NO #Covid19 Tracing App

To be effective the App needs to identify ALL PERSONS UNIQUELY.

Remember Morrison wanting to make use compulsory? (since walked back after outcry).

By the way it’s impossible not all people have/carry phones & many people will NOT download nor INSTALL the App for a multitude of reasons.

It only needs ONE unidentified, asymptomatic carrier to re-infect entire population.

Therefore the whole idea, while seemingly having some short-term appeal, is ultimately FUTILE in achieving the stated objective. (NB. the current epidemic began from a SINGLE source)

To justify request to download the App, the data required provides a new UNIQUE identifier which  facilitates the collection of & combining into a SINGLE data source of:-

• Tax File Number
• Centrelink Client Reference Number – CRN
• MyGov
• MyHealth
• Passport No.
• Drivers Licence Id
• Bank A/c No’s (Incl Credit Card, Mortgage details)
• Your social media data (friend group, likes, tweets & retweets

This access to the combined data is of immeasurable value to any number of organisations, both legitimate & nefarious.

The ways in which this information COULD be misused include, but are not limited to:-

• fraud incl. bogus claiming of benefits (incarceration risk)
• stolen identity blackmail (eg. plethora of LGBTIQ, Biker friends)
• insurance assessments/payouts influence
• terrorism (identity fraud) selling your house from under you
• hiring/stealing cars
• Credit rating misuse
• Political Affiliations &/or Leanings

Server where data will be “securely stored” was not specified & was likely to be AMAZON & not covered by any Australian laws of Data Storage. Now that Morrison has specified an “Australian Server”, on which isolated Australian Internet will all this data be collected before being securely transferred to storage on a server with a proper “air gap” effectively isolating it from the Internet of computers.

Now, it does not mean that THIS government would intend to misuse this data. But they won’t be in power forever.

 

Howzat?

It took scandal in our iconic sport to ram home the (long obvious to some) truism that Australia had fallen to its absolute moral low point.

Almost without protest, we’ve accepted an almost unending stream of evidence of our moral decay.

A long, but incomplete, list of examples of this acceptance (in no particular order)

• We wilfully ignore the universally deadly reality of Global Warming, Fires, floods, drought, food, energy
• Wages theft, women, Unions
• Tax equality negative gearing, capital gains
• Education, Private schools TAFE Universities
• Health & private health
• Employment
• Housing  & homelessness
• Media, NBN, Free speech ABC @Alberici Rupert Murdoch
• Environment, pollution, CSG
• Independence, War, Republic
• Gambling
• Immigration, Asylum, International Treaties, Racism
• A 10 year old , suicidal due largely to our inhuman but bipartisan detention policy, is condemned to treatment in a totally unsuitable (& deadly) hospital based on the possibility that, were he to be transported to the mainland for PROPER treatment, lawyers MIGHT apply for him to be allowed to stay (as he would be legally be allowed).
• Rampant corruption, Michaelia Cash,  Barnaby Joyce, Sussan Ley, Julie Bishop, Bronwyn Bishop, Banks Royal Commission, Donations, Lobbying
• Politicised & partisan Public Service
• Equality vs Inequality, tax, Aborigines
• Parliament Question Time behaviour, Speaker bias
• Victorian MP Pairs, election staff rorting (Victoria)
• MPs Rorting of Expenses, nepotism, pork barreling
• Security
• Welfare
• Aborigines Don Dale, deaths in custody, incarceration rates
• Religion abuse
• Politics, in-fighting, buying elections
• Sports other than Cricket, NRL, AFL

Time’s UP!

Malcolm Turnbull and the remnants of the Coalition are desperate, disunited, demoralised and as good as defeated.

Consider the Coalition Government have

• Committed Australia to War
• Publically traduced the Constitution (Separation of Powers)
• Interfered in New Zealand politics
• Dithered & dodged Marriage Equality aka Same Sex Marriage issue
• Demonstrated Parties’ organisational dysfunction
• Achieved continued string of horrendous Polls

 

 

Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull has commited Australia to join the United States in a war against North Korea (no questions asked) – NO plebiscites, surveys required here for death & destruction

Malcolm pre-judged outcome of a High Court decision

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has interfered in upcoming New Zealand General Election

Unable to command sufficient authority in his own Party on an issue (with which he approves), Malcolm has been FORCED to devolve visible authority to a $122million non-compulsory, non-binding ABS SURVEY!

Eligibility verification for candidates to BE House of Representatives has proved beyond the Coalition

Strung together 14 consecutive massively negative polls

Australia requires MUCH better than this – Enough is Enough

Time’s UP!

 

Top 20 Non ALP held Marginals

Wonder if @GetUp would be interested?

Electorate	Party	Margin	Member
Indi (VIC)	IND	0.3	Ms Cathy McGowan AO, MP
Petrie (QLD)	LNP	0.5	Mr Luke Howarth MP
Capricornia (QLD)	NAT	0.8	Ms Michelle Landry MP
O’Connor (WA)	LIB	0.9	Mr Rick Wilson MP
Chisholm (VIC)	LIB	1.6	Ms Julia Banks MP
Kennedy (QLD)	KAP	2.2	Hon Bob Katter MP
Banks (NSW)	LIB	2.8	Mr David Coleman MP
Page (NSW)	NAT	3.1	Mr Kevin Hogan MP
Robertson (NSW)	LIB	3.1	Mrs Lucy Wicks MP
Deakin (VIC)	LIB	3.2	Hon Michael Sukkar MP
Reid (NSW)	LIB	3.3	Hon Craig Laundy MP
Bonner (QLD)	LNP	3.7	Mr Ross Vasta MP
Gilmore (NSW)	LIB	3.8	Mrs Ann Sudmalis MP
Corangamite (VIC)	LIB	3.9	Ms Sarah Henderson MP
La Trobe (VIC)	LIB	4	Mr Jason Wood MP
Brisbane (QLD)	LNP	4.3	Mr Trevor Evans MP
Forde (QLD)	LNP	4.4	Mr Bert van Manen MP
Melbourne (VIC)	GRN	5.3	Mr Adam Bandt MP
Dunkley (VIC)	LIB	5.6	Mr Chris Crewther MP
Leichhardt (QLD)	LNP	5.7	Hon Warren Entsch MP

NO Prime Minister

Breaking.!!

Australian Prime Minister is very rich!

 

Less well known, PM Malcolm Turnbull’s also very sensitive about advertising the extent of his wealth. For example, he was very reluctant to disclose just how much he personally donated to his own re-election.

Since wresting the Liberal leadership from Abbott (by promising NOT to pursue any of his leftie causes, eg his sensible acceptance of Global Warming, acceptance of the need for Renewable Energy, advocacy for an Australian Republic and support for Same Sex Marriage) , Mal’s performances in the ‘bear-pit’ of Parliament have been more Winnie the Pooh than vicious Grizzly.

But episodes like

• Health Minister Sussan Ley’s whimsical $790,000 unit-buying side trip while claiming Travel Alowance, followed by her standing aside from Cabinet and eventually quitting and
• Resignation of Right Wing, ultra Conservative Cory Bernardi.

stymied any chance of Mal appearing to be in charge of his party, best demonstrated by looking at the faces of those on his side of the Parliament.

So when Opposition Leader Bill Shorten referred to Mal as “Mr Harbourside Mansion (a fact) during the year’s first SSO (Suspension of Standing Orders) the PM ‘got his panties in a bunch‘.

While it should have been aimed at Bill opposite him in the Chamber, the performance was entirely for the benefit of his real enemies, those behind him.

Sadly, Mal is afflicted with excessive, even obscure, verbosity (uses big, unnecessary words – aka MALsplaining).

So it was when he tried to insult Bill, (referring to him as a sycophant instead of simply a suck-up), Mal chose the very  obscure “Cristal” reference (thrown like an epithet), instead of just saying ‘champagne tastes’.

For all his eloquence Mal can’t even lower himself enough to hurl everyday insults.

Those MPs seated behind and ‘rusted-on Liberals’ generally might be impressed by his sudden change of demeanor. But his ugly attack on someone from ‘below stairs’ who has the gall to aspire to Mal’s circle, will further alienate him from ALP supporters and possibly many of Howard’s ‘aspirationals’.

The real test will be how his vicious, and unnecessarily LOUD monologue goes down with previously swinging voters?

We shall see.

Abbott/Turnbull Government

 

Decimation

Wit Oscar Wilde quipped – “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

In less than one Parliamentary Term (< 3 years) the Liberal ‘Family’ has lost SIX viz.

• Prime Minister Abbott – deposed by his own Party 54-44 – incompetence
• Treasurer Hockey – sacked – incompetence
• Speaker Bronwyn Bishop – sacked – Rorting Entitlements – #Choppergate
• Special Minister of State Mal Brough – sacked – Slipper’s Diary #Ashbygate
• Minister for Cities & the Built Environment Jamie Briggs – sacked – Sexual Harassment
• Minister for Human Services Stuart Robert – sacked Ministerial Code of Conduct/Donor Shares

This instability has meant that LNP not only have been  unable to achieve much, they have been barely able to even PROPOSE much  policy.

The only agility this Parliamentary mess have demonstrated is the uncanny knack of being able to leap-frog the carcasses of their fallen brethren.

Turnbull & the Spectacles

We’ve all seen him do it! That Malcolm continuously flaps his eye-glasses about dismissively is an affectation.

 

He’s trying to indicate that we’ve interrupted him while he was engaged in ‘much more important business (that we’re too stupid to understand)’. You know, he’s busy, busy, busy – somewhere between Spycatcher, Ozemail & HiH. He’s sooo busy, he hasn’t even had a chance to fully discard his eye-wear. Anyway, he’ll need then very soon to peruse the latest Cayman Islands Investment Performance Report.

 

He’s not too busy to regale us with his latest 3000 word MALsplaining effort though, continually (and vainly) trying to convince we plebs of his ‘everyman’ status.

 

But listen closely & among the grandiloquent verbiage it’s not difficult to hear the blunt instrument of his derision. Yesterday in Question Time, when in the indefensible position of trying to save Stuart Robert from his Chinese misadventures, he reverted to plagiarising Julia Gillard misogyny speech’s “I won’t be lectured to by this man …” line in response to genuine question from Bill Shorten.

 

The Liberal/National duumvirate have wasted $millions on unsuccessfully attempting to smear unions & successive ALP leaders through their valid association with the Trade Union movement.

 

But that didn’t stop the PM from using ‘Coward’s Castle’ of Parliament, viciously trying in Question Time to smear the Opposition Leader, against whom there have been NO adverse findings from the Trade Union Royal Commission.

Turnbull continues to luxuriate in being more popular than Abbott in the polls. But simply being ‘not Abbott’ is beginning to pall.

His popularity will be tested when he actually has to DO SOMETHING that hurts a particular group or two. Something other than waving his glasses about wildly (& generally making a spectacle of himself).

@Otiose94

LNP Self Immolation

The LNP Government 2013 kicked off badly (& many contend, unnecessarily) following this own-goal. ALL promises broken in short order!

Six years of seething disappointment at having been unable to either convince/bribe ANY of the Independents to help them break the hung Parliament deadlock, having pursued mercilessly Liberal ‘rat’ Peter Slipper over a tipple-trip, the LNP seemed intent on punishing anyone/everyone for their frustration with the ideologically driven Budget2014 necessitated by a non-existent ‘budget emergency’, which disappeared completely by Budget2015. Legislative inertia persisted throughout. PM Gillard has a superior record by far.

Inaction on Global Warming, attempted annihilation of the renewables industry & it’s attendant jobs, decimation of science generally, derogation of our International responsibilities on Asylum Seekers, rorting of ‘entitlements‘ (far in excess of Slipper & ~$900) and much much more have given rise to the current shemozzle.

Any semblance of impartiality at the Trade Union Royal Commission has been blown away by Commissioner  Dyson Heydon (don’t people with two surnames/first names irk?) who inexplicably agreed initially to an invitation to address a LNP Fundraiser dinner and then took 24hrs to pull out. Obviously this compromises any hope of impartiality.

Time to stock up on the popcorn, sit back and enjoy the inevitable #libspill.

@Otiose94

Unusually, it snowed in parts of Canberra yesterday!

Not so unusually, to many Australians, the term ‘Canberra’ means all the (especially nasty) things that the Federal Government chooses to do. Yesterday the nasties included the decision to defer any resolution of the ‘Marriage Equality‘ issue.

This non-decision will be applauded by some but decried by others, but was decided by the LNP, the parliamentary grouping currently in the majority. That’s how our Democracy ‘works’, although dissent is beginning to appear from within LNP party ranks, most notably from Leadership contender Malcolm Turnbull.

What should NOT happen is for the decision to be laid at the feet of the ~386,000 (non-politician)  residents of ‘Canberra’.

The Federal Government is comprised of 226 souls, necessarily representing every part of Australia. The Australian Capital Territory elects just 4 of these individuals, 2 each in the Senate & The House of Representatives.

It is way past time that the lazy Australian Media stopped equating Federal Governments (of both stripes) with Canberra!

FEDS is  nice short, space saving term that should be used when the Federal Government is being referred to, and Canberra should be restricted to all other aspects of the city, its environs and its people.

@Otiose94

Drugs

Despite inordinate $squillions wasted on the “War on Drugs”, the battle is LOST, has been for decades & is now threatening to overwhelm entire countries eg Mexico and Nicaragua.

Remember, Mexico drug supply problems exist almost entirely because of  insatiable demand from the USA, which is not averse to creative drug politics.

Get over it people!

Prohibition is a dumb idea, espoused by a lethal combination of anti-drug wowsers & those who profit from its illegality. Almost everyone wants to maintain prohibition, but for opposite reasons.

Stop treating the ‘illegal drug problem’ as a legal problem & spend $s saved on treating the ‘Health Problem’.

In any event, misuse of alcohol kills & maims many more people, and it’s LEGAL. Savings alone on Health Expenditure avoided is sufficient reason to adopt this policy, quite apart from the money saved on the (demonstrably futile) “War on Drugs”.

Insanity:

“Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Albert Einstein

ooooOOOOoooo