R.G.Menzies above

This document is part of an archive of postings on Australian Politics, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written. My Home Page. My Recipes. My alternative Wikipedia. My Blogroll. Email me (John Ray) here. NOTE: The short comments that I have in the side column of the primary site for this blog are now given at the foot of this document.

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 May 2019

UQ students loudly vote 'No' to Western history degree program

In a supreme example of irony, their lecturers have told them that the courses are "racist".  In fact it is they who are racist for discriminating against a study of white history

Almost 500 students crammed into every seat and aisle at the University of Queenland's under-threat Schonell Theatre to vote 'No' to the private humanities degree being offered to the university by the conservative Ramsay Centre.

They also voted loudly for students to retain ownership and management of the replacement theatre if the Schonell Theatre is demolished.

The UQ Senate last year proposed to demolish the theatre, build a new student union hub and add the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation degree to the university's program.

The two votes were taken at Wednesday night's general meeting of students, the first since the 1971 student protests against the touring Springboks rugby union team.

The meeting was called by the student union to gauge opinion on the "two big issues" involving UQ students, student union president Georgia Millroy said.

She said the strong vote gave the union a "very clear mandate" to negotiate with the university on both issues.

"A lot of students clearly felt quite strongly about these issues and when they come up in my discussions with the university, in the ensuing weeks and months, I will have a very clear mandate to represent what students think," she said.

Ms Millroy would meet with the UQ vice-chancellor in early June.

The debate needed 300 students as a quorum of the university's 53,000 students, of which almost 10,000 voted at the past student union election.

As the Schonell Theatre doors closed, 420 students were counted inside and another 30 students crammed in to the crowded theatre as the vote began.

"This shows that [some] students do actually care and do want to be involved," Ms Millroy said. "It shows students do value the power of a democratic vote."

The loudest response came as most students voted against the university administration continuing to negotiate with the Ramsay Centre.

About eight students voted in favour of the UQ Senate pursuing talks with the Ramsay Centre.

Before the vote, student union councillor Priya De described the Ramsay Centre's course as "racist" and its administration as belonging to the "go back to where you came from" arm of the Liberal Party. "They cannot stomach anyone in society – students in particular – challenging their white supremacism," Ms De said.

"These people are not academics, they are politicians," she said.

However, humanities student Kurt Tucker said the Ramsay Centre was offering $43 million to the University of Queensland to run its Western Civilisation degree course as part of UQ's humanities program.

Mr Tucker said the course offered about 100 student places, "in return for $43 million to be distributed across the humanities", he said.

Despite being described as a "right-wing heckler", Mr Tucker said the millions of dollars would employ lecturers to reduce humanities class sizes and allow some casual lecturers to be employed full-time.

"It would certainly alleviate some of the concerns that have been raised about the humanities."

Another supporter of the Ramsay Centre program said the university offered African studies and Indigenous studies and in the same way students should be offered the opportunity to study Western civilisation in one degree program.

"Why not? Are you scared some of your ideas are being challenged?" the student said.

However, a "proud" Torres Strait Islander student, who did not wish to be named, described the Ramsay Centre course as "abhorrent".

"He [the previous supporter of the program] forgot to mention genocide," he said. "He forgot to mention deaths in custody. He forgot to mention children stolen from their families."

"They aim to whitewash the black history of Australia," he said, as the large student crowd jumped to its feet and roared its support.

Earlier, three theatre and drama students spoke in favour of students keeping control of any new theatre being considered by the university because the UQ student union contributed at least $4 million to its construction. The Schonell is now largely leased as a live theatre venue for community groups.

One opera and voice student said her course was refused a practice room at the theatre. "We just don't have a proper rehearsal space to validate our degree," she said.

Student union representatives said they had to prioritise university clubs and societies in the practice space.

SOURCE  






'Folau's law': Coalition MPs push for bolder action in a 'new dawn' for religious freedom

Conservative Coalition MPs emboldened by strong support from religious voters at the election are pushing the Morrison government for more radical and far-reaching religious freedom provisions in forthcoming laws.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce wants laws to exempt religious beliefs from employment contracts - in effect giving legal protection to views such as those expressed on social media by rugby star Israel Folau that gay people and fornicators will go to hell.

"You can't bring people's faith beliefs into a contract," Mr Joyce said. "Your own views on who god is, where god is or whether there's a god should remain your own personal views and not part of any contractual obligation."

Attorney-General Christian Porter is expected to present a Religious Discrimination Act to the Parliament as soon as July, acting on a pre-election commitment to boost protections for people of faith against discrimination and vilification.

But some Coalition MPs believe the election results - including significant swings away from Labor in highly religious seats - underline the case for bolder reforms to enshrine freedoms other than freedom from discrimination.

Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells - who worked extensively with faith leaders to galvanise the support of religious voters before and during the campaign - said the election marked a "new dawn" on religious freedom.

She called for a standalone Religious Freedom Act that would give greater legal heft to the demands set out by church leaders, Christian schools and other faith-based institutions.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells also said the government need not await the findings of a review being undertaken by the Australian Law Reform Commission into exemptions to anti-discrimination laws currently enjoyed by religious schools.

"Whilst the ALRC is not due to report until [April] 2020, given its diverse and broad terms of reference, I believe that the recent election has reinforced the need for more immediate legislative action," she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

"This is vitally important to not only address our concerns but afford protection against these constant incursions from Labor, the Greens and their acolytes. It's a new dawn on this issue."

Senator Fierravanti-Wells - who voted against marriage equality when it was legalised in 2017 - said the election results "had their antecedents in the same-sex marriage debate", noting large swings to the government in culturally diverse seats around western Sydney.

Banks, Blaxland, Fowler and McMahon, which voted "no" to same-sex marriage, all posted swings to the Coalition above 3 per cent - although so did many electorates that voted "yes".

Mr Joyce, a former Nationals leader, said Folau's sacking "got a lot of people annoyed" during the election campaign. "People were a little bit shocked that someone could lose their job because of what they believe," he said. "It made everyone feel a bit awkward and uneasy."

Mr Joyce said he would argue within the Coalition that any religious freedom law should include clauses to prevent employers crafting contracts that could penalise people for their religious beliefs. "That would be my input - but whether it's what other people's views are, I don't know," he said.

Such a law should not necessarily be nicknamed "Folau's Law" because it would give the sacked rugby player credit for a law that "should be designed for everybody", Mr Joyce said.

Folau has said he is considering his legal options in response to his termination.

Late last year, in response to former attorney-general Philip Ruddock's review, Mr Porter pledged to introduce a Religious Discrimination Act and appoint a religious freedom commissioner to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

On Wednesday he said religious freedom was a "key issue" in the election campaign due to "enormous concern" about Labor's plans on the issue, and indicated legislation would be a priority when Parliament resumes at the start of July.

New Labor leader Anthony Albanese acknowledged his party needed to show greater "respect" to religious views after frontbenchers Chris Bowen and Tony Burke publicly lamented that people of faith had lost trust in Labor and progressive politics.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz said the Coalition owed Rugby Australia "a bit of gratitude ... because their ham-fisted approach to Israel Folau clearly elevated the issue and concerned many, many people".

He agreed with Senator Fierravanti-Wells on the need for positively-framed legislation to establish religious freedoms but said it should be broader and encompass free speech.

"Freedom of religion is a subset of freedom of speech, and freedom of speech is the more important and overarching issue," he said.

SOURCE  






Adani coalmine in path of more than one endangered species in Queensland



Dilemma:  Approving the mine would cost the State Labor government its deputy leader at the next election and give the seat to the Greens. Premier Annastacia with deputy Jackie Trad (in pink) above

Well fancy that. After months of dithering on Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin and refusing to intervene in an approval process that saw the company frustrated at every turn, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has suddenly found her voice again. And here we were thinking Annastacia had a case of aphasia.

Saying she was “fed up” with the delays, Palaszczuk announced deadlines of May 31 and June 13 for the mine’s bird protection and groundwater management plans respectively. You might say when it comes to the demands of anti-Adani activists, Palaszczuk is desperately trying to give the appearance of not giving a flying finch.

“Well I think everyone’s had a gutful, so that’s why we have moved — why I have moved quickly — to resolve this issue,” she stated.

Notice the nuance? Actually, it was more an extended middle finger to Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad, the leader of the dominant left faction which controls Cabinet and has constantly hindered Adani. At a press conference last weekend at the Gold Coast’s Sea World, the pair attempted to portray party unity.

With an election just over a year away, it is not just the government’s future at stake. In 2017, Trad’s formerly safe Labor inner-city seat of South Brisbane suffered an 11.7 per cent swing to the Greens. She holds the seat by only a 3.6 per cent margin thanks to the Liberal National Party’s preferencing Labor over the Greens in 2017 — a decision the LNP has announced it will not be repeating at the next election. Worst still for Trad, the national election showed this Greens incursion has increased, with some federal booths within her seat registering a swing as high as 15 per cent.

In what can only be described as a case of chronic denialism, both Palaszczuk and Trad have denied the delays in the Carmichael mine approval process had anything to do with Labor’s federal election rout in Queensland, “I think the Carmichael mine … was part of that message, but it wasn’t the entire message,” Trad told ABC radio last week.

To reiterate: Adani had planned to begin construction of the mine prior to Christmas last year, but this was delayed when the government ordered an independent review into the company’s environmental management plans for the black-throated finch. “We are now seeing more processes and actions coming in at the eleventh hour when we have been working on this for the best part of 18 months,” said an exasperated Adani mining chief executive, Lucas Dow, in December.

As if intentionally exacerbating this situation, the government rejected Adani’s management plan at the beginning of this month, the Queensland Department of Environment and Science claiming it “did not meet requirements”. This is the same department that last July appointed anti-Adani activist Dr Tim Seelig as an adviser, along with Greens candidates Kirsten Lovejoy and Gary Kane.

But all this has nothing to do with federal Labor’s primary vote in Queensland dropping to 27.3 per cent, right? Wrong. Palaszczuk and Trad have dug a hole for themselves so big it would have inspired Jules Verne, had he still been alive, to write a sequel to Journey to the Centre of the Earth. This bureaucratic and political farce is about protecting an endangered species alright, but it is the squawking Member for South Brisbane the government is concerned about, not the black-throated finch.

The party charade of trying to appease anti-Adani voters in the inner-city while attempting to convince those in the regions it is pro-mining intensified on the eve of the 2017 election. At that time, polling revealed that the Greens led Labor 51 per cent to 49 per cent on a two-party preferred basis in Trad’s seat.

Around the same time, Palaszczuk, to the disbelief of many, announced she had exercised a “veto” not to support an application by Adani for a $1 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility loan. The ostensible basis for this was that she wanted to remove any perception of a conflict of interest, as her then partner, Shaun Drabsch, worked on the application to the NAIF with his employer, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which acted for Adani.

In attempting to defend her arbitrary decision, Palaszczuk cited that she had relied on advice from the Queensland Integrity Commissioner, Dr Nikola Stepanov. But as Jamie Walker of The Australian revealed, the commissioner’s advice was merely that Palaszczuk should exclude herself from Cabinet deliberations concerning the NAIF loan. In fact, ministers had, during a crisis Cabinet meeting five months before the Premier’s announcement, resolved not to support the NAIF loan bid.

Undoubtedly, Palaszczuk had succumbed to pressure from Trad, who later had the chutzpah to criticise the federal government’s NAIF program, saying it “has not yet seen a single dollar go to a Queensland project”. Earlier that year Trad had intervened to scotch Palaszczuk and then Treasurer Curtis Pitt’s agreement with Adani which would have seen royalties limited to $2m annually for the first seven years of the mine’s operation.

“I have never been anti-coal,” Trad told the Australian Financial Review in 2015. “I actually think it’s ridiculous to think we don’t use our natural resources — it’s one of our strengths”. Yet in February this year she told parliament “markets are moving away from thermal coal, communities are moving away from thermal coal, nation states are moving away from thermal coal”.

Translation: inner-city seats are moving away from Labor to the Greens.

“What we need to do as a coal exporter is understand that, and equip our communities with the best possible chance of re-skilling, and that’s why we’re focused on other materials,” she said. Contrast this West End insouciance with the urgency of a group of Labor regional MPs that, as The Courier-Mail reported this week, is threatening to form a sub-caucus.

One wonders how long, were it not for the federal election forcing its hand, the Queensland government was prepared to prolong this debacle. Put simply, it cannot have had a viable exit strategy, for Adani has committed far too much to abandon the project. In the event the government refuses approval, it has, through its intransigence and decisions based on ulterior motives, left itself open to a compensation claim amounting to hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions.

It would be a legal battle that would take years to finalise. Of course, that will affect neither Palaszczuk nor Trad. By then they will be enjoying retirement and a generous taxpayer-funded pension.

Palaszczuk appears destined for Opposition unless she can clear the way for Adani quickly. Of course that would mean Trad would lose her seat, but the Deputy Premier need not despair. After all, there is always re-skilling.

SOURCE  






Peter Dutton warns more illegal boats may be headed to Australia

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says the government is concerned more illegal boats are headed to Australia, after a vessel carrying 20 Sri Lankans was intercepted by Border Force.

Anthony Albanese has demanded a security briefing today from Scott Morrison as it was revealed the first boat had arrived on the shores of Christmas Island in five years, and that the vessal had set sail weeks into the federal election campaign.

Mr Dutton said the Sri Lankan arrival was “very disturbing” and that people smugglers had been marketing a change of government to asylum seekers before the Coalition’s shock election win.

“It’s a very disturbing development and, without going into all of the details, it’s not the only vessel that we’re worried about,” the Home Affairs Minister told Sydney’s 2GB radio.

“Obviously people thought there was going to be a change of government… people smugglers have been marketing this.

“But we want to send a very clear message to people here who might try and organise ventures for people offshore. “The Prime Minister and I are absolutely resolute in making sure that we can never allow people to come here by boat.”

As revealed by The Australian this morning, a naval ship intercepted 20 Sri Lankans who set sail for Australia during the federal election campaign. They were returned to Colombo on a government charter jet in the early hours of yesterday.

Mr Albanese, in his first major national security test as Labor leader, this morning said he wanted a meeting with the Prime Minister this afternoon to discuss the boat arrival.

“There have been 10 boats come, as I read it, from Sri Lanka on this government’s watch. 10. Not one,” the incoming Opposition Leader said in Canberra ahead of today’s Caucus meeting.

“There was an event in Easter, 250 people died in a terrorist attack. I don’t know, I haven’t had the opportunity of a security briefing on this.

“I am actually standing here, as not yet the leader of the Labor Party. I have been a phone call in, by the way, to Scott Morrison’s office this morning. I think it is the respectful thing to do for me to have a discussion with the Prime Minister this afternoon and I have taken that initiative.

“That is the way that I’ll have disagreements with Scott Morrison. I’ll have big ones. But I respect the office of Prime Minister. That is the respectful thing to do and that is why I did it.”

Mr Albanese opposed Bill Shorten’s moves to support boat turnbacks at the 2015 Labor conference but has since said he would support the policy.

Operation Sovereign Borders became aware of the latest vessel, which tracked across the Indian Ocean towards Australia’s northwest coast, during aerial patrols of Australian waters last week, The Australian understands.

The Department of Home ­Affairs was in touch with Sri Lankan authorities around the time officers intercepted the boat.

The asylum-seekers — including at least one baby — left Sri Lanka in the first week of May, soon after the Easter terror attacks on churches and hotels that killed 250.

The group spent “a few days” in detention on Christmas Island while health and security checks were carried out. None was deemed to have a legitimate claim to asylum in Australia, according to government sources.

Once the vessel was intercepted, those on board were given water and life jackets. They were then taken on the navy ship to Christmas Island. Detention ­facilities on the Australian territory, 1550km northwest of the mainland, were recently reopened to accommodate refugees and asylum-seekers on Nauru and Manus Island found to need medical ­assessments in Australia.

SOURCE  






Bungle: Gas consortium wins royalty decision against Queensland government

$422 million blow to budget

The Australia Pacific LNG Consortium, including Origin Energy, has won a landmark legal challenge against the Queensland government over the amount of royalties it pays from its $25 billion LNG export facility in Gladstone.

In a decision in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on Friday, Justice John Bond declared the royalty formula used for the APLNG project since 2015 was invalid and sent it back to the Queensland government to come up with a new way to determine royalties.

It is a blow for the cash-strapped Palaszczuk government, which had been receiving lower royalties from the $80 billion LNG industry in the early years of production due to the plunge in the international oil price.

The latest decision could strip Queensland of  more royalties, just weeks before Treasurer Jackie Trad hands down her second budget.

But Justice Bond placed a non-publication order on his reasons for the decision until early next week, giving lawyers from APLNG and the Queensland government time to ensure there is no commercially sensitive material released in the judgment.

The judgment will be watched closely by the other big LNG consortiums exporting from Curtis Island.

Lawyers for APLNG – the consortium consisting of Origin (37.5 per cent), ConocoPhillips (37.5 per cent) and Sinopec (25 per cent) – had asked the Supreme Court to throw out the royalty determination, given there is no option to appeal the original decision.

The decision will require the Queensland government to come up with a new way to determine royalties for the APLNG project.

APLNG has been paying royalties on its gas since it started to export out of Gladstone in January 2016, but it has long believed it got a worse deal than the Shell-operated QGC consortium, which started exporting a year earlier.

Responsibility for determining petroleum royalties passed from the former Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation to Treasury in 2012.

It is understood QGC's royalty formulation was made by the department but, given the strict confidentiality around royalty determinations, APLNG does not know exactly how much their rivals, including the third consortium led by Santos, are paying in royalties.

APLNG – which has exported gas on more than 250 ships from Curtis Island – said it supported the payment of royalties based on the full and fair requirements of the applicable law, but believed the "netback method" used by the Office of State Revenue was flawed. It had asked for a judicial review of the royalty determination.

Under Queensland's system, royalties are payable at 10 per cent of well-head value – the amount that could reasonably be expected to be realised if sold on a commercial basis – less deductible costs, such as operational and capital costs. LNG royalties also include the costs of liquefaction and transport.

The three LNG consortiums operating on Curtis Island off Gladstone were hit by a lower oil price in their early years, but more-recent gains in Brent prices and cost reductions have made them more profitable.

The $80 billion LNG industry was a major driver of the economy during the construction phase, but royalties from the sector have not lived up to expectations.

LNG royalties were due to jump from $187 million in 2017-18 to $422 million this financial year, creeping up to $490 million a year by 2021-22, according to state budget papers.

SOURCE  

UPDATE:

Australia Pacific LNG has forced the Palaszczuk government back to the drawing board over royalties from its coal seam gas production near Gladstone on the central Queensland coast.

The decision was disputed by the company, a joint venture between Origin, ConocoPhillips and Sinopec, on the basis the government breached natural justice by failing to hear part of their objections.

Australia Pacific LNG also argued the government took into account irrelevant considerations, while decision created uncertainty because important variables were left open to "subjective estimates, assessment, discretionary allocation, and matters of judgment".

Brisbane Supreme Court Justice John Bond accepted those arguments, but dismissed the company's claims the government misapplied legislation and exercised unreasonable power.

He ruled the decision was not authorised by the regulation.

"I declare that it was invalid and of no effect," he said.

Justice Bond did not make orders as to how much the company should pay in royalties, instead referring the decision, made in December 2015 based on departmental expert advice, back to the government.

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 May 2019

Expelled from Batterer Programme

Bettina Arndt

Another extraordinary story this week – involving a Victorian man, Igor Rogov, who was sent to a batterer programme for re-education. Yet this only happened because Igor called the police during a violent attack by his wife. But then he ended up being thrown out of the programme because he upset his handlers by challenging the ideological claptrap they were being taught. Despite a magistrate ruling that Igor should be required to return to the programme, the administrators went into hiding and refused to let him come back. Amazing stuff, eh?

The ironic twist in the story is Igor is Russian, his grandfather was sent to the Gulag and tortured by the KGB. During the long period I was in contact with Igor throughout this whole saga, his regular emails, some quite hilarious, documented the many ways his “re-education” process had echoes of Stalinist totalitarianism.

I’m sure you will find this video entertaining – please help me promote it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUktWq7fFY8 

It has a funny side but the heart of this story is deadly serious, exposing one of the major lies being promoted by the massive domestic violence industry. For those of you not familiar with batterer or perpetrator programmes, the most famous is the Duluth Model, based on feminist notions that men use violence within relationships to exercise power and control. The Duluth programmes are aimed at teaching violent men to change their behaviour by focussing on unequal gender power relations, teaching men about their entitlement.

There’s never any mention of the decades of research showing most domestic violence is two-way, involving male and female perpetrators. The programmes are only for men who, like Igor, are coerced into attending by magistrate’s orders.

Yet the overwhelming evidence (see attached)  is that this approach simply doesn’t change violent men.  A 2011 review of the effectiveness of batterer intervention programs found that "there is no solid empirical evidence” supporting they actually work.

A few years ago there was a Royal Commission into domestic violence in Victoria where promoters of Australian perpetrator programmes were challenged by some of our sensible experts who pointed out their results were lousy. So what happens? The Victorian government gave $77 million over four years for similar programmes and asked for a proper evaluation of their effectiveness. And who was put in charge of this evaluation? One of the feminist DV organisations, ANROWS, which is notorious for distorting key statistics to demonise men. The fox is in charge of the chicken pen.

There’s never any money DV programmes which address the true causes of the problem – like helping troubled couples deal with conflict without resorting to violence, or offering programmes targeting violent men and women which focus on the way drug and alcohol issues, or mental illness triggers violent behaviour. 

Don’t tut-tut, take action 

Now I am sure many of you will watch this video and shake your heads over this appalling waste of money. But don’t just sit there. Do something. Write to your local MP, do some homework and find out about perpetrator programmes in your area. Check out which government department is funding them and start writing to politicians pointing out they are funding programmes of no proven value, which put victims at risk and avoid the hard decisions about proper targeted approaches. Whenever these programmes are mentioned in the media, use comments sections and social media to expose what is going on. We need large numbers to start a concerted campaign on this issue – otherwise the whole thing will just keep rolling on.

Via email from Bettina -- bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au





The Australian revolt against ‘social justice’

Australian voters have turned their backs on the authoritarian politics of so-called progressives says Nick Cater below. I think Nick is overeggng the pudding. If he had said: "QUEENSLAND voters have turned their backs on the authoritarian politics of so-called progressives", I would be more inclined to agree. A near majority in other states voted for the Leftist wreckers

Australia’s re-elected conservative prime minister Scott Morrison began his victory speech on Saturday night by rubbing salt into wounds. ‘How good is Australia?’, he declared, evoking a deafening cheer from his punch-drunk supporters packed shoulder to shoulder in the ballroom of the Sydney Sofitel. ‘How good are Australians? This is the best country in the world in which to live.’

Pride in one’s country, like faith in God, was once an unremarkable sentiment for a prime minister to express. Yet in this election, to make a patriotic statement was to venture into fiercely contested territory.

For Morrison’s progressive Labor opponent, Bill Shorten, Australia is perhaps a slightly better country than it might have been had it not been for the brave crusades of earlier social-justice campaigners. But Australia’s supposed national indifference to the environment, inequality, discrimination and its lingering colonial stain makes it an embarrassment in the eyes of the world, in Labor’s view.

Labor’s policies, designed to restore Australia’s virtue, are peppered through a policy document that runs to 309 pages. Labor would hold a referendum to become a republic and rid ourselves of the embarrassment of a colonial queen. Centuries of racial exclusion would be ended by guaranteeing one race – indigenous Australians – seats in parliament.

The failings of Australia’s so-called non-discriminatory immigration policy would be fixed by discriminating between LGBTI asylum seekers and the boringly straight. Refugee status would be automatically granted to those whose stated sexual preference was illegal in their home country with or without evidence of actual sexual activity or actual persecution.

Australia’s biggest export, coal, was blackening our reputation and the size of Australia’s carbon footprint was a national disgrace. Labor would set an emissions target three times more onerous than that required by the Paris Agreement, but could not say how much it would cost.

Australia’s highly progressive tax system wasn’t progressive enough. Labor would embark on a massive redistribution programme to address intergenerational equality and other socioeconomic injustices.

At its core, Saturday’s election was a contest between two tribes. One consists of those who identify themselves principally by the place in which they live and shared social values. The other defines itself by its allegiance to international causes and the presumption that the global educated class knows better than the rest.

Morrison represented the Somewheres, as David Goodhart christened them, while Shorten was the Anywhere man, harvesting grievances, no matter how small, and turning them into monumental issues of social injustice that made us an outlier in a progressive-minded world community.

Support for Shorten’s platform bordered on the fanatical among the university-educated professionals whose influence appears to grow deeper at every election. For doctors, teachers, academics and other professionals who rely wholly or in part on government largesse for their income, the new progressive dawn heralded by Shorten couldn’t come soon enough.

The renewable-energy sector feared the return of a conservative government pledged to end the subsidies which made up most, if not all, of its profits. Shorten’s 50 per cent renewable-energy target would provide its meal ticket for a decade at least. Labor’s plan to adopt a Norwegian-style electric-vehicle plan opened up new avenues of rent-seeking, each one lined with charging stations paid for at the taxpayer’s expense.

There was widespread acclaim in the media of course, particularly by the public broadcasters who are ipso-facto members of the rent-seeking class. The ABC’s claims of impartiality were undermined by its supporters, the Friends of the ABC, who manned polling stations with printed instructions to voters to put the conservative barbarians last on their numbered preferential voting paper.

The misty-eyed delusion that Labor would win on Saturday night spared almost no one in polite society. Pollsters came to assume that respondents were telling them the truth and that those who refused their calls were a representative cross-section of the population, rather than world-weary outsiders who had come to assume their views would be ignored and couldn’t be faffed to play the insiders’ game.

Betting companies fell for the delusion, too, assuming that the big money placed on a Labor victory was a guide to a wider sentiment. A week from the election, Morrison was the 7-1 outsider. Two days before the election, SportsBet paid out on a Labor win.

The script for election night would be familiar to those who followed the Brexit referendum count or the US presidential election. It began with confident, smiling faces on ABC TV. Early results from election booths were discounted as outliers. But as the percentage of votes counted rose and the trend continued, their faces began to tighten and the silences grew longer.

The resident psephologist began grumbling about glitches in the Australian Electoral Commission’s computer. The air was visibly sucked out of the wrinkled face of Barrie Cassidy, a senior ABC political presenter and former adviser to Labor prime minister Bob Hawke. By the end of the night, he was as expressionless as a punctured football.

The results unleashed a torrent of self-righteous and self-pitying national self-loathing. ‘It’s not Morrison, it’s not the Liberals, it’s not the policies, it’s not Queensland, it’s not Dutton. It’s the country that’s rotten’, wrote Guardian Australia columnist Brigid Delaney, summarising the feeling of the people in the room at what was supposed to be Labor’s election night party: ‘The fact that their vision for Australia’s future was not affirmed made them feel estranged and alienated from their own country.’

Grief gave way to anger on Twitter. ‘F*** you Australia’, wrote Harry on the Left Side. ‘We had a great opportunity to build a just, fair, progressive, environmentally responsible, clean-energy powerhouse of a nation and once again you squandered it… Don’t complain I no longer care.’ Captain Fluffula added: ‘Jesus f***ing Christ, I am so angry and sad, what a f***ing shitty country we are since Howard.’

Avril, whose handle is decorated with flags from multiple nations, wrote: ‘So, Australia wasn’t immune from the f***witterry that brought the world Trump and Brexit.’ Grug, Karen, Jackson, Bitchy Single Person and countless others were on a unity ticket, each one ashamed, very ashamed or deeply deeply ashamed to be an Australian on Saturday night. Van Badham consoled herself. ‘At least I go to bed knowing that I did everything I could.’

The morning light offered little clarity to those whose entire worldview had been repudiated in the space of a few hours. ‘I held my son this morning and said, “You are the most precious thing in the world to me”’, wrote Clementine Ford. ‘“Bird”, he replied.’

Crushing as the defeat was, the Anywheres will inevitably recover, and return to prosecute the case for progressive change towards an elusive utopia. Once again they will be disappointed by the apparent indifference of the Australian middle class, the largest and wealthiest of any nation in the world, which repeatedly shows a preference for prime ministers who like the place pretty much as it is, flatly egalitarian, in which it is perfectly fine to be better off than your neighbour, but never to assume you are better than them.

It is a place where the economy has ticked over for almost 28 years without a recession, immigrants succeed, the late autumnal sun shines on election day, and everyday Australians get on with the business of nurturing a family and striving to achieve a comfortable, stable and independent life a cut above the average in the best bloody country on Earth.

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Joe Hildebrand explains violence against women

As Joe points out below, people are just flapping their lips about this and achieving nothing by doing so.  The only thing I can think of that might reduce such crime is horrific pubishment for the perpetrators -- burning at the stake, for instance

This week on Studio 10 I was asked what I thought about Victoria Police’s comments that men should reflect upon themselves in the wake of yet another brutal murder of a woman in Melbourne.

“Violence against women is absolutely about men’s behaviour,” Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said.

I gave what I thought was a fairly unremarkable and commonsense answer: “I thought it was a really nonsensical thing to say.

“I don’t see how me reflecting on myself is going to stop women being bashed or murdered.”

And, as usual when I think I have said something fairly unremarkable and commonsense, all hell broke loose.

And, as usual when all hell breaks loose, I have been asked to write a piece about it. So here it is.

***

There is no doubt that men are more violent than women. There is no doubt that they commit more homicides and more assaults. The vast majority of murderers are men, as are the vast majority of prison inmates.

However, that does not mean that all or even most men are violent or potentially deadly, nor that murder or violence is inherently caused by masculinity.

Firstly, homicide in Australia is incredibly rare and at a record low. The latest comprehensive report from the Australian Institute of Criminology states that the rate in 2014 was one per 100,000 people, the lowest since data collection began in 1989.

The report, published in 2017, tallied 487 homicides over the two years to July 2014. At the time Australia’s population was a bit over 23 million, so around 11.5 million males.

To project the absolute worst case scenario, if every single murderer was male and every single victim was female and applying over two years, that would make around one in 23,000 males a killer, or 0.0042 per cent of the male population.

In fact around twice as many homicide victims are male rather than female, homicides are usually calculated on a yearly basis and some killers are women. And so you could divide that figure by a third, then half and then take some more off to get the true annual rate of men killing women.

But let’s not — let’s use that absolute maximum figure of one in 23,000. Obviously it is still one too many but is that evidence of chronic violence among men towards women and, more importantly, is a mass reflection of this going to stop that one man from killing?

Frankly — and sadly — I doubt it. There are already pretty powerful disincentives against murdering people — namely jail — and yet people still commit murder. It is difficult to conceive of how asking would-be murderers to reflect upon their attitudes to women would be a greater deterrent.

Indeed, it would seem self-evident that criminals of all persuasions don’t pay much attention to what the police tell them to do, least of all the very worst and most violent among them.

And that is the problem with the public posturing on men needing to respect women. No reasonable man disagrees that women deserve respect — on the contrary it is obvious to any decent man that they do, which is why the vast majority of men do it.

The difficulty is that those who abuse women to the point that they kill them are hardly likely to be swayed by a police press conference or a government ad campaign.

Even so, the supposition appears to be that these murders are merely the final blow in an escalating trajectory of disrespect to abuse to death. That is most certainly the case in many violent relationships but the spate of brutal murders in Victoria springs from far more varied sources, including an abject failure of the Victorian criminal justice system.

In the notorious and unbearably awful case of the murder of Jill Meagher, it emerged that her killer was a serial sexual offender of the most horrendous and violent kind and yet he was allowed to walk free on parole during which time he abducted her and ended her young life. He had never met her before.

Likewise, the young Eurydice Dixon was stalked and killed by a total stranger, as was La Trobe student Aiia Maasarwe. Maasarwe’s alleged murderer was reportedly known to police.

He was also homeless, as was the latest tragic victim Courtney Herron. Her alleged killer Henry Hammond too was reportedly living out of a van and described as having major mental health problems — he apparently told people he was both Jesus and Odin.

Which of these men do police imagine would have taken heed of their message of “reflection”? Which of them do police imagine would have abandoned their murderous plans if another man had told them they should show more respect to women?

This is the only issue I have with such well-meaning platitudes — I’m not offended by them or threatened by them and I don’t even disagree with them. I just think they’re absurd, especially in this case. Good men don’t need to be told and bad men won’t listen.

And you don’t have to stretch your mind too far to realise how absurd they are.

There was the horrendous case in Sydney last week of a mother killing her toddler in a murder suicide. According to another report by the AIC released earlier this year, the number of mothers murdering their children is on the rise while fathers doing it is declining. Was there a suggestion after that last unthinkable crime that all mothers ought to reflect on their respect for their children? Of course not.

Likewise, there has been a spate of so-called “African” gang crime in Victoria. Did police suggest that young African-born males ought to reflect upon their or their peers’ propensity for violence? Of course not — in fact they denied such a problem even existed.

And in the wake of every terrorist attack police are at pains to stress that this is a tiny minority of Muslims and in no way reflective of the Muslim community as a whole. And they are right.

Why then is there such an unthinking reflex to say in the wake of exceptionally extreme murders that all men ought to reflect upon their attitudes? It is bizarre to say the least.

As for violence against women generally, every statistic indicates that it is not so much maleness that is the problem but chronic disadvantage. As with virtually all other indicators of crime, it is concentrated in areas of poverty and all the other problems that both cause and flow from it.

Reclaim Princes Park vigil for murdered comedian Eurydice Dixon. Picture: Mark Stewart
Reclaim Princes Park vigil for murdered comedian Eurydice Dixon. Picture: Mark StewartSource:News Corp Australia

Yes, violence and domestic violence occurs everywhere and yes, it is overwhelmingly men who perpetrate it but the rates are comparatively low in wealthy areas and skyrocket in areas where people are doing it tough. This is no surprise to any serious student of crime.

For example, official NSW Bureau of Crime and Research statistics show the lowest rates to be on Sydney’s north shore and northern beaches and the highest rates to be around Blacktown in western Sydney, and the rural west and north west of the state.

This is a variable that ranges from 115 per 100,000 to 1290 per 100,000. In other words you are up to 10 times more likely to be a victim of domestic violence in the poorest parts of the state than in the wealthiest.

And as many brave Aboriginal women have sought to highlight, there is an even greater spike in remote and regional indigenous communities — up to 30 times the non-Indigenous rate. Do police call upon all Aboriginal men to reflect upon their attitudes to women? Of course not.

And that’s because it makes no sense. If you really want to fix a problem there is no point tarring whole populations with the same brush or just telling everybody to try harder or be nicer. You need to drill down into what is really causing it.

Who are the men committing these awful crimes? What is their background? What are their surroundings? How can we make women safer? How can we liberate them and whole communities from disadvantage and dysfunction? Where is the problem the worst and why?

These are often diabolical problems that are difficult to solve but the nature of the problem is clear and the solution requires housing, health services, education, employment and time. In the meantime, we need a justice system that keeps known perpetrators behind bars and known victims safe — something that Victoria’s justice system has clearly failed to do.

Or you could just go on TV or Twitter and say that it’s men who are the problem and they should stop harming women.

We all know how well that’s worked out so far.

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Feminist indifference to reality

On the morning after the federal election, the banality of modern feminism was confirmed by our public broadcaster. Scott Morrison had stolen the show from Bill Shorten, confounding pollsters, most journalists and many Liberals too.

The Coalition government defeated Labor’s class war, its climate-change folly and punitive taxes. Morrison stared down Labor’s identity politics, religious intolerance and its scorn for quiet Australians. Yet one of the ABC’s grievance feminists announced, during her post-election analysis, that the re-elected Coalition had a massive gender problem.

On Insiders, Patricia Karvelas said: “I think gender is an issue. Can I raise it? Can I go there? Am I allowed to? Please?” she implored, as if pleading to pick up her favourite toy. Pick it up she did. “I think the Coalition, yes, they may have won but they have a massive gender problem, and this is a massive issue. This doesn’t go away just because they won a victory. This is a massive issue.”

Karvelas was so determined to table her pet agenda that she failed to consider whether facts fit her claim. Patently, gender did not rate at the election. Voters rejected Shorten and the line-up of Labor ladies surrounding him during the campaign. Not even the opposition leader’s ubiquitous red T-shirt blaring “Vote 1 Chloe Shorten’s husband” did the gender trick.

What accounts for this firm rejection of the sisterhood’s claim that gender is a massive problem for the Liberals? Start with policy. The re-election of the Morrison government suggests that women decided the Coalition’s policies mattered more than counting the number of Liberal and National women in parliament. Judging issues on their merits, perhaps women, like men, were repelled by Shorten’s class-war campaign, a retirees tax that hit hardworking Australians who save for their retirement, and Labor’s uncosted climate change policies that would have pushed up already sky-high energy prices.

Could it be that women, like men, were unimpressed by the opposition Treasury spokesman telling Australians to rack off if they didn’t like Labor’s policies?

In other words, maybe most women don’t wake up every morning wondering how they can get gender into their daily conversations.

This raises a critical question for modern-day feminists — if they dare to consider it. Who on earth are they speaking for? Themselves, to be sure. But for Karvelas to make a point relevant beyond her, who else was she presuming to represent with her grievance feminism? These insular feminists seem to have no clue, or not to care much.

The banality of modern feminism is turning followers into poor advocates for women. Like the frustrating politicians they often interview, Aunty’s in-house grievance feminists keep regurgitating their talking points even as facts are changing before their eyes. They bring no fresh ideas, no independent thinking, no curiosity to the cause of empowering women.

It is a neat reminder, as if we needed another one, of the gaping chasm between ABC headquarters and Australia central. In other circumstances, the ABC sisterhood is free to bellyache about gender until the cows come home. But for so long as taxpayers pay their wages, is it too much to expect analysis that speaks to more Australians than just themselves?

Karvelas’s claim was unencumbered by facts about the record number of Coalition women who will sit in the 46th parliament. Right now it’s 27; it could reach 30. Well over a third of women in the Coalition partyroom are new entrants.

That includes at least nine new female Liberal MPs: Fiona Martin in Reid, Melissa McIntosh in Lindsay, Angie Bell in Moncrieff, Gladys Liu in Chisholm, Bridget Archer in Bass, Katie Allen in Higgins, Celia Hammond in Curtin, and possibly Sarah Richards in Macquarie if her lead continues. Add new female Liberal senators Claire Chandler from Tasmania and Hollie Hughes from NSW.

Karvelas is not the only grievance feminist at the ABC but she is the noisiest if you listen to ABC radio or turn to Insiders for your political analysis. Had the journalist waited a few days before re-running her gender obsession, she would have discovered a record number of women in the Nationals team too.

They include Anne Webster from Mallee and new female Nationals senator Susan McDonald from Queensland, and possibly Perin Davey from NSW, depending on the final Senate count there. Sam McMahon, the CLP’s candidate in the Northern Territory, will join the Coalition partyroom too. These are terrific markers of women’s progress in politics.

There is still more work to be done to get more women into parliament. But current facts neuter crazy claims of massive gender problems after an election win. Karvelas did not wait to learn that Morrison’s new cabinet maintains the record of seven women, adding two more women to outer ministries.

As newly promoted Assistant Minister for Superannuation and Financial Services Jane Hume said, “Make no mistake, I’m not here for my skirt, I’m here for my experience, and the contribution I can make to a sector that is critical to the Australian economy.”

Many new female Coalition MPs have wonderfully diverse backgrounds beyond the bubble of politics, unlike Labor women who were mostly machine apparatchiks before skating into parliament on gender quotas.

Instead of commending these new female politicians, grievance feminists regurgitated their tired old gender whinges. When Anthony Albanese was chosen as Labor’s new leader, feminists lamented that Tanya Plibersek chose her family over a potential promotion. On the morning that Richard Marles was confirmed as deputy Labor leader, Karvelas woke up and tweeted: “Good day to be a man.” Yawn.

The stubborn flaw at the heart of these unhappy feminists is when things don’t go their way 100 per cent, they find nothing to celebrate. Their blinding ideology for a 50-50 gender split in parliament prevents them from factoring in the reality of women’s choices, let alone applauding the fact the most empowered women show very different work-life preferences to men.

Women who presume to speak on behalf of other women, rather than as freethinking individuals, should be prepared to be marked down for failing women when they stuff up. Claiming that the Liberals having a massive gender problem before many seats had been decided was not just shallow analysis. It was deeply demeaning to women who vote by judging policies, not chromosomes.

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 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 May, 2019

The Labor party's use of misleading advertising in 2016 came back to bite them in 2019

The Mediscare campaign in 2016 seemed a good idea at the time but it was a gross disortion of the facts. So it legitimated  scare campaigns by the coalition in 2019. 

The Left never seem able to think ahead.  They never think their dirty deals will just lead to them being hit by similar deeds further down the track.  Some call it the "Harry Reid" effect -- after "clever" Harry abolished the filibuster and inadvertently gave the USA two very conservative High Court judges

Like many I was surprised by the election result two Saturday’s ago. While for many the double of Scott Morrison winning the prime ministership and Tony Abbott losing his seat was the perfect double, I only expected one of those events to unfold.

Bill Shorten’s loss must be personally devastating for him. I’ve heard that his house was half packed up, ready for the move into The Lodge. I know shadow ministers were organising post election briefings with heads of department, as well as lining up new names to take on such roles after the election. Shorten had already planned the timing and agenda of his first cabinet meeting before counting even started.

Never before has the phrase “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” been more appropriate.

While plenty of Labor die hards are angry at the scare campaign the government mounted, the simple fact is what goes around comes around. And, being frank, if politicians can’t sell their way past a scare campaign, they lack the necessary political skills to succeed.

Yes, labelling the franking credits policy a “retiree tax” was deeply misleading. It only affected four per cent of retirees. Pensioners and part pensioners were excluded. And anyone securing franking credits as part of a self managed super fund could shift their investments into a managed fund and the credits would still do their job.

But Labor failed to cut through with such details, and yes many more people were convinced Labor’s policies would hurt them than was actually the case. The scare campaign hit its mark.

Then there was the scare campaign on death duties. Yes some Labor frontbenchers has written about the virtue of inheritance taxes in the past — such as Andrew Leigh during his time in academia. But it wasn’t Labor policy, had been specifically ruled out by Shorten, and the chances of Labor ever changing their minds and introducing death taxes were zero. Yet the scare campaign persisted.

While I would welcome reforms to ensure truth in political advertising, without them the bottom line is Shorten was hit by a double decker karma bus. Because he launched an equally invalid, misleading and false scare campaign against the government back in 2016. The Mediscare campaign was effective. It almost cost Malcolm Turnbull the election. It certainly reduced his majority. It drew Labor close enough such that Shorten’s campaigning skills were praised and Labor’s performance defied expectations. It meant Anthony Albanese couldn’t challenge the always unpopular Shorten.

What goes around comes around. A Labor scare campaign in 2016 saves Shorten’s leadership and crippled the authority of the then PM in the election’s aftermath. A Liberal scare campaign in 2019 cost Shorten the prime ministership and has sured up Scott Morrison’s authority as PM.

It’s all very unedifying. It’s not conducive to good politicking and good policy making. But I do believe, with or without truth in political advertising reforms, politicians worth their salt should be able to successfully defeat such scare campaigns. If they are good enough, and if their reforms are good enough.

When they can’t they have no one to blame but themselves. Especially when they dabbled in the black arts themselves, just three years earlier.

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New Labor leader Anthony Albanese calls for end to climate wars

Albo wants bipartisanship?  Maybe.  He still believes in global warming but sounds flexible about the policies resulting from that

Anthony Albanese has called for an end to the climate wars, saying he wants to work with Scott Morrison on an emissions reduction plan that benefits both the environment and the economy.

After being confirmed as the party’s new leader on Monday morning, the senior leftwinger has also urged more people to join the Labor party, saying the movement needs to be “larger and more inclusive” to win an election in three years’ time.

Arguing the opposition had many lessons to learn following its shock election defeat under Bill Shorten, Albanese said he believed that “conflict fatigue” was among the reasons the party had failed to convince voters of the need for change.

“People want solutions, not arguments. They have conflict fatigue,” Albanese said. “I am a values politician, but I also say this to Scott Morrison – I’m not Tony Abbott.”

Flagging his desire to see bipartisanship on the vexed issues of constitutional recognition for indigenous Australians and climate policy, Albanese said he was prepared to work with the Coalition to develop a consensus position on a national emissions reduction plan.

“Let me say this unequivocally – the science is in, climate change is real, we must act,” Albanese said.

“Action will create jobs, it will benefit our economy and it will benefit our environment.

“The time for the ongoing conflict over these issues surely is over.”

But while indicating he was prepared to cooperate on some policy areas, Albanese also pledged to “strongly, forcefully” hold the Morrison government to account.

Albanese’s call for climate policy certainty comes as Labor’s shadow environment minister Tony Burke indicated the party could move away from its support of a direct market mechanism to tackle emissions reduction, suggesting Labor shift to a regulation and spending model, such as that being advocated by the Democrats in the US.

Albanese said he was neither a “neither a climate sceptic, nor … a market sceptic”, saying he had consulted with business about the need for policy certainty.

“They are crying out for certainty, and it is time that the government worked with the opposition to deliver that certainty going into the future.”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated the Coalition will pursue the climate policy it took to the election which centres on a $3.5bn emissions reduction fund.

Pledging to work hard over the next three years to convince people of the need to vote Labor, Albanese acknowledged the party needed to do more to “reach out” to those who didn’t support either major party at the May 18 election, while conceding Labor had a “big mountain to climb” to form government.

“I want to see a larger, more inclusive party, and the first thing I want to say to all those millions of Australians who were disappointed with our performance…(is) join up, get involved, make us stronger for the next challenge,” Albanese said.

“I am up for a hard job. I am up for hard work. “I intend to do my best to work with the Australian people to ensure that we elect a Labor government next time.”

Flaunting his credentials as a “consultative” leader with experience across a range of portfolios, Albanese said he believed Labor should be the natural party of government that embraced both economic and social policy reform.

“We can’t judge the economy separate from the people it’s meant to serve,” Albanese said. “It’s not in my view economic or social policy - it’s both, hand in hand.”

But he said he would “hasten slowly” on policy development after the party regrouped following last Saturday’s election defeat that has been widely blamed on the party’s expansive policy agenda.

Albanese assumes the leadership uncontested after none of his potential rivals nominated for the role. His deputy is expected to be Victorian MP from the right faction, Richard Marles.

The Labor caucus will meet on Thursday to endorse the positions and confirm the carve up of Albanese’s frontbench, with 16 positions to be allocated to the party’s Right faction, and 14 for Left-aligned MPs.

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Albo has a new fudge on the Adani coalmine

Says it is not for him to decide

Anthony Albanese has continued to question the economics around the Adani mine, but says a climate change convoy which enraged Queensland communities was “very unproductive.”

The incoming Opposition Leader today fielded multiple questions about his repeated refusal to back the Adani mine,, despite the issue costing Labor votes in north and central Queensland.

Mr Albanese, who is making his first trip to the Sunshine State today, said this morning the markets would ultimately decide the economic case for Adani and pointed to its history of missing deadlines.

“It’s not up to government to determine that, it’s up to markets themselves,” he told ABC radio.

“One of the things that has occurred over a period of time is that the company has not met a range of timelines that they’ve put forward.

“But we will see what decisions the company make once the approvals are made or not made.”

Climate change and the Adani mine has been labelled key reasons behind Bill Shorten’s disastrous performance in Queensland at the federal election, where Labor only managed a primary vote of over 27 per cent.

One of the key issues was a “climate change convoy” of activists led by former Greens leader Bob Brown which travelled through north and central Queensland protesting Adani.

Several Labor MPs have pointed to the convoy as a factor working against them in the campaign and Mr Albanese poured scorn on the activists this morning. “The truth is that was incredibly provocative and did nothing to advance, in my view, a genuine debate about climate change,” he said. “To reduce it to a debate about a single mine is very unproductive, it does nothing to advance the debate.

“Good policy is about jobs as well as clean energy, as well as making sure we take the community with us … people could do with less yelling and more genuine debate.”

Mr Albanese will be confirmed as Labor leader by his parliamentary colleagues on Thursday, as he will his presumptive deputy Richard Marles.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said this morning that Mr Albanese had to be clearer if he supported the coal export industry. “Is he going to support them? He seems to be pretty unclear on that,” Mr Taylor told Sky News.

“I’m pleased that he is not saying he’s going to get in the way (of Adani) ... we want to see these industries succeed.”

Mine craft doesn’t add up

Yesterday Mr Albanese has questioned the “economics” of opening up the Galilee Basin to coalmining and refused to publicly support Adani’s $2 billion Carmichael mine, ahead of his visit to Queensland today to win back blue-collar workers.

The inner-Sydney left-wing powerbroker, who previously called into question the future of thermal coal and the feasibility of the Adani project, is facing internal pressure to further distance Labor from the coal industry.

Asked yesterday whether he supported the Adani coalmine, Mr Albanese, who will today visit the northern Brisbane electorate of Longman which Labor lost to the Coalition, said he would “respect the process” but did not endorse jobs for central Queensland.

“There is the other issue with regard to Adani, and indeed to the whole issue of the Galilee coal basin, the issue of the economics of it, the basic cost-benefit ratios,” Mr Albanese said, after being confirmed as the ALP’s 21st leader.

“One of the things, for example, that was put forward, was that it should receive a subsidised railway line. No, I didn’t support subsidisin­g a railway line for a private­-sector operation.”

Labor MPs and candidates in the central and north Queensland seats of Flynn, Capricornia, Dawson­ and Herbert signed petitions before the election calling for the development of the Galilee, a 247,000sq m thermal coal basin in central Queensland with an estimated 27 billion ­tonnes of untapped coal.

Six coalmines in the Galilee Basin have been approved by the state government, which could generate 16,000 jobs and nearly double Australia’s thermal coal production. Mr Albanese faces the task of reversing massive swings in Queensland against Labor at the May 18 election and the loss of two seats, including the Townsville seat of Herbert, which relies on mining to generate jobs and business.

The party’s election failure prompted Queensland’s Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to immediately intervene to end the delays to the approval process of the Adani mine project.

Mr Marles also refused yesterday to throw his support behind the Adani mine but backtracked on comments he made before the election suggesting it would be a “good thing” if global demand for Australian coal collapsed.

“The comments I made earlier this year were tone-deaf and I regret­ them and I was apologising for them within a couple of days of making them,” Mr Marles said. “It failed to acknowledge the significance of every person’s job.”

Resources Minister Matt Canavan lashed Mr Albanese and Mr Marles for refusing to say they supported the Adani coalmine.

“The Labor Party have heard nothing and learned nothing from the election result,” Senator Canavan said. “People voted last week to protect their jobs, protect their futures, but the Labor Party are showing again that they are no longer the party of workers.”

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane, a former Coalition resources ministe­r, said Mr Albanese should throw his support behind jobs in central Queensland.

“It doesn’t really matter what Anthony Albanese thinks about viability — that is a decision for the company and its sharehold­ers,” Mr Macfarlane said. “The project will proceed or not on the basis of its commercial viabili­ty and that will be assessed by the company and its shareholders.”

Senator Canavan said he used Mr Marles’s comments — when he said the collapse of coal exports would be a “good thing” — against Labor during the campaign.

The coal and Adani issues helped the Liberal National Party win Herbert and retain Dawson, Capricornia and Flynn, with swings to the government.

The result, which included a statewide primary vote of just 27 per cent, stunned senior Labor figures and prompted the Palasz­czuk state government to demand a fast-tracking of its Adani approvals process, with a decision on the future of the mine to be made within weeks.

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It’s the word police who threaten harm

Bill Shorten offered a comprehensive social vision and was rejected. This is consistent with a renewed commitment by Australians to freedom of expression and relig­ion. Three-quarters of us strongly support legal protections for freedom of thought, conscience and belief, according to a YouGov/ Galaxy­ opinion poll of 1033 people on behalf of the Institute for Civil Society before the federal­ election. At that time the Israel Folau controversy was runnin­g hot.

Yet if free speech advocates are to prevail, they must answer the most serious case in favour of speech restrictions: that speech can harm. The argument against Folau’s words is that they are detrimental to others’ mental health. In our therapeutic culture this means that words, as well as sticks and stones, can be judged harmful.

John Stuart Mill’s doctrine that government can restrict our actions only “to prevent harm to others” was intended to protect us from ­coercive moralism. Nowadays, the principle is invoked for precisely the opposite reason: to restrict freedom — freedom of speech and religion in particular.

Citing Folau’s social media post, gay former rugby league player Ian Roberts said: “These types of remarks can and do push people over the edge … There are literally kids in the suburbs killing themselves.”

Similarly, Greens leader Richard Di Natale­ condemned the 2017 postal survey on same-sex marriage because­ it could lead “young people (to) take their lives on the back of a hateful and divisive debate in the community”.

But it is not merely with LGBTQ issues that indirect-harm arguments are used to condemn or silence speech. Progressive leftists seized on the Christchurch massacre of 51 Muslims to launch an all-out attack on conservative critics of Islamic immigration and multiculturalism. TV presenter Waleed Aly said he wasn’t surprised by the March 15 massacre, given the anti-Islamic sentiments of the media and politicians. Former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs called for a new “hate speech” law in response to former senator Fraser Anning’s comments blaming Muslims themselves for the mass shooting.

Di Natale went further and called for new “laws that regulate our media”. Speaking of “people like” Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, and Chris Kenny, Di Natale said “if they want to use hate speech to divide the community then they’re going to be held to account for that hate speech”.

To be blunt, suicide, social division­ and terrorism are being weaponised to silence conservative speech. There are three serious problems with the justifi­ca­tions offered for the restrictive speech laws so beloved by many progressives.

First, the causes of social traged­ies such as gay suicide and anti-Muslim terrorism are com­plex­ and diffuse, making it impossible to determine the exten­t to which speech is responsible. Surely drug addiction, relationship break­down, isolation and mental health issues play significant roles.

Second, banning speech that allegedly feeds into a dangerous atmosphere seriously under­estim­ates how much speech would be silenced. As well as the Kennys and Bolts, shouldn’t we ban leftist critics of Israel and US foreign policy, whose ideas resonate with the justifica­tions of many anti-Israel terror attacks? Why stop there — what about climate change? Greens MP Adam Bandt has declared we need to announce a state of climate emergency in Australia. If anything justifies the banning of speech, it’s the possibility that the world could end if we listen to climate change deniers. What about sexism that feeds into systemic inequality and even domestic violence? Let’s ban everything that perpetuates sexist stereotypes: Disney cartoons, Barbie­ dolls, the Koran, the Bible, sexist jokes and hip-hop music.

Third, criticism of Islamic immigr­ation or policies on gender and sexuality is political speech, and what speech is more valuable to a democracy? No doubt such debate sometimes degenerates into abuse, but even then regulation must be relucta­nt lest it morphs into the wholesale suppression of controversial speech.

The attitude of Di Natale and Triggs, among others, shows how real this danger is. Folau’s criticism of homosex­ual­ity is religious expression, and freedom of religion is foundational to any liberal democracy. Get rid of it and you are left with a kind of progressive atheocracy.

Conservatives and liberals need to learn how to respond to “harm arguments” against basic freedoms because these are rhetor­ically powerful and will become only more frequent. It is necessary to point out that such arguments render valuable speech open to censorship.

A potential, indirect link betwee­n contentious speech and actual harm is not enough to justify incursions into freedom of expression. The public policy emph­as­is must be on a realistic approach to social problems, focusin­g on evidence of the many contributing factors, while keeping in mind the importance of our liberal democratic freedoms.

Of course there is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech any more than there is absolute freedom of association (I cannot join the mafia) or freedom of movement (I cannot just move into my neighbour’s house). Yet all too often calls to regulate speech look like opportunistic attacks on conservatism and religion, or exasperated attempts to create the appear­ance of control over intract­able social problems.

Enemies of free speech and religiou­s freedom have been maddene­d by the Coalition’s May 18 victory. But they have not been beaten. Defenders of fundamental freedoms need to arm themselves with good arguments for, as progressives have just learned, empty slogans are never enough.

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 May, 2019

I am a failure

When I put up above a picture of Scott Morrison in appreciation of his miraculous victory, I subtitled it "Our leader". It was a tease.  I was hoping that someone would notice the reference to  "mein Fuehrer" (which is German for "My leader"); "El gran lider" ("great leader -- Castro) and "Dear Leader" (Kim of North Korea). But no-one took the bait. I didn't get one abusive comment.  So I am reverting to  something a bit more neutral. He did save us from some very destructive policies. Praise the Lord!





Gang of knife-wielding African thugs go on wild crime spree in Melbourne overnight - stealing luxury cars and terrifying residents across the city

An armed gang is on the run after terrorising Melbourne last night with two home invasions and a carjacking.

Four men of African appearance broke into a home in Bentleigh East, Melbourne at around 8.40pm on Sunday.

They stole valuables and drove off in the victims' car but crashed it on the freeway.

The men then carjacked another and broke into a second home where they stole two more luxury cars and terrified the residents.

During the first break in, one of the gang was armed with a knife and threatened the owners, a 39-year-old man and 32-year-old woman. The couple were both assaulted and left with minor injuries.

The men then fled with jewellery, computers and handbags, and also took the victims' black BMW.

The gang crashed the car on the Westgate Freeway by driving it into a barrier.

As a car slowed down to help, one of the gang got out and tried to open the door.

The 45-year-old man and his female passenger, 39, managed to drive away unharmed.

Police were then called to a house in Port Melbourne just after 9pm after reports of an aggravated carjacking.

It is understood a woman was about to put her child into the car when she was approached by three men. One pulled out a knife and demanded her vehicle.

The victim, a 42-year-old Box Hill North woman, called for help and was assisted by a family member, a 40-year-old man also from Box Hill North.

He was also threatened by the gang, who took off in their vehicle, described as a black 2012 Hyundai i30 with registration ZEX859. The victims were not injured.

Police later responded to an aggravated burglary in Derrimut about 12.10am on Monday. On this occasion, four masked men armed with knives broke into a home on Ivy Close and were confronted by the occupants.

A 65-year-old man was assaulted during the incident and sustained a minor laceration. He did not require hospital treatment. A 58-year-old woman, 91-year-old man and 64-year-old woman, who were also home at the time, were not injured.

The gang stole two cars, a grey 2010 Mercedes sedan registration XOB358 and a black 2015 Honda HR-V registration 1EY3DI.

The stolen Hyundai from Port Melbourne was dumped nearby. Both the Honda HRV and Mercedes remain outstanding.

Detectives believed the incidents were linked. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.

SOURCE  






Thanks, Bob Brown, You Helped Labor Lose The Unloseable Election


Greens leader Bob Brown

For an alleged Labor party to put Greenie causes ahead of worker welfare was epic folly.  Coal miners are workers too and they make a good dollar.  Labor now need to divorce themselves from their happy marriage to the Greens

Still trying to figure out how Labor lost another unloseable election? The pollsters got it wrong, the bookies got it wrong, the punters got it wrong the ABC and most of the mainstream media got it wrong. And obviously Bill Shorten got it very wrong.

Bob Hawke got it right when he said, “Never underestimate the intelligence of The Australian voters”. He probably should have added, “Especially in Queensland”, where Labor lost two seats and the LNP shored up their margins even in Peter Dutton’s Dickson, where Labor and GetUp put in a huge effort.

We even saw the spectacle of another ex-Labor PM Paul Keating, shakily urge voters to “drive a stake through his dark political heart”.

Why did they all get it so far off the mark? Well Queenslanders don’t take kindly to a bunch of ratbags from the south telling them how to run their economy and create jobs. So Bob Brown’s Anti-Adani Convoy couldn’t have come at a better time for the LNP. Waving banners shouting “Coal Kills” and “Block Adani” floated like a lead balloon over a State which reaps billions from coal exports.

This folly combined with Shorten’s fence sitting and the Palaszczuk Government’s stalling over issues such as the numbers of a common bush bird, the black-throated finch. Anastacia must be worried she’ll be next.

The LNP increased its vote substantially in the previously very marginal seat of Flynn, which was high on the Labor wish list. Centered on the major coal port of Gladstone and held by Ken O’Dowd since 2010, it also takes in an extensive agriculture and beef area including the North Burnett region.

Rockhampton’s Michelle Landry increased her LNP winning margin in neighbouring Capricornia and in Dawson, centred on Mackay, the so-called Member for Manila, George Christensen, gained another big unexpected win. Further north in Townsville, Labor’s Cathy O’Toole was out-gunned by war veteran LNP candidate, Phillip Thompson. In all these centres, jobs and the economy were major factors.

Combine all that with Labor’s big taxing agenda, its hit at self-funded retirees, negative gearing, Capital GainsTax, the blank cheque it sought for an un-costed, over-ambitious climate policy (including a controversial push for 50 percent electric vehicle sales by 2030), and the result in Queensland and most other States is not surprising.

Add the arrogant advice to retirees and investors from Labor’s Treasury spokesman and candidate for the top job, Chris Bowen, “If you don’t like it, don’t vote Labor”.

Good advice. So the voters said it’s not time to risk Shorten, we’ll stick with Scott Morrison and a stable economy.

Now it looks likely Morrison will gain an absolute majority and enjoy a major opportunity to grow his influence over the coming term.

SOURCE  







One in seven young people think men can force sex if a woman changes her mind

One in seven young Australians think a man can force a woman to have sex if she initiated the interaction but then changed her mind, a survey has revealed.

According to the National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) Youth Report, released today, high numbers of Australians aged 16-24 hold disturbing beliefs about sexual consent and abusive relationships.

When asked if a man was "justified" in continuing to have sex with a woman who had taken him into a bedroom and started kissing him before pushing him away, 14 per cent of respondents said yes, with men and women equally likely to hold this view.

The results also showed one in three young men believed "many" women who say they have been raped actually had consensual sex and later had regrets. In reality, false rape accusations are believed to be incredibly uncommon (often cited as two per cent of total allegations, although a 2013 AIFS report found the variety of contexts in which an allegation can be declared "false" means care should be taken when trying to quantify the occurrence).

Lead researcher Dr Anastasia Powell, lecturer in legal studies at RMIT, said the knowledge gaps were "concerning".
"Australian law emphasises active and communicative consent, and consent is something that should be occurring throughout an encounter," she said.

The report is the latest data set to come from NCAS, a national telephone survey conducted by Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) and VicHealth in 2017 commissioned by the federal government.

While young people's understanding of physical domestic violence had improved since a previous community attitudes survey was undertaken in 2013, large numbers did not recognise emotional abuse and controlling behaviour as forms of domestic violence.

A quarter of the young men surveyed blamed women who had experienced image-based abuse (colloquially known as "revenge porn") for sending the pictures in the first place, while one in five did not think using technology to track their partners' movements, or reading text messages without their knowledge, amounted to domestic violence (over double the number of women who held this view).

Forty-three per cent of young people agreed it was "natural for a man to want to appear in control of his partner in front of his male friends", with men and women equally likely to believe this.
"That's a substantial number of young people who have normalised the idea of male control at a time when they are learning and practicing what a normal relationship should look like," Dr Powell said.

Nicole Juniper, 22, was in a year-long emotionally abusive relationship in her late teens. While she was originally shocked by the survey results, after reflecting on her own experience, she said she was less surprised.

"[It was] my first serious relationship, I couldn't see red flags," she said.

The Moonee Ponds student took months to recognise her ex-partner's behaviour, which included reading her emails without her knowledge and not letting her see male friends, as abusive, and stayed in the relationship once she did.

"I thought he would be in danger without me; he said he would end his life multiple times."

Ms Juniper said there needs to be better education about emotional abuse in schools, to empower young people to speak up when they think their friends could be in an unhealthy situation.
"There's not a lot of understanding around abuse when it isn't physical," she said.

Renee Imbesi, principal program officer for mental wellbeing at VicHealth, said, although failure to recognise emotional abuse as domestic violence occurs in all demographics, it can be a particular problem for young people without much experience in intimate relationships, who might confuse controlling behaviour with care.

"There's the attitude that, 'Oh, they want to know where you are because they love you.'"

Sixty per cent of young people surveyed indicated that they don't know where to go for help in a domestic violence situation.
"[Services] need to start talking about 'control', because a lot of young people aren't calling it domestic violence or abuse," Ms Imbesi said.

From a health policy perspective, Ms Imbesi said the benefits of achieving gender equality in the home are "significant".
"Intimate partner violence is still the leading contributor to women's ill health and disease in women aged 18 to 44, and the majority of that burden of disease is mental health related: anxiety, depression, and also suicide," she said, noting gender norms can also take a toll on men's mental health.
"When you're promoting equal relationships between men and women, you're promoting mental wellbeing."

SOURCE  






ABC gave us groupthink on steroids

Was the ABC deliberately biased towards the ALP at the federal election, or was its gross fail just a problem of groupthink?

After all, most of the commercial media and ABC had already failed to anticipate the rise of One Nation over resentment at the ­climate change agenda of then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull at the 2016 election. Back then, Pauline Hanson’s party won four Senate seats, 4.1 per cent of the ­national vote and 9.1 per cent of the Queensland vote.

Surely that media fail should have alerted the ABC to the possibility that One Nation and Clive Palmer’s advertising blitz could affect­ this year’s Labor campaign, which former leader Bill Shorten said was a referendum on climate change. Maybe not, if your journ­alists are committed climate change activists who believe that stopping the Adani mine Queenslanders overwhelmingly want can save the Great Barrier Reef, ­despite ballooning carbon dioxide emissions from China and India.

The ABC is the best-resourced news organisation in the country, paid for by taxpayers who vote across the political spectrum. In Queensland, which swung strongly to the Coalition, the ABC’s many state-based staff apparently failed to see the trends in their own backyard. The ABC has news ­bureaus in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Cairns, Townsville, Longreach and Mount Isa.

Discussing the ABC’s coverage last Monday night on Sky News’s Chris Kenny on Media, the long-time ABC critic interviewed journ­alist and former ABC staff-elected representative Quentin Dempster. Kenny regularly gives his ABC critics airtime in a way the ABC never would, and good on Dempster for going on the show. He offered two defences of the ABC’s failure: few others saw the result coming and ABC political reporters were basing their views on published polling that showed Labor likely to win.

Kenny admitted he too had expecte­d a narrow Labor win but said he had claimed many times that the Coalition had a chance. He named several Sky News journ­alists who had publicly said all through the final week of the campaign that the ­Coalition could still win. He also named many others who had said Labor would win.

Kenny said no experienced political journalist could take a 51-49 poll to the ALP with a margin of error close to 3 per cent and say for sure Labor would win. Kenny asked why, if there were a range of views at Sky News, did literally everyone at the much larger ABC fall in behind the Labor narrative?

Great question. Kenny is correct­. As Peta Credlin, Alan Jones and Paul Murray pointed out for weeks before poll day, there was always a “narrow path” to a ­Coalition win built around Queensland and a rejection of Labor’s anti-coal, high-taxing, highly redistributive policies.

Later last Monday night, Paul Barry on the ABC’s Media Watch lamented the bias of News Corp Australia papers, which largely got the election right, and defended the ABC, which he thought ran a fair and balanced campaign. It did not and the nation knows it. Viewers saw the maudlin performance of its election-night hosts — Barrie Cassidy, Laura Tingle, Annabel Crabb, Andrew Probyn, Michael Rowland and Leigh Sales — as they realised Labor was losing.

The nation had heard Tingle on the ABC’s 7.30 throughout the previou­s week proclaiming both sides knew the Coalition was gone. It had heard the anti-Adani campaigning of Radio National’s Fran Kelly and ABC Sydney breakfast radio host Wendy Harmer.

Barry is a great journalist and Media Watch’s best-ever host. He has been prepared to kick the ABC. He, like predecessor Jonathan Holmes in his book on the ­future of the ABC, On Aunty, has said publicly the ABC is biased to the left. The pair spoke about the issue at Gleebooks in Sydney in March.

Said Holmes: “I think the sort of person that most ABC people think about when they make their programs are the sort of people (who) think roughly the same as they do and I think that’s somebody a bit left of centre. They are talking to people like me and they are not talking to people who think differently to me.”

The two presenters of the ABC’s flagship media program from 2008 until today agreed the ABC needed to change. Yet last Monday night Barry could not see what was wrong with Labor’s plans or the ABC’s coverage of them, and regarded News’s correct critic­ism of those plans as bias. Groupthink on steroids.

News, like its Sky News subsid­iary, employs journalists with a ­diversity of views. Think of this paper’s writers from the left: Troy Bramston, Phillip Adams, Graham Richardson, Alan Kohler and, from the left of the Coalition, Peter van Onselen and Niki Savva.

The Courier-Mail has copped a bucketing on social media but its national affairs editor, Dennis Atkin­s, is a former Goss government staffer, as was former business writer and political columnist Paul Syvret. Long-time columnist Terry Sweetman is of the left. The nation’s biggest website, News Corp Australia’s news.com.au, is very left-wing.

This is as it should be because readers of the biggest newspapers in the country have diverse views. As do viewers of the ABC. Yet the ABC does not represent a diversity of views.

Just look at who ABC TV invited on to its late-night edition of The Drum to speak to Ellen Fanning after Saturday night’s count, when Fanning condescendingly said: “I’ll be the Queenslander on the panel cos none of youse are.” Joining her were prominent left-wingers Magda Szubanski, Jamila Rizvi, Layne Beachley, Graham Innes and the much more thoughtful Stan Grant, who correctly said that Australians do not like centrally imposed, top-down reforms. No conservative was in sight.

Long-time former Labor premier Bob Carr wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday critic­ising many Labor policies most commentators on the ABC had supported. Extra funding for schools would have been better spent on quality teachers, he wrote. Voters know we are at ­record education funding levels but going down in international education performance tables.

Carr thought plans to subsidise the private sector wages of childcare workers were dangerous, as this paper said. Carr criticised the belief that voters overwhelmingly supported higher taxes for better services and the “anti-enterprise” flavour of Shorten’s “top end of town” rhetoric. Pretty much what many of News’s papers argued.

Voters are smarter than journ­alists think. They were right on climate­ and Adani. They know Australia, with 1.3 per cent of global CO2 emissions, can’t change the climate. They support the aspirat­ion that is anathema to the public service culture of the ABC.

And on franking credits they knew Labor was just wrong. Franking credits are a refund for tax paid by a company to remove double taxation. Paying refunds to people who pay no tax is not a subsidy­. And self-funded retirees on low incomes were the big losers. Rich superannuants mostly do pay tax because they have investments in property and shares outside their super. The ABC should have understood this.

At least it has a journalist as chairwoman now and the era of MBA chairmen and MDs afraid to discuss content is over. Ita Buttrose needs to act like the editor she is. A good place to start would be trying to align ABC news values with community values. Less campaigning on gender and environmental issues and more on living standards. More about religious freedom and less condemnation of Judaeo-Christian values.

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 May, 2019

Former US vice president Al Gore will lead a three-day climate change lecture in Queensland - and you'll be paying for the venue

Former US vice president Al Gore is set to visit Queensland to lecture students about climate change - but it will come at a cost to the taxpayers.

Mr Gore will speak at the Minister's Climate Change event in Brisbane from June 5 to 7.

The event comes at a cost to taxpayers with the Brisbane Convention Centre hire and one project co-ordinator costing about $142,000 and being charged to the Queensland Government, the Courier-Mail reported.

State Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch said the Queensland Government was supporting the climate leadership training by providing funding for the venue and a Brisbane-based Climate Reality Project manager.

Mr Gore, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, once commanded a $100,000 speaking fee, ABC reported.

The three-day event was set to feature an appearance by Labor leader Bill Shorten had he won the Federal Election.

Mr Gore is opposed to the Adani coal mine, which is due to operate in Queensland. 'The Adani mine doesn't have its financing, I hope it never gets its financing,' Mr Gore told the Guardian in 2017. 'It's not my place to meddle with your politics, but truly, this is nuts.'

Liberal-National MP Matt Canavan said he 'welcomed' Mr Gore to Queensland.

'I hope he can hear the message of how our state’s fantastic coal creates jobs, powers the world and produces a better environment because it is cleaner,' he said.

'We Queenslanders should think about what major dam or power station we want Al Gore to target so he can help us get that going too.'

Mr Gore will host climate leadership training for between 800 and 1000 business and community leaders from across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region during the climate change event.

SOURCE  






Mother is furious after teacher THROWS OUT her child's sweet lunchbox treat because it's 'not fair' to other students

An outraged mum has sparked conversation about school lunchbox rules after her child's sweet treat was thrown out by the teacher.

Posting in an Australian budgeting group on Facebook, the Queensland-based woman asked members whether they thought it was appropriate to do this. 

'Do you think it's okay for a teacher to throw away an item of your child's lunch that you packed just because it's a "sweet" and the teacher believes it's not fair as not every other child has a sweet?' She wrote.

'When I say sweet I mean anything like a chocolate biscuit, chocolate coated muesli bar, cake, chocolate mousse etc. Regardless of whether it's fat, sugar reduced or not.'

Group members were quick to share in her anger with hundreds of commenters saying they thought the teacher was in the wrong.

Some said they should have just sent the treat home instead of throwing it in the bin.

'No. You paid for that. If the teacher is not happy, then by all means she can hold onto it and let you know why she took it,' one group member said.

'It’s never okay to throw it out! What a horrible experience for a child; we’ve gone insane when it comes to food but they cross a line when they shame a child like that,' said another.

Members agreed that although they support teaching nutrition, they think what was described in the post is 'shaming and hurtful'.

'This is not how we teach nutrition; I hate the way lunchboxes are policed now. Demonising food groups; embarrassing children,' a woman said.

Other people told the original poster to make a complaint to the school and a woman who used to work in a school office said teachers can advise but they cannot throw out food.

She added that it isn't up to teachers to police children's lunchboxes and suggested the mother put a note in the child's lunchbox to that teacher advising the same.

SOURCE  






Election result should force Labor to rethink its climate change policies

The Coalition’s stunning re-election victory is obviously a triumph for Prime Minister Scott Morrison. His campaign strategy of making economic management and the Labor Party’s big-target, big-taxing, transformative agenda the key election issues was a spectacular success.

Labor did not win the seats it was expected to, and needed to, to form government, in Victoria, Western Sydney, across Queensland, or in Western Australia.

Tax policy appears to have played a decisive role in the outcome. Bill Shorten’s focus on promoting greater so-called “equity” through the tax system clearly failed to resonate with many mainstream voters, who rejected Labor’s proposed changes to negative gearing and franking credits as an attack on aspiration and self-reliance.

To this extent, the election result can be understood in conventional terms based on the political history of the past 50 years. Labor’s “Whitlamite” program was rejected by those middle Australians living in the suburbs and regions who were formerly known as “Howard’s battlers”.

But the result also suggests that the politics of the nation are being shaped by a new social geography. This is demonstrated, ironically, by the fate of former prime minister Tony Abbott, who lost his seat at an election that arguably vindicated the political strategy he has long promoted for the Liberal Party regarding climate change.

It was Abbott who led the Coalition to a crushing victory over Labor in 2013 by promising to “axe the carbon tax”. But when Malcolm Turnbull lost the prime ministership in August 2018, many commentators blamed his fall on an Abbott-inspired coup by the “hard-right, climate change-denying” faction of the Liberal Party.

The conventional wisdom amongst most pundits was that in a nation that had voted Yes to same-sex marriage in 2017, ditching Turnbull’s “progressive” approach to dealing with climate change had sealed the electoral fate of the government and made a Labor victory a certainty.

This view appeared to be vindicated when, after Turnbull resigned from Parliament, the Liberals lost the by-election in his formerly blue-ribbon safe seat of Wentworth in Sydney’s harbourside inner eastern suburbs. The victor was independent Kerryn Phelps, who campaigned hard – with the assistance of left-wing activist group GetUp! – on the need for action on climate change.

Abbott has now met the same fate. After 25 years in Parliament, he has lost his formerly safe seat of Warringah to Zali Steggall, another GetUp!-backed independent candidate zealously demanding “real action” on climate policy.

As in Wentworth (which the Liberals will struggle to regain) affluent former Liberal voters who live in harbourside parts of Warringah such as Manly and Mosman have turned against the man who they condemn for strangling Australia’s response to climate change.

But what the election result has comprehensively shown is that neither Warringah nor Wentworth is representative of vast swathes of the rest of the nation, especially on climate policy. Wealthy voters who can easily pay higher electricity prices can literally afford to treat climate change as a moral issue requiring action regardless of the cost, and to thereby treat the election as a referendum on the issue.

But these sentiments were clearly not shared across the wider electorate. The centre-piece of Labor’s transformative agenda – its 50 per cent renewable energy target and 45 per cent emission reduction polices – did not translate into the election-swinging advantage in the key seats that pundits anticipated.

In fact, these policies almost certainly proved a liability, given that Morrison’s focus on economic management heavily targeted Bill Shorten’s repeated failure to explain the cost of his energy policies – a point the Prime Minister effectively drove home during the leaders’ debates.

Moreover, Labor’s climate change stance was undoubtedly influential in regional Queensland, where the equivocal attitude Labor displayed to the Adani mine project turned off voters concerned about mining jobs and the long-term future of the coal industry. The overall closeness of the election result suggests that the nation remains divided over climate policy.

But having staked so much on this issue, Labor’s election loss can only be viewed as a repudiation of its “progressive” approach.

Since the recently departed Bob Hawke’s fourth and final election victory in 1990, the Labor Party has only won two federal elections in its own right: the 1993 GST election and the 2007 WorkChoices election.

In both cases, Labor’s victory heavily relied on the political mistakes of the Coalition over tax and industrial relations.

Otherwise, Labor’s near 30-year quest to find an election-winning agenda of its own that can form the basis of Hawke-style sustained electoral success has produced a meagre political harvest.

Unless Labor is prepared to rethink the political mistakes that led it to support climate policies that have greater appeal to well-off elites of Wentworth and Warringah than to the battlers of Penrith and Picton, its electoral prospects will remain bleak.

SOURCE  






Unions now question their "Change the Rules" campaign

ACTU secretary Sally McManus has acknowledged the union movement’s Change the Rules campaign was “overwhelmed” by voter concern about Labor’s tax agenda, and the strategy will be subject to an external review headed by former Queensland ALP secretary Evan Moorhead.

Ms McManus said the ACTU spent $10 million in the lead-up to the federal election, including $6.5m on advertising during the campaign.

A meeting of union national secretaries yesterday signed off on Mr Moorhead conducting the review­ of the campaign, which was criticised by ex-ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons.

Ms McManus defended the two-year campaign, insisting the result would have been a lot worse for Labor without unions mobilising across key seats.

“The campaign is more than a slogan,’’ she said. “There was a very clear agenda about secure jobs and pay rises and we were prosecuting that for two years, not just during the election period.

“It’s not possible to say something had no impact because seats didn’t change. What would have happened if the campaign wasn’t run? Would the vote in term of union members and working-class people be even worse in a whole lot of those other seats, because in the end it was actually still a close election. It could have been a wipeout if it weren’t for our campaign.”

Ms McManus said unions had 50,000 conversations with un­decided voters in targeted ­marginal seats, and 70 per cent of them “committed to voting for parties that would change the rules”, although that number fell away as the election approached.

“We’ll have a review of our campaign and think really carefully about it,’’ she said. “In order to win big change that we need, there does need to be changes to the law.

“Of course, workers and unions will continue to campaign in workplaces and people who are in unions­ will have far less problems with secure jobs and pay, as we know. But if we want big changes to the country you do need to change the labour laws and the only way to do that is electing a government that will do it.”

Ms McManus said she had spoken­ to more than 100 people since the election and felt the Change the Rules campaign got “overwhelmed by the issue of tax”.

“In an election where cost of living is such a big issue because wages are not keeping up with the cost of living, any thought that there’d be an extra cost was not just a driving force but the overwhelming reason why those people­ who made up their minds in the last couple of weeks were not going to risk that,’’ she said.

“It was very hard to overcome. Of course, Labor has a tax agenda and the tax agenda didn’t affect most people, and actually most working people were going to be better off with the tax cuts.

“But that failed to cut through in the face of the death tax that didn’t exist, obviously, along with people with investment properties still not realising that (the withdrawal of negative gearing tax concessions) is going to be grandfathered.”

She said the constant repetition that Labor was going to “tax you to death was what was in the forefront of people’s minds”.

Blue-collar and white-collar union officials had difficulty explaini­ng Labor’s tax agenda when confronted with concerns about the policies.

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 May, 2019

James Cook University head in trouble over firing of Prof. Ridd

Ridd is an honest scientist who had the daring to call out fake Greenie science at the university.  So they hate him with a passion.  In an old, old strategy, they thought to protect the Greenie crooks by attacking the whistleblower

If the vice-chancellor of James Cook University thinks she can keep a low profile, she is mistaken. Sandra Harding’s management of the sacking of physics professor Peter Ridd is under the microscope for good reason. The buck stops at the top. And much is at stake, with JCU facing international reputational damage over the scandal, huge legal costs, cost-cutting pressures from falling student numbers and staff discontent.

“The bottom line is Sandra Harding should go,” says a former member of the university’s 15-member governing council. “It’s in the interest of everybody that she retires.” Speaking to The Weekend Australian this week, the former council member says if Harding doesn’t retire, she should be sacked.

Ridd, an esteemed physics professor respected by students and staff, was sacked by JCU using a bogus claim of uncollegial behaviour that was rejected by the Federal Circuit Court last month. He questioned the quality of science about coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef. JCU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending its right to sack Ridd, rather than encouraging a healthy debate about the claims he made.

So much for JCU being a bastion of academic freedom in the search of the truth. “Ridd is a decent man,” says the former council member who has had a long association with JCU, adding that Ridd did not want this fight. “He never set out to hurt anybody. But he did believe in what he was saying, he had evidence, and it’s proper to call out your colleagues if that is needed, to get to the truth. JCU took the nuclear option against Ridd, and that was crazy.”

Sacking Ridd was squarely a management issue for the VC, but the former council member says that JCU’s governing council should now be far more involved given the fallout from this debacle.

Still in close contact with JCU staff, including academics, the former council member says staff are upset and “whether or not they agree with Ridd is a separate matter. This court case probably cost the university a million bucks, which is money JCU cannot afford.”

The Weekend Australian has been told JCU is cutting about $20 million each year over its forward estimates due to financial pressures because the university is not meeting its own student enrolment targets. The former JCU council member confirms that is “one of the reasons why the staff across campus are very unhappy”.

“They know that there will be further redundancies coming. Those redundancies have already been chosen, but the staff haven’t been told who they are.”

According to the ex-member, the other reason the governing council should be more involved is that “the sacking of Ridd is being watched around the world. It is damaging JCU’s reputation in an area where JCU leads the world. In marine science, JCU is the top dog. To have that reputation damaged is extraordinarily worrying.”

The Weekend Australian also has been told JCU’s governing council has received briefings but otherwise has had little hands-on involvement in the Ridd matter. Given that council members have fiduciary duties similar to board members, some are asking why the governing council is not more involved with issues of reputational damage to JCU and the big bucks spent on court battles with Ridd.

The Weekend Australian sought an interview with Harding. She declined. A spokesman provided some answers by email to a list of questions, and a link to a statement by JCU provost Chris Cocklin after the Federal Circuit Court found against the university last month. The Weekend Australian also rang and left a message with JCU chancellor Bill Tweddell, who chairs the council. He did not return the call.

Though Harding has tried to keep her head down, the focus will remain on her. And it is not just her handling of the Ridd case that is causing consternation. “One of JCU’s current council members has been precluded from taking part in any council discussion involving Ridd because they reckon he has a conflict of interest because he knows one of the lawyers acting for Ridd,” says an insider.

“That’s not a conflict of interest,” he says, clearly frustrated by the erosion of council oversight, adding that “the council member didn’t want to rock the boat, so he has agreed not to attend meetings when the matter is discussed. She (Harding) might fight the battle, but she won’t win the war and there was never a need for the war in the first place. (JCU’s) campus is a very unhappy place right now.”

All this when Harding, in her 60s, might be planning one more career move. Her term as JCU boss expires at the end of 2021. She has been mentioned as a future Queensland governor. Some say she has her sights on one of Australia’s grander Group of Eight universities. But the controversy over her handling of Ridd won’t make either promotion easy.

“This is a significant bump in that road to a bigger and better position,” says one insider, who has been involved in the governance of JCU.

According to the former member of JCU’s governing council, Ridd has more support on campus than he realises, including from fellow academics. Something for Harding to keep in mind.

This month, Ridd told The Weekend Australian that none of his colleagues had defended him publicly. He suggested the need for “kamikaze academics”, academics who are older and established enough to resign in the noble cause of defending academic freedom. A few days later, JCU adjunct associate professor Sheilagh Cronin resigned from her unpaid position at the university. “After reading that, I thought ‘that’s me’,” she told The Weekend Australian this week.

Cronin wrote to Harding, resigning from her role at JCU and outlining her concerns over Ridd’s treatment: “I believe his treatment by yourself and your board is completely contrary to the philosophy of open discussion and debate that should be at the heart of every university. It saddens me that the reputation of JCU is being damaged by the injustice of Professor Ridd’s case.”

Cronin told The Weekend Australian she is also concerned about the scale of money spent on litigation against Ridd, and more still if JCU appeals.

“When the federal government gives us money, we are very closely scrutinised and so we should be. These are precious dollars that could be used elsewhere,” says Cronin, a doctor who has overseen a $23m budget to provide health services through the Western Queensland Primary Health Network. It is the same at JCU, she says, where the governing council has oversight duties.

“I’m not looking for a row with JCU, but I think there is an important principle of openness and transparency when you’re handling taxpayer dollars.”

Cronin is troubled by the lack of introspection at the highest levels of JCU: “They’re putting all the blame on him and they aren’t looking at themselves.”

Cronin has not received a response from Harding.

A few weeks ago, former JCU dean of science John Nicol wrote to each of JCU’s council members expressing his concern that “the university’s reputation as an honest broker in the field of marine science has been trashed”.

“I am writing to express my concern and disappointment at the worldwide unmitigated adverse publicity, which the university management has brought to bear on James Cook University’s fine reputation, through its inaction in ensuring the integrity of all of its research output and its un-conscienable (sic) treatment of Professor Peter Ridd who sought to encourage the university to restore such integrity.”

Nicol concluded his letter to council members as follows: “James Cook University now needs your direct intervention and support.” He has not received a response to his concerns from any council members.

The Weekend Australian asked Harding whether, given the dismal fallout from the Ridd saga, JCU intends to commit to the set of principles about academic freedom recommended by former High Court chief justice Robert French in his recent report to the Morrison government.

Harding had nothing to say. A spokesman referred back to the provost’s April statement, adding this: “JCU strongly supports the principle of academic freedom and notes that the French review found there was … no evidence, on the basis of recent events, which would answer the pejorative description of a ‘free speech crisis’ on campus.”

Pulling a single line from the lengthy French review has further disappointed Harding’s critics. “Harding is making a huge mistake in the way she’s managing this whole issue,” the former council member says of the university’s attempt to justify the Ridd debacle and fob off the French review.

French appealed to university vice-chancellors to embed a culture of academic freedom on their campuses: “A culture powerfully predisposed to the exercise of freedom of speech and academic freedom is ultimately more effective than the most tightly drawn rule. A culture not so disposed will undermine the most emphatic state of principles.”

French’s recommendation for a model code of academic freedom was released by the Morrison government barely two weeks before JCU’s attempt to sack Ridd was rejected by a court at first instance.

Harding might re-read the whole 300-page French review before deciding to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting the respected physics professor in another round of expensive and damaging litigation.

SOURCE  







Australia: Worker wins unfair dismissal case after refusing to hand over biometric data

Privacy rights cited

Most of us don’t think twice about using our fingerprints — but Jeremy Lee isn’t most people.

The Queensland sawmill worker was so passionate about protecting his biometric data he refused to accept a new security process which used employee’s fingerprints to sign on and off at his company, Superior Wood.

He was sacked for his stance last February, after being given a series of verbal and written warnings.

Mr Lee suggested a compromise which would allow him to keep his job, but also hold onto the ownership of his biometric data, which was refused.

The Queensland man ended up losing an unfair dismissal case when it was first heard by the Fair Work Commission last year, with a commissioner at the time ruling Superior Wood’s policy was “not unjust or unreasonable” because it improved workplace safety, the efficiency of the payroll system and that the company “had the right to manage its affairs”.

But during the entire battle, Mr Lee argued the policy was a breach of the Privacy Act, claiming he owned his own biometric data, which he considered to be “sensitive personal information”.

He said his workplace was not entitled to that personal information, and that refusing to follow the policy was not a valid reason for his dismissal.

Mr Lee decided to appeal the decision — and represent himself.

And on May 1, the commission eventually ruled in his favour, finding he had been unfairly dismissed.

Jeremy Lee represented himself — and won. Picture: iStock
Jeremy Lee represented himself — and won. Picture: iStockSource:istock

In documents seen by news.com.au, the commission ruled Superior Wood “did not have a valid reason for the dismissal which related to Mr Lee’s capacity or conduct”.

“ … on balance we find that Mr Lee’s dismissal was unjust. It was unjust because Mr Lee was not guilty of the conduct alleged,” the documents state.

“As the direction was unlawful he was entitled to refuse to follow it. Mr Lee was unfairly dismissed.”

As for what happens next, the case is being referred to Commissioner Simpson to decide “what remedy, if any, should be ordered”.

But Mr Lee told RN’s The Law Report he was already happy with the win, after claiming his company had “tried to coerce” him into something he wasn’t comfortable with.

He said he did not have a police record or any other reason to fear using his fingerprint, but that he was simply concerned about the misuse of his personal data.

“If someone else has control of my biometric data they can use it for their own purposes — purposes that benefit them, not me. That is a misuse,” he told the ABC.

“My objection was that I own it. You cannot take it. If someone wants to get it or take it they have to get my consent.”

The case is the first unfair dismissal decision of its kind in this country, and one that’s likely to pop up again in future.

“It shows that employment law is at a crossroads with technology, and these kinds of issues are going to continue to come up as technology rapidly advances,” Shine Lawyers’ employment law expert Will Barsby told news.com.au.

“We are in an era where we are paying for a coffee with a mobile phone and we open our phone using our fingerprint, so it stands to reason we will see the same kind of tech advances in workplaces soon.

“Mr Lee’s concerns are genuine as we have seen so many hacks where personal data was misused.”

But Mr Barsby said the case did not actually set a legal precedent, as it was based around whether it was unreasonable to dismiss the worker for not complying with the request for his fingerprint.

“The case doesn’t change the general rule that an employer can dismiss an employee for not complying with a reasonable and lawful direction,” he said.

“Dismissal cases generally fall on their own facts, in this case the employer was not able to demonstrate compliance with the Australian Privacy Principles. There had been no process under the requirements to obtain an employee’s consent.”

SOURCE  







Christians help hold the centre

Scott Morrison’s re-election illustrates how God moves in mysterious ways, and proves the fallibility of pollsters and the ABC and the former Fairfax, now Nine, commissariat, which is divorced from the practicalities and concerns experienced by the quiet Australians.

While the ALP’s failure to cost its climate change policy, its massive increase in taxation, and its threat to the living standards of older Australians were significant issues explaining last weekend’s result, freedom of religion and freedom of expression also played important parts.

Although not directly related to the election campaign, Israel Folau’s unjust and shameful treatment for having the courage to defend his faith and to put his commitment to God above personal gain signalled religious freedom as a vital issue.

It can hardly surprise that, when a survey carried out by The Australian asked: “Should Rugby Australia sack Israel Folau over his social media posts?”, out of 21,700 respondents 89 per cent stated the player should not have his contract terminated.

For the more than 12 million Christians across Australia, Folau being victimised demonstrated that religious freedom was threatened as things stood; under any Labor-Greens coalition those freedoms would cease to exist.

The ALP, while stating it was opposed to appointing a religious freedom commissioner to the Australian Human Rights Commission, signalled that once in government it would appoint an LGBTIQ commissioner.

The thoroughly rejected Bill Shorten team also intended to increase funding to the AHRC and to further undermine freedom of speech by strengthening section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Add the ALP’s acknowledgment that legislating for same-sex marriage “wasn’t the end of the road” and that an ALP government would implement an even more radical gender and sexuality agenda, and it is clear why so many Christian churches and organisations successfully urged a return of the Morrison government.

The Greens’ plan to scrap the commonwealth’s National School Chaplaincy Program and replace it with the radical, neo-Marxist-inspired Safe Schools program telling children gender is fluid and limitless further damaged Shorten’s hopes.

Then there was the deep concern about Labor’s intention to remove the exemptions religious schools and educational bodies have in relation to who they enrol and who they employ.

The ALP policy A Fair Go for LGBTIQ Australians, taken to last weekend’s election, stated: “A Shorten government will amend the Sex Discrimination Act to remove the exemptions that permit religious schools to discriminate against students and staff on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity.”

Faith-based groups such as Christian Schools Australia campaigned hard on the issue, explaining to school communities across the country that the policies of the ALP and Greens would deny the existing freedom schools enjoyed.

Look at those Queensland electorates north of Brisbane now in Coalition hands; voters there knew that a left-of-centre secular government would deny the right of Christians and faith-based schools and organisations to remain true to their beliefs. It helps explain the election outcome.

Of course, the ALP’s failure to support the Adani coalmine was a factor, but given the high number of evangelical Christians living in Queensland it is very clear that religious freedom and the fact Scott Morrison lives a strong and committed Christian faith influenced votes.

Only the Coalition guaranteed religious freedom. In a letter to the head of Christian Schools Australia, the Prime Minister wrote: “I believe there is no more fundamental right than the right to decide what you believe, or do not believe.”

While hardly as significant as John Hewson’s inability to quantify the impact of the GST on a cake, or Mark Latham’s handshake with John Howard, Shorten’s crude criticism of Morrison for not denying Folau’s belief that homosexuals would go to hell made clear the fact religion and Christianity were election issues.

Not all Australians are religious but there is still a strong sense that it is wrong to attack someone personally because of their beliefs — and Shorten’s actions reinforced doubts many already had about his character and judgment.

Similar to the Brexit result in Britain and Donald Trump’s success in the US, the re-election of the centre-right Morrison government signals an important shift in the culture wars.

While there’s no doubt that the cultural Left’s political correctness movement is still a force, so it is clear that middle Australia has reasserted itself.

That so many ALP voters in traditional Labor seats deserted the party suggests that if the Left is ever to be a political force again it needs to moderate extremists more concerned with identity politics, victimhood and the politics of envy.

SOURCE  






Social media doesn't equal votes

The impact of social media on politics is a contentious topic. Some argue social media harms political discourse, journalism, and the public. The ACCC even discusses this in their preliminary report into digital platforms.

But, social media popularity did not translate into electoral success in the Australian election.

The ABC’s Hidden Campaign team found, before the election, the candidates with the most social media interactions were Fraser Anning and Pauline Hanson.

But Anning has lost his Senate seat. And, although One Nation has increased its share of the vote, the best they can hope for is one Senate seat. Their popularity on social media has not translated into success at the ballot box. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, those who are interacting with politicians on social media may not even be voters. They could be overseas, non-citizens, or otherwise ineligible to vote.
But most importantly, politicians’ social media accounts provide the public with an insight into who they are and what they believe. And after seeing what Anning was about, the Australian public said … no thank you.

This is free speech and democracy in action. We do not need to censor unpalatable, or even downright disgusting views online. We put all these ideas out in the open so that we can make an informed decision.

Anning’s Facebook posts attracted derision and disgust from the majority of Australians.

There are certainly negative aspects of social media. Misinformation and propaganda can be spread easily — but traditional media has also suffered this problem.  And, outrageous and offensive commentary often receives the most shares and comments, thus boosting the popularity of these posts.

Yes, some appalling things are said on social media. But Australians are mostly savvy enough to leave those things festering in the virtual world cyberspace, and not bring them into real life.

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 May, 2019

Bettina Arndt on the recent election

Bettina is a one-person campaign against feminist lies

Some people reading this will be unhappy after the recent election result, but I feel Australian men have dodged a bullet in avoiding a Shorten government.

Many of Labor’s policies on gender issues were extremely alarming, starting with Shorten’s promise last year of “no more budgets for blokes.” There were so many issues where Labor was promoting further discrimination in favour of women. I was amused by Labor’s recent promise to introduce gender neutral resumes on job applications in the public service. Obviously, their policy advisers didn’t know the public service had already conducted research on gender neutral resumes. They assumed this would help women but, in fact, it was men who were advantaged by this move - proving there’s now systematic prejudice favouring women. So, the public service dropped the idea and was pretty funny to see it re-surface during this election.

Most frightening for me was Tanya Plibersek’s promise to remove funding from universities that failed to do more about the rape crisis, which meant bullying them into adjudicating rape cases on campus.

Of course, it's true that the Coalition has also been very keen to kowtow to the feminists. I was disappointed last year when government ministers reached out to me seeking information about male victims of domestic violence but then caved into pressure from the domestic violence industry and awarded huge amounts of more funding only to female victims.

Perhaps the solid support the Coalition received from ‘quiet Australians’ will encourage the government towards more even-handed policies rather than pandering to the small, noisy feminist lobby. I was encouraged to see ScoMo on International Women's Day saying that: "We want to see women rise. But we don't want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse." Maybe one day he will dare to name men as the group increasingly worse off.

From: bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au





Leftist Queensland Premier backflips on Adani coal mine - after Labor's obstruction of the mine cost them the Federal election

The Queensland Labor Premier has demanded action over the Adani coalmine after Labor's federal election defeat.

Annastacia Palaszczuk criticised her own government's delays in approving Australia's biggest mine.

She said federal Labor's loss of core support in the Sunshine State has given her a 'wake-up call.'

Traditional Labor voters deserted their party at the ballot box after Bill Shorten vowed to change the nation and take 'real action' on climate change.

Before the federal election, Ms Palaszczuk promised there would be no political interference in the decision to approve the Adani mine.

But on Wednesday she stood before cameras in a hard hat in Mackay and demanded a meeting between Adani and her own government ministers.

'The community is fed up with the processes, I know I'm fed up with the processes, I know my local members are fed up with the processes,' Ms Palaszczuk said.

'We need some certainty, and we need some timeframes. Enough is enough… the federal election was definitely a wake-up call to everyone.'

Ms Palaszczuk said she understood there was frustration in the community about the lack of a decision on the mine. 'I think everyone's had a gutful of this, frankly,' she said.

The Adani coalmine will provide 1,500 jobs in regional Queensland but building work is on hold pending approval from the regulator, Queensland's Environment Department.  

A Queensland government representative will meet with Adani on Thursday to thrash out a timeline for the Carmichael mine approval process in an attempt to resolve delays that caused a voter backlash.

Ms Palaszczuk intervened to order her state co-ordinator-general to meet with Adani and the independent regulator to fix a timeline and deadline for a decision by Friday. 

Two outstanding environmental management plans, involving the site's Black-Throated Finch habitat and complex groundwater sources, have contributed to delays.

Adani Australia chief executive Lucas Dow said if approvals were not complete within two weeks then the meeting would prove to be just another government 'delaying tactic'.

CFMEU National President Tony Maher welcomed a clear timeline for the project which he said had significant community support on the grounds it would create local jobs.

He said he wanted Adani to confirm how many permanent full-time jobs the mine would generate.

Mackay Conservation Group coordinator Peter McCallum said Queensland's water and wildlife are not put at risk by the project.

SOURCE  






New ALP leader is no Bob Hawke, despite the pretence

Anthony Albanese’s promise to end class-war politics if he becomes Labor leader lacks any shred of credibility.  Albanese has always embraced the politics of envy and class-war rhetoric — these are the watchwords of Labor’s hard left faction which he leads.

The notion that Albanese would lead Labor to the centre ground of politics with a cooperative relationship with business is hard to fathom. It is just not who he is.

Just ask the inner-city hard left faction party members he represents who proudly wear their “I Fight Tories” T-shirts. This is Albanese’s personal motto. It has been embraced by the hard left faction.

“Tory” is a class-loaded term to describe the British Conservative Party that has no relevance when describing the Liberal or National parties. This is class warfare reduced to T-shirt slogans.

Labor has to be about more than just fighting their opponents. The party has to actually believe in things. At the election, Labor suffered huge swings against it in seats where there are large cohorts of blue-collar voters and aspirational middle-class voters. These are Labor’s forgotten people and Labor must work out how to get them back.

It is not surprising that Albanese has reached for Bob Hawke’s mantle. He says he wants to lead the party in the Hawke tradition with pro-growth policies based on consensus between business and unions while bringing the country together. Well, who doesn’t?

The problem is that at Labor Party conferences through the 1980s and ‘90s, Albanese and his left faction opposed many of the Hawke government’s economic reforms. As Young Labor president, Albanese often criticised Hawke and Paul Keating. When Labor went into opposition in 1996, many in the hard left faction called for their legacy to be junked.

It is no wonder that Hawke and Keating — and also Gough Whitlam — voted for Bill Shorten rather than Albanese to lead Labor in 2013. Albanese is just not in their mould.

Albanese says he is running for the Labor leadership without doing any factional deals or owing any favours to anyone. Perhaps.

Albanese’s supporters say his great strength is his authenticity. Well, he just lost it by pretending to be something that he never has been: an acolyte of Hawke and Keating.

SOURCE  






How the Left gave a leg-up to its ideological adversary

The Left's vociferous attacks on Morrison backfired.  What the Left thought was condemnation sounded rather good to a lot of people -- weak on climate change, for instance

Addressing elated Liberal supporters on ­Saturday night, the Prime Minister said with a wink: “I have always believed in miracles.” But miracles took Scott Morrison only so far. Political enemies helped lift his government to victory; the rest is the Prime Minister’s success.

By God, it was an unequal political playing field. The groups from the Left-Green-Labor side of politics lined up against the Morrison government — Labor, a cashed-up GetUp, law-breaking union leaders, Sally McManus’s change-the-rules campaign, the sons of the rich, from disgruntled Alex Turnbull to deluded Simon Holmes a Court, and many at the ABC, Nine and its former Fairfax newspapers — take a bow. You helped Morrison win.

Political opponents came after his faith, and he won anyway. A Guardian Australia journalist warned us to “watch abortion rights in Australia go the way of the US” — that nutty hysteria will be a fillip to the Morrison government. Keep it coming.

His spectacular re-election, against the odds, polls and predictions, has sobering political lessons. First, let’s dispose of the ABC’s election night fable. Barrie Cassidy, Andrew Probyn and Laura Tingle lined up to announce that an opposition cannot win government in Australia with a “transformative agenda”. Cry me a river. It’s not the existence of policy that destroyed Labor; it lost because it sidled up to voters with tone-deaf policies.

Bill Shorten’s class war did not work in working-class electorates he needed. The fundamental realignment of modern politics, with conservatives better understanding the working class, confirms what John Howard knew: Australians are aspirational and eager to rise from the lower strata of society. Dismissing the rich is dismissing the ambitions of the poor.

Chris Bowen, take another bow. Vote for someone else, the opposition Treasury spokesman said to hardworking Australians who have saved to be self-sufficient in retirement, not a weight on the public purse. It was his version of that career-clipping Hillary Clinton moment when she told deplorables to rack off. They did.

Older Australians abandoned Labor from Braddon and Bass to Lindsay. But it was not only the grey vote that spurned Labor. Those ­saving for their own old age were sent a message that they would be punished if they got too comfortable.

Shorten and Bowen’s Robin Hood economics of redistribution failed because millions of Australians aspire to succeed. Even those stuck on welfare understand that mocking the rich as “the top end of town” is stupid economics — their taxes sustain the social welfare state.

Shorten could not see that whipping up class war is un-Australian. It was political suicide to hark back to 1972, not 1983. Perhaps the death last week of reforming leader Bob Hawke reminded voters that Whitlam-channelling Shorten was not in that league.

Learning nothing from Saturday night, Labor’s Andrew Leigh said: “We hoped it’d be 1972 but it turned out to be 1969.” Will the Labor Party, under a new leader from its Left faction, say Anthony Albanese or Tanya Plibersek, return with more dodgy Whitlam economics next time? Good luck with that.

We were told, over and again, this was a climate change election. So it was. And those elites who can afford sky-high energy prices, blackouts and Teslas lost. Morrison was mocked for bringing a lump of coal into parliament but Saturday was a firm nod to his instincts. That black rock symbolises jobs, lower energy bills for the poorest Australians, flourishing trade and cheap, reliable energy to domestic businesses, big and small.

The story of the night happened in a seat the Liberals did not win. Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon suffered a swing of more than 14 per cent in Hunter in regional NSW — a bombshell symbol that a religious fervour about climate change, 50 per cent renewable energy targets and Labor’s loathing of coal is political poison far away from swanky, big-city suburbs.

How good is Queensland? Morrison said it on Saturday night: a lesson to remember, as the sunshine state delivered a swing of more than 4 per cent to the Coalition. Election night was not meant to end with a swing to Peter Dutton in Dickson.

Take a bow, too, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Her shenanigans over the Adani coalmine drew a thin black line between a government that cares about people’s jobs and one that doesn’t.

On that score, GetUp deserves extra credit for Morrison’s win. Those rowdy left-wing activists won one battle, turfing out Tony Abbott, but lost the war with climate change zealotry. And by removing Abbott, GetUp gave Abbott a warrior’s mantle.

“I’d rather be a loser than a quitter,” he said, delivering a classy, dignified speech that told Liberals to look forward. It was the telling contrast to Malcolm Turnbull’s resignation speech last year, full of excuses, anger and self-delusion.

Another blessing from election night: Turnbull’s sulky narrative that Australia would punish the Liberals at the federal election for the “madness” of removing him has been resolutely refuted, an amusing footnote in Liberal history.

On that note, Turnbull helped make Morrison a winner. His ­removal made way for a leader who voters understood and who understood voters.

Morrison described the win as a victory for “those Australians who have worked hard every day; they have their dreams, they have their aspirations — to get a job, to get an apprenticeship, to start a business, to meet someone amazing. To start a family, to buy a home, to provide the best you can for your kids. To save for your retirement and to ­ensure that when you’re in your retirement that you can enjoy it because you’ve worked hard for it.”

Morrison rises to the ranks of Liberal hero because he understands these quiet Australians better than his opponents.

SOURCE  






Political, media class out of step with voters

The election result proves, yet again, that mainstream voters are smarter than the political pundits. The green Left drift of the political/media class continues to pull them away from the concerns and wisdom of voters.

Think of how many “experts” have told you since the change of leadership last year and right up until election day itself that we would see an inevitable switch to Labor, a win so emphatic that many commentators said it would be a “landslide.” Even the day before the election they were framing the death of Bob Hawke as an omen for the coronation of Bill Shorten — it was warped.

Think of the media games played to support Labor. Channel 10, the ABC and other green Left media companies pushed the so-called “Watergate” scandal yet failed to interrogate Bill Shorten’s uncosted climate and energy policies. Think of the Canberra press gallery looking at polls showing a very tight election and extrapolating some sort of uniform national swing that was going to take out Coalition seats in Queensland and New South Wales. This was wishful thinking.

Those of us who always argued the Coalition was a chance to win did so for two reasons: first, the polls always showed a tight contest when allowances were made for variations across the nation, such as the impact of Adani in Queensland, and the ever-present “shy Tory” factor; and second, we had faith in the intelligence of mainstream voters who were not going to meekly accept an insultingly simplistic and implausible policy agenda from Labor.

Labor proposed a vast plan of increased taxation at a time of economic peril and dressed it up in old-fashioned class warfare rhetoric — underestimating the public. And while the ABC and most press gallery journalists might have been gormless enough to argue that uncosted climate policies were worth a punt (complete with absurd suggestions that emissions reductions in Australia would improve the climate while global emissions continue to rise) voters were smarter than that.

It is extraordinary that political pundits, year after year, call serious national debates like a horse-race where public polls are the steeds. As I have written previously, if political assessments were as simple as looking at two-party preferred polling and calling a winner, then we hardly need experts to provide analysis.

That is why the press gallery were wrong about Tony Abbott’s chances when he assumed the Liberal leadership, wrong about Kevin Rudd’s tenure, wrong about Julia Gillard’s prospects, wrong about what would happen to the government under Malcolm Turnbull and then wrong about what would happen when he was overthrown. Do you spot a pattern? They always underestimate conservatives and get overly excited about the liberal Left.

Too many in the media have lost touch with the people they serve; and we don’t even need to ask which cohort makes the wiser assessments. When you look at how conservative voters are demonised on social media, mocked by the public broadcasters and marginalised in political debate, is it any wonder that opinion polls consistently underestimate support for right-of-centre parties?

People tend not to disclose their right-of-centre voting intentions at barbecues and footy matches because they know it can invite the stamp of the devil on their forehead. And it has long been clear this “Tory shyness” extends to responses to opinion pollsters — on Friday night on Sky News, as news came through of a slight drift in Newspoll, I suggested this factor provided palpable hope for the Coalition.

While the green Left whip themselves into a lather of self-confidence and hubris based on mutual reassurance in their Canberra and media bubbles, mainstream voters quietly consider the issues. If you only watched the ABC and read Nine Media newspapers, you could not have the information required to make an informed decision, let alone be exposed to realistic analysis. If you relied on Twitter, you would be expecting Richard Di Natale to form government.

At a Wentworth polling booth on election day I heard a Kerryn Phelps volunteer spruiking a message that echoed Labor’s climate spiel; “Vote Kerryn Phelps and save the planet.” Clearly some people will go for this sort of mindless sloganeering, especially when so many commentators fail to expose its inanity. But, crucially, while it might go unquestioned by much of the media, a majority of the voting public are never going to be quite that stupid.

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 May, 2019

Bullets dodged, stars aligned as nation’s outlook is transformed

Two dramatic events have transformed Australia. First, we have dodged an incredibly dangerous bullet, and second a remarkable set of bullish economic stars are suddenly aligned. I learned yesterday that one of Australia’s largest home builders was planning a substantial reduction in its work force next week had Bill Shorten won the election.

Others would have quickly followed and, indeed, some home builders had already started their ALP-driven retrenchment program. Those mass sackings would have triggered a steep decline.

The simple fact was that for the last six months very few home sites were sold and the home building industry was facing a deep slump in early 2020, and adjustments had been made in advance.

At such a time the negative gearing clamps would have been catastrophic. There will still need to be some staff cuts among builders because the pipeline is empty but they will not be nearly as savage.

Thanks to Australia’s more than one million retirees and the pressure from Adani, Scott Morrison is now the prime minister in the 46th parliament.

The truth is that Scott Morrison should have acted earlier but so too should have the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

Back in January the arrogant APRA organisation was declaring that its seven per cent interest rate serviceability floor was “intended to be permanent”.

It was clearly out of touch with the real world. Now it understands the looming crisis and has replaced its “permanent” cap with a 2.5 per cent buffer above borrowing rates which affectively increases bank lending by about 8 per cent.

Many journalists, including myself, had been urging the Morrison government before the election to explain to APRA the damage the regulator’s credit squeeze was causing. No doubt had APRA had not acted this week the Morrison government would have put incredible pressure on it to ease the credit squeeze.

But suddenly the pending disaster has been averted and it changes the outlook for the nation.

The share market boost reflects the transformed outlook and the increased value of franking credits.

While there are plenty of hazards ahead just look at what has happened: APRA now understands what is taking place in the economy and has weakened the credit squeeze; negative gearing will now remain; around 1.1 million battling retires won’t have to shell out on average of $4000 each via the retirement and pensioners tax; there is a low to middle income tax cut in the pipeline; interest rates will be cut; the fear among small businesses that wages were set to go through the roof has been removed and among the banks there is a greater willingness to lend.

Assuming the government carries out its unfair contract promises, the small business tax tribunal is made to work, and the government makes sure that payments by government and most major enterprises are within 30 days, we will develop enormous momentum in the economy. With that momentum will come a whole raft of cash flow-based lending opportunities to support small and medium businesses without using their homes.

On top of all this the Morrison government’s long overdue plan to enable lower income people to buy houses on a five per cent deposit will create at least 10,000 new homes and as the loan repayments come in, if the government is smart, it will invest the proceeds in new homes so in time, instead of 10,000 new homes, there will be a much greater number generated. It’s the right policy for this time.

It is too early to see a sudden swing to people building homes and buying land but the building development industry has no doubt that there will be a substantial increase in demand.

The real estate market will not return to boom because there is still a credit squeeze but further big falls are off the table. And there will be improvement in some areas.

I have had the chance in the last 48 hours to talk to a lot of small and middle sized businesses and the phone has been running hot because of my role in the mobilisation of retirees.

Everywhere there is a feeling of incredible relief and in due course that relief will be reflected in confidence.

We still have very large infrastructure spending in Victoria and New South Wales which provides a further boost.

Part of the reason for the increased momentum is the sheer energy of the Prime Minister during the campaign. He was able to mix with a host of small businesses plus ordinary people in an attempt to infect them with his confidence.

On the question of confidence, we often hear from bankers that there is no confidence in the community, but that lack of confidence was actually created by the banks themselves, plus APRA and ASIC. Nevertheless we need to make sure that we do not go back to the unlimited credit that created the boom.

At the moment Scott Morrison is on a honeymoon and with Tony Abbott no longer in the parliament he has the freedom to cast a new environment policy if he feels it necessary and make other policy adjustments. In fact he has a blank canvas.

Finally, we all understood that the ALP’s negative gearing plan would have reduced the value of existing houses, which in turn would have affected bank lending and the willingness of people to buy houses.

What I didn’t appreciate was that a vast number of younger people had planned to buy a house to live in and had in the back of their minds that they might travel or move to another state for a time and during that time negatively gear their house.

With the Labor rules they couldn’t embrace that strategy. Accordingly they were completely taken out of the housing market. They are about to come back.

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Education policy challenges for Australia

If Scott Morrison does what he said last week he would do and reappoints Dan Tehan to the education portfolio if he won the election, then we might at last see what this minister is about.

Since last August, when Morrison appointed him after the coup against Malcolm Turnbull, Tehan has mainly kept his counsel.

He’s been most vocal in speaking up for regional universities, pressing for more revenue-generating international students to go bush. He made a mild intervention in the culture wars, appointing former chief justice Robert French to review freedom of speech in universities. And, significantly, he started a possibly far-reaching review into so-called provider category standards which could open the way to a new model of tertiary education. But that’s been about it.

The elephant in the room — how universities will be funded when the present freeze ends next year, and how the lift in demand for university places from the Costello baby boom will be met — was left unaddressed.

As the Grattan Institute’s ­Andrew Norton points out, the Morrison government needs to deal with the bulge in university-aged young people caused by the Howard government, which, at the height of the resource boom in the early 2000s, lavished money on new parents through a generous baby bonus scheme worth up to $5000.

It was then treasurer Peter Costello who urged parents to have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country.

Now another Coalition government has to deal with the fiscal consequences as the growth in the number of 18-year-olds starts rising next year and peaks in 2024.

The government’s stated plan, to index growth of university funding to the adult population of the whole country from next year, doesn’t have a hope of keeping pace with this level of demand.

To be fair, Tehan inher­ited the university funding policy and higher education was not a priority of the government’s election campaign. So he let it sit. But now he’s going to have to pick up the baton and do something.

Tehan also faces another ­related crisis. As he is well aware, Australian universities have divided into the haves and the have-nots. The generally richer institutions are getting even richer from enrolling international students and the poorer ones are often missing out on this academic equivalent of the gold rush.

Following the imposition of the Turnbull government funding freeze in late 2017, cash-strapped universities turned to inter­national students for revenue. But it’s a crowded market and some compromised on academic standards and English proficiency to win students.

Now this volatile situation, which threatens to damage Australia’s reputation, needs to be sorted out and Tehan looks like being the one in the hot seat.

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'I'll burn for you': Pentecostal PM energises Christian voters

Scott Morrison declared his election victory a “miracle,” told an interviewer he saw people as “agents of God’s love” and used a National Press Club address to promise voters “I will burn for you” - a phrase used by some Pentecostal Christians to signify working tirelessly, often for Jesus.

One of his first acts during the campaign was to allow the cameras to record him worshipping at his church, Horizon.

Mr Morrison is not the first government leader of faith (John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott were all Christians) but in his political language, the re-elected Prime Minister is arguably the most overt.

According to the Australian Christian Lobby’s Martyn Iles, this language - coupled with the PM’s support for religious freedom - is re-energising religious communities and turning them to the Liberal Party.

“It does give people of faith a degree of confidence when they see a Prime Minister who is clearly Christian,” Mr Iles said.
“It doesn’t surprise me when it seems like religious communities played a role in the rising support for the Liberal Party, because I think that confidence probably did play into the psychology of their vote.”

Macquarie University professor Marion Maddox, an expert on the intersection of faith and politics, said Mr Morrison’s overtly religious language was “unfamiliar territory for Australian politics”.

But it comes at a time when trust in politics has been eroded, so it could appeal to a much broader audience than just those who already have faith.

“It's saying: I have a belief in something bigger than myself, I have a belief in ideals," Dr Maddox said. "It's particularly useful when party ideology is no longer a ready reference point.”

Preliminary analysis of Australian Electoral Commission and census data suggests that a number of the key seats that swung against Labor overlap with higher-than-national-average rates of Christian households.

The seats include the Queensland seats of Herbert and Longman, where Christianity makes up the biggest religious grouping in those electorates (65 per cent and 62.4 per cent, respectively) and the Tasmanian seat of Braddon (58 per cent).

In Victoria, volatile electorates such as Deakin cut through Melbourne’s outer eastern “bible belt” and have a tendency to switch between the parties. But this also remained Liberal this year, defying Labor's hopes.

At this election, the Australian Christian Lobby also ran its first ever federal field campaign, which pointed out where the parties stood on issues such as “supporting faith-based schools to uphold their values”; “the legalisation of assisted suicide” and the “public funding of abortion”.

They distributed hundreds of thousands of leaflets, made phone calls, and undertook an extensive online campaign across six electorates: Chisholm in Victoria; Boothby in South Australia, Bass in Tasmania, Canning in Western Australia; Petrie in Queensland and McMahon in NSW. Most, with the exception of Boothby and Chisholm, recorded anti-Labor swings.

Mr Morrison’s social media platforms now show thousands of comments from people expressing religious sentiments in support of his re-election.

“Congratulations Prime Minister! We have been longing for a dedicated Christian leader here in Australia and we finally have one!!!” wrote one voter on his Facebook page. “Can’t wait to see how God is going to work in and through you in this term.”

“May God bless and guide your leadership, Scott! Praise the Lord for this miracle win,” wrote another.

In policy terms, the Australian Christian Lobby has called the Coalition’s victory a “win for religious freedom” and has urged the government to pass a Religious Freedom Act that would enshrine in law clear protections for faith-based groups. Such an act could guarantee that faith-based schools could uphold their teachings on issues such as homosexuality, allowing them to select staff on that basis.

In a written response to religious leaders on May 14, Mr Morrison committed to “providing Australians of religious belief with protections equivalent to those guaranteed in relation to other protected attributes under Commonwealth anti-discrimination law.”

However, in an apparent contradiction, the Liberal Party vowed during the campaign to “redouble” its efforts tackling discrimination against the LGBTI community, starting with the removal of exemptions allowing faith-based schools to expel gay students.

It also wrote to LGBTI lobby group Equality Australia promising to work with the states to tackle gay “conversion” therapy - an ideology and practice that is predominantly pushed by Evangelical ministries.

“We’ll be making sure they keep their promises,” said Equality Australia spokeswoman Anna Brown

SOURCE  







Gender quota ‘offends’ LNP’s new senator Susan McDonald

Incoming senator Susan McDonald has rejected a quota to boost the number of Coalition women in parliament, saying she would be “offended and humiliated” to be preselected because of her gender.

The 49-year-old single mother and businesswoman is Nationals royalty, a scion of one of the wealthiest cattle families in Queensland whose father was a mover and shaker in the party, state and federally. She supports diversity in the workplace and politics, but insists gender is only one element in the mix.

“I would be offended and humiliated if I ever thought I had been given a job based on what I was, as opposed to who I was,” Ms McDonald said. “If you’re willing to disregard all the selection criteria in favour of one, that cannot be a good outcome. I would never run a business like that and I don’t think it’s the way to run the national parliament.”

The Coalition stands to increase its female representation to 27 in the next parliament, up six, but continues to trail Labor, which is close to a 50:50 gender balance. In the House, the Liberal and National parties will have 14 female MPs against Labor’s putative 27, but the major parties are closer in the Senate, where Ms McDonald will lift the number of Coalition women to 13 against 16 for Labor.

She is stepping away from her role as managing director of the McDonald family’s five-outlet Super Butcher chain to enter the Senate on July 1 after being elected in the No 2 spot on the LNP’s Queensland ticket.

The business employs about 80 people and Ms McDonald said she had pushed to promote women provided they were qualified, a lesson that also applied to politics.

“I absolutely wanted more women managers but the moment I made that decision it was a four-year journey for me to ask women to enrol in an apprenticeship, graduate from that apprenticeship and then to start management training,” she said. “If we want to have more women in parliament we have to provide a pathway for them to understand what skill sets are needed to be a representative of the nation, in the same way that we should with men. This is not a gender thing. This is making sure that people are coming fully armed with the skills and experience that we want.”

Her own political journey has had its twists and turns. Her father, Don McDonald, helped rebuild the Queensland National Party after Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s state government was destroyed by corruption scandals in the late 1980s and went on to serve as national president. She grew up at the family station near Cloncurry in northwest Queensland, studied commerce and economics at the University of Queensland and became an accountant.

Ms McDonald understands why Tanya Plibersek bowed out of Labor’s leadership race. In 2006, she was being positioned for a winnable spot on the Senate ticket. But her marriage had broken down and the priority was her three children, then aged between six and two. “I could not be away from them as much as the job ­demanded,” she explained.

“I believe there is an age where women say they are not willing to make that sacrifice. Tanya Plibersek said that this week and I think we have to call out what this is — we need to make a job in politics possible and attractive to everybody, male or female.”

The stars aligned last year when she was preselected at the expense of veteran Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan, dumped alongside north Queensland-based Liberal Ian Macdonald. Asked if the Coalition needed more women in parliament, Ms McDonald said: “It would be good to have a broader cross section of people in the partyrooms and in the parliament making decisions.’’

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Climate change: Cuttlefish of the Left extend tentacles on climate ‘truth’

Fortunately for all of us, the climate isn’t changing as rapidly as the politics and language around it. What started out as global warming was redefined by proponents as climate change, enabling them to pivot from having to explain record cold snaps to including them in the catch-all of change.

Now the political barometer is generating more language shifts. The alarmists, apparently, haven’t seen enough children crying at climate change protests so they want to up the ante. Left-wing newspaper The Guardian (along with The Guardian Australia online) is leading the crusade with a new dictate to staff — they should refer to the climate issue as an emergency, crisis or breakdown.

The paper’s official style guide has been amended saying the phrase “climate change is no longer considered to accurately reflect the seriousness of the ­situation”.

Wow. That is change you can almost believe in.

Up bobbed the phrase immediately in today’s Australian coverage. The Guardian Australia’s political editor Katharine Murphy covered the election fallout in full compliance. “This was an election in large part about the climate emergency, and the field evidence shows Australia in 2019 is deeply divided about the road ahead,” she wrote.

The Guardian is changing language in a brazen attempt to change politics. Later in the story, Murphy went on: “In his concession, Shorten noted that the ­divisions on the climate crisis were etched into Saturday night’s result.”

But a quick check of the transcript reveals a bit of an accuracy issue. Shorten never referred to a climate crisis. He spoke of “climate change” and “climate action” — guess he hadn’t got the memo.

It hardly needs saying this is the epitome of Orwellian. As ­George Orwell wrote in Politics and the Eng­lish Language: “If thought corrupts language then language can also corrupt thought.”

The Guardian doesn’t like the way you are thinking so it is adopting more emotive language to frighten you into its camp.

As Orwell wrote in his seminal essay: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

And, just like that, you’ll now hear more words such as emergency, crisis and breakdown. Expect ABC reporters to broadcast them, too.

“The Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world,” the paper said in a statement. “Instead of ‘climate change’, the preferred terms are ‘climate emergency, crisis or breakdown’ and ‘global heating’ is favoured over ‘global warming’, although the original terms are not banned. We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue. The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.”

Oh, The Guardian is also sceptical about the word sceptic. Apparently it’s not alarmist enough, either. The thought police have dictated that sceptics are now referred to as “climate science deniers” or “climate deniers” — terms that shamelessly echo the disgrace of Holocaust denial.

Even when they don’t have newsprint editions, the green Left is dealing in ink; like spurting cuttlefish, they want to muddy the waters and won’t be denied.

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 May, 2019

The wronged men?

Knocked out by dodgy polls



Mr Turnbull was turfed out largely based on losing a series of opinion polls - the same polls which predicted a Labor win at the election but were proved horribly wrong.

Mr Turnbull justified seizing the top job in 2015 by pointing out Mr Abbott had lost 30  succesive Newspolls. Three years later he was ousted himself after losing 38 straight Newspolls.

The ABC's election guru Antony Green said the death of the household landline was to blame for the wrong polls.

'Polling in Australia has a really good record, but what people have forgotten in the past four years is they've totally changed their methodology,' Mr Green said.

'Polling used to be dominated by running from the electoral roll and doing random samples based on ringing up landlines.

'Now landlines have disappeared and therefore using landlines is no longer a reliable estimate.'

He said pollsters were making random calls to mobiles and it then 'gets very hard to determine what sample you're getting'.  

'I think that's what the problem is, they are having difficulty trying to get a representative sample, and they're all wrong.

'The only other alternative is they were getting a result like this and nobody believed it and they got a result like this.'

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Joel Fitzgibbon says he will not rule out running for Labor leadership

A moderate, cautious Labor Party leader would be a refreshing change. Tanya Plibersek has said she will not contest the Labor leadership ballot

As Labor prepares to replace Bill Shorten in the wake of the party’s shock election loss, an unlikely contender is considering entering the race.

Hunter representative Joel Fitzgibbon, who hung onto his seat despite a 10 per cent swing, said he was not prepared to rule out running for the leadership if Labor didn’t match his concerns about representing the regions and its working class base.

“The Labor must reconnect with its blue-collar base and get back to the centre, and be less ambitious in its pace of change,” Mr Fitzgibbon told ABC radio this morning. “People are inherently conservative in Australia and any change has to be orderly and steady, and needs to be explained to people.

“We need to stick to the sensible centre and push reform in an incremental way and in an orderly way and properly explain why change is necessary to people. You’ve got to be able to take people with you.”

Mr Fitzgibbon managed to retain his seat, which he has held since 1996, with 32,000 votes.

The coal-country NSW seat saw the highest One Nation vote in the country, with more than 18,000 voters — roughly 20 per cent of the NSW electorate — voting for the far-right party’s candidate Stuart Bonds.

This was barely 2000 votes less than the Nationals candidate Josh Angus.

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Climate lies of Labor, Greens sealed poll loss

Soon after the election was called I lamented that it might be the dumbest campaign we have ever seen, primarily because of the inanity around climate change. I am sorry to say that prediction turned out to be more accurate than any climate modelling.

But the good news was that voters were smart enough to see through it. Labor and the Greens continually made absurd claims — actually let us call a spade a spade — they told the same lies every day. They said Australia was not taking climate action now; they said they could take action that would stop floods, droughts, bushfires and cyclones; they said these same actions would create jobs and prosperity; and they refused to even countenance putting a cost on them.

Now these same politicians and their army of virtue-signalling barrackers in the media now wonder why they lost the election. The idiocy is beyond comprehension — at least it is entertaining.

As they pack up their placards and wash down their cars after their anti-Adani convoy, the activists are quietly wondering whether they might have helped deliver a Coalition win. A grateful nation applauds them.

And while commentators continue to call for an end to the so-called climate wars they still don’t understand where that settlement will be found. They are right in deducing that only a bipartisan agreement can lead to solid, medium-term arrangements and investment certainty. But they keep looking for that agreement in the wrong place.

Amid the noise of the election fallout yesterday I had the pleasure of hearing a new voice who brought utter clarity to a policy area that has been unnecessarily complicated and divisive. I had long heard that James Stevens was someone to look out for and although I had met him once or twice, I had never had a serious conversation with him.

On Saturday the former chief of staff to South Australian Premier Steven Marshall was elected as the new Liberal member for Sturt, replacing his former boss Christopher Pyne. Stevens is clearly identified as a moderate Liberal but when I interviewed him on The Kenny Report yesterday I was struck by his no-nonsense approach on climate policy.

“I do support our policy position on meeting the Paris targets, I think we should do our fair share as a country but no more than that,” Stevens said. “And we certainly shouldn’t penalise Australian businesses and Australian families by having a disproportionate approach to reducing carbon emissions that just exports our jobs to other countries that aren’t putting the same unnecessary, overly ambitious targets in place.”

At this point I interrupted him to say this was the clearest exposition of this issue I had heard from his party for a long time. He continued.

“All it means is that businesses, particularly in the manufacturing sector, the jobs that are lost in our economy, if we take unnecessary policy positions that increase power prices in an uncompetitive way, those jobs are going to go to countries that are emitting an enormous amount more carbon than we’re emitting here in Australia at the moment. So I don’t understand why even the environmentalists think that we should put ourselves in that position because you’ve got the perverse situation where we are penalising our economy but we’re also penalising the planet. If you consider increasing greenhouse gas emissions to be something that puts the planet in peril, that’s going to be achieved by sending jobs from this country to other countries that are not doing anywhere near what we already are.”

There you have it. It is obvious; it is based on fact rather than emotion; it involves not a hint of climate denial or economic vandalism; just responsible, pragmatic and committed environmental and economic management.

Then this morning we heard some sense spoken by Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon about how Labor must find a way to support climate action as well as the mining sector and the jobs, families and communities it supports. As Fitzgibbon pointed out, this is no more than giving voice to official ALP policy.

We are starting to see how Scott Morrison’s electoral triumph has unleashed an outbreak of intellectual clarity and common sense. The idiocy of the campaign is behind us, the emotive nonsense of the partisans is silenced (for a while at least) and there might be a chance for progress.

The answer is obvious. It is — as it always has needed to be — a bipartisan settlement. But not around reckless or overly ambitious gestures that aim to lead the world.

The major party consensus has to be a simple commitment to the Paris targets. No more, no less. A position Labor has held in the past before it started chasing unicorns. Labor has come back to the global consensus. It is that easy. If the major parties agree on that, the mechanism to deliver it is a doddle.

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Qld.:  Palaszczuk government drops coalmine fine as pressure of Federal election result mounts

The Palaszczuk Government has dropped a bid to fine Adani-owned Abbot Point Operations $12,000 over the company’s release of sediment-contaminated floodwater during Cyclone Debbie in 2017.

The environment department today agreed to Abbot Point Operations’ offer to build a $100,000 real-time water quality monitoring system at the discharge point of its settlement ponds in return for the penalty infringement, which had escalated to court, being dropped.

Located 25 kilometres north of Bowen in north Queensland, the port of Abbot Point, owned by Adani, is Australia’s largest deepwater coal port and is supplied by a rail line from the Bowen Basin coalfields.

It would also be the offload point for coal from Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine in the neighbouring, but as yet untapped, Galilee Basin.

Abbot Point Operations, formerly Abbot Point Bulkcoal, was charged in 2018 with contravening a temporary emissions license after it released sediment water during the cyclone in March 2017.

The emissions license granted the company to release water from its settlement ponds into the ocean but Adani’s own monitoring of the water quality found the sediment concentrations in the released water had been eight times higher than was authorised.

Abbot Point Operations had pleaded not guilty, arguing that the sediment had not reached the Great Barrier Reef offshore and therefore the license had not been breached.

The Department of Environment and Science fined Abbot Point Operations $12,190 but the company elected to have the matter heard before a magistrate.

In a statement released today, Abbot Point Operations said it had reached an agreement with the government that would see the court matter resolved.

“As part of (a) commitment to continually improve our environmental management, we welcome the Queensland Government’s acceptance of an Enforceable Undertaking application that we lodged voluntarily in order to deliver additional water quality monitoring at our site,” the statement said.

“This Enforceable Undertaking will help ensure positive environmental outcomes are achieved in the near-term instead of continuing prolonged court proceedings in the Magistrates Court related to an alleged floodwater release during Cyclone Debbie.

“This new water monitoring infrastructure will allow us to measure water quality in real-time to assist in managing stormwater impacting our site.

“It will give the regulator and the community further confidence that our operations are being managed safely and responsibly.”

The water monitoring system will be built at the authorised flood water release point opposite the ocean to provide real-time monitoring of water flows.

Abbot Point Operations’ pledge to build the new system comes on top of $15 million in infrastructure improvements at the site in the past two years, including increased water storage, higher levee banks and better piping.

The department has previously said “no known environmental impacts occurred as a result of the discharge”.

The charge was not in relation to the nearby Caley Valley Wetlands.

The dropping of the fine comes as the Palaszczuk Government faces pressure from Labor members and its own MPs over its handling of the approvals for Adani’s Carmichael mine.

The Adani issue, and Labor’s mixed messages about whether the party supports the project, were a key feature of the federal election campaign in Queensland and are believed to have played a considerable impact in Labor’s poor results in the state.

Former state and federal Labor candidate and ex-mayor of Bowen, Mike Brunker, demanded a “rank and file revolution” in the north.

“I’m calling for a rank and file revolution in north Queensland to change the leadership (of both the Premier and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad),” Mr Brunker said.

“The Premier should have made a captain’s call by now, and said this rot’s got to stop, this (Adani) has got to go through).”

“If Adani is not fixed within the next fortnight or month, Labor is going to get wiped out in the state election.”

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Teacher accused of punching and spitting on students because she's 'not Muslim' plans to sue police because the kid's claims were MADE UP

A primary school teacher will take police to court after she paid costly legal fees to fight allegations that she assaulted four students after being told she was 'no good' because she's 'not Muslim'.

The southwest Sydney teacher, 58 - who cannot be named for legal reasons - was cleared of all charges that she mistreated her year three and four students on Monday after a judge slammed the evidence against her.

She has been out of work since last May after she was accused of pinching, pushing and punching three boys and a girl, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Magistrate Daniel Covington noted that police failed to interview adult witnesses who may have been in the classroom and that some of the evidence against the teacher was 'implausible'.

He said that the children's accounts of the alleged assaults changed or became more detailed as they spoke to teachers and police.

What's more, a boy who accused the teacher of spitting on him made no complaint to teachers on the day of the alleged incident.

Mr Covington said the boy only made the claim when he was interviewed by police much later.

The same boy also told the teacher on her first day that she looked like Donald Trump.

The court heard during a hearing that a student also told the teacher, 'you're no good, you're not Muslim'.

The teacher was later given the nickname 'Miss Trunchbull' after the nasty headmistress in the popular children's classic 'Matilda'.

The boy also claimed to have witnessed the teacher scratch a student and draw blood.

Mr Covington dismissed the evidence as either a 'fabrication or at best an exaggeration'.

During the hearing, one eight-year-old schoolboy said the teacher pushed him hard against a wall and whispered 'f*** off' in his ear.

The court heard the girl accuser was the only witness and Mr Covington dismissed the incident as highly unlikely to have happened. 'It is completely implausible in my view that no one else would have witnessed it,' he said.

Mr Covington criticised police for failing to interview any adult witnesses and went on to dismiss the charges against the teacher.

Her lawyer Ian Fraser told the magistrate police failed to properly investigate the matter and that his client would pursue them to cover legal costs.

The case has been adjourned until next month for the court costs to be drawn up.

The Department of Education said it would follow its own enquiries into the matter. 'It is not appropriate for the NSW Department of Education to comment on a court decision. 'Following court matters of this nature the department makes its own enquiries.

'This person has not been teaching at schools since the issue was first raised, with her future employment status pending the outcome of the court case and any subsequent investigation.'

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 May, 2019

Good!  Liberals take back Wentworth from far-Left Lesbian Kerryn Phelps.

She had campaigned on a climate change platform and vowed to stop the Adani coal mine as well as other new coal projects. Seat is now back in the conservative column, where it had been for decades. 

There were accusations during the campaign that both Phelps and Sharma were Jewish.  In fact Phelps is of British ancestry and Sharma has Indian ancestry.  The bigots seem to have missed that the PM’s principal adviser was Yaron Finkelstein, a most unambiguous name


Scott Morrison and the Coalition have claimed a majority victory in the Federal Election, winning at least 76 seats after Dave Sharma re-claimed Wentworth for the Liberals.

Independent Dr Kerryn Phelps is expected to concede defeat in the eastern Sydney seat on Monday afternoon. Dr Phelps became the member for Wentworth in October after winning a by-election triggered by the resignation of Malcolm Turnbull.

The Liberals will win in Bass in Tasmania, according to the ABC's election analyst Antony Green, and claimed Wentworth in Sydney back from Dr Kerryn Phelps on Monday morning.

The two results would give them the required 76 seats to command a majority.

The government could also win in Chisholm in Victoria, but that is currently too close to call.

SOURCE  






North Queensland MP Bob Katter reveals how anti-coal extremists of the Left blew their chances in six must-win Queensland seats

Losing the whole of Queensland North of Brisbane was an amazing loss.  And there was no doubt why:  Leftist opposition to new coal mines.  Had they won those seats they would be in government now


Bob Katter has launched a blistering attack against Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek, claiming her comments cost Labor the 'unloseable' election.

The maverick MP said the potential future leader of the Labor party was out of touch with Queensland voters, and that her stance against coal mines alienated constituents in the regions.

'Tanya Plibersek ran amok,' the MP for the seat of Kennedy in north Queensland told Sky News.

'She was out there denigrating the coal industry and saying it will phase out. To say that on the eve of an election in which there are six marginal seats in north Queensland in the coal belt is absolutely disastrous.'

The seats in question include Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton's northern Brisbane seat of Dickson and the Townsville-based seat of Herbert.

George Christensen is expected to return to his marginal seat of Dawson while the Coalition also managed to retain the seats of Flynn, Capricornia and Leichhardt.

'The ALP were certain on the polls to take all six seats, but she and a bunch of loud mouthed extremists that have an immense amount of power in the Labor movement... they blew it to smithereens,' Mr Katter said. 

Ms Plibersek has been vocal in her opposition to the Adani coal mine in Queensland.

She previously said Australians 'can't rely on an Indian mining company to bring jobs to central and north Queensland'.

She also said she was sceptical Adani would bring as many jobs to the region as it had promised, and believed backers may have underestimated the impact it could have on the environment.

Labor was accused of alienating their core electorate with policies that were too progressive and divisive on climate change and negative gearing.

Older Australians in particular appeared to turn on Labor over the controversial plan to scrap franking credits for self-funded retirees.

Labor's climate change policy and stance on Adani was at odds with many voters who wanted the new coal mine, which has promised to provide hundreds of jobs in regions struggling against drought and high levels of unemployment.

Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos said the result could be partially explained by those opposing the Adani project being seen as anti-jobs.

'Adani became about jobs. It became emblematic of 'we want jobs' and the Bob Brown caravan which went up there to talk about stopping Adani had locals thinking, 'hang on, you are not going to tell us how to live',' he said.

Tax cuts and ministry changes will be Mr Morrison's agenda as the nation awaits the final results of the federal election.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison looks likely to win 77 seats, allowing him to appoint a Speaker and govern in majority.

Out of three close seats listed on the Australian Electoral Commission website on Monday, the Liberals were on track to win Chisholm in Victoria and Bass in Tasmania, with Labor holding the NSW seat of Macquarie.

If the current count trends continue, this will give the Liberals 77 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives, with Labor on 68 and six crossbenchers.

SOURCE  






New-look Senate to benefit Morrison government

As counting continues after Saturday’s election, it appears the Liberal-National coalition will need the backing of five out of six conservative crossbenchers to get its legislation through parliament.

The coalition’s Senate numbers could rise from 31 to 34 out of 76 seats.

Three familiar faces look likely to re-join the Senate after being knocked out by the dual citizenship debacle that plagued the previous parliament.

Labor’s Katy Gallagher, One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts in Queensland and Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania are set to be returned to the red chamber.

Ten sitting senators are on the way out, including Lisa Singh and Gavin Marshall (Labor), Ian Macdonald, Jim Molan, Lucy Gichuhi (Liberals), Steve Martin (Nationals), Peter Georgiou (One Nation), Derryn Hinch (Justice Party), Fraser Anning (Conservative Nationals) and Duncan Spender (Liberal Democrats).

Centre Alliance’s Skye Kakoschke-Moore, who left parliament in the dual — citizenship scandal, also failed to win back her seat in South Australia. The Greens appear to have won a Senate seat in every state, keeping the minor party’s numbers at nine.

The current non-Greens crossbench is expected to be cut from 10 to six. Labor won a net 13 seats.

Tens of millions of dollars Clive Palmer spent advertising his United Australia Party don’t seem to have paid off, failing to translate into winning any seats. In Tasmania, the Liberals and Labor look set to hold two seats each and Greens incumbent Nick McKim to return.

The coalition is likely to retain three seats in both NSW and Victoria and Labor another two, with the Greens probably taking the final seat in each state. It’s a similar story in South Australia, where the major parties will take two seats each and the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young will hold on, with the final seat probably also going to the Liberals.

And in the two territories, ACT and NT, the status quo will prevail with Labor and the Liberals taking one seat each.

SOURCE  






Local share market surges after Scott Morrison election win

Investors have to know a good influence from a bad one

The Coalition’s surprise election win has given local stocks a healthy shot in the arm, sending the Australian share market surging to a fresh 11-year high.

Bill Shorten and his proposed changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and franking credits had been perceived on the market as detrimental.

Many had assumed the Labor Party would win and had taken a defensive position anticipating the effects of sweeping policy reforms, CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy said.

“Whether or not it’s true, generally investors believe that the economy will serve better under a conservative government,” he told news.com.au.

“But the most important factor is that muted changes to franking credits will not come through.

“The banks are one of the key sources of frank dividends, as opposed to unfranked, and they were under real pressure as we led into the election.

“Now that those changes are off the table, investors are piling back into the highly franked dividends that the banks offer.”

Scott Morrison’s pitch to leave property and taxing policy alone sent banking stocks soaring on Monday morning, with the four major lenders all jumping more than 5 per cent.

In the first 15 minutes of trading, ANZ was up 6.15 per cent at $27.44, Commonwealth Bank was up 5.45 per cent to $76.80, NAB was up 6.77 per cent to $25.54, and Westpac was up 7.99 per cent to $27.44.

Mr McCarthy said the re-election of the Coalition is a real change from what the market was preparing for, which will provide steady confidence for investors for period to come.

“It was conventional wisdom that Labor would form government and so a lot of the policies that had been announced were somewhat priced,” he said.

“Investors weren’t putting the full weight of those potential policy changes into the market because there were always concerns that the senate would prove a difficult beast to negotiate.

“But there was certainly some defensive positioning ahead of the election so this could lead to a rerating.”

The Coalition’s plans to leave trailing commissions for mortgage brokers in place, despite the royal commission’s final report pushing for it to be scrapped, was a boost for those institutions.

Mortgage Choice surged more than 16 per cent.

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 May, 2019

We did it!  My home State of Queensland blocked the Leftist "certainty"

Queensland has always been a thorn in the side of the Left.  That was really spectacular in the election of December 1975. In that year the Left got only one of Queensland's 19 Federal seats. So the Queensland vote alone would have defeated Federal Labor -- even if the other states had stayed put. So this time too Queensland swung the Federal election to the conservatives. 

Labor have always got to swing Queensland if they want to win and that is not easy.  Queensland has strong conservative tendencies -- probably because it is very decentralized, with lots of voters in regional and rural areas.  Country people are too close to the daily reality of hard work to fall for the impractical dreams of the coffee swilling Green/Left elite of the big cities

There are a lot of people who think the way I do where I grew up -- in small-town Queensland


Labor has been left reeling from a bloodbath in Queensland, as the Coalition celebrated a return to government.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison took a moment to thank Queensland in his victory speech in the early hours of Sunday morning.

"How good's Queensland?" he asked, to chants from the party faithful of "Queensland! Queensland! Queensland!"

"I have always believed in miracles. I'm standing with the three biggest miracles in my life, and tonight we delivered another one."

Labor lost at least two of its Queensland seats to the Coalition, leaving it with five seats amid a 4.31 per cent statewide swing against the party as of Saturday night, while the ALP was left with no representation north of Brisbane [i.e. in country and regional Queensland]

Senior Labor frontbencher Brendan O'Connor has blamed the party's misfortunes on heavy spending by Clive Palmer, and One Nation – which received a swing of 3.18 per cent statewide – directing preferences to the LNP.

However, the result will raise questions in Queensland Labor party headquarters about what this means for the Palaszczuk government and its handling of the Adani Carmichael coal mine, and an examination of strategies leading into the next state election in less than 18 months.

The Palaszczuk government will also need to consider what a Coalition victory means for next month's state budget, including missing out on $2.2 billion pledged by federal Labor for Cross River Rail.

As counting closed on Saturday night, the LNP had 23 seats in Queensland, Bob Katter retained Kennedy and Labor looked set to claim five. Lilley, previously held by former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan, was too close to call.

Seats in central Queensland closest to the Galilee Basin and the proposed Adani mine swung towards the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis, boosted by minor party preferences.

The LNP's Michelle Landry retained her seat with a two-party preferred swing of 11.91 per cent in Capricornia, while LNP incumbent David Littleproud had a favourable swing of 6.95 per cent in Maranoa and the LNP's Ken O'Dowd was returned in Flynn with a swing of 8.35 per cent.

At the same time, Labor incumbent Cathy O'Toole, who held the Townsville division of Herbert on tiny margin of 0.02 per cent, lost to the LNP's Phillip Thompson with a 7.47 per cent swing, two-party preferred.

LNP MP George Christensen, dubbed the "member for Manila", seemed to suffer no repercussions from revelations about his frequent travel to the Philippines, winning Dawson with a 11.96 per cent two-party preferred swing.

Former prime minister John Howard said Queenslanders were "commonsense" and worried about job security.

"And when they saw a Labor Party prepared to destroy jobs in the name of climate ideology in relation to the Adani mine, they said, 'That's not for Queensland'," he told the ABC.

Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos said Bob Brown's anti-Adani convoy, which drove through Queensland half-way through the campaign, annoyed Queenslanders.

In south-east Queensland, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton fended off a strong challenge from Labor's Ali France, retaining the marginal seat of Dickson with 53.61 per cent, two-party preferred.

On Saturday night, Labor's immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann was struggling to hold onto his Ipswich seat of Blair amid a 10.08 per cent first preference swing against him, but was sitting slightly ahead of the LNP's Robert Shearman at 50.78 per cent to 49.22 per cent, two-party preferred.

Labor incumbent Susan Lamb, who held the outer-suburban seat of Longman on a margin of 0.8 per cent after a by-election last year triggered over the dual citizenship debacle, lost to LNP candidate Terry Young.

Former treasurer Wayne Swan's previously safe seat of Lilley looked set to go down to the wire and was still too close to call, with a swing of 5.41 per cent towards the LNP's Brad Carswell, but Labor's Anika Wells was ahead by less than 1 per cent on two-party preferred.

The Greens had hoped to win the lower house Brisbane seats of Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane but looked set to get none in Queensland.

LNP incumbent Trevor Evans retained his seat of Brisbane, despite a small swing against him, and said he looked forward to "all the hard work ahead" after a sleep-in. "I always told everybody that you never want to be overconfident but you've got to be cautiously optimistic and you've got to work hard right up to the last moment," he said.

Labor's Terri Butler retained the inner-Brisbane seat of Griffith, despite a close race with the LNP and a 6.98 per cent swing towards the Greens.

One Nation received 8.74 per cent of the House of Representatives vote across Queensland, Clive Palmer's United Australia Party received 3.45 per cent despite a massive campaign advertising spend, and Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party received a measly 1.75 per cent.

None of the three minor parties looked likely to win a lower house seat in Queensland.

According to preliminary results from the Senate, the LNP will secure two or three of Queensland's six seats and Labor one or two, while the Greens (Larissa Waters) and One Nation (Malcolm Roberts) could each get one seat.

Mr Palmer was unlikely to return to politics with a seat in the Senate, while Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party was nowhere near close to reaching the quota required.

SOURCE  






A traitor loses

In 2010 Oakeshott campaigned as an independent conservative in a  previously safe conservative electorate, the NSW north coast seat of Lyne.  He got 47% of the vote; the National party got 30% and the ALP got only 11%.  So it was clearly a very conservative electorate, that had overwhelmingly voted for conservatives.

So how did Oakeshott represent his voters?  By giving his support to Julia Gillard, the Labor party leader -- thus enabling her to form a minority government.  It was a crystal clear betrayal of the voters in Lyme.  A seat with only 11% of Labor voters was used to support Labor. 

It made the Gillard government an essentially illegitimate government -- but no-one could do anything about that.  And Gillard proceeded to run up a huge national debt on hare-brained schemes over the next three years.  Oakeshott has much to answer for
 
So this time the voters were wised-up to hypocrite Oakeshott


Independent challenger for the NSW mid-north coast seat of Cowper Rob Oakeshott has told supporters a well-funded Nationals campaign of “fear, smears and beers” led to his defeat.

At a Sunday market picnic in Coffs Harbour with about 50 campaign supporters, Mr Oakeshott said he was “pretty gutted” at the outcome of his second tilt at the seat, this time seeing a slight swing against him at the hands of Nationals candidate Pat Conaghan.

With the bulk of the vote counted, Mr Conaghan leads Mr Oakeshott 57 per cent to 43 per cent on a two party preferred basis.

Mr Oakeshott, who was trying to make a come back after earlier stints in state and federal politics, commands considerable local loyalty, and he had to console many of his campaign supporters at the picnic this morning.

Freda Patterson, who has known Mr Oakeshott for three decades, said: “He’s one of the best products of Port Macquarie.”

The Nationals ran a saturation advertising and social media campaign against Mr Oakeshott including negative television and radio attack ads, noting he had supported the minority Labor government when he was the independent member for Lyne.

Robo calls in Mr Conaghan’s voice invited constituents to come and join him for a beer at different venues.

“Fear, smears and beers is probably what got us yesterday,” Mr Oakeshott told supporters.

Mr Oakeshott would not answer a question from The Australian on whether he might consider running again. But he told the congregation, most wearing campaign T-shirts: “Hopefully everyone can stay connected.

“I know this isn’t about me, it’s about driving a better area. “There are big and complex issues in our local electorate.”

SOURCE  






Another traitor falls

She resigned from the Liberal party, forcing Morrison into a minority government

The Liberal Party is becoming cautiously optimistic it can hold the marginal seat of Chisholm, which would put a stake through the heart of its former member Julia Banks.

Ms Banks failed to oust Health Minister Greg Hunt in the Victorian seaside seat of Flinders and now, against the odds, the party has edged about 500 seats ahead of Labor in [her former seat of] Chisholm.

Ms Banks vacated Chisholm after turning independent in the wake of Malcolm Turnbull’s dumping, leaving the Liberal Party with a last minute bid to retain the seat with a new candidate.

The current Liberal candidate in Chisholm, Gladys Liu, is a veteran party activist who will now face an anxious wait to determine whether pre-poll votes break sufficiently her way.

Chisholm is held by the Liberal Party with a margin of just 2.9 per cent. Labor’s candidate is Jennifer Yang. Both she and Ms Liu are Chinese-Australian.

SOURCE  






Trump calls Morrison ‘to reaffirm alliance, friendship

Donald Trump has called Scott Morrison to re-affirm the importance and strength of the US-Australia alliance after the Coalition’s surprise victory last night.

“President Donald J Trump spoke this evening wth Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia. The President congratulated the Prime Minister on his coalition’s victory,’ the White House said.

“The two leaders reaffirmed the critical importance of the long-standing alliance and friendship between the United States and Australia, and they pledged to continue their close cooperation on shared priorities.”

Earlier, Mr Trump and the White House welcomed Mr Morrison’s victory in the election, with the president tweeting “Congratulations to Scott on a GREAT WIN.’

Senior US officials inside the White House and the National Security Committee have privately expressed their pleasure at the result which they see an ensuring a continuity in US-Australia relations.

Mr Trump congratulated Scott Morrison by retweeting a news.com.au tweet which said ‘Scott Morrison has swept to victory in a sensational federal election result that defied the polls and cements the Coalition’s power.’

The tweet included a ten second montage of Mr Morrison against an Australian flag with a series of hands giving the thumbs up and a sausage wrapped in bread and covered in tomato sauce being offered to him.

Senior US officials have told The Australian that the victory of Mr Morrison and the Coalition was a bonus for the relationship.  “We know what we are dealing with and we like it,’ one said.

Officials in Washington had invested time meeting with senior Labor figures such as shadow foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong and shadow defence Minister Richard Marles to understand what changes there may be under a Shorten Government.

Mr Trump’s national security team was wary about whether a Labor Government would take a softer line on China at a time when the US is ratcheting up pressure on Beijing over trade, security and cyber warfare.

But the White House believes Mr Morrison’s victory makes it unlikely that Australia will now soften its approach to China. The Coalition became more hawkish towards China under Mr Morrison’s predecessor Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Turnbull introduced foreign interference laws and boosted Australia’s engagement in the Pacific to counter Beijing’s attempts to meddle in Australian politics and society and to encroach into Australia’s areas of prime strategic interest in the South West Pacific.

Mr Morrison met with Mr Trump at the G20 summit in Argentina late last year and the two men have had several phone conversations in which they got on well.

Mr Trump has congratulated Mr Morrison about Australia’s courage in taking the lead last year in banning Chinese telecommunications companies from participating in Australia’s evolving 5G communications network.

Only last week, Mr Trump signed an executive order effectively banning Chinese companies from participation in the US telecommunications market - a policy which US officials say was in part inspired by Australia’s stance.

Mr Trump is mulling a possible visit to Australia later this year although nothing has been confirmed.

SOURCE  






Academic quits in disgust over university sacking of Peter Ridd, a critic of their Greenie policies

A James Cook University associate professor has resigned from her honorary position over the sacking of professor Peter Ridd, who was dismissed after he criticised the institution’s climate change science.

Sheilagh Cronin ­resigned from the unpaid role at the Townsville university in protest and said she was “ashamed” that she had not done so earlier.

A marine physicist who had worked at the university for 30 years, Professor Ridd was censured three times before being sacked last year. He challenged the dismissal in the Federal Court and on April 16 judge Salvatore Vasta found all 17 findings used by the university to justify the sacking were unlawful.

Dr Cronin, an adjunct associate professor with the university’s Mount Isa Centre of Rural and Remote Health and a former president of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, sent a letter to vice-chancellor Sandra Harding last week outlining her reasons for resigning.

“I am coming to the end of my professional career but my main reason for resigning is my disquiet over the dismissal of the respected physics professor … Peter Ridd,” Dr Cronin wrote. “I believe his treatment by yourself and your board is completely contrary to the philosophy of open discussion and debate that should be at the heart of every university. It saddens me that the reputation of JCU is being damaged by the injustice of Professor Ridd’s case.”

JCU denounced the Federal Court’s decision and stood by its disciplinary processes, but has yet to decide if it will appeal. The university has since declined to comment on the case.

In 2016, Professor Ridd was censured after he emailed a journalist to allege that images of unhealthy coral given to the media by university colleagues were misleading and the photographs were being used to “spin a story” about the impact of climate change. He was censured again in 2017 when he repeated the claims on Sky News and said there was a lack of rigorous quality assurance in terms of the university’s climate change science.

After a third alleged violation of the code of conduct, including allegedly leaking confidential information about the disciplinary process, Professor Ridd was sacked in April last year.

“At the time, it made me feel quite uneasy that they’d sacked someone for questioning the methodology of the research into the Great Barrier Reef,” Dr Cronin said. “But nobody from JCU did anything to support him.”

Dr Cronin, who has never met or spoken to Professor Ridd, said she did not believe the university would take much notice of her resignation, given her association with the university was mostly a title.

“It’s a small protest in support of science and fairness and justice,” she said. “It does make me feel a bit sad because it was an honour to get that (title). “But, equally, people should stand up when they see something like that.”

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 May 2019

Essence of Hawke reforms lost on new Labor leaders

On the occasion of Hawke  leaving the scene

“Could Bill Shorten be the saviour of capitalism?” read an ­improbable headline in The Sydney Morning Herald. The question mark served as a trigger warning that the writer was hedging his bets. Peter Hartcher has been around long enough, after all, to be wary of a leader who frames his legacy while he’s still auditioning for the job.

Shorten told Hartcher he did not want to tear capitalism down. He merely wanted to save it from its own excesses, just like his predecessor Bob Hawke.

The coming election would be “a referendum on wages”, he ­insisted, rather than a test of ­voters’ appetites for a $387 billion increase in taxes across the next decade or a referendum on Labor’s fanciful plan to save the planet one subsidised battery at a time.

Labor’s referendum on wages has so far failed to excite the crowd. It is hardly surprising since many Labor policies seem designed to drive wages down. A 45 per cent emissions reduction target, the reinstatement of union pattern bargaining and the deliberate dampening of the property market are just some of the ways Labor seems intent on slowing the economy, putting downward pressure on wages and increasing unemployment.

Raising the superannuation guarantee will further eat into take-home pay, while Shorten’s love of big government is an ­indulgence that will be funded with our taxes or money borrowed on our behalf.

What Hawke understood, but Shorten plainly doesn’t, is that wages don’t grow in a shrinking economy, and that the way to make an economy grow is for business to work its magic.

Besides, the promise of wage rises all around, hollow as it may be, no longer has the broad ­appeal it once did. Thanks to the reforms begun by Hawke and Paul Keating, a growing number of voters relies on dividends from its accumulated wealth to make ends meet, rather than wage packets.

Shorten is relying on a false correlation between age and stupidity if he thinks he can fool them into voting Labor. Taxing the bejesus out of retirees is not the best way to turn them into friends.

When Hawke was elected in 1983 on a pro-jobs platform, a mere 14 per cent of voters were of retirement age. This time, 23 per cent of voters are over 65. Another 16 per cent are in the 55 to 64-year-old pre-retirement zone where attention turns from earnings to accumulated savings.

These are Labor’s forgotten voters, the ones Shorten has written off in his quest to calm millennial anxiety about house prices, climate change and the social justice cause de nos jours, intergenerational equality.

Shorten has given little thought as to why most Australians will retire with considerably more wealth than their parents or the role of the Hawke and Keating governments played in this.

One wonders how much attention he paid to the taxation debate between 1985 and 1987, when he was honing his factional politics skills as an arts undergraduate at Monash University.

Keating abolished negative gearing, only to reinstate it two years later when the effect on the supply of rental accommodation in Sydney and Melbourne could no longer be ignored.

Keating’s change of heart gave hundreds of thousands of middle-income baby boomers the opportunity to become landlords. Purchasing a rental property offered tax relief in their earning years and the chance to acquire an asset that could provide income in retirement or be sold to release its value, allowing them to avoid the indignity of ­relying on the state in their golden years.

Far from relieving so-called intergenerational inequality, scrapping negative gearing will dramatically increase it. Baby boomers and Gen-Xers who ­already own investment property will be quarantined from the change, while their children will be denied the opportunity to follow their example. They will ­retire less wealthy than their ­parents in relative terms and will be more likely to call on the pension.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen’s description of negative gearing as “welfare for the wealthy” is as insulting as it is misleading. Few of those who claim tax deductions for negatively geared property could be described as rich. Analysis soon to be published by the Menzies Research Centre shows that their median income is less than $60,000. Fewer than a 10th earn more than $120,000.

Bowen’s welfare-for-the-wealthy slur betrays a disturbing evolution in thought within Labor encouraged by the Orwellian language of Treasury, which has taken to describe a tax concession as “tax expenditure”.

The logic is that the state is ­entitled to 100 per cent of your earnings and anything it deigns to leave in your pocket is an act of supreme generosity by the government. Shorten is trapped in a topsy-turvy world in which a tax increase is described as “a ­saving” and franking credits, a ­refund to shareholders of tax ­already paid by the company issuing the dividend, is described as “free money”.

“I would rather spend revenue on healthcare, on aged care, on childcare than spend it on property investors and tax subsidies,” Shorten told Hartcher. Ironically, most people invest in rental property and superannuation in the hope of never having to call on the government for health or age care. By taxing their retirement income, Labor will make that harder to do.

The audacity of Labor’s plans for the trans-generational redistribution of wealth is so astonishing that Shorten should not be surprised that he’s being asked where Labor might go next. Death duties perhaps? After all, that is the policy of the Greens, his likely ally in a hung parliament, and a surprising number of his own MPs who believe personal savings are not the reward for a lifetime of hard work, ­patience and prudence but money borrowed from the state that should be returned to their rightful owner on the issuing of a death certificate.

Shorten’s categorical statement to Hartcher that death or inherence taxes are not part of his agenda should reassure older readers on that point at least. Or then again, possibly not.

SOURCE  





Leftist hate again

A man who allegedly assaulted a Liberal volunteer with a corkscrew at a polling station in Tony Abbott's Sydney electorate has been charged.

The 62-year-old man allegedly began yelling abuse at volunteers who were putting up campaign material outside the Balgowlah Heights Public School just after 8pm on Friday.

Police said the man allegedly threatened an 18-year-old man before thrusting a corkscrew at a 31-year-old volunteer's stomach, causing a minor injury.

He then started tearing down the banners before fleeing.

The victim was treated by paramedics and didn't need to go to hospital.

The alleged attacker was arrested at Balgowlah Heights about 10.30pm and taken to Manly Police Station, where he was charged with two counts of common assault.

The man is due to face the Manly Local Court on June 5.

The contest for Warringah has seen some of the dirtiest tricks of the campaign, including a book with faeces inside being dumped outside Mr Abbott's Manly office.

Former Olympic skier Zali Steggall is vying to wrestle the seat from Mr Abbott, who has held it for 25 years.

Mr Abbott has been the member for Warringah, the electorate that includes Manly and the affluent northern beaches suburbs of Mosman and Neutral Bay, since 1994.

SOURCE  





Toxic bill divides to conquer us

On his Sky News show this week, Andrew Bolt summed things up perfectly. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” he said, after our election campaign, already peculiar in nature, took a turn towards the totally bizarre.

In Tasmania, where large numbers of older voters are concerned about Labor’s “retiree tax”, Labor leader Bill Shorten turned to the camera and asked: “Are you worried about someone who has got their sixth investment property or complains about franking credits sitting on the back deck of their yacht?”

Clearly frustrated, and unprompted, he plucked this little gem out of thin air, declaring: “I cannot believe in this election that there is a discussion even under way that gay people will go to hell.”

One reporter had asked Scott Morrison this question on Monday, but the irrelevant question of who goes to hell after they die doesn’t feature in any political party’s policy.

Regardless, Shorten decried the fact it was an issue, demanded the Prime Minister reveal his views on the topic, then gave everyone else an exasperated blast: “The nation’s got to stop eating itself in this sort of madness of division and toxicity … This country needs to really lift itself and the political debate and coverage needs to lift itself in the next four days.”

Speaking of division and toxicity, Labor has separated the voting population into three distinct economic categories.

There are the working and middle classes, versus the “top end of town”. Labor stands for the first two and intends to make life better for them by taking from the latter.

This concept — hit the rich, help the poor — may sound very appealing. Yet Labor’s tax plans will hit almost everyone, rich or poor, and make private wealth creation, for the non-wealthy but aspirational, much more difficult.

As most people want to get ahead in life, and achieve financial security, they will cast a vote for Labor in the same way a turkey will cast a vote for Christmas.

This weekend, we find out how shrewd the electorate is. If self-interest rules, most people will hold their noses and vote to return the government. If self-interest is forgotten, they will vote Labor, and cut their noses off to spite their faces.

Perhaps you think this assessment of ALP policy too harsh. Take a look at the three examples below, calculated with Self Employed Australia’s online tool, to find out just how hard Labor is going to hit the rich to help the poor.

1. Alison earns $45k a year but, still, she is from Labor’s top end of town and really needs to start paying her way. If only Alison would pay more tax, then everyone else could have more services. Schools and hospitals need to be better funded, which is why Labor, during the next five years, will charge Alison an extra $3339 in income taxes. This is not much to ask, really, and on Alison’s income she will hardly notice it.

2. Sanjeev is one of Labor’s retired fat cats. His annual income is $40k a year, which includes $5k in fully franked dividends, and he spends $2k a year on his accountant. Should Sanjeev be sitting on the back deck of his yacht worrying about his franking credits, which have been described as a gift by senior ALP types? Across the next five years, Sanjeev will pay $15,960 in additional tax under Labor.

3. Rowan is one of those greedy, selfish people trying to get ahead in life, with the eventual goal of a self-funded retirement. By ruthlessly manipulating current tax loopholes, he has two investment properties, which he negatively gears. His salary is a whopping $83k a year, which is about the current average wage for full-time earnings in Australia. Rowan intends to continue building his property portfolio, and after January 1 next year he intends to buy an older unit for $600k in the inner city, where he will eventually live in his old age. In the meantime, he will rent it out. During the next five years, Rowan will pay $30,145 in additional tax under Labor.

Putting the known financial impact of Labor’s plans to one side, let’s look at the unknown costs of its climate change policy.

Earlier this month Shorten, when asked for the costs, replied to the interviewer: “You know what, mate, you are a great athlete, but if you had a friend who was perhaps on the large side, the chubby side, and they had 10 Big Macs a day … there’s a cost to not eating the Big Macs. But in the long term it’s an investment, isn’t it? The idea that you can get positive change from putting nil effort in. I’m going to use this example of the exercise. Sure, there’s a cost to exercising, but there’s a benefit. Now which do you measure? The cost or the benefit, or do you accept that it’s all part of a total package?”

Following this incoherent nonsense, in subsequent appearances Shorten labelled further questions over costs as “dumb” and “dishonest”.

In this campaign, it is not the questions that are dumb and dishonest. Labor’s policies are dumb and they are being sold dishonestly. What remains to be seen is whether the voters are dumb enough to vote them into power.

SOURCE  






Busybodies ensure gender bias has now gone full circle

It is now men who are heavily discriminated against but sexist policies continue to rule

Reworking a suggestion by US Chief Justice John Roberts, the way to stop gender discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of gender. The judge was dealing with race discrimination in a case before the US Supreme Court just over a decade ago. But it is high time we draw some honest conclusions about gender discrimination. Have we turned the tables of injustice so that we now punish men? Are we OK with that?

Parents with sons and daughters about to enter the workforce ought to be particularly concerned. Those with young sons should be especially troubled if the search for fairness for one sex causes unfairness towards the other sex.

For years, gender warriors, corporate social engineers and motley bands of busybodies have been preoccupied with dismantling unconscious bias against women in the workplace. Unconscious bias is said to take place when recruiters prefer candidates who are similar to them, or when there is group pressure to conform with the decisions of others. A wider culture of appeasement by people who don’t want to make waves has sustained this agenda, regardless of whether unconscious bias is real.

In fact, the idea that many employers fall back on a deep-seated bias that discriminates against women has become so ensconced that gendered recruitment has sped in reverse. Corporate fashion now favours conscious bias, system-wide positive discrimination that gives young women a terrific boost into jobs. The flip side is that the job prospects of young men, and their careers, are being damaged. Unconscious bias is bad enough, if it exists. But is cementing real conscious bias the answer?

Feminist warriors talk about corrective justice that addresses historical wrongs. The weak-willed go along with this social justice narrative and virtue-signalling men, including those Male Champions of Change who advocate for positive discrimination in favour of women, relish the halo effect of sounding so damn good.

But are any of these people doing good? Recruiters will tell you, sotto voce, that women continue to make very different career choices at key points in their ­careers, and without a hint of ­coercion. Recruiters won’t say this publicly because dissenting from social justice orthodoxy is certain social death, and a likely career-killer too.

But anecdotally, they explain cases where the numbers of young women applying for certain graduate jobs are dramatically lower than for young men. Take XYZ Investment Bank with an annual program to recruit 100 new graduates, split 50-50 for gender equality. The bank will often receive applications from 300 men and 100 applications from women (a not unrealistic difference in some professions).

This means that the 300 men will have a one in six chance of ­securing a job and the 100 women will have a one in two chance.

Are we OK with that gender inequity?

Clumsy quotas ignore the real­ity of women’s choices. From sociologist Catherine Hakim’s extensive research, we know that for every woman who regards work as the centrepiece of their lives, there are three men. In other words, men and women are not competing in equal numbers. Rather than some misogynistic conspiracy to clip the careers of women, women are deciding to work differently from men.

Social engineers don’t like facts that expose the new injustice against men in the workplace. Rather than a nuanced debate, the activists and their appeasers continue to artificially engineer a 50-50 gender representation in the workplace despite drawing from a pool that is not made up of equal numbers of men and women.

Corrective justice for past injustices is not a sound reason to discriminate against young men today. If XYZ Investment Bank has a pool of 300 male applicants, compared with 100 young women, the pool of 300 young men will necessarily reflect a wider slice of Australia, from exclusive inner-city private schools to public schools in the country. Are we OK with preferring private school girls from Abbotsleigh over working-class boys from Newcastle High?

Many are so wedded to conscious bias in favour of women that they reject moves that might dismantle it. This week, The Australian reported on a study that found removing names from public service job applications to confront unconscious gender bias has backfired. The trial was conducted by a behavioural economic unit established when Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister. The study of more than 2100 public servants from 14 agencies found that when recruiters reviewed gender-neutral applications, meaning names were removed, men fared better than they did under recruitment processes that included names of applicants.

In other words, gender-neutral applications expose the ­entrenched gender bias in favour of women that exists when gender is included on job applications. ­Instead of calling out conscious bias in existing recruitment processes, the study urges “caution” as de-identification of gender may “frustrate efforts aimed at promoting diversity”.

In a cute twist, last week, after being mobbed by school girls at St Joseph’s Catholic School on the NSW central coast, Bill Shorten committed a Labor government to gender-neutral resumes in the public service. The man should be mobbed by schoolboys who will benefit from an end to conscious bias that favours women. That’s not what Shorten had in mind, of course, as he committed his Labor caucus to 49 per cent women. But it points to the determined ignorance of facts over gender agendas. The indifference to facts gets worse the higher up you go in corporate Australia. The reality of women’s preferences is reflected in higher attrition rates among women who have different work-family preferences as they enter their late 20s and 30s. More women than men choose to leave jobs to raise children or to simply work less for other reasons, or to work differently. Sometimes that is not voluntary, but often it is.

The knock-on effect of this higher attrition rate is that an even smaller pool of privileged women reap even larger rewards at the expense of a bigger pool of men. Yet quota-seekers never address how quotas, drawing from different sized pools of men and women, inevitably deliver unjust outcomes.

By the time you get to the level of corporate boards, women become the Golden Skirts of corporate Australia. Good on them. But let’s not pretend it is fair or just.

The Golden Skirts phenomenon originated in Norway following laws that mandated 40 per cent of women on boards. The shallow pool of talented women means a few privileged women sit on ­multiple boards. In Australia, as of last year, 38 female directors from a smaller pool of female talent sat on three or more ASX 200 boards while only 25 men from a larger pool held the same number of board seats.

Conscious bias, at the graduate level or at higher levels, is not the high road to equity. It is a racket for a few lucky women at the expense of a large number of men. And Labor’s Andrew Leigh says a Shorten government will legislate that low road by mandating quotas for women on ASX-listed companies, cementing injustice into corporate Australia.

It is profoundly demeaning for women to be given a job because they are female rather than because they are the best person for the job. Sadly, ideas like this will remain unfashionable until more of us agree that the best way to stop gender discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of ­gender.

Which reminds me. At a small lunch in a salubrious Melbourne club last week, Institute of Public Affairs chairman Rod Kemp told us that he had an announcement.

He prefaced his news, that I will take over as IPA chairman come July 1, by saying he must surely have joined the saintly crowd of Male Champions of Change.

Then Rod burst out laughing, as did others, at the utter nonsense of those virtue-signalling men. Just as well. If Rod were serious about this appointment depending on my gender, I might have decked him.

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 May, 2019

Why you SHOULDN'T buy free-range eggs: Top vet says chickens prefer tight spaces and some don't like going outdoors

Free-range egg farming can actually be worse for chickens than being kept indoors, veterinarians have revealed. 

The shift from caged eggs to free-range has become more widespread in recent years based on the idea that the latter is the more ethical and animal-friendly choice.

However, Australian vets have debunked that myth, revealing free range can actually be harmful to chickens and cause welfare problems.

Dr Charles Milne, a chief vet from Victoria, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the birds, who are related to forest-dwellers, are more comfortable in closed spaces.

He said humans have assumed chickens prefer wide open spaces, only because they live in such a way.

RSPCA scientific officer Dr Kate Hartcher also agreed that chickens could live happily and healthily even if they are kept indoors. 'We don't say free-range is better,' she said. 'They can be perfectly healthy and have good welfare in an indoor system.'

However, the organisation maintains battery cages, the most controversial of chicken-keeping methods, are 'horrible', and endorse cage-free barn systems.

Cage-free eggs differ from free-range as the chickens are kept indoors, but they are not confined to tight and crowded spaces.

Figures show, however, these types of eggs make up only a small percentage of the ones sold at supermarkets.

In 2018, 45 per cent of all eggs sold in Australia were free-range - more than a 13 per cent increase from previous years.

In order for eggs to be sold with a free-range label, farmers must keep them in an outdoor range, have a stocking density of 10,000 hens or less per hectare,  according to ACCC guidelines.

But researches say being able to roam free isn't all that appealing to hens and it can even put them in predators' way. 

Professor Tamsyn Crowley, who runs research institute PoultryHub told SMH that having them outside all every day is 'not a good decision for welfare'. 'A chicken does not really like running around in a field where an eagle can come down and go "thank-you very much"', she said. 

In fact, she suggests it is more likely they would prefer to be cared for inside a bar as studies show the birds like shaded areas, indoor or outdoor.

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School suspensions not always bad

Schools should have high expectations for student behaviour. And the harsh reality is that this sometimes requires student detentions, suspensions, and expulsions.

Queensland government schools last year were reported to have had a 12% increase in students being suspended or expelled. In response, the Queensland education minister Grace Grace said this shows the government’s aim to foster a more positive school environment is working.

The minister’s approach should be commended — especially since behaviour management (and clear consequences for misbehaviour) went out of fashion in many education circles decades ago.

It is true that students who are suspended from school tend to have worse outcomes later on, but how much of this is just correlation rather than causation?

There is a tendency to criticise schools when they suspend or expel students for serious incidents of misbehaviour. The instinctive response is to blame teachers for not sufficiently ‘engaging’ the students, and teachers are told they should focus on understanding the reasons for student disruption.

But this ignores the fact that children often make irrational decisions, and take many years to acquire an adequate moral framework and impulse control. This happens regardless of how well they’re taught or how ‘engaging’ the lessons are.

If a school culture is too permissive, misbehaving students will not learn to improve their conduct and will undermine the academic outcomes of other students. Discipline is a key ingredient of success for all schools, including those with disadvantaged students.

And according to the international datasets, Australia’s school system is among the worst in the OECD for student behaviour. So focussing on discipline is potentially a way of improving school productivity in Australia.

Maybe the major parties should think about that before spending billions more taxpayer dollars on schooling.

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ANOTHER GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three current articles below

Australian Greens hate Israel

With all the excitement about Australia being in the Eurovision grand final, it’s worth recalling that last May Lee Rhiannon, a Greens senator at the time, pressured then SBS managing director Michael Ebeid to drop its broadcast because it would be held in Tel Aviv and therefore “could impact on Palestinians”.

Rhiannon, who was sitting on the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications, melodramatically told the committee it “could actually impact on who lives and who dies”.

The Greens’ candidate for the eastern Sydney seat of Kingsford Smith, James Cruz, has tweeted his own call to boycott Eurovision in Israel.

Rhiannon’s replacement in the Senate, Mehreen Faruqi, has spent her first few months in federal parliament appearing at events hosted by Palestine Action Group Sydney, an organiser of the Eurovision boycott.

Ebeid dismissed Rhiannon’s calls for a boycott: “The whole point of Eurovision is to forget politics, forget all of that and unite communities and countries together in the spirit of song.” But for so many Greens, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, nothing is beyond politics.

Moreover, with recent reports of Greens candidates outed as supporters of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel — despite it not being official Greens policy — we are entitled to ask whether the Greens are a party that cynically says one thing but does another.

Many Greens politicians and activists openly support BDS. This disingenuous shell game has allowed the Greens to portray themselves as environmentalists and social justice crusaders while providing a safe space for obsessive Israel-haters.

In the eyes of your local Greens candidate, support for Israel could lead to your complete political disenfranchisement. In the previous election, Greens candidate for Melbourne Ports Steph Hodgins-May buckled to political pressure from far-left sources and withdrew from a candidates’ debate for the Jewish community because Zionism Victoria co-sponsored the event. Yet she had no such qualms attending an election forum by the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network. Can such a candidate claim to be prepared to represent an entire electorate?

In 2015 Greens leader Richard Di Natale recognised Israel as a Jewish state, only to walk back that recognition shortly afterwards, and tactlessly used a condolence motion in the Senate to bash former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres.

In 2017, Di Natale called for a debate in Australia about “appropriate” economic sanctions against Israel, adding that all military trade between Australia and Israel “has to stop”.

Also that year, the federal Greens refused to condemn the NSW Young Greens after they announced their official policy to boycott Jewish students.

Last year, the acting deputy leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt, removed from his social media a caricature of a banker that mirrored Nazi caricatures of hook-nosed Jews. His spokesman meekly apologised for “any offence caused”.

The record has shown that virulent animus towards Israel — venturing far beyond the confines of official party policy — is not something limited to a single politician, candidate or state branch. It is pervasive among Greens because activists know the party will not censure them.

We all lose from such political game-playing. BDS undermines Australian interests, not only in seeking peace for the region but also in our trade with Israel, our democratic ally and among the world’s foremost hubs for technological innovation.

The Greens party propagates on its website the views of Hiba El-Farra, whose articles speak not of an occupation that began in 1967 but in 1948. Indeed, Israel’s entire existence since its establishment is portrayed as continuous “occupation”.

El-Farra’s vision of peace unequivocally demands a Palestinian “right of return” to Israel and not a separate Palestinian state, and does not allow for the existence of Israel as the Jewish national home.

Such are the views marketed on the Greens’ website, and it matters little that the post is tagged as “opinion” that is “not official policy of Greens WA”. The fact is the website does not publish views that deviate far from the maximalist Palestinian narrative that is antithetical to peace.

Yet not only is the Greens’ one-sided policy against Israel out of step with Australian interests, it contradicts the party’s platform when it comes to the environment, LGBTQ and gender equality issues, anti-Islamophobia, religious tolerance, democratic freedom and indigenous rights.

On these and other progressive issues, especially compared with its regional neighbours, Israel stands alone as a beacon of liberal values the Greens claim to hold so dear.

A political party that aspires to compete on centre stage with the Coalition and ALP, the Greens must avoid reducing this complex issue to black and white absolutes, and ensure it practises what it preaches regarding two states for two peoples.

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Basic facts taught at school undermine the Warmist gospel

Bill Shorten and his allies, the Greens economic vandals, believe climate change is a moral issue. So is telling the truth.

With his elite private school education, the Oppo­s­i­tion Leader would have learned about the Roman Warming, the Dark Ages, the Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age. These took place before industrialisation and were all driven by changes in the sun. He would have learned that ­natural warm times, like now, bring great prosperity, increased longevity and less disease, whereas Jack Frost brings death, depopulation and economic stresses.

In biology, the Labor leader would have learned of Darwinism and environmental adapta­tion of species. Humans live on ice and in the hills, valleys, tropics and des­erts, at altitude and on coastal plains. Like countless other organ­isms, we move and adapt when the environment changes. Species thrive when it is warm.

From his education at a relig­ious school, he would have learned about the apostle Thomas. One of the strengths of our Western civilisation is doubt and scepticism. Surely Shorten does not believe the catastrophism promoted by green activists and self-interested alleged experts at the expense of the nation. If he does, he is unelectable.

If he is knowingly promoting a falsehood, he is unelectable. Critical thinking was fundamental to our culture and should be embraced in policy formulation. In school science, Shorten would have learned carbon dioxide is the food of life and without this natural gas, which occurs in space and all planets, there would be no life.

He also would understand from his maths lessons that when 3 per cent of total annual global emissions of carbon dioxide are from humans and Australia prod­uces 1.3 per cent of this 3 per cent, then no amount of emissions reductio­n here will have any effect on global climate.

A quick search would show him that whenever in the past there was an explosion of plant life, the carbon dioxide content was far higher than at present. If we halve the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, all life dies.

Shorten should know that for thousands of millions of years the Earth has been changing, with cycles­ and one-off events such as an asteroid impact, super-volcano or a supernova explosion.

He should know that climate always changes and that the planet would be in serious trouble if it did not. There are cycles of air, water, rocks and continents. There are measurable cycles with the sun, Earth’s orbit, oceans and moon that drive climate change, especially if cycles coincide. It has yet to be demonstrated that the climate change today is any different from those of the past.

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars of expenditure during the past few decades, it still has not been shown that human emissions of carbon dioxide drive ­global warming. Yet wind and solar industrial complexes pepper the landscape allegedly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

They run on subsidies, not the wind or the sun. Wind and solar are transfering money from the poor to the rich, not saving the environment. These subsidies, paid by the long-suffering consumer and employer, add to emissions because coal-fired elec­tricity needs to be on standby for when there is no wind or sunshine.

The amount of energy used to construct solar and wind facilities is greater than they produce in their working lives. The amount of carbon dioxide released during construction and maintenance is far more than is saved. Renew­ables such as wind turbines are environmentally disastrous because they pollute a huge land area, slice and dice birds and bats, kill insects that are bird food, create health problems for humans who live within kilometres of them, leave toxins around the turbine site and despoil the landscape.

Union superannuation funds have invested massively in renewable energy. Labor’s promise of 50 per cent renewables will cost electricity consumers hundreds of billions but will benefit the unions.

As soon as renewables were introduced into the grid, electric­ity prices increased and delivery became unreliable. Increased elec­tric­ity costs have created unemployment, and many pensioners and the poor cannot afford electricity. An increase in renewables will make matters worse.

Does Shorten’s energy policy consider those who lose jobs and have the power cut off in his race to achieve 50 per cent renewables to fill the pockets of Labor union mates? And what about the scams siphoning off tens of billions that slosh around the world as carbon credits, carbon trading and renewable energy certificates? Rather than take this money from the poor via higher electricity prices, it would be better spent at home.

To smugly claim that valid questions about energy costs are dumb or deceitful is a loud warning bell. Shorten refuses to tell us how he will spend our money or to give any detail on energy ­systems that are proven failures. It is our money and, if he will not give us the financial details, we should be very scared of his shiftiness. I have never written a blank cheque for a used car. Why should I now?

Emeritus professor Ian Plimer’s latest book, The Climate Change Delusion and the Great Electricity Ripoff, is published by Connor Court.

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Greens plan is an arrow to the heart of free speech and the welfare of the poor

If you have lots of money stashed away, go your hardest. Vote 1 Greens. But don’t expect to get richer under Green policies. Your kids won’t enjoy the same cashed-up lifestyle as you either. And as for the poor, they simply cannot afford to vote Green.

Who votes for the Greens matters because Green votes in the Senate will determine policies in a Shorten government. The Greens are beholden to a voting base that is, historically, far more demographically and ideologically ­defined than the earlier balance-of-power party, the Australian Democrats, or today’s minor parties, be it Pauline Hanson’s One Nation or Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

Roy Morgan’s latest State of the Nation report for Saturday’s election details the depth of self-indulgence behind the Greens’ voting base.

The Greens attract voters from the highest socio-economic quintiles: 31 per cent of people in the AB quintile and 24 per cent in the C quintile, meaning people with the fattest incomes, the best jobs and the highest level of education.

Forget the baloney about the Liberals representing the top end of town.

Fully one-third of Australians in the cushiest socio-economic groups vote Greens. These smartypants voters with univer­sity educations imagine they are helping the poor by voting Greens. But their paternalism is not simply empty virtue-signalling. Worse than parading their faux morality, those who vote Greens are wrecking the chances of the poor to get rich. So, strike out every mention of “aspirational”, “a decent life,” “economic injustice”, “being a good economic manager”, “a fairer society” from the Greens’ campaign statements. These claims are monumental frauds.

The poor, those who do not vote for the Greens, know something many rich people do not. Those with less education understand that the Greens’ plan to ban thermal coal by 2030 and phase out coking coal too is economic suicide. In 2018, coal was our highest export earner, $66 billion last financial year, and $35.7bn coming from Queensland. Where will the Greens find an additional $66bn each year to provide education, health and support to the neediest Australians? Their policy of a “super profits” tax on mining companies won’t raise money when exports are shut down and company profits dry up. You don’t need an arts degree or even a PhD to work out that equation.

With pretensions to government, the Greens have not come up with an alternative to the coking coal needed to make steel, along with iron ore. And yet apparently highly educated Australians will vote for the economic nonsense of a green ban on coal on Saturday. The Adani coalmine, a creator of jobs in far north Queensland but bitterly opposed by inner-city Greens voters with nice jobs, is the defining parable about the fraud of voting Greens.

Poorer Australians understand that higher taxes, even on the rich, will not help the poor get rich. That’s why a fraction of the bottom quintile of Australian voters vote Greens, their group the only one not to rise on 2010 numbers.

And, in a sign perhaps those well-heeled doctors’ wives are on the march, women are more easily duped by promises of nirvana than men; the Greens attract 59 per cent of their support from women, up from 54 per cent since the 2010 election.

Support from men has dropped off, according to Roy Morgan polling, down to 41 per cent from 46 per cent when the Greens joined with Julia Gillard’s Labor minority government.

The disconnect of Greens voters has grown worse in the past eight years. Seventy-two per cent of Greens supporters, up from 65 per cent in 2010, live in capital cities where they will rarely face the reality of sprawling immigration, unemployment in the regions or missing infrastructure links. The Greens are not just reckless economy wreckers. They have their sights on killing our culture too. In video of a speech delivered in Melbourne in March, Greens leader Richard Di Natale said he wants new laws that make it a crime to engage in hate speech, taking specific aim at those who analyse Greens policies the most.

“We’re going to make sure that we’ve got laws that regulate our media so that people like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones and Chris Kenny … if they want to use hate speech to divide the community then they’re going to be held to account,” Di Natale said.

Di Natale’s plan will kill a free and independent media in Australia. Hate speech will become the new thoughtcrimes of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, a highly subjective, legal weapon to be aimed at those who say things you hate.

And don’t imagine he won’t find support from the party that comes to power with Greens preferences. The Gillard Labor government tried to regulate the free press in Australia in 2013, bolstered by then Greens leader Christine Milne who wanted a “fit and proper” test giving government more power to control the media. Stephen Conroy wanted the package pushed through before the 2013 election.

While the policy was ditched that year, the entrenchment of “hate speech” as an acceptable limit on freedom means the task of fighting for freedom of expression will be harder today than it was six years ago.

Don’t take my word for it. Last week, Di Natale was interviewed on the ABC on two occasions, first by Sabra Lane on AM, the ABC’s premier radio analysis program. Di Natale repeated his radical plan to regulate the media in his quest to “hold to account” journalists at News Corp. Lane’s uninterested response was: “You’ve made the point. We need to move on.”

Move on? What, nothing to see here? Leigh Sales had interviewed Di Natale the previous night on 7.30 and failed to question Di Natale about his radical policy to alter our liberal freedoms.

When the ABC’s premier political analysts don’t bother to analyse a policy that would control media output, it’s worth asking why. Critiquing Di Natale’s plan is not about defending News Corp. It is about defending freedom of the press, a core value in a liberal democracy.

The ABC does that a lot when unloading on US President Donald Trump for his attacks on the media. Why is the public broadcaster silent about a far more radical policy on the home front to shut down voices in the Australian media? Could it be that the ABC hosts are more likely to vote Greens? They certainly fit the demographic pattern of Greens voters, namely rich and well-educated city slickers.

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 May, 2019

Wild Westfield: Two girls knifed in 30-youth brawl as violence escalates at 'Australia's most dangerous shopping centre' and MPs call for thugs to be deported to end 'out of control' crime

Here's an easy puzzle: Guess the skin colour of the "gangs" concerned

Two girls have been stabbed after a brawl involving 30 teenagers broke out at a  shopping centre in Melbourne's southeast. 

Police were called to Westfield Fountain Gate in Narre Warren on Tuesday after receiving reports of a fight between two groups of teens around 9.30pm. 

One girl was rushed to the hospital with a serious stab wound, while another stabbing victim arrived on her own with serious injuries.

Another woman, believed to be in her 20s, was treated at the scene, the Herald Sun reported.

Most of the teens fled the scene before police arrived and no charges were immediately laid.

Victoria Police were asking anyone who may have any information relating to incident to come forward. 

It came just days after the mall hired more security to patrol the shopping centre following a crime wave involving a string of robberies and assaults. 

Business owners had expressed concern over groups of up to a dozen teenagers storming stores, damaging and stealing items.

Several retailers told the Cranbourne Leader their stores had been 'ransacked' by gangs in recent weeks and a poll of 3000 locals found 74 per cent admitted they steered clear of the centre due to fears of violence. 

Victoria MPs, incluing La Trobe MP Jason Wood, had taken to social media to weigh in on the ongoing issue and calling for the government to take action.

'Gang violence is absolutely out of control, once again youth gangs have targeted Fountain Gate. I have laws to deport foreign-born thugs, and now the AFP will be targeting violent gangs in the South East," Mr Wood said.

'Bill Shorten and Labor are still opposing this, and say I'm overreacting as there is NO youth gang problem,' he said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

Gembrook MP Brad Battin also took to social media saying, 'this is not the Fountain Gate we have known for decades.'

'Shop owners say they are helpless, parents fear for their children as robberies increase, and now overnight, reports of a riot and possible stabbing', he said. 

'How can we stop this rot, how can we make it safer?'

An army of security guards, dressed in cream coloured khakis and blue polo shirts, have been patrolling the mall that has been dubbed the 'most unsafe' in Victoria.

Earlier this month one cafe worker told how one group of teens came to her shop and 'literally went through and flipped up all the tables and chairs'.

A woman said her 14-year-old son was attacked and mugged by a gang of six teenagers in the food court last month.

'One of his friends was asked by the gang to hand over his jacket or he'd be stabbed. The boys were then told they would be bashed if they didn't hand over all of their cash,' she said.

In February 2016 a 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in a brazen daylight attack near the shopping centre.

The mother was disappointed with how security and management had handled the incident, saying that security didn't call to let her know what happened, and that police weren't even notified about the incident by security.

On a Casey Crime Facebook page, a woman claimed that she was attacked by six teenage girls on April 20, while security watched.

Another woman claimed a lady smacked her six-year-old granddaughter across her face, and centre management and security didn't do anything about it after she reported the incident to them.  

A Fountain Gate worker said a bunch of teenagers are known to come into her store and try to distract staff in a bid to steal from the tip jar.  

Last month, two teenage girls brutally bashed a chicken shop worker in a failed attempt to rob her of the day's takings in front of stunned onlookers.

The shop worker had been holding $5,000 when she was attacked by the teenagers, who punched her in the back of her head and flung her to the floor, before continuing to kick her.

It's understood she later required 13 stitches in her leg after she tripped on a vase.

In 2017, a mother-of-two who worked in a salon at the shopping centre was attacked by a 45-year-old man with an axe.

The woman was rushed to hospital and survived but the bloody incident left co-workers and bystanders extremely shaken.

The alleged attacker was charged with attempted murder. 

Despite the lawlessness, police said there were regular patrols of the precinct, and a strong partnership with management.

'Police from Narre Warren, Cranbourne and Endeavour Hills regularly patrol the shopping centre with more serious offences followed up by detectives from Casey crime investigation unit,' Acting Inspector Dean Grande said. 

A spokeswoman for Scentre Group told news.com.au: 'The safety and security of our customers, retail partners and employees is always our priority.

'As a social hub and meeting point in the local community, Westfield Fountain Gate strives to ensure all our customers feel welcome, comfortable and safe when visiting,' the spokeswoman said.

'Every situation is different and our experienced teams make decisions on how to manage situations on a case-by-case basis — always with the safety of our customers in mind.'

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Bill Shorten has promised to “fight” a right-leaning Senate to pass his taxes if he wins.

How? Will he send them to concentration camps?

Key senate crossbenchers have promised to block the Opposition Leader’s tax proposals, and he has moved to a more aggressive footing against them in recent days.

“If this right wing Senate, if it forms, as you imagine, or as your question assumes, which I don’t, we’ll fight them on reversing the penalty rates cuts,” he said in Perth today.

“We will fight them on providing the funding so that 2.6 million pensioners get some care for their teeth.

“We will fight the Senate when it comes to making sure that nearly one million Australian households get a subsidy of $2000 per child, per year, in childcare. We’re up for the fight.

“If the Senate don’t want to fix the waiting lists in Tasmania on health, if they don’t want to see young apprentices in Western Australia get some support. If they don’t want to see us build Cross River Rail in Queensland, and don’t want to see the South Road in Adelaide, we will fight them.”

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A Labor win will have come from the classrooms

If the Coalition government is defeate­d on Saturday and Bill Shorten becomes prime minister next week, there’s no doubt Australia’s ­education system will be a major reason.

While policies, campaign management and strategies targeting marginal seats are vital, more importa­nt is how voters think and react to the issues and what they see as paramount.

Even though politicians may believe they are in control and can act independently, voters decide who wins an election and forms government.

The expression that politics is downstream of culture reinforces the point that it is the broader cultur­e and way of life that determines what happens in the polit­ical sphere. And if politics is downstream of culture, then it is equally true that culture is downstream of education.

As argued by American educa­tionalist Christopher J. Lucas: “Culture is learned … the culture of a society must be internalised by each generation. Education, forma­l and informal, unconscious and conscious, is a means for the preservation of culture.”

Best summed up by the 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln, “the philo­sophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government by the next”. One only has to look at the ALP and Coalition government campaign launches to see how prescient Lincoln was.

Scott Morrison’s speech was very much in the conservative Liberal­ Party tradition espoused by Rober­t Menzies.

The narrative is one of “Aust­ralians going quietly about their lives”, where home ownership, the traditional family and serving other­s underpin our way of life.

The slogan “Building Our Economy. Securing Your Future” reinforces the belief that the most effective way to gain voters’ suppor­t is to convince them that a Coalition government, compared with the ALP, is better at economic management and safeguarding the nation’s future.

In addition to having much in common with Menzies’ Forgotten People speech, the Prime Minister’s description of Australians serving others and being committed to simple, honest aspirations reflects a bygone era and an educatio­n system that has long since ceased to exist.

Older generations will remember a time when teachers were authority figures to be respected, classes were ordered and discip­lined, and students were expected to master the basics. History dealt with the narrative associated with the evolution of Western civil­isation, geography dealt with topograp­hy and the rain cycle, and English with grammar, syntax, clear thinking and the literary canon.

Education rewarded those willing to apply themselves and work hard, and the majority of students left school and went on to further education or into the workforce with the belief that their futures were positive, and confident they could achieve home ownership and material success.

Labor’s campaign launch and Bill Shorten’s speech presents the opposite narrative to that of the government.

The Opposition Leader’s­ ­open­ing exhortation, “You have the power to change our country for the better”, empowers those ­voting for the ALP and reinforces a sense of social justice and ­egalitarianism.

The statement that the election provides an opportunity “to take Australia into a new decade with new vision, new purpose”, instead of relying on the past and ­continuity, signals that a Shorten-led government would be prog­ressive and forward-looking.

The ALP’s focus on addressing climate change, refugees, increasing the minimum wage, funding government schools and taxing multinationals also reinforces the impression that it is the ALP and not the government that is more in tune with the times and better able to address the future.

Given the type of education experience­d by the millennials (born between 1983 and 1994) and Generation Z (born between 1995 and 1999), it’s clear why the ALP’s campaign and policies resonate so well with the younger generations.

As a result of the cultural Left’s dominance of the education ­system since the 1970s and 80s, ­students have been taught that societ­y is riven with injustice and inequality, that unless urgent actio­n is taken the environment is doomed, and that Western civilisation is oppressive and guilty of white supremacism.

Schools have long since replaced meritocracy and a commitment to academic study with the belief that all deserve success and that knowledge has no inherent value as subjects such as mathematics, science and English are social constructs reinforcing the power of the elites.

Instead of pursing truth and a commitment to being impartial and objective, the dominant ortho­­doxy, given the rise of postmodernism and deconstructionism, is one where subjectivity pre­vails and being emotional is more important than being rational.

As noted by a report commissioned by the Centre for Independent Studies, it should not surprise that 58 per cent of millennials survey­ed viewed socialism favourably and 59 per cent thought capitalis­m had failed and that govern­ment must take a greater role in regulating the economy.

Given that the school curriculum has long since prioritised deep-green ideology in areas such as clim­ate change with mining companies such as chief enemy BHP, it’s understandable why so many young people have a negative view of business and making a profit.

Last year’s Deloitte Millennial Survey mirrors the judgment reached by the CIS publication when concluding that millennials “feel pessimistic about the prospects for political and social progress, along with concerns about safety, social equality and environmental sustainability”.

The Deloitte survey also conclude­s that young people want “business leaders to take the lead in solving the world’s problems” and to shift the focus from making a profit to “balancing social concern­s and being more diverse, flexible, nurturing of and generous with employees”.

The challenge for the centre-right side of politics if Shorten becomes prime minister is how to address the fact Australia’s education system has long since promoted an ideology that is the antithesis to its more conservative political philosophy.

A good place to start is to acknowled­ge that, while the econom­y and issues around productivity and border protection are important, even more importa­nt is to engage in the ­culture wars and to win the battle of ideas.

SOURCE  





GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current reports below

Antisemitism rife in Australian Greens

In keeping with their far-Left stance

Jewish leaders have urged Richard Di Natale to call out anti-Semitism within the Greens, after anti-Israel social media comments emerged from three Greens candidates in NSW federal seats.

The comments described Israel as an “apartheid” regime, accused members of the Israeli government of “openly advocating genocide”, denied the crimes of listed terrorist organisation Hamas, and criticised Senator Di Natale for failing to support the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement.

In a Facebook comment on an Australian Jewish News article about the Executive Council of Australian Jewry congratulating Senator Di Natale on his election as Greens leader, Greens candidate for Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook, Jonathan Doig, said he was “surprised the Greens don’t support BDS on Israel.” “Time to reconsider surely,” Mr Doig wrote.

The party’s candidate for the western Sydney seat of Watson, Emmett de Bhaldraithe, commented on Facebook that people in the current Israeli government “quite openly advocate genocide”.

“What has Hamas actually done that would suggest they wish to follow through on (genocide)/can?” Mr Bhaldraithe wrote.

Greens candidate for the eastern Sydney seat of Kingsford Smith, James Cruz, had a dig at his party’s Queensland Senator Larissa Waters, tweeting a picture of Senator Waters with Australian Eurovision contestant Kate Miller-Heidke, saying it was “disappointing to see Larissa Waters endorsing Eurovision held in apartheid Israel.”

“People of concious (sic) should #BoycottEurovision2019 in solidarity with Palestinians fighting for their land and lives,” Mr Cruz tweeted.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry CEO Alex Ryvchin said it was easy to dismiss the statements as “online ramblings of the far-left”. “But when such statements come from candidates for public office, who have been elevated to national prominence by their party, it is a matter of deep concern,” Mr Ryvchin said.

“To accuse Israel of apartheid and genocide, to whitewash the crimes of Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation committed to the destruction of a sovereign state and Jewish people worldwide, is a means of inciting hatred against Israelis. “It also endangers the overwhelming majority of Australian Jews who have deep personal and historic links to Israel.

“These are reckless, harmful comments. They should be condemned by Senator Di Natale without equivocation, and rooted out of the culture of the Greens, instead of being allowed to flourish.”

A spokesman for the Greens said BDS was not Australian Greens policy, “and we understand the concern among the Jewish community around the language used.” However, the spokesman said the Greens “reject charges of anti-Semitism.”

“It is legitimate to criticise the Netanyahu government’s actions in obstructing peace and Palestinian sovereignty,” he said.

“Now more than ever, with a rising tide of white supremacism and anti-Semitic attacks, the Greens stand in support of the Jewish community, all faith groups and a strong, diverse multicultural Australia.”

Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich said the three Greens candidates should not get a “free pass” for their “contemptible and malicious” comments which reveal “unabashed venom towards Israel”.

“Richard Di Natale should not give sanction to such divisive rhetoric, and should urge these individuals to not only apologise for their rabid anti-Israel statements, but to renounce these incendiary positions,” Dr Abramovich said.

SOURCE  

Koalas are 'functionally extinct' with just 80,000 left in the wild meaning they 'can't produce a new generation'

What rubbish. Koalas are in plague proportions in some places -- e.g. Kangaroo Island

Koala numbers have fallen so low across Australia that the species is now 'functionally extinct', animal campaigners believe.

The Australian Koala Foundation said there may be as few as 80,000 of the animals left in the wild, meaning they are unlikely to produce a new generation.

'Functionally extinct' describes an animal population which is either so small it has ceased to affect its environment, has no breeding pairs left, or is still breeding but from such a small number of individuals that it succumbs to genetic disease.

The foundation says that, since 2010, it has monitored 128 Federal electorates that fall within known koala environments, and in 41 there are no koalas left.

While researchers admit that the koala's tendency to move around and its patchwork habitat make it difficult to track, they say numbers are in steep decline.

Between 1890 and 1927, more than 8million of the animals were shipped to London after being shot for fur.

Research conducted in 2016 showed there were around 330,000 of the animals left in Australia, though this number could be as low as 144,000 and as high as 600,000.

The biggest threats to koalas are habitat loss and heatwaves caused by climate change, such as the one last year that saw thousands of animals die from dehydration, studies have shown.

Since May 2012, koalas have been officially listed as vulnerable in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. This means their populations are in steep decline or at risk from entering a decline.

While the animals are not listed as vulnerable in Victoria or South Australia, local populations are known to have gone extinct - though the species is relatively abundant elsewhere.

Koala Foundation chairman Deborah Tabart said: 'I am calling on the new Prime Minister after the May election to enact the Koala Protection Act (KPA) which has been written and ready to go since 2016. 'The plight of the Koala now falls on his shoulders.'

SOURCE  

Queer Greek Greenie abuses Christians

The Greenies attract some odd types

Damning footage of Greens candidate for the inner-west Sydney seat of Barton, Connor Parissis, has emerged showing the “left wing” and “mental health” activist trying to shout down Christians giving out free food at Sydney University.

Mr Parissis is shown screaming “your beliefs are a joke” at the Christians who were hosting a free food stall during the gay marriage debate.

A mob of angry protesters descended on the 25 Christian students trying to give away food.

“Shut the f..k up,” Mr Parissis yelled, “Go back to church … You know who’s a joke? Your f..king beliefs..” “Go wank yourself at home, you and your f..king Jesus picture,” Mr Parrisis yelled over the crowd, “I wish I could kick your face in.”

Mr Parissis, 21, advertises himself as a candidate who will fight for youth mental health, refugees and indigenous rights. On his candidate website he boasts being “University of Sydney Queer Officer, at the forefront of the Safe Schools Campaign and the YES campaign for marriage equality”.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Parissis has been using a twitter handle called “@TheElginMarbles” to post offensive images and boast about stealing a plant from Kmart.

During Greek Easter celebrations, Mr Parissis posted an image showing Jesus performing a sexual act, with the caption “I love easter traditions”.

Last week, Mr Parissis apologised for his earlier posts.

SOURCE  

Labor should beware a revolt against renewables

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has told the world that the political will to fight climate change has faded and that many countries are not living up to their commitments under the 2016 Paris agreement.

There are few people in the world better able to assess the mood of the international community than Guterres.

In Australia, if the opinion polls are right, Bill Shorten will be prime minister after Saturday’s election and one of the driving forces behind that victory—particularly among younger voters -- will be his plan to accelerate carbon reduction in Australia by investing in renewables.

So, we are moving in a direction that is different to large parts of the international community.

That raises clear trade warning bells but, for the moment, let’s leave that aside. Around 2016 the rest of the world was like Australia today, with large segments of the population driving for lower carbon emissions via renewables.

Australia and a Shorten government needs to take note of the Guterres warning and learn from the mistakes countries have made which have turned big segments of their populations against renewables-driven carbon reduction, despite the climate warnings.

In summary the populations were told renewables would reduce prices. That’s simply wrong unless you plan the introduction with great care, rather than plonking windmills or solar panels around the land with no co-ordination with existing installations and networks.

The first thing that does is to put pressure of the power grid and I described the problem last month.

But it’s an area where international global power experts can inadvertently mislead and in that commentary I described how problems in the grid can affect the charging of electric car batteries (in this case Tesla) in Australia. I later discovered the expert was talking about the US. I apologise for that mistake, but the message is the same--- whatever changes you make in power generation or usage, make sure the grid in all areas can handle it. If you don’t then the unreliability created will turn the community against carbon reduction and may lead to bizarre outcomes.

In Europe, power utilities can receive carbon credits by switching from coal to wood and belching out far more carbon than modern coal burning.

It’s an obscene racket and I have discovered there are a vast variety of estimates as to how big it is.

But there is also good news on the carbon front. Back in 2016 the only way to adjust the grid for renewables and other changes was to spend large sums on new wires. Now there are low-cost technologies to stabilise the grid and expand its capacity, which is fantastic news for electric cars.

I described the Faraday Grid system last month and an early step of an ALP government should be to assess the rollout of the Faraday system in London and Tokyo and check whether there are any rival systems. That way we can avoid at least one of the traps that changed the renewable views of other countries.

We should also be aware that, in Europe at least, economic difficulties can play a role in changing views.

We have not encountered anything like the problems of many European countries but as I explained yesterday, a prolonged US-China trade war at the same time as an Australian credit squeeze, a retirement and pensioners tax, and negative gearing clamps, will create a severe downturn which may cause Australia to embrace the same renewable energy views as many other countries.

We have already seen how tough times in northern Queensland have made parts of the local population strongly in favour of coal mining.

Some years ago, Germans were enthusiastic about their “Energiewende” energy transition project that involved the erection of vast numbers of windmills and solar panels. But it turned into an extremely costly debacle causing higher power prices, blackouts and load sharing. And it also changed the idyllic rural landscapes. ‘Energiewende’ is now winding back and is an excellent example of the new community attitudes described by the UN Secretary-General.

In the UK the renewables have forced gas-fired power stations to suddenly boost their output and then reduce it in order to balance the grid and prevent blackouts.

In addition, few are investing in efficient modern gas-fired plant while renewables are subsidised. The result is that the gas-fired fleet is much less efficient than it should be and price rises will continue for the foreseeable future.

That’s what will happen in Australia if we don’t integrate renewables with the existing systems.

Just as new technologies solved the grid problems, the world is working on much better non-carbon energy production other than wind (including more efficient solar) and is developing better batteries to change the economics of wind.

We are in danger rushing into technologies that will be obsolete while Europe and other areas fudge their figures by burning wood.

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 May, 2019

Veteran principal who tackled a student to the ground to break up a schoolyard brawl is accused of assault and stood down

This is a great way to encourage chaotic schools.  The man deserves a  medal, not being stood down.  The police have cleared him, which makes the bureaucratic intervention even more obnoxious

A deputy school principal who tackled a student to the ground before being circled by other pupils with their fists up has been stood down over allegations of assault.

Associate principal Grant Walton was stood down from Perth's Eaton Community College following the incident in March, and an investigation by the Education Department was underway.

It's understood Mr Walton was trying to break up a brawl between current and former students on the school's oval.

Dramatic footage showed Mr Walton kneeing a student in the back to bring him to the ground, keeping his body weight on the boy's back as other students surrounded him.

'Get off him! Get off him!' students shouted at Mr Walton, before he stood up and released the boy.

The student then started swinging his arms at the principal while getting off the ground.

The video cut out briefly before showing the boy square up with his fists raised to Mr Walton, who shouted at him to 'get lost' and 'go away'.

Mr Walton had worked at the school, near Bunbury, for 15 years. 

Last week, the Department of Education confirmed Mr Walton was under  investigation for allegedly physically assaulting a student. 

The schoolyard brawl was reported to police by a parent, but Bunbury Detectives cleared Mr Walton of any charges after investigating the incident.

Kylie, the mother of the boy who was brought to the ground in the confronting footage, claimed her son was wrongly targeted. '(He was) grabbed from behind... for basically no reason,' she told The West. 'He did turn around and tell the teacher involved to 'F... off' and walked away, that's when it happened,' she claimed.  [Mothers always believe their children]

'As my son was walking off, the teacher involved came up behind him and kicked him, kicked his leg out from under him and threw him to the ground pretty much, and jumped on top of him.'

She said she had written a complaint to police after they cleared Mr Walton of any wrongdoing in the altercation. 

State School Teachers Union president Pat Byrne told the South Western Times that staff were encouraged to avoid any physical contact with brawling students. 'What they are required to do is do what they can to get help and issue verbal instructions to stop the fight,' she said.

Ms Byrne said the sequence of events that led up to the video footage being filmed needed to be established before a judgement could be made.

More than 300 locals and parents of students had taken to Facebook to defend Mr Walton's actions, saying he's the 'heart and soul' of Eaton Community College.

'Mr Walton has given everything to that school and the community. Behind him all the way as an ex student,' one comment read.

'This man is outstanding as an educator and principal!!! If he had to intervene it would be to save a child's life and for the safety of the other students. This is a huge mistake and mis justice (sic),' another read.

'Nothing but praise for Grant Walton he always has the kids best interest in mind. Hopefully he can return to his position as soon as possible.'

'As a parent of a child in ECC I stand behind Mr Walton. His actions are just protecting children. So with this rule does that mean if a student is bashing another student they will just let it play out?' another woman said.      

SOURCE  






Queensland approves Pembroke’s giant $1bn coal mine at Olive Downs

Why approve this one and obstruct Adani?  Would it be that Adani is Indian?  The ALP has always been racist

Queensland has approved one of the country’s biggest coalmines, Olive Downs, with the private equity-backed owners Pembroke Resources expecting to spend up to $1 billion on the project in the state’s Bowen Basin near Moranbah.

Pembroke, run by former Gloucester Coal managing director Barry Tudor, will employ up to 1000 people with the 15 million-tonne-a-year mine to produce coal for export to customers in Japan, South Korea and China.

The project was approved by Queensland’s independent Co-ordinator-General with construction to start in 2020 subject to sign-off from the federal government.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the approval underlined the state’s strong resources pipeline across mining and energy.

“My government has helped facilitate more than $20bn in resources projects since January 2015,” Ms Palaszczuk said. “This has helped the Queensland economy continue to grow and it has helped contribute to the 192,000 jobs that have been created in Queensland since January 2015.”

While Queensland continues to sign off on major mine approvals like Olive Downs, the decision may rankle Adani, with construction of its proposed $2bn Carmichael thermal coal mine in the Galilee Basin hamstrung by a decade-long court and approval battle.

The latest hitch for Adani is a further review of its groundwater plans, forcing Ms Palaszczuk yesterday to deny her government is delaying the Indian company’s mooted coal mine.

Pembroke — controlled by US private equity player Denham Capital — bought Olive Downs in 2016 from Peabody Energy for $120m as part of a set of deals struck during the coking coal downturn when some legacy miners struggled with cashflows.

Olive Downs is expected to be in the lowest quartile of global mines in terms of operating costs with exports to be shipped out of Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal.

The construction phase of Olive Downs will encourage workers to live in towns, including Moranbah, Nebo, Dysart and Middlemount, to cut reliance on fly-in, fly-out staff.

SOURCE  






ALP franking credit plan on nose in key Tasmanian marginals

And let's not forget Tasmania's disproportionate influence in the Senate

A growing revolt at Labor’s franking credits policy is threatening to cost it two key marginal seats in Tasmania, as MP Justine Keay revealed­ she took concerns about the plan to the ALP frontbench.

In Tasmania’s knife-edge northern electorates, where the political contest can swing on a handful of votes, Labor has alienated as many as 7000 voters over its policy to remove franking credit tax refunds, a key part of many retirees’ income.

An estimated 3700 voters are impacted in Braddon, where a uCommons poll earlier in the campaign had Liberal candidate Gavin Pearce leading sitting Labor MP Justine Keay 51-49 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

A further 3600 retirees are said to be impacted in Bass, which News­poll yesterday showed Labor holding 52-48 per cent two-party-preferred, despite a big swing to the Liberals. Some polls point to a possible Liberal win.

Anne Sadler, the president of the north Tasmania branch of the non-party-political Association of Independent Retirees, said “not many” retirees in the region would still be open to voting Labor, due to the policy.

“There is an enormous number of people badly affected,” Ms ­Sadler said. “Bill Shorten suggests we are the top end of town but we’re not, and that really hurts. We are just ordinary people who as a result of this are not sleeping at night, worried and concerned about our retirement income.”

Ms Sadler and husband Tim, who live in the Labor-held margin­al electorate of Lyons, stand to lose 30 per cent of their retirement incom­e under Labor’s policy.

In Lyons, which Labor’s Brian Mitchell holds by 3.8 per cent, Liberal candidate Jessica Whelan was disendorsed over anti-Islamic social media posts. But the Nationals and now independent Ms Whelan insist it is still in play.

Further north in Bass, which Labor holds with a margin of 5.4 per cent, and Braddon, Labor’s with a 1.7 per cent margin, retirees are increasingly vocal, storming into MPs’ offices and asking pointed questions at candidate forums.

“We’re going to lose $14,000 a year in franking credits. For all the taxes we’ve paid all our lives, we’re going to get a 20 per cent decrease in our income,” said Launceston resident and Bass voter Shane Dennington. “Bill Shorten is callin­g it a gift. It’s not a gift.”

After 45 years working, mostly self-employed in retail and wholesaling, he and wife Jenny, a retired aged-care worker, are angry. “I’m sick of being called a rich bastard by Labor,” Mr Dennington said.

The couple, in their mid-70s, say without the $14,000 in franking credits they would have to eat into their nest-egg, further eroding their income at a time when low interest rates made it impossible to survive on interest alone.

In neighbouring Braddon, ­fellow retirees John and Philippa Gray, of Port Sorell, fear the loss of $3000-$3500 a year in franking credits.

“It’s probably 10 per cent of our income — we will have to cut back on expenditure and eat into our savings,” said Mr Gray, 75.

The couple had been in “mixed minds” about which party to back. “But with Labor coming up with this policy, it definitely swings our vote,” he said.

Sitting Labor MPs Justine Keay in Braddon and Ross Hart in Bass defend the policy, arguing it was about “priorities”, with the $6 billion saved allowing greater expenditure on health and education.

But Ms Keay did not deny the policy was harming her chances of holding the seat. “I have had peopl­e contact me about franking credits,” she said. “I think where you have a significant number of people on lower incomes and retireme­nt incomes (it will be an issue).”

She had lobbied Labor’s frontbench about the policy on behalf of constituents. “It’s what I do with any issue when I have people come to me with concerns,” she said.

And she recognised that some of the voters impacted were far from wealthy. “In this electorate … they are probably getting less than maybe someone in Sydney and Melbourne,” Ms Keay said.

SOURCE  






Bush jobs unfairly targeted as so-called big polluters to be punished

I have been around the climate change debate for quite a while and more tan a decade ago I was one of the first parliamentarians to ask questions about who would bear the burden of Kevin Rudd’s flawed carbon pollution reduction scheme.

And there is one thing that has never changed. Those in the cities who demand big cuts in emissions will be insulated from any direct impact other than the warm inner glow that comes from feeling virtuous and superior. Those in the inner city will feel good. Those in the country will feel the consequences.

If Bill Shorten wins on Saturday, regional Australia is in for a hiding. The evidence is in plain sight. Labor has confirmed that it will require 250 firms, which it calls “big polluters”, to slash emissions by at least 45 per cent by 2030.

If they fail to do so, they will be forced to buy domestic or international carbon credits to make up the difference.

Let’s take a look at what Labor considers are “big polluters”. It regards beef, dairy and chicken processors as big polluters. Labor considers Bega Cheese a big polluter. Queensland sugar millers Mackay Sugar and Wilmar are big polluters, according to Labor.

Alumina refiners that employ thousands of Australians are big polluters. The firms that produce toilet tissue are big polluters.

Incredibly, Labor considers Wagga Wagga City Council a big polluter.

You’ll have detected the trend here. The overwhelming majority of Labor’s targeted 250 firms are located in the bush.

Guess how many companies on Labor’s top 250 “big polluter” hit list are based in Shorten’s inner-Melbourne electorate of Maribyrnong? Not one. Guess how many in Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek’s inner-city seat of Sydney? Not one.

How many in Adam Bandt’s cafe-dense seat of Melbourne? You got it.

Compare this with the seat of Flynn in central Queensland. There are 22 firms in Flynn that will be hit by Labor’s new carbon tax. Those firms employ 14,283 Queenslanders.

Add to those an abattoir in the small town of Biloela that employs 450 workers, an ammonium ­nitrate plant in the even smaller town of Moura that employs 75 workers, two alumina plants in Gladstone that each employ ­almost 1000 workers and provide business to hundreds of local ­businesses.

Then there is the seat of Braddon in northwestern Tasmania. There are nine firms there facing new costs. Those firms employ more than 2400 Tasmanians in regional towns and include the Spirit of Tasmania ferry, which faces a $22 million hit across the decade to 2030.

Then there is the Fonterra dairy processing plant in the pretty town of Wynyard, which has 89 workers, and another one in Spreyton that employs 144. That’s important to a community just south of Devonport with a total population of 1660.

And in Western Australia, Labor’s climate policy burden is also stacked against the bush.

Labor’s policy will hit the state hard. Almost 50 WA companies are on Labor’s hit list and not just resources companies, though there are dozens of them. Almost every sector of the WA economy will take a hit: food processing, freight transport, waste management, minerals processing and manufacturing, public transport, water and building materials.

It will cost, on very conservative assumptions, these firms more than $7.5 billion across the decade. Most of this will go to buy international carbon credits.

These firms and councils employ at least 108,000 West Australians. And on top of the state impacts, WA will feel an out-sized hit from many national firms on which the state depends, such as Qantas, Virgin Australia and ­Alliance Airlines, which will face an additional $1bn hit.

Labor says the cost impact on firms will be limited and that the 250 companies will be able to reduce their emissions and thus avoid or limit any purchases of carbon credits. But Labor knows that is not true.

It contradicts all the evidence provided by business to recent climate policy reviews.

Qantas says “with domestic and international traffic expected to continue to grow, airlines have limited capacity to bring emissions below set baselines in the short term”.

Virgin Australia has warned there is a “lack of available technology to significantly reduce emissions”.

Steelmakers BlueScope and Arrium say technical improvements would deliver just a 1 per cent reduction in emissions.

Larger emissions cuts would be “unviable and risky” and a 5 to 10 per cent cut would cost up a prohibitive $200 per tonne CO2 saved.

Rio Tinto also has signalled emissions in mining operations will rise rather than fall, saying “increasing effort and therefore energy is required to extract ore, which leads to an increase in emissions intensity of operations over the life of the mine”.

Labor’s policy will divide Australia down the middle. Labor will sell regional blue-collar workers down the river.

The bottom line is that regional Australia will do all of the heavy lifting to meet targets designed and influenced by those who will do none of it.

SOURCE  








Nissan Leaf electric car: too little, too late?

Nissan Leaf, $49,990

It’s annoying waiting at the Caltex counter while someone fumbles about for their credit card, and it’s even more frustrating to be behind umpteen cars in a bowser queue. Patience is a virtue unknown to motorists and our inner alarm clocks are calibrated in milliseconds. Fail at a tight parking space, or react slower than a drag racer to a green, and other drivers will lean on their horns impatiently.

So it’s a mystery why anyone thinks motorists will have the stomach for EV recharging times. Best-case estimates, for an EV with the fastest wiring hooked up to the most powerful DC supercharger, suggest 10-minute refills will be possible. Ten minutes? To most drivers that’s an eternity.

Of course, actual times will stretch much longer – 20, 30, 40 minutes or more. So you’ll park, plug in and seek a distraction. Well, good luck. There’s nothing about the average petrol station that says, “Hey, come and relax in our comfy coffee lounge” because there isn’t one. You get a paper cup and run.

Perhaps the recharging network – when we have one – will be different. Maybe it will spawn its own ecosystem of small businesses catering to heel-kicking EV drivers. Smoothie and a massage while you charge? Or a fitness circuit? Yeah, and maybe we’ll all become Buddhist monks.

This was front of mind while I was recharging this week’s electric buggy, the Nissan Leaf, at the NRMA unit in Sydney’s Olympic Park, the only convenient supercharger within cooee of where I was heading. Admittedly, it was a sleepy public holiday weekend and little was open. But even on a good day, the discount chemist would have been one of the highlights and once I’d restocked the bathroom there was little to do but wait.

It charged at the rate of almost 3km a minute – not bad, considering – but EVs don’t fill up like regular cars. They’re more like your smartphone: once the batteries hit 80 per cent capacity, recharging slows to a crawl. This is essential to avoid damaging or degrading the batteries. In fact, the NRMA unit stopped once it hit that figure and if there’s a way of over-riding it, I didn’t have the patience to find out.

Now you’ll need some endurance, because I’m going to rattle on about range.

If you own an EV, you’ll routinely recharge overnight at home and (possibly) fill the car completely by morning. The new Leaf, a tad optimistically, claims 270km fully amped – a huge leap over the first generation’s 175km. In reality, the Leaf’s range depletes quicker than the miles you cover and it’s line-ball with its sole rival at this level, the Hyundai Ioniq, which claims 230km. However, since on-the-move refills deliver only four-fifths of the stated range, I had 200km to play with.

It gets worse, because you’d be mad to run your EV down to zero – it’s impractical and doesn’t help battery longevity. So the 80 per cent ceiling has a corresponding floor figure of about 20 per cent; go below that and you’ll understand the true meaning of range anxiety. In the Leaf, you wouldn’t want to be stuck in traffic 40km from a plug.

Factor all that in, and without another refill I could afford to go about 80km in the Leaf before turning around and heading home.

In many markets, the first Leaf was the sole mainstream EV and with more than 400,000 sold, it’s the planet’s battery best-seller. The second generation has been available overseas for some time, and ahead of its local launch here in August, the test car was UK spec.

It’s affordable by EV standards but, of course, still not cheap. When the Hyundai Ioniq arrived a few months ago it reset the starting price at $45k. The Leaf comes in $5k higher and compensates with features such as intelligent cruise control and mild autonomy. It’s slightly longer than before, has a larger boot and, as well as increased range thanks to more battery capacity, also has more power (110kW, up from 80kW) and torque (320Nm, up from 280Nm). It can recharge using a home wall-box in 7.5 hours.

The Leaf is a pleasant enough car for shuffling around town, with the same virtues evident in any EV. It’s quiet, responsive and driveable thanks to maximum torque arriving from the off. With its low centre of gravity, it irons out most road bumps – although its suspension struggled once or twice with Sydney’s city tarmac.

But a few high-tech features aside, it’s been built down to a price. The cabin feels low-rent, despite heated seats and other comforts. There’s only one USB port in the cabin, when most new cars these days are bristling with them. The control screen can be invisible in bright light and the dash-top throws reflections into the driver’s line of sight. The driving position seems unnaturally raised yet the corners of the car are difficult to gauge – not helped by its over-large turning circle.

It steps off the line smartly, but without the surprising shove-in-the-back some EVs deliver. An e-pedal delivers lift-off braking a bit too aggressively, while the steering and brake itself are vague. And there’s one giveaway: the park brake is foot-operated, an antiquated device more at home on a cart than an EV with ambition. Most cars now use electric push-buttons instead.

The Leaf has carried the banner for “affordable” battery cars for some time and this second-generation model could have moved the game along. But the Ioniq is more appealing, and most new EVs are targeting a range of 400-500km.

So this feels like a missed opportunity and perhaps Nissan already knows it. Available in Japan is a Leaf e+ with about 40 per cent more range. It reaches Europe later this year but if this Leaf is any guide (it’s been delayed several times), Australia will be waiting a while. And who has the patience for that?

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 May, 2019

Labor’s tax attack on savings is very counter-productive

Australia may find ­itself next week on the path to the largest peacetime tax increases since Federation. It is not simply the magnitude of the tax rises that makes Labor’s plans exceptional — both in historical terms and relative to global trends — it is that they are so heavily focused on penalising saving.

In the debate about those proposals, Labor and its critics have concentrated on who would, and who would not, pay the higher taxes. However, the costs that tax increases impose are never limited to those who sign the cheque.

Rather, as people adjust their behaviour, the economy shrinks. The precise extent of the effects is controversial. What is uncontroversial is that for each dollar of ­revenue raised, taxes on savings do more damage than taxes on ­income or on consumption.

And it is also uncontroversial that the higher the taxes on savings are to begin with, the greater is the harm further increases will cause.

It would, in other words, be one thing if we were starting from a situation where taxes on savings were low, and all that was involved in Labor’s plan was to bump them up slightly. It is quite another to begin with tax rates that are ­already high and drastically ­increase them.

That is what Labor intends. And given how large its proposed increases are, the tax rates Australians will face on many forms of saving will be far higher than those on income or current consumption, taxing longer-term savings at especially punishing rates.

To understand why, it is crucial to recognise that when savings are taxed as ordinary income, the effective tax rates can be ­extremely high even if nominal rates seem reasonable.

That is because the amount saved will have already been taxed; then tax will be applied to each year’s returns before they are re­invested, with the tax compounding and the rate rising as the amount grows; and finally, when the savings are cashed out and spent, some part of that amount will be taxed too, including through the GST.

To make matters worse, ­because what is being taxed is the nominal amount, the taxes may deprive the saver of any compensation for inflation, driving real ­returns to or below zero.

Consider a nurse who takes on additional hours and earns $1000, on which she pays income tax of $190. Assume also that she then ­invests the remaining $810 in a 20-year term deposit paying 2.2 per cent, each year reinvesting the ­interest after tax into the same ­deposit ­account.

If she remains on the 19 per cent tax rate, in 20 years she will receive $1150 to spend. However, with the inflation rate over that ­period ­averaging 2 per cent, her $1150 after tax will be worth just $780 at today’s prices, which is less than the amount she originally ­deposited. And assuming she pays GST on that spending, the initial $810 she saved will be reduced to barely $700 of buying power.

Thus, through the cumulative effects of tax and inflation, she loses more than she earns in interest: her effective real tax rate exceeds 100 per cent — which will discourage her not only from saving but also from working those hours in the first place.

So as to avoid those effects, every advanced economy protects savers from ordinary income taxes, providing concessions and exemptions through which to save for the long term. Indeed, expanding those protections has been a central element in tax reform ­almost everywhere.

Labor is going in the opposite direction, either further curtailing existing protections or eliminating them. It would thereby give savers few options but to face the punishing treatment they suffer under ­ordinary income taxes.

The taxes on capital gains are an important case in point. As things stand, the capital gains ­realised on the sale of assets that have been held for at least a year are taxed as ordinary income but on a concessional basis: only half the gain is subject to tax. Labor proposes to halve that concession, so that tax would be ­applied to three-fourths of the amount gained.

Many simplifications need to be made to present readily tractable examples of the impacts. But consider, as an illustration, a taxpayer who is in the 32.5 per cent ­income tax bracket. Assume that taxpayer faces a choice between spending $1000 now and buying shares in a company that pays no dividends but secures and each year reinvests a 6 per cent return on the initial investment, with that reinvestment boosting the value of its shares.

For the taxpayer who decides to buy those shares now and sell them after 20 years, company and capital gains taxes would, under today’s arrangements, reduce the payout from $3200 to $2070, ­imposing an effective tax rate of 55 per cent on future consumption (where the tax rate is calculated as the tax paid for each dollar of final spending power).

Moreover, because of inflation, that $2070 would, at today’s prices, be worth just $1400, slashing the pre-tax 6 per cent return to a real return of just 1.7 per cent a year.

Under Labor, however, the ­effective tax rate will rise to 63 per cent, further reducing the real ­return. And even that increase ­understates the difference between the future under Labor and that under the Coalition.

The Coalition has pledged that by 2024-25, 90 per cent of income tax payers will face a 30 per cent tax rate. Labor does not intend to flatten the income tax structure but to make it yet more progressive. And by including a greater share of the capital gain in taxable income, Labor will ensure more taxpayers who earn capital gains are pushed into its highest tax bracket, despite comparatively modest lifetime ­incomes.

Assuming then that under the Coalition, the recipient of the capital gains would remain in the 30 per cent bracket, while being pushed under Labor into the top bracket, the relevant comparison is between the Coalition’s already high 54 per cent effective tax rate on capital gains and a positively ­astronomical 77 per cent under Labor.

Taking into account the US and French tax reforms, which slashed taxes on savings, that will be easily the highest rate of tax on capital gains in the developed world. And its effects on ­savers will be compounded by the elimination of negative gearing on existing housing, the additional restrictions on superannuation, the clampdown on trusts and the ­refusal to refund company tax to low-income earners.

Labor’s mantra is that none of that matters because it is the ­infamous “1 per cent” who will foot the bill. However, even for capital gains, where it makes that claim most insistently, its argument has no basis in reality.

In effect, tax office data shows that high-income earners already pay capital gains tax at a rate that is only marginally below the top ­income tax rate.

Thus, in 2016-17, the top 0.32 per cent of individual capital gains taxpayers accounted for 44.2 per cent of the overall capital gains tax revenue collected from individuals. Those taxpayers paid an estimated average tax rate of 46 per cent — a shade less than the top rate.

That the concession has so little effect on those taxpayers’ tax rate is unsurprising: typically, the well-off have a large proportion of their assets in shares that are held for less than a year and so do not benefit from the concession. Rather, it is to the taxpayers who have only a few investments, such as a flat at the coast, that the concession makes the greatest difference.

Labor’s claim that its increase will mainly hit the “1 per cent” is ­incorrect for another reason. Most high-income earners have large and diversified asset portfolios, along with relatively easy access to credit. As a result, they have considerable discretion about when they realise capital gains and can do so at a time that optimises their tax position.

Middle-income households, with narrow portfolios and constrained access to credit, have little scope to manage the timing of asset sales. They are therefore more likely to find themselves forced to sell an asset when doing so will push them into a higher tax bracket and expose them both to Labor’s halving of the concession and its increased income tax rate at the top.

It is middle-income earners who will find it more expensive to save. Will that cause them to save much less? Possibly not — but that is not the relevant test. After all, it is obvious that if you ­increase ­income taxes, some people may not materially reduce the hours they work. But they will be worse off and are likely to change their behaviour in other ways — for example, by ­accepting non-monetary benefits as compensation. So even though overall hours worked may not fall much, it would be foolish to claim the tax hikes have a low economic cost.

Equally, while it may be that middle-income earners sacrifice other goals so as to maintain their savings levels, no one could sensibly deny that they have been made materially worse off, all the more so as their pattern of ­consumption has been so seri­ously distorted.

Perhaps that doesn’t cause Labor to lose any sleep, but the broader consequences should.

Thus, a higher tax rate on capital gains, particularly when it is combined with a steeply progressive income tax structure, increases the incentive to hold on to gains and realise losses. That makes asset markets less efficient — in terms of their ability to settle at a price that reflects long-term value — and more unstable, as the withholding of assets during upswings accentuates the boom, while the rush to realise losses when prices decline aggravates the bust.

At the same time, higher taxes on capital gains will hammer the medium-sized companies that rely on retained earnings — and hence on capital gains — to fund expansion, reducing investment and ­entrenching the oligopolistic structure of our economy.

There is, in other words, a steep price to pay for Labor’s tax offensive on savers. It is difficult to see how the costs it imposes could be justified. And making them even harder to justify is the fact that while Labor will punish voluntary saving, it will — by raising the superannuation guarantee — force many families who have more pressing calls on their ­incomes to save. As so often happens, choice will be replaced by ­coercion as taxes soar.

We can therefore safely conclude that Labor’s plan is not merely the largest peacetime tax increase in our history, it must also rank among the most inefficient. If that is what Australians want, they know how to get it.

SOURCE  






Democratic society under attack from the Left

The dismal decade of Australian politics was defined by revolving-door prime ministers, loss of public faith in the political system and the rise of minor parties riding an anti-establishment wave.

Optimists believed the time of troubles was transient. It would give way to a new era on condition that political-media elites recovered respect for the inviolable principles of liberal democracy including freedom of speech, public reason, majority rule and loyal opposition. But the election campaign has exposed the fragile state of Australian democracy. The dismal decade may have ended, but the foundations of our democratic culture are under assault.

Democracy is both a form of government and a type of society. A liberal democratic culture is one in which citizens are taught to respect the mutual obligations that give rise to free society. They include recognition of the inherent worth of each person, equality before the law, freedom of thought and speech, freedom of religion and respect for private property. Civil society is sustained by accountable government, apolitical public institutions, the separation of church and state, and the principle of no (physical) harm. The cornerstone of democratic culture is public reason.

During the course of the election campaign, Australian democracy has come under siege from illiberal enemies within. Militant incivility is the order of the day. To date, most violence has issued from the green-left. Activists are using a range of tactics to silence dissent. Liberal MP Andrew Hastie’s bus was set alight. Greens supporter Amber Holt was charged with assault after allegedly attacking the Prime Minister. Australian Conservatives leader Cory Bernardi reported a Greens representative had physically assaulted a female volunteer in ­Adelaide.

The man allegedly grabbed the conservative woman after she walked away from him following “a forthright discussion” at a pre-polling booth.

Conservative women have suffered intimidation, harassment and assault during the election campaign. Paul Bunney, a volunteer for the Centre Alliance, was charged with stalking Liberal candidate Georgina Downer. Bunney was a campaign volunteer for rival candidate Rebekha Sharkie and had links to hard Left group GetUp. He denies the charge.

Liberal member for Boothby Nicolle Flint reportedly filed a complaint of stalking. Police have cautioned David Walsh, leader of Adelaide’s City of Mitcham Residents Group. He denies wrong­doing. Former Mitcham mayor Glenn Spear supports Flint. Flint was targeted by GetUp earlier in the year. The group called her South Australia’s “most backwards politician”. It planned an event for the purpose of “removing her from parliament”.

Jewish politicians have been subjected to anti-Semitic attacks during the campaign. Posters of Liberal MP Julian Leeser were defaced with dollar signs. Leeser recognised the graffiti as a reference to “old anti-Semitic lies of an international Jewish banking conspiracy; that Jews control the world’s money supply. These sentiments were used by Nazis and others who have sought to spread hatred of Jews for centuries”.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg released a statement after a billboard for his campaign in the seat of Kooyong was vandalised with Nazi symbols. He used the anti-Semitic incident to encourage civility in public debate and remind people that “mutual respect is at the heart of a good society”.

However, there was little respect for Liberal candidate Jacinta Price after a Greens candidate used racist abuse against her. Greens leader Richard Di Natale supported George Hanna after he shared a Facebook meme that smeared Price with the racist term “coconut”.

Price is a Warlpiri-Celtic woman who rejects the politics of victimhood and cultural relativism. She embraces rational deliberation, women’s empowerment and the secular state. As such, she is anathema to the hard Left.

Price is not in the habit of taking abuse lying down. She rebuked the Greens: “To say that I’m black on the outside and white on the inside is to say that being white is something lesser. It’s a put-down based on race … just like any other slur based on race.”

The Labor leadership is also demonstrating a disturbing degree of contempt for democratic culture. In a previous column, I described Bill Shorten’s vicious smearing of climate economist Brian Fisher. After green activist Simon Holmes a Court posted Fisher’s residential address online, his home was attacked.

Last week, Labor senator Penny Wong violated the principle of loyal opposition when she refused to shake hands with Liberal senator Simon Birmingham after a discussion on Sky News. Yet a CNN article lavished praise on her and former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said: “She’s a role model for many people in Australian society who want to see a different face to our public life and our public institutions.” For other Australians, substance matters more than skin colour.

Labor and the Greens support the state censorship of politically incorrect thought. Shorten has become deeply hostile to critical questions from journalists. He has indicated his intention to target media critical of him while pledging more money for the comrades in the Left press. He is no friend of public reason.

The Shorten Labor Party is poised to attack the foundations of free society.

Do not reward a politician who fails to defend freedom of speech, universal equality and accountable government. To hand illiberal men the reins of democracy is to cast pearls before swine.

SOURCE  






Climate politics as changeable as global weather

The politics of climate change is moving quickly and in different ­directions in different countries, presenting serious media and politicians with even more challenges in the coming decade.

Last Saturday week The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly argued that the election of a Shorten government would redefine the politics of climate change as voters accepted Labor’s assertion that Australia needs tougher ­action to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions than that offered by the Coalition and effectively rules out being constrained by policy costings. Kelly likened the situation here to protests in Britain by people wanting a commitment to carbon neutrality and cited the influence of Swedish 16-year-old savant Greta Thunberg.

Yet the push for carbon neutrality is not going as uniformly well as Labor leader Bill Shorten or Greens leader Richard Di Natale would have you believe. As this column has pointed out for three years, China and India, No 1 and No 3 respectively of the top global emitters, have not committed to start to reduce carbon intensity, let alone total CO2 output, until 2030.

Activists and left-wing media outlets never like admitting the one major emitter to have success in reducing emissions, though still short of the Paris commitments it is withdrawing from, is the US. It has achieved this on the back of fracking for natural gas.

Gas was expected to be the transition fuel to renewables here when former Labor PM Julia Gillard signed her deal with the Greens in 2010. Just as Greens’ maximilism destroyed Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading system, advocates after 2010 immediately pushed for a faster transition to renewables.

With no gas reservation policy to guarantee domestic prices, ­renewables that had been expected to phase in across 40 years ramped up faster than the grid could cope with and created instability and price pressure. Back in 2010, the idea had been that ­renewables would not dominate until 2050, when large-scale, grid-size battery storage technology had matured.

What Labor, the Greens and some media companies appear to have missed is that the same pressures that have created havoc in our power industry are now splitting EU and Canadian attitudes to renewables.

EU plans for total carbon neutrality are in trouble east of France. Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, long a leader in renewables, is facing a possible economic slowdown and historically high energy prices in its heavy manufacturing sector, just as energy conservatives have argued it would. While Britain, France and The Netherlands remain committed to the idea of zero carbon and want it sooner if possible, Italy, Poland and Hun­gary are falling in behind Germany in urging a more cautious approach. No EU country is as yet meeting its Paris commitments in full.

Several European countries, especially Poland and Hun­gary, are a long way behind their targeted reductions and Europe’s rate of renewables growth is ­slowing. Wind and solar photovoltaic ­installation rates have declined and total ­renewable installation in Europe last year was only at half the 2010 level.

Populist parties of the Right, ­especially in France but also in Finland and The Netherlands, are building electoral support for nationalist programs aimed at resisting the EU on centrally imposed climate policies. While these parties were once driven by anti-immigration sentiment, they are increasingly mobilising behind opposition to Brussels over planned carbon ­dioxide reductions. France’s protesting yellow shirts are violently opposing plans to increase fuel taxes. Wait until France’s farmers hear about Greens proposals to hit the meat, game and poultry industries, given agriculture is next on the activists’ list after electricity.

Even renewables as they are in Europe are not what many in the media may think. As business columnist Terry McCrann pointed out in The Weekend Australian on May 4, ­Europe is pulling what many would think is a renewables swiftie. The biggest renewables power generator across the EU is biomass, effectively firewood. Despite being a heavy emitter of CO2, biomass emissions are not counted in Europe’s carbon accounting.

The theory says carbon dioxide will eventually be reduced by growing new biomass, but this does not seem to fit alarmist scenarios calling for carbon neutrality immediately. Biomass was 60 per cent of renewables generation across ­Europe in 2016. And Europe, a long-time ­opponent of fracking, is doubling imports of US gas created by fracking.

Add to the European picture the votes in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario for conservatives opposing carbon taxes. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick are also facing federal carbon taxes because their governments have refused to ­implement their own.

However quasi-religious the rhetoric of the ALP or parts of the Coalition in committing to action on climate change, there is no point in a country with 1.3 per cent of global emissions destroying its economy when major emitters are increasing global CO2 output.

Politicians need to resist policies that hurt their own poor, and journalists should resist bullying calls for reporting conformity by parts of the scientific, political and business community, many with a vested interest in renewables.

Environment writers could start by reading the submission to the US congress on February 6 by eminent climate scientist ­Judith Curry. Curry, hated by climate alarmists, bells the cat on media lies about extreme weather events. She points out that even the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rejects the idea that any individual weather ­incident can be linked to CO2 ­increases and cites data showing droughts and heatwaves in the US are not as ­severe as they were in the 1930s dust bowl era. She says more work needs to be done to understand the role of geology and the sun in global temperatures and ridicules the notion that CO2 can be used like a dial to change global temperature.

She urges the US to be cautious: “Drastic reductions … will not ­reduce global CO2 concentrations if emissions in the developing world, particularly China and India, continue to increase. If we believe the climate model simulations, we would not expect to see any changes in extreme ­weather/climate events until the late 21st century.”

Like Copenhagen Consensus director Bjorn Lomborg, published in this paper for 15 years, Curry ­rejects environmental spiritualism in favour of rational approaches that will not damage society. She urges greater adaptation strategies to deal with possible emerging weather changes and discusses ­social and planning changes to ­increase “resilience, anti-fragility and thrivability”.

Politicians who think commitments to action at any cost will win them votes need to be careful. While the Coalition has torn itself to pieces on climate change for a decade, Labor’s position is not without risk, as Germany and France show in different ways. Labor, the party of the worker, needs to be mindful of possible damage it could do by appealing to rich Greens and young voters at the expense of the older poor.

And journalists, before reporting ridiculous scientific claims, should look at a piece published in The Wall Street Journal last June 21 under the headline, ­“Thirty years on, how well do ­global warming predictions stack up?” The answer? Every scientific doom forecast has been proven wrong.

SOURCE  







ABCC seeks huge penalties against CFMEU for ‘unlawful pickets’

The Coalition’s building regulator is seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties be awarded against the construction union and four senior NSW officials, accusing them of mounting unlawful pickets to try to force a Sydney crane company into signing a union enterprise agreement.

The timing of the announcement by the Australian Building and Construction Commission during the election campaign will be controversial, particularly as the agency is relying on little-used unlawful picket provisions introduced by the Turnbull government in 2016.

In a statement of claim filed in the Federal Court, the ABCC alleges the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union set up pickets and issued threats to coerce Botany Cranes to sign up to a union agreement and reinstate a union delegate.

In refusing to sign the EBA, Botany Cranes claimed the agreement would threaten the financial viability of the company.

The CFMEU officials subject to the ABCC proceedings include its NSW state secretary Darren Greenfield, NSW President Rita Mallia, and two assistant secretaries Robert Kera and Michael Greenfield

The ABCC claims Darren Greenfield told the company’s managing director: “We are going to get our way here. You got a good business, you don’t want to f**k it. Just agree with everything in the EBA and let’s move on. You don’t want your blokes offsite, equipment damaged, cranes wrecked when in the end it’s going to be our way”

During a picket on January 25 this year, NSW police were required to assist Botany Cranes’ staff to enter and leave the premises.

On January 31 this year, following the pickets, Michael Greenfield is alleged to have told a Botany Cranes’ representative: “If I were you, I’d f**kin sign it [the EBA]. You haven’t seen anywhere near bad yet. See what happened to WGC and Boom Logistics, and they had money, what do you think will happen to you?”

The ABCC is alleging the CFMEU contravened sections of the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Act 2016 that carry a maximum penalty for each contravention of $210,000 for a body corporate and $42,000 for an individual.

The ABCC is also seeking an order for compensation and interest payable to Botany Cranes for loss and damage suffered as a result of contraventions of the BCIIP Act.

SOURCE  

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 May, 2019

Botched Victoria police raid ‘may cost man his arm’

I rarely put up accounts of police thuggery these days as the thuggery is so common that the police Australia-wide are clearly out of control and look set to remain that way.  This case where an innocent man was tortured causing serious injury really gets my goat, however.  If I were able I would ensure that each cop on the raid got the identical treatment to what they dished out to the innocent man, even if it did result in a  group of one-armed cops.  That might help to persuade them that they are not Nazi Storm Troopers


A man mistaken for a car jacker may lose the use of his arm after he was seriously injured during a botched police raid in Melbourne.

Nik Dimopoulos was arrested outside a bookshop on Johnston Street in Fitzroy around 2.30am on Saturday after police tracked a stolen car.

“The man police arrested was mistakenly identified as the suspect police were searching for that had fled the stolen vehicle nearby,” a Victoria Police spokeswoman said on Sunday.

The stolen car was allegedly involved in a home invasion and car jacking, and was spotted speeding on the Eastlink before it was tracked to an address in Fitzroy.

But bookshop owner Rowland Thomson said on social media at no stage did police identify themselves or what they were doing.

“They just stormed into a dark room shining torches and it was impossible to identify them as police,” he wrote on Facebook.

The injured man had his hands tethered behind his back “way beyond what can be endured”, he said.

He may lose the use of his left arm and would have to undergo surgery, according to Mr Thomson.

Premier Daniel Andrews said his government was reaching out to Mr Dimopoulos and his family to offer their support.

“It would have been terrifying, he’s obviously got serious injuries and I want to assure every Victorian he’s getting the very best of care,” Mr Andrews said on Sunday.

“We will look very closely at what has happened.” The police has acknowledged the distress the situation caused the victim and an investigation is underway into the incident, a Victoria Police spokeswoman confirmed.

SOURCE  






Childcare wages subsidy branded ineffective

A great raft of do-gooder regulations has pushed up the cost of childcare to the point where it is unaffordable to lower income families -- thus driving many women out of the workforce and cancelling their hopes of improving their situation.  You can rely on government to shaft the poor.

Governments have had that dinned into them from many sources but there is no way they will let go of their precious regulations.  So their brainwave is that they will drive down childcare costs by subsidizing the wages of childcare workers.  That never looked good and the report below shows that it would solve nothing


A push for taxpayer-funded subsid­isation of childcare workers’ wages was previously dismissed by the Productivity Commission as likely to be “ineffective” and “inefficient”, ultimately propping up ­already profitable providers.

As unease builds around Labor’s election pledge to spend $10 billion boosting the wages of childcare workers, it has emerged that the commission considered a similar proposal three years ago as part of a wide-ranging review of the industry.

Its comprehensive inquiry into childcare and early childhood learning, handed down in 2015, found there were no significant regulatory or other impediments preventing the sector from addressing any recruitment, retention and workforce shortage issues through higher wages, better conditions and improved career ­opportunities.

It noted that some employers already paid staff above award rates, particularly in areas where difficulties recruiting and retaining staff were most acute.

“The use of wage subsidies to attract and retain staff is likely to be ineffective, inefficient and unsustainable,” it said.

“Universal subsidies available to all staff and services in the sector may fail to offer adequate support to services that face the most substantial recruitment and retention challenges, such as those operating in rural and remote locations, while at the same time inefficiently directing funds to services that are competing successfully in the ­labour market.”

Despite increasing scrutiny over the plan and its cost, Labor leader Bill Shorten continued to defend it yesterday, describing it as “affordable”.

With its policy originally costed on delivering 100,000 workers a 20 per cent pay rise over the next decade, Labor has declined to clarify how it would be applied given the sector employs closer to 200,000 workers. New modelling by the government suggests the cost will exceed $1.6bn a year once the phase-in ­period has passed and the full ­20 per cent pay rise has taken effect.

Mr Shorten dodged questions on whether some workers would inevitably miss out on the promised subsidised pay rises.

“The market is broken when it comes to the payment of early childhood educators,” he said. “We have an envelope of funding, we have a plan over the next 10 years, we are going to do the right thing by a very important section of the economy who experience unique difficulties.”

As part of its inquiry, the Productivity Commission received close to 500 submissions, including from childcare operators, workers and their representative union, revealing widespread concern that workers were “under valued and under paid”.

The latest report on the status of the industry reveals that for-profit childcare providers operate almost two-thirds of approved long daycare services, more than 70 per cent of family daycare services and close to half of outside school hours care services.

One of Australia’s biggest commercial childcare operators, G8 Education, made a profit of $72 million last year.

SOURCE  







More Leftist stupidity in Western Australia

Foreign buyer slug crippling Perth apartment projects. Just whose stupid idea was it to scare off buyers like this?

The State Government has ruled out any change to the 7 per cent surcharge for foreign property buyers despite apartment developers complaining that the impost has smashed off-the-plan sales, putting new projects in jeopardy and damaging job creation.

The Government introduced the foreign buyers duty for residential properties on January 1 in the hope of raising $123 million over 31/2 years to 2021-22.

Data from urban planning design and research firm Urbis shows the sale of new apartments to foreign buyers fell from 120 in the December quarter to just 14 in the March quarter.

Apartment sellers have called for the surcharge to be dropped ahead of tomorrow’s State Budget, arguing it will weigh on WA’s already crippled property market.

They also claim the precipitous drop in foreign apartment buyers shows the Government’s expected revenue forecasts from the scheme are inflated.

Urbis director David Cresp said the December figures were pushed higher by a rush of foreign buyers looking to beat the introduction of the surcharge.

But he said the trend in the data showed the proportion of foreign apartment buyers falling to below 10 per cent compared with a historical average of about 15 per cent.

WA was the last of the mainland States to introduce a surcharge for foreign buyers but the local industry says overseas purchasers comprise a lower proportion of overall buyers than in Sydney or Melbourne.

They also note that Chinese buyers are all but absent from the WA market, with Singaporeans, Malaysians and Indonesians representing most foreign buyers.

WA Property Council executive director Sandra Brewer said foreign buyers were typically the first movers in off-the-plan apartment sales, which was key to building sales momentum and getting new projects approved.

“Without those early sales, projects are at risk of not getting off the ground,” she said.

Ms Brewer said the typical overseas buyer was a family with children studying at Perth universities and colleges.

“These students have, on average, three visits from family during the year, so the impact to the economy by declining foreign apartment buyers should be of serious concern to the Government,” she said.

Blackburne boss Paul Blackburne said WA should be welcoming the few foreign buyers it attracted because they were essential to getting local job-creating projects off the ground.

Mr Cresp said the surcharge also made it more difficult for the property sector to meet the State Government’s own infill development targets.

State Government data showed the foreign buyers duty had raised just over $2 million in the year to date from 83 transactions and a further 51 assessments worth $1.8 million were on hand. The Government had granted 48 full or partial exemptions.

The figures included all foreign property transactions, not just new apartment sales.

SOURCE  






It’s time for Australia to introduce a national school starting age

If you’re a parent of a preschool-aged child one of the first things you’ll do when you start thinking about their schooling is start hunting for information about the best age for them to start.

Good luck.

Thanks to the wild variation in minimum school starting ages from state to state, you’re likely to come away even more bemused by the complexity of the issue than before you flipped open your laptop.

The six Australian states and two territories each have different minimum ages that a child can begin their schooling (and thanks to our decentralised education system you’ll struggle to find even that information on a single website).

In Queensland, children must be five by June 30 of the year they enrol. In NSW, they tack on an extra month — because why not? — so NSW kids have to be five before July 31 of their first year at primary.

In South Australia, the cut-off is the seemingly arbitrary May 5. And Tasmanian kids have to be five years old by January 1 of the year they begin school.

And yet there’s little to no appetite for a simple standardisation of a school starting age across the country, a move that would lessen confusion and anxiety for parents, make it easier for teachers to prepare for the age of the children they’re teaching and improve learning outcomes overall.

“It’s as though we think it’s too hard so we don’t do it,” says Australian Childcare Alliance president Paul Mondo.

“Maybe it was less of a problem when there was less research about the impact of school starting age. But now we have that research and we know that it’s absolutely important and absolutely in the best interests of our children.”

More data is coming to light every day that shows that children who are on the older end of their class age spectrum have better social and learning outcomes.

The most recent and compelling study comes from the University of NSW which looked at 100,000 children and found that those who were “held back” in order to start school at an older age fared better than their younger peers.

“When we compared their developmental data there was a clear trend: outcomes improved with each additional month of age,” said researcher Dr Mark Hanley.

But when the different states and territories can’t agree on when that age is, parents start taking matters into their own hands.

Facebook pages and online forums are filled with anxious mums and dads tying themselves up in knots over the best time to send their children to school — and consulting phalanxes of educators, psychologists and paediatricians to make sure they get it “right”.

It’s understandable — the wrong decision can affect a kid all the way through to Year 12.

The decision they often make is to err on the side of sending their kids to school older rather than younger, despite the fact that this causes some classrooms to have huge gaps between the youngest and eldest children.

According to the same NSW University study, one quarter of NSW children are being “held back” a year to start school when they’re six or close to six because of concerns that they’ll be significantly younger than their cohorts if they start on time or early.

This means that teachers are trying to formulate a daily classroom routine and curriculum that has to cater to both four-and-a-half year olds and six year olds — a gaping developmental gap at that young age.

It also creates another have and have not divide — as holding a child back may not be something a lower-income family stuck with crippling daycare fees is able to afford.

So why don’t we simply iron out the bumps, level the playing field and agree on an age and stick to it nationwide? For the same reason that anything to do with standardising education gets thrown into the too-hard basket.

It’s something that every state and territory education department would rather buck pass than coalesce to address, and as always the federal education department defers to the states.

Meanwhile, Australia slips further and further down the global rankings of reading, mathematics and scientific literacy.

It’s just another way that Australia struggles to think much beyond “she’ll be right, mate” when it comes to education policy.

And seeing as we can’t even agree on what to call the first year of “big school” around the country — depending on where you live it could be “kindergarten”, “prep” or “reception” — is it any wonder we seem to be so flaccid about addressing anything else?

SOURCE  






Both major Australian parties are failing to confront the undisputed fact that the huge costs of their climate policies CANNOT yield any beneficial result

The Australian population and economy is too small for even their most severe climate policies to have any impact on the climate

Plain-speaking Australia has been replaced by parlour games, and we all suffer. Instead of arguing big issues from first principles, politicians corral debate to avoid offending the Canberra press gallery, the ABC or theoretical swinging voters as imagined by political consultants.

This is how an election choice between orthodox economic progress and a reckless ideological punt ends up being portrayed as an ill-defined contest between evenly matched plans.

We have the unthinkable scenario of Labor refusing to reveal the economic impact of its climate and energy policies on the absurd basis that it will be less than the cost of inaction.

Our spineless national debate also means the Coalition can’t bring itself to respond with the plain fact that there is no cost to inaction; presumably because that might expose the folly of heavy costs already imposed by its climate policies. Much in this campaign is based on similar obfuscation.

Think of it this way. If Labor were to run an emotive argument on climate change during a drought — suggesting it could stop droughts, floods and bushfires — and ignoring details and cost, it just might get a head nod in focus groups. Then imagine Coalition strategists deciding they need to tackle Labor’s plan by pointing out the obvious facts about how Australia’s actions can have no environmental benefit while global emissions are rising by a much greater factor and that doubling our emissions reductions will produce serious economic disadvantages. The pollsters and consultants might step in and warn that this would be a self-defeating approach because their qualitative polling shows climate is Labor’s ground.

Instead of having a real argument about costs and benefits, the Coalition might retreat to policy and rhetoric that doesn’t confront the emotive and wrongheaded foundations of Labor’s plan but merely quibbles over the extent of action. The real debate is left ­unargued.

This, as you can see, is probably not far from what has transpired. And it is not the only debate eviscerated in such a fashion.

Too many commentators are sucked down the same path. Analysis can be constrained within the unspoken boundaries of the media/political class, unconsciously placing a greater store in resonating with peers rather than serving audiences.

This is how groupthink is formed and, together with a broad green-left bias in the media, it is why so many commentators have had to back-pedal in this campaign from earlier predictions of a Labor landslide. As we approach the crucial final week, what important facts and issues are not being aired and what myths are being perpetuated?

The economic choice is profound. At a time of global uncertainty and domestic stasis — as exemplified by the Reserve Bank’s contemplation of lowering interest rates from record emergency lows — Labor’s prescription to increase the government take from the economy by up to $387 billion across 10 years is frightening.

The major parties agree public debt levels are worrying and that returning the budget to surplus is just the start of a fiscal recovery plan. Yet the Coalition prescription is to lower taxes and constrain spending to foster growth and Labor’s plan is the polar opposite.

We know which of these works and which will lead to ruin. The postwar political and economic history of Western liberal democracies tells us the smaller government approach is required. Yet Labor promises bigger government, with more interventions in tax, wages and energy.

Labor rolled out Bob Hawke and Paul Keating to endorse its economic prescription and they rightly claimed their reforms set up decades of prosperity. But they failed to mention how their own party repudiated this aspirational approach under Kevin Rudd and is now focused not on economic ­reform but on increased taxation, redistribution and spending.

Privately, Hawke and Keating would be horrified by modern Labor’s economic regression. But the media remains conveniently ­incurious.

In economic terms this election is at least as important as the 2007 switch from John Howard and Peter Costello to Rudd and Wayne Swan. That is saying something.

The climate debate is disgraceful. There cannot be a journalist in the country who doesn’t know that global carbon emissions are growing each year by about double Australia’s annual emissions, yet they allow Shorten and Labor to get away with the fiction that their policies will be cost-free and will reduce drought, floods, bushfires and cyclones.

How is it that so many people with functioning intellects can allow this nonsense to go ­unchallenged day in, day out? Presumably they want to conform with a climate-sensitive, “woke” generation or don’t want to risk being denied access to Labor insiders on the cusp of forming government. They go with an ­orthodox fiction and fail their ­audiences.

The Greens get away with murder. Richard Di Natale has been spruiking new laws to clamp down on the media and says the aim is to stamp out hate speech, but it sounds more like silencing his ­critics. The ABC and other media have been silent about this threat to freedom of speech even though there is form — in alliance with the Greens, the Gillard government tried to impose de facto regulation on print media.

Days after these plans were exposed, Di Natale’s double standards were laid bare as he stood by candidates caught posting offensive and racist material online. One resigned but Di Natale still backs George Hanna, the Greens candidate in the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, who referred to his indigenous Coalition opponent ­Jacinta Price as a coconut.

This is purely racist abuse — suggesting someone is brown on the outside and white on the inside — and the only excuse the Greens can offer is that Hanna, too, is indigenous. Pathetic. Imagine the reaction if the Coalition attempted to stand by a candidate in such circumstances.

Much of the media/political class buys into Labor’s paranoia about News Corp but is incurious about how the publicly funded broadcasters boost the green-left agenda 24/7 and fail to scrutinise Labor or the Greens.

They see a conspiracy when The Daily Telegraph tells the inspirational truth about Shorten’s mother but are fine with the deliberate and extended fake news around the so-called “watergate” scandal.

A clutch of 15 so-called independent MPs and candidates are boosted by the media — because they attack conservatives — but are never pinned down over who they would support to form government. They will support Labor, of course, which may prove very important as a hung parliament is a possibility.

Much of our debate seems incapable of referencing a reasonable person test. As much as the Coalition has let us down, damaged itself and made it easy for people to vote against it, it has muddled through a useful period of economic and fiscal recovery, restoring our border security and securing significant free trade deals.

Would a reasonable person believe that a switch to Labor does not involve an enormous and unnecessary risk on border security, energy affordability and reliability and economic progress?

The choice is stark and the debate is far more opaque than it should be.

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 May 2019

Tim Blair's lesson for all the student climate protestors

Attention, students. Because so many of you missed Friday’s classes, what with your little climate party and all, today I’m assigning extra work.

Let’s begin with mathematics. 558,400,000 is a really big number. Can anyone here tell me what it might represent? No?

Well, that’s the amount in tonnes of carbon dioxide that Australia emitted last year.

I’ll just pause here for a minute until Samantha stops crying. By the way, Samantha, your sign at the climate rally needed a possessive apostrophe and “planet” was spelled incorrectly, so I’m putting you back in remedial English again.

Where were we? Oh, yes. 558,400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Let’s see how we can reduce that number. Ban coal mining? That’ll knock off a big chunk.

Ban petrol-powered vehicles? Good call. That’s another slab of emissions gone.

Does the class believe we should ban all mining? You do. Interesting. For your homework tonight, I want you all to design batteries that contain no nickel or cadmium.

Good luck getting to school in electric cars without those.

And there’ll be no more steel wind turbines once the iron ore mines are closed. It’s just the price we’ll have to pay, I suppose.

Even with all those bans, however, Australia will still be churning out carbon dioxide by the magical solar-powered truckload. Cuts need to go much further.

More people means more human activity which means more carbon dioxide, so let’s permanently ban immigration. Is the class agreed?

Hmmm. You’re not quite so enthusiastic about that one. Come on, students. Sacrifices must be made.

Speaking of which, how many of you have grandparents? Not any more you don’t.

And Samantha is crying again. Can someone please take her to the school safe space and let her “process some emotions”, or whatever the hell it is you kids do in there? Thank you.

Who agrees we need to simplify our lives in order to reduce emissions? Returning to earlier times, when emissions were much lower, might help save our earth.

So goodbye to air travel, the internet and your cell phones. People got by without them in the past and they’ll survive without them in our sustainable future.

Still, those emissions will be way too high. Just for fun, let’s ban Australia and see what happens.

All factories, houses, streets, farms – gone. All people gone. Every atom of human presence on this land mass, completely erased.

At that point we’ll have finally cut our emissions to nothing. We’ve subtracted an annual 558,400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Congratulations, children. By eliminating Australia, you’ve just reduced the world’s yearly generation of carbon dioxide from 37,100,000,000 tonnes to just … 36,541,600,000 tonnes.

Still, every tiny reduction helps, right? Maybe not. Let’s have a quick geography lesson. Tyler, please point out China on this map. No; that’s Luxembourg. China is a bit bigger. Try over here. There you go.

Here’s the thing about China. How long will it take for China to produce the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide that we’ve slashed by vanishing Australia? One year? Two years? Five years?

Not quite. Start the carbon dioxide clock on China right now, and that one enormous nation will have matched our annual output by April 5. China adds a whole Australia to the global emissions total every twenty days.

For that matter, China will have added another 1,190,953 tonnes by the end of this one-hour class.

Even a tiny increase in China’s output puts Australia in the shade. Various experts last year estimated that China was on course for a five per cent carbon dioxide boost.

This would mean an extra 521,637,550 tonnes – or basically what Australia generates. Our total is the same as China’s gentle upswing.

So maybe your protest was in the wrong country. Here’s another assignment: write letters to the Chinese government demanding it stops dragging people out of poverty.

Make sure you include your full name and address, because the Chinese government is kind of big on keeping records. Send a photograph of yourself standing in front of your parents’ house.

You might repeat this process in India. In fact, rather than going to Europe for your next big family holiday, prevail upon your parents to visit India instead. The tiny village of Salaidih would be the perfect place to tell slum-dwelling residents they shouldn’t have electricity.

They’ll probably thank you for it. Or they should, if they aren’t stupid climate deniers. Indian paupers must avoid making the same tragic affluence mistakes as us, so we must keep their carbon footprints as tiny as possible.

Can you imagine how terrible is would be for the earth if all of India’s one billion-plus population owned cars and airconditioners? It really doesn’t bear thinking about.

One further assignment: tonight, locate a clean, green alternative source for $66 billion in exports. That’s how much was raised last year by the Australian coal industry.

Working it out won’t be too much of a challenge, I’m sure. After all, you know science and stuff. About half of your signs on Friday claimed you know more about all these things than does the Prime Minister.

Show him how advanced your brains are by devising a brand-new multi-billion export bonanza.

Hey, look who’s back! Feeling better, Samantha? That’s nice. Feelings are the most important thing of all.

SOURCE  






Australia's new dole bludger tax: Why YOU will be slugged an extra $3,200 if Labor wins government and increases the Newstart allowance by just $75 a week

Australians could be paying an extra $3,200 in tax to fund a $75 increase in weekly unemployment benefits.

Labor leader Bill Shorten has vowed to increase Newstart but he is yet to nominate a figure.

The Australian Council of Social Service and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are both pushing for unemployment benefits to be raised by $75 a week, arguing Newstart had not risen in real terms, adjusted for inflation, since the mid-1990s.

This would see the maximum weekly Newstart payment for singles jump from $278 to $353, or by 27 per cent.

For jobless couples, this would increase  from $251 each to $326 or by 30 per cent.

Government modelling provided to Daily Mail Australia showed a $75 a week increase would cost taxpayers $39billion during the next decade.

In the first year alone, raising the unemployment benefit would cost $2.4billion, blowing out to $4billion a year by 2029.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's April Budget promised $1,080 in tax relief for those earning $48,000 to $90,000 a year but that would be put at risk if Newstart was raised by $75 a week.

It was part of a $158billion package of tax cuts but should unemployment benefits be increased at the level proposed by unions and the welfare sector, Australian workers on median and average salaries would be paying $3,200 more in income tax over the next decade.

During his appearance on the ABC's Q&A program on Monday night, Mr Shorten vowed to increase the Newstart allowance. 'We're going to review it when we come in, 'cause it is too low,' he said.

The Opposition Leader, however, declined to nominate a figure.  'Commonsense says that a review is going to conclude that that amount is too low,' he said. 'I won't pre-empt it, but I'm not having a review to cut it.'

The Business Council of Australia and former Liberal prime minister John Howard have both called for an increase to Newstart but like Mr Shorten, they haven't nominated a figure.

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Super Rugby players in huge public show of support for Israel Folau

Israel Folau appears to have got his wish for Australian Super Rugby stars to support his cause after an emotional post-match demonstration.

Australian Super Rugby players from the Melbourne Rebels and the Queensland Reds have huddled for a post-match prayer amid reports of anger among the game’s Christians over the handling of the Israel Folau social media furore.

Wallabies fullback Folau, a fundamentalist Christian, moved a step closer to being sacked by Rugby Australia this week after he was found to have committed a “high-level” code of conduct breach for a post that said hell awaited “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers” and others.

The case has upset a number of Folau’s Wallabies teammates who share his religious beliefs, with Reds prop Taniela Tupou writing that RA “might as well sack...all the other Pacific Islands rugby players around the world.”

The Daily Telegraph reported earlier on Friday that Reds and Rebels players had proposed to gather for prayer on field at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in a “show of solidarity” for Folau.

The proposal followed a report that Folau had reached out to Polynesian players in Australia and Japan asking them to show support in his public stand-off with Rugby Australia.

The report claimed Folau had contacted players at every Australian Super Rugby franchise to support his crusade — and many players reportedly, privately want to follow Folau’s lead.

Following the Rebels’ 30-24 win over the Reds, players from both sides knelt on the pitch with arms locked in a circle as Reds hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa addressed the group with emotion.

The huddle included a number of Australia players, including Queensland captain Samu Kerevi, his Reds teammate Sefa Naivalu and another Wallabies winger in Melbourne’s Marika Koroibete.

It is not unusual for Polynesian players from rival teams to gather together in prayer following on-field battles.

According to Foxsports.com.au, Wallabies great Stephen Hoiles said after the game it is unclear if the prayer was a public show of support for Folau.

“We’ve seen this before, it happens a lot and probably in the last couple of years it’s happened more and more,” Hoiles told Fox Sports’ The Kick On after the game. “Whether or not this is specifically for Israel Folau, we won’t know but we’ve seen that before.”

Folau faced a three-member panel over three days of hearings. The panel issued its verdict on Tuesday and said it would consider further submissions before issuing a sanction.

The judgement came more than three weeks after RA and Folau’s Super Rugby club New South Wales Waratahs said they intended to terminate his four-year contract.

Folau has a right to appeal but a high-level breach would be sufficient for RA and the Waratahs to dismiss the 73-test back.

The offending post, which has attracted 54,000 ‘likes’ and 48,000 comments, remains on Folau’s Instagram page.

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Labor, hurting business will be a job-killing disaster

Whatever you may think of Bill Shorten’s time as a union official, no one can deny his recognition of the importance of the profitability of the companies he dealt with. To be sure, he was prepared to do the workers in the eye and to accept secret payments for his union, the Australian Workers Union. But the AWU had the deserved reputation as the boss’s union.

Of course, trade unions — and the AWU is no exception in this regard — have never really cared about small business. Helping the workers of small businesses can be time-consuming and the recruitment pay-off is too small to justify the effort.

Trade union officials have relied on the system of conciliation and arbitration as well as compliance agencies to regulate the conduct of industrial relations by small business, even if it is accepted that some workers fall through the cracks.

Now that Shorten is the prime minister in waiting, this acknow­ledgment of the need for busi­nesses to be profitable to underpin improvements in the wages and conditions of the employed workforce has been largely forgotten. The combined assault of Labor’s policy proposals on the financial viability of small business — think: the living wage, the reversion to previous penalty rates, the changes to the taxation of trusts — will have profound implications for ­business.

The changes to negative gearing and the associated rise in the capital gains tax also will affect businesses in the construction, property development and real ­estate sectors.

It’s worth briefly outlining here the principles that should govern tax reform. When changing tax arrangements, the key factors are efficiency, equity and simplicity. If proposed tax changes will lead to serious efficiency losses by significantly shrinking the size of the economic pie, consideration should end.

In terms of efficiency, the rule is to tax the most mobile factor the least and the least mobile factor the most. This is why most economists favour land taxes and recommend that capital be taxed as lightly as possible, particularly in the context of international capital mobility.

After land taxes come taxes on consumption and then taxes on labour (wages and salaries).

This is the core reason Labor’s tax policy proposals are so misguided — they involve substantial hikes to tax on capital while leaving the other factors largely untouched. It is the complete reverse of good policy.

To be sure, land taxes are controlled by state governments. But from an efficiency point of view, the next best move would be to increase the rate of the GST. Now that the distribution of GST revenue across the states and terri­tories is on a more sustainable basis, the preferred policy option would be to increase the rate and some aspects of coverage of the GST while offering compensation to low-income earners.

But let’s face it, Labor won’t have a bar of this sensible policy option, which could pave the way for the elimination or reduction of more economically damaging taxes. It’s hard to see the Coalition implementing such a move either.

The point is often made that Australia is a low-taxing country by international standards. The truth is quite complicated because our 9.5 per cent compulsory superannuation contribution is not counted as a tax; whereas, overseas, the national insurance contributions workers and employers make to fund retirement incomes, inter alia, are counted.

What is very clear is that taxation on labour as a percentage of the total tax take is very high in Australia relative to many other countries.

Workers pay above average income tax rates, and our top marginal tax rate is high and kicks in at a relatively low level of income. Bracket creep remains a problem.

Again, Labor is not planning any reform of the income tax schedule save to increase the top marginal tax rate, a move that has been criticised by Labor legend Paul Keating.

The point here is that the case for increasing taxation on capital is extremely weak, even in the context of Labor seeking to increase the overall tax take as a percentage of GDP to increase government spending on health and education, in particular. There are better ways, but Labor would prefer to damage groups that are not considered to be Labor’s allies — the Chris Bowen “you are perfectly entitled to vote against us” line — than implement sensible policy.

Let me return to the assault on small business and outline the way it will be affected by Labor’s living wage idea. Now Shorten has refused to put a number on the increase in the national minimum wage that is required to meet the description of a wage that will cover the basic necessities of living.

Presumably, the most recent annual increases — 3.1 per cent and 3.5 per cent — awarded by the Fair Work Commission don’t cut the mustard given that Shorten is talking up the living wage concept. The expectation therefore would be increases of at least 5 per cent or more a year for some time to come.

But evidently businesses have nothing to fear, according to the economic fairy story concocted by opposition assistant Treasury spokesman Andrew Leigh, once a professor of economics. In a recent opinion piece that, unsurprisingly, didn’t run in the mainstream media (it was published by Crikey) he makes the ­ludicrous claim that higher wages will help small businesses, including retailers, because “my spending is your income and your spending is my income”.

If it were that easy, there would be no reason wages shouldn’t be quadrupled and quadrupled again. It is, of course, nonsense economics, particularly for an open economy. Unless wages are equivalent to the increase in revenue associated with employing that last worker, then higher wages simply will lead to job losses or fewer hours of work.

Leigh knows this, but it’s just not convenient for him to say so.

Insisting that firms pay much higher wages for their workers provides no guarantee whatsoever that additional revenue will flow to make up for the higher costs.

After all, many workers will use the extra pay — assuming their hours of work remain the same — to pay off debts, to pay the bills and perhaps do a bit of online shopping from overseas outlets. Will the local cafe or the small retailer really find that their revenue surges in line with their higher wage costs?

And just think about the restor­ation of penalty rates to their previous illogical levels before the Fair Work Commission reaching its modest decision to reduce some rates? (Note that the FWC also increased the Saturday rate for casual retail workers, a decision Labor presumably will honour.)

Apart from undermining the independence of the FWC, which has been a key foundation of our system of wage determination, there is no real rationale for reimposing the higgledy-piggledy set of penalty rates without considering this matter more thoroughly. But Labor’s sense of political urgency clearly trumps reasoned economic thinking on this matter as well.

The small business community has much to be alarmed about should Labor win the election. The hope is that Labor will see that hurting businesses is essentially counter-productive and will modify its proposals.

But I won’t be holding my breath.

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 May 2019

Anglican Bishop calls the Bible hate speech

About what one expects of the modern-day Church of England.  Their clergy are mostly just dressup queens.  One assumes that a Reverend gentleman would be aware that what Folau said was a quote from Romans chapter 1.  For his information:  Romans is an epistle from the apostle Paul that is found in the New Testament of the Bible

An Anglican bishop has branded the religious statements of Australian rugby union player Israel Folau as hate speech.

The Bishop of Grafton, the Right Reverend Dr Murray Harvey, said free speech should not be used to vilify others.

"I think there's a difference between free speech and sometimes that can go over the borderline into hate speech," Bishop Harvey said. "Certainly, he's got that right to free speech that we all have, but with rights come responsibilities."

Bishop Harvey's comments followed a hearing this week that found Folau committed a "high-level breach" of the professional players' code of conduct over controversial social media posts.

One of the posts proclaimed hell awaited "drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters".

Folau has not apologised or expressed any regrets for the posts, and was awaiting a decision on what his punishment for breaching the code would be.

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The shape-shifter: Australia's likely next PM tells different stories about his life and family to suit his audience - and even changed his football team

He is actually a toff.  At one stage his mother in law was Governor General of Australia

Labor leader Bill Shorten refers to his late father – also called Bill - as a waterfront worker, fitter and turner or seafarer, depending on who is listening to him.

In fact, Bill Shorten senior was a marine engineer who became a dry-dock manager and was estranged from his son until shortly before he died.

Mr Shorten is not lying when he chooses to highlight the various stages of his father's working life but he does like to play up his blue collar background.

But the way he describes his family history has become an issue days before Australia's 16 million voters go to the polls.

The man tipped to be Australia's next prime minister is under heavy fire for leaving out key details of his late mother's legal career to suit his political narrative during an appearance on Q&A.

Mr Shorten had spoken about his mother working as a teacher rather than following her dream to study law, without mentioning she had gone on to become a lawyer.

An emotional Mr Shorten had tears in his eyes during a press conference on Wednesday as he accused his critics of a grubby 'hit job' by criticising how he had described her professional career.

However, Mr Shorten has long used parts of his parents' backgrounds to suit the point he was trying to make.

He previously left the Catholic Church for his second wife's religion and converted his football faith to Collingwood.

Opponents accuse Mr Shorten of trying to exaggerate his working class credentials, while noting he is comfortable mixing with the extremely rich.

Mr Shorten, who says he can move easily in any company, was educated at an elite private school in Melbourne and has courted billionaires including the late Richard Pratt during his career as a union leader and politician.

While polls suggest Labor will win the looming election, the party's leader continues to have low personal approval ratings.

The Opposition has beaten the Government in 54 consecutive Newspolls, Mr Shorten has seen off two Liberal PMs - Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull - and is now staring down Scott Morrison.

But with The Lodge within his grasp, questions are being raised about Mr Shorten using certain details of his life if it helps him politically, or moving his policy and personal allegiances when it's convenient.

As far back as 2015 a newspaper profile about him was headed: 'Bill Shorten the shape-shifter.'

Mr Shorten clearly feels just at home on factory floors as he does in the mansions of Melbourne billionaires, talking to workers in their language and calling on his father's past.

He routinely moves between describing his father as a 'seafarer' and 'fitter and turner', depending on which job his audience is more likely to appreciate.

In March Daily Mail Australia heard him tell staff at the Austal ship-building workshop in south Perth his late father was a 'seafarer and engineer'. 'I grew up around the docks,' he told the factory floor.

The next morning, at the Komatsu mining machinery factory at Welshpool, in Perth's industrial south-east, Mr Shorten preferred another detail about his dad. 'My father was a fitter and turner,' he told those men and women in their high-visibility workwear.

On April 9 in Rockhampton, in central Queensland, Mr Shorten again painted his father as a tradesman with dirty hands. 'I want Australia to go back to being a tradie nation - 1.6 million of our fellow Australians got a trade qualification, my father was a fitter and turner,' he said.

In a Facebook post about reviving Australia's shipping industry on February 23, he stated: 'I come from a family of seafarers, it's in my DNA.'

Two years ago he told the National Press Club: 'My parents always offered my brother and I, when we were at secondary school, the choice - support for uni or support for a trade.'

'In my family, a trade wasn't second-class - my grandfather was a great printer, my Dad a fitter and turner before a life at sea.'

In his Budget reply speech the same year Mr Shorten said: 'When my brother and I were growing up, Mum and Dad always told us that we could choose to learn a trade or go to uni - and they would support us either way. 'That's what you get from being raised by a teacher and a fitter and turner.'

Mr Shorten quoted his father in an address at Revesby Workers' Club in October last year.  'If I'm elected prime minister, I will never forget where I come from,' he said. 'I'll never forget the most important lesson that my father taught me, who worked on the Melbourne waterfront: you treat no one as your superior and you treat no-one as your inferior.'

Mr Shorten became estranged from his father following Bill Senior's separation from his mother Ann Shorten in 1988. There was a reconciliation shortly before Bill Senior died of a heart attack in 2010.

'He and mum split up when I was an adult and I hadn't seen a lot of him but just before he passed I caught up with him and that was good and then he passed,' he told Daily Mail Australia in March.

In his maiden speech to the House of Representatives on Valentine's Day in 2008 Mr Shorten thanked his father for his support.

'I thank my family for their constant support and belief over the years: my mother, Ann, and my late father, Bill; my twin brother, Robert, and his family; my parents-in-law, Julian and Felicity Beale; and my great uncle Bert Nolan, a union man from the days of the Depression whose values inspired me,' he told Parliament.

No mention was made, however, of his stepmother Helen, who his father married in 1990.

Mr Shorten's first wife Deborah Beale - the daughter of a multi-millionaire former federal Liberal MP Julian Beale - was described as 'an endlessly intelligent, supportive and loving woman.'

After separating from his wife later that year, Mr Shorten started a new relationship with public relations consultant Chloe Bryce.

Chloe's mother mother Quentin Bryce had just three weeks earlier been sworn in as Australia's first female governor-general when the relationship was revealed.

In a move more likely to upset Melbourne football fanatics, the former Australian Workers' Union leader became a Collingwood supporter after South Melbourne moved north to become the Sydney Swans.

He also converted from Catholicism to the Anglican Church before his marriage to Chloe.

Mr Shorten was educated at Xavier College, an elite Catholic private school where fees now top $28,000 a year. He acknowledged that fine education in his maiden speech. 'I would like to thank the Jesuits and teachers of Xavier College for teaching me to question and debate,' he said.

Another teacher Mr Shorten often credits as a driving force in his life is his late mother Ann, who went on to become a lawyer - an achievement he has been accused of downplaying this week.

In a bid to woo an audience at Monash University, Mr Shorten told the ABC's Q&A program how his mother was stuck being a teacher, without mentioning she later became a senior law lecturer at Monash University.

'She became a teacher, but she wanted to be a lawyer, but she was the eldest in the family, so needed to take the teacher scholarship to look after the rest of the kids,' Mr Shorten said on Monday night.

'My mum was a brilliant woman. She wasn't bitter. She worked here for 35 years. But I also know that if she had had other opportunities, she could have done anything

In fact, Dr Ann Shorten, who died aged 79 in 2014, obtained a PhD Monash University in 1976, the year Bill Shorten turned nine.

Ann Shorten graduated with first-class honours from Monash University, and won the Supreme Court Prize and the Flos Greig Memorial Prize in 1985, the year the Opposition Leader began an arts and law degree at the same university.

Mr Shorten, who briefly worked as a solicitor, was in tears on Wednesday when he detailed his mother's full trail-blazing career.

He also compared her parenting style with his father's. 'My dad was a good bloke,' Mr Shorten said. 'He worked on the waterfront.

'I'm not going to pretend that he would have passed the definition of a modern family. Nice man but he wasn't raising us.'

In contrast with his father, Mr Shorten's mother was always there for him and Robert his non-identical twin. 'In the first year that Rob and I ended up at university, she was there,' he said.

'Mum topped the law school. She was grey-haired. She was 51 and she topped university at law. She got a Supreme Court prize.'

Mr Shorten, who turns 52 on Sunday, hopes to be elected prime minister on May 18.

SOURCE  






Labor will introduce a internet 'licence' for school age children if it wins election

First they came for the school age children ...

The Australian Labor Party has revealed a plan to protect kids on the internet by giving them a 'digital licence', just like the 'pen licence' of yore. 

It comes after the Coalition vowed to name and shame paedophiles on an online register if the Government is re-elected at the federal election on May 18.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's party released the policy recently, saying children will learn 'critical skills to stay safe online' before earning their licence.

'For years, Australian kids have been getting a pen licence as they learn to write - this is the pen licence for the digital world,' an official statement said.

The concept was developed by the Alannah & Madeleine Foundation and is described by the ALP as 'one of the most comprehensive online safety cyber resources available'. 

If the Opposition wins the election, it will launch a pilot program to see if the idea if practical.  It then plans to roll the licence out to schools for students in grades Three and above from 2020. 

'Labor's priority is ensuring eSmart licences are available to all Australian children, regardless of what school they go to,' the statement read.

'Labor understands and respects that schools are best placed to choose the programs that suit the needs of their children and communities.'  The program will be available to any school that chooses to take it on.

Labor's commitment will cost $2.5 million and would flow from the 2019-20 financial year.

SOURCE  







Like the Greens, Labor reserves a special rancour for media outlets that hold them to account

When it comes to Labor and the Greens, there is no doubting the sincerity of their climate policies. Both parties will make full use of public resources to reducing the temperature, as they have done before. No, I am not talking about the climate in the literal sense. Rather, I mean the “chilling effect”, that being legislation designed to make you self-censor.

This week Herald-Sun columnist and Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt revealed video footage of Greens leader Richard Di Natale telling his supporters last March of his plans to silence conservative journalists.

“We’re going to call out the hate speech that’s been going on,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that we’ve got laws that regulate our media so that people like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones and Chris Kenny – and I could go on and on and on. If they want to use hate speech to divide the community then they’re going to be held to account.”

On and on and on? Di Natale’s list of journalists he intends to prosecute must be a long one. “We need to have new laws that make it a crime to engage in hate speech,” he said. “At the moment when you look at the regulators for the media ... they don’t have the power they need to hold these really powerful voices to account.”

There it is, that nebulous expression “hate speech”. It is a cliched, all-encompassing, and infantile pejorative often used by those who are either unwilling or unable to refute a dissenting opinion. The beauty of that phrase, at least for those who parrot it, is that it cannot be held to an objective definition.

Anecdotally, however, one might conclude the truthfulness of the offending remarks and the intensity of hate speech denunciations have a close correlation.

Strangely, Di Natale does not seem to regard certain racial insults as an example of hate speech. For example, he continues to support the Greens candidate for the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, George Hanna, who shared a despicable Facebook meme that described indigenous woman and Liberal candidate for the same seat, Jacinta Price, as a “coconut”.

“As far as I am concerned, both these men (Di Natale and Hanna) resemble the epitome of racism and sexism,” said Price yesterday.

Interestingly, in 2011 during his maiden speech, Di Natale championed the Greens as “a party that represents the best traditions of liberalism, expressed through its support for individuals to make decisions without interference from government”. Now he uses his position as a senator to intimidate journalists and implies they will answer to the state for pointing out truths he finds unpalatable.

Presumably he would claim it would be hate speech for me to say this is proof of his hypocrisy and demagoguery and that the Greens leader is full of — well, let’s just say hate.

Last week shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced a Shorten Labor government would, if elected, “beef-up” the Australian Human Rights Commission in order to defend section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone on basis of race.

 He stated that hate speech would become worse if there was a “continuation of right-wing government in Australia,” claiming the Coalition had made “very serious attempts to allow more hate speech in our community in the form of their attacks on section 18C”.

Never mind that 18C is a deeply flawed section that relies largely on a subjective test to determine wrongdoing. The Coalition had unsuccessfully tried to legislate instead this test be determined by the standards of an ordinary reasonable member of the Australian community, not by the arbitrary pronouncement of a minority group. To suggest this, as Dreyfus did, amounts to licensing hate speech is disingenuous.

Exactly how Dreyfus proposes the AHRC utilise its increased funding to enforce 18C we do not know. Perhaps that august body will commission more of those risible videos, worthy of a Razzie award, featuring evil white men gleefully preventing people of colour from entering lifts or catching taxis. Or it could employ activist organisations like GetUp! and Sleeping Giants to monitor social media and report wrongdoers. Even better, let’s have an anti-racism campaign focusing on educating school children. We could call it the “Sadly you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home” campaign in honour of former AHRC president Gillian Triggs.

Lest you think that is far-fetched, remember Dreyfus’s response in 2017 when asked whether 18C should be expanded to cover gender and disability. “One of the things we’ll be looking at is this very point of whether or not we should set a standard about speech generally,” he stated. In 2017, Labor backbencher Anne Aly called for 18C to cover religious vilification, stating discrimination against Muslims was a “new form of racism”.

In fairness to Dreyfus, however, he is acting in accordance with a Labor tradition of curtailing free speech. In 2012 then Attorney-General Nicola Roxon introduced the draft Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill under the banner of consolidating the five federal anti-discrimination statutes into one act. Had this dog’s breakfast of a bill been enacted, it would have rendered it unlawful to subjectively offend someone on the grounds of their family responsibilities, industrial history, medical history, nationality or citizenship, political opinion, religion, or social origin in a work environment.

As one lawyer pointed out, these provisions were so ridiculously expansionist it would even outlaw sledging on the football field. Worse still, this legislation would have shifted the burden of proof onto respondents of complaints. It was withdrawn only after an intense campaign led by the Institute of Public Affairs and News Corp newspapers. Conversely, ABC and then Fairfax journalists were, for the most part, indifferent. As The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen observed, the ABC became interested in the free speech ramifications only when Triggs, then AHRC president, voiced concerns the draft laws had “gone too far”.

Labor’s obsession with suppressing free speech in the name of tolerance goes back a generation. In 1994 the Keating government proposed legislation that would have criminalised threatening to cause harm to another person or group based on their race, colour, nationality or ethnic origin, the maximum penalty being two years imprisonment.

The basis for this draconian measure was a report by the then Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, The National Inquiry into Racist Violence in Australia, which recommended both criminal sanctions and civil provisions for racial vilification. But its findings were based on flimsy, partisan and unreliable evidence, as then Canberra Times journalist and now Nine’s political correspondent, Chris Uhlmann, noted. His observations are worth repeating.

“The report is a shoddy base of research which does not attempt to disguise its own prejudices,” he wrote. “Racist violence was reduced to violence by ‘Anglos’ and inter-ethnic violence was not discussed.” While acknowledging some of the claims of racism detailed in the report had no doubt occurred, Uhlmann noted the evidence collected, “was not tested in a way that would stand up in court”.

Although the Keating government had consulted with the public about the proposed changes, Attorney-General Michael Lavarch announced the results had “been put to Cabinet” and “would not be released publicly”. As Uhlmann surmised, the reason for this was it was unlikely the results supported the government’s proposed action. When the criminal provisions of the bill failed to pass the Senate, Lavarch was apoplectic, saying this had sent worst possible message domestically and internationally during the Year of Tolerance. You might say these measures are as much about symbolism as they are about censorship.

Like the Greens, Labor reserves a special rancour for newspapers that hold its politicians to account, as demonstrated by its decision in 2011 on spurious grounds to commission the Finkelstein Inquiry into the Australian media. Had those recommendations been realised, it would have resulted in newspapers answering to a government-funded and euphemistically titled “Public Interest Media Advocate”.

The party’s paranoia during this time was also evident when The Daily Telegraph reported in November 2011 then Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd was being urged by backers to challenge then Prime Minister Julia Gillard for the leadership. Senator and left faction leader Doug Cameron labelled then News Ltd a “threat to democracy”, claiming the Finkelstein Inquiry should be expanded to examine the company’s “absolute hatred” of Labor. The story about Rudd, he claimed, was a “complete fabrication”. Rudd of course did challenge Gillard less than four months later. Cameron has passed the paranoia baton on to Rudd, who last year called for a royal commission into News Corp, blaming it for the downfall of his government in 2013.

Whether the subject is the “hate media” or “hate speech”, you can be certain those who obsessively denounce it are motivated by a combination of egotism, vindictiveness, zealotry and just plain stupidity. We need less regulation of speech, not more. We need political leaders to respect a free press, not compromise it. We need level-headed and practical people in human rights commissions to deal with complaints, not sententious, authoritarian and overpaid panjandrums. Most importantly, we need politicians to acknowledge the insidious chilling effect of so-called hate speech legislation, and to call these laws out for what they are — one almighty snow job.

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‘Green tape’ strangling infrastructure

Delayed environmental approvals for mining and rail projects are ­expected to contribute to a significant downturn in major infrastructure projects in Queensland.

The peak body representing Queensland’s infrastructure sector has forecast that after two years of increasing major project expenditure, the state is facing a decrease of 24 per cent next year.

The Infrastructure Association of Queensland’s ­annual Spotlight report, released today, focuses on rail and mine projects in the Galilee Basin. But it says the downturn would be even more pronounced if the federal Brisbane-to-Melbourne inland rail project and Adani’s Carmichael mine in central Queensland faced further ­delays with approvals.

IAQ chief executive Steve Abson said investors were turning away from Queensland because of perceived political instability, particularly around “red and green tape”. “By Queensland’s boom-and-bust standards, the (downturn) is not unusual, but the problem is it gets worse if we don’t have the bilateral agreement for inland rail and it doesn’t get moving through approvals,” he said.

“It also gets worse if Adani don’t get their approvals. If you’re already having a downturn, the last thing you want is for projects earmarked to be delayed.”

Adani was last week dealt another blow by the Palaszczuk government when the Department of Environment and Science rejected its plan to manage populations of the endangered black-throated finch. The Indian mining company is also awaiting approval of its critical groundwater management plan.

Mr Abson said the lack of an agreement between the federal and Queensland governments on the inland rail project had ­hindered the Australian Rail Track Corporation in progressing its environmental impact statement.

“If we are faced with a decline in activity next year, then let’s do all we can to make the current projects that are shovel-ready get ­approval,” Mr Abson said.

“With projects like inland rail and the Galilee Basin mines (the government) should be finding ways to say ‘yes’ to those projects and not unreasonably holding them up.”

The IAQ’s report, which receives input from the government and major engineering and economic firms, considers all public and private engineering projects worth more than $50 million, excluding hospitals and schools, to outline the pipeline of programs under way or proposed. This year about $6 billion is being spent on projects, but that is expected to fall to less than $4.5bn next year.

That would drop by a further $500m if the inland rail and Adani mine projects are stalled.

Mr Abson said political instability and “backflips over projects” were driving national and inter­national investors away from Queensland.

“It’s difficult to see how all this carnage with Adani’s approvals that is going on right now is not going to have some kind of effect on investors’ view of Australia as an attractive destination,” Mr Abson said. “It is and will have an effect.”

Mr Abson said the public and private sectors traditionally shared about 50 per cent of the ­expenditure on major infrastructure projects in Queensland.

But a reduction in investment, partly fuelled by concerns over green and red tape, had seen that shift to 65 per cent government investment and 35 per cent from the private sector.

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 May, 2019

Church body apologizes to former principal over 2017 exit from Presbyterian school in Brisbane

The PMSA put Ms Kearney in an impossible situation that could only lead to her resignation. The dramas were sparked when Somerville House senior executive Rick Hiley was axed by Ms Kearney over an alleged IT data breach but then promoted by the PMSA to become their executive manager, effectively overseeing the school's governance. 

Hiley was subsequently held to have been innocent in his actions but throwing him in Ms Kearney's face like that was offensive and arrogant in the extreme.  A proper enquiry should have been held before any action was taken. Just a bit of Christian humility would have gone a long way. So the apology from the PMSA is long overdue.  One hopes that they have learned that they are not gods

Ms Kearney had launched legal action against them so this apology may be a forced one designed to avoid a large legal bill.  If so, it would indicate that they have learned nothing and should resign


A church body overseeing four of Queensland’s top private schools has publicly apologised to the former principal of the prestigious Somerville House girl’s school for the “part we played’’ in her 2017 resignation.

The PMSA said it was aware of “ongoing misconceptions” regarding Ms Kearney’s resignation and that “after discussions’’ with the former principal had agreed to issue a statement.

“Ms Kearney led Somerville House as Principal with distinction from 2011 to 2017,’’ PMSA Chairman, Greg Adsett said in the statement.

“During that time, Ms Kearney’s many achievements advanced, and continue to enhance, the culture, performance and reputation of the school as providing the finest opportunities for girls’ and pre-prep education.

“Ms Kearney resigned her position in October 2017, to take effect at the end of the 2017 school year.

“We are sorry for the part we played in, and regret the circumstances leading to, Ms Kearney’s early departure.

“We would like to make clear that those events should not in any way be perceived to reflect poorly on Ms Kearney or negate her outstanding performance as Principal and lasting contributions to Somerville House.”

According to the statement, Ms Kearney has recently been appointed as Head and CEO of The Women’s College at the University of Queensland.

It has been reported that a group of parents and alumni had filed complaints against the PMSA with the Office of Fair Trading.

The 4500-strong “Beyond PMSA” is fighting for the PMSA to give up its incorporation under Letters Patent and be reincorporated under the Corporations Act, which they say would ensure greater transparency and accountability.

The application claims “unacceptable organisational failures exist because of Letters Patent”, and that “the future viability of PMSA schools is at significant and imminent risk”.

SOURCE  






Alan Jones slams Israel Folau verdict

If Rugby Australia have any brains, they will impose no penalty

Former Wallabies coach Alan Jones has blown up in a furious on-air tirade after Israel Folau was found guilty of a “high level” breach of his contract last night before the rugby star sent the broadcaster a message, breaking his silence on the verdict.

A three-person independent panel of chair John West QC, Rugby Australia (RA) representative Kate Eastman SC and the Rugby Union Players’ Association-appointed John Boultbee handed down the verdict and have now retired to decide on Folau’s sanction following an epic code of conduct hearing in Sydney.

RA boss Raelene Castle issued Folau with a breach notice last month following his controversial social media posts about homosexuals and other “sinners” and threatened to tear up his four-year, $4 million contract.

The 30-year-old devout Christian took to Instagram to proclaim “hell awaits” for “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists, idolators”.

While Folau may yet be spared the sack, termination of his contract is now a possibility.

After defending Folau on the airwaves this morning, Jones — who coached the Wallabies in the 1980s and now hosts 2GB’s popular breakfast radio show — relayed a message he said he’d received from the Wallabies star.

“I’ve just had a note from Israel, he won’t mind if I’m sharing it with you because I said to him, ‘Hold your head up’,” Jones said.

“He said, ‘Alan, I’m at peace, mate. My head is held high’.”

That message came after Jones said the “Orwellian treatment” of the rugby icon, combined with various recent attacks on politicians, painted a grim picture of the state of Australia.

“The Australia that our Anzacs fought for seems to be disappearing before our very eyes,” Jones said. “It prompts you to wonder what kind of society we’re living in.

“Nothing wrong with Israel, it’s the society and those who prosecute him who are sick.

“But the cancer won’t kill us, it’s the cancer that will be removed, not Israel. The Australian people won’t accept this.

“This is not the Australia our veterans fought for and we’re going to have to take our country back by argument and by the democratic and peaceful process — not by hate and revenge or vilification and intimidation.”

Jones also read from a speech politician Mark Latham is scheduled to give today in NSW parliament, calling it “one of the most magnificent political speeches I’ve read”.

In the speech, according to Jones, Latham says: “How did our state and our nation ever come to this?

“Those claiming outrage have fabricated their position solely for the purpose of censorship.

“By excluding a committed Christian, they (Rugby Australia) are making their game less inclusive.

“No Australian should live in fear of the words they utter.

“This is a stunning intrusion on workers’ rights.”

Jones continued his attack on the Folau decision after reading Latham’s words, saying he is now “ashamed” of the sport which he once played an integral role in.

“Israel Folau, with my support and the support of millions of Australians, will take this fight every inch of the way,” Jones said.

“Rugby union preaches diversity — they really mean uniformity. They preach inclusion but they exclude Israel.

“We take oaths of office in every court of the land. The Prime Minister is sworn in with his hand on the Bible — the same bible which Israel Folau has quoted and he’s now had his dignity, his integrity, his employment, his vocation and his income stolen from him.

“I coached Australian rugby, I was proud of it, I was proud of the boys and I was proud of everything we stood for. Today, I’m ashamed of the people who’ve inherited our proud legacy.

“The battle has just begun, and it’s a battle for all Australians. If we’re not free to articulate our religious beliefs and quote from the bible, and if we’re not free to speak for fear that someone affects a hurt or is part of the offence industry, if that’s where we’ve reached in this country, we’ve reached a dark place and we are all at risk.”

The best punishment Folau can now hope for is a suspension and/or a fine. The sanction is not expected to be handed down for several days, with RA not offering a timeline on any decision.

Folau also has the right of appeal, a process that would involve a completely new three-person panel being selected.

Should he be sacked, Folau — Super Rugby’s all-time leading try-scorer and a 73-Test stalwart for the Wallabies — would be the first Australian athlete dismissed for expressing fundamental religious beliefs.

Even before it potentially reaches the courts, the Folau hearing has developed into one of the most drawn-out legal stoushes in Australian sports history. The hearing stretched 22 hours over three days, with any hopes of a “common sense” settlement — as NSW Waratahs chairman Roger Davis had hoped for on Monday — blown out of the water by Tuesday night’s sensational development.

Folau spent more than twice as long holed up at the hearing than he has played for the Waratahs in 2019.

RA initially anticipated all evidence being heard in one day, with Sunday also reserved if more time was needed. The decision was expected to be handed down on Tuesday.

Instead, the hearing resumed at the offices of Herbert Smith Freehills in Sydney’s CBD on Tuesday after some of the brightest brains in the land spent the weekend arguing the complex case at RA headquarters.

As well as the extraordinary length of the hearing, the cost of the case is also mounting, with the two parties thought to have shelled out an estimated $300,000 on legal bills since Saturday alone.

Regardless of the panel’s ultimate decision, the expenses are almost certain to keep piling up.

SOURCE  






Australia hit with icy blast: Temperatures plunge 8C in 24 hours as Antarctic chill sweeps across the entire country - and it's about to get even colder

Above is the headline originating from the BoM that appeared in many newspapers yesterday (Wednesday 8th)

At 2pm on Wednesday 8th in Brisbane I was sitting around at home  wearing only undershorts with the front door wide open.  I checked my thermometer and it read 31.5C. 

And even at 9pm that night it was a little cooler but I was still wearing undershorts only

Don't believe ANYTHING the BoM says






Green eggs and Di Natale’s team of haters

Greens leader Richard Di Natale has been accused of double standards as he stands by two of his candidates who made racist jokes on social media despite condemning other parties over hate speech.

The Greens candidate for the seat of Lalor, Jay Dessi, joked about having sex with children and dead people, made a racist joke about an Asian man’s eyes, posted a cartoon about oral sex and liked a post about abortion and child pornography. Next to a photograph of an Asian friend wearing a frog hat, Mr Dessi wrote: “Which eyes are the real eyes?”

In the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, Greens candidate George Hanna has refused to apologise directly for sharing a meme in which Liberal candidate Jacinta Price was called a “coconut”

When asked if he would disendorse the candidate, Senator Di Natale told the ABC: “I’m getting a briefing on that. They have given a full apology, in particular the gentleman in the Northern Territory, himself an aboriginal man.”

Senator Di Natale also downplayed links between his party and the woman who tried to egg Scott Morrison yesterday at a Country Women’s Association event.

Amber Holt, who was tackled by secrutiy staff immediately after throwing the egg, has shared numerous Facebook posts in support of the Greens and labelled all right-wing Australian politicians Nazis.

Senator Di Natale distanced himself from the protester, telling the ABC: “There are millions of people who vote for the Greens.” He branded the attack on Mr Morrison “disgraceful”.

“We’ve made it very clear that the way to defeat a rotten government - and this has been one of the most rotten governments in this country’s history - is in 10 days’ time at the ballot box,” he said.

Mr Hanna, who is Aboriginal, told Darwin radio he did not believe the meme he reposted was racist. “It (coconut) is a derogatory term used by Aboriginal people against other Aboriginal people that they feel don’t do the right thing by them,” he said.

He said the Liberals were “pulling for the race card because they’re ­struggling in this electorate”.

Resources Minister Matthew Canavan urged Senator Di Natale to sack his candidate. “I’m not going to hold my breath, but if Richard Di Natale had any standards over his party then this ­candidate would be ­immediately sacked,” Senator Canavan said.

Mr Dessi’s online conduct came to light after the Greens member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, said last week his Labor ­opponent Luke Creasey’s decision to resign was the right one. Mr Creasey was caught having made offensive posts on Facebook.

Labor MP Joanne Ryan, who holds Lalor, said Mr Dessi’s comments were insensitive, offensive and demonstrated poor judgment from someone seeking public ­office. “Adam Bandt and Richard Di Natale need to explain why there is one standard for Greens candidates and another for everyone else,” Ms Ryan said.

Mr Dessi, a financial technology developer, said he was “truly sorry for the language used” in ­social media posts he made years ago and comments he shared.

“The language and content was plainly offensive, and doesn’t reflect who I am today,” he said. “I apologise unreservedly to anyone that it may have hurt.”

A Greens spokesman said the party was disappointed by his language. “The content of these posts and ‘likes’ is contrary to Australian Greens social media policy, and he has apologised for that,” the spokesman said.

Josh Frydenberg, whose campaign material has been defaced with Nazi symbolism, said the Greens, who are running high-profile candidate Julian Burnside in Kooyong, were “extreme, ­aggressive and intolerant of views that don’t match their own”.

Senator Di Natale yesterday condemned Ms Holt’s alleged ­attack on the Prime Minister. “We think the way to defeat a shocking government is at the ballot box,” Senator Di Natale said. “We can have a fierce contest of ideas but we shouldn’t resort, no one should ­resort to these sorts of attacks.”

Scrutiny of Senator Di Natale’s candidates comes after the Greens leader pushed for legislation to regulate the media and stamp out alleged hate speech, targeting Sky News and News Corp commentators ­Andrew Bolt and Chris Kenny and 2GB radio host Alan Jones.

In the wake of the alleged egging attempt on the Prime Minister, Senator Di Natale agreed there had been a disturbing trend of physical attacks on politicians.

Ms Holt, 24, was charged with common assault and possession of a prohibited drug (cannabis) by NSW Police yesterday after allegedly approaching Mr Morrison and attempting to throw an egg at the back of his head as he mingled with elderly women.

She has “liked” the Albury Greens Facebook page and shared numerous posts from Senator Di Natale and NSW Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi but the party said she was not a member of the ­Australian, NSW or Victorian Greens.

Ms Holt said on Facebook she studied at Charles Sturt University but the university said she was not a current student. It would not confirm if she was a former student.

“The university does not condone or endorse Ms Holt’s behaviour. The university will not be making any further comment on the matter,” a spokeswoman said.

After the Christchurch terrorist attacks on two mosques and Queensland senator Fraser Anning’s comments blaming the atrocity on New Zealand’s immigration program, Ms Holt posted: “This is actually outrageous. My heart goes out to all impacted by today’s events in Christchurch. Why is every right-wing politician in Australia a Nazi?”

Senator Anning was later egged in an unrelated incident.

Ms Holt also shared an Internat­ional Women’s Day message from Senator Di Natale and urged her Facebook followers not to let the Prime Minister’s “bigoted views bring you down”.

Mr Morrison described the ­alleged egging attempt as an “ugly type of protest”, and called on Australians to disagree better.

He compared the incident to vegans who invaded farmers’ land and members of militant unions who “stood over” small business owners and employees.

Senior sources in Mr Morrison’s office said there would not be a review of the Prime Minister’s ­security detail, which had “acted very quickly”.

A woman who Mr Morrison ­referred to as Margaret was knocked over during the incident. The CWA said she was “shaken, but she is OK”.

Bill Shorten said the incident was “appalling and disgraceful ­behaviour”. He said any protests approaching violence were “completely unacceptable”.

SOURCE  






Labor is making no sense.  Why would Labor be proposing immediate tax hikes if they really think the economy is so weak

Changing the cash rate by the Reserve Bank is always a big call during an election campaign. But it has happened in the past. After all, the RBA is an independent entity governed by its own act and its agreed letter of understanding with the government.

Labor, it would seem, was wishing for the RBA to cut, allowing Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen to further talk down the economy and to blame the government for this state of affairs.

Here’s the thing: it’s actually Labor’s lack of expertise in economic management that is on display at the moment. If Shorten and Bowen really think the economy is so weak, why would they be proposing immediate tax hikes, including the abolition of cash refunds for franking credits? It makes no sense at all. Bowen declares budget surpluses have to be achieved to build up a buffer. But again, if economic conditions are so soft, why would you not propose to use fiscal policy to boost the economy? Building up a buffer at this time is completely illogical if you are worried about the state of the economy and sluggish wage growth.

It’s important to note the RBA clearly sees some green shoots in the labour market that are generating pressures for higher wage growth. It talks about a strong labour market, significant increases in employment, a high vacancy rate and some reported skill shortages. The rate of unemployment is expected to remain where it is before declining to 4¾ per cent in 2021.

It is noted wage growth has begun to pick up, with the recent movements in the wage price index showing annual growth above 2 per cent. But there are lags in the process, with many wage outcomes locked in by three-year enterprise agreements. It is clear the bank thinks that wage growth will increase further, but bear in mind with inflation so low, real wages are actually increasing at a reasonable clip.

The final issue is what would actually have been achieved by cutting the cash rate by 25 basis points to reach another ridiculously low rate. It’s not as if there has been any demonstration of a strong positive link between investment and interest rates in recent times. In this context, doing savers and retirees further in the eye would achieve very little.

SOURCE  






Australian Taxation Office lashed over handling of disputes

The Australian Taxation Office has been savaged over its treatment of small business amid accusations it used excessive means to recover debts even when tax disputes were being appealed.

Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Kate Carnell called for the ATO to immediately cease debt recovery against any small business with a dispute before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal after finding debt recovery still took place in 12 per cent of cases before the appeals body.

To recover tax debts from small businesses the ATO issues garnishee notices to people who owe the taxpayer money, or banks that hold their accounts.

The notices compel their recipients to make one-off or continuing payments to the ATO.

But Ms Carnell said in a report released today that the ATO had overreached with its actions, which could cripple the ability of a small business to prosecute its case and keep trading at the same time.

“Strong forms of debt recovery action by the ATO, such as garnishee notices, can destroy a small business because it effectively strips funds from a small business’s bank account,” Ms Carnell said.

“Consequently, the small business is not able to pay wages, rent, suppliers or bank loans and the follow-on effects of this — bad reputation, no credibility and potential bankruptcy — are significant.”

The ATO chased debts from small businesses in 17 of 143 AAT matters and Ms Carnell stressed debt recovery action needed to be proportionate, fair and consistent.

“Although departure from policies and procedures may not be deliberate, small business cannot always rely on consistent and predictable treatment when there is a tax debt involved, and the consequences can be severe,” she said.

“Immediate action to improve ATO approaches is critical since heavy-handed enforcement action, such as a garnishee notice, effectively freezes a small business’s bank account and can … mean the end of that business.”

In April last year ABC TV’s Four Corners program aired allegations of “cash grabs” and heavy-handed tactics, including that the ATO rated staff on how much money they collected.

An ATO whistleblower featured in the program, Richard Boyle, was charged in February with 66 offences and may face years in jail if convicted.

The ASBFEO and Taxation Ombudsman were tasked with conducting inquiries in the wake of the revelations by former financial services minister Kelly O’Dwyer.

A watchdog last month cleared the Tax Office of allegations it conducted a “cash grab” using garnishee notices in 2016-17, finding instead that an IT meltdown was partly to blame for inappropriate use of the mechanism in its Adelaide office.

Acting Inspector-General of Taxation and Tax Ombudsman Andrew McLoughlin made four recommendations to improve how the ATO uses garnishee notices and deals with small business, all of which were accepted by Chris Jordan, the Tax Commissioner.

The ASBFEO issued eight recommendations including the right of a small business to seek a stay of order of any ATO debt recovery action when it’s before the AAT, and introducing external oversight and approval of garnishee notices.

It also called for any small business tax debt — whether disputed or not — to be able to be paid in line with the cash flow of its business.

“A solution is for clear and open communication between the ATO, the small business and their professional representatives to arrange a payment plan.”

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 May, 2019

Criticizing Australia

Under the heading "What the fear of 'getting Yassmin-ed' says about free speech and racism in Australia", there is a long article by Pakistani writer Sami Shah which says that recent immigrants to Australia risk a lot of abuse if they criticize Australia.  To him that is proof of racism.

It is nothing of the sort.  For at least the whole of the 20th century and beyond, Australians have been angered by criticism of their country.  And that criticism mostly came from English immigrants -- birthing the epithet "Whingeing Pom". 

Since both those terms are little known outside Australia I guess I should explain:  A "Pom" is an English person and whingeing is the sort of complaining vocalization you get from an overtired baby.  The expression is in other words a very derogatory term for an English person who criticizes Australia.  And the English are THE SAME RACE as old Australians.  So it is hardly racist.

The sensitivity to criticism arose from the unceasing flow of English-born immigrants to Australia.  When things are done differently in Australia, Poms tend to assume and say that the Australian way is inferior. After hearing such claims many times Australians lose patience with that and tend to ask the "Pom" why he doesn't go back to England.  Which normally leads to a backtrack.

So the hostility to criticism that Mr Shah describes is due to the criticisms, not the speaker. It is not unique to any ethnic group. Mr Shah simply does not know his ethnography.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied was particularly insulting.  She insulted Australia's war-dead, the sort of thing which many people worldwide would find unforgiveable.






Labor’s franking credit fallout worse than feared

Likely to hit superannuation

The economic and political catches in tax and superannuation changes usually come from the unintended consequences. And so it is with Labor’s franking credit refund changes.

Disclosure of the broader than expected ramifications of this policy mean it affects a much larger share of the population and could be politically damaging late in the election campaign.

The latest revelations came to me from an informed and diligent superannuation fund member and were reported by James Kirby today. They demonstrate that millions more Australians are likely to suffer financial disadvantage from Labor’s changes than previously understood.

The major industry superannuation funds, often unofficially aligned to the ALP because of strong union links, have been happily reassuring their members that they will not be affected because the funds derive their benefit from franking credits used against the tax they pay, reducing their tax liability rather than qualifying them for refunds.

But the catch is that these same funds have paid the equivalent of the refunds to fund members in the pension phase because, of course, if they were treated as a separate group or individually they would quality for the refund (the taxes paid by the fund are incurred primarily on the accumulation side of the operation).

So until now everyone has been happy.

But if Labor win the election and the franking credit refunds are scrapped there will be no reason for the funds to pay the equivalent benefit to their pension phase members. This would lead to a reduction in earnings credited to about 500,000 retirees.

Alternatively, as is believed to be more likely, the funds could decide to continue to pay the franking credit benefit, in which case the burden will be carried by many millions of workers in the accumulation phase who will cross-subsidise the retirees by sacrificing some of their earnings to look after them.

As Kirby highlighted, superannuation rules dictate that all members are treated equally, so the answer here is not clear cut. And he quotes industry insiders who say they are waiting not just to see whether Labor wins but to peruse the exact details of the legislation before they can work out what their internal fund management responses will be.

But this much is clear, until now industry fund members have been told that they will be unaffected by Labor’s franking credit refund changes — whether they are one of more than ten million workers in the accumulation phase of their super or one of hundreds of thousands in the retirement pension phase.

Yet now we know one of those groups, or possibly both, will have their earnings reduced as a consequence of Labor’s changes.

SOURCE  


 



Teaching girls to cry rape

Bettina Arndt

Why are we teaching young women to cry rape? In many countries, including Australia, feminists are pushing for sexual consent courses to be introduced into schools which teach girls that ‘regret sex’ is rape, that they have a right to withdraw consent after the event, and that if they have anything to drink before sexual activity they are incapable of giving consent and their partners are committing sexual assault. This dangerous rubbish is playing with the heads of young women and setting young men up for real trouble.

This is all part of the campaign to promote enthusiastic consent, or ‘yes means yes’ laws, which require men to seek consent for every stage in sexual activity. I made a video last year, talking to Murdoch University law lecturer Lorraine Finlay, about the absurdity of promoting laws which would make most normal sexual activity illegal, given that most of us have no desire to constantly verbalize enthusiastic consent throughout lovemaking. Yet in NSW, the Law Reform Commission is currently investigating this possibility and is being bombarded with submissions from women’s groups arguing that not only should enthusiastic consent become law but the same principles should be taught in sex education courses in schools.  

This week I spoke to sex educator Tracy Sedman who is one of the people responsible for educating NSW teachers and health workers about the new sexual consent courses. Tracy is very concerned about the push in this direction, and keen to encourage people to speak out about the risks for young men from teaching girls to reframe their sexual experiences in this way. I’m sure you will be intrigued by a video we are showing you, which is an extraordinary example of how easily young women can be encouraged to redefine an unsatisfactory sexual interaction as ‘rape’, urged on by their friends. What’s really scary is this video, The Morning After, has already been seen by over 6 million people. That’s an awful lot of young women now primed to judge their male partners as sexually aggressive. It will make you very worried for upcoming generations of young men facing an increasingly hostile dating world.

Here's the video. I hope you will promote it so that more people are aware of this worrying development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj8qHXvg-jk



Via email from Bettina: bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au







Trolls who harass people online will be jailed for five years under new legislation

Threats can be very disturbing to people -- so I think that they should be treated as if they had been carried out and prosecuted accordingly

Trolls who harass people online will be jailed for five years under proposed new legislation.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has vowed to toughen the current laws after a spike in complaints of abuse online if he is reelected in May's federal election.

The changes come after an increased number of sporting and television stars spoke out about vile comments trolls often leave on their social media platforms.

Channel Nine star Erin Molan recently spoke candidly about her experience with trolls while 33 weeks pregnant, including comments hoping she gave birth to a still born.

'I am used to copping nasty comments, I am not a snowflake,' Molan told the Sunday Telegraph. 'But when it gets to the stage when I felt unsafe and I was heavily pregnant, and someone is threatening my life and the life of my child, it's too much.'

Molan's troll was arrested, slapped with an $1,000 fine and given an eight-month suspended sentence, while his Facebook accounts were shut down.

AFL star Tayla Harris was also left fearing for her safety after abusive comments were posted online in relation to a photo of her kicking a ball during a match.

The photo of the Carlton star was initially posted to the 7AFL site but soon attracted sexual comments which prompted the site to take the picture down. 

'I genuinely consider that they might show up at the footy. If they're thinking this way and able to write it down, what are they going to do when I'm on sideline meeting some kids - that's what I'm going to have to think about now.

'These people need to be called out by the AFL, but something needs to go further. It's something maybe Victoria Police should have to look at.'

Mr Morrison's latest amendment to the law will see trolls facing five years imprisonment instead of a maximum of three, which is the current legislation.

The Coalition also hopes to introduce new standards for video games to keep youth safe, in which the default privacy settings when signing up to play are the most restrictive.

More than 200,000 youths experience bullying or intimidation on multiplayer games each year, The Sunday Telegraph reported. But Mr Morrison hopes to slash those figures by implementing tighter security settings.

He also hopes to hold social media platforms to account regarding the amount of complaints that are made each year, and what action they take to put an end to bullying.

'As a dad I know first-hand how anxious parents feel about what their kids see and do online and the dangers the ­internet can bring,' he said. 'Online trolls have no place in Australia and I promise to bring in new laws to protect our kids and keep our community safe.' 

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 May, 2019

Rugby Australia is between a rock and a hard place

They are facing  the prospect of penalizing Bible quotations.  What Folau said is straight from Romans chapter 1. An attack on   the Bible is normally swerved away from by even the most "correct" bodies.  On the other hand the intolerant Left WANTS them to penalize Bible quotations they do not like.

And there are two additional factors.  Tearing up Folau's contract could end up sending them broke.  Rugby does not have a big following anywhere.  The big football codes in Australia are AFL and League.  So Rugby cannot afford to get it wrong. 

And the second factor is that there are a lot of Polynesian players.  Polynesians are often big men who are good at football.  And many Polynesians are also strong Christians who agree with Folau about homosexuals.  Some have threatened to strike if Folau is penalized.  So losing their best players is a prospect facing Rugby.  Will the fans turn out for second-string players?

So you see why the negotiations are not getting anywhere.  I think Rugby will have to back down.  If they do they will probably find that the Leftists are just a paper tiger after all


Israel Folau's family have defended him as his code of conduct hearing is set to continue for a third day, after no decision was made on whether his multi-million dollar contract should be ripped up.

The landmark hearing will resume on Tuesday following a weekend stalemate at Rugby Australia (RA) headquarters in Sydney.

The 30-year-old's loved ones have spoken out in support of his controversial social media posts, insisting it comes from a place of love, not hate.

Just four months into his four-year contract, Folau turned down a lucrative $1million settlement offer to end his row with RA, 7NEWS reported.

'The important thing for us is not so much the outcome, but how the glory of God is revealed throughout this situation and that his truth is preached to the whole world,' his cousin Josiah Folau said.

His father Eni Folau, a pastor at the family's Christian church insists that his son has done nothing wrong.

'Israel does not do any wrong at all, all the words he posted doesn't come from him, it comes from the Bible,' Mr Folau said.

Both his family and fellow church-goers insist the rugby star is pure at heart and a decent man.

They believe what he posted is not 'hate speech' but comes from a place of love, trying to 'save souls'. 

A three-person panel, with representatives from RA and the Rugby Union Players' Association, are determining Folau's fate on the field.

RA chief executive Raelene Castle was asked to provide further evidence on Sunday, with NSW Waratahs supremo Andrew Hore also called on as more than 15 hours of legal jousting wasn't enough for the three-person panel.

Folau is fighting to save his career after Castle issued the dual international with a 'high-level' breach notice last month and threatened to tear up his four-year, $4 million contract following his latest round of inflammatory social media posts.

Last month Folau took to Instagram to proclaim 'hell awaits drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolators' unless they repent and turn to Jesus.

The full-back of Tongan descent was warned by RA last year after sharing a similar homophobic post that claimed gays were destined for hell.

Folau is being represented by high-profile solicitor Ramy Quatami and barrister Adam Casselden, who recently worked on the coronial inquest into the murder-suicide of Sydney family Maria Lutz and her children Ellie and Martin at the hands of their father Fernando Manrique in 2016.

The three-person panel is made up of chair John West QC, RA representative Kate Eastman SC and the Rugby Union Players' Association-elected John Boultbee.

If the tribunal determines that Folau has breached his contract, the panel must then decide if the breach was severe enough to terminate his career.  

SOURCE  






UnelectaBill: voters still baulking at unpopular Bill Shorten, poll reveals

Leftist Professor Peter van Onselen is grieving:

After a week in which the Coalition was plagued by candidate problems, notwithstanding Labor having problems of its own, and the opposition appeared to find some momentum, it is interesting that the two party vote of the government didn’t slip in the latest Newspoll.

It stayed steady on 49 per cent compared to Labor’s 51 per cent.

The explanation has to be the unpopularity of the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. It sharply cuts through with voters. His net satisfaction rating is minus 18 compared with Scott Morrison who is on minus one. And Shorten trails Morrison on the better PM rating by a full 11 points. It really does seem like some voters are baulking at the idea of a Shorten prime ministership.

Yes Morrison is a one-man band, and his lack of a team should concern voters. But in presidential style campaigning Shorten’s strong team around him can’t paper over the perceived limitations of the leader.

All that remains to be seen is whether Shorten’s drag on Labor’s vote turns the victory into an ugly win, or the unthinkable happens and Morrison manufactures the biggest political comeback in Australian history.

The former remains the most likely outcome.

With only one more Newspoll to go before Election Day, were the Coalition to get back to level pegging, or even edge in front, it really would be the political equivalent of the try after the siren in a football match.

Most people have lost count of the number of consecutive Newspolls the Coalition has trailed in. When Malcolm Turnbull surpassed Tony Abbott’s fail in this respect it seemed like the Coalition would never work it’s way back into the lead.

When Turnbull started to defy the nay sayers and clawed the government back to within striking distance — four consecutive Newspoll results of 49-51 per cent — the geniuses on the had right of the party orchestrated a coup to try and install Peter Dutton as leader.

Fortunately for the viability of the Liberal Party that attempt failed, and Turnbull supporters realising their man was damaged goods threw their support behind a third candidate, Morrison.

In the aftermath of the coup the government’s polling support slipped well away, but it has now twice matched Turnbull’s final four polls, doing so less than two weeks out from the election.

We’ll see if Morrison can score that last minute try next week, snatching victory from the jaws of what has long looked like certain defeat.

SOURCE  






Here’s a warning: voter beware of that old vision thing

Let’s face it, campaign launches are like really bad theatre. Staged, corny, silly plots, bad jokes and all the while the politicians think we should be ­impressed. Here’s a hint: most voters aren’t even interested.

But the parties will go through the motions, wheeling out former party luminaries like an extended Weekend at Bernie’s.

In the case of Labor, there didn’t seem to be any embarrassment about bringing out arch-enemies Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, whose combined terms of government were associated with some of the costliest and least effective policies ever introduced by any government. We are just expected to ignore the fiscal fiasco those six years involved.

And there was former treasurer Wayne Swan, in the front row, whom Rudd described as not being up to the job, had not grown in the job and had only got the job because of a factional deal. That’s what friendship and loyalty must mean in Labor circles.

The most depressing thing about Labor’s launch in Brisbane yesterday is that nothing seems to have been learnt from those chaotic Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. There is no realisation that the vision thing is akin to the failure to concede that big government interventions have a habit of going off the rails — they cost a fortune without achieving their aims.

Take an oldie but a baddie — another wage subsidy scheme to assist the unemployed get jobs. Labor is proposing to subsidise small businesses with turnover up to $10 million that take on young or older unemployed persons or parents or carers trying to get back into the workforce. Businesses will be able to claim an extra 30 per cent tax deduction on the salaries for up to five employees.

We know where these schemes end: they are rorted, one class of worker gets jobs at the expense of others and the net effect on the unemployment rate of the subsidised groups is close to zero. Yet Labor is rolling out yet another version at the same time that its advocacy of a living wage will make it harder for small businesses to employ workers.

Reintroducing demand-driven university enrolment is also another expensive mistake. We have seen graduate employment prospects and salaries plummet with the increasing number of graduates, many from courses of dubious quality and content. Opening up the flood gates again will make this situation even worse while exacerbating the crisis hitting vocational education.

Finally, there is an element of high farce in Labor’s Australian Investment Guarantee that provides a 20 per cent instant asset write-off for capital expenditure over $20,000. Evidently, we are expected to believe that 77,000 new jobs will be created and average earnings will rise by 2.4 per cent.

Here’s the thing: if Labor believes this, it must also believe lower company taxes create new jobs and increase earnings. Yet it refused to pass cuts to company tax while in opposition even though Bill Shorten is on record as supporting them.

Add in lots of economic pie-shrinking additional taxes as well as the 45 per cent emissions cut and the scene is set for a re-run of the RGR years or possibly worse. As they say, cave suffragator — voter beware.

SOURCE  






Contradictions aplenty among top-end-of-town Greens

If the Australian Greens were called the Australian Browns, or the Australian Purples, would so many people vote for them? I doubt it, and I reckon a lot of people vote “green” because they don’t like to think about politics — who can blame them? — and, well, the word green sounds nice. Grass is green, trees are green. It’s the colour of nature, growth and life.

But most Greens voters don’t live anywhere near greenery. They are surrounded by brown, and grey, in the hum of traffic congestion, as far removed from ­nature as possible, in the centres of our large and crowded cities.

The typical Greens voter worries about climate change but lives in a concrete jungle where the evidence of damage to the environment is all around.

The typical Greens voter is happy to limit enterprise and growth to allegedly save the ­planet. But through an app on their smartphone, they are likely to pay someone on a motorbike to bring them a vegan burger.

Your typical Greens voter likes to echo feel-good theories and support the introduction of rules that other people should pay for and live by. But just how far will they go when it comes time to vote? When it comes down to it, at this election, will Greens voters cut into their own incomes and ­assets by voting to increase their own tax bills?

The Greens party is not doing as well as it used to. The latest Roy Morgan Poll (of 1533 electors Australia-wide) shows Greens support at 9.5 per cent. At the 2010 federal election, Greens support reached a peak of 11.8 per cent. Roy Morgan research shows that Greens supporters are increasingly female (60 per cent). Eight years ago polling showed ­female support at 55 per cent. In 2010 under two-thirds of Greens supporters lived in capital cities but now more than 70 per cent of supporters live in them. In the past decade the share of Greens support coming from NSW, South Australia and Tasmania has dropped.

Now nearly a third of Greens supporters reside in Victoria; their numbers have swelled from just over a quarter in 2010. Greens leader Richard Di Natale has ­focused on inner-urban seats in Victoria’s capital, including Melbourne, Batman/Cooper, Melbourne Ports/Macnamara, Koo­yong, Higgins and Wills.

Roy Morgan data gathered from more than 4000 Greens ­voters in 2010 and last year shows that the party’s supporters are quite well off. Greens voters are pushing increasingly into higher income brackets at a faster rate than everyone else.

Roy Morgan figures on household income show that in 2010, while the median household ­income of all electors was $88,540, the median household income of Greens voters was $93,910.

Last year the figures show the median household income of all electors is $106,930. This is an ­increase of $18,390, or 21 per cent. However, the median household income of Greens voters is $120,880, representing a rise of $26,970, or 29 per cent.

So Greens voters earn more than everyone else and their ­incomes are rising at a higher rate. Greens voters are the dreaded “top end of town” and they are contributing to, and benefiting from, the terrible widening inequality that their chosen party keeps going on about.

Green, the colour of nature, is the colour of American money, too.

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 May, 2019

Homosexual footballer reproves Folau

The first Australian NRL player to publicly come out as gay has issued an emotional message to Israel Folau as the Wallabies star fights to save his rugby career.

Speaking on Channel 9’s Sports Sunday program, ex-footy star Ian Roberts delivered a sobering message to Folau about the tragic truth of the beliefs he’s spreading.

“I feel sorry for Israel but there are consequences to your actions,” Roberts said. “I don’t say this lightly and what I’m about to say, the language I use, is hard and it’s for a point, it’s to get that message across.

“There are literally kids in the suburbs killing themselves and I say that with the greatest sense of respect and I’m not saying that Israel is responsible solely for that.

“But it’s these types of comments and these types of off-the-cuff remarks when you have young people and vulnerable people who are dealing with their sexuality, confused, not knowing how to deal with it.

There's no mystery about knowing how to deal with it.   Homosexual males usually get on well with women.  From a Biblical viewpoint they should put in the effort to create a normal relationship with one.  If they really want anal sex, there is a   small minority of women who like it.  I don't like doing it but I have had two different women request it

SOURCE  





Shorten's financial fantasy

Money grows on trees, don't you know?

Bill Shorten has unveiled $841 million worth of new spending promises and a 30 per cent tax cut for small businesses to a crowd of the Labor faithful — and three former leaders- in Brisbane today as he launched Labor’s campaign and promised to put “the fair go into action’’.

Mr Shorten used his speech to outline the “case for change” and to double down on his big spending agenda with promises to boost wages, tax multinationals, and put more money into hospitals.

But it was the appearance of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard together for the first time in several years — two leaders Bill Shorten helped to both crown and bring down — that was the centrepiece of his attempt to sell Labor as a united team against a divided Coalition.

“Friends, in our time in Opposition, we have united around a bold and comprehensive vision for the nation,” he says. “And the case for change, our case for change rests on the great things that we’re determined to do and achieve for our country’s future.

“Everything, from equality for women, to getting the NDIS back on track — our ambitious agenda is high. It aims high as the people of Australia aim high for themselves. We are choosing hope over fear. We are choosing the future over the past.

“So today, this is our case for change. We say, proudly, to all Australians — end the chaos, vote Labor. Vote for real change. Vote Labor. Vote for your families’ interest. Vote Labor. Vote for your future — vote Labor. And for a fair go for all Australians, wherever they live, however much they have, vote Labor.”

Flanked by his frontbench and wife Chloe, Mr Shorten announced a 30 per cent tax cut for small businesses who employ unemployed Millennials and older Australians.

Mr Shorten pitched his campaign launch at low and middle income working families and declared Labor’s policy was “fair go economics at its finest’’.

“I am proud to put youth unemployment on this election agenda because young people, youth unemployment, it’s more than double the national average, it’s much higher, in many communities, and what a waste. What a waste of hope and human potential,” he says.

“There is a battle which nearly 100,000 older Australians face when they’re longer in periods of unemployment when they’re looking for work, a battle of some older Australians have just surrendered in, been forced to give up. You know who I’m talking about — the older Australians who can’t get themselves back in the game not for lack of effort but for lack of a chance.

“I am proud to announce that Labor will create a new jobs tax cut, we’re going to make it easier for small businesses to create new jobs for people who’ve been looking for work for more than three months, companies with a turnover of under $10 million who take on a new person under the age of 25, or over the age of 55, or a parent or a carer, just trying to get their foot back into the workplace.”

He also confirmed $500 million to cut hospital waiting times, $200 million to boost youth mental health services and a plan to reap $2.3bn in tax revenue by stopping multinationals from seeking tax deductions from royalties.

Mr Shorten also backed in his “big taxes” in negative gearing reforms and scrapping franking credits.

“We will end the intergenerational unfairness in our tax system that puts property investors ahead of first homebuyers,” he said.

“We are not going to keep sending tax cheques worth $6 billion a year to people who are not paying income tax.  [This is Bill Shorten's signature lie.  They ARE paying tax -- via the companies they have shares in]

“And the days of Australia being treated as a doormat by tax avoiding multinationals ends on May 18 if we are elected.”

Mr Shorten said Labor would prevent big corporations using “dodgy royalties’’ to avoid paying tax in Australia which would return more than $2bn to the Australian balance sheet.

Mr Shorten left most of the attacks against Scott Morrison and the Liberals to his female lieutenants, deputy leader Tanya Plibersek and senate leader Penny Wong, and only mentioned the Prime Minister’s name once in his speech.

Mrs Shorten was also a key part of the launch, where she both tried to soften her husband’s image and outlined her intention to be a “woman in her own right” if she becomes a Prime Ministerial spouse.

SOURCE  






Biomass fuel: The Great Carbon Con

I’d be very surprised — and very impressed if contradicted — if one in 100 readers of this newspaper, even intelligent and informed as they are by definition, would be able to name the biggest generator of so-called renewable energy in Europe, which is climate central for the cult of carbon dioxide fear and loathing.

I’d be even more surprised if one in 1000 of our Down Under adherents of that anti-CO2 cult, unintelligent and uninformed as they are by definition, could do so.

Even fewer, I suggest, in both groups would be able to specifically name the single biggest so-called renewable energy power station in Europe.

Surely, it’s one of all those so-called “wind farms”, sprouting like metallic weeds all over the European landscape, and increasingly offshore as well, and which collectively must be the biggest source?

Or maybe even the only real — as in reliable and functional — renewable energy we’ve ever had and still only have: hydro power? But surely not solar in, apart from the Mediterranean countries, sun-challenged Europe?

Well, there are some clues in the words I have used very advisedly: “generator” of energy and “power station”. For you see, the answer is plain and simple: burning wood.

Yes, it is dressed up — and intended to quite deliberately deceive as that’s the European Union way — with the fancy all-green sounding name “biomass”. And yes, it includes burning municipal waste and charcoal. But it is mostly burning wood and, in part, shipped across the Atlantic from the US.

Exactly just like we used to do, from the prehistoric discovery of fire to well into the 20th century, until we switched to mostly coal-fired power stations. And still do in large parts of the developing world, including in India, killing tens of thousands of people every year. And which the opponents of the Adani coal mine want to keep doing.

Sure, in “clean, green Europe” they don’t burn the wood — sorry, biomass — in the open air so it doesn’t pump out the people-killing dirty bits of grit and other unpleasantries. But it still pumps out that gas — what’s it called? — oh yes, CO2.

Except, that the EU and especially EU central in Brussels, the European Commission, has decreed that the CO2 being pumped out by the burning of wood and other materials, in “biomass power stations” is non-existent.

That is to say, it’s “carbon neutral”. The CO2 pumped into the air — just like a coal-fired station, except a biomass station pumps out about 50-100 per cent more CO2 for the same amount of electricity — is deemed by the EC as cancelled by the CO2 which will become embedded in the new growth of plants as a consequence of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

We used to think that was a good thing: who wouldn’t want to green the planet and dramatically increase the production of wheat, corn and all other food crops. Some real scientists such as the great Freeman Dyson — as opposed to the charlatans and poseurs that now infest the academy — still do.

The more specific point, of course, about this utter so typically EU “renewable” absurdity is that the CO2 coming out of a wood-burning plant is coming out now; the removal of that CO2 in new plant growth might take up to 100 years.

This also goes to the ludicrous suggestion that we could “square the circle” of our proposed CO2 cuts by buying so-called “emission permits’’ from overseas and most particularly from — where else? — Europe.

It has, of course, utterly escaped what passes for the public policy elite in this country that the only point in Australia reducing its CO2 emissions is if the entire world similarly embarks on that task.

We’ll put outside the absolutely fundamental point that the world is not.

At best, China — the biggest emitter by the length of the Flemington straight — and third-placed India have crossed their hearts and promised to start cutting after 2030. Until then, they’ll keep increasing.

Put that aside and fantasise of a world where everyone was trying to cut their emissions. What do you think would happen to the price and, even more, the availability of such emission permits — which would only be created by a country cutting its emissions by more than the world required and having the surplus to sell?

This also, by the bye, is why Bill Shorten was actually — if utterly unintentionally and even more unknowingly — telling the truth when he said the cost of Labor’s 45 per cent reduction policy was impossible to determine. It is impossible to cost infinity.

Let me finish with some detail about Europe and so-called biomass.

According to Eurostat — that’s the official EU statistical body — 65 per cent of EU renewable generation in 2016 came from biomass: wood and charcoal, biogas and biofuels, and municipal waste.

Burning wood was easily the biggest, at nearly half all so-called renewable generation in Europe.

The biggest biomass station is Drax, in the north of England. It switched from burning coal to burning wood. The CO2 it emitted as a coal station was causing climate change; the increased CO2 it now emits from burning wood is defined by the EC bureaucrats as not existing.

Under the EC rules, Drax — and all other biomass plants — only have to count the CO2 generated by the processing of the wood into pellets and its transportation; they do not count the overwhelmingly much larger CO2 emissions from the actual burning.

Even some Greens in Europe, who have not lost all touch with reality, realise this is a classic and simply insane EC con. A case was launched in March seeking to have the EU General Court rule that biomass could not be counted as a renewable.

But let’s hope they lose. Then we can convert Liddell to burning wood and all but instantly reach Labor’s renewable generation target.

SOURCE  






Queensland’s child killers slapped with tough new sentencing laws

I heartily approve of this

Queenslanders who target the state’s most vulnerable — whether by killing them or abusing them for years, will face now face at least 20 years in prison.

A tough new law targeting killers of Queensland’s most vulnerable is expected to pass state parliament this week.

The reform would mean individuals convicted of killing a child or a disabled or elderly person by long-term physical and sexual abuse will go to prison for a minimum of 20 years.

It would expand the definition of murder to take in deaths caused by an act or omission with reckless indifference to human life, and add a new circumstance of aggravation where homicide victims are under the age of 12.

The state’s Liberal National Party MPs, in Opposition, will vote in favour of the bill.

The party has in turn put forward a private members bill to introduce a new offence of child homicide and a minimum of 15 years for child manslaughter.

But the Labor Government says it would lead to more trials and a potential increase in cases that end without a conviction.

A completed report into sentences for Queensland’s child killers was given to the Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath in October last year.

Before the October 31, 2018 deadline, the heartbroken families of slain children told the council the people convicted of killing them were getting off too lightly.

In their public submissions, parents and relatives of child victims expressed a common view that existing penalties were inadequate.

“It’s probably one of the worst types of crimes you can imagine, so they’re understandably very upset at what they perceive is lenient sentencing,” council member Dan Rogers told AAP.

“The issue of manslaughter and murder is a really vexed one. There’s a perception that manslaughter doesn’t appropriately demonstrate the seriousness of a child homicide.”

SOURCE  







Public education fiasco can be fixed by restoring power to parents

Public schooling has become an arena of mischief and failure, in which parents are powerless to influence what their children are taught.

The system cries out for reform. It is a policy issue of the first order, yet even on the verge of an election it receives no mention.

When children leave the classroom en masse to promote unproven views in the streets, the schools betray their educational commitment. And when those children return to their classroom, it is one of ideology (such as the notorious, Marx-inspired Safe Schools program), interrupted teaching and disorder instead of true instruction and objectivity — with pockets of excellence all too rare.

Evidence shows our public schools lag behind most of the advanced nations in promoting students’ skills and knowledge, while disruptive behaviour is common. The OECD remarks on findings from the Program for International Student Assessment that “Australia has a ‘problematic situation’ in terms of classroom discipline”.

Despite more and more money for schools, the Productivity Commission, in its National Education Evidence Base report, observes that student achievement shows “little improvement and in some areas standards have dropped”.

The loss is not just educational; it is also moral failure when the reasonable expectations of parents for their children’s education may be ignored.

Appropriate conduct under legitimate authority and discipline in the classroom have substantially disappeared, and the children’s loss is shared by their parents, who lack any serious capacity to intervene and help stem the decline.

Given that successful education of a child requires peace, discipline, commitment and respectful and responsible conduct by child and teacher, does the public schooling system provide the motivations and the management system that will achieve those ends?

If appropriate learning ought to be the supreme objective, the answer to that question must be a negative. Control and power in public schools are being directed to supporting the ideological interests and teachings of their staff, to the impotent dismay of parents. They may complain, but they lack any formal powers of intervention and control.

The public schools increasingly are concerning themselves with gender issues and political ideology, contrary to the wishes of many, if not most, parents. Public schooling has become answerable only to itself. For several generations such schooling has steadily evolved to this condition with relatively little challenge.

The most far-reaching institutional and systematic abridgement of the power of families to shape the education, moralisation and socialisation of their children followed the introduction of universal and compulsory free education in the last third of the 19th century. Before then, providing for the education of children — like the provision of the no less important essentials of food and clothing — was in the hands of parents. They were assisted by subsidies, or what amounted to subsidies, from the state and the churches.

The state helped pay for education but did not provide it itself.

But, as the state steadily took over the provision of the free education, children and their parents fell into the hands of a single supplier and escape into the private system became very costly.

The public system therefore ­neutered the power of the parents’ purse to monitor, judge and influence what was happening to the education of their children. Reform would be possible if this power could be restored to parents.

Some would argue that education should be “value free”. Nevertheless, issues of value and virtue may arise in many school situations and it is vital that parents should be well informed and enabled to exercise power in deciding what is to be done.

The only effective source of that power is control of school fin­ancing. Governments are ostensibly the agents of parents’ school interests, but in practice governments have a conflicting interest as the producer or provider of schooling. The history of public education records that this conflict has usually been resolved in favour of producer interests to which the interests of parents and children have been sacrificed.

Teacher unions are the most powerful of these interests and they are frequently inimical to the interests of children and parents.

If progress is to be made, the present unhappy state of public education as a key institution should be prominent in public debate and subsequent action. A crucial object should be to endow parents with the power to control the financing of the public education of their children.

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 May, 2019

None so superior as the leftist elite

It’s the tale of two stories, from a left-of-centre perspective.

The May issue of The Monthly came out on Wednesday. Its lead comment piece is by La Trobe University emeritus professor Judith Brett and titled “Self-interest groups: The Liberal Party has little left but appeals to the hip pocket”.

Brett begins by asserting that “this election campaign there seems little left to the party but appeals to the hip pocket” since even the (alleged) “politics of race have turned against it”. She concludes in a similar vein: “The party must be hoping that enough of its supporters are as morally bankrupt as it has become, happy to trade the planet’s and their children’s future for a pocket full of silver.”

Brett’s message is simple. Voters who support the Liberal Party — she targets self-funded retirees, referring to them as “self-righteous seniors” — are morally bankrupt racists. Their only concern is “self-interest”. And they are prepared to help destroy the planet to maintain their material comforts.

It’s the familiar leftist rant by someone who believes that their morality is higher than those with whom they disagree. For the record, Brett’s career was spent in taxpayer-funded universities and in retirement she benefits from academe’s generous superannuation schemes. Only the comfortable can disdain self-interest.

Interviewing Bill Shorten on Wednesday, 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales drew attention to retired carpenter Chris Phillips, 83, who “has $36,000 a year in income and he’ll lose $9000 per year” under Labor’s franking credits policy. It would seem that, in Brett’s terminology, Phillips belongs to that class of “self-righteous seniors” who are “morally bankrupt”.

Two decades ago, Brett was an editor of Arena, which described itself as a “magazine of left political, social and cultural commentary”. Then, Arena types looked back in happiness on former Labor prime minister Ben Chifley, who publicly recognised the importance of a voter’s “hip pocket nerve”. Nowadays the likes of Brett regard the Liberal Party’s “appeals to the hip pocket” with contempt.

On Thursday another left-of-centre commentator came up with a different assessment of the Liberal Party. The front page of The Sydney Morning Herald highlighted an article by Jacqueline Maley under the headline “Affluent, angry and now anti-Abbott”. There was a photo of Anna Josephson, a resident of Beauty Point, standing next to a poster of Zali Steggall. The lawyer and former Olympic skier is running as an independent against one-time Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott for the seat of Warringah.

Readers learn that Josephson lives on “one of Beauty Point’s best streets in a house with expansive views over Quakers Hat Bay”. Maley adds: “In the affluent streets of Manly, Balmoral and Beauty Point, many residents who vote Liberal are turning their support (to Steggall).” Swedish-born Josephson runs a tech start-up and her husband is into private equity. There’s another private-equity type whose wife is campaigning against Abbott. And there’s a surgeon who wants Abbott to lose. It’s a kind of “Millionaires for Steggall” clique, none of whom face the financial problems of a retired carpenter.

Warringah will not be won or lost in the suburbs of Manly, Balmoral and Beauty Point. Many “anyone but Abbott” Liberals would have deserted him in the 2016 election. Abbott will prevail on May 18 if he retains support in the not-so-rich suburbs of Warringah — which are more focused on energy prices than climate change.

Warringah highlights the problems facing the Liberal Party. There was a time when the party enjoyed the support of big business and the professions, along with small business. This is no longer so in all the cases. Some large companies no longer make political donations. Many contribute to the Coalition and Labor. The trade union movement, which essentially finances the ALP, gives no money to the Liberals or the Nationals. This despite the fact some trade union members vote for the Coalition.

In 2017 former High Court judge Dyson Heydon delivered the inaugural PM Glynn Lecture titled Religion, Law and Public Life. On Monday he spoke at the launch of the book Today’s Tyrants, which includes his lecture and responses.

In his brief speech, Heydon criticised a response to his lecture by Shireen Morris who, he said, “seemed to deny that there are progressive elites” while being “highly critical of conservative elites, past and present”. Heydon argued that the “progressive” label could be used with respect to “most of the media, many directors and leading executives of key companies, almost all academics, almost all school teachers, the vast bulk of the judiciary and many in the legal profession”.

Brett, Josephson and Steggall fit readily within this group. The irony is that if Abbott defeats Steggall, he will get across the line because of the less wealthy of the Warringah electorate rather than the more wealthy. Moreover, he would do so with the support of the least progressive of Warringah voters.

Brett’s condemnation of the Liberals on economic policy and race goes hand-in-hand with her implied claim to moral superiority and virtue. But it’s easy to condemn the alleged greed of self-funded retirees who once worked in the private sector if you have lived a secure life as a tenured academic. It’s also easy to pretend to save the planet if you reside in Beauty Point. Some carpenters in, say, Broken Hill have more urgent priorities.

SOURCE  






Labor’s bid to ban anti-gay speech

The proposal, flagged in the ALP’s national platform policy document, has been likened to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act for its potential to ­stifle free speech.

Labor will consider expanding anti-discrimination legislation to shield gay and transgender ­people from harmful speech if elected, in a move that has alarmed lawyers and free-speech advocates.

The proposal, flagged in the ALP’s national platform policy document, has been likened to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act for its potential to ­stifle free speech, with experts singling out the furore surrounding Christian rugby player Israel Folau, who will today face a hearing to decide whether his comments denouncing homo­sexuality, among other “sins”, breached the sport’s code of ­conduct.

Questions have now arisen as to whether, under Labor’s proposed legislation, Folau could be exposed to criminal sanction. “This is a worrying platform position and it raises the spectre of a much broader 18C or a broad anti-offending provision as in the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act,” said Institute for Civil ­Society executive director Mark Sneddon.

According to the Labor policy: “When prejudice against LGBTIQ people contributes to harassment by the written or ­spoken word, such harassment causes actual harm, not simply mere offence, to people who have suffered discrimination and prejudice, and causes particular harm to young same-sex-attracted, gender-questioning or intersex people.

“Labor considers such harmful harassment is an unacceptable abuse of the responsibilities that come with freedom of speech and must be subject to effective sanctions. Labor will ensure that anti-discrimination law provides such effective sanction.”

Neil Foster, an associate professor of law at Newcastle Law School, said Labor appeared to be attempting to make a case that “harassment by the written or spoken word somehow amounts to harm of a sort which should be sanctioned by the law”.

“It looks like this is a call to introduce a federal law forbidding the causing of offence (in effect) on the grounds of a person’s sexual orientation,” he said.

Institute of Public Affairs research fellow Morgan Begg said it was “disturbing” Labor was considering enhancing anti-discrimination laws to punish a “vague crime”. “Words like ‘harass’, particularly in anti-discrimination laws, are mired in uncertainty,” he said. “The new progressive orthodoxy sees mere disagreement as harassment. The use of the law to restrict harassment is likely to produce problems in the future.”

Mr Begg pointed to the controversy around Folau’s Instagram post about religion and said there were questions over whether, under Labor’s plans, the Wallabies player could find himself being pursued for “causing harm to LGBTIQ Australians”.

“A government bureaucrat, such as Labor’s proposed LGBTIQ human rights commissioner, enforcing acceptable speech is a serious threat to both freedom of religion and freedom of speech,” he said. A Labor spokeswoman said the party had “nothing to add on this”.

Labor’s national platform document also reveals that it has no intention of changing its positions on the Racial Discrimin­ation Act, arguing that they “strike an appropriate balance between the right to free speech and protection from the harm of hate speech”.

The party risks attracting claims of hypocrisy over the stance, given its opposition to the Coalition’s previous attempts to clarify the purpose of section 18C of the act by replacing the “offend, insult or humiliate” test with the term “harass”. Previously Labor said the change would license “hate speech”.

SOURCE  






ALP headaches over Israel get worse

Video has emerged of Labor MP Josh Wilson, the member for Fremantle, discussing the Israel Palestine conflict and describing Israeli checkpoints as “places you go to and you go to jail … sometimes they are places you go to and you die”.

Another Labor MP has been embroiled in the Israeli-Palestinian division within the party.

Video has emerged of western Sydney MP Susan Templeman likening the situation in the West Bank to apartheid.

Ms Templeman, who holds her electorate on a margin of 2.2 per cent, said that “essentially there is an apartheid happening” in the Middle East.

“Depending on if you are Israeli or Palestinian you use different roads,” she said. “You have different opportunities in life dictated on whether you are Palestinian or Israeli.”

Ms Templeman made the comments at the same event on the sidelines of the ALP national conference last December where Fremantle MP Josh Wilson made his anti-Israeli remarks as reported by The West Australian yesterday.

Mr Wilson, who launched his campaign with party elder Anthony Albanese on Sunday, was yesterday pulled into line by Labor leader Bill Shorten after The West Australian revealed he described Israeli checkpoints as “places you go to and you go to jail … sometimes they are places you go to and you die”.

Mr Shorten and Labor insiders are scrambling to control the issue.

“Josh has said very clearly that he supports Labor policy which is for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine,” Mr Shorten said.

MORE: The ALP’s Melissa Parke ploy in Curtin has backfired
When contacted by The West Australian yesterday, Ms Templeman said she supported Labor’s policy.

“I support Labor’s policy of a two-state solution, which recognises the right of Israel and Palestine to exist within secure and recognised borders,” she said.

Labor’s campaign has been thrown into chaos over the issue after former Rudd government minister Melissa Parke’s exit as the candidate for Curtin.

At a Labor friends of Palestine event last month, Ms Parke said the way Israel treated Palestinians was “worse than the South African system of apartheid” and claimed a pregnant Palestinian refugee was forced to drink bleach.

Video also circulated yesterday of deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek telling the House of Representatives in 2002 that then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was a war criminal.

Ms Plibersek has since said she stands by Labor’s two-state policy.

Former Australian ambassador to Israel and Liberal candidate for Wentworth Dave Sharma said Australia risked damaging international relations with not just Israel but also the US unless this issue was resolved.

“This is not something the US would look very favourably on,” Mr Sharma said.

SOURCE  






A very expensive Mohammed for America

The City of Minneapolis agreed on Friday to pay $20million ($28million AUD) to the family of Justine Ruszczyk Damond who was fatally shot by a police officer when she approached his squad car after calling 911 to report a possible sexual assault.

Mayor Jacob Frey and City Council members detailed the settlement just three days after a jury convicted Mohamed Noor of murder and manslaughter in the 2017 killing.

Damond, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia, had called 911 to summon officers to a possible rape in the alley behind her house.

The settlement is believed to be the largest stemming from police violence in the state of Minnesota, and roughly four to five times as large as any settlement paid out in recent years.

When asked whether race played a role in the swift settlement or in its amount - Damond was white, Noor is Somali American - Frey said this case stood out because of Noor's unprecedented conviction for third-degree murder, as well as the officer's failure to identify a threat before he used deadly force.

SOURCE  






Shorten reinvents climate politics

He claims that warming is so urgent that cost is irrelevant

Refusing to play by orthodox rules, Bill Shorten — if he wins — will transform the politics of climate change in Australia by proving what counts is the necessity for action and that disputing the cost of ambitious emissions reduction targets is yesterday’s news.

The conventional wisdoms by which climate change politics has been conducted is on the edge of obliteration. Any Labor victory in the May 18 election rejects the debate about modelling, costs and economic downsides in favour of the principle of urgent action to fight global warming. It would crush the conservative side of the Coalition, with its ideology of climate change caution.

What counts: the action or the cost? This is the election choice the Opposition Leader and Scott Morrison have put before the public this week. Their rival positions could not be clearer. Shorten says the public is “sick and tired” of excuses and if Australia doesn’t take serious action it faces an economic disaster. His message is the nation cannot afford inaction. Don’t ask him about the economic cost of his policy because, ultimately, he thinks that is yesterday’s question.

Shorten mocks the government as “climate denying cave dwellers”. He warns our politics will stay broken until climate change is confronted. He says the modelling report used by the Prime Minister to discredit Labor’s policy on cost grounds can be “filed under P for propaganda”. And in a defining event, in the first leaders debate he refused to put a cost figure on Labor’s policy: “I don’t think that’s possible to do.”

Having no data on the cost of his policies, Shorten seeks to make a virtue of weakness. He may not have started out to transform the politics of climate change but this will be the impact of any Labor victory. The public, if it votes Labor into office, can decide over time if it wants to backtrack and put limits on the cost — and Labor in office would need to be pragmatic about the costs it imposed. But Shorten, having declared climate change is “one of the top two or three issues”, is betting his career on a sea change in politics.

It is just six years since Tony Abbott won office with his campaign against the carbon tax and Shorten now seeks victory rejecting the need for cost estimates and even the validity of such a debate, because only one thing matters: the penalty of inaction.

Morrison is the model of Liberal orthodoxy. He practises the climate change politics the Liberals have followed since 2009 — but those politics face their demise if Labor wins. “This election is not about whether we should take action on climate change,” he says. “I believe we should.” The issue, Morrison says, is whether you had “reckless” action with a 45 per cent emissions reduction target, or “responsible” action with the government’s 26 per cent target.

The attack Morrison mounts is that Shorten will impose his choice — “between the economy and the environment” — on the public. Put another way, it is whether the public will buy Shorten’s line, repudiate the Liberals and join the progressive sentiment: “Let’s just get on with it.”

The progressive tide for global action is leaving Shorten far behind, let alone Morrison. This week the British parliament passed a fateful declaration on an environment and climate change emergency, a symbolic victory for the activists and demonstrators who caused chaos across much of London for 10 days.

In Britain, people power is intimidating the politicians. While the declaration was passed partly because it has no tangible effect, the activists will sell the idea of Britain now moving to a “war footing” on climate. The declaration was passed as an opposition motion with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn warning that without “rapid and dramatic action” the climate crisis “will spiral dangerously out of control”.

The high-profile Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg tweeted: “Now other nations must follow.” Greens MP Adam Bandt says he will move for the new parliament to declare a climate emergency in Australia. “It is time to act as if our house is on fire, because it is,” Bandt says.

Incredibly, Shorten hasn’t been asked where Labor stands. Does his pledge of “real action” on climate change mean he will follow the UK parliament’s emergency symbolism? Australian activists will duplicate the push abroad and unless government is seen to respond, the shift to civil disobedience will intensify.

If Shorten wins he will face an immense challenge from the climate activist Left, which he cannot satisfy. The message this week from Greens leader Richard Di Natale was that his party wants to work with Labor on climate change — they cannot afford any repeat of their rejection of the Rudd 2009 carbon scheme — yet the Greens must also respond to climate activism.

Shorten’s task, if he wins, will be to find and then hold a new political centre on climate change. The Coalition would be reduced to an internal crisis.

The activists now challenge the democratic system. Their premise, outlined by George Monbiot in The Guardian, is that because the political class “cannot be trusted with the preservation of life on Earth” and meeting this “vast existential predicament”, mere democratic voting cannot do the job — concentrated power of protest is essential.

A threshold is being crossed to large-scale civil disobedience and public disruption, with groups such as Extinction Rebellion calling for truth-telling on climate, and a citizens assembly.

In the US, the Green New Deal, a radical agenda promoted by newly elected Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has gained rapid momentum (and provoked immense pushback), the idea being to decarbonise the economy on a faster, more sweeping scale than anything proposed so far. The US radicals believe there is a wave of untapped public demand for tough action.

Many activists in Britain and the US demand zero emissions in six years, a growing sentiment among young people and a guarantee of huge economic and social disruption. The New York Times takes these ideas seriously and published an oped last week by anthropologist and activist David Graeber backing the Extinction Rebellion and warning the passion for change “must come from outside the system”. His message: if governments cannot go radical, then the people will.

This is extremism not too short of revolutionary. Its final logic cannot be avoided: once you say the issue is human extinction then you open the door to suspension or interruption of the democratic process to save the planet. Anyone who thinks such calls won’t be made by activists in coming years knows nothing of history.

The Australian Greens have toughened their climate stance — they repudiate Liberal and Labor targets as “woefully” inadequate. They want net zero emissions by 2040, an immediate ban on any new coal, gas or oil development, a preferred scenario of 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2030, and a termination of thermal coal ­exports by 2030.

“This is a plan to take on coal,” Bandt said of the Greens policy.

Herein lies another touchstone in the politics — the progressives have turned climate change into an anti-coal virtue test. Having a rational emissions reduction policy is not enough — you must back state intervention against coal. This constitutes a historic defeat for conservative politics.

The class of independents running at this election have mostly made climate change the main priority. What unites Labor, the Greens and the independents is the view that Australia must do more, that this will benefit the economy and that Coalition obsessions about the cost of climate change action no longer engage a majority of the public.

This is a formidable alignment against the Coalition. In the unlikely event no major party has a post-election majority, the independents would back a Labor government swayed by the climate change issue.

The Greens will operate in a legislative alliance with a Shorten government if Labor wins. There seems to be a bizarre reluctance to state the obvious on this point. Shorten is too astute to repeat the blunder of Julia Gillard in 2010 when she dashed into a formal alliance with the Greens, a compromise from which her government never recovered.

But Shorten’s formula gives him flexibility. He will talk to all parties in the Senate. But when it comes to executive government, Labor will form its own cabinet and run its own policies. Shorten would need to offer the Greens concessions to secure his climate policies through the Senate but probably not much since he would have a strong negotiating position.

In summary, Shorten would govern in the executive domain in Labor’s own right. In the parliamentary domain, he would need the Greens not just for his climate agenda but his entire agenda — tax, spending, industrial relations. In legislative terms Shorten would operate in a de facto parliamentary alliance with the Greens.

A feature of the campaign is the embedded acceptance of the Labor-Greens preference alliance in contrast to the contentions arising from the Coalition’s preference deals — or lack of deals — with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

On the Left of politics, Labor gets a shade more than 80 per cent of Greens preferences. Despite efforts by Morrison, the Labor-Greens preference alliance has not become an election issue.

Shorten rarely, if ever, has to explain why Labor MPs are elected to parliament because of Greens preferences, given the extreme policies of the Greens on a wide range of social, economic, security and climate issues.

The Greens will be fundamental to the redirection of Australia under the policies proposed by Shorten. They will be instrumental in helping to ensure much of Labor’s agenda is converted into law. How much is difficult to say, given the unpredictable Senate voting system, with Labor and the Greens unlikely to have more than 36 Senate votes in total, when 39 votes constitutes a majority. So Labor will need further crossbench support.

The Newspoll published this week showed the Palmer party on 5 per cent of the primary vote and One Nation reduced to 4 per cent. This testifies to the extent of fragmentation on the Right — a total of 9 per cent of the primary vote — and if these numbers stick it is virtually impossible to see how the Coalition can win the election.

But Shorten, enjoying apparent immunity for his alliance with the Greens, branded Morrison as operating in coalition with Palmer and Hanson, a reminder that while alliances on the Left have legitimacy, alliances on the Right, seem to lack such legitimacy. Morrison had no viable option but to strike a preference deal with Palmer, but whether that means he can extract 60 per cent of Palmer preferences remains to be seen.

Morrison will pursue Shorten on the Labor leader’s refusal to model his climate policies or put a calculation on the cost to the economy. Because the task is hard is no excuse. Election integrity requires such an effort.

Telling the Australian people you are unable to inform them how big a penalty will be imposed on economic growth and living standards because of your ambitious climate change agenda is risky and arrogant. Shorten, in effect, just says “trust me”.

Having refused to put its estimates on the table, Labor’s attack on Brian Fisher for his modelling of Labor policies has been extreme. Fisher’s latest work, released this week, estimates that Labor’s emissions reduction targets by 2030 result in a cost to GDP ranging from $53 billion to $187bn. “We don’t believe the scary numbers,” Shorten says. “We think they’re just rubbish.”

He has compared Fisher, a former public servant with an international reputation, with doctors who once defended big tobacco. Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler says Fisher’s work is “a complete crock of rubbish” by an author who “has spent 20 years building a career fighting every single climate policy”.

Morrison is right to try to hold Labor to account. But Morrison’s problem is that internal Coalition chaos has meant the government lacks a viable climate change agenda. He comes at Shorten from a position of weakness and the Labor leader knows this. It radiates his approach.

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 May, 2019

Justice for Justine at last

The Minneapolis cops are good at coverups but this crime was so heinous that they had to let it go to trial

Why did the Somali cop fire?  His explanations are nonsense but I think I know why.  She was greatly admirable in her blonde beauty -- something he could never be.  So he fired in a jealous rage.  The constant Leftist shrieking about white privilege has now had a fatal outcome

The fiancé of Justine Ruszczyk Damond has spoken out against former police officer Mohamed Noor after the cop was found guilty of third-degree murder.

Don Damond told reporters on Tuesday that Justine's death exemplified a 'complete disregard for the sanctity of life.'

The Australian-American woman, 40, was gunned down outside her Minneapolis home after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her house in 2017. 

'Nearly two years ago my fiance, Justine Damond Ruszczyk, was shot dead in her pyjamas outside our home without warning as she walked up to a police car which she had summoned,' Mr Damond said.

'Ironically, the Minneapolis Police Department emblem on the squad door reads: "To protect with courage and to serve with compassion".

'Where were these values that night? That night there was a tragic lapse of care and complete disregard for the sanctity of life. The evidence in this case clearly showed an egregious failure of the Minneapolis Police Department.'    

Noor was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the 2017 death of Damond, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia.

A jury of ten men and two women reached a verdict on Tuesday after three weeks of testimony. The jurors were sequestered and deliberated for 11 hours.

Noor, 33, was found guilty of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, and was acquitted on the highest charge, second-degree murder.    

Third-degree murder is also known as 'depraved-heart murder,' meaning the act was committed without intent to effect death, but caused by acting dangerously and without regard for human life.

Second-degree murder means the murder was intentional but was not premeditated.

Noor was acquitted on the second-degree murder charge. Second-degree manslaughter occurs when a person causes death through negligence.

He was immediately led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 7 and could face up to 25 years in prison. The former cop showed no reaction, but his wife cried as the jury's verdict was read at his trial.

During a press conference, Damond's father, John Ruszczyk, described the process as a 'painful journey' but said he was 'satisfied with the outcome'. 

Noor's attorney asked that he be released on bond pending sentencing, but prosecutors opposed that on the grounds of the seriousness of the case.

The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said it had concerns about Noor's safety if he was free.

The verdict is believed to mark the first time a Minnesota police officer is convicted on a murder charge for shooting someone while on-duty.

Damond, 40, was shot on July 15, 2017, shortly after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home.

Noor fired at Damond from the passenger seat of the police cruiser he was in with his partner, Matthew Harrity, when she emerged from her home.

The victim, a yoga instructor, had approached the cruiser after calling 911 twice to report a possible rape in the dark alley behind her home. No such assault was ever found to have occurred.

In court, prosecutor Amy Sweasy said Noor violated Minneapolis police training policies - and endangered the life of his partner and a teenage cyclist also present.

She dismissed speculation that Damond contributed to her own death.

'He pulled (the gun). He pointed, he aimed, and he killed her,' Ms. Sweasy said. 'This is no accident. This is intentional murder,' she said.   

Noor had testified that he believed there was an imminent threat after he saw a cyclist stop near the police cruiser, heard a loud bang and saw Harrity's 'reaction to the person on the driver's side raising her right arm.'

Noor added that when he reached from the cruiser's passenger seat and shot Damond through the driver's side window, it was because he thought his partner 'would have been killed.'

He said that after Damond approached the cruiser, his partner screamed, 'Oh, Jesus!' and began fumbling to unholster his gun.

Then, Noor said he saw a blonde woman wearing a pink T-shirt raising her right arm at the driver's window, identified her as a threat and fired.

The prosecutor, however, suggested that the officers should not have been surprised by a woman walking to their car, given that the 911 caller reporting the possible sexual assault was a woman. 

Ms Damond, a dual US-Australian citizen was to due be married to her fiancée a month after her life was cut short.

Her death sparked anger and disbelief in the U.S. and Australia, cost the city's police chief her job and contributed to the mayor's electoral defeat a few months later.

Neither officer had their body cameras running when Ms Damond was shot, something Officer Harrity blamed on what he called a vague policy that didn't require it.

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'I'm not going to invent a number': Bill Shorten refuses to say how much his renewable energy policy will cost – as experts estimate it would wipe $264BILLION off Australia's economy

Labor leader Bill Shorten, who is favourite to become Prime Minister later this month, has again refused to say how much Labor's climate change policy will cost the economy.

The Opposition Leader was asked several times on the ABC's 7.30 program about his plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 - which is much more ambitious than the government's 28 per cent goal.

To reach that goal, the required switch of power source from fossil fuels to renewables will come at a high price but Mr Shorten has repeatedly declined to say how much.

'I'm not going to get caught up in this government game of gotcha when you've got to invent a number which you can't possibly,' he told the ABC on Wednesday.

Leigh Sales, the host of 7.30, suggested there must be a short-term hit to Australia's gross domestic product and called on Mr Shorten to be frank about the cost.

'I accept your position that there's a long-term benefit,' she said. 'What I'm asking you to do is to square with the voters about exactly what the short-term cost is of getting to that position.'

Hours after that interview, BAEconomics released modelling showing Labor's climate change plan would cost the economy $264billion.

Dr Brian Fisher, the managing director of the Canberra-based consultancy, told Daily Mail Australia the 'economic consequences' would depend on a future government's willingness to accept international emissions trading permits. 'The impacts could be very severe,' he said.

BAEconomics released another report in March estimating Labor's climate plan would cost 336,000 jobs and cause an eight per cent plunge in lost wages by 2030.

In the 7.30 interview on Wednesday night, Mr Shorten argued no action on tackling climate change would cost more in the long-run. 

'You assume there is no cost to doing nothing and there is,' he said. 'If you don't change, then the cost will be far greater than any initial investments.

'If you're asking me to specify what a particular company and a particular factory will have to do, I can't do that, nor could you, nor can the government.'

On Thursday, Labor unveiled a $75million plan to create 70,000 renewable energy jobs.

The Opposition is also vowing to have 50 per cent of Australia's energy come from renewal sources by 2030.

In mid-April, Mr Shorten engaged in a tense stand-off with Channel 10 reporter Jonathan Lea, who repeatedly asked him to provide detail the economic effects of Labor's plan to reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent within 11 years.

SOURCE  






Christian schools warn over Labor’s anti-discrimination bill

A Christian school lobby group has warned that Labor’s plan to overhaul anti-discrimination legislation by removing the religious exemption for schools could hamper their ability to teach according to their values.

Christian Schools Australia, which represents about 140 faith-based schools across the country, has called on Labor to clarify its plans regarding the Sex Discrimination Act, in the wake of revelations that it would scrap exemptions that enable faith-based schools to employ teachers that represent their ethos and teach its traditional values.

Although Labor’s education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek this week signalled a strong willingness to support religious schools to continue to employ staff that “faithfully represent their values”, she declined to provide details of exactly how the rights of schools would be protected under Labor’s pledge to amend the Sex Discrimination Act if it is elected.

CSA national policy director Mark Spencer said the group had previously held constructive conversations with Labor over the issue, which sparked fierce public debate late last year when recommendations from the Ruddock review into religious freedom were released, but it was now unclear what Labor’s intentions were.

Mr Spencer has sought clarification from Labor.

“It sounds as though they expect us to rely on the employment process to deal with staff matters but you can’t put something in the employment contract if it is protected in discrimination legislation,” he said.

“We would be concerned with any plan to simply remove the exemption without replacing it with some other protection for religious schools.”

Charity lawyer Mark Fowler, an adjunct associate professor at the Notre Dame School of Law, agreed that removing the religious exemption without introducing accompanying legislative protection for schools posed a risk to faith-based schools.

“Private parties cannot contract out of federal anti-discrimination law,” Mr Fowler said.

“Where a school requires a form of fidelity from its employees that conflicts with a statutory prohibition on discrimination, the statute will override the contract, unless an exemption applies to balance the law with the requirements of religious freedom.

“Moreover, to authentically model their beliefs to students and the community, many schools seek to prefer teachers and staff who actually share their beliefs.

“On the face of it, Labor’s proposal appears to be to remove this ability.”

Currently, the Sex Discrimination Act prevents discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status however there are exemptions that permit religious schools to discriminate in their employment decisions, as well as in relation to education and training, if it is in the interests of upholding religious values.

The Australian Law Reform Commission is currently looking into religious exemptions in anti-discrimination legislation, including the Ruddock review and some of its more contentious recommendations.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has previously expressed its desire to retain the existing exemption. In its submission to the amended bill inquiry on behalf of the nation’s 1740 Catholic schools, it strenuously denied that Catholic schools used the exemptions “to expel or otherwise discriminate against students simply on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status”.

“The exemptions allow schools to focus on educating students according to their mission and identity,” the ACBC wrote.

“We are concerned that without adequate recognition of our religious freedom, we will not be able to maintain a school community that operates in accordance with the tenets of its faith and in a spirit of harmony and cohesion.”

In advice to the National Catholic Education Commission, which has been circulated to school communities today, the ALP said it respected the right of people to practise their religion freely and that Ms Plibersek had “made our position on the rights of religious schools very clear in parliament when she stated, ‘schools are also entitled to have rules that ensure staff … don’t deliberately and wilfully behave contrary to the values of the school’.”

It stressed that Labor was “not proposing to amend the indirect discrimination provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act that allow educational institutions to impose reasonable conditions, requirements or practices in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of a particular religion or creed”.

It is understood that some within Labor believe that those indirect discrimination provisions could be key to religious schools being able to ensure that its teachers outwardly adhere to the institutions values.

In a dissenting report following an inquiry into Senator Penny Wong’s proposed Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018, which sought to prevent schools from discriminating against students, Labor Senators noted evidence as to whether schools needed to rely on exemptions to uphold the fidelity of an employee at their school or whether it was a contractual matter.

Their report referred to a hypothetical example of a teacher “who was not supportive of the teachings of the church in relation to a range of matters and who voiced that belief with students or with other staff in a fairly public manner”.

“It was noted in the course of this exchange within the committee that the exemptions can’t be used to uphold this kind of fidelity as a failure to uphold a specific teaching, but rather needs to be pursued through the contract with the employee,” said the Labor Senators’ report.

At a forum in Sydney on Tuesday, Ms Plibersek told an audience of about 250 Catholic school administrators, teachers, parents and students that she did not believe that there was “tension at all” between the rights of schools to require employees uphold their values and protecting people from discrimination.

“The way it was put to me was what we want is employees who can live by or demonstrate the values of our school,” she said.

“And I think that it is possible to find that balance where we don’t discriminate against people because of who they love or how they identify but that those people who are employees of an organisation have to faithfully represent the values of that organisation.

“I really don’t think that’s beyond us.”

Labor has previously advised Equality Australia, an advocacy group borne out of the marriage equality campaign, that LGBTI students and staff at religious schools were “at risk of discrimination “and it would “continue to work to remove all discriminator measures against LGBTI people from Commonwealth law”.

“Labor will not give up,” the response said.

“We do not believe that freedom from discrimination and religious freedom are mutually exclusive. We do not believe that the removal of these exemption will hamper a religious schools’ capacity to continue to teach its religion and operate according to its traditions and beliefs.”

SOURCE  





Criticism of Leftist ideas about sexuality banned

A campaign billboard urging voters to put Labor last has been banned after it challenged Bill Shorten to explain whether he supports “drag queen story time” — a program which introduces young children to the concept of gender fluidity.

The advertisement — proposed by advocacy group Binary — superimposed an image of Mr Shorten over a depiction of a drag queen reading to curious children along with a quote from opposition equality spokesman Louise Pratt saying: “Drag queen story time is a wonderful idea.”

Senator Pratt made the comment in defence of a Perth business last November after the owners experienced pushback for inviting two drag performers to read children’s stories at a special event for rainbow families.

The event was inspired by the “Drag Queen Story Hour” — a program in the US which aims to capture the “imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood” and give kids “glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models”.

According to its website, Drag Queen Story Hour is “just what it sounds like — drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores.”

Labor refused to clarify yesterday whether it would use taxpayer funds to encourage the rollout of programs like “drag queen story time” or whether it believed such schemes should be voluntary, with the attendance of children depending on the attitude of parents.

It also refused to answer a question about whether groups opposed to gender fluidity should be allowed to participate in public debate and campaign in favour of gender being defined as either male and female.

The now banned billboard carried the slogan — “THIS TIME, PUT LABOR LAST” — but the Outdoor Media Association rejected the advertisement for breaching its code of ethics.

Binary was told that advertisements could not “portray people or depict material in a way which discriminates against or vilifies a person or section of the community on account of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual preference, religion, disability, mental illness or political belief.”

Binary — a group which contests notions of gender fluidity — was informed the problem was a combination of the “picture and the words”. It was also told that an ordinary person would think that a sexual preference was being portrayed in a negative light, possibly fuelling vilification and ridicule.

Binary Director Kirralie Smith — who pulled out of standing for the Australian Conservatives NSW Senate ticket — argued the decision was an infringement of free speech. She said the Australian people should be able to have a discussion about the issue of gender fluidity ahead of the election without the debate being subject to censorship.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable that we are not allowed to discuss this key issue before an election. That’s not free speech, that’s not fair,” Ms Smith said.

“There are two critical issues here. First, Labor has made their position very clear — they believe that a Drag Queen should teach your kids that their gender is fluid, that they can choose if they are a boy or girl,” she said.

“Second, we are not able to even have the debate about whether or not this is a good idea during a federal election. And this a slap in the face to the parents of Australia.”

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Israel Folau: censorship is a measure of intolerance, one step from book burning

Two university cases, that of professors Peter Ridd of James Cook University and Regina Ganter of Griffith University, and the situation of rugby player Israel Folau are of great interest to those who wish to uphold progress.

I think of Ridd. He is not the only one with his views but would appear to have very few scientists as supporters. Let him have his say — it does no harm if it is wrong and, unlikely that it be, only good if he is right.

Folau is in a different class. He expresses views found in his holy book. He has many like-minded folk, but they are not famous rugby players.

If we believe in religious freedom, he certainly has the right to repeat what his holy book argues. His Old Testament words are also found in the Jewish religion and do not differ much from the Muslim religion. Do we ban all religious folk from playing sport?

I am not of the same mind as either of these two. In the case of Ridd, I am concerned with climate change and chair a specialist climate change section of the professional body for environmental practitioners, the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand.

And, with regard to Folau, I do not share his religious beliefs any more than I share those of others who do not treat all humans as equal.

While I was composing this short essay, I was also reading a recent book by Raewyn Connell, The Good University, published by Monash University Publishing. Raewyn is what is commonly called a leftie. She promotes herself as “a long-term participant in the labour and peace movements”.

I was taken by her opinion on what university students need to experience.

She writes that “real learning in university should be disturbing, because it challenges existing ideas — and that will often be unpleasant”. I guess this means no trigger warnings and no shouting down of speakers with opinions one disapproves of.

This brings me to Ganter’s case. Contrary to what some have suggested, she was not removed from her class by her university. She was more than willing to allow one of her juniors to teach the remainder of the subject.

My concern with her case is that a student believed he had the right to censor a lecturer; that is, to remove her from her class.

Equally troubling is that this student, in demanding that indigenous culture should not be taught by a non-indigenous person, is denying empathy. Without empathy, we are no longer human.

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 May, 2019

Labour health cap to hit insurers hard

This is crazy stuff, as price control always is. If health insurance funds cannot raise enough money to cover their claims, what are they going to do? Go broke and leave millions uninsured?  There's just got to be an epidemic or two and that could happen

Health costs always run above inflation.  The constant flow of new drugs, new procedures and new devices ensures that.  They all have to be paid for.  So a 2% cap will put a spike in that.

What insurers will do is simply add nothing new to their schedules and quietly remove some of the costlier ones. So there might be a procedure that would restore your health but it will be unavailable to you. It will be available only to the very rich.  Is that an ALP policy?  It is, apparently. 

Leftist health policy is always disastrous.  They should just leave health alone.  They have no idea about how to improve the situation.  They just rely on brute force and that is as dumb as you get


Bill Shorten’s plan to cap health insurance premium increases is set to fuel a $1 billion profit hit to insurers and slow earnings growth for private hospitals.

A wide ranging report by investment bank Morgan Stanley concluded there would be an immediate impact on health insurers if Labor wins the federal election, with the industry needing to address a $1bn earnings hole.

Mr Shorten has promised that should he win the May 18 election that he would cap health insurance premium increases at two per cent for two years, plus order a productivity commission review of the sector.

The 60-page report, led by equity analyst Sean Laaman, said the issue for insurers was that the earnings crunch was coming fast.

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Scott Morrison heaps pressure on Bill Shorten’s emissions plan

Scott Morrison has moved to pile pressure on Bill Shorten over Labor’s 45 per cent emission reduction plan, dismissing the Opposition Leader’s claims that it can’t be costed and declaring that taxpayers ultimately will pay.

Campaigning in Perth this afternoon, the Prime Minister said it was very important Australians knew the cost of a change of government. “You can’t tell other people to do the math,’’ Mr Morrison said. “As I said, the Prime Minister should be able to do the math.’’

Mr Morrison said that as Prime Minister, if Labor was elected, Mr Shorten would have to chair the budget expenditure review committee.

“You can’t contract out the maths, Bill. You’ve got to do it yourself and know the cost of things. But the Leader of the Opposition doesn’t know the cost of things because it’s not him who will have to pay for it.

“It’s the Australian people and $387bn worth of higher taxes. I’ve done the math, Bill, and it’s $387bn.’’

SOURCE  






Academic censorship at Griffith university

When a student is deemed to have a better grasp of the truth than a teacher  -- even when the teacher is a distinguished expert in her field.  Her replacement will deprive the students of much real knowledge
                                                                                         
Griffith University has acknow­ledged that a professor, Regina Ganter, has stood down from teaching a foundation course named “first peoples” at its Gold Coast and Brisbane campuses.

This follows many Facebook posts supporting a complaint from a student that Ganter, who is non-indigenous, presented a lecture that was “racist” and “twisted”.

The lecture delivered by Ganter explored the complex history of the establishment of government reserves and church-run missions, which in many cases incarcerated indigenous people against their will.

It is a serious issue for a university professor to be accused of racism, and formal processes to investigate could be expected to follow.

But in this case the accusation has amounted to “trial by Facebook”, and after consultation with Ganter and indigenous advisers, Griffith University has decided in favour of the student’s demand that the course should be taught by indigenous lecturers.

In support of Ganter, the university has denied the accusations of racism.

The case raises wider issues that have emerged in universities during the past 30 years. What is the subject matter concerning indigenous culture that should be taught only by indigenous lecturers, and is it fundamentally different from many existing hum­anities and social science courses that focus on the broader subject of settler-indigenous relations?

Certainly, racism and its horrors must be addressed, and we need to ensure the strong presence of rich and creative indigenous voices in our universities — but not in a way that presents only a particular political message of the kind that appears to have been demanded in the complaint about the Griffith University course.

There is a risk that, in the social sciences and humanities, in the future there may be calls to teach only politically acceptable versions of indigenous history and culture. The view that, in principle, only indigenous people should be involved in teaching and research may well prove to be inappropriate and unproductive.

Where do we draw boundaries around who can teach and study particular topics? Is it only on the matter of race? Is it religion, ethnicity and gender as well?

At the least, if a course solely promotes only one perspective, this needs to be made clear to enrollees and distinguished from a more comprehensive approach to understanding the legacies of col­onialism.

The initial student complaint about the Griffith University course included the assertion that it was “cooked”, implying that the subject matter was fabricated. In the face of such criticism that is now so easy to distribute globally through social media, academics deserve support from all who are committed to independent teaching and research inquiry.

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Indigenous man told to go back to where he came from by Leftist politician

Chaos has erupted in the ultra-marginal government-held electorate of Gilmore after a Liberal candidate with indigenous ties to the area was told to “go back to where he came from” by his Labor opponent, amid accusations he was parachuted into the seat.

Warren Mundine, the Liberal candidate in Gilmore on the NSW South Coast, has accused Labor’s Fiona Phillips of being “extremely insulting” over comments she made in an interview calling him a “phony” and saying “he needs to go back to where he came from”.

“I’m a member of the Yuin Nation, the traditional owners of the land and sea within the Gilmore electorate ... my people have lived on Yuin country for thousands of years.” Mr Mundine said

Acknowledging that he lived outside of the electorate before being announced as the Liberal candidate, Mr Mundine said: “Like many Aboriginal people, my grandparents and parents often had to move away from their country for work and other reasons. I’ve had to do the same. I’ve lived in many places in my life, half of it in regional Australia.

“Fiona did traditional owners great dishonour and disrespect yesterday by ordering one of them to leave their own country.

“Gilmore is home to many people who were not born here or don’t have ancestors here. All are part of this community. “No one deserves to be ordered to ‘go back to where they came from’.” he said.

When approached by The Australian, Ms Phillips stood by her comments. “This has nothing to do with land of the Yuin Nation. Australia is, and always has been First Nations land.”

“Mundine has rolled into town straight from Sydney’s leafy north shore, on his big business funded bus of lies. Deceiving pensioners about fake plans to raise the pension.” Ms Phillips said.

Mr Mundine was once the president of the Australian Labor Party, with Scott Morrison hand picking the prominent indigenous and business leader as the party’s candidate after government Liberal MP Ann Sudmalis announced her retirement in September because of “bullying, intimidation, leaking and undermining” from within her own party.

Ms Phillips made the comments yesterday in response to a story about Mr Mundine’s campaign bus exterior featuring a promise that the Liberal party will increase the Aged Pension if re-elected on May 18 — despite it not being official party policy.

The controversy drew in Scott Morrison, who defended Mr Mundine and the claim as being true because of indexation of the aged pension, which raises the payment twice a year in line with inflation.

Bill Shorten criticised the prime minister for defending the claim, saying rises from indexation would be the same regardless of who was elected. “That’s like giving yourself a medal for getting up in the morning.” Mr Shorten said.

Mr Mundine posted an image of the pledge emblazoned on his campaign bus to his social media, but it has now been deleted.

A bus has since been seen driving around the electorate with the slogan “building our economy” in place of where the pension claim had been.

When asked about the pledge, a Liberal party spokeswoman did not deny that the indexed pension increases advertised by Mr Mundine would be implemented at the same rate under a Labor government.

Policies affecting retirees stand to have a significant impact in Gilmore, with about 35 per cent of the seat’s residents older than 60 — a much higher proportion than the national average of 21 per cent.

Gilmore has been held by the Liberals since 1996, and was retained by Ms Sudmalis 2016 by 0.7 per cent after a 3 per cent swing, making it the Coalition’s most marginal NSW seat.

The coalition have been heavily campaigning against Labor’s proposed policy of ending the refundable franking credits scheme for self funded retirees.

Ms Phillips believes the majority of retirees in Gilmore are on the aged pension, and therefore unaffected by the opposition’s policy.

“Lying to local pensioners is no laughing matter. Mr Mundine should apologise immediately to local pensioners and come clean on the Liberal Party’s position.” Ms Phillips previously said.

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You can count the climate cost and it is terrifying

Labor’s climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, is just wrong when he says it’s impossible to cost Labor’s climate change policies.

Sure, it’s hard and assumptions have to be made, and it’s probably best to present a range of estimates rather than a single point.

However, to bring the Parliamentary Budget Office into the argument is disingenuous. The role of the PBO is to model budgetary implications of particular policies. It doesn’t assess the economy-wide costs of policies.

So what do we know?

Labor is running with a 45 per cent emissions target by 2030 and does not intend to use the Kyoto carry-over. This means Labor’s carbon abatement budget is 1.3 billion tonnes by 2030. This is not disputed by Butler.

The Coalition’s target is much lower — 26 to 28 per cent — and uses the Kyoto carry-over. This means the Coalition’s carbon abatement budget is just over 300 million tonnes. It’s plain that Labor’s ­policy will impose much bigger costs on the economy than the ­Coalition’s. There may be benefits in terms of avoided climate change-induced economic damage, but this works only if every other country in the world meets or exceeds its Paris targets.

Only a handful of countries are on track to meet commitments. And China and India are not required to cut emissions before 2030.

One of the dopier things Bill Shorten said in the early stages of the campaign was that the cost of Labor’s climate change policies, all 1.3 billion tonnes of abatement, were the same as the Coalition’s just over 300 million tonnes because Labor would allow companies to purchase international carbon credits.

But here’s the thing: if every country is seeking to meet its Paris targets — and Labor must assume this is the case — then the price of these international carbon credits will rise and probably steeply.

We have already seen the price soar as the EU rejigs regulations that apply to these credits. They are currently trading above $40.

Former executive director of the Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics Brian Fisher has undertaken a comprehensive modelling exercise on the costs to the Australian economy of different emission reduction targets.

What his work shows is the ­Coalition’s policies do impose some economic costs but they are manageable. This is hardly surprising given the relatively modest target as well as the use of the Kyoto carry-over. When it comes to Labor’s proposal, the costs blow out. Real wages fall by 8.5 per cent over the period, there are 340,000 fewer jobs and the cumulative loss of GDP is close to $1.2 trillion.

The key is what is called the marginal abatement cost curve, which plots costs associated with emissions reduction targets. Initially there are some low-hanging fruit and the costs are not too high but there comes a point when costs start to escalate. The point of inflexion is around the 30 per cent emissions cut mark.

Labor might want to dispute Fisher’s figures but to do so credibly it has to offer alternative estimates and not prattle on about the use of international carbon credits. Voters deserve to know what they are in for.

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 May, 2019

Plan: New motorbike riders need to have one-year L-plate experience in cars first

This would be hugely disruptive.  For most young people a two-wheeler is the first transport they can afford.  It was for me.  But this says that you have to stay on foot until you can afford a car.  It is extraordinarily dictatorial.  It would antagonize a lot of young voters

Moror cyclists would need to have L-plate car driving experience for one year before switching to two wheels under a radical new safety plan.

Police Minister Corey Wingard has confirmed the plan is being considered by the State Government as part of a review of motorcycle licencing.

Under the plan, country kids who grow up on agricultural bikes as part of their work and family life could be given exemptions to any new rules.

“Exposing potential young motorcycle riders to the rules of the road in the relative safety of a car before allowing them access to a learner bike licence could save lives,’’ Mr Wingard said.

“Young riders would need to spend at least a year learning to drive a car while supervised before they can jump on a motorcycle.

“A motorcyclist with a year’s experience as a car driver on our roads will likely be much better equipped to handle any unexpected dangers they encounter.’’

The State Government is currently consulting interest groups on how to bring in a more strict graduated licensing scheme for motorcyclists, similar to that faced by car drivers.

In a second major law change being considered as part of the consultation, Mr Wingard said country people may be given concessions when trying out for their licences.

“During a recent trip to the Yorke Peninsula I came across a local whose 16-year-old son used his motorbike to help out on the farm,’’ he said. “Fair legislative changes rarely take a one-size fits all approach and the regions can be assured this Government is listening to their voices. These measures are among a host of other potential changes we are looking at.’’

The one-year-in-a-car-first rule for motorcycle learners was first proposed in a 2017 University of Adelaide study at the beginning of the current licencing scheme reform process. ”Driving a car involves a lower level of risk than a motorcycle, so the novice progresses from learning to drive a car to the more difficult and risky task of learning to ride a motorcycle,’’ the study found.

The string of deaths prompted the Opposition to call for the minimum age for gaining a motorcycle learner’s licence to be raised from 16 to 17. It also wants learner and prescribed licence holders under the age of 25 to be banned between midnight and 5am without a legitimate excuse. Mr Wingard said there was no substitute for all road users taking it upon themselves to follow the law.

“If a motorcyclist, or a motorist, decides to drive at ridiculous speeds, or engage in other dangerous driving, there is no amount of legislation that will protect them from a tree or a concrete wall,” he said.

SOURCE  






Labor party climate change spokesman Mark Butler  says it’s impossible to cost Labor’s climate change policy

Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler says it is “impossible” to cost Labor’s climate change policy because Labor is not putting a direct carbon price on businesses.

Mr Butler said in Perth today businesses would ultimately influence the economic cost of Labor policy and claimed “that is what they asked Labor for” and the Parliamentary Budget Office could not cost it.

“It isn’t possible to cost this because a Shorten government ... would not be imposing a direct carbon price, and certainly not a carbon tax,” he said in Perth today.

“What we have decided to do, after talking exhaustively with business groups over the last 12 to 18 months, is simply adopt the safeguards mechanism proposed by Malcolm Turnbull.

“All that mechanism does is set a limit on carbon pollution. If businesses are able to stick to their limit, they won’t hear from government anymore ... there is no price impact at all.

“If they are not able to stick to their limit ... they will have the broadest possible range of offsets. But how business deals with that is a matter for them.

“It won’t be dictated by Canberra so it won’t be costed by Canberra.”

SOURCE  






Retirement: a rotten time to be punished

Neither Scott Morrison nor Bill Shorten understand the fear and frustration that dominates most in “retirement land”.

In the leaders debate Morrison forced Shorten to admit he was planning to tax some pensioners but that’s as far as it went.

Few “young” Australians aged under 50 have any idea what’s happening to their parents and grandparents.

And so, in today’s commentary I welcome all journalists (radio, TV, print social etc) plus all other readers aged under 50 to the land of retirees and those looking to retire.

For a great many Australians it’s a horrible place as they suddenly wake up that they are being saddled with the bill for a large portion of the banking royal commission. Whether pensioners or non-pensioners, they are being told they have had it too good and it’s time to have their income reduced.

And all this happens at a time when the costs of nurses and other medical bills are rising, while retiree income is under threat.

Unless you are very rich you no longer look forward to joining the fearful land of retirement.

When the royal commission started public hearings just over a year ago no retiree realised they would be personally lumbered with a big part of the bill.

As people get older, they usually become more conservative with their money. They sleep at night by investing in one-year bank term deposits. About a year ago those deposits yielded in the vicinity of 2.6 per cent. Now, one-year deposits with big banks are down to around 2.2 per cent. The Reserve Bank has not changed its official rate, so the money goes out of the retiree pockets into the bank coffers to pay for part of the royal commission.

If the official rates fall, then my guess is that the term deposit rates will fall again. But at least in term deposits everyone is in the same boat.

A lot of pensioners and self-funded retirees planned to vote for the ALP because they hated seeing three prime ministers in one term of parliament. But then came the horror of the ALP’s retirement and pensioner tax.

Many pensioners rely on small investments in high dividend-paying shares to legally supplement their income, but some pensioners are now told by Bill Shorten that they will cop it in the neck and lose their cash franking credits.

Once some pensioners get cash franking credits and others with the same money do not receive them then all pensioners know the politicians are playing games.

Shorten made it clear in his budget reply speech that cash franking credits were an unsustainable gift, so there is unease in the pensioner community.

Who is next?

It’s even worse among those who have larger sums in superannuation.

The industry funds are telling their members that “Uncle Chris” and “Uncle Bill” will look after them and will make sure industry fund members get their cash franking credit “gift” in full. Big retail funds are also being “looked after” but if they are losing working members, they may not be able to deliver the” gift”. Self-managed funds in pension mode are in trouble.

I keep getting asked by the “under 50s” how is it that Chris and Bill are delivering the cash franking credits to some superannuation fund members and not to others, assuming everyone has the same assets and income.

Australia has become the first country in the world to tax people not on the basis of their income or their assets but on the basis of who manages their money. It is an ingenious taxing system but it breaks all the rules we have built up in taxation since 1900 and, in my view, both Bowen and Shorten should be ashamed of themselves. Scott Morrison can take some of the blame for not nailing them on the unfairness of giving cash franking credits to some while withdrawing them from others. It should be all or nothing.

What Bowen and Shorten say to retirees is that if you happen to be in a fund with members who pay tax then you can sponge on the tax they pay and get your cash franking credits. All retirees know that their personal financial affairs have nothing to do with those of other members of a fund and to suggest that anyone can offset the tax paid by other members against the “no tax” paid by retirees in pension mode is artificial nonsense.

The retirees are hoping the cross benchers in the Senate will stop the nonsense scheme, but the ALP has already spent the money. Eventually all retirees may be taxed and those who have escaped round one are very fearful.

Many retirees want to downsize or move to a retirement home. Falling house prices make them very nervous and no one is sure what will happen when the ALP changes the negative gearing rules.

Young people say the Baby Boomers have had it too good and must now be punished.

When you are aged in your 60s, 70s and 80s and not rich (the rich escape ) it is a rotten time to be punished.

SOURCE  






Shorten’s deceptive offers

Yesterday’s Newspoll confirms one thing: the Shorten campaign is in big trouble and goes from bad to worse.

With money being thrown everywhere (and on Sunday it reached the ludicrous point of $230 million a minute), we had the latest manifestation of Labor’s incapacit­y to handle detail. Two weeks ago it was free cancer care when such free care is already available.

On Sunday, Bill Shorten was at it again, this time with $2.4 billion to improv­e dental care for seniors.

Look at the language, talking about dental care for pensioners: “It’ll not come out of your bank accoun­t. It’ll not go on your credit card. You’ll not have to delay treatment because you can’t afford the care. It’ll be covered by your Medicare card.”

This is called buying votes with services that are already freely available.

My open line yesterday was on fire with pensioners and seniors telling me they already received outstanding and free dental care. NSW, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania provide dental care to pensioners, concession-card holders and some children.

This is pretty bottom-of-the-birdcage stuff, pandering not only to people with cancer or people who need dental care, because they are getting it for free; but also trying to harvest votes from people who may get cancer and may need dental care, who will hopefully think: “Bill’s our man. Bill provides everything for free.”

What the Opposition Leader does not tell us is that governments have no money of their own, only money that they first take from us.

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?


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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