LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL COMMITTEE INQUIRY SUBMISSION

Question on notice and response: posed by Clifford Hayes (Sustainable Australia Party) to Richard Wynn, Minister for Planning, about proposed Connex Capital high-rise towers above the train lines between Flinders Street Station and Richmond Station:

Questions on Notice No 4760

The Planning and Heritage Inquiry submissions are up and running and we are hoping you will be able to add something to this, and/or share with other residents.  Submissions are due by 31 Jan 22. Anyone who wants to contribute to the adequacy on the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and the Victorian planning framework in relation to planning and heritage protection is welcome to make a contribution. Areas covered include population policy, state and local; housing costs, vegetation protection, height limits, Green Wedges, concerns about VCAT, protecting heritage.

"Official Western institutions have never recognised Assange as a prisoner of conscience,why do you think that is?" Oksana asks Greg Barnes. After almost a decade in confinement, Julian Assange is still fighting against extradition requests to the United States, at cost to his physical and mental health, while also compromising WikiLeaks’ ability to continue its operations.

Senior representatives of the five peak general practice organisations, including Presidents and CEOs, met yesterday with Minister for Health Greg Hunt and Minister for Regional Health David Gillespie to discuss the challenges facing general practice and the support needed to ensure GPs can stay open and deliver the essential high quality care Australians need at this time. 

The New South Wales Australia Premier, Dominic Perrottet, a practising Catholic with six children and a seventh on the way, took over from Gladys Berajicklan, a childless, unmarried woman.

Australia will reach one million people officially living with a Covid diagnosis within days – more than lung disease and cancer – with one in every 20 New South Wales and Victorian residents already contracting the virus, the latest VaxEnomicTM Forecaster from C-suite strategy group Provocate reveals. 

There is not much comparison between the situation of the multi-millionaire tennis player Novak Djokovic and his fellow detainees in the Park Hotel, Carlton (in Victoria, Australia.)  Petitioners for the release of the long term detainees and those for Djokovic have coincided over the last day but probably have little in common. 

We've isolated, disinfected,  distanced, masked and tested 
Lined up for any nasal itch or throat with stitch In case we were infected 
We've vaccinated, validated, Q R coded with dedication
Whilst cancers in our organs run rampant, undetected 
 

The final sitting of the Australian Parliament for 2021 is from Monday until Thursday next week. In the embedded video, I explain how, if it chose to, the Federal Government could have acted long ago to force the British Government to end the illegal imprisonment and torture of Julian Assange. Australians must make the government act to free Julian Assange, or else, hold it to account should it continue to fail to do so.

During Victoria's lockdown(s), I re-read The Plague, by Albert Camus, which was a prescribed text for me and other Higher School Certificate students (Year 12) way back in 1972. The plot concerns the Algerian town of Oran, which is struck down by bubonic plague in the 1940s. The townsfolk are sealed off and isolated from the outside world, as the plague exacts an increasingly terrible and deadly toll. The book depicts their different reactions to their situation. It has immense power in getting to the heart of what things, and what values, are important in life.

The plague in Oran, and the coronavirus pandemic in Australia, have some clear differences. While the people of Oran are cut off from the world, they are not cut off from each other. They mix at restaurants and cafes and the like. Social distancing doesn’t play any noticeable role – whether this was wise from a health perspective is not spelt out.

Another noticeable difference is that the initial reaction of the townsfolk is largely selfish. It is over time that many of them come to the realization that “we are all in this together”, and join the efforts of the medical team to help those who have been infected. By comparison I feel that the initial response of Australians in 2020 to coronavirus was a “Team Australia” approach, but that as the pandemic has worn on that people have tended to become fatigued and less concerned about the welfare of others.

These differences notwithstanding, I think the book rings many bells for our present situation. Camus says the townsfolk initially believed the pestilence wasn’t real, or that it would soon pass. “A pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure, therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogey of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn’t always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away…”

Camus also says that the town’s leaders and officials were slow to take the plague seriously. He says they had good intentions: “That, in fact, was what struck one most – the excellence of their intentions. But as regards plague their competence was practically nil”. And the epidemic spells the ruin of Oran’s tourist trade.

Then the plague produces a new variant, moving from bubonic to pneumonic. The officials are left “groping, more or less, in the dark”. Camus observes that “Officialdom can never cope with something really catastrophic”. This realization prompts one of the book’s key characters to organize voluntary groups of helpers to help the sick.

Camus also discusses the fatalism in Oran at the time, which is echoed today in the regularly heard observation that “we are going to have to learn to live with COVID”. He wrote “Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming that there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable”.

But he rejects that fatalism. He goes on to say “And Tarrou, Rieux and their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no bowing down. The essential thing was to save the greatest possible number of persons from dying”.

Indeed. It is an issue of fundamental humanity. In the last year and a half most people I have talked to have overwhelmingly supported community action to save every possible life. They have not displayed any sympathy for the Darwinian “survival of the fittest” approach. I have been impressed by their basic humanity and concern for those around them.

The Plague is worth a read. It is not an easy book, but then we don’t live in easy times.

Many Australians think that if they are accused of a crime, they have a right to a trial by jury. They are therefore shocked when they only appear before a judge, and are encouraged to plead guilty/admit to the charges, without the option of a jury. It feels like being rail-roaded. Research indicates that judges who are regularly called upon to hear criminal prosecutions without juries become 'case-hardened' and prosecution-minded, according to "Trial by Jury" by Graham Fricke, of which we reproduce the first part here. As far as we know, not much has changed since this article first appeared in the Australian Parliamentary Library - in 1996, going by this more recent Victorian Law Reform Commission article on the subject.

Trial by Jury - Research Paper 11 1996-97 - by Graham Fricke - Published by the Parliamentary Library of Australia

When federal Parliament creates criminal offences, the question arises as to whether such offences should be tried by judge and jury, or tried summarily by a magistrate. The framers of the Australian Constitution inserted section 80, which appears to confer a right to jury trial.

A difficulty results from the use of the words 'on indictment' in the opening words of section 80. This has at times resulted in a narrow construction of the section, for the High Court has said that it is only when prosecutions are brought 'on indictment' that the right to jury trial arises; where Parliament has authorised summary proceedings, and summary proceedings are brought, the right to jury trial is avoided.

It is contended that there have been three eras of interpretation of section 80:

an initial period in which the section was regarded as laying down a fundamental law of the Commonwealth;
a much longer period in which a narrow, 'procedural' approach was taken; and
the last decade, which reveals a tendency to revert to the broad approach.

The broad approach, which is necessary if citizens facing substantial liability to imprisonment are to enjoy a genuine right to jury trial, was also supported by prominent judges in dissenting judgments during the second period.

The fact that the narrow approach has been taken makes it important for federal parliamentarians to be vigilant in legislating for criminal offences and the mode of trial of such offences. Where offences are made subject to substantial periods of imprisonment, the legislation should make it clear that the trials should take place on indictment. If summary trial is provided for, the accused will be deprived of an important benefit which some, at least, of the framers of the Constitution intended the accused to enjoy.

Many of the sections of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) do not make it clear whether the offences it creates are triable by jury or summarily. Guidelines are provided by sections 4G, 4H and 4J. Section 4G, for example, provides that federal offences punishable by imprisonment for a period exceeding 12 months are indictable offences, but it adds the words 'unless the contrary intention appears'. This may leave the situation in an unfortunate state of uncertainty. Other federal legislation authorises summary proceedings even though substantial terms of imprisonment may be imposed.

It is suggested that federal Parliament should enact that the trial of any federal offence providing for punishment in excess of one year's imprisonment shall be on indictment. This enactment, taken in conjunction with section 80 of the Constitution, would result in an effective guarantee of trial by jury for serious offences.

Arguably Parliamentary Committees should play a greater role in scrutinising laws to ensure that summary trial is not available for serious offences.

Stronger protection of a right to trial by jury for serious offences, even if that right could be waived by the accused, would facilitate the democratic participation of the community in the administration of justice. This in turn would strengthen public confidence in the legitimacy of the Australian criminal justice system.

"Biden is like Trump without the Tweets." The British are known for their "permanent opportunism." "Boris Johnson is like a fifth wheel." US State Department falsely claimed it communicated with the French. China is attempting to make the China Sea into a kind of internal sea. Australia is losing sovereignty to America. US submarines would arrive ten years later than the French ones, so urgency cannot be the reason for breach of contract. (French Minister for Foreign Affairs).
Co-dependency is known to lead partners of people with grave emotional and mental problems into embarassing situations. These kinds of compromise are achieved through manipulation by flattery or pressure on approval-seeking and disapproval-avoiding spouses. Was this the situation for Scott Morrison, who, although Mr Biden could not remember Scott's name, a day or two before, was suddenly convinced by Biden and his team, to seriously snub France, whilst leaving parliament mostly in the dark, in a move that will cost us all even more money but also even more than money. Is China really such an unreasonable threat a world, when America has an order of magnitude more military bases than any other country? Do we really prefer to be completely remade in the image of Walmart, as we become just another new military base for the United States? Is this really just another 19th century trade-war, but with nuclear submarines instead of galleons? Jean-Yves Le Drian is the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs. He was interviewed by lead journalist Laurent Delahousse on France2 News on 18 September 2021, on the subject of Australia's sudden breach of its submarine contract with France for a projected contract with the United States. Inside is a detailed translation of that interview, for any Australians who are interested. The original interview is at Journal 20h00 - Édition du samedi 18 septembre 2021 en streaming - Replay France 2 | France tv.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE: This evening the contract of the century has been broken and France has called its ambassadors home from the United States and Australia. What will be the outcome of this diplomatic crisis between allies? Answers this evening from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Jean-Yves Le Drian, who is our guest.
[Presentation of the other headlines]

LAURANT DELAHOUSSE: A crisis, an earthquake, a conspiracy between allies. It’s hard to work out what’s happening in this affair. The breaching of the contract of the century on submarines is giving rise to consequences that go well beyond economic matters. These highlight a rearrangement of geopolitical maps and it remains to be known where France and Europe will end up in all this.

Before we go to Jean-Yves Le Drian, first, the fact for today: Paris decided to call home its ambassadors in the United States and Australia. (Names journalists Thomas Cuny, Lucie Berbey, and [?Noah d’Intar – unclear] responsible for producing this background segment)

“Alone in the corridors of Sydney Airport, France’s ambassador to Australia leaves the country. Just like his counterpart in Washington. The two diplomats have been called back to Paris for consultation. An exceptional diplomatic decision. Taken by the President of the Republic and justified in this communication from the Minister of Foreign Affairs.”

Communication from the Quai d’Orsay, 17 September 2021: “This exceptional decision is justified by the exceptional gravity of the announcement made on 15 September by Australia and the United States.”

A few hours earlier on the two continents, the French ambassadors spoke in unison of France’s indignation.

Translation from the French translation of the French Ambassador to the U.S.’s statement: “When we learned that the contract had been cancelled, this really made us angry.”
Jean-Pierre Thebault (French ambassador in Australia, statement in English translated into French): “I think it was a huge mistake. A nasty blow to our partnership. It was more than a contract. It was a partnership.”

The return of the ambassadors, France’s retort after the cancellation of Australia’s order for 12 French submarines to the value of 56 billion euros. Basically, Canberra has turned towards the United States and the United Kingdom. Since then there has been a continuing diplomatic crisis between France and these countries.

PASCAL BONIFACE : (Geopolitical expert – Director of the Institute of International and Strategic Diplomatic Relations (Directeur de l’Institut de Relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS)) : “France, obviously, has been betrayed, as much by the Australians as by the United States, which are allies. And therefore, when there is a betrayal, one cannot accept it without reacting. Otherwise, one loses honour. And therefore it was completely legitimate, moral, and expected, that France should have a strong reaction, rather than be totally humiliated and not react in respect of that humiliation.”

Tonight, the U.S. State Department reacted to the French Government’s decision:

“We have been in close contact with our French allies. We understand their position and we are conscious of their intention to recall the Ambassador to Paris for consultation. France is an essential partner and our oldest ally.”

The emboldened text below is the only part that was verbally translated in the French news

Original U.S. communication appearing on screen :
US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Attributed to State Department Spokesperson Ned Price: We have been in close contact with our French allies. We understand their position, and we are aware of their plans to recall Ambassador Etienne to Paris for consultations. France is a vital partner and our oldest ally, and we place the highest value on our relationship. The Transatlantic Alliance has fostered security, stability, and prosperity around the world for more than seven decades, and our commitment to those bonds and our work together is unwavering. We hope to continue our discussion on this issue at the senior level in coming days, including at UNGA next week, in line with our close bilateral partnership and commitment to cooperation on arrange of issues, including the Indo-Pacific.

Jean-Yves Le Drian and his American counterpart, Tony Blinken, will again find themselves in New York, at the seat of the United Nations. The Americans hope to continue the dialogue. [Reference to the last paragraph of the US communication above.]

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : And in an attempt to better understand the Minister for Foreign Affairs is with us. Good evening Jean-Yves Le Drian.

LE DRIAN (FRENCH FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER): Good evening.

LAUREN DELAHOUSSE : For many French people listening, to recall those ambassadors in response to such a humiliation, may not mean much.

LE DRIAN : It’s very symbolic. There have been lies, there has been duplicity, there has been a major breakdown in trust, there has been contempt. Therefore things are not good between us! Not good at all! It means there is a crisis, and at this moment, there is firstly a symbolic aspect – you recall your ambassadors in order to try to understand, but at the same time in order to show our countries which were once partners that we are really very angry, that there is really a crisis between us, and then, it is also, when the moment arrives, to reevaluate our position, in order to defend our interests both in Australia and in the United States.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Mr Drian, you know as I do, this evening, that this measure isn’t going to stop Joe Biden from sleeping. He is happy with the contract, which is now in his favor.
LE DRIAN : Yes, but the fact that for the first time in the history of the United States and France we have recalled our ambassador for consultation is a heavy political action, signifying the importance of the crisis which exists today between our two countries. Also with Australia.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Have Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron spoken together?

LE DRIAN : Not to my knowledge.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Has Mr Blinken spoken with you?

LE DRIAN : Today, no. Um, I heard your commentary, according to which there had been consultations with – between the Americans and ourselves – before the announcement. It isn’t true.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Meaning that you knew nothing.

LE DRIAN : - an hour before -

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : - nothing of these negotiations an hour beforehand. [… unclear]

LE DRIAN : That’s the reason I’m telling you that there has been duplicity, contempt, lying. It’s -

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : And perhaps -

LE DRIAN : - You can’t play with alliances like that! We are allies.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Mmm.

LE DRIAN : And therefore, when one has an ally, one does not treat them with brutality, with such unpredictability, a major partner which France is. So, there is really a crisis.
This also throws light perhaps on some kind of failure in our research services when one is not up to date …?

LE DRIAN : No. Yes. But really, in fact the agreement which was initiated by the United States an Australia was decided by a tiny little committee and I am not even sure that all the Australian and American ministers knew it.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Mr Biden’s method bears a strong resemblance to Mr Trump’s.

LE DRIAN : Without the tweets.

LAURANT DELAHOUSSE : Without the tweets.

LE DRIAN : But, with a quite infuriatingly pompous announcement. Truth be told, seeing the US President and the Australian Prime Minister in company with Boris Johnson, announcing with such solemn ceremony, this breach and these new commitments, provides so many reasons to question the strength of the alliance.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE: Are there no allies anymore on the American side? Is there a profound breakdown in trust?

LE DRIAN : There is a breakdown in trust.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : And you saw the same thing, well before. We remember 2013 and those French planes taking off. This is something that affected you deeply. It’s a new step after Afghanistan.

LE DRIAN : What’s for sure is that the United States are in the process of recentering their fundamental interests. They are in the process of going back on a particular commitment they had on the international level, and there is a real link between Afghanistan and what has just happened with the Australian contract, except that a true alliance – in a true alliance – people talk to each other. They don’t hide things. They answer our questions. One respects the other. One respects sovereignty. This was not the case. That is why there is a crisis.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : What we might have hoped for was, finally, a strong, intense, European reaction. I haven’t heard Mrs Merkel say anything today.

LE DRIAN: Yes, but -

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Aren’t you disappointed about that, in the circumstances? That, in the end, France finds herself alone, while power bypasses Europe?

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : I’m not sure that we are really so alone in this business, because of various conversations we have had in these last 48 hours, including -

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Perhaps she [Merkel] will speak -

LE DRIAN : But wait, it’s not over – (Smiling)

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE: It’s not over. (Grinning.) It’s not over. (Turning to audience.)

In fact, in a moment we are going to look at how geopolitics in that region are on the move. And we are going to talk about this. Why has America made this choice and why is there new vitality in the Anglo-Saxon axis, and especially why this Asia-Pacific region has become the priority? It’s not new for Washington, which no longer looks to the west, and Europe, but towards the East and China. To understand what is at stake, [..] Presents background piece.

[BACKGROUND PIECE:]
[Picture of Australian Prime Minister Morrison with a rather stupid smile on his face.]

An unconcerned Australian Primeminister, at daggers drawn with Xi Jinping’s China. He has chosen his side and thrown himself into Joe Biden’s arms in a game of power, in that battle of influences that is playing out in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia is thousands of kilometers from the United States, but the two countries are united by their obsession with China. They can no longer bear that Peking (Bejing) wants to reign over this entire region. They have found their theatre, this submarine contract. For Australia, it’s a kind of all-risks insurance against Peking (Bejing), and too bad for the French.

THOMAS GOMART, DIRECTOR OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (DIRECTEUR DE L’INSTITUT FRANCAIS DES RELATIONS INTERNATIONALES (IRI)) : “Australia, which has been the object of multiple pressures from China, has in a way completely switched over into the American camp. That means that this contract also translates into a highly probable form of integration of the Australian Navy into the US Marines, in response to the threat from China.”

An agreement between Washington and Canberra, at a moment when military tensions are more and more lively in the region. Latest episode: [Picture of rows of Chinese ships in the Pacific] This armada of 200 chinese ships that Peking (Beijing) calls fishing boats, in fact a maritime militia financed by China in order to challenge the countries in the region. A perfect illustration of this middle-ranking empire in a quest for supremacy.

ANTOINE BONDAZ : RESEARCHER – SPECIALIST ON CHINA. FOUNDATION FOR STRATEGIC RESEARCH (FONDATION POUR LA RECHERCHE STRATEGIQUE (FRS))
“This confrontation between Australia and China, brooding for years, culminated in 2020. (…) Peking [Bejing] imposed economic sanctions on Australia, with high taxes on wine, beef, barley, and coal. And it is also that economic war that is pushing the Australians to seek shelter under the American umbrella.”

LAURANT DELAHOUSSE : Before we return to geopolitics, what can we do next? What are you going to try to get, to negotiate for, with the Americans?

LE DRIAN : Firstly, there is the agreement we had with the Australians. It was an intergovernmental agreement that I signed myself in 2016 with Mr Morrison’s predecessor. This agreement contained previsions for a situation where one of the parties would want to leave it, since this is an agreement over 30 years.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : So, a violation -

LE DRIAN : So, there are arrangements that indicate, firstly, that the party wanting to break the agreement makes this known in writing, which we have not yet received. After that, 12 months of discussion are required, in order to arrive at a potential breaking of the agreement, if one of the parties wants to break it, at the end of 24 months. We are therefore going to act to ask for explanations from the Australians in order to know how they themselves expect to respect the agreement that they themselves signed. But, there is still another point that preoccupies me in this business.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : Mmm.

LE DRIAN : We were meant to deliver the first submarines by the beginning of the 2030s on a schedule that would take us to 2050. That’s been breached. It’s been breached, say the Australians, because China has militarized.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE. Mmm.

LE DRIAN : And it was precisely in order to ensure the sovereignty of Australia that we entered these contracts with the Australians. But, in short, they say the contracts being broken because of China – And what’s America offering, today? What does the agreement just announced contain? There is an agreement to carry out a study which will end up in a contract after 18 months. A contract for nuclear submarines. Which means they are putting back the delivery date for the new submarines to 2040! All this despite the urgent context of China’s rise?

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE: Therefore, you don’t understand.

LE DRIAN: I don’t understand. And maybe that’s Australia’s choice. And they have also chosen to be truly subordinate to the United States in the region - perhaps a form of giving up a part of their sovereignty. It’s their decision, but it gives rise to questions -

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : The political map is changing there and you are well aware of it. You know that’s been the long-term objective in the region, vis a vis China, since Barack Obama. What will France’s role and place be in that region? And Europe’s?

LE DRIAN : Keep in mind here the rise of a highly confrontational, militarily confrontational, United States-initiated Indo-Pacific strategy in the region.

LAURANT DELAHOUSSE : That’s not our position towards China?

LD DRIAN : It’s not our position. We know very well what China is doing.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : That’s not naïve? It’s the third […unclear]

LE DRIAN : Not at all, it’s not naïve. We know very well that China is rearming. We know very well what China’s behaviour is at the international level: How they are also trying in some way to make the South China Sea an internal sea, which they want to control completely. We know all that, and it must not be accepted. But we Europeans are in a situation where we only recently decided, three days ago, on our own Indo-Pacific strategy. We are in competition. We are in a situation of competition, sometimes violent competition. We are proposing an alternative model, but we are not operating within a rationale of systematic military confrontation – even if sometimes it is necessary to use military means.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : You have previously been known to use the word ‘innocence’, and sometimes even Europe’s ‘naivety’. Have we come to the end of that approach, on the diplomatic level, in the face of China, in the face of the United States, in the face of Turkey, in the face of Russia? Should we be changing gears, Minister?

LE DRIAN : I think that Europe is emerging from its innocence.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : But it seems urgent, Minister.

LE DRIAN : It seems urgent after Afghanistan and this business […] I think that Europe, if Europeans want to remain relevant, they must unite, and defend their own interests together, or their destinies will be totally different and we don’t want to got down that dark road.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : […] Two final questions: No santions, or no reactions, finally, vis a vis the role of the British in that deal? Finally, Boris Johnson has a smile on his face: I just got through Brexit. I’m with my Anglo-Saxon friends. I’ve regained my balance in the face of [… ? ]

LE DRIAN : No sanctions. I told you a moment ago that we recalled our ambassadors to see how we could reevaluate the situation. With Great Britain, it’s unnecessary. We are familiar with their permanent opportunism. So, there’s no point in recalling our ambassador to know this. Moreover, Great Britain, in this affair, is pretty much the fifth wheel.

LAURENT DELAHOUSSE : So, Boris Johnson is a fifth wheel. A few months from the election, your opponents will very quickly oppose you on many things. France’s decline, which is an important issue for the President of the republic, could be strongly represented?

LE DRIAN : The subject is respect, functioning alliances, clarity and truth. I think everyone can share this.

LAURANT DELAHOUSSE : No question of leaving NATO?

LE DRIAN : That’s not the issue. The President of the Republic has embarked on a review of NATO’s fundamentals. Regarding these fundamentals, the next summit will be in Madrid. The culmination of the new strategic concept will of course take into account what has just happened, but at the same time Europe must develop its own strategic compass. This will be under France’s responsibility, in the first half of 2022.

[Translation by Sheila Newman]

Australia cannot become a staging point for the U.S. military, we cannot abrogate our sovereignty to the U.S., we cannot encourage nuclear proliferation and risk environmental catastrophe.

Australian peace, environmental and other activists and organisations are opposed to the Morrison Government decision to join the trilateral security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) and the development of nuclear submarines.

This authoritarian decision, taken without consultation or engagement of the Australian public, undermines Australian sovereignty, wastes taxpayers money, damages the environment and poses a threat to peace in the region and to global peace.

With this agreement, the Australian Government can no longer claim it is remaining neutral between Beijing and Washington. Now Australia is ‘all in’ with America, regardless of the public.

This agreement also cements military dependence on the U.S. as Australia becomes unable to operate without Washington’s approval. Furthermore, the Morrison Government has also committed to allowing further U.S. military forces into Australia.

This will not only deny Australia the ability to act independently but will also make it complicit in dangerous regional tensions and conflict, undermining global cooperation to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

AUKUS is a step backwards for diplomacy, deepening a Cold War mentality, which has alienated Australia not only from France but our neighbours such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

Building nuclear submarines will impose an extraordinary economic burden on the Australian people. Funding for welfare, education, the environment and healthcare will be raided. These resources should be directed to the health, social and economic needs of workers and the Australian people.

There will also be a significant environmental cost as the presence of these vessels in our cities and harbours is a clear and present danger. There are already nine nuclear reactors on the seafloor from sunken nuclear submarines.

For these reasons and many more, we are calling on the Australian Government to fully withdraw from AUKUS and the development of nuclear submarines.

This statement was issued following an emergency meeting of over one hundred activists from around Australia.

- Monumental foreign policy decisions cannot be made without any public engagement behind closed doors.
- A nuclear-powered submarine fleet will represent a fundamental threat to global peace.
- Aukus cements Australia as a subordinate of the U.S. (Independent Peaceful Australia Network - IPAN)

"The shocking announcement of a trilateral security partnership between the U.S., U.K. and Australia (Aukus), which will be tied to Australia receiving nuclear submarines, is a blow to Australia’s independence and peace in the region.

The security partnership, Aukus, was announced without any public scrutiny or engagement.
While China was not mentioned in the announcement it is clear that this partnership is designed to confront and contain China, in a belligerent and dangerous manner." (IPAN)

Comments from China

A Global Times article by Yang Sheng, entitled “Nuke sub deal could make Australia ‘potential nuclear war target,’ reports Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a press briefing that "China will pay close attention to the development of the AUKUS deal. Relevant countries should abandon their Cold War and zero-sum game mentality; otherwise, they will lift a rock that drops on their own feet." (https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202109/1234460.shtml)

Zhao also said that the 'AUKUS' alliance “seriously damages regional peace and stability, intensifies the arms race, and undermines the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.” And that, “Countries should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties. In particular, they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice.”

Subordination to Washington

IPAN stated, "Australia’s receiving of a nuclear submarine fleet as part of Aukus will only cement Canberra’s subordination to Washington.

There are also serious practical considerations to having nuclear submarines that received no public consideration.

Australia will be the only country that has nuclear submarines without nuclear weapons and domestic nuclear industry. While Prime Minister Morrison has said the submarines will not necessitate the development of said industries - despite the Government's close relationship to the pro-nuclear lobby - this only highlights our further dependence on, and integration into, the U.S.

Furthermore, this deal will likely see an end to the $90 billion contracts with the French company Naval Group, which marks one of the most egregious wastes of public funds.

During an economic downturn and a pandemic spending on public healthcare, education and public services should be the priority, sinking billions into submarines that will only put Australia in danger is irresponsible."

IPAN spokesperson, Dr Vince Scappatura, said:

"Embracing Aukus means undermining Australia's sovereign defence capabilities and contributing to further militarisation of the region. Australia should be working to reduce tensions and promote peaceful relations. Never has such a monumental decision been made with such little consultation and public engagement."

"We have only just withdrawn from Afghanistan, a generation-long invasion that is still causing untold devastation. Without taking a breath we have gone from following the U.S. into one catastrophe to committing ourselves to another."

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) has welcomed the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that show population growth has fallen to near zero (0.1 per cent) despite an apparent baby boom. Yesterday, the ABS released figures for the year ending March 31. Australia’s population grew by 35,700 or 0.14 per cent. Annual natural increase was 131,000 and net overseas migration (NOM) was -95,300. This news came not long after NSW Health announced more than 19,000 babies were born in NSW hospitals from April to June this year, a nine per cent increase on the same period last year.

Victoria is also experiencing a baby boom with the maternity system stretched to “breaking point”, according to the Victorian health minister, Martin Foley.

“News that our overall population growth has dropped to almost zero is very welcome,” the president of SPA Ms Jenny Goldie says. “In the initial period of border closures, the large number of people leaving the country compared to those entering meant NOM was negative, though not quite enough to offset natural increase of 131,000. In the current year, growth will be higher since most of those that would leave Australia have done so already.

“Now is the perfect time to dispense with the Big Australia goal of perpetual population growth promoted by big business. Instead let’s aim for a stable and sustainable population. These new figures prove that it can be done.

“The annual growth figures from pre-Covid years, which sometimes exceeded 400,000, were simply not sustainable in environmental, social or economic terms.

“Environmentally, population growth causes loss of natural habitat through urban expansion and water diversion, and increases pollution, not least carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

“Socially, infrastructure never kept pace with the needs of a rapidly expanding population, and led to undue crowding in schools, congestion and longer hospital waiting times.

“Economically, workers suffered wage stagnation and capital was diverted from wealth- producing enterprises to speculating on rising land values, creating Australia’s housing unaffordability crisis.

“This is the time when we must review honestly the costs and benefits of the non-humanitarian parts of our migration program. We should never return to the days of immigration-fuelled high population growth,” says Ms Goldie.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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]

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

A 336K double-sided A5 leaflet (adapted from previous leaflet) can be found, attached to this page here.

Last Thursday 25 March, during the Senate Estimates Hearing, Greens Senator for Victoria, Janet Rice (pictured left), asked Foreign Minister Marise Payne (pictured right) to explain her failure to act to free Australian journalist Julian Assange from his imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison in London. Given the very short time allowed for Janet Rice to pursue this issue, she did remarkably well in cutting through Marise Payne's evasions and attempts to obfuscate the issue.

The 2:17 minute video from Twitter, is embedded below and the text of the exchange between Senators Janet Rice and Marise Payne is included below the video.

Exchange between Senator Janet Rice and Senator Marise Payne on Julian Assange

Janet Rice : So, on Julian Assange, Minister, have you personally requested to the Biden administration that they drop their appeal against the UK court finding to not extradite Julian Assange.

Marise Payne : Senator, I said in response to Senator Patrick, that I had not discussed this directly with the Biden administration at this stage, but I expect it to be discussed in meetings with the Secretary of State (the United States equivalent of Foreign Minister).

Janet Rice : OK, and when do you expect those meetings to occur?

Marise Payne : In the coming months.

Janet Rice : Months?

Marise Payne : Well, Senator, nothing is confirmed because we are making arrangements in relation to travel. If I am not able to do that in person, then I will be raising a number of issues in a virtual engagement that will be sooner.

Janet Rice : And this is despite the reporting that if you had actually raised the issue of Julian Assange with the Trump administration to drop the charges, that they were very likely to have done so?

Marise Payne : Well, I did raise the matter with the Trump administration, Senator. I raised the matter with the Secretary of State, myself directly at AUSMIN (Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations) in July 2020.

Janet Rice : Well, in the last month, the Trump administration - that secondary reporting - but I will move on. Were DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) officials told that Julian Assange is on suicide watch from the time that of his arrival at Belmarsh Prison on 11 April 2019?

Marise Payne : Senator, while the [DFAT] officer is going to brief, I would remind you, Senator, as I have in the Senate, that the Australian Government has endeavoured to offer consular assistance …

Janet Rice : My time is short, Minister and I am aware that you …

Marise Payne : And I have two things to say, Senator. The consular assistance on 22 occasions, from 2019 to 2021, DFAT - consent was withdrawn for DFAT to consult about Mr Assange's personal circumstances, his health and his welfare in prison on the 13th of June 2019 by Mr Assange. So, given consent was withdrawn, Senator …

Janet Rice : I am asking you about the time between his arrival on the 11th of April until the 13th of June when DFAT had his consent.

Victorian Kangaroos need your signature on this petition! They have been decimated by bushfires and the Victorian Government estimates of numbers are way out. The Mornington Peninsula contains a landlocked group of grey kangaroos that are menaced by several processes, including increased development, traffic, fencing, shooting, and the so-called Kangaroo Harvest Program (KHP). These animals need our help and protection. The petition calls upon the Victorian Government to suspend its 'harvest' program. See below.

Legislative Council E-Petitions https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council/petitions/electronic-petitions/view-e-petitions/details/12/320
E-petition Number
307
Click here to sign

Grievance

The Petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Council that kangaroos culled through the Kangaroo Harvest Program (KHP) and the Authority to Control Wildlife (ATCW) has been a contentious issue for a long time in the Mornington Peninsula community. The Victorian Government appear to be over-inflating kangaroo numbers as their count excludes large parts of the state’s landscapes, meaning that kangaroo numbers could be grossly overestimated.

During the black summer bushfires of 2020, approximately 3 billion wildlife were killed, injured or displaced. The Victorian Government estimated that in 2020, the kangaroo population increased by 40 per cent, which macropod experts claim is not scientifically possible. Kangaroo numbers based on ATCW permits highlight that the counting of kangaroos for the KHP is not based on science. Kangaroos in the Mornington Peninsula are under threat from increased development, traffic, fencing, shooting and now from the KHP.

The Mornington Peninsula is an isolated and landlocked area and is home to the Eastern Grey Kangaroo population. Threatened species were once common and perceived as pests and we hope to ensure that kangaroos in Victoria, especially in the Mornington Peninsula, do not become threatened.

Action

The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Council call on the Government to suspend the 2021 Kangaroo Harvest Program (KHP), apply improved and accurate methods of counting kangaroos and move the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council out of the KHP Gippsland zone and place it in the Metropolitan Melbourne zone.

Closing Date

2021-04-26

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