Leftist crapola from Amnesty condemns Australia

I used to be a member of Amnesty when they restricted themselves to helping political prisoners everywhere but now they are just another bunch of one-eyed self-righteous preachers who hate America and much else besides. Don't even MENTION Israel!

Australia has NO political prisoners. Illegal immigrants are ordinary law-breakers. There is more on Amnesty boss -- the far-Leftist Ms Khan -- here. By putting John Howard in the same camp as the revolting Robert Mugabe, however, her main achievement is to make herself look absurd.

The screenshot below of the Amnesty USA site (from Taranto's post of May 23) shows how infantile they have become and his post of 24th. has more derisive follow-up. I actually thought that the Amnesty site might have been hacked by outsiders in an attempt to discredit them but it is now clear that the juvenile nonsense was in fact all their own work.

If Amnesty were seriously concerned about human rights, they would be concentrating their attention on things like this



Prime Minister John Howard finds himself alongside Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in an Amnesty International report which says they are among short-sighted fear-mongers dividing the world. The human rights pressure group has accused Mr Howard of portraying asylum-seekers as a threat to national security. The report also criticises Australia's role in the war on terror and its treatment of female victims of violence.

Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan says the fear generated by leaders such as Mr Howard thrives on myopic and cowardly leadership. Ms Khan included Mr Howard with Mr Mugabe, US President George Bush and Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir in the same scathing paragraph in her foreword to the group's annual report published today. Ms Khan said the fear generated by leaders such as Mr Howard "thrives on myopic and cowardly leadership''. "The Howard government portrayed desperate asylum-seekers in leaky boats as a threat to Australia's national security and raised a false alarm of a refugee invasion,'' Ms Khan wrote.

More here




Mr Incorrectness speaks sense again

Says Aboriginal kids must learn English. That's probably even more "incorrect" than an American leader saying that Hispanics must learn English -- but it is very realistic

INDIGENOUS people had no hope of being part of mainstream Australian society unless they could speak English, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Mr Howard backed a proposal by Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough to ensure indigenous children in remote communities learned English, and said the best way to ensure they became proficient in the language was to send them to school. Mr Brough is drawing up a Cabinet proposal that would require indigenous parents to ensure their children attended school or risk losing welfare payments. He said today there was a lot of support from Aboriginal communities for the plan.

Mr Howard said: "Indigenous people have no hope of being part of the mainstream of this country unless they can speak the language of this country. "If you require them to go to school they'll have to learn English." The children of non-English speaking immigrants learnt English through their contact with the school system and so should indigenous children, Mr Howard said. "In the case of indigenous people, none of them come to Australia as mature-aged people. They were all born in this country, in that sense they're different from migrants," he said. "The children of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants are forced to learn English because they go to school. Equally, Aboriginal children should learn English because they should be required to go to school."

Mr Brough told today's The Australian newspaper that Aboriginal people should follow the example of Greek and Italian migrants and become bilingual. He said this - coupled with a "basic grasp" of mathematics and improved school attendance - would allow Aboriginal children living in deprived communities to find work and economic independence. "Most of the children (in many communities) don't speak any semblance of English," Mr Brough said. "So what chance have they got?" "They speak the language that in many cases only a handful of people do," Mr Brough said.

Defending his plan on ABC radio this morning, he said: "If we are all going to aspire, as most politicians say they do, that all Aboriginal children should have the same life expectancy, the same capacity to enjoy the bounty of this nation, then we are just living a lie if we don't ensure that they have the first fundamental that they need to be mobile citizens of Australia, and that is the English language. "These children, like all Australian children, will benefit from a strong grasp of English which allows them to make choices in their lives which they simply don't have when they only speak a language which only a handful of people can understand."

Mr Brough's proposal was met with amazement by NSW's first Aboriginal MP, Linda Burney. "I think that he needs to understand that culture and country is incredibly important to Aboriginal people and they will be protected at all costs," she said on ABC radio. "Aboriginal kids do need to be bilingual but it's a bit rich coming from a person who actually is part of a government that took away funding for bilingual programs in the Northern Territory."

Mr Brough said school attendance was essential and he would look into ways to encourage indigenous children to go to school, including stopping parents' welfare payments if their children were truants. "I am looking at welfare changes which can help with school attendance," he said. "I will look at anything at all, both incentives as well as things such as welfare quarantining, to assist the circumstances." "This is probably the number one issue I get from grandparents in remote communities," he said. "It's been pushed at me. Particularly the grandmothers, the grandfathers, they are so adamant. They understand the value of English and they understand the value of an education."

Mr Brough's comments come two days before the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum which allowed Aborigines to be counted as Australians and gave the federal government the power to make laws for them.

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Leftist public broadcaster made to be more balanced -- for once

The ABC board has been accused of pressuring ABC TV to broadcast a ... British documentary questioning the science behind climate change. The ABC announced on Tuesday it had bought The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary that says humans are not to blame for rising global temperatures. The program caused controversy when it was aired on Britain's Channel 4 in March. Eminent scientists and some of the scientists interviewed later accused the documentary makers of using fabricated data, half-truths and misleading statements.

The ABC science journalist and broadcaster Robyn Williams, who advised the TV division not to buy the program, told the Herald yesterday the director of ABC TV, Kim Dalton, had intimated in a conversation that he was under pressure from the board on the issue. "Kim implied on April 16 the board had pressured him into it . that is what our inference was from what he said and did [in that conversation]," said Williams, who described the documentary as "deeply misleading" and "part of the school of total bollocks science journalism". A reporter on the ABC's Four Corners program, Jonathan Holmes, who took part in that conversation, said: "My impression was whether you call it pressure or some kind of indication from the board or members of the board or a member of the board that he [Mr Dalton] should look at the documentary and consider running it."

Mr Dalton denied he had come under any influence from the board or that he had spoken to any of its members about the program. The chairman of the board, Maurice Newman, and the ABC's managing director, Mark Scott, did not return the Herald's calls. Mr Dalton defended his decision to air the show by saying there was still debate about whether humans caused climate change. "Global warming is up amongst the top two or three issues of public and political debate and there is no doubt that there is still opinion out there that questions that connection between global warming and CO2 emissions."

Asked whether he thought running a program that had been shown to include falsified data would damage the ABC, Mr Dalton said: "I don't think it will at all. It will affect our credibility in a way that shows where there are areas of public importance that we will provide the forum for them to be discussed."

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The Melbourne medical meltdown continues

Gran dies after sent home alone

A GREAT-grandmother died alone hours after she was discharged from a Melbourne hospital and shuttled home in a taxi wearing just a nightgown. Ann Barbara Pitt, 91, died from heart disease on April 3 after she was sent packing from the Royal Melbourne Hospital where she had been admitted 12 days earlier for a tissue infection. Ms Pitt's distraught daughter Judy Liddy found her in a pool of blood on the floor of her Coburg home 15 hours after the discharge.

Ms Liddy will lodge a formal complaint with the Health Services Commissioner over the case, which comes amid rising concern about discharge quotas at the hospital. "I felt her shoulder and it was so cold I knew she'd been dead for ages," Ms Liddy said. "I'll never get over it as long as I live. "It haunts me every day and every night."

Health Minister Bronwyn Pike has been under mounting pressure since revelations the Royal Melbourne had imposed discharge quotas to achieve cash bonuses under the Government's hospital funding scheme. Documents show it aimed to discharge about 490 patients between mid-May and July to qualify for the extra cash.

Ms Liddy said the hospital had given her just one hour's notice of its decision to eject her mum at 5.30pm on April 2. "I don't believe she was well enough to be home," she said. Ms Pitt had suffered cellulitis, a condition that commonly affects the elderly or those with weak immune systems. It can be caused by infection, which medical experts say can put extra stress on the body including the heart. A coronial report cites coronary heart disease as the official cause of death. The autopsy attributes the blood loss to a fall, Ms Liddy believes.

Ms Liddy agreed to have her mother sent home by taxi - which she paid for - because she did not have enough time to make other arrangements. She hurried to meet her mother at home and found that she had been sent home without her purse. After helping her resettle, Ms Liddy set out to find the missing valuables. She returned the following day about 10.15am to find her mother dead in the hallway. "I ran out into the street screaming for help," Ms Liddy said.

She complained about the discharge, but the hospital said it could not respond because the case was before the coroner at the time. It said it could not find Ms Pitt's missing purse, but weeks later returned the item, which had been found in a stationery cupboard, Ms Liddy said.

The Health Services Commissioner is assessing Ms Liddy's complaint. Complaints to the commissioner increased eight per cent last quarter. About 62 per cent of complaints accepted for assessment relate to treatment procedures, including misdiagnosis, negligence and inadequate treatment. A Royal Melbourne Hospital spokeswoman extended condolences to the family and said patients were discharged only when clinicians deemed them ready.

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West Australia faces teacher crisis

The report below fails to mention that a major reason for teachers resigning or not starting in the first place is the postmodern garbage they have been asked to teach -- something that has been a major public controversy and which prospective teachers could be expected to be well aware of. It is only older teachers who are hanging on until retirement that is keeping the system afloat

EXTRAORDINARY mismanagement of teacher recruitment has put WA at risk of teacher shortages for years, an international recruiting agency has found. The Gerard Daniels agency accuses the state Education Department of "clearly failing" to develop a workforce strategy, and says officials should have foreseen the problems now being experienced, including some schools still being short of teachers halfway through the school year. Teacher recruitment processes were antiquated, and the department's recruitment website one of the worst the agency had seen.

The agency report, marked strictly private and confidential, was unexpectedly released yesterday by Education Minister Mark McGowan, who commissioned the investigation in January when schools were short more than 250 teachers statewide. Mr McGowan said the shortage had now been cut to 28 teachers but he admitted there was a serious problem in attracting more teachers, particularly for country areas. WA has the oldest teacher profile of any state or territory, ensuring major challenges ahead as the rate of retirements increases.

If immediate action were not taken, the Gerard Daniels report said, years of shortages would result. Graduates were dropping with "application fatigue" after being forced to fill in the same handwritten personal details on up to eight different forms. If they got through that hurdle, many rejected the offers made to them because they were so inadequate. The report said about $18million was needed to overcome the shortages, and recommended structural changes to the Education Department.

Promising to provide money to tackle the problem, but unable to say how much, Mr McGowan said the Government was trying to recruit teachers from Britain, and to encourage retired teachers to return to the workforce, particularly those interested in moving to a country location.

But Gerard Daniels said a survey of recently resigned teachers found widespread disillusionment, and 61 per cent said they would not recommend the department as an employer. The study found 44 per cent would contemplate returning under the right conditions, but the agency warned that the department's "employment brand" had been damaged. Despite being the state's largest employer, it was a matter of "grave concern" that the department did not attract recruits. The booming resources sector had provided much competition for staff.

"The department should be held out as an iconic employment brand," Gerard Daniels said. "It is one of the oldest continuous employers in WA. We recommend that the department re-engineer its brand, including its job offer to graduates."

State School Teachers Union secretary Dave Kelly said the report vindicated everything the union had been telling the Government for years. He said the starting salary of $45,000 for a graduate teacher who had done four years of study was ridiculous against the wages being offered to young unskilled workers in the resources sector. Mr Kelly said pay rates must be raised, and innovative incentives were essential to get teachers to move to country areas. Basic requirements such as housing must be addressed urgently. "We have teachers being forced to live in motel rooms for months because there's no housing provided - it's shameful," Mr Kelly said. "These problems are not suddenly appearing. We've warned about what was happening for years."

He said suggestions by Mr McGowan that he might reinstate a rule to force graduate teachers to work in country schools was not the answer. Mr McGowan said the teaching workforce was larger than the Australian army in an area bigger than Europe, and overall the department was doing a good job.

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