Category: Government

Black Lives Matter protests come under scrutiny

China, General, Government, Health, Oceania, Politics, Social Issues

An Australian court has ruled against Black Lives Matter protesters’ request to appeal the decision that denied the permission for a protest scheduled on Tuesday 28th July 2020. The decision comes as Australia reported a record number of new cases per day, with the total number reaching over 500 for the first time since the virus was reported in the country in January 2020. 

In response to the decision to deny the appeal, David Elliott, New South Wales police minister, said: ‘I welcome the court of appeal’s decision to uphold the supreme court’s verdict on the authorisation of a protest planned for Tuesday 28 July.’ He went on to describe how the ‘NSW government urges both the organisers and anyone thinking of attending to stay away, abide by the law and seriously consider the consequences of their potential actions. A pandemic is no time to attend a mass gathering, no matter how honourable the cause.’ The decision is a controversial one as Black Lives Matter protests have begun around the world, with momentum behind the movement increasing after the death of George Floyd in the USA on 25 May 2020. Starting in Minneapolis, the protests have spread globally, with Aljazeera even creating an interactive map of the rally site locations. 
The July record high comes following numbers as low as 3 and 12 back in May and June. The last peak of record new cases per day came back in March, which saw 469 cases reported in one day likely because of high numbers of returning international travellers. The majority of new cases were found in Victoria, with others in New South Wales and one in Queensland. As of the 22nd July there were currently 214 in hospitals around Australia following an additional 31 people submitted since the 14th July. Over 20 of the patients are intensive care units on ventilators.

CLUE-FREE REPORTING AT ITS BEST

Government

 22 November 2004 by Richard Chirgwin

Here is a hilarious coincidence.

This morning (Sunday, November 21 at 8.15am), Centrelink’s home page is down.

In the next Mozilla tab, I have a list of headlines detailing the history of Centrelink. Apart from the string of leaks to the computer press designed to get it some favourable press – stories like its commitment to open source software – we also get the darker side. I’ll get to that in a minute.

The third Mozilla tab has the most ludicrously unsceptical report I’ve seen in the IT press this year, from Federal Computer Weekly in America. FCW – the story is at www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/1115/web-aussie-11-16-04.asp – is telling us how wonderful is Centrelink, as demonstrated by an address given by its CIO, Jane Treadwell, to a conference in America.

FCW got the quotes right, and pretty much nothing else.

It described Centrelink as an e-government project, rather than a government agency which has an e-government project (in the usual self-congratulatory terms, Centrelink ‘serves Australians on the ground and online’). It’s described as having ‘customers’ when in fact it’s mostly in charge of delivering various kinds of welfare (hint: you don’t buy welfare; calling the unemployed ‘customers of Centrelink’ is double-speak). And its main role, in the blinkered faraway world of the US press, is … well, I’ll let the words of FCW speak for themselves: ‘One of Centrelink’s top services provides Australians the ability to change their addresses’.

But what’s stunning is the gap between the glowing media it gets as a conference presenter, and the kinds of headlines I find in Australia. Headlines like ‘ Planning flaws put Centrelink system at risk’ (AFR, October 27 2003), ‘ Glitch causes Centrelink scar e Millions of mistakes by Centrelink’ (The Australian, February 14, 2004), ‘ Office porn purge at Centrelink’ (Herald Sun, January 21, 2004), ‘ Computers block fix on errors’ (The Australian, February 16, 2004), ‘ Centrelink’s $5.3m website’ (The Australian, March 16, 2004), ‘IT failures that hit the public purse’ (AFR, April 20, 2004), ‘ Centrelink changes may cut back technical help’ (AFR, April 28, 2004), ‘ Centrelink web lost in the past’ (The Australian, July 23, 2004), ‘Glitch hits agency’s debt recovery’ (The Australian, August 3, 2004), and ‘ Privacy concern at data sharing’ (The Australian, August 27, 2004) .

And, proving that Americans haven’t stopped patronising this country, some dude from Washington seriously and with a straight face told FCW that Australia would have gone broke without Centrelink.

Centrelink’s $5.3 million Website returned to life some time this afternoon.