Stopping the oceans choking on plastic and other things the papers in Australia and abroad reckon 23 April 2018

Stop our oceans choking on a plastic overdose. Governments and companies must act globally to clean up the seas - Financial Times, London

Rarely has a global environmental issue aroused public and political concern more rapidly than plastic pollution of the oceans. ... This initial drive for action must not only be maintained but intensified in the years ahead. The threat to our oceans is too great to release the political pressure even if plastic pollution falls out of the news. ... purifying the oceans on a global scale is an unrealistic technical challenge. Policymakers should therefore focus their efforts on rapidly reducing the flow of fresh material into the ocean, by increasing recycling and restricting non-essential uses of plastics. This will require a huge change in behaviour by the world’s consumers, pushed by government regulations

Arrogance on ‘sanctuary cities’ - Washington Post, USA

Republican-appointed judges are rightly pushing back against President Trump’s brazen overreach.
THE TRUMP administration’s failing campaign to bully so-called sanctuary states and cities by denying federal grants to police departments unless they offer unconditional cooperation to U.S. deportation agents is a study in the arrogance of power.
Nowhere did Congress impose such conditions on the public-safety funds it approved to help local law enforcement. Nowhere is it written that localities are obligated to hand over undocumented immigrants upon completion of their sentences to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials — although in practice even most sanctuary jurisdictions do so in the case of inmates who have been convicted of serious violent crimes.
And in no way is it wise for Washington to compel states and cities to alienate immigrant communities, which is why so many jurisdictions and local law enforcement agencies draw the line at rendering inmates incarcerated for relatively minor crimes to federal agents.

An enlightened approach to drug policy - Sydney Morning Herald

A call by the Greens, led by former drug and alcohol doctor Richard Di Natale, for the legalisation and strict regulation of the recreational use of marijuana by adults has shoved drug policy into the spotlight. There have been predictable, alarmist denouncements from the major parties. ... Senator Di Natale’s policy, which extends the Green’s decision a few years ago to review its opposition to legalisation of any illicit drugs, is evidence-based and merits sober consideration, not shrill politicking. Our appeal for rational debate is in no way an endorsement of substance misuse; it is purely about saving and rebuilding some of the lives of our children, siblings, parents and friends. 

Alarming Precedent. Politically motivated motion to remove CJI imperils judicial independence - Times of India

The removal motion moved by Rajya Sabha MPs belonging to seven opposition parties against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra marks a dangerous new low for the body politic. It sinks the bar for a measure that requires utmost circumspection, maximum consensus and unimpeachable evidence. ... On the few earlier occasions parliamentarians petitioned to remove judges, this was based on specific corruption allegations with documentary evidence. This time is different.
The bunch of allegations in the opposition petition is a dead giveaway, of a fishing expedition to make at least one charge stick if the others fail. Even the main charges contain surmises articulated through “may have been”, “likely to fall” and “appears to have”. The danger of such a cavalier precedent in a hyper partisan environment, is that political parties could make a habit of using the removal motion to intimidate judges – which would weaken the institution no less than cooption by government.

Recovery needs a plan - Kathimerini, Greece

A serious study presented recently estimated that Greece will need at least 200 billion euros in business investments so that its economy can return to pre-crisis levels. The real question, however, is: does anyone in the government right now have any sort of plan for achieving this objective? A recent proposal presented by the leftist-led administration was described by experts as being as amateurish as a high-school essay. Nine years after the outbreak of the financial crisis, the debt-battered country still appears mostly paralyzed and incapable of solving the deeper structural problems that have been driving foreign investors away. The country is in desperate need of a well-thought out growth plan that will put the economy back on its feet; a plan that will set out clear priorities and that will deprive the local critics of entrepreneurship and investment the usual arguments that they have used for decades – ostensibly in the name of the public interest.

Work safety case a test for regulator in Canberra - The Canberra Times

A Safe Work Australia report last year found while the ACT in in 2014-15 had the second-highest rate of serious work injury claims, its workplace inspectors made fewer visits to businesses and gave fewer notices to those ignoring employee safety. ... WorkSafe ACT has been slapping employers with fewer infringement notices, which dropped from 13 in 2014-15 to zero the next year, while the number of prohibition notices received under work safety legislation nearly halved in that period to 65 and reached 58 in 2016. ... Unions have been right to ask questions of the watchdog.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is Scott Morrison getting ahead of Malcolm Turnbull in the GST debate?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison under pressure as the question about knowledge of a rape gets embarrassing

Remembering that Labor only lost last time because of Bill Shorten