R.G.Menzies above

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Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

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31 August, 2018

Why your power bills are set to drop more than $400: New Energy Minister has 'one goal' for the job - and it's good news for consumers

Household energy bills could drop by as much as $400 under Federal Minister for Energy Angus Taylor's new plan. Mr Taylor set out his priorities before his first speech to parliament today after being sworn into the role.

He will outline the plan, which is focused around better competition, better reliability, a price safety net for consumers, and steps to end price gouging, at a small business summit in Sydney.  

'I'm focused on getting prices down while I keep the lights on. I've got one KPI. I've got one goal,' he told on The Australian on Thursday.

'At the end of the day, we just want to get prices down. We're not going to get ideological about it; we just want to get the outcome. It's very pragmatic,' he said.

Mr Taylor says reducing emissions in line with Paris Climate Agreement targets, which previous plans had said was needed to provide certainty to the industry, is not part of his brief.  'Frankly, I think there is some naivety in the idea that governments can largely eliminate uncertainty, or should even try,' Mr Taylor said.

The price safety net Mr Taylor wants to implement is based around the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's proposed default market price to replace unregulated standing offers, which could save households up to $416 a year and small businesses up to $1457.   

Mr Taylor takes charge of energy after it was broken off from the Environment portfolio by new PM Scott Morrison in a gesture signalling major market reform.

While working as a financial analyst for Port Jackson Partners in 2013, Mr Taylor authored a report that suggested the costs of electricity could be reduced by dropping the Renewable Energy Target. Speaking at an event in 2013, Mr Taylor said dropping subsidies for wind farms would cut energy bills by more than $3billion. Mr Taylor also argued emission targets could still be met and the savings could be up to $300 per household by 2020.

Energy and emissions targets have long been a dividing issue in party rooms with policies going as far back as the Rudd government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme failing to gain consensus.

The latest iteration of the policy, which Mr Turnbull called the National Energy Guarantee, was instrumental in his downfall because the conservative faction in the Liberal Party is staunchly opposed to the plan.

A key point was to legislate a reduction in emissions of 26 per cent, a number in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, but one critics said was pointless if big emitters did not follow suit.

As the new front bench was sworn in on Tuesday, Mr Morrison labelled Mr Taylor his 'most important minister'.

'A tough job, but an extremely important one that has a big impact on so many Australian households and businesses,' Mr Taylor tweeted of the appointment.

Many see Mr Taylor, who has a Master of Philosophy in Economics from Oxford University, as the man to bring sense to the debate.

'The problem with energy policy for years is it doesn't focus on the energy, it focuses on if you are in favour of coal, wind, solar or hydro,' Mr Taylor said. 'What we should be wanting is reliable, affordable power that brings down our emissions.'

The 'Minister for getting energy prices down' as the new PM labelled him when he announced his new front bench on Sunday, has long been a critic of rushing into a transition to renewable energy, particularly the wind farms being built in his electorate of Hume.

'The obsession with emissions at the expense of reliability and affordability has been a massive mistake,' he told radio shock jock Ray Hadley two weeks ago.  

SOURCE 






'Would they do this if he was Muslim?' The ABC is slammed for using taxpayer dollars to mock Scott Morrison's Christian faith in axed comedy show

The ABC has been slammed after its comedy show Tonightly with Tom Ballard targeted new Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Christian faith.

The skit, performed on Monday night by comedians Bridie Connell and Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd, tried to connect the nation's refugee policy to Mr Morrison's religious beliefs.

A song by the duo, who dubbed themselves the 'Shadow Ministers', featured lyrics such as: 'ScoMo is under the spell of Jesus' charm, and kids are under safety watch for self-harm.'

Other controversial lyrics included: 'We love Jesus, Jesus, but not refugee-us' and 'to do what pleases Jesus, deny them all visas.'

Mr Morrison is Australia's first Pentecostal Prime Minister, and vowed in December last year to fight back against discrimination and mockery of religious groups. In his maiden speech, he said: 'My personal faith in Jesus Christ is not a political agenda.'

However, some have been quick to use it against him.

Many on social media were quick to defend the new Prime Minister, who is less than a week into his term.

On a Facebook response to the Tonightly act, one wrote: 'This is abhorrent editorial garbage. Completely disrespecting the views of many Australians and faith.' 'Would they do this if he was a Muslim?' another asked.

Their sentiment was seconded by Peter Kurti from the Centre for independent Studies.

'The show would probably not mock the ­religious beliefs of Ed Husic, Islam, or Josh Frydenberg, Judaism,' he said, the Daily Telegraph reported.

NSW opposition education spokesman, Jihad Dib said: 'I think once it gets into a personal issue about someone's faith … then I think we're going down the wrong path.'

According to the Daily Telegraph, an ABC spokesman defended Tonightly, saying it regularly satirised 'people in positions of authority, regardless of their race, gender or religious beliefs'.

Tonightly was earlier cancelled after two seasons, with its final show scheduled for September 7.

'Tonightly deliberately pushed boundaries to inform and entertain,' an ABC spokesperson said.

SOURCE 





Leftist hot air in Victoria

AN UNDERGROUND rail network billed as the "biggest project in state history" has Melburnians talking about its one big flaw.

IT’S slaps on the back, high fives and "job well done" at the Victorian Premier’s office this morning after arguably his biggest announcement since taking the state’s top job.

Daniel Andrews shocked the electorate and shook up the race ahead of November’s state election with plans to build a $50 billion underground rail network to revolutionise the way Melburnians travel.

The plan, dubbed Victoria’s "biggest public transport project in history", would include 90 kilometres of new trackwork, 12 new stations and an airport link.

Importantly, it would cut out the need for travel from suburban centres through the city before connecting to other lines — a longstanding bugbear for commuters.

But hold the applause. There’s a giant criticism befitting a project of this magnitude: It’s going to take way too long to build.

Mr Andrews said commuters could expect to take a ride on the proposed line by the middle of the century. Yep, 2050.

Victorians waiting for a faster train trip will have to wait 32 years.

Provided the Labor Party is reinstated in November, work still won’t begin until 2022 at the earliest, just in time for the next state election.

"It’s a fantastic idea, but running 20 years late," a reader told news.com.au. Others shared that sentiment.

"Many will be dead before it’s built," a reader wrote.

"Thirty years is a long time for disruptive technologies to emerge that have the possibility of making this obsolete," another wrote.

The state’s public transport minister Jacinta Allan tried to quell concerns that the project would be outdated by the time the first train departs.

"2050 is not that far off," she said. "These big projects take time."

The state opposition lashed the announcement, labelling it "a plan for the next generation".

"At the moment, the Andrews Labor Government can’t say how much it will cost, how it will be funded or when it will be finished," the Liberal Nationals said in a statement.

"They have no business case, no engineers report and they won’t rule out more sky rail across Melbourne."

The Suburban Rail Loop is still in its early planning stage, so it’s normal for some details to remain guarded.

What we know so far is that it would link every major train line in Melbourne and carry an estimated 400,000 passengers every day.

The loop would start near Cheltenham in Victoria’s southeast and travel all the way to Werribee, 32 kilometres south west of the Melbourne CBD.

The loop would link through new stations at Clayton, Monash, Burwood, Glen Waverley, Box Hill, Doncaster, Heidelberg, Bundoora, Reservoir, Fawkner, Broadmeadows, Sunshine and Melbourne Airport.

"The suburban rail loop includes connections to major jobs precincts, universities and TAFEs, hospitals and retail centres," a promotional video released on Tuesday explains.

"When complete, it will … take thousands of existing passengers off city-bound trains and 200,000 vehicles off congested roads."

Mr Andrews revealed little when making the announcement on his Facebook page.

"We’ll build an underground suburban rail loop connecting Melbourne’s train lines," he wrote.

"It will get you where you need to go, wherever you live — and that’s what our growing state needs."

But he later delivered more detail at a press conference in Box Hill. He said the government had committed $300 million and that "all the geotechnical work, engineering, design and planning will be done beginning first thing next year".

He said construction will be underway in 2022 "if not sooner, if we can manage it" and the first stage of the project will be to build the 25 kilometre line between Cheltenham to Box Hill.

"We’ve spent the last 12 months … doing the hard work to determine whether this project makes sense," he said.

"Does it actually stack up? The answer is yes, it does."

The public response was fast and mostly favourable.

"Mind blown," one commenter wrote below the announcement.

"About time … we shouldn’t need to travel into the city before we travel to outer suburbs," another wrote.

However, some were sceptical.

"Dan … the pigs flying past the window are screaming ‘Tell ‘em they’re dreaming’. This will never happen," one wrote.

One said it was a "great idea" but "kind of seems like a pipe dream" and another said it will be the "most expensive white elephant since NBN".

Mr Andrews responded: "This is happening. It won’t be finished overnight, but I promise you this: we will start it."

Ms Allan said the project was required to meet the demands of the city’s booming population. It’s expected 8 million people will call Melbourne home by the time the project is complete.

Public transport is expected to be a major battleground at the state’s November election. Earlier this year, the government revealed futuristic metro station concept designs for the state’s $11 billion Metro Tunnel project.

That project includes new stations at North Melbourne, Parkville, Royal Melbourne Hospital, State Library, Town Hall and Anzac.

Construction is well underway on that project with the Metro Tunnel and it’s new stations expected to open to passengers in 2025.

SOURCE 





Sudanese mother and son who were stealing $440,000 a WEEK from taxpayers at height of childcare scam are jailed over $6M fraud

Another example of how Africans thank you for helping them

A South Sudanese mother and son defrauded the Australian government of $440,000 a week at the height of a childcare scam that pocketed them $6million dollars.

Rosa Riak and Kuol Deng were both sentenced to four years in jail at Melbourne County Court on Wednesday for making false subsidy claims through different childcare businesses.

Riak's daughter Achai Deng was also sentenced to 18 months in jail, but released immediately on a good behavior bond.

The court heard claims were made for children who were never cared for at their centres - with some of the staff abroad or in a different state at the time.

One business claimed just $45,000 over 12 months before being bought by the Deng's - but in the next year claimed $6.2million.

Justic McInerney said $950,000 of that amount had been falsely claimed.

Deng spent $165,000 on a Range Rover, and asked his mother where he should store $80,000 in cash - according to Channel 7.

The trio told the court they were 'ashamed' for defrauding the country which gave them citizenship in 2006. They had fled from a Kenyan refugee camp in 2004.

According to The Australian, the judge said Deng had called investigators 'stupid' and indicated they weren't smart enough to catch them.

He said: 'Your community has undergone unjustified vilification in recent times - you have added to the trauma your community must endure.

Justic McInerney also criticised the Commonwealth Department of Education - questioning how Deng and his sister were able to start various businesses after a previous one had been closed.

SOURCE 






National educational testing under attack because it exposes the truth

The latest skirmish in the never-ending war against NAPLAN is being fought on the grounds of "comparability". According to American consultants commissioned by the NSW Teachers’ Federation, this year’s NAPLAN results "should be discarded" because around 20 per cent of students completed NAPLAN online while the rest used paper and pencil. The consultants claim that "enormous" differences between the two test formats make any comparison between them misleading.

Curiously, the offshore consultants reached their conclusion without any reference to the 2018 NAPLAN results. Instead, they relied on a few studies of other tests, including some 30-year-old ones — what sort of computers were around then? — their own opinions, and some gratuitous comments about the incompetence of Australian statisticians.

The consultants’ report is riddled with errors. Despite the report’s claims to the contrary, students sitting the online test can in fact go back to review and change answers to previous questions. More importantly, there are numerous examples of large-scale assessments like NAPLAN that have been able to draw valid comparisons between online and paper results. These include the Program for International Assessment, or PISA, and the Trends in International and Science Study, or TIMMS.

ACARA has now released this year’s results and they clearly show that the online and paper and pencil tests are indeed comparable.

This does not mean that the paper and pencil and the online test are identical — they are different — but they are comparable because both measure the same underlying skills: numeracy and literacy. Comparing NAPLAN scores across testing modes — or across years, for that matter — is like comparing length using centimetres and inches. They are different, but they can be compared because they both measure the same thing (length).

As it turns out, there was a difference between the paper and pencil and the online version of NAPLAN, but it was not one that the union’s consultants predicted. Based on a 1992 study, the consultants claimed that typewritten essays receive lower marks than handwritten ones. The year 9 NAPLAN results showed just the opposite — students who completed their writing tests online scored higher on the average than those who wrote by hand. This result reflects older students’ experience with writing on computers and the ease with which computer writing can be reviewed and edited.

The ability to write clearly is a vital skill; it is essential to success in practically all lines of work, yet this year’s NAPLAN results show that writing scores are at their lowest level since NAPLAN testing began. Because students are more likely to review and edit their work when writing on a computer, online writing has the potential to improve both instruction and assessment. Instead of criticising word processing and online writing, we should be harnessing this technology to improve writing skills.

The online version of NAPLAN offers numerous benefits. Results will be available much earlier in the school year to facilitate earlier intervention, and they will also be more precise. In contrast to the present one-size-fits-all paper test, NAPLAN online is tailored to the abilities of each student. Teachers receive a more precise picture of each student’s strengths and weaknesses. Also, for the first time, NAPLAN will be able to be tailored to the individual needs of students with disabilities.

Like the legendary Rorschach inkblots used by psychiatrists, NAPLAN elicits radically divergent responses from different observers. Depending on whom you ask, the tests are too short, too long, too soft, too difficult, too narrow, too broad, too frequent or too rare. And now we are told that they cannot be compared. None of this is true.

NAPLAN exposes the truth. This year it exposed a persistent lack of improvement in writing in the 10 years since the assessment started, with one in five Year 9 students failing to achieve the minimum benchmark. Without NAPLAN we would be in the dark about these parlous education outcomes, which risks seeing our students continue to fail.

NAPLAN holds teachers, principals, schools and governments accountable. And it ensures the transparency of education results — allowing parents to be well informed. Many people find this uncomfortable, so they attack the assessment using every argument that they can mount.

It is time for parents, policymakers, and community leaders to make their voices heard. This battle will likely not be the last skirmish in the war on NAPLAN. But if the battalions that are attacking NAPLAN win, it is our students who will lose.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here




30 August, 2018

You CAN write at length and yet still tell only half the story



Under the heading "It’s OK To Be Right, But Careful What You Wish For Lauren Southern" there is an article in the far-left "New Matilda" by Dr Petra Bueskens, a Melbourne feminist, who offers several criticisms of Lauren Southern.  Her article is very long-winded, like most offerings in New Matilda, but I will try to pick out a few salient passages to reproduce below.

She has obviously been collecting for a long time examples of female assertiveness going well back into history and she spends a lot of time giving us those examples.  She uses those examples to claim that feminism is not a new thing and that it has always been influential in the development of Western civilization.

But there are two problems with that. The examples she gives are NOT representative examples of thinking in those times so any influence they had is purely conjectural.  The second problem is that she assumes that her feminine protesters in the past were similar to feminists today. I would argue that they are a totally different ilk.

Female protest througout history was protesting about formal rules and customs that limited the opportunities for women to show all their talents.  They protested discrimination against women.  Modern-day feminists are not like that.  They achieved equal opportunities long ago.  Testimony to that is the fact that there are now more female graduates than male coming out of our universities.

So modern day feminsts, having overcome discrimination, now discriminate against men.  They want equal numbers of males and females in all walks of life and are not at all slow to discriminate against men to achieve that.  If there is, for instance, a vacancy on a company board, feminists clamour for a female to be appointed, even if there is a male available who is better qualified for the post.  It is now males who are denied opportunities to show all their talents. Females are a privileged caste.

So modern-day feminists are hateful bigots.  And that is what Lauren protests about.  Dr Bueskens says Lauren cuts her nose off to spite her face when she criticizes feminists.  She does not.  She simply dissasociates herself from a gang of angry Harpies.  Females do perfectly well without the "assistance" of female haters.

And the follies go on.  Dr Bueskens says that the emergence of successful colonial societies such as Canada and Australia proves that multiculturalism is a good thing. It does not.  It proves that SOME immigrants can form an integrated society.  But that was never in question.  What disturbs many conservatives is that all immigrants are not equal and that some immigrants -- mainly Africans and Muslims -- just create problems for society while contributing little that is positive.  A big majority in the two groups mentioned are welfare dependent so do not even contribute their labour.

All men are NOT born equal nor are all immigrants . And all societies that I know of have criteria for who can be admitted and who cannot.  So Lauren is not going far in arguing that "indigestible" groups should be excluded where possible and their influence minimized.

Dr Bueskens sees Lauren only though the lens of her conventional Leftist prejudices, blindnesses, and contestable assumptions and therefore misses the real person.  I could go on to challenge more of her assertions but I am  in no doubt that I will never be able to clean out the Augean stables. But I think I have shown that, despite her lengthy article, she leaves out a lot of the relevant arguments and considerations. 


Southern arrived in Australia wearing an ‘It’s okay to be white’ t-shirt, designed purely to stir controversy and point out what she identifies as an asymmetrical discourse on race. Her core message on this tour is that "multiculturalism doesn’t work", with little attention to the fact that colonial settler societies like Australia (like her home country of Canada) were built on immigration.

One of the key platforms of Southern’s videos is that the discourse of "political correctness" has become an orthodoxy shutting down free speech, and that the left should respond with ideas and debate rather than with protest, aggression, public take-downs and no-platforming. On this we can agree!

It is something the globally famous intellectual Jordan Peterson has forcefully put on the map in the last two years. However, I invoke Peterson not because of his position on free speech or because, like Southern, he is a "darling of the alt-right", rather it is to point out something he often says about people at the very beginning of adulthood: you know nothing!  While I am not in full agreement with him on this (I have a daughter Southern’s age), it is clear, for all her defensive protestations, she knows nothing about the history of "western civilization" and nor, for that matter, do Peterson or Molyneux if they cannot see feminism as an integral part of it. 

From Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies to the Querelle de Femme, from Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies to Mary Wollstoncraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, from the bluestockings to the fight for the Married Women’s Property Acts, from the Seneca Falls Convention to J.S. Mill and Harriet Taylor’s The Subjection of Women, from the suffrage movement and the New Woman to Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex; from Betty Friedan’s ‘problem with no name’ to Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch we have the clear articulation of a feminist voice invested in reason and rights that is the very epitome of free speech marshalled against the prevailing orthodoxy.

In Southern’s infinite wisdom – though here she is following the ignorance that characterises the alt-right’s approach to feminism – she assumes that feminism had nothing to do with the creation of "the west", by which she is mostly referring to the transformations in society and culture associated with the European Enlightenment. In fact feminism was an integral and defining voice! You weren’t anybody unless you were invited to Madame de Staël’s salon and all the well-known philosophes, with the notable exception of Rousseau, were "feminists" (though this of course was not a term in use at the time).

The other assumption – again commonplace on the right – is that feminism is anti-rationality and illiberal. This is patently absurd since it was the desire to have "Woman right" (as it was then called) and the vote enshrined in law that was central to early modern feminist campaigns, as was the desire to own property, including property in the person, and enjoy equal civil rights. 

It is interesting to me that Canada is producing so many of these social media stars: people who were once on the left or saw themselves as liberals and have now undergone a YouTube conversion and seen the alt-right light  – Jordan Peterson, Janice Fiamengo, Lindsay Shepherd and Karen Straughan, as well as more established stars such as Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux. In the US there is Sam, Harris, Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro and, more recently, Candace Owens.  The so-called "intellectual dark web" of left-to-right converts (as well as left-to-critical left converts) is growing apace.

In any event, the twist in this narrative is that with the institutionalisation of progressive agendas, the new right emerge as the "radicals", the one’s "shaking the joint up".  Conversely, those shutting down free speech, the supposed progressives, become the face of the establishment, the arbiters of what is and what is not allowed to be said.  Hence the concerns – that I too share – about the left’s more recent propensity to shut down free speech on contentious issues.

SOURCE 





New immigrants will be forced to settle in regional areas for FIVE YEARS under plans to stop all foreigners moving to Sydney and Melbourne

New immigrants would be forced to settle in regional areas instead of metropolitan cities for up to five years under a federal plan to ease congestion in Melbourne and Sydney.

A decision on the time period for mandatory settlement was due to go to the Turnbull cabinet last week, but the leadership spill put that discussion on hold, The Australian reported on Wednesday.

The proposal has yet to be put to Scott Morrison's new cabinet, and the prime minister's office would not comment on the development of the policy.

It is understood a new visa class would apply to the skilled and family migration program but could also apply to refugees.

Almost 90 per cent of new migrants are settling in metropolitan areas such as Melbourne and Sydney.
Video playing bottom right...

A population package put before Government before last week's leadership spill included the proposal for new migrants to be settled in regional areas for a period of up to five years - after this migrants could choose to relocate.

The newly appointed PM has created a separate portfolio of population to be lead by former Citizenship Minister Alan Tudge.

Department of Home Affairs figures revealed by The Australian showed that of the 112,000 skilled migrants that arrived in the country over the previous financial year, 87 per cent settled permanently in Sydney and Melbourne.

Mr Tudge has previously said that the number of incoming migrants was not the only factor in growing population pressures, but rather where these migrants were settling and the distribution being focused in major cities.

'If the population was distributed more evenly, there would not be the congestion pressures that we have today in Melbourne and Sydney,' Mr Tudge told a forum in Melbourne. 'Nor would there be if the ­infrastructure was built ahead of demand,' he said.

 SOURCE 






It was climate policy that sank PM Turnbull

Turnbull was a Global Warming believer.  Most of his party were not

Chris Kenny

Readers of The Australian will not have been surprised that Malcolm Turnbull ran into internal strife over climate and energy policy. The media voices Turnbull and his supporters blame for fuelling moves against him surely were the ones warning him. His handicap was not in having critics but in ­ignoring them.

Political commentary is abuzz as journalists, especially from the public broadcasters, offer the absurd proposition that this crisis was about nothing, came out of nowhere and failed because Peter Dutton, the original challenger, didn’t get the leadership.

As with any leadership coup, a range of factors was at play, including resentment, ego, polling and ambition. Turnbull failed the Newspoll test he set, making him vulnerable from the day he lost his 30th in a row. The Longman by-election, where a Liberal National Party primary vote below 30 per cent put the fear of obliteration into Queensland MPs, supercharged anxieties.

All the while, Tony Abbott and his loyalists had worn their sense of injustice like blue ties pulled too tight around their necks. With flushed faces and bursting veins, they were always going to erupt if an opportunity arose.

In this climate, Turnbull must have known he needed to avoid provocations. Yet he walked into this conflagration in the most predictable way. A party voted into office largely on a pledge to repeal costly carbon emissions reduction policy (axe the carbon tax), led by a man who previously had lost the leadership for trying to do a deal with Labor on climate policy and was trying to bed down another costly emissions reduction plan by striking a deal with Labor — this was ­always going to end in tears.

This is not hindsight. On radio, television and in the pages of The Australian, Turnbull was warned his national energy guarantee would test internal accommodations. The NEG was conceived in the wake of such a fright, almost two years ago, when environment and energy minister Josh Frydenberg floated an energy intensity scheme. Turnbull had to move quickly to repudiate it and reassure MPs.

Editorials in The Australian have long warned of potential disruption over the NEG. "The prime minister and his team must act decisively to put solutions in place — which, to be fair, they are working towards — as they battle disunity within the Coalition on this issue," the paper said in April. In July concerns were raised about the leap of faith involved: "Regardless of the former prime minister’s personal motivation, it is alarming but true, as Mr Abbott said on Monday, that the Turnbull government will be relying on the support of Labor states to back its national energy guarantee at next month’s crucial COAG meeting."

Early this month I wrote that the Coalition was in dire strife and that "government MPs are torn between enjoying the ride as they go over the cliff and mustering the courage to do something about it". The main problem was obvious. "In a twist of self-harm difficult to believe given Turnbull’s history on the issue (in 2009 he lost the leadership over climate activism), the Coalition is shrinking from a ­potential contest with Labor over climate and energy; preferring to appease the gods of Paris rather than reclaiming the nation’s cheap energy mantle."

Turnbull’s media boosters at the ABC and elsewhere either didn’t see the looming problem or underestimated it because they supported the policy — wishful thinking. My columns were not informed by any plotting but, rather, assessments of policy and political trajectories. Given I worked for Turnbull when he lost the leadership in 2009 over climate policy, perhaps I was more sensitive to the dynamic. But a clutch of commentators was vigorously attacking the policy and Abbott and his backbench ally Craig Kelly were openly opposing it.

As far back as April 7, I wrote: "The prime minister has been given an opportunity to retreat in the name of common sense, economic sanity and political advantage. But he stands in a no man’s land of stranded coal assets and stored hydro schemes where he risks another insurrection on the same futile battleground."

Nine days before he called last week’s first spill, my column said Turnbull would "face open revolt over his national energy guarantee; the outstanding questions are how widespread it will be, whether it derails the policy and/or his prime ministership". A week later I wrote about the "climate and energy debate that is so volatile it could yet destroy Turnbull’s prime ministership and/or the Coalition government".

On that day this newspaper’s editorial warned: "Malcolm Turnbull needs a circuit-breaker to rescue his national energy guarantee, revive his government’s direction and protect his leadership … The Coalition was elected in 2013 largely on a promise to defend electricity prices from conceitful climate gestures. (Turnbull and Frydenberg) will abandon that policy and political ground at the grave peril of their own positions and that of the Coalition."

Turnbull and his cabinet persisted with the policy too long. Even after the Coalition partyroom approved it a fortnight ago, MPs’ concerns deepened as they realised Australia would become the only country to write the Paris targets into law. It became an issue of economic sovereignty.

The policy fell apart and on ­August 20 Turnbull effectively shelved it, saying he would not put the legislation to parliament, ostensibly because it wouldn’t pass but more likely because it might pass with Labor support while a dozen or more government MPs crossed the floor to oppose it.

Announcing this capitulation, the prime minister looked broken and a challenge suddenly appeared inevitable. Until a few days earlier, it had been all about changing the policy, not the leader. Now it would be both.

This week the ABC’s Media Watch portrayed the event as a media-driven panic. Host Paul Barry failed to mention the critical energy conflict that triggered the crisis or report the detailed warnings about Turnbull’s perilous path. Barry, in line with much of the gallery, drew other lessons that entirely missed the point. "Well, one is not to let a cabal of conservative commentators persuade the Liberal Party to do something the public hates — knifing an elected prime minister."

This is an extraordinary distortion. Media Watch argues loud ­voices antipathetic to Turnbull from the moment he seized the prime ministership from Abbott — Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, Peta Credlin, Ray Hadley and others — killed off a prime minister by spooking his party. Other commentators have promoted media conspiracy theories. This not only insults the MPs and grossly exaggerates the role of open and honest opinion, it also ignores the majority of media voices at the ABC, SBS, Fairfax Media, commercial TV and radio, online publications and many in News Corp papers who have been supportive of Turnbull and sympathetic to his energy and climate aims. Turnbull’s problem was not (admittedly aggressive and relentless) conservative commentators polluting the minds of his MPs but green-left journalists insulating him from reality.

SOURCE 






Australian student writing standards plummet to a new low: One in three Year 7 students are still learning to read and almost half of 15-year-olds need help to construct a sentence

Students have recorded the lowest ever scores since NAPLAN testing began - and the alarming slide has experts calling for urgent classroom reforms. 

The National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) are a series of basic skills tests given each year to Australian children.

A third of Year Seven students are still learning to read and almost half of 15-year-olds need help constructing sentences, according to this year's test scores.

A staggering 20 per cent of Year Nine students in New South Wales failed the writing test, the Daily Telegraph reported.

About 40 per cent of Year Nine students across the state need help from a teacher in putting a sentence together as they only just met the minimum standards for writing.

The performance of NSW students has been getting worse since 2011.

Writing results in Year Five and Year Seven were also below those when testing began.

Students who are unable to reach minimum standards - 22 per cent in NSW - may require 'additional assistance' from teachers, according to the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority.

Pete Goss of the think tank Grattan Institute said the results were disappointing, and added schools should be focusing strongly on teaching students how to write well.

'National benchmarks are not set very high and that's just not good enough,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

'In a typical to slightly disadvantaged secondary school, one-third of Year Seven students are still learning to read, they're reading at a Year Three or Four level,' he said.

University of Technology Sydney education professor Rosemary Johnston said the poor results were due to a lack of practice.

'I don’t think it matters if it is handwriting or written on a computer, we need children to read more and to write more, otherwise it is a skill that is going to be lost,' she told the Daily Telegraph.

Students are given a picture or phrase in NAPLAN tests and are asked to write a 'persuasive or narrative' text in 40 minutes, which is then marked against ten criteria including vocabulary, spelling and sentence structure.

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes defended the state's results, saying it performed above the national average when numeracy and reading were included.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






29 August, 2018

Release of NAPLAN 2018 summary information

I am not convinced that the improvement over base year is real.  Having "experts" say it is, is a laugh.  What about a proper validation test?

The NAPLAN summary results issued today include combined data for online and paper student cohorts.

"Overall, the NAPLAN results for 2018 show that since 2008 there have been statistically significant gains in a number of domains and year levels, particularly at the primary level," ACARA CEO, Robert Randall, said.

The national summary preliminary NAPLAN results for 2018 show:

Compared with the base year:

The performance of Australian students in Years 5 and 9 numeracy, Years 3 and 5 reading,Years 3 and 5 spelling, and Years 3 and 7 grammar was significantly above the NAPLAN 2008 average.
The writing test results in Years 5, 7 and 9 were below those observed in the base year (2011).

Compared with 2017:

Results were stable, with no statistically significant changes compared with last year in any of the NAPLAN domains. "This was the first year in which some students took NAPLAN online and the transition was smooth, with feedback from schools at the time of testing stating that students found the online assessment engaging," said Mr Randall.

"The NAPLAN Online platform performed well and 99.8 per cent of students were able to complete the assessment online."

Prior to release, NAPLAN results are reviewed and endorsed by independent measurement advisory experts.

These measurement experts have confirmed that the results for online and paper NAPLAN have assessed the same content and can be placed on the same NAPLAN assessment scale. While NAPLAN results can be compared between assessment modes and years, individual student experiences for any single test may differ due to a range of factors, including the mode of delivery or a student’s performance on the day.

For example, this year’s results for Year 9 students who completed writing test online were, on average, higher than the results of students who completed writing test on paper. The independent experts have confirmed the results are comparable; however, this difference appears to be a result of the test mode. The difference may be due to students at this year level having greater confidence writing online than on paper, as well as students’ ability to readily review and edit their work online in a way that is not possible with a paper test. This reinforces the benefit of moving to NAPLAN Online, which will give teachers, students and parents more information about what students know and can do, and where additional support is needed.

NAPLAN assesses the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy, with the data provided used by families, schools and education systems to ensure Australian students are supported in their learning. As always, NAPLAN provides a snapshot of a child’s assessment at a point in time and individual student results should be considered together with school-based assessments.

Via email: media.contact@acara.edu.au






‘It’s victim-blaming’: Lauren Southern tour organiser refuses to pay $68,000 bill from Victoria Police

The police are already paid by the taxpayer to protect people from attack.  They are trying to have a second bite of the apple if they want to charge people for the protection they give.  It is in fact a protection racket.  Al Capone would be proud of them

THE company behind right-wing Canadian commentator Lauren Southern’s Australian tour has refused to pay a $68,000 security bill, accusing Victoria Police of "enabling the thugs’ veto".

Axiomatic Events was sent an invoice for police services after violent left-wing protesters targeted the Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux Live event in Melbourne on July 20, closing roads and assaulting officers.

A similar bill was sent to Penthouse magazine after violent scenes outside a Milo Yiannopoulos event in December last year. That bill has also not been paid.

In a statement on Monday, Axiomatic Events director Dave Pellowe said he was concerned paying the "crippling" bill would create a dangerous precedent. "The Andrews Government has the gall to call this ‘user pays’ policing, but the reality is that it’s victim-blaming," Mr Pellowe said.

"Our event was a normal-sized crowd in a venue that routinely hosts such crowds. We broke no laws and went above and beyond to co-operate with police, and greatly appreciate the work they do.

"But if Police Minister Lisa Neville is looking for creative ways to fundraise for Victoria Police she can keep looking.

"The fair and just way to go about it would be to issue a $1000 fine to every thug who blocked the highway, who abused and intimidated the mums, dads and kids who came along, who damaged private property and turned Melbourne into a Berkeley war zone.

"Sending us the bill for their lawlessness appears to be simply enabling the thugs’ veto."

Axiomatic Events said members of Antifa-associated groups "spat, screamed and uttered abuse at the men and women boarding and alighting from the buses" and that "a number of male members of the … groups displayed their genitals to people boarding and alighting the buses".

In a letter to Victoria Police on Monday, Axiomatic Events’ solicitor said any attempt to recover the fee "will be vigorously resisted".

"The imposition of fees for the performance of essential police purposes is unlawful," the letter said. "The role of Victoria Police is to serve the Victorian community and uphold the law so as to promote a safe, secure and orderly society."

Victoria Police had previously argued it was acceptable to charge organisers of a commercial event for security, but the letter argues it is "the ordinary discharge of a core police responsibility".

"That such events have commercial aspect in no way deprives citizens attending them of an entitlement to have recourse to police protection if they are threatened," it said.

"The victims of politically motivated violence and intimidatory conduct at public events are no less entitled to proper police protection merely because they purchased a ticket to participate in an event."

It said "extremist groups" such as Antifa "follow the same the strategy each time political conservatives gather to listen to speeches by other conservatives".

According to the letter, that three-part strategy is first "to announce an intention to organise violent street opposition to the holding of a particular public event and enlist support for that opposition from the media".

Two, "to elicit a fear on the part of those arranging the public event that the safety of participants and attendees may be at risk and cannot be guaranteed without police protection".

Three, "to rely upon the police to impose massive financial penalties upon those arranging such events so that those events that have been scheduled are cancelled and those that are in planning are abandoned".

"If Victoria Police is obliged to be complicit in this strategy that is a matter of serious concern," it said. "It is subversive of public confidence in the rule of law."

Mr Pellowe said he was aware of other political groups changing their plans to specifically avoid a "$68,000 police bill".

"The effect this has on important public debates is devastating," he said.

"We cannot let this stand. I implore Premier Daniel Andrews and Police Minister Lisa Neville to commit to upholding the peace at future political events without blaming the victims and to reconsider the comfort they’re inadvertently lending to the thugs’ veto."

It comes after fellow Canadian right-wing commentator Gavin McInnes predicted similar protests when he tours Australia in November, warning "people will show up and if they want to fight, I’m happy to fight".

In a statement sent to news.com.au, a spokesman for Victoria Police said it had the right to charge any event organiser for the use of public resources.

"The invoice has been forwarded to the Victorian Government Solicitor for advice. From here any unpaid invoice will be forwarded to Corporate Finance for a decision to be made regarding the civil recovery for the outstanding debt," the statement said.

SOURCE 





'Send them to Nauru': Minister calls for the 20 'asylum seekers' on the run in crocodile country to be rounded up and deported straight away

Defence Industry Minister Steven Ciobo said asylum seekers on the run in crocodile country should be sent to offshore immigration detention on Nauru.

Fifteen foreign nationals have been detained and authorities are searching for at least five more who abandoned an illegal fishing vessel that ran aground in the Daintree in Far North Queensland.

'Those people if we can find them, they should be taken into custody, so to speak, and they should be sent to Nauru,' Mr Ciobo told Sky News on Monday.

More than 20 illegal immigrants are on the run after the fishing boat they were on ran aground in Far North Queensland

Mr Ciobo said that if Labour were in power that the potential illegal immigrants would be put into the community.

There are more people who were on the boat but have not been found by investigators.

A spokesperson for The Department of Home Affairs told Daily Mail Australia that the investigation of what they believe to be an illegal fishing vessel is ongoing.

The Australian Border Force is on the scene and is being assisted by the Queensland Police Service.

The spokesperson said: 'We can confirm that a number of potential unlawful non-citizens have been located.

'The ABF and Department of Home Affairs will undertake the necessary border processes to establish circumstances around the arrival.' As investigations continue the department declined to comment further. 

Footage emerged of two of the suspected illegal immigrants being detained earlier today. One of the men can be seen sitting in a car while officers stand around the vehicle. The men were walking across the waterway towards a ferry with a third man, according to the Cairns Post.

A third man was later arrested at 9.20am, according to The Courier-Mail.

If those in custody are confirmed as asylum seekers, the boat arrival would mark the first suspected illegal entry vessel on Australian land since 2014.

Some politicians, including MP George Christensen, used the vessel as an opportunity to call out the government's border patrol practices. 

'Qld borders need to be made more secure esp (especially) given proximity of PNG & Indonesia, considering level of radical Islamism in Indonesia, Malaysia & Philippines,' Mr Christensen tweeted.

'With Peter Dutton back as Home Affairs Minister, I suspect this incursion will be dealt with swiftly and that there will be more focus on border security in North Queensland,' he later posted to Facebook.

SOURCE 






Green groups want to send water out to sea rather than give it to drought-hit farmers

Environmentalists have lashed Barnaby Joyce's call to divert water to drought-stricken farmers, labelling the special drought envoy's "kneejerk" plan as ill-informed.

The former Nationals leader made a splash as he kicked off his new job, calling for environmental water from the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be used to grow fodder for stock.

"You either accept this is a national emergency and you're going to do something distinct to deal with it or you just say 'no, no, we really like the pictures of starving cattle'," he told ABC radio on Tuesday. "The water that is going to the environment is going past the irrigation properties that grow the fodder to keep cattle alive."

But the Australian Conservation Foundation's Paul Sinclair said the Murray-Darling river system was also suffering through the drought.

"Mr Joyce's kneejerk and ill-informed reaction risks the health of flood plains, wetlands and wildlife, not to mention the communities downstream that rely on a living river for their livelihoods," Dr Sinclair said.

He said water clawed back from irrigators cost the government billions, and needed to be used to make sure everyone could benefit from a healthy river.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young slammed Mr Joyce's plan, saying he should ask his "corporate irrigator mates" to help drought-affected farmers. "Barnaby Joyce has used his first day on the job to go back to his old tricks - trying to rip water off of the environment," Senator Hanson-Young said.

Nationals cabinet minister Matt Canavan said the former agriculture and water minister's plan should be considered. "It's almost like he was born for this role to be the drought envoy," Senator Canavan told reporters in Sydney.

Mr Joyce insists he's not eyeing off a return to the front bench after being handed extra responsibility. "I really want to get stuck into this, not because of some ulterior plan, because the drought is there," Mr Joyce said. "I'm going to do my bit to help them with that and if that's where it stops that's where it stops."

Mr Joyce was deputy prime minister until February when he was forced to quit amid a storm of controversy surrounding his affair with a staffer.

New Prime Minister Scott Morrison made him drought envoy on Sunday as he announced his ministerial team.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






28 August, 2018

Chilling moment 130kg rugby player, 18, is handcuffed by police just metres away from dying building manager, 64, he is accused of beating to death


Why do we have to have these moronic dregs in Australia?  He appears to be a Fijian.  Why is he here? Fiji is peaceful and reasonably prosperous so he is not a refugee. Why do we not screen all immigrants for low IQ and mental illness?

Confronting footage has emerged of the moment police arrested a teenager across the road from where he allegedly bashed a woman to death outside her home in Sydney's south-west.

Sprawled in the gutter and held to the ground, a handcuffed Imaueli Jone Degei has no way of escaping police following a short pursuit on the streets of Carramar, despite the rugby player's 130 kilogram frame.

The Airds man 18, is accused of murdering Kristina Kalnic, who died from critical injuries in the driveway of her Sandal Crescent unit complex on Saturday. He was charged with one count of murder on Sunday.

Chilling footage has also emerged of police and paramedics frantically trying to save the life of a motionless Ms Kalnic but to no avail.

The court heard Degei needed medication for mental health issues when he appeared in Parramatta Bail Court on Sunday.

He didn't apply for bail, which was formally refused by Magistrate John Crawford until his next court appearance October 22 at Fairfield Local Court, The Daily Telegraph reported.

It's since been revealed Ms Kalnic had lived at the unit complex with her husband for 20 years and had been the building manager at the unit complex for almost a year,

She was well-liked in the area and led a quiet life, according to shocked neighbours, who laid floral tributes in the well-tendered garden Ms Kalnic took pride in.

'Why happened with her? Why she. People need her,' a distraught Bhakti Panchal told 9 News.

Neighbour Ula Naitokatoka, 21, was at home when she heard Ms Kalnic's screams added: 'She's a nice lady.'

Another man told 7 News: 'I've lived here for five years and nothing like this has happened before ever, so it's a bit of a shock.'

Marina Manic studied psychology with Ms Kalnic at Western Sydney University five years ago.  'She was so wise and I learned so much from her,' Ms Maric told the Sydney Morning Herald.

'She was an incredibly intelligent woman and she never stopped learning, ever. That's what she wanted to do, her whole life was about that.'

A NSW Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia that the alleged incident wasn't domestic related and that no weapon was used in the alleged attack. 

It's unknown whether Ms Kalnic knew her alleged attacker as some residents told The Daily Telegraph they had seen Degai in the area previously.

Strike Force Bilba has been formed to investigate the death and inquiries are continuing.

SOURCE 





The Victorian ALP is driven by personal ambition and nothing more

The Victorian ALP observed from up close

by Dr John Fahey

The Victorian ALP has recently been in real disarray and now has a surreal air about it. The factional battle in Victoria between the Socialist Left (Kim Carr), Labor Unity (LU) (Bill Shorten/Stephen Conroy), now split into two factions, the Adem Somyurek (who is he?) Moderates, the Shoppies (SDA) and the renegade industrial left (CFMEU) faction, was getting out of control, with the more feral elements of all the groups tearing up stability pacts.

The ALP factional culture at work.

Because of that undermining and worries about the media "Kill Bill" campaign, and the usual all-in brawl over state and federal pre-selections, the Albanese challenge was well under way. However, Bill "won" the Super Saturday by-elections, which has saved his skin for the time being.

A temporary truce was brought about by the ALP National Executive taking over the pre-selection of ALP candidates for parliaments, at Bill’s request, but at the expense of local party democracy. One National Executive member told me that whatever Bill wants, Bill gets; which prompts the question, why have a National Executive?

Now the Red Shirts rorts scandal has hit the fan, adding to the unease about Victorian Labor’s chances in the Nov­ember state election, although Labor has hit back by referring a case to the Ombudsman regarding Liberal Party shenanigans somehow tied to the a former Victorian Liberal Party state secretary being in jail for fraud.

However, and above all, none of the factions can ever discount the ability of any of the others to plunge itself into self-inflicted madness given the internal hatreds based on next to nothing. Plain and simple, the fights are driven by personality clashes, historical animosity, vengeance and ambition.

As a member of an ALP faction – the Kim Beazley Snr faction, or "The cream of the working class" faction – I just love watching a good old factional fight between other ALP factions.

No one seems to want to explain why branch stacking and the other shenanigans occur. One glaring example is "the Somali Stack", where the Heidelberg ALP branch membership leapt from 13 to 325 over a number of years. This phenomenal increase is largely made up of Somalis, with many "living" at just one or two addresses.

In Jagajaga, where this stacking took place, a person who joined the party only one week before and was not an SL faction member defeated a local SL activist for pre-selection. A non-faction member being endorsed by a faction over a faction member! Work that one out if you can.

In days of old, factions clearly had distinct philosophies regarding how to achieve a largely classless society. Those factions were largely the Fabians, the Catholic Right, the multitude Communist Party of Australia (CPA) members/fellow travellers and the various dissident groups, factions breaking away from the CPA, the ALP Socialist Left (for example, "Baghdad" Bill Hartley and co), the pro-Whitlam "Intervention", moderates and so on.

Nowadays, given that there is no discernible difference between the ALP factions. They exist only as grubby job-creation schemes for those within the factions who would, metaphorically speaking, kill their own mother to become an MP and from there a millionaire or multimillionaire.

To get on in a faction, one has to learn the dark arts of politics, such as branch stacking or simply no promotion, and remember that there are many factional opportunists but too few opportunities, such as safe seats, so consequently the massive bloodletting prior to selection for a safe seat.

The next step up in proving your worth to a factional warlord is to come up with schemes such as the Red Shirt rorts. After that, and once you are an MP, rorting your travel allowance is the next step. Nothing energises an MP’s research skills more than researching travel allowances. Many Labor MPs are multimillionaires, often via the defined benefits superannuation scheme.

Remember also, if branch members want a say in pre-selection of MPs, the factional warlords will simply refer the matter to Labor’s National Executive, who will then rubber-stamp the warlords’ preferences. ALP members such as myself should ask why a handful of factional warlords is allowed to divide up the cake between them but then expect the 50,000 ALP members nationally (real members plus stacks) or 16,000 members in Victoria to do all the grunt electoral work, such as door-knocking, staffing the booths and so on so that a small number of factional lackeys get jobs as MPs and then be in the top 1-3 per cent of income earners in Australia?

Governments composed of the "cream of the working class", not the "dregs of the middle class" who dream up such rorts, should be the ALP’s reason for existence.

SOURCE 





Curbing Corporate Social Responsibility

A current school of thought urges a legal approach to stop public companies becoming involved in politically-contentious social debates via the means of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) that are only faintly, if at all, related to their business.

The thinking is that company directors and senior managers may be breaching their duty to shareholders under the Corporations Act, and abusing company’s commercial powers and resources, by failing to "pursue only the proper purposes of the company and to maximise profits within reason."

The first problem with this approach, as explained in my new report Curbing Corporate Social Responsibility: Preventing politicisations – and preserving pluralism – in Australian business, is that (in general) CSR is legal.

Under existing company law, corporate decision-makers have a wide discretion over the consideration of non-shareholder interests, so long as the proper purpose is to protect shareholder’s interests in general.

The second problem is that even if the courts deemed CSR illegal — probably via protracted and expensive litigation — this outcome would be counter-productive.

The burgeoning CSR industry — consisting of the multitude of ‘social responsibility’ managers and consultants employed across the corporate landscape — is pushing for greater corporate involvement in politics, by urging government action to introduce mandatory CSR laws.

Such laws would revolutionise company law and corporate governance, by explicitly defining the competing and conflicting non-shareholder interests that directors could consider.

Such a regime would leave directors effectively unaccountable to shareholders — and would make the current level of corporate meddling in all kinds of social and political debates just the tip of the iceberg. .

The fear is that if a legal challenge to CSR succeeded, this would only fuel the campaign for mandatory CSR laws.

All things being equal in the present politically-correct political environment, this campaign would more than likely succeed, and give the CSR industry what it wants — a license to play politics with shareholder’s money.

Because the legalistic approach to curbing CSR is fraught with danger, this issue can be best addressed through the existing channels of corporate governance.

However, the major problem is that corporate leaders looking to push back against the ‘social responsibility’ trend are not currently guided by any alternative set of principles, policies or institutional framework to counter the well-established CSR doctrines and structures across business.

That’s why my report has proposed introducing a new principle into the language and practice of corporate governance, which would overly qualify existing CSR philosophies.

The ‘Community Pluralism Principle’ would remind directors and senior managers of the need to ensure that company involvement in social debates does not politicise their brands and reputations.

Inserting this principle into company constitutions — or into the Australian Stock Exchange’s good corporate governance standards — would also empower corporate decision-makers to ensure that companies remain pluralistic institutions that respect, reflect and serve the whole community equally

This means ceasing to meddle in politically-charged social issues on which there is no community consensus, in these increasingly polarised times.

SOURCE 






'Sydney is being lost to Islam': Right-wing activist Gavin McInnes claims Australian cities risk being overrun by Muslim migrants - as he prepares for speaking tour

A far-right activist has slammed Australia for losing its culture to Muslim extremists and said he is prepared to fight protesters when he tours the country in November.

British-born Canadian comedian Gavin McInnes was banned from Twitter earlier this month for being a 'violent extremist' and has been labelled by critics as sexist, racist and a white supremacist.

McInnes is the founder of the pro-Donald Trump males' rights group The Proud Boys - whose members are notorious for engaging in street brawls with left-wing Antifa protestors.

According to news.com.au, McInnes said Australian culture was being lost to Islam. 'Look at Sydney, it's being lost to Islam just like West London was. In fact there's parts of Sydney totally indistinguishable from West London,' he told the publication.

'It's exactly the same - the sense of capitulation, discouraging assimilation.'

Census data from 2016 reveals that Australia is religously diverse, though, with Islam making up less than 2.6 per cent of the population - according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The 48-year-old said his goal was not to preach politics during his national tour of Australia in November - billing his trip as a comedy tour.

But the co-founder of Vice magazine said he was prepared to fight against violent left-wing protesters. He said: 'People will show up and if they want to fight - I'm happy to fight.'

McInnes previously described attacks on Donald Trump's 'p***y grabbing' comments as a 'war on masculinity'

He also referred to Australia as 'the last verge of masculinity' and a 'hot Canada'.

McInnes' tour is being organised by magazine Penthourse, who were also behind right-wing provacteur Milo Yiannopoulos' controversial tour of Australia last year.

SOURCE 





   
When will they learn? Footy player sparks outrage after blackface appearance as Kanye West at club function - complete with Kim Kardashian and baby Saint

A footy player has sparked outrage after he attended a charity gala in blackface.

The West Adelaide player attended his club's annual fundraiser dressed as US pop star Kanye West, while his partner sported a Kim Kardashian costume.

The West Adelaide Football Club issued an apology after the picture ended up on their Facebook page in an album showcasing costumes from the iconic couples-themed event.

WAFC chief executive David Grenvold said concerns were raised with the player when he arrived at the venue, but he was allowed to stay and not required to change out of the costume.

'Yes, look, it was inappropriate and not something the club supports. There was absolutely some comments about maybe that is inappropriate,' Mr Grenvold said.

The unnamed player wore a plain white t-shirt with tight denim jeans and a gold chain, and painted his face black for the occasion.

The Kardashian look-a-like wore Kim's standard neutral tones, with a long blonde wig and white baseball cap.

She also held a baby doll in her arms - perhaps imitating one of the couple's children, Saint.

West Adelaide board member and African community spokesperson Joseph Masika said the insensitive move went against the club's culture, Seven News reported.

However, he said he did not believe there was any malicious intent behind the costume. 'It was something which would raise my eyebrows but as I said I believe it was an innocent act because of lack of awareness,' he said.

In response to backlash the club has promised to provide an information session for all players.

The photo has since been removed from the club's Facebook page.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here





27 August, 2018

IT WAS the note that ended Malcolm Turnbull’s political career. Under the list of names were three words that said it all

Warren Entsch effectively ended Malcolm Turnbull’s political career when he added his name to the list of MPs requesting a second party room meeting and, by extension, another leadership vote. It was the last signature Peter Dutton’s supporters needed.

And underneath, Mr Entsch scrawled a deliciously venomous three-word message, twisting the knife in Mr Turnbull’s back: "For Brendan Nelson."

Dr Nelson was leader of the Liberal Party for such a short and miserable period that many of you have probably, and entirely forgivably, forgotten him.

When John Howard lost the 2007 election, the obvious choice to replace him — Mr Howard’s treasurer Peter Costello — chose not to step forward, leaving Dr Nelson, Mr Turnbull and, before he pulled out, Tony Abbott as the only ones foolish enough to contest the Liberal leadership.

It was precariously close, with a final vote of 45-42, but Dr Nelson emerged with the dubious prize of squaring off against Kevin Rudd, whose true identity as a vindictive weirdo was yet to dent the giddiest honeymoon period in Australian political history.

Mr Rudd proved untouchable, and Dr Nelson’s depressingly low preferred prime minister rating eventually stalled in the teens. But he soon discovered he was being stalked by an even more ruthless enemy within his own ranks — the man he had appointed shadow treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull.

"Turnbull pledged his loyalty to Nelson but gave him absolutely none. He simply refused to accept the decision of the party room, and the undermining began immediately," Paddy Manning wrote in his biography of Mr Turnbull, Born To Rule.

Just days after the party room vote, Mr Turnbull called Dr Nelson’s chief of staff, Peter Hendy, and told him he needed to "get Brendan to resign in the next few weeks" because Dr Nelson was "hopeless".

"In his relentless campaign against Nelson, Turnbull took disloyalty to extremes," Mr Manning wrote.

Dr Nelson was gone within a year, hounded out by Mr Turnbull’s merciless and destructive ambition. "If you had any idea of what he said to me over those 10 months, you would be shocked," Dr Nelson told Fairfax journalist Peter Hartcher when he quit parliament. "I thought he was demonstrative, demanding, emotional and narcissistic, using his wealth and charm for seduction, and always with a sinister threat just beneath the surface.

"Keating wanted power because he knew what he could do with it for the country. Malcolm wanted position."

Mr Turnbull played a longer game when Mr Abbott became leader, but again, actively agitated against him. There was never any question he would seek to seize the top job.

This all makes Mr Turnbull’s little performance after he was turfed this week a bit too rich to swallow.

With a smile on his face but cold anger in his words, Mr Turnbull said Australians would be "dumbstruck and appalled" by his colleagues’ disloyalty.

"Many Australians will be shaking their head in disbelief at what’s been done," he said. "To imagine that a government would be rocked by this sort of disloyalty and deliberate destructive action.

"Peter Dutton, Tony Abbott and others who chose to deliberately attack the government from within, they did so because they wanted to bring the government, to bring my prime ministership down. "If people are determined to wreck, they will continue to do so."

The architects of Mr Turnbull’s demise do deserve to be condemned, chief among them Mr Abbott, whose infamous pledge not to wreck, snipe at or undermine his successor now reads like a sad joke.

But that staggering hypocrisy has been matched, if not exceeded, by Mr Turnbull himself.

If the then outgoing prime minister had any semblance of self-awareness, he would have left criticism of the mutineers to someone else.

Mr Turnbull had no problem with disloyalty when he was the one being disloyal. He voiced no objection to tearing down a prime minister when it served his own ambition. He wasn’t the least bit bothered by wrecking and undermining when he was using those tactics to obtain power for himself.

So instead of whining, perhaps Mr Turnbull should have used his speech to reflect on what he had done to contribute to his own downfall.

There was no mention of his failure to give the government a compelling purpose. Nothing about the policy thought bubbles that led nowhere. Not a word about the bland, rudderless election campaign that reduced his government’s majority to a single seat.  No recognition of the irony that he was calling his leadership "progressive" after years of pandering unsuccessfully to the party’s right wing.

None of it was his fault, because as far as Mr Turnbull is concerned, nothing ever is.

This is not a defence of the rebels, whose stunningly incompetent coup proved to be not only ugly, but utterly pointless. It resulted in the elevation of Scott Morrison, a man who will do little to change the government’s policies or direction. The alternative, Peter Dutton, offered the visage and all the charisma of a potato.

A more honourable man than Mr Turnbull would deserve our sympathy for falling victim to such a gormless mess. This shameless hypocrite should receive none.

SOURCE 






GAVIN McInnes is having some fun -- as usual

He is a genuinely funny man but political correctness is the butt of most of his jokes  -- so he is called "Alt-Right"

McInnes, the co-founder of Vice magazine turned right-wing commentator and head of controversial pro-Trump, street-brawling "men’s rights" group the Proud Boys, smells something  rotten in society.

The Marxists and "fat feminists" have taken over everywhere, he says, spreading a "computer virus of rules" — a "war on fun".

"When did the social justice warriors get so much power?" he asks.  "It happened in the past 15 years. My theory is it started with eradicating bullying and the whole idea of the death of the in-crowd, which I think we can all support — no one likes Mean Girls, the prom king jock — but what happened is the fat feminists gained power and like the proletariat took over.

"Like the Marxists, the oppressed became the oppressors and they are now way worse. It’s not only affecting high schools, it’s affecting the workplace, comedy clubs."

He mentions a flyer he saw recently being passed around inside New York Comedy club UCB with "some trans-man who looks like your dad in a wig" dictating who can be cast in sketches if the character is transgender.

"Here are these nerds Trojan-horsing their way into comedy clubs," he says.

McInnes, who has been labelled by critics as sexist, racist, white supremacist, Islamophobic and transphobic, is the latest right-wing provocateur to set his sights on Australia.

McInnes and the Proud Boys were kicked off Twitter earlier this month for being "violent extremists" ahead of the anniversary of the deadly Unite the Right neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

While McInnes disavowed the rally, its organiser Jason Kessler was once a member of the Proud Boys — McInnes has previously said Kessler was kicked out for his racist views.

McInnes says he is of two minds about the Twitter ban.

"On one hand as a libertarian I say, oh well, that venue doesn’t want me anymore," he says. "We don’t have a contract, I was just using it. It’s kind of nice to not have Twitter in my life.

"But we are having lawyers looking at suing them. There’s something grander going on. There’s a war on conservatives because they’re petrified of Trump getting re-elected, they’re in a state of panic.

"Facebook, Google, YouTube, even Snapchat are clamping down on conservatives. It’s the DNC and Big Tech colluding. That is the government colluding with big business. That is not America, that’s not the west — that is Communism and it’s morally wrong."

A "western chauvinist" and friend of Milo Yiannopoulos and Lauren Southern, whose recent trips Down Under were marred by violent left-wing protests, McInnes says his message is one of "pride".

"Shame is such a scam," he says. "There’s this sense of apology and shame with western countries. I noticed this when I was in Israel, they even sort of assume you’re going to come at them so they come out on the defensive.

"They go, ‘Look we had to build this wall, we were getting a terror attack a day.’ I said, I love your wall, I don’t care.

"What Australia built is so incredible. (But) look at Sydney, it’s being lost to Islam just like West London was. In fact there’s parts of Sydney totally indistinguishable from West London. It’s exactly the same — the sense of capitulation, discouraging assimilation."

Yet Census data from 2016 reveal Australia is a religiously diverse nation, with Christianity remaining the most common religion (52 per cent of the population).

"Islam (2.6 per cent) and Buddhism (2.4 per cent) were the next most common religions," the ABS said.

"In the 10 years from 2006 to 2016, the proportion of people reporting a religion other than Christianity in the Census increased from 5.6 per cent in 2006 to 8.2 per cent in 2016. "Although the increase was spread across most of the non-Christian religions, the top two were Hinduism (0.7 per cent in 2006 to 1.9 per cent in 2016) and Islam (1.7 per cent to 2.6 per cent)."

But McInnes says his goal isn’t to preach politics when he arrives in November. "I see it as a comedy tour," he says.

"My goal is to show people that conservatives are funny. In fact we’re the rebels, we’re Animal House. Who got kicked off campus? John Belushi. Milo and Lauren, even Alan Dershowitz are getting kicked off campus. We’re the fun ones."

McInnes describes Australia as "like a hot Canada". "I love Australia, I feel a real kinship," he says. "The only difference between me and my friends in Australia is there’s more masculinity. I’m looking forward to that, just getting pissed."

He wants to "have some fun, do some comedy and show millennials and everyone else that there’s life outside of this liberal bubble, outside of social justice warriors monitoring every joke and telling you what you can and can’t say".

And yes, he’s expecting violent left-wing protesters.

"I don’t know why," McInnes says. "We don’t come to their things. I don’t understand why there’s a problem with free speech. Why is that seen as a threat?

"Even the worst, most right-wing guys like (white supremacist) Richard Spencer, I don’t like their ideas but I’m not scared of their ideas. A 100-pound girl, what are her words going to do to you — start a world war? Why are people so frail?"

McInnes adds "people will show up and if they want to fight, I’m happy to fight". "Our motto is we don’t start fights but we’re happy to finish them," he says. "Isn’t that what your dad used to tell you?"

Antifa, he says, are "rich kids who are the sons of professors and they’ve been brainwashed by this Marxist crap their whole lives".

"There was a time when fighting racist bigots was cool, like the Freedom Riders in the 1960s," he says. "The problem is the bad guys are gone, there’s no more Nazis — so how about we make Milo a Nazi?

"It’s like a Twilight Zone episode where everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is considered a Nazi. So they get to feel like they’re fighting for justice, like they’re these brave warriors."

At the end of the day, though, "people in the media tend to overintellectualise this — it’s just the mods and the rockers fighting on Brighton Beach".

"We’re talking about a few different trends," McInnes says.

"The street fights outside venues, that’s just mods and rockers playing silly games. It’s not real. That’s why they don’t want to argue with you. That’s why I can’t get them on my show.

"Usually when they brawl, like the punks and skinheads or the mods and rockers, it’s just middle class kids fighting working class kids. The Proud Boys are blue collar."

The "more insidious" and threatening element is the underlying cultural shift. "The obsession with making sure everyone has equal outcomes, that women are part of all action movies, this computer virus of rules invading everything including art," he says.

"It’s a war on fun, on colour, where they want every radio station to be playing the same music. How is that different from Stalinism?"

SOURCE 






Islam will become ‘indigenised’ with time, Scott Morrison says

To an extent, it has been already. 99% of Muslims cause no trouble. But that is not the point.  The trouble is the Jihadis who emerge from them

ISLAM will become more Australian over time, Scott Morrison said, as debate raged over calls by Coalition MPs for debate about links between Islamic teaching and terrorism.

Mr Morrison, who works with moderate Muslim leaders in Sydney, said all religions went through phases, and he believed Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, would ­become more "indigenised".

"I think one of the positive things about Australia is it’s such an overwhelming cultural set of values that those always have an influence over time," he said.

"That’s been the case with other religions. I have no reason to believe it won’t be the case with Islam."

His comments come after a string of Coalition MPs, led by Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, former SAS soldier ­Andrew Hastie and Victorian MP Michael Sukkar, said there was a problem with Islam and an "honest debate" was needed about links between Islamic teaching and extremism.

Mr Hastie and Mr Sukkar also called for a modernisation of Islamic teaching.

The MPs reported positive feedback in their electorates, but some of their government colleagues were furious, saying the comments had alienated almost 500,000 Muslim Australians.

Several MPs also expressed concern that the comments ran counter to advice from the police and security agencies that the Government’s best asset against terrorism was the Muslim community itself.

"It’s unhelpful at best and at worst disgraceful that we’d go against the advice of all the agencies by further marginalising the Muslim community," one MP said.

Veteran Liberal MP Philip Ruddock, the Government’s special envoy for citizenship and community engagement, took a thinly veiled swipe at his colleagues by reinforcing his view that terrorism was the threat — not Islam.

"I do think we need to have a conversation, and it needs to be a conversation that terror has no place in our society," Mr Ruddock said.

SOURCE 






Pauline Hanson claims Labor will allow 300,000 immigrants a year into Australia if elected - as she throws her support behind Peter Dutton for PM

With the Coalition Government trailing Labor in 38 consecutive Newspolls, Senator Hanson warned about 'unlimited' immigration were Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to become prime minister.

'Do you think I'm going to support the Labor Party who wants to have immigration, probably 300,000 - plus unlimited? They won't even discuss that,' she said.

'They even shut down me having that debate on the floor of parliament on my private member's bill to give the people the right to have a say about the immigration numbers.'

When Labor was last in power, under Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, net annual immigration soared above 200,000, or triple the 20th century average of 70,000 a year.

The high immigration numbers continued under Liberal prime ministers Tony Abbott and his successor Mr Turnbull, who deposed him in September 2015.

Mr Dutton, however, reportedly recently argued in cabinet to trim Australia's net annual immigration pace by 20,000 a year, from 190,000 to 170,000.

This level is significantly short of the 70,000 per annum level advocated by Senator Hanson, which hasn't consistently been government policy since the late 1990s.

In the first week of August, Australia's population surpassed the 25 million milestone, 24 years earlier than predicted in 2002 by the Howard government's first inter-generational report.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here



26 August, 2018

My comment on the recent ructions in the Liberal party

Everybody except those involved seems to think that the dumping of Mr Turnbull as PM was a great mistake. Turnbull presented very well and he would have soon restored his lead over Shorten.  But his party was very divided over climate policy so there was great restlessness among them.  So Turnbull's slight backdown in deciding not to set a specific CO2 target set off a furore which became an excuse to unseat him.

Scott Morrison is a good man but he has no charisma.  Something good could have come of it all if Julie Bishop had been elected PM.  She is very popular and would undoubtedly have taken the party to a victory over Shorten.  But it would appear that she did not have enough friends in the party to make that happen.  The good of the party was clearly not at the forefront of the minds of its politicians

Turnbull gave an excellent farewell speech. It is worth listening to.  There is a substantial excerpt from it below -- JR









The latest global warming fraud

There a lot of versions of the graph below online but I could find none that included calibrations. It's a thoroughly dishonest piece of work as, for any graph to be interpretable, it has to include calibrations.  I have in fact never before seen a graph without calibrations. 

It would ruin the Warmist story if calibrations were included because what is not mentioned is that the differences in temperature between the time periods illustrated are in mostly in hundredths of one degree only, which is practically meaningless.

There HAS been overall warming over the last century or so but it has been only in isolated spurts and is in total less than one degree Celsius. IF such warming continues it would cause as little trouble as the warming we have had so far. It is trivial



IS IT a work of art in a gallery? A chart? It’s neither and both, and it shows a big change in Australia.

IT LOOKS like a piece of art. Or maybe a very brightly coloured barcode. Or even a duvet cover. But the striped image is a visual representation of Australia’s average temperature each year over the last century.

A climate scientist from the UK has released a series of images that depict the warmest and coldest temperatures since records began places all over the globe.

University of Reading climate scientist Professor Ed Hawkins calls the pieces "warming stripes". He has created them for parts of England, Germany, Toronto, Australia and the world as a whole.

"Each stripe represents the temperature of a single year, ordered from the earliest available data to now," Prof Hawkins on the website Climate Lab Book.

The coldest years recorded are a dark blue and the hottest a deep red with everything in between a different shade depending on whether it’s over or under the long-term average.

If the average temperatures regularly fluctuated from hot to cold, you could expect to see red and blue stripes relatively evenly distributed.

In the graph for Vienna, for example, which covers a period from 1775 — 2017, the first half of the image seems to be fairly random with lots of reds and blues. But in recent years, the Vienna chart is mostly red denoting hot years.

For the stripes showing the annual global average temperatures, it’s a smooth transition from dark blue to dark red; from record cold years to record hot years.

There’s less data to go on for Australia as records only go so far back. But there’s still a century or so to compare.

Prof Hawkins took Bureau of Meteorology data from 1910 — 2017: "The colour scale goes from 20.7°C (dark blue) to 23.0°C (dark red)," he said.

The lowest annual temperature was recorded in 1917. The highset, more than 1C above the overall average, was in 2013.

In the last 20 years in Australia, only three years have seen annual temperatures dip below average. And during those years it’s dipped only slightly below the line.

But many of the most recent years that have seen above average temperatures that have soared over the line.

SOURCE 






Inner-Sydney primary school bans SOCCER BALLS - to make the playground 'safer'

Parents have been left outraged after their children's primary school banned soccer balls and limited students access to the oval.

Summer Hill Public School, in Sydney's inner-west, sent a letter to the parents of more than 800 students this week to announce the new rules.

Natalie Bamback said her active seven-year-old son Nash Cazilieris was devastated he could no longer play his favourite sport at lunch time. 'He loves playing with the ball... I suppose he will get used to the new rules, but he doesn't like it,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Under the new rules, Summer Hill Public School students will not be allowed to bring anything bigger than a tennis ball in to school.

Parent Michelle Vasconcelos said the new rules were overzealous. 'I understand why they're doing it, because there's a lot of kids that are getting hit – and teachers – with the balls. But at the same time they are kids, they should be coming to school, playing, enjoying the playground,' she said.

The school, which has has two main play areas - a basketball court and an oval - also stipulated changes to children's play time on the oval. Under the new rules, each grade will be banned from the oval one day a week, to 'alleviate overcrowding'. The school said the rule would make the oval safer for all students.

Summer Hill said oval time would be staggered to prevent younger children being injured by older students as they played side-by-side.

Opposition education spokesman Jihad Dib said overcrowding was a huge issue in schools, but he said the problem should not be passed on to the children.

'What you don't want to have is a situation where it's becoming so overcrowded that kids have to sit down at playtime and not do anything,' he said.

Summer Hill Public School, while popular for its successful NAPLAN results, is about 96 per cent full, the publication reported. Anywhere between 80 and 100 per cent is efficient.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said the new rules were not prompted by a lack of space, instead introduced to prevent conflict between the children. 

SOURCE 





Leftist thuggery in Australia too

From the French Revolutiom onward, the Left have always been as  violent and vicious as they can get away with

The office of leadership challenger Peter Dutton has been targeted by vandals who hurled bricks through glass windows and doors.

The pavers were thrown with such force they left gashes in the walls of the former Home Affairs Minister's office after being propelled through the glass.

Despite smashing holes in reinforced glass windows and two glass doors, the vandals did not enter the office, in Strathpine, north of Brisbane.

Vandals also spray-painted anti-Dutton slogans on bike paths in the former Home Affairs Minister's electorate, including one reading 'deport Dutton'.

The 1.45am attack occurred just hours after Mr Dutton declared he had the numbers to challenge Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership.

Police are investigating the attack, but no arrests have been made over the attack, which left an estimated $10,000 worth of damage.

'Police are investigating significant damage caused to an office overnight in Strathpine,' Queensland Police said.

'Police were called to the Gympie Road address by a member of the public, to find brick pavers had been thrown at the windows causing extensive damage.'

Mr Dutton, a former Queensland police officer, tendered his resignation from Cabinet after challenging Mr Turnbull in a spill on Tuesday.

A former immigration minister, Mr Dutton has been targeted by Labor and the Greens for his hardline policies on asylum seekers.

The attack comes after the Strathpine office was hit by pranksters who used post-it notes to alter the words on the sign on the window.

Then on Thursday the flag outside Mr Dutton's office was hung upside down, making the international symbol for distress while leadership dramas unfolded in Canberra.

An office employee turned the flag around after the blunder was discovered.

SOURCE 






Hundreds attend March for Men event in Melbourne

SHE calls herself an anti-feminist and regularly speaks about how Aussies are "demonising" men. Today, she marched with hundreds of supporters.



SYDNEY Watson regularly preaches to her thousands of social media followers about how Australia is "demonising" men.

And today, the self-described anti-feminist has taken to the streets of Melbourne for her ‘March for Men’ to show that "men matter too".

More than 700 people said they’d attend the Federation Square event on Facebook with 2600 more interested.

A counter-protest, called ‘Stand up for equality: March against Men’s Rights Activists’, was also held in the same location, at the same time.

Close to 500 people said they’d attend the counter-protest while 1300 more expressed interest.

Victoria Police promised a heavy presence at the event and warned anyone attending they’ll be conducting weapon searches and will immediately eject anyone who hides their face.

Two people have reportedly been arrested at the protest.

Ms Watson, who studied journalism before moving into conservative commentary, regularly posts piece-to-camera videos for her burgeoning YouTube audience.

In a video announcing the march, Ms Watson said the march was not going to be about "vilifying each other".

"As many of you know over the last number of weeks, it’s felt like there has been an assault on men collectively. I want Australians to rally together for masculinity for men’s rights and just to demonstrate that we know that men matter too.

"The purpose of this rally is not to hate on women, diminish women’s rights or make any negative statements about women

"What we’re trying to do is show that we care about the men in our lives and the issues that affect them

"This is about men and women standing shoulder to shoulder to show that we’re here for each other," she said.

Via Facebook, the counter-protest’s organisers the National Union of Students Women’s Department and the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, encouraged people to attend to "publicly maintain a counter-narrative".

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






24 August, 2018

Changing the rules for working women

 IEU represents more than 30,000 teachers, principals and support staff in Catholic and independent schools, early childhood centres and post secondary colleges in NSW and ACT

The rules for working women are broken, with women earning less than men on average, ending up with less superannuation, being more likely to be in casual or part time work, bearing the brunt of caring responsibilities and less likely to be in leadership positions. [Rubbish!  The difference has nothing to do with rules.  It has to do with the different choices women make]

The IEUA NSW/ACT Branch will challenge and discuss these norms at its 2018 Women’s Conference on 24 August, which will highlight how these issues impact on the teaching profession.

One example of such inequity being challenged by the IEUA is the Equal Remuneration Order case before the Fair Work Commission to remedy wages for early childhood teachers.

The case argues that early childhood teachers receive lower salaries because they are in a female dominated profession. [Rubbish.  They are paid less because they are doing work that any woman could do]

Keynote speaker Naomi Steer, founding director of UNHCR will discuss her work supporting girls and women globally, and how improving the lives of women improves societies as a while.

Ros McLennan, General Secretary, Queensland Council of Unions and a former teacher, will explore what it takes personally, industrially and politically to champion women in leadership positions and support working women more broadly.

"We need to change the rules to ensure the professional experience of colleagues includes secure work, fair pay workforce rights that can be enforced and more power for working people rather than big business," McLennan said.

Via email from  Sue Osborne (02) 8202 8900 sue@ieu.asn.au






Radio jock uses old-fashioned expression

Being a bit of a tease, I sometimes use the expression.  It was common in my youth. These days, however, I say: "African-American in the woodpile"  I seem to get away with it

Alan Jones has labelled Matthias Cormann the 'n***** in the woodpile' and vowed 'not to yield' to those who find the 19th century phrase offensive.

The radio host used the term to describe the WA Senator as he discussed the Liberal leadership crisis, while calling on Malcolm Turnbull to resign and advocating Tony Abbott as the next prime minister.

'The n***** in the woodpile here, if I can use that expression, and I'm not going to yield to certain people who tell us that words in the language are forbidden, the person who's playing hard to get is Matthias Cormann,' Jones said. 

The term has similarities to the colloquial phrase 'skeleton in the closet' and was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to describe a person who is the cause of a problem. 

Jones later apologised.

'We all make mistakes. This morning on 2GB and 4BC I spoke about the covert actions of some political operatives in the current leadership challenges within the Liberal Party,' he wrote on Twitter.

'I used an old and offensive figure of speech that I regret saying. People should be honest and forthright in their actions and that is not happening in the Liberal Party right now. I will have more to say on this tomorrow.'

Although usage of the phrase has declined dramatically since the early 1900s, Jones has repeatedly used it on live radio.

In 2013, then Deputy Premier of Queensland Jeff Seeney was labelled a 'n***** in the woodpile' - and the previous year so too was Mr Turnbull.  

He used the term in 2011 to describe former Australian cricket captain and national selector Greg Chappell.

In 2007, he said on air: 'The Commonwealth is a bit of a n***** in the woodpile here'.

'N*****' is considered one of the most derogatory terms in the English language and 'is strongly racially offensive', according to the Oxford Dictionary.

SOURCE 





Tax officers are forced to take 'racist' test that asks them to label pictures of Aboriginal and white Australians as either 'bad' or 'good'

This old BS has no validity at all.  It sounds  like a version of the IAT, which serious researchers abandoned long ago as telling you nothing certain

Tax officers have been told to take a 'straight-up racist' test asking them to label pictures of Aboriginal and white Australians as either 'bad' or 'good'.

With the test, the Australian Tax Office is gauging employees' unconscious bias, levels of prejudice and even what political party they vote for.

When asked how important they believed the Aboriginal heritage was to Australia, employees were told to choose between 'strongly agree, neither agree nor disagree' and 'strongly disagree'.

The test also asks employees to reveal how 'bothered' they would feel if 'many Aboriginal Australians moved to my neighbourhood in a short period of time' and altered the 'ethnic composition'.

Incorporating photos of white and Aboriginal Australians, the test forces participants to make a split-second decision about whether the person is 'good' or 'bad'.

When introduced in July, ATO officers slammed the test as 'straight-up racist', The Daily Telegraph reported.

While the ATO warned employees the test could trigger 'unexpected emotional reactions' it defended the test and said it was important to build an inclusive workforce.

Based on their results, employees were told whether or not they held 'unconscious bias' and were offered training accordingly.

A spokesman for the ATO said staff could opt out of the training, but were urged not to. He denied it was racist and denied it inappropriately probed employees' political leanings.

The spokesman said the course was a step in the right direction to 'maintain a workplace free from unrecognised biases'.

SOURCE 






Time to Clean the Stables in Canberra

Viv Forbes

Australia is facing an energy/infrastructure crisis caused by years of bipartisan stupidity and driven by a global green agenda. This mess becomes worse and more obvious every day. The Canberra stables are full of horse manure and need cleaning.

Fix Real Infrastructure, Dump Green Grandstanding

Here are two messages for Canberra:

Firstly, Australia does not have a problem with too much carbon dioxide going to the sky – we have a problem storing enough of the water coming from the sky.

Secondly, Australia does not have a shortage of wind and solar "farms" - we have a shortage of water, stock feed and low-cost electricity on real farms.

Politicians fritter our money on dubious "research", climate propaganda, foreign adventures and handouts for trendy, vote-seeking green causes. But they have not built a serious water supply dam since the 1980’s, and the last big coal-fired power station was opened 11 years ago. For a country with a growing population, abundant supplies of coal and uranium, and a history of severe droughts, these are serious omissions.

The Snowy Mountain Scheme (opened nearly 50 years ago) was a visionary project that produced large volumes of low-cost water for irrigation plus reliable hydro-power for industry.

The new Snowy 2.0 Scheme is a fraud – it will produce no extra water and will be a net consumer of power. Its sole purpose is to try to plug the holes and fluctuations in electricity supply caused by a bi-partisan love affair with expensive green energy toys producing unreliable, intermittent electricity.

Cease this baseless war on carbon fuels. Carbon dioxide does not drive global warming – it is driven out of sea water by ocean warming.

Australia should cancel Snowy 2.0, withdraw from all Paris and Kyoto Climate Treaty obligations, dump the NEG "plans", remove all green energy subsidies and start building some real power stations and real water supply dams and pipelines.

No matter what the weather does, we will need more cheap, reliable water and electricity.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






23 August, 2018

'They don't nationalise, they colonise': Sam Newman's attack on Australian Muslims following footy stars' 'divisive' embrace

"Incorrect" politically but is it incorrect in reality?

Footy Show co-host Sam Newman has delivered a shocking rant about Muslims, saying they share 'no common interest' with other Australians.

Newman's controversial comments followed Muslim AFL players Essendon's Adam Saad and Richmond's Bachar Houli embrace during the coin toss at a game on Friday night.

In the Sam, Mike & Thommo podcast, Newman slammed the public show of solidarity, motivated by Senator Fraser Anning's 'final solution' speech last week, calling it 'divisive'.

'They share no common interest with what we're on about, they don't, they have no common values, they preach to a different deity,' Newman said. 'They don't generally nationalise, they colonise, and this has been the problem in Europe... and it is becoming a huge problem in America.'

He said he thought about 70 per cent of Australians held similar beliefs to himself and Senator Anning, who called for an end to Muslim immigration and a program that favoured 'European Christian' values.

'Diversity should be managed to remain compatible with the social cohesion and national identity,' Mr Anning said in his maiden speech to parliament.

Newman said he didn't 'necessarily agree with what Fraser Anning said' but agreed 'a significant number of people in this country would absolutely agree with what he said'.

He blasted the AFL for its move to have two of its highest profile practicing Muslim players shake hands and embrace.

'Why would the AFL think they're being virtuous by getting those boys to shake hands? They're being divisive,' Newman said.

The pre-match protest was widely applauded - Richmond coach Damien Hardwick said it was 'a good opportunity to stand up', while US-born Magpies player Mason Cox said it said 'so much about the unity of this country and standing up for what is right.'

SOURCE  






'You can’t blame him for massacres of Aboriginal people': Sam Neill insists criticism of Captain James Cook 'is not fair' after retracing the Pacific voyage and interviewing 'cultures the explorer left in his wake'

Sam Neill spent several months retracing Captain James Cook's Pacific voyage, returning with nothing but the highest praise for the controversial explorer.

On his travels, the former actor spoke to the 'cultures left in Cook's wake' resulting in his new documentary for the History channel, Sam Neill: The Pacific in the Wake of Captain Cook.

Speaking to The Herald Sun about the project on Tuesday, Sam insisted the criticism levelled against Cook's sometimes violent impact on the region 'is not fair'.

Sam decided to retrace Cook's journey on the 250th anniversary of the British explorer's first voyage, interviewing native people to gauge their opinion on the controversial figure.

The New Zealand native acknowledged the fact it's no longer 'cool' to be a Captain Cook supporter, but insisted he's not bothered by popular opinion.

'Cook did, rightly or wrongly, change everything. And he has become a symbol for something that he probably didn’t deserve,' Sam said.

'I personally don’t think it’s fair for Cook to take the blame for everything. You can’t blame Cook for massacres of Aboriginal people, and these things happened. Sam did not elaborate further on his comments.

He came away from the trip with both a renewed fondness for Cook, and a newfound respect and understanding of the cultures he impacted, for better or worse.

Sam travelled to six places in total: Tahiti, Tonga, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, The Arctic and Alaska.

'I think he was actually an extraordinary man, and often had extraordinary insights into the cultures and the people he was encountering,' he said.

SOURCE 





Massive solar farm plan has residents up in arms over project that would be bigger than their town

Residents in the Camperdown district in south-west Victoria are concerned about the scale of a solar farm proposed to be built on farmland near the town.

Camperdown, population 3,300, covers about four square kilometres.

The planned Bookaar Solar Farm, to be located 10km north-west of the town, would occupy about six square kilometres.

"It's unbelievable," local dairy farmer Andrew Duynhoven said of the size of the solar farm.

"The sheer scale of this … it's actually bigger than Camperdown itself."

Mr Duynhoven is part of a growing group of residents concerned about renewable energy company Infinergy Pacific's ambitions in the region.

Power of the sun

The Bookaar Solar Farm would feature 700,000 panels, each measuring about two metres by one metre and standing four metres high.

It would be capable of generating roughly 200 megawatts of electricity, or enough to "supply clean energy to power the equivalent of 80,000 average Victorian homes each year", according to Infinergy Pacific's planning application.

The developer's website states the solar farm would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 400,000 tonnes and save about 700,000 megalitres of water compared to a coal-fired power station.

The plans for the project have been put out for public comment by Corangamite Shire Council, with councillors expected to consider their next step regarding the proposal at their September meeting.

Corangamite Shire mayor Jo Beard said she and her fellow councillors would take on board any concerns raised by residents.  "With any project when involved with agricultural land, it's always going to be questioned," Cr Beard said.

"That's no different to whether it's been a tourism project we've looked at, or even people wanting to subdivide — it always comes back to what are the implications [for] farming land. "From what I can gather so far, that has certainly been the big question."

Conflicts of interest

One councillor who won't be involved in the decision-making process is Bev McArthur. The proposed solar farm is on land owned by her family.

Cr Beard said Cr McArthur declared a conflict of interest and had not been part of any council discussions or briefings on the project.

Cr McArthur may not be part of the council for long though — she was preselected by the Victorian Liberal party last weekend for the Upper House seat of Western District, potentially taking the seat that was occupied by outgoing MP Simon Ramsay.

Cr McArthur refused to answer questions about the planned solar farm.

Mr Duynhoven and the newly formed group opposing the project have a shopping list of concerns and queries.

These include visual amenity, road use during construction, glint and glare, fire risk and firefighting access concerns, the effect of night lighting, the impact on wildlife, drainage issues, noise, nearby property devaluations, and the possibility of micro-climate changes.

But one of the main concerns the group has is the loss of prime agricultural land. "[Most of Australia is] in drought — we're not in drought so we're the food bowl," he said. "We're the most secure food producing [area in Australia].

"[If they approve] this large-scale solar farm, what precedent does it set in the protection of prime agricultural land?"

The planning permit application seeks to address many of the groups claims, saying that noise and glint would be minimal, drainage would not be impacted, and visual amenity would be somewhat mitigated by a vegetation screen.

Bookaar Solar Farm project manager Richard Seymour said proponents of the project were working with the CFA to write up a fire plan.

Mr Seymour confirmed the site was previously earmarked for a wind farm, but when the proponents dropped out, "Infinergy Pacific assessed the feasibility of site and concluded that a solar farm would be the most appropriate form of development".

He said the property had "characteristics that make it a good place for a solar farm" such as flat topography, nearby transmission lines, good sunlight, and no significant environmental constraints.

SOURCE 






Childcare sector defends ratios against Senate report

Of course they do.  It's more jobs for them.  Onerous government requirements price it out of reach for many mothers

Onerous staff-to-child ratios could be scrapped and childcare worker qualifications relaxed, after a Senate report questioned the evidence for stringent regulation of the childcare industry.

In a move that is set to attract the ire of early childhood educators, the Senate select committee on red tape has called for a review into the National Quality Framework, which governs both staffing ratios and qualifications, to ensure "they appropriately ­reflect the evidence base".

In its interim report, published last week, the committee noted that the evidence around both ­requirements was dated and questionable, stressing that the alternative to formal childcare was children remaining at home "with their parents who usually have no formal qualifications in early childhood education".

Committee chairman David Leyonhjelm called for the principles of the NQF to be "amended to reflect the fact that childcare is in effect competing with home-based parents who are not qualified early childhood educators".

Senator Leyonhjelm said: "The committee acknowledges there is a rationale for imposing staff ratios and qualifications, but is not convinced the current policy settings are correct. There is evidence that quality childcare is of genuine benefit in the case of children in dysfunctional households … but we seem to have lost sight of the fact that quality costs money. Raising standards beyond those needed to ensure the safety, comfort and happiness of the children costs money."

The committee’s report sparked a dissenting report from Labor senator Murray Watt and infuriated the early childhood union, United Voice, which ­described the inquiry as "an unnecessary … ­attack" on the quality provisions overseeing the industry. "That a bunch of extreme right-wing ideologues didn’t understand early childhood education is no surprise," said United Voice assistant national secretary Helen Gibbons.

Mitchell Institute director Megan O’Connell said the report had ignored "mountains of evidence showing quality educators can change the course of young children’s lives". "If there was any question that (early childhood education and care) is still thought of as daycare for parents instead of important education for children by some in the Senate, those concerns have been confirmed," she said.

The report referenced the Productivity Commission’s 2014 inquiry into the sector, which found a lack of evidence made it "impossible to tell whether they (staff-to-child ratios) have been set at appropriate levels".

Ratios for centre-based services range from one educator for every four infants under 24 months, one to five for children aged 24 to 36 months, and about one to 10 for older preschoolers. Education Minister Simon Birmingham said states and territories were responsible for regulating childcare services but the government would consider the report and its recommendations.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here





22 August, 2018

‘It’s a schemozzle’: Australia, second largest gas exporter, on track for 2020 natural gas shortage

It's a schemozzle, all right. NSW and Victoria have large reserves of natural gas in the ground but refuse to mine it on flimsy environmental grounds.  Queensland and Western Australia, by contrast, are pumping their reserves for all they are worth. But they have long term export contracts for just about all of it so there is not much left to supply the Green states. So the Green states have to buy it on the international market.  And the growing demand for gas means that they will soon run into the fact that they don't have the port capacity to bring in any more than they do at the moment

The country’s first floating LNG import ship has just been secured by Australian Industrial Energy, in an attempt to remedy the nation’s forecast 2020 gas shortage.

Due to start pumping imported gas into the NSW and Victorian marketplaces by 2020, the NSW Government has gone about fast-tracking the process to safeguard our energy security, declaring the ship a critical piece of infrastructure whose development should be prioritised.

But Michael McLaren can’t get his head around why the plan, which will involve teaming up with a Norwegian company to bring the floating import terminal to Port Kembla, is even necessary.

For Michael, the pertinent question is this: if we have so much gas to export, why are we destined for an imminent gas shortage?

"This is a chapter in a very, very macabre narrative that this country has developed on energy," says Michael.

"Take coal for example. We really should have the cheapest, most abundant energy grid in the world. But we don’t. Go back two years, South Australia had some of the highest prices and some of the least reliable energy distribution in the world. It’s just ridiculous."

"And here we have gas. We’re flooded with the stuff, we’ve got so much that we’re exporting it all over the place to the point of being the second biggest exporter in the world."

"And yet, we have these forecasts saying that if we carry on the way we’re going, we’re going to have a gas shortage at home. That’ll drive up local prices, industry won’t be able to access Australian gas, so they’ll shut down."

"It’s a schemozzle."

SOURCE 





"Proud Boys" founder Gavin McInnes heading to Australia in November

McInnes is a lot of fun

GAVIN McInnes is heading down under to "recruit soldiers".

The British-born Canadian comedian and founder of the pro-Trump men’s rights group The Proud Boys — whose members are notorious for engaging in street brawls with left-wing Antifa protesters — is the latest right-wing commentator to set his sights on Australia.

McInnes and The Proud Boys were banned from Twitter earlier this month for being "violent extremists" ahead of the second anniversary of the deadly Unite the Right neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The 48-year-old shot to fame in the ’90s as the co-founder of Vice magazine but left in 2008 over "creative differences". He did stints at Fox News, The Blaze and Rebel Media before joining Conservative Review’s online TV network CRTV.

"The left has declared war on free speech and we’ve declared war on them," he said in a statement. "Why Australia? It’s the last vestige of masculinity in the free world, I’m coming to recruit soldiers for the war on censorship."

McInnes, who describes himself as a libertarian and prefers the term "New Right" to "alt-right", has been labelled by critics as sexist, racist, white supremacist, Islamophobic and transphobic among other things.

The tour of Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Gold Coast from November 2-11 is being organised by Penthouse magazine, which was behind right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos’ controversial visit to Australia last year.

Organisers say McInnes’ is "known for his raucous and irreverent take on the world and controversial, no holds barred opinions", with his "brash, comedic style of commentary" earning him "millions of fans".

Penthouse publisher Damien Costas said allegations that McInnes was a white supremacist were "nonsense".

"These people are not white supremacists, they’re western supremacists, they believe in the great values that built the western world," he said. "Free speech is the cornerstone of western civilisation.

"Anyone to the right of Chairman Mao is a fascist by the standards of the New Left. The problem is words like Nazi and fascist have been misappropriated and reappropriated by the modern left to suit their purposes, to shut down debate.

"It’s far easier to shut debate down than argue it out. They don’t have an argument. Every minority group in history has seen free speech as their greatest ally because it is the means through which they argue against their oppression.

"Handing over free speech to the state to determine what’s offensive and what’s not, or to the left in general, is the biggest slippery slope we could ever hope to go down."

Victoria Police slapped Penthouse with a $50,000 bill after violent left-wing protesters attacked Yiannopoulos fans outside the Melbourne Pavilion in Kensington in December. Up to 300 police were required to break up the fights.

Last month, Canadian right-wing commentators Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were similarly hit with a $68,000 bill by Victoria Police "for the use of police resources" due to the presence of left-wing protesters.

Despite the outstanding bill, Yiannopoulos earlier this week announced a second Australian tour scheduled for late November. He will appear alongside conservative US commentator Ann Coulter.

Mr Costas said he believed the bill was "completely illegal" and he had already told the police "if you want to pursue this, I’m happy to let a judge decide".

"Our security negotiated with all the police in every state, they knew exactly where we were going to be," he said. "We negotiated a user-pays model upfront, we paid for what we were asked to pay for. After the event, the Police Minister saw an opportunity to do some grandstanding."

He predicted similar protests for McInnes’ tour. "I do expect it," Mr Costas said. "But to be fair, the left didn’t actually get as violent as everyone thought they did (in Kensington). The residents of the housing trust, a Sudanese group, came down and caused the problems.

"They’re a protected species, no one was allowed to talk about that. The police weren’t allowed to touch them. They were throwing rocks the size of footballs across the street.

"I said to one of the police, ‘Why don’t you arrest these people?’ They said, ‘We can’t touch them, they’ll have our badges if we do.’ It’s a massive political issue in Melbourne.

"As far as Gavin McInnes is concerned, the man is a comedian who makes fairly politically incorrect points, but he’s a comedian nonetheless. If we’re going to be charging for police presence for a comedian, God help us."

SOURCE 






Threatening violence based on gender, race, religion or sexual orientation will see offenders JAILED for up to three years under new laws

Threats of violence are not usually regarded as protected free speech so I support this.  Threats can be very worrying

People who threaten or incite violence against religious minorities, transsexuals, those who are gay or have AIDS face up to three years in jail.

Individual perpetrators of this crime also face $11,000 fines under new laws coming into effect in New South Wales this week. 

Corporations face a maximum penalty of $55,000.

The state government has issued a warning on Facebook to anyone who is contemplating harassing or threatening violence against someone based on a specific religious belief or affiliation, sexual orientation, intersex status or HIV/AIDS diagnosis.

The Crimes Amendment (Publicly Threatening and Inciting Violence) Act of 2018 defines 'gender identity' as exhibiting mannerisms or an appearance that is at odds with someone's biology.

It regards 'intersex status' as 'having physical, hormonal or genetic features' which are neither male nor female or a combination of both. 

SOURCE 





NSW Drought In Perspective

Just a couple more comments on the NSW drought. I have worked out the YTD rainfall in NSW, although this is a pretty artificial measure. This year is the fourth lowest on record, behind 1902, 1965 and 1940 (in that order).

 

If we look at the 12 month figures, this year ranks as 8th driest, behind 1901, 1902, 1919, 1927, 1929, 1940 and 1965.

It is easy to see why how farmers say this is the worst drought in memory, because it is exactly that. Whereas these sort of severe droughts used to come along every decade on average, there has been nothing like it since 1965.

This year the drought has been largely confined to parts of NSW and South Australia:

This certainly was not the case in some of those earlier droughts, which were far more extensive:

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here





21 August, 2018

Are Australia's private schools worth the price tag?

There are private schools everywhere in Australia, so they are a very popular and widely used educational option -- particularly for High School. The Federal government subsidizes them so they are affordable to many.

The article below covers a fair range of the factors that influence judgments of schools but it only hints at the big factor.  The single largest factor in educational achievement is without a doubt IQ.  It correlates about .7 with educational attainment.  Nothing else comes close. And it is student IQ that makes a school.

High IQ goes with a lot of other favourable things so high IQ kids will have fewer behavior problems and the greater ease of teaching them will attract teachers.  And that means that private schools usually have many applicants for a teaching position. So they can pick and choose the best. My son's private High School had two keen mathematics teachers of the male persuasion, a great rarity. So in a typical example of the injustice in all life, the best students get the best teachers.  How can such a school go wrong?

So the important question is where is a school in the IQ stakes?  The lower the average IQ of the students, the lower will be the outcomes that the school produces. Ideally, you should send your kid to the school with the highest average IQ that he can cope with.

But IQ is a generally forbidden topic. In my time long ago schools did IQ tests regularly in order to stream their students -- but there would be a huge outcry if that were done today.  I went to a large State school in a regional city and clearly benefited from streaming.  There was only a small "academic" stream but I was placed in it.  And I got an education that suited my interests and teachers who knew how to teach the subjects concerned. I also had friends with whom I could have wide-ranging conversations.

But because of the lack of IQ testing these days, we have a harder time making choices.  In some States, particularly NSW. there are still a number of selective school, where admission to the High school depends on final overall marks in grade school.  Only high achievers get in. And because school marks and IQ are correlated, those schools have a student body with substantially higher average IQs than the norm,

And how good are their results?  Very good.  Some of them even produce higher marks than top private schools. James Ruse Agricultural High School is a legendary example of that.  Their very severe selection procedures ensure that most of their students are of Chinese or Indian heritage so they have a double advantage.  They get Asian diligence as well as high IQ in their students.  So they produce a large number of the top students in the State.

And it is these selective schools that Leftists talk about when they make comparisons with the results from private schools.  They pretend that ALL state schools have such high potential.  But they do not. I hate the cliche, but I have got to say that they are comparing apples and oranges.  A true comparison would be to compare AVERAGE state and private school results.  That would show private schooling in a very favourable light.

Private schools do of course have selection criteria but just the ability to pay is the main criterion.  And it is a good academic criterion as well as a financial one. That is because, as Charles Murray showed decades ago, income and IQ are strongly correlated. Income is not a bad proxy for IQ. Smart people tend to do better at getting rich than dim people do.

So private schools will almost always have a student body that is smarter than average, though not as smart as a highly selective State school.  Which brings us to the question, is there ANYTHING ELSE that private schools do which contributes to pupil achievement?  We don't know for certain.  To answer that, we would have to find a State selective school where the student IQ was at the same average level as a private school and compare the results.  To my knowledge, that comparison has not been done.  The horror of talking about IQ probably forbids it.

There is however one result which ALL schools tend to produce:  The friends you make at school tend to be the main body of your friends for the rest of your life.  And their sisters are the ones you will most likely marry.  So attending a private school should be TREMENDOUSLY helpful in that regard. If the kids you went to school with were the progeny of judges and lawyers, for instance, your entry to lucrative employment in the legal profession would undoubtedly be greatly eased.  And marrying one of their sisters would get you a wife who was a social asset in your life.  Is it any wonder that "The people you associate with" is one of the most common reasons people give for sending their kids to private schools?


Broadly speaking, choosing a school is not a process you can use trial and error to improve on. Most families don’t want to move their kids around a lot of different schools. So how do you get a sense of how good a school is from the outside? University entrance results are one obvious place to start, and high-fee schools tend to sell hard on their high marks.

But if you’re only interested in academic achievement, the results from most of the 30-odd Australian studies since 2000 suggest that private schools are no better at progressing students’ learning than state schools, once you’ve controlled for socioeconomic background. That’s also been the case for Australia’s results in the past three Pisa tests, the OECD’s international comparison test for student learning.

"On average private schools superficially appear to achieve higher student outcomes," concedes education researcher and public schools advocate Trevor Cobbold. "But public schools enrol the vast majority of disadvantaged students … and this is what largely accounts for differences in school outcomes."

The Grattan Institute’s yet-to-be released study of five years of Naplan results contrasted students’ progress between Naplan tests rather than the raw scores, because it says that is the best measure of what value a school is adding. Comparing like with like schools by socioeconomic background across sectors, it found there is no significant learning advantage conferred by private schools.

Researcher Peter Goss says, "it’s a pretty clear finding that the differences in progress between the three sectors are just not there, on Naplan. So if parents are choosing their sector based on Naplan results, then they kind of miss the point."

The academic excellence of high-fee schools might owe more to a virtuous circle or feedback loop, rather than anything particularly unique to the school’s teaching and learning. Those schools are also in a position to lure bright students with scholarships. It’s like the (probably apocryphal) comment a senior figure at Harvard University in the US reportedly made to a private audience of overseas educators, in explaining the secret to the university’s global prestige. "It’s simple. We choose the best people, we don’t fuck them up, and we take all the credit."

Naplan is a narrow benchmark, and data available for research comparing school outcomes is very limited. There is, for example, some research to suggest that public school kids do better at university than private school kids with the same Atar. The researchers say this may reflect the ability of some private schools to maximise tertiary entrance scores for their students, who revert to "underlying ability" once they’ve left.

But none of it can answer the question for an individual child: is your child going to do better at one school or another?

The old school tie

Don’t look to the dismal science for help. Whatever it is, paying high fees for private school is not an economically rational decision, says Sean Leaver, a behavioural economist specialising in education choices. He compares it to a luxury consumption decision, like buying a top-end BMW over a good cheap Toyota. Both will get you there.

"As an investment? Clearly no," he says. "There’s no real benefit from attending a private school compared to a public school once you take into account that private schools skim the best kids and screen the worst kids out."

"The big question for me, with my parent hat on," says the Grattan Institute’s Peter Goss, "is what is the school going to contribute to helping my children grow up healthy, happy, having choices in life and being prepared and set up to succeed in those choices? … I just don’t think we gather that data. So … everything else is a bit of a proxy."

So why are so many families – more than 50% of students in Sydney and Melbourne attend non-government schools – choosing to pay for private schools? In a measure of the sensitivity around the issue, Guardian Australia found it difficult to find parents willing to speak publicly about why they chose private schooling for their children. It might be a mark of status within private school communities, but in the public arena, very few want to articulate the reasons.

Many talk in private about the stress of paying high fees, but don’t want to go on the record about their private financial decisions. Likewise, most private school principals approached by Guardian Australia declined the invitation to talk about what private schools offer in exchange for their fees.

"I talk to people a lot about this," says Philip Heath, the principal of Barker College in Sydney’s north-west. "A lot of kids come here at year 10 having been in very good government schools before they come here. So it’s a discretionary spend; so what’s driving that decision?"

Barker is a co-ed independent Anglican day and boarding school that was founded in 1890. Year 12 costs $32,000. Including its Indigenous school, Darkinjung Barker, near Wyong, it has about 2,200 students.

"I reckon there are probably four key things," Heath says. "[The first is] broadly cultural and spiritual allegiances … that’s ethics and values; where their families are from.

"The second would be they are seeking an individualisation of experience … so teacher connection, discipline, access to opportunities, flexibility of the structure to adapt to that child’s interests or needs.

"Third would be the ability to influence school policy and practice at a local level … and to participate more in decision making.

"The fourth one, that’s not popular to talk about, would be aspirations for academic and social engagement, lifelong friendships … Improperly expressed it would be ‘the old school tie’. Put more generously, you’re building friendships that last a long time."

Choices driven by anxiety

"If I was paying $40,000 a year, I would want two swimming pools!" jokes the former NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli, who now heads the Gonski Institute for Education at UNSW. "No one should resent a school like Kings for that, people are spending 40k a year to send their kids there."

Associate Professor Piccoli, who was a leading advocate for needs-based funding while he was minister from 2011 to 2017 is also a supporter of school choice, with his own kids in the Catholic system. But he says the key difference between school sectors is "the ability of the non-government sector to choose who their students are."

Public schools have to take all comers, but through fees, entrance exams, targeted scholarships, interviews, discretion and discipline proceedings, private schools can pick and choose. He believes many parents make a high school decision based on perceptions of student behaviour, or of a school’s level of discipline.

The extensive disclosure and reporting requirements about critical incidents or teacher dismissals for government schools can impact badly on the public sector’s reputation, he says.

"I don’t think the playing field is even," he says. "If Catholic and independent schools were also subject to freedom of information applications, that would make it a bit more equal. Public schools are much more publicly accountable. Catholic and independent schools don’t have to provide that kind of information, and that gives them in a sense a marketing advantage.

"You only hear about it in independent schools if a parent complains about or it goes to court," Piccoli says.

Leaver, the economist, says parental choices are typically driven more by anxiety than reason but it could be a rational choice to go private if your local public high school is small and does not offer the range of subjects your child wants.

"[However], in most cases you’re probably better off buying a house in a suburb with a nice public school than actually paying the fees to go to a private school," he says. "It’s more of a consumption choice. They’re paying for all the extras. The nice facilities, the segregation effects, the screening out of the ‘undesirables’."

Are private schools really stricter, better at instilling discipline or shaping the good character of children? That is certainly conveyed in the rhetoric and marketing of many private schools. But it might be simply that such schools have easier raw material to work with – and, as Piccoli pointed out in a public brawl with Trinity College in 2014, the fact they can just expel problem kids.

"The idea independent schools might be somehow morally superior – I don’t buy that at all," says Dr Mark Merry, principal of Yarra Valley Grammar in Victoria, a private co-ed school in Melbourne with fees up to $27,000 a year.

"I think that parents who choose to send their children to our school choose to do so subscribing to the values of the school, so we perhaps don’t have the diversity of viewpoints ... It’s far more – not monocultural – but it’s more homogeneous."

Better teachers?

Independent school advocates argue that the concentration of private resources is not the key point to private schools. What they offer is choice: giving parents options to fit their own values, faith or beliefs, or their kids’ special needs.

"There’s probably more differences within the sectors than there would be between them," says Carolyn Bladden, the principal of the independent, no-fee Warakirri College in Sydney’s Fairfield and Blacktown, which helps disadvantaged young adults finish high school.

Bladden, who has previously worked at high-fee private schools in Sydney including Knox and Meriden, says sprawling grounds and gleaming facilities aren’t what makes the difference to a child. "The most important thing is the relationship between the teachers and the students, and their engagement. It can happen or not happen within either sector."

So where are the teachers better? Even those working in the public sector admit underperforming teachers in public schools are harder to get rid of. Accordingly, principal autonomy in hiring and firing is a key factor many parents cite for going private, believing they will get better teaching quality as a result.

Yarra Valley’s Merry says: "A key difference [between sectors] is the autonomy of the head of the school to make decisions pertaining to that school. It comes out in lots and lots of different ways. Certainly it comes out in hiring colleagues. You’re able to really work out who you need, whether the person fits the specific school environment."

A NSW public school principal who requested anonymity because of the Department of Education’s restrictions on talking to the media, says the process for dismissing an underperforming teacher is so onerous and drawn out that most principals just don’t have the time to do it. The easier option is to wait out the bad teacher, or get them transferred.

"Bureaucracy is the worst thing about public schools – it’s a huge employer, with creaky systems; one size must fit all. It is very hard to get rid of teachers who are not performing well," the principal says.

But the Grattan Institute’s Goss says, while the freedom to fire the worst teachers may be attractive to parents with a business mindset, it’s importance may be overstated.

"No good international research says you can lift the system by getting rid of the worst teachers," he says. "Lots of international research says you can lift outcome at scale by providing appropriate support to all teachers."

The somewhat maddening conclusion from talking to principals and researchers is that schools cannot be judged by sector – it is rationally meaningless to argue private schools are better. There is too much diversity between schools, and the research points to individual school cultures being the most important factor. That comes down to the teaching and learning culture cultivated by the principal.

"Some parents just like the uniforms, talk more about the grounds and the nice jackets than the quality of teaching and learning," the public school principal says.

"The question I always tell parents to ask is what professional development are the teachers doing? Unless there’s a continuous investment in that happening, go somewhere else."

SOURCE 






Bid to limit commercial fishing in marine parks defeated by Coalition

The last Labor government locked up vast areas of Australian waters into marine parks where commercial fishing was banned.  The whole thing was just Green/Left bastardry -- the usual Green/Left desire to  hurt people rather than help nature. 

Commercial fisheries in developed countries are normally sustainably managed.  Throughout the world -- for instance in the Mediterranean -- many fisheries have continued in productive  use for hundreds of years or more.  And there is no reason why Australia could not do the same. 

As it is, despite the huge area of Australian waters, we have had to import fish, some of it from New Zealand but a lot from third world countries where uncontrolled fishing practices are very destructive of fish stocks.  So the allegedly Green policy has in fact greatly damaged fish stocks overall.  And yet the wreckers want to lock away yet more of a wonderful food source that we have inherited


A push by the Greens and Labor to attempt to force greater protection of fisheries in Australia’s marine parks has failed for the second time.

The parties had vowed to reject controversial management plans for the parks proposed by the Turnbull government. But on Thursday the Senate crossbench combined with the Coalition to defeat disallowance motions on the basis that the parks would then be left with no plans in place and no limits on fishing.

In March the environment minister Josh Frydenberg issued management plans for 44 marine parks to replace Gillard-era plans that were suspended when the Abbott government was elected in 2013.

Frydenberg said the plans were a "more balanced and scientific evidence-based approach to ocean protection" but most environmental groups opposed them warning they would strip more than 35m hectares of "no-take" ocean from the parks, allowing commercial fishing activities in 37 of the 44 parks.

Labor introduced a disallowance motion, supported by the Greens, but it was defeated on 27 March when the government called it on for a sudden vote before the opposition had time to convince four more crossbench senators to support it.

The Greens and Labor this month proposed a series of new disallowance motions for the south-west, north, north-west, temperate east and Coral Sea marine park plans.

On Thursday the disallowance motions were defeated 36 votes to 29, with One Nation, Centre Alliance, and senators Tim Storer, Derryn Hinch, Cory Bernardi and Fraser Anning siding with the Coalition.

Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, the co-sponsor of the disallowances, told the Senate the choice was to "reject or reward" the government’s attempts to gut plans put in place by the fishing industry, environmental campaigners and community.

Whish-Wilson said the government had "ignored the advice of their own scientific panel" and 1,400 scientists who signed a petition urging that marine protections not be reduced. He said claims the plans were "balanced" meant the Coalition "giving their stakeholders they represent here, the big end of the fish industry and oil and gas, what they want".

Labor senator Louise Pratt, the co-sponsor of the disallowances, accused the government of "decimating the original plans worked on for so long by putting their vastly weakened plans forward".

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson warned if the Greens got their way on disallowance the marine parks would "go back to no protection, nothing". "Why throw the baby out with the bath water? There are protections in place now and if you’re not happy with it, work on it in the next parliament."

The Liberals and Hanson cited the Pew Charitable Trusts - the one major environmental charity that opposes the disallowance - in their reasons for backing the current marine plans.

Bodies representing recreational fishers and the commercial fishing industry welcomed the result. Seafood Industry Australia chief executive Jane Lovell said it meant the "uncertainty that has plagued much of our wild-catch sector is now gone".

SOURCE 







Coral Bleaching Just As Bad Or Worse 400 Years Ago

The Greenie lies about coral bleaching, excerpts:

Large-scale coral bleaching has raised concern about the future of the ecosystems and the impact their loss could have on biodiversity.

The fact that we are seeing an increase in bleaching even in these tough corals highlights just how serious the threat of coral bleaching is. –Dr Sebastian Hennige, researcher

The teams found the frequency of bleaching has increased since the 1800s and, despite corals’ ability to recover, there are fears they could now be approaching a "critical threshold".

Dr Nick Kamenos from Glasgow’s School of Geographical and Earth Sciences said: "It’s clear in the core data we examined that bleaching has been occurring on the Great Barrier Reef for at least 400 years, but the frequency of bleaching events has increased markedly since the early 1800s and those events have affected 10% more corals since the late 1700s.

The facts:

The claim that the frequency of bleaching events has increased markedly since the early 1800s is an utterly dishonest one. Here is the actual graph from the paper itself:



The relevant chart is "B", which shows the number of years in each decade when at least 20% of corals were affected.

As you can see, although there has been a rise since 1800, there is little difference between recent decades and the 18thC. Indeed bleaching was far worse in the 1890s and 1750s.

Worse still for the alarmists, chart "C" shows little change in the percentage of corals bleached per decade.

There is the usual nonsense about how things will get much worse. But the actual facts show a completely different picture.

SOURCE  





‘You dogs, I spit on your cross’: Muslim imam accused of abusing council staff and illegally clearing land claims his Islamic group is exempt from Australian law

A Muslim imam accused of abusing council staff over allegations he was illegally clearing land claims his Islamic group is exempt from Australian law.

Dr Mustapha Kara-Ali is the Imam of religious guild Diwan Al Dawla, a guild which conducts much of its religious practices on a property in Colo, New South Wales.

Hawkesbury City Council has launched legal action against the imam after learning he was allegedly clearing land on the property without a permit, the ABC reported.

Dr Kara-Ali, a Harvard graduate, allegedly screamed 'you dogs, I step on your cross' when council workers visited the property to serve court documents.

The property, roughly 50 kilometres outside of Sydney, is owned by a number of members from the guild.

However after an anonymous complaint was made to the Hawkesbury City Council about earthworks going on at the property, council officers were sent to investigate.

The officers allegedly discovered the illegal clearing of native trees and metal waste.

Officers visited the property several times, allegedly discovering vegetation clearing and even the construction of a boat ramp.

All were allegedly being done without the correct permits, so council issued an $8,000 fine for 'pollution or potential pollution caused by failed sediment erosion fencing'.

Court documents revealed a letter Dr Kara-Ali had submitted to council, ABC News reported.

In it he stated that the guild lives 'separated from secular lifestyles to pursue a religious mode of worship and an ascetic lifestyle under an oath of self-sacrifice and dedication to the purposes of Diwan Al Dawla'.

'The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) Act 2012 stipulates that when it is carrying out religious activities that are related to the practice, study, teaching or propagation of its religious beliefs,' he wrote. 'Or other activities ancillary to them … Diwan Al Dawla, as a basic religious charity is not required to comply with Australian laws.'  

A conflict between council officers and Dr Kara-Ali and an unidentified man was caught on dash cam, allegedly showing the unknown man spitting at officers.

'Both men were repeatedly yelling obscenities from the other side of the gate, calling out 'you dogs, I step on your cross', the council officer wrote in an affidavit.

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission was quick to dispute the claims being made by Dr Kara-Ali. A spokesperson for the ACNC said religious charities were still required to comply with Australian law.

If a religious charity is found to be in participating in or encouraging unlawful behaviour, it can have its charity status revoked.  

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






20 August, 2018

Absurd oil supply treaty

A cutback in oil imports would almost certainly stem from shipping difficulties of some sort so we need the oil to be already in Australia, not half a world way in Nederland

Australia is facing new questions about whether it is taking the issue of oil security seriously, as the Federal Government moves to bolster lagging reserves by making a treaty with the Netherlands.

It has been six years since Australia last met its global obligations to maintain sufficient oil reserves to last 90 days, a benchmark set by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 1974.

Oil stocks currently sit at between 51 and 52 days, and a wave of oil refinery closures in recent years has been blamed for the decline.

One option being considered is new treaties with countries as far afield as the Netherlands, so Australia can draw from other oil stocks in the event of an emergency.

Shane Gaddes from the Department of Environment and Energy told a parliamentary hearing on Monday that 3 million barrels could be quarantined in the Netherlands through the use of a ticketing system.

"Australia has been non-compliant since March 2012, and Australia's non-compliance has been driven by falling domestic crude oil production, along with rising product demands and imports," Mr Gaddes told the inquiry.

"The Australian Government intends to purchase up to 400 metric kilotons of oil stock tickets in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years."

But upon questioning, Mr Gaddes told the hearing such a deal would only add an extra 3.8 days of oil reserves.

Former Air Force deputy chief John Blackburn said he was not convinced the Government had taken the oil security issue seriously.

"It's taken us six years to do something, and this treaty gives us three-and-a-half days of oil supply — how long's it going to take you to fix the rest of the shortfall?" Mr Blackburn said.

"It's part of our obligations to start to address the shortfall in our membership requirements, but the domestic security of fuel in this country is a separate issue that has not been analysed properly."

RMIT research fellow Dr Anthony Richardson said a "she'll be right attitude" has left Australia in a precarious situation.

He said it was unlikely a treaty with the Netherlands would help in the event of a crisis.

"Most of our oil passes through Indonesia," he said. "That's not anyway a criticism of Indonesia but if things happen, that oil is in the Netherlands, we'll need it in Australia.

"That's almost a fake supply, it's lovely to have that but if we're not having tankers turn up, the oil in the Netherlands is not going to help us — it's a long way from Australia."

He said Australia should dramatically ramp up its storage capacity. "We've got the land capacity, if you're going to pay for storage in another country, why not pay for that storage here in Australia by the oil companies?" Mr Hughes said.

SOURCE 





Company tax has had its day

It kills jobs

The company income tax rate is to be cut to 25% in 2022. You read that correctly — but it’s not happening in Australia. It is happening (of all places) in France — one of the most heavily taxed nations on earth and one whose politics we have come to think of as always being several degrees to the left of ours.

So if France can cut its company tax to 25% and Australia can’t, it makes one wonder what is going on here.

In fact, it’s not only France. There is a worldwide trend towards lower corporate income tax. The shift was in place even before the US federal rate was cut to 21% earlier this year, but that change has given the trend a new and massive push.

As the tax on internationally mobile capital goes down, Australia as a destination for global capital — far from being unable to afford a cut in its company tax rate — cannot afford not to.

The fact we have a dividend imputation system does not change that reality. Nor does the nauseating repetition of slogans pitting funding for schools and hospitals against tax cuts for banks.

The question is whether we wake up to the need for lower company tax now, based on conjecture, or wait for the consequences of not cutting company tax to become ever more apparent.

The consequence would be a continuation of the weakness in business investment we are already seeing. Investment is the lifeblood of growth in productivity, the economy, employment and real wages.  Growth can continue for a while without it — but not forever.

Company tax has become a political football; with the focus no longer on the economic case for a cut, but on the game of scoring points for the next federal election.

Right now the most likely outcome is that we are stuck indefinitely with a cumbersome, inefficient two-tier company tax rate; premised on the mistaken belief that the economic benefits of a lower rate depend on the size of the company.

Sooner or later — whether it happens under the current government or a future one — an across-the-board cut will be seen as an economic necessity.

SOURCE 





Is it too late to save our universities?

WHEN university teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd showed her students a clip of a TV debate about the use of gender-neutral pronouns, she was accused of "epistemic violence".



An LGBT centre official claimed her activities led to a surge in assaults on transgender people. When asked to prove the allegations, he said he didn’t have to "perform his trauma".

A professor in Ms Shepherd’s own department wrote an opinion piece for the local paper saying the campus "had become unsafe".  "Is freedom of speech more important than the safety and wellbeing of our society?" he asked.

Ms Shepherd, a graduate student at Canada’s Wilfrid Laurier University, made international headlines late last year after she released an audio recording of her interrogation by university officials over the tutorial lesson.

She was told her decision to air the clip featuring University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson debating Bill C-16 — a law making it illegal to refuse to refer to transgender people by their preferred pronouns — had created a "toxic climate" and an "unsafe learning environment".

She was accused of violating the university’s gendered and sexual violence policy for transphobia, the Ontario Human Rights Code, and even Bill C-16 itself simply by presenting criticism of the bill.

"Most shockingly, I was told that by playing that clip neutrally and not denouncing Peterson’s views, this was akin to neutrally playing a speech by Hitler. So it was my neutrality that was the problem," the 23-year-old told a gathering at the [Australian] Centre for Independent Studies on Thursday night.

Ms Shepherd, who has since launched a $3.6 million lawsuit against the university over the "inquisition", was speaking alongside Quillette magazine founder Claire Lehmann and sociologist Dr Tiffany Jenkins at an event titled "The Snowflake Epidemic".

Conservatives have held up her case as a emblematic of a radical left-wing takeover of universities, where safe spaces, "micro-aggressions", trigger warnings and censorship of ideological opponents are now commonplace.

For many, the universities are a lost cause after decades of postmodernism — which holds that there is no objective truth — eating away at the intellectual foundations of most disciplines.

Melbourne University now teaches a course in "whiteness studies", pushing concepts like "white privilege", "white fragility" and "toxic whiteness".

In 2013, two whiteness studies "scholars of colour" published a peer-reviewed paper exploring their lack of empathy for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and the Sandy Hook massacre — because the victims were white.

"Why does this matter? Students who get inculcated into this ideology graduate and enter the professions, enter the media and enter corporations," said Ms Lehmann, whose online magazine bills itself as a "platform for free thought".


Quillette founder Claire Lehmann, an Australian psychologist.

The panel warned that it only took a small number of aggressive activists to force the majority to acquiesce. "The radicals are definitely a minority," Ms Shepherd said.

"The thing is, the vast majority of students on campus are totally disengaged. They don’t do their readings, they barely come to class, they don’t care about anything, they just want to pass with the lowest grade they can get, so they don’t care what happens. That’s why the minority is so powerful."

Ms Lehmann said the noisy minority had power. "You can see the impact in Australia through the corporate world with all of this virtue signalling on diversity and inclusion and implicit bias training," she said.

"Implicit bias training doesn’t have any solid scientific evidence backing it up. These ideas have impact. They waste money. They waste people’s time."

Ms Shepherd said the only way to fight the activists was to get a "critical mass of people who will speak out, but when you look at my situation it’s not very inspiring for other students".

"Other students were publishing op-eds saying I put hate speech in my classroom, I’m a transphobe, I committed gendered violence," she said.

Dr Jenkins said the "bottom up" censorship that came as a result of identity politics already "seeped into our everyday lives". "The interesting thing about it is it doesn’t announce itself in the way censorship used to," she said.

"How we deal with each other, second guessing, seeing each other through the prism of difference. It encourages people to see each other as harmful."

She said educators had a responsibility to the younger generation and she "would not necessarily encourage people to go to university anymore".

"They’re not going to learn, they’re not going to be challenged," she said. "I genuinely think we need to set up different universities and encourage people to take the ideals of the old academy out."

Ms Lehmann agreed that the universities were lost. "A lot of us are trying to build intellectual spaces online," she said.

"We try to have serious, thoughtful, complex discussions on difficult topics. There is quite a robust community of us who are scattered all over the world but we come together to talk about things you would have ordinarily talked about in a university tutorial setting but we can’t anymore so we talk about it online.

"We have to carry on the spirit of learning and the values of western civilisation, and the love of learning and books. That’s all we can really do is keep that flame burning. Universities are an institution, but institutions die."

SOURCE 



   

National Party supports coal power

The Nationals have urged the federal government to support new coal-fired power plants and lift the ban on nuclear energy.

The party's federal council in Canberra on Saturday passed a motion calling on the government to back building high-energy, low-emissions power stations to provide reliable and affordable power.

A separate proposal from the Young Nationals urging federal and state governments to abolish rules stopping nuclear power plants being built and uranium mining also succeeded.

The call for new coal-fired power station comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull fights internal divisions over energy policy.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan reinforced the case for coal, as conservative backbenchers agitate for its use to drive down power bills.

"I don't want to live in a nation where we just export our energy to the rest of the world to help their development, jobs and pensioners," he told the Nationals council.

"We need to use some of that here and we don't think it's a sin to do so."

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






19 August, 2018

Fake Rape Crisis Campus Tour

An email from Bettina Arndt [bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au] below

Before I tell you about this week’s video, I just wanted to bring you up to date with the fracas over my La Trobe talk. You may have heard that the university eventually caved in and the event is now happening on September 6. I will post full details on my Facebook page soon – perhaps some  Melbourne people would like to come along. I’m hoping I’ll see La Trobe staff as well. It is shocking that academics have been silenced on this issue.

La Trobe has agreed to cover the costs of security but we will have to see whether things get out of control. There was a demonstration against me this week. A rather pathetic little group but when the details of the event are published they might be able to pull together a bigger crowd of protestors. I’m also speaking at Sydney University on September 11 – that one promises to be even more lively, given the feral activists on that campus.

I have students from other cities keen to have me speak so I have now started a crowd-funder to help the student groups with costs of venue hire plus my travel costs and extra security if necessary. Here’s the link: https://www.gofundme.com/h9qp7.

Please do what you can to support this. I feel it is one small step towards forcing universities to confront the free speech issues on our campuses

Dr Quentin Van Meter

Now to this week’s video. I recently watched an excellent YouTube video showing a talk by Quentin Van Meter, an American paediatric endocrinologist. Dr Van Meter is a clinical associate professor at both Emory and Morehouse Schools of Medicine and he trained at Johns Hopkins, which did much of the early work on transgender. Dr Van Meter’s talk was very brave and extremely worrying, exposing how academic medicine has caved in to the trans lobby and is allowing ideology to take priority over proper care of children. Trans medicine is now replete with lies, fraud and unethical, dangerous medical practices, as Van Meter explained. 

I’ve long been concerned about all this and immediately tried to find out more about Van Meter, only to discover he was visiting here this week, as the guest of the National Civic Council. You may have read today that the University of Western Australia has just caved in to protests and cancelled his Perth talk. Here we go again!

We managed to arrange to video his Sydney talk earlier this week and I was privileged to chair his Q&A. I know this is a long video but try to listen to it all. And help me circulate it. I think you will find it really shocking.



(Voice in introduction is Bettina)






Assaults on teachers are on the rise – but an expert claims it's the students' parents who are to blame

Violence in schools is becoming more frequent and intense, yet some believe that the students' parents are to blame.

A record number of teachers in New South Wales schools have lodged compensation claims regarding violence inflicted by students. NSW is believed to be the worst state in the country when it comes to violence in schools, and the numbers only seem to be getting worse.

Last year saw figures more than double from 17 violence-related claims lodged in 2016, to 41 in 2017, The Saturday Telegraph reported.

There has already been 15 assaults lodged so far this year, with expectations for more to come.

Australian Catholic University Associate Professor Philip Riley said that the children may be repeating behaviour they are enduring at home from violent parents.

'Kids are seeing parents modelling this sort of behaviour. We have a much more ingrained problem with violence in this country than we're caring to admit,' he said.

Professor Riley said that the violence is becoming more and more intense, and unfortunately more frequent. 'It is everything; biting, scratching, kicking, throwing things,' he said.

While many believe NSW is the worst state when it comes to violence, just last month it was revealed that staff at Queensland schools submitted 359 claims of physical violence between June 2017 and June 2018.

This number is higher than the previous year by 55 claims, and includes incidents of students punching teachers, throwing chairs or tackling them to the ground.

A spokesman from the NSW Department of Education said that they are trying to combat the issue by modifying violent student's behaviour.

The spokesman also said that they're implementing strategies to support teachers and education employees that are affected by workplace injuries. 'The programs implemented under the strategy have focused on injury prevention … support and recovery at work for staff,' they said.

SOURCE 






Turnbull rolls over on climate nonsense

We are doing OK without a free trade agreement with the EU so lacking one is unlikely to be noticed. And it's very unlikely that the EU will tie trade to emissions reduction since they themselves are not meeting emission goals

Malcolm Turnbull's backflip on plans to legislate the Paris emissions reduction target could cost Australia billions.

Faced with the prospect of ten rebel MPs crossing the floor to vote against his National Energy Guarantee and a possible leadership challenge from Peter Dutton, Mr Turnbull capitulated in an attempt to secure his own political future.

But the move could spell the end of a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the European Union.

Wine and designer goods from Europe would no longer fall in price, and the current five per cent vehicle tariff and luxury car tax would remain.

Australia's pursuit of a free trade agreement between the two 'like-minded' partners was made on June 18 in response to a successful 2017 when the EU was Australia's largest source of foreign investment.

The agreement is intended to open up the market for any Australian purveyor or business person.

Greater access to the EU market would enable Australian farmers to avoid EU tariff quotas on beef, sheep meat, sugar, cheese and rice.

On Friday Mr Turnbull put the deal at risk by dropping the government's plans to legislate the 26 per cent Paris emissions reduction target.

The prime minister instead proposed setting emissions targets by regulation, The Australian reported.

The plan will formally go to Cabinet on Monday night and will be discussed by the coalition party room on Tuesday.

Advice from the competition regulator that power prices would not increase as a result of the commitment will also be required.

The backflip comes after a group of right-wing MPs - led by Tony Abbott - told Mr Turnbull they would vote against his energy policy.

The heart of the policy was the controversial target to cut emissions by 26 per cent by 2030. The Liberal and Nationals MPs who are against NEG and appear willing to cross the floor include Mr Abbott, Andrew Gee, Andrew Hastie, Barnaby Joyce, Craig Kelly, Kevin Andrews, George Christensen as well as Keith Pitt.

Since then the group have urged Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to mount a leadership challenge following his 38th consecutive Newspoll loss to Bill Shorten's Labor Party.

While Mr Turnbull has the support of Simon Birmingham and Christopher Pyne, Mr Dutton is backed by Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott.

Mr Dutton confirmed on Friday he is considering all his options, including resigning his ministry and leading a mass exodus of Coalition MPs across the floor, Nine News reported.

Another Minister told Nine News: 'If the only way this thing gets up is with Labor's support then there is no way it will fly'.

'There are only two good outcomes here - either the energy policy is dead and we can go to the election fighting Labor on it, or Malcolm goes,' an unnamed MP told The Daily Telegraph.

SOURCE 






‘People want to feel safe’: Nigel Farage warns of ‘disconnect’ in Australian immigration debate

THE man dubbed "Mr Brexit" will meet with "senior Australian political figures" next month as he warns of a similar upheaval Down Under if mainstream politicians don’t address concerns over immigration.

Nigel Farage said while Australia may not have the same "cause célèbre for fundamental change in direction" as Brexit, the record low primary vote for the major parties and rise of minor parties showed the populist revolution sweeping the western world was "already affecting your country".

The former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party and Member of the European Parliament played a major role in the 2016 vote to leave the European Union and is a close friend of US President Donald Trump.

Speaking hours after Sudanese migrant Salih Khater allegedly drove a Ford Fiesta into cyclists and pedestrians on Westminster Bridge outside London’s Houses of Parliament in a suspected terrorist attack, Mr Farage said people "want to feel safer".

"What we do know is there are nearly 700 active investigations into potential terrorist groups (in the UK)," he said. "Europe has got a problem. The truth of it is you wouldn’t want to start from here."

He said through European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy in 2015 of "saying anyone that wants to come can come", Europe had "imported an awful lot of people who wish that civilisation harm".

"We’re in a very tough place," he said. "Where do we go from here? Well number one is a massively increased security bill, a change in many ways to how we live. Look at London, we’ve now built walls on our bridges to protect people walking over them."

But he said it was important to engage with the broader Muslim community. "There are some people who want to sort of go to war with the entire religion of Islam, and I’ve always argued strongly against that," he said.

"I’m all for us defending our way of life, the only warning I give is that if we appear to be embarking on a religious war, that would be a mistake."

Former UK Foreign Secretary and leadership hopeful Boris Johnson sparked controversy last week by saying Muslim women wearing the full face veil looked like "bank robbers" and "letter boxes".

Mr Farage, who defended the comments, said it was encouraging that "a lot of Muslim scholars and commentators have now put their heads up and said, this is not in Koranic law, it’s not doing us any good".

He said Australia had been "slightly insulated by geography" from the global political shift reflected in the election of Mr Trump and the rise of populist governments like Italy’s Five Star-Northern League coalition.

"But you’re still very much part of the western world," he said.

"Your political class are tempted by the new global order, just as the Americans, British and the Europeans have been. I think the message really is number one, understand what’s happened.

"Understand that Brexit, Trump and (Italian deputy leader Matteo) Salvini are not one-off flashes in the pan, they’re actually part of a big, fundamental societal change that is taking place, and understand that those changes could happen in Australia, too.

"The internet has given people terrific empowerment to make change if they feel the established order is not representing them. So I would say to Australia, don’t think this can’t happen to you, because it can."

Mr Farage said it was about whether people felt the political class in the capital cities were representing their "thoughts, hopes and aspirations".

"What the change in the Australian voting pattern is suggesting is that there are people in Australia feeling the same thing too," he said. "The mainstream can of course stop the rise of smaller parties, if they’re more in tune and more connected with ordinary folks."

The Brexit vote "would not have happened without the immigration issue" and there was a "very similar disconnect" between the political class and the public in Australia on the topic, he said.

Successive polls have revealed a growing unease with Australia’s record high immigration intake. A survey last year by the Australian Population Research Institute found 74 per cent of voters said the country does not need more people.

A Newspoll earlier this year revealed 56 per cent of voters believe the existing immigration cap of 190,000 a year is too high, and an Essential Media poll found 64 per cent believe the level of immigration over the past 10 years has been too high.

In 2016-17, net overseas migration to the country came in at 262,500 people, 27.3 per cent higher than the previous year. Australia’s population surged past the 25 million milestone at 11:01pm on August 7, sparking fresh calls to ease the strain on Sydney and Melbourne.

"I find it fascinating that even in a country like yours, which many of us up here hold in high regard because its points-based system and all the rest of it, that even there it’s this disconnect," he said.

"You’ve had your terrorist attacks, you’ve had your problems that have occurred down there. People want to feel safer, they want to feel that the people coming into the country are going to pretty much absorb themselves within the existing culture."

He partly blamed the media for the growing discontent.

"People’s faith in the mainstream media is collapsing — take CNN, since their non-stop, 18-month battle to get rid of President Trump, their ratings have fallen off a cliff," he said.

"People are voting with their feet when it comes to newspapers, radio and TV, and I think there is this perception that big business, big media, big politics, they’re all in it together."

Asked whether he had an opinion on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Mr Farage said he didn’t "want to get drawn into individuals within Australian politics".

"All I would say is that I was very disappointed during the referendum that so many Australian political figures seemed to argue that the UK should stay part of the European Union when clearly the freeing of the UK from the EU should be a very good thing for Australian and UK relations," he said.

In the lead-up to the June 23, 2016 referendum, both Mr Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten said they would prefer the UK to stay part of the EU. After the Brexit vote, Mr Turnbull "consoled" outgoing UK leader David Cameron.

Former PM Tony Abbott bucked the conservative trend and supported the Remain side, but after the poll appeared to backflip, telling a London audience he was "quietly thrilled that the British people have resolved to claim back their country".

"I found it extraordinary how all the global politicians, Australia included, got behind this, ‘Let’s keep the EU, let’s keep the global order’," Mr Farage said.

"But it’s happened, and whilst Mrs May is not doing the job very well, the prospects for our two nations with Brexit are much better than they’ve been for decades."

It’s generally thought the chances of a free-trade deal between Australia and the UK after March 29, 2019 would be better under a so-called "hard Brexit" as opposed to a "soft Brexit", in which the UK effectively remains a member of the EU in all but name.

"An independent UK is able to choose its own friends," Mr Farage said.

"We’re able to strike our own trade deals, we’re able to form our own relationships. I think for many of us who are big Commonwealth supporters, which I very much am, the last few decades have been very frustrating.

"We’ve watched the UK getting ever closer to the European political project to the detriment of our global relationships. I’m optimistic, I think we can do trade deals together, there can be a new kind of renaissance, if you like, of the English-speaking peoples of the world."

Mr Farage would not reveal which politicians he planned to meet on his tour of Australia next month, where he will speak at a series of events billed as an "entertaining evening with Nigel Farage". He said we wanted to meet fisherman Rex Hunt and cricketer Dennis Lillee.

"They’re my great Australian heroes," he said.

"All I can say at this stage is there are some quite senior Australian political figures that I will be meeting on my trip, but I can’t disclose those names right at the moment," he said.

"But clearly there are figures in Australian politics I do look up to from previous times. I thought John Howard was a remarkable man who I’ve had the privilege to meet, but in terms of current day-to-day politics I want to be slightly careful."

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






17 August, 2018

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG likes Bob ("Lebanese") Katter.  See my comments of 16th below





Sydney rock oysters getting smaller as oceans become more acidic due to climate change

EVERYTHING is caused by climate change!  The study behind the article below does not yet appear to be online. None of my usual search techniques located it anyway.  So I am a bit handicapped in commenting on it. 

I would for instance like to know details of the survey technique they used to arrive at their conclusion that Sydney oysters are shrinking.  Without representative sampling no generalizations are possible.  My bet is that they did not do comprehensive and representative sampling.

But in the absence of that information, we can still detect some dubious conclusions.  If there has been a decline, how do we know it is due to global warming?  We do not know.  There could be many other causes of the effect.  The most obvious alternative cause would be disease.  Oysters are prone to all sorts of disease stressors: QX disease, POMS disease and many more.  And given the frequency of such attacks there are probably some as yet undetected diseases at work.

Oyster farmers believe that acidic runoff from the land adversely affect oysters.  Susan Fitzer says that has recently been reduced but again I would like details of that assertion and the surveys on which it is based.

And sewage runoff is known to affect oysters.  And there seems little doubt that the breakneck expansion of the Sydney population is putting a lot more sewage into the ocean. (Yes. Sydney does do that).  Could that adversely affect oysters?

And the alleged acidity is in fact reduced alkalinity. Does any level of alkalinity affect oysters?  I can't see why it should.

And the "acidity" is said to be a result of increased global warming.  But, according to the satellites,  global temperatures have been  falling for the last couple of years. 

Furthermore the entire prediction that acidity will increase in the oceans is deliberately dishonest. If, as Warmists predict, the world will warm, that will make the oceans warmer too. And as water warms it OUTGASES CO2, as every drinker of coca cola can observe. Those bubbles in your coke are outgassed bubbles of CO2, outgassed as the drink warms. And less CO2 means less carbonic acid. So a warming ocean will become more ALKALINE.

The Warmists try to have it both ways, saying the oceans will be both warmer and more acidic.  But that flies in the face of basic and easily demonstrable physics.  But they are only pretend scientists so I guess that is OK

And we read here that  ancient planktonic foraminifer shells were still going strong at CO2 levels 5 times higher than today. That sounds like a good augury for oyster shells.

So I think we can say with some confidence that the causal chain suggested by Susan Fitzer is rubbish on a number of counts


The famous Sydney rock oyster is shrinking as oceans become more acidic, new research has found.

In news that will rock seafood lovers, a study released overnight by academics in the UK found oysters in New South Wales have become smaller and fewer in number because of coastal acidification.

It’s part of what researchers fear is a worldwide trend driven by climate change and coastal runoff.

Headed by University of Stirling academic Susan Fitzer, the study looked at oyster leases at Wallis Lake and Port Stephens, both on the NSW coast north of Sydney.

They make up the two largest Sydney rock oyster production areas in NSW.

The study found the oysters’ diminishing size and falling population is due to acidification from land and sea sources, part of a global trend.

"Sydney rock oysters are becoming smaller and their population is decreasing as a result of coastal acidification," Fitzer said.

"The first thing consumers will notice is smaller oysters, mussels and other molluscs on their plates, but if ocean acidification and coastal acidification are exacerbated by future climate change and sea level rise, this could have a huge impact on commercial aquaculture and populations around the world."

The risk to oyster populations around the globe from soil runoff has long been recognised.

In 2014 oyster farmers in Port Stephens released an industry-driven environmental management policy which recognised that damage to oyster leases from the drainage from acid-sulphate soils was both "likely" to occur and "severe" in consequence.

But Fitzer’s research argues that run-off is not caused by agricultural activity and is rather the consequence of the impacts of climate change.

"A lot of work has been done near to Australia’s oyster fisheries to mitigate the impact of sulphate soils causing acidification, and there has been a marked decline in levels," she said.

"The run-off from sulfate soils aren’t produced by agricultural activity, they occur as a natural result of climate change-driven increases in rainfall and sea-level rise.

"But the trend persists and small changes in pH are having a huge impact on these molluscs."

Increased acidification affects oyster growth by limiting the amount of carbonate in the water.

"Acidic water is damaging oysters’ ability to grow their shells. We see lots of disorder in the calcite layers, because there isn’t enough carbonate in the water for the oysters to draw on for optimal shell formation and growth," Fitzer said.

"This is the first time that the Sydney rock oysters’ shell crystallography has been studied, and we now know disruption to this process could have a significant impact on Australian aquaculture," she said.

Fitzer’s research was published in the Journal of Ecology and Environment.

SOURCE 






Australia is the worst-equipped nation for electric cars and we lag a decade behind the world

Good for Australia.  Electric cars are nice but they cost a bomb

HALF of Australians want to buy an electric car in the next few years, but experts have warned we’re not remotely ready to accommodate them on our roads.

Analysis released today by the UK firm GoCompare has found we are the worst-equipped country for electric vehicles, performing poorly across several key measures.

Of the 30 member nations of the International Energy Agency, Australia has the highest ratio of cars per charging points at 15.42 and one of the lowest total number of public charging stations, with just 476 nationwide.

"Additionally, there are a shocking 14.3 petrol stations to each publicly accessible electric car charging point," the report said.

Behyad Jafari, chief executive of the Electric Vehicle Council, isn’t surprised and said Australia is almost a decade behind the rest of the world.

"While everybody else has access to a broad range of charging infrastructure, different priced models of electric vehicles and a lot of investment supporting the industry, Australia isn’t getting any of those benefits," Mr Jafari said.

He said embracing electric cars could lead to improved public health, better energy security and increased economic activity.

Aside from some "outliers" like Norway, where electric cars account for 20 per cent of new sales each year, the global average is about two per cent at the moment. "In Australia, it’s just 0.2 per cent," Mr Jafari said.

Labor’s Ed Husic, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy, said we are "woefully unprepared" for the electric car revolution.

"There is an urgent need for Australia to have an internationally consistent policy road map to integrate these technologies — they are not as far in the future as some think," Mr Husic said.

SOURCE 







Coral reef corruption

There are some people who should never do interviews. At the head of that list is the managing director of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Anna Marsden.

One of the interviews she did this week gave train wrecks a bad name. This is a woman who has never heard of the phrase "stop digging". This week she was brandishing her shovel and seemed utterly determined to bury the $444 million grant the foundation received from the Turnbull government.

The opposition just couldn’t believe its luck as she poured fuel on a fire already burning out of the government’s control.

In her defence, all I can say is that the decision to grant the foundation this massive sum, which Marsden famously declared was like "winning Lotto", stinks to high heaven and no one is capable of justifying it.

Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg has waffled and struggled to explain how it came about. He is a competent minister whom I fear is covering for the real culprit in all of this — the Prime Minister himself.

Then again, how could you ever justify showering this foundation with such largesse when it didn’t even request it? This was money that simply fell out of the sky and into its grateful lap. Depending upon whom you believe, the foundation employed between eight and 12 people at the time of the grant announcement. Given there could be up to 1000 requests for grants, just how would it be expected to manage the task?

The answer would have to be to hire more people, which begs the question — how much of each dollar given reaches the reef and how much is spent on administration? You would be entitled to believe that this sort of question could be readily answered by the government simply checking its due diligence. Surely you would think that there would have been considerable resources applied to checking on the small charity to which you were considering granting a huge sum like $444m.

If you thought that, again you would be disappointed. Again, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, Marsden tells us that neither she nor anyone else at the foundation was contacted during any due-diligence investigation.

You just can’t give taxpayers’ funds away in such a cavalier fashion. If the commonwealth auditor-general is reviewing this farce, then he needs to look no further than the pathetic attempt at the due diligence.

Marsden’s attempts to put us at ease with the process are falling on many a deaf ear. Her claim that the "chairman’s panel and our corporate partners have no role in selecting projects" rings hollow.

It must be a very odd set-up if the board is unable to oversee the process of granting money. It must have the power to overrule the process if it finds any aspect of it unsatisfactory. It is not hard to understand how nervous the foundation is about the power of its board. Names such as BHP and Rio Tinto will frighten any friends of the reef given the many attempts over the years to mine this wonder of the world.

To think Malcolm Turnbull wants to hold a parliamentary inquiry into alleged bullying in a backbencher’s office but sees no need for anything like that when he presides over one of the biggest scandals in our history of maladministration says so much about our Prime Minister.

SOURCE 






The number of homeowners hits the highest in six years

First-home buyers are returning to the housing market in the greatest number since late 2012 thanks to state duty exemptions in Australia's biggest states.

The proportion of real estate newbies rose to 18.1 per cent in June, the highest level in almost six years, as apartments near the city became more affordable.

For less than $500,000, savvy buyers wanting somewhere to live within 10km of the city centre, can snap up a unit at Earlwood in Sydney or St Kilda in bayside Melbourne.

Real estate data group Core Logic research analyst Cameron Kusher said stamp duty exemptions in New South Wales and Victoria were driving the resurgence in first-home buyer activity in Sydney and Melbourne.

'It's really driven the volume of first home buyers nationally much higher,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'If that impost is no longer there, the borrowing power of a first-home buyer is increased.'

The national average mortgage for first-timers stood at $350,000 in June, which meant buyers with a 20 per cent deposit of $87,500 were buying properties for $437,500.

At that price, it is possible to buy an inner-city apartment in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra or Hobart.

In New South Wales, however, the average first-home buyer loan was $393,400, which meant they were buying a $491,750 property with a deposit of $98,350.

SOURCE 







Australians racist?  Even welfare-dependent Third-world immigrants say they are well-accepted

A new study from Australian researchers shows that refugees and new immigrants integrate well in Australia – especially in regional areas.

Contrary to recent comments from the multicultural affairs minister, Alan Tudge, that migrants who reside together "largely communicate in their mother tongue [and] are slower integrating", the research found that refugees were welcomed by their new communities, found it "easy" to get along, and felt a strong sense of belonging to their new homes.

Researchers surveyed 214 refugees – 155 adults and 59 children – from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, who all had been recently settled in Queensland across Brisbane, Logan and Toowoomba.

81% of those in regional Toowoomba said they found it "very easy" or "easy" to make friends in Australia. 62% of refugees in Brisbane and Logan said the same, for an average of 68% across Queensland.

82% of refugee children said they felt they belonged to the local community – either "always", "most of the time" or "often". Only 18% said they belonged "occasionally" or not at all. Half of all refugees surveyed said it was "very easy" or "easy" to talk to their new neighbours.

The study’s co-author, Professor Jock Collins from the University of Technology Sydney, said this refuted the idea that migrants formed linguistic bubbles.

Only 6% of the new arrivals said they spoke no English. 47% said they spoke it "not very well", 38% spoke English "well" and 9% spoke it "very well".

"In our experience the people we are talking to are really, really keen to learn English," he said.

Measures of belonging were generally higher in Toowomba, which the researchers said was due to a proactive and welcoming community, and worse in Logan, which has a higher index of social disadvantage.

"We avoid the term ‘integrate into’, because integration is a two-way process," said co-author Professor Carol Reid from Western Sydney University. "It requires the local community support. Where there is strong support, you find there are no problems.

"With the whole issue of English language learning, in the 1980s we had more funding around multicultural policy, and people could learn English on the job. The tension between employment and English could be resolved by that."

The study found the unemployment rate was high among the new arrivals – with only 18% in paid employment – but Collins said that would change with time.

"We know that a lot of the refugees we talk to are putting off looking for a job until their English is better. We will be talking to them next year and expect to see an increase in the employment rate.

"For the engineers and architects and pharmacists, the professions have severe gatekeepers for their profession that they have to hurdle. For a lot of the others, it’s a bit of a Catch-22, they won’t get a job without Australian experience.

"There needs to be a way where these refugees can get work experience, and a recognition of prior learning. A lot of them are very confident, they are excellent at their skills."

Collins said that the results of their survey showed that Australia had great potential to take more refugees.

"Most people don’t know that in 2017 Australia took in more than double the number of refugees than it usually takes. The sky didn’t fall in – in fact it worked quite well.

"Regional and rural Australia has an appetite for more migrants and refugees. It proves to us that the bush is not redneck, it is supportive of diverse communities."

Across Queensland, 60% of refugees in Toowoomba said it was easy to talk to their neighbours, compared with 46% in Brisbane and 27% in Logan.

100% of refugees said they felt safe living in Toowoomba, and 85% across Queensland (and a majority in every city) said they believed they had found a neighbourhood that was a good place to bring up children.

Even with its comparatively poorer score, 76% of the refugees in Logan said they always, most of the time, or often, belonged.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here







16 August 2018

Bob Katter accuses a journalist of being racist for saying his granddad is Lebanese - as he defends his anti-Muslim Senator

Katter's grandfather was from the Lebanese Maronite (Christian) community but Bob is heavily focused on assimilation and the fact that his grandfather assimilated readily to Australian society (most Maronites do) meant that to Katter his grandfather was Australian.  Katter in other words has a cultural definition of who is Australian and was angered by the racist definition used by a journalist


Bob Katter has slammed a journalist who suggested his grandfather was Lebanese - describing it as a 'racist comment'.

Mr Katter defended his party's senator Fraser Anning's maiden speech in which he used the Nazi term 'final solution' while proposing a plebiscite on immigation, saying the address was 'magnificent'.

Mr Katter also said a reporter who referred to his grandfather as Lebanese was 'racist'.

'No, he's not. He's an Australian. I resent, strongly, you describing him as Lebanese. That is a racist comment and you should take it back and should be ashamed of yourself for saying it in public,' he said. '

Mr Katter's grandfather Carl was born in Bcharre, Lebanon, in 1982.

Reacting to Mr Anning's speech, Mr Katter said it was 'solid gold'.

'You don't have to be Albert Einstein to see that we, as a race of people, we Australians, are being buried by a mass migration program to line the pockets of the rich and powerful.

'The (Labor Party), and more particularly, the (Liberals) are bringing 630,000 people from overseas, from countries with no democracy, no rule of law, no... egalitarian traditions, no Judaeo-Christian, 630,000 a year and they don't go home.

'We do not want people coming in from the Middle East or North Africa unless they're the persecuted minorities. Why aren't you bringing in the Sikhs? Why aren't you bringing in the Christians? Why aren't you bringing in the Jews?'

Mr Katter said Mr Anning wasn't aware of the connotations of the term 'final solution'.  Addressing outrage over his use of the term, Mr Anning said it was taken out of context by the 'thought police'.

Mr Anning said on Wednesday morning he simply wanted the Australian people to be able to decide what kind of immigrants the country accepts.

He later compared Muslim migrants to poisoned jelly beans and stood by his call for Islamic immigration to be halted altogether.

'All I'm calling for is a plebiscite and a vote for the Australian people to see who they want to come into the country,' the Queensland senator told the Today show.

In his maiden speech Mr Anning said 'the final solution to the immigration problem is of course a popular vote'.

The term 'final solution' was used by the Nazis as part of their plan to murder the entire Jewish population of Europe which resulted in mass genocide.

Mr Anning denied making a deliberate reference to Nazi Germany, but refused to apologise for his choice of words.

'If people want to take it out of context that's entirely up to them. It was never meant to denigrate the Jewish community,' he said.

Mr Anning also stood by his claims the majority of Muslim immigrants do not work [Only 18% have jobs] and are on welfare and over-represented in criminal activity.

When asked why he had singled out Muslim immigrants in the speech, Mr Anning said it was because 'they mean us harm'.

Mr Anning said he agreed the vast majority of Muslim were hardworking and law-abiding, but claimed a small minority 'want to kill us'.

'I don't want those people in this country. I think the vast majority of Australians agree with me. No-one wants to put it to a vote,' Mr Anning said.

Speaking on talkback radio later on Wednesday morning, Mr Anning likened accepting Muslim immigrants to poisonous jelly beans.

'If you can tell me which ones [Muslims] are not going to cause us harm then fine, that'd be great,' he told Alan Jones on 2GB.

'Unfortunately if you have a jar of jellybeans and three of them are poison you're not going to try any of them.'

The speech to parliament was widely condemned by politicians from both major parties, and the Greens.

After his speech was attacked by Mr Di Natale and senior Labor frontbenchers Tony Burke and Chris Bowen, Mr Anning released a statement dismissing their criticism.

'Some in the media and left wing politicians are simply afraid of the Australian people having a say on who comes here,' Mr Anning said.

'As I called for a plebiscite on the immigration mix, this baseless and ridiculous criticism is simply an effort to play the man and not the ball.

Mr Anning said it was ironic that he was being criticised by politicians from Labor and the Greens who had voted against his pro-Israel proposals in the past.

'[They] are the same people who refused to support my efforts to stop Australia funding the Palestinian Authority who finance terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli women and children,' he said.

His proposed plebiscite would allow people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world, he said.

Mr Anning said Australia was entitled to insist migrants were predominantly of 'European Christian composition'.

He also called for the government to ban all welfare payments to migrants in the first five years of living in Australia, labelling many asylum seekers as 'welfare seekers'.

'Ethno-cultural diversity - which is known to undermine social cohesion - has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs,' Mr Anning said.

'In direct response, self-segregation, including white flight from poorer inner-urban areas, has become the norm.'

Opposition leader Bill Shorten responded to the speech by saying he will move a motion praising the dismantling of the White Australia policy.

Mr Shorten's motion will recognise bipartisan support for the former Holt government's moves to end the policy, and the resulting national and international benefits to the country.

SOURCE 





   

WA uni refuses to ban realistic endocrinologist

A US pediatric professor, who says the transgender movement is based on ideology rather than science, will speak at the University of Western Australia despite pressure to ban him.

A student petition with more than 6000 signatures is protesting the appearance on Friday of pediatric endocrinologist Quentin Van Meter, who is on a national tour sponsored by The Australian Family Association.

Dr Van Meter has said that using puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria was akin to child abuse.

"Transgender is actually a delusional disorder," he said. "It's a state of mind with no biologic basis for it that can be found."

Dr Van Meter is president of the American College of Paediatricians, which is known for its opposition to marriage equality, gender reassignment and abortion.

A UWA spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday that while the university did not endorse the opinions of its speakers, cancelling the event would "create an undesirable precedent for the exclusion of objectionable views" from the university.

"The views which have been expressed by the speakers in the past, particularly with respect to transgender people, are at odds with the university's values of respect for human dignity and diversity," they said.

"That respect, in relation to LGBTIQA+ people generally, has been evidenced by the Rainbow Flag, which has flown for some months at the front of the UWA campus."

SOURCE 






Token battery being installed to back up wind power

This is just a stunt for propaganda purposes.  If the wind stops blowing the battery will be capable of filling in only for a matter of minutes

Wind power producer Infigen Energy will add battery storage to its Lake Bonney wind farm in South Australia to better be able to respond to industrial customers wanting renewable energy but without risks around intermittent supply.

The $38 million project, including $10 million in state and federal funding, will see a 25 megawatt, 52 megawatt-hour Tesla Powerpack battery installed adjacent to the 278.5 MW wind farm in the state's south-east near Mount Gambier.

It follows the landmark 100 MWh Tesla battery, the world's largest lithium battery, installed at the Hornsdale project in SA last year after a bet between billionaire Elon Musk and Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Infigen last year ramped up its efforts to seal electricity sales contracts directly with commercial and industrial (C&I) customers, signing up Adelaide Brighton for supply from Lake Bonney.

Chief executive Ross Rolfe said the battery investment would enable Infigen to expand that side of the business, as well as providing other benefits in cutting costs for frequency control services and for grid stability in the system more broadly.

"We have already contracted a proportion of our Lake Bonney output into the C&I customer market in South Australia and this enables us to contract more of that capacity and manage the intermittency of production risk associated with that," Mr Rolfe said in an interview.

Stabilising the grid

He said that after deciding in 2016 to diversify its products, Infigen had examined alternative options to firm up intermittent wind generation, including pumped hydro storage and accessing fast-start gas generation. It decided that a battery was the best option, at least for South Australia, which is heavily dependent on renewables supply.

Ivor Frischknecht, chief executive of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which is providing $5 million for the project, said battery storage is becoming a key component of transitioning to a renewables-based energy system. ARENA is also helping fund a battery soon to be brought online in Dalrymple, South Australia, and two grid-scale systems under construction in western Victoria.

"It is clear that grid scale batteries have an important role in stabilising the grid," Dr Frischknecht said.

South Australian energy minister Dan van holst Pellekaan said Infigen's battery project is "welcome news to businesses in the state as it will increase the competitiveness of electricity prices for customers with high energy demand".

Mr Rolfe noted that the project wouldn't have been economic without the $10 million of taxpayer funding.

"The price of batteries still needs to decline, in our view, further before it's possible to look at batteries without some form of support," he said.

"No doubt in due course it will get there, we just don't know when that will be."

Construction is due to start next month on the storage project, which Infigen said would allow it to "firm" at least an additional 18 MW of power.

SOURCE 






Few costs to the success of Australia's universities

I don't like to rain on anybody's parade but Australia's advantage is partly geographical.  Australia is in roughly the same time zone as China and only a short jet flight away (around  $500 one way).  So Chinese can readily flit between the two countries and do so without jetlag

The Australian university system is highly unusual globally in two key areas: the large size of most universities, and the high proportion of international students, particularly from China, now attending them.

The massive growth in international education means it has become Australia's third largest export after iron ore and coal – as Malcolm Turnbull happily acknowledged in a recent speech at the University of NSW.

It's also translates into a not-so-quiet revolution on Australian campuses.

Several of the Group of Eight universities have international enrolments running at well over 30 per cent. In NSW, the percentage of international students at all universities is currently above 37 per cent, in Queensland it is 34 per cent.

The biggest growth, not surprisingly, has been in the Chinese student market, with 125,000 Chinese students at Australian universities as of last May and growing at about 15 per cent a year.

One result is that Australia is on track this year to jump Britain into second place, only behind the US, in the sheer number of international students in its universities. That's even though Britain's population is 65 million rather than 25 million.

On Go8 figures, for example, 38 per cent of the 141,000 students starting at Go8 universities in 2016 were international students. That average figure can only have increased since and is clearly much higher in faculties like management and commerce, engineering and information technology where international students are heavily concentrated.

University vice-chancellors certainly love to promote the academic, cultural and economic value of Australia's approach.

A virtuous circle

Ian Jacobs, vice-chancellor of the University of NSW and also chairman of the Go8 universities, will promote its success in a speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday.

This is part of a push by these older research-heavy universities to persuade the government and the bureaucracy that taxpayer money spent on them should not be seen as a budget cost ever vulnerable to cuts. Instead, they want to persuade Canberra to see it as a vital investment generating a very high return.

According to Jacobs, the growth in the international student market helps that, creating a virtuous circle. He sees the growth as an unalloyed good for Australia in general and for Australian students – generating opportunities and advantages that are far more extensive than the purely financial.

Yet for many domestic students and their lecturers, the price of such success seems to also be increasingly obvious – and accelerating given the universities' business model.

These complaints are largely anecdotal but they are persistent and extremely common across a modern generation of students. Just ask one of them.

One problem is the low level of interaction between most domestic and international students, particularly when international students are in a majority of a course. That's compounded by the large size of lectures and tutorials that limit any sense of individualised attention.

Other frequent complaints involve the insidious pressure on lecturers to reduce quality standards in order to pass international students to ensure the money keeps flowing.

Things could be better

Many domestic students also argue they are required carry more of the load on joint projects in order to compensate for the poor English skills of many international students.

Professor Jacobs concedes there may be "pockets" where things could be better, including the level of cross cultural interaction. He still insists Go8 standards in terms of enrolments, marking and English qualifications remain extremely high and that interaction is definitely increasing to everyone's mutual benefit

Australia, he says, is developing a tremendous reputation for providing "high quality education at scale in a very efficient way" with huge flow on benefits and potential to do even more.

To back this up, Jacobs will cite a new study commissioned by the Go8 on the broader economic benefits produced by Australia's top universities, including the massive dollar value of their research.

According to this study by London Economics, the Go8's total operational costs of just over $12 billion in 2016 were dwarfed by the $66 billion contribution to the Australian economy. That includes the long-term impact of their research activity but also the direct and indirect impact on jobs, wages and increased economic growth to support students, especially the accelerating number of international students.

By this yardstick, the study argues that every three international students at a Go8university generate $1 million in economic impact each year.

Big money

For universities, the huge direct financial hit still comes from the much higher charges for international students over their domestic students. For international students starting at Go8 universities in 2016, the net tuition fee income alone was estimated to be over $3 billion.

According to the study, this fee income supports 43,000 jobs throughout the economy plus more than 29,000 due to the additional spending of international students.

But the large tuition fees from international students also allow universities to cross-subsidise their research work which pushes them up the global university rankings. That in turn means they then attract yet more international students.

According to the latest ABS statistics for 2016, the Go8 invested $6.4 billion in research and development of which just over half was in the form of cross-subsidy from general university funds – those not explicitly tied to supporting research.

That balance will be ever more reliant on international tuition income and numbers to bulk up. Can there be – should there be – a limit? Not according to the Go8.

Although Jacobs says the percentage of Chinese students may diminish in a decade or so as China becomes self-sufficient at education, he sees a wave of students from India, then Africa and Latin America sustaining growth for decades to come.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here





15 August, 2018

QUEENSLAND crossbench senator Fraser Anning has laid out a radical immigration agenda, calling for a "final solution" plebiscite on which migrants come to Australia

QUEENSLAND crossbench senator Fraser Anning has laid out a radical immigration agenda, calling for a "final solution" plebiscite on which migrants come to Australia.

The Katter’s Australia Party upper house MP called for an end to Muslim immigration and a program that favours "European Christian" values. In his maiden speech to Parliament today, he claimed a majority of Australian Muslims live on welfare and do not work.

"While all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims," Senator Anning said.

"So why would anyone want to bring more of them here?" He called for the government to ban all welfare payments to migrants in the first five years of living in Australia, labelling many asylum seekers as "welfare seekers".

Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen said the use of the term ‘final solution", which has been historically associated with the Nazi plan in World War II for killing millions of Jews, was "utterly unacceptable".

"You don’t use that term. That is an unacceptable use of the term," he told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

"It has connotations and meanings to history which it are deeply offensive to right-thinking people, not only in Australia but across the world." Senator Anning also said Australia was entitled to insist migrants were predominantly of the "historic European Christian composition". "Ethno-cultural diversity - which is known to undermine social cohesion - has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs," the Queensland senator said.

"In direct response, self-segregation, including white flight from poorer inner- urban areas, has become the norm." Senator Anning called for a cultural counter-revolution to restore traditional values and redefine national identity.

He said anyone persuaded to advocate the "false claim" there was an infinite number of genders had surrendered their political soul.

"To describe the so-called safe schools and gender fluidity garbage being peddled in schools as cultural Marxism is not a throwaway line, but a literal truth," Senator Anning said.

The 68-year-old outlined plans to boost agriculture through re-establishing rural state banks and re-establishment of marketing of farm goods through grower co-operatives.

Other issues he noted were countering the growing threat of China, slashing government spending, building coal-fired power plants and taking back culture from left-wing extremists.

Senator Anning said Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s reign as Queensland premier was the state’s "golden age".

SOURCE 





All steam ahead on energy after Malcolm Turnbull's NEG win

Australian Center-Right government claim they can deliver cheaper elecrity, renewable energy and reliable energy all at once

At last some good news for Malcolm Turnbull. He sure needs it.

So an ebullient Prime Minister and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg are delighted to have seen off the vehement attacks by Tony Abbott & Friends on the national energy guarantee. The Coalition party room debate was hardly a polite affair but the small if noisy minority opposed proved to be no more than that.

Even if much of the support was of the "yes, but ..." variety, as Abbott described it in a terse statement, it was more than enough to get through.

It's still far too early, however, to celebrate Turnbull's declaration of the need to "bring an end to the years of ideology and idiocy".

His ostensible target was Bill Shorten and Federal Labor with the Prime Minister putting public pressure on the Opposition to support the bill. Helpfully, that would also remove the government's need to simultaneously get the backing of all Coalition MPs in the House – which looks unlikely – and the permanently fractious cross bench in the Senate.

Despite the bluster from the Opposition leader about "a Frankenstein's monster of a policy" and the inevitable proposed amendments to increase the emissions reductions target, Labor is expected to finally vote for the government's version.

Labor knows it could always up the 26 per cent target on 2005 levels itself if it wins government. As well as bipartisan support providing greater investment certainty for the industry, the structure of the guarantee also provides a conveniently flexible policy for any new government that would inherit the same problems of permanently higher electricity prices.

There's no quick fix to that issue, of course. That's despite Labor's firm promise that its commitment to more renewable energy will miraculously produce lower prices and the Coalition's equally dubious premise the national energy guarantee will also automatically deliver this.

Yet the power market is so complicated that most voters will really just follow their prejudices while politicians on all sides try to exaggerate the benefits or, alternatively, the disastrous impact of particular policies on prices.

This translates into Abbott's jibe about "merchant banker gobbledygook" versus the magical thinking coming from much of the environmental movement and Labor.

Much simpler for voters to comprehend is the Opposition's ability to mock continued displays of Coalition division to foment public scepticism about what the Turnbull government really stands for.

"While Mr Turnbull goes around attacking Mr Abbott, Mr Turnbull is, in fact, giving in to a lot of Mr Abbott's values when it comes to climate change and energy," Shorten insists.

Hardly. Tony Abbott could hardly have been more passionately vocal about the insanity of the Coalition supporting the guarantee, for example. Yet Turnbull promotes it as the best way to finally resolve a "broken" national electricity market.

"Now is the time to provide the certainty and the investment climate that is going to see more generation and lower prices," according to the Prime Minister.

Actually, the greater political problem for the Coalition is that voters might actually believe this and expect lower power bills in the immediate future, even ahead of the next election. When that doesn't happen, they will be looking for someone to blame. Labor will be pointing the way. Step up the Coalition government, owners of the national energy guarantee.

Selling that as a solution that will work if given time is certainly possible for the Coalition. But the impact will be modest at best. Buyer beware the words: "downwards pressure on prices". The real answer is: "higher otherwise."

It is also a much tougher sell when Labor can just quote so many Coalition opponents deriding even the notion that the guarantee can have any impact whatever on reducing prices.

That's also why the Victorian government would be mad to block its establishment ahead of its own state election in November. Not when it can just keep blaming Coalition policy for not delivering on higher levels of renewables without have to take any of the blame for its own failings, particularly its refusal to allow any onshore gas exploration or development.

Yet the Andrews government seems to be so afraid of losing a few inner city seats to the Greens that nothing can be guaranteed about its willingness to trade off that risk against a national policy backed by almost the entire power industry and business groups.

The meeting of the Council of Australian Governments last week agreed to hold a phone hook-up of state energy ministers Tuesday evening after the policy had gone through the Coalition party room. But Victoria, along with the Labor government in Queensland, are still demanding a delay of several more weeks before they finally have to commit to the policy.

Over that period, Labor will try to embarrass the Coalition and bolster its own supporters by suggesting the price of Turnbull and Frydenberg getting internal agreement will be to use taxpayer funds to build new coal-fired power stations.

The Coalition will keep insisting any policy or support is "technology agnostic". Luckily, it now has the key recommendation from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to back this, suggesting the government can effectively become the buyer of last resort for longer term contracts for electricity in order to encourage private sector financing.

The Business Council of Australia makes the obvious point. Households and businesses will pay the price if political leaders continue to play politics.

"It's up to Victoria and Queensland, along with the other states and territories, to stop playing political games with people's power bills," it noted. That may be the ultimate in magical thinking.

SOURCE 






NSW Muslim MP Shaoquett Moselmane blocks Jew from Labor event

The first Muslim MP in the NSW parliament has sparked a row overnight, refusing entry to a respected Jewish leader to a Labor Party multicultural launch.

Upper House MP Shaoquett Moselmane refused entry to Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff at the launch of the Labor Union Multicultural Action Committee launch last night saying, according to Mr Alhadeff, that he was not a Labor Party member before offering him a baklava on the way out. The baklava was declined.

Mr Alhadeff had had an invitation to the Sussex Street event by Labor General secretary Kaila Murnain and Unions NSW chief Mark Morey.

But his invitation only came after Mr Alhadeff had questioned why Mr Moselmane had not invited him in the first place.

"While I appreciated the goodwill in receiving an invitation from Kaila Murnain and Mark Morey, it is unfortunate that Mr Moselmane would defy his party leadership and deny entry to a leader of the Jewish community," Mr Alhadeff said.

"Given that the invitation which Mr Moselmane sent to others specifically said he hoped this new organisation would become a conduit between the multicultural community and Labor and the union movement, it made no sense to exclude the CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies when we represent the Jewish community and are an active component of multicultural NSW."

NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley said he has apologised to Mr Alhadeff for what occurred.

"He did receive a written invitation to the meeting," Mr Foley said. "Unfortunately Mr Moselmane says there was a miscommunication. NSW Labor maintains healthy and constructive relations with Vic and other leaders of the state’s Jewish community, and that will continue."

Labor deputy upper house leader Walt Secord condemned Mr Moselmane. "Vic Alhadeff had an official personal invitation from the NSW Labor General Secretary and was welcome to attend," Mr Secord said.

"It was stupid, malicious and vindictive to refuse him entry into a multicultural event. "The actions do not reflect the views of NSW Labor."

Mr Moselmane confirmed he had told Mr Alhadeff that only Labor Party members were present and said after that Mr Alhadeff had left. "He came into last night’s event, it was not a function … it was a meeting of the Labor Party action committee. "He was offered some refreshments and he left. "He came in with the impression it was a multicultural … committee meeting."

Mr Moselmane sparked outrage in 2013 when he gave a speech in parliament comparing resistance to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon with that against Nazi Germany.

SOURCE 





Facebook deletes posts quoting former Prime Minister John Howard

FACEBOOK is being accused of "censoring" John Howard after the social network deleted a post from an account quoting the former Prime Minister.

The Australian Family Association posted a Daily Telegraph story to its Facebook page on August 8 and provided no comment other than quotes from Mr Howard in which he condemned the Australian Defence Force’s push to ban words such as "him" and "her".

AFA Director Damian Wyld told Miranda Live that they "boosted" the post with Facebook’s approval, but an hour later it had disappeared from the site.

"It just spontaneously vanished," Mr Wyld said.

"Facebook suggesting it’s impartial is something that needs to be revised and re-visited".

"There’s also the question of how their algorithms work, whether they have the ability to sit down and look at every single post that a user puts up."

Australian Family Association Director Damian Wyld.
Mr Wyld told Miranda Live host Miranda Devine he believes the social media network monitors "key phrases and trigger words" in order to disable posts.

He said the AFA hasn’t been able to reach Facebook and find out why the post was red-flagged. "We sent them a please explain and nearly a week later we’ve heard nothing from them."

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here







14 August, 2018

Fresh blood: Australia is still lucky, thanks to our young migrants

Ross Gittins is perfectly right in what he says below but he ignores two elephants.  The first issue he ignores is the RATE of immigration and its effect on our infrastructure.  Immigration driven population growth is outrunning our capacity to provide the infrastructure needed for a civilized existence.  We spend longer and longer unproductive time in our cars due to ever worsening traffic jams and already stretched public hospitals become overstretched.  And overstretched hospitals mean diagnostic mistakes and longer and longer waits for service.  Those things matter.

And the second elephant is the assumption that all immigrants are the same.  For their own strange purposes, Leftists pretend that all men are equal when that is not remotely true.  Fortunately, most of our immigrants come from Britain, India and China -- people who are no problem to anyone.  But there are two minorities that create big problems:  Muslims and Africans, who are both heavily welfare dependent and hence do little or none of the useful things Gittins extols. 

And it is amazing the amount of problems such small groups can cause -- through Jihad and violent crime.  It is those groups who are making many Australians critical of immigration generally. There are options to send problem migrants back to whence they came but such options are rarely used.  A minimum approach to the problems they cause would be to accept no more migrants from those sources


Reserve Bank governor Dr  Philip Lowe thinks Australia’s strong population growth in recent years is a wonderful thing, and he sings its praises in a speech this week.

I’m not sure he’s right. Like most economists and business people, Lowe is a lot more conscious of the economic benefits of population growth than the economic costs. As for the social and environmental costs, they’re for someone else to worry about.

But whatever your views, you’ll be heaps better informed after you’ve seen what he says about our changing "population dynamics" and absorbed his tutorial on demography.

Over the past decade, our population has grown at an average rate of about 1.6 per cent a year. This is faster than in previous decades. It’s also faster than every advanced economy bar Singapore.

Most other rich countries – including the US and Britain – grew by well under 1 per cent a year over the period. The populations of Italy, Russia and Germany were stagnant, and fell in Japan and Greece. China’s annual growth averaged only 0.5 per cent.

What’s driving our growth is increased immigration, of course. Over recent times, net overseas migration has added about 1 per cent a year to the population, with "natural increase" (births minus deaths) adding only about 0.7 per cent.

Our rate of natural increase is pretty steady. It perked up a bit a decade ago, but quickly resumed its slow decline, as more couples have smaller families and some have none.

Net migration, by contrast, goes through a lot of peaks and troughs – which, not by chance, correlate well with the ups and downs of the business cycle.

We think of the government controlling immigration with a big lever (making it "exogenous" or coming from outside the system, as economists say, pinching the word from medicos) but many demographers see immigration as "endogenous" or determined within the system.

This has become truer as permanent migration becomes dominated by workers with skills we need, rather than by family reunion, and there’s more temporary migration by overseas students and skilled workers brought in by employers to fill a temporary shortage.

The resources boom showed temporary skilled migration was great at helping us control (wage-driven) inflation, one of Lowe’s primary concerns as boss of the central bank.

But I worry our young people are paying the price for this greater macro-economic flexibility. We’re schooling our employers not to bother training plenty of apprentices ready for the next shortage because it’s easier to wait until the shortage emerges and then pull in a tradesperson or three from overseas.

Sorry, back to Lowe’s speech. He notes that growth in the number of people here on temporary visas adds to the size of our population. For instance, there are now more than half a million overseas students studying in Australia.

Here’s a stat you probably didn’t know: about a sixth of foreign students are permitted to stay and work here after finishing their studies. This boosts our population. Always a man to look on the bright side, Lowe reminds us it also boosts the nation’s "human capital".

Plus, he’s too polite to say, it does so free of charge. It’s a neat trick: we charge foreign parents in developing countries full freight to educate their children, then allow the best of 'em to stay on.

But wait, there’s more: we also benefit from our stronger overseas connections when foreign students return home, Lowe says.

Now for his big reveal. Particularly because of our emphasis on skilled workers and students (as opposed to bringing out nonna and nonno), the median age of new migrants is between 20 and 25, more than 10 years younger than the median age of the rest of us.

At the time of Treasury’s first intergenerational report in 2002, our present median age of 37 was expected to rise rapidly to more than 45 by 2040. But after the past decade of increased immigration of young people, the latest estimate is that the median age will be only about 40 by then.

"This is a big change in a relatively short period of time, and reminds us that demographic trends are not set in stone," Lowe says.

This means that, on the question of population ageing, and looking at the latest projections over the next quarter of a century, we compare well with other advanced economies, he says.

First, our median age of 37 makes Australia one of the youngest countries. We are ageing more slowly than most of the others, meaning we’re projected to stay relatively young. This is better than earlier projections suggesting we’d move to the middle of the pack.

Second, we have a higher fertility rate than most rich countries. Australians tend to have larger families than those in many other countries. (Note, not large, but larger than the others.)

Third, our average life expectancy is at the higher end of the range, and is expected to keep rising.

Fourth, our old-age dependency ratio – people 65 and older, compared to people of working age, 15 to 64 – is rising, but less quickly than in most other countries.

And our relative youth and higher fertility rate means our dependency ratio is expect to stay lower than other countries’ for the next 25 years or so. Only then is it projected to rise rapidly.

The first intergenerational report expected that the disproportionate bulge of baby boomers reaching normal retirement age would lead to a steady decline in the rate at which people are participating in the labour force.

It hasn’t happened. The reverse, in fact – for fascinating reasons I’ll save for another day.

To economists, this slower rate of population ageing – that is, slower rise in the old-age dependency ratio – is great news. It means the economy’s growth in coming years won’t slow as much as they were expecting (see point above about the participation rate).

It also means ageing will put less pressure on future federal and state budgets. But let me give you a tip: there are so many other pressures we probably won’t notice its absence.

SOURCE 






Religion in decline in Australian schools

Australian school students are becoming more likely to identify with "no religion" even in religious schools, including a 68 per cent increase in Catholic schools.

The trend, which mirrors changes in the wider population, has led the peak independent schools body to warn religious schools to rethink their marketing.

Across all schools, 37 per cent of students identify with "no religion", according to an analysis of 2016 census data by the Independent Schools Council of Australia. That's up from 30 per cent in 2011.

At government schools, 45 per cent of students profess to no religion or did not specify a religion in the 2016 census, up from 38 per cent in 2011 and the highest proportion ever recorded.
The number of students describing themselves as having no religion increased 68.2 per cent at Catholic schools.

About 31 per cent of students at independent schools are categorised as having no religion, up from 24 per cent in 2011, and 14 per cent of students at Catholic schools did not have a religion, up from 10 per cent in 2011.

The change reflects a drift to secularism in the wider population. About 30 per cent of people reported "no religion" in the 2016 census, up from 22 per cent five years earlier. The trend is most marked with the younger population, with 39 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 reporting no religion.

Just over one in two Australians of any age identified as Christian, with Catholicism and Anglicanism the two biggest denominations.

"Schools may need to think about the implications of the slow but steady rise of secularism, and the ways this may affect their approach to religious education and how they market their schools," the Independent Schools Council of Australia states in its analysis.

Matt Beard, a fellow at the Ethics Centre, said the rise in non-religious students wouldn't necessarily affect the approach schools take to education.

"If you found out students aren't reading literature, you wouldn't stop teaching novels," Dr Beard said. "But it may provide a catalyst for having a discussion around whether religious education is a critical analysis of faiths and their place in society or teaching the tenets of particular religions."

Social researcher Rebecca Huntley said the Baby Boomers kickstarted the rise in no religion, but also a changed relationship with the church even for those who identify with a religion.

"Children get their religious direction and affiliation from their parents and with each generation since the Baby Boomers we've seen not just a decline in people identifying on census documents as belonging to a particular religion but also a decline in behaviour associated with religion," Dr Huntley said.

"You might put that you're Catholic on the census form but that does not necessarily mean that you go to church every Sunday and do the other things the church might tell you to do."

Dr Huntley added that, anecdotally, she'd observed parents "suddenly declaring for a religion and doing things like baptizing their child to give them more school choice".

The number of students describing themselves as having no religion increased 68 per cent at Catholic schools, 48 per cent at independent schools and 41 per cent at government schools.

The next biggest increase was in students who said they were Christian, with a 59 per cent increase in Catholic schools, a 15 per cent rise in private schools and a 27 per cent rise in government schools.

Students professing to Islam also grew by 19 per cent in Catholic schools, 41 per cent at independent schools and 36 per cent at government schools.

Greg Whitby, executive director of the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, which oversees 80 schools, said the diocese "recognises things are changing" and caters to students with different levels of understanding in faith-based lessons.

"Though Catholic students have enrolment priority, we welcome other community members who wish to join our caring learning communities," Mr Whitby said.

Julie Townsend, headmistress at St Catherine's School Waverley, a private Anglican girls' school, said most of her students did not have a strong religious affiliation and attended the school mainly for its educational facilities, but also benefited from its Christian underpinnings.

"The families who send girls to St Catherine's may not be religious in the home but they're looking to the school to teach them about Christianity and its values of compassion and kindness," Dr Townsend said.

SOURCE 






Labour Party turned a blind eye to a would-be queen in its ranks

The immediate reaction at senior ALP levels to Emma Husar agreeing not to recontest her seat at the next election is a huge, collective sigh of relief.

No such public admission is likely, from Bill Shorten down, but Husar had become such a political headache that a quick resolution was needed. The alternative if she had dug her heels in was a continuing stream of damaging allegations about how she treated staff in her electorate office, with more former employees going public with stories of woe.

There were other serious allegations, too — not yet fully fleshed out or investigated — that Husar could have misused her travel entitlements, and campaign funds running to some thousands of dollars could have found their way into a personal bank account.

These are not the message-distracting issues Shorten and his team wanted festering for months in the lead-up to an election that Labor has good prospects of winning.

There were other reasons for wanting the issue of Husar’s alleged staff bullying, and possibly erratic behaviour, to go away. Headline stories were niggling Shorten, day by day, about what he or his office might have known about problems in Husar’s office, and when they knew about them.

Further, if they did know more, why was more decisive action not taken earlier to remedy the situation?

Shorten says he knew nothing of specific allegations until July 18. Maybe so. His critics would say he lives in a cocoon of deniability that includes not just the Husar case but others.

After all, the signs were surely apparent: a first-time backbencher allotted a maximum of four electorate staff churns through a record 22 staff in two years, and nobody at a senior level does anything until perhaps too late?

Lobbying by former staff and their supporters eventually forced an internal party inquiry, not leadership from the top.

The Husar saga is a sad one in many ways. When she was picked as a candidate for a key western Sydney seat, where was the initial party vetting that could have discovered more about her experience and suitability? When problems were first brought to the attention of senior party officials in March last year about the MP’s altercations with staffer Blake Mooney, he was abruptly moved and a troubleshooter, Cameron Sinclair, was briefly inserted in the office to sort things out.

Meanwhile, she was living the dream for a novice politician, befriending Shorten’s wife and becoming part of Shorten’s office clique. No wonder staffers thought their complaints would not be heard when it seemed their boss had a Shorten office fan club.

SOURCE 






Paris Agreement To Cost Australia $52 Billion

"Following the emissions reduction requirements of the Paris Climate Agreement will impose significant and irreparable economic damage without delivering an environmental dividend," said Daniel Wild, Research Fellow at the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

Today the IPA released a research report Why Australia must exit the Paris Climate Agreement. The report estimates that the Paris Climate Agreement emissions targets will impose a $52 billion economic cost, over 2018-2030. This equates to $8,566 per family.

"The immutable law of energy policy is this: lower emissions mean higher prices."

"Each family in Australia will be at least $8,566 worse off under the Paris Climate Agreement, on average. This is at a time when wages are stagnating and the cost of living is rising."

"$52 billion could purchase 22 new hospitals or pay for 20 years’ worth of the Gonski 2.0 education funding."

"For families, $8,566 could be used to pay off credit card debt, pay the school fees for a few years, or pay four years’ worth of electricity bills."

The report finds the Agreement which Australia signed is much different to how it is currently operating. The United States has exited the Agreement. China is unconstrained by the Agreement. And none of the European Union nations are on track to meet their targets.

"The time to exit the Agreement is now. The government must put lower prices and improved reliability ahead of emissions reductions."

The report finds that the cost of the Paris Agreement more than twice cancels out the benefits of the government’s tax relief, put forward in the 2018-19 Budget.

"The National Energy Guarantee and the Paris Agreement will lead to higher electricity prices. This will damage business investment, jobs growth, and wages growth, and put upward pressure on everyday goods and services," said Mr Wild.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here





13 August, 2018

Douglas Murray heads to Australia

DOUGLAS Murray thinks Europe is committing suicide.

He declares as much in the opening line of his latest book, in which he laments that the leaders of western Europe are allowing the cultural flame of the continent to be extinguished through mass migration, in particular from the Muslim world.

The controversial assertion underpins the book, The Strange Death Of Europe: Immigration, Identity And Islam, but he sees nothing particularly controversial about the claim.

“It was the result of a long time in which I was travelling for many years across Europe, travelling to many countries where people were fleeing form to go to Europe in the height of the migration crisis in 2015,” he told news.com.au.

“I thought someone needs to describe why it was happening, and chart the consequences.”

Murray, who is the associate editor of the Spectator and founder of the right-leaning Centre for Social Cohesion think tank, is highly critical of the far left side of politics for denying or diminishing the problems that come with a sudden large increases in immigration, when those migrants come from different, distinct and strong cultures.

“In one year alone, Germany and Sweden for instance took between two and three per cent addition of their entire population, so this is one of the most significant movements into Europe ever,” the British commentator said of the height of the migrant crisis a few years ago.

For western Europe, he identifies Muslim immigration as the most destructive force and a problem for the social cohesion of the West.

From his perspective, Islamic migrants — a portion of whom have particularly strict religious beliefs — are clashing with a Europe that is tired from history, guilt-ridden, increasingly faithless and overrun with the notion of political correctness.

If allowed to continue, Murray asserts, the result will ultimately be the Islamisation of the continent and the end of European cultural civilisation.

One of the people Murray often cites in his book is German historian and philosopher of Syrian origin Bassam Tibi who in the past has made similar warnings on this topic.

In an interview more than a decade ago he told German magazine Der Spiegel: “Muslims stand by their religion entirely. It is a sort of religious absolutism. While Europeans have stopped defending the values of their civilisation. They confuse tolerance with relativism.”

Murray’s book has been called “brilliant” by The Sunday Times; “compelling, fearless and truth-telling” by the Evening Standard and labelled as “gentrified xenophobia” by The Guardian.

The diversity of opinion surrounding it shouldn’t come as a surprise. In a way, the ensuing debate is what outspoken thinkers like Douglas Murray traffic in.

He has been touring the UK on a speaking tour with neuroscientist and author Sam Harris and the most famous psychologist in the world right now, Jordan Peterson.

Murray argues it is important that we deal honestly with the ramifications of mass migration in the modern world.

It’s undeniable the issue has played a role in major political events like the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump and the rise of the far right in the German parliament.

“There’s a worldwide concern about this and I think that concern is understandable and at least should be attempted to be understood,” he said.

But it’s also true that since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, countries like Germany and Sweden who loosened their immigration laws have since reversed course. At the time, the International Organisation for Migration said more than a million migrants and refugees reached Europe in 2015, with a monthly peak of more than 221,000 in October.

Murray says his book is about finding a solution to migration that is “liberal, humane and sustainable” but is also cautious about blindly embracing the pursuit of multiculturalism, which many Western governments are quick to celebrate.

“If by multiculturalism you mean multiracial, pluralist society then I have no problem with that, and indeed think there are obvious advantages from it, in some circumstance and to some degree,” he said.

“But multiculturalism in recent decades has become something else. It’s become, among other things government policy to push the idea that there is no such things as a core common culture in a country. We are simply convening bodies in which the world can come and celebrate whoever they are in our countries. I think this is a hugely problematic idea.”

Controversial immigration polices are something Australians know well. Despite the criticism Australia’s offshore detention system receives from the likes of the UN and human rights organisations, Murray thinks we’ve got it right.

“I think Australia has done the right thing. The situation in Australia is not that dissimilar to that of Europe but Australia decided to act in a very different way.

“The Australian Government have seen that if you allow illegal migration to occur, if you decided there is no difference between legal and illegal immigration then you’re giving up the law, and that’s a heck of a thing to give up.”

When he appears in front of Australian audiences, it will be much more than immigration on the table.

His recent touring with Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson was labelled “the Woodstock of Debate” and Murray is looking forward to engaging with Australian audiences on a range of topics.

Most of all, he has been buoyed by the growing appetite among the public, particularly the younger generation, to engage on big ideas and difficult topics.

“The thing that is most satisfying, and I really do mean this, is that the engagement of audiences with serious ideas is something that almost nobody predicted, but it’s one of the most positive news stories of our time.”

SOURCE 






QUIS MAGISTROS IPSOS DOCEBIT?

Who will teach the teachers when the teachers are dummies?

ASPIRING teachers in Victoria are being accepted into university teaching courses despite shocking academic ­results of their own.

One student with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) of just 17.9 out of a possible 99.95 secured a place in an initial teaching course.

Aspiring teachers in Victoria are being accepted into university teaching courses despite shocking academic ­results of their own.
The rank is almost 50 points below a minimum benchmark the state government set to raise teaching standards.

The worrying data, ­obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun, last night prompted Victorian Education Minister James Merlino to order an ­immediate investigation. “I will not stand for universities who are attempting to undercut or bypass our reforms and minimum ATAR standards,” he said.

He warned universities that didn’t comply could lose ­accreditation to teach future educators.

Federal Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham has written to Mr Merlino, calling on him to ­explain why Victoria is the worst-performing state in the country.

Tertiary admission centre figures released through Senate Estimates reveal Victoria University admitted students with the lowest scores in Australia to an Initial Teaching Education course, with ATARs of only 17.9, 19.8 and 21.3.

The university this year introduced a Bachelor of Education Studies degree to circumvent new rules.

Students who enrol in the degree, which has no minimum standard, can then transfer to the Bachelor of Education in their second year.

Victoria University’s Tim Newhouse said the students enrolled with the lowest ATARs in Australia “are not going into teaching”.

He instead insisted they were doing a “Diploma of Education Studies or Bachelor of Education Studies, which can lead to many ­careers”.

Mr Newhouse said these could include “mentoring and tutoring, community programs, public and welfare services, after-school care and teacher aide positions”.

However, the Victoria University website states that its ­Diploma of Education Studies program will help students “achieve your dream of becoming a teacher … this education course prepares you to enter the second year of a teaching degree”.

Federation University Australia, also in Victoria, accepted the second-lowest ATARs in the nation, including 22.1, 23.6 and 24.3, followed by NSW’s University of Wollongong with a 25.7 ATAR.

A spokeswoman for RMIT — which had the fourth-lowest entry scores in Australia — said admissions “with an ATAR that is lower than the recommended level” were based on complex issues that could include student finances or health problems.

“Admissions under these circumstances are undertaken to ensure that otherwise talented and hardworking students, who faced serious adversity during their final years of school, are not disadvantaged,” she said.

Mr Merlino said while universities had always been able to take special consideration into account for all courses, “it isn’t good enough that some universities are looking for ways around the rules purely to boost their numbers to make money”.

A minimum standard of 65 was this year introduced, rising to 70 next year.

Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said: “We have to raise the standard. We don’t support these backdoor entry programs, which allow people to come in without a suitable academic level.”

Opposition spokesman Tim Smith said Mr Merlino had been “caught out lying over the lack of education standards”. “This minister needs to spend less time on smearing political opponents and more time on his real job of giving children a good education,” he said.

The Turnbull Government will introduce a website within weeks where universities must publish admission information, prerequisites and ATAR scores of previous students as part of new transparency reforms.

Mr Birmingham said: to achieve the best student outcomes “we need the highest calibre teachers in the classroom”. “With more admissions transparency, we’re ensuring unis are held to account for the students they enrol,” Mr Birmingham said.

SOURCE 






Australian jihadists will NEVER be allowed back into the country: Five ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria have their citizenship stripped

Five Australian jihadists who travelled to the Middle East to join the Islamic State have been stripped of their citizenship.

The three male and two female terrorists will never set foot in Australia again after the government move to stop them returning to carry out attacks on home soil.

A top-secret process carried out with ASIO proved the five are loyal only to ISIS, and pose a risk of radicalising vulnerable youths or plotting new terror attacks.

The five include some who fought for the Islamic State directly, and other who provided support for the extremist group, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The identities of the terrorists have not been confirmed, and they were among about 100 Australians who remain in the region after joining terror groups in Iraq and Syria.

They include Neil Prakash, the senior ISIS figure behind bars in Turkey on terror charges, and Adelaide doctor Tareq Kamleh.

The only other Australian to be stripped of their citizenship for joining Islamic State is believed to be notorious terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who was killed in Iraq.

Sharrouf was photographed holding up severed heads alongside friend and fellow ISIS recruit, former Sydney boxing champion Mohammed Elomar, and Sharrouf posted a picture of his son doing the same.

A total of 230 Australians have joined the Islamic State, and about 90 have been killed in combat.

They join 54 Australians convicted of terror offences, and 39 more are before the courts after being charged.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said earlier this year he was concerned the law allowing citizenship to be stripped was not being applied properly.

'We know there are dual citizens among Australians fighting with terrorists in the Middle East and yet officials have so far confirmed that only one has lost their citizenship under the operation of the law,' Mr Dutton said in February.

'I don't want people coming back into our country that have been off fighting in the name of ISIS.

'I don't want people coming back having been battle hardened, skilled now in the art of bomb making and terrorist activities walking the streets of our capital cities. I want those people kept as far away from our shores as possible.'

SOURCE 






Who knows how the Victorian government’s Orwellian social experiment will end?

“We’re destroying words — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone … “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” -- Orwell

JANET ALBRECHTSEN

My son is studying George Orwell and we chatted about Nineteen Eighty-Four over breakfast this week. If he chooses to look, this book is jumping to life all around him. Books are cleansed of words that must not be said. Books by Enid Blyton, mind you. And Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn,too.

Speaking at university has become dangerous if you don’t repeat ortho­dox thinking. Comics have given up playing to snowflake student audiences. Words such as sexual assault and sexual harassment are being defined down to include the telling of a bad joke. At his school, boys were told not to use the word moist because it could offend girls. The cleansing of language and ideas has become disturbingly quotidian.

And this week’s live-streaming of Nineteen Eighty-Four comes to us from Australia’s biggest social laboratory where the Andrews Labor government has a tighter grip on thought crimes than on it does on marauding South Sudan­ese gangs.

On Thursday, Victorian Minister for Transport (and censorship) Jacinta Allan banned Sky News from television screens at Metro Trains stations because one host conducted one interview with far-right ratbag Blair Cottrell last Sunday. Sky News apologised and leading Sky names such as David Speers rightly condemned giving a platform to a moron who likes Hitler.

But the Labor government banned an entire news organisation so that train commuters “can see something they may be a bit more comfortable with”, to quote Allan, who maybe hasn’t spent much time perusing her portfolio platforms. The Cottrell interview was not part of the Sky News feed that plays at train station screens.

Allan has snookered herself with her hysterical over-reaction. The Transport Minister can’t switch platform TVs to an ABC news feed or the Seven Network or Ten because all of them have aired or tried to air Cottrell. Perhaps a 24-hour stream of E! News and Kimmy K will keep commuters “comfortable”. When the state decides to censor for comfortable ideas, we have reached a deeper level of trouble for our liberty.

Victoria’s Nineteen Eighty-Four moment a week earlier involved the state’s Department of Health and Human Services telling public servants what pronouns to use, with the first Wednesday of each month set aside as “They Day”.

A video for public servants made by public servants features enforcement officer Naomi Shimoda and others talking about the need for inclusive gender-neutral pronouns. It allows people to “self-define” and to “make space so their pronouns are legitimate and respected.”

Some will say that people should be able to choose whatever pronoun they want and that it is only polite that others respect that choice. Others will say “blah, blah, blah” and wave the kerfuffle away as just another episode of nutty political correctness by busybody social activists. The sceptics know to be beware of the blah, blah, blah because the battle over gender-neutral pronouns in other countries is a hint of where we may be headed. Not for nothing, the self-appointed pronoun police behind the “They Day” video included an enforcement officer. Silly-sounding nonsense has a habit of attracting enforcers, be they vigilante-style citizens or bureaucrats and legislators, who tell us what we are allowed to say, read, watch, even laugh at. And inevitably, what we are allowed to think. It is the death of liberty by a thousand cuts.

Language police in the ACT Labor caucus want to do away with references to Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms in the ACT parliament. No more Madam Speaker. And it is Member Smith instead of Mr Smith. The Bolsheviks wanted to do away with gender too, so why not just call him Comrade Smith, source some bleak-coloured Bolshevik uniforms and declare victory?

Labor’s proposals are not about respecting diversity. This is an agenda to force the same grey and genderless linguistic uniform on everyone. Cleansing gender from pronouns is about killing difference. Being polite is one thing; but political correctness moved beyond civility long ago, if that was ever the aim. When the cleansing of language is backed by directives, regulations or laws, it compels us to speak in one particular way. By stopping us from speaking freely, the aim is to stop us thinking freely. And that is antithetical to freedom in a liberal society.

An obscure Canadian psychologist became a cultural rock star because he explained, in a calm and reasoned manner, why he would not be forced to use speech prescribed by the state. Nor would he stop using words proscribed by the state. Less than two years ago, Jordan Peterson took a stand against Canada’s proposed Bill C-16, which effectively compels the use of gender-neutral pronouns by adding legal protection to “gender identity” and “gender expression”.

Peterson was on to something long before the rest of us. Within six months of the bill becoming law, Lindsay Shepherd, a teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, was called into a university administrator’s office and condemned by professors for showing a clip that was “threatening” and “transphobic”. Her professorial accusers said it created a “toxic climate” for students and was the equivalent of “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler”. She was accused of breaching C-16 laws.

Shepherd’s crime was to show her students — during a tutorial on how language affects society — a televised debate between two people with different views about gender and pronouns. One of the speakers was Peterson.

We know the details because a teary Shepherd recorded the meeting, which could be slotted seamlessly into chapter 5 of Nineteen Eighty-Four just before Winston discusses with Syme, a specialist in Newspeak, how the dictionary of approved language is progressing. C-16 has weaponised gender-neutral pronouns in the hands of human rights bureaucrats and complainants, and that is a chilling threat to freedom.

Ten years ago, the Alberta Human Rights Commission investigated a complaint brought against Ezra Levant for publishing the Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. The complaint was dropped, but not before a bur­eaucrat questioned Levant about his intention in publishing the cartoons. The interrogation reminded Levant of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”.

“No six-foot brown shirt here, no police cell at midnight,” he wrote. “Just Shirlene McGovern, an amiable enough bureaucrat, casually asking me about my political thoughts, on behalf of the government of Alberta. And she’ll write up a report about it, and recommend that the government do this or that to me … I had half-expected a combative, missionary-style interrogator. I found, instead, a limp clerk who was just punching the clock … In a way, that’s more terrifying.”

O Canada! How it has made a mockery of being “The True North, strong and free”. A free society is curtailed by stealth when out-of-sight bur­eaucrats investigate the free expression of words, ideas and cartoons. And freedom lost is not easily reinstated. An Australian law compelling us to use certain pronouns may not be far off because we have followed Canada before. We pick­ed up Canada’s gift to the world, multiculturalism.

And just as the Canadian Human Rights Commission has gone awry, accused by founder Alan Borovoy for falling into disrepute, our own Australian Human Rights Commission has wrecked its reputation, too. When was the last time the AHRC focused on core human rights such as free speech or property rights? Instead, it is a bloated bureaucracy whose enforcers protect hurt feelings, not human rights.

And dob-in-a-dissident was sanctioned when Race Commissar — oops, Commissioner — Tim Soutphommasane touted for business when The Australian’s Bill Leak drew a cartoon that threw into sharp relief the complex issues of individual responsibility and the dismal plight of indigenous children. Yet Soutphommasane had nothing to say about a dance performance in Melbourne this year where white people were told to wait in the lobby while the performance began inside the theatre. His departure is a blessing for anyone committed to genuine human rights.

The AHRC’s wretched handling of complaints against three Queensland University of Technology students who posted on Facebook about the absurdity of racial segregation only confirmed its role as an anti-human rights bureaucracy. The career epitaph of former commission boss Gillian Triggs should read: “Sadly you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home.”

Examples abound of bureaucracies that have run amok when armed with social engineering laws that were once seen as innocuous nonsense. Applauding the recent decision of the US to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council, Liberal MP Julian Leeser has pointed out that this council is not some harmless bureaucracy.

Delivering the 2018 B’nai B’rith Human Rights Address, Leeser said that human rights had often been hijacked and “in the (UN) Human Rights Council we see a blatant attempt by those who oppose liberal democratic ideals to commandeer the apparatus of human rights so that they might hide and obstruct its abuses”.

“We read Orwell as a warning; they read Orwell as a textbook,” he said. The young MP then took aim at the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, established by Kevin Rudd’s Labor government. Leeser, who has served on the committee for two years, called for its abolition on the grounds that it is not really a committee of the parliament.

“It is a bureaucracy that has appropriated the name of the parliament. The committee is about bureaucrats judging parliament, rather than the parliament judging human rights.” And just about every report attacks the government’s legislative agenda “in the form of rehashed talking points from left-wing and social justice groups that have no connection to ‘real’ human rights”.

In 1994, before he became prime minister, John Howard warned about the rise of cultural McCarthyism in this country. Talk about mission creep. Who could have foreseen their reach and influence? Short of securing legislative wins, social engineers under­stand that getting, holding and extending their power through unelected bureaucracies is critical to the pursuit of creating public-free zones where real power vests, far away from prying democratic processes.

No one knows how the current batch of social experiments will end. But history shows that something that sounds harmless, like a friendly video about gender-neutral pronouns put out by bureaucrats, can end up curtailing our liberty.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here







12 August, 2018

Australia is deplorably racist. It was founded on a racist document and hasn’t improved (?)

The writer below, Jack Latimore, is a "Goori", descended from an Aboriginal tribe in Victoria, apparently.  His rant below offers only three isolated incidents in support of his assertion that Australians are racist. Such thin "evidence" is entirely unable to support any generalizations. I can give you many other anecdotes which suggest an opposite conclusion.  You need general data -- such as survey results -- to support generalizations.   It is sad that a Goori man has shown himself to be so intellectually incompetent

The recent surge in racism is not an anomaly. For many white, liberal-minded Australians, recent media commentary over the appearance of a notorious white nationalist on the Sky News channel was the first indication that our society remains deeply stricken by racism. And for many of them, the subsequent banning of said individual and the news channel’s “icing” of the particular program on which he appeared is a sufficient practical and symbolic rejection of racism. For others, the concern is that it is too little too late. The neo-Nazi is out of the bag. By banning him from ever appearing on its channel again, Sky News has centred – or normalised – its regular hard-right editorials. It doesn’t matter a jot if this was an intended or inadvertent consequence.

But this incident is only a tile in the much larger colonial project that continues to impact the lives of not just First Nations peoples, but the majority of people of colour in Australia. It’s a racial ideology that’s seemingly in perpetual motion in this country, which has been present since at least federation and arguably further back, with the arrival of “enlightened” Europeans roughly 250 years ago. The recent surge in racism merely stems from this blight, and in terms of timespan, it goes well beyond what occurred at Sky News last Sunday night.

In the past fortnight alone, concerted attacks by Australian racists on media figures such as Osman Faruqi and Benjamin Law have caught my attention. In Faruqi’s case, the racialised and disproportionate abuse he received for supporting the banning of plastic bags from supermarkets has threatened to silence his activity on Twitter. Meanwhile, the racial abuse directed at Law involved a thinly-veiled death threat for suggesting Virgin Australia cease broadcasting Sky News in their lounges.

On Wednesday, to bring attention to the toxicity of the abuse being directed towards outspoken people of colour, I tweeted a screenshot of an email from “whitepride” titled “fuck you abo dogs” that was sent to the administrators of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders online platform, IndigenousX. Other established and emerging First Nations writers and commentators have informed me they have also experienced an upsurge of similar abuse in recent weeks. It should surprise nobody that the racists feel emboldened.

If this kind of racial vilification reflects the current social environment, how is it possible for Aboriginal people to feel optimistic about a “reconciled” future in Australia? Particularly when the kinds of attitudes that consider us “dirty black dogs” are so valued by embattled Australian politicians every time a dicey election rolls around.

SOURCE 






Two images from Queensland, courtesy of The Australian traditionalist



Above is where I come from. Conservative views like mine are common there -- among the people who were born there.  That hat is called a Pith Helmet.  I had one when I was a kid



We have just had the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Joh Bjelke- Petersen's leadership in Queensland, having been sworn in as Premier on the 8th of August, 1968. Sir Joh was a champion for tradition. May his legacy last forever.  I was a member of his National Party during his tenure as Premier -- JR






Now global warming misses Melbourne

Our wimpy Prime minister recently declared that the drought -- mainly affecting outback NSW -- was caused by Global Warming.  Shortly after that declaration Western Australia got huge rainfall.  Now Melbourne has been swamped too.  Australia is  a big place so "Global" effects that miss out both Western and Southern Australia are not very global are they?  PM Turnbull needs to grow a pair and stop trying to pander to Greenie absurdities

WILD weather has lashed Melbourne this afternoon with hail and heavy rain falling across the city.

Hail pelted suburbs including Yarraville, Kingsville, Footscray and Montrose this afternoon as temperatures plummeted to just 7C in the city.

It was a dramatic drop from the “spring-like” conditions yesterday, with temperatures reaching 20C.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Richard Carlyon said earlier today it had been “the wettest” since June 17. “The cold front moved through Melbourne and delivered up to 10mm of rain,” he said. “Almost two months ago we saw 16mm.”

Heavy snow has begun falling at Victoria’s alpine resorts with 20cm expected over the weekend.

Snow lovers shivered through a chilly morning, with the mercury languishing in the negatives. The apparent temperature at Mt Buller was -11.2C at 10.30am.

Mt Hotham Alpine Resort general manager Belinda Trembath said the mountain would a snow base of about 180cm by the end of the day.

“We’re very fortunate here in the mountains that we are getting some fantastic snow events, it seems to be successive week after week, consistent snow falls and certainly fantastic conditions for skiers and boarders,” she said.

“It started snow about 8.30am and we’re expecting up to 20cm today.”

SOURCE 





Students graduating with some of the most sought-after degrees will have the WORST chances of landing the right job as they lack practical skills

They should go into IT.  They should have the ability for that.  And IT workers are in high demand

Once heralded as the passports to a secure and well-paid career, science, technology and maths degrees now have some of Australia's lowest employment rates according to a university head.

The warning for STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) graduates came from Vicki Thomson - chief executive of the Group of Eight universities association.

Ms Thomson's words are backed by industry leaders who say too many graduates are ignorant of the job market or do not have practical experience.

Around 20 per cent of Australia's near two million domestic students who graduated between 2007 and 2016 were in STEM disciplines - according to the Daily Telegraph.

But maths and science graduates are finding jobs at a rate 10 per cent lower than the average post-graduation, according to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI),

The Go8 chief executive has also called for greater recognition of vocational education.

Group of Eight head Vicki Thomson has called for greater recognition of non-university training courses and warned STEM graduates their degree is no passport to a certain career

In an address to the Graduate Employment Outcomes and Industry Partnership Forum in Sydney, Ms Thompson said Australia would be a 'poorer nation' if it did not give the entire tertiary system the value it deserves.

She said: 'We could not live healthily, safely or successfully without plumbers, electricians, fire safety inspectors - all of which is delivered through VET.'

Ninety-two per cent of trade course graduates found a job straight away, according to a recent report.

Pearson educational consultants published an article last year calling for more government investment in STEAM, with the added 'A' referring to Art. 

Meanwhile, Business Chamber CEO Stephen Cartwright said even highly qualified candidates from STEM degrees were struggling to get hired. He said: 'No qualification by itself these days is a passport to a job.'

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here





10 August, 2018

More fake news from CNN, the fake news channel. ARE Australians racist?

He offers very flimsy evidence. One could easily cite counter-evidence for his assertions -- such as the high rate of partnering between young Chinese females and white Australian men -- or the high rate of immigration from non-European backgrounds that is regularly accepted.  Both of those are mass phenomena, not just isolated examples -- and are as such much more informative examples


AN AUSTRALIAN journalist has made waves after penning a controversial article questioning whether we are “becoming more racist” as a nation.

Ben Westcott, a digital news producer for CNN International who is based in Hong Kong, asked, “Is Australia becoming a more racist country?” in the article which was published yesterday.

In the divisive piece, he refers to the recent furore surrounding African gangs in Victoria, backlash to immigration and our growing population and a sensational interview with far-right agitator Blair Cottrell to argue his point.

Thanks to those factors, Westcott claimed “questions are emerging over whether Australia is a more racist country than it would like to believe”.

He said the fact an interview with convicted arsonist and neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell was ever aired on Sky News “has raised questions about Australia’s attitude to race”, and also quoted Australia’s outgoing Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, who recently said our “racial harmony” was under threat.

“For the most part we are a highly cohesive and harmonious society but that doesn’t deny for a moment that racism continues to be a significant social problem,” Mr Soutphommasane said.

Mr Westcott went on to cite an April study from Australian research company Essential, which revealed 64 per cent of those surveyed said immigration levels over the past decade had been “too high”.

He also claimed while there was a great deal of hysteria surrounding African gangs, “crimes involving Sudanese residents account for just 1 per cent of Victoria’s total criminal activity, with the vast majority of crimes committed by Australian-born residents”.

Unsurprisingly, many Australians were angered by Westcott’s piece, including Liberal Party pollster Mark Textor, who slammed the article as “profound, profound idiocy”.

What profound, profound idiocy. One fuckwit is interviewed on a show nobody watches & Australia turns on it’s axis? Australians are now all racist? FFS. The media’s prism is it’s own brown rear-freckle. Luckily the rest of hardworking Australia goes on it’s own decent way.

Others took to Twitter to brand the story as “absolute garbage”, with many suggesting the US-owned company should look at America’s racial problems before pointing the finger at other countries.

“You need only step outside your own nations (sic) door CNN if you want to write an expose on racism …,” one Twitter user posted, while another added: “We’ve embraced many people from all over the world. Most of them enjoy our easy going lifestyle. The minority that don’t accuse us of racism.”

But Westcott’s piece also had its fair share of [Leftist] supporters, with many claiming Australia did have a racism problem we needed to address.

SOURCE 






Global warming misses out Western Australia

Even PM Turnbull has made the absurd claim that the drought in South Eastern Australia is due to global warming.  But if there is no drought in Western Australia, the warming is not very global is it?  Besides, global temperatures have been falling for the last couple of years

As farmers on the eastern coast of Australia battle through the worst drought in a century, their Western Australia counterparts are on track to record the best harvest in a decade.

Grain farmers in Western Australia could contribute $6billion to the economy thanks to a combination of rain and high demand.

The increased demand for grain has seen WA prices inflate to as much as $360 a tonne, the most since a record-breaking year in 2016.

Adversely, NSW grain production has slowed to a crawl, as farmers suffer through the worst drought in a century.

It has been at least ten years since seasonal and pricing factors have worked in farmers' favour agriculture marketing director Richard Vincent told The West Australian.

He says that some farmers in the right conditions could end up with as much as 70 per cent higher income than projected.

The Eastern states' drought also contributed to their profits, as a lack of production from the east means more demand for the west's produce.

'Although nobody wants to see our eastern states counterparts in drought, the high grain prices are providing enormous opportunities in the west,' Mr Vincent said.

If Western Australian farmers are able to match their export of 16.6 million tonnes, which they're on track to do, their gross income would be about $6billion.

There's also been 30 per cent more rainfall than anticipated in the west, contributing to a 25 to 40 per cent increase in prices for wheat and barley.

Western Australia produces about seven million tonnes of wheat every year.

Some Western Australian farmers reported they had 78mm of rain in the past week.

In the past month, NSW farmers reported less than 10mm of rain, with the trend of low rainfall projected for at least the next three months.

Authorities officially declared the entire state in drought on Wednesday.

With the weather bureau warning there is no end in sight, the Red Cross has set up a relief appeal, while the Salvation Army is distributing food hampers.

SOURCE 





African Gangs blamed for Melbourne rampage

POLICE say they know why two groups of Sudanese-Australian youths, totalling more than 50, gathered to fight in Melbourne’s northwest on Wednesday night.

Victorian Police Commissioner Graham Ashton says the teens who threw rocks at police and reportedly shouted “police can’t touch us” were planning to clash “over a couple of girlfriends or something like that”.

Mr Ashton told ABC Radio one group was from the northern suburbs and one was from the southern suburbs. The planned fight was stopped by police who received a tip-off and quickly arrived and dispersed those involved.

Commander Tim Hansen confirmed the fight was about “a girl” at a media conference at 1pm today.

“As we’re aware, police became aware of a planned fight,” he said. “Currently, it would appear the genesis of this fight or this agreement to come together from these two disparate groups was based on a teenage relationship issue over a girl.

“That quickly became the focus of social media attention and as a result of that two distinct groups of friends met up at this location and the situation escalated rather rapidly.”

Terrified residents of Taylors Hill were told to “stay inside and lock the doors” as police arrived.

Dozens of heavily armed riot and plain-clothed police blocked off main roads and diverted traffic in Taylors Hill and Caroline Springs.

Some of the teens were still wearing their school uniforms when the groups gathered at a basketball court about 5.30pm and began throwing rocks. One rock smashed the rear windscreen of a police car.

Mr Hansen said two groups of young African males planned to meet at Taylors Hill following an escalation in “tensions”.

“Our intelligence at this stage is that there is a bit of tension between two groups of young males,” he told Sunrise.

“We are really trying to unpack that and understand that currently. We got some intelligence last night that these tensions were simmering away and likely to come to a head in the western suburbs, so we immediately activated one of our plans and pooled resources.”

Mr Hansen said the violence is “not widespread” and officers are “currently engaged with some of these persons that are operating in what you would call street gangs, I guess”.

Taxi drivers were warned on Wednesday night via their in-car message boards to avoid the area “due to a riot”.

“There were massive groups,” one horrified resident told the Herald Sun. “They told me to stay inside, lock the doors and yeah, it’s scary,” another resident added.

One resident of Bronte Way told The Age that police were roaming the area and a helicopter was flying overhead when he came home.

“This has happened multiple times … but it hasn’t happened for a good four or five months,” he said. “That’s the reason we have roller shutters now. I’m not opening the door. I was told by police to get inside before.”

Another neighbour said Wednesday night’s clash was the “worst yet”.  “We’ve been here nine years and this is the worst yet … You build a nice house in a nice area … you don’t want to start seeing things like that, where is it coming from?” he told The Age.

One of the rioters was heard by residents shouting “police can’t touch us”, according to the Today Show.

SOURCE 






Freedom of speech comes first as uni upgrades campus rally security

La Trobe University administrators will pay to beef-up security on campus for a Liberal Party event featuring prominent therapist and social commentator Bettina Arndt, after protesters threatened to derail the event with a “rally against sexism and bigotry”.

Liberal students at La Trobe have considered changing the date of Ms Arndt’s address over fears they wouldn’t be able to pay for ­security to restrain a rally planned to coincide with her speech.

But university administrators yesterday told The Australian they had decided the university would cover the cost of security, out of a desire to preserve free speech and discussion on campus. “We welcome free speech and the event will go ahead,” a spokesman said.

“Event security will be provided by the university at no cost to student organisers.”

Liberal students arrived at university this week to find the campus dotted with posters urging students to protest against Ms Arndt, who will deliver an address challenging claims of a rape crisis on campus.

University administrators have charged the club $235 for room booking and one security guard to cover the event. The invoice also stated the club was liable for the total cost, which will depend on final numbers, hours worked and other variables such as damage.

Club members had said they were concerned additional security costs could force them to pull the event. But they applauded the university’s decision yesterday to meet the security costs.

“It’s an exciting development, it just a shame that it came after a bit of media pressure and hopefully next time they’ll think twice before moving to censor an event off the bat,” La Trobe University Liberal Club president James Plozza told The Australian.

La Trobe University has ­repeatedly defended its desire to encourage free speech and robust debate on campus, despite administrators initially voicing concerns about Ms Arndt’s speech failing to align with the uni’s own campaign against sexual violence.

Free-market think thank the Institute of Public Affairs applauded the decision, and said more Australian universities should follow suit because the risk of protests was pricing clubs out of putting on provocative speakers.

Analysts pointed to Sydney University Conservative Club, which had to spend hundreds of dollars on additional ­security for an event headlined by conservative commentator Mir­anda Devine, on “the dangers of socialism”.

“The charging of security fees is censorious. It is punishing the victims of a potential abusive protest,” IPA research fellow Matthew Lesh said. “This also creates a ‘heckler’s veto’ because if they amass a big enough protest with high enough security costs then the Liberal students will not be able to afford to have her on campus. If (universities) fail to protect the speech of controversial figures they are failing to live up to their legal mandates to safeguard free expression.”

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






9 August, 2018

Opposition to the monarchy: Australians won’t fall for a bandana republic

The Fairfax commentator’s rag-topped, shaggy profile discourages us from taking him or the movement seriously.



The republican movement has its work cut out. Before it can get around to replacing the Queen it apparently has to remove its hapless spokesman.

Pollster Mark Textor predicts the push will fail unless “blokey” men such as Australian Republic Movement chairman Peter Fitz­Simons step aside.

“I just think it’s an ego trip for bandana man,” Textor told Fairfax in June. “His ego is getting in the way.”

Asked to respond to Textor’s criticism, FitzSimons, 57, from the battler-free Sydney suburb of Cremorne, replied: “Whatev.”

The Fairfax commentator’s rag-topped, shaggy profile discourages us from taking him or the movement seriously. Rather, his appearance and somewhat truculent manner bring to mind those Japanese troops who fled to the jungle in August 1945, adamantly doubting the veracity of the formal surrender.

The 1999 referendum was Brexit and Trump rolled into one, a popular call for common sense and a rebuttal of those presuming to be their intellectual betters.

The republic was revealed as an elitist obsession; the strongest predictor of the vote was education, not income or political allegiance. Blue-collar seats like Banks in Sydney’s west stuck loyally by the Queen while the toffs on Sydney’s north shore sipped expensive coffee salted with tears.

There is scant evidence voters have changed their minds. The Australian Electoral Study, one of the most reliable longitudinal measures of political and social sentiment, found that support for a republic in 2016 was at its lowest level since 1993, when the question was first asked.

Significantly, support for the status quo has strengthened among younger voters and ­migrants.

No political party that aspires to win the middle ground would willingly launch a second round of this contentious debate. Bill Shorten’s agenda, however, is determined by the urban sophisticates, to whom the former workers’ party now belongs. The Opposition Leader must feed their tragic addiction to ­causes, even at the risk of seeming remote.

Cooler heads in the republican movement know that a carbon-copy 1999 referendum would be certain to fail. Turning around a 5 per cent deficit in the national vote is inconceivable; winning a majority in four out of six states is probably impossible.

Queenslanders, 62.5 per cent opposed last time, are a lost cause. The odds in Tasmania (59.6 per cent) and Western Australia (58.5 per cent) are insurmountable.

Shorten’s solution is subterfuge. First will come a plebiscite with a high-level yes/no question. Should the result be “yes”, there will be a referendum to decide the type of republic.

Shorten appears to be immune to the charge of hypocrisy. For the record, however, he adamantly opposed the same-sex marriage plebiscite on the grounds of cost.

The offence in Shorten’s proposal, however, is not the unnecessary expense but the cheapness of his politics.

It avoids the hard work of persuading the public that a particular type of republic is better than a system that has functioned remarkably well since 1901.

It displays contempt for the intelligence of voters, who Shorten imagines he can fool with his ­duplicitous plan.

It is an extension of the conspiracy to bypass the Constitution that was hatched by Gough Whitlam in 1975, who used the external affairs provision of section 51 (xxix) to introduce the Racial Discrimination Act, thereby usurping the sovereign rights of the states.

Whitlam expressed frustration at the demands of constitutional democracy, which required the party to gain the approval not only of electors but also of judges. “We were manifestly failing to do either,” he lamented after leaving politics. Yet even Whitlam, one suspects, would be startled by the audacity of Shorten’s plan that seeks to usurp not only the rights of states but the opinion of the general public.

The remoteness of the republicans is revealed in their conviction that Shorten’s stunt might actually succeed.

“The ‘yes vote’ for that question will look like Phar Lap at Flemington, like Bradman at Lord’s — well ahead of the field, and looking good!” FitzSimons told the Nat­ional Press Club.

Yet anyone with their fingers on the public pulse would know that Shorten’s plan will fail. It will fail because Australians don’t like being taken for mugs. When trust in the political and media class is at a particularly low ebb, it is hard to imagine them falling for this one.

Appetite for constitutional change can scarcely be detected, outside enclaves like the smug-drenched paddocks of the Byron Bay Writers Festival. In 1998 two-thirds of Australians answered “yes” to the in-principle question about an Australian presidential head of state in an AES survey. In 2016 the figure was 54 per cent, while a Newspoll in April found support had fallen to 50 per cent.

With the passage of time, ­enthusiasm for a republic has been exposed as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder of the Left, triggered by the dismissal of ­Whitlam, a moment Donald Horne ­described as “the shock of ­assassination”.

The movement gained traction in the 1980s and 90s as public intellectuals, tortured with self-doubt, wrote ponderous books and ­essays, anxiously urging Australians to look deep into their souls and ask, “What sort of a country do we want to be?”

This elitist exercise in self-flagellation seemed somewhat strange to most Australians, who preferred Barry McKenzie’s assess­ment rather than that of the hand-wringers, holding that they live in “the greatest living country in the world, no risk”.

This is more than blind patriotism; it is an objective assessment of a nation with an internal stabil­ity and outward reputation few ­nations can match.

That Australasia is one of only two continents never to succumb to tyranny or host a civil war is hardly unrelated to our institutions and the system used to settle civic disputes embodied in the constitutional monarchy.

The other continent, incidentally, is Antarctica.

SOURCE 





Intolerance spreads as cultural wowsers shut down ‘dangerous’ debate

Social media and reporting of it in mainstream news are producing intolerance not seen since anti-communist senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1940s and 50s.

The free-thinking rebelliousness of the 60s grew out of a backlash against McCarthyist repres­sion of what was regarded as sedi­tious activities, literature, plays and movies inspired by com­munism to undermine American values.

Today it is the storm troopers of the student Left and musicians and actors who lead a daily barrage of threats against people whose free thought they can’t tolerate.

Usually these involve “look-at-me” verbal violence against US President Donald Trump for ­do­ing in office exactly what he promised to do before the 2016 presi­dential election.

Public outbursts of moral outrage by multi-millionaire stars such as Madonna or Robert De Niro show just how intolerant parts of the modern Left are.

While intimidation of Australia’s politicians falls far short of anti-Trump hysteria, there is among students, artists, journalists and political activists an increasing intolerance here, too.

In the past month activists have tried to prevent Canadian conservative Lauren Southern staging public events; a writers festival has sought to exclude Germaine Greer and Bob Carr because of their “unsafe” views; a prominent ABC host has written a column to defend the presence of the occasional conservatives on The Drum; and mainstream media personalities have tried to dismiss reporting of African crime gangs in Melbourne.

Southern, 23, a Canadian journalist, is described as alt-right by critics but sees herself as libertarian. She is accused of racism for saying what many people privately think about unauthorised mass migration, mainly by Muslims from Africa and Syria.

She was billed $68,000 by Victoria Police for security at a $750-a-head rally on July 20 in Somerton, 20km north of the Melbourne CBD. Last week police prevented Southern from walking on a public footpath past the Lakemba Mosque in Sydney’s western suburbs for fear her presence might provoke violence by Muslim worshippers.

Both incidents seem to reverse the onus of civic responsibility. Why were police not protecting Southern’s right to free assembly in Melbourne, or to walk freely about suburban Sydney? Why in Brisbane on July 29 did police warn she could be fined if any police were injured if she persisted with attempts to interview protesters outside her Brisbane Convention Centre rally?

Shutting down of other people’s opinions is counter-productive. Surely after the Brexit and Trump votes anti-racist protesters should realise worldwide concern about immigration cannot be sil­enced by intimidation. In democracies voters get their own back.

The withdrawal of invitations to Carr and Greer by the Brisbane Writers Festival is even more troubling for free thought. Southern is a provocateur, for sure, but Carr and Greer are intellectuals whose books should be discussed even by people who dislike their ideas, as I do.

Richard Flanagan, 2014 Man Booker Prize winning Tasmanian author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, published a blistering response to the festival’s decision in Guardian Australia on July 29. “A writer, if they are doing their work properly, rubs against the grain of conventional thinking. Writers are often outcasts, heretics and marginalised. Once upon a time writers festivals celebrated them, and with them the values of intellectual freedom,” he argued.

Flanagan went on to criticise the same festival’s 2016 handling of US author Lionel Shriver after a fiery blog by former ABC personality Yassmin Abdel-Magied, who had heard only a third of Shriver’s presentation but accused her of laying the foundations “for genocide”.

“For Shriver the talk was about the damage identity politics could do to writing. For her critics it was about belittling the movement against cultural appropriation,” Flanagan wrote. Whatever your view, the debate was important, but Flanagan says “the BWF betrayed Shriver when she was at her most vulnerable”. As a fan of her writing, I agree.

“The Shriver controversy was the first time Australian writers festivals began to feel like a foreign country occupied by a strange regime, hostile to what writers stand for,” Flanagan wrote.

Carr is probably being dropped because of his sympathy with China and Greer because of comments suggesting not all rapes are equally serious and some should be considered “non-consensual … bad sex” as most “don’t involve any injury whatsoever”. Apparently the gentle “Volk” of Brisbane will not feel “safe” hearing such things.

Well here’s the rub. “Writers festivals, like … (literary) prizes have … become less … about books and more … about using their … power to enforce the new orthodoxies, to prosecute social and political agendas”, Flanagan wrote

Even the ABC is facing intolerance from the Left.

Julia Baird, part-time host of The Drum, used her column in The Sydney Morning Herald on July 28 to call out social media intimidation she was receiving for supposedly privileging panellists from the Institute of Public Affairs. Baird said the show had included only three IPA appearances this year, two by the same person.

Now the IPA, even though supported by big businesses and Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, is not the Ku Klux Klan. It was founded in 1943 by Charles Denton Kemp, father of Howard government ministers Rod and David Kemp. Although associated with free-market economic policies in recent decades, it was very much a Keynesian institution until the early 70s.

Wrote Baird: “The art of persuasion has been thoroughly trounced by polemic in public debate. Online, in comments sections, in staccato bursts of hate and attack, in the citing of feelings over facts, we see people shoving pillows over divergent views and trying to stop them being aired at all.”

She complained about the Twitter campaign to silence the IPA on The Drum. Just exactly what are Twitter’s twits afraid of? On subjects from migration to power prices, climate change and taxation reform, many on the uneducated Twitter Left would benefit from hearing well-argued conservative views. They might even learn why voters around the world disagree with most social media pieties.

The worst example of left-wing censoring of debate last month concerned opinion-makers from Waleed Aly to ABC journalists Jon Faine and Virginia Trioli trying to shut down discussion of Mel­bourne’s African gang violence. No amount of fudging the figures will change the fact this is a real issue and Africans are overrepresented in crime statistics, even if total numbers reflect the small African population.

Yet Aly said on Ten’s The Project on July 19: “If there really are a bunch of African gangs, frankly I am offended to not at least have been asked to join one.” His eight-minute segment was praised, of course, on social media.

Victims of gang crime who can’t afford the salubrious and safe suburbs inhabited by privileged members of the commentariat will just feel more isolated. No African migrants will be helped.

SOURCE 





Do you know your foo foo from your joystick? How university students are being forced to use bizarre, childish terms for their genitals in politically correct 'consent classes'

University students are being forced to take classes about consent during which they're told to use words like 'joystick' and 'vajayjay' rather than anatomically correct names for genitalia.

The Consent Matters class at the University of Technology, Sydney was brought in this year as a compulsory module that all students must complete in order to pass their course.

The class involves an online test in which students must score 100 per cent to pass. The test features slides of social scenarios, some involving drinking, and uses words such as 'hotdog' and 'vajayjay.'

A voiceover to the test informs the young adults that using slang like this instead of standard language makes it easier to discuss sex and consent.

The module is part of an initiative to deal with issues of sexual assault and harassment on campus.

'Our program of work is focused on a broader goal of bringing about a sustainable cultural change to enable a zero-tolerance approach to sexual violence in our community,' the University webpage says.

The Introduction to Diversity class at the University of Sydney is required for anyone who wants to minor in 'diversity' and is run by lecturer Dr Jane Park, who regularly brings her white poodle cross to class.

'It is not just about let's hate all men and white people, that can be fun for like five seconds and then it gets boring. Also my dog is white. It is about white dog privilege. The idea of divide and conquer which brought us here — colonisation, capitalism, patriarchy,' Dr Park told a packed lecture theatre, reported The Daily Telegraph.

'Our identity and our value is defined by our commodification as being valuable in a capitalist society that has to become something else, that has to become definable,' she said.

Australian Catholic University lecturer and education commentator Kevin Donnelly said he is concerned universities are no longer places of open debate where people can argue the evidence on certain topics.

'It is part of the PC movement, where we have safe spaces, victimhood, and students are no longer able to have robust debate because everyone is part of some victim group,' Mr Donnelly said.

SOURCE 





Australia really IS a laid-back place

The great Australian motto, "She'll be right, mate", is the antithesis of worry

Feeling stressed at work? Australian employees are among some of the least worried workers in the world - and the Brits aren't far behind

If you've been thinking your job is giving you a host of worries you may need to reevaluate as it has been revealed Australian workers are among the least stressed in the world.

A global study found employees Down Under are the second most relaxed nation in the workplace.

The survey of more than 23,000 working professionals in eight countries was conducted by Robert Half and studied full and part-time workers.

Australia's lack of stress closely followed the Netherlands, who were labelled the least anxious workers across the globe.

The British came in as the third least stressed country followed by the US, Belgium, Canada, France and Germany.

The study also revealed Australian workers aged 55 and above were the least stressed and those aged between 18 and 34 carried the most anxiety.

The research suggested those earning higher wages, more than $150,000, were highly stressed - as were women when compared to men.

The most relaxing industry for a career appeared to be IT, administration and accounting while health care and manufacturing fell at the opposite end of the spectrum.

'Stress in the workplace is sometimes unavoidable with many subtle yet insidious contributors,' Robert Half Australia director Nicole Gorton said.

'Stressed out employees not only negatively affect company performance, but can also impact overall team morale.

'Eliminating all work-related stress in the office may not be possible, but taking proactive steps to reduce it can improve staff performance, engagement and overall workplace happiness.'

The study revealed employers who hired large numbers of temporary staff helped reduce stress by managing high workloads.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here





8 August, 2018

Must not question global warming

There has been such a torrent of global warming propaganda in the media that people have overlooked the most basic physics:  Global warming would produce more evaporation off the ocean and hence MORE rain, not less

WHILE large swathes of Australia endure the worst drought on record — prompting bankruptcy, desperation and suicide — our agriculture minister has refused to acknowledge climate change has any part in it.

For good measure, David Littleproud added he doesn’t “give a rats” whether climate change is man-made and said Australia should focus on keeping the “lights on” instead of switching to renewable energy.

The stunning outburst on ABC’s bush edition of Q&A last night has sparked a wave of severe criticism and there are even calls for him resign.

The audience in Lismore in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales could even be heard gasping and booing as the Minister made a series of controversial comments.

He told host Tony Jones that his electorate of Maranoa, which spans southwestern Queensland, had been in a drought for eight years, saying: “There’s no silver bullet to this apart from rain.”

However, when he was asked by the host if he believed the drought was linked to human-induced climate change, Littleproud said: “Look, that’s a big call.”

“I don’t give a rats if it’s man-made or not,” he added, saying that hardworking Aussies were already feeling the pinch from rising energy bills.

“We can’t do it at the moment,” he said. “We have to be able to turn the lights on, turn the pumps on.”

He then took aim at environmentalists — blaming them for sabotaging the national water infrastructure fund.

“My predecessor Barnaby Joyce created a national water infrastructure fund,” he said. “$2.5 billion to build water resources, to be able to irrigate and have reliability of water. “Unfortunately every time we go to build something, the state finds a reason not to and finds some frog that wouldn’t like the temperature of the dam or a butterfly that may not like it.”

At that point, Mr Littleproud was cut off by boos from the audience, but he hit back at the critics. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got to make a decision … do you want an agricultural sector or do you want to live Kumbaya?” he said.

The comments have been roundly criticised on social media, with many calling for him to resign.

However, Malcolm Turnbull appeared to disagree with his Coalition colleague today, saying climate change helps cause droughts.

Mr Turnbull has owned a sheep and cattle farm in the NSW Upper Hunter with his wife Lucy since 1982 and believes this is the worst dry spell he’s seen.

“I think everyone agrees that we’re seeing rainfall that is, if you like, more erratic, droughts that are more frequent and seasons that are hotter,” he told the ABC.

Some regions of western NSW have experienced their driest 16 months on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, and Australia as a whole experienced its driest July since 2002.

SOURCE 






Public disservice

NATASHA BITA

PEEVED public servants have blown the whistle on cronyism and "Yes Minister" kow-towing, complaining of a work culture akin to the TV series Utopia.

The Turnbull Government's review of the Commonwealth public service, led by CSIRO boss and former Telstra chief David Thodey, has fielded gripes from hundreds of bureaucrats.

"Unfortunately a film crew is not needed for the Utopia TV show — you could literally take cameras into offices to make the show!" says one submission, signed Professor S Stoneway. "Often for simple briefings of a page or less, up to 10 levels of clearance may be required, sometimes more. "In one agency I have worked for, a Facebook post had to be vetted by seven different levels of management"

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has told the review that "concerns about cronyism have increased" as more consultants seek public service contracts. It says a recent Australian Public Service survey found 5 per cent of employees had witnessed corrupt behaviour. "Cronyism was by far the most common form of cor-ruption witnessed ... followed by nepotism and `green-lighting, a term for decisions that improperly favour a person or company, or disadvantage another," the CPSU submission says.

One public servant told the review that "the boys' club is alive and well". "The biggest lesson I have learnt is to keep quiet, don't question the system, don't rock the boat, keep your head down and do what you are told," the anonymous bureaucrat said.

Another claimed "children of senior personnel are first to be promoted to higher levels regardless of ability". "There's this one instance, where the employee had to be extensively coached in every single task, would routinely turn up late for work just because he couldn't be bothered getting out of bed, decided to Spend extra long unscheduled lunch breaks and rock back whenever," the submission states.

Many government workers complained faulty IT systems are causing chaos. "Customers phone us over and over, seeing when their system issue will be resolved, instead of just calling once and getting great service or using online services that work," one Worker wrote.

A public servant with 30 years of experience complained the 24-hour news cyde and social media had sunk policy-making to its lowest level. 'It seems all our government, of either political stripe, wants is to increase the number of social media 'likes' it receives," the bureaucrat wrote.

Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd, who will step down on Wednesday after briefing the Thodey review team, said he welcomed the review but could not comment on the issues raised.  He said the public service was "professional, effective and efficient". "People often work in it for less pay than they would get in the private sector," he said.

This article does not appear to be otherwise online but appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on 5 August, 2018






School students re-enact flight from conflict zone

This seems very unbalanced.  How about equivalent attention to the many grievous crimes committed by "refugees"?

Lauren Martyn-Jones

A BRISBANE school is taking an extreme approach to teaching students about asylum-seekers, simulating a full refugee crisis where they will have to flee a conflict zone and navigate checkpoints and boat crossings.

Hundreds of high school students at Northside Christian College will walk 12km, carry buckets of water, and role-play sick and struggling family members in a challenge designed to raise awareness about the plight of refugees.

The school's re-enactment of a refugee crisis, which includes class activities for Years 7, 8 and 9, as well as the optional trek for those in Years 7-12, is a radical take on the World Vision 40 Hour Famine Backpack Challenge.

Northside's science and drama teacher Rob Burgess, who has organised the simulation, said the activities were designed to give students a perspective on the world around them. "In Year 7, the focus is very much on survival, how to cope when your backs are against the wall and you have to make hard choices between things like food and education," he said.

Mr Burgess said Year 8 children were split into family units, and those families then broken up, with different members having to go off and complete hunting and cleaning challenges to gather enough resources to move through a checkpoint and try to make it to a boat crossing.

He said hula-hoops were used during the challenge as makeshift asylum-seeker boats. But only a handful of children in any year make it across the "sea", with the others being directed to a refugee camp where they're left to "languish" as the activities progress.

World Vision chief executive Claire-Rogers said she was personally inspired by the level of commitment and devotion displayed by the staff and students of Northside Christian College in raising awareness for the global refugee crisis.

"The 40 Hour Famine Backpack Challenge campaign aims to bring a deeper level of understanding to students across the nation by introducing a challenge where participants will understand a little of the experience of refugees," she said. "However, Northside goes above and beyond — offering their students the chance to experience and connect in a profound and immersive way," Ms Rogers said.

Northside Christian College also uses World Vision curriculum resources which teach students that if Australia were Syria, every single person in Melbourne would be killed.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said he hoped the simulation would be done without a political agenda. "If school students are nailing their core subject areas there's also a clear benefit in helping them to understand the lives of others, so long as it is undertaken free of political bias or influence," Senator Birmingham said.

This article does not appear to be otherwise online but appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on 5 August, 2018






Why Australia needs to stand firm and protect its borders

The news that Australia is refusing to join the UN’s Global Compact for Migration will cause howls of complaint at home and abroad. “Don’t you know what you are doing?” these people will cry. “Do you see who you are allied with? The US and Hungary. Really?”

The Australian government should ignore these howlers. For it is not the government of Malcolm Turnbull, or those in Hungary or the US, that is wrong. It is the UN, which keeps trying to push mass migration on to nation-states and whose officials imagine that the answer to the existence of some porous, poor and failed states is to make the world one great porous, poor and failed state. Nation-states have the right to resist this pressure, and they should.

Yet one of the most startling facts about migration in recent years has been that the greatest plaudits continue to go to those who are most reckless in their policies, while the most abuse goes to those who are most prudent. Perhaps this is because grandstanding and virtue-signalling are cheap. You can almost always get other people to pay for them.

Nobody in recent years has made so impulsive and catastrophic a decision as German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her 2015 decision to open the borders of Europe to anyone who made it there is having consequences that will roll out for years to come. Yet even as the German public turns against her and her party, she continues to be lauded across the international opinion-forming classes. Despite unleashing social and security problems across an entire continent, organs of international elite opinion and Merkel’s fellow world leaders continue to give her an easy ride. At worst she was “well-intentioned” and “naive”, they say. By contrast, the leaders of countries that refuse to accept open-borders, mandatory migrant quotas and the like are the ones that come in for execration and attack.

Nevertheless, the rule of law and the protection of the social stability and security situation in countries such as Australia are worth defending, whatever the pushback. The Australian delegation at the UN in New York was right to state that the UN had “failed to make clear distinctions between regular and irregular migrants and between refugees and migrants”. These distinctions matter. Indeed they are vital. For they are not only a defence of the law but also a prudent response to a challenge that is only going to grow. For countries that fail to secure their borders in the end cannot secure their people either.

Take my own country, Britain. More than a year has passed since it was rocked by three Islamist terror attacks. The first attack, on Westminster Bridge, claimed the lives of five innocent people including a police officer who was stabbed to death by the attacker inside the gates of Parliament. The second attack, at the Manchester Arena, killed 22 mainly young people and maimed and injured hundreds more. They were victims of a young suicide bomber who waited for them in the lobby as they streamed out of an Ariana Grande concert. In the third attack, a fortnight later, three men rampaged across London Bridge in a van and then ran through Borough Market slashing at the throats of passers-by, targeting women. While doing this they were heard to shout “This is for Allah”. Their attack injured 48 and stole the lives of eight people.

The dead that night included two Australians. Sara Zelenak, 21, was stabbed through the neck. Kirsty Boden, 28, a nurse, was stabbed through the chest as she ran to help other victims of the attack. After the third attack British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that “enough is enough”. But the truth is that she is incapable of acting because like the rest of us she is a hostage of the asylum and migration policies of her predecessors.

One year on from those attacks and that statement, the government’s only initiative has been the appointment of an “extremism commissioner”. After half a year that appointee (anti-extremism activist Sara Khan) has announced that her first priority is to gather evidence about “all forms of extremism in the UK”. So “enough is enough” turns out to mean: “We will appoint a commissioner who will appoint a board to look into unrelated issues.”

Of course one wishes Khan well. But here is one bitter truth that I bet Khan’s commission will not look into. Among last year’s attackers, most should never have been in Britain in the first place.

The Westminster Bridge attacker, a convert to Islam, was indeed born in Britain. But the Manchester Arena bomber should never have been there. His father was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an al-Qa’ida affiliate. Back in the 1990s the LIFG was opposed to Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, and he returned the favour. So when the situation in Libya got too hot for Ramadan Abedi and his wife they decamped to Britain, where they were given asylum. Weeks later their son Salman was born in Manchester.

Twenty-two years later he would repay the country that gave his parents sanctuary by detonating an explosive packed with nuts and bolts to cause maximum damage to the young skulls and spines into which they ripped.

Just this past week a British newspaper revealed that in 2014 the Royal Navy saved Salman Abedi along with other British nationals from the civil war in Libya. HMS Enterprise rescued him and 100 other British nationals when the security situation in that country deteriorated. What was he doing there? Why were he and his family ever in Britain? And why did Britain keep paying the family’s travel expenses whenever they felt like visiting the country they allegedly had fled?

An even clearer story emerges from the London Bridge attackers. And it has been even less dis­cussed. The three perpetrators that night were Youssef Zaghba, 22; Khuram Butt, 27; and Rachid Redouane, 30. Zaghba and Redou­ane were born in Morocco, an entirely peaceful and pleasant country. An inquest after the attack found that Redouane had entered Britain using a false name, claiming to be Libyan, and he was five years older than he had pretended. He had been refused asylum under his false Libyan iden­tity, exhausted his further appeals, absconded and lived under his Moroccan identity instead. So again, why was he in Britain? What was he doing for us? What did Britain get out of this deal?

The case of Butt is even more shameful. He had been born in Pakistan and was described as having arrived in Britain as a “child refugee” in 1998, his family having moved to the UK to claim asylum based on “political oppression”. What nobody has been able to explain since is why, other than saving al-Qa’ida fighters from Libya, Britain’s immigration services in the 190s were still giving “asylum” to people from Pakistan.

Pakistan in the 90s was not in a state of war. The country is — for good or ill — an ally of Britain and about as stable a country as you get in that region. His family does not appear to be among the numerous religious minorities so eagerly persecuted by the Muslim majority in Pakistan. So why was Butt in Britain? What exactly did he bring to Britain in the years that followed?

After the London Bridge attack May and London mayor Sadiq Khan eagerly launched into a debate about the role that internet companies had in tackling terror.

It is an interesting debate. But it had nothing to do with that attack. So far as is known there was no subterranean online jihadist activity going on. In fact the attackers and their associates could hardly have been more out in the open. The year before the London Bridge attack Butt was even on British television as was one of the stars of a Channel 4 show: The Jihadis Next Door. So he wasn’t exactly hiding. He was starring on prime time. May and Khan didn’t need to sit on the tech companies to avert an atrocity such as London Bridge. They just needed to turn on their televisions.

When something is staring you in the face and you ignore it, there is always a reason. One conclusion that I have come to over the years I have been covering the story of extremism and terrorism in Europe is that the one connection nobody in power wants is between anything negative and anything to do with migration. There is a reason: which is that this is a problem they have brought us.

Of course every religion and ideology can produce nutters. But it still does not make any sense — indeed, it could be said to be a form of madness — to import forms of extremism we used not to have. And this — for politicians in Britain and Europe — is the toxic underbelly of this debate. We have had, on continental Europe even more than in Britain, plenty of violent ideologies and creeds of our own. But Islamic extremism is an imported problem. A problem our politicians imported in the post-war period right up to the present.

Obviously that isn’t to say that all those people who have come from Pakistan and other Muslim countries are terrorists. Clearly not. But they have too many people among them who profess an ideology that countries such as ours are not just slow but reluctant to recognise. And if those people who have come to our countries legally show the mess of our system, what hope do we have with illegal migration at the level that supranational organisations such as the EU and UN think is perfectly fine?

A great problem for the pro-mass migration panjandrums is that the public can make all the obvious connection with our own eyes. But our politicians are incapable of providing answers. And it is not as though the answers are easy. For instance, what do you do with citizens who hate the state they are in? For most Europeans this is an unanswerable question. But because a question cannot be answered or is hard to answer, it does not follow that the question must not be asked. Yet there, for the time being Britain, like the rest of western Europe, uncom­fort­ably sits.

I am often asked by Australian friends what differences exist between Europe and Australia in these matters. And on my tour of Australia this month I look forward to hearing and learning more about this. But, broadly speaking, from the outside it looks to me like there are two clear differences.

The first is in your immigration policies. To the fury of many campaigners in Australia and abroad, a generation of Australian politicians, from John Howard onwards, made the most important realisation of all. They realised that you have a country or you don’t. And if you have a country you have to have borders and rules. Unlike Merkel and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, John Howard and Tony Abbott in particular knew the difference between “legal” and “illegal” immigration is not some tiny technicality to be got around by a phalanx of human rights lawyers. The difference between legal and illegal immigration is the law. The law that Australia’s representatives at the UN have once again necessarily and heroically upheld. Because if you don’t have the law then you don’t have much of a state either.

The second difference is that Australia seems to still have (though this may be on the wane) some residual common sense of a kind that appears to be almost absent in my country. There seems to remain in Australia a strain of perfectly legitimate opinion that still finds it acceptable to say: “If you don’t like it here then why don’t you hop it?” In Britain and most of western Europe anybody who uttered such a statement would be too sensible to survive.

And perhaps that’s where we are more generally. A country that imports jihadists who are down on their luck and a continent that welcomes anyone who makes it there is a continent with a deeply troubled future. The best piece of advice any Brit or European can give to an Australian today is the saddest advice of all: don’t do what we did. The happier piece of advice — and one this Brit is happy to give to our Australian friends — is: keep doing what you are doing. You are right. And don’t let anyone, not even the UN, try to tell you otherwise.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here







7 August, 2018

Sky News slammed for hosting 'neo-nazi' Blair Cottrell on channel - before profusely apologising and deleting the interview from social media

NOBODY should be silenced unless they are advocating violence.  He was opposing Muslim immigration, which is probably a mainstream view.  What is really noxious is the claim that to be broadcast your views have to coincide with the views of the broadcaster.  Goodbye diversity!

Sky News has been forced to back pedal and issue a grovelling apology after hosting infamous far-right extremist Blair Cottrell on one of its programs.

The outrage followed an appearance by the former United Patriots Front leader for an in-studio interview with former politician turned-host Adam Giles.

Despite the initial invitation, just hours after the interview, the controversial 24-hour news channel admitted it was 'wrong' to give the convicted criminal air-time.

'It was wrong to have Blair Cottrell on Sky News Australia,' the channel's News Director Greg Byrnes was credited with saying in a tweet.

'(Cottrell's) views do not reflect ours. The interview has been removed from repeat timeslots and online platforms.'

The chorus of regret was soon added to by other Sky News employees who agreed the decision to host Cottrell the wrong one.

'I have just arrived back in the country tonight to be met with the understandable outrage over this,' wrote Sky's Political Editor David Speers in response to the interview.

Similarly, presenter Janine Perrett added: 'Blair Cottrell should not be described as an activist but for what he truly is - a convicted criminal with a dangerous record.'

Cottrell has gained infamy in recent years for a string of Islamophobic behaviour.

Last year the 27-year-old was the among the first people to be found guilty, convicted and fined for a criminal offence under Victoria's racial vilification laws.

The conviction came after he and two others staged a mock beheading outside the City of Bendigo offices in protest against building a mosque in Bendigo, Victoria.

And after Sky News' retraction of support, Cottrell was quick to take aim at the news channel, claiming it had bowed to pressure from progressives.

'Lol so Sky News caved already to Lefist abuse,' he wrote on Twitter. 'I suppose my ideas are so irrefutable, that the only recourse is to silence me. How pathetic.'

SOURCE 






Some fun

The guy in this video looks a typical Middle-East Muslim.  He actually is ancestrally from Yemen.  But he is Jew who was born in Australia and who has served in the Israel Defence Force.  And  what comes out of his mouth is classical free speech advocacy.  It's just absorbing to see such anti-Muslim speech coming out of such a Middle-Eastern mouth.  He is completely right in what he says. He is Avi Yemeni.  There's a story about him here,/a>








Australian Defence Farce: Army personnel banned from saying 'him' and 'her' to avoid 'gender bullying'

The armed forces should NOT be used to push a minority ideology.  They are traditionally non-political

Australian Defence Force personnel have been instructed to avoid terms like 'him' and 'her' in favour of more gender-neutral language.

A new LGBTI guide has recently been developed for the Australian Defence Force Academy, which trains future members of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The guide, aimed at ADFA staff, stresses the importance of being 'mindful of respectful and disrespectful behaviours or language in relation to LGBTI members'.

Staff have been told to consider 'avoiding stereotyping' and using 'the correct pronouns and preferred name of sex or gender diverse members wherever possible'.

The guide also encourages the use 'gender neutral language when referring to relationships or gender identities' and 'the mental health and welfare of members'.

Staff are told to apologise to fellow personnel 'in the event they make a mistake'.

'All ADFA personnel need to appreciate that the deliberate use of non-inclusive language, exclusion and bullying due to gender diversity are some of the behaviours which can affect LGBTI members,' the guide says. 

The guide warns that 'unacceptable behaviours' will not tolerated and will be dealt with swiftly to maintain a learning and working environment which is inclusive.

Brigadier Cheryl Pearce, Commandant ADFA, wrote it was her intent the guide would become a valuable resource for staff making decisions regarding LGBTI members.

The release of the guide last year reportedly sparked concerns of a move towards political correctness.    

Defence sources told The Daily Telegraph a 'directive' was set to be issued requiring gender-neutral language to be used by staff.

But a spokesman for Defence said that was not the case. 'There will be no Defence directive on the use of gender neutral language,' he said.

The Australian Defence Force Academy is a partnership between the Australian Defence Force and the University of New South Wales, based in Canberra.

News of the guide comes a week after Australians reacted with outrage to a Navy tweet promoting gender equality and diversity in the workplace.

Royal Australian Navy personnel painted their fingernails to support Women and Leadership Australia's '100 days for change campaign'.

In a Twitter post, Defence Australia posted an image of a man wearing pink nail polish but people were quick to respond with anger to the post, suggesting Navy workers should be focused on keeping the country safe.

SOURCE 






Unions to prosper under lapdog Bill Shorten

Want to know what the unions have in mind for Australia under a Bill Shorten government?  Recently, the ACTU held its national congress. A 209-page manifesto outlines its cunning plan in draft form.

The policy says “current work rights are not adequate to protect and enhance the wages and conditions of working Australians”. This is a “major contributor to historically high levels of inequality” and “there is now a pressing need for fundamental change” with a “broad scope to cover all current and emerging forms of work, including the gig economy”.

It appears that someone who does any form of work, including someone who may agree, for instance, via an app to deliver your takeaway, mow your lawn, babysit your pets or clean your house, will be entitled to the workplace arrangements normally reserved for employees of companies.

There will be 10 days’ paid domestic violence leave for everyone. The final goal is 20 days’ paid leave for all but, in the meantime, as much additional unpaid domestic leave “as necessary” is to be made available. Everyone must have six months’ paid parental leave, too.

People who perform “temp work” for labour hire companies must receive the same pay and conditions as the workers who are employees of the host employer, if they are doing the same work. Labour hire workers must have the right to claim unfair dismissal if the host employer doesn’t want them any more and the right to a permanent job with the host employer after six months’ work.

Host employers must be responsible for keeping employment records of all their labour hire people and are to be made responsible for their unfair dismissal claims and any underpayments.

This plan dovetails nicely with the unions’ demand for a national labour hire licensing scam, er sorry, scheme for labour hire businesses. No one will be able to operate a labour hire company unless deemed a fit and proper person, they have a certain amount of capital (the manifesto doesn’t say how much) and they are issued with a licence.

Watch out for the emergence of a new category of union-owned business: labour hire companies. It is a brilliant plan, really. The unions can start these businesses and get their lapdogs in government to give them the licences. Then they can profit by operating a labour hire outfit while passing on all employment obligations to the host employer.

A national portable leave system is to be established. Every employer in the country will pay their employees’ leave entitlements (long service leave, annual leave and so on) into this system, and we must assume the unions will run it. When employees wish to take their leave, they will claim it from the system instead of the employer. This scheme would be a staggering cash cow, and the dollars involved would see it soon dwarf union-owned superannuation.

All business owners will have a “positive obligation” to “facilitate worker access to union representation” and issue a statement to every person they hire, telling the worker about their right to join a union, and a union official will be entitled to be present at that meeting.

Union officials will be able to enter any business they like without giving the 24 hours’ notice in writing now required. They don’t think they should have to hold entry permits for this privilege; unions should be able to send anyone as long as they are “authorised by the governing body of their union”.

In the workplace, every employer must recognise any union delegate, provide them with facilities (office or desk) and give them paid time to do union work and paid union training leave.

Enterprise-level enterprise bargaining has proved all too difficult; it is too “resource intensive and inefficient”. Worse still, “in many industries, enterprise-level bargaining can encourage competition” and so “the development of industry-based councils” will occur (employer body stooges again) and these can bargain for agreements that cover entire industries. Where there is disagreement, the Fair Work Commission can bang the gavel and impose any decision on the quantum of pay rises or conditions sought.

Employers should not be able to terminate expired agreements unless “on application by unions”.

Workers must be able to strike without secret ballots, and employers will not be able to respond with lockouts, which will be prohibited. If the workers are on strike, the employer will not be allowed to engage replacement labour and no minister should ever be able to terminate a strike. The policy doesn’t prohibit a business owner from shutting their business permanently where it is unprofitable and everyone is on strike — no doubt this is just an oversight.

There are plans to “establish an active presence in schools” and sign the kiddies up as young unionists, with easier joining methods, including free memberships. When these kiddies get older and graduate from university, they mustn’t be able to be taken advantage of with unpaid internships. These are “problematic because they are increasingly viewed as a necessary qualification for young people to get their foot in the door of their chosen career”.

Of course, unions are employers too, and the policy says unions must not engage unpaid interns either, except when the arrangement is part of an accredited course (which is easy to arrange). How very big-hearted of them.

SOURCE 






Labor ‘endorsing higher power bills’

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has seized on comments by a Labor environmental group which appeared to endorse higher power prices, amid rising pressure on the Turnbull government to seal a deal on its national energy guarantee.

The Labor Environment Action Network, which won support for a 50 per cent renewable energy target at the last ALP national conference, told followers on Twitter that “high prices are not a market failure — they are proof of the market working well”.

The Turnbull government needs state Labor governments to sign up to the national energy guarantee at a crucial Council of Australian Governments meeting next week, or its hopes of reforming the energy market will fail.

But the Andrews government faces a backlash from the Left at the coming Victorian election if it agrees to the plan, with at least two seats — Brunswick and Richmond — under threat from the Greens.

Mr Frydenberg lashed out at federal Labor, using the LEAN tweet to declare “the cat is out of the bag”.

“In a startling admission the federal Labor Party thinks that high power prices are a sign that the market is working well,” Mr Frydenberg said.

By prioritising emissions over price, Labor was “selling out jobs and hurting the hip pocket of Australian families”.

However, LEAN co-convener Felicity Wade said the tweet reflected the group’s distrust of the market-based electricity system.

“It is hardly surprising that a system that’s key organising principle is maximising profit delivers the highest profits it can — and in a natural monopoly situation — this means high prices for consumers,” she said.

Opposition energy spokesman Mark Butler branded suggestions Labor wanted higher power prices “absurd”, arguing more renewable energy in the grid would bring down energy costs.

“If the minister wants to demonstrate his commitment to lower power prices, he will adopt an emissions reduction target for the NEG that will support new renewable investment,” Mr Butler said.

He cited analysis by Reputex showing an NEG with a 45 per cent emission reduction target would deliver 25 per cent lower wholesale power prices than the government’s 26 per cent target.

“As long as the government is beholden to its anti-renewable rump, Australians will pay more for their electricity than they should,” Mr Butler said.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann became the latest cabinet minister to confirm the government was working on an “NEG-plus” plan to ease concerns over the policy on the Coalition backbench.

Resources Minister Matthew Canavan told The Australian this week the “plus” element to the plan would include the government’s response to the competition watchdog’s recommendation that the government underwrite new dispatchable power.

Senator Cormann said the NEG was just one measure among many the government was pursuing to bring down power prices. “We’ve always had a national energy guarantee plus, plus, plus approach,” Senator Cormann told Sky News.

“The government has been doing a whole range of things in the energy space to bring down electricity prices, including of course, making sure that we had adequate supplies of gas into the east coast market and various other things that have helped to bring down electricity prices.”

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






6 August, 2018

Taxpayer-funded public service jobs will favour new recruits who are from racial and 'gender identity' minorities as part of politically correct overhaul

This is objectionable.  Why should people be penalized for being normal? "Human rights" have gone berserk.  As far as employing Aborigines is concerned, I have no difficulty with that as long as they are held to the same standards of diligence and promptness that apply to others.  And public service standards of diligence and promptness are not exactly onerous.  The evident difficulty government departments already have in meeting their existing quotas for Aborigines may however indicate that even that low standard is hard to meet.  Anybody knowing Aboriginal culture will not be surprised

Public service employers are being pushed to favour new recruits who are from racial and gender identity minorities in what is seen as a politically correct overhaul.

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has called on the Federal Government to set new targets to hire staff from 'disadvantaged racial groups', the Courier Mail reported.

AHRC believes consideration should be given to employ staff with diverse qualities and there should be 'measurable targets with clear time frames that hold agencies accountable

'The commission acknowledges the challenges employers face when it comes to hiring people from a range of diverse and and difference issues such as, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, disability, ageing, cultural diversity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status,' AHRC has told the Government review.

Since August 1 2013, it has been unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status under federal law.  

The Australian Public Service Commission - which is committed to employing people with disabilities - has a target of 3 per cent indigenous employment by the end of this year.

However, there are still many government agencies with less than 2 per cent of indigenous employees, while other agencies don't have any.

Union national secretary Nadine Flood backed the push and told the publication that the Government should be setting targets to create a more diverse workplace.

'The APS needs to have the right people to provide the best services to the community, and that means a workforce that reflects the diversity,' she said.

SOURCE 






Islamic convert principal dumped from a Muslim-majority high school over allegations he was radicalising students is back in the classroom

A high school principal who was dumped amid allegations he refused to put his students through an anti-terror program has returned to the classroom.

Chris Griffiths was removed from his job as principal at Punchbowl Boys High School, along with deputy Joumana Dennaoui, in March last year.

Allegations against Mr Griffiths included complaints from parents of students being made to participate in prayer sessions, police concerns of radicalisation and claims from teachers regarding 'a high level of staff disunity and disharmony'.

Mr Griffiths, a Muslim convert, has now been appointed to a high school in outer-western Sydney, The Daily Telegraph reported.

His new job follows the discontinuation of two separate actions in the NSW Supreme court and Industrial Commission by Mr Griffiths, Ms Dennaoui.

Mr Griffiths has allegedly accepted the findings of an internal investigation by the Employee Performance and Conduct unit.

The paper also revealed departmental charges against Mr Griffiths related to the ­'administration' of the school and 'staff disunity'.

At the time there were allegedly a raft of other issues which led to his termination from the school.

Senior female staff members at the Mulsim majority school who had previously taken part in official events such as presentation days were reportedly given no explanation for their exclusion.

There were also claims that relations had broken down with local police liaison officers and that non-Muslim staff were subjected to verbal attacks.

It was also alleged that he refused to run a voluntary departmental deradicalisation program to counter extremism despite the school being deemed 'high risk'.

'As a result of a recent appraisal of Punchbowl Boys High, there has been a change in the leadership of the school,' a NSW Department of Education spokesman confirmed to Daily Mail Australia at the time.

Mr Griffiths denied the allegations levelled against him, pointing out photographs on his Twitter profile show women at school ceremonies and multicultural community dinners. 

SOURCE 






Phonics science vs the ‘feels’

The phonics debate co-hosted by the Centre for Independent Studies and the Australian College of Educators was supposed to be about the best way to teach phonics. It is a given that numerous other factors contribute to reading success, including children’s language experiences in early childhood. But phonics instruction is still a point of contention — so much so, that 480 people turned up to the debate and another 1000 watched online from all over the world.

The thousands of scientific studies on reading development are incredibly complex, yet remarkably consistent. They show the primary neurological pathway for beginning readers is between the visual (print) and phonological (sound) areas of the brain. The semantic (meaning) part of the brain is engaged when children know what the word they are reading sounds like. Over time, skilled readers can make the leap straight from print to meaning but the distinction between novice and skilled reading has important implications for teaching reading.

My team at the debate included Distinguished Professor Anne Castles and champion primary school teacher Troy Verey. Professor Castles is among the world’s best reading researchers. What she doesn’t know about reading development is probably not worth knowing, so we possibly had an unfair advantage. We concisely outlined the scientific evidence of reading development and explained which teaching methods best reflected the evidence. Our case was that ensuring all children learn to read relies on teachers having high levels of knowledge and expertise, and not accepting that some children will not learn. Good teaching is crucial.

Instead of providing evidence and arguments to counter ours, the opposing team — Professor Robyn Ewing and Dr Kathy Rushton from Sydney University and Mark Diamond, principal of Lansvale Public School — took the debate in a different direction.

Having resurrected and waved around the fallacious straw man argument we thought we had buried at the beginning of the debate — that we believed phonics alone is enough for reading — the opposing team argued that learning to read has very little to do with the way children are taught at school. The message seemed to be: children will learn to read if their mothers talk and read to them from birth, and if they have access to books. (The corollary being that if children can’t read, they have bad mothers?). At school, teaching reading is about ‘rich conversations’ and ‘relationships’.

The strange dichotomy is that the latter perspective is perceived as being the teacher-friendly view, while the perspective that recognises that evidence-informed expert teaching is critical and should be valorised, is disparaged as being ‘robotic’ and anti-teacher.

There was applause from the audience when Dr Rushton admitted she has not engaged with the scientific research on reading instruction; she relies on what she learned in her teaching degree some years ago, and what she has seen in the classroom. While ever this is considered acceptable, let alone laudable, teaching will struggle to be seen as a profession.

SOURCE 






Liberals in green power standoff

Malcolm Turnbull's centrepiece energy policy faces an eleventh-hour threat from dissatisfied -Coalition MPs who have attacked new modelling that shows the -nation's reliance on renewable energy will more than double by 2030 under the national energy guarantee, as coal-fired plants are powered down.

The backlash threatens the prospect of a deal next week to end the nation's decade-long -energy wars, as wavering Labor state governments warn that they are reluctant to sign up to the plan until it is given the green light by the Coalition partyroom.

Backbenchers including Tony Abbott, Craig Kelly and the government's most marginal seat holder Michelle Landry yesterday questioned the Energy Security Board's claim that prices would drop, and said big rises in renewable generation would threaten cheap baseload power generators.

The ESB's final detailed design report said the NEG would help lift renewable energy production to 36 per cent of total generation capacity within 11 years - up from a current 17 per cent - while reliance on coal would fall from 75 per cent of generation capacity to a forecast 60 per cent.

The modelling predicts no new coal-fired power stations will be built under the NEG, and there will not be any unscheduled closures of existing plants.

It forecasts a 45 per cent fall in the nation's annual wholesale -energy bill under the NEG, from the current $17 billion-a-year to a forecast $9bn between 2020-21 and 2029-30.

Mr Abbott, who has threatened to cross the floor to vote against the policy, disputed the ESB modelling. Of claims that prices would fall, the former prime minister told 2GB radio: "Well, frankly, pigs might fly. The fact is the more renewables we have got, the higher prices have got. And why should the last lot of modelling be any more believable than the modelling before that, which has turned out to be -uniformly and constantly false."

Mr Kelly, chairman of the -Coalition's backbench energy committee, said he was sceptical of the modelling, and warned he could also vote against the policy as it was designed.  "My concerns are we are doing something that would make electricity more expensive than it otherwise would be," he said.

"When I have constituents coming into my office and breaking down in tears in front of me because they can't pay their electricity bill, it is very hard to go into parliament and vote for something that will make electricity prices higher than they would otherwise be."

If Labor and the five lower house crossbenchers oppose the NEG, it would require just one Coalition MP to cross the floor to sink the vote.

Ms Landry said she was worried that the displacement of coal by renewables would force up power prices for her constituents.

"Coal is still the cheapest form of power and the most reliable. When wind, solar and water can be made 100 per cent reliable, then I will support them over coal," the Capricornia MP said.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz said the ESB design report revealed the policy was not technology agnostic, as claimed: "It does not explain why everywhere else in the world new coal power stations are being built wanting to use our coal."

Nationals senator John Williams said he was concerned about the expensive costs of higher renewable energy usage under the targets. "The cost of power is the killer," he said.

The paper reiterates previously released numbers that forecast households would save $550 a year on power bills each year from 2020-21 to 2029-30, including $150 a year as a direct result of the NEG. The forecast increase in renewables falls short of modelling released by the Australian Energy Market Operator last month, which predicted solar, wind and hydro power would make up 46 per cent of generation by 2030.

The difference is because of the ESB's modelling of only committed projects, while the AEMO factored in state renewable energy targets that seek to lift the use of renewables ever higher.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg needs to convince the states at a meeting on Friday next week to support the NEG mechanism, before seeking approval of the -Coalition partyroom, and ultimately the parliament, for a 26 per cent cut to carbon emissions to be implemented under the scheme.

Mr Frydenberg said the government had begun to bring down power prices, "but if we want further price relief, we must act without delay to implement the National Energy Guarantee".

Victoria and Queensland ramped up the pressure this week, suggesting they were unwilling to agree to a policy that could subsequently be amended. Victorian Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said: "How can we have any confidence in what they're asking from us if it hasn't been through his partyroom first?"

ESB chair Kerry Schott urged the states to sign on to the deal, saying failure to agree to the NEG design would result in higher energy prices for households. "Stakeholders have been clear with the ESB that the status quo is simply not acceptable and have demonstrated a commitment to work together to respond to the changes under way in the energy market."

"Any delay or, worse, a failure to reach agreement will simply prolong the current investment uncertainty and deny customers more affordable energy."

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






5 August, 2018

Gang of African thugs are on the run after threatening a man with a gun during a dramatic daylight carjacking

Seven African thugs allegedly threatened a man with a gun before taking off with his vehicle during a dramatic daylight carjacking in Melbourne.

The gang allegedly accosted the victim as he was sitting in his parked Holden Commodore Sedan in Packenham's central shopping district about 2.40pm on Friday.

'One of the men produced a firearm and demanded the victim get out of his car,' a Victoria Police spokeswoman told The Australian.

After the man got out of his car one of the alleged offenders took off with it, later dumping it five minutes away on Gallery Way. 'One offender then left in the vehicle. The others fled on foot.' The alleged offenders are still on the run.  

A woman who lives on Savage Street told The Age the incident was 'incredibly worrying'. 'It's incredibly worrying to think this is going on, it's just lucky no-one was walking down the street and became involved … an innocent victim,' she said. 'It's extremely disturbing to think it's going on right where we live. It's frightened me enormously.'

The alleged victim was not injured.

The carjacking follows a similar incident last week where two men allegedly smashed a woman's mouth with the butt of a gun while stealing her car. 

The 57-year-old woman was driving in Narre Warren South when her car was hit by a four-wheel drive, before the men got out and allegedly assaulted her.

SOURCE 





'Slowly but surely, everything's becoming more off-limits': Why this pork ad featuring an elderly couple could be BANNED as advertising watchdog cracks down on gender stereotypes

A pork advertisement featuring an elderly woman unwittingly shouting a sexual innuendo in the waiting room of a doctor's surgery could one day be banned.

The Australian Association of National Advertisers has released new guidelines banning gender stereotypes.

Under section 2.1 of its code of ethics, advertisers will be banned from portraying a woman cleaning up or a man struggling with being a father.

The advertising industry's director of policy and regulatory affairs Simone Brandon said this was so ads didn't 'unwittingly reinforce negative stereotypes'.

While the code won't prevent advertisers from showing men doing home renovations, an advertising agency behind a provocative pork industry commercial was worried it would make ads bland in future.

Monty Noble, a co-director of Noble Brands Worldwide, said he had had to justify almost every ad they've made for Australian Pork over the past decade.

'Slowly but surely, everything's becoming more off-limits,' he told Sydney radio 2GB broadcaster Ray Hadley today.

'I don't think we're fighting back as an industry enough in order to keep doing what we do best, which is promoting Australian brands and services.'

In one of his agency's funny commercials, an elderly woman unwittingly utters a sexual innuendo as her husband greets her in the waiting room of a doctor's surgery.

'Everything right?,' her husband asked.

She replied: 'Yep, but the doctor says we should pork more often.'

A secretary behind the desk of the doctor's surgery spits out her coffee.

SOURCE 




Time to Drain Australia's Energy Swamp

By Viv Forbes

The Australian electricity market has become a stinking swamp covered with a tangled net of treaties, laws, rules, obligations, prohibitions, targets, taxes and subsidies. The swamp conceals the rubble of demolished coal generators; another plant destined for destruction (Liddell) is gradually sinking in the green ooze.

The way out of the energy swamp is to retrace the way we got in.

First, get to the root of the problem – UN Climate Alarmism. Disown the Paris and Kyoto Treaties and dump all the obligations, costs, hobbles and distortions they have created. Stop their pointless war on carbon energy. Carbon dioxide does not control climate but it does support all life on earth.

Abolish green energy targets and renewable energy certificates – they belong in museums beside the WW2 ration cards.

Then de-fund and boycott the rotten core of climate alarmism - the UNIPCC. Shun their never-ending climate conferences and cease funding all of their green tentacles. Cancel the tax exempt status of political activists posing as honest scientists.

Then unravel the electricity regulations mess. Stop politicians from banning or promoting their energy favourites – speculators should be free to build wind, solar, geothermal, wave, coal, gas, nuclear or pig-poo power generators free of all special taxes, subsidies and market mandates. But no electricity distributer, retailer or consumer should be forced to accept unreliable or expensive electricity.

Then abolish all guaranteed returns on inflated capital for those who gold-plate power lines and poles, or expect big returns on under-used connections to remote wind farms or other green energy toys. Consumers should not be saddled with these hidden green taxes.

All electricity producers and retailers should face competitive market prices, get no special subsidies and obey the same tax laws. But they should be encouraged to enter into long term contracts to supply base-load or peak power at agreed prices. Such contracts could underpin construction of new reliable generation capacity.

De-centralise decision making. Politicians should stop backing losers. Test energy theories properly by letting green states go deep green on intermittent energy, while others place their bets on long-term contracts from new HELE (High Energy Low Emissions) running on solid reliable black “fossil sunshine”. Allow isolated communities to try sealed transportable nuclear power packs.

The choice for our crippled electricity industry is stark – swift surgical reform and practical innovation; or let the lights go out as our once-cheap-and-reliable grid drowns in the smelly regulatory swamp.

SOURCE 






There’s a corporate rebellion brewing over fanatical social justice movements

Corporate Australia is often a dozy kind of place. Lots of fancy lunches, corporate retreats, board dinners, endless handshakes and backslapping, polite chitchat and quiet grumbling about this and that. Most directors on big boards are independent, and that means they are risk-averse, treating their jobs as safe spaces. Few want disagreement. Even fewer would front up in a fight. Until now.

There is a corporate rebellion brewing in this country. And this week it boiled over. Speaking to The Weekend Australian, some reputable businesspeople have taken their private concerns public. They are saying “enough is enough” to an intrepid bunch of social engineers intent on transforming corporate Australia.

Mention corporate governance and eyes normally glaze over. Not this time. The ASX Corporate Governance Council’s frolic into social justice territory is so misguided that the battle over corporate governance is more akin to another chapter in the broader culture wars. And who wins has ramifications for just about every Australian because most of us own shares, directly or through a superannuation fund. The combatants are gambling with our money.

If the social engineers get their way, their colonisation of our culture will move closer to completion. Having secured older, more traditional territories in education, public bureaucracies and other areas that draw on government coffers for funding, their next targets are the profit centres of Australia. They are leading a subterranean push to force Australian companies to mirror their social visions in a way that will alter longstanding legal and commercial principles about the purpose of a company.

This stuff used to happen behind closed doors. Speaking to The Weekend Australian the day after meeting a proxy adviser, a chairman of an ASX 100 listed company said: “In days gone by, (the proxy adviser) would grill me on strategy, financial returns, CEO succession plans etc. But yesterday it was all about diversity on the board and in middle management appointments, our policy on renewables, recycling plans, sustainability and of course climate change.”

Another experienced corporate insider recalls meetings where investors and their representatives ask about diversity policies and remuneration reports “and nothing in between”. The Corrigan letters are another example of a fanatical social justice movement seeping into corporate Australia. The letters, sent by industry super funds and other corporate activists to Chris Corrigan when he chaired logistics giant Qube Holdings, were out-and-out bullying aimed at putting women on boards, regardless of merit. Rather than succumb to intimidation, as most do, Corrigan quit and exposed the harassment.

Activists already flexing their muscle over diversity and social responsibility are about to get a shot of social justice steroids thanks to a new set of ASX corporate governance rules. And that explains the insurrection by some business leaders. They are horrified by pages of new prescriptions imposing slippery concepts such as a “social licence to operate”, and acting in a “socially responsible manner”. The new draft suggests it is not socially responsible to engage in “aggressive tax minimisation”. It is socially responsible to offer a “living wage”. There are four long pages, equally vague, expecting companies to deliver, measure and report on diversity targets through­out the company.

The new draft reads like a document drafted by dreamers at a UN conference rather than regulators at a stock exchange.

The deficient thinking in the new draft is rife: companies are expected to report environmental risks that include any “perceived impact” by the company on the environment. As Graham Bradley, former president of the Business Council of Australia, points out in his personal submission to the Australian Securities Exchange: “Logically, if there is no actual impact, there can be no negative consequences.” So scrap that, he suggests.

Bradley, a highly regarded director and chairman with two decades of experience, and a supporter of diversity in companies, is also perplexed by undue emphasis on gender diversity as distinct from other considerations pertinent to board composition. And the push for positive discrimination in the new rules creates all sorts of problems, legal and practical. “All companies should have a non-discriminatory employment policy,” Bradley writes in his submission. “But this is a very different thing from a policy to explicitly ‘embrace’ (a vague term!) such ‘facets’ as ‘gender identity’, ‘physical abilities’ and ‘cultural backgrounds’.”

Bradley says it would be an invasion of privacy for a company to require employees to disclose religious beliefs, describe their cultural backgrounds or their socio-economic circumstances. “How then could a company have a meaningful policy to ‘embrace’ these features of its workforce?”

A KPMG study mentioned in the new rules that claims gender diversity lifts corporate performance is another pointer to the daftness of drafters. There may be correlation but no proven causation, and it covers a single year. “Quite frankly,” says Bradley, “this is laughable for any reader familiar with sound quantitative analysis principles.” The report draws conclusions based on revenue growth, not company profits which is, Bradley notes, “reminiscent of the errors of Emma Alberici”.

Bradley was heavily involved in drafting earlier versions of the corporate governance principles and told The Weekend Australian the language is too subjective and the rules too prescriptive. He agrees social engineers on the ASX Corporate Governance Council have weaponised social agendas, inviting activists, proxy advisers, industry super funds or any vocal NGO to point to the new rules and demand compliance from listed companies.

Nicola Wakefield Evans, a non-executive director of Macquarie Group, Toll Holdings, Lend Lease and BUPA, is concerned that many of the new draft rules are inconsistent. Expecting companies not to engage in “aggressive tax minimisation” conflicts with the tax code. Tax minimisation is legal; tax avoidance is illegal. Expecting companies to discriminate according to gender, disability and so on flies in the face of anti-discrimination laws, says Wakefield Evans, who was appointed chairwoman of the 30% Club in June.

And expecting directors to govern in the interests of investors and “other stakeholders” is inconsistent with the Corporations Law. “We are required to act in the best interests of the company, and more than 200 years of court decisions about companies have defined that as acting in the best interests of shareholders as a whole,” Wakefield Evans told The Weekend Australian.

If regulators believe the law needs reforming, let them make that case. That is the honest route to law reform. The ASX way of re-imagining laws using new words is sneaky and unaccountable. It effectively legislates a series of ambiguous terms that will leave dir­ectors confused about their dut­ies, will blur lines of management accountability and, worse, will leave investors wondering whether their interests are paramount any more.

Some in corporate Australia hope that reason will prevail on the ASX Corporate Governance Council. But don’t hold your breath. Sensible voices on the council did not prevent the current draft from reading like a manifesto for social change drafted by the Greens. And when you start from an extreme position, the best case is ending up somewhere less extreme. Arriving at somewhere sensible would be a triumph of naive hope over experience.

How else then should corporate Australia respond to this cultural takeover of corporate gov­ernance rules? Speaking to The Weekend Australian last week, AMP chairman David Murray canvassed his answer: don’t comply. Murray says the “if not, why not” basis must mean something.

The former Future Fund chairman and former chief executive of Commonwealth Bank who also led the Financial System Inquiry has thrown down the gauntlet to corporate Australia and the ASX.

“I think companies should feel free to say to their shareholders that they have designed their governance system for the circumstances of their company,” he says. “And if that results in them not complying with ASX corporate governance principles, then that is simply the case because they are acting in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. And just leave a state­ment as simple as that because if you go into deep explanations then the gang will come out of the woodwork, won’t they?”

In other words, tell investors and ASX regulators to figure out for themselves how a corporate governance report doesn’t comply with the rules. “Someone has to do it,” he says. “And then you say to the ASX, ‘Well, if you’re unhappy, delist us — just delist.’ ”

All eyes are on AMP leading the insurrection. But if the Australian Securities & Investments Commission gets its way, Murray’s suggestion that a company ignore ASX governance rules that are not in the best interest of the company won’t be an option. In its submission to the ASX, Australia’s top corporate regulator has sided with the social engineers.

ASIC does not raise a word of concern about adding another layer of prescriptive rules around a social licence to operate, diversity measures and so on. In fact, it suggests the ASX consider making some or all of these ambiguous new governance principles man­datory for larger listed companies by elevating them into listing rules. That means they become even more powerful weapons backed by law for activists and regulators to prosecute companies over faddish social agendas.

If ASIC and the ASX are in cahoots to become sneaky backdoor legislators, we need to ask a lot more questions about them.

Who are they, who elected these de facto legislators, and what legitimacy do they have? The risk is that we end up being governed by bureaucrats of second-rate intellect but first-rate ideological zeal — unelected and unelectable activists with an insatiable demand for yet another layer of regulation because they are too incompetent to enforce the legislation they already have.

The grassroots rebellion from inside Australia’s most presti­gious corporate boardrooms points to the waning influence of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, which is a member on the ASX Corporate Gov­ernance Council. To be sure, the AICD lodged a sensible submission with the ASX this week, and AICD chief executive Angus Armour told The Weekend Australian the new rules marked a “substantial shift”. But clearly the AICD voice counted for nought at the initial drafting stage.

Murray says the AICD should be an effective “champion of company directors” but “someone has to turn the AICD around first”. Given what is at stake, he says it is time to hear from the Turnbull government. Malcolm Turnbull? Scott Morrison? Kelly O’Dwyer? Is anyone in the ­government willing to front up, on behalf of ordinary shareholders, to say they do not support the push from the ASX and ASIC to impose another layer of vaguely worded prescription that alters the core purpose of a corporation, causes confusion about the duties of directors, leads to less accountability of management and worsens corporate governance in this country?

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






3 August, 2018

Banned by La Trobe University

An email from Bettina Arndt

Big excitement here this week. I'd been invited by the La Trobe Student Liberal Club to speak about whether there was a rape crisis on our campuses. My gig was supposed to be on August 14 until the university administration earlier this week pulled the plug, claiming my talk didn't "align with the values of the University and the strong campaign they've been running against sexual violence on campus."

La Trobe, like all our universities, has been promoting the fake rape crisis for years now, even after the Human Rights Commission release their survey results showing there was no such problem.

I ended up having a very entertaining exchange with various members of the administration and asked them a series of embarrassing questions seeking their evidence that there was a rape problem on campus. Eventually they backed down and said the event can go ahead, although they are making noises about the Liberal Club being charged for extra security. So we will see how this all plays out.

It looks like we will put back the date to sometime in September, to give the students time to sort everything out. Other Victorian universities are also keen so it may be that we will end up doing a Melbourne event sponsored by a number of the Liberal students clubs. Do spread the word. I am keen to speak about this issue on any Australian campus that offers an invitation. I think it is appalling that our universities are too lily-livered to take on the feminists and call out their lies on this issue. 

I've  written about all this for The Australian - published today. It would be great if subscribers could go online asap and make comments supporting the article. It's been very hard for me to get my articles into the paper recently and it really helps if there is a strong response when I do, particularly if you suggest you would like to see me in the paper more often!

 I'm giving two talks in Perth later this month. The first is an evening event on Wednesday August 29 - Bettina Arndt - Casualties of a Male Bashing Society. Here's your chance to hear about what's happening to men in Australia. I promise a gripping account of many of the recent issues I have been covering, I'll be telling stories, keeping you thoroughly entertained. Do try to come along and bring all your friends. We need lots of people to book in soon, so we can be sure the event will happen. 

Wed. 29 August 2018

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm AWST

HELLENIC CLUB OF WA

75 STIRLING STREET, PERTH

Book here - Bettina Arndt - Casualties of a Male Bashing Society

The second one is a lunch event on Thursday August 30 where I will be talking about helping men enjoy their sex lives after prostate cancer - lots of funny, sexy stories in this one! I spoke at a lunch in Perth about this topic some years ago and brought the house down! I gather people still talk about it. Do tell your friends - believe me, it is not just for people with prostate cancer. Every man - and their partners - should know more about this vital issue.

LUNCH WITH BETTINA ARNDT
12:00pm-2:30pm
Thursday, 30th August 2018

The Dining Room at the Subiaco Football Club

246 Vincent Street, Leederville, WA 6007

Book here - https://www.eventbrite.com.au/o/prost-exercise-group-8699046032

I hope to get a chance to meet many Perth people during the trip.

Via email from bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






Young women are quite safe at university, and should be told that

BETTINA ARNDT (This is the article Tina refers to above)

"There is officially no rape crisis on our campuses." That was the headline of the news story that ran in The Australian exactly a year ago after the Australian Human Rights Commission released the results of a million--dollar survey into sexual assault and harassment.

It was disappointing news for feminist activists who had con-ducted a long campaign arguing that campuses were unsafe for young women.

Yet they managed to influence media coverage to disguise the reassuring survey results showing only 0.8 per cent of students claimed to have been sex-ually assaulted in the previous year, even using a broad definition that included being "tricked into sexual acts against their will" and incidents during travel to and from campus.

All they came up with was a high incidence of low-level harassment - mainly -involving staring and sexual jokes or comments.

Hardly a rape crisis - yet my news story was the sole mainstream report to promote the positive news. Such is the grip of these social justice warriors that stories everywhere presented the survey results as disturbing evidence of women under attack.

Vice-chancellors around the country promised new measures to address violence on campus, neatly fudging the evidence to present the worst possible picture. Writing in Guardian Australia, Lenore Taylor -denounced my news story, repeating Madeleine Albright's famous barb about "the special place in hell for women who don't help other women".

These bullying tactics have succeeded remarkably well in browbeating the university sector into an emperor's-new-clothes state of denial about our remarkably safe campuses. The survey results were ignored, reassuring evidence buried. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found universities to be about 100 times safer than the general community.

Instead we have witnessed an Orwellian display of doublespeak and deception over the issue. The campaign pretending young women are at risk of rape on -campus continues unabated. Last month Universities Australia -announced new "tools for dealing with sexual assault and harassment" that it hoped would lead to an increase in disclosures.

Reports on these new tools -detailed -numerous measures for encouraging more rape disclosures while neatly avoiding any mention of -actual AHRC findings. It was all strangely reminiscent of Tim Soutphom-ma-sane's efforts to solicit complaints about the -fam-ous Bill Leak cartoon just -before Leak died in March last year.

Later this month I was supposed to be speaking at a La Trobe Liberal Club student event, discussing whether universities really faced a rape crisis. Early this week university administrators told the club the talk could not take place because the topic didn't "align with the values of the university and the strong campaign they've been running against sexual violence on campus".

During subsequent discussion with the administrators I was told they were concerned about providing support and counselling for students who might be upset by my talk. Yesterday the university backed down in response to questions I'd posed asking it to justify shutting down -debate over the issue and to provide evidence to support its campus rape campaign. It belatedly agreed to allow the event to take place. However, it warned there might be security costs for the organisers. The Liberal Club is hoping the -August 14 event still may happen but many details need to be settled with the university.

La Trobe, like universities around the country, has introduced new sexual assault services, training for staff and students in dealing with sexual assault and harassment and sexual consent courses for all students. A BendigoAdvertiser article in April quoted La Trobe spokesman Tim Mitchell pledging still more -action, feebly adding "the university's campuses and residences were overwhelmingly safe places to be".

"End Rape on Campus" was the slogan for yesterday's national rally against sexual violence at universities funded by the Nat-ional Union of Students' women's -department, using compulsory student union fees.

Tanya Plibersek joined the media clamour -promoting this event with her -womensagenda.-com.au article -titled "The time for decisive action on campus assault is now", noting the anniversary of the release of the AHRC survey data. "This disturbing -report found there are too many sexual assaults happening, too many going unreported and -nowhere near enough is being done to prevent and punish this abhorrent behaviour," she wrote. Her misleading tirade failed to -report the tiny sexual assault -numbers found in the survey, -instead claiming 145 reported rapes at -universities over the past five years.

Ironically, the justification for the expensive AHRC survey was the -dubious nature of such reports that were never subject to proper investigation.

Facts do not cease to exist -because they are ignored, wrote Aldous Huxley. There's a Stasiland quality to this conspiracy -between most mainstream media and universities as they kowtow to feminists and deny the truth about our safe university cam-puses - demonising young men in the process. Lying to young women about their safety is a sorry start to higher education for our bright young women.

SOURCE 





Hot summer on the way: map shows just how bad Australia's drought really is

These predictions are just speculation based on models that frequently get it wrong. It's just one of the routine scares that the BoM put out regularly to promote their global warming beliefs.

And note again the North/South split in rainfall, a regular oscillation.  Most of NSW and half of Victoria is in drought but rain is fine in nearly all Queensland. We have had quite a few rainy nights in Brisbane (Qld.) during July, even though our winters tend to be dry. The rain will swing South in due course and Brisbane will be dry



This is the map that shows just how desperate some areas of Australia are for drought-breaking rain - and there's no relief in sight with a hot, dry summer a certainty.

Looking at the past six months, large areas of NSW have experienced their lowest rainfall on record, and most of the rest of the state isn't far behind.

Almost all of NSW has received less than 20 per cent of its usual rainfall since January, and Australia as a whole just experienced its warmest and driest July in 20 years.

Weatherzone reports that Forbes, in NSW's central west, only received 0.8mm of rain at the beginning of the month and did not record any rainfall for the rest of July.

Meanwhile, extreme temperatures already recorded in NSW and south-east Queensland this winter look set to continue amid concerns a 'hot and deadly' summer is on the way.

ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes heatwave expert Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick told Weatherzone that Australians should be expecting extreme weather considering the dryness and warmth of the past few months.

'We are heading towards an El Nino summer, so we are more likely to have hotter and more extreme weather,' Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said. 'We should certainly be worried.'   

Temperatures so far this winter have been unusually high, with Sydney and large regions of eastern Australia encountering an average high of 19.8 degrees last month - 3.4 degrees more than what was expected, according to Weatherzone.

Sydney recorded 13 days where temperatures reached 20 degrees. The last time Sydney experienced such warm temperatures in July was back in 2013 with a record high of 19.5 degrees. 

With such a dry and warm July and above-average temperatures expected, the chances of El Ni¤o forming in spring is at 50 per cent - which is double the normal chance, according to Weatherzone.

Five of eight models indicate El Ni¤o levels will be reached in the southern hemisphere's springtime, while a sixth model says El Ni¤o will be reached in December.

This means Australia could be expecting even drier months and hotter temperatures as it heads towards spring and summer.

SOURCE 






Bureaucrats told: use gender-neutral speech

A major Victorian government department is promoting the first Wednesday of every month as "They Day", asking its 10,000 employees to avoid "gendered" language and instead refer to others using neutral pronouns such as "they" or "them".

In a move criticised for pushing political correctness and identity politics under the guise of inclusiveness, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued staff with stick-on badges featuring preferred pronouns and produced a short film to highlight the issue.

In a memo emailed to staff, which has been seen by The Australian, They Day is promoted as a "new recurring calendar event" aiming to create awareness of "gendered pronouns". "Non--binary identities are just as valid as binary gender identities," the email says. "Names don't always correspond to a person's gender. There may be a gap between a person's gender identity and your perception of the person. Saying `they' is more flowing and inclusive than saying `he' or `she'."

An initiative of the department's Pride Network, They Day follows the contentious -release of the government's Inclusive Language Guide in 2016 that discouraged the use of "heteronormative" terms such as "husband" and "wife".

Also aimed at public sector employees, the guide cautioned against assuming that everyone was heterosexual and recommended the use of alternative gender-neutral pronouns of "zie" and hir".

Victorian Equality Minister Martin Foley, a strong proponent of the language guide, declined yesterday to comment on They Day or whether he would encourage its rollout more broadly. A spokeswoman for the department said the Pride Network did not receive government or departmental funding for the event or the film, which features staff from various departments speaking about their preference for neutral pronouns.

"DHHS is proud to be an inclusive workplace," the spokeswoman said.

According to its latest annual report, the department is in the process of working towards achieving a "bronze" employer award in the Australian Workplace Equality Index in recognition of its LGBTI inclusion initiatives.

It is also considering labelling bathroom facilities to meet the specific needs of LGBTI employees who are non-binary, gender-fluid, transgender or intersex. The Pride Network is a volunteer organisation that has previously received one-off department funding to help acknowledge events of significance, such as World Aids Day and the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia.

It is understood that other departments will consider adopting They Day.

Opposition spokesman Tim Smith criticised the initiative yesterday, accusing the Andrews government of being "obsessed with political correctness". "The Department of Health needs to spend more time on running hospitals and less time on gendered pronouns," he said. "When or if they reduce surgery waitlists to zero, then they can worry about `pronoun badges'."

Centre for Independent Studies senior research fellow Jeremy Sammut described the initiative as a push by activists to "enforce speech codes to promote gender ideology".

"If you were speaking directly to someone you didn't know, you wouldn't rudely refer to them in conversation as `he' or `she', let alone `they': you would say `as you said', or `where are you from' which is natural and polite," he said. "They Day is therefore just politicising the language of everyday social interactions to promote the gender ideology and embed identity politics into daily life.

"I therefore think many people will resent this kind of kindergarten-style indoctrination and conscious-raising that is being dressed up as inclusiveness."

SOURCE 






Lessons for Italy from Australia

by Giulio Meotti

Four years ago, the Australian government sparked criticism after it ran an advertisement aimed at discouraging asylum seekers from traveling illegally to the country. "No Way", the poster read. "You will not make Australia home. If you get on a boat without a visa, you will not end up in Australia. Any vessel seeking illegally to enter Australia will be intercepted and safely removed beyond Australian waters".

It was an extremely tough message, but it worked. "Australia's migration rate is the lowest it's been in 10 years", said Peter Dutton, Australia's Home Affairs Minister. Speaking last week on the Today Show, Dutton added that the drop was about "restoring integrity to our border". The Australians are apparently happy about that. A new poll just revealed that 72% of voters support Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's immigration policy. Australia, a Western democracy, has for years, tried to deal with a migration crisis from the sea.

"Europeans think it's easy in Australia to control our borders, but they're just making up excuses for doing nothing themselves," said retired major general Jim Molan, co-author of Australia's asylum policy.

In 2013, Tony Abbott was elected Prime Minister under the slogan "Stop the boats". "Stop the boats" is now also the slogan of the new Italy's new Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, who, since the formation of a new government last month, has been totally focused on curbing immigration from "the world's most lethal" route: across the Mediterranean.

It would seem that the best possible model for Europe to implement is a skills-based immigration system to curb the illegal one.

Last year, EU officials came to Australia for help. At a recent summit, European Union member states agreed to copy the Australian model of turning back the migrant boats and sending them to third-countries, to centers there run by local authorities, on the model of the Manus Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea, which was used to house migrants turned away from Australia. Italy is now looking to create similar reception centers on the southern border of Libya.

Fran‡ois Crepeau, the U.N. special rapporteur on migrant human rights, urged Europe not to view Australia as a model; he labelled the idea "cruel, inhuman and degrading". Stopping migrants from dying at sea, however, is the opposite of cruelty; it is humanity. "We have got hundreds, maybe thousands of people drowning in the attempts to get from Africa to Europe", Abbott said. The "only way you can stop the deaths is in fact to stop the boats".

Australia's Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, explained that "we are not going to accept people who have sought to come to our country illegally by boat". Humanitarians, as Abbott put it, were helping them in the name of a "misguided altruism".

Under the government of Australia's former Prime Minister Julia Gilliard, in May 2013, Australia excised even the mainland from its migration zone. This meant that migrants might be sent to the detention facilities abroad even if their ships landed.

The Australian model is not only based on keeping the borders safe and prioritizing highly-skilled immigrants. It also revolves around the idea of a cultural legacy that migrants have to embrace. Prime Minister Turnbull says he wants a test, for immigrants, of "Australian values", including questions on whether it is acceptable to strike your spouse, ban girls from education, or carry out female genital mutilation (FGM).

In multicultural Europe, the same test would be taboo. Turnbull has called to "defend" these Australian values. Preserving the nation-state and its cultural Western tradition, he says, is necessary to assimilate the migrants. "My long experience in Australian politics has been that whenever a government is seen to have immigration flows under control, public support for immigration increases, when the reverse occurs hostility to immigration rises" former Australian Prime Minister John Howard wrote.

As Italy is now dealing with boats from Africa trying to reach its shores, it might be helpful to remind the public that Australia also started with the "Tampa Affair": In 2001, Australia prevented a Norwegian boat, which had rescued hundreds of asylum-seekers in the Indian Ocean, from bringing them to Australia. It is called, "the boat that changed it all". The immigration minister at the time, Philip Ruddock, warned Australians that 10,000 people from the Middle East were preparing to embark boats from Asia to Australia. The Australian government ignored a request by the United Nations to let the refugees set foot on their island.

Public opinion stood behind the government. Since, several decades ago, the first wave of "boat people" from Vietnam (1976-81) was received by the Australian public with sympathy, new arrivals quickly became a matter of increasing concern, as is happening now in Europe. Since then, Australia's policy to solve its own migration crisis has been, "no resettlements, no boats".

Following the Tampa Affair, the defining elements of Australia's future policy were put into place:

"Islands were excised from the Australian migration zone to prevent asylum seekers lodging visa applications; detention centres were set up on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and the tiny and bankrupt republic of Nauru; and a reluctant Navy was engaged to intercept and turn back vessels containing asylum seekers".

Italy faces a new potential wave of 700,000 migrants currently in Libya. The Italian government should now follow Australia's example.

It is with a heavy heart that I am making these suggestions. It must be crushing to live in a country where governance might be questionable at best, and economic opportunities limited, if that. People know they are risking their life in search of a better break. But if the West is not to be overwhelmed, these problems seriously need to be addressed.

Illegal immigration is bad for Europe -- and bad for migrants, as well.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here








2 August, 2018

PM shoots down ABC over Iran attack report

Malcolm Turnbull has considered lodging another formal complaint against the ABC in a new escalation of tensions ­between the ­organisation and the government, raising further questions about editorial oversight at the public broadcaster.

The Prime Minister was left angry and frustrated on Friday by an online story by senior political editor Andrew Probyn headlined “Donald Trump could be ready to order a strike against Iran, Australian Government figures say”.

The article claimed that unnamed senior figures in the Turnbull government had claimed the US could launch a strike on Iran as early as next month.

The “exclusive” article quoted unnamed sources and claimed Australian defence facilities would probably play a role in identifying targets in Iran.

Mr Turnbull strongly rejected the claims and questioned why the ABC had not contacted the Prime Minister’s Office, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, ­Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne or their offices before publication. “The story on the ABC, which cites senior Australian government sources, has not benefited from any consultation with me, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister or the chief of the ­Defence Force,” the Prime Minister told ABC radio.

“So perhaps you should inquire of the authors of the article.”

ABC reporter Andrew Greene, a joint author of the ­article, con­tacted US charge d’affaires James Caruso, who dismissed the claim.



US Defence Secretary Secretary James Mattis has since dismissed the report as “fiction”. “I have no idea where the Australian news people got that information,” General Mattis told reporters in Washington. “I’m confident it is not something that’s being considered right now, and I think it’s a complete ... frankly, it’s fiction. “It’s the best I can give you.”

A spokeswoman for the ABC said: “The ABC stands by the story. Quite clearly, in the preparation of a story such as this, multiple sources were contacted.

“We are not going to engage in a process of elimination which may run the risk of identifying sources, as you should appreciate.”

The Prime Minister’s Office ­declined to comment yesterday. There were earlier complaints by senior Turnbull government ministers including Communications Minister Mitch Fifield and from the Prime Minister’s Office over reports by the ABC chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici.

Several of those complaints were upheld by the ABC, resulting in changes made to reports and analyses.

Another ABC foray into online commentary has ended in embarrassment and an abject apology, meanwhile, with the ABC withdrawing an article that ­appeared to compare West Australian Premier Mark McGowan to disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

The ABC withdrew the opinion article and apologised to Mr McGowan after the Premier’s ­office complained that the tone of the article and placement of the photos of the men meant the ABC was “comparing a sexual predator to the premier of Western Australia”.

The online opinion piece, by Andrea Mayes, an ABC digital news producer, focused on claims that WA Water Minister Dave Kelly “feigned a headbutt” motion towards WA Nationals ­leader Mia Davies in parliament last month.

The “feigned headbutt” claim was made by Nationals MP Vince Catania but was false, according to a ruling by the state’s parliamentary Speaker two days before the article was published.

The ABC report ­contained no reference to the Speaker’s ruling.

The article said Mr McGowan had mocked Ms Davies when, in fact, he had actually mocked Mr Catania’s claims.

The ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs unit found four factual errors and “found no evidence to support the conclusion of the analysis piece that the Premier misses the #metoo point”.

The unit ordered that the article be removed from the ABC website and apologised. The article had been earlier amended and a reference to murdered Melbourne comedian Eurydice Dixon removed as it was judged not ­relevant.

“I’m satisfied that the article has been removed and an apology issued,” Mr McGowan said.

“Throughout my career, I have been a strong advocate for women’s interests and will continue to do so. I am extremely thankful for the support I have from the women in my life ­including my wife, my mother, my colleagues and the wider ­community.”

The ABC has been dealing with complaints as the national broadcaster emphasises online news at the expense of traditional TV and radio.

In April the ABC said it would cut about 20 staff from its local newsrooms and replace them with digital-first journalists. But several mistakes and controversies over online articles have shown that ­editing processes needed improvement.

In February, deputy news director Craig McMurtrie was given the new role of executive editor.

This was after a tax policy analysis by Alberici was taken off the ABC website for a week after criticism from the government. It was rewritten to remove opinion.

In January former prime minister Kevin Rudd commenced legal action over the ABC’s coverage of cabinet documents found in discarded filing cabinets.

SOURCE 






My Health Record: Greg Hunt’s warrant claims contradicted by police union

I have opted out

Greg Hunt’s claims that a warrant will be required to access My Health Record has been contradicted for the second time in two days – this time by the Queensland Police Union.

After taking legal advice, the union has written to its members – the very police who could gain power to access the records – warning them that investigators of police misconduct would have access without warrants.

The union also openly discussed “the advantages this type of access may have” for police investigating other crimes.
My Health Record: AMA says it will do 'whatever it takes' to ensure privacy

Access to My Health Record will not be limited to police, as the list of enforcement bodies who may access records includes the immigration department, anti-corruption commissions, financial regulators and any other agencies that impose fines or are tasked with the “protection of the public revenue”.

Hunt and the Australian Digital Health Agency have repeatedly said that “no documents will be released without a court order” but the claim has been contradicted by the parliamentary library and now the Queensland Police Union.

The revelation that access can occur without a court order has added to a growing backlash, with the Australian Medical Association calling for further safeguards and Labor, the Greens and minor parties calling for changes to legislation.

Under section 70 of the My Health Records Act 2012, the ADHA can disclose health information when it “reasonably believes” it is necessary to investigate or prosecute a crime, to counter “seriously improper conduct” or to “protect the public revenue”.

The Queensland Police Union told Guardian Australia it has “legal advice that there is nothing in the legislation that requires any enforcement body to obtain a warrant to access My Health Record”.

The union has written to its members informing them that any investigation of a criminal offence or seriously improper conduct are “legitimate grounds for investigators to access your My Health Record”.

It said that investigators of police disciplinary matters and disciplinary bodies “will be able to access your My Health Record as a matter of course without warrant, without your knowledge or without even your permission or consent”.

On Wednesday the AMA president, Tony Bartone, said he would meet with Hunt and do “whatever it takes” to ensure My Health Record is subject to the “same level” of protection as existing records, including the requirement that law enforcement agencies get a warrant.

As part of an agreement with the federal government that saw the Medicare rebate freeze lifted in 2017, the AMA agreed to “continue to encourage members to use the My Health Record, with a shared focus on data quality, clinical utility and building use of the system into daily practice”.

UPDATE:  The legislation is now being amended to require a court order for access

SOURCE 





Australia could add 'values test' for migrants, Malcolm Turnbull says

Australia will consider adding a “values test” for those considering permanent residency in order to protect its “extraordinarily successful” multicultural society, Malcolm Turnbull said.

The prime minister confirmed what his citizenship and multicultural minister Alan Tudge told the Australia/UK Leadership Forum overnight, where he floated the idea of a “values” test to fend off “segregation”.

Tudge told his London audience “our ship is slightly veering towards a European separatist multicultural model and we want to pull it back to be firmly on the Australian integrated path”.

“Some of the challenges to social cohesion that we are facing today are similar to ones that the UK is facing – such as ethnic segregation and liberal values being challenged.”

Speaking in Tasmania on Friday, Turnbull said testing potential migrants on values made sense.

“That is certainly one of the issues that we are considering but I have to say to you that we are the most successful multicultural society in the world,” he said.

“One of the reasons we are is because we put an enormous amount of effort, in Australia, into integration, into ensuring that our form of multiculturalism is one where we can all benefit from the diversity of cultural and religious and ethnic backgrounds that Australians have.

“This is a country where 28% of Australians were born outside of Australia, over half have a parent born outside of Australia – but isn’t it remarkable that we live together is so much harmony because of the values we share and those Australian values, of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, respect for women, equality between men and women.

“All of these values are vitally important and we must never, ever take them for granted and we should always ensure that we maintain them because that is what creates this extraordinary successful multicultural society that we have.

“We look around the world, and we should do that from time to time, and you look at all of the tensions and dissent and conflict, you can see what a great achievement 25 million Australians have made.”

Senior Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese criticised Tudge’s speech, saying ministers should promote Australia while overseas.

“It’s pretty odd that an Australian government minister goes to the UK and talks our country down,” Albanese told the Nine Network on Friday.

He said Australia was an incredibly successful multicultural nation.

“Australia, I think, is a bit of a microcosm for what the world should be. People from different religions, races and backgrounds living together overwhelmingly in harmony,” Albanese said.

Tudge said Australians should never be complacent about social cohesion, and advocated “modest incremental policy” changes now rather than “dramatic initiatives down the track”.

“If we want Australia to continue its multicultural success, we must take active steps now to ensure that social cohesion remains strong,” Tudge said.

The government has already proposed an English-language skills test, for potential permanent migrants, which last month Turnbull said would aid with integration.

The government’s attempts last year to make achieving citizenship harder, including requiring all applicants to have lived in Australia for four years on permanent residency visas, as well as an advanced English-language test, were rejected by the Senate.

Immigration is shaping up as one of the upcoming election’s biggest issues, as the government faces pressure from conservative members of its backbench, and crossbenchers such as Pauline Hanson, to cut Australia’s immigration rate to ease population pressures in major centres.

SOURCE 






That unmentionable FAT again

You are not even allowed to tell your kids that they are fat, apparently.  This brings up the issue of "fat shaming".  Telling someone they need to lose weight is very offensive, apparently. But should it be? Losing weight is very difficult and fat shaming might be just the thing needed to provide the necessary incentive.  Fat is socially unpopular so losing weight will in general be advantageous

The number of overweight children in Australia has doubled in recent years, with recent data from the Institute of Health and Welfare revealing one in four children are now overweight or obese.

According to statistics, eighteen per cent are classified as overweight while eight per cent fall into the obese category.

The deepening crisis has prompted experts and commentators to debate whether or not parents should intervene by telling children they are 'overweight', and, if so, how best to broach the subject.

With almost two in three Australian adults now overweight, parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson said mothers and fathers are part of the problem.

'When you walk into the average family room on a weeknight, parents are also on their screens – they're not as active as they once were,' he said.

But in terms of combatting the growing problem, Dr Coulson believes you can't  make people better by making them feel worse.

'Studies show that one of the worst things we can do is to tell a child they are overweight - kids who are told this are much likely to have weight issues ten or fifteen years later because they start to believe it and live it out,' he said.

Facebook users weighed in on the subject as well, with many placing responsibility with mums and dads. One posed the question 'if not parents, then who?', while another agreed by writing that open, honest and carefully worded conversations are essential.

'You don't have to say you're fat... being supportive is key. Grow up and be parents, kids are SO protected from harsh realities!'

Some had a different view and said there should be no need to speak to children about weight gain if you create a trend of healthy household habits from the start.

Asked about addressing nutrition, Dr McMillan said it's best to start early and focus on health holistically rather than weight alone.

'Teach children about nutrition and how it is important for their brain function at school and to have energy for everything they want to do throughout the day. - it's about emphasising health.

'As parents, you should never talk about your body in a negative way around your children,' she said, explaining that this can impart negative associations with food.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






1 August, 2018

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is outraged by the way NSW police treated Lauren Southern.  A good interview with the lady below:





'Men matter too': Anti-feminist launches a 'March for Men'

An anti-feminism campaigner is asking for donations to support a 'March for Men' claiming that males have been unfairly treated in the aftermath of the rape and murder of comedian Eurydice Dixon.

Sydney Watson, has setup a GoFundMe page for the event she is organising in response to what she calls 'an assault on men collectively.'

Ms Watson, who is half American and a vocal Trump supporter, has previously released YouTube videos questioning gun control arguments and white privilege.

The former University of Melbourne journalism student says she is hoping hundreds of men and women will attend the event at Melbourne's Federation Square on August 25 to 'rally together for masculinity.'

The goal of the march is 'not to diminish women's rights or make any negative statements about women,' says Ms Watson.

In June, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews posted to Facebook his thoughts regarding the rape and murder of Ms Dixon. 'Women don't need to change their behaviour. Men do,' he wrote.

'My safety is my responsibility. I don't want to put any accountability on anyone else. Sure, we can teach men not to rape or, alternatively, maybe we can give women the right to self-defence' Ms Watson said in response.

'This post is sanctimonious and patronising. I, for one, am absolutely sick and tired of men collectively being demonised at every turn and at every opportunity.'

The event GoFundMe page has so far raised over $1500 towards its goal of $5000.

'For a long time, we have focused on women's liberation and women's rights,' the description for the event states.

'But now, it is time to give male issues the love and attention they deserve in the interest of creating a better Australia.'

SOURCE 



   

Turnbull moves to soothe schools tension

Labor is claiming victory from Malcolm Turnbull's "humiliating admission" on school funding, as the prime minister moves to douse damaging tensions with Catholic schools.

The Catholic school sector campaigned against the government's funding policy in the Queensland seat of Longman, where the coalition suffered a bruising by-election defeat.

A deal to restore $1.7 billion in funding to Catholic schools over the next decade is expected to be reached within weeks after the prime minister seized control of the issue, The Australian reports.

Catholic Education bosses met with Education Minister Simon Birmingham on Tuesday but it's understood nothing concrete has been offered.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said Mr Turnbull had spent the last 12 months calling Mr Shorten a liar and saying there was no problem for Catholic schools.

"Now he's received an electoral smack on the bottom over his cuts to school funding, he's now going to sing a different song," Mr Shorten told reporters on Tuesday.

The opposition say cuts in the wider education sector amount to $17 billion and must be reversed. "Malcolm Turnbull has been forced into a humiliating admission that his school funding policy is in crisis," the party's education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said.

Liberal Senator Jim Molan was matter of fact on the situation. "We've got to be prepared to be taken to task by the Catholics; we shouldn't get ourselves into the situation where we're taken to task by the Catholics," he told 2GB.

But cabinet minister Steve Ciobo maintained the government line that they're putting record funding into schools as part of a shift to a needs-based funding model.

The Australian Education Union maintains a special funding deal for Catholic schools will be categorical proof of the failure of the latest education funding model.

Federal president Correna Haythorpe has called for $1.9 billion to be restored for public education over the next two years before any deal is done with Catholic schools.

"The commonwealth should strike a deal with states and territories to ensure that all public schools receive 100 per cent of their schooling resource standard by 2023," she said, saying just 13 per cent of schools were expected to.

Meanwhile modelling commissioned by the Catholic sector found 350 schools would be forced to close across Australia if the current funding model was continued.

"You don't have to be Nostradamus to work out that is going to lead to electoral difficulty, indeed pain, were that allowed to continue along that route," Liberal MP Tony Pasin said.

SOURCE 





Swelling cities need a breather from mass migration

Judith Sloan

There were important population figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week. The most important was “the number of overseas arrivals was the highest on record”. That’s right, the highest on record.

Note that only people who are resident in Australia for at least 12 out of 16 months are included in the figures. In 2016-17, 540,000 people arrived in Australia, with 315,000 arriving on temporary visas. Of those who arrived on temporary visas, there were more than 150,000 international students, just more than 50,000 working holiday-makers and 32,000 temporary workers.

Where did these migrants go? Overwhelmingly, Sydney and Melbourne. In 2016-17, almost 40 per cent went to NSW and 34 per cent to Victoria.

Queensland also attracted a relatively large share — more than 13 per cent.

The numbers are substantial. Net overseas migration (arrivals over departures) added 104,000 people to NSW in 2016-17, although quite a few NSW citizens got fed up and headed to other states, principally Victoria. Victoria had a net gain of 18,200 people from interstate on top of the 90,000 it gained from net overseas migration.

I should apologise for the blitz of figures. But there really is no alternative to highlight the sheer scale of migration and the destination of the migrants, thus under­pinning the conclusion that our migrant intake is out of control.

For a long time, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had the lame excuse the Coalition government had a better record than Labor in controlling immigration. This was based on the sole NOM figure of 300,000 that occurred in 2008-09, at the height of the mining boom.

But at that time migrants were heading to Western Australia in record numbers. The NOM figure for Western Australia was 44,000 in 2008-09.

The NOM figures for that state have fallen to 15,000. It was a completely different ball game then. Migrants now overwhelmingly head to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane (or southeast Queensland). It’s time for Dutton to put the “we’re better than Labor” excuse in the bin.

His real problem is that NOM for the country as a whole is on the rise. There have been two consecutive increases and the latest figure of 262,000 is approaching the figure of 300,000 so derided by Dutton.

The ABS figures also put the numbers in some context.

Labor is promising to clamp down on the number of temporary workers, but the number of net temporary workers in 2016-17 was less than 17,000, which is only 6.5 per cent of the total NOM. Halving their number would make little difference.

The largest single group is higher education students, with 101,000 arrivals in 2016-17. The numbers are higher again in 2017-18. These students need accommodation, services and use public transport. Given their work rights — 20 hours a week during semester time, unlimited at other times — their numbers also have a noticeable impact on the labour market.

If we consider the face of the population across a longer time­frame, we can begin to see what impact the migration settings have had. In 1996, there were 119,000 China-born residents living in Australia — 20 years later, it was 526,000, an increase of 342 per cent. In 1996, those born in China made up 0.7 per cent of the population; in 2016, it was 2.2 per cent.

In 1996, there were 80,000 India-born people living in Australia. In 2016, the number was 469,000. This is an increase of 486 per cent. Their share of the population has risen from 0.4 per cent to 1.9 per cent.

By contrast, the number of people born in Britain and Ireland has remained relatively steady, rising from 1.218 million to 1.284 million. Their share of the population has fallen from 6.7 per cent to 5.3 per cent.

Australia has a much higher proportion of its population born overseas (28 per cent) than most other developed countries. In the US, the figure is only 13 per cent; in Britain, it is 12 per cent, as in France.

Australia’s population has changed dramatically in numbers and ethnic composition. It’s not clear whether there has ever been an explicit debate about these changes. But political enthusiasm for unrestrained growth of migrant numbers has, if anything, intensified in recent years, including on the part of the Turnbull government.

Lured by the false prognostications of Treasury and egged on by the Department of Immigration (now Home Affairs), politicians have embraced the Big Australia message as an economic saviour. Take the recent advice from Treasury that a drop of 20,000 in the migrant intake would lead to the loss of tax revenue of $500 million a year. It’s just nonsense. If this were true, every single one of those 20,000 migrants would immediately be earning more than $80,000.

The secondary applicants have much poorer labour market outcomes than the skilled migrants they accompany. We also know that family migrants are not net tax contributors. Family entrants would make up about 7000 of this hypothetical reduced intake.

What’s even more unforgivable, Treasury will not have estimated the additional costs associ­ated with higher migrant intakes which, admittedly, are largely borne by the states and territories: school places, healthcare facilities, additional infrastructure.

Let’s hope there are sufficient numbers of cabinet ministers who realise that estimates such as a loss of $500m in tax revenue by ­reducing the migrant intake are plain wrong.

They are meant to get politicians to support excessive migrant intakes — they make the economy look bigger.

The fact that per-capita income falls in the short term is known by all sensible economists.

If the government has any hope of winning the next election, it must do something radical about the migrant intake numbers.

There is a strong case to institute immediately an inquiry into international students, both at the university and vocational college levels, to get to the bottom of the rorts and the misuse of the student visa categories as pathways to permanent residence as well as other issues.

In the meantime, educational providers should be called on to freeze international student enrolments at today’s levels — or preferably lower.

Our cities need a breather and the Turnbull government cannot afford to keep its head in the sand.

SOURCE 







Revealed: The university degrees most likely to land you a high salary - and the ones that will leave you struggling

Most Australian students are heading into their second semester for the year and likely thinking about job prospects once graduation season begins.

And while many pursue degrees because they have a passion for that chosen field, when it comes to how much they'll be paid on a graduate salary, that varies depending on what they studied and what gender they are.

The median salary of all undergraduates employed full-time in 2017 according to the Department of Education and Training was $60,000 which is an increase of $2,100 from 2016 - and men were paid higher wages across the board.

For those who chose to study dentistry (which on average costs $53,770 for five years) they will be paid the highest gross salary of $80,000 in their first year out of university.

Medicine ($64,524 for six years) and engineering ($36,740 for four years) follow close behind with $65,000 and $62,000 respectively.

If you've undertaken the recommended four year course to become a lawyer or paralegal, which costs students $43,016 in total, you'll be looking at a $60,000 wage in your first year.

And rounding out the list in fifth place are teachers who, after four years and $25,776 of HECS debts, will secure $60,000 at their very first school.

On the other side of the spectrum are five fields of study that will hardly cover the costs of doing the degree during your first year out of university.

Interestingly pharmacy is at number one, which takes four years and costs $36,740, because you're only looking to get $41,600 as a graduate.

Creative arts (three years) and communications (three years) follow because they both cost $19,332 to do but give you $45,000 and $46,000 respectively after you receive your diploma.

Tourism (three years) comes in at number four on the list with the degree costing $32,262 and earning the student $48,000.

And six long hard years of studying veterinary science (which costs $64,524) will wind up having you lose money by earning $49,600 in your first year.

In between these sectors there are prospects for those endeavouring to study mathematics ($57,500 first year salary), computing and information systems ($59,900), architecture ($56,400), nursing ($60,000), psychology ($57,600) and social work ($62,600).

Career Development Association of Australia's (CDAA) president Wanda Hayes said there were clear benefits enjoyed by university graduates that those who aren't tertiary-educated get.

'But we know that once you're in [some organisations], there is a ceiling that you can pass through if you have a degree, which you can't pass through if you don't have a degree,' she told the ABC.

Ms Hayes said those with degrees generally had lower rates of unemployment and lower rates of underemployment across their working lives - meaning more money.

SOURCE 

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here






Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.





Most academics are lockstep Leftists so readers do sometimes doubt that I have the qualifications mentioned above. Photocopies of my academic and military certificates are however all viewable here


For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.


In most Australian States there are two conservative political parties, the city-based Liberal party and the rural-based National party. But in Queensland those two parties are amalgamated as the LNP.


Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security


"Digger" is an honorific term for an Australian soldier


Another lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here


Another bit of Australian: Any bad writing or messy anything was once often described as being "like a pakapoo ticket". In origin this phrase refers to a ticket written with Chinese characters - and thus inscrutably confusing to Western eyes. These tickets were part of a Chinese gambling game called "pakapoo".


Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?



My son Joe


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.


The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies or mining companies


Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.


The Rt. Rev. Phil Case (Moderator of the Presbyterian church in Queensland) is a Pharisee, a hypocrite, an abomination and a "whited sepulchre".


English-born Australian novellist, Patrick White was a great favourite in literary circles. He even won a Nobel prize. But I and many others I have spoken to find his novels very turgid and boring. Despite my interest in history, I could only get through about a third of his historical novel Voss before I gave up. So why has he been so popular in literary circles? Easy. He was a miserable old Leftist coot, and, incidentally, a homosexual. And literary people are mostly Leftists with similar levels of anger and alienation from mainstream society. They enjoy his jaundiced outlook, his dissatisfaction, rage and anger.


A delightful story about a great Australian conservative


Would you believe that there once was a politician whose nickname was "Honest"?

"Honest" Frank Nicklin M.M. was a war hero, a banana farmer and later the conservative Premier of my home State of Queensland in the '60s. He was even popular with the bureaucracy and gave the State a remarkably tranquil 10 years during his time in office. Sad that there are so few like him.


A great Australian wit exemplified



An Australian Mona Lisa (Nikki Gogan)


Bureaucracy: "One of the constant laments of doctors and nurses working with NSW Health is the incredible and increasing bureaucracy," she said. "It is completely obstructive to providing a service."


Revered Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam was a very erudite man so he cannot have been unaware of the similarities of his famous phrase “the Party, the platform, the people” with an earlier slogan: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer". It's basically the same slogan in reverse order.


Australia's original inhabitants were a race of pygmies, some of whom survived into modern times in the mountainous regions of the Atherton tableland in far North Queensland. See also here. Below is a picture of one of them taken in 2007, when she was 105 years old and 3'7" tall




Julia Gillard, a failed feminist flop. She was given the job of Prime Minister of Australia but her feminist preaching was so unpopular that she was booted out of the job by her own Leftist party. Her signature "achievements" were the carbon tax and the mining tax, both of which were repealed by the next government.


The "White Australia Policy: "The Immigration Restriction Act was not about white supremacy, racism, or the belief that whites were higher up the evolutionary tree than the coloured races. Rather, it was designed to STOP the racist exploitation of non-whites (all of whom would have been illiterate peasants practicing religions and cultures anathema to progressive democracy) being conscripted into a life of semi-slavery in a coolie-worked plantation economy for the benefit of the absolute monarchs, hereditary aristocracy and the super-wealthy companies and share-holders of the northern hemisphere.


A great little kid



In November 2007, a four-year-old boy was found playing in a croc-infested Territory creek after sneaking off pig hunting alone with four dogs and a puppy. The toddler was found five-and-a-half hours after he set off from his parents' house playing in a creek with the puppy. Amazingly, Daniel Woditj also swam two creeks known to be inhabited by crocs during his adventurous romp. Mr Knight said that after walking for several kilometres, Daniel came to a creek and swam across it. Four of his dogs "bailed up" at the creek but the youngster continued on undaunted with his puppy to a second creek. Mr Knight said Daniel swam the second croc-infested creek and walked on for several more kilometres. "Captain is a hard bushman and Daniel is following in his footsteps. They breed them tough out bush."


A great Australian: His eminence George Pell. Pictured in devout company before his elevation to Rome





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