Taylor’s keep-calm-and-carry-over approach

OVERACHIEVING?

Australia’s emission reduction calculations may be put to the test, with COP25 to review the rules for measuring the goals agreed to under the Paris agreement, Nine reports.

The summit will debate eliminating the use of “carry-over credits”, which are obtained by overachieving on emissions reduction deals, and something the government is relying on to reach its targets. Australia’s latest emissions projections report shows the government is planning to count the equivalent of 411 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the Kyoto Protocol era, with Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor claiming Australia is on track to meet its targets — provided its carry-over credits count.

HAWKE’S DAUGHTER

The New Daily has revealed explosive new claims by Bob Hawke’s youngest daughter, who alleges her father urged her not to report a sexual assault because it might have affected his political career.

Rosslyn Dillon claims in an affidavit that she was raped three times in the 1980s by former Victorian Labor MLC and Hawke ally Bill Landeryou, but when she told her father, he asked her not to go to the police, saying “I can’t have any controversies right now… I am challenging for the leadership”. Dillon is contesting her father’s will, arguing he failed to provide adequate provision for her as a disability-support pensioner suffering from depression, anxiety and PTSD. Dillon’s older sister Sue Pieters-Hawke said Dillon told people about the allegations at the time, and that her father was distressed by them. The New Daily has noted a number of factual issues with Dillon’s story as written, including times and locations.

“STREAMLINING”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s public service overhaul continues, with the government to this week announce an increase in funding, Nine reports. Millions of dollars will be pumped into upgrading IT systems, with sources telling the paper the focus will be on “people and technology”. The government is finalising its response to another review of the nation’s bureaucracy, which is expected to result in a further cull.

Morrison has also trimmed the budget razor gang ($), with a streamlined expenditure review committee having fewer members and more frequent contact, The Australian reports. The NSW corruption watchdog, meanwhile, says it will be forced to shed a quarter of its staff, making it the “smallest ICAC in history” unless it receives a much-needed funding boost.

[free_worm]

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

Well here I am at the White House. Never say never.

Brian Houston 

The controversial Hillsong founder finally made it to the White House.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Labor’s Bill Shorten least popular leader in decades: study

Grill’d co-founder forged details on liquor licence applications

Immigration levels will be cut if Conservatives win, Boris Johnson says

Labor MP calls for Australia to lead global refugee resettlement push

‘We must not give up’: Thousands march for democracy in Hong Kong

‘A chilling effect’: Media companies forced to keep stories off Facebook

Push to strip back crowded school syllabus ($)

NSW to consider tearing up Murray-Darling agreement

Heatwave forecast amid calls for emergency meeting

Medevac repeal: Cormann and Dutton downplay chances of Australia accepting New Zealand refugee deal

Civil rights Australia downgraded as report finds world becoming less free

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

It’s 1987 again in the public service — but the problems won’t change

Bernard Keane

Dec 06, 2019

34

“We’ve been here before: it was Bob Hawke who introduced the idea of ‘mega departments’ after the 1987 election, combining a number of departments but, unlike Morrison, keeping the same number of secretaries, who were deployed across the APS in various roles. Paul Keating later began unpicking the mega-departments — which were, in any event, not particularly big — and John Howard ripped much of the remaining structure apart. Along the way, privatisations — especially Telstra and Qantas — took out large chunks as well.”

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Could asthmatics be displaced by climate change?

Justine Landis-Hanley

Dec 06, 2019

3

“Some may be forced to leave the state due to the impact the smoke is having on their asthma and other pre-existing respiratory conditions. One such family is that of Matt Burke, an Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) worker. According to Burke, who lives with his family in Sydney, hazardous air conditions are making it difficult for his wife to go about her usual day-to-day activities. ‘She’s been regularly short of breath, staying inside more. Her sleep has been disrupted and she’s using her Ventolin puffer with far greater regularity, despite taking a preventative medication twice a day.’”

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A scandal in Zambia and the Australian company at its centre

Charlie Lewis

Dec 06, 2019

3

“Australian company Zambezi Resources Limited (ZRL) had been interested in potential copper and gold reserves in the park since the early 2000s, and despite all 17 chieftains in the area signing an agreement to oppose mining in the area, made an application to open the Kangaluwi Copper Mine in 2010. The application was done through ZRL’s Bermuda-based subsidiary, Mwembeshi Resources. Companies have to provide a environmental impact statement (EIS) with any large-scale mining application. Every review of Zambezi Resource’s EIS has been utterly scathing.”

THE COMMENTARIAT

Underpaid workers and wage theft ($) –  Josh Bornstein – (The Saturday Paper): “There is a lot of money to be made in cutting wages and suppressing wage growth – and arguably even more in underpaying workers. According to a report released by PwC in November, Australian workers are underpaid by some $1.35 billion each year. As many large businesses have bolstered shareholder returns by reconfiguring the labour market and ruthlessly cutting labour costs, it’s not only shareholders who have reaped the rewards. Consumers have seized on low-cost pizzas, cheap Uber fares and consumer durables, with scant regard for those bearing the cost of their bargains: the employees working to deliver the goods or services.”

A Sydney circled by fire could never have hosted the Olympics – Bob Carr (The Age/Sydney Morning Herald):  “But with smoke in the air, it’s time for conservatives to stop dilating on the bogey of the Australian Greens party or university Marxists. Heightened concern over climate is coming not from revolutionary sects but from scientists who study coral bleaching or methane leaking from exposed Arctic soils. None of the nature conservationists I got to know when I was NSW planning and environment minister in the 1980s had an anti-capitalist agenda. People like Milo Dunphy enjoyed an intimate feel for wild Australia and wanted to save as much as possible before it was too late. Their campaigns sprang from the smell of the eucalypts, the melody of wild flowing rivers like the Kowmung or the majesty of the Colong Plateau or the north coast rainforests.”

Not every problem needs national solution ($) – Judith Sloan (The Australian): “The way forward involves the states standing on their own feet to a greater extent when it comes to raising revenue and for the federal government to realise that more untied funding to the states is likely, on balance, to provide better outcomes than the plethora of detailed and unworkable commands. The federal government may also come to appreciate that the appropriate absence of nat­ional approaches in many areas eliminates the blame game for outcomes it can’t really control.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Canberra

• Ex-military lawyer David McBride will return to court for the second and final pre-trial application over his alleged leaking of classified documents to the ABC.

• The aged care royal commission will hold a public hearing about access to the healthcare system.

Sydney

• An urgent parliamentary hearing will be held into the impact of NSW bushfires on koalas, with ecologist Dailan Pugh to give evidence.

• The NSW ICAC will resume its public inquiry into allegations concerning political donations and ALP NSW branch officials.

• Australian and Scandinavian academics will join industry leaders to discuss lessons to be learnt from the Nordic model.

• Sophie Taylor Price, the granddaughter of the late Bob Hawke, will pour a special beer to celebrate what would have been his 90th birthday.

• The first case management hearing for AUSTRAC v Westpac will be held.

Brisbane

• A mention will be held for My Ut Trinh, accused of contaminating strawberries with sewing needles, sparking a nationwide agricultural crisis.

• An interlocutory hearing will be held over the Clermont-Belyando native title claim.

Melbourne

• The Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria will launch its “All One Together” campaign, timed to mark International Human Rights Day.

Adelaide

• A forum will be held to help the public better understand the Planning and Design Code, the state’s biggest planning system reform in over 25 years.