Australia

[RTH10260]

Australian surf club’s ban on nudity in changerooms bewilders swimmers
One member says she feels body shamed after receiving warning letter but official defends ‘family-friendly’ rules to protect children

Rafqa Touma
Thu 30 Mar 2023 09.07 BST

If you want to change out of swimmers after a dip at Terrigal beach, try to do so “modestly”. Slip up and you’ve breached the Australian surf life saving club’s no-nude policy.

Ocean swimmer Nada Pantle was threatened with “disciplinary action” when she did.

Pantle and Wendy Farley start their days with a morning swim, then shower in the Terrigal surf life saving club’s changerooms before heading to work.

But an email notice from the club urging no more nudity in changerooms in December confused their routine.

“I thought it was crazy,” Farley said. “Because how can you have a shower and dry yourself and change without being nude at some point?”

Then the club put up a new sign in the changeroom: “Shower in your swimming costume / change with a towel around you.”

Pantle then received a letter in February from the club, warning she had breached their no nudity-in-changerooms policy.

“The club is a family friendly environment and … nudity is not acceptable,” the letter read. “Should you continue to ignore the rules, you will be subject to disciplinary action, and/or … termination of your membership.”




https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... s-swimmers

[keith]

You've got me confused.

You're sure that AUSTRALIA and not FLORIDA?

[RTH10260]

Lachlan Murdoch ‘culpable’ for January 6 insurrection because of Fox News ‘lies’, Australian defamation case hears
Murdoch permitted channel to peddle lie that 2020 US election was stolen, publisher of Crikey claims in its defence in court

Australian Associated Press
Tue 4 Apr 2023 07.02 BST

Media mogul Lachlan Murdoch was culpable for the violent insurrection of the US Capitol after the 2020 presidential election because of lies told through Fox News, a judge has heard.

In the federal court on Tuesday, barrister Michael Hodge KC said that while many media sources fuelled a conspiracy theory that Joe Biden stole the election from Donald Trump, Murdoch could still be held responsible.

“He controls Fox Corporation. He permitted for the commercial and financial benefit of Fox Corporation this lie to be broadcast in the United States,” Hodge told Justice Michael Wigney.

“We say that gives rise to culpability where you are allowing and promoting this lie and that lie is the motivation for the insurrection.”

Hodge is representing Private Media, which publishes Crikey, as well as political editor Bernard Keane, editor-in-chief Peter Fray, chairman Eric Beecher and chief executive Will Hayward.

They are seeking additional time to file their defences to Murdoch’s defamation suit over an opinion piece published in June last year and reposted in August referring to him as an “unindicted co-conspirator” with Trump over the false election claims.

The publisher is seeking to add a contextual truth defence on top of its already pleaded defences of public interest and qualified privilege.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
The proposed defence, yet to be approved by the federal court, includes personal communications between the Murdoch family revealed via separate US defamation proceedings brought against Fox by voting equipment company Dominion which claims it was falsely accused of conducting mass voter fraud.



https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/ ... case-hears

[keith]

So further to the referendum on the 'The Voice'.

The Liberal Party (the conservative party) Parliamentarians decided to support the "No Vote". Several members then quit the party, the Shadow Minister for Indiginous Affairs resigned from the front bench and supported the Yes vote. Other Liberal Party members have also announced their support for the Yes vote.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has badly split the party room over the issue. I wonder how long he will last. He recently went to Alice Springs and accused the Northern Territory government, without any evidence whatsoever, of 'normalizing' child abuse and returning abused children to their abusers.

This editorial from "The Saturday Paper" - a relatively small circulation, but highly respected and influential national weekly paper - says it much better than I ever could.

Editorial: Dutton's Grift

(It says the article is free, but just in case...)

This is the grift. Peter Dutton flies to Alice Springs and says they should send in the federal police. He meets with a white bakery owner who is concerned about crime in the town. He says there are no consequences for “kids and adults”.

He says that child abuse is “accepted as normal practice” – a sly phrase that means exactly what it seems to mean. Asked for evidence, he says he’s not interested in what academics and bureaucrats say. He has spoken to local police.

“How can those little children continue to be abused, how in our country can we allow that to be commonplace?” he says. “It’s unacceptable.”

Dutton made the same trip in October. That time he called for a royal commission. He held a stricken press conference. He made gross generalisations about culture and abuse. “In modern Australia we respect cultural sensitivities and Indigenous connection to Country, but the rights of the child are above culture and sensitivities,” he said afterwards. “We all sit in this place knowing that child sexual abuse is widespread in Indigenous communities and, in some cases, it has become normalised. For too long we have been silent and supine.”

The grift works in two ways. First, it allows him to campaign against the Voice on his own terms. He sets out a problem and decides the Voice would not address it, ignoring every other problem the Voice might help fix. It is a rhetorical trick: take something broad and undermine it with something specific, distract with anecdote, mention children.

The second part of the grift is more insidious. It rests on the racist trope of “normalised” abuse, the lie at the heart of the Intervention and the Stolen Generations. It says: these people are not like you, these people hurt children. In the context of the Voice, it says: these people can’t be trusted with their own babies, why should they have a say in policy?

The Northern Territory minister for Police says Dutton’s claims are baseless. Crime rates are down since January. Traditional Owners say Dutton has not met with them. They say his claims are insulting.

Of course, Dutton has not met with Traditional Owners, because he is not interested in what they have to say. His trips to Alice are for show. They place him far enough away from Canberra to pretend that he is talking from the “real” Australia. His evidence is nameless: people in shops, people on the ground, people boarding up businesses.

This is how Dutton has fitted up debate his entire career. He never named the families who were too scared of African gangs to dine out in Melbourne. He never named the paedophiles he claimed would use medevac laws to reach Australia. The cornerstone of his politics is a vague, criminal other. The point is not the details. The point is fear, especially the clinging, vine-like fear of prejudice, the fear that is waiting for any encouragement to overgrow decency.

The Voice is one answer to this kind of politics. It is a chance for people who actually know what is happening, and actually care about it, to say something. That, at the end, is what Dutton fears most.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on April 15, 2023 as "Dutton’s grift".

[keith]

Melbourne tops Sydney as Australia’s biggest city – on a technicality

For more than a century, Sydney has been Australia’s biggest city, but Melbourne has snatched that mantle on one key population measure thanks to a boundary change.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics uses several methods to calculate urban populations, including the Significant Urban Area classification, which includes all contiguous urban centres with more than 10,000 people.

An update to the bureau’s geographical boundaries following the 2021 census quietly changed Melbourne’s Significant Urban Area to include the district of Melton on the city’s northwestern fringe. That amalgamation lifted the population of the Melbourne Significant Urban Area to 4,875,400 in June 2021 – 18,700 more than Sydney.

The population of Greater Sydney, which has different boundaries, is still larger than Greater Melbourne, but official forecasts show it will last only a few more years.

[p0rtia]

Thanks, Keith! I always enjoy these tidbits!

[johnpcapitalist]

Melbourne tops Sydney as Australia’s biggest city – on a technicality

For more than a century, Sydney has been Australia’s biggest city, but Melbourne has snatched that mantle on one key population measure thanks to a boundary change.

The population of Greater Sydney, which has different boundaries, is still larger than Greater Melbourne, but official forecasts show it will last only a few more years.

I keep reading that Melbourne is the most livable city in the world. I wonder how long that will hold true if the population continues to surge. Not that Sydney is exactly a post-apocalyptic slum, but I hadn't thought that the Australian population is growing that much. Is there internal migration happening?

[Dave from down under]

Australia - Historical Population Growth Rate Data
Year Population Growth Rate
2023 26,439,111 1.00%
2022 26,177,413 0.99%
2021 25,921,089 0.98%
2020 25,670,051 1.23%
2019 25,357,170 1.51%
2018 24,979,230 1.58%
2017 24,590,334 1.63%
2016 24,195,701 1.58%
2015 23,820,236 1.49%
2014 23,469,579 1.55%
2013 23,111,782 1.68%
2012 22,729,269 1.66%
2011 22,357,034 1.53%
2010 22,019,168 1.65%
2009 21,660,892 1.94%
2008 21,247,873 2.00%
2007 20,830,828 1.78%
2006 20,467,030 1.46%
2005 20,171,731 1.24%
2004 19,925,056 1.15%

[Dave from down under]

Population change

Between 2011 and 2021, Melbourne had the largest growth (up by 806,800 people), followed by Sydney (650,800) and Brisbane (421,500).
Canberra had the highest growth rate (23%), followed by Brisbane and Perth (both 20%).

Noting - COVID has had a marked effect of people leaving cities for regional and rural areas - in the last 3 years that shift has meant house prices have doubled in my town and rental availability and affordability plummeted. (With a *lot* of new development happening!)

for more details -
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population

[Dave from down under]

Hammerhead sharks enjoy warm ocean temperature off Burleigh Heads

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-18/ ... /102231580

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Pro Tip from article above☝

Gold Coast regional operations manager for Surf Life Saving Queensland Nathan Fife said the bait balls attract sharks.

"Don't go swimming in it or paddle or surfboard near them," he said.

"One of those sharks could think that you're a fish."

In 2020, a man was killed by a shark while he was surfing near bait fish at Greenmount Beach on the southern Gold Coast.

[Dave from down under]

Government website

https://www.sharksmart.nsw.gov.au/

Enjoy NSW beaches
Be SharkSmart
Find information and resources to help you reduce the risk of a close encounter with a shark at NSW beaches and estuaries.

Twitter alerts of tagged shark real time movement (when in range of a monitoring station):
https://twitter.com/NSWSharkSmart

And the story of the shark being tracked along a main road
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-08/ ... /100125270

[Dave from down under]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-20/ ... /102244966

With the sentencing of Witness J now public, the federal government is exploring how it can avoid anything like it happening again

Canberra is a city crawling with secrets, as home to the nation's national security agencies: ASIO, ASIS, the Australian Signals Directorate and the Defence Department.

And, make no mistake, the secrets are serious business.

So, when an agent turns bad — and gets caught — it is bound to capture attention.

And so it should have been in the case of the man known as Witness J, or as he was dubbed by the courts, Alan Johns.

However, in this case, section 22 of the National Security Information Act (NSI) was deployed to keep the prosecution entirely from public view.

Witness J pleaded guilty, was sentenced and jailed by the ACT Supreme Court in a process so secret that even his mother was not allowed to know where he was.



The case was unprecedented, and there are now moves to ensure nothing like it ever happens again.

Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says Australia is not a country of secret trials, and open justice must be preserved.

"I think that the community can't ever have real confidence in our criminal justice system unless they can see that it is carrying out its processes in public," Mr Dreyfus said.

"Of course, there are going to be certain matters that can never be made public, because it would be prejudicial to our national security."

"But the idea that you could have a wholly secret trial, I think that's anathema to the Australian system of criminal justice.

[Dave from down under]

Videa - not just natives to worry about

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-21/ ... /102249644

Deer causes chaos after breaking into Melbourne home before becoming trapped

A Melbourne family has had their school holidays interrupted by a rampant deer that smashed its way into their home in the city's inner north-east.

Key points:
The deer broke its way inside a suburban home in Melbourne's inner east
A family was trapped on an upper floor for two hours while a ranger travelled to the scene
The deer ran from the home once the front door was opened

[AndyinPA]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Their insurance forms will be quite interesting to read.

[Foggy]

Happened in Laguna Beach. A deer broke through a window, ran through the house and broke out another window. Then he ran down to the beach, swam out into the surf (while still bleeding, of course) and drowned about half a mile offshore. Very sad.

Must have been around 1993, maybe. Long ago, but true story.

[Dave from down under]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-25/ ... /102265094

Millions of Australians will be able to buy 60 days' worth of medicine for the price of a single prescription from September, under a major and controversial shake-up of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) in next month's budget.

Key points:

The government will double the amount of medicine some people can collect with each script from one to two months
The policy will be targetted at people with chronic illnesses and will include 320 medicines on the PBS
The Pharmacy Guild says the changes will cause supply shortages and financially impact pharmacies
The federal government will on Wednesday announce at least six million Australians will be able to collect a two-month supply of medicine rather than one when they pick up their script, effectively halving the cost.

The change will mean more patients need fewer visits to the GP for repeat prescriptions, and the government estimates it will save Australians more than $1.6 billion over the next four years.

The policy will be targeted at people with chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease and will include 320 medicines on the PBS.

[keith]

Their insurance forms will be quite interesting to read.

A friend had one of his sheep freak out over who knows what and crash through his front window, freak out all over again, and crash out the side window. The alpacas that were supposed to be keeping them under control just stood on the front porch as if to say "what? I didn’tdo nothin'!"

I'm told the insurance guy said he gets 3 or 4 claims a year like that.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Alpacas herd sheep? Cooool!

[jemcanada2]

Alpacas herd sheep? Cooool!

But obviously not very well

[Dave from down under]

Alpacas herd sheep? Cooool!

But obviously not very well

They are very good at keeping wild dogs away from the sheep…

Speaking of which…

My wife and I were feeding a neighbour’s sheep while they were away after the flock was attacked by dogs (probably wild… )

And one of the ones that had been attacked brushed past my wife on the way to the feed…

On contact.. it fell on its side with its eyes rolling up and legs out and gave us both a scare that it was about to die.. then it jumped back up and headed for the feed.

Bloody daft sheep…

[pipistrelle]

Their insurance forms will be quite interesting to read.

A friend had one of his sheep freak out over who knows what and crash through his front window, freak out all over again, and crash out the side window. The alpacas that were supposed to be keeping them under control just stood on the front porch as if to say "what? I didn’tdo nothin'!"

I'm told the insurance guy said he gets 3 or 4 claims a year like that.

We have fainting goats.

[Dave from down under]

More on the changes to scripts

In effect it will halve the cost of the scripts as you can get 2 months supply for the cost of 1 months…

Good news for many many people!

Socialism wins again!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-26/ ... /102268102

You may have heard the cost of hundreds of medicines will effectively be halved for millions of Australians with chronic illness, under a major shake-up of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Those people will soon be able to buy 60 days' worth of medicine for the price of a single prescription.

The move has reignited a longstanding turf war between pharmacists and doctors, with pharmacies warning the change could lead to supply shortages and force them to close their doors.

But what does it mean for you? And are you one of the millions of Australians who stand to benefit?

Here are the details.

[Dave from down under]

Me: no problem with them disappearing in a cloud of vapour...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-02/ ... /102290248

Vapes will be heavily regulated and the importation of all e-cigarettes will be strictly controlled under a federal government crackdown on the smoking alternative.

Key points:
Imports of non-prescription vapes will be blocked, and flavoured, scented or high nicotine cartridges will be restricted
The health minister says vapes have been used to create a new generation of nicotine addicts
The health minister says vapes, once touted as therapuetic products, have become "the biggest loophole in Australian history"

Non-prescription vapes will be banned from importation, and the federal government will work with states and territories to close down the sale of vapes in retail settings.

Under new rules, vapes will only be sold in pharmacies and in "pharmaceutical-like" packaging, with certain flavours, colours and other ingredients banned, and the concentration and volume of nicotine reduced.

All single-use disposable vapes will be banned.

However, the government will also make it easier for people to get a prescription for "legitimate" therapeutic use, such as using vapes to help quit smoking.

The federal budget measure will cost a total of $234 million, including $63 million for a public health campaign to discourage vaping, and $30 million towards support programs to help Australians quit.

A further $140 million to extend the Tackling Indigenous Smoking program will be funded.

And all doctors will be able to prescribe nicotine vapes to smokers looking to quit, rather than smokers needing approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration.