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leinsterlad.bsky.social
The Anti-Sycophant
@leinsterlad.bsky.social
2.2K followers 2.4K following 1.7K posts
Progressive voting Australian atheist. Voted YES!
Trusts the science.
Weather and climate, environment & social justice.
Born 313 PPM CO₂
Renewables, EV's, MMT and ZBB enthusiast.
The two party charade must end !
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leinsterlad.bsky.social
The Anti-Sycophant @leinsterlad.bsky.social · Mar 6
#Auspol.

Just FYI for those that still doubt the ongoing genocide of the Palestine people.

For those wondering what ultimately led to Oct 7 uprising.

Now think.... if an illegal coloniser imposed this on you, what would you REALY do ?

bsky.app/profile/talk...
talkwithsaul.bsky.social Talk With Saul @talkwithsaul.bsky.social · Jan 29
Q: Did it really start on Oct 7?
A: Below is a list of laws and military orders, spanning decades, designed to suppress the Palestinian people. These policies target nearly every aspect of daily life with an intensity and focus that is unprecedented. The list is very, very long.
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
timmi-allen.bsky.social
Enemy images for the people.
Hitler saw the banishment of Jews from society as a solution to Germany’s problems.
Trump says migrants are “poisoning” the blood of the US.
Left: Irma Grese, Nazi guard at Auschwitz concentration camp
Right: Kristi Noem at the concentration camp in El Salvador
Left: Irma Grese, Nazi guard at Auschwitz concentration camp Right: Kristi Noem at the concentration camp in El Salvador https://allthatsinteresting.com/irma-grese
December 9, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
robert24039377.bsky.social
This is an ongoing issue. Certificates are often rejected on the basis the condition is "permanent" after an ESAt.
They can pretend the ESAt already takes into account the information on the certificate and your requirements are as recommended. It's bureaucratic sophistry.
December 9, 2025 at 5:32 AM
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jeremypoxon.bsky.social
"Commonwealth ombud Iain Anderson bureaucratically blasted the agencies managing Australia’s welfare system for their handling of the Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF)" www.themandarin.com.au/304651-targe...
Ombud strikes another blow in unlawful welfare cancellation saga
DEWR, Services Australia, and individual providers all get a kick in Iain Anderson's second report on the Targeted Compliance Framework.
www.themandarin.com.au
December 9, 2025 at 2:38 AM
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jeremypoxon.bsky.social
Significant statement from the Ombudsman on payment suspensions - the system is unfairly and unlawfully punishing people who are "below the poverty line" and are "unlikely to find ongoing employment no matter how hard they try to comply with the requirements placed upon them"
This suggests a large percentage of job seekers have their payments inappropriately suspended, given they had reasonable excuses for not complying with their mutual obligation failures. We discuss this issue further in respect to the role of providers in the TCF, however, this percentage lends weight to the argument that job seekers in the Penalty Zone should not be immediately suspended from income support. The need for proper explanation and information regarding decisions is even more important in the Penalty Zone, given the financial pressure on job seekers who face suspension and penalties. There is an inherent danger in applying what is effectively a default process that automatically shuts down a job seeker’s receipt of vitally needed income support. This is compounded for job seekers in a vulnerable state who could have difficulty responding in a timely manner in their own interests or who for whatever reason may not have received the notification. As noted in our first report on the TCF, job seeker payments are below the poverty line, so recipients are very vulnerable. It is also likely that the current state of the employment market and the current unemployment rate together mean that many job seekers are unlikely to find ongoing employment no matter how hard they try to comply with the requirements placed upon them.
December 9, 2025 at 1:12 AM
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jeremypoxon.bsky.social
Cannot overstate how bad the Department's oversight of job providers is

The ombo found that DEWR don't even have access to complaints participants make about their providers.

The government hands billions of dollars to providers to spit out unlawful punishments as they please
Given over two thirds of job seekers have providers, this represents a disproportionate number of complaints about provider services compared with online employment services. DEWR explained that while it was able to internally monitor complaint trends regarding the number and reason for the complaints by reference to providers and their sites, it did not at that time have access to or oversight of the complaints that job seekers make directly to their providers. During the investigation, DEWR were unable to provide us with the following data from 1 July 2022 – 4 July 2024 because its Customer Relationships Management System did not hold or store the data in a way that could be reliably isolated and reported on: • number and percentage of provider decisions that were challenged by job seekers • cohort data on job seekers making complaints about providers • the outcome of complaints about providers • reliable advice on the number of people who requested a transfer between providers and the reasons for these requests • reliable advice on provider transfer requests via the National Customer Service Line. The lack of outcome reporting means DEWR was not able to explain how complaints about providers were being managed and resolved, including whether the following outcomes which it told us were possible are in fact occurring
December 9, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
jeremypoxon.bsky.social
Even after the Ombo's first report, and their continued input, DEWR still completely fucked up remediation process for people they unlawfully cancelled. And had to be told off by the Ombudsman AGAIN in a secondary report

This Department couldn't administer a chook raffle
Finding 1 – DEWR’s approach to remediating the unlawful cancellation decisions is not fair or reasonable. DEWR did not act promptly to update information and guidance to job seekers and providers regarding the unlawful cancellation decisions. Further, DEWR’s approach of offering initial compensation based on their own review and then allowing a job seeker to make an additional claim, draws out the remediation process unnecessarily. During this investigation, DEWR sought comments from the Office on the draft versions of its remediation strategy and communication material to affected job seekers. We provided comments on the broad outline of these materials without providing an endorsement, as we were mid-investigation.
December 8, 2025 at 11:44 PM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
jeremypoxon.bsky.social
The ombo describes the Department's oversight of job providers as "limited" and "poor"

providers are not being held accountable for incorrect, “potentially catastrophic penalties” & require more sanctions because “incorrect decisions are being made...at such high percentages”
As discussed in Finding 5, DEWR and Services Australia are overturning provider decisions at a high rate. When incorrect decisions are being made by providers at such high percentages, we cannot be assured that DEWR’s prevention and education strategies are sufficient or should not be complemented with a more rigorous approach to deterrence and sanctions. Given the program has been active for more than 3 years, we would have expected more compliance activities against providers. Our concerns of the lack of transparency for provider performance were heightened when we observed that there appeared to be nominal compliance actions taken against providers. A lack of provider performance transparency combined with nominal compliance actions against providers, in an environment where a high rate of provider decisions are overturned, could point to an oversight design where providers are not being held accountable for poor performance. In comparison, job seekers are very frequently subject to potentially catastrophic penalties for perceived failures to comply with mutual obligation requirements. In 2023-24, providers issued 1,373,295 income support suspensions to 734,220 job seekers; of these, 6,895 job seekers were subject to financial penalties. Providers are paid significant amounts by the Australian government to deliver services to job seekers. In 2024-25 DEWR spent approximately $1.256B on Workforce Australia, 74% of DEWR’s spending on employment services
December 8, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
jeremypoxon.bsky.social
Commonwealth Ombudsman's media release:

"Stigmatisation of unsuccessful job seekers as people who are reluctant to accept employment may contribute to the limited oversight of providers and possible narrow administration of the program"
‘Stigmatisation of unsuccessful job seekers as people who are reluctant to accept employment may contribute to the limited oversight of providers and possible narrow administration of the program,’ added Mr Anderson. Media release — 9 December 2025 Ombudsman finds employment provider oversight ineffective and remediation unfair FOR MEDIA ombudsman.gov.au GPO Box 442, Canberra ACT 2601 OFFICIAL The report found the information for job seekers about remediation of unlawful TCF cancellations to be vague and incoherent, while the information for agency decisionmakers was unduly complex. DEWR and Services Australia do not provide clear, written explanations of penalty decisions to job seekers, and information on how to seek a review or make a complaint lacks clarity and accessibility
December 8, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
jeremypoxon.bsky.social
New @antipovertycentre.org statement on this second Ombo report into the Department's unlawful administration of the mutual obligations system apcentre.substack.com/p/vague-and-...
“Vague and incoherent”: Ombudsman on the government’s plan for people affected by unlawful Centrelink payment cancellations The Antipoverty Centre Dec 09, 2025 Today the Commonwealth Ombudsman released a second damning investigation into the employment department’s administration of compulsory activities known as “mutual” obligations, following an August report on unlawful Centrelink payment cancellations. Around 1 million people on Centrelink payments1 are forced to participate in compulsory activities that cause harm and waste time. The Antipoverty Centre and other welfare advocates are calling for all penalties to stop immediately, including payment suspensions.
December 8, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
jeremypoxon.bsky.social
#BREAKING: The Commonwealth Ombudsman has published their investigation into the Targeted Compliance Framework & Mutual Obligations system

Their findings on the Department's administration of many parts of the system are incredibly damning 👇
Fairness in the Targeted Compliance Framework: when decisions are made beyond your control An investigation into the remediation of income support cancellations and oversight of decisions made by emmployment service providers affecting job seekers in the Targeted Compliance Framework DEWR’s approach to remediating the unlawful cancellation decisions is not fair or reasonable. • Providers give insufficient information to Services Australia to conduct capability assessments and mutual obligation failure investigations of job seekers. • Services Australia do not provide sufficient written explanation of penalty decisions to job seekers. • DEWR and Services Australia’s information for job seekers on how to seek a review or make a complaint lacks transparency, clarity and accessibility. • A high rate of provider decisions are overturned. Fairness in the TCF: when decisions are made beyond your control Page 7 of 89 • Automatic suspensions in the Penalty Zone undermine a job seeker’s ability to challenge penalties. • DEWR’s assessment of provider performance lacks transparency. • DEWR should continue to improve its oversight of providers, utilising their complaints mechanism. • Compliance activities against providers do not appear to align to the high number of overturned rates of provider decisions.
December 8, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
jeremypoxon.bsky.social
Department tells the Ombudsman they've built an app to track some unlawful provider decisions - to try to get themselves out of trouble for not monitoring anything

So, the Ombudsman asks for information about this app. Department says: actually, we haven't finished building it yet
At the commencement of the investigation, DEWR advised our Office that in relation to the TCF, there was a risk monitoring data App built for the program area that provides alerts on known risk areas which are used for monitoring and assessing potential provider non-compliance areas such as: • providers booking appointments over personal appointments (e.g. work; medical appointments) • flags for when providers book appointments retrospectively to apply a demerit • flags for when providers have a spike in demerits applied to job seekers. However, later in the investigation when we sought further information on this data App, DEWR changed its previous advice, stating that the risk monitoring data App for monitoring TCF-related data was in fact not complete and was expected to be gathering data by late 2025.
December 9, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
republicofone.bsky.social
Agree. The US are demonstrating to the world that they are no longer a reliable partner. Australia's government should take serious note of this administration's new security strategy, which seeks to align with pushing and promoting far right ideologies in what were once strong partner nations.
December 9, 2025 at 3:21 AM
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philobiet.bsky.social
The US is coming apart at the seams, and we are like "can we play too".
December 8, 2025 at 10:44 PM
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draef.bsky.social
It also seems treasonous
December 8, 2025 at 9:56 PM
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annashi.bsky.social
Why is this government such a suck up to bloody America? Richard Marles doesn’t have Australian interests at heart. He looks like a right winger and acts like one too.
December 8, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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elal1.bsky.social
I'm a US citizen preparing to move to Australia (hopefully forever:). Hard to understand why the Australian government would think this was a good time to be making deals with the US, which has been making it clear how little it values its allies (and is on a murder campaign in the Caribbean).
December 8, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
musodave.bsky.social
No one voted for this.
We need a Zelenskyy not an Albanese who is happy to roll over and let a fascist regime invade Australia.
December 8, 2025 at 11:36 PM
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davidshoebridge.bsky.social
Even more US military assets coming to Australia. More US bases. More US weapons. Celebrating a dominant foreign government sending its military into our harbours and cities and taking multiple footholds here … it’s cringeworthy, tragic and wrong.
December 8, 2025 at 9:29 PM
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lareinemargaux.bsky.social
So it’s all the way with the USA, to paraphrase Harold Holt in 1966 at the height of the Vietnam war. Successive Australian governments (with one exception- Whitlam) have been tugging the forelock to the US for decades. But this feels particularly egregious. Our government does not need to do this.
December 8, 2025 at 9:44 PM
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john-in-geraldton.bsky.social
Albo and Marles rapidly turning Australia into a banana republic and potential 51st State of the USA.
AUKUS = U-SUKA
December 8, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
yungenchee.bsky.social
'Open-air asbestos waste dump exposed after bushfire at Tasmanian iron ore plant'

Reason #83967 why we do NOT want Federal EPBC powers devolved to states and territories
Excerpt from EDO explainer on why the so-called 'One Stop Shop' and Bilateral Agreements devolving Commonwealth approval powers on environmental protection & conservation to the States is a bad idea It reads: The fact is that, devolution of the federal government's environmental protection role to the state and territory governments is still a bad idea, for multiple reasons, including: • only the Australian Government can provide national leadership on national environmental issues, strategic priorities and increased consistency; • the Australian Government is responsible for our international obligations to protect the environment, which the EPBC Act implements; • State and territory laws still do not meet national standards. EDO recently gave evidence at the Senate Inquiry into Faunal extinction, where we pointed to our previous two audits of state laws that concluded no state or territory laws met the full suite of federal standards necessary to have federal powers devolved to them. To give a specific example, state laws currently cannot even protect species as iconic as koalas - as confirmed by a recent NSW parliamentary inquiry; • State and Territory environmental laws and enforcement processes are not always up to standard, and do not consider the cross-border, cumulative impacts of state-based decisions; • States and Territories are not mandated to act (and do not act) in the national interest; • State and Territory governments often have conflicting interests - as a proponent, sponsor or beneficiary of the projects they assess; and • State and Territory governments would need significant resourcing assistance to take over the job (and potentially the liability) of federal government in assessing impacts to matters of national environmental significance, but no resourcing has been committed to by the federal government to take on this extra, important work.
December 8, 2025 at 11:35 PM
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wooferunleashed.bsky.social
Sorry, but I have no faith that Marles has Australia’s best interests at heart at any time. Why are we handing more parts of Australia over to the US, who are currently war mongerers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s angling for a cushy US job - just like #Scummo did.
December 9, 2025 at 5:57 AM
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honorlaoiss.bsky.social
Why did my brain say "farkkcanal"? /r

I have zero trust in 3 of those 4 and Penny has been an ongoing disappointment in this role which should have been her career to capstone.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...
Wong and Marles meet US counterparts in Washington after AUKUS review
The recommendations made by the US's recent review of the AUKUS pact remain confidential after the talks in Washington, where the two nations have committed to the continued growth of the American mil...
www.abc.net.au
December 9, 2025 at 5:15 AM
Reposted by The Anti-Sycophant
australiainstitute.org.au
Australia Institute research shows that a 25% tax on gas exports would increase supply and cut energy bills for Australians.

Read more: https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/theres-a-simple-way-to-solve-australias-gas-crisis-and-cut-energy-bills/
December 9, 2025 at 1:22 AM
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pauleric70.bsky.social
“Send her back to Mexico.”

Israeli woman in the US refuses to pay after seeing the worker’s Palestinian-necklace and gets humbled on the spot.

FAFO.
December 9, 2025 at 5:51 AM