Written by: Indrasish Majumder The goal of “the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill”, the second reading of which took place in the House of Lords in January 2021, is to “establish the supremacy of the law of armed conflict,” according to ministers of the UK parliament. The bill, according to the government, will put an end […]
“Freedom’s always worth it,” said Scott Morrison. “What a waste,” said the father who had lost his son in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam. Tasha May totes up the immense cost of futile wars and the immense profits.
It has been 26 years, 26 years of the wealthiest Australians, the billionaires, subverting Australia’s Parliament, their lobbyists calling MPs and their staffers, and donating to the major parties to help keep their loophole intact. Luke Stacey and Michael West report.
State governments have recognised the importance of bolstering digital strategies in their recent budget announcements, with millions of dollars invested into various initiatives for the coming year.
During budget speeches, the NSW government announced further investment in a Single Digital Patient Record system and WA set forth plans to implement single digital identities, showing that both governments are committed to addressing citizen needs head on.
The Victorian budget also noted significant investment towards their proposed single digital presence platform earlier this year.
These plans are a clear response to people’s increased expectations for more accessible, responsive, transparent and secure digital government services. And the onset of the global health and economic crisis has reinvigorated the role of digital services in everyday life.
Citizens have greater expectation of government digital services
People from all backgrounds and abilities are moving to online services, whether by necessity or choice. In fact, 80 per cent of the 1,500 Australian residents we recently surveyed used digital government services last year.
These same respondents, however, are calling for digital improvements – such as pre-filled form technology and greater availability of medical data to healthcare professionals.
A keen appetite for a single digital identity similarly shone through to streamline and simplify how we all engage with these services, as did a desire for more controls over how personal information is shared across government agencies.
The digital investment announced by state governments so far this year is a welcome step towards transforming government services. But to achieve this goal, there are some key considerations to consider for a successful strategy implementation.
Reinvigorate foundations
Starting from scratch isn’t always possible, or necessary. With the right approach, many existing systems can be reimagined and transformed for an online future, rather than replaced.
Assessing whether systems can be digitised to agile and scalable cloud platforms, which can result in real time insights and policy updates, is an important first step.
Policy agility is key
Policy evolution directly impacts people’s livelihoods, so implementing legislated changes through technology can understandably become complex and time-consuming.
Taking an agile, modular approach to policy change can accelerate implementation and better assess the impact of each change. It also can drive greater collaboration and sharing between departments, agencies and partners.
Unbiased data forges trust
Unbiased, non-sensitive citizen data is a strategic asset which governments can use to make evidence-based decisions that in turn improve people’s livelihoods. When this data is securely shared across government platforms, it can optimise citizen experience, help governments form a single view of a person and their needs, improve efficiencies and reduce expenditure.
But a privacy-first approach to citizen data is key – in fact over a third of respondents in our research cited privacy, trust, and security as critical to their use of these online services.
In relation to sharing personal information, over fifty per cent of the respondents said they are comfortable doing so, but only if they know how it will be used and stored, emphasising the need for better disclosure.
Humanise digital services
Putting citizens at the core of every digital service – right from the design stage – is crucial. Stepping into citizens’ shoes to view their needs and challenges is so important.
This may include deep research, prioritising citizen feedback and integrating HX (Human Experience) design in evolving services.
Half of the people we surveyed want digital experiences to feel ‘human’ and show ‘empathy’. Combining Customer Experience, User Experience and Employee Experience techniques – with a layer of creative thinking – can achieve better overall HX.
Leave no one behind
Considering diverse abilities and needs of communities is essential to optimising the future of digital government services.
We know that digital disadvantage coincides with other forms of social and economic barriers, meaning those who need support the most often face the greatest risk of being left behind on the digital journey.
In fact, close to 90 per cent of people we surveyed believe governments need to better service those with a disability.
By integrating inclusivity into platform design, such as considering whether technology is compatible with assistive technology, or if content is accessible in other languages, means governments can avoid building new barriers for people of various abilities and backgrounds.
Optimise the innovation ecosystem
An evolution as widespread as a digital government can’t happen in silo. Continuing to foster collaboration between the public sector, private entities, not-for-profit organisations, and the academic world rewards governments and their constituents with fresher ideas, more robust approaches, and strategies.
When approached properly, enhancing digital services can provide governments with more access to unbiased data, enable greater agility to rapidly adopt policy changes and make government interaction seamless.
That is ultimately what citizens want – an engaging, open and reliable way to use digital government services, wherever and whenever they need.
Allen Koehn is Associate Vice-President and General Manager of Public Sector at Infosys.
This article was prepared by Infosys in partnership with InnovationAus.com.
The Government department which covered up the security report into the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins is also the department found to have a culture of bullying, and is also the department whose staffer is threatening multiple legal actions against small publishers and other Australians. What is going on at Parliament House? Michael West investigates the Department of Parliamentary Services.
If the working class had as much class solidarity as the ruling class has there never would’ve been a ruling class.
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Stealing someone’s labor is worse than stealing their property, because it’s theft of their life; you can replace property if you want, but you can’t replace hours of life. And rigging the system so people need to work longer hours in order to survive is this form of theft at mass scale.
Right now it’s ass backwards: people have to spend their lives away from their loved ones in pointless jobs, and if you tell the cop your employer stole hours from you he’ll just shrug while if your employer tells the cop you stole a company iPad you’ll be hauled off in chains.
This would all be a lot less confusing if we said people get paid by the Life Unit instead of by the hour, because it makes it much clearer what you’re actually trading. “You want a unit of my life for seven dollar bills and a quarter? Fuck you.”
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Six months into Biden’s presidency it’s definitely not okay to be a grown adult and still believe Trump was a uniquely monstrous president.
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Biden may be stopping all progress and breaking most of his campaign promises, but he did also campaign on bringing back the Obama years so in that sense he kept all his campaign promises.
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Focusing on individuals instead of the system creates the illusion that if you replaced the individuals you could fix the problems with the system. The individuals are symptoms of the disease.
This is true whether you’re talking about oligarchy or the official elected government. Leave the systems in place and get rid of Jeff Bezos and another greedy plutocrat will just move into his niche. Get rid of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and you’ll just get different Democrats killing progress in the senate. It’s fine to criticize them, but it’s not about them. You criticize them to draw attention to the systems.
Sociopaths will keep getting elevated to the top as long as there are systems in place which elevate sociopaths. Right now wealth and political power go to whoever’s willing to do anything to get to the top and step on anyone in their way. That’s what actually needs to change.
Really the people just need to find a way to seize power and create systems which work for everyone instead of rewarding greed, sociopathy and corruption. But they’ll never do that by working within the current systems, because those systems are designed to do the exact opposite.
Sure Biden is shit. That’s what happens in a system which elevates shit. That’s why his predecessor was shit, and why his replacement will be shit. Without that system Biden would just be some creepy asshole in an assisted living facility who all the caregivers try to avoid.
But also it’s never actually about Biden; it’s about a system wherein mass-scale human behavior is driven by profit, and where war, ecocide, exploitation and corruption happen to be profitable. As long as that’s the case it will just be endless assholes ruling our world until they get us all killed.
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Be a government
Do evil things
Make it illegal to report those evil things
Sentence anyone who does to draconian prison terms as a deterrent
Keep the public from knowing what you’re doing
Force them to guess
Label this guessing “conspiracy theory”
Censor them
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For every whistleblower you make an example of you prevent a thousand others.
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Republicans live in such an awesome world. There’s a war on white men, powerful anarchists rule the streets, the president is a Marxist, and US officials are being taken out by communist microwave beams.
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Feds definitely knew about the Capitol raid in advance and definitely let it happen yet you’re meant to believe the only reason rioters didn’t lynch Nancy Pelosi and take over the US government is because their diabolical plot was thwarted at the last minute.
Imagine if the memesters who went to Area 51 in 2019 actually got in (because military forces opened the doors for them), wandered around for a bit and then left, and then this was hailed as worse than 9/11 and used to advance authoritarian agendas and legal precedents… and people believed it.
It would have been exactly note-for-note identical to what happened with January 6th. The one and only difference is that there was no ideological angle on the Area 51 memesters.
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As a kid I certainly never imagined that I’d end up spending such a significant portion of my adult life arguing with strangers who think the government should be allowed to do extremely evil things in secret.
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Still shits me how we all know our governments and institutions lie to us all the time about important things but when people are distrustful of those institutions they get treated like they belong in a straight jacket. Sure this distrust can manifest in ways that are not well-informed or truth-based, but expecting all rank-and-file members of the public who work full time to have a perfectly erudite understanding of every situation is absurd. The distrust is reasonable and it’s not their fault.
If people distrust their government and institutions, the blame rests exclusively on the shoulders of the government and institutions who created that distrust in the first place. You can’t create distrust and act like people are crazy for distrusting you. That’s not a thing.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
As Sydney Covid infections spiral out of control, the efficiency of NSW’s lauded “gold standard” contact tracing system has become ever more critical. Cracks are appearing. Luke Stacey reports.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
The sentence was much harsher than Hale’s defense requested but not nearly as harsh as US prosecutors pushed for, arguing that longer prison sentences are necessary for deterring whistleblowing in the US intelligence cartel.
Despite the fact that Hale pled guilty on March 31 to one of the five Espionage Act offenses he faced, prosecutors remained spiteful and unwilling to support anything less than a “significant sentence” to “deter” government employees or contractors from “using positions in the intelligence community for self-aggrandizement.”
In other words, if you tell the public the truth about your government’s crimes, you will be made an example of so nobody else tries to do that. And then for that brave and selfless act, you’ll be smeared as doing it for “self-aggrandizement”.
Daniel Hale receives 45-month prison sentence for releasing drone documents https://t.co/DJ6jOuuRUy
The US government makes no secret of the fact that it uses draconian prison sentencing to keep people from reporting the truth about its murderous behavior. It’s the same as the way kings would torture dissidents in the town square to show everyone what happens when you speak ill of your ruler, just dressed up in 21st-century language about “national security” (a claim that is itself nonsense because as Julian Assange said, the overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security).
The idea is that for every whistleblower you flog in the town square with harsh prison sentences, you deter a thousand other government insiders from ever picking up the whistle themselves. They’re not punishing anyone for endangering “national security”, or even necessarily for damaging or inconveniencing them in any real way; Reality Winner’s leaks were of no particular significance, yet she got more than five years just to make an example of her.
And it works. Of course it works. If you’ve witnessed your government doing something horrific, and you’ve got kids, or if you’re in love, or if you’ve got a loved one who needs care, or if you just really don’t want to go to prison, then you’re probably going to look at these whistleblowers being robbed of years of their lives and decide you can find a way to live with the psychological discomfort of knowing what you know without saying anything.
We may be certain that this exact scenario has played out many times. Probably thousands of times.
"Whether it was, as I had seen, an Afghan farmer blown in half, yet miraculously conscious & pointlessly trying to scoop his insides off the ground, or an American..Both served to justify the easy flow of capital at the cost of blood—theirs & ours,"
Think about what this means for a minute. This means that what we know about malfeasance in so-called “free democracies” like the United States is necessarily just the tiniest tip of the iceberg compared to what we do not know, because for every bit of information that leaks out there are orders of magnitude more which remain secret. They remain secret because, like any gang member, government insiders know what happens to those who talk.
So people have no idea what their government is really up to, yet they’re expected to make informed decisions about who they want to vote for to run it, and about whether or not they consent to this government in the first place.
Militaries understand that you need intelligence before you can act efficaciously; you need to be able to look before you leap, to see and know what you’re dealing with so you can take action which accords with reality. Truth is hidden and obscured from us precisely for this reason: because knowledge is power, and they want all the power.
That’s what Julian Assange was going for when he founded WikiLeaks: a tool to help the people see and know what’s going on in the world so we can act in an informed way.
That’s also why he’s in prison.
The amount of power one is given should have a directly inverse relationship with the amount of secrecy they are allowed to have. Power with secrecy is illegitimate. If you’ve got power over people you don’t get to keep secrets from them. That is not a valid thing for any power structure to do.
– Be a government – Do evil things – Make it illegal to report those evil things – Sentence anyone who does to draconian prison sentences as a deterrent – Keep the public from knowing what you're doing – Force them to guess – Label this guessing "conspiracy theory" – Censor them
The US government imprisons journalists and whistleblowers for telling the truth about its murderous behavior. All US government statements about authoritarianism in other nations are invalidated by its treatment of whistleblowers and journalists.
They do evil things, they make it illegal to report those evil things to the public, they sentence anyone who does to draconian prison sentences to deter all other potential whistleblowers, then when the public starts guessing what they are up to behind those veils of secrecy, they are branded “conspiracy theorists” and banned from internet platforms.
If the American people could actually see everything the world’s most powerful government is doing in their name, they would be stricken with horror and all consent for their government would collapse. The only reason the US is able to hold together a globe-spanning undeclared empire using violence and terror is because it hides so much from public vision, uses mass media propaganda to form a false perception of what’s going on, and then stigmatizes distrust and attempts to guess what it’s up to behind the thick walls of opacity it has erected to obscure their vision.
This is illegitimate. The entire US government is illegitimate, and so is every other government that’s aligned with it and engaging in similar practices like Australia and the United Kingdom. We should unlearn all the tolerance for these systems of rule which this giant global power structure has indoctrinated into our minds.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Israeli firm NSO Group has created spyware which can hack a smartphone, beat encryption and access every bit of our data, live-time, just like reading over somebody’s shoulder. Human rights activist and cyber-security expert Manal al Sharif examines the implications. This is the first in Manal al Sharif’s Tech4Evil series which exposes the threat of Big Tech on our minds, our humanity and democracy itself. Exclusive.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
It’s been quite the innings for some of Australia’s wealthiest billionaires. Certain large proprietary companies owned by the establishment – Secret Rich-Listers as we call them – have been cloaked in darkness by government legislation for more than a quarter of a century. Luke Stacey reports how South Australian Senator Rex Patrick is fighting to buck the trend and demolish Australia’s Secret Rich List once and for all.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
His crime was apparently harassing the staff at the local council over a fence, and the obnoxious neighbour on the other side of said fence. Bolton, a Sydney lawyer, was threatened with defamation by Inner West Council chief executive, Michael Deegan, whose lawyers demanded money, then ended up in court facing harassment charges.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Parliament does not need to be consulted before Australian troops are sent to war. What do the politicians who have donned the uniform have to say? Tasha May asks Rex Patrick, Andrew Wilkie, Jim Molan and Bob Katter.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
A takeovers binge is in swing in the jobless sector as the biggest private provider of employment services, the foreign multinational Max Solutions mops up smaller players and posts strong revenues from government. Stephanie Tran investigates the Jobactive scheme and the failure of privatisation.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Incredibly, a survey finds 42% of Australians believe China will attack Australia, this despite exports to China surging 36% over in the last six months, and despite there being no logical rationale for war with China, or an attack by China. Marcus Reubenstein analyses the ludicrous position of Australia’s China hawks and the mainstream media pushing their agendas.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Despite continual claims she acted on health advice, despite continual pleas to the NSW public to follow the health advice, Premier Gladys Berejiklian let slip that advice from business played a part in her handling of the pandemic and the Sydney lockdown. What is the health advice? Callum Foote and Michael West investigate.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Julian Assange once said, “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.”
As someone whose life’s work before his imprisonment was combing through documents of an often classified nature, he’d have been in a prime position to know. He’d have seen time and time again how a nation’s citizenry are not under the slightest threat from the secret information in the documents that had been leaked to him from around the world, but that it could damage the reputation of a politician or a government or its military.
As the persecution of the WikiLeaks founder continues to trudge on with the UK government’s granting the Biden administration permission to appeal a declined extradition request, claiming that it can safely imprison Assange without subjecting him to the draconian aspects of America’s prison system which caused the initial dismissal, it’s good to keep in mind that this is being done entirely for the purpose of controlling public access to information that is inconvenient for the powerful.
The prosecution of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act is being touted by the US government as a matter of national security; you can’t simply allow journalists to publish classified information about the things its military forces are doing in the nations they occupy, because that could endanger American lives.
Leaving aside the fact that the Pentagon already admitted years ago that it could not find a single instance of lives being lost due to the publications for which Assange is currently being prosecuted, this case is not and has never been about national security. This case has always been about narrative control.
The US government is not afraid that unauthorized publication of government secrets will lead to Americans being killed, it’s afraid it will lead to their knowing the truth. The powerful understand that narrative control is everything, and that an entire globe-spanning empire depends on keeping the masses from having a lucid perception of what’s really going on in the world. There is an unfathomable amount of power riding on their ability to continue doing this.
Assange isn’t in Belmarsh Prison for doing something wrong, but for doing something right. For trying to give the public information which will help them form a truth-based worldview so that they can make intelligent informed decisions about where they want to collectively steer society together. Because the oligarchic empire depends on the ability to manipulate the way people think, act and vote to benefit the powerful, this was like handing someone who’s being groomed by a sexual predator a guidebook of all of the psychological tactics that are being used.
This good deed could not go unpunished.
Nothing WikiLeaks published endangered the American people, it endangered a globe-spanning empire’s ability to control our understanding of what’s happening in the world. This was a most egregious offense as far as our rulers are concerned, and it could not be allowed to stand.
So an example is being made. In less polite times Assange would have been tortured and drawn and quartered in the town square while the king looked on sipping from a goblet of mead. In the days of polite liberal democracy our rulers must remain hidden, and they must publicly torture dissidents to death in the name of national security concerns.
Beneath all the spin and excuses, this is all being done to show everyone what happens to you if you reveal embarrassing truths about the most powerful people on earth. If you compromise their political security. It’s telling the world, “If you ever try to interfere in our control over the dominant narratives, this is what we will do to you.”
And, whether we fully understand what’s really happening or not, that’s the message that is being ingested here. Journalists who find themselves in a position to publish such things going forward will find themselves thinking thoughts about what happened to Julian Assange.
— Don't Extradite Assange (@DEAcampaign) July 7, 2021
This is why it’s so important that they don’t win this case. We cannot allow ourselves to be cowed away from the truth in this way, or else we’re flying blind. We’re unable to obtain information which will help us steer society in a truth-based direction.
The Assange case receives so much attention not because of interest in one man’s fate, but because of interest in everyone’s fate. If humanity is ever to turn away from its self-destructive patterns and create a healthy world, it will necessarily need to do so guided by the light of truth and transparency. As long as the powerful are able to keep us confused and deluded using propaganda and government secrecy, such a world will never come into being.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Australia is a democracy, yet when it comes to the most critical national decision of sending Australian troops into armed conflict overseas, the power rests with one man, the Prime Minister. This is the curtain-raiser for our #warpowers series as reporter Tasha May calls around Australia’s parliamentarians and its people.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Back in April 2020, I wrote an article criticising the government and the woefully incomplete list of coronavirus (Covid-19) symptoms it was sharing with the public. I compared our government’s advice to that of other countries. And what I found was that the NHS’s list of coronavirus symptoms was one of the most incomplete in the world.
At the time, my housemate and I were certain that we had coronavirus, although we had none of the listed symptoms. “It feels like I’ve smoked a whole packet of cigarettes,” my friend had moaned at the time. A few days later, his condition deteriorated. “It feels like someone is sitting on my chest,” he wheezed.
Fast-forward to July 2021, and I am recovering from coronavirus again. This time I was able to get an official diagnosis. Like the majority of people in the UK, it’s very likely that I was infected by the Delta variant: a strain of coronavirus that feels quite different to the virus we knew in early 2020.
The variant has changed…
The Delta variant is currently sweeping the UK and spreads much more easily than its predecessors. I had only been given one dose of the vaccine when I caught the virus. Yet friends I had been socialising with found themselves in bed even after receiving two vaccinations. I was shocked that Delta could spread so rapidly among people who had been double-vaccinated.
On top of this, the new Lambda variant – which is proving deadly in Peru and the rest of Latin America – has also made its way into the UK. Its transmission rate is thought to be higher than all other variants. And scientists fear that a new mutation of the strain is resistant to vaccines.
…so why hasn’t the NHS’s advice changed?
With so much knowledge of how the virus has changed over the course of a year and a half, it’s disturbing that the government hasn’t bothered to update the advice they’re giving to the public. This is particularly concerning given that coronavirus cases are rising steeply again.
The NHS still only lists three symptoms to watch out for:
a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
Yet the ZOE app – the largest ongoing study of coronavirus in the world – lists different symptoms to watch out for. If you’re not vaccinated, ZOE lists the most common symptoms as being:
Headache
Sore Throat
Runny Nose
Fever
Persistent cough
ZOE says:
Loss of smell comes in at number 9 and shortness of breath comes far down the list at number 30, indicating the symptoms as recorded previously are changing with the evolving variants of the virus.
And if you’ve already been given two vaccinations, ZOE lists the most common symptoms as:
Headache
Runny nose
Sneezing
Sore throat
Other
That’s none of the symptoms listed by the NHS. ZOE says:
The previous ‘traditional’ symptoms as still outlined on the government website, such as anosmia (loss of smell), shortness of breath and fever rank way down the list, at 11, 29 and 12 respectively. A persistent cough now ranks at number 8 if you’ve had two vaccine doses, so is no longer the top indicator of having COVID.
With such dire advice still coming from the government, it’s no wonder that infection rates are shooting through the roof.
DHSC response
The Canary contacted the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for a comment. The department said:
Since the start of the pandemic we have acknowledged COVID-19 has a much longer list of symptoms than the ones initially used in the case definition and our experts keep the list of symptoms under review.
But the DHSC didn’t address the question we asked, which was “why hasn’t the government updated its symptom list in almost a year and a half?” Instead, the DHSC told us:
Anyone experiencing the key symptoms – a high temperature, a new continuous cough, or a loss or change to sense of smell or taste – should get a PCR test as soon as possible and immediately self-isolate along with their household.
PCR tests are mainly for people who have symptoms, and a swab is sent off to a lab. The DHSC continued:
With around one in three people not showing symptoms of COVID-19, we have made regular, rapid testing available twice a week for free for everyone in England. Over 100 million LFDs have been carried out so far with over 200,000 cases identified that would not have been detected otherwise.
LFDs, or lateral flow tests, give results within 30 minutes and should be used if a person has no symptoms. Yet their effectiveness in picking up whether someone has the virus is questionable. I myself received a negative LFD result before getting a positive PCR result.
The government is still proving that it’s incompetent
Boris Johnson’s government seems content that although coronavirus rates are increasing, our death rates are still low. But the government isn’t taking into account that, even if people don’t die, the effects of long Covid can be devastating. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth also argued:
Letting cases rise with no action means further pressure on the NHS, more sickness, disruption to education – and risks a new variant emerging with a selection advantage.
The emergence of new variants is particularly worrying. Because the more the virus mutates, the greater the chances of a vaccine-resistant strain developing. Meanwhile, states such as Germany continue to close their borders to UK citizens, citing the country as a new area “of variants of concern”.
As the UK government proudly prepares to ease all lockdown restrictions, Germany and others will, once more, be watching closely. Johnson will continue to try to convince the public that he’s doing a wonderful job. But, as always, he’s fooling no one.
Large job agencies who dominate Australia’s privatised employment system are enjoying a boom of record profits, and even a takeover spree, while their disillusioned job seekers complain of churning and profiteering. Meanwhile, those in government on both sides of the political aisle are calling for reform. In this special investigation, Stephanie Tran reports on the failure of Jobactive.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Data published, and quickly updated, by the NSW Department of Health reveals there may have been locally acquired cases in NSW on June 13, four days before “Limousine Man” was recorded as being the Bondi Cluster’s “Patient Zero”. Callum Foote investigates the mess that is Covid data.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
The UK Health Secretary has just admitted his government’s “moral responsibility” for the UK’s contaminated blood scandal of the 1970s and 1980s yet Australian victims are still without compensation or even an apology.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
Law enforcement agencies have a cavalier attitude to the right to privacy and a “whatever it takes” attitude to raiding databases of personal information, writes Greg Barns. Given the treasure trove of information now available from all the Covid tracing apps, strong penalties and laws are needed to ensure evidence obtained from those apps cannot be used in legal proceedings.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
More than a dozen groups urge all MPs to support Bill C-230 in final House vote this fall
OTTAWA | | TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE —
We, a broad and diverse coalition of civil society groups, urge Parliament to move forward with passing an environmental racism law immediately following its summer break. Yesterday, the House of Commons environment committee completed its review of Bill C-230, which mandates the federal government to examine the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk. This marked a critical first step toward Canada acknowledging its shameful legacy of environmental racism and ensuring that all people in Canada benefit from environment protection policies.
Renamed the National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act, the bill, if passed, would require the federal environment minister to develop a strategy on environmental racism and environmental justice – a Canadian first. Canada is long overdue for this legislation — parallel requirements have been in place in the U.S. since 1994.
It’s good to see Canada finally stepping up, but we have no time to lose to ensure this draft legislation actually becomes law. With the House of Commons scheduled to break for the summer later this week and a potential election this fall, we strongly urge all parties to move the bill through the final stages of the legislative process as soon as possible when Parliament resumes sitting following its summer break. Canadians can’t afford a delay of this long-awaited legislation.
Additional information on the review of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable development:
MP Lenore Zann (Cumberland – Colchester) introduced Bill C-230 in February 2020.
Three of the four parties represented on the committee supported the bill with amendments. An important sub-amendment, proposed by MP Taylor Bachrach (Skeena – Bulkley Valley) and approved by the committee, stipulates that the national strategy must include information and statistics related to the location of environmental hazards, and an examination of the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk, as well as health-outcomes. A lack of disaggregated data about environmental hazards and effects on racialized and low-income people in Canada has obscured the problem and hampers efforts to advance environmental justice.
The National Anti-Environmental Racism Coalition (NAERC) was formed in 2020 by Ingrid Waldron from the ENRICH Project and Naolo Charles from the Black Environmental Initiative to mobilize organizations and individuals for the environmental protection of Black, Indigenous and immigrant communities and for the promotion of environmental justice in Canada. The National Anti-Environmental Racism Coalition is composed of over 60 organizations working in the social and environmental sector. Our current work is paving the way for the success of a national environmental justice strategy in Canada.
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Statement issued by the following groups: Black Environmental Initiative, Breast Cancer Action Quebec, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), Canadian Environmental Law Association, Coalition for Environmental Rights, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, ENRICH Project, Environmental Defence, Équiterre, National Anti-Environmental Racism Coalition, Nature Canada, Prevent Cancer Now, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, West Coast Environmental Law
Environmental racism occurs when environmental policies or practices intentionally or unintentionally result in disproportionate negative impacts on certain individuals, groups or communities based on race or colour, and as well as unequal access to environmental benefits. Examples of environmental racism in Canada have been documented by the ENRICH Project and in a 2020 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights.
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After claiming “official” discussions with Pfizer had only started in December, Health Minister Greg Hunt has finally confirmed that the government met with Pfizer last July to discuss purchasing the Pfizer vaccine. Sources say Australia was given options for as many doses as needed to be delivered in January this year, yet government officials turned down the offer
This post was originally published on Michael West.
On June 14, 2021, the Biden Administration announced a new policy intended to ease the tremendous harm of the immigration backlog on immigrant survivors of serious crime. The policy, which specifically affects immigrant survivors eligible for the U Visa, will authorize survivors to work while their applications await final approval.
“We’re hopeful that the Administration’s announcement will make a real difference in survivors’ lives over the next couple of years,” said Zeyla Gonzalez, HRI’s Crime Victims Program Department of Justice Accredited Representative. “The decade-long wait for approval leaves our clients in a painful and dangerous limbo. We applaud this first step in moving toward a more just system for immigrant survivors.”
Together with SMU Law’s Dedman Clinic, HRI released a report last year detailing the human toll of the backlog on immigrant survivors. Fighting immigration backlogs, including the U Visa backlog, is a key priority of HRI’s client-led advocacy group, HRI Connect. This week, the group authored a letter to President Biden, sharing their hopes that the Administration will prioritize reducing the immigration backlogs. The letter shares, in part:
“We, along with our families at HRI Connect, have been waiting for our immigration cases to be resolved. The wait has been too long and painful; discouragement wears on us at times. Even so, we have faith that your Administration can help us resolve this problem of a long and hard wait, making the process much shorter so that we can stabilize our legal status in this country we call home.”
About HRI
For the past 20 years, Human Rights Initiative of North Texas has provided legal and critical social services for immigrant survivors of human rights abuses from all over the world. HRI Connect is a group of current and former HRI clients who believe in building a community where everyone feels welcomed and embraced, regardless of who we are, what we look like, or how well we speak English. For more information, visit www.hrionline.org.
“Lipstick wearers may inadvertently eat several pounds of lipstick in their lifetime. But unlike food, chemicals in lipstick and other makeup products are almost entirely unregulated in the U.S. and Canada,” warns Graham Peaslee, senior author of a new study that came out earlier this week. The study found high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) or “forever” chemicals in most waterproof mascara, liquid lipsticks and foundations tested. On top of that, most of the products with high levels of PFAS didn’t even have it labelled on the ingredient list!
What are PFAS anyways?
PFAS are often found in non-stick, waterproof and grease resistant products (such as Teflon pans and food packaging). PFAS can easily be absorbed into our food and bodies, which is concerning as these chemicals have been linked to a wide range of serious health harms, from cancer to obesity to reproductive problems. PFAS have also been found to be extremely persistent in the environment, which is where their description as “forever” chemicals came from. (A new study also found PFAS in rain water around the Great Lakes basin!)
So, why are PFAS found in makeup?
As seen in the table below, out of the 231 Canadian and American cosmetics tested, more than 52 per cent of them had high levels of fluorine, which suggests the presence of PFAS. Many of the products that contained PFAS were advertised as “waterproof,” “wear-resistant,” or “long-lasting.” Only one of the 17 Canadian products tested had PFAS labelled in the ingredient list. This makes it difficult for Canadian consumers to make informed choices when shopping.
What can the federal government do about PFAS?
Although transparency of toxics in products is needed in order to make informed shopping decisions, fully disclosing all ingredients (including those hidden in fragrances) isn’t the best way to ensure toxics can be avoided by consumers because “toxic-free” products are typically more expensive. The onus shouldn’t be put on people to decode ingredient labels in order to purchase safer products. Banning or controlling toxics is a far more reliable way to protect our health and the environment.
Unfortunately, the Canadian government has a history of tolerating chemicals that are controlled in places such as Europe. This is in part because of outdated methods for chemical risk management, including a two decade old law that is meant to protect our health and environment from toxics and pollution, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA).
Recently, the government has shown signs of action:
They proposed to assess the risks posed by PFAS as a class of chemicals, as opposed to on a one-by-one basis. We need to make sure that this is implemented in a meaningful way that doesn’t fail due to chemical industry lobbying and pushback.
And lastly, they introduced Bill C-28, a bill to modernize CEPA, which includes recognizing the right to a healthy environment and protecting vulnerable communities from toxics. The first draft of the bill is a good step, but it needs to be improved and strengthened. If the government does not move Bill C-28 forward promptly, with necessary improvements, we may not see effective protections from toxics for many more years. Take action today and tell the federal government to improve and pass Bill C-28 immediately!
Dan Andrews is okay as Dictator Dan but not John Barilaro as Benito Mussolini. The attack by the NSW government on its critic Friendly Jordies has escalated as Google and Facebook moved to remove parody images of Deputy Premier Barilaro. Callum Foote reports.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
The arrest of a producer of YouTube journalist and comedian FriendlyJordies has disturbing implications for free speech and civil liberties. That a counter-terrorism unit would be sent in to arrest a government critic has eerie parallels to repressive regimes around the world, writes Michael Tanner.
This post was originally published on Michael West.
