Today’s Saturday Tele:

RENEWABLE POWER HAS A DIRTY SECRET: SLAVERY

Vikki Campion
15 Mar 2025

When the luxury of sugar in British tea became commonplace, it came off the backs of the enslaved in the Americas. Today, people say they would refuse to tolerate any such evil, but the reality is we still do. The sugar in the cup is now the battery in the bus and the panel on the farm.

It turns out our government procurement teams and intermittent power developers are not so different from hoity-toity classes delicately tonging cubes of sugar into Royal Doulton while plantation slaves suffered in the Caribbean.

During a heated interrogation in NSW parliament this week, Shooters MLC Mark Banasiak and Liberal MLC Damien Tudehope exposed a system with a gaping loophole.

Companies operating in communist China, which considers the Uyghur cultural identity a mental illness, are asked to self-disclose any enslavement of a race they barely regard as human.

Subject to ethnic cleansing, forced marriage, forced abortion and a stolen generation banned from speaking their language, there is far and wide evidence of Uyghurs being forced to “volunteer” in government programs in mines and factories.

In parliament, the NSW transport minister was forced to defend buying hundreds of EV bus batteries from Chinese battery manufacturer and technology company CATL.

According to a US congressional investigation, there is “indisputable evidence” that CATL uses slave labour in making its components.

But never mind, Transport Minister John Graham told estimates he had “significant assurances in the deed” that “require companies to be upfront” about using slave labour to make electric bus batteries.

When you self-regulate, money can be made in self-approval, especially from climate zealots on the NSW public purse.

CATL in Xinjiang assures us we have nothing to worry about, pointing to its “Due Diligence Management Policy for Responsible Mineral Resources Supply Chain”, which distances itself from “any forms of forced or compulsory labour”.

And how many NSW bureaucrats are in Xinjiang on quality assurance?

None. Neither are they federally; in fact, no one is allowed to go to Xinjiang without approval.

Most of our EV batteries are made in the same province, with the sugar on top being Australian taxpayers spending $560m a year in tax breaks to put our wealthy into luxury electric cars.

Uyghur migrant Ramila Chanisheff of the Australian Uyghur and Tangritagh Women’s Association has a very good idea of how these so-called quality assurance schemes work in a region that mines the essential minerals required for the “transition”. She begged for the bus contracts to be ripped up, and recently appealed to a NSW Independent Planning Commission hearing of a massive solar factory at Birrawa: “Please, please, I urge that the solar panels that you are bringing in or that you are engaging with China will have the blood of my family, of every Uyghur.”

Disgracefully, the commission asked her no questions and instead approved the Birrawa Solar Factory with no disclosure about from where its solar panels were to be sourced.

Its Philippine developer ACEN Australia claims to use “tier one” suppliers, but is hardly forthcoming in disclosing specifics. With 13 major wind and solar factories in the pipeline, when ACEN discloses what will be sourced locally, it lists skills such as fencing and products such as personal protective equipment. What’s conveniently not on the locally made list? The solar panels themselves. Two years ago, Mr Banasiak called out the Modern Slavery Register’s disclaimer that states: “The publication of modern slavery statements on this Register does not indicate compliance with the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act 2018.” You get a better warranty on a vacuum cleaner. A whole review and an Albanese government response later, that disclaimer remains today.

A Chinese company in a communist regime that shifts ethical responsibility to suppliers is not surprising, but it leaves a bitter taste when our taxpayer-funded net zero choir sings with a slavemade organ.

Especially in NSW, a state so morally uptight that it bans plastic straws yet happily procures batteries and solar panels from an area notorious for slave labour. Embellishing the virtue of your product by absconding quality control of the humanity behind it leaves a bitter taste, even at the swankiest of tea parties.

LIFTER

Liberal MLC Jacqui Munro for revealing the $267,000 bill to recruit a new NSW Art Gallery CEO, to which Arts Minister John Graham declared: “We’re not prepared to cut corners on a worldwide search for this incredible institution.” Everybody who can’t afford groceries must be stoked.

LEANER

The brains behind the environmental conference COP30 where they are pulling down Amazon rainforest to host a conference to save it.

The ‘net zero choir’…the virtual signalling modern day slave trade enablers.

Meanwhile in other news…more trouble at the mill…

Today’s Saturday Tele:

MPS AT RISK IN SECURITY BUNGLE EXCLUSIVE

JAMES O’DOHERTY
15 Mar 2025

Premier Chris Minns’ department is at the centre of a “catastrophic” privacy breach after publishing the home addresses of almost 20 former Coalition ministers, leaving current and former MPs fearing for their safety.

In the latest twist of the ministerial drivers saga, the NSW government’s top department failed to redact former ministers’ home addresses from driver booking logs published online on Wednesday.

Former ministers impacted by the extraordinary data breach – including ministers responsible for sensitive police and counter-terror portfolios – say they have been forced to take steps to protect their families, and are considering taking legal action. There are also calls for security arrangements for former MPs to be urgently reviewed.

The state could now be liable for as much as $720,000 in compensation payments.

The Premier’s Department was plunged into crisis on Thursday, after bureaucrats realised that they failed to redact highly sensitive personal details from documents released under freedom of information laws.

The material was online for six hours before being taken down.

Parliamentary officials are understood to have been furious at the privacy breach. Former ministers said Speaker Greg Piper and parliamentary security officials have been frantically trying to reassure MPs about their safety.

The documents listed then-ministers’ “home” or “residence” as locations for pick-up and drop-off in drivers’ logs.

Former Counter Terrorism Minister Anthony Roberts, who’s personal address was included in the document release said the “catastrophic breach” could put people at risk.

“We go to great lengths, particularly in sensitive portfolios, to make it as hard as possible for people to identify our residential address,” he said.

While politicians are required to disclose the suburb of properties they own on their register of interests, addresses are typically kept secret.

Mr Roberts called for security arrangements of former ministers to be reviewed to protect their safety.

Former premier Dominic Perrottet, Liberal leader Mark Speakman, and Nationals leader Dugald Saunders were among some 18 current and former MPs who had their addresses published.

Mr Speakman and Mr Saunders have now demanded an explanation over how the “serious security risk” occurred.

“The Premier’s Department … failed to protect the personal addresses of current and former members of parliament, including former premiers,” Mr Speakman said. “This is a serious security risk.”

The Nationals leader said the breach had left Nationals MPs feeling vulnerable and violated.

Former police minister David Elliott was among those told by bureaucrats that their addresses “may” have been published.

Mr Elliott said it was an “inexcusable” error, over which heads should roll.

Chris Uhlmann is not everyone’s cup of tea but anyway…

Paywallion:

Biggest mistake we could make is to think Donald Trump and his disciples are fools
Chris Uhlmann
11 hours ago

American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is credited with writing the prayer now synonymous with Alcoholics Anonymous: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The Albanese government should adopt this as a mantra in dealing with Donald Trump. 

No one can control what the US President will do, so Australia must focus on the things within its command. At the top of the list should be cutting the cost of energy, removing onerous labour laws and slashing the sea of red tape, all of which are making Australia a bad place to do business. If there is to be a full-blown tariff war then this is just the first shot and we need to be fit to fight.

That also means not living a delusion. No one was going to change the President’s mind on tariffs: a different ambassador, a different government or more baksheesh would not have counted for a hill of beans. Sacking Kevin Rudd would be seen as a sign of weakness. No one will work harder than the former prime minister to press Australia’s case, or be less daunted by roadblocks. Rudd is nothing if not relentless.

Malcolm Turnbull’s intervention might have been unhelpful but it was wholly unremarkable, as was Trump’s response. And it’s more than a little discordant when those who loudly champion free speech now treat criticising the US President as a thought crime.

But if Turnbull really wants to help he can disavow Australia’s economy-crippling energy “transition”. The energy regulator signalled another hike in electricity prices this week, marking the latest milestone on our pathway to poverty. We are witnessing a wilful demolition of this nation’s wealth by clueless state and federal governments.

The Coalition is walking through a minefield by insinuating that it would have won a tariff reprieve. If, against the odds, every card falls its way and it wins government in May, this claim will rapidly be put to the test. Does it really feel that lucky? And Liberals and Nationals might find walking in Trump’s shadow a cold place to be in the run-up to the poll.

Trump has shown no inclination to help conservative fellow travellers. His trolling of Canada has breathed life back into that country’s Liberal Party, which was on track for an epic defeat at the hands of the Conservatives in an election that must come by October. The Liberals have dumped the dead weights of Justin Trudeau and its commitment to a consumer carbon tax. New Prime Minister Mark Carney – former head of the British and Canada central banks – is building his fight back on campaigning against Trump.

“We didn’t ask for this fight but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves,” Carney said, referring to the endearing habit of ice hockey players who shake off their mitts to signal a fistfight is about to begin. “The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country. Think about it. If they succeed, they will destroy our way of life.”

On February 15, that metaphorical brawl was made real in a match between the US and Canada. The Canadians booed as the US anthem played and when the game began it was stopped by three fights in the first nine seconds. There is a price to pay for treating people with contempt.

Most Australians are also leery of the US President so expect Labor, the Greens and the teals to cast Peter Dutton as a Trump clone or ally as the election race heats up. In close races, a handful of votes will count and, with tariffs rises now a given, the risk of blowback on the government is minimal.

Surely the lesson for the Liberal Party from the past week of international and domestic politics is that it also needs to focus on the things it can control. The West Australian state poll was a catastrophe, worse than the near-extinction level event of 2021 because the excuse of pandemic politics was gone. It points to a state division in terminal decline.

The Liberal story is little better in South Australia, where two historically bad by-election losses now leave it with 13 out of 47 seats in the House of Assembly, its equal lowest representation ever.

The Victoria Liberals thought the best way to spend most of the past two years was brawling over the spoils of permanent opposition. The NSW division is under administration.

What part of this screams a May miracle victory to you?

All parties should now be mapping out how they will guide Australia in a world where the road rules have been torn up. All should plan for more disruption from the US, China and Russia.

The biggest mistake in drafting those maps is to start from the position that Trump and his disciples are fools. No one who has managed to dominate US politics for a decade is an idiot. Many on the Trump caravan are highly qualified and have long debated the consequences of their actions. It makes more sense to look for the order in the Trumpian chaos, the method in the madness.

There is a guidebook. The four wilderness years were not wasted. Under the banner of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation produced Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. It’s a manifesto for the radical reordering of the US and the world.

Among its 887 pages are two essays making the cases for and against free trade.

The case for protection was written by former professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Peter Navarro. The China hawk and tariff warrior was part of the first Trump administration. He refused to testify before the committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riots and was jailed for four months. In a land where loyalty to the king is currency, no one has stored more treasure than Navarro.

Navarro rejects the free trade orthodoxy because he believes it enriches America’s allies and adversaries while hurting the US, weakening its industrial base and strengthening China’s. He believes it benefits Wall Street at the expense of “Main Street manufacturers and workers”. He’s not alone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared this week: “Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream. 

“The American dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility and economic security,” Bessent said. “For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”

These men wager that tariffs will reshore manufacturing and higher prices will be offset by better jobs, better economic and national security and a better society. They expect costs and disruption and wager that, if there is to be a recession, it’s best to have it before the November 2026 congressional elections.

They may be wildly wrong on every element of this but it will be an interesting experiment.

There are scant references to Australia in the conservative manifesto but we should pay heed to page 94. There, on defence, it says: “Support greater spending and collaboration by Taiwan and allies in the Asia-Pacific like Japan and Australia to create a collective defence model.”

Australia’s best defence is to study the form guide and expect that we will have to pay the price for our own economic and national security. Both demand that we use the resources beneath our feet.

Let us pray that we have leaders capable of navigating this era. But I wouldn’t give up drinking.