ORLANDO (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump will use his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend to announce that he has won the 2024 Presidential election.
Trump will further state that any attempt to allege that the year 2024 has not arrived yet and is, in fact, not scheduled to occur until three years from now is “a rigged hoax.”
“This should never be allowed to happen in our country,” he will assert.
Asked whether he would support Trump’s contention that the year 2024 is not three years away, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, said, “If he said that? Of course.”
Serious bushfires are becoming more frequent in south-west Western Australia
The increased frequency of serious fires is linked to a drying trend in the region
Droughts and bushfires are increasing in Mediterranean climates around the world
Flames and smoke rise from the massive Wooroloo bushfire, as seen from a property in Bullsbrook.(Supplied: Rachael Harpley)
In the wake of the recent Wooroloo bushfires in Western Australia, fire experts have warned a long-term reduction in rainfall in the state’s south-west is making blazes there worse.
Key points:
Serious bushfires are becoming more frequent in south-west Western Australia
The increased frequency of serious fires is linked to a drying trend in the region
Droughts and bushfires are increasing in Mediterranean climates around the world
“I think serious fires have become more frequent,” said Murray Carter, executive director of the Rural Fire Division in WA’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES).
“Those which you characterise as causing damage to property or worse, human fatality, which we obviously don’t want to see.
“Two decades ago we would’ve had those fires maybe once every five or six years, now we get them every two or three.”
Hundreds of firefighters battled the massive Wooroloo bushfire east of Perth, February 3, 2021.(Supplied: DFES/Evan Collis)
Fire season extending as winter rains shrink
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, the south-west corner of Western Australia has seen a 20 per cent reduction in winter rainfall since the 1970s due to climate change.
Much of the decline in rainfall has occurred during the autumn and early winter months (April to June), according to Lachie McCaw, the principal research scientist with WA’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DPCA).
“It means that dry conditions, conducive to fire ignition and spread, may persist for the first half of the year,” he said.
“Fire seasons are extending longer into the autumn and in some years are beginning a month or more earlier than was typically the case a decade or two ago.”
Dr Lachie McCaw is says the fire season in south-west Western Australia is becoming longer.(ABC RN: Fiona Pepper)
Dr McCaw said a shorter, drier winter rainy season was leading to drier, more combustible fuels in the summer fire season.
“When warmer conditions return during the spring, large dead woody material ignites readily,” he said.
He said declining autumn rains were extending the fire risk into winter.
“We have experienced several events of widespread bushfire activity in late May and early June in the last few years,” Dr McCaw said.
“These events have resulted from the coincidence of persistent dry fuels conditions and strong pre-frontal winds associated with early winter cold fronts.”
This summer, parts of south-west Western Australia had above average fire potential due to dry conditions.(Supplied: Bushfire And Natural Hazards CRC)
Drying trend a worldwide phenomenon
The drying trend in south-western Australia is part of a pattern of reductions in winter rains around the world, according to Pandora Hope, a climatologist with the Bureau of Meteorology.
She said the trend has been affecting temperate regions which have wet winters and dry summers — the so-called Mediterranean climates.
“We’ve seen similar declines in southern Africa and South America,” she said.
Chile experienced what became known as the megadrought over the past decade, with a 30 per cent reduction in rainfall there.
The Western Cape region in South Africa has recently recovered from the Day Zero drought that saw Cape Town nearly run out of drinking water in 2018.
Firefighters work trying to control flames in Valparaiso, Chile, in 2017.(AP: Luis Hidalgo)
Dr McCaw said there was a global pattern of increased fire activity in Mediterranean climates.
“Looking back over the past five years, there have been damaging bushfires in the western US, Chile, South Africa and Mediterranean European countries including Greece, Portugal and Spain,” he said.
“The south-west of WA has also experienced some damaging bushfires, most recently at Wooroloo and also at Yarloop in January 2016.”
Climatologists believed the drying trend in these Mediterranean climates was being partly driven by winter storms tracking further south, due to the effects of climate change.
“As you get an expansion in the tropics and more high-pressure systems over the region, it just makes it that much harder to rain,” Ms Hope said.
“There are changes to the fronts that come across the region that normally bring rainfall; we’re seeing a decline in the number of them, but also decline in the amount of rainfall that comes from them.”
Climatologists have linked south-western Australia’s drying trend to an expansion of the subtropical ridge.(Supplied: Bureau Of Meteorology)
Adapting to more fire
Mr Carter said West Australians could adapt to the changes by being more proactive.
“We talk a lot about community resilience, but we also need to talk about landscape resilience, and that’s about using fire in the landscape,” he said.
Dr McCaw said the biggest fire threat in south-western Australia was from large-scale, high-intensity bushfires burning during the summer dry season.
“Attempting to exclude fire on a broad scale will lead inevitably to this outcome and put the community and the environment at significant risk,” he said.
“The approach that continues to be used in WA by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Parks and Wildlife Service is to use fire wisely through prescribed burning.”
February 23, 2021 — 6.36pmSaveShareNormal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size
A flesh-eating disease affecting parts of coastal Victoria has spread to inland Melbourne for the first time, with several cases reported in Essendon, Moonee Ponds and Brunswick West.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Tuesday that the risk of acquiring the ulcer in those areas was considered low, but “this is the first non-coastal area in Victoria to be recognised as a potential area of risk”.
Scientists believe mosquitoes are are part of the transmission chain that connects the Buruli ulcer to humans. CREDIT:REUTERS
“Lesions typically present as a slowly developing painless nodule or papule which can initially be mistaken for an insect bite. They can progress to a destructive skin ulcer, which is known as Buruli ulcer or Bairnsdale ulcer.”Advertisement
Internationally renowned Buruli ulcer expert Paul Johnson said what was significant about the latest cases was that it appeared the bacterium had been acquired in the inner and north-western suburbs of Melbourne.
Buruli ulcer on a patient’s arm.
“People in places like West Brunswick and Moonee Ponds have had it before, but nobody has really thought that they actually got it there,” Professor Johnson said.
“It has always been thought they’ve got it down the beach like everybody else does, but this time we know that they did get it there. We are absolutely certain that there is a little bit of local transmission, not very much, but in those suburbs as mentioned by the Department of Human Services.”
It is not known how people become infected, although it’s increasingly thought mosquitoes play a role in transmission.
The bacteria had also been detected in the faeces of a local possum in Essendon, in Melbourne’s inner north, but the source had not yet been established.
“While humans go on holiday possums don’t, so we now know that [the bacterium] is now there beyond reasonable doubt,” Professor Johnson said.
“What is different this time, also, is that as well as having people who think they’ve got it locally, we’ve also identified a possum that had to be euthanised that had Buruli ulcer. We’ve been able to use sequencing to show that the human and the possum are linked.”
The disease is not transmissible from person to person, and there is no evidence of transmission between possums and humans, the Health Department said.
A previous Buruli ulcer case in a Seddon resident.
If left untreated, the ulcers can require surgery or lead to amputation in extreme cases.
Ulcer cases had been concentrated on the Mornington and Bellarine peninsulas. Rye, Blairgowrie and Sorrento are among the highest risk areas, and the disease had also been found in concerning levels in places such as Ocean Grove, Barwon Heads, Frankston and Seaford.
In 2020, five cases of Buruli ulcers were reported in the Moonee Valley area, compared to eight in 2019 and 10 in 2018.
There remains some uncertainty about what causes the skin infection, but scientists believe mosquitoes and possums are likely spreaders of the bacteria, resulting in human infections.
To protect against the ulcer, people are advised to avoid insect bites, wear gardening gloves and protective clothing and reduce mosquito breeding sites around houses. Cuts and abrasions should always be cleaned promptly following outdoor activities.
Doherty Institute microbiology professor Tim Stinear said genomic testing had been conducted on a possum handed in to wildlife carers in the Essendon area.
The tests confirmed the animal carried the bacteria. He said tests of possum faeces in the area had also shown evidence of the disease.
“When you have possums that carry the bacteria and more than one case in humans you have good evidence of local transmission,” he said.
Professor Stinear said it was worrying the disease was spreading to new areas but early diagnosis and antibiotics enabled the condition to be treated effectively.
Professor Johnson said while the new cases were of concern there was no need to panic.
All Skin lesions – red patches, ulcers or lumps – that don’t heal should be assessed by a doctor and tested for Buruli ulcer.
“The purpose of the health alert is to draw the attention of local doctors and the public to it, not to cause panic because it’s actually quite a slow moving disease,” he said.
“It’s not a massive increase in cases, it’s just a definite change in the epidemiology that we need to monitor closely.”
Updated February 23, 2021 — 10.01amfirst published at 7.41amSaveShareNormal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size
Cape Canaveral: NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.
The quality was so good — and the images so breathtaking — that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along.PlayMuteCurrent Time 0:08/Duration 1:43Loaded: 48.30% FullscreenFirst video of Perseverance landing on Mars
NASA released the first video ever of its rover Perseverance landing on the surface of Mars.Hoarding situation at Waterford home leads to removal of over 40 cats
“It gives me goosebumps every time I see it, just amazing,” said Dave Gruel, head of the entry and descent camera team.
The Perseverance rover landed last Thursday near an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microscopic life. After spending the weekend binge-watching the descent and landing video, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference.
“These videos and these images are the stuff of our dreams,” said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team.
“Seven minutes of terror” is a phrase used by scientists to describe the touchy phase of a spacecraft’s plunge through a planet’s atomosphere before coming safely to rest on its surface.
Six off-the-shelf cameras were devoted to entry, descent and landing, looking up and down from different perspectives. All but one camera worked. The lone microphone turned on for landing failed, but NASA got some snippets of sound after touchdown: the whirring of the rover’s systems and wind gusts.
Flight controllers were thrilled with the thousands of images beamed back — and also with the remarkably good condition of the rover. It will spend the next two years exploring the dry river delta and drilling into rocks that may hold evidence of life 3 billion to 4 billion years ago. The core samples will be set aside for return to Earth in a decade.
NASA added 25 cameras to the $US3 billion mission — the most ever sent to Mars. The space agency’s previous rover, 2012’s Curiosity, managed only jerky, grainy stop-motion images, mostly of terrain. Curiosity is still working. So is NASA’s InSight lander, although it’s hampered by dusty solar panels.
Watching the video “I think you will feel like you are getting a glimpse into what it would be like to land successfully in Jezero Crater with Perseverance,” he said.
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science mission chief, said the video and also the panoramic views following touchdown “are the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit.”
The images will help NASA prepare for astronaut flights to Mars in the decades ahead, according to the engineers.
There’s a more immediate benefit.
“I know it’s been a tough year for everybody,” said imaging scientist Justin Maki, “and we’re hoping that maybe these images will help brighten people’s days.”
Researchers will lay thousands of mosquito traps in coastal and bayside areas to curb the spread of a flesh-eating disease that is appearing in parts of Victoria where it has not previously been recorded.
There has been an alarming rise in Buruli ulcer cases in recent years and scientists believe that mosquitoes and possums are spreading the bacteria, resulting in human infections.
Symptoms of the Buruli ulcer disease range from mildly inflamed mosquito bites to large open ulcers that can cause immobility and result in amputation in the most extreme cases.
Researcher Peter Mee placing a mosquito trap that is being used in a research project to prevent the spread of the flesh-eating Buruli ulcer disease. CREDIT:SIMON SCHLUTER
Researchers are concerned 2021 is off to a bad start with 21 cases confirmed so far this year, compared to 12 for the same period last year.Advertisement
The Doherty Institute is working on a research project with the Mornington Peninsula council and other state government departments, distributing mosquito traps to 250 households in Rye and Blairgowrie.
The researchers want to know whether a reduction in mosquito numbers will result in fewer cases.
Doherty Institute microbiology professor Tim Stinear said the study would be extended to the Frankston and Bayside council areas.
The traps, which will also be placed on public land, are the size of a pot plant and attract female mosquitoes but prevent their eggs from hatching.
Cases of the disease are most prevalent on the Bellarine and Mornington peninsulas but continuing infections have been recorded in Melbourne suburbs – particularly bayside areas.
Rye on the Mornington Peninsula is a Buruli ulcer hot spot. CREDIT:SIMON SCHLUTER
Professor Stinear said the disease appeared to be spread by mosquitoes in about 80 per cent of cases but exposure to soil contaminated by possum faeces may also be contributing.
“This is the reality that we’re going to see more examples of what we call zoonotic infections where they jump from animals to humans or humans to animals,” he said.
“You need a puncture injury to introduce the bacteria under the skin. It’s not spread person to person, it’s an environment-to-person spread.”
There were just 24 cases of Buruli ulcer recorded in 2004 when it became mandatory for health professionals to report infection numbers to the Department of Health.
Last year there were 218 cases of the disease in Victoria, down from 299 the year before and 340 in 2018.
But Professor Stinear said Victoria’s extended lockdown in 2020 most likely contributed to the decrease in cases last year and the trajectory of the disease was going up.
He said the increasing population in Victoria’s coastal areas was likely to add to the rise in cases.
“As our population becomes more urbanised or we create these bigger centres and displace native animals we’ll see more of these sorts of events.”
Professor Stinear stressed the research project aimed to reduce mosquitoes rather than eliminating them entirely.
The researchers originally planned to use a spray but had to scrap that after a backlash from the community on the Mornington Peninsula.
Barwon Health acting director of infectious diseases Daniel O’Brien said cases had been recorded in new places in recent years, including Aireys Inlet and the Geelong suburb Belmont.
The incubation period for the disease is typically about four months with infections most commonly acquired in the warmer parts of the year but presenting from May to October.
Donald Cottee’s ulcer grew to more than 10 centimetres after he was bitten by a mosquito almost a year ago.
Barwon Heads resident Donald Cottee is still recovering from the disease almost a year after becoming infected.
A neighbour who is a registered nurse advised he see a doctor after a mosquito bite started weeping. He was put on a course of antibiotics but said they were not strong enough.
“I ended up having to go to hospital and go on a drip,” he said.
The ulcer ended up covering a patch on his thigh measuring about 10 centimetres. A case of polio as a child has caused added complications for Mr Cottee whose mobility was affected by the Buruli ulcer.
“I had to have surgery a couple of times to clean it all out and have skin grafts.”
Agriculture Victoria research scientist Peter Mee said the traps would be laid along fences outside residential properties for two weeks to monitor mosquito population sizes and then moved inside those properties for another month to reduce mosquito numbers.
“The program is based on using sustainable, non-toxic mosquito traps, which have been used around the world to reduce mosquito populations,” he said.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has argued proposed laws to force Google and Facebook to pay media companies for their news content will entrench the power of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire in the Australian media landscape.
Mr Rudd, who has become a strident critic of News Corp since leaving politics, used an appearance at a Senate inquiry into media diversity to compare the news ban imposed by Facebook on media companies to the dominance of News Corp in the print media market.
‘WORLD’S OLDEST CALENDAR’ DISCOVERED IN SCOTTISH FIELD
Yahoo!7 July 15, 2013, 6:28 pm
Archaeologists in Scotland have uncovered what is believed to be the world’s oldest lunar calendar.
Twelve pits, said to have been created by hunter gatherers almost 10,000 years ago, were unearthed in a field at Crathes Castle, Aberdeenshire.
The pits are arranged in a 50-metre long row and are said to represent the months of the year and the phases of the moon.
Variation in the depths of the pits suggests that each pit or month may have also been divided into three roughly ten-day ‘weeks’ used to indicate the waxing moon, the gibbous/full moon and the waning moon.
The discovery of the Mesolithic ‘calendar’ overtakes a 5,000-year-old monument from Bronze Age Mesopotamia to claim the title of the world’s oldest ‘calendar’.
A simple illustration of how the pits would have been used by hunter gatherers. Photo: University of Birmingham
The site at Crathes Castle was originally excavated in 2004, but the findings were only analysed over the last six months using a purpose-built software.
Professor Vince Gafney led the archaeological project that discovered the structures.
‘The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and sophistication to track time across the years, to correct for seasonal drift of the lunar year and that this occurred nearly 5,000 years before the first formal calendars known in the Near East,’ he said.
‘In doing so, this illustrates one important step towards the formal construction of time and therefore history itself.’
An artist’s impression of the site at Crathes Castle. Photo: University of Birmingham
Dr David Bates of the University of St Andrews said the discovery provided “exciting new evidence” of Mesolithic Scotland given it’s age in comparison to other known calendars.
‘This is the earliest example of such a structure and there is no known comparable site in Britain or Europe for several thousands of years after the monument at Warren Field was constructed.’
Scientists believe the Mesolithic monument discovered in Aberdeenshire was in use for some 4,000 years, from 8,000 BC to approximately 4,000 BC.
Ethusiasts have captured stunning images of the Aurora Australis (Click through to gallery). Photo: Susan Styles.
While thousands of Sydney-siders flock to see the light projections of the Vivid festival, Tasmanians are soaking up the splendour of nature’s own version.
The Aurora Australis, a lesser-known cousin of the Aurora Borealis, is more often visible only from Antarctica.
The Aurora Australis in Tasmania. Photo: Matt Green
But 2013 is a bumper year for nature’s light show, with a peak in sunspot activity that has sent colours spinning across the skies as far north as Tasmania, more frequently than seen for years.
The spike in solar activity has corresponded with a burst of interaction over social media, as avid shutterbugs vie to capture ever-more astonishing pictures.
“I captured my first aurora in January this year, and last night’s was my fifth time,” Leoni George Williams, member of the Facebook group Aurora Australis Tasmania said.
The Aurora Australis. Photo: Jolene Lye (Inoriz photography)
“I had never seen an aurora before, and only became interested in the phenomenon late last year, but I became obsessed with them!”
“I’ve learned so much about what the camera can see as opposed to the naked eye, and low light photography in general,” she added.
Fellow aurora-chaser Jolene Lye says the education process hasn’t ended there. Aurora photographers follow readings from sites such as the Aurora Alert page, from the Bureau of Meteorology.
The Aurora Australis. Photo: Laurie Davison
“I’ve learned a lot about how to read the charts and readings from NASA and NOAA which previously looked like Greek to me,” Lye said.
“But having said that, the Aurora can behave quite independently of these readings. Some weak readings have resulted in strong Auroras and vice versa so it’s not all predictable!”
Intrigued? George Williams says new members are always welcome in the online aurora community.
“There’s a wonderful camaraderie within the group and I love the willingness of the more seasoned members to share their knowledge with the newer members as they join.”
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield ends his stint on the International Space Station by recording a moving version of the David Bowie classic Space Oddity.
If anyone were qualified to cover David Bowie’s Space Oddity it would surely be astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Which is exactly what the mustachioed Canadian has done, recording a showstopping rendition of the classic tune on board the International Space Station as he prepares to descend back to Earth this week after a five-month mission in space.
Hadfield, who has been referred to as the “coolest guy in outer space”, has outdone himself in his latest stunt among the stars, posting a five-minute clip on YouTube in which he performs the 1969 classic.
Twist on a David Bowie song: Chris Hadfield.
The clip shows the 53-year-old veteran astronaut spinning around the cabin of the space station and playing his guitar while floating in zero gravity.
He sings “I’m floating in a most peculiar way”, while floating in zero gravity. Stunning views of the earth are visible from the space station’s windows for much of the clip.
Hadfield’s efforts have earned him the adoration of the internet, and the praise of Bowie himself, who tweeted “Hallo Spaceboy . . .”
Chris Hadfield: his song has captured the attention of social media users.
One of Hadfield’s fans commented on the YouTube clip: “You’re a bloody marvellous human being.”
“NASA might be cool again,” wrote another fan, while one person said they cried while watching the clip, adding: “I want to be a SCIENTIST”.
The film clip was mixed with the help of staff at the Canadian Space Agency and musician Emm Gryner, and some of the lyrics were modified to refer to the Soyuz capsule that will return Hadfield to Kazakhstan on Monday night.
David Bowie performs at the Odeon Theatre, in Hammersmith, West London in July 1973. Photo: Association Newspapers
Hadfield tweeted a link to the video with the words: “With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.”
It was retweeted nearly 9000 times in the first four hours.
During his stint as commander of the International Space Station, Hadfield has captivated and entertained his followers on social media with quirky videos and stunning photographs from space.
He has posted charming videos about sleeping, eating, safely clipping his fingernails, and even cooking spinach.
Half a million people tuned in to watch him brush his teeth, while more than 10 million people watched Hadfield wring out a soaking wet cloth. It was an experiment suggested by 10th graders in Nova Scotia.
He has also posted daily photographs and tweets from space, including images of the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney, in which he highlighted unique land formations, weather events and the glittering lights that mark out human development.
Hadfield handed over command of the station on Sunday to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.
He and his two crew members are scheduled to leave the space station on Monday night in their Soyuz spacecraft and head back to Earth for a planned landing in Kazakhstan.
When the evidence is in front of everybody, confirmed by the actions of Liberal Governments in Queensland and Victoria, already having caused the loss of thousands of jobs, and more to come, when that idiot Tony Abbott leads his incompetent government to power on the 14th September, more of the same will follow, That the people even consider voting for this clown who changes policy decisions, day by day, is absolutely beyond me.
I am flabbergasted by the stupidity of the general Australian populace. How is it conceivably possible, that we have so many stupid people in this country???
It is a LIBERAL government that has led this feeding frenzy of greed, but it seems, that all the other parties’, are equally as greedy.
Respect for politicians, is an oxymoron!
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MPs’ pay bonanza
Date
May 10, 2013
Richard Willingham and Craig Butt
The changes in pay for state MPs.
Victorian politicians will all be paid more than $150,000 a year, including a more than $11,000 expense account, under a controversial new pay deal that gives backbenchers almost an extra $15,000 a year.
And for the first time in Victoria, MPs who lose their seat at an election or are disendorsed before a poll will be entitled to a ”resettlement allowance” of up to a $70,000, or six months’ basic pay.
The Napthine government refused to detail how much the pay rises would cost taxpayers, with Assistant Treasurer Gordon Rich-Phillips saying the details were in the legislation.
Jobs the payrise could be used to pay for.
There is no total given, just classification of rates.
Calculations by Fairfax show the new deal will cost taxpayers about an extra $1.8 million a year. That figure does not include committee work, other duties and superannuation entitlements.
The rise has infuriated unions battling for a better pay deal and struggling against service cuts. Paramedics who are in negotiations said it was insulting, while Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall said it was hypocrisy.
Illustration: Matt Davidson.
Legislation introduced on Thursday changes the way MPs’ pay is calculated. Under the old system, Victorian politicians were paid the same as their federal counterparts, minus $5733.
Last year the Commonwealth remuneration tribunal paved the way for big pay increases for federal MPs, which would have resulted in a $47,000 pay rise for some state MPs on July 1.
An independent review of Victorian pay by former secretary to the governor-general Malcolm Hazell found that such an increase this year would have been unjustifiable.
To avoid that, Victorian MPs will receive a 2.5 per cent increase to their base salary – from $137,535 to $140,973. In 2014 the amount rises another 2.5 per cent, or $3524, to $144,497 and from then on it will increase in line with growth in average Victorian wages.
Office holders receive more money based on a percentage of the base salary. For example, Premier Denis Napthine’s additional pay is double the base, totalling $281,946.
He is also entitled to an expense allowance that is 42 per cent of the base pay, which equals $59,208. Overall he takes home $341,156.
Shadow ministers are the big winners in the new deal as they will receive an allowance for the first time, with the rate being 15 per cent, or $21, 146.
Backbenchers will get an allowance of 8 per cent, or $11,277.
Superannuation for MPs elected after 2004 rises from 9 to 15 per cent. Older MPs have a generous defined-benefits scheme and are not eligible for the resettlement allowance.
As previously reported by Fairfax Media, MPs on both sides have agitated for higher pay.
It is believed several Labor MPs privately expressed disappointment they did not get a more generous deal.
Mr Rich-Phillips denied there were any backroom deals and defended how the pay determination was made, despite no public consultation.
”If we took no action now, salaries would increase by $47,000 on the first of July, and we don’t think that is appropriate,” he said.
He did not detail if there were rules on what allowances could be spent on. Mr Rich-Phillips said the rise in allowances was due to entitlements, which included travel allowances, being abolished.
He said the plan to give MPs up to six months’ pay when they lost their seat at an election was consistent with the Commonwealth.
The Opposition Leader’s office will get a $500,000 boost from $1.54 million to $2 million, with the figure indexed to inflation. Labor is likely to back the changes but has said only that they will be discussed in shadow cabinet and caucus.
Mr Hazell said that without adequate pay it would be hard to attract high-calibre MPs.
Photograph by Chip Somodevilla / Getty
A simple illustration of how the pits would have been used by hunter gatherers. Photo: University of Birmingham
An artist’s impression of the site at Crathes Castle. Photo: University of Birmingham
The Aurora Australis in Tasmania. Photo: Matt Green
The Aurora Australis. Photo: Jolene Lye (Inoriz photography)
The Aurora Australis. Photo: Laurie Davison
Twist on a David Bowie song: Chris Hadfield.
Chris Hadfield: his song has captured the attention of social media users.
David Bowie performs at the Odeon Theatre, in Hammersmith, West London in July 1973. Photo: Association Newspapers
The changes in pay for state MPs.
Jobs the payrise could be used to pay for.
Illustration: Matt Davidson.
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