Friday 29th of March 2024

no kangaroos, koalas, platypuses, nor emus were consulted for this glowing but frightening report...

report

More than 50 leaders from over 20 organisations contribute to a new landmark report Australian National Outlook 2019.

The Australian National Outlook 2019 (ANO), a new report from the CSIRO, NAB and more than 20 partners which looks out to 2060, signals Australia may face a Slow Decline if it takes no action on the most significant economic, social and environmental challenges.

But, if these challenges are tackled head on, that Australia could look forward to a positive Outlook Vision, with strong economic growth, ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, affordable energy, and more liveable major cities.

ANO 2019 draws on the latest scientific data and modelling from leading experts at CSIRO and input from more than 50 senior leaders from across industry, non-profit and university sectors.

"The ANO is a unique way of uniting the power of science with the lived and hoped-for experiences of Australia’s industry leaders and chart a path to prosperity that gives all Australians a better quality of life," CSIRO Chief Executive Larry Marshall said.

"To put Australia on the path to the most prosperous future though requires a new way of thinking and a new type of leadership which cuts across all walks of life in our great country."

NAB Chief Customer Officer Business and Private Banking, Anthony Healy, said Australia’s largest businesses have a responsibility to make decisions that create a better and stronger nation, to take a long-term view and invest now for a better future.

"A key outcome of the ANO 2019 must be leadership and action," Mr Healy said.

"NAB will be making commitments to drive positive change that helps customers take advantage of new opportunities and encourages growth in Australia."

Achieving a positive Outlook Vision future - by numbers what’s possible for Australia by 2060

  • Our living standards in 2060 – as measured by GDP per capita – could be as much as 36 per cent higher in the Outlook Vision compared with the Slow Decline scenario
  • Average real wages (adjusted for inflation) could be 90 per cent higher than today
  • Passenger vehicle travel per capita could decline by up to 45 per cent in our major cities, with more people living closer to work, school, services and recreation
  • Household spending on electricity – relative to incomes – could decrease by up to 64 per cent
  • Greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced to "net zero" by 2050.

Five key shifts required to Australia achieving a positive Outlook Vision

The report identifies five key shifts needed to achieve the Outlook Vision:

  • Industry shift - Boost productivity in established industries, prepare our workforce for jobs of the future, and invest in innovative, high-growth industries
  • Urban shift -Increase the density of our major cities, create a wider mix of housing options, and improve our transportation infrastructure
  • Energy shift - Adopt low-emissions technologies in electricity and transport, triple energy productivity, and pursue opportunities for low-emissions energy export
  • Land shift - Invest in food and fibre industries, find new and profitable ways to use our land, and build resilience to climate change
  • Culture shift - Restore the trust in institutions, companies and politics.

To help solve the challenges raised in the report ANO participants will shortly announce commitments to support the Outlook Vision.

The report was led by the CSIRO Futures team and included over 20 researchers from across nearly every part of CSIRO.

It builds on CSIRO’s 100-year history for shaping and re-shaping Australia’s major industries, environment and society through world-class research.

"We hope the ANO 2019 serves as a clarion call for Australia," CSIRO Futures Director James Deverell said.

"We believe the positive outcomes in this report are all achievable, but they will require bold, concerted action and long-term thinking.

"Emerging technologies will play a key role and Australian companies need to be aware of both the opportunities and challenges they will create."

This is the second Australian National Outlook report.

The first report in 2015 focused on the water-energy-food nexus, and prospects for Australia’s energy, agriculture, and other material intensive industries.

The report was nominated for a Eureka Science Award and published in the journal Nature.

The Australian National Outlook 2019 and the Technical Report can be downloaded at www.csiro.au/ano

Member organisations participating in the Australian National Outlook 2019 include Australian Ethical, Australian National University, Australia Post, Australian Red Cross, ASX, Australian Unity, Baker McKenzie, Birchip Cropping Group, ClimateWorks Australia, Cochlear, CSIRO, Gilbert+Tobin, Global Access Partners, GrainCorp, Lendlease,  Monash University, National Australia Bank, PwC, Shared Value Project, Shell Australia, UnitingCare Australia, and University of Technology Sydney.

 

 

Read more:


https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2019/Australia-2060-Our-crossroads-today-future-prosperity-or-slow-decline


cross roads every five minutes...

It has been my personal record that Australia "has been at a cross-road" (cliché) about every six months (if not less) for the last 49 years. So is the entire planet. This is when social planning becomes like weather predicting... Crap. On the other hand, should you be predicting global warming, then you would be on the money: so, on your bicycles, cobbers.

 

 

Image at top by Norman Lindsay, for the 1914 war effort...

... and what about freedom of knowing the truth?...

Last week, United Kingdom Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed the extradition request from the United States to hand over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is charged with 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. The final decision on the extradition request now rests with British courts. The first extradition hearing was scheduled for last Friday, but Assange's poor health made it impossible for him to attend in person, so he appeared remotely via video.

“This case is an outrageous affront to journalistic protections,” Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson said after the court decision. “This indictment will place a chilling impact and will affect journalists and publishers everywhere all over the world by the U.S. seeking to extradite and prosecute a publisher outside of the U.S. who is not a U.S. citizen for having published truthful information about the United States: evidence of war crimes, human rights abuse, and corruption the world over,” 

Assange spent seven years in Ecuador's embassy in London, where he had received asylum under then-President Rafael Correa. Ecuador's current President Lenin Moreno suspended Assange’s asylum and allowed British police to enter the embassy and arrest him in April. All additional hearings surrounding Assange’s case have been suspended until February of next year. Assange remains in a maximum security prison in Belmarsh.

Journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger’s described Assange's extradition hearing last week to The Real News Network’s Greg Wilpert: “[Assange] didn't have an opportunity to defend himself. And that's the first major issue here. He doesn't even have a computer. He doesn't have access to documents. He's kept, a lot of the time, isolated, although he's in a hospital ward,” Pilger said. “For instance, he questioned the prosecutor, [the] lawyer appearing on behalf of the U.S. government, and said that there is one charge here that is unquestionably false—even the U.S. admits that there was no hacking,”

When Assange tried to defend himself, Pilger explained, the judge, chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot “virtually shut him up”—a harbinger of how Assange's legal case will play out.

“I don't think these initial extradition hearings will be fair at all, no, because this one last Friday, for the reasons I've outlined, was not fair. He’s not allowed to defend himself. He's not given access to a computer so that he can access the documents and files that he needs. I think where it will change is if the lower court, the magistrate's court that is dealing with it now and will deal with it over the next almost nine, ten months, if they decide to extradite Julian Assange, his lawyers will appeal. And it will go up to the High Court,” Pilger said. “And I think it's there in the High Court where he may well—I say 'may'—get justice. That's a cautiously optimistic view. But I think he's he's most likely to get it there. He certainly won't get it the United States. There's no indication of that.”


GREG WILPERT: It’s The Real News Network, and I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore.

Last week, UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid gleefully signed the extradition request from the U.S. to hand over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The U.S. is seeking Assange’s extradition because it has charged him on 18 counts of having violated the Espionage Act of 1917. The final decision on the extradition request now rests with British courts. The first extradition hearing was scheduled for last Friday, but Assange’s poor health made it impossible for him to attend in person, and so he appeared remotely via video link. Assange has already spent seven years in a small room in Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he had received asylum under then-President Rafael Correa. However, Ecuador’s current President Lenin Moreno decided to suspend his asylum and allowed British police to enter the embassy and arrest him last April.

All additional hearings have now been suspended until February of next year. Meanwhile, Assange remains in a maximum security prison in Belmarsh, where he is serving a 50-week sentence for having skipped bail. Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson responded to the court decision as follows.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: As we heard inside the court, this case is an outrageous affront to journalistic protections. This indictment will place a chilling impact and will affect journalists and publishers everywhere all over the world. by the U.S. seeking to extradite and prosecute a publisher outside of the U.S. who is not a U.S. citizen for having published truthful information about the United States: evidence of war crimes, human rights abuse, and corruption the world over.

GREG WILPERT: We’re now joined by John Pilger, who has been observing the Assange case very closely, and who was present at the extradition hearing last Friday. John is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, and his most recent film is called The Coming War in China. Thanks for joining us today, John.

JOHN PILGER: You’re welcome.

GREG WILPERT: So what was the hearing last Friday like? Did Assange have an opportunity to actually defend himself and to make his case? And what was the reaction from the U.S. lawyers and the judges there?

JOHN PILGER: No, he didn’t have an opportunity to defend himself. And that’s the first major issue here. He doesn’t even have a computer. He doesn’t have access to documents. He’s kept, a lot of the time, isolated, although he’s in a hospital ward. So, for instance, he questioned the prosecutor, lawyer appearing on behalf of the U.S. government, and said that there is one charge here that is unquestionably false. Even the U.S. admits that there was no hacking. You mentioned at the beginning, Greg, there were 18 charges of espionage. In fact, one of these charges is hacking. That doesn’t even relate to him. It shows how shambolic the whole thing is. As far as the espionage charges, none of those, none of those are crimes under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

So when he tried to defend himself on this one charge that doesn’t even apply to him, the judge, Emma Arbuthnot, virtually shut him up. And that was really the end of it. It was meant to be a brief hearing in which future dates for the case were agreed. But you got a real sense, a real flavor, of, if not a done deal, then a very, very long uphill road for Julian Assange and his lawyers.

GREG WILPERT: So why do you think Home Secretary Sajid Javid was so eager to extradite Assange? And given this eagerness, how likely do you think that these extradition hearings against Assange will be fair?

JOHN PILGER: It’s very difficult to know. I don’t think these initial extradition hearings will be fair at all, no, because the first–this one last Friday, for the reasons I’ve outlined, was not fair. He can’t–he’s not allowed to defend himself. He’s not given access to a computer so that he can–so that he can access the documents and files that he needs. I think where it will change is if the lower court, the magistrate’s court that is dealing with it now and will deal with it over the next almost nine, ten months, if they decide to extradite Julian Assange, his lawyers will appeal. And it will go up to the High Court. And if necessary, eventually, to the Supreme Court here in the UK. And I think it’s there in the High Court where he may well–I say ‘may’–get justice. That’s a cautiously optimistic view. But I think he’s he’s most likely to get it there. He certainly won’t get it the United States. There’s no indication of that.

GREG WILPERT: Actually, I’ve heard also that there was a similar case not too long ago in which the extradition hearings took almost three years. But eventually the Supreme Court did prevent the extradition from the UK to the U.S. But turning to another issue, Assange, just like yourself, is an Australian citizen. Has the Australian government done anything to protect Assange, as far as you know?

JOHN PILGER: No. It’s a very short answer to that, Greg. They’ve done absolutely nothing. And in fact, they’ve done the converse. It was Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2011 who decided that WikiLeaks had performed a criminal act, and the Australian Federal Police had pointed out to Prime Minister Gillard that there was no such crime. So they were eager to help convict Julian Assange of these concocted crimes, and have fully cooperated, I would say colluded, with the U.S. in seeing this case get to the stage it has now.

GREG WILPERT: Of course, one of the big issues–and we’ve actually done interviews with Daniel Ellsberg and others–is the topic of what effect this will have on freedom of the press. But in an article you wrote after Assange’s arrest, you suggested that another angle that people should pay attention to is to look at what other potential war criminals have done, such as Tony Blair, and that we should imagine his extradition to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Talk about this comparison between Assange’s alleged crimes, and those of Tony Blair, for example.

GREG WILPERT: Well, where Julian Assange was on Friday, Friday morning, at the Westminster Court in Marylebone in London, is about a 20-minute cab drive to a very small part of London called Connaught square. And that’s where Tony Blair has a very palatial residence, where he lives on the basis of all his–the millions that he’s accumulated since he left 10 Downing Street. He advises various dictatorships and does other so-called consultancy work. But of course Blair is most remembered in this country and around the world for his collusion with George W. Bush in the invasion of Iraq. And the invasion of Iraq, it is now generally agreed by the scholarship, I think that at least a million people died as a direct result, and at least four million refugees fled that country as a result of that invasion.

So under the Nuremberg standard, that was–that would be regarded as a paramount crime. Blair has not been charged, and there’s no suggestion that Blair would be charged, and it’s very unlikely that he will be charged. So there is your comparison. Whereas Julian Assange is a journalist and publisher. He has committed no crime. He has published classified documents. And that’s an act protected, as I say, under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. And if he is convicted, then all his collaborators on the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, El Pais, Sydney Morning Herald, and numerous other newspapers and news organizations around the world will also be guilty. But most important, in the future it will–it sends a very clear message that if journalists do their job and tell their readers and viewers and listeners what governments do behind their backs in their name, if they do their job, then they’re very likely to be prosecuted in the same way.

It is probably the most–well, it is most certainly the most important case in my career as a journalist. It presents the most, the gravest threat to press freedom which I can remember.

GREG WILPERT: OK. Well, unfortunately we’re going to leave it there for now. I was speaking to John Pilger, award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. Thanks again, John, for having joined us today.

JOHN PILGER: You’re welcome, Greg.

GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.

 

Read more:

https://therealnews.com/stories/john-pilger-extradition-process-a-very-l...

economy is tanking, stock market is booming...

 

...

After taking a thumping late last year, when the global outlook appeared relatively benign, optimistic even, the local market this year has been on a tear, notching up one of the strongest performances in the world with an 18 per cent gain.

And things will only get better as the news gets worse.

Growth slowdown fires up stocks

Last week, our stock market galloped to an 11-year high and finally is within striking distance of cracking the record, from October 2007 just before the global economy tanked.

Compare that with Wall Street. Before the crash a decade ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at around 14,000 points. On Friday, it closed at 26,719 points, more than double its pre-crash peak.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-24/ian-verrender-analysis-awful-econ...

 

 

Read from top.

destroying australia...

 

And so it passes, the greatest assault on the safety net from which Australian life is built. Scott Morrison’s tax cuts are through and the revenue base that provides for health and education and social welfare is shredded. The legacy of the 46th parliament is there in its very first week: the destruction of the social compact that made this country stable.

On analysis by the Grattan Institute, to pay for these cuts at least $40 billion a year will need to be trimmed from government spending by 2030. The Coalition argues it will not cut services. It says jobs growth will reduce spending on welfare. A surplus will mean less interest paid on debt.

The assumptions are heroic and unsustainable. They show an extraordinary indifference to reality. More than that, they are indifferent to need. People will be worse off under these cuts. They will face greater hardship, have less access to health and to quality education. The people worst affected did not vote for Scott Morrison. Half the country didn’t. The damage done is near irreversible. It is infinitely easier to cut taxes than to raise them. This is a triumph of greed and political cowardice. The Labor Party waved it through.

The principles of this policy were first written on a paper napkin in 1974, when the conservative economist Arthur Laffer sketched out his famous tax curve for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. That serviette is one of the most pernicious documents in modern politics. It made the case for what became trickle-down economics. It became the lie through which governments gave money to the rich and pretended they were helping the poor.

The year Scott Morrison became treasurer, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry brought Laffer to Australia for a speaking tour. He met with Josh Frydenberg. His doctrine has its most explicit contemporary expression in the cuts passed this week.

We know this doesn’t work. In 2012, the United States Congressional Research Service found no correlation between tax cuts for the rich and economic growth. It had 65 years of real data on which to draw. All but the most optimistic readers of the Laffer napkin agree on what is self-evident: giving money back to the rich serves only to increase inequality. It makes the rich richer.

In his first major speech as prime minister, Morrison said he didn’t believe people should be taxed more to improve the lives of others. He said people had to work for it: they had to have a go. “I think that’s what fairness means in this country,” he said. “It’s not about everybody getting the same thing. If you put in, you get to take out, and you get to keep more of what you earn.”

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of taxation. You don’t pay tax in exchange for services. You pay tax for a society. Under Morrison, you pay less tax and you have less society. The obliterating self-interest of this week will be felt for generations. Morrison’s victory is a huge, huge loss. 

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Jul 6, 2019 as "Destroying Australia". Subscribe here.

 

Read also: 

a warning from marx...

liberalism has a fundamental problem...

the end of civilisations — not all that bad...

shit sandwiches...

 

socialism has an image problem...

 

the impossible survival of nature on planet cash...

 

 

Read from top.

has germany run out of badgers?...

The most popular symbol of the radical left in Germany is an avowed anti-capitalist and a firm believer in collective property. He takes down neo-Nazis with the same bouncy energy as he tackles property speculators.

Books expounding his views, running at several volumes, top the German bestseller charts; posters bearing his face are currently plastered all over the country’s cities.

His only liability, in terms of electoral optics, could be a fatal addiction to booze-filled pralines – and the marsupial pouch in which he keeps his copy of Mao’s red book.

The Kangaroo Chronicles, a quartet of comic novels by slam poet Marc-Uwe Kling that has sold millions of copies in Germany over the last 10 years, is a classic man-meets-beast buddy story in the vein of Seth MacFarlane’s 2012 comedy Ted – only that its animal protagonist is mainly vulgar in the Marxist rather than the foul-mouthed sense.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/08/marxist-marsupial-germanys-left-draws-hope-from-an-unlikely-hero

 

Read from top.

meanwhile in careless australia...

The NSW Forestry Corporation has continued to log unburnt forest that is habitat for some of the most imperilled species in the aftermath of the state’s bushfire crisis.

Logging operations have continued in the Styx River state forest on the north coast that is now remnant habitat for endangered species including the greater glider and the Hastings River mouse.

Both the federal and state governments have identified the mouse, which had 82% of its habitat burnt, as one of the species most at risk of extinction as a result of the bushfire disaster.

Trucks have also moved into an area of the Lower Bucca state forest northwest of Coffs Harbour in bushland that is part of the proposed Great Koala national park.

Twenty-four per cent of koala habitat in eastern NSW was burnt in the fire crisis and the environment minister, Sussan Ley, has said up to 30% of the koala population on the mid north coast may have been killed.

Environment groups and the independent state MLC Justin Field have expressed dismay that NSW Forestry Corporation has been able to continue with harvest plans in unburnt forest that is now important remnant habitat for wildlife.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/15/state-mps-dismayed-a...

 

 

Read from top. Update. Note: The kangaroo drawn by Lindsay at top is wrong... Most of the Kangaroo family species move BOTH FEET together. They propel themselves using the fore-limbs and their tail to move their hind-legs TOGETHER.  Not one after the other... (I have meant to alert you to this oddity since posting the cartoon but forgot...)

covid not included..

 

 

By Peter Martin

 

Not long ago it seemed as if the future was going to get better and better — not long ago at all.

For me the high point was around 2005, 15 years ago.

I don’t know if you can remember how you felt at the time, but for me the surge in living standards, driven by an ever-building surge in output per working hour ("productivity"), suggested things were building on themselves: each new innovation was making use of the ones that had come before to the point where….

Ray Kurzweil, now the director of research at Google, summed it up in a book released in 2005 itself, titled The Singularity Is Near.

Singularity was "a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed".

Changes would build on each other to the point where everything changed at once.

Kurzweil dubbed it the "law of accelerating returns".

Year by year in the lead up to 2005, Australia's productivity growth had accelerated to the point where in the 15 years to 2005 it had grown 37 per cent.

If it kept accelerating…

In the 1930s, economist John Maynard Keynes foresaw "ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed". On average, the working week might fall to 15 hours.

In the 1970s, futurologist Alvin Toffler spoke of a four-hour working day.

And then from 2005 on productivity growth collapsed. In the 15 years since, Australia's output per working hour (productivity) has grown by just 17 per cent.

Thirty seven per cent turned out to be the high point.

 

And not only here. In the United States and other developed economies, productivity growth is divided into "before 2005" when it was rapid, and "after 2005" when it collapsed.

2005 is when Apple got serious about developing the iPhone. It was when many of our technological innovations really did start building on themselves.

2005 is when things were meant to take off

In his impressive book The Rise and Fall of American Growth, economist Robert Gordon rightly points out that things like the iPhone are nothing like as genuinely useful as innovations in the leadup to the 1940s.

Gordon says not a single urban home was wired for electricity in 1880, but by 1940 nearly 100 per cent had mains power, 94 per cent had clean piped water, 80 per cent had flush toilets and 56 per cent had refrigerators.

He says whereas as all of us could quite happily travel back in time 60 years from today and enjoy a recognisable lifestyle, we couldn't have done it if we travelled back 60 years from the 1940s.

Instead, they stagnated

It's as if the innovation we've had has been less useful. As if, in the words of PayPal founder Peter Thiel, "we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters".

Or it might be that the things we do these days are harder to automate.

A century ago, roughly half the Australian workforce worked in service jobs — doing things such as hairdressing and writing reports. Today it's 80 per cent.

Back then, 45 per cent of us worked in farming or manufacturing. Today it's not even 10 per cent. 

Services such as hairdressing, nursing and aged care are about as productive as they will ever be. It's possible to cut hair or consult patients faster, but what’s lost is the time and personal attention spent doing it, which is part of the service.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-28/productivity-growth-has-stalled-since-2005-and-isnt-improving/100097492

 

Read from top.

 

Get that feeling of not being a hypocrite Christian any more: FREE JULIAN ASSANGE TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!

 

See also:

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/13320