“A commitment from the government to back a disallowance motion on the 2022 Plantation Forestry method would be a strong signal they are committed to ensuring we walk the talk.
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“We simply can’t afford a low target and to be going forward with poor policy from the last parliament that puts questionable carbon credits into the system.”
Pocock has advice from Senate officials that a disallowance can be lodged before October 25 and the last date to move the disallowance motion would be November 30.
Pocock and Lambie are also concerned about a separate way of claiming ACCUs, known as the landfill gas generation method, because it could reward companies that change operations such as gas flaring.
The government gained a major victory in the House of Representatives last week by securing support from the Greens and most of the independent MPs on the crossbench to legislate the 43 per cent target in a law that says the government could increase but not decrease the target.
“I’m very, very confident it will pass the Senate. Very, very confident,” Bowen told the Nine Network on Sunday.
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“Australians would expect a government of grown-ups to get on with the job and talk to people of goodwill to make sure that we have a good, solid climate bill.”
Pocock has put his concerns on the agenda in his negotiations with the government to influence his vote on the climate change target after a meeting with Bowen last Wednesday failed to reach a settlement on the bill, which is likely to be decided in the upper house next month.
The ACCU regime is under intense scrutiny after the former head of the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, Andrew Macintosh of the Australian National University, went public in March with concerns about fraud within the regime.
Writing in The Conversation Last month, Professor Macintosh and colleagues Megan Evans and Don Butler said their analysis showed there were credits in the system for emissions reductions that were not real.
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“Our analysis found credits have been issued for emissions reductions that were not real or additional, such as protecting forests that were never going to be cleared, growing trees that were already there, growing forests in places that will never sustain them permanently. [and] large landfills operating electricity generators that would have operated anyway,” they wrote.
Bowen has announced a review of the Emissions Reduction Fund by former chief scientist Ian Chubb but Pocock said the plantation rules needed to be stopped immediately to prevent the ACCUs from being issued in the first place.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
Two young men are on the run after breaking out of the Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre, north-west of Melbourne.
Key points:
The two men escaped through the roof and staff did not realize they were missing until the following morning
A note was sent to staff emphasizing the importance of head counts.
Police said they do not believe the men are dangerous
Police are asking the public for assistance in finding 22-year-old Shamus Touhy and 19-year-old Matthew Piscopo.
They broke out of the Mollison Street youth justice facility at around 11:44pm on Saturday.
Malmsbury staff told the ABC the men escaped through the roof and workers did not realize they were missing until Sunday morning.
Police said the men were known to frequent the Ballarat area.
Detective Inspector Juliann Goldrick said police were searching for the men and residents should not approach them.
“These men are not believed to be violent, however members of the public are advised not to approach either,” Ms Goldrick said.
Touhy has red hair and Piscopo has a long tattoo of a rose on his left hand.
Police are urging anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The breakout comes after a string of violent attacks and ongoing concerns about safety in the troubled youth justice centre.
Head counts may have been missed
A daily briefing report seen by the ABC confirmed staff did not discover the escape until the following morning.
“Matthew Piscopo and Shamus Touhy breached the roof space from their bedrooms in the admissions unit and exited via a plant room door,” it stated.
“The young men exited the precinct and this was discovered during the morning unlock.”
The prison sent an email to staff reminding them to properly conduct head counts.(abcnews)
Following the breakout, the executive director of youth justice operations sent out an email to staff about the importance of nightly headcounts.
“During the night, checks need to be visual and ensure the young person is present in their room,” the email said.
“Please note that strict adherence to the client accounts and observations is expected by all staff.
“If circumstances arise that disrupt staff ability to adhere to these requirements … the unit supervisor, unit manager/night manager must work with staff to address the issue in the most immediate and safest way possible.”
Some staff who received this email said the nightly headcount was likely not conducted properly.
They said the admissions unit where this occurred had since been closed.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice and Community Safety said how the men escaped from the facility was being reviewed.
“Any escape is taken very seriously, and the safety of the community is of paramount concern,” they said.
“The young people are not considered dangerous.”
Staff levels ‘extremely dangerous’
The ABC has confirmed that youth justice staff have repeatedly told center management in recent weeks that staffing levels were “extremely dangerous.”
The ABC understands staff were left alone in secure units with young people out of their cells, despite recent mandated supervision ratios requiring one staff member to three young people.
In the past six weeks, staff have reported being assaulted, threatened, spat on, and having suspected urine thrown at them. One young man threw hot water and honey at another inmate which landed on the side of a staff member’s face.
Another staff member witnessed a young person being seriously assaulted by two young men who stomped on him and kicked him in the head while he was on the ground.
Youth justice sources told the ABC staff morale was low, and workers felt their safety concerns were going unheard.
There was a mass breakout from Malmsbury in 2017, but police captured all 15 young people.
Michele Berry, who worked at the Malmsbury Youth Justice Center for 25 years, witnessed the 2017 riots and escapes.
Michele Berry said she was unsurprised people were breaking out of Malmsbury again.(ABC News: Michael Barnet)
She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and was paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Department of Justice because she was declared unfit to work.
She said she was unsurprised by the latest escape.
“It was like… not again,” she told ABC Radio Melbourne.
“The admissions unit is a pretty secure unit, except for the ceiling. They’re able to get through the plaster and then through the roof.
“They make up their beds to make out that they’re asleep and then the officers tick that they’re present inside the unit.”
She said when she worked there, the number of staff supervising young people at night was too low.
When he appears before the upper house inquiry for the first time today, former deputy premier John Barilaro will be questioned on a lot of the evidence that the parliament has heard so far.
There’s a lot of material to go through – we have heard testimony from eight witnesses during five days of hearings spread over several weeks.
If you need a refresher on the evidence to date, this is what we’ve learned:
Investment NSW boss Amy Brown(first appearance, June 29) Brown said former Investment NSW deputy secretary Jenny West was “verbally offered the role” on August 12 last year. Then-NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian signed a briefing note on that date noting “a successful candidate … has been identified” for the New York posting. That candidate was West. However, Brown was directed by the government to cease the recruitment due to a change in policy. That instruction was received on about September 27 and Brown said it “would have come through” the office of the responsible minister, which was John Barilaro. Brown said she officially told West on October 1 that her appointment would not proceed.
Former bureaucrat Jenny West (July 11) West said that Brown told her on October 14 that the role would in fact “be a present for someone.” (Brown later denied this.) West was advised in November that her role as deputy secretary at Investment NSW had been terminated. She received 38 weeks’ pay as a redundancy entitlement.
Former public servant Jenny West at the hearing last month.Credit:Nick Moir
Investment NSW’s former senior lawyer Chris Carr (July 18) Carr rejected claims Jenny West was ever formally offered a US trade role as he insisted he only played a “limited” role in giving advice. Carr said Amy Brown or her de ella chief of staff asked him last September to prepare advice on whether the appointment of commissioners could be converted from public service to ministerial decisions-a request of John Barilaro.
John Barilaro’s former senior adviser Joseph Brayford (July 18, transcript only) Brayford’s evidence indicated that the cabinet proposal to give government ministers the power to appoint trade commissioner roles instead of the public service was fast-tracked in the weeks before Barilaro resigned from parliament. Brayford said the then-deputy premier requested the change by sending him a rare text message that asked for a cabinet minute to be prepared “ASAP” in September last year. Barilaro’s proposal went through to cabinet within about 10 days – whereas it usually takes weeks – and arrived a week before his resignation from parliament.
John Barilaro’s former chief of staff, Mark Connell (written statement only) Connell claimed Barilaro told him in April 2019 that he would create a position in New York to ensure he had a job to go after he left politics. His statement from him said: “I have [Barilaro] said, ‘I’ve just come from a meeting with Dom and Stuart regarding trade and we’re going to bring back the Agent General in London as well as a bunch of other postings around the world … He then stated, ‘This is it; this is the job for when I get the f— out of this place’. I responded to Mr Barilaro and stated, ‘but John, the Agent General role will be filled well before you retire from this place’.” Connell claimed Barilaro then told him: “I don’t want to go to London, f— that, I’m off to New York … I’ll get them to put one in New York, that’s where I’ m off too [sic].“ Barilaro has rejected the claims and called them “fictitious”.
Investment NSW boss Amy Brown (second appearance, August 3) Brown said she feared controversy would follow John Barilaro’s appointment and said that Trade Minister Stuart Ayres did not keep himself at arm’s length from the process. She defended the withdrawal of an earlier offer made to bureaucrat Jenny West, saying it was related to West’s performance of her. In the second recruitment round, Brown said a hiring firm sent her a panel report that compared Barilaro and a top-ranked female candidate, Kimberley Cole. Brown said she believed the report was full of errors and sought to change the report and elevate Barilaro’s ranking of him.
Department secretary Amy Brown said she was nervous about the appointment of John Barilaro to the trade role given his history with the government.Credit:Kate Geraghty
Barilaro’s former chief of staff Siobhan Hamblin (August 5) Hamblin said Barilaro never raised a personal interest in the trade roles but first asked her about the appointment process, and whether it could be changed, in June last year. She also said she urged the former deputy premier not to resign amid the COVID crisis last October, but he proceeded to step down days after then-Premier Gladys Berejiklian. She could not explain why he was seeking an urgent cabinet minute around changing the trade appointments.
Investment NSW managing directorKylie Bell (August 5) Bell told Barilaro he got the job via text on May 23. She felt the recruitment firm held “a bit of unconscious bias” against him in the recruitment process and said he would have been able to “get things happening” in New York. While Bell received a glowing reference for the other candidate, Kimberley Cole, she said Cole did not have enough experience in the US market or in NSW and was not best-suited for the New York role.
Public Service Commissioner KathrinaIt (August 5) Lo said both herself and independent panel member Warwick Smith would not have endorsed the final panel selection report that endorsed John Barilaro if they knew the information they knew now. Lo said she was concerned by “the degree of ministerial involvement, including input into shortlisting and provision of an informal reference”, as well as the treatment of the third-ranked candidate. She said she felt she may have been used as political cover by the hiring firm or department secretary Amy Brown.
Public Sector Commissioner Kathrina Lo.Credit:Kate Geraghty
Former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro will appear today before the inquiry created to investigate his appointment as NSW’s trade commissioner to the Americas.
Mr Barilaro has withdrawn from the $500.00-a-year job based in New York after a public outcry but he will be expected to answer “many questions” in his first appearance at the inquiry.
“You want to understand his role in the creation of these positions, his role in the changing nature of the way in which these positions were appointed,” leader of the opposition in the upper house, Penny Sharpe, said yesterday.
“And any of the discussions that he had with either Minister [Stuart] Ayres or… [NSW Premier Dominic] Perrottet, or indeed anyone else in the government, as he applied for and was eventually offered that job.”
Ms Sharpe also said Labor would seek to expand the inquiry’s terms of reference to include all international senior trade appointments after alleged reports the Premier had offered to create a parliamentary trade role for Transport Minister David Elliott, and had also spoken to him about the agent- general position in London.
In the afternoon, the inquiry will again hear from Investment NSW chief executive Amy Brown in her third appearance before the committee.
Plan to tackle high suicide rate
The NSW opposition has announced a plan to help reduce high rates of suicide.
The proposed legislation includes a specialized suicide-prevention council and mandatory suicide-prevention plans in state government departments.
Opposition Mental Health Spokesman Ryan Park said the legislation would be based on successful government programs in other countries.
“This is above politics,” Mr Park said.
“This is an issue that all of us as legislators have got to work with health experts, education experts, and community experts, as well as those with lived experience, from those with loved ones who have taken their own life, about what we can do in this area.”
NRL great weighs into oval upgrade debate after railing collapses
Spectators fell after a railing gave way at Leichhardt Oval on Saturday.(Twitter: Ryan Fitzgerald)
Tigers legend Benny Elias says the collapse of a railing at Sydney’s Leichhardt Oval on Saturday shows why the ground needs an urgent upgrade.
Dozens of spectators fell several meters onto concrete at a schoolboys’ rugby match when a railing at the aging ground gave way.
Leichhardt is one of several suburban ovals the NRL wants the state government to pay to upgrade, threatening to take the grand finale elsewhere if it does not happen.
Mr Elias, who has watched and played many NRL games at the Tigers’ spiritual home, said it was for more than just rugby league.
In a statement, Sport Minister Alister Henskens said the government was committed to upgrading suburban stadiums.
“However, following recent natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic, it is appropriate that further investment … is staged,” he said.
The council is investigating the accident.
Foster children feel excluded, report finds
A report has found children and young people in out-of-home care in NSW feel excluded from critical decisions affecting their lives.
The NSW Advocate for Children and Young People report surveyed about 100 people aged from six to 24 years.
Spokesperson Zoe Robinson said the organization had made 19 recommendations to the government to ensure young people felt heard in the foster care system.
Monkeypox vaccine rollout
More than 5,000 doses of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine will be administered to targeted groups.(abcnews)
NSW’s monkeypox vaccine program starts today, with authorities targeting those deemed to be at the highest risk of contracting the virus.
NSW Health will supply 5,500 doses of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine to targeted groups.
There have been 33 confirmed cases in NSW, with the majority of those picked up overseas.
Men who have sex with men are considered most at risk of contracting monkeypox, which spreads through skin-to-skin contact.
Gay and bisexual men and men who have sex with men who are homeless, sex workers or have significant drug issues which impair their judgment are among the specific groups to receive the first doses.
Crown Sydney casino opens today
Crown was granted a conditional license in June.(Facebook: Crown Sydney)
Crown Sydney casino will open its doors today, less than two years after it was deemed unfit to hold a gaming license.
The casino will be officially opened at an invitation-only event at Barangaroo tonight, with members and guests able to use the facilities on Tuesday.
A public inquiry into Crown revealed allegations of criminal activity and money laundering, and the company was deemed unfit to hold a gaming license.
However, in June the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority granted Crown a conditional licence, saying it would closely monitor initial operations.
Newmarch inquest entering third week
An inquest into 19 COVID-19 deaths in a Sydney aged care facility is entering its third week.
Deputy state coroner Derek Lee is investigating a two-month outbreak that resulted in 19 deaths at Newmarch House, Kingswood, in 2020.
The inquest has heard some workers refused to look after residents who had tested positive, and at one point there were no staff to serve meals.
It has heard there was intense pressure on staff, and some external staff replacements were so unskilled they were of no benefit.
Families and friends have raised concerns about why residents with COVID-19 were not transferred to hospital.
The government set up the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation in April to lead the reconstruction effort in the Northern Rivers. It is charged with co-ordinating the planning, rebuilding and construction work of essential services, infrastructure and housing.
Witherdin said his team was still finalizing the details of the buy-back scheme, and the number of houses it would target, but senior government ministers had been briefed on it.
The corporation had also been working closely with the federal government, which is expected to co-fund the reconstruction plans.
The buy-back scheme would be voluntary, Witherdin said, and based on the pre-flood value of properties. Other affected home-owners would be offered funding to rebuild their properties using more flood-resilient materials and design, or to raise their homes.
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According to the Lismore City Local Flood Plan, only 60 per cent of houses in the flood-prone areas of Lismore are raised above the one-in-100-year flood level, although this year’s flood was more than two meters higher than that.
Hundreds of people had to be rescued from their rooftops and four people died on February 28, when the Wilsons River reached 14.4 meters – a height which was not predicted in flood bulletins until it was too late for people to leave.
“Even once we’ve worked through this program, after a number of years, I think it’s highly likely people will choose to remain [in the flood-prone area],” Witherdin said, adding the government had a responsibility to warn those people of any impending flood and evacuate them early.
“We will be able to install early warning systems that really do give that community some peace of mind in the future.”
Residents living in and moving into flood-prone areas would also be provided with better information about the risks they face, and the risks they pose to rescuers if they do not evacuate during a flood.
On Saturday, community leaders said the demand for a buy-back scheme was likely to be high, and the challenge would be meeting that demand.
“Lots of people are ready to go,” Resilient Lismore co-ordinator and local councilor Elly Bird said. “They’re just waiting to see what the government will deliver before they decide what they’ll do.”
Houses bought under the scheme would be demolished and the zoning changed on the land to prevent any future development.
Much of the flood-affected parts of Lismore are low socioeconomic areas, where housing is most affordable. Witherdin said the provision of more affordable housing in flood-free parts of the Northern Rivers would also form part of the scheme, to address those needs.
South Lismore residents Rita and Johan Spek said they were living in limbo waiting to find out if they would be able to sell their house to the government.
The February 28 flood was the first one to enter their house, which they bought 30 years ago. For the past four months, they have been living in the home’s outdoor barbecue area and sleeping in a van out the front, with their adult daughter.
“We don’t want to be here any more,” Rita said. “We definitely want the buy-back as soon as possible… [the flood] could be higher next time.“
Despite his purging, Camenzuli clearly has some sway within the party.
Meanwhile, in a bit of a coup, the faction did manage to secure an endorsement from John Howard for their preferred pick for president, phil argy.
Credit:Joe Bank
strong economy
We’ve been keeping close tabs on former prime minister Scott Morrison’s forced readjustment to the indignity of backbench life. In the latest episode, a forlorn-looking Morrison was spotted flying from Canberra to Melbourne last Friday, shuffling into seat 6F (a window seat) on a Qantas economy flight with his suits in a dry-cleaning bag. It’s quite the step down from Shark One, as the prime ministerial plane was known in the Morrison years.
And just to increase the indignity, he had to squeeze past rookie Labor MP Carina Garlandseated on the aisle, who didn’t look all too thrilled about getting up to let him through.
Still, it wasn’t all bad. In Melbourne, Morrison managed to get some quality time with “Jen and the girls,” catching the Van Gogh exhibition at the Lume gallery, which he described as “absolutely magical.”
Cry me to Rio
CBD brought word last week of the hottest Friday lunch date in town – an $85 a head luncheon held by the Melbourne mining club, with a special address from Rio Tinto’s chief executive, Australia Kellie Parker.
Parker was drafted following the mining giant’s destruction of 46,000-year-old Indigenous rock shelters at Juukan Gorge back in 2020, and it seems the aftershocks of that act of cultural vandalism are still being felt… in a way.
When the chief executive was asked about her legacy during the lunch, Parker, a 20-plus-year veteran of Rio, got all emotional.
“The events at Juukan were tragic for not only the PKKP [local Aboriginal community] and traditional owners and Indigenous Australians but so tragic for our employees,” she said.
“What drives me every day is making sure that I can build that pride back… and that people want to wear the Rio Tinto shirt and be proud. That’s what drives me.”
Won’t somebody spare a thought for the poor Rio Tinto employees!
Forster Entry
Berlin techno den Berghain is notoriously the hardest nightclub in the world to get into, and Liberal Party stalwart Christine Forster, sister of Tony Abbott, was no exception to the list of wannabe entrants. she and wife Virginia Flitcroft were unceremoniously denied entry during a recent holiday with the usual: “Nein!”
Unusually, though, the pair talked back. “Que? Are we too old, too lesbian, too Australian? they asked. It worked – they were ushered inside, where they danced for hours on the techno floor.
“It was fabulous,” Forster confirmed.
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What comes to mind when you think of blindness? Is it a person donning dark sunglasses, possibly with a cane, or a guide dog?
There are certainly people with vision loss who fit this bill, but for many others, their experience of blindness is not quite so black and white.
Karan Nagrani is legally blind, but if you passed him in the street it’s likely you wouldn’t know.
Karan Nagrani wants people to know blindness affects people in many different ways.(Supplied: Karan Nagrani)
Diagnosed at the age of 11 with a degenerative genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa, the now 36-year-old only has a fraction of his vision remaining.
“It starts off as night blindness and loss of side vision, and then the central [vision] starts to get affected,” Mr Nagrani said.
“When people look ahead, they see 180 degrees… I see less than three degrees, and at night, it’s completely black.”
From his home in the southern coastal city of Albany, Western Australia, Mr Nagrani has made it his mission to educate people on what he calls the “spectrum of blindness”.
“I think people have this misconception that if you’re blind, your eyes don’t look normal,” he said.
“I can still make eye contact because I can still see a little bit, so people get a little confused.”
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When meeting new people, Mr Nagrani said he often felt he had to “convince” them of his disability.
“I feel a sense of fear until I’ve convinced them that I have a disability because I don’t want to be called a fraud.
“That is the fear that people are going to say, ‘His eyes look normal, he’s making eye contact, I think he’s faking it’.”
Knowing there would come a day when he would lose his sight, he didn’t let his diagnosis determine him from pursuing his dream career.
“Growing up, I knew I was going to go blind, but I didn’t want to pick a career based on that … I wanted to live my life and do something that I enjoy,” he said.
“Being creative, I got into graphic design and filmmaking, and I did that for 14 years.
“I’m proud to say I had a really successful career in marketing that I had to give up because I can’t use laptops or computers anymore.”
He’s still got it
With the knowledge and skills gained from his career, Mr Nagrani is putting them to use by creating infographics and videos for social media using his smartphone.
“Growing up, I never saw any content that prepared me for what it is that I will or won’t see,” he said.
“Now, I’m using my graphic design skills while I still can create resources that other people are using.”
His Instagram account showcases a sense of humor that hasn’t happened totally by chance.
“Social media is all about entertainment… you can present serious information, within reason, in a fun manner.
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“Going by the responses that I get, it’s actually the entertaining, informative posts that are most engaging because people actually stop and read and comment.”
But not everyone on the internet has his positive energy.
“There’s always that one person who has something nasty to say,” he said.
“I remember putting up a post once where I showed people what it’s like to wake up with retinitis pigmentosa… one of the shots was on the balcony, showing the beautiful Albany landscape.
“Someone commented, ‘What a waste of such a beautiful view on someone like you’.
“I get those comments, but I actually think that’s a reflection on them, and I brush it off.”
Social stigma an obstacle
Blind people experience an extra layer of difficulty navigating day-to-day life because of social stigma, according to eye expert Professor William Morgan.
Often patients put in a lot of effort to appear “normal.”
“Many people will think they’re just normal people and get irritated and annoyed if they bump into them, for example, or take longer to sit down on a bus because they’re having to feel their way around the seat,” Professor Morgan , from the University of Western Australia and managing director of the Lions Eye Institute in Perth, said.
“I do get those comments from patients actually; that they put an enormous amount of effort into nullifying the disability as much as possible.”
Professor William Morgan says more general awareness about blindness is needed.(Supplied: Lions Eye Institute)
Professor Morgan said services had improved dramatically for vision-impaired people in recent years, but there was still a way to go in regard to awareness.
“These people are putting a huge effort into mixing in society, and so increasing the tolerance [would help, as well as] an awareness of the different sorts of vision that you lose with these broad categories of diseases.”
For Mr Nagrani, sharing his personal experience online is about fostering acceptance for all forms of blindness.
“It makes me so happy to see people from across the globe message me, asking me if they can share my posts to raise awareness,” he said.
“I feel like even though I’ve had to give up my marketing career, I’m actually finding this more fruitful, in the sense that I feel like I’m really making a difference now.”
Karan Nagrani wants to challenge the stereotype of what a blind person “should look like.”(Supplied: Karan Nagrani)
For governments of a long duration, probity in office can often seep away and its members find themselves accused of a lack of integrity or mired in political scandal. It often doesn’t manifest itself in large rackets or kickbacks and bribes – it could also be a culture of spending public money for political ends or misusing taxpayer-funded positions for cronies and pals.
How do I know that? Because as a member of the New South Wales Labor Party I have seen with my own eyes – inside my own party – what happens when a government loses the will to place integrity at the center of everything they do.
I have seen the drift and the grift, the dramas and the scandals, the self-obsession and self-aggrandising that consumes a government from within when they decide to put their own political hopes and dreams ahead of the public good.
NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
If I have learned anything about integrity from my time in politics, it’s that even though integrity is a noun, as a politician – and as the leader of a party – you are better off thinking of it as a verb. It’s not an outcome you reach, it is a continuous and relentless determination to place integrity at the heart of all your decisions and actions, and that’s precisely what all sides of politics in New South Wales need to do.
That’s why from opposition we have introduced a private members bill that makes the grants process fairer and more accountable by imposing new reporting requirements on ministers and agencies; conferring new powers on the auditor-general to follow the money; and introducing new grant guidelines.
We can’t afford to wait for the next election to start acting on integrity. We need to begin that work today. I have not hesitated to back Gladys Berejiklian or Dom Perrottet when I thought they were on the right path, and I called on the premier to do the same thing and back this important, considered, and urgently needed bill.
At the end of the day, public funds are not the government’s own piggy bank. We want to work with the premier and the government to carry out these reforms now.
We all know this money could be better spent and the public has the right to know that if Labor does form government we won’t turn around and appoint our own former MPs to jobs that pay more than the premier.
I’ve said before and I’ll keep saying it – NSW Labor supports the Independent Commission Against Corruption not because it investigates our opponents but because it investigates us. Knowing ICAC is watching helps people have faith and trust in their government and political leaders. I believe in many cases its presence stops corruption before it even begins.
Once the handful of tourists heads back to the mainland this patch of land feels even more isolated.
French Island is little more than 60 kilometers south of Melbourne and yet most Melburnians would never have heard of it.
Residents live off the grid here and love the seclusion.
Car headlights sporadically light up the back roads and on a clear night the stars sparkle.
It made the fire that burned on the morning of April 2 this year, it seemed even brighter. The flames leapt from the kitchen of the Eco Inn as the smoke alarm let out its constant shrill.
French Island Eco Inn in its former glory before the fire.(Supplied: Phil Bock)
Phil and Yuko Bock stumbled from their bedroom where they slept, but the smoke pushed them back. They jumped from a second-floor window to escape.
Their beloved dog Sammy never made it out.
Four accommodation cottages just meters from the main homestead also burned to the ground. The guests escaped uninjured, but everything was gone.
Phil and Yuko had struggled during the endless Victorian COVID lockdowns with no paying visitors, and they had suspended their insurance.
They’d spent a decade building up their business and in one night it was all gone.
Eco Inn owners Phil and Yuko Bock and their beloved dog, Sammy, who they lost in the fire.(Supplied: Phil Bock)
“Losing our home, business, and beloved dog to a fire is a tragedy that we will remember forever,” Phil says.
“But the thoughtfulness of our small local community and past guests has kept us hopeful. It really is appreciated and reminds us how lucky we are to live here.
“We may be geographically isolated and considered socially disadvantaged, but being part of a small community is like no other when it matters the most.”
Phil and Yuko have moved into a small holiday cottage that remains on the property, the only building spared by the fire.
Our Back Roads team stayed at the Eco Inn during our shoot just a few months earlier.
You won’t see them in our program on air, but they were our welcoming hosts, our companions, and our snooker challengers late into the evenings, and I wanted to share their story.
The fire not only gutted their livelihoods but left a community reeling. A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help them.
A close-knit and resourceful community
When a Back Roads team arrives in small-town destinations, we’re immediately welcomed.
French Island was no different, although some were anxious that the spotlight of a Back Roads TV crew might spoil the privacy they clung to.
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The island is twice the size of its neighbour, Phillip Island, but happily dodges the daily tourist-enticing penguin parades to the south.
Unlike Phillip Island, French Island has no bitumen, no council, no rates, and no bridge.
The barge fits just two cars for the 15-minute trip from Corinella on the Victorian mainland to the landmass north of Phillip Island.
Terry, the barge pilot, calls us “Bituminites”, just like all the other visitors who take for granted the sealed motorways of our daily drives.
The permanent population numbers not much more than 100: an idiosyncratic mix of rich and poor, famous and anonymous, worldly and parochial.
But they are inextricably linked by a chosen lifestyle that has one foot in the past and one eye on the future.
An environmental vineyard is gaining a name for itself among wine connoisseurs.
Locals live self-sufficiently with the help of wind and solar power and banks of batteries to keep their homes and small businesses thriving.
More than two-thirds of the island is a national park.
There are more koalas on French Island than people.(ABC Back Roads: Campbell Miller)
What’s missing here is what makes this place so special — no foxes, black rats, or kangaroos. No possums or wallabies.
That enables many other species to thrive, almost too well, judging by the koala population under the active control of Parks Victoria.
One of everything is enough for French Islanders
One tiny school attracts five or six children depending on other family demands and a one-stop shop provides locals with fuel and food to tide them over until they make a grocery trip across the water.
Mail and packages are delivered by boat to one very compact post office.
There’s mostly horror at the thought of a bridge being built to allow any of this daily existence to become a little easier. No-one wants an onslaught of “foreigners” as visitors are called.
They consider this place a paradise and they’re doing what they can to keep it that way.
There was a reason pop princess Kylie Minogue sought solitude here after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005.
The lack of easy access makes it a panacea for those seeking to hide away. But don’t think time has stopped still here.
The community is a living, working, microscopic example of what a group of like-minded people can do when armed with determination.
Like the tip committee, which deals with the fact that landfill is limited and reducing the amount of rubbish removed from the island is critical. Their solution is ingenious as well as practical.
Ninety per cent of the glass processed through the crushing machine is turned into useful sand for creative residents.(ABC Back Roads: Campbell Miller)
Transporting waste to the mainland is both costly and time-consuming. Instead, the community acquired a grant for a glass-crushing machine, which creates sand that residents use in their gardens, for potholes on their driveways, and for building jobs.
Protecting an unspoiled paradise
At the center of the community is a woman whose family ties go back to the very beginning — Lois Airs.
Lois Airs has a sustainable life on French Island, from her wind and solar-powered home to her productive chickens.(ABC Back Roads: Campbell Miller)
Her forebears, the Thompsons, were the original free settlers and the generations that have come since have created a forward-thinking recycling and re-using environmental haven.
Survival is key. Not only do the residents embrace modern methods for renewable energy sources like wind and solar, but they also grow their own food, keep livestock, maintain original dirt roads, bake bread, and chop wood as the early pioneers did.
Lois, like other French Islanders, wears many different hats: a farmer, former tour bus driver, crusader for recycling, and member of the CFA.
She was part of the team that fought the fire at the Eco Inn that night.
The CFA on French Island routinely practices fire drills to keep resident volunteers prepared for fires. Lois Airs is one of their willing volunteers.(ABC Back Roads: Campbell Miller)
“Seeing Phil and Yuko, sitting on the grass watching the last of their home and business burn to the ground, and without Sammy their dog, who was always with them, is something I’ll never forget,” Lois says.
French Islanders accept they’ve made the choice to live in isolation and they don’t want that to change.
But they’re also aware that means it is up to them to protect their unspoilt piece of paradise from the ravages of an outside world.
Tragically for Phil and Yuko, those ravages in the form of an inferno in the early hours of the morning saw paradise lost to them, but they will re-build with their good health intact and the help of a supportive community unlike any other.
Watch Lisa Millar as guest presenter on Back Roads in French Island on Monday at 8pm on ABC TV or catch up any time on ABC iview.
The Perrottet government is bracing for its most politically challenging week in power, with former deputy premier John Barilaro to appear at a parliamentary inquiry into his trade appointment today and a bitter internal spat erupting within the Liberals over the deputy leadership.
The parliamentary probe into Barilaro’s appointment to a $500,000 a year US trade role that he withdrew from will also be expanded to examine the agent-general’s role in London amid revelations Premier Dominic Perrottet canvassed the job with one of his ministers.
Premier Dominic Perrottet had discussions with Transport Minister David Elliott about trade roles in the event Elliott was dumped from cabinet.Credit:Louise Kennerley
the herald on Sunday revealed that Perrottet offered to create a parliamentary trade job for Transport Minister David Elliott as a sweetener for him being dumped from cabinet and also discussed the agent-general role with him.
The Liberals are caught in a nasty internal spat over electing a new deputy leader, after former trade minister Stuart Ayres was forced to quit the role over his involvement in the Barilaro appointment was highlighted in a draft report into the saga. Ayres denies any wrongdoing.
Treasurer Matt Kean wants the deputy position, while Elliott has also indicated he would nominate, although in a bid to block Kean, he is encouraging several women to consider running.
Elliott is pushing Local Government Minister Wendy Tuckerman for the position. Tuckerman’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
One senior minister, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, “everyone is incredibly nervous” about the coming week, while another said it would be the most difficult they had faced under Perrottet’s leadership.
Government sources with knowledge of discussions between the premier and Elliott have confirmed Perrottet this year canvassed two trade-related options with the transport minister, including a parliamentary secretary position that did not exist.
The discussions came after Elliott signaled his intention to contest the federal seat of Parramatta in the May election, prompting the premier to promise Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons that she would be promoted to cabinet as a replacement if she agreed to abandon her federal ambitions.
