Auspol September: The Canberra Clown Car

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Seagull: Oct 9, 2012; give me a chip

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Might be worth a look for a change.

Orbspider couldn't make it?

# ? Sep 9, 2014 14:32

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# ? Jun 15, 2024 04:20

Gough Suppressant: Nov 14, 2008

@mpwoodhead posted:

Fiona Nash visits Aboriginal Medical Service & tells them they need a price signal to discourage doctor visits http://t.co/lPirH1dReo

# ? Sep 9, 2014 14:40

ewe2: Jul 1, 2009

Crikey did something on student politics and fee deregulation.

quote:

Why aren't uni students jumping to the Left?

Education Minister Christopher Pyne has unveiled one of the most dramatic plans to reshape education in recent memory. Fee deregulation could mean today�s students could soon graduate with far more debt than they would have carried before the deregulation was announced.

Normally, student opposition to such measures would result in a leftward swing in student politics. But at both Melbourne University and the University of Adelaide, a confluence of factors have resulted in poorer-than-usual showings for the campus� Left factions.

For much of the past decade, the University of Adelaide�s student union has been reliably controlled by the Labor Left faction, ruling in alliance with a ticket of unaffiliated left-wing candidates. But this grouping has lost control of some of its most totemic positions to students affiliated with the Liberal Party. And at the University of Melbourne, control of the student presidency has passed for the first time in years to a candidate from the More Activities ticket, helped into the position by a popular candidate and preferences from the Labor Right and Socialist Alternative factions.

At the University of Adelaide Liberal Club, the mood is jubilant. �We see this as a big success,� a Liberal student pollie told Crikey. �Next year will see a big debate on education reform, and the students at Adelaide Uni are voting for Liberals.� As well as a spot on the union board, which controls the purse strings of the student union, the position of education officer also went to a Liberal student. The Liberals are also expected to win the position of women�s officer. Liberal ticket leader Robert Katsambis told Crikey the Left leadership of the union had failed to give students value for their memberships. His ticket campaigned on subsidised car parking, a doubling of the Student Representative Council's existing free breakfast program, and more parties for students.

Labor Left sources, however, were sceptical the Liberals' better showing had anything to do with their policies or with the failure of the current leadership, telling Crikey it was all about preference flows. The Libs, the Labor Right, and another ticket controlled by international students all fed preferences to each other, and they often didn�t even compete for the same positions. Meanwhile, the Labor Left ticket was hamstrung after Socialist Alternative candidates refused to send preferences its way. Crikey understands early attempts at negotiation with the Labor Right also broke down, leading Student Unity to endorse the Liberals instead. Labor Left student leaders are filthy at the Labor Right and Socialist Alternative tickets for refusing to deal (though both sides have different stories as to why negotiations fell apart), and are viewing the disastrous result as self-inflicted. The changes to education being mooted in Canberra didn�t lead to a higher-than-normal turnout -- but then, all tickets appeared to campaign predominantly on campus issues.

Meanwhile, at Melbourne, personality has played a bigger role than preference flows, with the student union presidency going to a non-Labor Left candidate for the first time in many years. While the political blocs at the university change their preference deals annually, this year a ticket calling itself �ignite� had candidates from both Labor Right, the clubs and activities faction and the Socialist Alternative, leaving Labor Left on its own. President-elect Rachel Withers, from the �ignite� ticket� told Crikey that most tickets weren�t focusing on federal politics in their campaigns but on how they would spend students� money collected through the student services and amenities fee. She says the lack of student engagement with the union is "depressing". Withers will need to work with mostly Left-aligned office bearers and a students' council (which controls spending) with a Labor Right majority next year . When asked about her own political leanings, Withers was coy, saying, �I really do find it irrelevant, I would never not want to run with someone because of their political beliefs."

�It's a student union, it's not federal politics -- I think it's important that everybody has student interests in mind, not their own. Your exact location on the Left-Rright spectrum doesn't matter that much.�

Withers is one of the current clubs and societies officers, after spending 2013 as president of the Melbourne Arts Students Society.

At Melbourne�s RMIT, where students are voting all this week, the university�s Liberal Club is running for the first time in recent memory, although Crikey is told the club is without a candidate for women�s officer. While the club had one woman willing to run, it couldn�t find another two women to nominate her so she could appear on the ballot. Candidate Anthony D�Angelo, who formed the university�s Liberal Club earlier this year, is also the Liberal candidate for the safe Labor seat of Northcote at the upcoming Victorian election.

At the Australian National University, which held its elections two weeks ago, turnout was significantly higher than in recent years. This could be because, as campus insiders told Crikey, student politicians at ANU were actively and visibly campaigning on the higher federal education changes. The number of candidates also increased -- last year one group scooped up many of the positions unopposed, but this year there were three tickets running. Crikey understands it was the most fiercely contested election since the student association began keeping records in 2002. However, ANU is a strange campus in that none of the tickets had any formal allegiances to any political party. Student rag Woroni reported that most voters didn�t appear to follow the tickets, instead voting for a mix of candidates of their own choosing. The final result was split three ways between the three tickets.

Most campuses are still waiting on their election results, or will be voting in coming weeks. But if early indicators are any guide, at a campus level, broader political issues rarely play out the way you�d expect them to.

The elephant in the room of course is over two decades of persistent chipping away at the value of student political power. UQ isn't mentioned in the article but I saw first hand how the Young Libs got themselves into power and systematically took down the Union back in the 80's. It's been downhill from there of course.

The background to all of this is the fear of a popular uprising by intelligent, committed non-politicians as was seen in the 70's with the Vietnam marches. The youth wings of both majors were enrolled to turn student unions and councils into safe, irrelevant play-pens for student politicians which is how they've essentially stayed since the 80's. The degree treadmill got rolling and fee deregulation is the final nail. No one will have time or money to ask questions or have opinions.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 14:53

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Haters Objector posted:

Can somebody explain to me how the hierarchy of bank ownership works in Australia? For example, why does Westpac own Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, St. George etc, and not just merge them into one, rather than have them all competing for business? Also why does our regulatory system allow the big four to buy all the other banks?

It's just a branding exercise. They don't "compete" with each other since they're geographically separate eg BoM is only in Victoria etc. Westpac also owns I think BT Financial which they also market separately. As far as I know they're one of the only banks in the world with this strategy.

It's more about brand loyalty and perception than anything else. The same reason Unilever has separate deodorant brands for men and women (Dove/Lynx) - they can simultaneously empower women and objectify them without looking hypocritical. If you don't think about marketing or branding that much (and most people don't, I have to for my job), you'll be surprised to learn that in most consumer goods markets, 80% of the brands are owned by the same few companies.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 14:57

Ler: Mar 23, 2005; I believe...

Last week there was an online poll for The Drum on the ABC website. It was spread liberally by many Greens and Labor supporters on #auspol Twitter for maximum attention.

The poll asked: How do you rate Tony Abbott�s first year as Prime Minister?

It was 4% pro Abbott after some 6000 votes, then suddenly there was about a huge influx of pro-Abbott votes, in the region of 5000 or so in about an hour, that figure kept increasing for some time after.

#auspol people spread it even more to break the bots increase. It went back to a more respectable 65% 'bad' to 34% 'good' after 24,500 votes when the bots stopped.

Someone wrote to The Drum and asked them to explain/amend the results or to take away the fraudulent bot votes. They actually did and this was the result.

Overall bad 91%
Overall good 7%
Somewhere in the middle 1%
Undecided 0%

They took away some 9000 bot votes.
An online poll obviously doesn't say much, most of the people who saw the poll got it from Twitter & I think Twitter is largely a progressive platform. But I guess what it does say, is that the pro-Liberals groups can't even allow an online poll to make them look bad.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 14:57

Gough Suppressant: Nov 14, 2008

Stop the bots

# ? Sep 9, 2014 15:02

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

Cam Smith, FightDemBack's old Melb rep just wrote a pretty drat funny article for the Guardian on the Tony Abbot birther conspiracy.

Aaaand pranked the gently caress out of them in the process

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/show-us-your-citizenship-why-the-tony-abbott-birthers-want-to-believe

# ? Sep 9, 2014 15:03

ewe2: Jul 1, 2009

Ler posted:

They took away some 9000 bot votes.

An online poll obviously doesn't say much, most of the people who saw the poll got it from Twitter & I think Twitter is largely a progressive platform. But I guess what it does say, is that the pro-Liberals groups can't even allow an online poll to make them look bad.

Sure, but as long as they're obsessed with perception, that's a weakness. It's good that they're spending resources on this. Treating the electorate like a monolithic stupid blob will bite all of them in the end.

If you want to worry about something, worry that Twitter wants to further monetise their assets by changing their algorithm to be more "targeted". That level playing field goes away and it's just like Facebook.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 15:10

Megillah Gorilla: Sep 22, 2003; If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.; Bread Liar

webmeister posted:

It's just a branding exercise. They don't "compete" with each other since they're geographically separate eg BoM is only in Victoria etc. Westpac also owns I think BT Financial which they also market separately. As far as I know they're one of the only banks in the world with this strategy.

It's more about brand loyalty and perception than anything else. The same reason Unilever has separate deodorant brands for men and women (Dove/Lynx) - they can simultaneously empower women and objectify them without looking hypocritical. If you don't think about marketing or branding that much (and most people don't, I have to for my job), you'll be surprised to learn that in most consumer goods markets, 80% of the brands are owned by the same few companies.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 16:25

CATTASTIC: Mar 31, 2010; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So is Mars a good company, or do I have to stop eating Wiskas?

# ? Sep 10, 2014 00:24

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

In University we had a case study that said the Mars brothers were basically giant loving assholes to everyone who worked there, but I dunno how true that was.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 00:35

open24hours: Jan 7, 2001

ewe2 posted:

Crikey did something on student politics and fee deregulation.

The elephant in the room of course is over two decades of persistent chipping away at the value of student political power. UQ isn't mentioned in the article but I saw first hand how the Young Libs got themselves into power and systematically took down the Union back in the 80's. It's been downhill from there of course.

The background to all of this is the fear of a popular uprising by intelligent, committed non-politicians as was seen in the 70's with the Vietnam marches. The youth wings of both majors were enrolled to turn student unions and councils into safe, irrelevant play-pens for student politicians which is how they've essentially stayed since the 80's. The degree treadmill got rolling and fee deregulation is the final nail. No one will have time or money to ask questions or have opinions.

Students and young people in general are also surprisingly conservative. The idea that things will get better when the boomers die off is a pipe dream.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 00:46

Arcanen: Dec 19, 2005

open24hours posted:

Students and young people in general are also surprisingly conservative. The idea that things will get better when the boomers die off is a pipe dream.

The reason that student politics don't swing to the left is that no one gives a gently caress about student politics except people who want to be career politians, and these people skew to the right. Students and young people in general are far more liberal than their older counterparts, they are just apathetic and so don't really bother voting in student politics.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 00:49

Splode: Jun 18, 2013; put some clothes on you little freak

Shakugan posted:

The reason that student politics don't swing to the left is that no one gives a gently caress about student politics except people who want to be career politians, and these people skew to the right. Students and young people in general are far more liberal than their older counterparts, they are just apathetic and so don't really bother voting in student politics.

This had been my experience. UTS student election campaigns tend to be first in best dressed. Everyone votes for whoever hassles you in the bar first so they can tell everyone else 'sorry, already voted' and then go back to drinking.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 00:54

Ol Sweepy: Nov 28, 2005; Safety First

Palmersaurus posted:

So is Mars a good company, or do I have to stop eating Wiskas?

Pretty sure they were sourcing cocoa beans from West African child labour until very recently.

Edit: Nestle too.

Edit: I've just done a bit of reading on all the companies... Just don't buy anything from anyone ever.

Ol Sweepy fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Sep 10, 2014

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:08

Drugs: Jul 16, 2010; I don't like people who take drugs. Customs agents, for example - Albert Einstein

I would consider myself heavily interested and emotionally invested in politics but I did not once vote in a student election because all the candidates from all sides were power hungry assholes who either wanted the uni to be their own personal fiefdom or wanted something to pad their resume when the next safe house of reps seat becomes available

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:23

Drugs: Jul 16, 2010; I don't like people who take drugs. Customs agents, for example - Albert Einstein

quote:

At Melbourne�s RMIT, where students are voting all this week, the university�s Liberal Club is running for the first time in recent memory, although Crikey is told the club is without a candidate for women�s officer. While the club had one woman willing to run, it couldn�t find another two women to nominate her so she could appear on the ballot.

This is hilarious

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:24

T-1000: Mar 28, 2010

Shakugan posted:

The reason that student politics don't swing to the left is that no one gives a gently caress about student politics except people who want to be career politians, and these people skew to the right. Students and young people in general are far more liberal than their older counterparts, they are just apathetic and so don't really bother voting in student politics.

Yep. Voter turnout is something like 10% i.e. the only people voting are the ones running, the ones harassing everyone else to vote and their close friends.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:31

CATTASTIC: Mar 31, 2010; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bompacho posted:

Pretty sure they were sourcing cocoa beans from West African child labour until very recently.

Edit: Nestle too.

Nestle's also the one who promote their powdered baby milk over breast milk in developing countries.
Lack of sanitation/education lead to people mixing it with unclean water and babies getting sick/dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_issue

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:33

Ol Sweepy: Nov 28, 2005; Safety First

T-1000 posted:

Yep. Voter turnout is something like 10% i.e. the only people voting are the ones running, the ones harassing everyone else to vote and their close friends.

Yeah I think I have mentioned in here before that some tactics that shitheels tried to use with me in the library were:
"If you just vote for X/sign this, I'll go away and leave you alone".
"Sign here, we are petitioning for more student study areas (Actual document titled differently)"
"What, you don't care what happens at your Uni? That's pretty loving stupid, you should just vote for X anyway"

Way to win over your constituents guys.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:41

Gough Suppressant: Nov 14, 2008

Ugggggh it's loving student elections this week at campus.

The two main tickets appear to be

Stop Abbotts attack on students, support Palestine, attack discrimination on campus

Vs

Free breakfast, BBQ and beer

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:44

Gough Suppressant: Nov 14, 2008

Oh and then there is the RULC because they sure as gently caress aren't putting Liberal on their tshirts

Edit: free Palestine is I believe young greens and free breakfast is young labor

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:46

T-1000: Mar 28, 2010

I don't really get why student elections become about supporting refugees and Palestine. They might be good things but those are not the services I expect of a university student union.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:02

Drugs: Jul 16, 2010; I don't like people who take drugs. Customs agents, for example - Albert Einstein

Gough Suppressant posted:

Oh and then there is the RULC because they sure as gently caress aren't putting Liberal on their tshirts

Edit: free Palestine is I believe young greens and free breakfast is young labor

Progressive Focus is a rainbow alliance of greens, trots, and unaffiliated lefties who never win anything for the reason that T-1000 has pointed out

E: Apparently Progressive Focus changed their name to Stand Up this year

Drugs fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Sep 10, 2014

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:08

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Gough Suppressant posted:

Ugggggh it's loving student elections this week at campus.

The two main tickets appear to be

Stop Abbotts attack on students, support Palestine, attack discrimination on campus

Vs

Free breakfast, BBQ and beer

Vote for the second ones because hopefully when they take power they will mandate a sausage sizzle for every voting booth in the federal election.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:09

Eediot Jedi: Dec 25, 2007; This is where I begin to speculate what being a
man of my word costs me

T-1000 posted:

I don't really get why student elections become about supporting refugees and Palestine. They might be good things but those are not the services I expect of a university student union.

It's not really a new development. During the Vietnam war, there were care packages sent to the Viet Cong from australian universities.

source: my sketchy memory.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:12

Doctor Spaceman: Jul 6, 2010; "Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."

Plot idea for an Australian House of Cards: popular, hard-working deputy who has previously avoided leadership contests arranges sidelining of Treasurer through key leaks making him look rich and out of touch. After proving herself in a foreign affairs situation that Australia has no real involvement in, she eases the PM out by surreptitiously revealing that he is still a British citizen, and takes over in the interest of party unity.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:25

Senor Tron: May 26, 2006

It's one of the things I remember from my Adelaide Uni days when SHY was in student politics. There was a massive focus on things like organising trips to refugee centres, Causes I full agree with, but outside what should be the focus of a university student union, and the type of political action that contributed to the Howard government going after and gutting student unions.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:28

Tokamak: Dec 22, 2004

Palmersaurus posted:

So is Mars a good company, or do I have to stop eating Wiskas?

What does your heart tell you? Basically any large multinational is guilty of loving over a lot of people. Once a company gets to that size, companies start loving with worker rights, farmers, factory conditions, the environment etc. Because the savings you make at scale far exceed the potential lawsuits, hit to reputation etc.

Look at Apple, everyone's clamouring for their new products today, they couldn't keep a live stream up, yet they are responsible for some very lovely labour practices (at both the factory and programmer end of things). It's also why (despite the overly conspiratorial tone) Monsanto and pharmaceutical companies are bad, they do shady poo poo in search of higher profits. Hell you don't even need to be multinational, look at Coles and Woolworths.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:28

BloatedCorpse: May 11, 2005; Downstairs

Nelson Mandela wrote in The Long Walk to Freedom that it was very good for his morale while he was in prison when he found out that he'd been elected president of the Oxford University Student Union in absentia.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 02:53

NPR Journalizard: Feb 14, 2008

Palmersaurus posted:

So is Mars a good company, or do I have to stop eating Wiskas?

When in doubt choose the one that was made in Australia from Australian products. Most of our laws aren't poo poo and there is minimal child labour around for now.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 03:00

Anidav: Feb 25, 2010; ahhh fuck its the rats again

Just had a friend back out on me in helping getting a job at Coles.

He said "looking at the current roster I just can't picture it getting any more crowded and I'm already down to three shifts a week".

But bros before shifts, right?

# ? Sep 10, 2014 03:24

Nibbles!: Jun 26, 2008; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

make australia great again as well please

Palmersaurus posted:

Nestle's also the one who promote their powdered baby milk over breast milk in developing countries.
Lack of sanitation/education lead to people mixing it with unclean water and babies getting sick/dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_issue

Wasn't it Nestle who said water shouldn't be some right and companies should be able to buy up reserves?

# ? Sep 10, 2014 04:15

WhiskeyWhiskers: Oct 14, 2013; "هذا ليس عادلاً."
"هذا ليس عادلاً على الإطلاق."
"كان هناك وقت الآن."
(السياق الخفي: للقراءة)

Nibbles! posted:

Wasn't it Nestle who said water shouldn't be some right and companies should be able to buy up reserves?

Yeah that was them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C29_U0Ksao

# ? Sep 10, 2014 05:14

Small Keating: Dec 24, 2012; That you, Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a fucking dictionary when you were about 15 doesn't give you the right to pour a bucket of shit over the rest of us.

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

Yeah that was them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C29_U0Ksao

They deny it, of course.

http://www.nestle.com/aboutus/ask-nestle/answers/nestle-chairman-peter-brabeck-letmathe-believes-water-is-a-human-right

# ? Sep 10, 2014 05:17

gay picnic defence: Oct 5, 2009; I'M CONCERNED ABOUT A NUMBER OF THINGS

ewe2 posted:

The elephant in the room of course is over two decades of persistent chipping away at the value of student political power. UQ isn't mentioned in the article but I saw first hand how the Young Libs got themselves into power and systematically took down the Union back in the 80's. It's been downhill from there of course.

The background to all of this is the fear of a popular uprising by intelligent, committed non-politicians as was seen in the 70's with the Vietnam marches. The youth wings of both majors were enrolled to turn student unions and councils into safe, irrelevant play-pens for student politicians which is how they've essentially stayed since the 80's. The degree treadmill got rolling and fee deregulation is the final nail. No one will have time or money to ask questions or have opinions.

Any ideas on how these changes could be wound back?

open24hours posted:

Students and young people in general are also surprisingly conservative. The idea that things will get better when the boomers die off is a pipe dream.

I think it's more that they are uninformed, which creates the impression of conservatism. I reckon when they are shown the facts they take a compassionate stance on issues but they have to have that poo poo literally rammed down their throats because no one bothers to actually learn stuff these days.

That and the only visible student political action on campus these days seems to be slightly deranged and unwashed looking trots shouting incoherently into their megaphone or interrupting lectures to advertise some 'emergency day of action', not something most young people these days particularly identify with or want to be a part of.

Gough Suppressant posted:

Ugggggh it's loving student elections this week at campus.

The two main tickets appear to be

Stop Abbotts attack on students, support Palestine, attack discrimination on campus

Vs

Free breakfast, BBQ and beer

I can choose between 'Activate' and 'Stand up', plus a few minor groups like 'Free Beer', 'Free Carparking' and 'Free Palestine'.
I have no idea which Young Whatevers are backing each of the groups, they all just look like your generic student politicians to me.

Also apparently one of our trots is getting expelled for assaulting a woman who didn't vote for a resolution against Israel in some student council thing. I could be wrong but as far as I know the women wasn't even a Zionist, just didn't think the SRC meeting was an appropriate place for geo-politics. Anyway, the trots have put up posters everywhere blaming Pyne for this guy getting expelled.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 05:22

Doctor Spaceman: Jul 6, 2010; "Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."

So The Union Royal Commission is investigating Julia Gillard's bathroom.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 05:33

Small Keating: Dec 24, 2012; That you, Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a fucking dictionary when you were about 15 doesn't give you the right to pour a bucket of shit over the rest of us.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

So The Union Royal Commission is investigating Julia Gillard's bathroom.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 05:34

webmeister: Jan 31, 2007; The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Frogmanv2 posted:

When in doubt choose the one that was made in Australia from Australian products. Most of our laws aren't poo poo and there is minimal child labour around for now.

That's fair enough, but it's still counter-productive if the profits from your purchases are going to transnationals who hide their profits in overseas tax havens and exploit the gently caress out of the third world anyway.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 05:35

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 15, 2024 04:20

Mad Katter: Aug 23, 2010; STOP THE BATS

Nauru is running out of water.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/nauru-detention-centres-running-out-of-water-emails-reveal

quote:

Detention centres on Nauru are experiencing serious water shortages and reserve supplies may run out, emails seen by Guardian Australia show.

Water restrictions are in place at the island�s three detention centres and one of the resettlement accommodation blocks, with managers concerned they may be unable to immediately replenish stocks for water tanks used throughout the network.

�We are currently nearly out of water,� says an email sent by the Transfield operations manager on Nauru on Wednesday morning. It continues: �Due to recent outages at the DIBP RO (immigration department reverse osmosis facility) we have not been able to build up stock so have been slowly going backwards.�

The email notes that asylum seekers detained at OPC3 camp � which houses families, children, pregnant women and unaccompanied minors � will not have access to laundry �except for emergency�. At OPC2, where single adults males are detained in two camps, there is no access to showers.

Guardian Australia understands that the two water tanks in OPC3 will run dry in eight hours if not replenished and four hours in OPC2. Drinking water is understood to be bottled and unaffected by the shortage.

The emails warn that Transfield is attempting to get water from other suppliers on the island but resources are already stretched.

Managers are aiming to keep water supplies available at OPC1, where children are schooled.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 05:36

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