2 hours ago
Embrace First Nations voice first, finetune later: PM
Jess Malcolm

Anthony Albanese says he will prioritise holding a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament before nutting out the finer details of how it would function, reiterating he was “confident” it would succeed.

The Prime Minister said he was trying to avoid past failed referendums when voters were overwhelmed with details, arguing it was important to seize the momentum behind the campaign to legislate an Indigenous advisory body.

He reiterated that there would be no change to the primacy of parliament, and that ongoing consultation with Indigenous communities would be necessary to figure out how the advisory body would work.

“One of the things I’m trying to avoid here – there will be, as occurred at the end of the last century, when a referendum wasn’t successful, people looking for all of the detail and saying well, if you disagree with these 50 clauses, if you disagree with one out of the 50 but 49 are OK, vote no,” Mr Albanese told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“We’re not doing that. We’re not doing that. We’re learning from history. We are about maximising the opportunity there. We’re appealing to the good will of the Australian people and, as I said, the Australian character as I see it.

“That’s why I am optimistic that Australians will embrace this simple concept that where issues affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people they are consulted and out of it will come better practical results and outcomes, because you will have that sense of ownership and engagement.

“What I am not going to do is to go down the cul-de-sac of getting into every detail because that is not a recipe for success.”

Mr Albanese said the advisory body would not seek to usurp the power of Parliament, but instead break the “tyranny of powerlessness” in many First Nations communities.

Albo, any “tyranny of powerlessness” in many “First Nations communities” might be caused by the feeling that they are mired in their Stone Age culture, with no way out?

Remind you of somewhere in Australia?

California’s natural beauty and balmy climate are the envy of every state. Yet a strange thing has happened over the last two years: for the first time in state history, California has begun to shrink.

You wouldn’t know it from Governor Gavin Newsom’s air of public confidence. In the last few weeks, Newsom accepted a national award for education transformation and ran political ads to warn Floridians that their freedom is under attack. In both cases, he offered California’s progressive model as the right fit to reform the rest of America.

But his proud rhetoric doesn’t match California’s declining reality. Americans are voting with their feet to reject Newsom’s California model and heading to the very states that he criticizes.

The central plank of Newsom’s education transformation has been, in essence, to leave poor kids behind. California ranked last of all states in reopening schools after the pandemic, and the poor suffered the most. A study by Harvard economists finds that in states like California, where remote instruction was more common during the pandemic, high-poverty schools spent an additional nine weeks in remote instruction compared with low-poverty schools. In contrast, states like Florida and Texas had much lower rates of remote instruction, and smaller differences in its overall use between high- and low-poverty districts.

Brookings researchers have also demonstrated how school closings and remote learning hurt poor students. They showed that national “test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20% in math and 15% in reading.” The gap grew fastest in California.

Instead of a national model, Newsom’s California is a national warning of what happens when the progressive education establishment captures a state.

The political ads Newsom ran in Florida reveal perhaps an even greater disconnect between his rhetoric and California’s reality. Newsom warned Floridians that freedom “is under attack in your state,” and urged Florida residents to “join the fight, or join us in California where we still believe in freedom.” Newsom’s messaging turns gaslighting into a political strategy. If California believes in freedom, it has an odd way of showing it. After years of mask mandates, school closures, and pervasive lockdowns, Californians must be wondering what limits exist on state government intrusion into their lives. Nonetheless, they can’t help but notice the newfound freedoms that criminals and street homeless have enjoyed in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the rule of law has eroded at the hands of activist district attorneys.

Meantime, Californians who vote with their feet are fleeing to Florida in record numbers. From 2010 to 2018, California lost an average of 1,000 people to Florida per year, according to IRS taxpayer migration data. Then, from 2018 to 2019, California lost 4,800 residents to Florida. And from 2019 to 2020—the first IRS data that cover the early pandemic months—California lost 11,500 residents to Florida.

California’s outmigrants are bringing lots of income with them. The state shed an average of $270 million of annual income to Florida from 2010 to 2018. The annual loss jumped to $1.2 billion from 2018 to 2019, and then to $2 billion in 2019–2020. California’s losses, and Florida’s gains, have almost certainly accelerated in the intervening years. And Florida is not the only state picking up California exiles. The Golden State’s losses are at or near record levels with other states, too—in particular, states like Texas that Newsom targets with criticism.

Newsom wants Americans to believe that he has it figured out in California, and that the new American model for freedom is a progressive one. Yet his state’s aggressive population pivot has coincided almost precisely with his tenure as governor, making Newsom the first California leader to preside over a shrinking state rather than a growing one.

No amount of political rhetoric can mask California’s reality under Governor Newsom. Low-income students are being left behind, the rule of law is eroding, and residents are leaving in record numbers. The many former Californians watching Newsom’s ads in Texas and in Florida can only marvel at the hubris of the man.

And dude was incredibly restrained, if you’re in a situation like that the experts would say the only way out is to get on the trigger.

aka the VicPlod school

Knuckle Draggersays:

July 31, 2022 at 10:09 am

Nine months to thirty-nine months left

8 – 38 from tomorrow I reckon. I’ve kept careful count of the time left, as constantly recited by somebody

Shit!
Is it only eight months?
I will have to re-jig my schedule.
My plans to restore the Kenworth might have to be scrubbed.

Ok, let’s fact check that using the latest published Data – deaths Jan-Apr 22, which includes the Jan-Feb peak.

Cancer – 16,314
Dementia – 5,230
Ischaemic heart disease – 4,509
Respiratory diseases – 3,914
Chronic lower respiratory diseases – 2,185
Influenza and pneumonia – 648
Pneumonia – 647
Cerebrovascular diseases – 2,855
COVID-19 – 3,593
Diabetes – 1,669

And I am betting a yuuuge proportion of Kung Flu deaths had one or more of the top five prior to contracting Kung Flu.
Even Hunchback was on the news last night making the distinction between “died with” and “died from”, saying it was up to the Coroner to determine cause of death.
Which means he thinks the political capital derived from Kung Flu has been exhausted.
When you’ve lost Dear Leader, m0nster, it’s over.

“It’s not about apportioning guilt, it’s not about blame. It’s about what we all can share in the whole story of this country.

Sometimes, I think, the problem stems from the reality that there was NO “story” prior to 1788 .. this trying to create a “history’ for a collection of motley neanderthal tribes struggling to survive rather than achieve any advancement is wearing thin …….!

The wave power generator experts say ‘proves ocean energy can work’ is already powering Australian homes

I see their hand is out for government support.

Don’t let them pull the wool over your eye about why the flu deaths instantaneously stop around Apr 2020.

Mater: Look, I don’t know f0r sure we began to go into COVID lockdowns from March 2020. I kept hearing for a decent part of 2020 and well into 2021 that the flu was virtually non-existent in Australia during that time. Is it possible there were no known reported flu deaths during that time? It’s possible but not likely. Data collection, hospitals was pretty messed up during that period.

No Way Home

No, no it’s no me who’s the quant. You’ve always had the numerical smarts to destroy other people’s argument, which is why I’ve steered well away from you.. What you say goes, fella. Have you seen Jason over the last couple of years?

Polio in the US during that period was about arsenic fertiliser. Some of the later cases may have been too much DDT.

Of course it was. Can you explain to people though how say a kid in the Bronx contracted polio when he’s a world and a half away from arsenic fertilizer?

Rogersays:
July 31, 2022 at 1:02 pm
“That’s why I am optimistic that Australians will embrace this simple concept that where issues affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people they are consulted and out of it will come better practical results and outcomes, because you will have that sense of ownership and engagement.”

If it’s important that people have a voice to parliament on issues that affect them, how about a referendum in which Australians have a chance to declare how much of their household budget they’re prepared to sacrifice to fight climate change?

How about a proper referendum on SSM instead of the plebiscite?

And most people didn’t die of polio before the vaccine either. You blithering idiots.

What a fat little lying turd; and what’s more you opened the door to the other fuckwit anti-vaxxer.

Walter

What rings true in you’re cranium compartment may not necessarily be reality.

As I suggested , and this is from Mater’s own link, flu mortality deaths have to be estimated through a series of cross data analysis.

Mortality surveillance
As with hospital surveillance, influenza-related mortality surveillance provides an indication of the
severity of a season. However, unlike hospital surveillance, mortality data coded by the Australian
Bureau of Statistics for vital statistics reporting is not available in real-time and is therefore most
useful for retrospective analyses of a season. In New South Wales, death registrations from the
NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages are used for rapid statistical estimation of excess
deaths during seasonal and pandemic influenza periods using time series analysis.60 Similar
methods are used in the United States61 and Europe62.
8.1 Nationally Notified Influenza Associated Deaths
Within the national notifications data on laboratory confirmed influenza that are reported to the
NNDSS from states and territories, a field is available to record information on the mortality status
of the case. Completeness of this field is low since ascertainment of mortality requires follow-up
for which influenza is not a high priority disease. To improve the completeness of the died status
field of notified cases, a range of variably applied methods have been employed by jurisdictional
health departments. These methods include: cross-matching of notifications with local death
registration data; reporting by doctors; linkage to hospitalisation records; and reporting of deaths
detected by sentinel hospital surveillance systems to jurisdictional health departments. Current
limitations to these methods include, the variability in the methods used to improve the
completeness of the died status field; the timeliness to which the information is available; and the
potential discrepancies in the methods applied to determine the relatedness of a death to an
influenza notification.
Page 34 of 51
8.2 National death registration data
Levels of influenza-related mortality can be estimated from national death registration data,
compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) from information provided by the state and
territory Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) and the National Coronial Information
System. These data are coded using the ICD-10. An “underlying cause” of influenza and
pneumonia (J10–J18) is utilised since mortality from a primary influenza infection is rare and most
of the deaths attributed to influenza occur from complications including pneumonia, obstructive
airway disease and sudden cardiac death. These data are published annually and are usually
released within 12 to 18 months of collection.

Outright flu deaths are , as the link suggests incredibly rare. Mortality estimates have to be made because of the way people die from the flu aggravated causes.

The one thing that’s come out from the pandemic is that we now know our datasets are just shit awful.

Stats are also picked up on a state by state basis which means there’s no statistical standardization. Therefore, it’s a complete abortion.

8.2.1 National Death Index
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare collects monthly death registration information
from state and territory vital statistics registers. A pilot project in 2014 demonstrated the
feasibility of applying the same time series methods used in New South Wales60 (see Section 8.5)
to estimate national all-cause excess mortality associated with influenza.
8.3 Australian Capital Territory Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM)
Data regarding persons from the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) who died from any respiratory
cause, as indicated by ICD codes on death certificates, are supplied by the Register of BDM
fortnightly to ACT Health. Since 2013, mortality records have been cross-checked against influenza
notification data to identify deaths associated with influenza. Records are checked by the ACT
Health fortnightly during the influenza season and on an ad hoc basis outside this period.
8.4 New South Wales Influenza and Pneumonia BDM
Under New South Wales public health legislation, the Registrar of BDM is required to make death
registry information available to the New South Wales Ministry of Health.60 Data are transmitted
daily and include an electronic copy of the death certificate for each death certified in New South
Wales. The certificate includes a section describing the disease or condition directly leading to
death, and any antecedent causes, co-morbid conditions, or other significant contributing
conditions. Deaths are required to be certified within 7 days and registered within 75 days. In
recent years, the median interval between the date of death and being available for analysis at the
New South Wales Ministry of Health has been 17 days. Nearly all registrations are reported
electronically by funeral directors. Deaths referred to a Coroner are registered but the text of the
cause of death is not recorded until there has been a coronial determination, which can take some
months or years.
Page 35 of 51
The submitted data are scanned for the keywords ‘pneumonia’ and ’influenza’ (and various
misspellings) to generate a weekly count and population rate of deaths that mention pneumonia
or influenza on the death certificate. All-cause death rates are produced as well because influenza
epidemics can influence death rates from other underlying conditions. Weekly data for the current
and five previous years (excluding epidemic years) are then fitted using a time-series regression
model, based on the methods of Serfling.63 The model is used to forecast expected seasonal
behaviour for the current year. An empirically determined epidemic threshold is used to indicate
above-seasonal death rates.64 An example figure produced using this method appears in Figure 3.
The red line indicates expected activity, while the smooth black line represents the threshold of
variation of usual activity (1.2 standard errors of prediction) from the time series model. Deaths in
excess of this upper limit indicate unusually high activity.
These data are reported weekly for inclusion in the New South Wales weekly and monthly
influenza epidemiology reportsxv and have been used in publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Figure 3. Rate of deaths classified as influenza and pneumonia per 100,000 New South Wales
population from New South Wales Registered Death Certificates, 2010 to 2015.
xv New South Wales Influenza Epidemiology Report
(http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/Influenza/Pages/reports.aspx)
Page 36 of 51
8.5 Northern Territory BDM
Since December 2012, the Northern Territory has received monthly de-identified line listings of all
pneumonia-related deaths. The data are provided by the registry custodians Promadis with the
consent of Northern Territory BDM. The data are not identifiable and so are not linked to the
laboratory confirmed cases of influenza. The extraction method is similar to that used by New
South Wales but the data are still being tested and regular analysis has not commenced.
Additionally, all Northern Territory laboratory confirmed cases are followed up to ascertain died
status.
8.6 South Australia BDM
The South Australia Communicable Disease Control Branch (CDCB) of the South Australia
Department for Health and Ageing routinely reviews records for death due to notifiable diseases,
including influenza. The South Australian BDM Registration Office provides an electronic record of
recent deaths to CDCB monthly. These data are reviewed for specific search terms within cause of
death fields to identify death due to notifiable conditions. Mortality records have been cross-
checked against influenza notification data to identify deaths associated with influenza.
8.7 Western Australia mortality surveillance
Deaths due to influenza are captured by two mechanisms in Western Australia, with information
from both sources added to notification records in WANIDD, and subsequently transmitted to the
NNDSS. Firstly, weekly linkage of influenza notification data with hospitalisation data allows
identification of individuals who have died during an admission associated with an influenza
infection, as described in section 7.5.2. Secondly, PathWest notifies CDCD of any cases detected
through routine influenza testing of specimens collected during post mortem examinations, as
described below (see Section 8.8.1). Whilst not reported routinely, these data allow timely
monitoring of deaths directly associated with influenza infection, including comparison with
previous seasons and association with features such as age and influenza virus type.
8.7.1 Coronial death surveillance

More here:

There appears to be a whole industry reporting flu estimates.

8.8 Strengths and limitations of mortality surveillance
Mortality surveillance for influenza can operate in several ways: notified laboratory confirmed
influenza deaths, official coding of influenza deaths from national vital statistics reporting, or
estimates of excess mortality associated with influenza epidemics using time series analysis. Many
persons dying with an influenza-associated illness will not have been tested for influenza and will
not appear in notified influenza deaths. Thus deaths coded as due to influenza in national statistics
underestimate deaths with a prior or coincident influenza infection.64 The statistical time series
approach may provide more realistic estimates of the impact of influenza but the approach does
not allow for the attribution of any particular death to influenza.
As the majority of confirmed influenza reports are laboratory based, public health follow up of
cases is required in order to determine the outcome of their infection. Therefore the mortality
data available in NNDSS are unlikely to represent the true mortality impact associated with this
disease. The work being undertaken by the Western Australia Department of Health as part of
their autopsy surveillance system has improved the representation of mortality for Western
Australia (see Section 8.8.1).
Timeliness is another challenge due to administrative processing intervals for registering deaths,
recording causes of death and for official coding of causes of death. This is especially true for
deaths which are the subject of review by the State or Territory Coroner as these cases may take
several months. Timeliness is a critical objective in influenza surveillance especially during
influenza epidemics where deaths can rise rapidly and peak early.66 If surveillance is to inform the
epidemic response then it must be rapid.

Lab confirmations are bullshit, because there are hardly any in reality.

And the clincher. They are fucking estimates.

Mortality surveillance for influenza can operate in several ways: notified laboratory confirmed
influenza deaths, official coding of influenza deaths from national vital statistics reporting, or
estimates of excess mortality associated with influenza epidemics using time series analysis. Many
persons dying with an influenza-associated illness will not have been tested for influenza and will
not appear in notified influenza deaths.

Mostly likely underestimates.

Daughter in Northern Beaches area of Sydney has just told me that they have been informed (by Ausgrid?) that their area will be without power from 7pm to 7am tomorrow morning.

Internet search indicates that areas serviced by Ausgrid in Sydney have been periodically without power throughout July. Some occasions (they say) have occurred because of damage to supplies through roadworks et al.

But is this the beginning of power shortages due to hopeless Climate Change political decisions ?????

And yet Covid (but not the flu) managed to constantly sneak through these defences?

Covid supposedly has a much much higher contagion rate with Omni at around 4.5 while influenza is around 1.1. Also behaviors maybe different. There’s a distinct seasonality to the flu while it appears less so for Covid.

Has the blog misbehaved today for anyone?

Yes, the comments on the side aren’t updating in real time.

Jeez that’s a big lottery.

This is a situation someone likely soon will have to face, as the jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery has soared to $1.28 billion, which would be the second-largest payout in the lottery’s history. The next drawing is set for Friday night, which means that someone’s life could change dramatically, very soon.

Vicki, we use it* in Australia to treat scabies, as I’m sure you know.

Yes – aware of that “Oh come on”. It used to be on the shelves pre Covid, & in early 2020 I raced into pharmacy expecting to grab early supplies – even if it was just scabies ointment. No luck.

Re Ivermectin “pour -on” :

As I’ve said before on this blog – it is a wonderful product for treatment of parasites on cattle. Works a treat – clears affected animals of the grass mite in their coats within a week, sometimes within days.

I used it prophylactically for Bovine Ephemeral Fever in the rainy season this year. No sign of this accursed virus – although it is carried by mozzies – probably from the north – & doesn’t occur every year. But since it is an anti viral and anti inflammatory, I intend to use it every year from Feb to end of April – involving two separate drenches.

“Yes, the comments on the side aren’t updating in real time.”

Ditto.

Otherwise good.