In this bulletin
- Liberals turn on market forces to protect coal
- Women cautiously celebrate International Women’s Day
- Truth is the first casualty as Australia toes US line on Ukraine
- PM leaps into action as climate emergency reaches Cronulla
- Reef grief competition heals despair with creativity
Liberals turn on market forces to protect coal
Once a political party dedicated to the ideology of a free-market that operates with minimal government intervention, the Liberal Party this week announced that it will oppose moves by investors and financial institutions to replace coal fired electricity generation with renewables. In announcing that it would use foreign-investment and competition veto powers to stop tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes from purchasing AGL and closing down coal fired power stations, Scott Morrison said, “our government is very committed to ensure we sweat those assets for their life [to keep] energy prices affordable ”. Cannon-Brookes has consistently pointed out that renewables are bringing energy prices down.
This move by the party is consistent with the politically engineered sacking of the CEO of AGL in 2018 when he announced that the company would close the Lidell power station early and replace it with renewables. Banks, private equity firms and insurance companies have all damned the Liberal Party for allowing the influence of the coal lobby to set policy that limits sensible economic investment in energy solutions that address the climate emergency.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2022/02/26/the-case-buying-agl/164579400013402#hrd
International Women’s Day cautiously celebrated
Yesterday we globally celebrated the contribution made by women through events such as the National Art Gallery announcing that it has reached gender equity in its collection and the newspaper Big Issues publishing a list of 50 feminist books to smash the patriarchy. Many thoughtful women have been more cautious, however, identifying that some of the fundamentals have not changed, especially the ongoing and weekly murder of Australian women, generally by ex-partners. Last IWD, Dr Quek and Dr Tyler pointed out on the ABC’s Mindfield that one of the world’s most prominent IWD websites claims, “Equality is not a women’s issue, it’s a business issue.” The Times of India directly confronted the “misogynist patriarchy in which we live” with a wide ranging vox pop listing “what women really want.”
https://www.abc.net.au/religion/should-we-stop-celebrating-iwd/12021834
https://www.internationalwomensday.com/
Truth is the first casualty as Australia toes US line on Ukraine
The government has announced that it will outlaw media and speech that does not follow the US-NATO line in unilaterally damning the Russian military action in the Ukraine despite a highly complex situation involving multiple ethnic and political groups and decades of struggle. In a statement yesterday, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said, “The Australian Government is placing new sanctions on Moscow’s propagandists and purveyors of disinformation, who are trying to legitimatise Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified invasion with false narratives such as the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine.”
The announcement follows an ABC press release defending its censorship and exclusion of a Russian born Australian who asked a Q and A panel last Thursday night, why the media ignores the activities of the Azov regiment.
Al Jazeera described the Azov Regiment as ultra-nationalist, right wing fighters integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces in 2014 after fighting against Russia in the Crimea. The Ukrainan president at the time Perozhenko described them as “our best warriors” at an awards ceremony where he gave them official status and funding. Putin has stated that one of the aims of Russia in the Ukraine is to de-militarise and de-Nazify the Ukraine. The Azof regiment have terrorised Roma and Jewish community, gay groups, and left-wing organisations. They smear their bullets with pig fat to dishonour Chechen Muslims who are in the Ukraine specifically to fight them.
https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/marise-payne/media-release/further-sanctions-russia
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
PM leaps into action as Climate Emergency reaches Cronulla
Australia’s East Coast rain bomb is actually an atmospheric river, dragging warm water evaporated from the coral sea down the east coast of Australia where it is dumped as the air rises and cools on contact with the coast. The phenomenon causes many floods in the West Coast of the USA and is known as the pineapple express because the warm water comes from Hawaii.
The local phenomenon is caused when an east coast low is held against the Australian coast by a stationary high over New Zealand. The effect of climate change has been to increase the amount of water in the atmosphere and to push it further south reaching Newcastle, Sydney and Woollongong.
The Betoota Advocate joked this week that these towns form the acronym N.S.W. which is the region the Liberal Party considers to be the ‘real Australia’ and that the Prime Minister now understands that there is a climate emergency because the floods have reached Cronulla.
The Prime Minister is visiting Lismore today, where residents are arguing whether to greet him with actual pitchforks or with a damages bill.
AAP article about atmospheric rivers available at this link
Reef grief competition heals despair with creativity
Ecowarrior organisation Extinction Rebellion, also known as XR, has put together a competition to find a song that best encapsulates “Reef Grief” and deal with the phases of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Entries from members of the public, including 4ZZZ listeners, are welcome but must be submitted by this Friday, Details are available at http://reefgrief.org/competition/