Month: February 2021

The Greens welcome Labor’s calls to limit political donations, and look forward to their support for the Greens bill to cap all donations at $1,000 a year when it is debated on 15 February.
Greens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson for democracy, Senator Larissa Waters, said:
“The Greens have fought for years to clean up our democracy and put a cap on donations of $1,000 a year no matter who you are: big corporation, union, or individual. We’re glad that, after years of opposing Greens moves to cap donations, Labor has decided to change their tune.
“The Senate will debate the Greens bill to cap all donations at $1,000 a year on 15 February, and the Greens will seek to bring it to a vote. Then we will see whether Labor want genuine donations reform, or are just cranky that Clive Palmer gave $75,000 to the National Party instead of them.
“The Greens have reached out to Labor and the crossbench to discuss the cap on donations.
“Political donations data released yesterday once against showed the major parties are owned by the mining, gambling, alcohol, property and banking industries. The sheer volume of money spilling into the system is shocking: political parties in Australia received $168 million in donations in the 2019-2020 financial year, and just 5% of donors accounted for half of declared donations.
“We know that donations to the two major parties have tripled between the 2016 and 2019 elections.
“Once again, the data shows how big corporations are buying influence in the major parties. The coal, oil and gas industry continued its regular donations spree, with $313,500 worth of donations disclosed to the Liberals and Nationals, and $346,850 to Labor. In the same year, Australia got a ‘gas-led recovery’, tax subsidies for fossil fuel companies, and no plan to transition to clean energy.
“Democracy should be about serving people, not corporate interests. It’s time Labor put their money where their mouth is and worked with the Greens to get the influence of big money out of parliament.”

New figures released by Universities Australia today that more than 17,000 university jobs have been lost in the past year are devastating but unsurprising, the Greens say, as the impacts of the Morrison Government’s abandonment of universities has been made clear. All eyes are on the new minister, Alan Tudge, to prevent further carnage.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Education spokesperson, said:
“The Covid-19 crisis has smashed universities and the Morrison government allowed it to happen.
“Every single one of these estimated 17,000 job losses was preventable.
“Not only were universities specifically excluded from JobKeeper support, the government forced on them a massive overhaul of fees and funding that will mean further cuts in the years to come.
“Universities immediately need a big funding boost to help them weather the Covid storm without further job losses and austerity. This is a test for Alan Tudge and his commitment to education.
“The current situation is completely unsustainable. We can’t just cross our fingers and hope for the best. Alan Tudge needs to intervene to prevent any further damage,” she said.

Following threats from Google to withdraw services from Australia, the Greens have called on the Morrison Government to investigate the establishment of a publicly owned search engine.
“Google’s threat to shut down their search services if they don’t get the laws they want shows that the corporate giant has far too much power – not just over the market but across the community,” Greens spokesperson for Media and Communications Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“The government needs a plan for how Australians will continue to be able to access essential information online if Google Search were to be taken offline. We need an independent search engine that is run in the public interest not for the profit of a corporate giant.
“Google’s threat to leave Australia shows we cannot be reliant on corporations to provide essential services such as access to information online. This is an opportunity for the government to investigate setting up a publicly owned search engine that could be the gateway to the internet for Australians. It would mean Australians can search the internet with the peace of mind that their data is not being sold off to advertisers and corporations.
“The internet is an essential service for most Australians. Currently, access to the internet is controlled by a small number of very powerful corporations. We should not seek out another foreign giant to fill the gap of Google, whether it’s Microsoft or anyone else, as they will still profit off the data of Australians and be beholden to shareholder interests. A publicly owned and independent search engine would be an important step forward in restoring a free and open internet.
“A publicly owned search engine that is accountable to the public and not shareholders would be able to be set up with global best practice data privacy standards to ensure users own their own data and have control over what data is collected on them and how it is used.
“Like the ABC, a public search engine should be independent of the government of the day and be there to provide access to information for all Australians.”

The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines into regional, rural and remote communities is an vital part of the Australian Government’s vaccine strategy to protect country people and managing the fight against the virus in the regions.
The Australian Government is working with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services, General Practices, state and territory governments, Primary Health Networks, General Practitioner-led Respiratory Clinics and community pharmacies, to ensure that Australian’s living in regional, rural and remote locations have access to a vaccination if they choose to.
To further strengthen our rollout delivery across Australia, both GP’s and pharmacies have been invited to join the nation-wide effort to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. This will integrate more than 2,000 vaccine sites across Australia.
GP’s will join the rollout from phase 1B, with pharmacies to begin vaccine distribution from phase 2A.
The Australian Government is committed to providing safe and effective vaccines free to everyone in Australia, no matter where they live.
Minister for Health, Greg Hunt said it is expected that there will be thousands of sites that will support the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccinations in Australia.
“We already have several agreements for the supply of approximately 140 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including those produced by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Novavax,” Minister Hunt said.
“Access to vaccines approved for use in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration has been prioritised, ensuring those at greatest risk are vaccinated first.”
“We are working hard to ensure site readiness including specific handling requirements and sufficient cold chain capacity in locations that will be handling frozen vaccines.”
“This includes undertaking detailed implementation planning with peak bodies, jurisdictions and vaccination providers to ensure access to doses and to minimise wastage,” Minister Hunt said.
The Government has worked extensively with Pfizer and AstraZeneca and our logistics providers, DHL and Linfox, to ensure that either vaccine can be safely delivered throughout Australia.
Minister for Rural Health, Mark Coulton said Australia’s world class primary health workforce would be critical to the success of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout across the nation.
“The rural health workforce – including doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and allied health professionals – have continually risen to the challenges of COVID-19 over the past year and will play a pivotal role in support the rollout of vaccines across regional Australia,” Minister Coulton said.
“I have held regular discussions with rural health stakeholders to ensure the impacts of COVID-19 are specifically considered in a rural context. The sector have provided valuable insights and considerations to the vaccine rollout and distribution across regional Australia.
“Our comprehensive response to the pandemic, including the establishment of GP Respiratory Clinics, developing a remote retrieval strategy and extending telehealth to protect regional Australians have been extremely successful in containing the virus.
“While cases of the virus have remained low in rural areas, the rollout of the vaccine is the next key aspect of our plan to keep our communities safe.”
Minister for Indigenous Australian, Ken Wyatt said the rollout of the vaccine program to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia, particularly in remote communities would be a sizeable undertaking.
“For this reason we will continue to listen to the advice and expertise of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group on COVID-19, which has informed all aspects of the COVID-19 response since early March 2020,” Minister Wyatt said.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation acknowledges that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have an increased risk of acquiring and developing serious outcomes from communicable diseases due to multiple factors, including social determinants of health.”
The Australian Government’s COVID-19 vaccine strategy is available at health.gov.au

The latest figures put beyond any that doubt who calls the shots of Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party.
Political donation data released by the Electoral Commission shows that in 2019-20, unions provided almost $5 million to Labor.
“At a time when Australians most need cooperation rather than partisan politics, not even a global pandemic has slowed down or caused any rethink at all to the massive amounts of money the union movement has funnelled to its mates in the Labor Party,” Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Christian Porter, said.
“Surely that money would have been better spent with a focus on the real and immediate needs of workers during the last year.
“At a time when union members are most in need of practical assistance, the unions still seem to be focused on business as usual – transmitting of huge amounts of membership fees to Labor politicians. That there are better ways to spend money for workers benefit during a pandemic is evidenced by the fact that at the same time millions in membership fees goes direct to Labor and political campaigning, the ACTU continues to ask government for funding to support awareness campaigns for workers. How does that work?
“The CFMMEU is one of Labor’s biggest source of funds, providing $568,000 to Labor.
“This is the union that has had fines of more than $19 million dollars by courts for breaking industrial laws.
“Whilst Anthony Albanese seeks to make a virtue of publicly rebuking the CFMMEU’s John Setka, he’s happy to keep taking the cash from a union that the Federal Court has labelled the most recidivist corporate offender in Australia’s history and is still pledging to scrap the regulator which is keeping the militant union in check.
“Labor’s hypocrisy on these issues is stark. It says one thing when publicly under pressure over the CFMMEU’s bullying, intimidation and coercive tactics on building sites, but is still happy to accept the union’s cash and do its bidding on IR policy.
“In the previous year, 2018-19, the CFMMEU put almost $2 million into Labor’s coffers at the same time it was securing the vote of every Labor MP and Senator against a Bill designed to end the CFMMEU’s stranglehold on the construction industry.
“In addition to the $5 million pumped into Labor coffers from unions, the union movement spent almost $2.5 million on its own campaigns against the Government in support of Labor. And just in the last 24 hours we have see even more union funds in support of Labor in a campaign using some of the most disgraceful and insensitive, violent imagery ever seen used in an Australian political campaign.
“It’s time for Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party to stand up to the CFMMEU and reject the union’s cash. That’s would be a real show of leadership”.