrast a coal plant struggles to reach 40%.
Both coal and nuclear are handicapped by well-organized and unprincipled political opposition from the Sierra Club and similar organizations. The Sierra Club hates natural gas too, but most of their efforts go into scaring people with the imaginary danger of coal. The Sierra Club doesn’t need to expend much effort scaring people with nuclear because the nuclear industry has already been destroyed in the U.S. thanks to previous efforts of the environmental movement.
Coal and nuclear have one very important advantage over gas. They have fuel on site to continue operating if fuel deliveries are interrupted. For coal this is around 30 days, for nuclear more than a year. Some gas plants can temporarily use oil from local tanks, but in most cases that won’t last long. Gas deliveries can be interrupted by pipeline failure or sabotage. The pumping stations on natural gas pipelines are increasingly powered by electricity, rather than gas, creating a circular firing squad effect.
Nuclear electricity is a young industry with a big future. That future is materializing in Asia given the successful propaganda campaign to make people afraid of nuclear in the U.S. and in much of Europe. Nuclear fuel is extremely cheap, around four times cheaper than gas or coal.
Nuclear reactors don’t have smokestacks and they don’t emit CO2. New designs will dramatically lower costs, increase safety and effectively remove most of the objections to nuclear. It is an incredible contradiction that most environmental organizations advocate wind and solar and demonize nuclear. In the future nuclear may be cost competitive with natural gas.
It is an intellectual and economic failure that the 30 U.S. states with policies designed to reduce CO2 emissions, called renewable portfolio standards, mostly explicitly exclude nuclear power as part of the plan. Instead they effectively mandate wind and solar. There are signs of reform as some states have provided support to prevent nuclear power stations from being closed.
The global warming hysteria movement is surely one of the most successful junk science campaigns ever launched. Predicting a catastrophe is a great way for a science establishment to gain fame and money. The many responsible scientists that object are attacked, if not fired. Money trumps ethics every time. The environmental movement needs looming catastrophes too, so they act as PR men for the science establishment.
The tragedy is that our legislators swallow these lies and waste billions on boondoggles like wind and solar. It is ironic that increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere has a bountiful effect on plant growth, greening the Earth and increasing agricultural production. Rather than a threat, CO2 is a boon.
If you still believe in the global warming hysteria movement, you should face reality and dump wind and solar for nuclear. Wind and solar are not appropriate for the problem they are assigned to solve. Nuclear is.’https://stopthesethings.com/2020/09/07/rank-hypocrisy-climate-warriors-not-promoting-nuclear-power-simply-cant-be-serious/
Genesis 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Government is responsible for many of the problems in today’s society. Now, ‘There’s debate over which did more harm: the coronavirus or government policy responses to it. But there’s no argument that our economic recovery requires reliable and affordable electricity. Which means that the current arguments about recharging economies using heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar are as dangerous as they are delusional.
Ross McKitrick makes the point that, if subsidised renewables didn’t make economic sense the lockdowns were enforced, they make even less sense now.
Ditch the fashionable green recovery plans
Financial Post
Ross McKitrick
19 August 2020
Green technologies that were known money-losers before the pandemic are still money-losers today.
There’s a curious idea floating around that the COVID crisis undid the principles of economics. Nobody puts it exactly like that, but it’s implied in the various proposals for restructuring the post-pandemic economy so that it will look very different from the one we experienced up to the end of January. Amid the buzzwords about “Resilient Recovery” and “Building Back Better” are proposals for an investment push into green technologies and new environmental policies, including initiatives that failed to pass standard economic tests before the pandemic.
So how, exactly, did the pandemic change the criteria for evaluating policies, investments and major public projects?
The short answer is: it didn’t, and any claim otherwise is untrue. The recovery from the pandemic shutdown should not be seen as an “opportunity” to make bad investments and policy decisions. Bad ideas prior to the pandemic are still bad ideas today. Policies that failed cost-benefit tests before the shutdown are even more likely to fail such tests now that unemployment has soared, public debt has exploded and business investment is faltering. Green technologies that were known money-losers before the pandemic are still money-losers today. The only thing that’s changed is that we have even less money to work with, so the need to avoid wasting it is higher than ever. It’s critical to choose investments that will lead to real growth and job creation.
When it comes to choosing good investments, the guiding principle is profit. Will the new capital generate a revenue stream greater than the cost of acquiring it? If yes, the jobs that accompany the capital investment will be sustainable, at least as far as we can reasonably surmise. If no, the project will lose money and will either end quickly or will require subsidies funded by adding costs elsewhere in the economy.
“Sustainability” does not mean using fewer resources or cutting energy consumption, though it can involve those things. It means value-creation in a competitive marketplace where the concept of value can be expanded to include (but not consist solely of) natural and environmental capital. A profitable investment is one where, after all costs are paid (including environmental costs), the outputs are worth more to society than the inputs, including the labour costs. Profitable investments are sustainable. Unprofitable investments are not.
This principle has long been the foundation of economic analysis for both policies and projects. The pandemic did not change it. The only thing COVID-19 might have done is make it even more valuable for society to increase employment and decrease non-essential demands on the public purse. Which means that the idea of coupling a post-pandemic recovery plan with any kind of Canadian Green New Deal is bound to be harmful.
There are rumours that Bill Morneau resigned as finance minister because he didn’t agree with the prime minister’s green recovery agenda. If so it is too bad he didn’t stay on and fight. And it is imperative that his successor, Chrystia Freeland, not give in to the Trudeau team’s dubious inclinations on this file.
We have enough experience with green technologies to know they don’t run on solar and wind, they run on subsidies. Ontario ruined its electricity cost advantage by hitching its grid to long-term renewable energy developments that were only viable on the basis of above-market payments financed by surcharges that have imposed a heavy cost across the economy. Empty promises of green jobs ran up against the reality that money-losing projects destroy more jobs than they create.
We are entering a phase of the COVID recession when many of the main benefit programs will start winding down. Even if there’s still a need for them, we can’t simply keep borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to keep everyone locked down at home. We must begin reopening businesses and re-employing laid-off workers as much as is safely possible. And we must begin aggressively generating wealth to pay back the staggering costs of the COVID response.
The idea of adopting an even more aggressively “green” approach to the economy is diametrically opposed to these things. Now more than ever we need policy-makers to support profitable investment and capital formation, which often simply means not imposing unnecessary rules and regulations on entrepreneurs. We also need policy-makers to subject their fashionable green recovery plans to rigid cost-benefit analysis, rather than imposing ideologically driven economic restructuring schemes that overvalue minuscule pollution reductions and undervalue income and productivity gains.
In other words, what we need now is what we have always needed: a focus on creating an investment climate and policy framework to support profitable entrepreneurship. The pandemic didn’t change that, it only made it more imperative.’https://stopthesethings.com/2020/09/05/reality-check-green-energy-fantasies-threaten-post-covid-economic-recovery/
Politicians will have a LOT to answer for in ten years time when it comes to daily energy via the electric grid. Of course by then they will be in retirement and still living off the tax dollar. However, I digress, here in Australia the two major political parties MUST be in bed with someone who has shares in wind turbines and solar panels. The Federal and state governments are pouring billions into these holes. In Queensland there is one brave journalist who has forced the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) ‘…to face truth about curtailment capers with the grid
Catallaxy Files
Cardimona
26 August 2020
If you’re a wage slave at a left-wing newspaper (BIRM) you probably, literally, can’t afford to rock the boat, so I dips me lid to Tony Raggatt at the Townsville Bulletin. Well done, that man.
From today’s print edition…
POWER CUT SYSTEM FAULT TONY RAGGATT Ergon denies load shedding
A SYSTEM fault led to a lowcost electricity tariff supplying power throughout regional Queensland being inadvertently switched off, distributor and retailer Ergon Energy says.
Ergon was commenting after consumers raised concern about the outage, which lasted for about eight hours on Sunday.
The residential Tariff 33 is an interruptible supply used by consumers to cut the cost of their electricity bills but which is normally available for a minimum of 18 hours each day.
It is commonly used for pool pumps, hot water systems and air conditioners.
On Sunday, consumers complained in Facebook posts about not being able to use their air conditioners at a time when the air was thick with smoke from fires.
Some also questioned whether authorities were load shedding – cutting power to protect system security or mitigate damage to infrastructure.
But a spokeswoman for Ergon said the cutting of Tariff 33 was a system fault and not load shedding.
“For customers connected to Tariff 33 in regional Queensland, a system fault led to the tariff being inadvertently switched off for a number of hours,” an Ergon spokeswoman said.
“Tariff 33 channels were progressively restored throughout the day, with all channels returned to normal by 3.30pm.”
The spokeswoman said technical experts were investigating the cause of the fault, which had not occurred before.
Consumers on Facebook said the failure seemed odd at a time when demand on the system was low.
An independent candidate for the state seat of Hill, Tolga resident Peter Campion, said generation records showed the outputs of the Mount Emerald wind farm and the Sun Metals solar farm in North Queensland had been curtailed this month well below capacity.
Mr Campion said the reason for this was that one of the units of Rockhampton’s Stanwell coal-fired power station was offline and the level of intermittent power needed to be cut to maintain system stability.
A spokeswoman for regulator the Australian Energy Market Operator confirmed the reliance on coal-fired power but not Stanwell’s role.
“In order for inverter-based generation to be able to generate at full capacity in central and North Queensland – wind and solar farms including Sun Metals solar farm – a minimum amount synchronous generation – typically coal, hydro and gas power stations – must be online,” the spokeswoman said. [well that is something, they got to mention to the c word].
“The limits for inverter based generation depend on the specific combination of synchronous generators online at the time.”
In plainer language, the system is rooted if you allow access for too much unreliable energy and there is not enough coal power.’https://stopthesethings.com/2020/09/02/re-enthusiasm-curbed-grid-manager-shutting-off-wind-solar-to-prevent-mass-blackouts/
whatyareckon 