Australia

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/post/58797

Archived

According to The China Story, created by the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University (ANU). there are more Australians missing in China than any other country.

Since 2009, there have been a number of high-profile cases of contentious arrests and imprisonments of Australian citizens in China. Australian journalist Cheng Lei was arrested and detained for three years before her release in 2023. [...] Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, travel entrepreneur Matthew Ng, technology educator Charlotte Chou (released in December 2014) and medical inventor Du Zuying (released in July 2014) have been imprisoned on charges of bribery, embezzlement and fraud allegedly targeting their China-based employers or partners. (Du was released in July 2014 and Chou in December 2014).

[...]

Sophie Richardson is the Washington-based co-executive director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a coalition of Chinese and international human rights non-governmental organizations. From 2006 to 2023, she served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch.

She reflects that “many people assume that because the Chinese government have written things down on paper and called them laws, they’ll abide by them, but that’s often not the case.”

“For foreign lawyers who set up offices in Beijing or Shanghai, it’s often not until things go dreadfully wrong that people come to realise the law is an instrument of Xi Jinping’s political power, used when and how he and his allies see fit.”

Richardson says, “I’m not sure anyone could definitively answer about the numbers of people detained. In some cases, families don’t want to publicise that their family member has been detained. The number of foreigners detained pales in comparison to Chinese citizens. The scope and scale has been identified by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which is one of the UN expert bodies, as a crime against humanity.”

Richardson explains that under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) requires governments that have detained foreign citizens to notify the governments of those citizens, along with notifying the foreign national that they have a right to contact their consulate, and enabling this.

“That’s routinely ignored,” says Richardson, “Some countries also require that their government be informed. That means people have to know to request [contact with their consulate], and that the people detaining you will convey that information.”

[...]

[The Australian government] defines enforced disappearances as occurring “when individuals are deprived of liberty against their will with the involvement of government officials (at least by acquiescence), which includes a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.”

The 2023 US Department of State China Human Rights Report found that disappearances were standard practice by Chinese authorities at a nationwide, systemic scale. The typical method is Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL), which the UN has consistently stated is ‘not compatible with international human rights law’. RDSL enables authorities to detain individuals in an undisclosed location for up to six months, without trial or access to a lawyer.

There is a lack of official data on how prevalent RDSL is, or the conditions that victims are subjected to, but INGO Safeguard Defenders estimated that between 55,977 and 113,407 people were placed into RSDL, prior to trial and verdict, from 2015 to 2021. Those numbers do not account for cases where no trial proceeded.

[...]

Human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders, founded in 2016, has released a handbook Missing In China, designed to guide people through the steps when a family member, colleague, or friend has been arbitrarily detained by the PRC. It will also be made available in Chinese and Japanese.

[...]

Archived

[Australian PM] Anthony Albanese says his government will pump as much cash as is needed into Australia’s defence after China’s ambassador wrote an op-ed urging Canberra to restrain from spending more.

In his piece published on Monday, [Chinese ambassador] Xiao Qian said China and Australia were “not foes” despite being embroiled in a regional rivalry and Beijing rapidly building up conventional and nuclear military capabilities.

It came as the Prime Minister faces domestic and international calls to boost the defence budget, with the US warning of a potentially “imminent” threat from China in the Indo Pacific.

But Mr Albanese has resisted, making Australia an outlier in the West – a position highlighted by NATO’s decision last week to dramatically hike military spending to 5 per cent of GDP.

Fronting media on Monday, Mr Albanese did not align with Xi Jinping’s envoy either.

[...]

“The Chinese ambassador speaks for China,” Mr Albanese told reporters.

“My job is to speak for Australia.

“And it’s in Australia’s national interest for us to invest in our capability and to invest in our relationships, and we’re doing just that.”

Asked by a reporter for The Australian if Mr Xiao’s comments constituted “meddling”, a visibly riled Mr Albanese said: “I don’t know, your newspaper published the op-ed.”

[...]

This year the flag will be the same size as last years as we nearly finished it last year. It has a small aboriginal flag on it, a large bluey and the text aussie.zone in the bottom right.

Here is the template for this year: https://canvas.fediverse.events/#x=90&y=78&zoom=4&tu=https%3A%2F%2Faussie.zone%2Fpictrs%2Fimage%2F93987250-cd08-4e21-9b00-dbd13669ffe4.png&tw=200&tx=0&ty=0&ts=ONE_TO_ONE

Before using it you will have to lower the transparency in canvas settings (and you'll have to wait for canvas to start :) )

We also have a matrix chat for the flag: #australiacanvas:matrix.org

Please allow others to place art on the flag and don't damage it unless it is another countries flag, covers the stars, union jack, bluey, or other important parts of the flag.

About a third of people in NSW rent their homes and the state government has estimated that about 187,000 pieces of identification information were collected from renters in the state every week, from requiring personal photos and social media account details to revealing the number of tattoos an applicant had.

If the bill passes parliament, a standard rental application form will be introduced to clarify what information can and can not be collected.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/31977851

The New South Wales tenants union has called for nationwide reforms to crack down on misleading rental advertisements after the state government introduced new laws in response to the growing use of artificial intelligence in real estate.

The legislation, announced on Sunday, will require mandatory disclosure when images in rental advertisements have been altered to conceal faults and mislead rental applicants.

The state government cited examples of real estate agents using artificially generated furniture that showed a double bed in a bedroom that was only large enough to fit a single in listings, or digitally modifying photos to obscure property damage.

Archived version

Australia is suing a Chinese-linked company and a former associate over a breach of foreign investment laws linked with rare earths miner Northern Minerals, the national treasurer said on Thursday, adding it was the first case of its kind.

Indian Ocean International Shipping and Service Company was one of five foreign investors with ties to China subject to an order by Treasurer Jim Chalmers to divest shares on national interest grounds in June last year.

...

“Foreign investors in Australia are required to follow Australian law,” Chalmers said. “We are doing what is necessary to protect the national interest and the integrity of our foreign investment framework.”

The statement, which said the case was the first to be brought by a Treasurer before the Federal Court for an alleged breach of foreign investment laws, did not give details of the current stake holdings. It named Indian Ocean, but did not name the former associate.

...

Australia has sought to build a rare earths supply chain to decrease China’s dominance over the elements used in products from smartphones to wind turbines and missiles and radar systems. Northern Minerals, a supplier of rare earths to a refinery being built by Iluka Resources in Western Australia, became a flashpoint for the contest after Australia blocked Singapore-based Yuxiao Fund from doubling its stake in the company to almost 20% in 2023.

Yuxiao, controlled by Chinese businessman Wu Tao, along with four other entities, including Black Stone Resources of the British Virgin Islands and Indian Ocean International Shipping and Service Company based in the United Arab Emirates, were ordered in 2024 to sell shares worth 10.37% of Northern Minerals’ share capital within three months to unconnected associates.

Interesting read about an interesting woman, couple of excerpts..

The trailblazing public health activist reflects on childhood dreams, hard-won lessons and why healthcare starts long before anyone gets sick

during her early days as a junior doctor at Princess Margaret hospital in Perth. “There was an Aboriginal boy, maybe four or five, who’d come in from a remote community,” she says. “He had severe diarrhoea and dehydration. And he died in my arms.” She pauses. “I was 25. And I remember thinking, I don’t know if I can keep doing clinical work. I need to understand how we prevent this.”

She recalls one trip to Narrogin – “one of the most racist towns in WA” – where a local doctor had refused to treat an Aboriginal child without upfront payment. “The mother raced the kid to Katanning and it died on the way,” she says. “So Eric and I got that doctor struck off the register.”

She’s outspoken about the dangers of the North West Shelf extension, describing climate change as “the biggest threat to human health”. Her disappointment over the failed voice to parliament referendum is equally fierce. “

Original post https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/i-worked-at-an-escort-agency-this-is-how-it-changed-my-attitude-to-sex-20250606-p5m5im.html

I began to see the sheer breadth of people seeking connection — and the assumptions I’d internalised about desire, age, ability, and worth started to unravel. I spoke to clients in their 20s and clients in their 80s. One elderly gentleman in a wheelchair had his adult daughter arrange the booking for him. Another, a middle-aged man with motor neurone disease, needed help with logistics, but still sought intimacy. A respected psychiatrist would ask for “absolutely no talking”. A retiree just wanted to be cuddled and told that everything was going to be okay. Some requested elaborate fantasies. Others asked for nothing more than to feel normal – seen, desired, held.

It was, frankly, beautiful. And confronting. Because it shattered something I’d long believed: that only certain people get to be sexual. That desire is reserved for the abled, the attractive, the young. That illness cancels it out.

Fucking hell, 91 people in Australia deserve to be hung. Thieves on a monsterous scale.

Also lmao surgeons, always crying poor and saying they have no choice but to charge so much. Actually fuck yourself.

From WikiPedia:

The Jervis Bay Territory (/ˈdʒɜːrvɪs, ˈdʒɑːr-/; "JBT") is an internal territory of Australia. It was established in 1915 by the transfer of jurisdiction from the state of New South Wales to the federal Commonwealth of Australia, in order to give the federal government control of a port in the vicinity of the landlocked Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

I am 45 and did not know this until today when for some reason Jervis Bay Territory was printed in a select option along with the other Australian states and territories.

Thirty years after they were thrown into an Adelaide prison for public nudity, legendary French street artists Ilotopie returned to the scene of the crime — as nude, and as proud, as ever.

Journalist Antoinette Lattouf was awarded A$70,000 and possibly more in damages after the public broadcaster wrongly dismissed her under Zionist lobby pressure for sharing a social media post critical of Israel's conduct  in Gaza, reports Joe Lauria.

Lattouf v. ABC ruling. Judge finds that Aust https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/24/australian-reporter-wins-suit-against-abc-over-anti-semitic-post/