One of the IPA's unofficial attack dogs is attempting to savage the charity sector once again

The Guardian, 24 January 2018:

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission has pushed for new powers to regulate charities' "effective use of resources" under its controversial new commissioner, Gary Johns.

The charities sector is up in arms over the proposal, seen as an attempt to control how charities spend their money from a commissioner who has argued that it is not appropriate for charities to fund advocacy.

In its submission to a review of charities law, the ACNC called for two new objects: to promote "the effective use of the resources of not-for-profit entities"; and to "enhance the accountability of not-for-profit entities to donors, beneficiaries and the public".

The ACNC's objects now are to maintain public trust in and the independence of the sector and to promote the reduction of "unnecessary regulatory obligations" for charities.

The commission argued the expanded scope was "appropriate" because "the maintenance and promotion of the effectiveness and sustainability of the not-for-profit sector" was already a factor the commissioner must consider when making decisions.

It said the new objects should come with additional powers, functions and resources.

The Community Council for Australia's chief executive, David Crosbie, said the proposed objectives were "incredibly disappointing" and amounted to a "bizarre overreach" from the regulator.

He said there was "no explanation" of how the ACNC would measure an "effective use of resources".

"It's not the role of a government regulator which may not agree with a particular charity's approach – it's absurd that should tell them how to use their resources," he said.

"As long as charities are meeting their statutory requirements and fulfilling their charitable purpose it is not up to the regulator."

He added: "The use of resources is best left up to charities, the communities they serve and their own governance structures."

Johns was a Labor minister under the Keating government and a former head of NGOWatch at the Institute for Public Affairs. After his appointment in December, Johns said when people gave to charities they expected that "most of [the donation] will be used for the charitable purpose … [and that] the work that is undertaken on behalf of a donor works". He promised to bring those matters "to the fore" in his work at the ACNC.

In 2014 Johns argued that the government should remove advocacy as a charitable purpose to "deny charity status to the enemies of progress", citing the fact the Environmental Defenders Office Queensland advocates against coal mining.

In his 2014 book The Charity Ball, he said advocacy was of "doubtful public benefit". He criticised larger charities "whose service delivery is heavily weighted towards advocacy, research, campaigning and lobbying", including World Vision Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Amnesty International Australia.

Crosbie said Johns' public statements demonstrated that he believed "charities should not be advocating for extra funding from government".

He suggested that advocacy for more housing for homeless people and spending on mental health services were examples of activities that could come under attack.

Crosbie, who served on the ACNC's advisory board for more than three years, said the original objects had been developed after thorough consultation and "not once" had stakeholders suggested adding the new objectives in the ACNC submission.

Labor's charities spokesman, Andrew Leigh, accused the government of an "ongoing war on charities" and said it was "worrying that the new commissioner's first actions have already put the sector offside".

Sometimes social media rocks

Rightwing ratbag Senator Cory Bernardi thought he had a great idea – put together a Spotify playlist of songs for Australia Day listening and advertise same on Twitter for the political party he leads…..

The response from singers, songwriters and bands included on that list was not long in coming……………………….

Spotify appeared to get the message……………………….

Via @corybernardi

This is what happens when you read news reports generated by right-wing politicians

“Victorians are “scared to go out to restaurants” because of “African gang violence”, Peter Dutton has said, in an interview attacking the supposed lack of deterrence of crime in Victoria. The home affairs minister told 2GB on Wednesday that Victorians were “bemused” when they looked “at the jokes of sentences being handed down” due to “political correctness that’s taken hold”. “There’s no deterrence there at the moment,” he said. The federal Coalition government and Victorian opposition have stepped up rhetorical attacks on the Andrews Labor government using a string of high-profile incidents to claim that “African street gangs” are on the rise because certain nationalities such as Sudanese are over-represented in statistics – although crime overall is in decline. The Victorian deputy police commissioner, Shane Patton, has reassured the public the police are taking youth crime seriously and said that “networked criminal offenders” are not technically “gangs” because they lack any organised structure.” [The Guardian, 3 January 2018]

“The reality is, people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night-time because they’re followed home by these gangs.”

“We just need to call it for what it is… African gang violence.”

Mr Dutton tells Chris that if people aren’t prepared to integrate, then “frankly they don’t belong in Australian society”.

“If people haven’t integrated, if they’re not abiding by our laws, if they’re not adhering to our culture, then they’re not welcome here.” [Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton,  4BC News Talk, 3  January 2018]

During this December 2017 to February 2018 Australian Parliament annual recess it was hard to miss the political meme being generated by Messrs. Turnbull and  Dutton.

It was one of ‘Shock! Horror! Crime and violence!’

Lest we were in any doubt of the – ahem – perilous situation the nation finds itself in, the meme was quickly reduced to black violence – perpetrated  by foreign ‘others’.

The state that these politicians have chosen to place under the spotlight is Victoria and the ethnic group identified as Sudanese.

So it is no surprise to find that recent polling now shows a strong belief that youth gang crime has increased over the last few years, that it needs addressing as a matter of importance and, that this belief is highest amongst Liberal and Nationals voters in the survey group.

Essential Report, 16 January 2018:

A majority believed that all crimes have increased.

More than two-thirds believe that drug-related crime (76%) and youth gang crime (70%) have increased – and about half think they have increased a lot.

Those more likely to think youth gang crime has increased were Liberal/National voters (73%), other party voters (86%) and aged 45+ (83%).

[http://www.essentialvision.com.au/perceptions-of-crime]

More than two-thirds think that drug-related crime (72%) and domestic violence (67%) are the most important types of crime for the Government to address.

53% thought youth gang crime was one of the most important. Those most likely to think it important were Liberal/National voters (57%), other party voters (72%) and aged 55+ (60%).

[http://www.essentialvision.com.au/important-crimes-address]

There is a question that needs answering. Is the belief that youth gang crime is an increasing  problem based on fact or fear whipped up right-wing politicians?

First of all the actual number of youth offenders (10 to 17 years) has fallen since 2008-09 when the national total stood at 64,152 individuals.

The total number of youth offenders in 2015-16 was 54,974 or approximately 13 per cent of the entire national offender total.

Of these youth offenders less than 11,000 fell into what could be considered a violent crime category – that’s est. 20 per cent of all youth offenders across the country.

The rate of youth offending is not increasing across the board and has fallen in most of the violent crime categories since 2008-09, with the exception of the non-assaultive sexual offences component of sexual assault statistics.

The majority of youth offenders were born in Australia. This appears to apply to the youth offender population in all states.

There seems to be no national database for youth gang offenders or gang-related behaviour. However, networked youth offending reportedly involves young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds according to a police submission made to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration’s Inquiry into Migrant Settlement Outcomes.

When it comes to Victoria and offender statistics which identify country in which the offender was born, out of the 82,334 total crime incidents in all categories for the 2016 calendar year allegedly committed by offenders of all ages, only 807 were identified as being committed by individuals born in Sudan or less than 1 per cent. Of these only 22 incidents appear to have involved a form of collective behaviour and only 89 incidents involved Sudanese youth offenders.

Quite frankly it is hard to support Minister for Home Affairs and Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Dutton’s rhetoric on violent Sudanese youth gangs based on so small a number.

January 2018: are environmental vandals in the Liberal & National parties trying to force gasfield expansions down the throats of reluctant communities?

To be eligible your project must bring new gas flow to domestic gas consumers in target markets by 30 June 2020 and can include:

*deployment of new technologies or techniques to lift existing and new well productivity

*the opening of new gas pilot and/or production or exploration wells that are either in proximity to existing gas infrastructure or can demonstrate a path to market

*better utilisation of existing or the establishment of new gas processing, storage and transport facilities

*design, construction and engineering activities directly related to bringing forward new gas supply.

[Gas Acceleration Program, Eligibility Criteria]

Liberal Senator for Queensland and Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan, media release, 20 December 2017:

Gas Acceleration Program Grant Guidelines Released

The Australian Government’s $26 million Gas Acceleration Program (GAP) will open to applications early in the new year, to further strengthen the East Coast gas market.

Guidelines for the GAP were released today, ahead of grant applications opening in January 2018.

The GAP is a significant component of the Australian Government’s $90 million investment in gas security, reliability and affordability for the Australian people.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan said the program aimed to deliver new gas supply to domestic users in markets affected by tight supply by fast-tracking new project developments.

“The GAP will offer up to $6 million to gas projects that have substantiated prospects of bringing significant new gas volumes to market by mid-2020,” Minister Canavan said.

“This funding can be used to develop new technologies or techniques to boost well productivity, for new production or exploration near existing infrastructure.  It can also be used to build new gas processing, storage and transport facilities, or for other activities that will bring forward new gas supply.

“This program is implementing our long-term goal to increase the domestic gas supply, boost competition, and improve transparency and efficiency of the gas market supply chain.

“Australian consumers need to be assured that we can access our plentiful gas resources in a responsible way. Bringing more gas to market will reduce upward pressure on gas prices and help to create Australian jobs and support investment in regional Australia.”

Applications to the GAP will be open between 15 January and 13 February 2018.

For more information, visit www.business.gov.au/gap

Media contact: Minister Canavan's office 02 6277 7180

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan quoted in The Land, 21 December 2017:

“This funding can be used to develop new technologies or techniques to boost well productivity, for new production or exploration near existing infrastructure. It can also be used to build new gas processing, storage and transport facilities, or for other activities that will bring forward new gas supply.”

A professed 'Christian' man named in at least one human rights complaint to the International Criminal Court vows to defend Christianity in 2018

The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 2017:

Scott Morrison says he will fight back against discrimination and mockery of Christians and other religious groups in 2018, in comments that position him as one of the leading religious conservatives in the Turnbull government. 

Mr Morrison also promised to play a leading role next year in the debate about enshrining further "protections" for religious freedom in law, which will be informed by a review currently being led by former Attorney-General Philip Ruddock.

For overseas readers who may not know this man, he is enthusiastic Hill Song Church devotee, Liberal MP for Cook, former Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, former Minister for Social Security and current Australian Treasurer Scott John Morrison.

On his ministerial watch alleged human rights abuses occurred in overseas detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru. These incidents included deaths of asylum seekers such as that of Reza Berati.

Alleged abuses continue to be reported to this day.

In a 2016 communique to the International Criminal Court, Scott Morrison, along with Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, John Howard, Peter Dutton, Tony Burke, Brendan O’Connor, Chris Bowen, Chris Evans, Kevin Andrews, Amanda Vanstone, Phillip Ruddock, Baron Waqa and Rimbink Pato, was named as administrating authority having responsibility in relation to the offence of unlawful confinement.

Australia's greenhouse gas emission abatement record goes far beyond disheartening

In 1990 Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions were calculated at 547.7 million tonnes (Mt), CO₂ -equivalent (CO₂-e). This represented 32.1 tonnes CO₂-e per head of population.

In the following years emissions rose and fell in response to economic and environmental factors, so that in 2005 annual emissions totalled 584.2  Mt CO₂-e or 28.6 tonnes CO₂-e per head of population.

By 2007 these annual emissions had risen to 597.2 Mt CO₂-e. That was 28.3 tonnes CO₂-e  per head of population.  [Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 4613.0 - Australia's Environment: Issues and Trends, Jan 2010]  

In 2008 total greenhouse gas emissions were still climbing to reach 618.1 Mt CO₂-e.

Total greenhouse gas emissions were still high in 2009 with an annual total of 599.8 Mt CO₂ -e.

At the close of 2010 national emissions had fallen to 543 Mt CO₂–e for the year.

Then by the end of 2011 annual greenhouse gas emissions came to 546.3 Mt CO₂–e.

Annual emissions for the year to December 2012 were estimated to be 551.9 Mt CO2-e

In 2013 annual greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to be 538.4 Mt CO₂–e.

2014 saw annual emissions reach an estimated to be 535.9 Mt CO₂–e.

Come 2015 and annual greenhouse gas emissions totalled 529.2 Mt CO₂-e. This gives an estimated 21.1 tonnes CO₂-e per head of population. [Dept. of the Environment and Energy, Progress of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory]

However, Australia’s Emissions Projections 2017 report released last December by the Turnbull Government states in part:

“Australia’s emissions have risen in the past three years. A major factor in this growth has been the rapid expansion of the LNG sector.”

“Total emissions in 2030 are projected to be 570 Mt CO₂-e.”

Back in 2015 the Australian Government promised to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions to 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030. Based on ABS data that should equate to an estimated annual emissions level of 420.7 Mt CO₂-e to 432.4 Mt CO₂–e in 2030 or between 20.6 to 21.2 tonnes CO₂-e per head of population.

Instead the latest report is indicating that Australia’s emissions are expected to exceed not only the base line 1990 level but also the 2005 annual greenhouse gas emissions level, with per capita emissions remaining static at approximately the 2015 figure.

It appears that policy efforts of the last twenty-seven years have been for nought, because it looks for all the world as though Turnbull & Co have abandoned any pretence they care about genuine, effective emissions reduction.

If the current federal government and industry had to sit a climate change mitigation exam today they would likely receive an F for failure  from the examiners.

UPDATE

National Greenhouse Gas Inventory data for 2016-17 show that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions stood at 550.2 Mt CO₂–e as of September 2017, a 1.3% rise on the 2015-16 annual emissions total. The 2016-17 per capita estimate was 22.5 Mt CO₂–e per person.

Australian Labor Party will not support Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 in its current form

Labor MP for Jagajaga and Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services Jenny Macklin, media release. 5 December 2017:

CASHLESS DEBIT CARD

Federal Labor will support the continuation of the existing cashless debit card trial sites in Ceduna and the East Kimberley. 

However Labor will not support the rollout of the cashless debit card to the two new proposed sites of Bundaberg and the Goldfields due to insufficient consultation with these communities, and the widespread criticism of the evaluation and the effectiveness of the card.

After conducting our own consultations with people in Bundaberg and the Goldfields and hearing evidence from the Senate Inquiry, it has become clear that Labor cannot support Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 in its current form. 

Labor believes that there is insufficient credible evidence at this point to support the establishment of further trials of the cashless debit card. 

The flawed Orima Evaluation of the existing trials in Ceduna and the East Kimberley was inconclusive.

The Orima evaluation was subject to detailed criticism from leading academics, including Dr Janet Hunt from ANU, who said the evaluation does: “not present adequate evidence of the trial leading to successful outcomes for participants…. it is impossible to have confidence that the trial actually succeeded.”

Given the significant cost of the trials, an accrued cost of around $25.5 million or about $12,000 per participant, we must be sure that the cashless card can deliver its stated objectives. 

We have consistently said that we will take a community-by-community approach to the further rollout of the cashless debit card. 

Labor also has concerns that two years is not long enough for communities to determine whether there has been any real benefit from the introduction of the cashless debit card.

We are hearing that the communities in the existing trial sites want to continue using the card, and see the trial through.  

We will continue to support the continuation of the trials in Ceduna and the East Kimberley for these reasons. 

Labor will move amendments to the Bill to extend the end date for the trials in Ceduna and the East Kimberley to 30 June 2019 so that a proper evaluation can take place over a longer trial period. 

We have always said that we are supportive of community driven initiatives designed to tackle chronic alcohol abuse. But they must be genuinely community driven and not be part of a top-down approach. 

Labor understands that entrenched disadvantage cannot, and will not, be solved by income management alone. That’s why we have always advocated for the Government to provide additional wraparound supports to participating communities. 

We are calling on the Senate to support our amendment that funding for these vital wraparound service be guaranteed in the legislation. 

In future, Labor will only consider the introduction of any new trial sites if the Government can show that the community have agreed through a formal consultation process with the community, as well as an agreed definition of consent, and have established an evidence base through a robust and credible evaluation.

The Turnbull Government’s Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 progressed as far as it second reading and was referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report.

The final report has a single line recommendation and also contains two dissenting opinions by Labor and the Australian Greens.

The bill returns to the House of Representatives in the new year.

Labor has now baulked but is unlikely to prevail given it doesn’t have the numbers in the lower house.

"Inequality is neither a personal choice nor a national tragedy. It is a choice governments make"

Chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society national council Dr John Falzon, writing in The Guardian on 13 December 2017:

In 1952 a Catholic newspaper in Ireland proclaimed: “The welfare state is diluted socialism and socialism is disguised communism.”

Extreme? Yes. Dated? No. When you listen to the dying declarations of the spear-carriers for neoliberalism, it’s hard not to hear the same alarmist codswallop.

The logic goes like this: being unemployed and poor is bad because people choose to be unemployed or poor. If you receive income support, it is because you are unemployed and poor. Therefore, receiving income support is bad. Therefore, removing income support is good. Coincidentally, this means more money for the rich and less for the poor.

Social services minister Christian Porter’s recent National Press Club address was replete with denunciations of the “politics of envy” associated with redistributionist policies, as well as the “morally unacceptable” nature of social expenditure because it means placing a debt burden on the children of today to pay off as the adults of tomorrow.

These are old tropes. Joe Hockey used them regularly when he was treasurer. The intergenerational framework is always going to be a useful means of distracting from the uncomfortable reality of class inequality in the current generation.

A false divide is constructed between those who have a job (and pay taxes) and those who don’t.

It is time that we did away with this fictitious divide. It was always false. It implied that the low-paid cleaner had more in common with the mining magnate than with the person who is locked out of the labour market.

But now, especially as we try to understand the future of work and the massive changes to the structure of the labour market, it is time we consigned this nonsense to the rubbish bin of ideological history.

People who are low paid, casually employed, underemployed, unemployed, informally employed, on dodgy contracts, women who work as unpaid or low-paid carers, students who take whatever work they can get and remain silent about the indefinite training wages, sole parents, people with a disability, aged pensioners, veterans; all have more in common with each other and with other members of the working class than we dare admit.

By recognising this commonality, we can begin to reframe the way in which so-called welfare dependency and the “injustice” and “immorality” of social expenditure is presented. This is crucial at a time when the government has ruled out increasing the woefully inadequate Newstart payment, which has not seen an increase in real terms since 1994 .

The discussion needs some perspective. We have a minimum wage that sits at around 40% of the average weekly earnings and a Newstart payment that sits at around 40% of the minimum wage. The minimum wage is not a living wage and the unemployment benefit is not even a pale shadow of a living wage. And we see the consequences at the St Vincent de Paul Society every day, where topping up from charitable assistance has become the norm for many people simply to survive.

We need a solid jobs plan, and full employment should be a policy priority. Instead we keep getting served up a putting-the-boot-into-the-unemployed-plan and a slashing-social-expenditure-plan. Behavioural approaches won’t fix structural problems. The government can blame people all they like but this won’t address the inequality many are burdened with, as wages are suppressed and profits soar, buttressed by tax cuts, wage cuts and social expenditure cuts….

Our social security system was built in very different structural circumstances. The labour market is different. Work is different. We should be embarking on a serious reframing of how we can, collectively and with common resources, achieve social and economic security for everyone. We need, for example, to explore how government might play a leading role in achieving full employment instead of harassing the people who have been structurally excluded from jobs.

There is nothing innovative about marginalising people who are already made to feel that they have been stigmatised through drug-testing and cashless welfare cards.

There is nothing smart about a program like Path that uses young people for six months as cheap labour and then discards them.

We need to build a way forward that ensures that no one misses out on the essentials of life: a place to live, a place to work (or income adequacy for those who cannot engage in paid work), a place to learn (from early childhood through to university and TAFE), and a place to heal.

This means not just leaving these essentials to the whims of the market but actively ensuring that no one is excluded. This is an economic as well as a social imperative.

Inequality is buttressed and boosted by unfair rules that must be changed. We need to imagine a future predicated not on the perpetuation of inequality but the provision of social and economic security.

Inequality is neither a personal choice nor a national tragedy. It is a choice governments make.

Read the full article here.

Australian Society 2017: age-old privilege remains strongly entrenched

“The Turnbull Government is doing what all Coalition governments have done in the past 40 years - deliver special funding deals for private schools, especially for Independent schools in this case, to ensure their resource advantage and privileged position in the schools market place. As Tony Abbott said of the Liberal Party’s long history of supporting Catholic and Independent schools: “it’s in our DNA”.” [Trevor Cobbold, New Figures Confirm More Private Schools Will be Over-Funded Under Gonski 2.0, December 2017]

The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 December 2017:

Catholic and independent private schools are set to get more than 100 per cent of their needs from governments under the  new "Gonski 2.0" plan, official documents released under Freedom of Information show.

Obtained by the Australian Education Union and processed by the convenor of the Save Our Schools campaign, Trevor Cobbold, the Education Department documents spell out the amount of government funding expected for each school sector in each state in 2018.

In NSW, 110 private schools are expected to receive more than 100 per cent of the so-called schools resourcing standard from governments, up from 65 schools in 2017. By 2027, when the Gonski arrangements are fully implemented, 212 private schools will receive more than their total needs from governments.

In Victoria, 38 private schools will receive more than the resourcing standard from governments, up from 33 in 2017. When Gonski 2.0 is fully implemented, 74 will receive more than all their needs from governments.

The Turnbull government's Gonski 2.0 package will eventually give each private school 80 per cent of the resourcing standard in Commonwealth grants. It will give public schools 20 per cent of the standard…..

The Gonski 2.0 formula will result in a loss of income for some very well-funded private schools, but will increase the number of overfunded private schools. In most states, public schools are funded at less than 80 per cent of the resources standard by the governments that operate them, meaning that although Gonski 2.0 lifts Commonwealth funding to 20 per cent, they will continue to get less than 100 per cent of the standard. NSW public schools would get 91 per cent of the standard, Victorian schools would get 86 per cent.

The private sector would get 107 per cent of the standard in NSW and about 100 per cent in Victoria, according to Mr Cobbold's calculations.

"Gonski 2.0 is the best special deal that private schools have ever had," Mr Cobbold said.

 "The overfunding will cost taxpayers many millions of dollars over the next decade and will divert funds from where they are most needed.

"No funding model that increases the number of overfunded private schools while failing to adequately support public schools can be considered fair. Public schools enrol the bulk of disadvantaged students."….

Turnbull Government's gift to welfare recipients this Christmas? More pain....

Nothing like receiving bad news in the lead up to the festive season......

News.com.au, 6 December 2017:

CONTROVERSIAL plans to drug test unemployed welfare recipients will be suspended indefinitely after the Senate refused to endorse the idea.

The Turnbull government had hoped to drug test 5000 Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients across three trial sites in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia from January.

But Social Services Minister Christian Porter indicated this morning provisions for the pilot will be stripped from an omnibus welfare bill and dealt with separately, so other measures can be signed off by Christmas.

“There are some difficulties that are going to be presented in getting that part of the bill through the Senate, but that does not mean that we are abandoning drug testing,” Mr Porter told Sky News.

“No one can be perfectly certain with these things but my best assessment is the rest of it, everything other than drug testing, will likely succeed through the Senate.”

Minister Porter stood by the trial last month but indicated it might be split from other reforms that were crucial to overhaul the “near to dysfunctional” welfare system.

“The bulk of that bill, which reforms the compliance system, is so critical to what we are trying to achieve that I wouldn’t want to sacrifice the bulk of that in terms of timeliness while we are still negotiating around drug testing,” Mr Porter said at a National Press Club speech in November.

One reform the government wants to pass as a priority is the new “three strike” demerit point system for welfare recipients that would mean those who continually skipped appointments or job interviews would eventually lose their payments.

Another will fold seven welfare payments into one to become the main payment for people of working age.

That is slated to begin in March 2020.

According to the Australian Council Of Social Services (ACOSS) this bill:

* Sets a dangerous precedent that allows governments to determine who is covered by social security rights and protections and who is not, without legislation;

* Would make it more difficult for people to access payments;

* Will make applicants wait much longer for first payments and, in certain cases this could be as long as 26 weeks;

* Cuts payments to people seeking work by removing back-pay provisions;

* Cuts $478m from social security payments over the forward estimates, with most losses incurred by people who are unemployed and single parents;

* Rolls Wife and Widow B pensions & allowances (including the Bereavement Allowance) into the Jobseeker Payment which will leave pension recipients worse off unless they are transferred to another pension;

* Ensures that the Jobseeker Payment keeps recipients living well below the poverty line so that they will be unable to meet essential costs; and

* The new mutual obligation requirements and breach schedule indicates that annually an est. 80,000 people will lose at least one week’s payment and an unknown number up to four week’s payment.

See http://www.acoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/170804-Social-Services-Legislation-Amendment-Welfare-Reform-Bill-2017.pdf

Don't laugh, this Nationals MP was serious

David Arthur Gillespie of Wauchope entered the Australian Parliament in 2013 as a National Party Member of the House of Representatives representing the Lyne electorate, with an annual salary many of his constituents can only dream about.

He is quite literally a man of property – aside from his house and farm he owns four commercial and residential investment properties, which appear to be snugly sitting in one or more family trusts along with a portfolio of shares.

His total parliamentary entitlements expenditure paid by the Department of Finance was $65,512.97 in 2013,  $399,946.31 in 2014, $339,797.06 in 2015 and $381,651 in 2016.

Yet two years ago he caught the greed bug and wanted more, more, more………..

ABC News, 2 December 2017:

The Prime Minister's Department has lost a two-year fight to conceal a minister's bid for thousands of dollars in extra pollie-perks, including charter flights and boat rides.

Former speaker Bronwyn Bishop's taxpayer-funded helicopter ride sparked an inquiry into politicians' entitlements.

Most MPs and senators' submissions were publicly released, but bureaucrats decided to hide Nationals MP David Gillespie's proposal.

After a lengthy freedom of information (FOI) battle, the ABC can reveal Dr Gillespie argued politicians in seats like his should annually be given:

* Nearly $15,000 extra "charter allowance" for charter flights, hire cars, boat rides or taxis

* 14 days more travel allowance for overnight stays within the electorate

* An additional office

* One more full-time employee

Dr Gillespie is the member for Lyne on the New South Wales mid-north coast.

He argued the boost would help meet "the significant logistical challenges that confront all rural MPs in meeting the needs and expectations of their constituents".

"If the additional costs are $10 million, it is a small price to pay to ensure fairness within our democracy is delivered," he wrote in the October 2015 submission.

Dr Gillespie wanted extra expenses for all electorates 10,000 square kilometres or larger.

The Assistant Health Minister's seat is about 16,000 square kilometres in size, and includes towns of Taree and Wauchope.

If implemented today, 24 Coalition MPs would benefit, along with six Labor members and two independents.

Electorates 100,000 square kilometres or larger would have received an even bigger windfall under the blueprint.

But the Government has only partly adopted one of his ideas by funding an extra office in Australia's seven biggest electorates — a group of seats that does not include Lyne.

I’m sure David Gillespie is as pleased with mainstream media outing this attempted cash grab as he was when they reported this……

The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 October 2017:

A Turnbull government minister is facing up to $500,000 in personal legal bills to defend his job against a Labor High Court challenge.

While the government is covering the costs of the seven federal politicians referred to the court over their citizenship status, the eighth MP facing constitutional eligibility questions is not getting the same assistance.

Labor is challenging Assistant Health Minister David Gillespie's right to stay on in Federal Parliament, putting the government's slender majority at risk, because it believes he may have an indirect financial interest in the Commonwealth – grounds for disqualification under section 44(v) of the constitution.

As revealed by Fairfax Media in February, the Nationals MP owns a small suburban shopping complex in Port Macquarie and one of the shops is an outlet of Australia Post – a government-owned corporation.

The Lighthouse Beach Australia Post outlet in Port Macquarie owned by Nationals MP David Gillespie. 

Photo: Peter Daniels

Alley v Gillespie [2017] HCA is scheduled to be heard on Tuesday,12 December 2017 by High Court of Australia.