Abbott's CSIRO appointment fiasco

Lateline has obtained unofficial minutes of a CSIRO staff meeting last month, where one researcher directly raised the United Nations Development Program's concerns about funding the organisation in future.

"The UN told him that in their view, the new CEO was not reliable," retired CSIRO fellow Dr Nick Abel said.

"And they were frightened that if they did hand over a lot of money to CSIRO under contract, there was a danger that he might cancel those contracts and leave them with the ultimate embarrassment for the UN, which is millions of dollars of unspent money."

Billions of dollars worth of grants were pledged for climate research and mitigation at the Paris climate talks last year.

Lateline has spoken to a number of scientists who fear the CSIRO's new innovation and industry focus is leading to a "dramatic reduction" in "public good" science.

Dr Abel pointed to the biological control of rabbits through Myxomatosis in the 1950s, and Calicivirus 30 years later.

"They were hugely economically beneficial. And the Government paid for it, CSIRO did it. No company's going to do that," he said.

"What company would get into the virology research that's going to produce that kind of benefit because they can't capture the revenue from the farmers because the thing spreads?

"It is a plague and spreads like one and kills the rabbits and no company can say: 'Hey, we did it. We've come to collect your payment for it.'"

The change is being driven by Mr Marshall, who was appointed under Tony Abbott after spending 25 years as an entrepreneur in the United States.

Mr Marshall's vision for the organisation is focused on getting financial returns for the funding it receives.

In emails between managers released after a Senate inquiry request, it was made clear "public good" research — a mainstay of CSIRO in decades passed — is no longer in favour.

"Public good is not good enough, [it] needs to be linked to jobs and growth," one email from deputy director of the oceans and atmosphere business unit, Andreas Schiller, said.

Dr Abel said: "I've become convinced in the absence of any financial arguments within CSIRO, economic arguments in relation to Australia, social arguments in relation to our nation, that it is ideologically driven."

"A 100-year-old organisation that was the national pride of Australia is turning into a national embarrassment."

In a statement, CEO Larry Marshall said: "Science in the national interest is absolutely our mandate, and we are not changing this."

"We're absolutely committed to continuing our public good research. I believe CSIRO is the best organisation in the nation to map the path to prosperity, sustainability, and societal benefit.

"Our climate science is part of this, as also are research in other areas.

"Australia's economy is in transition and unless we help the nation prepare for the changes ahead — for digital disruption and for the massive shifts in the way we work and live — our productivity and quality of life will fall."

Australia 'reneging' on Paris agreement, ex-CSIRO manager says

Research manager Dr Peter Craig retired from the CSIRO just over two weeks ago.

He believes as well as the loss of reputation and capacity, Australia is also at risk of breaching commitments made at last year's climate talks in Paris.

"The COP21 agreement actually requires an increase in climate science, not a decrease in climate science," he said.

"Within months of the agreement being reached in Paris, Australia is reneging on the agreement."

Mr Marshall explained the move in an email to staff in February by describing climate science as "proven".

"That question has been answered, and the new question is what we do about it, and how can we find solutions for the climate we will be living with," he said.

Dr Craig is no longer gagged by any employment agreement.

"[It's] a transparently false reason for stopping climate science. Somebody compared it with cancer research," he said.

"We know what cancer is, we can stop cancer research. It makes no sense whatsoever."

NSWTF: Beware of dodgy TAFE offer - VOTE NO

Submitted by NSW Teachers Federation on 20 April 2016

TAFE teachers are being asked to vote No to an enterprise agreement which forces onerous conditions on teachers. TAFE NSW has unilaterally terminated bargaining for a new Enterprise Agreement for TAFE Teachers and Related Employees. The TAFE bargaining team indicated it will move swiftly to ballot in an endeavour to push through the proposed new Agreement.

The move comes as the Baird government’s attempts to denigrate TAFE backfired spectacularly yesterday when a report commissioned by TAFE Minister John Barilaro lauded a private VET provider which just last week was shown to be a scandal-ridden entity being investigated by federal police and the ACCC.

“We are calling on teachers to vote ‘NO’ and reject the attack on their salaries, their conditions and ultimately the TAFE system,” said Teachers Federation President Maurie Mulheron.

See details in NSW Teachers Federation’s media release here.

ACTU: Senate Right To Vote Down ABCC

19 April 2016

The ACTU welcomes the Senate again rejecting the Government’s push to reinstate the ABCC.

Quotes attributable to ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver:

“The Senate yet again voting down the ABCC lays bare Malcolm Turnbull’s multi-million dollar political charade.”

“Instead of listening to poll after poll telling him that Australians don’t care about the ABCC, the Prime Minster has chosen to blindly push ahead with this partisan attack on workers.”

“Australians care about cuts to health, lack of investment in schools and $100,000 university degrees - and these are the issues that parliament should be urgently dealing with.”

Quentin Dempster: Silliest Sitting of Both Houses Over

The silliest sitting of both houses is over already, as Turnbull got what he wanted.

Leader of the government in the House of Representatives Christopher Pyne has applied a procedural guillotine to cut short a brief, expensive sitting of parliament.

Mr Pyne’s intervention was provoked by an attempt by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to suspend standing orders so MPs could vote on a resolution to note “the House of Representatives is in the extraordinary position of a government having called a new session of parliament only to run out of legislation to debate with 12 hours of the Governor-General opening the new session”.

They had been in Canberra for just two days to provide Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with the trigger for a double dissolution election.

Having secured his trigger by 36 votes to 34 in the Senate at around 6.45pm on Monday evening, all MPs and senators were then surplus to current requirements.

The Senate, where the government is in a minority, is master of its own sittings but was expected to adjourn as well.

They will all be back for the Budget session in May. Immediately after Mr Shorten presents his address in reply on Thursday May 5, the Prime Minister has indicated he will drive to Government House to advise Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove to dissolve both houses of parliament and promulgate the writs for an election on July 2.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said internal conflict would rip apart the Coalition. Photo: AAP
In question time on Tuesday, Mr Turnbull ramped up his rhetoric against Mr Shorten’s trade union-backed Labor Party.

“The Labor Party is all about tax. It destroys small business, the engine room of the Australian economy,” he said.

Mr Shorten countered with questions about Mr Turnbull’s resistance to his call for a royal commission into the banks. Tag teaming with Treasurer Scott Morrison, Mr Turnbull again asserted a ‘capability review’ of the consumer watchdog ASIC was imminent.

The recall of parliament, at an estimated cost of $1.39 million for two days’ sittings, has been justified by the pressing need for legislation re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission to confront “lawlessness” in that sector.

Mr Shorten let a flurry of accusations about alleged criminality within the CFMEU go through to the keeper, including reference to the number of officials currently being prosecuted.

Closing down the parliament denies the government’s opponents a forum with a megaphone attached. In media management terms, it enhances the government’s unilateral ability to announce or leak tidbits about ‘action’ initiatives in the period before it is constitutionally required to enter caretaker mode.

Leaks about the budget strategy have already started with drops to journalists about a crackdown on multi-national tax avoidance, a cap on offshore profit shifting and winding back superannuation tax concessions for the wealthy.

These tactics will have to be sustained for 10 long weeks now in a 24-hour social media frenzy.

The guillotine on all this can now only be applied by voters themselves when they enter the ballot boxes in the town and school halls of Australia on Saturday July 2.

U.N. Gathers to rethink global strategy in war on narcotics.

The U.N. General Assembly gathered on Tuesday to rethink global strategy in the war on narcotics for the first time in two decades as activists, U.N. officials and world leaders cited an international trend towards more liberal drug laws.

Despite broad agreement on the need to deal with the global drug problem, there are deep divisions among the 193 U.N. member states, with some favouring a shift towards decriminalization and a greater focus on reducing the harm caused both by narcotics abuse and the war on drugs.

A number of Latin American leaders say the aggressive war on drugs has failed, having killed or destroyed thousands of lives worldwide. They say there is an irreversible trend towards legalizing "soft drugs" such as marijuana.

Emphasizing that point, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told the gathering his country would soon increase the amount of marijuana Mexicans are allowed for personal use and legalize marijuana for medical purposes.

"We should be flexible to change that which has not yielded results, the paradigm based essentially in prohibitionism, the so-called 'War on Drugs' ... (which) has not been able to limit production, trafficking nor the global consumption of drugs," he said.

This week's special U.N. session was called by Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia.

But some major powers like Russia, delegates say, remain wary of the trend towards legalization and frown upon moves by U.S. states to regulate access to marijuana.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said "one of the most important changes that the current drug policy needs is that we give priority to demand reduction rather than focussing solely on supply reduction."

No major decisions are expected this week. But European and Latin American delegations and activists hope this week's special U.N. session taking stock of what many describe as the failed war on drugs can contribute to pushing the world a few steps closer towards a more liberal drug strategy that puts human rights and public health, not repression, at the centre.

"Evidence shows that prohibitionist approaches have not worked: from 1998 to 2008 the number of people using illicit drugs did not change significantly and neither did the area used for opium poppy cultivation," U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Magdy Martinez-Soliman wrote in the Guardian newspaper.

"Conventional policies have failed in reducing addiction and production," he said.

The General Assembly adopted a declaration on Tuesday that activists supporting more liberal drug laws found disappointing. They said it focussed on the traditional approach of cutting off supply, not reducing the harm caused by narcotics and protecting human rights.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, a non-governmental group that includes prominent personalities like billionaire philanthropist Richard Branson and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, criticized the U.N. declaration as "long on rhetoric but short on substance."

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, also writing in the Guardian, said "the time has come for the world to transit into a different approach in its drug policy."

"This is not a call for legalization of drugs," said Santos, one of the most vocal critics of the criminalization of drug use and the heavy-handed tactics of the war on drugs. "It is a call for recognition that between total war and legalization there exists a broad range of options worth exploring."

He called for ending the death penalty for drug offences, and non-prison rehabilitation for drug abusers.

A report by the medical journal the Lancet and Johns Hopkins University said last month that the examples of Portugal and the Czech Republic had shown that decriminalizing non-violent offences produced compelling health benefits.

The report's authors called instead for an evidence-based approach, focussed on reducing harm by minimizing both the violence associated with drugs and the health risks, such as the transmission of HIV and hepatitis through shared needles.