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?

****************************************************************************************



30 September 2019

Labor ‘dragging heels’ in drought efforts

The Labor party is in the grip of the Greenies, who hate dams.  But building more dams is the only way to cope with drought

Deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie has lashed the Labor state governments of Queensland and Victoria for “dragging their heels” when it comes to building new dams.

Senator McKenzie told Sky News on Sunday the lack of co-operation between the Federal government and their state counterparts meant “drought busting” infrastructure was being prevented from “getting off the ground.”

“This is one of the most frustrating topics I think as a National Party MP and somebody that cares about rural and regional Australia,” she said. “We’re a government that has been able to manage the economy well enough we’ve got money on the table to build infrastructure … that helps us to be able to droughtproof for the next time.”

“The reality is the Commonwealth government can’t just roll in with our diggers and graders and roll into a state and start digging,” Senator McKenzie said. “We have to have a partner in this in state because the sovereignty of states to actually build the things the money’s on the table.”

As revealed by The Australian, the Victorian government has ruled out building any new dams, saying climate change will mean not enough water will flow into them to make them worthwhile.

“At the end of the day if you’ve got Lisa Neville here in Victoria saying no more dams despite the CSIRO saying we should get on with it and you’ve got [Anastasia] Palaszczuk up in Queensland dragging her heels on Rookwood and other drought-busting infrastructure and you get NSW finally coming to the table today with $84 million dollars, which is fantastic news, the reality is we’ve been here this whole time waiting.”

Senator McKenzie also announced the Farm Household Allowance would be extended and made available to farmers for four years every decade instead of once over the lifetime of a farmer.

“Right now farm household allowance you’re only able to access for four years in your entire lifetime as a farmer, which is just ridiculous,” she said. “In this country every two decades we’re going through a period of significant hardship, as we are now, so we’ve made a change now that every decade, farmers will be able to access this payment for up to four years.”

It comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an additional $100 million in drought relief funding.

Of this, more than $50 million will be put towards expanding and simplifying the Farm Household Allowance, a payment for farmers struggling to pay bills. The latest package comes on top of the $7 billion set aside in drought relief funding.

Senator McKenzie said the subsidy program wouldn’t affect Australia’s free trade agreements.

“This is this is not an American or US-style farm bill subsidy program at all and as an exporter that exports 70 per cent of what we produce we don’t want to be doing anything here at home that puts us at risk our ability to trade.”

SOURCE  






Scott Morrison announces $100million in relief funding for farmers stricken by drought after being criticised for not doing enough to help

Scott Morrison is flying to the Queensland Outback today to help drought-stricken farmers. The Prime Minister, who has been criticised for not doing enough for rural communities, will announce $100million in aid.

The money will go to 13 local government areas to help farmers pay for food, water and fuel and have access to counselling.

Mr Morrison will land in Sydney after his state visit to the US and will immediately take a flight to Dalby in south Queensland.  He said: 'We know we can't make it rain, but we must keep finding ways to do everything we can to make life just a bit easier and remove some of the burden.'

Earlier this month Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said Mr Morrison was doing too little for drought-affected farmers.

'The farmers have become Scott Morrison's forgotten people,' he said. 'No real action on his part despite the fact that it's very, very clear based on all the advice that this thing is not going to get better any time soon.'

On the Today Show on Friday morning Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton defended the Prime Minister. 'This is not our first trip out. This money builds on a mountain of support that is already there,' he said.

Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen said his party would look at the proposals but said 'we doubt they will be enough after years of inaction'.

It comes after farmers slammed Mr Morrison for plegding $150million to support a NASA mission to Mars.

Amanda Bolton, who runs Birkwood Farm in the Queensland town of Mutdapilly, posted a photo to Facebook of her dried-up dam. 'The Australian Prime Minister has just announced that the Australian government will be contributing 150 MILLION dollars to the upcoming Mars missions,' she wrote.

'150 MILLION dollars is a lot of money that could buy some pretty cool stuff. 7.5 million small square bales of hay, roughly 880,000 large round bales, 7.5 million bags of basic stock pellets, roughly 30 BILLION litres of water from our local council water collection station.

'Worst drought in recorded history, a number of regional towns will run out of water within weeks, record bushfire season, record dust storm activity etc... This country is desperate. 'But yeah, sure, the Moon is fun too, I guess.'

The deal between the Australian Space Agency and NASA was announced in Washington DC on Saturday.

Ms Bolton's confronting post has been shared more than 50,000 times with thousands of Australians slamming Morrison for turning his back on battling farmers. 'Scott Morrison, please pay attention, stop rubbing up to that Trump moron and look after our farmers. They die, we die,' one person wrote.

'Too busy making himself look good on the World Stage while a major portion of his own country is if not dead its dieing! (sic),' read another comment.

Australia is currently on the grips of the most severe drought on record.

SOURCE  







Do sharks have a right to eat us?

That seems to be the Queensland Labor government's position

FOR almost 60 years, the State Government's shark control program has been making Queensland beaches safer. The program has been one of very few public policies to have endured for such a time while remaining blessedly free from the foibles of partisan politics.

The reason for this has been simple. Who would dare argue with the results? From 1915 to 1962 there were 36 recorded cases of shark attacks in Queensland. These resulted in 19 deaths. But since the dragnet of baited drumlines was introduced in 1962, there's been only one fatal shark attack at a protected Queensland beach.

Little wonder the program has been gradually expanded. However, the program finally found a naysayer in the shape of fringe environmental group, the Humane Society. And inexplicably, the Federal Court has agreed with the group's view that the drumlines do little to protect swimmers.

How the court came to such a view simply beggars belief. Surely, they only had to look at the statistics of recent attacks in northern NSW where there are no permanent drumlines to realise how effective the Queensland program is? What was required here was a bipartisan approach and a plan to ensure swimmers were protected

The court's decision was clearly out of step with public sentiment and requires the politicians who've supported the program to fix it. Given the long history of bipartisan support, not to mention the implications for. Queensland's tourism industry, you'd like to think it would be a relatively quick fix.

However, what has ensued instead has been an unedifying display of pointless political point scoring that has done nothing but advertise to the world that some of the Sunshine State's most famous northern beaches are less safe now than they were a few weeks ago.

Much of the controversy has centred around the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries' decision to remove 160 drumlines from within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The court's decision only related to the marine park zone and that's why the department only removed drumlines in this area.

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has been particularly vocal. She's accused the Palaszczuk Government of choosing "public alarm over personal safety" by removing the drumlines when the court only said caught sharks should not be killed.

"Queensland should reinstate the existing drum lines, while increasing surveillance and exploring modern complementary technologies such as drones, smart drum lines and tags," she said.

There's ample reason for Ley to be sceptical about the Palaszczuk Government's motives in ordering the removal of the drumlines within hours of the court ruling. After all, the administration isn't exactly known for doing anything at pace.

And the States handling of last year's Cid Harbour shark attacks —when it first said drumlines were the answer but then recanted and claimed all it could do was erect signs instead — hardly inspired confidence.

However, what on Earth is Ley suggesting when she says the State Government should just drop the drumlines back in and increase surveillance? Is she saying to hell with what the court has ordered? Or does Ley reckon fisheries officers should just harden up and start arming themselves with a decent set of pliers so they can simply release the sharks?

It might be news to the minister but these officers are dealing with marine life a bit bigger than the cod they catch in the Murray River in her electorate. In fact, cutting a cranky 4m tiger shark loose from a hook is nearly as dangerous as getting between Ley and a bargain Gold Coast apartment buy, something she's somewhat famed for.

Yet, while Ley is happily ordering fisheries officers back into the water, the Morrison Government hasn't come up with a timeline for a legislative fix to what the court has ordered.

The LNP Opposition might be right when they say SMART drumlines, where sharks are caught and released,should be considered as temporary solution. However, it would take time to train officers and whether that's worthwhile depends primarily on how long it's going to take their federal colleagues to come up with a legislative answer.

Dropping in new drumlines at 17 locations just outside the marine park was a prudent move by the State but that still leaves 27 beaches no longer with protection.

However, what wasn't needed was State Fisheries Minister Mark Furner's ham-fisted suggestion that Ley would be blamed if there was an attack.

While the politicians squabble, the reputation of Queensland beaches is taking a further battering, the last thing the tourism industry needs after those terrible Cid Harbour attacks.

From the start, what was required here was a bipartisan approach and a plan to ensure swimmers were protected by drumlines again as soon as practical. Instead what happened was the political sharks began circling as soon as they saw an opportunity for a cheap feed.

"Courier Mail" 27 Sept. 2019






Queensland Public Hospitals still missing targets as delays blow out

QUEENSLAND hospitals, are failing to meet their own benchniarks to see emergency patients in time and have abandoned elective surgery targets they can't reach.

The Courier-Mail can reveal that not one hospital and health service (HHS) saw all of its sickest patients within recommended times, with hospitals south of Brisbane and on the Gold Coast performing the worst

While most came close to seeing the most critical patients within two minutes, many wait times blew past the 10-minute and 30-minute markers for those with conditions "imminently" or "potentially" life-threatening.

Only three of the state's 15 HHS met the previous 25-day target for elective surgery waits used in 2017-18. The target is now missing from the 2018-19 annual reports released yesterday.

The results come amid presare on Health Minister Steven Miles to fix blown-out wait times, ambulance ramping and IT bungles relating to the integrated electronic medical record system (ieMR) and ordering system.

The worst elective surgery results were in regional areas, with Central Queensland and Central West recording the longest wait of 59 days. Patients in the. South West district covering Roma and Charleville waited 55 days, Gold Coast residents waited 49 days and Mackay residents waited 43.

Those in the Torres Strait waited just a week for elective surgery and an average of five minutes in ED.

More than half of the services recorded deficits. West Moreton recorded a $26.88 million deficit because of projects like ieMR. The Sunshine Coast also recorded a staggering $222 million deficit, up from the $13.9 million deficit in 2017-18, and attributed the result to increased demand.

The troubled Metro South HHS recorded a $15 million deficit and blamed increased demand on population ageing and the prevalence of chronic disease conditions.

The Children's Health Queensland HHS, which runs the Queensland Children's Hospital, finished the financial year with an operating surplus of $27.79 million. It found the implementation of the ieMR "has continued to result in increased efficiencies and service improvements".

The hospital was one of the state's best-performing hospitals. It exceeded its target of treating the second-most serious category on time.

"Courier Mail" 27 Sept. 2019

 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 September 2019

Abortion is decriminalised in New South Wales after weeks of contentious debate and heated protests

This is a storm in a teacup.  Abortion has been decriminalized in NSW for years -- ever since the Heatherbrae case. The 1971 case of R v Wald ruled that abortions do not contravene the laws in certain circumstances.

That case involved a criminal trial of five people – most of whom were health care professionals. The five defendants were involved in performing an abortion at the Heatherbrae clinic in Bondi. All were charged under section 83 of the Crimes Act.

The trial judge found that an abortion is lawful if there is an ‘economic, social or medical ground or reason’ upon which the doctor could honestly and reasonably believe that an abortion could avoid a ‘serious danger to the pregnant woman’s life or her physical or mental health.’

All five defendants were ultimately found ‘not guilty’ on that basis – and the ruling opened the doors to women seeking to terminate a pregnancy for reasons such as financial disadvantage or instability, or fears of social stigma and judgment – factors which may negatively affect a woman’s mental wellbeing.

The judgment also affirmed that abortions do not need to be performed in hospitals – paving the way for women’s health clinics around the state.

NSW parliament has passed laws decriminalising abortion following a marathon debate and weeks of protest. There was applause in the lower house on Thursday as the Abortion Law Reform Act 2019 passed its final hurdle.

It comes after the controversial bill passed the upper house 26 votes to 14 on Wednesday night following nearly 40 hours of discussion - making it the third longest debate in the state's house of review.

The bill, presented to parliament in August by Independent MP Alex Greenwich, takes abortion out of the criminal code and allows terminations up to 22 weeks.

'Thank you to all members for the role you have played in this historic reform ... we can feel proud that part of our legacy will be the decriminalisation of abortion in NSW,' the Member for Sydney said. 

An amendment passed in the upper house recognised doctors performing abortions after 22 weeks could seek advice from a multi-disciplinary team or hospital advisory committee.

'With the passing of this bill, our parliament affirms that we trust women,' Labor MP and bill co-sponsor Jo Haylen said just before the final vote. 'We trust women to make decisions about their own lives and about their own bodies.'

The legislation was opposed by religious groups, anti-abortion activists and several MPs who raised concerns about late-term and sex-selective abortions, conscientious objection and the way the bill was introduced. 

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, and former prime minister Tony Abbott were both outspoken in their opposition of the bill.

Joyce described it as the 'slavery debate of our time,' while Abbott accused the NSW government of putting forward 'the most radical abortion laws in this country.'

Liberal and Labor MPs were allowed a conscience vote on the bill.

Tensions in the government reached a climax last week when Liberal MPs Tanya Davies, Mathew Mason-Cox and Lou Amato said they would move a leadership spill motion against Premier Gladys Berejiklian over her handling of the bill.

The rebel MPs, who ultimately withdrew the motion, said it had been made clear that 'at an absolute minimum' four key amendments were required to ensure continued Liberal Party membership.

Ms Davies on Thursday supported amendments made to the bill, saying they created more safeguards and brought the bill to a better place.  

Abortions after 22 weeks are allowed with the approval of two 'specialist medical practitioners.'

All terminations after 22 weeks will now have to be performed in a public hospital.

'Many of us within the Parliament, and also outside in our communities, had concerns with the original bill ... concessions, amendments, changes to the original bill were moved through both houses of Parliament and that is a good thing,' she said.

The legislation that passed on Thursday is more conservative than the initial bill that Greenwich introduced after changes were made following opposition.

Labor MP Penny Sharpe, who is one of 15 co-sponsors of the bill, on Wednesday night said the vote was 119 years in the making.

'The current law has meant women and doctors have a threat of 10 years in jail for making this decision and that not okay,' she told parliament. 'This is a massive step forward for women in this state.'

SOURCE  






Don’t kill free speech to kill hate speech

Flawed ‘hate speech’ laws are a threat to free speech. The best way to protect minorities – while also properly protecting free speech – is to ensure the criminal laws prohibiting incitements and threats of violence are effective.

Inciting and threatening violence has long been against the law. Liberal democracies, such as Australia that have strong traditions of valuing free speech, accept speech that endangers the safety of others should be illegal.

However, there has been a push to expand legislation to ban anything deemed ‘hate speech.’ The United Nations has said they want to ‘scale up [their] response to hate speech.’ Although wanting to stop hatred and bigotry is admirable, such statements should be viewed with caution.

‘Hate speech’ is a broad, vague, and ill-defined notion that would simply catch in the legal net the kinds of contentious speech that some people find offensive or hurtful — or simply do not like.

There is a fundamental difference between speech that criticises ideas and threats of violence.

But as my research shows, protecting community safety and free speech is possible. Most state and territory governments are reviewing their vilification laws — they should adopt the model NSW introduced last year.

The NSW parliament passed the Crimes Amendment (Publicly Threatening and Inciting Violence) Act, which criminalises incitements and threats of violence against an individual or group who possess a protected attribute.

In addition to setting a high threshold for proving an offence, these laws vest investigative powers to the police as opposed to the anti-discrimination board of NSW. This allows for a more thorough investigative process, minimising the risk trivial complaints will be brought.

These laws passed with bipartisan support, and the support of community and ethnic lobbies, satisfying an objective of these laws that they are required to ensure minorities feel safe in their community.

Any law that restricts speech needs to be scrutinised and the NSW approach is obviously not perfect. But it presents a workable model — akin to the old criminal laws against incitements and threats of violence.

Free speech cannot be sacrificed by flimsy and unnecessary ‘hate speech’ laws.

SOURCE  






Surfers Paradise Beach, where people have been warned to swim at their own risk should drum lines be removed

The mayor of the Gold Coast — one of the nation’s most prolific international drawcards — has warned the removal of drum lines from northern Queensland beaches sends the wrong message for tourism in the state and people in affected areas should “swim at your own risk’’.

Tom Tate warned the decision — sparked after a federal court ruling — would undermine the safety of swimmers in the Sunshine State.

Councils are concerned that the decision to remove 160 drum lines from beaches from Cairns to Gladstone on the Great Barrier Reef could become a precedent to remove the lines from other areas of Queensland.

Mr Tate has said he is concerned activists will come for the Gold Coast’s drum lines next. “The group’s already said that they are going to try and expand and take it all the way down to the border.

“[The government] is just being led by the nose by the Greenie bureaucrats.”

The debate was sparked by the Federal Court’s upholding of a decision from the Administrative Appeal Tribunal, which declared if the state could not tag and release sharks, the state government needed to end its program.

The state government failed to appeal the decision and followed by removing 160 drum lines along 27 beaches in northern Queensland.

In a press conference called on Thursday to attack the plan, Mr Tate said: “The people of the Gold Coast and tourists want to be safe on the beach. “That’s why it’s called Surfers Paradise. You can go and swim and the only things that’s in there with you is your kids ... not some shark looking around to have their meal.’’

Mr Tate said there had been no shark attacks since drum lines had been in place for the past 50 years. “If it’s not broken leave the hooks out there.’’

He called on Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch to reconsider the decision to remove drum lines, comply with the federal court’s conditions and maintain the program.

Asked what it would mean for the safety of swimmers, Mr Tate said: “Swim at your own risk because areas where its Byron or out in Western Australia where there’s no nets or drum lines, you get shark attacks recorded and that’s one statistic you don’t want to be.’’

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley on Wednesday condemned the Queensland government’s removal of shark drum lines, accusing them of putting the public at risk for a political stunt.

Ms Ley chastised Queensland for removing drum lines “in the full glare of social media” 24 hours after a federal-court decision which stops shark culling in the Great barrier Reef Marine Park.

“(Queensland) needs to read the judgment a bit more carefully, the judgment did not tell them to take those drum lines out within 24 hours, it makes it very clear there was no need to take the drum lines out,” Ms Ley said on 2GB.

Ms Ley said she had shared her own legal advice on the court’s ruling with the Queensland government, to prove their actions were unnecessarily putting people at risk.

“My call to action with Queensland is put (the drum lines) back in. I don’t want to get into a political spat over something as important as this. Put them back in, admit you were wrong, that you, for whatever reason, decided to make this political,” Ms Ley.

Ms Ley reiterated her advice from the Australian Government Solicitor was that removing the ruling did not require drum lines to be removed.

“The Queensland government chose public alarm over personal safety, knowing that any legislative change at a federal level could not be made overnight and knowing that the State Government had sat back for five months since the initial decision without preparing alternative options,” she said.

SOURCE  





GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below

Climate: The Conversation becomes a lecture

The Conversation has always been heavily behind the alarmist side of the climate debate, and has featured in this blog many times in the past.

Now however it has taken the extraordinary step of banning any dissenting views on climate:

Climate change deniers, and those shamelessly peddling pseudoscience and misinformation, are perpetuating ideas that will ultimately destroy the planet. As a publisher, giving them a voice on our site contributes to a stalled public discourse.

That’s why the editorial team in Australia is implementing a zero-tolerance approach to moderating climate change deniers, and sceptics. Not only will we be removing their comments, we’ll be locking their accounts.

There is a huge range of dissenting opinion, from outright “denial” to educated and careful scientific critique, but we can be sure that The Conversation will interpret the ban as widely as possible so that nothing disrupts the desired consensus viewpoint. No doubt will be allowed.

The Catholic Church had the same idea when they sentenced Galileo to house arrest for “falsely” claiming the Earth orbited the Sun. Look how that worked out…

We really haven’t come that far since the 1600s.

SOURCE  

Time to up the ante on climate change strategy

A sobering lesson from the latest UN science report on climate is not how much still needs to be done but how little has been achieved for all the effort and money already spent.

Temperatures are rising and fossil fuel use is increasing with no sign of peaking. Despite the extraordinary growth in renewable energy the world overwhelmingly is powered by fossil fuels. This will continue as the yearly rise in global energy use is greater than investment in renewable energy, which has been showing signs of fatigue.

To change the trend, the UN’s United in Science report calls for a doubling of effort to meet the two-degree target and a five-fold step-up to limit future warming to the more ambitious 1.5C.

Rather than new findings, the report brings together the already published state of play. It mentions recent extreme weather and says the pace of sea level rise has accelerated from 3mm to 4mm a year.

The main purpose of the report was to lay a foundation for action at the special UN climate summit called by Secretary General Antonio Guterres in New York this week. About 60 nations were to make presentations to the UN Assembly on what they would do to increase action on climate change.

The report underscores the fact pledges made under the Paris Agr­eement will not achieve anywhere near what is judged to be needed.

According to the report, current commitments are estimated to lower global emissions in 2030 by up to six gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent compared to a continuation of current policies. If implemented this would still see temperatures rise by between 2.9 and 3.4C by 2100, the report says.

This level of ambition is a fraction of what the UN says is required. But none of the big emissions nations, the US, China, India or the European Union are expected to offer to do more.

Rather, discussions remain mired in the same old arguments about how there must be different responsibilities for developed and developing countries and funding.

The UN report says technically it still is possible to bridge the gap in 2030 to ensure global warming stays below 2C and 1.5C. But the evidence is that even existing ambitions are proving difficult for many countries to honour.

This should be no surprise. It has been anticipated by big thinkers such as Bill Gates and was at the heart of a Mission Innovation program unveiled in Paris to boost research funding. Governments, including Australia, have fallen well short on what was pledged.

It is time to redouble efforts to invest in new solutions.

SOURCE  

'Australia's got nothing to apologise for': Scott Morrison hits back at 'completely false' critics of his climate change policies in his United Nations address

Scott Morrison has hit back at critics of his climate change policies during an historic address to the United Nations.

The prime minister has faced backlash for missing special climate conference in the United States and the government has been accused of lacking a 'credible climate or energy policy'.

While speaking to the general assembly in New York on Wednesday, Mr Morrison fired back, accusing critics of overlooking or ignoring the efforts Australia had made.

'Australia is doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the contrary.

'Australia's internal... and global critics on climate change willingly overlook or, perhaps, ignore our achievements, as the facts simply don't fit the narrative that they wish to project about our contribution.'

He said the country was committed to its target of cutting emissions by 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, describing that as a 'credible, fair, responsible and achievable contribution'.

During his speech he highlighted that Australia was responsible for just 1.3 per cent of global emissions and how the country had pledged $13.2 billion to invest in clean energy technologies in 2018

Ahead of the speech, the Prime Minister said Pacific leaders he spoke with were often surprised to learn what Australia was doing on climate.

'Oftentimes the criticisms that have been made about Australia are completely false,' he told reporters in New York.

'Where do they get their information from? Who knows? Maybe they read it, maybe they read it.'

Asked if he was saying it was 'fake news' - a favourite insult of US President Donald Trump - he replied: 'I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is when I've spoken to them, they've been surprised to learn about the facts about what Australia has been doing'.

He told the UN that Australia would beat its 2020 Kyoto targets and claimed it would also meet its 2030 Paris pledge.

Environment department figures show Australia's emissions have risen since 2014.

Under the Paris agreement, all countries are expected to update their pledges to cut emissions at the 2020 climate conference in Glasgow. But Mr Morrison indicated that at this stage, Australia is unlikely to do so. 'We have our commitments, and we're sticking to those commitments,' he said.

Mr Morrison also confirmed to the UN that Australia won't contribute any more to the global Green Climate Fund.

The May budget papers said Australia made its last payment into the fund in December 2018.

Instead, Australia is redirecting $500 million of its aid money to help Pacific Island nations become more resilient in the face of the effects of climate change. 'I'm not writing a $500 million cheque to the UN, I won't be doing that. There's no way I'm going to do that to Australian taxpayers,' Mr Morrison told reporters.

SOURCE  

Climate pressure on Suncorp

Suncorp is Queensland's biggest insurer and a major bank

ENVIRONMENTAL activist shareholders of Suncorp say its lucrative insurance business is under threat from global warming weather events but have failed to get the Queensland financial group to target specific reductions in fossil fuel investments.

Environmental group Market Forces moved at Suncorp's annual general meeting yesterday to push the company to set targets to reduce investment in and underwriting of oil and gas projects.  Suncorp has already committed to phasing out investments in coal by 2025.

Suncorp chairman Christine McLoughlin said the company accepted that human activity was causing climate change and the frequency of severe weather events was accelerating. But Ms McLoughlin said Suncorp had taken steps to reduce its exposure to the fossil fuel sector and disclosure of specific investment targets was not needed.

She said fossil fuel-related business made up less than 1 per cent of its insurance business and a negligible part of its lending and investment portfolio.

Activist shareholders said that targets were necessary as Suncorp's insurance business came under threat from worsening natural disasters linked to global warming.

Activist Jan McNicol said Suncorp's insurance business could end up in a "death spiral" due to global warming. However, a resolution that would have led to Suncorp disclosing short, medium and long-term fossil fuel reduction targets was voted down by an overwhelming majority of shareholders.

Grazier Simon Gedda said that he became convinced human activity was causing worsening weather conditions when a flood hit his central Queensland property in 2017 and was "14 foot" higher than the previous record flood in 1991.  He told the AGM he was concerned that continued investment by Suncorp in oil and gas projects would put its insurance clients at continued risk of severe weather events.

Suncorp CEO Steve Johnston said the company's involvement in funding and underwriting of fossil fuel projects was minimal and there were no plans to in-crease its investments in oil and gas.

"Courier Mail" 27 Sept. 2019

 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 September, 2019

Sarah Nix has been left more than $30,000 out of pocket because of ongoing surgeries despite spending $5000 a year on private health insurance



The situation of the poor woman grieves me but she is placing the blame in the wrong quarter.  If private insurance were to cover ALL medical costs, the premiums would be unaffordable. Basically, private health insurance covers HOSPITAL costs only.  It does not pay for the doctors and others who operate there.  So you have to pay them yourself. 

And if it is only one adverse medical episode you have, most people will be able to do that.  In cases like Ms Nix, however, who needs multiple surgeries, that can easily become impossible.  Private health insurance is not for people in her situation.  It is the public system that she has to turn to.  Only the public system covers BOTH hospital and doctor costs.

So it is the public system that Ms Nix should be condemning.  And their services do leave much to be desired.  The care you get in public hospitals is not much  worse than what you get from private doctors and may be as good.  As Ms Nix points out, the big problem with the public system is the WAIT you have to undergo before you get in front of a doctor or surgeon.  And that wait can be very distressing.

So what is the solution?  Unless someone invents a money tree, there is only one solution:  Public hospital services have to be rationed in some way.  Self-inflicted injuries and illnesses in particular should not be treated: Damaged joints caused by obesity and lung cancer caused by smoking for instance.  People suffering from such illnesses could probably take out special insurance for their needs.  But people who are ill through no fault of their own should always be at the front of the queue.

That is unlikely to happen -- though something like that does often happen informally.  So we have to go back to money.  A small charge could be levied every time a person attends a public hospital -- a charge equal to the price of a packet of cigarettes, for instance.  Such an idea was discussed in Tony Abbot's time but was abandoned as poltical poison.  So we are probably stuck with distressing waiting lists.

A compromise that is already used for cancer patients is to give them special priority but even that can be a dangerous delay.  It might help a little, however for similar priority to be given to people in need of multiple surgeries, such as Ms Nix


Sarah Nix has run out of money and is now being forced to make a life-altering decision.

The 26-year-old from Brisbane and her husband Matthew can no longer keep affording to fork out thousands of dollars for her endometriosis surgeries on top of the $5000 a year they already pay for their private health insurance.

Mrs Nix was diagnosed with the debilitating condition that causes tissue similar to the lining of the womb to grow outside it two years ago. Her pain is so horrendous she hasn’t been able to drive or work for the past 18 months.

But on top of the horrific pain, Mrs Nix has the added burden of ongoing medical bills.

And she’s not the only one — tonight’s episode of Insight on SBS highlights how patients are paying high out-of-pocket fees for specialists and surgeries, from people who have had cancer to those with disc problems.

When Mrs Nix tallied up her costs, she was actually worse off than some of the cancer patients. “I’ve had five surgeries in total but it just keeps coming back,” she told news.com.au. “I can’t get rid of it.”

She estimates the surgeries plus everything else have put her out of pocket more than $30,000, with lost wages of $14,000 on top of that.

The couple had to get rid of their car and have set up a GoFundMe page to try to recuperate some of the costs.

“We have top hospital and top extras but they only cover my bed stays,” she said. “Private health is really misleading. “I always thought I was covered, but no.”

But Mrs Nix said she couldn’t afford not to have insurance, with waiting times in the public system too long. She’s had to wait more than three hours for pain relief presenting to a public emergency department compared with five minutes in the private system. “I wouldn’t get that in the public system so I can’t afford not to,” she said.

“But at the same time I can’t afford to keep it because it doesn’t cover anything.

“The public system isn’t good enough — it’s a 12-month wait for surgery and to see a specialist is a few months.”

Mrs Nix said on one occasion she was in so much pain her doctor made a decision to perform surgery on the spot, a luxury she wouldn’t get in the public system.

Now Mrs Nix is being forced to make the harrowing decision of having a hysterectomy when the couple were planning on having children.

“We just can’t keep affording to pay for surgeries, so my husband and I have made the decision if by the end of the year I’m still in pain that’s what I’m doing,” she said.

“It sounds like a hard decision as a young woman, but you know when you are in so much pain that you just want to end it, no matter how you do it? Financially, we just can’t continue this way. We’ve got nothing left.”

That surgery will also cost between $2000 and $6000.

“A lot of people are calling on the Government to change it (private health insurance), but I’m calling on private health insurance companies to change,” she said.

“I remember when I was a kid private health used to cover everything, whereas now it covers nothing. If they fix that our public system would probably be better off because more people would take out private health.”

SOURCE  

ADDENDUM:

As most people reading this will be aware, you can get a range of cover for "extras" with private hostpital insurance. And for services that are not too dear and not too often called upon that can be worthwhile. The cover is for such things as spectacles and hearing aids and dental costs up to a limit.  A small contribution to some "in hospital" costs can also be available.

I have maximum ("top") cover so my experience might help others to get a grip on what is available.  The premiums I pay to my fund (CUA) are higher than most but they are unusually generous with hearing aids.  My last lot cost nearly $4,000 and they paid nearly half of that.  I rarely have dentistry and what I have is simple so last time they paid all my costs.  There was also a substantial benefit for new spectacles.

But the most interesting case is what it cost me for my recent big cancer surgery. I was on the table in Brisbane Private Hospital within a week of the cancer being detected. I was in intensive care for a couple of days afterwards so that would have generated an enormous bill from the hospital which my fund paid in full.

The surgeon and her assistant sent me a bill totalling over $5,000, of which Medicare paid $1500 and my fund paid nearly $500.  So I was around $3,000 out of pocket.  In my younger days however I lived frugally and was able to put aside substantial funds to cover "a rainy day" -- so $3,000 was no problem.  Savings are the true health insurance.  It's towards the end of your life that you incur most of your life's medical bills. Proverbs 6:6-8 refers.






Hundreds of doctors call for an urgent inquiry into risky treatment of children who believe they are transgender - as website of man who led the petition is sabotaged

More than 200 doctors have called for an urgent inquiry into the risky medical treatment of children who believed they were transgender.

John Whitehall, a professor of paediatrics at Western Sydney University, is taking a stand against minors being prescribed puberty blocker hormones as a precursor to getting a sex change in adulthood.

His petition to federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, calling for a parliamentary inquiry into childhood gender dysphoria, received 131 signatures on its first day earlier this week.

That number grew to 200 within three days, with doctors concerned about children as young as nine being rendered infertile as a result of taking the controversial medication.

Their Word Press site, however, has been sabotaged with hackers preventing it from accepting new signatures.

'The site has been subject to an attack, subsequent to it being publicised in the media, and the signatory page is suspended until we can work out how to prevent this,' it said on Wednesday. 'Apologies – watch this space for developments.'

Professor Whitehall also wants the inquiry to determine if puberty blockers had the potential to cause 'the irreversible loss' of fertility.

'I write to thank you for your concern about the rapidly increasing number of Australian children reported to be suffering from gender dysphoria and to express my concern at the lack of a scientific basis for the medical pathway of treatment of childhood gender dysphoria,' he said in his letter.

Shortly before noon on Wednesday, his Word Press website was sabotaged.

Transgender activists and the ABC's Media Watch program have been critical of Professor Whitehall, even though he has a medical career spanning 50 years.

Puberty blockers are a relatively new treatment but there is evidence they can affect fertility, with Professor Whitehall concerned at children as young as nine getting the medication.

He is leading the charge against the sharp rise in the number of children being prescribed these puberty blockers.

In his letter to Mr Hunt, he referred to evidence from Dr Robert Kosky, a former director of psychiatric services at Perth's Princess Margaret Hospital for Children and the state director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Services.

He noted that between 1979 and 1984, only eight gender-confused children sought help.

Now, two to three children were being presented to the Perth children's hospital every week.

'I respectfully propose that a parliamentary inquiry would be the best forum for the proper consideration of a social phenomenon that has emerged with such speed and caused such consternation,' Professor Whitehall said in his letter.

'It seems that public policy and medical "best practice" is being declared in haste without a sufficient foundation of fact and reflection, and a formal parliamentary inquiry could provide that foundation.'

The spokesman for the doctors' letter, Rob Pollnitz, a retired paediatrician with 50 years' experience, said he believed gender confusion in children and adolescents was chiefly a psychological issue, not biological.

'Before we give them unproven treatments with hormones and surgery, we ought to do our very best to sort out their psychological issues,' he said.

World-renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist Christopher Gillberg said the unproven treatment of gender-confused children was 'possibly one of the greatest scandal¬s in medical history'.

Last month Carlotta, Australia's first transgender woman to star in a TV drama show, spoke out against teenagers being prescribed puberty blockers.

The 76-year-old cabaret singer, also known as Carol Spencer, told the Studio 10 program she was 'strongly against' doctors approving hormone treatment for children before they had a true grasp of who they were.

The former television actress, who had a sex change in 1971, said children 'should not be put on treatments' until they have 'matured and are of age'.

Kirralie Smith, the director of the grassroots Binary group concerned about the de-gendering of society, said doctors needed to be allowed to speak frankly about puberty blockers.

'We need these doctors to be able to do the research, do the studies without being labelled or threatened in any way as bigots or bullies,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'This enquiry needs to go ahead so that doctors can have the unhindered ability to look at the research without activists trying to shut them down.' 

SOURCE  







'She should be getting treatment': Leading Australian psychologist says he's worried about the mental well-being of 'entitled' autistic climate change poster girl Greta Thunberg

A leading psychologist has voiced his concern about the mental well-being of autistic teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg.

Greta made international headlines last week after inspiring millions of people across 150 countries to take to the streets for the Global Strike 4 Climate on Friday.

The 16-year-old schoolgirl from Sweden then made a passionate speech berating world leaders for climate inaction at the UN summit in New York on Tuesday.

But as the teenager continues to divide opinion for her opinions on climate change, one of Australia's most-high profile psychologists has accused the girl of being an 'entitled political pawn' in need of treatment.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg compared Greta's position in the spotlight to the fame of a child TV star who could 'burn out' after being thrust into the spotlight.

'I worry about her going the same as child TV stars, that they just burn out and potentially have a disastrous psychological outcome,' he told 3AW on Wednesday.

'Can I make it clear, I am not a climate change denier. I actually think that we do need to do more about saving the planet.'

Dr Carr-Gregg said he was wary of Greta's Asperger's and history of mental health in his analysis of the teenager, who he believes has a 'sense of entitlement'.

'I am worried that we use a kid like this, who arguably should be getting treatment because she's said she's had anorexia, said she's got Asperger's and said she's battled depression,' he said.

'As a parent, if this was my child, I'm not sure I'd be putting them on the world stage.'

Dr Carr-Gregg said he was worried about Greta's future, her current psychological health and how it would impact other young people.

'It sends a message to other teenagers that they can speak to adults in this very, very dismissive way',' he said.

'She seems to be caught up in a doomsday scenario where she's massively exaggerating the threats posed by climate change and that has a flow-on effect because it causes all this existential anxiety in our children, hence the climate strikes,' he said.

He said kids should be in school but are instead rallying because 'they've been convinced the end of the world is nigh'.

'She's now put herself at the centre of worldwide either Greta-phobia or Greta-mania and I don't think any 16-year-old girl should be,' he said.

Dr Carr-Gregg mentioned the 'Twitter war' between Greta and Donald Trump where the president appeared to mock the teenager.

'She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!,' Mr Trump tweeted following Greta's impassioned speech.

The climate activist swiftly responded by changing her Twitter bio to 'A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.'

In her explosive speech, Greta said: 'We are in a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!'

The teenager first rose to fame a year ago when she held a one-person climate strike out the front of Swedish parliament.

The School Strike for Climate protests quickly rose to success, with millions of people across the world rallying for action during the most recent demonstrations on Friday.

Dr Carr-Gregg said he didn't think children should be used as 'political props'.

SOURCE  







How can using the ‘wrong tone’ end Israel Folau’s career?

The case has just come to court.  At issue is whether you can be fired over repeating Bible teachings on homosexuality

“Rugby Australia’s objection to the posts at issue was not their religious content but rather their tone and attributes.”

Did RA boss Raelene Castle watch The Castle and rework Dennis Denuto’s “vibe of the thing” into the “tone of the thing?” If RA’s killer point, outlined in its defence filed on Friday, is enough to allow them to sack Israel Folau, then we are all in trouble. If the wrong tone in an employee’s social media post, rather than the substance of that post, is enough to end a career, what’s next?

RA has made a number of assertions in its defence filed in the Federal Circuit Court last Friday afternoon, and served on Folau’s legal team the same day. To avoid the accusation that they sacked a man for his religious beliefs, RA’s defence is that they sacked Folau because of the tone of his posts. This is how RA plans to fend off claims by Folau that his termination was unlawful for breaching section 772 of the Fair Work Act which makes it illegal to terminate a person’s employment for reason of, or for reasons that include, his religion. RA also claims that Folau knew his social media posts in April last year, and again in April this year, were offensive to some people, and that Folau freely contracted to curb his social media usage, and that he conceded breaching his contract during a code of conduct tribunal hearing earlier this year.

RA’s core defence about the tone of Folau’s posts is nothing short of extraordinary. Who gets to determine what is an unacceptable “tone”? If RA does not object to the religious content of Folau’s posts, that must mean that Folau is entitled to say homosexuals will go to Hell, but only if he says it nicely. It means that RA accepts there could have been a way for the rugby champion to express the same sentiment, and not get sacked. What formula of words would RA have found acceptable?

RA boss Raelene Castle claims that she told Folau he had “hurt and offended some people with his comment” in April last year that homosexuals would go to Hell, and that he needed to be “considered and respectful” in his social media posts. Folau, a Christian, believes that his religion is both considered and respectful. Folau, an evangelical Christian, also believes that his calling is to evangelise his beliefs in his own personal time.

Two core issues — control and consequences — sit at the heart of RA’s defence. First, RA claims the legal right to control how Folau expresses his religious faith away from the workplace. Second, RA claims the right to impose the most severe consequences on Folau for failing to meet their demands.

This case will decide how much control an employer can or should have over an employee’s life away from his or her job. Sporting bodies have long claimed control over how a rugby player behaves off the sporting field, for example requiring that they should not break the law by taking drugs or engage in violent behaviour because this brings the game into disrepute.

RA’s defence is that its legal authority reaches into new territory, claiming a legal right to control how a rugby player may or not paraphrase the Bible. Contrary to some claims, RA cannot point to a specific clause in Folau’s contract aimed to control his social media usage. There is only a generic clause in a code of conduct (although, to be clear, that code is incorporated into his contract). Given the high stakes, and in fairness to Folau, shouldn’t RA have given precise explicit instructions to Folau about his social media usage before they used a generic clause in a generic code of conduct to sack him?

If the court decides that RA was entitled to sack Folau using an entirely subjective measure about “tone,” it will arm employers with tremendous power drawn from generic and widely worded codes of conduct to legally control the tone of an employee’s posts about their religious beliefs on private social media platforms.

Worse, it will mean that employees can be sacked at will by an employer for entirely subjective, highly contestable “tone” offences about which Folau was given no clear definition or direction during his many conversations with RA.

This leads to the second issue thrown into stark relief by RA’s defence filing. This dispute goes far beyond people disagreeing with Folau’s religious beliefs, or condemning his views, or choosing to take offence over his social media posts. It presumes that enormous consequences can legally flow from people taking offence from a few social media posts about biblical teachings. In employment law, there is nothing more enormous than bringing a person’s career to an end.

RA has hung much of its defence on the decision of the tribunal earlier this year that the “termination of [Folau’s] Player Contract was the only clear practical way for Rugby Australia and Rugby NSW to distance themselves from the views of Mr Folau’s in order not to be seen to be condoning those views, and to protect themselves from further damage.”

Folau’s legal team will surely challenge this in its response which must be filed by October 4. Coupled with a clear public condemnation of Folau’s social media posts, RA could have suspended Folau. RA could have said the sporting body vehemently disagrees with Folau, that his views are offensive to some, but that posting his religious beliefs on private social media platforms has no bearing on the game of rugby. There were plenty of other options. RA might have been more strategic, understanding that by taking the nuclear option, they turned Folau into a celebrity martyr and caused damage to the game, and RA’s reputation.

RA has gone to great lengths in its defence to say that its termination rests on Folau’s concession at the tribunal hearing that he breached the code of conduct. It is true that Folau made concessions at the hearing — to try to mitigate the damage and lessen any penalty — rather than to hand RA the justification to sack him. Folau seems to have put little faith in the Tribunal hearing. Indeed, his legal team must have been concerned that RA had a self-serving agenda in nominating Kate Eastman SC to the three-person code-of-conduct panel which ruled on Folau, given Eastman’s long history of pushing for new “rights” against discrimination in the workplace and in the law.

RA also claims that fundamental principles of freedom of contract mean that Folau knowingly agreed to restrict his social media usage. Expect Folau’s team to point out that the entire industrial relations system, including the Fair Work Act, is premised on limiting what can and cannot be agreed between parties of unequal bargaining power. And that Section 772 cannot be contracted out of.

The central question remains whether Folau was sacked because of, or for reasons that included, his religion. On this point, RA bears the onus of proving that the “tone” of the thing was enough to warrant terminating Folau’s contract. Dennis Denuto, eat your heart out.

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 September 2019

Australian scientist lets the drought cat out of the bag

A transcript from a talk he gave Wednesday 19 June, 2019, at he Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), University of Sydney.  He is Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes:

“…this may not be what you expect to hear. but as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought.

That may not be what you read in the newspapers and sometimes hear commented, but there is no reason a priori why climate change should made the landscape more arid.

If you look at the Bureau of Meteorology data over the whole of the last one hundred years there’s no trend in data. There is no drying trend.  There’s been a trend in the last twenty years, but there’s been no trend in the last hundred years, and that’s an expression on how variable Australian rainfall climate is.

There are in some regions but not in other regions.

So the fundamental problem we have is that we don’t understand what causes droughts.

Much more interesting, We don’t know what stops a drought. We know it’s rain, but we don’t know what lines up to create drought breaking rains.”

SOURCE  






Greta Thunberg is a hysterical child who should be ignored by sensible adults

Climate “saviour” Greta Thunberg speaking at the UN overnight made for some extremely painful watching.

It was painful not because of the apocalyptic message that she was trying to convey, but because of her childish, petulant and hysterical overreaction to the non-issue of modern-day climate change, something the planet has endured (and survived) for four and a half billion years.

It was painful because she is the product of a family, a society and a progressive media that is happy to elevate a kid with serious mental health issues to a level of exposure and publicity that will surely damage her even more.

I wonder how long it will take for any remaining sensible adults in the room to realise it is time to stop listening to a hysterical child when determining policies that will affect billions of people.

Most of the deluded kids on the climate “strikes” last week didn’t have a clue why they were there.

Enthusiastically cheered on by the mainstream media, it was a cheeky bludge off school and all they were doing was trying to “save the planet” right?

No of course not. These gullible kids are being exploited by all kinds of extreme-Left and anti-capitalist groups in order to bring about a wholesale societal change, using our children as their innocent pawns.

The website for the strikes refers to the need for “climate justice” which we all know is code for wealth redistribution from rich countries to poor, and an excuse for the usurping of normal democratic processes.

And as we no longer educate children to think for themselves, you can bet this brainwashing will last decades – possibly their entire lives.

Shameful.

SOURCE  





Multi-billion-dollar Indonesian trade deal at risk in crossbench revolt

Export orders worth billions of dollars could be torpedoed with key crossbenchers set to oppose the Indonesian free-trade deal and Anthony Albanese under pressure from union bosses to stop the entry of 5000 Indonesian temporary workers a year.

Pauline Hanson told The Australian on Tuesday the agreement was not in the national interest, while crossbench senator Rex Patrick said his Centre Alliance was likely to oppose it, as are the Greens. This means the government will need Labor support to get the agreement through the Senate.

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said he would likely bundle into a single bill the Indonesian agreement with those for Peru and Hong Kong, and try to push it through parliament by the end of the year. But Labor has yet to deliver a clear position on whether it will support the enabling legislation required to help bring the Indonesian trade agreement into effect next year.

National Farmers Federation chief executive Tony Mahar warned against allowing farmers’ interests to be “compromised by short-term partisan politics”.

“That’s even more relevant as drought continues to devastate rural and regional Australia — the last thing we need is politicking over a trade agreement which gives farmers hope for big new markets and more export ­opportunities.”

The ACTU has resumed its ­attack on the deal, and is understood to be lobbying Labor to ­oppose part or all of the agreement, particularly arrangements that would open up the rural and regional labour market to temporary workers.

Under the proposed deal, the cap for reciprocal 12-month visas for travellers aged 18 to 30 would rise from the current 1000 per year to 4100 in the first year of the agreement, and then to 5000 a year by the sixth year.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said: “We are deeply concerned that the Morrison government has done yet another dodgy deal that opens the door to an increased number of temporary workers being exploited when we should be prioritising hiring and training local workers.”

Senator Hanson, the One ­Nation leader who commands two Senate crossbench votes, said she did not trust the government to ratify a deal in the national interest. She was particularly concerned about more Indonesian workers coming to Australia under the FTA.

Senator Patrick, whose party also controls two Senate votes, said he had not examined the full detail of the Indonesian agreement but understood it had no ­“labour market testing”.

Senator Patrick and the ACTU also object to what are known as investor-state dispute settlement provisions. The ­arrangements allow foreign investors in some circumstances to sue the federal government in international tribunals if they consider new Australian laws harm their interests. “They’re things we would object to,” Senator Patrick said.

Greens trade spokesman Jordon Steele-John said the party would oppose the FTA “all the way”. Without the support of Labor or the Greens, the government must win over four out of six Senate crossbenchers to pass the ­enabling legislation.

If Senator Hanson, Senator Patrick and the Greens maintain their opposition, the government would need Labor’s support for the legislation to pass.

The proposed agreement grants vastly expanded access for Australian farmers, but also offers big opportunities for steelmakers, educators and the health sector.

A government source said the deal would not involve skilled workers, but only working holiday makers who would largely perform seasonal tasks such as fruit picking. In a sign the government may attempt to wedge Labor and the union movement, Senator Birmingham said: “I find it astonishing that the ACTU are criticising a deal that will actually create more jobs for Australians.

“This is misleading scaremongering from the ACTU who are betraying the interests of Australia by turning their back on a deal that will provide more opportunities for our farmers and businesses to export more, to do more business and create more jobs.”

A spokesman for Mr Albanese said “we won’t pre-empt the parliamentary process or the processes of the federal Labor caucus”.

Senator Birmingham said the lack of clarity in Labor’s position on the Indonesian trade deal meant “the only doubt that hangs over it from Australia’s perspective is whether or not legislation can cleanly pass the Senate”.

SOURCE  






Federal Government announces inquiry into family law and child support systems

The Federal Government will launch an inquiry into the family law system, after accusations the court system is failing vulnerable Australians. A report released earlier this year recommended sweeping changes to the system

Coalition backbenchers and the crossbench, including One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, have been calling for an inquiry for some time, arguing the system is too expensive and slow.

The inquiry will be run by former social services minister and long-serving Liberal MP Kevin Andrews.

A tearful Senator Hanson welcomed the announcement, saying it was something she had campaigned for since her first stint in Parliament in 1996. "It's not the Pauline Hanson inquiry, this is the Australian people's inquiry," she said.

"For those contemplating suicide and facing potential family violence, I'm asking you to stop and know you have finally been heard. "I beg you, please give me a chance to try and make change."

The crossbencher said she wanted to be an active member of the inquiry, which she argued was not a condition of her support for Coalition legislation.

"There was no bargaining chip, I actually put my case forward to the Prime Minister, and I put my case forward to the Parliament," she said.

Concerns review will cause further delays

In 2017, the Federal Government ordered the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) to conduct a wide-ranging review of the system.

That report was released earlier this year, and recommended sweeping changes including scrapping the current Family Court and giving the states the power to judge such cases.

While waiting for that review to be released, Attorney-General Christian Porter announced plans to merge the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court in a bid to ease crippling delays in the system.

That proposal was widely canned by lawyers, arguing it was a policy developed by spreadsheet rather than with the best interests of families at heart.

Responding to the announcement, Angela Lynch from the Women's Legal Service of Queensland said she held concerns the review would delay much-needed reform to the sector, noting the Government has not even responded to the ALRC report.

"How many more women and children have to die in this system, and we are now going to wait another 12 months?" she said. "We were told to wait 18 months when the previous ALRC report was established. "And now .… women and children are required to wait another 12 months before this inquiry and its recommendations."

SOURCE  

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








25 September, 2019

'It doesn't feel justifiable': The couples not having children because of climate change

I really enjoy reports like this.  It would  be great if all Greenie fools took themselves out of the gene pool that way

Morgan and Adam have always wanted children but fears over climate change are making them reconsider.

The committed pair, aged 36 and 35, are part of a growing trend for young couples to abandon plans for a family because of the climate crisis.

Millions of people around the world rallied for climate action over the past two days, including 300,000 in Australia on Friday, ahead of a United Nations climate action summit on Monday.

"I feel so sad, it's such a hard thing to let go of," says Morgan, who works in logistics. "My conscience says, 'I can't give this child what I've enjoyed, I can't give them the certainty of a future where they can be all that they can be ... or have the things they should have, like breathable air and drinkable water'."

Morgan is feeling "pretty damn certain" a baby is off the cards, even though she fears she might regret it. She has at least two close friends in their early 30s, with good partners, who have made the same decision.

Her partner Adam, who works in web development, agrees. "I have a lot of love to give and would love to raise a child … but it doesn’t feel justifiable. The world is heading blindfolded towards catastrophe."

Prince Harry made headlines when he revealed in an interview in British Vogue, in the September issue guest-edited by his wife Meghan, that the couple would have two children "maximum" for the sake of the planet.

The idea of limiting family size to two children to represent net zero population growth has been around for decades. But is no children the new two children?

Dr Bronwyn Harman, a lecturer at Edith Cowan University in Perth who studies people without children, says it is a progression of the same theme. She says some people are avoiding parenthood because they are worried for their unborn children, while others are motivated not to make things worse.

"They're saying things like ‘we don't want to add children into the mix and put more strain on the planet’," Harman says. "It's started coming up [in my research] in the past six months but it's not very common."

The phenomenon is growing. The Age and Sun-Herald have spoken to 20 and 30-somethings all over Australia wrestling with the dilemma. Most asked to use first names only to avoid online harassment.

"I’m terrified that in another 50 years, if my hypothetical child was all grown up, what would our world look like?" says Jessica Ivers, 29. The digital specialist and yoga teacher from Northcote in Melbourne says she is "100 per cent certain" about her choice.

In Mackay in Queensland,  community organiser Emma, 32, says she and her partner Mick, 33, were planning to start trying for a family next year but changed their minds after the federal election.

"After the LNP won - with no climate plan - we cried and agreed that the dream of a family wouldn't be for us," Emma says. "It's a terrifying thought for us that the world will be uninhabitable in a few decades if we continue charging ahead with fossil fuels and approving coal mines like Adani."

Melanie, 24, from Highgate Hill in Brisbane terminated an unplanned pregnancy last year and says the climate crisis was the "ultimate deciding factor". She read scientific articles about the best and worst-case scenarios and decided she would never have children.

"It's been a hard year coming to terms with the reality of the situation," says Melanie. "I cannot justify bringing children into a world in the midst of a mass extinction event and facing total ecological collapse. "

Shalini, 33, and David, 35, from Summer Hill in Sydney have decided not to have biological children but would like to adopt or foster in the future.

"It makes more sense for us to look after a child that is here and needs someone rather than make more children," says David, a 3D animation artist.

Shalini, a public servant, says climate change is a big reason, along with her focus on career.

“I don't eat meat and I'm really conscious about consuming goods and services that that are more sustainably produced and in the same vein, I don't want to produce more people,” Shalini says. She finds it hard to discuss with friends because she doesn't want them to feel judged.

Maddie, 32, from the lower north shore, sought counselling to deal with her grief and anxiety over climate change and her dilemma over having children.

“My psychologist is having more and more couples coming to her about this,” she says. “The first thing she said to me was, ‘this is not a manifestation of normal anxiety, this is a real threat and real grief that you're carrying’.”

Maddie would love children but feels an obligation to fight for her newborn niece and friends' children instead.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures suggest one in four women aged 15 to 35 will never have children. Harman says roughly two-thirds of those women make an active choice to be "child-free" while one-third are "childless" because of circumstances, including fears over the state of the world.

A global trend

In Britain musician and activist Blythe Pepino, 33, kicked off the "BirthStrike" - a movement of people pledging not to have children "due to the severity of the ecological crisis and the current inaction of governing forces in the face of this existential threat".

In February, US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez commented on the grim scientific outlook and political inaction: "It does lead young people to have a legitimate question: is it OK still to have children?"

American singer and actress Miley Cyrus, 26, told Elle magazine’s August 2019 US issue that Millennials didn't want to reproduce because they knew the Earth could not handle it.

"We’re getting handed a piece-of-shit planet, and I refuse to hand that down to my child,” Cyrus says. "Until I feel like my kid would live on an Earth with fish in the water, I’m not bringing in another person to deal with that."

Yet even at the coalface of climate change research, some see this as extreme. Earlier this month, Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation (parent body of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), weighed into the debate.

"The latest idea is that children are a negative thing," Taalas told a Finnish magazine. "I am worried for young mothers, who are already under much pressure. This will only add to their burden."

He warned facts could be hijacked to justify "extreme measures" in the name of climate action.

Taalas told The Sun-Herald  in a statement he supports strong climate action and a science-based approach offers hope.

“We must not be driven to despair, given that reasonable solutions are available to the international community, governments and civil society," he says.

SOURCE  






Qld public servants to be given $1250 bonus to ‘boost economy’

So where is the money coming from?  Other taxpayers.  Why should one class of taxpayer be rewarded at the expense of other taxpayers?

Queensland public servants will be in line for a cash bonus of $1250 in a move labelled by the Opposition as a ‘cash splash for votes.’

Treasurer Jackie Trad announced the bonuses for more than 200,000 workers. It comes on top of annual wage increases of 2.5 per cent, which is more than the current rate of inflation.

Almost all public servants who sign, or have signed new workplace agreements from March 2018 to March 2021 will be eligible for the bonus. That includes, nurses, midwives and teachers.

Senior executives and senior officers will not be eligible.

It’s set to cost taxpayers $250 million, with the Opposition slamming the move. “This taxpayer funded cash splash should be tied to guaranteeing better services as Labor have created a major health crisis, with waiting lists blowing out, and education results slipping,” Deputy LNP Leader Tim Mander told News Corp.

Ms Trad insists the payment is about supporting Queensland’s economy. “The Governor of the Reserve Bank last month called for all levels of Government to provide additional support above existing caps on wages growth to drive economic growth,” she said.

But experts have dismissed the Treasurer’s claims saying it will do very little to boost the economy. University of Queensland economist John Mangan says most of the money will end up going towards bills and credit card payments. “People will pay debt off. It’ll do nothing at all,” Professor Mangan told AAP.

“That’s what always happens when you get these one-off income jolts. “If it were a permanent pay rise, that would be a completely different thing.”

SOURCE  






Climate-sceptic academic seeks $1.5m in donations to fight unlawful dismissal appeal

The climate-sceptic academic Peter Ridd has asked supporters to donate another $1.5m to fund ongoing legal costs after his former employer, James Cook University, lodged an appeal against an unlawful dismissal ruling.

This month the federal court awarded Ridd $1.2m in compensation. The court has made clear its finding related to Ridd’s employment rights and not his academic freedom.

After JCU lodged its appeal and most of the compensation payout was ordered to be quarantined in a trust account, Ridd relaunched a public fundraising site for his legal costs.

The site has collected more than $350,000 in total public donations, including about $100,000 in the past 24 hours.

In recent months Ridd has held a speaking tour, promoted by agricultural groups, that supported their campaign against new Great Barrier Reef pollution regulations. Ridd has personally promoted their cause and joined lobbying efforts.

In a statement soliciting donations, Ridd cites his position on the reef issue – which disputes the scientific consensus and has been compared with the strategy used by the tobacco industry to raise doubt about the impact of smoking – as a “point of principle we must fight for”.

“JCU will use its infinite financial resources – effectively government money – to appeal,” Ridd said.

He said donations would “send a powerful message to governments about what the public expect of our universities”.

The court last week put a stay on the compensation payout. JCU is required pay more than $1.2m into a trust administered by Ridd’s lawyer. Of that money $1m will be quarantined and $215,000 made available for Ridd’s legal costs.

In April federal circuit court judge Salvatore Vasta found the actions of the university, including Ridd’s repeated censure and ultimate dismissal, were unlawful.

Vasta made clear the case was about employment law and not – as Ridd, his supporters and conservative media outlets have repeatedly stated – about academic freedom.

“Some have thought that this trial was about freedom of speech and intellectual freedom,” Vasta said. “Media reports have considered that this trial was about silencing persons with controversial or unpopular views.

“Rather, this trial was purely and simply about the proper construction of a clause in an enterprise agreement.”

JCU’s appeal argues there are “errors of law” in the judgments.

SOURCE  






Thirty million by 2030: Mass immigration will see Australia's population grow by 160,000 a YEAR - putting more pressure on home affordability and public services



More than 160,000 migrants are expected to arrive in Australia every year over the next four years putting unprecedented pressure on the nation's infrastructure.

A new report reveals government plans to spend billions of dollars on improving roads and transport to cope with exploding population numbers.  

Sydney, Melbourne and southeast Queensland have absorbed 75 per cent of the nation's population growth in the last 10 years.

The boom has taken its toll on public transport and roads, which are now overcrowded and congested, and the cost of housing has soared.

'The freeways have slowed, trains are sometimes at crush capacity and housing construction has not always kept pace,' said the report, called Planning for Australia's Future Population. 

 'Avoidable congestion is already estimated to cost $25 billion and is forecast to reach $40 billion by 2030 without further change.'

To cope with the growth the government has vowed to spend billions of dollars trying to relieve the congestion in the pressured capitals pledging a $4billion urban congestion fund to relieve pressure on the roads.

The government also plans to spend $4.5 billion on regional roads connecting ports, airports and freight routes, in an effort to boost regional employment.

And another $9.3 billion for an inland rail corridor stretching from Melbourne to Brisbane and $2 billion for a fast rail connection from Melbourne to Geelong.

Since 2010, migration rates have outstripped birthrates with about 59 per cent of Australia's total population growth coming from migration, the report said.

Of those migrating to Australia, the vast majority have moved to urban areas.

In the past 20 years, migrants have made up nearly two-thirds of Sydney's population increase and half of all population growth in Melbourne and Perth.

More than 1,400,000 international student visas granted since June 2015 according to Home Affairs department figures.

Population growth needs to be sustainable, the report said.

'It needs to occur at a rate where infrastructure and services can be put in place to match the growing population. If this does not occur, the result is increased congestion, housing pressures, pollution and lack of support and amenity. This has adverse consequences for quality of life.' 

Australia's total population is forecast to expand from 25 million to 29.5 million by 2029, the report said.  

Both Sydney and Melbourne are expected to add just over a million people each,  increasing to 6.4 million and 6.3 million respectively over the next decade.

The Morrison Government said on Monday that the permanent migration intake had been lowered from 190,000 per year, and it would try to deflect new migrants to regional areas in order to relieve the pressure on Sydney and Melbourne.

Population minister Alan Tudge said the 160,000 yearly cap would include 23,000 skills visas requiring people to work outside the big cities for three years before being eligible for permanent residency.

Seven Designated Area Migration Agreements have been made to allow regional employers to sponsor skilled workers.

Changes have also been made to the Temporary Graduate visa for international students who have completed their studies at a regional campus of a university, so they can continue to live and work in regional Australia, the report said.

Mr Tudge said the plan would also create incentives to encourage international students to go to regional areas and smaller cities to study.

Economist Leith Van Onselen, who worked for Treasury, Goldman Sachs and now writes for website Macrobusiness, was scathing about both the Coalition and Labor's plans to cope with mass migration through infrastructure spending or diversion to regional areas.

 'The only 'solution' to maintaining Australia's liveability is to slash immigration back to historical levels – well below 100,000 people a year – to allow housing and infrastructure to keep pace,' he wrote on Monday.

'Anything else is treating symptoms, not the cause, and are merely policy smokescreens.'

Daily Mail Australia has asked Mr Tudge's office for economic modelling to show the cost-benefit analysis of mass migration set at 160,000 per year. 

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 September, 2019

I was a good prophet

On July 22, 2005, I wrote:

Patriotism, immigration and the Sudanese

After having lived for various periods of time in the USA, the UK and India, I am firmly convinced that Australia is the best place in the world in which to live. I imagine that 99% of Australians would agree with that. But I have never been patriotic. I have always seen faults as well as advantages. I am pleased to be an Australian but not proud to be Australian. If I identify with any group at all, it is with the Anglo-Saxon population worldwide. The Anglos versus the non-Anglos seems to me the differentiation that is most useful in identifying locations of civility and moderation.

But I don't see even the Anglos as a whole as being the pinnacle of anything. Most things in this life could be improved (with the exception of J.S. Bach) and I think that applies to populations as well. But how? I see some role for eugenics as long as it is voluntary and the success of the NYC Ashkenazim in almost eliminating Tay-Sachs disease from their community is a shining example of that. And human genetic engineering will undoubtedly in the future be a great boon too.

One thing I would particularly like to see is the minimization of the "Yobbo" or "Chav" component of Anglo-Saxon communities. And I think that SELECTIVE immigration is the only way of doing that which is currently feasible on a large scale. Just because the percentage of "good" genes (however defined) in one population is slightly higher than the average does not mean that there are no similarly "good" genes elsewhere. So a rational immigration program would aim to bring in the bearers of those good genes from wherever they are found and thus dilute the percentage of "bad" genes in the immigration-receiving country. And that I think is broadly what Australia's past immigration policy has done. We have very civilized Asian minorities which greatly enhance the amenity of our country.

The "refugee" component of our immigration program is however a worry. There appears to be some degree of selectivity even in that component of our program but only time will tell if it is sufficient. The disastrous situation in Sudan has led the Australian government into allowing into Australia a considerable number of Sudanese and I see them even in the streets of suburban Brisbane. Given the social pathologies that are uncontrovertibly associated with populations of African origin worldwide, I think it is most likely that the quality of life in Australia will be diminished by the Sudanese presence. I make no apology for predicting that Australian kind-heartedness will have been to our detriment in this instance.

The huge crime problem with Sudanese youth in Melbourne is only too well known by now.  I was not really a prophet, though.  I was just facing the facts






Christian and Muslim protesters gather outside KIIS FM studios demanding Kyle Sandilands be FIRED over his 'offensive' comments about the Virgin Mary

Cerrtainly offensive to many and quite bad manners

Christian and Muslim protesters gathered outside KIIS FM's studios in North Ryde, Sydney on Monday demanding that radio presenter Kyle Sandilands be fired.

Police were called to intervene as dozens prayed in the street and called for Kyle's sacking over offensive comments he made about the Virgin Mary last week.

The shock jock had already apologised for the segment on The Kyle & Jackie O Show in which he called Mary a 'liar' who got knocked up 'behind a camel shed', but the religious protesters were not satisfied with his response.

'We live in a country that has double standards because in the commercial code of conduct clause 214 states that a radio station cannot offend [or] discriminate against religion, sex, gender,' Georgie Clark, who led the protest, told The Daily Telegraph.

'Kyle from 106.5 KIIS FM went and discriminated against not only one religion but two.

'What is the difference between offending a homosexual or a thief or a liar or an adulterer or a fornicator like Israel Folau did? But when it comes to religion they just want to sweep us under the carpet.'

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia on Monday, an Australian Radio Network (ARN) spokesperson apologised for Kyle's comments.

'As we said last week, we echo Kyle's [apology] and unreservedly apologise for any offence that may have been caused,' they said.

'Last week when this content ran, we immediately recognised that it wasn't appropriate for distribution and it was removed immediately.'

During the offensive radio segment, Kyle claimed that Mary was not actually a virgin.

'I thought Mary was his [Jesus Christ's] girlfriend but apparently it was the mother,' he said. 'And the mother lied obviously and told everyone 'Nah I got pregnant by a magical ghost'. Bulls**t.

A video of the segment was later removed from KIIS FM's social media channels and Kyle apologised for his remarks.

'I'm sorry if I offended anyone with my comments,' he told The Daily Telegraph. 'Everyone is entitled to their own religious beliefs and I'm fully supportive of that right.'

In May, axed Wallabies star Israel Folau was found guilty of breaching Rugby Australia's code of conduct and his four-year NRL contract was terminated after he shared an Instagram post claiming that all homosexuals are going to hell.

SOURCE  







'Switch off the air-con, walk to school, make a sandwich': Baby boomer blasts 'selfish' students for skipping class to protest against climate change

An open letter penned by a frustrated baby boomer has resurfaced in the wake of the global school strike for climate rallies.

More than 300,000 protesters in 110 towns and cities across Australia flooded the streets on Friday as part of a global movement to demand action on climate change.

The viral letter, originally shared to social media last year, is addressed to 'school kids going on strike for climate change'.

'You are the first generation who have required air-conditioning in every classroom,' the letter reads

'You want TV in every room and your classes are all computerised.

'You spend all day and night on electronic devices.

'More than ever, you don't walk or ride bikes to school but arrive in caravans of private cars that choke local roads and worsen rush hour traffic.'

The author then continue by taking a swipe at young people's consumer culture, arguing the youth of today opts to replace 'expensive luxury items to stay trendy'.

'How about this... Tell your teachers to switch off the air-con,' the letter said.

'Walk or ride to school. Switch off your devices and read a book.

'Make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured fast food.'

The post swiftly takes a turn, targeting the character traits of young Australians.

'No, none of this will happen because you are selfish, badly educated, virtue signalling little 'princesses', inspired by the adults around you who crave a feeling of having a 'noble cause' while they indulge themselves in Western luxury and unprecedented quality of life.'

'Wake up, grow up and learn to research facts and think for yourself and not blindly accept the words and thoughts of others.'

Protesters were demanding a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and a transition to 100 per cent renewable energy.

SOURCE  







Tas council ditches Australia Day events

Anti-patriotic

A council in Tasmania's north will scrap official Australia Day celebrations and move citizenship ceremonies to another date.

Launceston City Council on Thursday voted unanimously for the changes, made in respect of the nation's indigenous people. "(We did this) to be an inclusive council and city where we recognise the Aboriginal community," Mayor Albert van Zetten told AAP.

Citizenship ceremonies won't be performed in the municipality on January 26 and will instead be held the day before.

"We're not stopping anyone from celebrating on the 26th, if that's what they want to do," Mr van Zetten said.

"Yes there will be people who are disappointed and who don't understand.

"I'd just like to remind people, go back and have a look at the history. "Try and understand how you would feel if that was a day your family was on this lovely country and you were invaded and taken over."

The council has also replaced its National Australia Day Awards program with a community awards ceremony, now to be held on January 25.

"The voice of Tasmanian Aborigines are being heard," Graeme Gardner, from the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, told the ABC.

"What we would want to see is the country collectively change its whole perception of what it is to celebrate Australia and make it a celebration of all history."

But the changes may be overruled by the Morrison government, who earlier this year pledged to introduce legislation making it mandatory for councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on January 26.

Several Victorian councils have been stripped of the power to hold citizenship ceremonies after shunning Australia Day.

Mr van Zetten said the council would follow any directions from the federal government. "They're aware of our position (but) we've got to do what we feel is best, as a council, and that's what we've done," he said.

Launceston is the second Tasmanian council to shift Australia Day events, following the Flinders Island Council in 2013.

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 September, 2019

Elite Brisbane college shunning kids with learning problems

There have always been separate classes for gifted children and backward students so why has this furore arisen?  It is the rage of parents who are forced for the first time to face the fact that their kid is not bright and therefore has limited prospects.  There are many private schools in Brisbane and some would undoubtedy be ready to accept the  rejected  enrolees from Churchie. It appears that some have

ONE of Queensland's most prestigious schools is under fire over claims by parents that children with poor grades and learning difficulties are being excluded in a ruthless bid to boost academic performance.

Furious parents, including big financial donors and third-generation old boys, have slammed Anglican Church Grammar School (known as Churchie) as discriminatory and elitist. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they have told of distressed children made to feel "dumb" and inferior.

They claim that students as young as five are being denied enrolment, while those in older primary are being asked to find another high school.

This fresh scandal comes after The Courier-Mail revealed lower-performing seniors were pressured to stay home from the Queensland Core Skills Test (which helps decide OP scores) this month.

A third-generation parent said the East Brisbane school claimed to be non-selective but was turning away boys with dyslexia or deemed "not bright enough, even for Prep". "It's about lifting academic performance, but it's wrong," said the man, whose son does not have learning issues.

Another father said he was "shell-shocked" when his younger boy was "rejected". "My older son was already at the school and I, my father, my grandfather and my cousins all boarded there," he said

"We were going through the normal enrolment procedure and I said, 'by the way, this boy has dyslexic tendencies, how do we go forward?' "Never in our wildest dreams did we think he'd be discriminated against, to be told Churchie was not the school for him; I was in tears."

Emails seen by The Courier-Mail confirm the parents were told the school could not accommodate the child. "My boy was devastated," the father said. "We know of at least a dozen other families this has happened to, but we are speaking out because we want change."

 Dyslexia affects one in five people and creates problems with reading and language, however, experts agree when traditional learning is replaced with other strategies, children can achieve well.

Frustrated parents have even offered to fund a Churchie program to assist dyslexic children, but it's understood this has been refused.

Many have withdrawn their children and sent them elsewhere, including Brisbane Boys' College (BBC), St Joseph's Nudgee College and The Southport School (TSS), which offer boarding.

A second-generation old boy, who boarded at Churchie in the 1980s, described the situation as "disgusting". The western Queensland man refused to send his three sons to the school after his eldest, then in Year 6, was "ruled out" due to dyslexia.

"We had an interview and they basically said he's not smart enough; it was pretty degrading," he said. "Who are they to think they can take the cream of the crop?

From the Courier Mail 21/9/19





Scott Morrison scrambles to contain political mushroom cloud after Trump raises nuclear option with Iran

Some Leftist writing is amusing and I got a kick out of several of their articles on Morrison being welcomed by Trump. I got most laughs out of the one below. 



It seemed appropriate, albeit entirely surreal, to be inducted into the vagaries of the Trumpiverse by bearing witness, in the Oval Office, to the American president suddenly raising the spectre of using nuclear weapons against Iran.

Friday’s program in Washington ran like clockwork while everybody had a script. But once we’d cleared the pomp and circumstance of the ceremonial welcome for Scott Morrison on the South Lawn of the White House, once the Australian press pack tumbled out of the sparkling spring sunshine into the Oval Office – we discovered Trump in an expansive mood.

The leader of the free world kicked off proceedings by announcing the administration was now imposing sanctions on Iran, targeting the national bank, in response to Tehran’s alleged involvement in drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities last weekend.

As could have been predicted, these were the biggest sanctions anyone had ever seen. “The highest sanctions ever imposed on a country,” Trump purred. “We’ve never done it to this level.” The treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, then appeared in the corner of the room, just in case we’d failed to be sufficiently awed by the scale of the undertaking. “This is very big,” Mnuchin duly reported, and departed.

The president then volunteered he intended to have a quiet word to Scott Morrison over the course of their meetings on Friday, Washington time, about potential military options in Iran, and whether Australia might be persuaded to join a new coalition of the willing.

“We’ll be discussing that later,” Trump said. Given this minor mic drop had n-o-t been telegraphed by Australian officials in advance, Morrison maintained his best poker face as the president informed the hyperventilating press pack “I always like a coalition”.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said, sanguine with his forward sizzle. He then settled his face into an expression he clearly regarded as Delphic.

Before we could process the information that Australia might be off to war in Iran, things spiralled. The unheralded military action could be – wait for it – nuclear.

Trump noted America had renovated the arsenal and acquired new nuclear capability, and the rest of the military was “all brand new”. “We all hope, and Scott hopes, we all pray that we never have to use nuclear,” Trump intoned.

It was unclear precisely what Scott’s hopes were just in that moment. I’d hazard a guess the prime minister’s most fervent aspiration was his host would stop talking. Preferably five minutes ago.

It could have been my imagination, but it is possible Jenny Morrison’s eyebrows touched her hairline at the precise moment Trump said the word nuclear.

With vexed options now tumbling out of Trump’s mouth at a clip, it did seem prudent to check in with the prime minister at this point. What was his position on Australia joining military action in Iran?

Morrison soothed. America, the Australian prime minister noted, had taken a very “measured approach” with Iran “to date”. Of course we would listen to whatever requests our Washington friends made, but it was important that we didn’t get ahead of ourselves, the prime minister counselled. Let’s just keep talking and take this one step at a time, Morrison thought, or prayed, it wasn’t clear.

Perhaps taking Morrison’s cue, or perhaps ignoring it entirely – again one can only speculate – Trump then proceeded to praise himself for his restraint.

It would be so easy, the president said to no one in particular and everyone at the same time, to knock out 15 major things in Iran. “I could do it right here,” he said, and that appeared entirely plausible. “It’s all set to go. I could do it right here and then you’d have a nice big story to report,” he said.

But of course there was a plot twist. “I think the strong person’s approach, and the thing that does show strength would be showing a little bit of restraint,” Trump said.

But the strange out-loud dialogue between bellicose Trump and restrained Trump, a dual personality embodied in a presidency, persisted. “Much easier to do it the other way. It’s much easier. And Iran knows if they misbehave they are on borrowed time,” the president said.

There was another plot twist before day was done. Having telegraphed in the Oval he intended to talk to Morrison about military coalitions, by the time we rolled around to the official press conference in the East Room, with everyone back on their talking points, Iran was so yesterday.

It hadn’t really come up, Trump told reporters still attempting to process what on earth was going on. (When I say reporters, just to be clear, I mean the Australian contingent. The Americans are entirely used to this circus and neatly prune the tangible from the hypothetical without even breaking a sweat).

Trump thought the sanctions would work and military action would work “but that is a very severe form of winning. But we win. Nobody can beat us militarily. No one can even come close.” He also mentioned, just in case it needed saying, that America’s nuclear capability was in “tippy top” shape.

Morrison then had the task of summarising the surrealism. “As the president said,” the Australian prime minister said calmly, “there are no further [military] activities planned.”

The politically vexed question about whether Australia would do more than protect freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz was therefore moot. If any request was forthcoming, Australia would consider it on its merits, through the prism of national interest, Morrison said, before gathering his host, smiling at the cameras, and exiting, stage right.

SOURCE  






Football club "Old Bar" ordered to destroy ‘disgusting’ shirts



Just bravado.  Not seriously intended

A NSW rugby league club has been ordered to destroy its end of season footy trip shirts following outcry over an offensive phrase on the top.

Group 3 rugby league club Old Bar Beach Pirates, from the NSW Mid-North Coast, has confirmed its players are facing disciplinary action when they return from their end-of-season holiday after a backlash on social media forced the league to take action immediately.

A group of around 20 men were pictured at Newcastle Airport sporting the offensive shirts, which included a naked cartoon mermaid and the phrase “‘Rape and pillage Tour”.

NSW Country Rugby League officials took swift action on Friday announcing the players will be disciplined following an investigation.

The Old Bar club is expected to escape sanction because the club was not involved in the players’ end-of-season trip and had no knowledge of the plan to print offensive shirts for the group holiday.

CRL Chief Executive Officer Terry Quinn released a statement on Friday, announcing the players involved will be “sanctioned accordingly”.

“The behaviour of these persons is inexcusable and it is extremely disappointing,” Quinn said.

“The Old Bar Club denies having any involvement in producing the T-shirts, which was an action of individuals.

“We have been in contact with the club and the individuals have been instructed to destroy the T-shirts immediately. “The club is part of the Tackling Violence program and is taking this matter very seriously. “Once we find out the names of these said individuals they will be sanctioned accordingly.”

The T-shirts were widely condemned on social media, led by Channel 9 commentator Peter FitzSimons.

SOURCE  






ANOTHER GREENIE ROUNDUP

Ms Thunberg has got them talking. Four current articles below

No place in debate for climate contrarians

Consensus enforcement is a potent new force in climate science where sceptical views increasingly are being silenced as a danger to public good.

Academic website The Conversation said this week it would ban comments from those it judged to be climate deniers and lock their accounts. The Conversation editor and executive director Misha Ketchell justified the ban on sceptical comments as a defence of “quiet Australians” who “understand and respect the science”.

The Conversation’s shift to a monologue reflects a deeper push that is raising alarm worldwide.

Contrarian scientist Jennifer Marohasy is among those listed on an international table of climate sceptics whose views should not be published. Marohasy says she is “proud to be listed as part of the resistance to what will one day be recognised as postmodern science”.

“I base my arguments and conclusions on evidence, and I apply logic. Of course, science is a method. Science is never ‘settled’,” she says. “Those who appeal primarily to the authority of science and the notion of a consensus are more interested in politics. Central to the scientific method is the hypothesis that can be tested: that can potentially be falsified. We must therefore always be open-minded, tolerant and ready to be proven wrong.”

Also on the list published by University of California, Merced, were international climate scientists Judith Curry, Richard Lindzen and Richard Tol, as well as academics Bjorn Lomborg and Australia’s Ian Plimer and Maurice Newman.

The list was drawn from research published in the journal Nature, which juxtaposed 386 prominent contrarians with 386 expert scientists by tracking their digital footprints across 200,000 research publications and 100,000 English-language digital and print media articles on climate change.

In a statement accompanying the article, lead author Alex Petersen says: “It’s time to stop giving these people (contrarians) visibility, which can be easily spun into false authority.

“By tracking the digital traces of specific individuals in vast troves of publicly available media data, we developed methods to hold people and media outlets accountable for their roles in the climate change denialism movement, which has given rise to climate change misinformation at scale.”

Curry says the paper “does substantial harm to climate science … There are a spectrum of perspectives, especially at the knowledge frontiers. Trying to silence or delegitimise any of these voices is very bad for science.”

The Conversation’s ban is focused on reader feedback. But Marohasy says the online publication has long rejected her articles and comments.

“Despite my dozen or more publications in international climate science journals, editors at The Conversation have been intent for some years on excluding me,” Marohasy says. “I went to great lengths some years ago to get an article published in The Conversation based around a paper I had published in international climate science journal Atmospheric Research.”

Marohasy included charts to show the effect of how remodelling a temperature series through the process of homogenisation can significantly affect a temperature trend.

“The editor wouldn’t consider publishing my article, claiming it was nonsense,” she says. “Yet I was simply explaining what the Bureau of Meteorology actually do.” Marohasy says she has had a similar experience with comments. “Once I tried to get some comments into a thread. Everything seemed to be going well and then all my comments disappeared,” she says. “They deleted a whole afternoon of discussion I was having.”

Ketchell says he received an incredible response — “both supportive and hostile” — after he drew attention to the ban on sceptical comments. The disclosure came as The Conversation became part of a global media push by 250 outlets to raise awareness of climate change issues that was instigated by the Columbia Journalism Review. Ketchell tells Inquirer the ban was not part of the Covering Climate Now initiative.

According to the CCN website the media entities joined forces to foster urgency and action over the climate “crisis” and devote extra time to what CJR claimed was “the defining story of our time”. A briefing on the initiative rejected suggestions it was turning journalists into activists.

“This concern distorts what news-gathering is about,” CJR says. “Journalism has always been about righting wrongs, holding the powerful to account, calling out lies.”

Ketchell says handling the views of the small group hostile to climate science is a complex media-ethics question “and it’s one on which reasonable people can differ”.

In response to questions from Inquirer, Ketchell says everyone in Australia is entitled to free speech but not everyone is entitled to have their words published on The Conversation. “It is part of the role of a journalist to filter disinformation and curate a positive public discussion that is evidence-based and doesn’t distort the range of views by giving undue prominence to a noisy minority,” he says.

Ketchell says comments challenging the scientific basis of climate change will be regarded as off-topic unless the article is specifically about this subject.

“We moderate anything that is a deliberate misinformation and distortion of facts or attempts to misrepresent arguments or community members,” he says.

“We know climate sceptics are very good at derailing constructive conversations, so we’ll remove comments that attempt to hijack threads or to push an agenda or argument irrelevant to the discussion.”

Ketchell says commenters are encouraged to engage with the article they are commenting on and to back up their claims with credible research.

The website will be more careful to police the “small and vocal group of climate science contrarians whose passion overwhelms their ability to assess the evidence”, he says.

Opinion-based sceptics have ample opportunity to have their say on social media and in many media outlets.

“As long as they aren’t allowed to overwhelm the quiet Australians who understand and respect the science, I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Ketchell says.

SOURCE  

Pollies cold on climate

Despite a global push for more action on climate change, momentum has drained away.

This month was supposed to be the one in which a global push for higher ambition on climate change took flight.

Child prophet Greta Thunberg set sail for New York by luxury yacht to save petrol, a climate emergency was declared around the world, and workers were given permission to join students in a climate strike.

Despite this, momentum behind real action by government has been steadily drained away.

In Australia, the Labor Party’s proposal to dump the targets that cost it dearly at the federal election effectively has let the Morrison government off the hook.

Few world leaders are lining up to deliver what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had in mind when he called them together for a New York conference to boost ambition. The New York meeting, scheduled for September 23, was conceived as a show of global defiance at US President Donald Trump’s decision to ditch the Paris Agreement.

Rather than a competition for more robust action, as was intended, the New York agenda looks deflated.

Key world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, will not be attending. Instead China will send a lower-ranking official, and there are mixed signals about whether the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emissions nation will offer to do more.

As things stand China, which is responsible for 26.83 per cent of global emissions, has pledged to keep increasing them until about 2030.

The EU has been unable to agree on a uniform position for 2050, with a split between the coal-dependent east and more progressive west.

A pushback is building in Germany against higher energy prices and the impact of strict new emissions regulations on a struggling car industry. Renewable energy investment across much of Europe has stalled.

The EU admits it is not on track to meet its 2030 target of a 40 per cent emissions cut on 1990 levels.

Relations with Brazil have fractured following the election of development-focused President Jair Bolsonaro and a resurgence of clearing in the Amazon.

The US, with 14 per cent of global emissions, is showing no signs of pulling back from its threat to quit the Paris Agreement next year despite achieving greenhouse gas emissions cuts from a switch from coal to gas.

In Australia there is little mood politically for greater action.

The federal opposition has all but surrendered its pre-election target to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

As it takes stock of its unexpected election loss, Labor looks likely instead to focus on a 2050 target of being carbon neutral.

The backdown was first moot­ed by opposition assistant climate change spokesman Pat Conroy in The Australian last week when he said a net zero target by 2050 had to be “the overriding objective”.

Anthony Albanese said Labor “will examine our short and medium and long-term commitments on where we go on climate change but we won’t re-examine our principles. We want to work towards zero emissions by the middle of this century.”

Climate change spokesman Mark Butler could not be specific. “What medium-term targets numerically are, whether it’s 2030 or 2035, given the passage of time, is something we’ll engage over in the next couple of years,” Butler said.

Labor’s backdown followed a stinging appraisal from its green wing, the Labor Environmental Action Network, which highlighted that the party had been unable to put a price on its climate change action plan during the election.

“It couldn’t say how much it would cost, where the money was coming from or what economic dividend it would deliver or save,” LEAN said. “It is basic Australian politics — how much, who pays, what does it save? We had no answers.”

Former leader Bill Shorten told Sky News on Monday he agreed that Labor’s climate policies had cost it votes at the election in May and said he supported a review of the position.

“I do think Australians want to see action on climate change so I am confident that will be Labor’s position”, Shorten said. “But as for a specific (2030 target) number, I will allow the reviews and the reconsiderations of policies to take their course.”

Ironically, the 45 per cent target being abandoned by Labor is what Guterres has been calling for in New York from all nations.

Labor’s capitulation has given the Morrison government a free pass on what could otherwise have been an uncomfortable time. The Prime Minister will not be attending the New York climate conference despite being in Washington for a state reception with Trump.

Instead Australia will be represented by Foreign Minister Marise Payne and climate change ambassador Patrick Suckling.

Australia is not expected to speak at the conference or offer anything above the existing Paris Agreement pledge of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The federal government has yet to make a call on whether to join the growing global push to declare a target to become “carbon neutral” by 2050.

How exactly the carbon neutrality will be calculated remains a vital question for Australia which, by some measures, may have achieved the target already.

It’s hard to know.

A 2013 paper in the journal Biogeosciences found the year-to-year variation in the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by natural processes is bigger than Australia’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Research published in the journal Nature in 2014 found that record-breaking rains had triggered so much new growth across Australia that the continent turned into a giant green carbon sink to rival tropical rainforests including the Amazon.

The study found that vegetation worldwide had soaked up 4.1 billion tonnes of carbon in 2011 — the equivalent of more than 40 per cent of emissions from burning fossil fuels that year.

Almost 60 per cent of the higher than normal carbon uptake that year, or 840 million tonnes, happened in Australia.

Subsequent research has shown that much of the additional carbon store was lost in following years because of fire and drought.

But a full understanding of the carbon cycle is still in its infancy.

Pep Canadell, from the CSIRO, says there is as yet no robust information on whether Australia is a net carbon sink or emitter when all natural processes are taken into account.

Canadell is leading a big international assessment under the Global Carbon Project to investigate but says results are still a couple of years away.

He says the global experience has been that most of the benefits from the natural carbon sinks are more than offset by human emissions of non-CO2 gases, mainly methane and nitrous oxide.

Scientists, however, are only starting to understand the bigger picture. Nature is able to lock away about half of the additional carbon dioxide load from human activity and it has shown itself to be very resilient to increasing human emissions.

A paper published in April found that global land and ocean sinks had largely kept pace with rising carbon dioxide emissions since 1958 and were still absorbing about 50 per cent of atmospheric CO2.

Canadell says the results are remarkable because of their unseen, and often unacknowledged, benefits.

“The CO2 sinks are like a 50 per cent discount on climate change,” Canadell says. “If it wasn’t for the sinks, we would have double the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, and a doubling of the impacts due to global warming.”

How these sinks will be accounted nationally puts a fresh perspective on what carbon neutrality at a national level may eventually mean. It highlights also the folly of discussions being hijacked by negative extremes.

The latest, and unexpected, shot against fearmongering was issued by World Meteorological Organisation secretary-general Petteri Taalas to Finnish newspaper Talouselama.

Taalas told the paper while climate scepticism had become less of an issue, the challenge was now coming from “doomsters and extremists”. “Climate experts have been attacked by these people and they claim that we should be much more radical,” Taalas said.

He said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports had been “read in a similar way to the Bible: you try to find certain pieces or sections from which you try to justify your extreme views”. “This resembles religious extremism,” Taalas told Talouselama.

Following publication of his comments, Taalas issued a clarifying statement that he was not questioning the need for robust action.  “In my interview, I made clear that a science-based approach underpins climate action and that our best science shows the climate is changing, driven in large part by human action.

“However, I pointed out that the science-based approach is undermined when facts are taken out of context to justify extreme measures in the name of climate action,” he said. “Action should be based on a balanced view of the science available to us and not on a biased reading of reports by the Inter­governmental Panel on Climate Change, of which WMO is one of the parent organisations.”

Taalas said the challenges were immense.

The lesson from Labor in Australia and the UN in New York is that the political challenges remain equally large.

The boom in renewable energy has spawned a serious unintended consequence with the release of large quantities of the world’s most potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) is 23,500 times more warming than carbon dioxide and is widely used to make wind turbines, solar panels and the switching gear needed to run more complex electricity systems.

Research has shown leakage of the little known gas across Europe in 2017 was the emissions equivalent of putting an extra 1.3 million cars on the road.

The warming potential of SF6 was identified in 2008 by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which said what had been hailed as an environmental success story could turn out to be a public relations disaster for solar.

Scripps says SF6 is difficult to break down and roughly 60 per cent of what goes into a switch’s vacuum chamber ends up in the atmosphere.

The latest research from Britain is that levels of SF6 in the atmosphere are rising as an unintended consequence of the green energy boom.

According to the BBC, just 1kg of SF6 warms the Earth to the same extent as 24 people flying London to New York return. It also persists in the atmosphere for a long time, warming the Earth for at least 1000 years.

The increase in SF6 in the atmosphere reflects the way electricity production is changing around the world.

Mixed energy sources including wind, solar and gas have resulted in the use of many more connections to the electricity grid.

The increased number of electricity switches to prevent serious accidents has resulted in the use of more SF6 gas to stop short circuits and quench arcs, making electrical circuits safe.

Carbon copies

A loose coalition of countries has made the pledge to go “carbon-neutral” by 2050 but they do not include any of the major emissions nations and it remains unclear exactly what the term means.

SOURCE  

Student climate strike is slacktivism



On a Friday afternoon, would you rather be stuck in school at a maths lesson or be outside at a protest with your mates?  No prizes for guessing what most children would prefer.

As a result, it’s easy to dismiss today’s climate demonstration as mere ‘slacktivism’… students giving up their Saturday morning sport to attend a protest would have been a far more powerful statement.

And besides, is it really a ‘strike’? Not going to school — which means students miss out on their own learning — isn’t even remotely comparable to not going to work as part of industrial action.

Of course, it’s great if students are interested in politics, care about global issues, and want to exercise their right to protest government policy in a liberal democracy. And yes, issues with potential long-term consequences like climate change are especially important for youth.

However, if any student really wants to improve policy in the long-term, the best way to do this is to become better educated — and learn to understand the various perspectives of every issue. Getting involved in politics should be in addition to their schooling, not ever in conflict with it.

Today’s ‘strike’ has been endorsed by education unions, among others (with shades of “How do you do, fellow kids?”). Unions are obviously free to support whatever action they want, though students shouldn’t be pressured into joining.

But do unions support the principle of all students being able to skip class to attend a protest on any issue? Or just on political issues where the union leaders happen to agree with them? Maybe unions wouldn’t be so supportive if students went on ‘strike’ to protest against inter-generational debt, advocating for budget cuts for the sake of future generations.

Students should be able to skip school occasionally, providing they have parental permission, go through the normal processes of their school, and the usual rules around attendance and truancy are still applied consistently.

Parents — not governments — are fundamentally responsible for the moral education of their children. If parents are happy for their kids to miss lessons for whatever reason, then so be it.

But in a time of growing polarisation, the last thing we need is teachers bringing political partisanship into schools.

SOURCE  

Dozens of protesters are caught with single-use plastic bottles while marching during the Global Climate Strike

Normal Greenie hypocrisy

More than 30,000 people took to the streets of Brisbane to march in the Global Strike 4 Climate march on Friday.

Several of the protesters came under fire by the city's Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner, who labelled them as 'very disappointing' in a video shared to Twitter.

But the mayor was criticised for sharing the video, with some people calling his actions 'petty'.

'Very disappointing to see so many single-use plastics at today's environmental rally in Brisbane's CBD,' Mayor Schrinner captioned a video shared to Twitter.

The Mayor suggested people should instead stop by his mobile office where he was giving out reusable bottles. 'If only they made it to Lord Mayor's mobile office or the recent Green Heart Fair to get their own reusable drink bottles!'

The video showed a series of people walking in the march clinging onto plastic cups and bottles, all the while wearing shirts and carrying handmade signs that advocate for climate change.

Mayor Schrinner even took aim at Greens member, Michael Berkman, who carried a plastic bottle despite wearing a 'Stop Adani' shirt.

But not everyone was on board with Mr Schrinner, as many took to Twitter to slam the Mayor. 'That's the best you can come up with when the people of Brisbane turned out to have their voices heard?' one commented.

'Wow, this is the pettiest and saddest thing I've seen today,' one person tweeted.

Others said the bottles had likely been re-used because many didn't have labels.

'Because you can't refill a plastic bottle? Considering a lot don't have labels or are soft drink bottles with water I think they are being used by people with a social and environmental conscience,' another wrote.

'30,000 people take a stand and that's your petty takeaway?' a woman commented.

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 September, 2019

The psychology of hate

Sandro Galea has come along way since his origins in Malta.  He has authored over 800 academic publications and is now Dean of the School of Public Health at Boston university, a large private university with a strong research orientation.  He is a registered do-gooder, having spent some time in his youth "helping" the benighted people of New Guinea.

Below is a press release announcing his talk on hate.  I will have some comments at the foot of it.


Global experts to examine hate as a public health issue

Professor Sandro Galea, a global expert on public health, talks about the under-represented topic of hate as a contributing factor in health and health equity.

The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre (the Prevention Centre) hosts world-leader in research and discourse on public health, Professor Sandro Galea from Boston University. Professor Galea will lead the conversation on hate as a public health issue at an event on 30 September 2019.

His research shows that hate is a contributor to poor physical and mental health at both the level of the individual and then at societal level.

“Hate such as the kind we witnessed in the aftermath of the Charlottesville violence is like a disease, spreading among populations and undermining health in a manner eerily similar to that of a pathogen,” said Professor Galea.

“When a society is infected by hate, it is not hard to see how it can affect our bodies and minds. Being hated is stressful. It makes a person fear for her safety, resent her lack of respect, and worry about what the future holds for herself and her family. People who feel hated are more likely to experience major depression, and the fruits of hate – prejudice, discrimination, segregation, and interpersonal antagonism – sicken and kill Americans every day,” he said.

“Chronic disease, mental illness and drug use,” said Professor Galea. “None of these can be successfully addressed without discussing the injustice and racism that may be at their source. No matter how great our hospitals or advanced our technology, health is limited by the world in which people live.”

“The first step is to change the way we talk about health at a grassroots as well as at a policy level. Seeing health for what it is – a result of factors embedded in everyday life – is just as important as investing in a new hospital or MRI machine.”


So what a fine person Professor Galea is -- talking about what is undoubtedly an important issue.  As I often put up on my blogs news articles about hate, I was greatly interested to hear of him.  I looked forward to seeing his research on the subject. So I checked his list of publications on ResearhGate but, lo and behold, I could not find any!  There were articles in the popular press which consisted largely of bloviation and virtue signalling but that was it. He does do proper scientific articles but not on hate.

Nonetheless, I do agree with him that hate is toxic.  But I also think he is missing the elephant in the room.  And what a big elephant it is!  A veritable mammoth.  We see a virtual  torrent of hate being poured out constantly at Donald J. Trump by the Left. The disapproval of Third World immigration coming from the Right is very pale stuff compared with the hate that seems to come from every pore of the Left.  Hate is what they do these days. They seem to hate just about everything.

And it seems clear that their chronic hate has completely deranged the Left, if the recent Democrat primary debates are anything to go by.  Most of the policy proposals put forward there seem completely out of touch with reality.  And loss of reality contact is the prime symptom of psychosis.

The hate motivation of the Left is all too obvious to need much research but I am sure Prof. Galea could find something to research there if he got serious about the topic.

I give below a moderate and balanced comment on the current political scene from a prominent Leftist commentator.  The Right would have a hard job of matching it.  But perhaps Prof. Galea could find an example of a prominent conservative being so eloquent:



The way the Left describe as hate even the mildest expression of disapproval coming from conservatives is an example of projection that Freud would celebrate.  The Left assume that others have hearts as black as theirs





Cardinal George Pell's legal team has lodged an application for leave to appeal in Australia's highest court

The 78-year-old former adviser to the Pope is currently serving a maximum six-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of two former choirboys at St Patrick's Cathedral while he was the Catholic archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

The Cardinal's legal team had been thoroughly examining the court's judgment after a 2-1 split decision was handed down by the three judges.

The two proposed grounds for appeal focus on that majority decision to dismiss Pell's case.

"The majority erred by finding that their belief in the complainant required the applicant to establish that the offending was impossible," the application states.

The proposed second ground is "the majority erred in their conclusion that the verdicts were not unreasonable".

Pell's legal team is seeking for his convictions to be quashed.

If leave to appeal is granted it will be his final opportunity to challenge the convictions, but there is no guarantee the High Court will agree to hear the appeal.

The court can decide to grant leave to appear from the written application, or may request a short hearing — which is unlikely to be heard until next year unless the case is expedited.

SOURCE  






A small comeback for the classics

Less than a year ago, Aadita Menghani knew nothing about Latin. "I had never even heard of it before," she said.

But the 13-year-old Blacktown Girls High student is discovering the ancient Roman language in the first NSW class to be offered Latin outside the fully selective or private school systems in more than 20 years.

More than 80 per cent of Blacktown's students are new or recent migrants, and their native tongues - Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi - have little crossover with the 3000-year-old language that influenced modern English.

But advocates of the classics say that's exactly why they should learn it, as new research suggests students with the least access to Latin and Classical Greek are the ones who benefit most.

Blacktown Girls' High, a partially selective school, was able to offer Latin to year eight this year thanks to the arrival of Lance Shortus, a second-year teacher who studied the language as part of his ancient history degree at university.

Like most teachers of the classics, he embeds the language in wider lessons about ancient Roman culture. This year's course is open to students from the selective and non-selective but gifted streams, but if it succeeds, he hopes to offer it to more.

"It would be great to see it appearing in more public, non-selective schools," he said. "Please don't call it a dead language. Latina est immortalis. It's an immortal language."

Emily Matters, the president of the Classical Languages Teachers' Association, said Latin could be instrumental in developing a category of vocabulary that was particularly useful to students from a non-English speaking background or disadvantaged community.

While they were already bi-lingual, had a rich understanding of conversational words, and learned scientific, technical words such as 'photosynthesis' or 'hypotenuse' at school, they often had little exposure to the complex English vocabulary found scholarship and literature, she said.

The children most likely to pick up this type of vocabulary - largely derived from Latin and Ancient Greek - were from highly-educated, native English-speaking families, giving them an advantage in high school or university, said Dr Matters.

"By the age of 10, the division [in vocabulary] is quite clear," said Ms Matters.

"For some children, if they can't learn these words at school, they are not going to learn them. That's the kind of thing that learning Latin will give children - that enrichment of their English vocabulary."

A single Latin word can unlock many English ones. For example, if a student knows ardere means 'to burn', they can work out the meaning of ardent, ardour or arson. The word tractare, to drag or pull, is a clue to words such as subtract, attractive, and detractor.

Arlene Holmes-Henderson from Oxford University is finishing a longitudinal study into the impact of classical languages on children's cognitive development.

"Initial and interim findings suggest that learning Latin can unlock significant literacy gains for certain pupils, but not the ones who traditionally have had access to the study of classics," she told the Herald.

Dr Matters said the last comprehensive school to teach Latin was Turramurra High School, which closed its course in the early 1990s.

Fully selective schools were more likely to be able to offer Latin or ancient Greek because they could attract enough interested students to fill a class, while private schools had the resources to teach smaller groups, she said.

SOURCE  






GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below

Fact-free prophet takes vicious turn

Andrew Bolt

GLOBAL warmists are turning vicious. Now guru Tim Flannery likens me to a paedophile.

Has Flannery, our former Chief Climate Commissioner and now a professorial fellow at Melbourne University, become unhinged? For me, his outburst confirms that Flannery represents the death of reason.

In the taxpayer-funded Conversation, Flannery claims that man-made global warming and dwindling resources may wipe out most of the Earth's nearly 8 billion people. "British scientist James Lovelock has predicted a future human population of just a billion people,” he writes. "Mass deaths we predicted."

Typical Flannery. In fact, Lovelock later admitted he was too "alarmist", and Flannery was, too: "We don't know what the climate is doing."

But Flannery, undaunted, rages over the slaughter he imagines is coming: "The climate crisis has now grown so severe that the actions of the denialists have turned predatory: they are now an immediate threat to our children. "My children ... will probably live to be part of that grim winnowing -- a world that the Alan Joneses and Andrew Bolts of the world have laboured so hard to create."

Then a third suggestion that I'm a child abuser. "They are threatening my children's wellbeing as much as anyone who might seek to harm a child."

How low can Flannery go? If I thought there was the slightest chance of our emissions killing my children, I'd work day and night to cut them. But I don't think they're at all threatened by global warming. What really threatens them is the monstrous, self-righteous unreason that Flannery represents. In 2004, Flannery, actually a mammal expert, said man-made warming would cause such droughts that "there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century's first ghost metropolis".

Yet Perth is flourishing, and Professor Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, says "as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought".

In 2009, Flannery warned "this may be the Arctic's first ice-free year". Not even dose. In 2015 Flannery predicted more cyclones: "We're more likely to see them more frequently in the future." But the following year we had the fewest cyclones in decades, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agrees cyclones have become rarer.

In 2017, Flannery claimed global warming was drowning Pacific islands like Tuvalu and this was a "widespread phenomenon". In fact, TuValu has grown by 2.9 per cent over four decades, and Professor Paul Kench found 43 per cent of Pacific islands have also grown, and just 14 per cent shrunk.

And now Flannery claims "global hunger has increased for the last three years because of extreme weather events". Really? In fact, the Food and Agricultural Organisation reports that world grain crops have been at record levels for the past three years.

What an extraordinary record of false claims, yet Flannery is still treated as an oracle by the Conversation, the ABC and Melbourne University.

But the worst of it is that this false prophet has cost Australians so much. In 2007, Flannery falsely claimed our dams would run dry: "Even the rains that fall will not actually fill our dams and our river systems." He added: "In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water - supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months."

State Labor governments freaked, and raced to build desalination plants not just for those cities, but Melbourne, too. The cost was massive — some $12 billion. But this was another Flannery fail: the rain kept falling, and those desal-plants were essentially mothballed. What a waste.

Here's another example of the cost of Flannery's flummery. Flannery also urged us to scrap our reliable coal-fired electricity plants and use more geothermal power instead. "There are hot rocks (underground) in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia's economy for the best part of a century," he said. "The technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward."

The Rudd Government believed him, and gave a $90 million grant to a geothermal plant in which Flannery was a shareholder. Yet another Flannery fail. The plant was a technological nightmare and was scrapped.

So how should I describe Tim Flannery, who misquotes experts, misstates science, makes dud predictions, urges us to waste billions of dollars and scares children with absurd claims of "mass deaths"? I won't do a Flannery and call him a "predator". I'll stick to the facts. The man is a crank.

From the Courier Mail, 19/9/19

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg overruled department to block wind turbines on scenic island

The former environment minister Josh Frydenberg went against the advice of his departmental experts when he blocked two wind turbines on Lord Howe Island in 2017, consigning the world heritage-listed island to relying on diesel fuel for the bulk of its electricity.

A freedom of information request by the Guardian has uncovered that the minister took the unusual action of blocking the project under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, deeming it “unacceptable”.

It was one of two projects that Frydenberg rejected while environment minister, the other being a nursing home at Sydney’s Middle Head on federal land.

Now the Guardian can reveal that his decision was taken despite the advice of his own department, strong support from the majority of residents on Lord Howe Island, the governing board of the island, and even another federal government agency – the Australian Renewable Energy Agency – which had offered $4.6m in funding towards the renewable energy project.

The department’s natural heritage section 23 November 2016 advice was that “the proposed action is unlikely to significantly impact the Island Group’s world heritage values” and that moving the island away from reliance on weekly deliveries of diesel would help secure its Unesco world heritage status.

The department went on to say: “The proposed turbine site was selected because it is in close proximity to the existing powerhouse and electricity network and is one of the least visible cleared pieces of elevated land on the island.”

“Practical access and operation considerations limit the turbines’ physical size. The turbines are not permanently fixed but can be lowered for maintenance and other purposes.”

It said the proposed turbines were a similar scale to the existing aviation towers near the project site.

There was some concern expressed from the migratory birds section of the department about whether the turbines might harm Lord Howes’ bird population.

But the final recommendation from the department was that risks could be mitigated by the Lord Howe Island board’s proposal to shut down the turbines at sunset when shearwaters returned to their nests.

“The department considers that impacts on listed migratory birds could potentially be mitigated, for example through development and implementation of the adaptive management approach proposed in the referral,” it said.

But having outlined the reasons why the project should be given the go-ahead, the department, perhaps pre-empting the minister’s attitude, advised that he could still oppose it, and included the paperwork for him to do so.

At the time, [radio jock] Jones was regularly railing against windfarm projects, and there was opposition to windfarms within the Coalition. In 2014, the then treasurer, Joe Hockey, called wind turbines “utterly offensive”, while former prime minister Tony Abbott said in 2015 they were “ ugly” and “noisy”.

A spokesperson for the current environment minister, Sussan Ley, said then minister Frydenberg considered that “the proposed wind turbines would create a considerable, intrusive visual impact and that this would affect the spectacular and scenic landscapes for which the island group is recognised”.

“The minister concluded that the proposal would be an inappropriate development for Lord Howe Island and that the impacts on the island group’s heritage values could not be sufficiently avoided or mitigated,” she said.

The spokesman said the minister had given “thorough consideration to a range of matters” before deciding that the wind turbine proposal would have clearly unacceptable impacts and that the decision did not affect the solar component of the island’s energy project.

Lord Howe Island’s Unesco listing has identified “human-caused climate change” as a key threat. The organisation has a policy which calls on world heritage sites to investigate renewable power options.

Lord Howe Island is now exploring what can be done with solar and batteries to meet the island’s needs. New South Wales spends $750,000 a year on shipping diesel to the island to provide power for its 350 residents.

SOURCE  

New coal mine that would have provided 1,100 jobs to hard-pressed families is scrapped after green activists from Sydney's north shore sent 2,530 objection letters

The construction of a controversial coal mine has been blocked after planners received a series of objection letters from city-based environmental activists.

The multi-million-dollar Bylong Valley coal mine was commissioned by Korean company Kepco, which claimed the mine, north-east of Mudgee, would generate $300million for the New South Wales economy and create 1,100 jobs.

After a large amount of opposition from the community, the project was given to the  NSW Independent Planning Commission for review in October last year.

But today it was revealed the project's demise came after a spate of complaints by residents of Sydney's northern beaches, 250 kilometres away from the proposed mine site.

Out of 3,193 comments to the commission, 2,530 objections came from Lane Cove Coal and Gas Watch, The Daily Telegraph reported.  'These people should not be allowed to comment on something that is not on their doorstep,' Mid-West Regional Council mayor Des Kennedy said. 'People here want those jobs, but at the public meetings they were bussing in activists from all over the place.'

While 350 submissions received by the commission were largely objections, most of them came from people living more than 60 kilometres away.

Lane Cove Bushland and Conservation Society vice-president Ron Gornall said the  environmental group maintain their objections.  'Our group was opposed to the mine … like a lot of environmental groups, we look at other areas,' he said.

None of the 14 government agencies consulted objected to the construction of the mine.

While the commission acknowledged the economic benefits the mine would bring, they also said it was not an ecologically sustainable development, ABC reported.

'The commission found the mine's predicted air quality, biodiversity, noise, subsidence and visual impacts are acceptable and/or can be effectively managed or mitigated,'the commission said in its determination.

'It raised significant concern about other longer-lasting environmental impacts.'

'The predicted economic benefits would accrue to the present generation but the long-term environmental, heritage and agricultural costs will be borne by the future generations.'

Kepco began working on the project in  2010 and construction was supposed to start this year.

SOURCE  

Our universities have caved in to lazy groupthink

In the lead-up to Friday’s Global Climate Strike, enlightening emails have found their way into staff and student university in­boxes. These communications are as illuminating as they are disheartening, as they once again reveal the extent to which our institutions of higher education have been captured by ideologically driven activists.

The array of carefully crafted messages that have been doing the rounds at Notre Dame, Queensland, NSW, La Trobe and Melbourne universities range from the subtle suggestion that staff may like to “accommodate” striking students, to robustly and actively encouraging students to ditch their studies and take to the streets to yell about climate change.

Without exception, all students have been informed that they will not be penalised for absenteeism and that there will be absolutely no repercussions for non-attendance. This is completely at odds with standard university attendance requirements, which are markedly unforgiving.

Perhaps the most telling of all emails, however, has come from the desk of Stephen Trumble, head of the department of medical education at the University of Melbourne, who writes: “All students are encouraged to consider joining with staff in participating in the Global Climate Strike on Friday 20th September. The medical school supports sustainable development and mitigating the effects of climate change.”

It seems that the priorities of Melbourne University’s medical school are misguided. Australians want doctors who are trained to diagnose and cure illness, not doctors who are trained to be eco­-warriors. “One of our course outcomes,” Trumble concludes, “is that Melbourne MD graduates should practise medicine in an environmentally sustainable manner so as not to contribute to this immediate problem.”

One wonders whether this might look like a surgeon turning off the operating theatre lights and poking around inside the unfortunate patient by candlelight.

It smacks of ideological totalitarianism, where staff and students at our universities are being compelled to conform to the orthodoxy prevalent on campus.

The question is, what will become of the rebels who choose to go to class? Their presence in the lecture theatres will single them out as dissidents and they will be judged accordingly as climate change deniers. Never mind what they may think about climate change in private, their public inaction will condemn them in the eyes of their peers.

As it turns out, the same fate is awaiting those Victorian public servants who, rather than joining their colleagues on the streets of Melbourne, have chosen to remain at their desks.

Unsurprisingly, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who this week achieved the honour of being the highest paid premier in the country, is encouraging his employees to ask for “flexible working arrangements” so they can help bring his city to a standstill.

Taxpayers are essentially paying public servants to take the day off. It is unlikely that the Department of Premier and Cabinet would display the same degree of leniency towards staff if they were to down tools on a Friday afternoon to attend an anti-abortion rally.

What we are seeing on campus and indeed in government is the spirit of the mob at work. This concept is explored by Douglas Murray in his latest book The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity. “We are,” he observes, “going through great crowd derangement. In public and in private, both online and off, people are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish, herd-like and simply unpleasant.”

One of the most profound impacts that postmodernism and identity politics have had on our universities is the crippling of intellectual inquiry. When universities are fiercely and repeatedly advocating diversity as a fundamental academic value, the reality is that diversity of opinion has been all but banished from many classrooms and lecture theatres, where the predominantly liberal-left world view, once concealed within the humanities, has become the wider orthodoxy.

The fact remains, students want diversity of opinion on campus. In a recent survey of 500 domestic students commissioned by the Institute of Public Affairs, 82 per cent of respondents, no matter what their political persuasion, said university was a place where they should be exposed to different views, even if those views are challenging or offensive. The results also showed that students were looking outside the university to be challenged or to find out alternative points of view, with 58 per cent of students saying they were more exposed to new ideas on social media than on campus.

Things must be dire indeed if students are finding greater diversity of opinion on the notoriously skewed platforms of Twitter or Facebook.

The Global Climate Strike shows that universities are no longer the chief institutions through which knowledge is preserved, generated and disseminated. Australian campuses are rapidly becoming places where intellectual inquiry is being crippled and the free exchange of ideas is severely limited. Collectivism and groupthink have no place in our universities, which to all intents and purposes are failing in their purpose.

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 September, 2019

Diversity the key to improved performance in schools

Is it now? Below is a press release from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership which says it is.  They have just done a glossy "Report" on the matter that they want you to know about.  In my experience, a "report" is what you put out when you can't get your claims into an academic journal.  Nonetheless I had a good look through the report and its associated documents in the hope of finding some claim backed up by a controlled study, hopefully one that was not so brain-dead as to treat many different sorts of people as all simply "diverse".

A serious approach to the question would have looked at different types of diversity.  Did Chinese teachers, for instance, get better results than Aboriginal teachers? I found no evidence of that kind. I found no evidence of any research at all that could be classed as scientific -- no controlled experiments at all.  It was all just pious hopes and vague generalizations.  The "report" is in short totally worthless.  It is a piece of boring old Leftist propaganda only

If I had to make generalizations of their sort I  would have said that teachers get best results when their background is similar to that of their students.  Chinese teachers are best for Chinese students, Aboriginal  teachers are best for aboriginal students etc.  that might not be so but it is at least scientifically examinable


A new evidence summary released today by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) highlights the benefits of championing a diverse school leadership workforce in Australia.

The report Spotlight: Diversity in School Leadership, points out that improved diversity in schools leads to a range of benefits, including helping teams work smarter, increasing innovation, and improving performance.

The report supports calls for school systems and sectors to take active steps towards increased quality and diversity within their leadership pools.

AITSL CEO Mark Grant said: “We know that an effective school leadership strategy that is focused on increasing the diversity of future leaders has considerable benefits. This is true for all leadership roles, in all geographical locations from rural and remote to metro areas.”

Workplace research shows that diversity in the teaching workforce can lead to improved outcomes for students academically and in their personal well-being.

The report shows that while diversity among school students is broadly representative of the Australian population, the profile of teachers and school leaders does not currently match Australia’s gender and cultural diversity.

The report found that more than 70 per cent of school teachers in primary and secondary schools are female, with male teachers making up just 18 per cent of primary school teachers, and 40 per cent of secondary teachers.

In terms of cultural diversity, while almost 25 per cent of Australian students come from homes where a language other than English is spoken, only 9 per cent of primary and 11 per cent of secondary teachers speak a language other than English at home.

Also, while almost 6 per cent of Australia’s students identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, only 2 per cent of Australian teachers identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, and an even smaller proportion of those are in leadership positions.

“We know that diverse leadership teams improve performance, increase innovation, and generate creative approaches to problem solving,” Mr Grant said.

“It would be a tremendous boon for the education sector if teachers and leaders truly represented all of our community demographics, like different cultural and societal backgrounds, or individuals who identify as having a disability.

Improving diversity in schools begins with increasing diversity in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). As ITE students are the teachers and school leaders of the future, there needs to be just as much focus on diversity in this group as on the current teaching and school leadership workforce.”

“Today’s report highlights the importance of increasing the diversity in our schools. Leadership teams need to put a stronger focus on ensuring they reflect the broader community in their schools. One way this can be done is with recruitment processes that are better targeted to under-represented groups to achieve the broadest possible pool of high quality suitable candidates.”






Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivers a balanced budget for financial year 2019

A great conservative aspiration

Josh Frydenberg has unveiled a slim budget deficit of $690 million in the year to June 2019, declaring the economy performed “better than expected” than when he handed down his first budget in April.

On delivering the final numbers on the national accounts for the last financial year, the Treasurer said an extra 300,000 jobs were created in the year, which was “well above” forecast.

“The budget outcome for 2018/19 further demonstrates the government economic plan is working, creating more jobs and to ensure Australians get the essential services they rely on,” Mr Frydenberg said. “In the year ahead, the economy will continue to be supported by the government’s economic plan as outlined in this budget, including the largest tax cuts in more than two decades and our $100 billion 10 year pipeline of infrastructure spending.”

In May at the release of the 2019-20 budget, Treasury predicted a $4.2bn deficit.

Mr Frydenberg and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the final budget outcome represented a return to balance for the first time in 11 years. “The underlying cash balance in the Final Budget Outcome for the 2018-19 financial year is $13.8 billion better than estimated at the time of the 2018-19 Budget,” Mr Frydenberg said. He said the deficit of $690 million represents 0.0 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

“A growing economy with more jobs and stronger terms of trade than anticipated at the time of the 2018-19 Budget have driven total receipts $11.5 billion higher, with payments $6.6 billion lower than expected at the time of the 2018-19 Budget,” Mr Frydenberg said. He said the employment growth at 2.6 per cent “far exceeded” the predicted growth of 1½ per cent.

The better job figures drove increases in revenue as well as lower payments, with individual tax receipts up by $5.7 billion compared to the 2018-19 Budget forecast.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann denied the budgetary position was due to a $4.6 billion underspend on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Senator Cormann said the government was rolling out the scheme as fast as it could and blamed state governments for the delayed implementation.

He said it made “absolutely no sense” to put extra money aside for disability services when the government had already budgeted for funding the scheme. “The government will cover the cost of the demand that is there to its fullest extent. It makes absolutely no sense to put money aside when the money will be there,” Senator Cormann said.

Labor hits back

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government could stimulate the economy without damaging any forecasted surplus.

“The government now have no excuse not to come up with a plan to turn around an economy that is floundering on their watch,” Mr Chalmers said.

“Improvement in the budget will be built on underspends in the NDIS which short- change Australians with a disability by not providing the funding they need and deserve and were promised.”

Mr Frydenberg told parliament the NDIS was a demand-driven system and had been fully funded for the first time by the coalition government.

Mr Chalmers said the high price Australian ore was fetching, as well as a weak Australian dollar, would also see the nation’s books back in the black. “(That’s) nothing the government can take credit for.”

Australia has not had a surplus since the 2007/08 budget, which came back $19.7 billion in the black.

SOURCE  






‘Blood on his hands’: PM urged to intervene after Queensland Government loses bid to continue shark culling

Greenies much prefer sharks to people

Queensland’s tourism minister says Prime Minister Scott Morrison could have “blood on his hands” if he doesn’t intervene on a ban preventing shark culling on the Great Barrier Reef.

The Queensland Government yesterday lost an appeal in the Federal Court for the right to use drum lines to catch and kill sharks on the reef in a bid to protect swimmers.

The appeal came after the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in April upheld a Humane Society challenge to the State Government program in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park area.

Queensland Agriculture Minister Mark Furner wants the Federal Government to change federal legislation to allow the program to continue in the park.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which manages the area, was created by federal legislation in 1975.

Tourism Minister Kate Jones said the court decision left her deeply concerned for the safety of visitors swimming in the World Heritage area.

“I’m calling on the Prime Minister to intervene,” she told reporters. “I’m sure the Prime Minister does not want to have blood on his hands through this decision in relation to the federal act.”

However, Humane Society campaigner Lawrence Chlebeck says the court decision is a victory for sharks.  “No longer will sharks senselessly die for a misguided sense of security,” he said.

In its decision, the tribunal said the scientific evidence about “the lethal component” of the shark control program “overwhelmingly” showed it does not reduce the risk of an unprovoked shark attack.

The program now has to be carried out in a way that avoids killing sharks to the “greatest extent possible”. The park will only be permitted to authorise the euthanasia of sharks caught on drum lines on animal welfare grounds.

All tiger, bull and white sharks caught on drum lines are now to be tagged before being released. Additionally, sharks caught on drum lines are to be attended to as soon as possible — preferably within 24 hours of capture — and tagged sharks are to be relocated offshore.

Mr Chlebeck wants the Government to stop shark culls along the entire Queensland coastline.

There have been no changes to the shark control program in other Queensland locations, including the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast.

SOURCE  






Jacinta Price not the first indigenous person to fall foul of Coffs Harbour City Council

When the Coffs Harbour City Council last week attempted to ban Warlpiri/Celtic woman, Alice Springs councillor and former Coalition federal candidate Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from speaking on her Mind the Gap tour, it was merely continuing a long tradition of being seen to act in the best interests of indigenous people.

For example, nearly 70 years ago, one Councillor (President) Harry Bailey told the Dorrigo Shore Council, as it was then, that it was wrong for the NSW Government to accommodate Aboriginals within the town, or nearby for that matter.

“The aborigines are a vanishing race and we owe a great deal to them,” said Bailey, as quoted in the Coffs Harbour Advocate on November 19, 1948. “They should be treated with all the consideration and kindness we can bestow on them.” According to him, this involved allocating them “a natural setting — an area of land close to a beach, served with a stream or two and with some natural brush in which they could erect some dwellings and fish and work and live in keeping with their way of life”.

Bailey was wrong in believing the demise of indigenous people was nigh. Nonetheless, his romanticised and simplistic depiction, together with his belief that isolation and patronising were the answer, mirrors the views of many other officials, activists, and commentators today who purport to speak on behalf of indigenous people. Less enlightened folk refer to this phenomenon as the racism of low expectations.

Bailey, sometimes referred to as “the father of modern Coffs Harbour” died in office in 1965 but the WH Bailey Memorial City Library still bears his name, or at least it will until some professional offence-taker discovers his “vanishing race” utterance. Now a female mayor, Denise Knight, heads the council. No doubt she too would say it was acting as with consideration and kindness this month in writing to Price, who had booked the Jetty Memorial Theatre for her tour, saying it would “appreciate” her “requesting permission from Gumbaynggirr Aboriginal people to enter the land”.

A question for the non-indigenous folk who have stayed in Coffs Harbour — was your visit preceded by a similar instruction from council or were you allowed to go about your business as if you were an adult with the ability to make decisions for yourself? Memo to Mayor Knight and her mostly fair-skinned fellow councillors: the days of indigenous people not being allowed to travel unless they have a permit from a white government inspector are long gone.

Price has ample grounds to make a complaint of racial discrimination to the Australian Human Rights Commission, although for some unknown reason the normally noisy so-called anti-racists have not urged her to do so.

This is the same mayor who said only last month: “It’s vital in an inclusive community that we learn as much as we can about each other’s cultures so that we can better understand the different ways we view the world.”

The occasion was the launching of ‘Yandaarra — Shifting Camp Together’, an “Aboriginal cultural awareness and engagement guide”. Get ready for a good laugh: the guide specifies: “It is important that the Aboriginal community is provided with opportunities to openly share information and discuss issues that may impact on their community, culture, heritage and traditional lore.”

That is exactly what Price’s tour is about, thus proving that Coffs’ council chambers are full of mealy-mouthed hypocrites. Admittedly Price has some controversial views, for example, she says indigenous empowerment is realised through people taking responsibility for themselves rather than rely on government welfare. She also maintains colonisation is used to excuse epidemic levels of violence by indigenous men against women and children, and that the vulnerable in these communities are silenced through intimidation. Those views are uncomfortable facts, otherwise known in progressive parlance as “hate speech”.

Price is also dismissive of that ancient indigenous ritual, the so-called “Welcome to Country” ceremony. So ancient in fact that the two indigenous men who invented it, Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley, are still alive. The custom has become so widespread that no official function can claim moral legitimacy if it dispenses with it. And as the council’s guide specifies: “In providing cultural services such as Welcome to Country, artistic performances … it is important to acknowledge the intellectual property of the Aboriginal people through appropriate payment for their services.”

The ceremony serves two purposes. First, it reinforces the guilt industry by continually reminding whitey he is stained by the sins of his forefathers; and second, it makes for much moolah in return for doing very little. For example, in 2013, Matilda House of the Ngambri clan was paid $10,500 for officiating at the opening of the 44th Parliament. No wonder so many indigenous activists loathe Price. As Herald-Sun columnist Andrew Bolt pointed out last year, some of the foulest misogyny directed at her — including exhortations she “die a painful death” — was from indigenous men paid by government departments to conduct these ceremonies.

Price herself knows only too well the threat of impending death. In 2008 her then-partner struck her in the head with a lamp. Bleeding profusely, she escaped from the house, fearing she would be murdered if she did not. Her message is that men in her community must take action to end domestic violence. If she were a white woman, she would be feted by the leftist commentariat.

Instead Fiona Poole, an ABC Coffs Coast presenter who attended Price’s function, described her as “very divisive”. Her ABC colleague Claire Lindsay spoke with members of the Gumbaynggirr community groups who had objected to Price’s visit. As national affairs associate editor Chris Kenny noted this week, neither journalist sought Price’s input. In addition, Lindsay blithely repeated on air a defamatory excerpt from an indigenous community media release that Price “spreads racist vitriol, vilifies and ridicules Aboriginal people and cultures”. The ABC later released a statement, saying the organisation was “remiss in not offering Ms Price the opportunity to respond to criticism”.

As for the ABC dissing an indigenous woman on the grounds she is “very divisive”, this must be a new thing. There was no such criticism from the national broadcaster when indigenous activist Tarneen Onus-Williams declared at an “Invasion Day” rally in Melbourne last year “F**k Australia, hope it burns to the ground”. In a column titled “Australia Is Tearing Down Another Woman of Colour for Daring to Have an Opinion,” then Junkee news and political editor Osman Faruqi defended her from conservative critics, stating: “The goal is not just to silence Onus-Williams, but to discourage anyone like her from speaking up.” Faruqi is now deputy editor of ABC Life. Surely any day now it will be running his article: “Progressive Australia is Tearing Down a Woman of Colour for Daring to Have a Contrary Opinion”. Right?

Then there is the case of indigenous woman, actor and playwright Nakkiah Lui. In 2016, the star of ABC’s “Black Comedy” tweeted: “My main concern in Indigenous Affairs atm is our use of the saying ‘White Dogs’. Dogs are innocent, sweet and loyal. Let’s not insult dogs.” All in the name of reconciliation, I am sure. Interviewed on ABC Radio National regarding a negative review of her play How to Rule the World by Daily Review critic and ABC senior producer Jason Whittaker this year, Lui attributed this to “white supremacy”, and suggested he no longer be allowed to review any works by “people of colour”.

Joining her in the studio and metaphorically holding her hand as Lui told of how Whittaker had “hurt” her “feelings” was Gamilaroi/Eualeyai woman, academic, and host of ABC’s Speaking Out, Larissa Behrendt. You might remember in 2011 she tweeted “I watched a show where a guy had sex with a horse and I’m sure it was less offensive than Bess Price,” referring to Jacinta’s mother, who like her daughter is outspoken about reducing Aboriginal violence and who supported the Northern Territory intervention. But of all these indigenous women it is only the Prices who are divisive, at least in the eyes of Aunty.

As to why this is the case, it is best explained by the reality that many indigenous activists see perpetual bemoaning of the status quo as a livelihood, and a lucrative one at that. Working in tandem with them is a sympathetic progressive media eager to portray itself as the stalwart defender of the wretched. Any indigenous person who publicly challenges that narrative can expect to be labelled a pariah by the former and treated with cold indifference by the latter. The fact that even local government now takes part in this bullying, ostracising and groupthink shows how pervasive the censorious ideology of identity politics has become.

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 September, 2019

Conservatives criticize big business while the Leftists defend it!

As even Adam Smith saw, big business is not your friend

Following a hard-hitting speech to a chamber of commerce function in Canberra last week, Ben Morton, the assistant minister to the Prime Minister, has delivered the same message to about 100 chief executive officers gathered in Parliament House for a  Business Council of Australia seminar.

"We don’t represent corporate Australia; we represent hard-working middle and aspirational Australia,'' Mr Morton said.

"It follows that, when engaging with this government, business should explain how what they are proposing will improve the lives of those quiet Australians we represent. "And tell us how they will communicate that to these same people.

"We’re interested in what’s good for hard-working, aspirational Australians."

Mr Morton lauded the BCA under the stewardship of chief executive Jennifer Westacott for its tireless campaigning over recent years for a company tax cut and to generally lift the image of big business by promoting the benefits it provides.

He cited the BCA's Strong Australia project which, for the past two years, has featured a roadshow of BCA executives visiting rural and regional Australia extolling the virtues of big business such as the jobs and economic activity they generate.

However the BCA was a notable exception, Mr Morton said.

"The BCA campaigned for company tax cuts, opposed Labor’s 45 per cent emissions target, supported personal income tax cuts in full and is supporting workplace integrity legislation,'' he said.

"I believe more large corporates need to follow suit by explaining to their employees how sound economic policies have a direct bearing on corporate profits and therefore their own remuneration and job security.''

Mr Morton said it was important that voters understood that what was good for business was good for them. He also called on individual companies to invest more in industry associations like the BCA "so they can also take their message to the wider Australian community".

Labor response

Earlier on Wednesday, Labor leader Anthony Albanese used his speech to the BCA seminar to side with big businesses against the Morrison government by backing their right to speak out on social and environmental issues. He also pledged to rebuild relations with the corporate sector.

Mr Albanese emphasised that he never agreed with the business-bashing rhetoric Labor used under Bill Shorten to, for example, justify its opposition to company tax cuts, and to generally decry the "top end of town''.

SOURCE  






Vegan who wants to dictate to other people accuses OTHERS of Fascism

An animal rights activist, who wore a pigs mask and spread fake blood across the floor at a McDonalds resturant, has accused the legal system of 'wasting public money' after she was sentenced to 60 hours unpaid work.

Dylan Roffey, 24, who marched into a Brighton branch of the fast-food chain with around 10 to 20 protesters in May, also said that people should not be arrested for 'having basic compassion'.

The actress was convicted of criminal damage at Brighton Magistrates' court this month and ordered to pay £250 court costs, £50 compensation to McDonald's and an £85 victim surcharge, along with her unpaid work requirement.

It comes after the vegan was sentenced to 150 hours unpaid work for an unrelated incident, where she called a woman a 'piece of s***' and allegedly spat in her face at Brighton station after noticing she was wearing a £750 Canada Goose fur coat.

Speaking exclusively to Femail, Dylan branded the decision to arrest her 'ridiculous'. 'I think it's ridiculous that people's time and money was spent on people who are trying to save lives, instead of doing something about people who are profiting from people being killed,' she said, referring to the animals.

'I don't think people should be arrested for protests, or for having basic compassion, and that thinking that killing non-human people is an unacceptable thing to do.

'There isn't a gentle way to macerate a chick for the egg industry, or a passionate way to slit someone's throat. 'We're facing such fascism and animal exploitation on a scale that we've never seen before.'

Photos and videos from the protest in May show Ms Roffey sitting in a pool of fake blood, an edible mixture of flour and food dye, surrounded by activists.

They are holding up pictures of cows, chickens and pigs emblazoned with the phrase 'I want to live'.

She was arrested at the scene by police after making no attempt to move, and was later charged with criminal damage and resisting a police officer.

'I knew going into it I would be arrested', she said, 'that's why I stayed'. 'I knew it would get more attention and get more eyes on what's happening. 'And make people think that this isn't something that is done on a whim but something that people are really horrified by.'

During the hearing judge Amanda Kelly threw out the charge of resisting arrest, but sentenced Dylan for criminal damage.

'Not withstanding the fact that the mixture was flour, water and food dye... the damage need not be permanent in order to be criminal,' she explained, reported Sky News.

The judge went on to say that she was 'absolutely sure' that Miss Dylan' intention was to damage. 'I find that Miss Roffey's purpose was to raise awareness and attract publicity for her cause but that these purposes are too far removed from providing the animals' immediate protection.

'I have a lot of respect for a young woman with strong principles, which you clearly do, but this is not the way to go about it.'

Dylan became a vegan almost four years ago after deciding it would be 'morally inconsistent' to care for animals while she continued to 'hurt them' by eating them.

She has been an animal lover ever since she was small. At the age of two Dylan told off a group of hare-hunters, her mother fondly remembers.

Dylan was also convicted earlier this month for spitting in a woman's face. She was ordered to pay £500 court costs, £150 compensation to Ms Boyle and an £85 surcharge.

Although the CCTV footage was unclear, judge Kelly said the accounts of the two witnesses were compelling, reports The Daily Express.  'I am absolutely sure that Dylan Roffey did spit at Ms Boyle because she was angry and upset at not being listened to. She lost her temper.

'It may have been completely out of character. She is a pleasant young woman with strong beliefs. But to deliberately spit at someone is a serious offence.'

SOURCE  






Facts on fires forgotten in rush to blame climate change

Bushfires in Queensland and New South Wales dominated the news last week — and much of the media was quick to amplify claims climate change was at play.

Here’s retired NSW fire commissioner and former NSW climate change councillor Greg Mullins on ABC regional radio: “There are fires breaking out in places where they just shouldn’t burn. The west coast of Tasmania, the world heritage areas, subtropical rainforests, it’s all burning. And this is driven by climate change, there’s no other explanation.”

Well, he’s an expert, he’s worth reporting. But shouldn’t such claims be tested? He cited places burning that shouldn’t burn, such as Siberia where other sources confirm bushfires happen there every summer.

And Mullins mentioned the west coast of Tasmania. We saw fires there earlier this year and on this program we exposed emotive reporting suggesting this was unprecedented. It wasn’t, of course.

This report, for instance, in the South Australian Chronicle of February 1915 reported lives lost and the “most devastating bushfires ever known in Tasmania sweeping over the northwest coast and other districts. The extent of the devastation cannot be over-estimated.”

And as for Mullins’ claims on rainforests of the west coast, there was this report in 1982 from The Canberra Times, detailing a “huge forest fire” burning out 75,000 hectares of dense rainforest.

Nine newspapers’ Jane Caro tweeted her surprise at the fires: “So there are bushfires all the way up the NSW & Queensland coasts and no rain forecast for 6 to 8 weeks — in September!” she exclaimed, saying this was with one degree of warming and spruiking the climate action strike this Friday.

Yep, that’ll do it.

Back in the 1940s there were September days in Brisbane of 90 degrees fahrenheit, or over 32 degrees Celsius. Now sure, last week’s conditions were horrid, and not the norm. But they are not unprecedented. Drought, dry winters, hot springs, we get them. They might fit into a global warming narrative and they might not.

The best thing to do last week, surely, was to fight the fires. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott did — but I don’t know about the social media alarmists.

Channel 10 news reporter Alex Bruce-Smith wrote the fires were “unprecedented.” “There’s no beating around the bush,” she said, “climate change is helping drive the catastrophe we are currently seeing … it’s the worst start to a Queensland bushfire season on record.”

But is it?

To be fair to the journalists, this stuff was being put out there by people in authority. Andrew Sturgess of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said: “It is a historic event. We have never seen fire danger indices, fire danger ratings at this time of the year, as we are seeing now. We have never seen this before in recorded history.”

Never before in recorded history? The Chronicle in the late winter of 1946, August 22, noted: “From Bundaberg to the New South Wales border”, “hundreds of square miles of drought stricken southeastern Queensland were aflame …”

Two years later on September 30, 1948, the Central Queensland Herald reported: “An 800-mile chain of bushfires fed by dry grass stretched tonight along the Queensland coast from Cairns to Maryborough.”

Both these easily-retrievable examples put the claims of “worst ever” and “unprecedented” into perspective, if not in the shade.

Perhaps the media ought to be more careful about such descriptors, or check them, or try for some perspective rather than just going with the zeitgeist.

Last week, The Guardian linked bushfires in Queensland rainforests to global warming. “I never thought I’d see the Australian rainforest burning. What will it take for us to wake up to the climate crisis?” That was written by Dr Joëlle Gergis of the ANU’s Climate Change Institute and member of the Climate Council.

“Despite being ridiculously busy, I couldn’t turn down this opportunity to share my thoughts on the current bushfires,” she tweeted. “As a scientist, what I find particularly disturbing about the current conditions is that world heritage rainforest areas such as the Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast hinterland are now burning,” she wrote.

Well, we were busy too but were able to dig this out. It’s the Cairns Post from October 25, 1951. “A bushfire in Lamington National Park today swept through a grove of 3000-year-old Macrozamia palms. These trees were one of the features of the park. The fire has burnt out about 2000 acres of thick rainforest country.”

That’s right, nearly 70 years ago, rainforest burning in Lamington National Park, before global warming.

Journalists were quick to share the alarmist views. Hey, it’s easier than checking them.

Seemingly forgotten in the rush to fit up climate change as the cause of these fires was one highly relevant fact. Arsonists were responsible for many, if not most of the blazes.

As news.com.au reported last Wednesday” “Detectives have already established that ten fires — in Brisbane, Stanthorpe, the southeast and central Queensland regions — were deliberately lit. Eight of those were set by juveniles.”

Unless climate change is changing juvenile behaviour, it is hard to overlook crucial facts, such as how the fires actually started.

SOURCE  






Victorian prosecutors appeal magistrate's decision not to jail paramedic's attacker

Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has lodged an appeal against a magistrate's decision not to jail a man who attacked a paramedic while in a "psychotic state" after taking a cocktail of drugs.

James Haberfield was last month sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order for his attack on two paramedics in Melbourne.

He also became the first person to be slapped with a compulsory treatment order under new Victorian laws for those who attack emergency workers.

But Haberfield, 22, avoided a minimum six-month jail term also included in the new laws, which came into effect last October.

In sentencing, Magistrate Simon Zebrowski had said jailing Haberfield would have a "disproportionate and catastrophic effect" on his future.

A psychiatric expert had told the court Haberfield would be at "acute risk" of suicide in jail.

The non-custodial sentence drew criticism from emergency service workers including one of Haberfield's victims, who wished to be named only as Monica, who cried in court when the sentence was delivered.

The court heard Monica had not returned to work since the attack and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

Today Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC revealed she had lodged an appeal against the sentence, a move urged by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews last month.

In a statement, the DPP said it had appealed the sentence in the County Court on the grounds that based on Magistrate Zebrowski's findings, "it was not open to the Magistrate to impose any sentence other than a custodial sentence" as required under the Sentencing Act.

The Victorian Ambulance Union's general secretary, Danny Hill, said he was pleased the appeal had been lodged. "Paramedics and ambulance workers are waiting for the courts to have their back and send a strong message of deterrence to the community that bashing and injuring an ambo is unacceptable," Mr Hill said.

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








18 September, 2019

Aboriginal activist lashes out at ABC coverage of her speaking tour

Former Liberal candidate and indigenous advocate Jacinta Price has lashed out at the ABC for its “racist, sexist and illiberal pile on” against her during her Mind The Gap speaking tour around Australia.

Ms Price said the ABC’s coverage of the event pointed to some “huge professional errors” that existed at the broadcaster because of a “particular bias”.

Ms Price planned to speak at an event in Coffs Harbour during her Mind The Gap speaking tour, prompting Coffs Harbour City Council and the local indigenous community to say she needed to gain “permission” to enter the Gumbaynggirr people’s land to speak.

She was later questioned for not acknowledging a welcome to country during her speech.

In its reports, the ABC said Ms Price had “cosied up with the right side of politics” and said she was “divisive” among the indigenous community. It did not interview her or seek a response from her.

“If I was from the left I would probably be seen as some sort of hero to some journalists at the ABC,” Ms Price said during a Sky interview with Chris Kenny on Monday night.

“Because I have my own opinions and they differ from other indigenous people, or the status quo if you like, I am treated quite horribly.”

The ABC later issued a statement to say it was “remiss in not offering Ms Price the opportunity to respond to criticism.

“The ABC’s report on the Jacinta Price talk in Coffs Harbour last week should have included an interview with Ms Price. The ABC requested permission to record her talk, which was declined,” an ABC spokesman said in a statement.

Ms Price said she had since experienced further backlash and “horrible language” towards her online.

“I believe it’s encouraging violence against women in the indigenous community because I’m being reached out to by many aboriginal people in this country who are fearful of speaking out and giving a different viewpoint because of the violence that exists within our communities.”

Ms Price said her own local ABC station in Alice Springs has previously broadcast her personal Facebook page, which led to multiple death threats on the social media platform.

“It was pretty much a dog whistle to any extremists,” Ms Price said.

“If you stand up people will attack you and malign you and try to undermine you and be threatening towards you and these examples are out there, they are loud and clear,” she said.

SOURCE  






Water storage at risk of falling behind population growth

There is no shortage of viable dam proposals but fanatical Greenie opposition derails most of them

The failure by governments of the largest states to build dams has placed water storage at risk of falling behind population growth.

An analysis revealed by Water Resources Minister David Littleproud has found that at current rates, water storage per person in NSW, Victoria and Queensland will fall by more than 30 per cent by 2030.

“The states have been responsible for urban water since federation and should be taking the lead,” Mr Littleproud said.  “They’re just not keeping up with their growing populations.”

On a tour of the drought-hit Stanthorpe region in his electorate of Maranoa in southern Queensland, Mr Littleproud also announced a committee had been established to help deliver drought resilience and preparedness programs to communities.

As reported by The Australian, the failure by the Coalition to push ahead water infrastructure projects it wants the states to build with the help of federal funding means that at the end of this term in government, it will not have seen a single major dam built or likely even started construction after nine years in office.

Only minor dam projects in Tasmania have been built on the Coalition’s watch. “Since 2003, of the 20 dams completed in Australia, 16 of them are in Tasmania,” Mr Littleproud said.

“If NSW, Queensland and Victoria don’t start building dams, their water storage capacity will fall by more than 30 per cent by 2030.”

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, who holds the water infrastructure portfolio, has created a new advisory body called the National Water Grid to coordinate funding for water infrastructure projects.

Mr Littleproud said while the federal government had offered $1.3 billion for new projects through the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund in 2015, it “still had to drag most states kicking and screaming to build new dams.”

Apart from the decline in availability of municipal water to many towns, the lack of rain in the Murray-Darling Basin, couple with the federal government’s buy-backs of water licences from irrigators and more demand from horticulture, has sent the price of water for agriculture skyrocketing on the spot market.

“Building dams will make sure we still have clean drinking water in regional towns and bring down the price of water to produce food,” Mr Littleproud said.

“This is not just about agriculture, it’s about water security and food prices in our towns and capital cities.”

Mr Littleproud announced the Future Drought Fund Consultative Committee, describing it as “an important milestone in taking action on drought.”

The committee will develop the Drought Resilience Funding Plan for the fund, which begins with a $3.9 billion credit that will grow to $5 billion, he said.

“The Future Drought Fund was established to give drought-prone Australians the best tools to plan and prepare for drought and sustain their livelihoods and communities,” Mr Littleproud said.

The Consultative Committee will seek input directly from drought-vulnerable communities for the Drought Resilience Funding Plan.

“This committee is made up of people with track records of success in agricultural economics, managing climate risk, rural and regional development and natural resource management,” Mr Littleproud said.

Mr Littleproud said the committee’s chairman would be Brent Finlay, and the committee members Kate Andrews, Wendy Craik, Elizabeth Peterson and Caroline Welsh who would begin their work in Canberra later this month.

SOURCE  







Police officer who punched a handcuffed man in the FACE as he was being arrested is cleared of any wrongdoing

Spitting in someone's face is both grievously insulting and a health hazard.  To take immediate action to prevent a recurrence is just good sense

A police officer who was captured punching a handcuffed man in the face while he was being arrested has been cleared of misconduct.

Senior Constable Ben Higgins was filmed hitting an offender after the man allegedly spat on him while he was being reprimanded in Morphett Vale, Adelaide in July.

The 22-year-old man was being arrested for disorderly behaviour and assaulting police, and was reportedly seen marking graffiti on a property.

With his head down and two female officers attending to his hands, it is alleged that the man spat at the senior constable - who retaliated with a punch.

The incident was filmed by the offender's cousin, who berated the officer, saying 'you're f**ked you dumb dog, you f**king pig.'

Constable Higgins' actions were investigated by South Australia Police, who released a statement on Friday clearing the officer of any wrongdoing.

'A review of the arresting police officer's actions in this matter was undertaken; and as a result, there will be no further action taken against that officer,' the statement said.

'As the original arrest proceedings are still before the courts – there is no further comment regarding this particular matter.'

South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens commended Constable Higgins actions in keeping himself safe in the line of duty.

'Police officers regularly confront dangerous and often violent situations and they take their obligation to protect the community seriously,' Commissioner Stevens said.

'My officers should not tolerate being assaulted and I expect them to take reasonable action to protect themselves so they can go home unharmed to their families.'

'I fully support the professional way they deal with those in the community who think it's OK to threaten or assault police.'

SOURCE  






Where has our resilience gone?

How Australians live has changed over time. Much of it is for the better. We are richer, more worldly, better travelled, more inclusive: the advancement of women, for starters, has transformed the way we live and work. But we seem to be lacking one important quality that was there in spades a generation ago: resilience. Last century, small communities across Australia were not only resilient, they were also mightily creative and cooperative.

I grew up in just such a community. Terang, 200km west of Melbourne, had just 2400 people in the 1960s. No one locked their cars in Terang. When we went to the beach for a week in January, we didn’t lock the house. You might think this was an extraordinarily trusting thing to do, but there was nothing of value in the house to steal.

On some weekends, my father and three of his mates would borrow a flat-tray truck from work and collect and cut firewood for their families. They pooled funds to buy a chainsaw to make the job easier. There was such joie de vivre about the excursion: packing lunches in a sugar bag; preparing flasks of tea; the unfailing cheeriness of the men; the celebratory beer at the end of the day as they laughed and joked – and smoked – around the kitchen table.

It seemed that the whole community was endlessly engaged in organising working bees, contributing to cake stalls, attending Mother’s Club meetings. Everyone had a place and a purpose. A neighbour did the flowers for Sunday mass. People met in church halls to play euchre. On Saturday nights, the “young ones” would attend dances in country halls.

In 1963, we were one of the first families in our clutch of Housing Commission houses to get a television set. A neighbour’s teenage daughter would come to our house to watch Bonanza on a Monday night. When the TV went “on the blink”, another neighbour who had trained in electronics back in England would arrive with a visor and soldering iron to fix it. Today we would call this “building stronger communities” but back then it was just something everyone did. You shared, you co-operated, you pooled expertise.

There was football, netball, swimming, cycling, cricket, tennis and golf as well as music, including a pipe band, a brass band, Caledonian and Irish dancing, an amateur theatrical society. I am surprised any work was done, such was the social and sporting vitality of the town. And I don’t recall anyone complaining about the lack of facilities. The mindset seemed to be to at least try to help yourself first through cooperative effort. It was like living in an Australian kibbutz.

The town had its stratification, of course. The Catholics and Protestants; the doctors, pharmacists, lawyers and business owners who lived on the hill, and those of us who lived on the flat. The district had its landed gentry, too. But there didn’t seem to be any enmity; everyone got on. The local co-op had a staff picnic, there was an agricultural show, Anzac Day parades and an Australia Day parade of floats down the main street.

A few generations later we seem to be struggling to build the self-reliance, the resilience we had in that post-war era. Our town was remote; we had to make do, to get along, to make our own fun, to find and share pooled knowledge. There’s a lot about this era, such as smoking, that is best left in the past but there are other things, like an esprit de corps, a community camaraderie, that remains truly inspiring. I wonder what older Australians of the 2060s will recall as being truly inspiring about our way of life today.

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 September, 2019

Albanese reveals climate change review

After being out of power since 2013 and losing an "unlosable" election, they have cause to change their policies

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has not ruled out scrapping Bill Shorten’s 45 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030, saying the party would now re-examine its promises on climate change.

Mr Albanese and his climate spokesman Mark Butler both shied away from recommitting to the target on Sunday, amid frontbench division on how ambitious Labor’s 2022 election policy on climate change should be.

“(The 45 per cent target) was a commitment that was given in 2015,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Sydney.

“We will examine our short and medium and long term commitments on where we go on climate change but we won’t re-examine our principles. We want to work towards zero emissions by the middle of this century.”

Mr Butler said any new emissions reduction target would still be higher than the Prime Minister’s Paris Agreement aim of 26 to 28 per cent.

“It’s clear 26-28 per cent is fundamentally inconsistent with the obligation to keep global warming way below 2 degrees.” Mr Butler told ABC News.

Asked if he was prepared to restate a commitment to Labor’s 45 per cent target, he would not be drawn.

“What I have said is all our policies are up for review exactly what medium-term targets, numerically are, whether it’s 2030 or 2035 given the passage of time is something we’ll engage over in the next couple of years.

“People can be assured it would be an medium term target utterly consistent with the best scientific advice about how we meet those commitments in the Paris Agreement and keep global warming well below 2 degrees and pursue efforts around 1.5.

“That is our generation’s responsibility to our children around our grandchildren and a responsibility or an obligation really that this government is simply shying away from.”

Former deputy leader Tanya Plibersek was the only Labor MP on Thursday to say she backed an “ambitious” target, following revelations­ in The Australian that the party’s 45 per cent target could be scrapped and a stronger focus given to its 2050 net zero pollution target.

The Greens and environmental groups slammed any weakening of the target, with Greens leader Richard Di Natale accusing Labor of “caving in to the coal, oil and gas lobby”.

Labor’s assistant Treasury and ­financial services spokesman ­Stephen Jones said the party would struggle to meet a 45 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 if Anthony Albanese won government at the next election.

Labor’s agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said the ALP should devise climate change polic­ies that would ensure Aust­ralia met its Paris obligations “without doing damage to our economy”.

The comments came as Mr Albanese criticised the government for failing to deal with the drought, after revelations swathes of NSW could run out of water in the next six months.

“The government needs to next week actually come up with a plan for the economy, they need to come up with a plan for the drought,” he said.

“We have a circumstance whereby Dubbo is due to run out of water by November, so the government needs to come up with a drought strategy.

“It’s about time they introduced legislation to deal with the challenges Australia faces rather than just ‘wedge-islation’ to just play politics.”

On Saturday, Nationals leader and Deputy PM Michael McCormack used the party’s federal council meeting to launch the National Water Grid Authority, a $100 million organisation to help secure Australia’s long-term water supplies.

It will bring together scientists and harness local knowledge to shape national water infrastructure policy and identify opportunities for new projects. “It’s has been too long since we built a major dam in this country,” Mr McCormack said.

“This government is establishing the National Water Grid to take out the state- based politics and insert the science with a national-based approach to water security for Australia’s future.” The government has committed to 21 water infrastructure projects with a total construction value of $2 billion.

SOURCE  






Lambie’s presence is a good thing

GRAHAM RICHARDSON

While I am certainly not an unabashed fan of Jacqui Lambie, her presence in the chamber is undoubtedly a good thing. She once pointed out that she was the only person in the entire parliament who had been on the dole. She had experienced just how tough it is to pay for rent, electricity, food and clothing while living on a pittance. Politicians talk endlessly about it when, like my good self, they have never scrimped and saved to buy their kids a Christmas present let alone three square meals every day.

Those at the bottom end of the scale need their champions to fight for them because few can do it themselves effectively. My father was a union secretary who represented mail sorters and postmen, the lowest paid workers of them all. He was adamant that I would be a someone later in my life and he drilled into me that the little people should never be forgotten when the economic cake was being cut into pieces. Both sides of politics share that view but try to achieve it in different ways. By and large our system works. We do have a safety net for those who drink, take drugs or suffer from mental or physical conditions that make working difficult or impossible.

While some have argued that society should simply abandon drug addicts and alcoholics, that can only serve to be stupid as well as cruel. An addict will go to any length to fulfil their desperate needs and if that means violence then for many of them, so be it. I am an avid supporter of injecting rooms where there is at least some scope to ensure that clean needles are being used. For those from whom addicts can expect no compassion, injecting rooms might seem a waste of money but if they can help keep a lid on runaway medical costs then a favour will be done for us all.

My first encounter with drug addiction occurred when I was not yet 20. A member of my local ALP branch opened up to me about living with his brother who was a full-on heroin addict. If belongings weren’t nailed down tightly, his brother would take it and pawn it. The daughter of a woman I knew was a hopeless addict drawn into prostitution. While Pretty Woman tales are rare, she met a German guy while performing her services for him and she was whisked off to Germany, married, had a couple of kids and lived happily ever after. I have also known some who have died ignominious lonely deaths in back alleys frequented only by the desperate and the vermin.

For all the talk about tough enforcement, drugs are easier to buy now than at any time in my life. When the profits are so massive, there will always be a customs or police officer who will look the other way for some consideration. Wouldn’t it be a better world if there were more police focusing on violent criminals than individuals using soft drugs? I am not, nor will I ever advocate using marijuana, because of its very serious side effects, but I wouldn’t occupy police time trying to win a war which was lost a long time ago.

SOURCE  






Muslim student slams ‘Islamophobic’ lecture content

There ARE millions of Muslim extremists.  They are murdering one another all the time.

A Melbourne TAFE student says she was shocked to see a “sickening” quote from a prominent anti-Islam activist suggesting up to 300 million Muslims are “radicals who want to destroy and murder” included in online lecture materials.

Tayeba Quddus, 26, told the ABC she was left feeling “disempowered” to discover the quote from Lebanese-born American conservative Brigitte Gabriel in a lecture slide for a unit at the Holmesglen Institute focused on “managing diversity in a culturally competent environment”.

The unit was part of the TAFE’s Certificate IV in Youth Work and Certificate IV in Alcohol and Other Drugs.

“Given what happened in Christchurch, and a huge movement we have of far-right extremism and political campaigns that seek to vilify most Muslims, within that climate it’s not very helpful to be discussing these things in a way that seems like it supports these ideas,” Ms Quddus told the ABC.

“This isn’t about free speech or trying to police what people are saying. I think it’s more a matter of the teacher publishing overtly fearmongering material online that has no evidence, and the fact that that’s completely inappropriate for (the lecturer) to have done.”

The slide, titled “Most Muslims are peaceful”, referred to a YouTube video of Ms Gabriel on a panel at The Heritage Foundation in 2017 where she was “asked a question that related to the peaceful Muslim majority”.

“And her response could not have been any more perfect,” the slide said. “It is true — not all Muslims are bad. Most are not. But the fact is 180 million to 300 million people are radicals who want to destroy and murder. You can’t ignore those numbers.”

Ms Quddus told the ABC she had already been disturbed by a classroom discussion earlier in the year where students shared false cliches about Muslims. She complained to her teachers but they initially left the material online.

She then took her complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. Shortly afterwards, Holmesglen Institute pulled down the material and apologised to Ms Quddus.

The TAFE, which has eight campuses across Melbourne, said in a statement the “inappropriate” content had been uploaded to the student portal but had not yet been delivered in lectures.

“We have called the complainant to acknowledge their concerns and issued an unreserved apology for the offence caused,” the statement said. “The teachers involved are being suspended until the investigation concludes.”

Holmesglen Institute says it is now conducting a “more thorough analysis of the context of the lesson itself within the unit is being carried out to ensure all content is appropriate”.

“While we greatly regret the offence caused to our student, we have taken steps to rectify that offence,” Holmesglen Institute chief executive Mary Faraone said.

“Furthermore, Holmesglen is using this incident as a catalyst to further review its professional development in diversity, cultural safety, and competency with the Institute’s educators.”

Ms Faraone added, “We welcome the opportunity to receive feedback, to assess it, and to act upon it in order to improve processes. This is an ongoing undertaking and we want to ensure that all students, staff and broader stakeholders of the Holmesglen community experience learning, in an inclusive way, and in a place that is committed to positive action.”

SOURCE  






Social media not the biggest threat

Attempts to control it could be even more destructive

Social media has been blamed for an epidemic of damaging misinformation that has poisoned political discourse. But the real threat to free speech and political debate comes from over-zealous and ill-advised regulation.

Mainstream opinion insists social media has damaged democracy by creating a polarised, toxic environment devoid of nuance and fact.

Concern is such that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has recommended digital platforms implement a code to counter disinformation, and a regulatory body (like the ACMA) oversee platforms’ “voluntary initiatives…to enable users to identify reliability, trustworthiness, and source of news content.”

Regulatory oversight into misinformation will likely create more problems, and compliance costs will restrict start-ups by creating a huge barrier for entry.

Having sources rated as ‘trustworthy’ has the potential to risk disadvantaging smaller, independent news outlets, as such a designation would presumably favour well-established outlets and brands.

Given Australia’s preoccupation with media concertation, this could, ironically, lead to less viewpoint diversity.

Not only will regulation most likely be ineffective, the ACCC’s concern is based on a problem which is overstated and misunderstood.

As expert in internet governance Professor Milton Mueller has argued, there is the perception social media is the cause of problems such as misinformation. Whereas, far more likely, these technologies have created a hyper-awareness of an already existent problem.

The concern about fake news is entwined with the idea that social media creates ‘filter-bubbles’ or ‘echo-chambers.’ That is, users retreat into online communities and only interact with people who share their views.

However, the extent to which this happens is unclear. Some researchers suggest online communities re-invigorate public debate by democratising communication, and exposing people to a variety of online communities.

‘Filter-bubbles’ are also not exclusive to the online world. People who consume a limited number of offline sources risk only receiving information which re-affirms their views.

Tech companies have issues they need to, and mostly are, addressing. But, the biggest threat to free speech and democracy comes from excessive and unnecessary regulation.

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 September, 2019

Union Wages Push Would Sabotage Economic Growth
         
“The economy and the community cannot afford the economic vandalism that the CFMMEU is pursuing in through its proposed pattern agreement in New South Wales,” Denita Wawn, CEO of Master Builders Australia said.

“It is highly irresponsible of the CFMMEU to propose an agreement that will threaten infrastructure investment, discourage business investment and choke productivity at a time when the economy is experiencing low economic growth,” she said.

“Wages in our industry are hardly low by community standards or stagnant but the proposed CFMMEU agreement in NSW is beyond a joke. For example they want to ban concrete pours after 11.00am while claiming a ‘productivity allowance’,” Denita Wawn said.

“This is just another example of the CFMMEU treating the community with contempt. This union already bullies and intimidates small businesses on a daily basis construction sites, its officials remain in their positions of power and privilege regardless of how many laws they break and now they are seeking to bring in an agreement that will undermine the economy. The community cannot afford the CFMMEU,” Denita Wawn said.

Via email.  For more information contact: Ben Carter, National Director, Media & Public Affairs, 0447 775 507







The Australian Human Rights Commission’s recommendations for discrimination law reform — which look like they wish to reverse the onus of proof — should concern everyone

In their pursuit to achieve a society devoid of discrimination, they risk undermining natural justice.

Discrimination laws exist to provide redress for victims of egregious acts of discrimination. Given the potential consequences (stress, loss of time and money) that both a plaintiff and accused endure, the process should be appropriately difficult.

However, according to a recent Australian Human Rights Commission discussion paper, the complaints handling process “…should operate in a manner that ensures the availability and accessibility of the process.”

Seemingly innocuous but — when taken in conjunction with their recommendations in the same discussion paper — it reads as if they want to make it easier for people to bring complaints.

The AHRC believes “Consideration should…be given to whether there should be any change to discrimination laws regarding the evidentiary onus of proof.”

Details on this point are scarce. However, previous attempts to alter Australia’s federal discrimination laws provide an insight into the potential make-up of such changes.

A clause proposed in the Gillard Government’s Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 was interpreted by many as reversing the onus of proof.

That is, once a prima facie case has been established — although Labor could not say definitively if it was a prima facie test — respondents would need to prove their conduct was not unlawfully discriminatory.

Under this model, those accused of discrimination would be required to prove their innocence. This unacceptable infringement on the presumption of innocence was thankfully avoided at the time.

The aim of discrimination law should not be to make it easier to make complaints.

Any suggestion that the evidentiary burden of proof needs amending should be immediately abandoned

SOURCE  





World class education needn’t cost the world

This year's educational testing isn’t cold yet, but we already have more evidence that we are doing it wrong when it comes to schooling.

For those who swallowed the Gonski hoax, an apparent lack of funding is the culprit for our educational malaise.

But the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance report released this week conclusively shows we spend considerably more per student than the OECD average — even after taking into account differences in costs and teacher wages between countries. Many nations that achieve better than us spend less than we do.

By any measure, there is no denying Australia is a big spender, despite having little to show for it.

However, there is one exception — we spend the least in the OECD on vocational education. This makes it all the more disappointing that COAG last month decided to kick the VET can to 2020, rather than get to work now on the fix. According to Australian data released last week, the number of students taking VET in schools decreased by 7% since 2014, and school-based apprenticeships have declined by 13%. Despite schooling being awash with cash, it would seem that VET is being left behind.

We are also spending more time in class than our OECD peers, but appear to have the wrong priorities. We spend relatively less time on reading, writing, literature, and science — while we are dedicating more time to technology. At secondary level, we also spend less time on mathematics. Little wonder Australian students have performed poorly in the international PISA tests covering reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy.

To right the ship, we might heed the OECD’s Education Director, Andreas Schleicher’s, advice on what makes school systems ‘world class’. He includes: spending money wisely (rather than spending more); setting and delivering high expectations; recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers; aligning incentives; school autonomy; and developing capable school leaders.

If we are to take an honest look at ourselves against these traits, we are tracking well off course from the world class trajectory.

However, Australia can — and arguably should — have a world class education system. High performing countries that spend considerably less than us have shown it doesn’t have to cost the world.

Yet, this goes against the grain of our discourse — which foolishly assumes that the level of funding is the benchmark for educational success. Shifting the mindset from inputs to outcomes is a place to start if we genuinely aspire to be world class.

SOURCE  






Hanson calls to overhaul child support system: Wants to help men

Senator Pauline Hanson has intensified calls to overhaul the child support system, claiming non-custodial [mostly men] parents are struggling to survive.

Senator Hanson called on the government to change the rules so child support owed by non-custodial parents would be based on a 38-hour week.

This would allow overtime payments and earnings from a second job to be quarantined.

Attorney-General Christian Porter has been sent the Senator’s terms of reference.

An inquiry into family law has been high on One Nation’s agenda since before the May federal election.

SOURCE  





Australian justice in the dock

by George Weigel

Consider this sequence of events, familiar to some but evidently not to others:

March 2013: Prior to any credible reports of misbehavior being made against Cardinal George Pell, police in Australia’s state of Victoria launch “Operation Tethering,” a sting aimed at the former archbishop of Melbourne (who by this time is prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the economy). “Tethering” includes newspaper ads seeking information on previously unreported, untoward goings-on at the Melbourne cathedral in the past.

Early 2017: The office of Public Prosecutions in Melbourne twice returns a brief to those who mounted “Operation Tethering,” criticizing the Victoria Police brief as inadequate for a prosecution.

June 2017: Charges of “historic sexual abuse” from 20 years prior are announced by the director of public prosecutions and Pell is ordered home. The cardinal vehemently denies any misconduct and, despite his Vatican diplomatic immunity, immediately returns to Australia to defend his honor and that of the Church.

May 2018:  At the “committal hearing,” a magistrate dismisses several charges against Pell but sends others to trial, saying that, whatever their arguable plausibility, they should be aired publicly in a criminal court. Meanwhile, a vicious, lynch-mob atmosphere continues to surround Cardinal Pell, in public and in much of the Australian media.

September 2018: At the trial, the prosecution presents no corroborating evidence that the alleged crimes ever took place; the prosecution’s case is the tale told by the complainant, who only appears on videotape. Numerous witnesses for the defense testify that the alleged acts of abuse could not have happened in a secured area of a busy cathedral immediately after Sunday Mass, with then-Archbishop Pell fully vested and surrounded by liturgical ministers, in the time frame alleged. After several days of deliberation, the trial judge tells the jury that he will accept an 11-1 verdict, if one juror is blocking unanimity. The jury then returns a hung verdict—10-2 for acquittal—the jury foreman weeping when announcing the jury’s inability to reach a legal conclusion; other jurors are also reported in tears. 

December 2018: At Cardinal Pell’s retrial, his defense team further demolishes the prosecution case, for which, again, no corroborating evidence is presented. The jury then returns a 12-0 verdict of guilty, shocking virtually everyone in attendance at the trial (and, according to some present, the trial judge).

March 2019: While sentencing the cardinal to six years in prison, the trial judge never indicates that he agrees with the second jury’s verdict, stating only that he is doing what the law requires under the circumstances. 

June 2019: At an appeal hearing before a three-member panel of the Victoria Supreme Court, the judges sharply criticize the flimsiness of the prosecution’s case.

August 21, 2019: The appellate panel rejects Cardinal Pell’s appeal by a 2-1 vote. The dissenting judge, Mark Weinberg, is Australia’s most prominent criminal-law jurist; the two judges rejecting the appeal have little or no criminal-law experience. Judge Weinberg’s 202-page dissent eviscerates his colleagues’ position, which raises the gravest questions as to whether “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” remains the standard necessary for conviction in Victoria—not least on a completely uncorroborated charge.

In the wake of last month’s incomprehensible and (as measured by Judge Weinberg’s dissent) dangerous rejection of Cardinal Pell’s appeal, Catholic voices were heard expressing (or demanding) respect for the justice system in Australia. Perhaps the Vatican press spokesman must say such things for diplomatic purposes, although the reason why diplomatic concerns trump truth and justice in the Holy See Press Office is unclear. But as this chronology indicates, there is no reason to respect a process that reeks of system failure at every point, from the dubious and perhaps corrupt police investigation through the committal hearing, the two trials, and the appeal. There are guilty parties here. But Cardinal George Pell is not one of them.

As this scandalous process approaches the High Court of Australia, friends of Australia, both Down Under and throughout the world, must send a simple message, repeatedly: George Pell is an innocent man who was falsely accused and has been unjustly convicted of crimes he did not commit. It is not George Pell who is in the dock, now, but the administration of justice in Australia. And the only way to restore justice is for Cardinal Pell to be vindicated by the highest court in the land.

Those who cannot bring themselves to say that, in Australia or elsewhere, necessarily share in the ignominy that Australian criminal justice has, thus far, brought upon itself.

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 September, 2019

Leftist historical revisionism again.  As Orwell predicted

A small news review in Far-Leftist e-ine "New Matilda" under the heading "CPAC & The High Court: Fighting For Australia’s Future" caught my eye.  Below is its introduction:

"As the basic freedoms of all Australians are whittled away, conservatives met to chant ‘send her back’. Stuart Rees reports.

Two events in early August cast a shadow over Australia’s supposed fair go, human rights respecting democracy. The American Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held a meeting to fight to ‘protect the future’; and the High Court ruled that the federal government may restrict the right of public servants to express political views, thereby upholding a decision to sack a public servant for anonymously criticizing her employer, the Department of Immigration.

Speakers at the CPAC meeting included Fox News commentators, gun-owning enthusiasts from the US National Rifle Association, former PM Tony Abbot, One Nation state politician Mark Latham and Britain’s Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. In Sydney in the wake of mass shooting in El Paso Texas and Dayton Ohio, the participants arrived following Trump rants about Congresswomen of the wrong colour going back to where they came from. Farage had been invited in the context of his support for English nationalism, racism and opposition to Europe.

Down With ‘Socialism’

Although advertised as fighting for Australia’s future, the conservatives’ future only emerged in comments concerning an agreed enemy, a mirage-like ghost called ‘socialism.’"

"I stopped reading at that point.  If the 20 million killed by Stalin in the Soviet Union and the 6 million killed by Hitler were a mirage, I don't know what real human beings look like.  Socialism is a dread malady of the human brain that seems to be forever lurking in the brains of a substantial number of the population.  It is no ghost. It is a dread enemy to be opposed at every step.

And Bill Shorten's range of proposed new taxes and regulations  was an unambiguous step towards it.  It was only the solid conservatism of my fellow-countrymen in North Queensland that blocked it.  In the recent Federal election, Shorten did not get one seat outside Queensland's Southeast corner. That was enough to sink him.  We sank Gough Whitlam in the same way. Shorten would have been a perfect Soviet apparatchik

SOURCE 





Indigenous TV host claims she was racially profiled by police while buying a bottle of wine in Australia's Outback.  But was she?

A reader writes: "I have noticed that police in Northern Australia are generally friendly and chatty with the public.

I expect that in conversation with the female police officer in the bottle shop, Ms Grant informed her that she is filming a documentary in some areas around Alice Springs in which the police officer knew to be areas where alcohol is banned.

And the police officer would know that Ms Grant is from Sydney and may be unfamiliar with alcohol banned areas around Alice Springs. So the police officer considerately reminded Ms Grant not to take alcohol into those areas as penalties apply... Just a police officer doing her job.

In calling it racist, I expect Ms Grant has taken it the wrong way, either knowingly as part of maintaining a sense of victimhood, or, as an innocent misunderstanding.

However, Ms Grant is a smart, educated and well informed news presenter and documentary maker, who, for a living, encourages others to feel victimised and outraged, so I would bet money that she is playing the victim and knows very well the police officer was just kindly doing her job. And if so, then that would make Ms Grant the racist"


An indigenous TV host claims she was racially profiled by a police officer while buying a bottle of wine in the Northern Territory.

Karla Grant, the host of SBS program Living Black, said she was targeted by a female police officer at a BWS Alice Springs who thought she was illegally buying alcohol to re-sell.

Grant told the Women In Media national conference on the Gold Coast on Friday that what followed was 'totally racist,' ABC reported.

'She focused in on me and said "have you got any ID? where are you staying?" I was so shocked and she didn't ask for my producer's ID, she just asked me, she really focused in on me,' Grant said.

'She said "you know there's penalties for this?" She was implying I was a grog runner, that I was getting alcohol to take to a restricted area,' Grant said.

Grant said the police officer continued to harass her, asking her where she was staying and why she was there.

The TV host said her producer was 'fuming' from the police officer's attitude.

'He was like "oh my God, this is so racist". I happened to run into a friend who was coming into the alcohol store as well and I told him what happened and … he said "it happens to us all the time".

Grant said that while racism in Alice Springs is on the decline, it's still an underlying problem within the community.

Northern Territory Police said they weren't 'aware' of the incident.

Grant said that when driving around Sydney and other big cities, she will detour to avoid police cars out of fear of being harassed.

She said being racially targeted by police is common concern for indigenous people.

SOURCE 





'Crazy political correctness': Teachers are ordered to meet bizarre 'praise targets' for good behaviour

Teachers are being ordered to reward a minimum number of students for good behaviour as part of a bizarre new 'praise quotas'.

Queensland Teachers' Union president Kevin Bates said teachers are being instructed to record positive behaviour reports on a state-wide database.

The OneSchool database records cases of injury, bullying or truancy in students, but schools are now urging teachers to record a minimum of 20 positive behaviour reports per week.

Mr Bates said schools want teachers to spend an equal amount of time rewarding positive behaviour as they do correcting bad behaviour, Courier Mail reported.

He said: 'The notion is you get better behaviour from rewarding children for good behaviour than constantly focusing on the negatives.'

Mr Bates claims the initiative, which is part of the state's 'positive behaviour for learning' policy, is a 'ridiculous expectation' for teachers.

As teachers already have a full-on workload throughout the school day, they may be expected to spend time at home catching up.

Child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg slammed the move as being 'political correctness gone crazy'.

Mr Carr-Gregg said rewarding children for 'good behaviour' that was otherwise considered normal would breed a generation of 'wusses'.

'It is a reward for behaving like a decent human being, and that is bizarre,' he said.

He also said that having to note down every time children do something right or wrong would put an unnecessary load on teachers who already struggle.

Mr Bates explained that teachers in Queensland have been directed to report even small incidents between children through OneSchool.

While he understands that bullying is a 'pervasive issue', he noted that 'one incident of someone behaving badly does not bullying make'.

SOURCE 






AEMO slashes output of five big solar farms by half due to voltage issues

The unstable output from them means their role has to be limited

The Australian Energy Market Operator has taken the dramatic move of slashing the allowable output from five solar farms in Victoria and NSW by half, because of issues over “system strength” that appear to have suddenly emerged.

The solar farms involved are Broken Hill in NSW, and the Karadoc, Wemen, Bannerton and Gannawarra solar farms in north west Victoria. The constraint limiting them to just half of their nominated capacity came into effect at 12pm on Friday

It is the latest in a series of blows to the solar industry, which has been afflicted by connection and commissioning delays, resulting in a blow out of costs and claims of damages to construction firms, as well as big changes to marginal loss factors, and the requirement for some to spend lots of money on synchronous condensers or other machinery.

To add to their woes, many solar farms in Queensland and South Australia have been forced to switch off during periods of negative pricing, either because they are required to do so under their off-take agreements, or because they are not willing to pay others to take their output over sustained periods.

Most of the solar farms affected by this latest ruling have been operating for some time – and in the case of the 53MW Broken Hill solar farm for four years. But it seems that the issue only emerged in a review just recently.

Some complained about the “blanket” approach to the constraints, but apparently it is difficult for AEMO to apply individual constraints in this instance. They wanted the issue resolved as soon as possible because of the potential revenue impacts. There is also concern about “contagion” into other regions.

The general market advice came in an oblique and typically coded market notice issued by AEMO just after 12pm. However, in a statement issued to stakeholders late Thursday, AEMO said it was working closely with a “number of solar farms” and network service providers to manage identified voltage fluctuations in north-west Victoria and NSW.

“Close analysis and management of this issue is required to ensure power system security across the associated parts of the Victorian and NSW 220kV electricity network,” it says.

“Until the fluctuations are resolved, AEMO will need to partially constrain the affected generators to manage power system security. AEMO has been working closely with all impacted generators, and anticipates an expedited remediation, reducing the impact and timeframe of required constraints.”

People involved say that the issue was raised in the last couple of weeks, and a solution is being worked on. But some expressed surprise the constraint was being imposed on solar installations that had been in operation for more than a year.

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 September, 2019

Education review ‘like a slow-moving train wreck’: academic

Leftist teachers want an easier ride and HATE being held accountable

The latest review of NAPLAN has been labelled as a “Trojan horse” for a push to undermine independent objective testing of Australian students, which could further erode academic standards.

Australian Catholic University research fellow, Kevin Donnelly, who also co-authored the most recent major review of the national curriculum, expressed concerns that the three states behind the review were being used by forces seeking to move away from standardised testing altogether.

“The review of NAPLAN, obviously by NSW, Victoria and Queensland, is a Trojan horse that will further standards and outcomes and ensure the continued underperformance of Australian students,” Dr Donnelly said. “It’s like watching a slow-moving train wreck.”

The three states have budgeted $1 million for the review after the Council of Australian Governments Education Council knocked back NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell’s request in June for a national review.

Ms Mitchell and Victoria’s Education Minister James Merlino have both insisted that they support standardised testing, but that NAPLAN was no longer fit for purpose.

“NAPLAN has been in place since 2008, and given the ever-changing nature of the education landscape, both nationally and within states and territories, it is important we assess and consider how we can use a diagnostic test to better support our students,” Ms Mitchell said.

Dr Donnelly said that the review had coincided with a push to develop a new model for schooling, which has been enabled by the latest Gonski education review, whereby students would no longer grouped in classes according to age and where assessment would focus on improvement rather than achievement against independent benchmarks.

He likened the model to running a 100m running race, where instead of awarding medals to those who finished first, second and third, the prize went to the runner who clocked a personal best, regardless of where they finished.

Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Blaise Joseph said there was nothing wrong with the states reviewing NAPLAN so long as it didn’t duplicate the work of five previous reviews.

“For example, the public reporting of NAPLAN results and the transition to online testing have already been reviewed. It would be a waste of time and money if the review goes down this path,” Mr Joseph said.

“NAPLAN isn’t perfect. But the transparency and accountability that NAPLAN provides are absolutely vital, so the focus must be on improving the tests, rather than scrapping them altogether. If the review does this, then it could actually add value.”

Mr Joseph said the review should focus on how to improve the quality of the tests.

“In particular, the NAPLAN national minimum standards appear to be set far too low, especially when compared to international test standards. And NAPLAN can definitely be better aligned with the Australian curriculum.

“But it’s really important that in the meantime states and territories continue to work on getting better results. Reviewing how literacy and numeracy are measured is no substitute for actually improving how literacy and numeracy are taught.”

Federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan called on the three states to “stop obsessing about the NAPLAN test and start obsession about the NAPLAN results”.

“Which would mean focusing on improving literacy and numeracy “.

Preliminary results from the 2019 NAPLAN tests, which were released in August, show average national student scores across most age groups and domains have barely budged since testing began more than a decade ago.

Of particular concern is that pockets of improvement observed in primary school — including Year 3 reading, spelling and grammar and Year 5 reading, spelling and numeracy — are not sustained in secondary school.

SOURCE 





Polite Persuasion is Wasted on the Shrieking Left

Like Jordan Peterson’s reputation, Lionel Shriver’s conservative credentials were burnished by leftist idiocy. In Peterson’s case it was his interview on the UK’s Channel 4 by Cathy Newman. In Shriver’s case it was Yassmin Abdel-Magied walking out of the Brisbane Writers’ Festival in 2016 in protest at Shriver’s views on identity politics and cultural appropriation.

Neither Peterson nor Shriver are my kind of conservatives and, to be fair, I am sure they would not claim to be or would want to be. That’s fine. What I would like to say is that conservative warriors are now needed more than ever. Much less useful are prominent notables on the conservative side who come over all reasonable in the face of those intent on our destruction.

Peterson lost his standing with me when he suggested that Brett Kavanagh should first win his confirmation to the Supreme Court but then immediately resign to clear his name. That was a ridiculous suggestion, to put it extremely mildly. Clearly Peterson has no idea about the enemy we face.

I caught Shriver on Q&A last week. True, I could only stand five minutes or so before turning it off. Any longer spent watching Q&A is injurious to my peace of mind. Nevertheless, I saw enough to sense that Shriver was trying hard to appear “reasonable” to other panellists and to the usual green-leftist ABC audience. Hint for Shriver: Prostration is pointless. They’ll always despise you. Look to, say, Michelle Malkin for a role model.

Did I get a false impression of Shriver’s demeanour? I think not. The following evening I attended the Bonython Lecture in Sydney, where she explained that her engagement, front and backstage, with other Q&A panellists was civil; and, furthermore, she made a point of extolling the need for civility generally in political debate.

I want to be clear. Come the witching hour I believe I will find myself on the same side of the barricades as Peterson and Shriver. After all, where else could we be? But I would like to think that we can avoid arriving at the witching hour. And we won’t if our side is populated by those falling over themselves to be civil.

Civility is paramount among people of sound mind and goodwill. Those of the new progressive Left don’t qualify. They need to be fought, not reasoned with. Reasoning with a poisonous serpent is useless. You have to chop its head off. And, being religiously minded, I choose the metaphor of a serpent advisedly.

Go to the US to see the progressive Left at its most transparent. It’s here in Australia, in the UK and in Europe in full-enough measure, but only in America has it the chutzpah to stand in the spotlight. Anyone who caught any of CNN’s seven-hour town-hall meeting on the “climate crisis” with the top ten Democrat presidential candidates would know what I mean. They have no shame.

They tell blatant lies, like Hurricane Dorian is a product of climate change, which are easily exposed. Yet they will simply go on repeating them. It is lying in the name of saving the planet. Taqiya for Gaia. The destruction of America’s economy, and, with it, Western civilisation, is collateral damage apparently. Or is that all part of the plan? It surely must be.

Run down the list (in no particular order and without attempting to be exhaustive): the ‘green new deal’, pulling down border security, providing free health insurance to illegal immigrants, publicly funding abortion up till the moment of birth, slashing military spending, funding more and more ‘free stuff’ through greatly increased taxation (and, no doubt, through untrammelled money printing as per leftist modern monetary theory[i]), persecuting those with the temerity to practice Christian beliefs, marginalising the traditional family, insidiously siding with Palestinians over Israel, and hiking minimum wages to add to the rampant unemployment which will follow, as night follows day, from the other ruinous environmental and economic policies.

Quite simply America as we know it would cease to exist. It would be crippled. America stands between Western civilisation and the Islamic and the Chinese-communist barbarians. We would fall as other civilisations have fallen. At some point the Islamists and Chinese would turn on each other. But, by that time, we would be vassal states watching the big boys duke it out. I will go back to my start.

I am generally polite and civil, even after a few drinks. But I ask this question. How civil is it proper to be to those who espouse policies which, if ever enacted, would put our grandchildren’s lives at risk?

SOURCE 






‘Anti-semitism’ driving far-Leftist challenge to treasurer

NSW Senator Andrew Bragg has attacked the “disgraceful challenge” against Josh Frydenberg’s eligibility to sit in parliament and said it was underpinned by “anti-semitism”.

Speaking in the Senate this afternoon under parliamentary privilege, Senator Bragg described the Section 44 legal challenge against the Treasurer as “illegitimate” and driven by “people who have an obsession with the Holocaust”.

Senator Bragg said Michael Staindl, who has launched a High Court challenge testing Mr Frydenberg’s re-election, failed Kooyong candidate Oliver Yates and lawyer Trevor Poulton — who has written a book called The Holocaust Denier — should “be ashamed of themselves for their appalling behaviour”.

“They are band together in the shadows to try and unseat the son of a Holocaust survivor,” Senator Bragg told parliament. “They are pretending that they are not working together when they clearly are. The basis for this challenge is anti-semitism.”

Senator Bragg, who said he studied genocide at university, also warned of a “rising tide of anti-semitism in Australia”.  “I believe anti-semitism is a rising problem in NSW and across Australia. Anti-semitic incidents have increased by 60 per cent in the past year. There has been extraordinarily large increases on email threats, telephone based threats, and vandalism,” he said.

Senator Bragg accused Mr Staindl, Mr Poulton and Mr Yates of being involved with an “outrageous attempt” to challenge Mr Frydenberg’s citizenship. “His mother Erica Straus fled the Holocaust and arrived in Australia from Hungary in 1950.”

Senator Bragg, who referenced the case of Jewish Liberal MP Julian Leeser who has been subject to “anti-semitic behaviour”, said Mr Yates — who claimed only 8.98 per cent of the Kooyong vote at the May 18 election — was “involved in this outrage”.

“We are proud of Jewish Australians. They have risen to the highest offices in the land. We are proud of Josh Frydenberg, he is a great Australian, and a great friend who is well regarded across this parliament. The Liberals will always call out racism.

“I call on our education sector to keep teaching the truth about the Holocaust. We cannot afford to forget. What begins with the Jews never ends with the Jews. I call on all Australia’s community and political leaders to never walk past anti-semitism or racism in any form. “Racism is a sickness of the heart and the mind, it should never be tolerated.”

SOURCE 





Riverland grape grower feels squeeze of the water traders

But there's plenty of water to send straight out to sea for "environmental" reasons

Third-generation farmer Peter Barry has raised citrus and grapes in South Australia’s Riverland all his life, and the decision he made last week broke his heart.

He turned off irrigation water to 10 of the 100ha he farms with his wife, Mary, near Loxton, being patches of vines that produce ­cabernet sauvignon, gordo and chardonnay.

“They’ll die,” Mr Barry said, his voice quavering. “It’s quite an emotional thing because we are at the end of our tether.”

Mr Barry said he had spent $500,000 replanting in recent years, but there was just no way he could make a profit off those vines with irrigation water prices where they are, at $800 a megalitre on the spot market, compared with a long-term average of about $135 a megalitre.

“I spend $10,000 to water a section of chardonnay, and that chardonnay returns me $8000 or $9000,” he said. “I would not get a return on those patches.”

Mr Barry has some entitlements to what is known as high-security water, but needs to buy much more on the tradeable secondary market to keep his horticulture going.

Drought, the federal government buybacks of water from irrigators and large plantings of permanent crops such as almonds have all reduced the amount of tradeable water in the Murray-Darling system, and pushed up prices. Like many farmers, Mr Barry thinks there’s more than that going on, something sinister perpetrated by water investors who don’t own land and don’t grow a radish, but play the market, hoard water and, he says, push up prices.

“It’s shocking,” Mr Barry said. “People are owning this water and are just using it to make money, while we won’t make a cent.  “We are at the beck and call of investment companies.”

With water prices as they are, many cotton farmers are just not putting in a crop, and some are selling their water to other farmers such as Mr Barry who have permanent crops that may die if not watered.

“He just leaves his tractor in the shed and earns a million ­dollars selling water to me,” Mr Barry said of such a cotton-grower scenario.

More tough decisions face Mr Barry.

He said he might soon have to also “turn off” young citrus trees he planted only a couple of years ago that are too young to produce fruit because he can’t afford to water anything that doesn’t produce an immediate return.

He may also have to put the two full-time employees who have worked for him for 30 years on to part-time work.

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 September, 2019

Immigration hurting our young people

Australia's rate of home ownership among young people has plummeted dramatically between generations, an official report has revealed.

Baby boomers enjoyed higher rates of home ownership when they were in their twenties compared with youths today, an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare analysis of official data showed.

BABY BOOMERS: Those born between 1947 and 1951 had a 54 per cent home ownership rate in 1976, when they were aged between 25 and 29. Now mainly in retirement, they had an 82 per cent home ownership rate in 2016.

GENERATION Y: Those born between 1987 and 1991 had a 37 per cent home ownership rate in 2016, when they were in their late twenties. In four decades, that has plunged dramatically to just 37 per cent for those aged 25 to 29.

Home ownership rates have also fallen for Australians in their thirties. In 1971 almost two-thirds, or 64 per cent, of those aged 30 to 34 owned their own  home. This plunged to 50 per cent in 2016.

High levels of immigration in recent decades have been blamed for fuelling steep house price increases

'Most immigrants move to major cities, leading to an increase in demand for housing in these areas,' the AIHW report said.  'Population increases in Australia are driving demand for housing, other services and infrastructure. 'Overseas migration has contributed to increased housing demand.'

As Australia's population has increased, so have median house and apartment prices compared to average-income levels.

In 2016 and 2017 more than two-thirds or 67 per cent of Australia's population increase was centred on Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Baby boomers have been the big beneficiaries of that, with their rate of home ownership to 82 per cent by 2016, for those aged 65 to 69.

'Home ownership rates have also decreased among people nearing retirement,' it said.

This has been the case, especially since 1996, with home ownership rates among those aged 50 to 54 falling from 80 per cent to 74 per cent, with older Generation X Australians born in the 1960s among those struggling to now afford a home.

A Sydney house, with a median price of $877,220, is now 10 times an average, full-time salary of $85,000.

A prospective borrower needs to be earning $156,000 to pay off such a loan without being in mortgage stress, where a third or home of their pay goes towards repayments.

In the late 1980s, an equivalent suburban home in Australia's biggest city would have cost five times an average, full-time salary.

In May, Australia's net annual immigration rate stood at 294,430 - or a level more than four times the 20th century average of 70,000.

SOURCE 







Cheap US energy leads Australian company to OK mill expansion in Ohio, not Australia

US energy prices just one-third of those in Australia, along with a robust manufacturing sector stoked by President Donald Trump's policies, have prompted a $1 billion expansion of an Ohio steel mill by BlueScope.

BlueScope chief executive Mr Vassella said the $1 billion expansion of the North Star mill, to be fully up and running by 2023, was the largest capital investment the steelmaker would likely ever make, and would deliver annual returns of 15 per cent-plus.

He said the company had intimate knowledge of the mill because it helped build it in the first place in the mid-1990s in a joint venture with North American group Cargill, and had moved to full ownership in 2015.

Mr Vassella lamented the state of Australian manufacturing as the sector battled high energy prices and said one of the main drivers of the North Star expansion, which will increase capacity by 40 per cent, was that energy costs in the United States were substantially lower.

"That's a tragedy quite frankly for Australian manufacturing,'' Mr Vassella said.

BlueScope also operates the Port Kembla steelworks in New South Wales, which underwent major cost-cutting and restructuring in 2015. Mr Vassella said he worried a lot about manufacturers in Australia who were BlueScope's customers and were facing ''demand destruction'' because their energy costs were too high.

Mr Vassella is also making a bet on the economic policies of Mr Trump,  which had been a positive for domestic US industry. North Star's main customers are in the automotive and construction industries and 95 per cent of them are within a 350km radius of the North Star mill. "The mood in the US is pretty good,'' Mr Vassella said.

He emphasised there had been a year of detailed planning and number-crunching prior to the board giving the go-ahead for the expansion. "We're not frivolous with this sort of money,'' Mr Vassella said.

"This is a 30-year investment. What I'd say about North Star is that we built this asset. We know the business really well. I think it allows us to feel very confident about the return profile.''

Mr Vassella also promised shareholders that BlueScope wouldn't end up as one of the big Australian companies which make a mess of major investments overseas.

Wesfarmers squandered billions on a flawed expansion into the United Kingdom hardware market in a big bet, rather than the steady incremental growth which BlueScope had been pursuing.

The expansion green light on Monday came as BlueScope produced a full-year net profit of $1.02 billion and a continuation of a share buyback of up to $250 million.

SOURCE 






What costs taxpayers about $1.1 billion dollars a year, employs 4,500 people, is governed by a legislated charter and a truckload of rules, worries about climate change, dresses to the green Left and is concerned about your orgasms?

Yes indeed, it’s your ABC — so lie back and think of your national broadcaster.

Let’s have a look at ABC Life, what Aunty calls a “new digital storytelling project created to reach new audiences in an innovative and engaging way”.

It provides advice on food, money, travel, style, family, work, well-being, sex and relationships.

Some attention came its way last year when former Junkee political editor and former Greens candidate Osman Faruqi was appointed Life’s deputy editor, just when the ABC was cutting 20 jobs elsewhere, apparently to be “fully fit for the modern media environment”.

So what does this “modern media environment” look like, you ask?

This month we saw: “From Aladdin to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is it OK to keep watching problematic old films?”

And: “How do we reconcile the fact that our child or teenage self didn’t pick up on blatant sexism, racism or homophobia?”

What fun these ABC Life people must be, judging every old movie or song on a current wokeness indicator.

Last month, ABC Life told us it was “time to close the masturbation gap”. Yes, you heard correctly, the public broadcaster has finally got me to say ABC and masturbation in the same sentence.

Apparently, Life tells us, only one in every four women is masturbating regularly, and our national broadcaster has hang-ups about that. “Blame the patriarchy … and religion”, it wanks on.

Also last month, this story was produced: “Why we get earworms and how to shake them off”. Helpfully, the author explained: “Although not literally worms, the process of having a song stuck in your head affects most of the population.”

And here I was thinking they were like tapeworms, only louder.

Just a month earlier Life got into fantasies, and no, they weren’t referring to ABC election predictions. “Faking orgasms could be contributing to the orgasm gap” was the alarming spin.  “Men, this is where you can help by being open to honest feedback,” we were told.

Well, we’re here to help, I think, but all that’s a big step up from the gender pay gap.

We’ve also had: “I fell in love with my hairdresser” which makes this site look like a trashy supermarket magazine.

And this week they asked the tough questions about urinating.  “You’re racing out the front door, when you stop and ask yourself: ‘Should I go to the toilet now, so I don’t have to worry about it later?’ Do you head back inside to the loo? Or keep walking?”

I can assure you, this is what they published. This is your tax dollars at work.

They have even given us the incredible health news that if you don’t drink you don’t have hangovers and that makes being a morning person a lot easier. Now that’s sobering information, isn’t it?

We asked the ABC what specific part of their Charter these articles are intended to meet, what the site cost and how many people it employed.

They said their Charter demands a mix of programs and content of wide appeal and specialised interest.

They didn’t give us anything on staffing or budgets but claimed the overwhelming majority of their audience is satisfied with the content and believes it fits with the ABC.

But why are taxpayers dollars spent on generating more of the dross that is available everywhere else, online, anytime, for free?  Isn’t the ABC supposed to use our money to improve the quality of information available, to provide something we would not otherwise have?

This looks for all the world like the ABC playing with itself at our expense.

SOURCE 





Controversial cashless welfare card is set for a national roll-out as key senator Jacqui Lambie announces she backs the plan

Welfare recipients are in the Morrison government's sights as federal parliament resumes for the first time after a long winter break.

The coalition wants to expand cashless welfare card trials across the country and has the backing of key Senate crossbencher Jacqui Lambie.

'I've always been a big supporter of the cashless welfare cards - I've seen the result that has had,' Senator Lambie told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

'I will say this, though, get those algorithms right because quite frankly it's taking you way too long, get it moving.'

Cashless welfare cards, which quarantine 80 per cent of payments so they can only be spent on essentials, are currently in use across four trial sites in South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland.

Deputy opposition leader Richard Marles confirmed Labor remained opposed to a nationwide rollout of cashless welfare cards. 'It's for the government to actually explain the basis on which it sees a benefit in this being rolled out,' he told the ABC. 'The auditor-general has been scathing about the effectiveness of this where it has been tried. The evidence that the government cites is really skinny.'

However, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is confident the cards are working. 'It's actually cut back on domestic violence, people on drugs, people who are actually on alcohol. Kids are going to school, so it has worked in areas,' she said.

Senator Lambie will also support legislation to drug test welfare recipients, but only if federal politicians are also screened for illicit substances. 'If you've got nothing to hide up there in that big white house, then it's now your turn to go and do those random drug and alcohol testing,' she said.

'What's wrong with you people, what, might miss a few wines after 8 o'clock of a night time, will we? That'll keep the backbenchers in line.'

Nationals backbencher Barnaby Joyce has no qualms about MPs being drug tested. 'I don't think it's right that someone should be passing laws to stop people sticking crap up their nose and then doing it themselves,' he told the Seven Network. 'I've got absolutely no problems whatsoever with drug-testing of politicians.'

Mr Marles is also happy to be drug tested but does not want the disadvantaged to be persecuted under the policy. 'I think there is an indignity in what is being proposed here,' the deputy opposition leader said.

'We're for anything which stops people taking drugs, and anything which gets people into work, but we've got to see what the evidence for this particular proposition is. 'It's a real problem if we're seeing the most vulnerable in our society being persecuted.'

The two-year drug testing trial would be rolled out in three locations - Logan in Queensland, Canterbury-Bankstown in NSW and Mandurah in WA.

 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







11 September, 2019

Where the Pell Judgment Went Fatally Wrong

A short introduction to a long article below.  One cannot read the whole article without concluding that two of the appeal judges were biased agaist Pell

John Finnis

Anyone tempted to believe George Pell did what he was convicted of doing should read first the majority judgment of the Court of Appeal majority (“Judgment”), next the fuller transcript of the complainant’s allegations that is given in paras. 415-55  of the dissenting judgment (“Dissent”), and then the Wikipedia account (with numerous links) of Operation Midland.

If you take this short tour, you will see the Judgment fall apart under your eyes.  The Judgment’s sequencing (Falsity, Improbability, Impossibility) reverses the rational order of treatment.  Its handling of Archbishop Pell’s alibi defence concludes abruptly in para. 143 by placing the onus of proof exactly where the law quoted in para. 142 says it cannot be: on the defence.  Its construction of a five or six minute window of opportunity for the Archbishop to commit singularly vile offences against two thirteen-year-old boys, in the Priests’ Sacristy, has a similar incoherence thinly veiled behind an “of course” and an evasive “taking the evidence as a whole”.

A brief account of those three ways the 352-paragraph Judgment goes wrong will indicate how the jury’s one-word verdicts could be as wrong as one should conclude they were.

Of course, there is another secure route to that conclusion: read the Dissent.  It brings to light many other reasons to reject the complainant’s allegations.  But it is long and winding.  Here, then, is one shorter route.

John Finnis AC QC is professor emeritus at Oxford University, having been Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy from 1989 to 2010.

SOURCE 






Most back kicking out asylum-seekers who aren’t refugees

Most Australians believe that asylum-seekers deemed not to be genuine refugees should be deported regardless of other considerations.

A Newspoll survey conducted last week showed 64 per cent of voters believe asylum-seekers who are considered by the courts to not be refugees should be deported, with 24 per cent saying they should be allowed to settle in Australia.

Following publicity last week surrounding the case of a Sri Lankan Tamil family facing deportation, the Newspoll survey showed 56 per cent of Labor voters supported deportation of asylum-seekers found to not be refugees, with 31 per cent saying they should be allowed to stay in Australia.

The poll, based on 1000 interviews with voters across the nation from September 5-7, reveals stronger support for deportation in the 35-years-plus age groups, with more men than women agreeing asylum-seekers ineligible for refugee status should not be allowed to stay.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese last week led a push to allow Nadesalingam “Nades” Murugappan and Kokilapathmapriya “Priya” Nadarasa to stay in the country.

The couple, who settled in Biloela on bridging visas and whose daughters, Kopika and Tharunicaa, were born in Australia, arrived from Sri Lanka on boats in 2012 and 2013. The High Court dismissed their bids for appeal after being deemed to not be refugees. Their eldest daughter, Kopika, was also considered to not be a refugee. The family, who lived in the central Queensland town for more than three years, have been moved to Christmas Island awaiting the outcome of a legal case for Tharunicaa. The final legal bid will return to the Federal Court on September 18. That case is centred on whether the youngest daughter is eligible for protection.

According to Newspoll, there is a split in the sentiment of younger Australians aged 18-34, with 50 per cent agreeing that asylum-seekers deemed to not be refugees should be deported, and 40 per cent declaring they should remain in the country. Overall, 12 per cent of voters remain uncommitted on the issue of how the government should respond to asylum-seekers who are regarded as non-refugees by the courts.

Among Coalition voters, 73 per cent supported deportation and 16 per cent opposed it. Moderate Liberal MP Russell Broadbent said on Monday the Tamil family shouldn’t be treated differently to other similar asylum-seeker cases and urged against intervention.

On Sunday, Labor frontbencher Tony Burke, a former immigration minister, said he had “exercised ministerial discretion”. “You don’t only exercise ministerial discretion for issues of compassion, you also exercise ministerial discretion for issues of national interest,” he said.

Labor came under fire last week over its intervention in the case, with the government accusing it of opening the door to other failed asylum cases.

SOURCE 






Uni’s transgender ‘censor bid stifling free speech’

A Deakin University student club says it has been censored over ­ social­ media posts criticising gender­ ideology and a new Victorian­ law that makes it easier for trans­gender people to alter their birth certificates.

Members of the Deakin University Liberal Club have accused the university’s student association of curtailing free speech after it requested they delete Facebook posts deemed to be a breach of its social media policy.

One of the posts, from the Liberal­ club’s Geelong branch last month, referred to the Victorian government passing of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment Bill as failing to “stack up with scientific fact”.

The post included a quote from George Orwell’s 1984 and linked to a news report in The Age.

Another allegedly offending post contained a short video titled “There Are Only Two Genders” by US author Ashley McGuire, which challenges gender ideology and the increasingly popular push for self-identified gender to supersede biological sex.

The club opted to remove the posts after being threatened with disciplinary action.

However, the Deakin University Liberal Club at the Burwood campus has declined to delete an August 31 post in which it wrote about meeting Liberal MPs at Victoria­’s Parliament House.

“Fantastic conversations were had particularly about the dis­as­trous births, deaths and marriages registration bill, allowing people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate on a 12-month basis simply through self-selection,” the post said.

While the new law and its potenti­al consequences have been the subject of widespread public debate, the club was contacted by the Deakin University Student Association on Tuesday advising that the post had sparked complaints and requesting its removal.

“The post has been deemed in breach of DUSA’s social media policy,” wrote DUSA clubs support­ officer Sophie Elizabeth.

While no specific reason was provided, Ms Elizabeth referred to a clause within the policy that states “examples of unacceptable social media conduct include posting commentary, content or images that are defamatory, porno­graphic, proprietary, harass­ing … or that can create a hostile environment”.

Deakin University Liberal Club Burwood president Luke Dalle Nogare described the ­association’s censorship bid as “frivolous and arrogant”.

“There aren’t many conservative views on campus, so it’s ­important for us to be strong and represent those voices,” he said.

“Sure it’s a somewhat contentious issue but we’re not making any extremist views in any sense.”

Liberal senator James Paterson described the student association’s actions as an “outrageous attempt at censorship”.

“Topical public policy issues on which good people can disagree surely must be free for university students to debate on campus and on social media,” he said.

SOURCE 







From changing Australia's constitution to boycotting the national anthem: How rugby league has been hijacked by social do-gooders pushing political causes that have nothing to do with the game - and why fans are furious

Rugby league football was once a straight-forward game which sprang from humble roots to provide entertainment for legions of largely working class supporters.

But in the past couple of years its governing body has alienated many of those loyal fans as it pushes itself into political debates which have nothing to do with the sport.

The NRL has campaigned for same-sex marriage, called for recognition of Aborigines in the Constitution and backed indigenous players who do not want to sing the national anthem.

Critics say instead of attending to grassroots needs like promoting bush rugby league, the NRL is spending too much time, energy and money forcing their left-wing views onto others.

Former federal Labor leader and rugby league follower Mark Latham reckons the NRL should stick to running a football competition and stay out of divisive social issues.

Mr Latham said the game's fans were not consulted before the NRL chose to publicly support any of these causes.

'I just think it's a disaster for the fans,' Mr Latham told Daily Mail Australia. 'Where's all that come from? No one goes to the footy for any of these things. 'In fact, people go to the footy to get away from arguments about religion and politics and virtue signalling. They go to watch sport.'

Mr Latham has also asked how the NRL can stand down players yet to be found guilty of criminal offences then ban Israel Folau from returning to the code for quoting the Bible.

Few within rugby league will openly criticise the NRL's obsession with taking on social issues unrelated to football.

Former Knights five-eighth turned commentator Matthew Johns won't even let loose his footy dinosaur alter-ego Reg Reagan any more.

In these times of heightened sensitivity and political correctness Johns has retired the character who famously wanted to 'Bring back the biff'.

While the NRL is happy to publicly hitch itself to controversial causes it would not respond to criticism it was unduly politicising sport.

The NSW One Nation leader has aimed much of his criticism of the game's political posturing at Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) chairman and former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie.

'It used to be footy and now it's a sub-branch for the Labor Party and the Greens under Peter Beattie,' Mr Latham said. 'He should stay right out of the politics.

'They've campaigned for same sex marriage - that's got nothing to do with footy. 'They're campaigning for the Uluru statement - that's got nothing to do with footy.

'Peter Beattie's lost perspective. He still thinks he's premier of Queensland.'

Broadcaster Alan Jones, who coached Balmain and was manager of football operations at Souths after guiding the Wallabies for four years, agreed.

'Who's he speaking for?' Jones recently asked about Mr Beattie. 'What mandate does he have to even speak on it?'

Mr Beattie has said: 'Any game has to have tolerance of the different points of view, and rugby league has demonstrated that with what we did with our grand final in 2017.' 'We're about being inclusive and tolerant, and we believe in that strongly. That's the future of any game.'

But there was no tolerating of Israel Folau

Israel Folau, who played rugby league for Australia before his conversion to union, was banned from returning to the NRL after posting a Bible quote on social media stating unrepentant homosexuals would go to hell.

Mr Latham compared the NRL's treatment of Folau with the fate of players who do stupid things while intoxicated or commit criminal offences. 'The bloke who quotes the Bible is banned,' he said.

'Players can have all sorts of drug scandals and sex with dogs - simulated sex with dogs - all of these sorts of scandals and be a State of Origin hero a couple of years later.'

SOURCE 







Fear and loathing left at the door for Lionel Shriver’s ‘love story’

She rejects identity politics

Nobody walked out. That was the happiest thing about the talk by Lionel Shriver, hosted by independent bookshop Bookoccino in beachside Avalon, north of Sydney, last Sunday.

The room was bright, the seats comfortable, and Shriver no doubt made points with which some people disagreed, but that was fine. Nobody got all bristly and huffy. Nobody walked out.

Shriver was asked, of course, about cultural appropriation, identity politics, all that, but she was also asked about love.

Here’s some of what she said about the former (we’ll get to the latter, don’t worry).

“According to this way of thinking,” Shriver said, “my identity is being white. And, you know, that just doesn’t do anything for me. And if I were to go around saying: well, you know, the most important thing about myself is that I’m white, what would you think? I hope you’d think rather ill of me. And I feel that way about all the other races: I do not believe race, or gender, or sexual proclivity is an identity of any sort.

“And that’s why it’s been interesting to watch the lesbian and gay movement over the past several decades really mature because there was a period when, as a liberation movement, it was just getting started, and it seemed very clear that being gay was enough. It was an identity for a lot of people who are gay. That’s what they were, they were gay. And in its maturity, you don’t see that any more.

“Gay or lesbian people themselves, you know, they’re interested in individual people. They want to be with individual people who have interests other than being gay. And that’s my idea of identity — it’s something that is constantly evolving. It is a lifelong project. And it encompasses everything about you. It may have elements of what you were born into, and you didn’t have any choice about, but that’s just to start.

“I mean, for example, yes, I was born female. But that doesn’t do anything for me. I make a kind of crap girl. I live with it! But I’m not that interested in feminist causes. I guess I still call myself a feminist. I mean, what’s the alternative? But I don’t believe that the self necessarily has gender, and I hope you know what I mean. That the real core of you, your sense of self, I don’t think it has a gender. I don’t think it has a race.

“To me, identity means that sense of yourself in a room by yourself, and then those things that you accumulate along the way: what you care about; what you don’t, which can be just as important; whom you love. And that, to me, that’s identity. And that’s interesting.

“Character is interesting. And the way we change, and refine ourselves or sometimes slip backwards, that’s just fascinating. So I resist the whole notion that what defines us are these groups we were born members of. I find that a grim, flat, ugly way of looking at the world.”

The crowd seemed to like all that. There was a good smattering of applause. And it’s all the more interesting because you know she’s a Democrat, right? She said so, meaning you can’t put her in that box that says: conservative. Cold right wing. She’s a Democrat who loathes the current President — “Trump is immoral,” she said, “and he’s an idiot. I really mean that: his IQ is medically low” — so there can be no dismissing her as being of a particular tribe. People are complex! I think that was her point.

Anyway, Shriver was also asked about the genesis of her “sliding doors” book — The Post-Birthday World — and she answered rather frankly.

It came from life.

To her great surprise, Shriver many years ago found herself in a relationship and at the same time falling in love with somebody else. She couldn’t decide what to do. She didn’t want to hurt the first man — he was a good man — but she was falling hard for the second.

“But this is a very commonplace experience, being with somebody, and you think you’re going to be with them forever, and then you get hit broadside, you know?” she said.

“And it’s like, I didn’t ask for this. And this is supposed to be wonderful, and it’s terrible at the same time. And it was natural for me to do what we all do, and start figuring out what my future would be like, with each of these men. We do that with a lot of things, like with a job offer. And falling in love is in some ways a job offer! And that’s why I chose that structure.”

The book’s first chapter ends with the possibility of a kiss (a really good and most welcome kiss) and the protagonist has a choice: if she kisses this guy, she’ll end up with him; if she doesn’t, she’ll end up with the other guy, and either way, you can find out how life proceeds by reading on.

“It’s a playful book, but it’s also a very serious book,” Shriver said. “It’s really about the most classic topic in fiction, which is love.”

And do you know what then happened, not in the chapters that followed, but on the night? That book became her bestseller. Because of course it did! Because if there’s one landscape we’ve all traversed, it’s that of the broken heart; and if there’s one language we all share, it’s surely that of love.

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 September, 2019

Primary school teacher sparks outrage after telling students the "Stolen Generations" were taken from their families because of poor parenting

Once again, the truth is "racist" and enough to lose you your job.  In this case a confection by Leftist historians is preferred to the facts.

There is absolutely no mention below of any actual events with Aboriginal children, just mention of some past laws. There is no mention of what lay behind the laws nor is there any mention of how they were carried out. There is no mention that, as today, Aboriginal parenting is often both abusive and neglectful towards children and that children were removed from their orginal homes by probably Leftist social workers to give them safer homes with white families.

There was no stolen "generation", just occasional rescues of mistreated children on a case by case basis -- under normal social work procedures


A primary school ethics teacher has sparked outrage after telling students the Stolen Generations were taken from their families due to bad parenting.

The volunteer teacher was discussing homelessness with a year-six class at Dulwich Hill Public School, in New South Wales, when the conversation turned to the mistreatment of Australia's indigenous people.

Stolen Generations refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who were forcibly removed by the government as children from their families between the early 1900s up until the 1970s.

The volunteer, believed to be in his 70s, allegedly told the young students what they had been told was false, and the real reason the children were removed was lazy parenting.

The volunteer teacher was stood down from his position after four pupils complained. A spokeswoman for the organisation that runs the program said complaints involved stereotyping and the ethics teacher is alleged to have voiced racist opinions.

Kathryn Albany, the mother of one of the students, said she was proud of the students for arguing back.

'I'd always seen ethics as quite a good alternative to scripture,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald. 'But it's almost part of the problem because it's the same issue - these people are unregulated. Imagine if a teacher had responded like that? I would expect them to have pretty serious disciplinary action.'

Special Education in Ethics is offered as a secular alternative to special religious education.

A spokeswoman for the New South Wales Department of Education said the comments were unacceptable and the volunteer teacher has been replaced. An investigation into the incidents is ongoing.

What are the Stolen Generations:

The Stolen Generations refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who were forcibly removed by the government as children from their families between the early 1900s up until the 1970s.

The first Aboriginal Act was passed in Western Australia in 1905, and the Chief Protector became the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and 'half-caste' child under the age of 16.

Similar laws were soon passed in other states and territories, including the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act in 1909, and in 1911 the South Australia Aborigines Act and the Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance.

From the time the first act was passed until 1970, between one in ten and one in three Indigenous children were removed from their families or communities.

In 1937 a Commonwealth/State 'native welfare' conference made assimilation the national policy.

'The destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in ultimate absorption ... with a view to their taking their place in the white community on an equal footing with the whites,' the policy stated.

By 1967 a referendum was held to amend the Australian constitution, establishing laws for Aboriginal people who were also included in the census for the first time.

Two years later, all states had repealed legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children for 'protection'.

In 1975 parliament introduced the Racial Discrimination Act, making discrimination based on race unlawful regardless of state or territory legislation.

Eight years later the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle is established, ensuring indigenous children are placed with indigenous families when adoption is necessary.

On February 13, 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a public apology to the Stolen Generations.

SOURCE  







Immigration IS causing soaring house prices says Australia's top banker - and he also blames poor investment in transport for the property bubble

The banker in charge of setting interest rates has conceded high immigration is a significant factor in pushing up house prices in Australia. Homes in Sydney and Melbourne continue to be particularly unaffordable, despite two years of plunging prices.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe said there was a link between expensive property prices and high immigration levels.

'If you ask any first-year economics student, what's going to happen to housing prices - we all want to live in fantastic locations by the coast, each person have a large block of land, and under-invest in transport, and allow fast population growth, please explain? I think you're going to get high housing prices,' he told the Good Weekend magazine.

A record 848,570 people moved to Australia in the year to May, marking a 5.7 per cent annual increase.

After departures were factored in, Australia's net annual immigration rate stood at 294,430 - or a level more than four times the 20th century average of 70,000.

This figure included permanent arrivals, skilled migrants and international students who study in Australia for several years.

Sydney's median house price of $877,220 is more than 10 times an average full-time salary of $85,000.

To afford a typical suburban house in the city's west, a borrower needs to earn $156,000 a year to avoid falling into mortgage stress, or be paying more than 27 per cent of their take-home pay on repayments.

In Melbourne, the median house price stands at $716,542, which would require a borrower to be earning $127,385 to service a loan.

Dr Lowe made the link too between high house prices and a lack of investment in big transport infrastructure projects. 'Infrastructure investment is actually the best housing policy,' he said.  There's very little we can do to increase the supply of well-located land but there's one thing you can do - build great public transport.'

Dr Lowe, who lives at Randwick in Sydney's south-east, argued building better transport links would make  suburban and regional areas attractive to buyers, spreading demand more evenly across cities and the country, and thereby moderating prices.

The Reserve Bank boss argued record-low interest rates weren't enough to boost the economy, after the cash rate was cut in June and July to a record-low of one per cent.

Dr Lowe and several economists have called on the federal government to boost spending on transport infrastructure in a bid to turbocharge economic activity.

Australia's gross domestic product grew by 1.4 per cent in the year to June, marking the weakest pace in a decade, and was further declining on a per capita basis.

After the global financial crisis of 2009, it was the weakest economic growth since 2000.

State governments are already doing their bit, with New South Wales spending more than $12billion on the second stage of the Sydney Metro, which from 2024 will connect Chatswood on the city's lower north shore with Bankstown in the south-west.

It will also include a second tunnel under Sydney Harbour.

SOURCE 







Haters target Australia's favourite horse race

Must not speak well of the Melbourne cup

A former Miss Universe Australia has been heavily criticised for her new role as ambassador for the Melbourne Cup Carnival, with cruel trolls calling her involvement in the horse racing industry 'disgusting'.

Tegan Martin shared her exciting news on Sunday, posting a photo of herself dressed in a designer outfit by Australian brand Torannce.

'The Carnival has always been a favourite time of year for me and with only 55 days to go it's going to be an amazing season! Big thanks to Flemington for this incredible opportunity,' she wrote on Instagram.

The 27-year-old Sydneysider, who was 'thrilled' by the appointment, couldn't have foreseen the hate comments her single post would generate.

'Such an awful industry that use horses as business commodities,' one person commented.

'Educate yourself about the "sport" you're being an ambassador for. This race and all horse racing is disgusting. So many horses are murdered and abused and here you are all proud thinking this is oh so glamorous - it isn't,' said another.

'This horror show is my least favourite day of the year! I can't help but think if these "celebrities" just stopped being ambassadors and throwing their support behind it - it may just lose its appeal entirely,' a third added.

Many of the comments took aim at Tegan for not 'understanding' what the horse racing industry does to its champions

The Melbourne Cup Carnival begins on November 2 and runs until November 9 with Derby Day, the Melbourne Cup and Oaks Day included.

In her role Tegan will be expected to attend all of the major day events dressed in designer wear.

SOURCE 






GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below

Power pricing overhaul ‘should reward coal’

Coal-fired power plants face being pushed out of Australia's power grid earlier than forecast by negative daytime spot prices, sparking a call fora redesign of the national electricity market to prevent blackouts and ensure security of supply.

The Australian Energy Market Operator said dramatic spot price falls into negative territory this week, driven by cheap solar and wind, underlined the need to reset the market. It wants to introduce a new price mechanism reflecting the important reliability role provided by power stations, which are currently struggling to receive any value for their generation when they are undercut by renewables that can produce at close to zero cost

"We really do need to start thinking about putting in markets for firming," AEMO chief executive Audrey Zibelman said on the sidelines of a CEDA event. 'What we've been seeing in the last week is the fact that energy itself, because of renewables, can be at zero or even less than zero. "Unless we get the markets right — and we continue to see the emergence of rooftop solar as well as variable renewable energy — we'll see even earlier coal retirements than anticipated because the economics of plants won't be viable.

"What I would hate to see happen is that the plants actually re-tire earlier than we anticipate and suddenly we're not ready."

Zero and negative pricing in electricity spot markets is becoming more common and reflects a profound shift in the grid with growing solar and wind supply. The spot price of wholesale electricity traded at zero in every eastern Australian state at the  same time in July. Since then prolonged periods of negative prices at minus $1000 per megawatt hour have now spread from being relatively common in renewables-reliant South Australia to emerging as a new feature in Queensland's market this week, due to a solar surge and transmission constraints.

That has highlighted a conundrum for dispatchable generators. "These power plants, as we've been seeing the last few days when you've had negative pricing, that wasn't because the cost of en-ergy was negative or zero, it was because we weren't paying for reliability, the firming capacity, the way we should," Ms Zibelman said.

"We need to start recognising that resources that provide that important dispatchability need to be paid for differently than resources that are just providing energy."

Coal stations like EnergyAustralia's Yallourn unit in Victoria's Latrobe Valley are already operating under a cloud, with the state's high renewable targets and cuts to emissions threatening to force the plant to close earlier than its 2032 target.

The threat of losing baseload or dispatchable power earlier than forecast could lead to load shedding or even blackouts, given the tight market at periods of peak demand. Separate markets for firming generation and a similar system to Germany's reserve power market could help with the clan energy transition. If the market design works, power prices should ultimately fall to reflect the new zero cost trend for solar and wind.

"I think you would need multiple markets to really get the value for the type of resources we want," Ms Zibelman said. "The idea now is not one generator is able to provide everything, which is what we had with traditional fossil fuels. But it's understanding the portfolio so traditional units are paid for the value they supply

SOURCE 

State refusing to let coal mine expand

State government delays in approval for expansion of the New Acland Coal Mine will likely see'it close within 18 months, costing 300 jobs, writes Michael Madliati

The decision (or, more to the point, the absence of a decision) by the State Government on the mining licence required for the expansion of the New Acland Coal Mine this week has left Andy and 300 other co-workers in limbo.

A lot of these people working in this "thin seam" coalmine operating for more than a century, and featuring thin ribbons of coal threaded through the earth as little as one metre high, don't have too many options. Many are specialised in this area of work, and there are not a lot of coal mines in the south-east to migrate to.

They can't just go off to another mine, as workers might in Queensland's Bowen Basin where massive thick seam operations which can tower over 60m are common, and hundreds of workers required.

Mine manager Dave O'Dwyer had the unenviable role of telling a large portion of them who started at the 6am shift Monday that 300 out of  the mine's 300 jobs had to be cut by October.

 O'Dwyer, who in recent months believed he had good reason to think the planned mine expansion was on track for approval, was clearly shaken. "I was really looking forward to getting up in front of them and talking about how our future was bright and prosperous and we would just move forward," he said.

Instead, he was greeted with a sea of blank faces as he told of the cuts, and workers began going through the mental arithmetic of how to celebrate Christmas minus a pay cheque. "As you look around the room there is just deadly silence," O'Dwyer said.

The expansion was expected to be given the green light by midnight Saturday and was the fulfilment of a process which began before the first ever iPhone came out. New Hope began jumping through the hoops to expand the mine in 2007 and has altered the application several times

Objectors have taken them to the Land Cnort, won, then to a New Hope (owners of the mine) appeal, when a Judicial Review ruled against the objectors's case and found the mining lease should be granted

Meanwhile objectors went back and appealed New Hope's successful appeal of the first decision, and the government won't the mining lease and associated water licence until that decision is finalised.

The State Govemment can, quite legally, green light the mining company's expansion and let it sort out its legal problems down the track while also bearing 'associated costs. But it won't, and that reluctance to get behind the expansion of a proven mining project utterly baffles O'Dwyer.

If Federal Labor had won the May federal election, New Hope might at least have been able to tailor their expectations and ambitions to a new 'anti coal' electoral mood. But Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk moved swiftly to change the mood in the State after the election which, in Queensland, was dearly fought over the Adani Mine proposal in Central Queensland.

The Premier jetted off to Mackay just days after the election and announced she would direct the Co-ordinator-' General to sit down with the Environment Department and Adani to get thing moving. Labor then put the resources industry front and centre at its State Conference last month

The Courier-Mail: 2019-09-07

Tonnes of reusable garbage sit in huge warehouse destined for landfill

Recycling finally revealed as a hoax.  Glass, steel and aluminium are recyclable but the rest is a nonsense

Thousands of tonnes of reusable waste could be soon dumped in landfill despite having been recycled correctly by residents more than two years ago.

Almost 10,000 tonnes of reusable garbage has been sitting in a Victorian warehouse since 2016 - and the company tasked with helping to process it, SKM Recycling, has gone under.

And that figure is only from one of five huge warehouses in Laverton, Victoria, piled  with unprocessed plastics, papers and cardboard.

Carly Whitington, a landlord at one of the warehouses, told A Current Affair if the issue wasn't addressed soon, the waste would end up in landfill.

As it stands Australia only reuses 12 per cent of its recycled rubbish, which puts it on par with South East Asian countries but far behind European nations.

Tasman Logistics Services director Craig Morris said China making moves to reduce the level of Australia's waste it takes was a huge factor in the crisis.

'Once China started making noises about reducing the amount of waste they were going to take, I think alarm bells should have been going off at high levels at that point,' he said.

The owners of the warehouses said they were in limbo on how to tackle the problem until they received guidance from the council or the state government.

Victorian Minister for the Environment, Lily D'Ambrosio, released a statement regarding the possibility of the recycled waste going to landfill. 'Sending recyclable material to landfill is always a last resort, but in some instances it may be a safer option than allowing materials to be stockpiled,' she said. 'Community safety must come first.'

SKM Recycling was tasked with processing the waste, but the company went out of business in August. However the Victorian State Government loaned $10 million to SKM's receivers KordaMentha to 'help clean up the stockpiles on SKM sites'.

'Clearing these waste stockpiles is the first step in making these sites safe and getting them up and running again,' Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio told The Age.

'Sending material to landfill is always a last resort and that’s why we want to see processing begin when it is safe to do so.'

SKM group manager Bryan Webster said the $10million loan had to be used to clear as much of the plastics as they could - and it would all be going to landfill.

SOURCE 

Australia's green energy target won't be increased - but the country is set to hit goal of nearly a quarter of electricity coming from renewable sources

Australia's renewable energy target of less than one-quarter of all electricity generation won't be increased, the minister responsible has declared.

Australia is on track to achieve next year's target due to four large wind and solar power projects recently given the green light.

Under the target, 33,000 gigawatt-hours - or 23.5 per cent - of Australia's electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020.

The target was slashed in 2015 under the Abbott government from 41,000 gigawatt hours, with the support of Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who says it was too high.

'Those targets won't be increased, and the reason is very simple, it's because the economics of this is working fine now,' he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

Mr Taylor says the boost in renewable energy has created a new challenge for the electricity system, fearing summer blackouts if there's not enough baseload power.

He says expanding the Snowy Hydro scheme, developing a second interconnector between Tasmania and the mainland, and the Apple Isle's 'Battery of the Nation' vision are all high priorities.

'These are crucial investments to get the balance in the system, that is the key now.'

Mr Taylor admits there is 'no question' the cost of energy from wind and solar are low, arguing this proves there's no longer a need for a renewable energy target.

The Morrison government is yet to announce what projects will receive taxpayer support through its underwriting of investments in power generation.

A shortlist of 12 projects was announced ahead of the federal election in May, which the coalition was expected to lose.

Mr Taylor says some projects will cost billions of dollars, and a final announcement has not been made, as he wants to ensure taxpayer money is well spent.

Labor went to the federal election with a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, which is now being reviewed.

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 September, 2019

Coral death knell on Great Barrier reef 'exaggerated'

The Greenie crooks photographed the few bad bits of coral and ignored large undamaged areas nearby.  And note this is about a close-in reef, which the Greenies squeal loudest about

The death of inshore corals near Bowen had been greatly exaggerated, according to the findings of a rebel quality assurance survey by reef-science outsiders Peter Ridd and Jennifer Marohasy.

The shallow reef flats of Stone Island have played a key role in divisions over the health of the inshore Great Barrier Reef and the impact of run-off from agriculture.

Dr Ridd was disciplined for attempting to blow the whistle on the widespread use of before and after pictures, taken a century apart, near Stone Island that suggested coral cover had disappeared.

A follow-up paper by Queensland University reef scientist Tara Clark, co-authored by Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chief scientist David Wachenfeld, confirmed the coral loss.

Despite winning his unfair dismissal case against JCU and being yesterday awarded more than $1.2m by the Federal Court, D. Ridd has effectively dismissed as a crank. by the other scientists.

An expert panel last month accused him of spreading scientific misinformation like tobacco lobbyists and anti-vaccination campaigners.

But Dr Ridd and Dr Marohasy have spent the past two weeks documenting the corals around Stone Island, which they found were still very much alive. The in-the-water quality assurance snapshot of onshore corals near Bowen and the Whitsundays has been partly funded by the Institute of Public Affairs.

The hundreds of hours of aerial and aquatic footage will be archived and some of this made into a documentary. Dr Marohasy and Dr Ridd repeated the transects used in the Clark research which found there had been a serious deline in reef health from historical photographs in the late 19th century to the present.

Dr Marohasy said if the transects used in the Clark analysis had been extended by 30m to the south of Stone Island they would have found a different story.. "I saw and photographed large pink plate coral on August 25 — some more than lm in diameter — at the reef edge, where Tara Clark and colleagues ended their transect as published in Nature," Dr Marohasy said. Several hundred metres away, across the headland, in the northern-facing bay, was an area of 100 per cent coral cover stretching over 25ha.

Dr Ridd said the finding of the survey was that there was "good coral all over the place" around Stone Island. "What we saw was not consistent with the proposition that the inshore reefs have been destroyed by farm run-off," Dr Ridd said.

He said the findings were at odds to those of Dr Clark and her team. The survey results follow a report by GBRMPA last week that downgraded the long-term outlook for the reef from poor-to very poor with particular concern about run-off in onshore reef areas.

Dr Ridd said there were "lots of people around Bowen who get very angry when people say all their coral is wiped out". "How would people in Sydney feel if everybody was saying that the water in Sydney Harbour has turned brown from pollution, the bridge was rusting scrap and the Opera House was crumbling ruin," he said.

Dr Wachenfeid said it was always great to see evidence of healthy coral in inshore areas. "The body of published science tells us most of our inshore reefs are extensively degraded," he said. 'When we find healthy patches that's good news."

Dr Wachenfeld said a paper published in 2016 contained infor-mation about coral around Stone Island and nearby Middle Reef.

SOURCE 







James Cook University should have paid a higher penalty for Peter Ridd’s dismissal

There is one aspect of Peter Ridd’s financial victory over James Cook University that looks questionable: the university should have been ordered to pay much more.

Most of Ridd’s payout is for lost wages, superannuation and future earnings that will no longer be possible because of the unlawful conduct of the university.

The university was always going to be required to put Ridd back in the position that would have existed before he fell victim of the university’s misconduct.

So while that component comes to just over $1 million, it is intended to repair the damage that the university inflicted without lawful cause. It has itself to blame.

The real problem is the relatively paltry penalty of just $125,000 - which is barely enough to cause a blip in the university’s accounts.

Those at the university who were responsible for this episode will be able to shrug off this penalty and continue on their misguided way, oblivious to the damage they have inflicted on the reputation of their own institution.

This university has conducted itself as if workplace decency and the law of the land simply did not apply. It attempted to stifle debate in an area where freedom to pursue inconvenient ideas - the cornerstone of the scientific method - demanded a different course.

Imposing a penalty of just $125,000 might not be enough to persuade James Cook University to abandon such conduct and embrace the need for forthright debate - particularly when that debate points to problems inside the university.

The abuse of Ridd’s workplace rights and the decision to ignore the true basis of the scientific method should have attracted a much larger penalty. The law-breakers at James Cook University got off lightly.

SOURCE 






Gender-bred lessons for kids

Teens taught biology not tied to sexual identity

NATASHA BITA

TEENS are being taught their gender is not tied to their biological sex, in a controversial "Genderbread Person" lecture funded by taxpayers. Queensland Health is sending a sexual health doctor to some Brisbane high schools to "expand the idea of sexuality beyond the narrow focus of sex and genitals".

The teen sex talk, the "Genderbread Person", is based on a concept by self-described "social justice comedian" Sam Killermann, who has declared that  boys who identify as male are "privileged". Genderbread.org states that "gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual orientation exist independent of one another". It says gender identity can be anywhere on a scale from "woman-ness" to "man-ness" and includes terms such as "two-spirit", "genderqueer', "amender", "bigender", "third-gender" and "transgender".

"If someone is born with male reproductive organs and genitalia, he is very likely to be raised as a boy, identify as a man, and express himself masculinely," the website states. "We call this identity "cis-gender" — when your biological sex aligns with how you identify and it grants a lot of privilege."

The lecture is presented by Queensland Health's Metro North co-ordinator of sexual health, HIV and hepatitis, Dr Joseph Debattista. In his note to schools, Dr Debattista says he will "pres-ent the concept of the Gender-bread Person as a model for understanding sexuality".

"Firstly, it will be important to expand the idea of sexuality beyond the narrow focus of `sex and genitals', and view it as the innate ability of all humans to share themselves and communicate who they are with others," he states. "To understand ourselves as individuals, we will be looking at the four layers of sexuality as presented in the Gender-bread Model: biological sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender expression, and exploring the nature and diversity of each layer."

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said two or three schools each year asked for the gender lesson, which "is not part of the Genderbread program". "It's important for young people to learn about sexual health and safe sexual behav-iour," she said. "Young people who identify as LGBTI+ are more likely to attempt suicide. "This education aims to promote understanding and respect for the dignity of all people."

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said the Gender-bread program was banned in NSW schools three years ago. "Suicide prevention and awareness is important, but this discredited politically correct propaganda is not the answer," she said.

 An Education Department spokesman said school principals could request the gender lectures, and parents and students could opt out.

The Sunday Mail (Queensland) - 2019-09-08






Tax deal sees Tasmania’s federal housing debt wiped

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann is prepared to listen to other state governments after Tasmania secured a deal with the Morrison government to waive $157 million in housing debt it owed to the commonwealth.

“If other state governments around Australia want to approach us with a view of reaching an overall agreement in relation to these matters that are important to them, we are, of course, open to discussing these matters with them,” Senator Cormann told the ABC on Sunday.

Tasmania will be able to provide up to 80 extra public housing units a year under a long-promised deal with the Morrison government to wipe its federal housing debt.

The deal, promised in July in return for independent Senator Jacqui Lambie’s support for the Coalition’s tax cuts, includes a requirement the funds freed up are spent on entirely on public and low-cost housing.

Senator Cormann said the Tasmanian state government also lobbied the federal government on the issue. “So on a bilateral basis between the federal government and the Tasmanian Government, we’ve been working through this issue over the last eight weeks or so,” he said.

The debt forgiveness, which will save the island state $230.2 million in total interest and principal repayments to 2041-42, acknowledged Tasmania’s unique housing problem, caused by rising property values and a swift loss of rental properties to short-stay tourism rentals.

It also delivers on a promise made to secure Senator Lambie’s vote for tax cuts and while long expected is a significant win for the outspoken independent.

“Waiving this loan will support the Tasmanian government’s efforts to reduce homelessness, increase access to social housing and improve housing supply across the state,” said federal Housing Minister Michael Sukkar, who will reveal details of the deal later on Sunday.

State Housing Minister Roger Jaensch hailed the agreement. “Wiping the debt will save up to $15m annually over coming years in debt and interest payments, which will be used instead to build more social housing for Tasmanians in need,” he said. “We estimate this could mean around 80 more houses for people on the social housing waiting list across Tasmania, each year.”

Housing and welfare agencies welcomed finalisation of the agreement, which was opposed by Tasmanian Liberal Senator Eric Abetz, who expressed concern it would lead other states to demand a similar deal.

Colony 47 chief executive Danny Sutton said his organisation wanted to see how the extra funds would assist young Tasmanians, who made up nearly a third of its social housing register.

“This is a great start, but the challenges confronting many Tasmanians are significant and we need to continue to find ways to help those in need,” Mr Sutton said.

SOURCE 






Fury over plans to make Perth 'less Christmassy' to appeal to non-Christians

When people choose to migrate to Australia, the onus should surely be on them to adapt to Australia rather than vice versa

A proposal to water down Christmas festivities has been met with strong backlash.

The City of Perth's Cultural Development Plan promises to deliver a Christmas season that is 'representative and inclusive of city's multicultural community'.

Residents have taken to social media to express their outrage over the idea, with many claiming the council is going too far.

'This is just madness in my opinion. I'd love a Christmas as Christmassy as it can get,' one man wrote. 'PC gone mad,' wrote another.

'Absolutely what a great idea the world needs less joy throughout the year we have too much good news, community spirit love and happiness,' another wrote.

Chief Commissioner Andrew Hammond said the council's current holiday-season celebrations did not acknowledge or create a sense of belonging for non-Christians.

'We're not about to change Christmas celebrations. We're just taking a common sense approach that about 50 per cent of people are Christians and about 50 per cent are not,' he told 9news.

'While Christianity is an important part of Perth's cultural identity (46 per cent of Greater Perth demographic), the City of Perth's current holiday-season celebrations, which include a nativity scene at Council House, do not fully acknowledge or create a sense of belonging for the remaining 54 per cent, including 32 per cent who have no religion at all,' the plan states.  Why does that matter?  Christmas is optional. You are not forced to adopt it.  Many do anyway

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 September, 2019

Inside the remote Aboriginal community so dangerous that health workers need a POLICE ESCORT just to enter the town and shop owners fear for their lives amid theft and vandalism spree

When I was living in Cairns during my teens, Yarrabah was just across the water on the other side of Trinity Bay.  So we heard a lot about Yarrabah then.  I have also driven through it once a few years ago.  It was never a paradise but it was not remotely as lawless as it now is reported to be.

Why the change?  I think it is of a piece with morality and ethics worldwide.  The old Christian standards have largely been lost and the Leftist gospel that "There is no such thing as right and wrong" is widely preached.  At Yarrabah we see that gospel in extreme practice.  The unfortunate Aborigines tend to accept what the do-gooders tell them


The remote Aboriginal community of Yarrabah has been deemed so dangerous that health workers require a police escort when they enter the town and supermarket workers are in fear for their lives.

Youths in Yarrabah, east of Cairns, have attacked ambulances with rocks and fishing sinkers - and medics fear they will be set upon again.

Locals blame the violence on boredom arising from unemployment, and acknowledged that it made the area 'a miserable place to live'.

Footage of recent attacks showed gangs of children, some as young as six, brawling with each other on the street.

Paramedics Richard Murgha and Lavin Keyes Jnr were discouraged by the violence. The medics told Yarrabah News: 'We want to look after our community and people within the community to the best of our ability, and when these sort of things happen it's very disheartening.'

A long-term resident, that wished to remain anonymous, told the Cairns Post  the town had become 'a miserable place to live' since the fighting had escalated recently.

She said: 'Kids are fighting and instead of sorting it out, the adults are jumping in and getting involved.  'It's been going on for the three months with these families — they bring in extended family from out of town and it's just snowballing. 'All these kids are just sitting on the side of the road waiting for the next fight.'

Yarrabah supermarket owner Jason Lee, 35, who opened his business in the community five years ago, witnesses violence regularly.

'The vast majority are unemployed so they don't have a lot to do, so all it takes is for a kid to say something stupid [to another] and they brawl,'  Mr Lee told Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Lee has been assaulted on numerous occasions and his business had been broken into regularly, with 16 incidents between mid October and December 2018.

He said his attackers were mostly children, and some were as young as four or five.

The soon-to-be father said: 'They [children] know that they are untouchable and parents don't care.

'Kids will generally get banned from shops for theft or violence. They get upset and come back and throw things at the shop. Then their parents come and get aggressive because their children have been banned.'

The shopkeeper has also been attacked with a nine kilogram gas bottle on multiple occasions, had things thrown at him, and been beaten by metal poles.

He said the youths usually break into his shop through the roof and thrash the shop while stealing whatever they can.  Food items are left splattered across the shop floor and his ATM has been destroyed.

His car has also been smashed when parked outside the shop many times, with the most recent incident five months ago.

Queensland Police said officers had to escort workers into town to keep the medics safe. 'This is short-term measure being undertaken to increase safety and ensure the vital hospital operation continues without incident,' a police spokesman said.

'The small number of people, numbering two or four, involved in these incidents are usually motivated by family relationships or disputes and an attending crowd of supporters/onlookers not directly involved in the fighting.

'Police investigations are continuing, but four juveniles aged from nine to 14 are being dealt with in accordance with the Youth Justice Act and the support of their parents.'

Just last month Gurriny Yealamucka Health Service Aboriginal Corporation warned locals via Facebook that organisations would stop sending workers into the town.

'We are asking you to please talk to children about pelting rocks at cars and explain to them about how dangerous it is for the people in the cars, and that they can get into serious trouble with the police and also that some of the health services could be stopped,' the post read.

Yarrabah community and its leaders do not shy away from admitting they have problems, Mayor Ross Andrews says. 'We acknowledge there are challenges around dysfunction and we're honest with ourselves – we know we have a problem,' he said. 'There are only a handful of kids causing these problems but we do not shy away from these issues.

'We could put more dollars into the community to try to solve the problem, but that's not going to make parents accountable for their kids.

'How can we stop this cycle where we are trying to educate and occupy kids to stop them from ending up in a perpetual welfare trap – a job their parents should be doing, even though they are often stuck in the same trap themselves.

'As a Council, and with the Yarrabah Leaders' Forum, we are looking for legislative backing to make parents responsible, we need a collaborative solution between all levels of government, we can't fix this on our own.'

SOURCE 






Fresh plan to drug test dole recipients and cancel their payments if they return positive - two years after the idea was shut down by the Greens and Labor

There is no way the taxpayer should be supporting someone's drug habit

A plan to drug test unemployed people receiving Centrelink benefits will be revived, two years after the same idea was shut down by the Greens and Labor.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will introduce the controversial idea to parliament next week, and will ask cross bench Senators to support his plan to introduce three trial site across Australia.

The failed 2017 proposal would have tested for ice, ecstasy and marijuana - but Mr Morrison now wants to add cocaine and heroin to the list.

If the plan gets the green light, trials are expected to run in Canterbury-Bankstown in Sydney's south west, Logan in south-east Queensland and Mandurah, south of Perth.

The two-year trial would test 5,000 people who apply for Newstart and Youth allowance for the first time.

While the proposal in 2017 received a positive response from voters, opposition from Labor and the Greens saw it get canned.

The government is expected to need the support of four of the six cross benchers to pass the bill.

If recipients tested positive to drugs, it would affect their payments for up to two years.

They will also be ordered to undergo a secondary drug test within 25 working days of the first positive result.

If the second test is also a positive, the recipient would then be sent to see a medical professional in order to seek treatment.

Up to $10 million would be set aside to support job seekers who test positive to drug tests more than once.

Depending on the type of test a person is selected for, it will either take place at a local Centrelink centre or a nearby facility.

Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said those who used their money to take drugs are hindering their chances to get a job.

'This trial will assess the use of drug testing as a means of identifying job seekers with substance abuse issues that may be preventing them from finding a job, and support them to address these barriers,' Ms Ruston said.

Ms Ruston said she hopes the trial will be about 'identifying people who need help' rather than punishing them for the drug use.

'Taxpayers expect the government to ensure their money is being spent responsibly and that welfare recipients are using it to put food on the table, send the kids to schools and pay the bills,' she said.

SOURCE 






Jackie Trad escapes probe, future still in the balance

Annastacia Palaszczuk to remove her deputy from infrastructure project; her chief of staff is to quit.  Trad is of Lebanese Muslim ancestry, although she herself appears to be Christian.  Lebanese Muslims in Australia are notorious scofflaws

Queensland Deputy Premier Jackie Trad has escaped a full corruption investigation, but her political future is still hanging in the balance after a critical corruption watchdog decision.

The Crime and Corruption Commission has been assessing complaints against Ms Trad about an undeclared investment property for seven weeks and today released its verdict.

“Based on the information obtained and assessed by the CCC, no evidence or information was identified that supported a reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct as defined in section 15 of the Crime and Corruption Act 2001,” a CCC statement said.

“The jurisdiction of the CCC to investigate suspected corrupt conduct by elected officials is limited to circumstances where the alleged conduct would, if proved, amount to a criminal offence. The CCC’s assessment did not identify evidence or information suggesting a criminal offence had been committed.”

“The CCC will therefore not commence a corruption investigation.”

The decision means Ms Trad will not automatically step aside from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s cabinet and may not lose her roles of Deputy Premier, Treasurer, and Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships.

However, Ms Palaszczuk on Thursday promised to take “action” if Ms Trad was found to have breached ministerial and cabinet rules.

The CCC has been considering allegations that Ms Trad’s husband — through their family trust — bought a $700,000 investment property in inner-Brisbane’s Woolloongabba on March 27. The three-bedroom house stands to rise in value thanks to its proximity to the planned Boggo Road station of Ms Trad’s signature infrastructure project, the $5.4bn Cross River Rail.

Ms Trad has denied any wrongdoing, but has previously apologised for failing to update her public pecuniary interest register to disclose the house until months later, when she was contacted by a journalist from The Courier-Mail.

It is alleged she breached ministerial and cabinet rules by failing to declare the purchase — and the potential conflict of interest — at a key Cabinet Budget Review Committee meeting on April 3.

A senior Queensland Labor source told The Australian that Ms Palaszczuk should have acted weeks ago to remove Ms Trad from cabinet and sack Ms Palaszczuk’s chief of staff David Barbagallo, who is also under an integrity cloud.

“Objectively, it’s irrelevant what the CCC decides,” the source said. “The Premier should have acted ages ago. It’s destroying her government.”

“Trad should have gone to the backbench and Barbagallo should have been punted. This is not a Labor government I recognise.”

SOURCE 





Professor Ridd awarded $1.2m for unlawful sacking

The Federal Circuit Court has awarded Peter Ridd $1.2 million in damages and penalties after earlier finding James Cook University (JCU) acted unlawfully in sacking the physics professor.

Dr Ridd was sacked last year after he repeatedly questioned colleagues' research on the impact of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef, criticising it as untrustworthy and "misleading".

The court, which in April found his dismissal was unlawful, on Friday said Dr Ridd would now be seen as "damaged goods" and the university had "poisoned the well".

Outlining his final declarations and penalties, Judge Salvatore Vasta also suggested the university's conduct bordered on "paranoia and hysteria fuelled by systemic vindictiveness" and Dr Ridd must have felt he was being persecuted. He found Dr Ridd's intellectual freedom had been undermined by the "myopic and unjustified actions of his lifelong employer".

"In this case, Professor Ridd has endured over three years of unfair treatment by JCU – an academic institution that failed to respect the rights to intellectual freedom that Professor Ridd had as per [his enterprise agreement]," the judge decided.

The case has attracted intense focus due to Dr Ridd's scepticism about climate change science and the broader debate about free speech at Australian universities.

Judge Vasta said Dr Ridd had suffered a loss of income and agreed with the academic's view that "most big institutions don't want a bar of somebody who has been through my sort of controversy".

He said Dr Ridd would face difficulty securing employment "despite his considerable expertise", finding the problem had been exacerbated by a statement released by the university following the court's initial judgment.

Judge Vasta ordered a payment of $1.09 million in damages and compensation for lost wages and superannuation. This sum is provisional, with the university and Dr Ridd able to contest the calculation. Another $125,000 is to be paid to Dr Ridd as a penalty to "deter both this university and any other employer from dismissing an employee for exercising basic workplace rights".

Dr Ridd had originally sought reinstatement to his position but subsequently abandoned that request in favour of compensation.

On Friday, the university reiterated its intent to appeal Judge Vasta's decision. "The university has previously made clear its intention to appeal His Honour's decision in this matter. As a litigant it is entitled to do so. The university's position will be addressed in its appeal," a spokesman said.

The institution has maintained Dr Ridd was not sacked for expressing scientific views but rather his treatment of colleagues and breaches of confidentiality.

Conservative think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs welcomed Judge Vasta's findings, calling the university's conduct "shameful" and proof of a free speech crisis in academia.

"The sum awarded reflects the appalling nature of JCU's treatment of Dr Ridd and vindicates Peter Ridd's fight for academic freedom, free speech and integrity of climate science and peer review," IPA director of policy Gideon Rozner said.

"James Cook University must now rethink its stated plans to prolong this ugly dispute by appealing the decision. Dr Ridd won this case on all 17 counts. It is time for JCU to accept the decision and move on."

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 September, 2019

An exception

I do not normally put up anything on a Saturday.  I have however come across a number of articles in the media that are not freely available online.  I believe that they should be immediately available so I have posted them below





Arsonist taskforce up in flames

The claim that the taskforce has completed its job is ludicrous.  Has arson suddenly stopped?  This is clearly penny pinching by a government that has found plenty of money to hire thousands of new bureaucrats.  Typical Leftist priorities

DANIELLE O'NEAL

THE Queensland Government has shelved its successful anti-firebug taskforce as the state braces for what is predicted to be one of the worst bushfire seasons on record.

Taskforce Vulcan was the state's only joint bushfire arson investigative unit between police and the fire service, and the decision not to renew it after seven years ahead of catastrophic fire conditions is being slammed by experts- as a "backwards step".

"It was dedicated to preventing and investigating bushfire arson, leading to a number of arrests in Central Queensland — including the alleged arsonists responsible for last year's devastating fires near Gracemere

Its demise comes as southeast Queenslanders are being told to prepare for catastrophic fire conditions today — possibly the worst in a generation. In the past year alone there have been 1055 reported incidences of arson in Queensland, and fire experts warn up to half of all bushfires could be maliciously lit.

But Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) said they have no plans to re-activate the taskforce during the upcoming bushfire season, a move that has angered Gracemere residents impacted by last year's fires, arson experts and the Opposition.

"Each type of emergency service working separately isn't going to cut the mustard with addressing the problem of arson," National Centre for Research in Bushfire and Arson director Dr Janet Stanley told The Courier-Mail. "It just seems a very backwards step to me if they're closing it down."

Gracemere business owners yesterday said they were fearful of another catastrophic bushfire season after they were forced to flee last year. Two men in their 20s were charged for setting the fires.

Police at the time cited Taskforce Vulcan for its work on the investigation. The men are due to be sentenced later this month. "It's scary and it's not going to be very good if we don't have (Taskforce Vulcan) around this year," one Gracemere business owner said. "We've had no rain for months and months ... we can't afford to have another fire like last year."

LNP Leader Deb Frecklington said it was "an absolute disgrace" that the taskforce had been cut. A Queensland Fire and Emergency Services spokeswoman said Taskforce Vulcan had ended because it had "achieved its objectives".

A Queensland Police spokesman said the organisation has an Arson Investigation Unit.

The above article appeared on p.7 of the 6 September 2019 "Courier Mail?        





Red tape choking recovery in QLD

STEVEN WARDILL

ONE of Queensland's most prolific developers has pilloried the performance of the Palaszczuk Government, saying tax hikes, red tape and reticent attitude towards resources were hampering an economic recovery in the regions.

As State Parliament last night wrapped up its first sitting in the regions for eight years, outgoing North Queens-land Cowboys chair Laurence Lancini said Townsville and its surrounds needed much more than a new football stadium.

'The stadium is a wonderful achievement for Townsville and north Queensland and there is no doubt it will be a stimulus for the city," he said "But it is not going to fix the city alone. More needs to happen and between state and local government they need to do more"

Mr Lancini said he had never seen the garrison city's economy as bad as it was right now in his 38-year career. "I love Townsville and there is a lot of opportunity but we need state and local government to step up," he said.

Mr Lancini said the Palaszczuk Government's tax increases had hurt mum-and-dad operations trying to stay afloat across the state.

"Our industry, the property industry, is the biggest employer in Queensland," he said. "And if you look at property taxes, the increases have been enormous and they have chased the investors away. "They have been passed on to mum-and-clad tenants and the operators.

In Townsville in particular, we went through the floods so mum-and-dad operations are struggling." Mr. Lancini said delays approving Adani's coal mine and the post-Federal election rush to tick it off were "farcical".

"I think it is a crying shame where Queensland is at," he said, "We are such a resource-rich state and here we are with probably the worst economic record in the country."

Mr Lancini said the Belcarra report into local government   corruption had spooked councils out of making decisions and State Government needed to find a solution. "All local government is shit scared to make a decision because they don't want to be seen supporting developers," he said.

Mr Lancini said this had been compounded by the Labor administration, which had gone outside the scope of the report to introduce a developer donation at state level. He said while the Government might have limited funds to stimulate activity, it could incentivise development

"There is no doubt that confidence is down and that's one of the big concerns," he said. "When people have confidence they will commit to doing something and the problem at the moment is there is no confidence."

The above article appeared on p.4 of the 6 September 2019 "Courier Mail?        





Political leaders slam obscene artwork

This is part of a tradition of Leftist artists deliberately setting out to offend. The "piss Christ" episode was generally praised by the Left.  Leftist political correctness is normally justified as an attempt to avoid offending.  Episodes like this tend to expose that as a sham

JESSICA MARSZALEK; PHIL BROWN

POLITICAL leaders have condemned an "obscene" and "repugnant" a painting depicting the Virgin Mary holding a giant penis that is hanging at a Queensland university, as its vice-chancellor yesterday went to ground.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the confronting painting Holy Family, which is featured at the Griffith University Art Museum, was "too obscene" for her to even look at and LNP leader Deb Frecklington labelled it "repugnant".

Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan savaged the painting being put on display and demanded an explanation. "It's in appallingly bad taste; it's extraordinarily juvenile and the people involved should explain how this improves respectful public debate," he said.

The furore over the art-work, which is included in an exhibition titled The Abyss, on display to the public until the end of the month, has angered religious leaders and made international headlines.

While the university has support from the arts community, it has been widely condemned by politicians, church leaders, religious groups and the public. "My staff won't show it to me because they said it's too obscene and I won't be looking at it," Ms Palaszczuk said.

"And it's unfortunate that it has actually come to this situation. "Personally, I don't think it should have been shown in the first place and that is a matter for the Griffith University."

LNP leader Ms Frecklington agreed. "It is disgusting and repug-nant and I won't be going to see it and I wouldn't want my girls to see it either," she said.

The artwork, by Juan Davila, is crudely based on Michelangelo's sculpture The Pieta, which is housed at St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City and depicts the body of Jesus Christ on the Virgin Mary's lap after the Crucifixion.

It prompted outrage from Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, was labelled "vul-gar" by Shadow Arts Minister Dr Christian Rowan and the Australian Christian Lobby angrily called for its immediate removal.

Yesterday, 63 per cent of almost 1800 people who participated in a courier-mail.com.au poll found the painting offensive.

The above article appeared on p.10 of the 6 September 2019 "Courier Mail?        




6 September, 2019

How one in three child sex offenders don't spend a DAY behind bars - as the Government prepares tough new laws to jail paedophiles for LIFE

For two years, Leftist quibbles have delayed the legislation.  The Left has a long history of being sympathetic to criminals

Child sex offenders could face life behind bars under laws to be re-introduced to federal parliament next week, as it's revealed one in three don't spend a day in jail.

The draft bill means paedophiles face mandatory minimum sentences, while repeat offenders would find it much harder to get bail.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said sentencing of paedophiles needed an urgent overhaul.

'It simply beggars belief that 28 per cent of all offenders sentenced last year (for federal crimes) were not required to spend a single day behind bars,' he said.  'And when jail terms were handed out, the average length of time that offenders spent in custody was just 18 months.'

Of nearly 300 paedophiles convicted for Commonwealth offences last year, almost 100 walked free.

'These changes will ensure that a jail term becomes the starting point for all child sex offenders, including a new life term for the worst offenders,' Mr Porter added.

Sonya Ryan, the mother of murdered schoolgirl Holly Ryan, is calling for an even tougher crackdown.

'We remain concerned the mandatory minimums in this bill won't result in the harshest of penalties, especially when a guilty plea is entered which reduces the minimum,' she said.

Under current laws, offenders face between seven and 24 years behind bars for using the internet to groom a child or teenager, having sex with a child outside Australia and transmitting child exploitation material online.

Communicating indecently with a child online, importing child exploitation material into Australia and operating a child exploitation website also carries the same sentence guideline.  

Home Minister Peter Dutton said the number of exploitation reports, involving Australian children or sex offenders has almost doubled to 18,000 last year compared to the year before.

'The message we are sending to paedophiles is that it won't matter how good their lawyer is, a prison cell will be waiting for them when they are convicted,' Mr Dutton told The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Dutton said once the legislation is passed, judges will be able to impose cumulative sentences for multiple offences.

The new laws would also stop juries and judges from taking someone's good character into account.

The coalition tried to pass similar legislation in 2017, but it was knocked back after Labor baulked at the inflexible nature of the mandatory sanctions included in the bill.

Labor argued juries would be less likely to convict if they knew judges had no discretion on sentencing.

But Mr Dutton was perplexed by Labor's stance, saying the Opposition has supported mandatory sentencing in other areas of the law in the past. 

'The message we are sending to paedophiles is that it won't matter how good their lawyer is, a prison cell will be waiting for them when they are convicted,' he said.

'We need to be realistic about the threat and we need to lock up those people that are doing the wrong thing.'

The legislation will be introduced to parliament next Wednesday.

SOURCE 






The value of history

I heartily agree with the points below but would point out that a lot depends on WHICH history is taught.  Leftist teachers routinely leave out anything that is a credit to Western society

At last night's Annual History Lecture in Sydney, Dr Stephen Gapps of the History Council of NSW launched a statement in New South Wales about the Value of History and called for its endorsement.  This follows the national announcement by the four History Councils of NSW, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria at the annual meeting of the Australian Historical Association held in Toowoomba on July 11.

The statement emphasises the value of studying the past and telling its stories.

The Value of History statement focuses on seven ways in which history is essential, by:

*      shaping our identities,

*      engaging us as citizens,

*      creating inclusive communities,

*      contributing to our economic well-being,

*      teaching us to think critically and creatively,

*      inspiring our leaders, and

*      providing a foundation for future generations.

The History Councils call on individuals and organisations in Australia to endorse, share, and use this statement about the value of history in contemporary life. The ideas expressed in the statement can be incorporated into projects, funding applications, training materials, mission statements, websites, marketing materials, submissions and other organisational outlets.

Dr Stephen Gapps said: ‘With common agreement, commitment, and open conversation about why history is important, we believe the historical community can change perceptions of the value of history and articulate its important role in the public sphere.’

Each History Council is the peak body for organisations focused on history and heritage in their respective states. The four Australian History Councils have worked cooperatively to create the Value of History statement for all Australians to use.

Press release






ABC ridicules sound science about the Great Barrier Reef

Media Watch is everything that is wrong with the ABC, squeezed into 15 insufferable minutes. Smug, elitist and, above all, awash with the misguided idea that commercial media outlets are not to be trusted and that the only place where honest news can be found is in Aunty’s warm, state-sponsored embrace.

The program is usually best ignored, but its segment this week on the saga of Peter Ridd is worth calling out for its breathless hypocrisy.

For the uninitiated, Ridd is a marine geophysicist who, until recently, was professor of physics at James Cook University in Townsville. Ridd is also an expert on the Great Barrier Reef and disputes the view that it is being killed by climate change.

Earlier this year the Federal Circuit Court found that his dismissal was unlawful.

Fast forward to this week’s Media Watch in which host Paul Barry spent a fair chunk of taxpayer-funded time bemoaning the attention from The Australian and other outlets to Ridd’s perspective on reef science.

The coverage, according to Barry, was “a real free kick” and “a free platform, with no opposing viewpoints”.

That the ABC could complain about a lack of opposing viewpoints is staggering.

When it comes to climate change in particular, the ABC is hopelessly predisposed towards climate alarmism. That may explain why up until Monday night, the ABC has shown less interest in the Ridd affair.

Ridd’s sacking, legal appeal and eventual victory in court attracted such strong public interest that eventually even the federal Attorney-General weighed in when the subject was raised by numerous colleagues in a recent partyroom meeting. But coverage from our “trusted” public broadcaster?

Not much. A search of the ABC’s website returns just a handful of reports on what was the most significant case on academic freedom in many years.

If the ABC had bothered, they would know that Ridd’s beef isn’t just with popular notions of doom and gloom surrounding the Great Barrier Reef but also with the quality of the underlying science.

Much of it, according to Ridd, is not being properly checked, tested or replicated.

As a result, governments are spending billions of dollars and jeopardising whole industries to “save” the reef when it probably doesn’t need saving.

It should be noted as well that throughout the extensive disciplinary process against Ridd, James Cook University never once addressed his complaints about the poor quality of climate science coming out of the univer­sity, a fact highlighted by the judge himself during Ridd’s case.

But far be it for the ABC to let poor science get in the way of a good story. Naturally, the segment included an article from The Guardian citing a handful of scientists who are adamant the Great Barrier Reef is in trouble and that Ridd should be ignored.

Media Watch even repeated hysterical comparisons between Ridd’s research and anti-vaxxer campaigns.

Interestingly, one scientist cited by the ABC was Terry ­Hughes. Like Ridd, Hughes is based at James Cook, and arguably triggered the whole saga when, according to court documents, he lodged a complaint about some relatively mild comments Ridd made in relation to reef science on Sky News. This connection was apparently missed by the Media Watch team.

What the ABC doesn’t understand is that the Ridd saga is about much more than the Great Barrier Reef or even climate science.

It raises serious questions about academic freedom, about the right of a university professor to voice dissenting views without being hounded out of his tenure, as Ridd was by James Cook.

This is why Ridd was supported by a large section of the community. Many of his university colleagues defended him and one resigned in disgust.

He even received support from the National Tertiary Education Union — not exactly a bastion of right-wing views. But of course, on the ABC, all of that complexity is lost, reduced to a tired pantomime about right-wing commentators pushing the views of one scientist to advance their own murky climate agenda.

Now, if the ABC were a private organisation it could take whatever editorial line it wanted — and would be far from the only outlet in Australia to sympathise with climate evangelism. But the ABC receives $1.1 billion of our money each year for news coverage that, by law, must be balanced.

Maybe the ABC should comply with its charter and make way for alternative views rather than taking juvenile pot shots at its rivals.

SOURCE 








Unjust police practices in Sydney

Sniffer dogs are as much part of Sydney life today as overpriced brunches and sudden public transport breakdowns.

We’re not just talking about the entrances to music festivals such as Defqon1 and Psyfari — the government has already pulled the plug on those events.

Take a wander through Sydney’s Central station during peak hour and you may well find yourself stopped by police, taken behind a semipublic barricade and stripsearched — even though, statistically, your pockets will probably yield nothing more illicit than a set of house keys.

In an especially baffling case last year, high school leavers had a dozen officers with sniffer dogs swoop in on their year 12 formal.

A report released last week found the number of strip-searches conducted in NSW has increased almost 20-fold in the past 12 years.

Research suggests the overwhelming majority of drug dog searches are fruitless; more often than not, no drugs are found, yet those stopped are still made to endure procedures such as strip searches and “squat and cough” tests many have described as “traumatic” and “dehumanising”.

Police and the NSW Government maintain, however, that searches are necessary to keep the community safe.

This week, news.com.au spoke to more than a dozen young people who had been stripsearched by police on suspicion of being in possession of illicit drugs.

Most requested anonymity, saying they feared reputational damage despite doing nothing wrong.

Here’s what they had to say.

‘THIS ABUSE OF POWER NEEDS TO STOP’

Lucy Moore knows from experience how traumatic strip-searches can be.

In March, the 19-year-old was stopped by a drug dog at Hidden Festival in Sydney. She said she had just one drink at her hotel before arriving, and had neither consumed nor carried any illegal drugs with her to the event.

A police officer told her she had been detected by a sniffer dog, and she was taken away to be stripsearched in a semi-private space.

“Not only did I see other people being searched, during my search the door was left half open and only blocked by the small female cop. I could easily see outside, which means that attendees and the male cops outside could have easily seen in as well,” Ms Moore said.

“Not only this, a girl in the cubicle next to me was also searched with her door still open with a couple cops entering and leaving at will.”

Ms Moore said she was made to “squat and cough” — a practice that entails bending over and coughing under the eye of officers to see if drugs are concealed in the rectal area.

Experts say the practice is legally questionable due to restrictions on anyone but a medical practitioner conducting a body cavity search.

At the end of her “humiliating and embarrassing” ordeal, Ms Moore said she was interrogated, held for over an hour and ultimately still kicked out of the festival — all despite no drugs being found on her.

Legal experts tell news.com.au there have been several cases in recent years of festival-goers being denied entry into events, even though they were not found to be carrying drugs and paid for valid tickets.

“It makes me feel disgusted, for police to constantly be breaching laws and taking advantage of young people who don’t know better. It’s terrifying,” Ms Moore told news.com.au.

A status she posted about the incident in March went viral, with more than 2000 shares and 12,000 reactions on Facebook.

Ms Moore never received an apology from police and her ban from Sydney Olympic Park is still in place.

“I’m hoping we can get reform. Change is obviously needed to keep people’s privacy,” she said.

“Only 30 per cent of people will be charged and almost all of them being for very small amounts of drugs for personal use — leaving those 70 per cent with a humiliating and traumatic experience for absolutely no reason. It has to change.”

It’s not just festivals and dance parties where people are targeted. Police dogs are increasingly frequenting train stations, street corners, small pubs and restaurants.

One Sydneysider, who declined to be named, said he was stripsearched a few years ago at Marrickville Bowling Club, a lawn bowls centre in Sydney’s inner west.

“I was violently grabbed by the arms by the police and ma

ARE STRIP-SEARCHES LEGAL?

It is legal for police to request a drug search if they have reasonable suspicion to do so.

But aspects of this process — such as what constitutes “reasonable suspicion” and the validity of the “squat and cough” method — fall into a grey area.

NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, who runs the anti-drug dog initiative Sniff Off, has long advocated against the practice.

“Often you’re surrounded by six or seven police officers with dogs nearby. It can be very intimidating,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“If nothing is found in that first search, what they should do is apologise and let people go on their way,” he said.

But statistics show this is not the case, with people increasingly being taken away for full strip-searches.

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 September, 2019

A wonderful Brisbane afternoon in winter

For people who like warm weather -- as I do -- Brisbane is a great place.  Even our winter afternoons are almost always warm.  But yesterday Brisbane really excelled itself.  The midafternoon temperature was 34C -- which is a normal SUMMER temperature for Brisbane.

Warmists would regard that as a global catastrophe but for Brisbane people it is just a part of normal variations.  And if Brisbane people carry on regardless in such temperatures, does anyone need to fear the one or two degees of warming that the climate fanatics foam about?





Where many countries are experiencing negative economic growth, Australia is still growing -- But that's not good enough for the Left

Considering that Australia has also just had the first positive balance of payments for many years, you would think that a decent Left would rise to some sort of congratulations -- but no such luck

Australia’s economic growth has fallen to the lowest level since the global financial crisis but Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he “can’t see” the country falling into recession.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on Wednesday confirmed gross domestic product grew by 0.5 per cent in the June quarter, dragging year-on-year growth to 1.4 per cent.

The result was slightly better than some predictions of as low as 0.2 per cent, or 1.1 per cent year-on-year. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the result was “a repudiation to all those who sought to talk it down”.

Addressing a media conference in Canberra, Mr Frydenberg was hit with a particularly brutal question. “Are you saying you’re happy with the worst economic growth in a decade because you thought it might have been worse?” a journalist asked.

Mr Frydenberg responded that it was “a challenging environment”. “People were speculating in the media about a negative growth number in the quarter,” he said.

The Treasurer stressed that “significantly, these numbers do not incorporate the passage through parliament of the most significant tax cuts in more than 20 years and the full impact of the RBA’s decision to reduce interest rates by 50 basis points”.

“As of today, the ATO has issued more than 5.5 million refunds totalling more than $14 billion. This money is flowing through to households and will be reflected in the September quarter,” he said.

Mr Frydenberg said the combination of tax and interest rate cuts, the stabilisation of the housing market, continued spending on infrastructure and a more positive outlook for investment in the resources sector had “led the RBA governor to say there are signs the economy may have reached a ‘gentle turning point’”.

The GDP figure “shows the Australian economy continues to grow in the face of significant headwinds”. “It’s a difficult time for global economies, with Singapore, Sweden, Germany and the UK all having negative economic growth in their June quarters,” he said.

“The IMF and the OECD have both downgraded their global economic growth forecasts. In the face of these challenges and the uncertainty created by increasing trade tensions between China and the US, the Australian economy has again proven its remarkable resilience.”

Mr Frydenberg added that “the only people who are disappointed with today’s national accounts” were Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers “because their efforts to talk down the Australian economy have not succeeded”.

“New national accounts data shows slowest annual economic growth in a decade on the Liberals’ watch and yet still no plan to turn things around,” Mr Chalmers earlier wrote on Twitter.

It came after Mr Morrison defended his government’s economic management, telling 3AW’s Neil Mitchell conditions had “softened” but that Australia was doing better than many other developed countries.

Asked if Australia was facing a recession, Mr Morrison said he “can’t see us going into that territory”. “Let’s remember, Germany just had a negative quarter of growth, the UK just had a negative quarter of growth. Australia hasn’t,” he said.

“Today’s growth figures will show over the year a softness … what we will see is that in a tough climate we are actually battling away quite well. I’m not surprised by the difficulties we’re seeing globally at the moment. When we put the budget together in May I said we should cut taxes, we should spend more on infrastructure, I said we should invest more in skills transitioning.”

The Morrison government is banking on tax refunds and low interest rates to bolster the economy.

The current account surplus revealed on Tuesday — the first in 44 years on the back of strong export volumes of coal, iron ore and liquid natural gas — is set to contribute about 0.6 per cent to GDP growth.

“I was pretty pleased with the current account numbers that came out yesterday,” Mr Morrison said on 3AW. “That’s the first current account surplus that we’ve had since 1975, I mean Skyhooks were leading the charts back then. Our export performance today has been quite extraordinary. That’s been building up over many years. The work we’ve done to build our export markets over the last five years is really paying dividends now and we’re going to keep expanding those, both with the European Union and the UK.”

HSBC, however, sees the current account surplus as “more of a negative than a positive development”. “The current account surplus implies net foreign capital outflow rather than inflow and a lack of investment relative to local saving,” the bank said in a research note.

“Australia’s current account deficits, which it has had for almost all of its history, reflect that the country has good growth prospects, but insufficient local saving — partly due to a small population — to fund all of the investment that should be done.”

A current account surplus “thereby could imply that growth prospects do not appear as strong or that there is less investment happening than would be ideal”, HSBC said.

Meanwhile, Mr Morrison rejected suggestions the tax cuts had failed to stimulate the economy. “That’s a ridiculous comment,” he told 3AW. “The figures that are coming out today are for the June quarter. The tax cuts were passed in the September quarter. Of course I am (confident they’ll work).”

The weak growth figure — on top of Tuesday’s weak retail trade results — will be seized on by Labor as a sign of a government which has no plan for the economy.

However, Mr Frydenberg believes trade deals, a $100 billion infrastructure plan, funding for training and skills, record low interest rates and income tax cuts will deliver better results in the final part of the year.

The Australian Taxation Office told AAP it had now received over 7.8 million individual 2019 tax return lodgements — a 15 per cent increase on the previous year.

“We have issued over 5.5 million individual 2019 income tax refunds with a total value of over $14.2 billion,” an ATO spokeswoman said.

Retail spending fell by an unexpected 0.1 per cent in July, missing forecasts of a 0.2 per cent rise. The biggest fall was in spending on cafes, restaurants and takeaway services.

The Reserve Bank, which kept the cash rate on hold at 1 per cent on Tuesday, flagged it would ease rates further “if needed to support sustainable growth”.

The outlook for the global economy remained “reasonable”, the RBA said, although the risks were tilted to the downside. “A further gradual lift in wages growth would be a welcome development,” RBA Governor Philip Lowe said in a statement.

SOURCE 






Tanya Day inquest: officer denies ‘false stories’ about extremely drunk woman

Drunks can be extremely hard to handle -- and Aborigines particularly so.  But when an Aborigine dies, the police are always suspected

The police officer responsible for making welfare checks on an Aboriginal grandmother who died after banging her head in police custody has denied he told paramedics “false stories”.

Leading Senior Constable Danny Wolters denied to an inquiry into the 2017 death of Tanya Day that he had been misleading when he told paramedics the Yorta Yorta woman had hit her head just once.

“I don’t believe I put together any false stories,” he said in response to questioning by Peter Morrissey SC, who is representing Day’s family. “I referred to observations.”

Sen Con Wolters said he went up to Day's cells at 4.51pm and asked her if she was OK and she replied that she was.

Footage played to the inquest on Tuesday shows Day, who was heavily intoxicated, lying on her cell bed during checks at 4.17pm and 4.50pm. At 4.51pm she tumbled over the cell bench and smashed her forehead against a wall. The inquest heard the fall was ­ultimately fatal.

Day, 55, was arrested for being drunk on a train on December 5 in 2017. The coronial inquiry is examining the role systemic racism played in her death.

The inquest heard on Tuesday Sen Con Wolters asked to alter the timing of physical checks on Day from every 20 minutes to every 40 minutes, saying the physical checks were disturbing her.

The inquest heard he checked on her alternatively through the cell window and using CCTV, partly because of staffing issues due to Castlemaine police holding their Christmas party that day.

SOURCE 






Fair Work Commission upholds BP sacking of worker over Hitler  parody

No free speech for extreme abuse

BP’s sacking of a technician for sharing a Downfall parody video the company said compared its managers to Nazis has been upheld by the Fair Work Commission.

Process technician Scott Tracey said the video was intended to be a humorous parody of long-running enterprise bargaining negotiations at the BP’s Kwinana refinery in Western Australia.

The video is an extract from the German language film Downfall which portrays the final days of Adolf Hitler’s life. Hitler responds in a highly agitated and aggressive manner to advice from his generals that the Nazis have lost the Second World War.

Mr Tracey said his wife used the Caption website to create the “Hitler Parody EA Negotiations”, adding subtitles that referenced comments made by BP management during the negotiations.

Mr Tracey shared the video with a private Facebook group whose members included refinery employees and also showed it to BP nightshift employees.

A BP investigation found Mr Tracey had been “involved in creating, and made available, shared and distributed an offensive and inappropriate video depicting BP representatives involved in the current …. negotiations as Nazis”. He was sacked and paid four weeks’ notice.

Rejecting his unfair dismissal claim, commission deputy president Melanie Binet said she was satisfied the video was “objectively inappropriate, offensive and “did cause offence to a number of BP employees”.

“The Hitler Video had the potential to undermine, demean and denigrate the BP senior management team amongst an audience which they were charged to lead,’’ she said.

SOURCE 





Melbourne council bans residents from putting glass in recycling bin

This is recycling that has lost the plot.  Glass is one thing that can easily be recycled. So glass recycling should be made easy, not hard

A Melbourne council has banned residents from putting glass in their recycling bins, forcing them to either travel to recycle the items or to let them go into landfill.

Macedon Ranges Shire Council has warned residents that if they place glass in their yellow bin then its whole contents will have to be thrown in landfill.

The council was forced to implement the sudden ban after the company behind Victoria’s largest recycling processor went bust.

Recycling giant SKM collapsed owing more than $100 million to creditors, and after a series of factory fires and government shutdowns because of stockpiling safety risks.

The shutdown affected more than 32 councils across the state, with Macedon Ranges Shire Council being one of them.

“Council has identified a recycling company which will process the shire’s recycling going forward as long as glass is removed and the other recyclables are not contaminated,” the Council said.

“Shards and small pieces of glass can become embedded in paper and cardboard in recycling bins and contaminate the other recyclables.”

In the coming weeks the council plans to install public skip bins around the area which residents can use to dispose of their glass.

But until then people that want to recycle their glass items will be forced to travel to one of three transfer stations in Kyneton, Woodend or Romsey.

For those residents that can’t make the trip or simply refuse, the council had one final suggestion. “As a last resort, glass can be placed in general rubbish bins,” the Council said.

The plan to remove glass from the mixed recycling bins was endorsed at an Ordinary Council Meeting last Wednesday.

A decision was also made to investigate whether to introduce a fourth bin that would be used for glass only.

Some people living in Lancefield are exempt from travelling to dispose of their glass as they have been provided with a special glass only bin as part of the trial.

Along with installing the public bins and introducing the glass bin trial, the Council also announced is allocated funds over temporary higher landfill costs and cover additional required staff and resources.

The Council will meet again in October to consider long-term options for recycling, like rolling out the fourth glass only bin across the shire.

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







4 September, 2019

Australian Medical Association declares climate change a health emergency

Warmists have been pushing this claim for years but it was always nonsense.  The bottom line is that winter is the great time of dying, not summer.  On balance, warming is good for you

 AMA president Tony Bartone says climate change will affect health by increasing the spread of infectious diseases and through more extreme weather. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Australian Medical Association has formally declared climate change a health emergency, pointing to “clear scientific evidence indicating severe impacts for our patients and communities now and into the future”.

The AMA’s landmark shift, delivered by a motion of the body’s federal council, brings the organisation into line with forward-leaning positions taken by the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and Doctors for the Environment Australia.

The American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians recognised climate change as a health emergency in June 2019, and the British Medical Association the following month declared a climate emergency and committed to campaign for carbon neutrality by 2030.

The World Health Organisation has recognised since 2015 that climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century, and argued the scientific evidence for that assessment is “overwhelming”.

The AMA has recognised the health risks of climate change since 2004. Having now formally recognised that climate change is a health emergency, the peak organisation representing doctors in Australia is calling on the Morrison government to promote an active transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy; adopt mitigation targets within an Australian carbon budget; promote the health benefits of addressing climate change; and develop a national strategy for health and climate change.

The AMA president, Tony Bartone, argues the scientific evidence is clear. “There is no doubt that climate change is a health emergency. The AMA accepts the scientific evidence on climate change and its impact on human health and human wellbeing,” he says.

Bartone says the climate science suggests warming will affect human health and wellbeing “by increasing the environment and situations in which infectious diseases can be transmitted, and through more extreme weather events, particularly heatwaves”.

“Climate change will cause higher mortality and morbidity from heat stress,” the AMA president says. “Climate change will cause injury and mortality from increasingly severe weather events. Climate change will cause increases in the transmission of vector-borne diseases. Climate change will cause food insecurity resulting from declines in agricultural outputs. Climate change will cause a higher incidence of mental ill-health.

“These effects are already being observed internationally and in Australia.”

Bartone told Guardian Australia the motion adopted by the federal council had followed an ongoing discussion among stakeholders, and medical practitioners within the AMA membership.

Health and medical groups, including Doctors for the Environment, the Climate and Health Alliance, the Royal Australian College of Physicians, and the Australian Medical Students’ Association wrote an open letter to all political parties in April pointing out the “significant and profound impacts climate change has on the health of people and our health system”.

The AMA president said the decision to pass the motion followed on from those events both domestically and internationally, and was “pretty much unanimous” internally. “I don’t recall anyone speaking against it,” he said.

Asked whether the current government was pursuing ambitious enough policy action to combat the risks of climate change, whichthe Morrison government argues it is, Bartone said “it’s really difficult to say because this issue is clouded in conjecture and conflicting reports”.

He said all of the political groups in the Australian parliament had a responsibility to move past the toxic partisan politics that had characterised the debate and find durable solutions to a difficult public policy challenge.

Bartone said the AMA would continue to assess the evidence about climate change as it emerged and update its stance to reflect the science.

The latest official data released last week confirms that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise in Australia. National emissions increased by 3.1m tonnes in the year to March to reach 538.9m tonnes, a 0.6% jump on the previous year.

Emissions in Australia have increased every year since the Abbott government repealed a national carbon price after taking office in 2013.

SOURCE 







Father's Day no longer promoted in some schools

The Father's Day stall and gifts for Dad crafted by little hands are increasingly a thing of the past in some Melbourne schools and kindergartens.

The growing diversity in the forms that families take, and a lack of interest in the occasion from kids themselves, have seen it pass without a mention in many classes this year.

Some kids have two mums, some have no dad and some are from cultures where Father’s Day isn’t really a thing.

Annie Dennis Children’s Centre in Northcote recognises the diversity in children’s family situations. For the past 20 years, child-guided programs have formed a fundamental part of its philosophy.

Assistant director Anna Chiera said they did not celebrate Father’s Day this year because kids simply weren’t interested.

“We don’t bring up Father’s Day because there are children with single and same-sex parents here, but if it’s an issue for them, we encourage them to let us know,” Ms Chiera said.

“We don’t like to put pressure on the children to make a present if it isn’t going to mean something and they don’t have a father or their families don’t celebrate it.”

“We acknowledge that it’s an important celebration though.”

Helen Darcey, a kindergarten teacher at Annie Dennis, said the centre had a list of celebrations from different religions and cultures they encouraged kids to learn about and contribute to.

In the past they’ve celebrated everything from Orthodox Easter to Harmony Day, but typically not Father’s Day.

Ms Chiera conceded they did get the occasional parent who asked why they didn't make a card, but for the most part they were supportive.

“It’s sometimes harder for the wider community to accept it especially,” Ms Chiera said.

An objection to the commercialisation of Father’s Day – a day of socks, jocks and power tools – has also contributed to it falling out of favour.

Australian Primary Principals Association president Malcolm Elliott said Father’s and Mother’s Day had been linked to the “implicit buying of gifts” thanks to advertising.

“It can place a burden on children who are short on resources,” Mr Elliot said.

But not all Melbourne kinders and primary schools have completely ditched Father’s Day festivities.

Carlton North Primary School ran things a bit differently, with a Father’s Day stall organised by parents selling gifts donated from families for students to buy their dads or other special people.

A grade one pupil bought her dad, a teacher at the school, a hamper filled with chocolate and socks. “I got him new socks because his ones are very stinky,” she said.

SOURCE 







Petty officer Kristina Keneally is all at sea on illegal boat arrivals

Kristina Keneally is all at sea on illegal boat arrivals and lost in the Biblical wilderness on raising Scott Morrison’s Christian beliefs.

What’s more, as the alternative home affairs minister, the former NSW Premier is opening the prospect of immigration and border protection changes of policy and practice which could further confuse and damage Labor’s public standing on immigration.

Also, at a time when Labor’s strongest critique of the Morrison government is the stagnant economy and Labor’s best-performing shadow minister is treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers, Keneally’s emotional distraction over the Prime Minister’s Christianity and a family being refused refugee status by the High Court is making the ALP’s job harder.

Keneally’s decision to press ahead and amplify her campaign for the Tamil family to remain in Australia on the ABC on Tuesday was bad politics and bad policy.

While pointing to her own Catholic faith, Keneally harked back to the election campaign and photographs of Morrison in his local church as justification for demanding he exercise his Christian beliefs and use discretionary power to allow the Tamil family to remain.

It was a low act and a mistake for Labor — including Keneally — to use Morrison’s Christian beliefs in a political fight then. It is a lower act and a bigger mistake to do it now as religious freedoms and discrimination will be debated in the coming weeks.

The real damage Keneally’s confusion and downright ignorance about immigration and border protection is that she has raised the option that as home affairs minister she would be open to letting the family stay after every court has found they are not refugees.

This continues to raise the prospect that Labor would change border protection policy, despite her contradictory claims that she supports border security policies based on the circumstances of prolonged court battles, attachment to the community and Australian-born children.

Previous Labor governments, immigration ministers and oppositions have all recognised the error of Labor’s ways in weakening laws introduced by both previous Labor and Coalition governments and accepted that children drowning at sea is a greater evil than sending back children who are not refugees.

The real problem for this family is that the parents arrived illegally, were placed in detention by a Labor government, were encouraged to appeal for years despite being advised they were not refugees and then being hauled into a glaring public political brawl which ensured there could be no discretion applied even if it was sustainable.

All of this is taking place a week before the government starts to finalise its reforms to border security laws — forced on it by Labor, Greens and independents before the election — and ahead of a tough parliamentary debate where Keneally’s confusion could be lethal.

Not to mention poor old Chalmers trying to talk about the real issue of the economy, wages growth, interest rates and the national accounts.

SOURCE 





The incorrectness of attractive women

Boxing promoter Dean Lonergan has reacted to concern about the presence of ring girls at Saturday night's fight between Jeff Horn and Michael Zerafa by replacing them with men.

A local councillor objected to the planned use of ring girls at the event in Bendigo, saying it was "not respectful of women."

Lonergan responded by saying the women had applied for and been given the job, but were now being prevented from working.

The promoter said he would be employing "fight progress managers" in the role instead.

Come fight night, various men stepped in to the ring to hold the round cards, with announcer Dan Hennessey discussing the change with the fans in Bendigo.

"In reference to rings girls, these roles will now be known as 'fight progress managers'," Hennessey said.

"Secondly, the women who applied and were selected to be fight progress managers will be replaced by men, notwithstanding, the three ladies have been paid."

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 September 2019

Morrison warns of influx if Tamils stay

Australia risks being swamped by a new wave of boat people if it lets a Tamil asylum seeker family remain in the country, the prime minister says.

Scott Morrison says people smugglers will again hit high gear if the government responds to "a public reaction" in support of a family that had been found not to be refugees.

"Now - at a time when there are increasing push factors come out of Sri Lanka - the worst possible thing you can do is to ... send a message which says: 'You know what, if you come illegally to Australia and the courts say you don't have a claim and the government say you don't have a claim, then the government just might make an exception because there's been a public reaction," he said on Monday.

"That's not how you run strong borders.

"I know what happens when you send those messages back into those communities whether it's in Sri Lanka or the more than 10,000 people sitting in Indonesia right now who would get on a boat tomorrow if they thought this government was changing its position."

Mr Morrison said he could not understand why Australians might be cynical about the government's decision on the weekend to release details about the interception of a sixth asylum-seeker vessel from Sri Lanka since May.

"It's just a simple fact. It's a fact," he said, saying it was the government's habit of announcing turn-backs only after the fact.

He said he would never allow a return to the tragic scenes of people dying at sea while trying to reach Australia illegally.

"That's not something that I, in good conscience, can allow to happen and nor can my ministers.

"I need to be very clear to those who might be sitting in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, or anywhere else, my government's policy has not changed."

SOURCE 






Flaws in education system ignored as journos plunge into class warfare

The sources quoted by journalists can tell media consumers a lot about the politics of a newspaper or electronic network but sometimes not much about the truth of the story.

Look at the reaction to the release last Wednesday of preliminary results of this year’s National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy tests. Journalists at Nine Entertainment’s newspapers, the ABC and Guardian Australia were likelier to quote teachers, teacher unions and politicians continuing their long criticism of national testing. Media on the right often quoted education researchers who have argued Australia is not getting value for its spending on schools.

Many teachers hate NAPLAN and anything that makes them accountable for student performance. But here’s the thing: the media should not care. The $57.8 billion we spent across all levels of government and school systems in 2016-17 is not for the edification of teachers. It’s to educate our children. Some tweets last Wednesday highlight personal attitudes among media types.

Former teacher and Sydney Daily Telegraph education writer Maralyn Parker tweeted: “Oh FFS, #NAPLAN has failed. The constant testing and huge scammy $$$$$ industry around teaching and preparing for the tests is stuffing up Australian children.” Nine newspapers cartoonist Cathy Wilcox tweeted: “What if, now bear with me, just as an experiment, we properly funded public schools (crazy I know), then compared NAPLAN results to see if it made a difference?” Unbelievable that a highly paid cartoonist whose work is published in The Sydney Morning Herald did not already know the figures.

Australia has increased funding across all school systems from $36.4bn to $57.8bn in the nine years since the Gillard government committed to the first round of Gonski funding rises. The Turnbull government committed an extra $18.6bn across four years in Gonski 2.0 funding in 2017. All that money has bought some improvement in primary school NAPLAN results, flatlining overall in literacy and numeracy and disappointing Year 9 results.

Remember NAPLAN was not a plot by a conservative government to hurt political enemies in the teacher unions. It was introduced in 2008 by then education minister Julia Gillard in the first Rudd government.

The most sensible reactions to NAPLAN numbers each year usually came from long-time critics of educational standards such as Kevin Donnelly, from the Australian Catholic University, and Centre for Independent Studies researchers Jennifer Buckingham and Blaise Joseph.

Progressives tend to deny there is a problem and want the test scrapped or its standards lowered. Funny thing is we have known for many years why Australia lags in international tests. Admission standards for teaching are too low, more than half of university education degree entrants being accepted with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of less than 50.

Better paid and more qualified teachers with proper mentoring in the job seem to work in systems that continually outperform ours, particularly in Shanghai, Singapore and Finland. Education reformers in the US and Canada have proved better quality headmasters with more independence in hiring and firing staff — usually backed by activist parents bodies — can lift results in even the most underprivileged areas.

Unfortunately state education departments here have used headmaster independence to load the role with managerialist tasks to defend schools against lawsuits rather than to lift education outcomes.

The Australian under former education writer Justine Ferrari in the noughties highlighted the role of curriculum in letting down children. This has only worsened as teachers have been required since 2012 to overlay all their work with three mandated cross-curriculum priorities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures; Asia and Australia’s engagement with it; and sustainability. In a worst-case hypothetical, maths teachers with fairly poor HSC results who did no maths to Year 12 and none in their education degrees are now burdened with these three overlays in trying to teach kids struggling to understand mathematics.

Teachers often complain about lack of student discipline and lack of parental support for schools trying to impose such discipline.

Technology and the rise of social media, smartphones and iPad use in education have had a perverse effect. Some schools have now banned mobile phone use. I have heard of parent-teacher nights when parents themselves did not put away their phones and Facebook feeds while teachers were giving individual feedback about children.

Auto-correction software on devices is having an adverse effect on spelling ability while teachers talk of students coming to school, often with no breakfast, having been up past midnight on devices.

The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday raised another important issue with screen use. University of Sydney cognitive psychology professor Sally Andrews said poor grammar skills “could be the result of skim reading on screens”. “That means they’re not picking up on the subtleties of sentence construction and punctuation marks that occur when you read a book on paper,” she said. Many parents no longer read books to their kids.

Like The Australian, the News Corp tabloids last Wednesday also quoted Donnelly and Joseph, who discussed these issues. The Sydney Morning Herald chose the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, which runs NAPLAN, and federal Education Minister Dan Tehan to defend the test. It quoted Australian Education Union acting federal president Meredith Peace and NSW Primary Principals Association president Phil Seymour bagging it. ABC 7.30 interviewed Tehan but host Leigh Sales seemed to think the testing should be scrapped.

It is instructive the left media did not question teaching methods or curriculum, discipline and electronic learning approaches. Nor did most media go to the core philosophical question: what is our education system for? Do we want world-class students or do we want to reshape the world?

Some quotes from educators suggest more of the latter. Former Victorian premier and education minister Joan Kirner: “Education has to be reshaped so it is part of the socialist struggle for equality.”

Former Griffith University education lecturer Gregory Martin: “A major task for leftist academics is to connect education with community struggles for social justice.”

Former head of the Australian Education Union Pat Byrne: “We have succeeded in influencing curriculum development … conservatives have a lot of work to do to undo the progressive curriculum.”

Media consumers are grateful when journalists shine a light on such areas. Parents marvel at children’s lack of numeracy and literacy skills, things taken for granted in previous generations. Maybe modern “child-centred learning” needs a rethink.

Having watched direct instruction in action at Noel Pearson’s Hope Vale school north of Cooktown last month I can only concur with Donnelly in Friday’s Tele: “The most effective way to learn stresses … ‘automaticity’ — essential knowledge and skills like times tables and learning to read have to be automatic before students complete more complex tasks.”

SOURCE 






How a Belgian saved the recent Federal election for Australia's conservatives

(Mathias Cormann came to Australia from Belgium in 1994)

It’s just over 100 days since the Coali­tion’s crushing victory over Labor at the federal election in May. Speaking on the occasion of Scott Morrison’s first anniversary as Prime Minister last Saturday, John Howard told The Australian’s Simon Benson that the parliamentary Liberal Party “is in better shape than it has been since 2007”.

That’s true. It’s also correct to say that, at the leadership level, the Liberal Party is more united than it has been at any time since the days of prime minister Robert Menzies and his deputy Harold Holt more than a half-century ago.

Certainly the relationship between Morrison and his deputy, Josh Frydenberg, is remarkably close. This is something rare on either side of mainstream politics, since promotion is invariably gained by beating your colleagues to attain high office.

In the period between Tuesday, August 21, and Friday, August 24, the Liberal Party was in real crisis mode. The matter had to be resolved that week, otherwise the party might have found itself facing a genuinely unwinnable election before the end of last year because of internal divisions.

There has been much criticism of Cormann’s actions at the time of the leadership change, particularly among members of the Canberra press gallery, quite a few of whom were Turnbull supporters. But there is a strong case that Cormann saved the Liberal Party, in the short term at least.

As the government leader in the Senate, Cormann did not have a conflict of interest with respect to the leadership. Whoever prevailed would come from the House of Representatives — not the Senate. His only interest was to remain a minister in the government and ensure that Labor remained in ­opposition.

When Cormann decided that Turnbull’s self-inflicted political wounds made it impossible for him to hang on as prime minister, he brought two Senate ministerial colleagues with him — Mitch ­Fifield and Michaelia Cash.

The Coalition’s win in May endorsed Cormann’s political judgment. Since Abbott’s victory over Kevin Rudd in 2013, Cormann had been running a consistent line proclaiming the Coalition’s economic agenda and accusing Labor of big-spending, high-taxing socialism. This can be traced in six keynote speeches delivered to the Sydney Institute between 2014 and this week.

It was Cormann who maintained the Coalition’s economic line following Turnbull’s successful challenge against Abbott in September 2015. And it was Cormann who did the same as Turnbull’s leadership fell apart following his near loss in 2016.

After the leadership changed, Morrison and Frydenberg (as Treasurer), with a little help from backbencher Tim Wilson, joined Cormann in making the economic case against Labor. Morrison proved to be a first-rate communicator and an extremely hard worker on the campaign.

In his speech to the Sydney Institute last Tuesday, Cormann arg­ued that at the federal election this year “Australians voted for policies supporting opportunity and aspiration and they voted against the economy-harming, opportunity-lowering politics of envy and division”.

He praised the record of the Labor governments led by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and blamed Wayne Swan, who became treasurer in 2007, for moving Labor’s economic policy to the left.

Many commentators, especially on the ABC and in Nine newspapers, misunderstood the Coalition’s tactics in the lead-up to the election.

After becoming Prime Minister a year ago, Morrison targeted some seats that Turnbull had lost in 2016 — in northern Tasmania, parts of NSW and parts of southern and northern Queensland. The aim was to hold as many seats as possible in the remaining states, and to win back seats held by independents in Melbourne (Chisholm) and Sydney (Wentworth).

There were two prongs to this tactic: appeal to aspirational Australians along with social conservatives. The Coalition succeeded on both counts.

In 2004, after Howard’s fourth victory, Bill Shorten was interviewed on the ABC television Insiders program. At the time he was secretary of the Australian Workers Union.

In this interview, Shorten spoke about the need for Labor to advocate an agenda beyond “progressive left-wing views”. And he argued that Labor should “send a clear message to people who live in the outer suburbs and provincial cities, that if you have a dream to have an intact marriage, to go to church on Sunday, to have a mortgage, to want to send your kids to a private school — then the Labor Party of the inner city does not look at your disdainfully”.

Shorten understood the problem Labor faced before the 2004 election.

However, when opposition leader on the eve of the election this year, he lost contact with ­aspirational and socially conservative Australians in suburbs and towns.

After the election, Labor front­bencher Chris Bowen expressed concern at the flight of believers away from Labor to the Coalition.

Cormann’s economic and social conservatism was mocked by some commentators. However, his approach to the Liberal leadership contest a year ago was correct. And most Australians supported Morrison and his colleagues at the subsequent election.

SOURCE 






Real solutions for Indigenous problems

The vast majority of Australians — including many Australians of Aboriginal descent — know very little of the reality of the situation on remote communities and the extent to which aspects of traditional culture play a significant role in the acceptance of interpersonal violence which in turn perpetuates the crisis.

Nor are Aboriginal people who struggle with poor education and live within the confines of traditional culture capable of articulating to the wider Australian community the contrasting differences between traditional culture and the functions of a modern Australian society — based on democracy and the upholding of individual human rights.

What has become increasingly apparent to me is that there is one standard for the majority of Australians — and then there is a lowered standard for Indigenous Australians, which is aggressively driven by the left.

This lowered expectation for Indigenous Australians works to keep disadvantage in place — to entrench it. Rather than it giving us an ‘easier path’ — as some people claim they are trying to do — it prevents us from realising our personal and community agency in our own futures.

We are in a time where common sense is needed now more than ever. Ideology is driving the current politically correct narrative that Indigenous Australians require continual placation in order to close the gap.

The current narrative demands that symbolic gestures take priority over the implementation of practical solutions in order that marginalized Indigenous Australians may overcome their disadvantage.

We live in an era of smoke and mirrors where an industry has arisen that purports to be helping Indigenous Australia — and yet while increasing sums are spent, the promised outcomes are nowhere in sight.

Why has this happened? Because somewhere within our country’s consciousness, a shift has taken place, which has triggered an obsession with our country’s historical injustices toward Indigenous Australians — and a blindness about the real problems that abound today.

I believe it all accelerated after Rudd’s great act of symbolism with the apology. The apology focused on the Stolen Generation but failed to acknowledge those who were left behind… Left ‘on country’ with no jobs, but access to welfare and alcohol — and out of sight and out of mind for the rest of Australia.

It was the Aboriginal Ordinance of 1954 all over again, where people of mixed heritage could apply to be exempt from Ordinance but Aboriginal people of full descent continue to remain in poverty — without education, without jobs, without normal access to services — and continually told by those without traditional culture that it is their culture that will save them.

My mission — CIS’s mission — is to change the narrative. The current narrative ensures the misery of the most marginalised Aboriginal Australians continues.

As long as we continue to be sidelined by arguments for the need of more symbolism — changing the date, replacing the anthem, finding racism where it does not exist — the real issues will not be solved.

The new Indigenous Program at CIS will build on the research by the late and eminent scholar, Helen Hughes.

Building on Helen’s previous research in the area of education will be one of our first tasks. Remote Australian children have the lowest attendance rates in the nation and the lowest educational outcomes compared to the rest of Australia.

Indigenous Incarceration and its relationship with family violence is another priority the program will address.

We will also research which institutions and processes are hindering economic development — and whether the Land Rights Act should be reviewed in order that traditional owners can actually take real ownership of their land to enable economic prosperity.

The common sense that has been a hallmark of CIS policy research, and the commitment to bettering the lives of all Australians —including Indigenous Australians — means we will focus on practical and real solutions for problems that have been ignored for far too long.

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 September, 2019

The questions that linger after Cardinal Pell’s appeal

It has always seemed clear to me that His Eminence was railroaded -- convicted for the sins of his church, not for anything he personally did.  And for those who are concerned about such things, I am an atheist of Protestant background --  JR

By Gerard Bradley

The Court of Appeal of the state of Victoria dismissed George Cardinal Pell’s appeal on Wednesday 21 August in Australia from his sexual abuse conviction.

That conviction came at the end of a second trial on five counts of indecency with a minor, after a first jury could not agree on a verdict.

He was sentenced to six years, without the possibility of parole until November, 2022. Cardinal Pell’s lawyers are yet to decide a further appeal to the Australian High Court. That process is likely to take up to a year. During the interim, the cardinal will remain in a Victorian prison.

Because the trials were conducted in closed sessions and under a press “gag” order, accounts of the evidence against the cardinal have been incomplete and even sketchy. Until now.

It was long widely known that the case involved allegations of assaults on two choirboys, both aged 13 when the crimes supposedly occurred in late 1996.

The setting was said to be just after then-Archbishop Pell celebrated Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne.

One of the boys died accidentally a few years ago. The surviving complainant said nothing to anyone of his horrendous story until 2015. (The other boy died without ever claiming to have been abused; in fact, he expressly denied that any such thing happened to him when his mother in 2001 pointedly asked him.)

Improbable allegations

It has long been apparent, too, that the allegations against Cardinal Pell were so inherently improbable as to be, on their face, almost fantastic. Nonetheless, the prosecutors pressed on. They finally got a jury to return the verdict they wanted.

Knowing the cardinal as I do, and evaluating the evidence reported in light of my years as a Manhattan trial prosecutor, I have always confidently believed that Cardinal Pell is innocent.

One small mercy of this unwelcome appellate setback is that I am now certain that Cardinal Pell is innocent.

After the appeal: how things look

Another consolation is that the appellate decision supplies reasonable grounds to hope that the High Court will finally correct this awful miscarriage of justice if the Cardinal seeks leave to appeal. The basis for affirming Cardinal Pell’s innocence lies in the evidence now recounted in extraordinary detail across the 325 pages of the appellate corpus.

The court split 2-1. The dissenting judge — an Oxford-educated lawyer named Mark Weinberg — never quite said that he believed that Cardinal Pell was innocent.

The closest Weinberg J came to saying so might be this sentence: “[T]o my mind, [there is] a ‘significant possibility’ that the applicant in this case may not have committed these offences.”

Reading between the lines

Perhaps Weinberg J came closer when he addressed the second of the two assaults alleged by the surviving claimant:

“The complainant’s account of the second incident seems to me to take brazenness to new heights, the like of which, I have not seen … I would have thought that any prosecutor would be wary of bringing a charge of this gravity against anyone, based upon the implausible notion that a sexual assault of this kind would take place in public, and in the presence of numerous potential witnesses.

“Had the incident occurred in the way that the complainant alleged, it seems to me highly unlikely that none of those many persons present would have seen what was happening, or reported it in some way.”  None did. Weinberg J directed the reader to the next logical inference: If the complainant made up (for reasons we shall likely never know, or at least not ever fully understand) one of the two assaults, then no reasonable person should credit just on his say-so that the first incident ever occurred, either.

Yet that is exactly what the prosecutors maintained.

Justice Weinberg wrote, quite accurately, that the “prosecution relied entirely upon the evidence of the complainant to establish guilt, and nothing more.

“There was no supporting evidence of any kind from any other witness. Indeed, there was no supporting evidence of any kind at all. These convictions were based upon the jury’s assessment of the complainant as a witness, and nothing more.”

“Indeed,” Weinberg J added, the prosecutor not only “did not shrink” from making it his whole case at trial. The prosecutor “invited the members of this Court to approach this ground of appeal in exactly the same way.”

A strong dissenting voice

Justice Weinberg’s opinion is masterful and cogent. It supplies (though he did not expressly say it) overwhelming proof that George Pell is an innocent man.

There is another encouraging thought: The path to reversal on further appeal if pursued is now in view.

According to Australian procedure, much of the appellate judges’ job in a case such as Cardinal Pell’s (where the gravamen of the appeal is the sufficiency of the evidence to convict at the trial) is to simply use common sense to weigh the evidence presented to the jury.

This the three jurists did; the entire trial was videotaped and transcribed as well. Two members of the court said that they agreed with the jury’s verdict. So they voted to affirm the conviction.

Their common sense is obviously poor and their practical judgment, worse.

A simple mistake of this sort would probably not, however, warrant reversal by the High Court.

Legal error?

But they made a specifically legal error as well. On this ground at least one may reasonably hope that sometime within the next 12 months George Pell will be again a free man.

Justice Weinberg identified the majority’s mistake. Their error rested upon the two judges’ acceptance of the prosecutor’s invitation to decide first and in isolation — that is, without regard for all the other evidence, notably including the cogent exculpatory evidence offered by the Cardinal’s lawyers — whether the complainant’s testimony was “compelling.”

The term is not spot-on apt in this context. Hamlet is “compelling.” It is nonetheless fiction.

The majority judges seem to have adopted the term anyway as a synonym for not only believable, but for true, accurate.

Then these judges compounded the error: they used their isolated (and, in that sense, totally uncritical) validation of the complainant’s testimony as the criterion by which they rejected, as ineffectual or just plain false, the abundant evidence of Pell’s innocence.

They seemed to have reasoned thus: because the complainant’s story is true (we have concluded by, according to their own account, its apparent sincerity and drama), the evidence offered by the defendant which contradicts the complainant’s allegations must therefore be false.

Or, at a minimum, they judged that because the defence evidence did not demonstrate that the claimant’s story was simply impossible, it did not for that reason raise a reasonable doubt.

Justice Weinberg saw the mistake.

Weighing up witnesses

The complainant’s credibility and thus the accuracy of his story must instead be evaluated in light of the competing evidence of Cardinal Pell’s innocence.

He wrote that it “is, of course, entirely legitimate for the prosecution to [rely upon the complainant’s allegations] in answer to the challenge to these convictions.

“They must be weighed in the scale, but they must also be considered in the light of the evidence as a whole. That includes the body of clearly exculpatory material elicited from the various witnesses called by the prosecution.

“And one should not ignore the applicant’s own strong denials of any wrongdoing, as alleged, in his record of interview.”

In other words, a reasonable juror (and appellate judge!) would have to conclude that the defence case made the complainant’s story so implausible that a reasonable doubt was inescapably present.

A conscientious juror (or appellate judge sitting in review) must not conclude that a complainant is speaking truthfully until after he or she critically compares what that witness says to what the other witnesses say.

The critical evaluation incumbent on jurors is not the majority’s sequence — if looking only at the complainant’s testimony, it seems true, then all the evidence exonerating the Cardinal must be false — but rather Justice Weinberg’s dialectic (if you will), where the juror tacks back and forth across the evidence, using this bit to test the veracity of that, and that bit to evaluate the truthfulness of this.

That is simply what looking “at all the evidence” means. And herein is the majority’s legal mistake.

Put differently: The key issue on appeal was whether the jury’s verdict of guilty was reasonable.

Because the standard of proof in criminal cases in Australia is (as it is in America) “beyond a reasonable doubt,” there is some danger of confounding readers by using too many cognates of the word seeking definition — reason.

The plainest way to put the matter is probably this: Would a sensible, intelligent, conscientious juror who considered with an unbiased mind all of the evidence have to have a “reasonable doubt” about the Cardinal’s guilt?

Sufficient doubt

That doubt would be sufficient to require an acquittal if it attached to even just one essential element of the offenses charged.

Justice Weinberg concluded that, “in my respectful opinion, these convictions cannot be permitted to stand. The only order that can properly be made is that the applicant be acquitted on each charge.”

Indeed. And so one hopes, and perhaps dares to expect, the Australian High Court to conclude as well, some months from now.

SOURCE 






Most coral ‘far from sediment danger’

Run-off of sediment from farms seldom reaches the outer Great Barrier Reef, or areas where the vast majority of corals live, the head of the Australian Institute of Marine Science has said.

However, AIMS chief executive Paul Hardisty said increased nutrients were a problem for some areas and long-term monitoring showed the Great Barrier Reef was under stress.

Water quality on the outer reef has been a central issue raised by scientist Peter Ridd, who is undertaking a controversial speaking tour through Queensland sugarcane growing areas.

Dr Ridd is calling for better quality assurance checks for reef science before new laws are introduced that affect farmers along the Queensland coast.

Dr Hardisty said the reef was a complex ecosystem of 3000 reefs, including near-shore reefs, mid-shelf reefs 20km to 40km offshore, and outer-shelf reefs 100km to 200km offshore. He said there was a natural improvement in water quality from inshore to offshore reefs.

“Mid-shelf and offshore reefs typically have better water quality as these regions are flushed more frequently with waters from the Coral Sea,” he said.

“When it comes to water quality on the Great Barrier Reef, ­researchers agree it is uncommon for sediment plumes to regularly reach outer-shelf reefs.

“The inner-shelf and mid-shelf reefs, particularly those close to large rivers in the wet tropics, experience more frequent exposure to flood plumes of dissolved and suspended material.”

Extra nutrients can come from many conditions, including river outflows which can be enhanced by agricultural or industrial ­activity.

Dr Hardisty said studies had shown fine particles of nutrient-enriched and organic-rich sediment could settle on inshore and mid-shelf reefs during calm ­periods and had the potential to kill young corals within 48 hours and adult corals in three to seven days, depending on species.

An AIMS spokeswoman said inshore reefs included popular tourist destinations such as Green Island and Fitzroy Islands off Cairns, Magnetic Island off Townsville, and Hayman and Hook islands in the Whitsundays.

She said about 80 per cent of the reefs were platform reefs on the mid- and outer-continental shelf, while about 600 reefs (20 per cent) were near-shore, ­either as fringing reefs around continental islands and along the mainland coast, or as small ­detached platform reefs.

Dr Ridd said Dr Hardisty’s comments supported his claim that there was “almost no land-derived sediment on the Great Barrier Reef where 99 per cent of corals live”.

“Nutrients are not measurably different on the Great Barrier Reef to the Pacific Ocean and farm fertilisers are almost irrelevant,” he said. “For years AIMS and others have been going on about the inshore reefs and the term implies to the unsuspecting layman that it is a third or maybe even a half of the coral (inshore vs offshore). They have never come clean about what fraction the ­inshore reefs are.”

Dr Ridd is midway through a lecture tour along the Queensland coast promoted by sugarcane and farm groups concerned about water quality legislation before the Queensland parliament. The tour has provoked strong criticism from environment and reef groups.

The Australian Coral Reef ­Society said Dr Ridd ignored inshore reefs, as if they were not an important component of the World Heritage Area and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

“This is convenient for his ­argument that there are no water-quality problems for the Great Barrier Reef, discounting the hundreds of published papers investigating and reporting on these problems,” the society said.

“He also incorrectly suggests areas like the Whitsundays are not important parts of the Great Barrier Reef, despite the huge tourism industry in such areas.’’

SOURCE 





What you should do instead of university

Jobs are changing so fast nowadays that heading to university for three years may no longer be the best way of getting work.

Young people are struggling to find jobs after they finish uni and a recent report from the Grattan Institute showed doing a degree could leave some people $30,000 worse off.

TAFE or other vocational education is often seen as the only alternative but technology firm WithYouWithMe (WYWM) hopes one day to provide another lifelong learning model.

Tom Larter, the chief executive officer of the Australia and New Zealand operation, said while education and learning from university could be valuable, it was more important to get into the workforce as quickly as possible.

“Jobs are changing so fast, you need to get into your first job and then use lifelong learning to build out your skills,” he said.

“We’ve got to speed up the rate that we learn new skills.”

A WYWM report recently found Australia’s education system had not been designed to respond to changes in the labour market and many students were enrolling in studies where job prospects were expected to be low.

“When up to 80 per cent of students will not find a job in their field after graduation, you have to wonder what exactly degrees are equipping them for,” WYWM co-founder Luke Rix said.

WYWM focuses its efforts on skilling people for jobs in the technology sector where there is increasing demand.

Under its model, the focus is on getting people into work as quickly as possible, in industries where there is increasing demand, through doing short online courses. Once they have a job they continue to do courses over two to three years.

“Find out what you’re good at, make yourself competitive quickly by learning in-demand skills, get into the workforce as fast as you can and then continually learn through your career as you go,” Mr Larter said.

At the moment WYWM works mainly with military veterans to help them get jobs after they retire from service, but non-military personnel can still do their testing and courses.

The program is free for veterans and this year 1178 have got jobs through the course.

Mr Larter told news.com.au that many of their clients don’t have a university degree. “Our speciality is that we can take any veteran regardless of their background and show them how to reach their full potential,” he said.

“Even if they are a truck driver they don’t have to be a truck driver when they leave, we can upskill you in a high-demand job, particularly in tech, so you can have an ongoing career.”

Veterans first do testing, which others can also do for free online, to identify what they are good at.

“Job seekers often don’t put any data behind decisions they make about their career,” he said.

Another common mistake was not considering that they could be good at one of the many new emerging jobs. “This holds them back but the testing opens their eyes,” Mr Larter said.

“We’ve had bus drivers and junior sailors with no experience in cybersecurity do a 12-week training course and get jobs.

“Those candidates had never considered, before receiving their match, that they could actually achieve this, and it’s really inspiring for them.”

The courses at the WYWM Academy take about 100 hours and generally take about six to 12 weeks to complete part-time. There is training for things like cybersecurity, software automation and data analytics.

Veterans can complete the courses for free but they cost between $3000 to $5000 for non-military jobseekers. Once candidates are trained up WYWM helps to match them with jobs at organisations they partner with.

Sydney resident Sheldon Rogers, 26, did not have a degree but got a job through WYWM after retiring from the Royal Australian Navy. He was previously a maritime warfare officer — responsible for navigation and he generally acted as the captain’s representatives on the bridge.

After serving for six years he had no idea what he was going to do after leaving the military but the testing at WYWM suggested he would be good at sales, something that surprised him.

“It was not something that I had thought about but when they explained the parameters the testing captured, what they had identified in my personality and my background and experience, it made a lot of sense in the end,” he said.

Mr Rogers worked as a recruitment provider earning $70,000 plus commission for 14 months but has recently moved on from the company. He is working at WYWM temporarily while he looks for another job.

He said he would probably stick with sales and recommended the WYWM program.

“It’s not so much for the content itself but more about the way it’s delivered,” he told news.com.au.

“You are made to feel genuinely engaged and cared for. You are being supported and they were a sounding board to bounce off my problems and issues. People here relate to my experiences, I think that’s the best part of the course.”

Mr Larter said WYWM eventually hoped to expand its services beyond its current focus on military personnel.

“We care about solving underemployment through helping people reach their potential and achieve better paying or new jobs.”

SOURCE 






Cyclists group demands 'appalling' AAMI commercial be taken off screens immediately - even though there's NOT a bicycle in the ad

A new term:  Cycling is now "active transport"

An Australian cyclist group has slammed an AAMI Insurance advertisement and demand it be taken down, even though there are no bikes in the video.

Members of the Australian Cycle Alliance (ACAi) say the advertisement is 'appalling' and are calling for the insurance company to take it off screens immediately.

The video shows a family who have to use scooters - a form of active transport - to get to school as their car is in the repair shop.

While the father is eager to use scooters as a mode of transport, the children are reluctant as they are humiliated by what their friends may think.

The ad then suggests AAMI Comprehensive Car Insurance will provide a hire car for families while their car is out of action.

President of ACAi, Edward Hore, told Daily Mail Australia the alliance finds the video discouraging as it makes active transport look like a last resort.

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 September, 2019

Australia downgrades outlook for Great Barrier Reef to 'very poor'

OK.  I guess I should say something about this rubbish, as nobody else is stepping up to the plate so far.  For a start, note that this is prophecy, not a factual report.  They are prophesying that the reef will deteriorate.  Given the erratic influences on the reef (unpredictable cyclones, unpredictable starfish attacks, sea-level oscillations etc), this is simply a stab in the dark. Many things could happen and nobody knows which will.

Secondly this is not a report of any objective measurements. It is "based on a qualitative assessment of the available evidence."  Note: qualitative, not quantitative.  It is in short simply an expression of opinion from people with a vested interest in alarm

And pointing the skinger of forn at global warming is the silliest thing of all.  Where does the reef flourish best?  Where does it display the greatest biodiversity?  In the far tropics.  In the WARMEST parts of the reef waters. Corals LIKE warmth.  Global warming would be GOOD for the reef.  We live among madmen


Australia downgraded the Great Barrier Reef's long-term outlook to "very poor" for the first time on Friday, as the world heritage site struggles with "escalating" climate change.

In its latest five-yearly report on the health of the world's largest coral reef system, the government's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority singled out rising sea temperatures as the biggest threat to the giant organism.

"The significant and large-scale impacts from record-breaking sea surface temperatures have resulted in coral reef habitat transitioning from poor to very poor condition," the government agency said.

"Climate change is escalating and is the most significant threat to the Region's long-term outlook.

"Significant global action to address climate change is critical to slowing deterioration of the Reef's ecosystem and heritage values and supporting recovery," it said.

But the agency added that the threats to the 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) reef were "multiple, cumulative and increasing" and, in addition to warming seas, included agricultural run-off and coral-eating crown of thorns starfish.

The agency said the outlook downgrade from "poor" in 2014 to "very poor" now reflected the greater expanse of coral deterioration across the massive reef, notably following back-to-back coral bleaching events caused by sea temperature spikes in 2016 and 2017.

"The window of opportunity to improve the reef's long-term future is now," it said.

The conservative Australian government has faced criticism from environmentalists for favouring an expansion of its massive coal mining and export industry over action to curb climate change.

The United Nations had asked to receive the latest update on the reef's health by December so that it can determine whether the site can retain its world heritage status when UNESCO next considers the issue in 2020.

The reef is estimated to be worth at least $4 billion (£3.3 bn) a year to the Australian economy - serving as a magnet for tourists and emblem of the country.

SOURCE






The Great Barrier Reef is not dead ... long live the reef

By Sussan Ley (Sussan Ley is the Australian federal Minister for the Environment)

A fortnight ago I was on the reef, not with climate sceptics but with scientists, the country’s lead reef agencies, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science and accredited master reef guides.

Their advice was clear: the Reef isn’t dead. It has vast areas of vibrant coral and teeming sea life, just as it has areas that have been damaged by coral bleaching, illegal fishing and crown of thorns outbreaks.

To help the reef, its wildlife and the 64,000 jobs it supports, we need to recognise both realities.

There are those who will not be happy unless we declare the reef dead in the name of climate change, just as there are those who want to claim that nothing out of the ordinary is taking place. As a minister who respects the science, who has consulted over many weeks with reef experts from the park authority, the Institute of Marine Science and the innovative Great Barrier Reef Foundation, I do not subscribe to either position.

We have the best managed reef ecosystem in the world. We have a massive job to do in protecting its future and we are getting on with that job.

The Great Barrier Reef covers some 346,000 square kilometres and the tourism experience you will find snorkelling from Cairns and other locations such as  the Whitsundays remains awe-inspiring.  The reef is showing us that it has the capacity to regenerate from impacts such as cyclones, bleaching and crown of thorns starfish outbreaks.

But it also faces enormous challenges if we do not take action. Reducing threats from rising sea temperatures, poor water quality and crown of thorns outbreaks are critical in protecting its future.

I trust the scientists who tell me that climate change is the biggest single threat to the reef, just as I trust those who tell me of the things we can do, and are doing, to make the reef more resilient.

The Morrison government is taking meaningful action to reduce global emissions. The $3.5 billion Climate Solutions Package will deliver the 328 million tonnes of abatement needed to meet our 2030 Paris target.

From an environment perspective, my focus is on the things we can do on the reef and in its catchment, from the work with farmers addressing water quality to the protection of marine park areas, the control of crown of thorns starfish, collaboration with local communities and traditional owners, and the investment in new technology to improve coral spawning success and adaptation to warmer environments.

The federal government is investing $1.2billion in the reef, including $443 million through the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, which will in turn attract significant private-sector investment in innovative reef protection partnerships. Already there are some significant gains in terms of crown of thorns control, partnerships with landholders and increased marine park compliance and surveillance.

The full benefit of many investments and management strategies already under way in the park are still to be realised through our monitoring systems.

We need to continue to accelerate our actions in these areas, as well as invest in steps to reduce plastic and waste in our waterways.

The Australian and Queensland governments’ Reef 2050 Plan – endorsed by the United Nations World Heritage Committee – is a world-leading strategy for a marine protected area. I hope to see it gain more momentum as we work in partnership with all tiers of government, the private sector, NGOs, traditional owners and the wider community.

The Australian and Queensland governments are investing $2 billion in the future of the reef, working with many partners including independent scientific panels, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the CSIRO.

Our investment in innovation through the foundation has enormous potential to deliver forward-looking conservation projects for the reef, with significant scope for private sector partnerships.

This is anything but a head-in-the-sand approach and it is in stark contrast to those who would rather rush to declare the reef dead than look at the steps we can take – and are taking – to preserve it into the future.

SOURCE 






Universities have lost their way as homes for free speech

In 2016, the Collins English Dictionary ranked “snowflake generation” as one of those annoying new phrases for the year. It is time to bury it. It’s a beat-up and, worse, it is an unfair slur on the current generation of students.

That is the good news from a forthcoming research report by the Institute of Public Affairs into the state of free speech on campus. Far from being snowflakes, it turns out kids are not the problem.

But the bad news is that there is, most definitely, a free speech crisis on campus. The results show that universities are failing students, boys in particular, and this institutional dereliction of duty raises questions about the relevance and sustainability of universities in the 21st century.

Instead of speaking to univer­sity administrators and academics, the IPA commissioned a survey from independent market research company Dynata, asking 500 students to agree or disagree with a series of statements about free speech, diversity of views and so on. Importantly, students joined the survey groups without knowing they would be asked about free speech on campus.

The first point to note is that 82 per cent of students said they should be exposed to different views even if they found them challenging or offensive. And free speech is not a political issue. Of those who said they should be exposed to different views, 86 per cent of Greens supporters were concerned and 82 per cent of Labor supporters were worried, as were 82 per of Coalition supporters.

And those noisy anti-free students who try to shut down views they don’t like? They are tiny in number. With only 2.2 per cent of students disagreeing with the statement that they should be exposed to different views, why on earth are university leaders so pusillanimous in dealing with them? After riot police had to be called, it took a nine-month investigation for the University of Sydney to discipline a student organ­iser of the protests that tried to stop Bettina Arndt from speaking at a function last year.

The next set of numbers point to a truly depressing state of free speech crisis on campus. A little more than 41 per cent of students said they sometimes were unable to express their opinions at university. Just under a third of students had been made to feel uncomfortable by a university teacher for expressing their opinion. And 59 per cent of students said they sometimes were prevented from expressing their opinions on con­troversial issues by other students.

This last figure should cause students to rethink their claimed commitment to a diversity of views. You can’t, on the one hand, say you support different views on campus, even if they are challenging and offensive, and on the other hand make students expressing different views feel uncomfortable. A genuine belief in free speech means defending the right of people you disagree with, even vehemently, to speak freely.

The other damning results show that students are going elsewhere to express their views and to learn about different ideas from others. More than 47 per cent of students said they felt more comfortable expressing their views on social media than at university, and 58 per cent of students said they were exposed to new ideas on social media more than they were at university. Almost 45 per cent said that social media played a bigger role in shaping their views than what they learned at university.

This raises serious questions about the diminishing relevance of universities for students who are keen to be exposed to diverse opinions, so keen that they are seeking out other platforms for different ideas.

The learning environment at universities is letting down young male students in particular. The survey results reveal a consistent gender gap between male and female students when it comes to feeling free to express views. Most concerning, 44 per cent of male students (compared with 23 per cent of female students) said they had been made to feel uncomfortable by their university teacher for expressing their views, and 47 per cent of young male students (compared with 38 per cent of young female students) said they sometimes felt unable to express their views at university.

Time to bury another myth, then: the one about boys hogging discussion in the lecture theatre and in the tutorial room. Maybe this sharp gender gap should be no surprise given a recent workshop at the University of Melbourne where organisers wanted white male students, and anyone who looked like a Liberal voter, to remain silent in tutorials. It turns out that the students wrapped in their identity politics on campus didn’t need to make that demand because many boys are self-censoring. It hardly needs pointing out — or maybe it does today — that this kind of self-censorship is not a healthy learning environment for male or female students.

The IPA’s survey also explains why Jordan Peterson is a cultural rock star among young men. The gender gap is pronounced when it comes to those students who feel more comfortable expressing their views on social media (56 per cent of male students compared with 41 per cent of female students), and those who say they are exposed to more new ideas on social media than at university (65 per cent of male students compared with 54 per cent of female students).

Young male students are disproportionately looking elsewhere for a more diverse range of opinions, and for a space where they can express their own views. Again, this should be no surprise given the phenomenal popularity of long-form podcasts and YouTube conversations, by left-liberals such as Dave Rubin to more conservative ones such as Peterson and Ben Shapiro.

The terrific news is that students don’t have short concentration spans when they are listening to views that challenge the orthodoxy. In fact, the next generation of leaders, teachers, lawyers, scientists and engineers want to learn; this survey shows they are hungry for ideas.

What an indictment on the university sector in this country that these students, especially young men on campus, rely on social media, not their own campus, to challenge their views and, ultim­ately, to form their opinions. And don’t imagine these findings are akin to a young conservative man feeling stifled in the audience of the ABC’s Q&A. The gender gap uncovered by this survey is reflected among young male students across all political persuasions. In other words, the lack of free speech on campus transcends politics.

It is also clear that open intellectual inquiry is unhealthy across university faculties, not just in arts and humanities. Among the 500 students, 234 students are studying science and technology, and 40 per cent of them said their teachers sometimes unnecessarily inserted political content into their courses. These areas should be the least political. But again, are we surprised? After all, James Cook University unlawfully sacked esteemed physics professor Peter Ridd for asking questions that challenged the climate change orth­odoxy on campus.

And these findings are only slightly below the percentage of all students, 45 per cent of whom said university teachers sometimes unnecessarily inserted political content into their courses.

Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, federal Education Minister Dan Tehan announced his plan to work with the university sector to collect student feedback on diversity of opinions on campus and whether students felt empowered to voice nonconformist views. “I believe universities want to know if students and staff are afraid to discuss certain topics,” Tehan said. We can test that by watching how university vice-chancellors respond to the IPA’s findings.

Their reaction to the French report into the state of free speech released in April points to disheartening default settings: they told us they were committed to free speech; that any other suggestion would be ludicrous because they were universities after all; then they did nothing to explore what in fact was happening on campus. Worse, they turned their noses up at evidence collected by others. By not mentioning the French report they prayed it would go away and, when pushed to respond, they grabbed one titbit — a line from the report that said there was no free speech “crisis” — so they could quickly resume normal programming even though French made clear there were problems around free speech that universities must confront.

Like a recalcitrant child, some VCs eventually signalled they would consider adopting some version of French’s model code on free speech. Even then, as French noted, adopting a code is no substitute for changing the university’s culture.

For example, following a Senate estimates inquiry late last year, Sydney University vice-chancellor Michael Spence was reported as being “galled” that Liberal senator Amanda Stoker prised from federal education bureaucrats a new-found focus to hold univer­sities accountable for obligations they have under the law to be ­places of free intellectual inquiry.

This latest research by the IPA shows those laws are not working.

Yet, in response to Stoker’s line of questioning, Spence told one newspaper: “Have you ever heard of a more shocking waste of public funds?” Yes. Last year $17.5 billion was provided to universities by taxpayers, many of whom have not been to university. How extraordinary that it needs saying, let alone enforcing, that each university drawing on public funds should be an oasis of free intellectual inquiry, offering a range of diverse and challenging opinions, so that fee-paying students don’t need to go elsewhere to feel comfortable expressing their views.

The days of university vice-chancellors paying lip service to free speech are coming to an abrupt end. As evidence mounts, with more people, including students, contesting the ability of universities to be places of genuine learning, taxpayers should expect university funding to be strictly tied to their ability to foster diversity of opinions. That we need such measures at all, and given the history of intransigence among university VCs, we also need to start planning for the next phase of learning, offering new avenues for higher education and deciding whether universities should be publicly funded at all.

SOURCE 






Scott Morrison slams new transgender toilets in Prime Minister's office and orders them REMOVED - calling them 'over the top political correctness'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has slammed a toilet sign encouraging staff to use the bathroom which 'best fits your gender identity'. The sign was installed at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's office in Canberra.

'PM&C is committed to staff inclusion and diversity. Please use the bathroom that best fits your gender identity,' the sign read.

Mr Morrison has slammed the sign as 'political correctness over the top'. 'Honestly this is why we call it the Canberra bubble, it's ridiculous ... It will be sorted out,' he told 2GB Radio. 

'I don't think this is necessary. I think people can work out which room to use, 'It is political correctness over the top.'

He has spoken to the department officials about the sign and said he expects the note to be taken down. It is unknown when the sign was put up.

The PM&C's website said 'promoting diversity and inclusion is critical' in order 'to achieve our goal of best supporting government and improving outcomes for all Australians'.

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





MY OTHER SITES

Alternative (Monthly) archives for this blog



DETAILS OF REGULARLY UPDATED BLOGS BY JOHN RAY:

"Tongue Tied"
"Dissecting Leftism"
"Australian Politics"
"Education Watch International"
"Political Correctness Watch"
"Greenie Watch"
Western Heart


BLOGS OCCASIONALLY UPDATED:

"Marx & Engels in their own words"
"A scripture blog"
"Recipes"
"Some memoirs"
To be continued ....
Coral Reef Compendium
IQ Compendium
Queensland Police
Australian Police News
Paralipomena (3)
Of Interest
Dagmar Schellenberger
My alternative Wikipedia


BLOGS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED

"Food & Health Skeptic"
"Eye on Britain"
"Immigration Watch International".
"Leftists as Elitists"
Socialized Medicine
OF INTEREST (2)
QANTAS -- A dying octopus
BRIAN LEITER (Ladderman)
Obama Watch
Obama Watch (2)
Dissecting Leftism -- Large font site
Michael Darby
Paralipomena (2)
AGL -- A bumbling monster
Telstra/Bigpond follies
Optus bungling
Bank of Queensland blues


There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)


Alt archives
Longer Academic Papers
Johnray links
Academic home page
Academic Backup Page
General Backup
General Backup 2



Selected reading

MONOGRAPH ON LEFTISM

CONSERVATISM AS HERESY

Rightism defined
Leftist Churches
Leftist Racism
Fascism is Leftist
Hitler a socialist
What are Leftists
Psychology of Left
Status Quo?
Leftism is authoritarian
James on Leftism
Irbe on Leftism
Beltt on Leftism

Critiques
Lakoff
Van Hiel
Sidanius
Kruglanski
Pyszczynski et al.





Main academic menu
Menu of recent writings
basic home page
Pictorial Home Page
Selected pictures from blogs (Backup here)
Another picture page (Rarely updated)



Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following:
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20151027-0014/jonjayray.com/

OR: (After 2015)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322114550/http://jonjayray.com/