The Labor State Government of Premier Daniel Andrews is secretly consulting under confidential terms with Council Staff across the state and has proposed to:

- Significantly remove local objection rights on all large developments (not just the ministers own "captains picks")
- Establish a state planning panel that approves these decisions bypassing any local council involvement
- The planning panel will not be subject to ANY appeal process - their decisions will be final
- Effectively removing Council and resident objections to quicken development led state construction recovery

These changes are aimed at being rushed through during state of emergency powers rendering parliament and locals unable to be heard.

Ratepayers Victoria are holding 3 FREE seminars for online attendance to hear more, hear from Councillors and know how to object to the proposed changes.

If we don't fight for our suburbs now, when?

To register please visit: https://www.ratepayersvictoria.com.au/

Thanks

Dean Hurlston, President

Lynnette Saloumi, Secretary

Ratepayers Victoria Inc.

I was talking to someone on the phone about something I had to do. She suggested that I go up and stay in The Lodge with Scott Morrison and work on it with him. She checked with "Scott" and got back to me immediately, that it was OK.

So I drove up to Canberra and pretty soon arrived at the front door of The Lodge. "Scott", who was expecting me answered the door and genially admitted me to a sort of foyer with seating and potted palms whose fronds floated overhead.

We immediately started talking about what we were doing together, which could have been running the country or making a submission about protecting the environment.

Pretty soon though, Treasurer Josh Freidenberg also arrived at the door, happily greeting both of us, seeming not to think anything was wrong.

I said to them "Look, I can't stay if both of you are going to be here."

They hesitated and made some smoothing noises about trying to work it out.

"Josh" said, "You've been vaccinated haven't you?" to which I answered, "Yes," but I said, "That doesn't really help in the situation."

I then left by the front door and made my way out to the road. Almost immediately, I realised that I wasn't sure how to get onto the road out of Canberra towards Melbourne. I seemed to have forgotten about my car and, instead, found a bus shelter with a map. I picked out a straight road right through the middle of the maze of circular roads, which I deduced was Northbourne Avenue. I was quite anxious at this stage and climbed on a bus.

In the bus I was siting next to a young woman and asked her - just as I had ascertained from the position of the sun overhead that I was travelling in the wrong direction - the way out of Canberra. She confirmed that I was in fact travelling in the wrong direction.

I got out at the next stop and tried to walk back the way we had come in search of another bus stop, but I was still on the same side of the road .

I then met a young man, who I asked for help. Meantime, I had realised that I wasn't wearing a mask. I could feel the police nearby and I was desperately trying to hide my face.

The two of us ended up in an outdoor food place which served all sorts of pre-prepared pizza and pie-like stuff. I wasn't at all interested in this fare, but felt obliged to get something, which I brought back to an outdoor table, and sat with this young man, eating.

When we had finished, I frantically gathered up the paper in which the food had been wrapped, fashioning it into a mask, and placed it over my face. We then took off on foot ….

I woke up at this point.

"Today, with little warning and a lot of malice, the Liberal and Labor parties teamed up to pass legislation requiring minor parties to prove they have over 1500 members within the next three months - up from 500 - before the 2022 federal election." (William Bourke, President Sustainable Australia Party, 27 August 2021)

See the article in the Canberra Times. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7403602/electoral-laws-pass-federal-parliament/Make no mistake, this is an attack on democracy, to destroy competition.

The Sustainable Australia Party (SAP) began as the Stable Population Party of Australia some time ago, but gradually, without losing this orientation, it has developed a more complex democratic and economic platform around this, and a new name.

William Bourke writes:

"SAP had already passed the Australian Electoral Commission's test of 500 members last year and therefore (seemingly) had clearance to contest the upcoming federal election.

Now, we have a massive administrative project dumped on us just when we were selecting candidates and getting on with campaigning.

This is how the major parties make it very difficult for minor parties - through endless compliance and administration requirements.

Join today for $22/$11
While we technically have over 1500 members, it will be a big challenge to get everyone to respond to an upcoming audit.

Put simply, we need more members.

Sustainable Australia Party is an independent community movement with a positive plan for an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable Australia. We support a science and evidence-based approach to policy.

We campaign to protect our environment, stop overdevelopment and stop corruption.

We increasingly understand that systemic political corruption is at the heart of our growing problems including environmental crises, overdevelopment, rapid population growth, the privatisation of our publicly-owned natural monopolies and the de-industrialisation of our previously robust and self-sufficient economy.

Now they are coming for minor parties.

We are Australia's only true sustainability-first political party and we originally formed because no other party included a sensible plan to stabilise Australia's population within an environmental platform.

You may have considered joining us in the past.

Now is the time. It's only $22/$11.

We welcome both active and passive members. You will be under no pressure to do anything other than pay a small joining fee."

What sort of parliament prevents such a large group of supporters of the most famous Australian in the world from putting its case? It is time that ordinary Australians told their local members that this is just not good enough. As I have done below, they must put to Prime Minister Scott Morrison as well as each of their local members: If they are not prepared to raise their voices within Parliament for Julian Assange, then at least allow those who do want to raise their voices to do so. At least allow Julian Hill to put his motion to the floor of Parliament for a proper debate (and not just the 10-30 minutes allowed for each Private Members Motion (PMM) only on Monday mornings - and even that inadequate amount of time has been denied to Julian Hill!).

 

What have you to fear from a debate on Julian Assange? - Open Letter to Scott Morrison

Dear Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese,

(I have previously, on 11 March, written another Open Letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison concerning Julian Assange and have yet to receive a reply. The earlier Open Letter is here.)

I am writing to request that, as a matter of urgency, you allow a motion concerning Australia's award-winning journalist Julian Assange, which was first foreshadowed almost 8 weeks ago by Julian Hill MP, to be put to the House of Representatives, debated and voted upon.

This motion, which is included below as an appendix, was first foreshadowed by Julian Hill on Wednesday 16 June. Last year Andrew Wilkie had also tried to have a motion concerning Julian Assange debated on the floor of Parliament, but was unsuccessful.

So, after all this time, after more than nine years of the illegal detention and psychological torture of Julian Assange, including more than two years of solitary confinement for 23 hours per day at Belmarsh Prison, and as he faces the threat of extradition to face even worse conditions of imprisonment in the United States for the rest of his life, the Australian Parliament has yet to have any discussion longer than the two minutes duration allowed in Question Time about this Australian citizen!

How can this be? With millions of people around the world crying out for the release of Julian Assange, surely our Parliament should be able to find the time to discuss the treatment, by Britain and the United States, of Australia's most famous citizen?

I had naively thought that that a Parliamentary motion only needed a mover and a seconder for it to be put, but this is not the case with Julian Hill's foreshadowed motion.

Apparently, because, even with the "Bring Julian Assange Home" Parliamentary Group having 26 members, Julian Hill's motion has still been designated a Private Member's Motion (PMM). As a PMM it can only be debated on a Monday, that is, if that Monday is not a public holiday and it can only be debated if the Parliamentary Selection Committee, which is comprised of members of the Government and the Opposition, first agrees on the previous Wednesday to let that motion be put!

And even were Julian Hill's PMM to be approved, a total of only one hour and fifty minutes is allowed to debate whatever seven PMMs are approved of by the Selection Committee - an average of less than 16 minutes, and as little as 10 minutes, per PMM.

So far, even this miniscule period of time has not been allowed by the Selection Committee to supporters of Julian Assange to put their case to Parliament . Twice so far, on Wednesday 17 June and, again, on Wednesday 4 August, the Selection Committee has rejected Julian Hill's foreshadowed motion.

Am I to conclude from this that both the Government and the Opposition fear any debate about Julian Assange on the floor of Parliament, let alone a proper debate in which everyone with a view on Julian is allowed to speak?

On the other hand, if you truly believe that you have fully discharged all of your responsibilities towards Julian Assange, then what have you to fear from such a debate? Why not move a procedural motion to allow Julian Hill's motion to be fully debated on the floor of Parliament?

Surely, then, in the course of the ensuing debate, you can show Parliament, Australia and the rest of the world how both Julian Hill and I are wrong.

Yours faithfully,

James Sinnamon

Frankston, Victoria

 

Appendix: Notice of Motion by Julian Hill MP (first posted here)

MEMBER FOR CLARKE: I give notice that on the next day of sitting (Monday 21/6/21 - JS) I shall move that this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the trial and extradition of Mr Julian Assange are inconsistent with international law, and Australian legal standards, and contravene the legal rights and protections for which those laws and standards provide;

(b) the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has found that Mr Assange 'showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma';

(c) several medical reports find that Mr Assange is in ill-health due to prolonged arbitrary confinement, and indeed the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that the 50-week sentence of Mr Assange for bail violation, which formally ended on 21 September 2019, was punitive and disproportionate given the nature of the offence and the usual sentence;

(d) Mr Assange is facing extradition for an alleged political offence, which is expressly prohibited by Article 4(1) of the Anglo-US Extradition Treaty and an abuse of power; and

(e) Mr Assange is an Australian citizen and, if convicted in the US, faces 175 years in prison, which would be in effect a death sentence;

(2) acknowledges that Mr Assange is a publisher and journalist, as recognised by his 2011 Walkley award and 17 other awards for excellence in journalism and promoting human rights, and that his charges:

(a) are a direct assault on press freedom; and

(b) threaten the protection of others who publish classified information in the public interest; and

(3) calls for Mr Assange to be allowed to return to Australia.

In this extraordinary interview, revealing more political abuse of the British legal system, Chris Hedges talks to Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was removed from his post after he made public the widespread use of torture by the Uzbek government and the CIA.

Murray has since become one of Britain’s most important human rights campaigners, a fierce advocate for Julian Assange and a supporter of Scottish independence. His coverage of the trial of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who was acquitted of sexual assault charges, saw him charged with contempt of court and sentenced to eight months in prison. The very dubious sentence, which upends most legal norms, was delivered, his supporters argue, to prevent him from testifying as a witness in the Spanish criminal case against UC Global Director David Morales. The company founder is being prosecuted for allegedly installing a surveillance system in the Ecuadorean Embassy when Julian Assange found refuge, that was used to record the privileged communications between Assange and his lawyers. Morales is alleged to have carried out this surveillance for the CIA.

The original title of this interview of Craig Murray by Chris Hedges on 27 June 2021 was, "On Contact: Judicial lynching." The original URL is https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/527602-craig-murray-judicial-lynching/ Below we have reproduced the videoed interview and the transcript.

YouTube channel: On Contact

Follow us on Facebook: Facebook.com/OnContactRT

Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/rttv/sets/on-contact-1

Chris Hedges: Welcome to On Contact.  Today, we discuss the judicial lynching of the human rights, activist Craig Murray.

Craig Murray: When I became a whistleblower, they were very keen to put me in prison but that--they couldn’t find a way of doing it without the obstacle of a jury.  I think they finally--the state--the establishment has finally found a way to imprison me without a jury.  There’s also the fact that what this is about is that there’s a split in the independence group.  And the reason, they were trying to frame Alex Salmond and I should be totally blamed.  I have no doubt whatsoever that this was an attempt to fit up Alex Salmond on false charges orchestrated by those currently in charge of his own party, particularly orchestrated by the current First Minister of Scotland.  And that this attempt to frame him was foiled by the jury.  The jury saw through it.  And the reason for this, the split in the Scottish National Movement was behind this is that Alex Salmond and I and others believe that the movement has been hijacked by people who have no intention of actually obtaining Scottish independence.

It's been a long time since I have seen my friends and family, who live interstate in Australia. There have been unprecedented border closures and, even when we could travel, it's been too risky, because we could pay dearly for our trip with two weeks isolation on our return. No doubt, due to the current COVID-19 situation, there will be those we will not see again. Some grandparents may never see their interstate grandchildren. Many special occasions will be missed.

This is pretty serious stuff. In fact, it is next in seriousness to the possibility of becoming very ill or dying from COVID-19.

Most of the Australian population has been very cooperative in trying to contain the virus, through self discipline and adaptability, and this has worked. Victoria brought a fairly torrid situation under control in 2020 through a severe lockdown, over many weeks. They are now, perhaps rather belatedly, trying to do this in NSW. These lockdowns cost us dearly in terms of people's incomes, loss of social outlets, loss of classroom education for schoolchildren, increased workload for teachers and parents. The arts have had to mark time for about eighteen months. There are delayed medical and surgical appointments, and then there are the mental health costs.

The financial costs will have been partially covered with "job keeper" and similar payments but the emphasis is on "partially." Rentals and mortgages have actually climbed during the pandemic, due to the protected status of the property development industry. The unreasonable price of keeping a roof over one's head means that no government payment can match the real cost of living in Australia. And, ultimately, who pays for this government protection of the incomes the industry deems its due, whilst renters and home-buyers cannot even go to work?

We hear much anxious talk about the future cost of COVID-19 tailored welfare payments, but will maintaining the property development industry, in the style it is accustomed to, mean reduced spending on other official hardship programs, like unemployment benefits and pensions?

One way or another, we are in a precarious situation.

Yet our Federal Government seems willing to increase the risks still more for all of us, by repatriating people currently overseas, in countries where new variants of COVID-19 are literally running rampant. Inevitably, many of those we repatriate now, will bring these infections with them. Inevitably, the virus leaks out of our makeshift quarantine arrangements and half a million Australian children suddenly cannot go to school again! Is this reasonable?

Much public sympathy is canvassed on the corporate and public media for these returning Australians, who went to see their relatives in another country, yet the same media never seem to express comparable sympathy for Australians who would like to see their relatives in another state again one day!

It is incomprehensible to me that the Federal Government apparently holds the Australian population in such low regard. Many of our woes were entirely avoidable. We knew the behaviour of the virus early last year, eighteen months ago. We knew it could be transmitted for up to fourteen days in asymptomatic people. That's a fundamental problem and requires either closed borders or purpose-built quarantine, not a stack of excuses. Our governments have failed to protect us and, in addition to treating our health and welfare in cavalier fashion, they have trashed our local economy and cost individuals and taxpayers $multi-billions.

I remain aghast at our political elite's repeated wilful reinfection of Australia's population, because they are also risking their own lives, and those of their wives, mistresses, friends and families. Similarly, I am completely bamboozled by the way they are also prepared apparently to trash the economy, normally their greatest priority and obsession, as it stalls with every outbreak.

The situation raises questions, which must have answers. Obviously there are benefits for some elites by letting overseas people return, even at the risk of being infected themselves. These benefits must be significant. One can only speculate as to what they actually are.

In the meantime, why have they not built proper quarantine facilities? How hard is it? True, they would need multiple well-trained personnel prepared to work in remote locations, and regularly quarantine prior to taking any leave. What would be wrong with using the army for this? It has doctors and nurses, prepared for every kind of event, and disciplined to remain on location until leave is deemed appropriate. At least, such a project would represent a planned inconvenience, rather than the series of botched quarantines by which we have been jolted.

Another possibility is that our political elites and their economic advisors operate with a kind of nincompoop optimism, and just hope that there will not be another outbreak, each time there is one. And so, they just put off organising better quarantine facilities. Along the same lines, the incomprehensible economic approach might be due to the fact that the usual economic theorists do not have a paradigm to deal with our current reality - or any reality, really. Usually they deal in trends, as if those trends were crystal balls to the future, although they are just extrapolations with a few variables. The pandemic has interfered with most trends, especially the population-growth trends beloved of corporate and government economic planners. This is like smashing the fortune-teller's crystal ball, while the wild wind of nature snatches away her tent, exposing the overdressed tart beneath.

Then again, the big boys, like the banks, the multinational internet companies, and many traditional corporations, are making billions hand over fist, and this is reflected in bloated but buoyant sharemarkets, so how could our financial and political elite really be sincerely concerned? Sure, there are going to be a lot of mortgage defaults and evictions not too far down the pandemic track, but the banks can always resell those foreclosed properties, so, why would they care about the fate of their ex-owners?

There is obviously money to be made by prolonging the pandemic.

I will leave you with that thought.

"In Victoria, this practice has started with Banyule Council's deal with Woolworths, who approached council to purchase an additional 828sqm of public land that wasn't on the market.
It introduced the influence of private developers over and above transparency to the public, and puts every piece of public land at risk. The Woolworths deal was well over 2 years in the making before it came to light. Imagine if you discovered that our parklands or even a local park was negotiated for sale 2 years ago - now is the time to act before the precedent is set. Public land should stay in public hands." (Excerpt from petition).

Dear All,

Please sign this e-petition to parliament for this very important issue and forward across your networks.

Prevent local Councils accepting unsolicited land proposals.
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council/petitions/electronic-petitions/view-e-petitions/details/12/364

In Victoria, this practice has started with Banyule Council's deal with Woolworths who approached council to purchase an additional 828sqm of public land that wasn't on the market.
It introduced the influence of private developers over and above transparency to the public and puts every piece of public land at risk. The Woolworths deal was well over 2 years in the making before it came to light. Imagine if you discovered that our parklands or even a local park was negotiated for sale 2 years ago - now is the time to act before the precedent is set. Public land should stay in public hands.

If you are not familiar with the term "Unsolicited Proposals" and associated risks, watch this Four Corners episode on Crown Casino, Barangaroo tower....started with an unsolicited proposal. (fascinating, a must watch!): https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/packer%E2%80%99s-crown-casino-gamble/13366976

“That building should stand there and be a warning to us all…we should look at that building and forever know that we should never let that happen again.” Architect

Council are advertising this heavily and will not identify which other councils have contacted them. One example:

https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/when-woolworths-agreed-to-build-a-community-library-in-rosanna-the-uproar-started-1051810/

"Councillor Garotti says many other councils are now contacting Banyule about how to form worthwhile partnerships. “I think we’re leading the way in this,” he said."

The action is simple, and the risk is huge. Please sign.

Kind regards,
Alicia Curry

Note that this petition is sponsored by Mr Clifford Hayes, Legislative Council, Sustainable Australia Party

The mainstream media has given a great deal of coverage to the COVID-19 pandemic - as it should - but interwoven among the stories on poor vaccination rates, conspiracy theories, and the people ignoring quarantine, there is a consistent run of horror stories on the impact of lockdowns, often with a message that we must get back to the pre pandemic "normal" life. This is understandable, businesses are going broke, unemployment is rising, domestic violence and mental illness are increasing. It is an unpleasant situation, but returning to the old norm is not a solution. This, after all, was the lifestyle that created human movement into wilderness areas, bringing us into contact with pathogens that we have little resistance to combat.

While Covid is terrible, Ebola is far worse, as was the Black Death before antibiotics, and scientists warn that there are more diseases in the pipe line, either through contact with animals, or the mutations of existing ones. We have made pandemics more likely by concentrating humans in apartment towers, prisons, aged-care centres, and supermarkets. As well, we have simplified transmission, with fast transport systems that spread the virus rapidly around the globe, while human failures - denial, human rights issues - all assist in keeping the virus in circulation.

But while we anguish over these self-induced plagues, most of us are unaware of other plagues that threaten the global food system. The world is even more susceptible to an agricultural pandemic than it was to COVID-19, and is less prepared to fight it, simply because of the enormous range of threats to live stock and plants. Food production is also highly concentrated. In the US, three states supply 75% of the vegetables, and 2 percent of feedlots supply three-quarters of the country’s beef. More alarmingly, both crops and livestock are genetically uniform. "Over the past century, crops have lost 75 per cent of their genetic diversity, making them potentially more susceptible to new pathogens or pests.". (See https://ecos.csiro.au/australian-farmers-face-increasing-threat-new-diseases-report/.)

A quarter of the genetic material in America’s entire Holstein herd comes from just five bulls. Monocultures like this are exceptionally vulnerable to disease. They are like fast-food for pests, like locusts, rats or mice, and for pathogens like stem rust, rice blast, foot-and-mouth disease, avian flu, hog cholera, all of which threaten all our major food sources.

Foot-and-mouth disease is so contagious that the discovery of one case in a herd usually triggers mass culls. In the UK, an outbreak in Northumberland in 2001, occurred when contaminated pork, that had likely been illegally imported from Asia, was fed to a herd of pigs, triggering a national epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease. Soldiers were brought in to help slaughter the affected herds. Six million sheep, pigs, and cattle, died. As film of the British countryside alight with burning animal corpses, and bulldozers shoveling rigid carcasses into huge piles for incineration, reached more people, tourism dropped 10 percent. By the time the outbreak ended, at least 60 farmers had taken their own lives.

Researchers are racing to develop a treatment or vaccine for African swine fever. This highly contagious hemorrhagic disease does not infect humans, but in the past couple of years, it has killed a quarter of the world’s pigs. African swine fever has not yet been detected in Australia but in China, the virus has claimed at least 40 percent of the country’s pig population, and the price of pork more than doubled from 2018 to 2019 — a serious problem for a commodity whose cost has a high political significance, and forcing the government to import over a million tonnes in March this year. There has also been mass cullings of poultry in Korea, India and Japan due to the H5N1 virus. The situation was even worse in China, where 100 million young chicks were slaughtered because Covid travel restrictions had blocked poultry food shipments.

Australian agriculture, plants, animals, fish, and native fauna, are highly vulnerable to imported pathogens due to free trade, people movements, and a lack of understanding of the dangers. One example is Myrtle rust, a fungus that causes diseases in the plant family Myrtaceae, which is Australia’s dominant plant family, with over 2000 varieties, right across the continent. This Myrtle rust fungus jumped from the Amazon forests to eucalyptus trees, which had been raised in large commercial plantations in Brazil. Australian scientists warned governments of the danger in 2008.

The Invasive Species Council at https://invasives.org.au/our-work/pathogens/myrtle-rust/ describes how the rust was found on a commercial property in NSW in April 2010. And that, “Inexplicably, after just one week of searching and finding the rust in only one other nearby facility and none in surrounding bushland, the national response was stood down by a federal committee.” A national response was “only reinstated in December after the disease was found in in multiple sites” … and “deemed irradicable.”

“It has now spread to far north Queensland and Victoria and there are no control options in bushland. NSW has already made a preliminary determination to list myrtle and eucalyptus rusts as key threatening processes. They note that the area of highest risk in NSW – the coastal zone from Illawarra to the Queensland border – includes a large proportion of the state’s conservation reserve system, many Myrtaceae-dominated ecological communities, and most of NSW’s World Heritage-listed rainforest.”

Our failure to prevent this disease from entering suggests that we are likely to see many more, including rabies, which, if it became established, would have a profound toll on human and animal health, with mass cullings of domestic and wild dogs necessary.

This is borne out by the discovery of a new disease – cucumber green mottle mosaic virus – which suddenly appeared in the NT - devastating crops around Katharine and seems likely to spread to other regions. See https://nt.gov.au/industry/agriculture/food-crops-plants-and-quarantine/cucumber-green-mottle-mosaic-virus. Atlantic salmon have been hit by a virus that possibly arrived with imported fish food, while the white spot disease that hit prawn farms in Queensland has now spread to wild prawns and crabs. See https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2021-01-17/prawn-white-spot-virus-killing-wild-australian-prawns-and-crabs/13060200

The fungal disease wheat rust, which can reduce harvests by up to 40%, is believed to have arrived here in 1973, on the clothes of an international traveler. This strain has now been controlled but a new and more virulent strain, Ug-99 is sweeping through the world and is expected to reach Australia. See https://www.agriculture.gov.au/pests-diseases-weeds/plant/ug99

Honeybees pollinate a third of Australia’s food crops but they are under threat from the Varroa mite, as well as our absurd reliance on pesticides that are fatal to bees. Combined with an outbreak of foot and mouth disease these three would create a disastrous scenario according to Gary Fitt in his report to the CSIRO http://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Farming-food/Innovation-and-technology-for-the-future/Biosecurity-Future-Report. Such a combination would not only cost Australia’s economy billions of dollars, but would also devastate our agricultural industries and environment and severely alter our way of life.

Gary Fitt reminds us that “Australia’s agriculture sector is already constrained by limited soil and water resources and future intensification will bring its own challenges through herbicide resistance and more intensive animal production systems. These factors could all increase the impacts of a biosecurity incident, and reduce the industry’s ability to sustainably meet demand”.

It is an alarming situation, considering that we need to increase food production in order to cater for a growing population, and the need to export food in order to balance our trade, which - through bad governance - depends heavily on imported goods.

To this we could add climate change.

It's interesting how so many sentences and ideas now trail off into the inevitable denouement "… but that didn't happen because of Covid"…"We had to change plans because of Covid." It's as though Sir Humphrey Covid is some VIP, for whom doors must be opened and the seas must part. Or, as though Covid is an unexpected first born baby to a couple in their 40s whose lives are now utterly transformed. "We couldn't celebrate Henry's birthday this year because of … Baby Covid." "Covid" could be anything or anyone terribly important - one's mother in law arriving from Europe or a visitation from a long dead relative. All must stop … for Covid!

One of my friends refuses to name this interloper, usually spoken of with such reverence. This seems an excellent way of handling the situation!

Sir Humphrey is noted more for what he prevents, rather than what he facilitates or mandates. Think of the thousands of people who have not attended football matches they otherwise would have flocked to, and further ,who have not caught planes, boarded cruise ships for exotic ports, nor played bingo in the ornate lounges of the oversized ships. Think of all the three-course breakfasts that have not been eaten in the multitudinous choice of ship and hotel dining rooms all over the world! Sir Humphrey has put a decisive stop to these hedonistic activities.

Millions of people have not attended work for months, because of one entity, already named and and derisively "knighted."

All these aforementioned effects are from the point of view of us "ordinary people." It is our friends and relatives plans that have given way to COVID-19. But what about if we look further out to decisions beyond our sphere of influence ? It seems that "Sir Humphrey" has affected activities on a much greater scale.

Even chronic wage depression, and endemic high rates of unemployment, will stop. These, associated with globalised out-sourcing, must stop for Covid. These, which blew out further after the Kennet-led destruction of state awards and John Howard’s new use of the Corporation clause in the Constitution, with a new stream of cheap immigrant labour (see above) - must stop for Covid. So we are now looking at the first increases in employment rates and wages prospects, for decades.

It has been hard, according to Australian farmers, to find fruit-pickers, since the highly exploitable backpacker stream dried up with Sir Humphrey Covid. See [Fruit Picking Jobs Australia]. However, Australians complain that they are often rejected when they apply to work. In fact a lot of Australians are working in the industry, now the farmers don’t have a choice to exploit disoriented young migrants. See, ”Thousands of unemployed Australians do go for fruit-picking”. Of course, if there are not enough Australians to pick the fruit for low wages, the fruit growers could get together and raise their prices. For this to be viable, Australia would have to stop importing fruit from countries with endemic slave labour, and Australians would have to buy fruit by the piece, rather than in large quantities that often are not eaten and go bad in the bowl. Low carb dieters and Dr Lustig (see, for instance, “Fat Chance Fructose 2.0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3WkXJokBAU), would all say that we have been encouraged to eat far too much fruit and fructose-laden processed foods, so raising the price of fruit would be all to the good.

Yes, Sir Humphrey, but ...

You would think that governments would be quaking in their boots as their personal and party investments in real-estate threatened to take a dive and the property developer-industry mafias and triads would start cruising with kalachnikovs past politicians’ private residences late at night. But this has not happened – because the governments control the remaining levers that regulate land and housing prices and they ARE the mafia. [See, for instance, Labor Inc.]

Yes, with the sudden drop in mass migration, both temporary, landed, and permanent, many expected a huge drop in land and housing prices. However, this did not happen, due to the Federal government outrageously permitting people to cash-in on their superannuation, and the Reserve bank dropping borrowing interest rates. This created even more buyers than usual. The pressure on supply led to higher prices. The pressure has extended to the regions, raising both purchase and rental prices in places where the homeless have traditionally fled in search of affordable rentals.

Instead of a famine, it’s been a feast for the land-speculators, and misery has compounded for the homeless and precarious. If Jimmy Dore is right (see also, below), this will form part of a cycle: as a proportion of people default on their mortgages, with the next financial crash or when the Reserve Bank raises interest rates again, the banks will just put them on the market again, and again, and again.

With Australia’s borders closed indefinitely, however, outsourced-state land-companies and their colleagues in private development, fear that persistent lack of mass migration will ultimately outlast the super-cash-and-low-interest-loans-bonanza-in-demand. Then, they fear, land and housing prices will finally fall to reasonable levels, far too low for the growth lobby’s addiction to the high prices.

They have a strategy though. As readers of /node/2363 know, the growth lobby in government and corporate form has been trying to liberate big houses on big lots from the tenacious claws of undeserving old ladies, who rattle about so wastefully within them, unreasonably refusing to die and make way for more deserving younger age-cohorts. For this purpose the Liberal (Turnbull) government initiated a ‘downsizing tax-break” from July 2018, whereby if you are 65 years old or older and meet the eligibility requirements, you may be able to make a downsizer contribution into your superannuation of up to $300,000 from the proceeds of selling your home. (They don’t check the size of your new home.)

And, of course, there is another string to this house-liberation strategy, involving nursing-homes, whereby you sacrifice your home towards the cost of your ‘care’ in a nursing home. Over 65s are not real welcome in ordinary hospitals these days, and tend to finish up in nursing homes when anything goes wrong, overfilling them. Thankfully, COVID-19 has helped liberate nursing homes as well as houses, but apparently this may not be enough.

Which brings us to the ultimate strategy – or should I say - ‘final solution’? The AstraZenica vaccine. Introduced with a friendly face, initially, AstraZenica has acquired a spectral character, not unlike those Grim Reapers of the 1980s AIDS safe-sex ads. It has gradually been withdrawn from use by younger cohorts, until now, only those usually considered ‘too old to work’ - the ones who are imagined to rattle alone in rambling residences in leafy suburbs – qualify for AstraZenica, and only for AstraZenica. We are told that the average odds of their dying from the ‘rare blood clotting disorder’ linked to the AstraZenica vaccine are lower than the average odds of their dying of COVID-19 – if they get it. And they are damned if they do take the vaccine and damned if they don’t, because one or the other may still get them.

Are the risks of enough elderly thus liberating large lots in leafy suburbs for subdivision statistically high enough to compensate for low migration for a few years? It is difficult to estimate exactly, but every little bit helps, Sir Humphrey.

 

In this Youtube broadcast of 23 March, Jimmy Dore gives his interpretation of how United States' Democrats planned to cause ordinary Americans to lose their houses as a consequence of the 2009 financial crisis! Incredibly, they seem to have colluded with Wall Street creditors to enable them to be able to seize mortgaged homes when mortgagees found themselves unable to make repayments.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) believes there is nothing to fear from the downward projection of population size in the Inter-Generational Report (IGR) from 40 million to 38.8 million by 2061. National President Jenny Goldie says what is to be feared are the environmental, social and economic cost of adding another 13 million people to the population.

“The IGR fails to take into account the costs of infrastructure which amounts to at least $100,000 in public money for each new person, be they immigrant or born here,” says Ms Goldie.

“The IGR fails to take into account the environmental costs of urban encroachment on natural bushland, threatening iconic species such as the koala, and adding to carbon emissions,” she says. “It fails to address the social costs of crowding, housing unaffordability and longer waiting times that generally accompany population growth.

“Having more people generally means a bigger GDP but not necessarily GDP per capita, which is a better measure of living standards. In fact, GDP is well past its use-by date and, before the end of the IGR time frame, will have ceased to be used. In looking so far into the future, we should be using a range of the newer measures of living standards and well-being.”

Ms Goldie says neither should we fear an ageing population.

“The projection that there will only be 2.7 workers per person aged over 65 in 40 years’ time will probably be wrong,” says Ms Goldie. “In fact, as the working age population shrinks and the labour market tightens, fewer people will be unemployed, and employers will improve wages and conditions to attract job-seekers.

“This will have the effect of drawing more people into the workforce who were not working, or keeping people in work who would otherwise have retired. In other words, the participation rate will improve.”

Ms Goldie says rising health expenditure, while a problem in narrow fiscal terms, is actually a good thing, by keeping people happier and healthier for longer, and by reducing human suffering.

The new Intergenerational Report (IGR) has projected Covid will make Australia’s population smaller and older than earlier predicted, but that need not be a problem if we can take real steps to end the blight of ageism, according to the EveryAGE Counts campaign. EveryAGE Counts is funded by the The Benevolent Society

In launching the IGR, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government remains committed to funding essential services while maintaining a sustainable tax burden. EveryAGE Counts Campaign Director Marlene Krasovitsky, said the key to achieving these goals is making a concerted effort to fight ageism.

"Ageism is now a huge drag on our economic growth," Ms Krasovitsky said.

"Our assumption that everyone over 65 is rushing to retirement does not stand to scrutiny. The latest data from the COTA Federation last week showed only 49 per cent of those over 65 had retired, down significantly from 2018 when 60 per cent were retired. The reality is most older Australians are living longer, healthier lives and they want, or need, to work longer. So what’s holding them back? Ageism.

"The IGR notes that the increased participation rate amongst older workers in recent years has been supported by greater life expectancy and better health, as well as greater work flexibility. But further gains are missed because of ageist recruitment processes and workplaces. Too many older workers want to work, but miss out because of negative assumptions based only on their age.

"37 per cent of Australians have experienced discrimination since turning 50, and that’s up from 23 per cent in 2018. 26 per cent have experienced employment related discrimination. If we want to maintain funding for essential services and infrastructure we need to lift the labour force participation rates of older people who want or need to work.That means we have to address ageism at its root – the stereotypes, assumptions, and discrimination that currently lock older people out of work.

“The IGR has found pretty much all participation increases over the next 40 years will come from people above the age of 40.Those projections will be hampered if we do nothing about the ageism that keeps keen older workers jobless. We simply can’t afford to continue carrying around ageist notions about older Australians. These mindsets are holding us back."

Ms Krasovitsky said the 2021 Intergenerational Report should prompt the federal government to invest in a program to start lowering the rates of ageism and age-based discrimination in Australia.

"We need a sustained public and workplace education campaign to challenge the myths and negative attitudes about older people in the workforce," Ms Krasovitsky said.

"We should be making sure people understand the channels through which they can speak up when they experience age-based discrimination. And we should encourage organisations to develop and implement age inclusive approaches. We also know that multigenerational workforces are good for business and raise productivity. There’s no silver bullet for ending ageism, but we need to start tackling this problem systemically now. It’s a vital means of boosting economic growth in the years ahead, given the IGR’s projections."

Candobetter dot net Editors would like to point out some other fallacies in Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's assumptions. One is that migrants make the population younger. This is usually based on the idea that migrants are of a lower average age than the average age of the Australian population. What this assumption overlooks, however, is that all migrants enter this country at an older age - usually a much older age - than babies born here. See /taxonomy/term/2837. See some of our other articles on ageism and immigrationism here: /taxonomy/term/451.

Walk in St Kilda Rd & Environs presents Planet Ark National Tree Day Nature Care Event 2021: "Lighting and Green Spaces - an Expert Panel Presentation on new research and challenges," Sunday 27 June 2021, 2.30pm – 4.30pm, Prahran Mechanics Institute, 39 St Edmonds Rd, Prahran VIC 3181

Planet Ark NTD nature care event: https://treeday.planetark.org/site/10025141
See video and information: https://treeday.planetark.org/research/ and https://treeday.planetark.org/newsroom/audio-video.

The event is free of charge. Note, however, that it is sponsored by Toyota, which, like most corporations, has a history of marketing itself as environmentally friendly, but which actually has a record for environmental damage and fudging reports. See, for instance, Hiroko Tabuchi, "Toyota to Pay a Record Fine for a Decade of Clean Air Act Violations," New York Times, Jan. 14, 2021. Since the mid 1970s, it has become the practice of corporations to link themselves to 'green' organisations and 'green' events, like this one. Sharon Beder has written informatively on this phenomenon, into which climate-change action has breathed new life, in Sharon Beder, Global Spin, Chelsea Green Publishing, 1998. See Sharon Beder

Bookings: https://www.trybooking.com/BSJDO

Learn how you can help protect our health & environment for the future

Never before has it been more important to look after our health and well-being and our physical environments.

Our parklands are more valued, more used for their green spaces and treed landscapes and more precious for our health and well-being in the post-March 2020 Covid-world.
Rolling restrictions and lockdowns continue ….

Come and learn from presentations and discussions with:

Sean W Cain, Associate Professor of Psychology, Monash University, who is an internationally recognised expert in circadian rhythms and effects of artificial lighting.

Dr Greg Moore, Director of the National Trust of Australia (Vic.) Significant Tree Committee, formerly Director of Burnley College, who will consider the damaging impact on trees of paving and built environments in parklands and the effects of artificial lighting on tree health: ‘Public Green Spaces, Surfaces and Lighting’.

Dr Barry Clark, whose background is in engineering, physics, applied optics and vision research and who is a member of the Astronomical Society of Victoria Inc. (ASV) and the Victorian Chapter of the International Dark-Sky Association: ‘Outdoor lighting strategy needs to be based on facts, not myths’.

Learn how you can get involved in nature care, healthy practices and greening in your home and environs and make a difference to your health and well-being, to the local environment and to heritage places & parks.

See You There!

Bea McNicholas, Director, Walk in St Kilda Rd & Environs

Walk in St Kilda Rd & Environs works to increase awareness of nature care and healthy environments; the importance of trees and green spaces and its positive impact on climate change and health; and advocates for these reasons for changes in policy and practice of artificial lighting.

Tomorrow (Friday 18 June) from 7:30AM until 9:00 AM outside the Melbourne British Consulate, Supporters of Julian Assange will be protesting against his illegal continued imprisonment by the British government. Apparently, Julian Assange, who has not been found guilty of any crime after more than two years imprisonment in solitary confinement 23 hours per day in Belmarsh Prison, is being kept there awaiting the lodgement of the United States' appeal against Judge Vanessa Baraitser's ruling of 6 January 2021 to disallow the extradition of Julian Assange - an outrageous abuse of procedure. Then from 6:30pm outside Flinders Street Station, other Melbourne supporters of Julian Assange will be holding their weekly vigil.

The inordinate length of time that the US prosecution is taking to lodge its appeal seems to be an indication that they are struggling to come up with any arguments that would hold any weight in the British Appeals court. That the British Judicial system has apparently not set a deadline for the US prosecutors can only be wilful negligence on its part. It is long past time that the Australian Government should have acted to bring this outrage to an end.

Please find the time to come to one or both protests which are being held in Melbourne tomorrow.

First event: Protest outdside the British Consulate - 90 Collins Street, 7:30AM-9:00AM

The details, from Facebook, for the first protest are:

Event by Melbourne 4 WikiLeaks

British Consulate Melbourne

Price: Free · Duration: 1 hr 30 min

Public · Anyone on or off Facebook

Father and half brother of Julian Assange, John and Gabriel Shipton, are currently touring the USA fighting to save Julian's life on the #HomeRun4Julian tour.

Right now, Chicago is feeling privileged to be hosting John and Gabriel as part of the national tour. Pressure is on the Biden administration to drop its drive to extradite and persecute Assange (www.AssangeDefense.org/tour).

Please join us in solidarity early Friday morning outside the British Consulate at 90 Collins St Melbourne.

John and Gabriel will be at the British Consulate in Chicago at the exact same time. For them it will be Thursday afternoon, for us, Friday morning.

If there is a live stream we will somehow screen it outside the British Consulate.

The movement to free Julian is growing. Freedom fighters of the world unite!

Love Is Our Resistance!

+++++++++++++++++

 

Second event: Weekly Friday evening Vigil for Julian Assange at Flinders Street Station

 

Melbourne supporters of Julian Assange will again be holding our weekly Friday evening vigil for Julian Assange in front of Flinders Street Station as we have been each Friday for well over a year.

Please come along, help us hold up our banners, hand out leaflets, listen to speeches and say a few words yourself, for Julian Assange, through the megaphone.

The Northern Australia Committee will hear from a range of "stakeholders" to listen to their perspectives on finding the right balance between protecting cultural heritage and allowing industry to operate in Northern Australia. Representatives of the North Queensland Land Council, Queensland Resources Council, Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation, Jack Green, Nurrdalinji Native Title Aboriginal Corporation, Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining and Queensland University will be appearing. The public hearing is part of the inquiry into the destruction of Indigenous heritage sites at Juukan Gorge and will be held by video/teleconference to continue the committee’s investigation of cultural heritage issues in Queensland and in the Northern Territory. A key issue for Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation is the interaction between the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 (Qld) and the Native Title Act 1993, particularly the rights that should be granted once a Native Title claim is determined. The Queensland Resources Council is determined to strike the right balance between protecting cultural heritage and providing "certainty" to industry. Committee Chair Warren Entsch is eager to engage with a broad range of stakeholders in order to ascertain how to protect cultural heritage while also giving certainty to industry. ‘Bringing different stakeholders together to understand their perspectives is the only way to prevent the destruction of heritage’, Mr Entsch said. A program for the public hearing is available on the Committee’s website. Public hearing details Date: Friday, 18 June 2021 Time: 9:00 am to 4:00 pm AEST Location: by video/teleconference The hearings will be broadcast live at aph.gov.au/live. Further details of the inquiry, including terms of reference, can be found on the Committee’s website.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will appear at the opening public hearing today for an Australian parliamentary inquiry looking at the merits of expanding the membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The CPTPP agreement signed in 2018 is a trade bloc of 11 countries that includes Australia and is an export market of 500 million consumers worth nearly $14 trillion. The parliamentary inquiry will examine the scope for expanding the TPP beyond the existing membership of Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia and Peru to include new members. Find out how to view the inquiry by video at http://www.aph.gov.au/jfadt

Chair of the Trade Sub-Committee of the Joint Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, Ted O’Brien, welcomed the opportunity to investigate the process of how the current members of the CPTPP can agree on expanding the trade pact to include other economies, and understanding what the benefits of new members joining will be.

‘On the back of this week’s historical agreement to progress a FTA with the United Kingdom, between Prime Ministers Morrison and Johnson, it is timely to consider expanding the most comprehensive plurilateral trade agreement in existence, the CPTPP,’ Mr O’Brien said.

‘Before we can assess the merits of aspiring economies that could accede to the CPTPP, it is important to baseline everyone’s understanding of the agreement, and that starts today when hearing from DFAT.’

Representatives of DFAT will appear at the public hearing at 9:50 am, Thursday 17 June 2021 in Committee Room 1R4, Parliament House.

Further details about the about the inquiry, including terms of reference, details on how to contribute a submission and, when available, details of public hearings and roundtable discussions, can be obtained from the http://www.aph.gov.au/jfadt, the Committee’s website.

Update, 16 June: (see comment) The House of Representatives Selection Committee has ruled that Julian Hill's motion cannot be put this coming Monday 21 June. That motion will now have to wait almost 7 weeks, until 9 August, in the next (joint - both Senate and House of Representatives) sitting of Parliament, before it can be put and debated!

"On the 1st of July, just a few weeks' time, we're going to see the biggest changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule that we're aware of in the history of Medicare. Over 900 items are changing and this has a significant potential impact on patients. The problem that we're seeing, and the problem that we're calling out today is that Government have only just released these new changes to the schedule in the last week or so, leaving only a few weeks for doctors, health funds and others to determine what their fees are and what the arrangements will be for the future.

Now, the changes to the schedule are quite significant, including very significant cuts to some rebates that patients may expect for their surgery as a result of rule changes within the MBS. But the bigger problem is the chaos that's going to ensue because doctors can't tell patients how much they can expect to receive back from their health fund because they simply don't know. It's not the fund's fault. They haven't had a chance yet to develop their own fee schedules. It's not the doctors' fault because they've just got no information around which to have a conversation with their patients for surgeries that have already been booked post first of July. So our message to patients having orthopaedic surgery, also cardiac and general surgery, is that if you do receive a bill that is not what you're expecting, if your doctor is unable to tell you what your fees are, it's not the doctor's fault. It's not the health funds fault on this occasion, it's the Government's fault." (Omar Khorshid, President Australian Medical Association.) Read more on the AMA's site at "Dr Omar Khorshid - MBS changes and comments on quarantine," 6 Jun 2021.

According to the recently publicly released summary of offending, it is still unknown what offences Mr Johns pleaded guilty to, why he was given a term of imprisonment, exactly why the proceedings were conducted entirely in camera, and why even the ACT Attorney-General was never made aware that he was imprisoned in a correctional facility which the Attorney ultimately oversees,” Dr Brasch QC said.

At today’s hearing before the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM), the Law Council of Australia emphasised that trials involving national security need to strike a balance between secrecy and open justice.

The hearing forms part of review into the operation of section 22 of the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 (Cth) (NSI Act), as it applies in the ‘Alan Johns’ matter (a pseudonym).

“The Law Council recognises that there may be cases where suppression of information about criminal offending and closure of courts to the public are necessary to protect national security information,” Law Council President, Dr Jacoba Brasch QC, said.

“However, open justice is one of the primary attributes of a fair trial. It is a fundamental rule of the common law that the administration of justice take place in an open court, except in the most exceptional of circumstances.”

“In the example of ‘Alan Johns’, it is hard to see that the extent of the secrecy surrounding the ‘Alan Johns’ case was a proportionate response to the requirements to protect national security.”

“According to the recently publicly released summary of offending, it is still unknown what offences Mr Johns pleaded guilty to, why he was given a term of imprisonment, exactly why the proceedings were conducted entirely in camera, and why even the ACT Attorney-General was never made aware that he was imprisoned in a correctional facility which the Attorney ultimately oversees,” Dr Brasch QC said.

Currently the NSI Act offers accused persons the option of consenting to arrangements and orders under section 22 or enduring a lengthy contested hearing with the aim of securing more appropriate orders under section 31 of the Act.

The difficulty and uneven outcome of this process inherently encourages accused persons to take the option of agreeing to section 22 orders – with likely disproportionate outcomes.

“It appears that the NSI Act requires some reform to recalibrate the balance between the requirements of open justice and protecting the community against the disclosure of information that may genuinely prejudice national security,” Dr Brasch QC said.

“It is concerning that without a change in the law, there is no guarantee that we will not see another secret trial or secret prisoner in Australia.”

For some background on secret trials in Australia see also this article, Kieran Pender,
https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-takes-china-to-task-for-secret-trials-but-one-could-be-happening-here-right-now-20210605-p57yeh.html, Sydney Morning Herald, June 8, 2021.

On 3 June, Peter Khalil, Labor member for the Melbourne metropoliton seat of Wills, presented to Federal Parliament a petition from one of his constituents on behalf of Australian journalist Julian Assange. The video of Peter Khalil's speech is embedded below.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate will be sitting this coming fortnight, firstly, on Tuesday 15 June and then the following two days and, secondly, on Monday 21 June and the following three days. Members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" Parliamentary Group could use these sittings to properly hold to account the Government of Scott Morrison over Julian Assange through a proper debate. They could consider putting to both houses a motion which calls on the Government to act to end the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange. A motion I have already suggested to members of the group is included below.

Once such a motion is put, then each and every member of the both houses will face the choice: Vote to instruct Scott Morrison to use his authority as Prime Minister of Australia to act to free Julian Assange from Belmarsh Prison or be shown up before the voting public as being in support of the illegal imprisonment and torture of Julian Assange.

 

 

Whilst this and previous instances in which Julian Assange's plight has been raised on the floors of Australia's Parliament are to be welcomed, they have not, as far as I can tell, significantly improved the prospect of ending the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange. From my own perusal of Hansard, neither Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, nor any of the other responsible government ministers have ever taken the trouble to respond to such speeches.

Where, instead, questions are put to the relevant ministers, government ministers are at least forced to attempt to explain away their unconscionable conduct, but given that only about 2 minutes seems to be allowed for the whole exchange, what can be achieved in Question Time usually falls far short of what is needed. An example is Greens Senator Janet Rice questioning Foreign Minister Senator Marise Payne on 25 March, about her government's failure to support Julian Assange.

Experience so far has shown that the presentation of petitions to parliament, short speeches are not sufficient to hold all members of the government to account.

However, if, instead, members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" Parliamentary Group were to put to Parliament a motion which calls upon the government to act, such as one which I suggested to them on 25 May:

This Parliament finds it unacceptable that Australian journalist Julian Assange, who is not guilty of any crime, continues to be held in London's Belmarsh prison in solitary confinement for 23 hours every day, whilst those who started the 2003 Iraq war have yet to be held to account for this crime against humanity.

Accordingly this Parliament calls upon the British government to immediately expedite, and in a more transparent fashion than previously, all outstanding legal matters concerning Julian Assange including his own appeal against his continued imprisonment.

Should the British government fail to do so, this Parliament instructs Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, as a matter of urgency, to raise this at the United Nations and at the International Criminal Court.

… then they would have sufficient time show to the House and the broader publice how the treatment of Julian Assange by Britain violates International law, British law, and all human decency.

Whilst the Government may still have the numbers to defeat such a motion, they are unlikely to have been seen to have won such an argument. The names of those who were to vote against such a motion or abstain would be on the public record and they would most likely suffer electorally for having done so.

An earlier suggested motion is included below as Appendix 2.

Appendix 1: Speech by Nils Melzer in support of Julian Assange

Appendix 2: My earlier suggested Parliamentary motion of 29 March

Noting that multiple award-winning Australian journalist, Julian Assange, who has committed no crime against British or Australian law, has been illegally detained and psychologically and physically tortured by the British government since 19 June 2012, firstly until 11 April 2019 inside the London Ecuadorian Embassy, and, after that, in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day in Belmarsh Prison, this House/Senate requires Scott Morrison to use all his authority as Prime Minister to demand of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that he immediately release Julian Assange and facilitate his return to Australia or to any other country of his choosing with his wife Stella Moris and his two children.

Should the British Government refuse to release Julian Assange, this Parliament instructs the Prime Minister to ask the United Nations to act for Julian Assange's release and, should it be necessary, to put the case to the International Criminal Court.

15 June: Parliamentary discussion limited by collusion between Liberal/National Government & Labor Opposition?

For the past 12 months at least, there has been little effective scrutiny of the abandonment of Julian Assange, and worse, by the Australian government in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. This is because, by the seeming choice of both the Government and the Labor Opposition, those who want to raise the issue of Julian Assange, who are members of the Cross-bench and even those who are members of the governing Liberal and National Parties or the Opposition Labor Party, have only been able to raise this issue through a Private Members Motion (PMM - see below for explanation) which requires a lot of effort on the part of that member and which can still be refused by the Selection Committee. Consequently those who want to speak for Julian Assange on the floor of Parliament can do it in two other ways:

1. Putting a question to a government minister. As is shown in Greens' Senator Janet Rice's questioning of Foreign Minister Marise Payne on 25 March, the amount of time allowed for the question, the Minister's obfuscation response and discussion about that response, seems to be only two minutes - usually only a fraction of the time necessary to properly discuss most aspects of this issue.
2. Tabling a petition as shown in Australia's Parliament must act to end the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange (8/6/21). On this occasion, after Labor member Peter Khalil presented a petition for Julian Assange and spoke for 1 minute and 19 seconds, no member of the Government took the trouble to respond.

Clearly, discussion of such a crucial issue as Julian Assange warrants much more time than the Australian parliamentary duopoly has , so far allowed to occur.

Not realising these complexities, I previously sent to members of the Group two proposals for motions to be put to Parliament. They can be found in my article Australia's "Bring Julian Assange Home" group must act now on the floor of our national Parliament (31/5/2021). Had either of those motions ever been put, that would have, firstly, given any of the members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" support group much more time to put his/her case than he/she has been able to so far. Secondly, those hostile to Julian Assange would have been left with no choice but to put to Parliament whatever 'case' they had against Julian Assange. Simply ignoring the issue, as they usually had previously, would have only made them look worse. However, whatever case they would have put would have been quickly torn to shreds in the course the debate. Whilst it is unlikely that this motion would have been carried, every member of whatever House in which that motion was put would be left with no choice but to take a stand one way or the other or to abstain. In these circumstances abstention would not have reflected much more favourably on that Parliamentarian than voting against Julian Assange.

Such a comprehensive debate on the floor of the Australian Parliament would be a massive addition to the arsenal of those fighting for Julian Assange's freedom across the globe.

A search (with the search terms "Julian Assange" - quote marks omitted) through the Hansard of Australia's 46th Parliament, elected on 18 May 2019, reveals a number of powerful speeches in support of Julian Assange by members and supporters of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" group from the floors of both the the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some of these are included below in the Appendix. However, that search also showed that there was surprising little response from members of the Government of Scott Morrison of whom these speeches are so critical. Most of the speeches were not responded to at all whilst, on the few occasions that they did respond, such as in Question Time, neither Prime Minister Scott Morrison nor Foreign Minister Marise Payne bothered to make more than a token pretence at rebutting the substance of these speeches.

15 June: How parliamentary rules allow the major parties to suppress discussion they don't want

The reason is that the rules of Parliament only allow members, acting for either the governing Coalition or the Opposition Labor Party, to easily put motions to be properly debated in either of the two houses. Cross-benchers, of which Andrew Wilkie and most other members of the Group are, are required to go through a complicated process to have a Private Members' Motion (PMM) approved by the Selection Committee before that PMM can even be put to either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Then a PMM can only be put on Mondays, so presumably, in the current sitting week consisting of only Tuesday 15 June, Wednesday and Wednesday a PMM cannot be put. Once a PMM is put, only three speakers are allowed to speak for the motion and three are allowed to speak against speakers and each is only allowed to speak for 5 minutes. The total time allowed for discussion is 30 minutes. As I have written in one of the above update above, Labor MP Julian Hill has submitted a motion to be put this coming Monday 21 June. It still remains to be seen if this motion is put.

Why have so few in Parliament had anything to say about Julian Assange, so far?

So why why have they shown so so little concern for "Bring Julian Assange Home" Parliamentary group? The fact that that group has not yet even put one motion to Parliament in support of Julian Assange seems, to me, to be a likely reason. (Update, 15 June 2021: The reason why there has been so little discussion is because, as shown above, the rules make it very hard for those, mostly Cross-bench members, who are not acting on behalf of either the Government or the Opposition to put any motion not approved of by the major parties to the floor of Parliament. The reason is not, as I had previously wrongly assumed and implied, that members of that members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" Parliamentary Support Group were willfully failing to put any motion in support of Julian Assange to Parliament.)

The overwhelming majority of Parliamentarians, so far, have said nothing one way or the other on Julian Assange. (Update, 15 June 2021: See previous update.They have clearly avoided coming out openly supportive of the government's abandonment of Julian Assange, knowing that such a stand would most likely cost them support from their electors.

Putting to Parliament a motion requiring the government to act to end the British government's illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange would require this silent majority to make a choice: Either pay the cost of being seen to support the abandonment of Julian Assange by both the Morrison government and the Labor Opposition, or come out openly in opposition to that crooked political consensus.

A motion in support of Julian Assange would massively invigorate debate in Parliament

Whichever choice each member of this currently silent majority chooses to take - support Julian Assange, support the Australian government's collusion with the U.S. against Julian Assange, or abstention - political survival will necessitate that he/she will have see that his/her decision is argued for very forcefully on the floors of Parliament.

The indifference, so far, shown to arguments put by the "Bring Julian Assange Home" group, as shown in the Hansard excerpts included below, will quickly change into a vigorous attempt by the current Government and Opposition leaders to defend their failure to support Julian Assange on the floors of Parliament - an argument they stand no hope of winning in the eyes of most Australian voters, in my opinion.

Below, #foreshadowedMotion">within the Appendix, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson stated on 13 February 2020 that he intended to put the next day a motion in support of Julian Assange. Unfortunately he never put this motion. (Update, 15 June 2021: See above section, "How parliamentary rules allow the major parties to suppress discussion they don't want".) Had he done so, it would now be much easier now to hold to account all those who have betrayed Julian Assange, and remove them from office, at the next Federal election.

However, it is still not too late. The Lower House is meeting later today (Thursday) and there is still time to contact the different members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" group who are listed in my previous article, Australia's "Bring Julian Assange Home" Group must act now on the floor of our national Parliament (Update, 15 June 2021: I have got supportive feedback from both Andrew Wilkie's office and from Julian Hill. I am now much more aware of the difficulties they face. See above section "How parliamentary rules allow the major parties to suppress discussion they don't want".) and tell each one of them that you would like him/her to put to Parliament today the following proposed motion from that article :

This Parliament finds it unacceptable that Australian journalist Julian Assange, who is not guilty of any crime, continues to be held in London's Belmarsh prison in solitary confinement for 23 hours every day, whilst those who started the 2003 Iraq war have yet to be held to account for this crime against humanity.

Accordingly this Parliament calls upon the British government to immediately expedite, and in a more transparent fashion than previously, all outstanding legal matters concerning Julian Assange including his own appeal against his continued imprisonment.

Should the British government fail to do so, this Parliament instructs Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, as a matter of urgency, to raise this at the United Nations and at the International Criminal Court.

(Update, 15 June 2021: Last year, Andrew Wilkie submitted a motion to the Selection Committee, which was never put. Right now a Private Member's Motion (PMM) has been submitted to the Select Committee by Julian Hill MP (Labor). Hopefully that PMM will be debated this coming Monday.)

#appendix1" id="appendix1">Appendix: Australian Federal Parliamentarians speak up for Julian Assange

Petition: Mr Julian Assange - Andrew Wilkie, 10 Feb 2020

Mr WILKIE (Clark) (16:35): On Saturday, I'll fly out for London, at my own expense, to visit Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison. My aim is to check on his welfare and to assure him that a great many people, especially here in Australia, are rightly concerned he is being treated unjustly.

A lot has been said and written about Julian Assange, and there's a broad range of views about the man. But the substantive matter here is quite simply that he's being persecuted for publishing information that was in the public interest, including hard evidence of US war crimes. That the perpetrator of those crimes, America, is now seeking to extradite Mr Assange to face 17 counts of espionage and one of hacking is unjust in the extreme and, arguably, illegal under British law. If the extradition goes ahead, not only would Mr Assange face life in a US prison but the precedent would be set for all Australians—and particularly for journalists—that they are at risk of extradition to any country they offend.

Last week, the member for Dawson and I were presented with the Free Julian Assange petition. It contains nearly 300,000 names and is a powerful document, one that mustn't be ignored by the Australian government. I now seek leave to table this document for consideration by the Petitions Committee.

Leave granted.

I table the petition.

Assange, Mr Julian Paul - Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, 11 Feb 2020

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (19:59): I rise to make some remarks about Julian Assange. This Australian journalist faces 175 years—that is, death—in a US jail. And for what? For publishing truthful information in 2010 that embarrassed the US government about their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what they thought they could get away with in Guantanamo Bay. Over a thousand journalists from 97 countries have signed a very substantive and detailed statement as to why they support this fellow journalist. Their statement ends:

Dangerous times call for fearless journalism.

I quite agree, and I seek to table this statement.

I'm a proud member of the Bring Assange Home parliamentary group that is working in this building, in Australia's federal parliament, across party lines. It is part of a rising tide of public opinion across the world calling for Assange to walk from Belmarsh prison a free man and to return home. I'm also proud that the Greens have been consistently arguing in this place for over 10 years now for high-level political intervention by our government. I would especially like to acknowledge our former senator Scott Ludlam, and also Felicity Ruby, who have both worked in this building for many years.

In the cases of David Hicks and James Ricketson, the Australian government intervened to bring these Australians home. The same is now needed for Julian Assange. Last week, the parliamentary group was presented with a growing petition, now 270,000 signatures strong and which I understand was tabled in the House today, calling for Assange's freedom. Doctors from around the world have appealed for his release, aghast at the state of his health. Several weeks ago, our foreign minister received a letter from a hundred doctors, stating that if Assange dies then they will want to know what she did to prevent his death. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture has warned that Assange is being denied legal rights and is being subjected to psychological torture that could cost him his life.

There is some good news for Julian Assange, if we can call it that. Thanks to Belmarsh prisoners organising inside the prison, and also pressure from the outside, he is now allowed to mix with other prisoners. That means that corridors will no longer be cleared when he walks through and he will no longer be confined to a cell for 22 hours a day alone in the hospital wing but will be able to speak with other human beings.

At a court hearing on 23 January, Assange's lawyers complained of inadequate access to their client in Belmarsh maximum-security prison to properly prepare his case. Edward Fitzgerald QC said:

We've had great difficulties in getting into Belmarsh to take instructions from Mr Assange and to discuss the evidence with him. We simply cannot get in as we require to see Mr Assange and to take his instruction.

Given the complexity of the case and the life sentence it may impose, it is utterly absurd that his lawyers' visits are so difficult and that he doesn't have access to materials to prepare his defence properly. Surely our government could and should intervene on these matters. I call on them to do so as a matter of urgency.

The judge has now allowed for an extension of the trial, with the case starting for one week on 24 February 2020 and resuming again on 18 May for three weeks. One of the co-chairs of the Bring Assange Home parliamentary group will visit Assange in Belmarsh prison next week, and I look forward to Mr Andrew Wilkie, a fellow Tasmanian, taking the solidarity and support of parliamentarians and Australians directly to this Australian citizen.

The UK extradition treaty does not allow for extradition on political grounds, and of course this case is political. Julian Assange is a political prisoner, and he is potentially about to be extradited to our so-called close friend and ally the United States. Australia is abrogating its responsibility to an Australian citizen and its own sovereignty by allowing Assange's human and legal rights to be violated in accepting the application of domestic US law to an Australian citizen. Journalism is not espionage; bring Assange home. (Time expired)

#10;">Senate Notices - Presentation, #foreshadowedMotion" id="foreshadowedMotion">13 Feb 2020

Senator Whish-Wilson to move on the next day of sitting:

That the Senate—

(a) notes with deep concern that:

(i) Mr Julian Assange, Australian citizen, and founder and publisher of Wikileaks, is currently detained in Belmarsh high security prison in the United Kingdom (UK),

(ii) Mr Assange faces extradition to the United States (US) under the Espionage Act and 175 years in prison for his part in the publication of evidence of war crimes, and

(iii) Mr Assange's physical and mental health in prison is significantly deteriorating;

(b) calls on the Australian Government to publicly make it clear to the US and UK Governments that it opposes Mr Assange's extradition; and

(c) sends this resolution to the House of Representatives for concurrence.

Assange, Mr Julian - Mr George Christensen, 24 Feb 2020

Mr CHRISTENSEN (Dawson) (13:47): As you know, I'm a conservative, and as a conservative I support free speech and press freedom. That's why I went with the member for Clark over to the UK last week to visit Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange, who's detained in HM Prison Belmarsh in England. He's self-described his state of health as 'not good'. It was clear that he was disoriented, which was obviously the result of prolonged isolation, because he has been in jail and, before that, in an Ecuadorian embassy. Why? Because the US is seeking to extradite him on apparent allegations that he was involved in espionage and conspiracy to hack.

These allegations amount to WikiLeaks calling for information from whistleblowers and then receiving and publishing such information. Well, that's not espionage and that's not conspiracy to hack; that's journalism. Is he a journalist? I'd say yes, and probably more pure than most, but does it matter? Of course not. He's a publisher at the very least, and it shouldn't be a crime to publish material that's in the public interest. In my books, he's actually a hero for exposing war crimes. Whether you think he's a hero or whether you think he's a ratbag, again, it doesn't matter. If he's a ratbag, he's our ratbag, and he should be brought home. No Australian should be facing a situation where a foreign court is deciding whether they should be sent to another foreign country to face trial for simply publishing the truth. My message to both the US and the UK is: bring Julian Assange home now.

Assange, Mr Julian - Senator Peter Whish-Wilson and Senator Katy Gallagher, 24 Feb 2020

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (15:57): I ask that general business notice of motion No. 464, standing in my name for today, relating to Mr Julian Assange, be taken as a formal motion.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Is there any objection to that motion being taken as formal? There's an objection.

In lieu of suspending standing orders, I seek leave to make a short statement.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Photo of MP Senator WHISH-WILSON: This is not the time for this parliament and for politicians to be silent—silent on the extradition of an Australian citizen and journalist to the United States, whose war crimes were exposed. This is not the time to be silent on the criminalising of journalistic activity. This is not the time to be silent on such a dangerous precedent being set—where our friend and ally the United States say about a political prisoner, Mr Julian Assange: 'We want this guy. We want to throw him in the dock'—and give him a virtual life sentence, 175 years—'for exposing our war crimes.' This is the time to be speaking out on an egregious and abusive use of power by one of the most important countries on this planet. (Time expired)

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (15:58): I also seek leave to make a short statement.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Photo of MP Senator GALLAGHER: Like any Australian citizen facing legal difficulties overseas, Mr Assange is entitled to consular assistance. The opposition understands this assistance has been offered by the Australian High Commission in London. The opposition calls on the UK government to ensure that all proper legal process and procedural fairness is afforded to Mr Assange in proceedings now before the UK courts. Given Mr Assange is an Australian citizen, in advance of any extradition request being granted we expect that the Australian government work with the UK government to seek a guarantee from the United States that the death penalty would not be imposed.

The opposition is concerned about reports that Mr Assange's health has been deteriorating. The shadow Attorney-General and the shadow minister for foreign affairs have written to the Australian government to raise this concern and to request that Australia press the UK government to ensure that Mr Assange receives appropriate medical care while in detention pending the outcome of the US extradition request.

Assange, Mr Julian - Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, 25 Feb 2020

Senator WHISH-WILSON(Tasmania) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Marise Payne. Minister, last year youflew to Thailand to lobby the Thai government against extraditingHakeem al-Araibi, an Australian soccer player, to Bahrain. At the time you said publicly your intervention was because you were very concerned about Hakeem's detention and very concerned about his potential extradition to Bahrain. This was the right thing to do. Minister, given that you and your government were so vocal about Hakeem's detention and the risks of his potential extradition, why have you not shown the same zeal and commitment tosecure the release of Australian citizen and Walkley-Award-winning journalist Julian Assange? Why have you not flown to the UK to lobby the UK government or to the US to lobby the US government against extraditing Julian Assange?

Senator PAYNE(New SouthWales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (14:49): I thank Senator Whish-Wilson for his question. On any examination of the facts of the two matters which Senator Whish-Wilson has put to the chamber, that of Hakeem al-Araibi and thatof Julian Assange, they are qualitatively different circumstances. As the government have previously indicated, we are in regular contact with authorities in the United Kingdom, in line with our consular mandate, and have been assured by those authoritiesthat Mr Assange is being held in appropriate and humane conditions. I can also inform the chamber that I specifically raised the issue of Mr Assange, and his conditions, in my discussions with the Secretary of State forForeign and Commonwealth Affairs, MrRaab, when he visited Australia just a matter of weeks ago. I want to also note for the chamber—and this may go to a further question from Senator Whish-Wilson, at which point of course I would repeat this statement—it is important to note that the Australian government has no standing in any of Mr Assange's legal proceedings and is unable to intervene in them.

The PRESIDENT:Senator Whish-Wilson, a supplementary question?

Senator WHISH-WILSON(Tasmania) (14:50):They certainly are different, Minister. Let me tell you why. Overnight, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer,said that Julian Assange's case is about more than one individual. He said, 'This is a battle over press freedom, the rule of law andthe future even of democracy.' Those are strong words coming from the United Nations. Minister, if you agree with the United Nations about what is at stake here, why isn't your government doing more to intervene in this case and bring Julian Assange home—more than the usual consular assistance?

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (14:50):My personal opinion on what the special rapporteur may or may not have said is not relevant in this matter. What is relevant is the undertakings the Australian government has sought from British authorities in relation to the position on the detention of Mr Assange as the proceedings are awaited. We continue to closely monitor Mr Assange's case, as we would for other Australians in detention overseas in other contexts, and we in fact do. I note that Mr Assange has a very high public profile. For the Australian government, he is a consular client, and one for whom we provide appropriate support, according to our consular mandate, as I said. I appreciate that members of the public, including people in this chamber—self-evidently from Senator Whish-Wilson's questions—do feel strongly about Mr Assange's situation. But it is important to remember that Australia cannot intervenein the legal processes of another country.The PRESIDENT:Senator Whish-Wilson, a final supplementary question?

Senator WHISH-WILSON(Tasmania) (14:51):A few days ago, it was revealed that meetings between Julian Assange and his lawyers had been secretly taped and filmed. This is a clear and egregious breach of legal professional privilege. Minister, do you believe that Julian Assange will get a fair trial in the US, or do you agree with Nils Melzer that, for all intents and purposes, Julian Assange is a political prisoner and he should not be extradited to the US, where he would face nothing but a politically motivated show trial?

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women) (14:52):Senator Whish-Wilsoncontinues to quote the views of an individual rapporteur—

Senator Whish-Wilson: You've done it on several occasions—

Senator PAYNE: who has made a range of observations, not all of which we agree with. As I have indicated, and I am aware of the media reporting in relation to alleged surveillance of Mr Assange while in the Ecuadorian embassy, I don't intend to provide a running commentary on this case. I don't provide running commentaries on cases before courts in other parts of the world, or in Australia, frankly. We have no standing in the legal matter that is currently before the courts. As is the case for any individual, Mr Assange is entitled to due legal process, which we expect the legal systems of both the US and the UK to deliver. (Time expired)

Assange, Mr Julian - Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, 25 Feb 2020

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (15:39): I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Payne) to questions without notice asked today.

The standard response this government has had to any question asked about Australian citizen Julian Assange—award-winning journalist who's being extradited to the US for uncovering their war crimes—has been that, 'This government doesn't intervene in any foreign legal process involving other countries.' I asked the question of Senator Payne today that clearly shows that is not the case. Last year Senator Payne flew to Thailand to lobby the Thai government against the extradition of Hakeem al-Araibi, an Australian soccer player who was being extradited to Bahrain. The minister claimed today—I will go back and have a look at the Hansard—that the cases are very different. Once again I beg to differ.

It was very clear, when I saw the Australian Story that featured the work around a number of high-profile Australians to help secure the release of Hakeem, that he was a political prisoner in Thailand. He was going to be sent back to Bahrain to face potential torture, harm or even a death sentence. Let me tell you what the UN rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, said last night and you can tell me that there are no similarities between these two cases. He said, 'The extradition of Julian Assange is a modern show trial.' He said:

The case of Julian Assange is nothing else than a modern show trial featuring politically motivated prosecutors, denial of justice, manipulated evidence, biased judges, unlawful surveillance, denial of defence rights, and abusive prison conditions. What sounds like a textbook example of dictatorial arbitrariness is in fact an actual precedent happening in the middle of Europe, the birthplace of human rights.

It is our ally and friend, the United States, who he is talking about here. It's not Bahrain. It's not a country in the Middle East with a record of human rights abuses. This is the United States of America that the UN is talking about. I recommend senators read this report that was out last night. The language is extraordinary. It is extraordinary that this has come from the UN about the case of Julian Assange.

The minister said, as I just mentioned, that the two cases are quite different. I would agree that in a sense, yes, they are quite different because the UN is clearly saying, as, by the way, is just about every journalist and major outlet around the world—that is, the ones who are speaking out in defence of journalistic freedom and trying to oppose the criminalisation of journalism—that this case is unique because it is not about an individual anymore. This case is about freedom of speech. It is about journalistic integrity. It is about the rights of an Australian citizen. That's what's at stake here. In fact, the UN rapporteur said last night, 'This is ultimately about democracy and whether we want a totalitarian regime that we all sit under.' And I would ask the minister to reflect on her answers and to explain to this chamber and to Australians who care deeply about the torture and the extradition of Julian Assange why these cases are different. I know why they're different. It's because the US is a close ally and a friend of ours. We have an ANZUS Treaty with this country. I understand there's a lot at stake with our close friend and ally, but, because they're a close friend and ally, that's exactly why we have a relationship where we should be adults with our ally and where we should say: 'This is simply unacceptable. You cannot extradite an Australian citizen who has rights on the basis of a breach of a US law.' If this precedent occurs, it is extremely dangerous. Today it's Julian Assange. Tomorrow, it could be your son or your daughter or your brother. This is an egregious abuse of power. It is an appalling abuse of power by our friend and ally the US. This parliament has been silent for too long. I ask senators to speak out on this case and bring Julian Assange home. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

Julian Hill MP - 26 Feb 2020

…

I also want to remark that the persecution and treatment of Julian Assange are unconscionable. He's an Australian citizen who has the same rights as you or me, and the Australian government's ongoing failure to speak out against his extradition to the United States and demand his return is shameful. It's wrong. It's immoral. And it's offensive for the Prime Minister to say that he should 'face the music'—as if this is any ordinary case! It is not. It is entirely political. It corrupts our alliance with the United States when our government is too scared and too cowardly to defend our own. It corrupts our democracy when our government refuses to fight to defend Australian citizens just because they don't agree with their political philosophy. The precedent that extradition would set would dangerously undermine our sovereignty and have a chilling effect on journalism and the media's ability to hold power to account in this country and across the world.

We need to be very clear-eyed in this House as to what extradition would mean. One of our citizens, an Australian, would face what is effectively a death sentence. The current charges would see him confined in extreme isolation for 175 years. Indeed, it's possible in the state of Virginia, which has the death penalty, that more charges will be laid once he's extradited that would see him killed. Australia has a long history of opposing extradition—a proud history—wherever there is the risk of a death penalty.

If that's not enough, there's the torture which has been inflicted on him. It's an astounding phrase—'the torture that's been inflicted upon an Australian in the United Kingdom'. It should not be said lightly and must never become acceptable. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, investigated Julian's case. He said he shows 'all the symptoms for prolonged exposure to psychological torture' and his health conditions are so dire that his life is now at risk. When the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture reports on one of our citizens, surely the Australian government should speak up and demand his return. There's nothing but silence from the government. It doesn't matter whether you agree with him, it doesn't matter whether you disagree with him, it doesn't matter whether you like him, it doesn't matter whether you dislike him; he's an Australian and he's entitled to the protection of the government.

Of course, if the death penalty or torture are not enough to spur this government to action, there are broader important principles at stake; there is a lot more to this inherently political case. Let's be clear. He's been persecuted to punish him for exposing war crimes and the misuse of state power. Those who committed the war crimes have never been prosecuted. He's been persecuted to silence him forever in his WikiLeaks project and to scare others into silence. I note that we've had a power failure.

Ms Flint: They're silencing you!

Mr HILL: They're silencing me! They've hacked the parliament! Are we on?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Vamvakinou):The mics are on. You can continue.

Mr HILL: I don't personally agree with all that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has done, but, if we're to protect our democratic values, that must never be the point. This case goes to the importance of journalism and journalists in a democracy holding power to account. Publishing embarrassing, classified footage of war crimes in Iraq is journalistic behaviour supposedly protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. I will quote Kevin Rudd. He said:

If their case is essentially that Mr Assange broke the law by obtaining and disclosing secret information, then I struggle to see what separates him from any journalist who solicits, obtains and publishes such information.

The claim we often hear in response is that 'he's not a journalist'. That is irrelevant. The protection exists in the law for journalistic activity, not some special class of persons. It should extend to all of us, to any Australian engaging in journalistic activity.

What Julian Assange has published is in principle no different than the Pentagon Papers, in 1971, which exposed the truth about the Vietnam War and the actions of two United States presidents. The chilling effect that this US case would have on the media globally is profound. The pursuit of Julian Assange is very deliberate; it's calculated to mute whistleblowing and investigative journalism. If Julian Assange is guilty of a serious crime for publishing classified material revealing war crimes, then democracies are weakened. Media across the world will be too scared to publish in the future if that's what they want. Then there's the dangerous principle of extraterritoriality, which is nerdy and boring and is getting lost in the propaganda. But let's be clear. If this American bid succeeds, the precedent is terrifying for our democracy.

What Julian Assange did in 2011 is not espionage. There's no evidence he attempted to hack into US government IT. There is no evidence he encouraged others to do so. There is no evidence that any lives were lost or serious harm done.Importantly, he's not a US citizen. His actions took place outside the USA. Let's be clear. Under the precedent of extradition that the United States is seeking in this case, anyone who publishes anything that the United States government brands as secretcould be prosecuted under the US Espionage Act—anyone who publishes anything, anywhere in the world, could be extradited to the United States.

Now, unbelievably, the Trump administration has stated that Julian Assange has no First Amendment rights to free speech and free press because he's a foreigner. So,under this precedent, US criminal laws apply everywhere—even when people have never been to the United States, including journalists or any Australian wherever they are—but US constitutional protections don't apply to them. Our government should take this seriously and defend our sovereignty and freedom. I'll just make some brief remarks on the sexual assault allegations. There has been conflicting and sensational reporting for years. Allegations of sexual assault and rape are incredibly serious matters that should not be weaponised for political purposes. The media confusion regarding this is deliberate. Julian Assange shone light and exposed corruption. Suddenly the bright lights turned back on him, and he's a hacker, a narcissist, a spy. He doesn't shower, you know; he's not clean.Then there's the story h e doesn't even feed his cat properly. Then he's a creepy predator. Citizens mustn't suspend critical thinking or their analytical capabilities when such allegations are made.

I'd encourage people to read the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture case review. These are his conclusions, not mine. He concluded that he's been subjected to a preliminary investigation for nine years with no charges;that the police tampered and rewrote evidence to manufacture these charges;that he didn't run away from interview—he actually went to the police and authorities several times while in Sweden and was given their permission to leave the country. It was only when he was in London that he heard of the secret extradition proceedings in the United States to extradite him that he said he couldn't go back unless Sweden provided assurances that he wouldn't be extradited to the US. They refused to give those assurances. He offered repeatedly to give evidence from asylum, but the objective was to keep the investigation alive, to keep him in suspended animation for nine years with no charges.

Then, magically, of course, the case was dropped, wasn't it, when he suddenly got into British custody and was allowed to face extradition to the United States. Despite all of this—an effective death sentence, torture and manifest injustice—our government refuses to speak up and defend this Australian. Ministers hide behind their weasel word talking points about legal processes and having his day in court. I say again:it doesn't matter if you agree with him, it doesn't matter if you like him, it doesn't matter if you dislike him;he's an Australian with the same rights as you or me and he's entitled to the protection of his government. As Andrew Wilkie and George Christensen—and I never thought I'd be in a club with them in this parliament (… - the remainder of this speech is missing, how much, I don't know, but I will fix this shortly. - JS, 15/6/2021.

#foreshadowedMotionOf2020" id="foreshadowedMotion2020">Correspondence received from Andrew Wilkie's office, Tuesday 15 June

Dear James

Thanks for speaking with me on the phone just now. As discussed, attached is the motion Andrew submitted for consideration by the Selection Committee last year.

The crossbench have a roster for motions to be selected for private members business each sitting week. Andrew’s motion is not scheduled for selection for some months. But rest assured he takes the opportunity to raise this issue every chance he gets – both in Parliament and in the media. He also visited Mr Assange in Belmarsh Prison at the beginning of last year.

As I mentioned to you on the phone, I’d recommend getting in contact with your local MP, and also the Victorian Senators, to urge them to support the Parliamentary Group to Bring Julian Assange Home, of which Andrew is a co-chair.

Regards

Millie von Stieglitz
Office of Andrew Wilkie MP
Independent Member for Clark

The denial of Julian Assange's liberty in London for almost nine years since June 2012 and, more so, his imprisonment in Belmarsh prison since April 2019 in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day, is against British law and International law. Had the Australian government chosen to use its authority, it could have long ago ended Julian Assange's ordeal, got him out of prison and back to Australia, to be with his two children and their mother Stella Moris.

Instead the Australian government chose variously to do nothing or else to smear Julian Assange.

On 12 April last year a number of Australian parliamentarians began to speak up for Julian Assange. Some even personally visited Julian Assange in prison. John Shipton, Julian Assange's father puts their number at 28, speaking in a video about his "Bring Julian Assange Home" tour. [1]

In spite of this sizeable number of members of the support group, and in spite of the massive support for Julian Assange in Australia and across the world, the Federal Government has yet to be properly held to account before the Australian people for its abandonment of Julian Assange.

The reason for this is that, as far as I can ascertain, the only avenue so far used by members of the Support Group to raise the issue of Julian Assange, has been Question Time in either of the two houses of Parliament. This consisted of an exchange between Greens Senator Janet Rice and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, on 25 March, on the subject of Julian Assange. That exchange lasted only 2:17 minutes, and much of that time was wasted with Marise Payne's obfuscation and shouting down Janet Rice.

From this, it seems that avenues other than Question Time should be used by the "Bring Julian Assange home" support group.

The most obvious alternative is to put a motion requiring this government to act in support of Julian Assange, to the floor of either The Senate or the House of Representatives. Even if the numbers of the current Australian Parliament will prevent such a motion from being carried, then at least putting such motions would give supporters of Julian Assange far more time to put their case both to Parliament and to the broader Australian public through social media and blog sites, such as this one, https://candobetter.net. For the Parliamentary Support Group not yet to have done so appears to be a terrible oversight.

The correspondence included, below, as an Appendix to this article, included two motions I have asked members of the Parliamentary Support Group to put. I wrote the first on 29 March. As far as I can tell no member of the Support Group put that to Parliament.

#whatYouCanDo">What you can do

The House of Representatives is meeting later today (Tuesday 1 June 2021), Wednesday and Thursday. Please contact one or more of the Senators and Members of Parliament #bringAssangeHomeGroup">listed below and ask him/her to to put to his/her House the motion included below in my letter of 24 May to Senator Andrew Wilkie.

My e-mail of 24 May to House of Representatives members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group"

Dear member,

I am sending you this e-mail in which is enclosed a copy of an e-mail I had sent very early yesterday morning to Andrew Wilkie. I am sending this to you because your name was included on a list of Australian Parliamentarians who have spoken up for Julian Assange.

As you would understand, Julian Assange's circumstances make this issue urgent. Quite possibly his health has been irreparably damaged by his long imprisonment and neglect. He could well die if he is not released or, at least, given urgent medical treatment for his conditions including terrible tooth abscess.

The included letter to Andrew Wilkie includes a request to put, to the House of Representatives, a motion which calls upon the British government to quickly expedite, in a manner more transparent than was previously the case, all outstanding legal matters concerning Julian Assange. Furthermore, should the British government not do so, the Australian government should be instructed to take this issue to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

I believe this motion should be put to allow this vitally important issue to be more adequately discussed and scrutinised, than for example, the very short (2 minute, 17 second) exchange between Senator Janet Rice and Senator Marise Payne of 25 March (see /node/6093 for video and transcription of the exchange).

I believe that if the Australian government was resolved to help Julian Assange it could, in very little time, before world public opinion, and with the option of recourse to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, make the British government release Julian Assange from Belmarsh prison and also make the US abandon its outrageous attempt to extradite Julian Assange to face the rigged Grand Jury in the eastern district of Virginia.

Surely, in a functioning democracy, the Australian government should be held to account for failing to meet up its basic obligation to uphold the rights of Julian Assange. Unless my proposed motion, or something similar is put to the House of Representatives, the Senate or both, I think that holding the Australian government to account for this will prove to be much harder.

Thank you for reading this.

Yours faithfully,

James Sinnamon

Enclosed Letter of 23 May to Andrew Wilkie

Dear Andrew Wilkie,

My Apologies for this late notice, but I only realised not long before midnight that the House of Representatives will be sitting again later today.

Just for now, I am sending copies to other members of the House of Representatives who have previously shown their support for Julian Assange. Later today, I will also send copies to Senators who have also shown support as well as any other supporters in the House I may have missed.

Some time during the next four days sitting of the House of Representatives, could you please put the following motion:

This Parliament finds it unacceptable that Australian journalist Julian Assange, who is not guilty of any crime, continues to be held in London's Belmarsh prison in solitary confinement for 23 hours every day, whilst those who started the 2003 Iraq war have yet to be held to account for this crime against humanity.

Accordingly this Parliament calls upon the British government to immediately expedite, and in a more transparent fashion than previously, all outstanding legal matters concerning Julian Assange including his own appeal against his continued imprisonment.

Should the British government fail to do so, this Parliament instructs Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, as a matter of urgency, to raise this at the United Nations and at the International Criminal Court.

?

Please feel most welcome to draft a similar motion if you think you can improve upon my wording.

As you will surely appreciate, this is a matter of utmost urgency, given the state of Julian Assange's health and given the stated resolve of the United States government to appeal Judge Vanessa Baraitser's ruling against the extradition of Julian Assange.

Whilst it now seems unlikely to me that such a motion would pass either in the House or the Senate, I still believe that having this debated on the floor of either or both houses of the Australian Parliament would enormously lift the profile of the International campaign.

Also, I think it will most likely increase the public support for those who speak and vote for such a motion and will have the opposite effect on those who oppose the motion or abstain.

I include below, as an Appendix, another proposed motion, which I sent to you and other supporters of Julian Assange on 29 March. As far as I am aware, that was not put, which I think is unfortunate.

For further information about my own efforts to free Julian Assange, please look at /JulianAssange/.

I will endeavour to contact you and the other recipients of this e-mail later today. If you want to contact me, I can be reached on 0412 319669.

Thank you for having read this.

Yours faithfully,

James Sinnamon

Appendix: My earlier proposed motion of 29 March on Julian Assange

Noting that multiple award-winning Australian journalist, Julian Assange, who has committed no crime against British or Australian law, has been illegally detained and psychologically and physically tortured by the British government since 19 June 2012, firstly until 11 April 2019 inside the London Ecuadorian Embassy, and, after that, in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day in Belmarsh Prison, this House/Senate requires Scott Morrison to use all his authority as Prime Minister to demand of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that he immediately release Julian Assange and facilitate his return to Australia or to any other country of his choosing with his wife Stella Moris and his two children.

 

Should the British Government refuse to release Julian Assange, this Parliament instructs the Prime Minister to ask the United Nations to act for Julian Assange's release and, should it be necessary, to put the case to the International Criminal Court.

#bringAssangeHomeGroup">The "Bring Julian Assange Home" Group

Whilst Julian Assange's father John Shipton said on 24 April that there are 26 members of the "Bring Julian Assange Home" Parliamentary Support Group before Peter Khalil joined, I only count 24. (In my opinion, this is still more than enough to make this government pay dearly for its unconscionable refusal to stand up for Julian Assange). I would be most grateful were anyone to supply me with the names of other members of the Group - JS, 14/6/21.

House of Representatives members and supporters

 

	Electorate	State	Party	M/S
Mr George Christensen MP	Dawson	Qld	Liberal National Party of Qld	Co-Chair
Mr Andrew Wilkie MP	Clark	Tas	Independent	Co-Chair
Mr Adam Bandt MP	Melbourne	Vic	Greens	Member
Mr Steve Georganas MP	Adelaide	SA	Labor Party	Member
Dr Helen Haines MP	Indi	Vic	Independent	Member
Mr Julian Hill MP	Bruce	Vic	Labor Party	Member
Hon Barnaby Joyce MP	New England	NSW	The Nationals	Member
Mr Peter Khalil MP	Wills	Vic	Labor	Member
Ms Rebekha Sharkie MP	Mayo	SA	Centre Alliance	Member
Ms Zali Steggall OAM, MP	Warringah	NSW	Indpendent	Member
Ms Susan Templeman MP	Macquarie	NSW	Labor Party	Member
Ms Maria Vamvakinou MP	Calwell	Vic	Labor Party	Member
Mr Josh Wilson MP	Fremantle	WA	Labor Party	Member
Mr Tony Zappia MP	Makin	SA	Labor Party	Member

 

Senate members and supporters

 

	State	Party	M/S
Senator Mehreen Faruqi	NSW	Greens	Supporter
Senator Stirling Griff	SA	Centre Alliance	Supporter
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young	SA	Greens	Supporter
Senator Nick McKim	Tas	Greens	Member
Senator Rex Patrick	SA	Centre Alliance	Supporter
Senator Janet Rice	Vic	Greens	Supporter
Senator Rachel Siewert	WA	Greens	Supporter
Senator Jordon Steele-John	WA	Greens	Supporter
Senator Larissa Waters	Qld	Greens	Supporter
Senator Peter Whish-Wilson	Tas	Greens	Member

Footnote[s]

[1] See "John Shipton speaks at the Melbourne Vigil for Julian Assange, Flinders St Station, Fri 21 May 2021," video at https://www.youtube.com/embed/ifucM7rMcfw. It is difficult to know for sure the precise count of the number of members of the Parliamentary Support Group for Julian Assange. One list, divided into members of the House of Representatives and Senators is included above. I think I recall a hearing that the count was 28.

John Shipton is currently in Miami, touring the United States to put to the people of the United States, the case for why his son Julian Assange should be freed from his illegal imprisonment in London and not extradited to the United States

Stella Moris @StellaMoris1), the mother of two of Julian Assange's children, spoke today to a London protest in support of the Palestinian resistance to Israel's recent aggression against the Gaza strip. She told the large crowd how Julian had previously revealed secret communications amongst Senior Israeli officers in their planning of wars against Palestinian men, women and children.

 

The video inside the article is a record of the third ARAG (Ashburton Residents Action Group) public rally over six years in the residential battle to protect Markham Estate and the surrounding streets and environment.

What was once a 56 apartment, two storey public housing community in Ashburton turned into a six year nightmare for residents when the State Government announced it would be replacing the 56 apartments with 240, of which only 60 would be for public housing; the rest to be sold privately for a fortune.

This outrageous proposal galvanised the community and they have been fighting for a fair go and consultation ever since.

Speakers at this rally included ARAG leaders Ian and Rita, David Davis (Shadow Planning Minister), Cr Garry Thompson (Mayor of Boroondara) and Clifford Hayes MP (Sustainable Australia Party).

In attendance was Will Fowles MP (Member for Burwood) who declined to speak.

Advocacy has now resulted in this proposal being reduced to 178 public housing units (non-privatised) however the commercial size of the development in a residential area is what the residents are still battling.

No developer in Melbourne could build this development, however the State Government have exempted themselves from planning laws. In addition, they have recently passed more laws that remove any requirement for consultation or planning application.

This is a dictatorship, and the residents of Ashburton are fighting back alongside every other Victorian community being overridden by this State Government.

These developments must be reduced in size, residents must be treated fairly, and planning must be returned to Local Government who understand their suburbs.

Can Palestine be liberated while the US illegally occupies Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq? Apparently Melbourne's pro-Palestine movement thinks Palestine can be liberated while Syria has much of its territory illegally occupied and US troops also illegally occupy Iraq and Afghanistan.

I attended both the Freedom Protest and the huge pro-Palestine Protest in Melbourne yesterday on 15 May 2021. At both protests I intended to show my support for each of those two respective causes and to distribute our leaflet on Julian Assange. [1]

Unfortunately, I did not stay long at the Freedom Protest, because I thought that it would be more promising and and more productive to go to the pro-Palestine protest. My reason was that I supposed the Palestine protest would attract a wide range of related left-wing causes, such as people who support the Syrian and Venezuelan people. I also expected that people there would be very receptive to the leaflet in support of Julian Assange I had to distribute.

Where, at the Freedom protest, nearly everyone I approached with a leaflet was happy to accept it, I was disappointed to discover that at the pro-Palestine protest, whilst most accepted a copy of my leaflet and many even thanked me and expressed support for Julian Assange, a surprising number of people there were quite hostile to my handing out those leaflets.

In hindsight, I now realise that I should have challenged those people to explain to me their apparent hostility to Julian Assange. Many of those who were hostile seemed to me to be members of the supposedly far-left socialist parties, one of which I was associated with, more than 30 years ago. I could have said to any one of those people:

"Don't you realise that because of Wikileaks and Julian Assange it is not nearly as easy as it once was for the United States to continue its support for Israel or to fabricate pretexts to start other wars in the Middle East? Don't you realize that, by giving people the ability to safely leak information from inside the US government and the US military, Wikileaks helps people in countries like Palestine fight there for their freedom?"

Unfortunately, I did not.

How can Free Palestine Melbourne be more effective?

I also felt that the overall approach of the pro-Palestine protest was seriously flawed.

Of course the protesters and Free Palestine Melbourne (@FPMelbourne) should be commended for so vocally showing their outrage at Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

Even more so, the Hamas resistance in the Gaza strip, so villified by Israel and the corporate newsmedia, should be commended for their heroic acts of solidarity with their fellow Palestinians on the West Bank who were being savagely repressed at the al-Aqsa mosque and elsewhere whilst having even more of their homes demolished to make way for yet more illegal Israeli settlements.

Hamas chose, from its tiny vulnerable coastal enclave, to launch missiles northwards into Israel in an effort to make Menachem Begin, the crooked Prime Minister of Israel, reconsider his decision to steal more Palestinian land. For that Hamas and other residents of the Gaza strip have paid a terrible price.

However, such military resistance alone, either in Gaza or in the West Bank, is likely to bring peace and justice to Palestine.

Unless other positive strategies to end the conflict are put forward and adapted by the Palestinian resistance, that conflict can only descend to an even more terrible and fratricidal conflict out of which there can only be two possible outcomes:

1. the total destruction of the Palestinian nation within the borders of Palestine; or
2. The destruction of Israel, with all Israelis expelled from the land.

Obviously, neither of these two outcomes are acceptable.

A lot of ordinary Jewish Israelis have decent attitudes towards the Palestinians. It's sad that a very high proportion do seem to support Netanyahu, and the terrible crimes being committed against Palestinians - at least according to mainstream news. But I think any strategy to defeat the Israeli government has to recognize that a sizable proportion of Jews in Israel do not approve of driving Palestinians out of their land. These Israelis can be reached, and should be given support to develop a different, non-apartheid, form of government, and to form opposition to the continual predations by pro-Israeli settler property developers in the Gaza strip and their military support.

What about Syria?

At the Palestine protest, I also found it curious that no mention was made at all about Syria and all the other conflicts going on in the Middle East, right next door to Palestine. There's a terrible war going on in Syria, right at this moment, and I felt it striking that not a word was said about that.

Estimates of the number killed so far in Syria since march 2011 vary between 388,652 and 594,000. (See Syrian Revolution 120 months on: 594,000 persons killed and millions of Syrians displaced and injured (14/3/2021) SOHR. 14 March 2021.) Of these, between 131,145 and 180,440 are from the Syrian Arab Army or their allies, who are defending their country. An estimate of the number of mostly foreign terrorists killed so far in Syria varies between 142,684 and 198,684. (See PDF document SOHR 14th Annivesary (1/6/2020) - whilst these figures are contested and difficult to confirm, but they do give some idea of the scale of the loss of life caused by this conflict.)

Every week there have been a number of illegal Israeli air strikes against Syria in support of the continuing terrorist war, of more than ten years duration so far, against the Syrian Government.

Very recently, Syria got so fed up with the Israeli air strikes on its territory, that they actually launched a missile strike themselves against Israel in response.

The failure of any of the speakers, at that pro-Palestine protest, to mention this war, or any other of the recent conflicts in the Middle-East - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon - is difficult to understand.

Australian foreign policy is important for Palestinians - We need to hold our government to account

Not only did the Melbourne protest not seem to have any practical help for the Palestinian struggle, or for all the other people in the Middle East, but it did not hold the Australian government to account for effectively siding, since 2011, with terrorist insurgency in Syria, which has been an outspoken supporter of Palestinians for decades.

I can't say at the moment that any protests in which I have recently participated have grown to be really sizable, but I have taken part in small pro-Syria protest movements, and I'm still doing so. As in protest movements in support of Julian Assange, we know that every time we reach anyone, any time someone listens to us, it has an impact on Australian politics, because people then become aware of what our foreign policies actually are, and that what is happening in Palestine and Syria, or to Julian Assange, etc., depends to some extent on what is happening in Australian foreign policy. If no state outside Israel supported Israeli apartheid, or sanctions on Syria, or the imprisonment of Julian Assange, then it is most unlikely that any of these shocking processes would have endured for any length of time. Therefore, it is very important for any Australian protesting about conditions overseas to make links to any enabling policies right here in Australia, to be aware of what their own government is doing, or of how a decent and compassionate Australian government could help prevent the harm being done to people, by actively speaking up against it. It seemed to me that this awareness and consciousness-raising was absent at the pro-Palestine protests yesterday.

When we were protesting a few years ago against US-NATO intervention in Syria, we pointed out the Australian government's shameful role in sanctioning Syria, basically in supporting a siege against the Syrian people. We argued that supporting war against Syria had implications for the attitude that people should have towards the Australian government.

Where was there a similar attempt to raise awareness in the pro-Palestinian protest?

The pro-Palestine protest acknowledged, to some degree, the illegal acquisition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, rather than Tel Aviv. However, there was very little focus on the wrong of the Australian government's support for American policy towards Israel and the rest of the Middle East, in facilitating that change of Israel's capital. I only heard disapproval for Australia's support for these bad policies expressed once in any of the speeches. The failure to more emphatically point out corrupt Australian government policy in the pro-Palestinian protest was a serious shortcoming.

I mean, we should be able to influence foreign policy by appealing to or placing pressure on our local parliamentarians, as well as on the parliaments in elections. However, if people are not made aware of our complicit foreign policies and the need for these to change, it is as if we are giving up on the area where we could be most effective.

It is to be hoped that more protests will be organised, since the conflicts in the Middle East are ongoing, and will not abate without concerned, persistent, and informed, activism.

Footnote[s]

The 215K PDF file from which the double-sided A5 leaflet can be printed is here embedded in the article Barraitser's 'compassion' towards Julian Assange a ploy to avoid judicial scrutiny of the United States' illegal war on journalism? (12/1/2021) and has been adapted to become the article, Uphold the Rule of Law - demand that the Australian government act to end the illegal imprisonment and torture of Julian Assange (11/2/2021).

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network calls on the Australian Government to stop its support of the Israeli occupation and condemn the theft of Palestinian homes and land by Israel.

The Australian Government cannot pretend it does not have a role in the violence perpetrated by the Israeli military against Palestinians.

The Government has given a substantial amount of money to Israeli weapon manufacturers who supply the occupation, including $1.8 billion worth of Government contracts to Israeli weapon manufacturer Elbit Systems since 2010.

Furthermore, the Government's claim that occupied Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and failure to recognise both the Palestinian State as well as Palestinians' right to self-defence, amounts to support of the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

Over recent days, we have also seen the Israeli military raid Al-Aqsa Mosque, which may amount to a war crime; kill over 100 people, including 28 children; assist extremists in stealing Palestinian houses; and conduct a ground invasion of Gaza.

Due to these events, the ongoing occupation and, as Humans Rights Watch recently reported, Israel's perpetuation of an Apartheid system, IPAN calls on the Government to:

- Unequivocally condemn the violence against Palestinian protesters
- Call for Israel to immediately stop its occupation of Palestinian territory
- Pursue a policy of diplomacy and non-violence
- Stop awarding contracts to weapon manufacturers who supply the Israeli military

For more information got to https://www.ipan.org.au or email [email protected]

You may have been wondering when and who would point out the silver lining in the current situation, where the interruption of decades of mass immigration has seen employment prospects and living standards for many ordinary people looking good in Australia for the first time in decades. If so, you will be very pleased to catch the following interview between 2GB's Michael McLaren and the Sustainable Australia Party's William Bourke, on this very issue. We are living through fascinating times.

On 10 May 2021, Michael Mclaren (2GB radio) was joined by William Bourke, President of the Sustainable Australia Party, to comment on the RBA’s report that suggests that the pause in immigration due to the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to higher living standards in Australia and could spark wage rises in some regions and industries - even though the economy will be smaller than previously expected. In its quarterly statement on monetary policy the preceding week, the RBA noted, “The Australian economy is transitioning from recovery to ­expansion phase earlier and with more momentum than anticipated.”

Transcript

[Candobetter editor: Note that this was done via automatic transcript then corrected by a human editor. Please let us know if you find any mistakes.]

MICHAEL : Well, there has been a lot of side-effects from the Cornona Virus … we’re probably all sick to death of talking about it but, one that probably hasn’t been mentioned is that it has done a couple of people probably out of a job – at the very least, it has proved them right – I’m talking about the team behind the Sustainable Australia Party – because, if nothing else, COVID has closed the borders. There are now no real prospects of masses of migrants coming in to work or to fill job vacancies, or whatever the story was, prior to the pandemic.

However, as I said, I think it has proved the point, because, for many years, William Bourke and the whole team behind him at Sustainable Australia and people like Dick Smith, who’ve supported them, have been banging the drum of logic, saying that Australia does not need unsustainable levels of growth in the population to remain wealthy, to remain prosperous, indeed to grow.

And, sure enough, they have now got an ally, I don’t know if they meant to or not, in the form of the Reserve Bank. In their quarterly statement, on monetary policy – it was released on Friday - most people don’t read it of course – but they made the point that the level of GDP – Gross Domestic Product – is expected to remain a little below forecast before the pandemic – mostly due to the lower population growth – however, in per capita terms, GDP is expected to be on a higher trajectory, supported by higher per capita household income and a strong contribution from public demand. In other words, the pause to Big Australia will lead to higher living standards and could spark wage-rises in some regions and some industries according to the Reserve Bank.

Now, the Big Australia advocates said this was impossible. Many of us said they were wrong all along and motivated by greed.

Well, William Bourke is the President of the Sustainable Australia Party and on the line. William, nice to talk with you again.

WILLIAM BOURKE: Good to be with you, Michael.

MICHAEL: Sadly, I suppose, COVID has done you out of a gig. The borders are closed. The population will flatline for a while, and the experiment that you’ve called for will happen, for no other reason than medical science has demanded it happens. I suppose, if you are proved right, you will go out a happy man, won’t you?

WILLIAM BOURKE: Well Michael, obviously population growth is something we’ve been concerned about, since we’ve been going – probably a decade or so. We’ve got some other issues we do stand for, overdevelopment and environmental issues, but yes, absolutely, it’s amazing that COVID has revealed, once and for all, that high immigration is notnecessary to either keep the economy growing, or to create jobs.

So, it’s great to see the RBA coming to their senses. And many other mainstream economists are also saying things like, ‘Lower immigration is equalling higher wages.’ So there’s a great lot of things that are coming out of this unfortunate COVID pandemic.

MICHAEL MCLAREN: And it’s logical, is it not, because, when you flood the economy with workers, obviously the whiphand is that of the bosses. They can say to Bob, well, if you don’t want to work for that amount of money, I’ll go over there to Frank. He’ll do it. But when the number of people available for jobs is smaller, Bob and Frank both start, all of a sudden, to have a bit of bargaining power, don’t they!

WILLIAM BOURKE: Indeed, and obviously, when you bring in highly exploitable people, who really don’t have a lot of bargaining power, who aren’t part of … I guess, unions and so forth, then you can beat down wages. And we’ve seen a lot of – you know – probably the lowest growth in wages over the last decade in the last century.

These things are now starting to see a pick-up in wages, and that’s a good thing for the average Australian.

MICHAEL MCLAREN: They are. I saw that Tom Dusevic of the Australian said, and I quote,

”During recent years, when population growth averaged a rich, world-leading, one and a half per cent a year [...]"

- which is just madness -

“with two thirds of it due to net-overseas migration, per capita incomes fell, even though national output was expanding at a fast clip, compared to our peers.”

In other words, the nation was getting wealthier – that’s National GDP, the individuals that make up the nation, that do the work, were actually going backwards.

WILLIAM BOURKE: Exactly, and the point there being that GDP per capita is really the proxy for living standards. So, the aggregate growth in GDP really doesn’t matter, if all of us are going backwards on average. And we know that there has been a lot of discussion about, you know, this 20 plus year run of ‘no recessions’ and so forth, but if you look at it on a GDP per capita basis, there were three recessions over the last 25 or so years, where GDP per capita went backwards, two quarters in a row. So, there’s a lot of misinformation out there, and we really need to look at the per capita of GDP, not the aggregate level.

MICHAEL MCLAREN: Yep. Now, none of this is to gloat. There are some sections of the economy which are doing it particularly difficult. The business model was heavily reliant on the migrant labour workforce. Hospitality, for example, their business model has been disrupted. A lot of people are doing it tough, but on a per capita basis, the average Australian looks like they may come out in front. And, of course, again, to be completely up-front, a huge amount of stimulus from the Federal Government also helps in that respect, and to remove that might have created a different story, but it just goes to prove the point, does it not, William, that you don’t need record levels of migration to continue economic growth?

WILLIAM BOURKE: That’s exactly the point. There’s a lot of studies out there about the impact of immigration on the economy, but a lot of it is based on, you know, assumptions. This is empirical evidence. This is very very very clear now, that where there is no immigration, we are still growing our economy and we are still creating jobs, and we have actually reduced the unemployment rate. So we’ve gone from seven odd per cent down to about five and a half per cent, and we look like going down to around four and a half per cent. That’s because a lot of people who have been long-term unemployed are now getting an opportunity to get a job. And isn't that a great thing?

MICHAEL MCLAREN: Well, it is and the tighter labor market Also pushes an important extra emphasis on behalf of government, and even business, on the issue of skills or re-skilling the Australian population, including those that are unemployed.

Most unemployed people want to work. They take they take no pride in not having a job but they may not have the skills to do it, so, you know, it's great. We've got the budget, of course tomorrow night. There may be something in there about this too, but there is a greater emphasis on business and government to say, well, look, you're not going to get the fresh blood in anytime soon. There is a bit floating around here though that needs a gig. Train them up, get them in a job.

WILLIAM BOURKE: There's a much greater focus on training and education as you say Michael and I'm sure that Treasurer Josh will be mentioning much more investment in training and education in the budget, and I've seen, you know, some media reports to that extent. So that's it. That's a really encouraging thing, because at the end of the day, we do have the labour here in Australia. We do need to continue to evolve our economy and evolve our skills. And that's what's happening right now, and it's a good thing.

MICHAEL MCLAREN: And, Will, to add to all of this, the re-emphasis, or the newly emerged emphasis, on needing to be more self resilient, more independent, instead of relying on international supply chains and there. And, there again, all of a sudden, you are incentivising people to re-establish, or freshly establish, sovereign industries in this country, particularly manufacturing-oriented industries, which – again - will help mop up a percentage of the unemployed.

WILLIAM BOURKE: Exactly right. And, at the moment, you're probably aware, the Upper Hunter by-election is on in New South Wales. We've got a candidate running there and he works on the railways. 

He's an engineer working on railway maintenance and, you know, we built the Tangara trains in Newcastle, you know, the Hunter area and now we're importing them from South Korea. So we need to turn back to making our own trains. And manufacturing, you know, our medical supplies. All of those issues that we thought we can just outsource overseas. I think we're now realizing finally that that's not a sustainable way to run an economy.

WILLIAM MCLAREN: Why then for so many years, we mention those record levels of immigration, despite the average Australian not wanting it. People are in favor of some immigration, sure, a bit of fresh blood doesn't hurt, but there's sort of nonsense of one-and-a-half percent growth per year. It was just a disaster on the property , on traffic – everything. Services. Why did it persist for so long? I mean, I'm a bit ignorant, I suppose, but I thought that democracy was basically the elected officials representing the will of the people, but on that issue, it couldn't have been more opposite. So, why did it persist for so long? 

WILLIAM BOURKE: So, I think Michael there are some groups in our society, in our economy, in our political environment, they have a little bit more power than the average person. And obviously, you know, the property industry, you know, big business and so forth. You know, they have a fair bit of sway. They've been complaining, even very lately about skills shortages and, Immigration Minister Alex Hawk, has just allowed a doubling of the hours of foreign students from 20 to 40 hours a week. So they're having a lot of influence, you know, because of political donations and other aspects of the body politic. And I guess that it would be nice if we did have a plebiscite or a referendum. Do we want to grow our population at this extreme rate of 1.5 plus percent when the developed world really should grow at, you know 0.2 per cent at the most.

MICHAEL MCLAREN: I was a little facetious early when I said that covid had probably done you out of a gig. Sustainable Australia, as you quite rightly said, stands for more than just a population issue. Just talk us through a little of what else it is that interests your party.

WILLIAM BOURKE: Well, we're a fairly centrist party Michael. So, you know, we talk about the big picture issues that matter. Obviously sustainable is about protecting our environment, and we really do want to make sure that, you know, we're not sprawling our suburbs, over our agricultural farm land. For example, we really want to stop overdevelopment and return planning powers to local communities.

I'm running in the North Sydney council elections in a couple of months. So, you know, making sure that local people have a say on the character of and the heritage values of their neighborhood. So those are some of the issues.

Corruption is an increasingly big issue that we're focusing on and I think there's a bit of corruption in this Big Australia, where vested interests are influencing our politicians rather than the public interest being put first. So that's just a couple of things that we stand for.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: A lot of common sense. Always good to talk to you. We’ll speak again, soon, William. Thank you so much for all that time.

WILLIAM BOURKE: Thanks for having me. Michael.

MICHAEL MCLAREN: That's my pleasure William Burke. As I said the President of the Sustainable Australia Party 

Planning scam, or should I say, planning scam juggernaut. The speed of so-called consultations for new development proposals is overwhelming democracy. No-one, except wealthy professional developers, with dedicated teams of staff, can keep up with the proposals. Maybe that’s the point. Still recovering from two recent surgeries, and on the heels of an unavoidable community organisation event, involving time consuming preparation and sequelae, I was looking forward to taking a break. I could see about 3 weeks of "clear sky" ahead of me, in which I could deal with an issue of mutual concern with my neighbour, do my tax return, prune the lemon tree, wash the curtains, and organise the hard rubbish for Friday. This feeling of relative freedom lasted about two days, before yet another "opportunity" for consultation from Melbourne Planning reared its head.

Or was it an obligation? This latest one involved a new parliamentary act about Public Land:

"Have your say and contribute to a project to renew Victoria’s public land legislation for the benefit of the community through the creation of a new Public Land Act." https://engage.vic.gov.au/renewing-victorias-public-land-legislation

I ran my eye over the document. The call for ‘streamlining’ and the reiteration of reassuring statements that ‘current tenures’ would not be disturbed, alerted me to the need to know what was going to happen to ‘future tenures.’ Of course, there was no clear information on that burning question. Just appendices talking about ‘sustainable’ use, to “enhance the natural, cultural, social, and economic values of public land.” Knowing that Victoria’s parliament always puts ‘economic’ values above environmental ones and any others, I did not like to think what the developers, who more or less run parliament these days, want to push through under the bleary eyes of community group members.

But this threatening document, albeit smiley-faced, is just the latest of many. Last year the Victorian State Government sought submissions on "environmental infrastructure for growing populations" and another one on "ecosystem decline," another on "A regional climate change adaptation strategy for Greater Melbourne," another on, "Waterways of the West Action Plan," another on, "Future of our forests". Making a serious submission is not just a walk in the park for a working person! Furthermore , these were highlights in an endless stream, which had begun as a trickle with a Plan for General Development (1929), then Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme 1954: Survey & Analysis, and Report (1954), Planning Policies for Metropolitan Melbourne (1971), Report on General Concept Objections (1974), Metropolitan Strategy Implementation (1981), Living Suburbs (1995), and gathered into a torrent around the turn of the 21st century, with Melbourne 2030: Planning for sustainable growth (2002), A plan for Melbourne's growth areas [2005], Melbourne 2030 Audit [2007-2008], Planning for all of Melbourne [May 2008], Melbourne @ 5 million [December 2008], Delivering Melbourne's newest sustainable communities [See Amendment VC68 (July 2010)], Plan Melbourne 2014, Plan Melbourne 2017 - 2050 (2017), Plan Melbourne Addendum (2019).[1] As well as this there were vast new tollways to connect new suburbs that never should have been built, and VCAT was transformed from a low-key tribunal where people represented themselves at low cost, to a high-powered, development-biased kangaroo court, defiantly serving the legal and development industries. All this affected public land, and changes were often spear-headed by superficially innocent ‘bike-paths’, and new sports-grounds, which so-called ‘environmental groups’ would try to bludgeon through.

The Melbourne City Council gains community input via its website under the banner of "Participate Melbourne." I have participated a number of times, on behalf of community organisations. Most people probably never hear of these invitations to submit [to fruitless pain] but, if you belong to a community group, particularly if it is concerned with the environment, somebody will bring each “opportunity” to your attention.

Repetition is forcing me to question whether these "consultations" are actually wonderful opportunities for my ideas to be carried forward. More and more they amount to tedious homework exercises to keep me quietly beavering away at home, unpaid, alone at my computer, away from my friends, the books I long to read, and facing a deadline. Occasionally I will let one go by, as it might save me a week of my life, when I can catch up with my grocery shopping, mow the lawn (yes, I am lucky enough to have a little green patch), and clean the windows.

Mostly however, I am a fairly compliant "environmental activist," dutifully submitting or assisting others' diligent efforts. What happens to our high-quality work? Usually, we agree to it being visible to the public, so it has to be of a standard that we would not be ashamed of, and which will possibly bring credit to the organisation we are representing. Are we listened to? Not according to the late Paul Mees, in "Who killed Melbourne 2030."

“Mees (2003, 2007) criticises both the content ofMelbourne 2030and the process by which it was produced,arguing that both the consultation process and the commitment to sustainability praised by the strategy’s admirers were shams. Although there was a very extensive process of consultation, this was not allowed to influence the strategy, which was written in private by members of the Strategy Development Division. And the strategic directions involved only a rhetorical, rather than a real, departure from the policies of the previous Kennett government, which focussed on market-led residential infill and road-based transport. Mees (2003, p. 298) predicted that the strategy would not survive a change of government, as it had no legitimacy in the eyes of the public, and did not deserve to survive, as it lacked substance and rigour.” [...]

“A series of ‘strategic directions’ ranging from the trite (Direction 8: Better transport links) to the completely content-free (Direction5: A great place to be) was presented for public endorsement. When people agreed with these platitudes – as if there was an alternative: worse transport links, or a terrible place to be, perhaps? – the Department of Infrastructure then treated this as endorsement of its actual policies and proposals, which were never submitted for public discussion or approval. An additional round of consultation to review the draft was proposed early in the process, but then cancelled without explanation (Mees, 2003).” ("Who killed Melbourne 2030.")

These “democratic” opportunities are becoming a burden and a way of life. My feeling is that I, as a member of the public, am being consulted because something valuable to the community, and to our environmental health, is about to either come under attack or be radically changed in some way. The imperative to make a submission within a deadline, and with proposals and deadlines coming down the planning pipeline at ever accelerating speed, puts members of the community in an invidious position. If we don't make a submission, it will appear that we don't care or we are asleep at the wheel. It's almost as though, if, under our watch, the government authority stuffs up, we have only ourselves to blame. But this is not so. In Australia, we have three levels of government which should be responsible for protecting their constituents from unfair, unsafe, overly rapid, intensifying development.

This constant need for public consultation, however, would indicate to me that they are not governing in our interests. Governments should have access to whatever expert advice they need in order to avoid environmental damage, yet it seems they are powerless or unwilling to prevent environmental destruction, rural or urban. Is all this public consultation the "get out of gaol free card" for ministers and public servants nominally at the head of planning departments that have actually contracted out their responsibility to private developers?

We know from successive government environmental reports that the Victorian environment is in steep decline. At the end of the day, when there is no wildlife, no native forests, and no public urban parklands, do members of the last government delude themselves with this declaration, "We consulted the public, and they obviously wanted to live in urban deserts?"

Or are we seeing a ‘tick-boxes’ to satisfy the community consultation auditor, whilst really satisfying the demands of mafias and triads in property development, that have got their claws solidly into government and opposition?

The unreasonable pace of 'planning' abets destructive development by overwhelming democratic participation

This trend to overwhelming community groups and individuals committed to democracy, with avalanches of consultations, seems like part of a cynical plan. The key to it all is the unreasonable pace. Something similar was burlesqued in 1970 in a film called The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer. Politically agile polling expert, Michael Rimmer, finally extracts total power from the people by requiring them to engage in endless postal voting on trivial matters. They are so exhausted, that they finally vote to pass all power to Rimmer.

You can watch the movie on youtube here. Or you can watch Melbourne Planning. There isn’t much difference, although the film is funnier.

More information about The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Rise_of_Michael_Rimmer “The mysterious Michael Rimmer (Cook) appears at a small and ailing British advertising agency, where the employees assume he is working on a time and motion study. However, he quickly begins to assert a de facto authority over the firm's mostly ineffectual staff and soon acquires control of the business from the incompetent boss Ferret (Arthur Lowe). Rimmer then succeeds in establishing the newly invigorated firm as the country's leading polling agency, and begins to make regular TV appearances as a polling expert. He subsequently moves into politics, acting as an adviser to the leader of the Tory opposition, and then becomes an MP himself, for the constituency of Budleigh Moor (a reference to Cook's frequent collaborator, Dudley Moore), along the way acquiring a trophy wife (Vanessa Howard).

Relying on a combination of charisma and deception—and murder—he then rapidly works his way up the political ladder to become prime minister (after throwing his predecessor off an oil rig). Rimmer then gains ultimate control by requiring the populace to engage in endless postal voting on trivial matters. At last, exhausted, they acquiesce in one final vote which passes dictatorial power to him. Ferret attempts to assassinate Rimmer as he and his wife ride through the capital in an open-topped convertible, but fails and falls to his death. (1970 British satirical film starring Peter Cook, and co-written by Cook, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Kevin Billington.)

NOTES

[1] “Plans” for Melbourne have been coming ever thicker and faster. You can read about them via the links below:

• Plan Melbourne Addendum (2019) https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/plan-melbourne
• Plan Melbourne 2017 - 2050 https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/plan-melbourne
• Melbourne's strategic planning history https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history
• Plan Melbourne 2014 https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/plan-melbourne-2014
• Melbourne 2030 Audit [2007-2008]
• Melbourne 2030: Planning for sustainable growth (2002)https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/melbourne-2030-planning-for-sustainable-growth
• Delivering Melbourne's newest sustainable communities [See Amendment VC68 (July 2010)] https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/delivering-melbournes-newest-sustainable-communities
• Melbourne @ 5 million [December 2008] https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/[email protected]
• Planning for all of Melbourne [May 2008] https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/planning-for-all-of-melbourne
• A plan for Melbourne's growth areas [2005] https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/a-plan-for-melbournes-growth-areas
• Living Suburbs (1995) https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/living-suburbs
• Metropolitan Strategy Implementation (1981) https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/metropolitan-strategy-implementation-1981
• Report on General Concept Objections (1974) https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/report-on-general-concept-objections-1974
• Planning Policies for Metropolitan Melbourne (1971) https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/planning-policies-for-metropolitan-melbourne-1971
• Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme 1954: Report https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/melbourne-metropolitan-planning-scheme-1954-report
• Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme 1954: Survey & Analysis https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/melbourne-metropolitan-planning-scheme-1954-survey-and-analysis
• Plan for General Development (1929) https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbournes-strategic-planning-history/plan-for-general-development-1929

India is in a terrible state due to the pandemic, a situation largely the result of gross mismanagement by the government. The spread of the virus was difficult to control because of high-density cities that made lock-downs extremely difficult for residents, and safe separation impossible. A highly infectious new variant may also be a driver, but there are other factors, including an underfunded health service, and a severe shortage of doctors. India needs about 600,000 more doctors, just to meet the WHO recommendations for doctor to patient ratio. Unfortunately, the situation is getting worse. A study by the Indian Journal of public health found that, because of population growth, India will need another 2 million doctors by 2030.

Yet training more doctors is but part of the solution, as it is becoming increasingly clear that India is in a highly competitive battle with developed countries to retain the services of their newly minted doctors.

“Out of the total number of graduates, 10% are opting for pastures abroad. The basic fact is that India needs them, and India is not in a position to retain them,” says Dr. Vedprakash Mishra, vice chancellor of DMIMS University, a medical college in Nagpur.

In 2007, the WHO estimated that over 100,000 Indian-trained doctors were employed overseas. About half these expatriate Indian doctors were in the US, followed by the numbers in Canada and Australia. About a third of doctors practicing in Australia and Canada had done their initial training overseas, many being from developing nations. In 2017, there were 4771 Indian doctors working in Australia, as well as 2287 from Africa, and even 116 from Oceania. Not all overseas-qualified doctors in Australia are working as doctors because of professional qualifying hurdles, meaning that many skilled migrants may find it impossible to find employment in their chosen career.

From an economics point of view skilled migration is a bargain. It’s also immoral, but morality isn’t part of economics.

Maybe we could adapt our foreign aid to subsidize the employment of doctors in poor countries?

Some References:
Australian Government Report: "Medical practitioners workforce 2015, Who are medical Practitioners?"

Farz Edraki and Cathy Pryor, "Doctors and engineers end up driving taxis': The uphill battle facing migrants to Australia," ABC, 31 October 2019.

Navin J Antony, Health care: India needs more doctors," The Week, August 17, 2019.

Table 1: Employed medical practitioners: country of initial medical qualification, 2015

Source: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/workforce/medical-practitioners-workforce-2015/contents/who-are-medical-practitioners