Melbourne University professor and policy consultant Browyn Hinz said today that Melbourne University will be the most effected by the government’s most recent funding cuts.
The Gillard governemnt announced in $2.3b cut in funding to Australian universities, to pay for ithe proposed Gonski reforms.
Ms Hinz said Melbourne University would recieve the largest cut out of all Victorian Universities, because it is currently recieving the most government funding.
The funding for all universities will still increase but at a slower rate.
The current frontpage of AustralianChristianLobby.org
Three Melbourne feminists have taken over a domain that bears the name of the Australian Christian Lobby (australianchristianlobby.org) to turn it into the satirical home of the Australian Cat Ladies.
The site, which also uses the acronym ACL, features a cat sitting atop a rainbow and a slogan that apes the Australian Christian Lobby’s “A Voice for Values” by adding “(by which we mean cats)”.
Jessica Alice said that she and the two other co-founders – Hilary Bowman-Smart and Genevieve Stewart – built the site quickly after discovering on Friday that the domain name australianchristianlobby.org was not already registered. The Christian lobby group uses acl.org.au as its homepage.
“We thought it was unfair that the ACL as a group has been given so much airtime… obviously we don’t have the same values as they do,” Ms Alice said.
Realising that the Christian lobby group’s ACL acronym could be easily parodied, Ms Alice suggested calling their group Australian Cat Ladies, “and it stuck… because everyone likes cats”.
There were initially claims, including on Reddit, that the site was “hijacked” when a previous registration ran out, however Ms Alice said that the domain had simply remained unregistered until the group discovered it.
Friends helped out with “logos and sparkly cat gifs” as well as other content to prepare the site on the Saturday for it to “go live” on Sunday.
Ms Alice said that the group didn’t want to setup the site “just to be a nuisance”, but hoped that they could also use it to discuss issues like equal marriage and reproductive rights: “I think that’s why it’s really resonated with people, because those views are shared”.
Ms Alice said personally that she was sceptical about how long the site could last, but that it seemed that the Australian Christian Lobby weren’t interested in having the site removed.
Jack Dolphin, Senior Associate in Intellectual Property law at Mills Oakley Lawyers, said today that on face value the ACL would have a good case to reclaim the domain from the Australian Cat Ladies.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) resolves ownership disputes on domain names, and if the Australian Cat Ladies don’t have a legitimate interest in the site or can be shown to have acted in “bad faith” in registering it, they may have to forfeit ownersip.
Mr Dolphin said that as “the Cat Ladies seem to know exactly who the Australian Christian Lobby is, and have registered it not under the acronym but under that organisation’s name” it could be deemed that the domain was registered in “bad faith”.
Mr Dolphin said that if the site was registered as a .au domain, the process would probably be quicker and cheaper for the Lobby to acquire the rights, as the registration for .au domains is administered by the Australian auDa body. The ICANN dispute process can cost up to $5000 to pursue.
The ACL did not respond to a request to comment for this story but indicated to news.com.au earlier today that it would not be seeking to acquire the domain.
Mr Dolphin said that it may be unwise for the Australian Christian Lobby to not pursue a case in the long run, as while acl.org.au may be the first Google result when people search for “australian christian lobby” at the moment, in a few weeks time that might not be the case.
As the site has already picked up a large number of contributing members, Ms Alice said that she hopes the site can remain a place for light-hearted satire and for people to talk about issues that affect them “in a positive way”.
“The internet is weird, it could either be a long lasting place or it could be ephemeral. It’s a wait and see thing.”
The Essential Services Commission (ESC) will allow water works companies to raise rates by between 20 to 26 per cent only. The announcement that came on Tuesday follows the retailers’ own requests that have seen some household water bills go up by more than a third.
This followed a draft proposal from Melbourne’s water retailers that would have seen some water bills go up by as much as 35.8 per cent.
The request to raise the rates came in an effort from Melbourne Water to recoup the costs of the State Government’s desalination plant. The ESC’s report expressed its concern over Melbourne Water’s proposal to pass on the annual costs of the desalination plant to retailers as they arise. Those costs would be passed on to Victorian households.
In the response from the ESC, chairman Ron Ben-David expressed concern over Melbourne Water’s proposal to pass on the annual costs of the desalination plant to retailers as they arise.
According to Mr Ben-David, Melbourne Water is trying to recover the costs of the Wonthaggi desalination plant in a much shorter time period than the plant is expected to operate.
”Even though [Melbourne Water] incurs those costs over 27 years, the plant will have an operating life of at least 50 years,” Mr Ben-David said. “We would like to see a proposal that better matches the cost recovery with the benefits.”
This year Victorians received rebates for desalination plant delays and a price freeze. The 12-month freeze expires at the end of 2013 allowing water retailers to raise their prices.
Yarra Valley Water, one of Melbourne’s largest water retailers, was seeking the greatest increase in prices. For the average Yarra Valley renter’s bill of $528 a year, the water company requested to lift the charges to $727 a year, a 35.8 per cent rise.
But in the draft response from the commission has allowed for the slightly more acceptable 25.8 per cent. That would still see the average bill come in at $672 a year, $55 dollars less than Yarra Valley’s initial submission.
For Brunswick East couple Daniel Ramsden and Simone Portelli the Yarra Valley Water price rises will be a take a hit on their finances.
“It’s pretty crazy. $200 is a lot to increase and that’s just one utility that we have to pay for,” Ms Portelli said.
The young couple are able to stretch their budgets to cover the increase, they feel that others will struggle.
“26 per cent is not so bad for us,” Mr Ramsden said. “But families and people with less money are going to find that more difficult. Especially with electricity going up at the same rate as well.”
Until recent years Melbourne’s 4 million-plus residents’ water use was trending down toward the recommended target of 155 litres per person-per day. But in 2013 it has been higher than 225 litres, or 45% above target.
Australia may lose up to a third of it’s digital community radio services if the Federal government doesn’t boost funding to the sector in the May budget, according to the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA).
The government pledged $2.2 million for digital operating costs per annum in the 2012 budget, but Adrian Basso, President of the CBAA said this leaves them with a $1.4 million dollar shortfall.
He said they were surprised when the shortfall came through.
“We’re very much in the early days of a new platform, we have our own current analog expenses and the government has been clear they will support community stations on digital radio,” he said.
The Federal government committed $11.2 million in the 2009 budget for the implementation and operation of community radio digital infrastructure for three years.
The May 2012 budget pledged a further 2.2million per annum for the next four years.
But Mr Basso said the $2.2 million doesn’t meet the minimum amount needed to keep current digital community radio services on air.
“If we don’t meet the funding shortfall… which only pays for the infrastructure side of things… [it] will probably mean switching off cities.”
Melbourne’s 3CR Community Radio Manager Marian Prickett, said two capital cities in Australia face losing all digital services if the shortfall can’t be met.
“If the shortfall isn’t met… they will need to turn off two of the multiplexes, one in the major capital cities, Sydney or Melbourne and one in another capital city, such as Adelaide or Brisbane,” she said.
“So that would mean all of the community radio stations in Melbourne currently broadcasting on digital won’t be broadcasting anymore because we won’t be able to pay the service fees for the multiplex.”
Analog broadcasting infrastructure can be owned by stations, but Federal government legislation prohibits stations from owning digital radio infrastructure.
The community radio sector currently has 37 digital stations operating under licensing agreements called ‘Multiplexes’.
In Melbourne nine stations operate out of one ‘Multiplex’.
A community radio ‘National Day of Action’ was held in March to draw attention to the funding shortfall and over 40,000 people signed an online pledge to ‘Commit to community radio’.
But a letter sent from Senator Conroy’s office in April in response to the campaign did not commit to any further funding.
The letter said the sector should find extra funding through sponsorship and fundraising:
The primary source of funding for community broadcasting has always been and should continue to be drawn from sponsorship and donations from within those communities, independent of government support.
Ms Prickett said this is not a realistic expectation for stations trying to maintain the costs of both analog and digital.
“It’s completely unrealistic at this early stage of the development of the technology to expect stations can maintain both forms of transmission,” she said.
The sector will now have to wait until budget night to find out if the government will commit to the extra funding.
Mr Basso said they remained hopeful.
“We’re still concentrating on budget night, our focus remains on May 14 and what come out of that… it’s not a lot of money but until budget night I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.”
Victoria’s independent economic regulator, the Essential Services Commission has rejected price increases sought by Melbourne’s four water businesses.
Credit: Aerial footage of desal plant by THEISS, all other work my own.
On Tuesday, the Commission’s Chairperson, Dr Ron Ben-David, said that businesses proposed that household water and sewerage bills would rise by about one-third over the next five years.
The Essential Services Commision will set the final price. The Commission analysed plans and found the water companies were over-estimating their energy, parts and maintenance costs.
Ron Ben-David, CEO of the Essential Services Commission, said, “We’ve gone through the water plans very, very carefully and we’ve found savings worth a few hundred million dollars, and that gets reflected back in the lower prices, which is why we announced that we haven’t accepted the proposed $300 dollar increases.”
The culprit: Desal
The water companies and the Commission agree that the major reason for the increase is the cost of the Wonthagee Desalination Plant.
Dr Ben-David stated, “The Commission is not satisfied that Melbourne Water has adequately supported its claim that it must fully pass through its desalination costs to customers in order to avoid adverse impacts on service delivery and its financial position.”
Hear more of Ron Ben-David’s interview below:
Peter Walsh, Victoria’s Minister for Water, agreed that the Labor-initiated is costly:
“If not for the desalination plant costs, an average bill may only have increased about $50 next year.”
Jon Lenders, shadow Minister for Water, said that other costs were involved, “”Victorians over the last year have paid more in State Government water taxes, water dividends and other water charges than they will pay for the Desalination Plant.”
Data from the Auditor-General shows that the desal plant costs Victoria $1.81 million dollars per day. Water dividends amount to around $925,500 per day.
Helping Victorians pay: Guaranteed Service
The Commission has set aside $5 million in a virtual ‘safety net’ to protect customers in hardship.
“We certainly do appreciate that even though $200 is better than $300, $200 is really a lot,” said Mr Ben-David.
All urban water businesses were obliged to assist customers in financial hardship.
Wanted: Community input
The commission wants public input before the final prices are set. Public meetings will be held in Melbourne (30 April), Sunbury (30 April) and Frankston (1 May).
Details on public meetings are available on http://www.esc.vic.gov.au, along with instructions for written submissions.
Victoria’s premiere cycling organisation has slammed government cuts to bicycle projects and called for $25 million in new funds in the upcoming State budget.
The cuts were made even though the Government’s Cycling Strategy says bicycles can free up space on public transport and decrease road congestion.
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