Students, workers mobilise for global climate strike

SCHOOL’S OUT FOR CLIMATE

Students and workers worldwide will go on climate strike today, demanding action on global warming in what is expected to be the biggest climate mobilisation in history.

A registry of Australian businesses granting employees time off to participate has attracted more than 2000 sign-ups. Trade unions are also supporting the strike, with International Trade Union Confederation secretary Sharan Burrow declaring that its 200 million members stand with students. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, the teenager behind the global movement, has appeared before US Congress, demanding politicians “listen to the scientists”, offering as testimony a 2018 UN report warning of dire consequences for the planet.

FUELS ERRAND

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to push US president Donald Trump for a fuel security deal, as he heads to the US for White House talks, the Nine papers report.

Morrison will use a private meeting with Trump to raise a plan to buy oil from America’s vast reserves in a new push to bolster Australia’s fuel independence. The US stockpile, set up in 1975 to keep the country running in a crisis, has been tapped only 19 times, including for “exchange” deals. Australia currently has 58 days of net fuel stocks, well below the 90 required by the International Energy Agency.

Morrison will attempt to “walk the US-China trade tightrope” ($), overtly praising the US without publicly ­criticising Beijing, The Australian reports.

THE COST OF DOING NOTHING

A new report by the International Federation of Red Cross says that climate-related disasters will leave 150 million people in humanitarian need annually by 2030, or 200 million by 2050. The report warns that more frequent, unpredictable and destructive extreme weather events — including floods, storms and bushfires — will require an unprecedented level of emergency aid, costing up to $29 billion annually.

Northern Territory Environment Minister Eva Lawler, meanwhile, has warned that the NT will ­become “uninhabitable” without action on climate, with a new climate change response document proposing an “aspirational” target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 ($), The Australian reports. 

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THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong couldn’t have put it better themselves.

Eric Abetz

The Coalition senator reacts to The Conversation’s decision to ban climate change denialists.

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CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

Centrelink shakedown: what happens when Centrelink asks to see your transaction history?

Chris Woods

Sep 19, 2019

8

“First up, the Social Security Act empowers Centrelink to collect a massive amount of data from recipients, ranging from the basic (name, location, family information) to the financial (tax information, bank statements) to the deeply personal (voiceprints, browsing history on myGov, chats with virtual assistants). They can either obtain that information directly — via paper forms, online portals, search warrants and the like — or through third parties such as government agencies, banks, employers, and social media.”

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How much the government has spent trying to deport the Tamil family from Biloela

Jennine Khalik

Sep 19, 2019

5

“In short, it has cost the government upward of $2 million dollars to try to deport husband and wife Nades and Priya, and their two Australian-born daughters Kopika, four, and Tharunicaa, two, to Sri Lanka where the family claim they are at risk of persecution. Nades and Priya arrived in Australia by boat in 2012 and 2013, before getting married in Australia and having children. The costings take into account the price of the court’s fees, but not the costs of the lawyers’ time and preparation. The amount spent on attempting to refoul Priya and Nades reveals the lengths the Coalition government has gone to in order to remove them from Australia.”

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The high price of being who you are

Joan Westenberg

Sep 19, 2019

“I begin my day with a breakfast of champions: oestrogen pills, testosterone blockers and black coffee. The first two are the basic routine for medically transitioning transgender women. But you would think they’re anything from basic looking at the price; there are no specific Medicare provisions for transgender access to either of them.”

THE COMMENTARIAT

The river took care of me so now I’m taking care of it – Marlie Thomas (The Age/Sydney Morning Herald): “That’s why, in 2019, I’ve been thinking about our future as Kamilaroi peoples. In March this year, at Gunnedah High, I went on strike with students across Australia and the world. We are fighting for a shared future, but Indigenous young people have something else at stake — the need to continue in our ancestors’ footprints, and the responsibility we have to not only keep ourselves alive and well, but our country alive and well. We fight, not only for the future of young people but to respect our elders. We are responsible to be part of the solutions to the issues surrounding climate change, and we want to be involved. Climate movements must put Indigenous people at the centre because this isn’t just about the future, but also the present and the past. It’s about justice for us.”

Striking for climate change doesn’t make you smart ($) – Cronan Yu (The Daily Telegraph): “What sets our university apart from others is that it is grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition. It exists primarily for the pursuit of universal truth and the formation of the individual person vocationally, intellectually and spiritually. There’s a sense that, with this and other events, the Notre Dame administrators have abandoned this unique aim. Instead of the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness, energy and resources are diverted towards flimsy cultural fashions and cheap social justice brownie points. That email incentivising students to skip class and hand in assignments late with no negative consequences is testament to that.”

I believed the Australian family court system was biased against fathers – then I found the rot at the core of it – Jess Hill (The Guardian): “When I first started hearing these stories I didn’t believe they were part of a pattern. Everyone knows someone who’s had a shitty time in the family law system. Besides, I knew that this system was actually biased against fathers, not mothers. I believed then, like 43% of Australians, that vindictive mothers routinely lobbed abuse allegations at their ex-husbands to stop them seeing their children. But then I started reading their court documents and the research. In 2001, a joint study by the family court and the University of Sydney found that the family law system had ‘tilted more and more against women, either by accident or design’. Even where serious violence had been proven, it found, supervised contact with abusive fathers was becoming much more common.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Nationwide

• The global climate strike will take place in every major city, as well as regional centres around Australia.

Canberra

• The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security will hold a public hearing as part of its inquiry into press freedom, hearing from the AFP, Home Affairs, Defence and the media.

Sydney

• A case management hearing will take place in the ATO’s case against political donor and developer Huang Xiangmo over a $140 million tax bill.

• The NSW ICAC inquiry into the Chinese Friends of Labor dinner will continue, with witness Teresa Tam.

• The NSW music festival inquest will hold its final day of hearings, hearing evidence from the families of the six people who died after taking MDMA at or before music festivals.

• STARTTS will celebrate 30 years of helping people and communities heal the scars of refugee trauma and rebuild their lives in Australia, with speeches, music, dance, and food.

Melbourne

• A judgment will be handed down in the matter of Australian Building and Construction Commissioner v CFMMEU over alleged contraventions of the Fair Work Act.

• Approximately 150 young women activists will create a visual sea of Greta Thunbergs, donning face masks of the 15-year-old who started the global climate strike movement.

Adelaide

• The Australian Energy Regulator will take wind farms to the Federal Court over their performance during the 2016 SA blackout.

Brisbane

• Clive Palmer will appear in court on ASIC charges, understood to be related to the proposed takeover of timeshare villas at the Coolum resort in 2012.

• Adani will appear in court over misleading the government in its annual return, charged by the QLD Department of Environment and Science with contravening the Environmental Protection Act.

Toowoomba, Queensland

• The Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers will commence, with over 1,100 hectares of public parks and private gardens shining with over 180,000 bulbs and seedlings in full bloom.

Hobart

• Former Greens leader Christine Milne will launch her book Falling Nature – The Rise and Fall of the Wilderness Society.