Leftist opposition to immigration in Australia

In Australia, opposition to non-British immigration has historically emanated from the labor unions and the guy reported below is that most fierce kind of unionist: A Scotsman. He has all the hatred of "the bosses" that you expect from that. I think highly of Scotland and the Scots (I even go to a Scots kirk) but there is no denying the instinctive socialism that is so prevalent in Scotland. Cameron is one of the most Leftist people in Australian public life

Unionist and New South Wales Senator-elect Doug Cameron is warning that the influx of migrant labour into Australia could lead to a racist backlash. Mr Cameron points to the increase in foreign labour in Britain as a factor in the rise of the British National Party at the recent UK local elections, and he is urging the Government and business to carefully manage immigration to avoid a similar trend here. He says Australia needs to learn from the US and the UK, where the British National Party now holds more than 50 local council seats.

Mr Cameron enters the Senate on July 1. He says cases of mistreatment of foreign workers in the 457 visa scheme have raised concerns there may be a backlash against immigrant labour in Australia. "In the UK, the British National Party have used this issue of migration to build a support base for an extreme right wing group and I don't want to see that happen within Australia," he said. "The Labor Party has got long experience and good experience at managing multiculturalism and the migration scheme and it is very important that the Labor Party handles this sensitively, smartly and doesn't give any opening for any racist views arising from the introduction of this increased migrant intake."

Mr Cameron believes an increase in foreigners working in the construction, manufacturing and hospitality sectors could create resentment among the community and that the immigrant labour scheme must be properly managed. "If it is done sensibly, if workers are treated as human beings and not just some economic commodity, then I think we can manage this," he said. "I am just raising the concerns that have been raised right around the world and we can't be immune from what academics and the press are saying is happening all around the world - and that is a backlash against this immigration."

But Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson says Mr Cameron's concerns about a possible backlash are inflammatory. "We need in Australia to recognise that we are part of a global economy," he said. "Capital is global and labour is global. What Australia needs is a sensible and rational debate about migration policy. "Migration policy needs to move with the social and economic times and any suggestion that we can't have a sensible debate without fuelling xenophobia is really silly."

Mr Anderson is confident that good leadership will avert resentment of foreign workers in the community. "[We have] good leadership amongst our community leaders and our political leaders and for that matter from our business leaders," he said. "What it means is making sure that we don't add to the tone of a discussion a hysterical element, that we ensure we not only have balanced policies, but we explain the balance of those policies to the community."

Immigration Minister Chris Evans has also rejected Mr Cameron's fears of a backlash against foreign workers. "I think the reality is that Australia has matured about those issues," he said. "Australia is a country of migrants and it is a country that has accepted large scale migration over the years - provided people settle well and provided that people are convinced that people coming into the country are needed for the growth of the economy, and that they are not undercutting Australian wages and conditions."

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Seriously, some of my best friends are anti-Semites

Former Australian Labor Party minister Barry Cohen brings his trademark good humour to a very serious subject

My favourite definition of an anti-Semite is "a person who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary". Susan Chandler, the former Victorian Liberal Party campaign manager who described a colleague as a "greedy f..king Jew", appears to qualify. The object of Chandler's affection was Adam Held, the Liberal candidate at the recent federal election for the Victorian seat of Melbourne Ports. Held is Jewish, as is his opponent, the sitting member Michael Danby.

It appears Held earned Chandler's ire during the campaign when he committed the unforgivable sin of doing an Oliver Twist and asking for more. It wasn't gruel he was after but extra political pamphlets for his campaign. Chandler obviously thought it was a plot by the Elders of Zion to corner the market in political pamphlets. Today pamphlets, tomorrow the world. One would have thought that in view of Held's work ethic a more apt description would have been "a hardworking f..king Jew".

Clearly, Chandler is not the sharpest knife in the Liberal drawer. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature would not have committed such terms of endearment to email. Nor would they have been outraged at the suggestion that they had done anything wrong. "Anti-Semitic? Moi? Some of my best friends are Jews." She may have a few less in the not-too-distant future.

It's strange how anti-Semites rarely recognise their own prejudice. As a young and promising golfer I indicated to my boss, a charming and cultured man, that I was interested in joining his golf club. "Sorry, son, no Jews, jockeys or jailbirds." He couldn't recognise his responsibility as a human being to take a principled stand against anti-Semitism.

In the 1940s, when Jews were unable to join any of the A-grade clubs in Sydney or Melbourne, they decided to build their own clubs and were immediately attacked for being exclusive. That the clubs had non-Jewish members was conveniently ignored.

After World War II, and the attempt by the Nazis to destroy European Jewry, there was sympathy and support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the mandated territories of Palestine. When the UN voted in November 1947 to create an Arab and a Jewish state, the neighbouring Arab countries attacked the Jewish state. That Israel survived was first met with disbelief, then awe and finally anger. Those, particularly on the Left, who had wept openly for the murdered millions, started to resent Jews no longer being victims.

How dare Jews win? How dare they defend themselves against those who wished to destroy them? How dare they refuse to accede to the absurd demands of the people who had created the problem by refusing to accept the UN decision? Jews had decided that they no longer wanted the sympathy and tears of the liberal Left. They wanted to survive, on their own terms.

As Israel repulsed attempts to destroy it, the anger of the liberal Left increased in intensity. As internationally famous lawyer Alan Dershowitz stated, "Throughout the world, from the chambers of the UN to the campuses of universities, Israel is singled out for condemnation, disinvestment, boycott and demonisation."

Anti-Semitism? "No! No!" cried Israel's critics. "We don't hate Jews, just Israel." For many, Israel became the pariah state. Anti-Semitism became acceptable again. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman responded: "Criticising Israel is not anti-Semitic and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction, out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East, is anti-Semitic and not saying so is dishonest."

It's the double standards by which Israel is judged that incenses Jews and their supporters. Dershowitz's story of Harvard University president A. Lawrence Lowell's attempt to limit the number of Jews admitted to Harvard in the 1920s because "Jews cheat" is the classic double standard. When an important alumnus objected on the grounds that non-Jews also cheated, Lowell replied, "You're changing the subject. I'm talking about Jews."

In Australia today many journalists are incapable of recognising their own deep-seated prejudices. When I asked one journalist why he and many of his colleagues felt it necessary to mention that certain businesspeople were Jewish, particularly those who had brushes with the law, he bridled at the suggestion that this was anti-Semitic. "It's part of the story," he spluttered. "Really?" I replied. "How, exactly?" He was unable to give a coherent reply. I asked, "Do you know and mention the religion of James Packer, Rupert Murdoch, Christopher Skase, Kerry Stokes or Alan Bond?" "No," he replied, somewhat shamefaced. "And nor should you," I told him, "Because it's irrelevant."

Others were more astute. No mention of religion. They just pointed out that the person they were writing about was a regular visitor to Israel. More clever still was the television program about a Jewish businessman who had just been released from jail. No mention he was Jewish, just a shot of him with his rabbi. Anti-Semitic? Perish the thought.

Then there's the sinister Jewish lobby. One Canberra journalist becomes apoplectic on the subject. Again, no mention of the Catholic, Protestant, Islamic, union or dozens of business and special interest groups that continually lobby governments. No suggestion that they are insidious or sinister. Oh dear, no. Selective indignation, dear readers, is anti-Semitism.

As a young boy growing up in the aftermath of World War II, I hoped that anti-Semitism would gradually fade away. Regrettably, that has not been the case. It is alive and well and, it would appear, still common among what was once called polite society.

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Blubbering activists whale about roo cull

The only thing endangered when overseas activists call kangaroos "endangered" is the truth. Kangaroos are in pest proportions in much of Australia. There are probably more of them now in Australia than there ever have been

THERE are countless unimaginable cruelties being unleashed around the world at the moment, and just as many reasons to get angry. So let's do the numbers. In China, 50,000 are dead and hundreds of bodies of schoolchildren remain under rubble after last week's earthquake, many the victims of corrupt officials and shonky builders. In Burma, the final death toll may pass 200,000 and more are homeless and starving because their paranoid and venal militia government refuses to open its borders to relief efforts.

But folks, reserve all your anger for a local travesty. Australia, the home of the cruel and inhumane, has embarked on a massacre already triggering international headlines and condemnation that will, according to some, forever tarnish our reputation and hurt our tourism industry. That's right. Four hundred kangaroos are to be culled just north of Canberra. The horror, the horror.

Little wonder a coalition of more than 30 animal rights groups has been gathering in the nation's capital doing its best to whip up a tide of shame and disgust at the notion that we are slaughtering 400 of our most iconic animals. "Nobody would seriously think that Australia has any right to criticise Japan for its whaling while we are killing 3« million kangaroos every year for dog food," says Pat O'Brien, the fearless leader of the National Kangaroo Protection Coalition.

Putting aside the fact that Australia has a growing kangaroo meat export business with Japan (a Japanese website excitedly promotes the benefits of kangaroo sushi with chilli, while thousands of tons are shipped for pet food), O'Brien's passion is sadly not matched by his numeracy, or his logic. There are only about 70,000 humpback whales remaining on this planet. So far, there have been no reported sightings of them braving the drought and entering the Australian interior to graze on precious land reserved for livestock. There are more than 50 million kangaroos in Australia.

Female humpbacks usually breed every two or three years. Gestation takes more than 11 months. Kangaroos can breed all year round, and often do. Gestation takes just over a month. They can increase their populations by up to 400 per cent in just five years when food and water is plentiful.

Comparing Japan's slaughter of an endangered species with this week's cull of eastern grey kangaroos by the Defence Department at two of its properties on the outskirts of Canberra just doesn't make sense. But in the animal rights world, sometimes the numbers just don't add up. O'Brien and others have warned that the death of 400 kangaroos will leave a bloody stain on the national character and impact on the number of tourists who will want to visit this country in future. "We are expecting hundreds of people and if they start killing them we'll be going inside the fence. We will have a 24-hour guard on them," he has said. Funny, but there are no reports of animal rights activists gathering on the Snowy Mountains highway. A few years ago scientists set up a study along a 20km stretch of that road to examine roadkill levels. In 10 months, 400 eastern greys were found splattered on the bitumen.

You can't say the animal rights groups are naive when it comes to whipping up publicity. Sir Paul McCartney has been embroiled in the cause, warning against the potential of a massacre. Last weekend a former Neighbours star, Fiona Corke, travelled to Canberra to raise national alarm. And guess what? That good old script about the whales was served up yet again. "It is hypocritical that Peter Garrett is running an anti-whaling campaign and yet is allowing hundreds of kangaroos to be killed to make room for a housing development," Corke said.

Well, it's not quite like that. There are actually threatened species hovering on the edge of extinction just outside Canberra, including unconfirmed sightings of one or two politicians who can keep election promises. In lean times, kangaroos threaten their survival, along with surrounding grasslands. To have moved the 400 kangaroos from defence land would have cost an estimated $3.5m and, according to one report, relocation can often be traumatic and inhumane.

There are more than 3m kangaroos harvested in Australia each year. They contribute to a growing export business that creates jobs and helps to keep kangaroo numbers at a manageable level.

Of course, kangaroos are cute. But so are rabbits. And we kill them, too, when their numbers explode and they start degrading the environment. There are many things in this world that deserve every ounce of outrage and anger that we can muster. But worrying about 400 kangaroos being sedated before getting the bullet is not one of them. It's called pest control.

Source. More background on the matter here







Young doctors misused

JUNIOR doctors say they are being forced to work in high-stress senior positions, claiming it is putting patients' lives in danger in South Australia. They say they are being left in charge of life-threatening cases like heart attacks because senior doctors are leaving the state for better pay and conditions. Young doctors have entered the fray over the industrial dispute with the State Government, warning patients will be at "immediate risk" if conditions are not improved. A letter signed by more than 300 trainee doctors was sent to the Government this week calling for the urgent resolution of issues, including:

REMUNERATION that reflects their responsibilities, and increased base pay for junior doctors to address issues of attraction and retention.

BETTER professional development allowances to reflect increased training costs.

MINIMUM staffing levels sufficient to allow attendance at conferences and professional development courses.

FAMILY friendly provisions.

The letter said the exodus of doctors due to "poor pay and lack of professional development support" was compromising patient safety. "South Australia is presently unable to provide suitable levels of consultant supervision to junior staff," said the letter to Premier Mike Rann, Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright and Health Minister John Hill. "This has compromised both our training as junior doctors and the care of public hospital patients."

SA Trainee Doctor spokeswoman Dr Jemma Anderson said existing pay structures did not reflect the increasing demands on junior doctors. "For too long, it has become the norm that trainee doctors work horrendous hours with increasingly limited supervision and teaching," she said. "In SA public hospitals right now, there are doctors only a few months out of their internship working in very senior roles. "If you had a heart attack in one of these hospitals, that junior doctor could be the one leading the resuscitation team to revive you. "This is dangerous for patients and puts trainee doctors under huge stress. "You don't get 300 doctors signing a letter like this unless something is very, very wrong with the system - it's a system on the edge of collapse."

Mr Hill, who is overseas, said in a statement the Government's $260 million offer would make SA junior doctors among the highest paid in the nation. "Junior doctors will receive an up to 17 per cent increase over the life of the agreement," he said. "For medical practitioners in training, their base salary will be the second highest in the nation, after Queensland." He released figures showing a step four medical practitioner in training would go from $68,964 a year base salary to $80,977 by the end of the proposed agreement, plus $10,000 annually for professional development.

Mr Hill acknowledged junior doctors needed supervision and the Health Department's chief medical officer was mentoring them. "The State Government is committed to training and retaining young doctors in the SA health system," he said. "They are the future of our system and we want to keep them in SA."

But Dr Anderson said while the increase was welcome, doctors were not being paid for the level of the work they were actually performing. The South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association and the Government will meet in the Industrial Relations Commission again on Friday. SASMOA senior industrial officer Andrew Murray said it was waiting on a response from the Government to questions about its new pay offer.

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Australian Labor Party now beginning to encounter the political costs of its Greenie fantasies

KEVIN Rudd's climate change honeymoon ended last week. The hero of Bali received a public relations belting over what were relatively modest indiscretions in the environment section of Tuesday night's budget. That's the danger with playing to the grandstand on an issue as complex and expensive as climate change. During last year's epic election campaign, Labor didn't hold back with the green symbolism to maximise its political leverage over the Howard government.

There was the generous but questionable 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020; Rudd trading in his Ford Territory for a Toyota Prius; Peter Garrett warning he wanted to ban electric hot water heaters; with the cake iced by the standing ovation at the Bali climate change talks when Australia announced it would ratify the defunct Kyoto Protocol.

Most Australians when surveyed want the Government to fix climate change. But they also want cheaper petrol and electricity. Labor has been happy to play to this information disconnect by indulging voters' naivety about what is coming, allowing them to believe these symbolic acts would be enough to solve the problem. So they can hardly cry foul when the same voters turned on them for last week's apparent abandonment of one of these icons. What the court of public opinion gives it can also take away.

Solar hot water systems are a cost-effective energy-saving technology for many Australian homes, but rooftop solar panels that generate electricity are still one of the more expensive solutions to climate change. Because of their tangibility and visibility, they have political cachet far in excess of their real value.

The Howard government was in catch-up mode at last year's budget when it announced a doubling of the rebate to households that wanted to install solar panels. It was a political stunt, offering households up to $8000 to install systems that started at $12,000, and giving Australians access to the most generous solar rebate scheme in the world. The tiny solar panel industry went from installing a few hundred panels a year to a few thousand. Some major installers reported a sevenfold increase in business. Despite its generosity, the scheme has hardly dented penetration into Australia's 8 million households.

Labor went to the election saying it would means-test the Coalition's solar hot water rebate, limiting it to households earning less than $100,000 as part of a broader economic platform to rein in middle-class welfare. It seemed logical for the Government to extend that to the solar panel rebate, while increasing the number of rebates available. But perhaps they should have consulted the industry first.

Most households who are paying a mortgage and can spare $5000 for solar panels are earning more than $100,000 a year. In the following three days solar installers reported up to 70 per cent of their orders had been cancelled. The hostile reaction on talkback radio revealed outrage from a community that appeared to take vicarious ownership of the generous scheme, even if only a handful actually signed up. In reality it's a clumsy intervention that will deliver a sudden bust to the boom enjoyed by a small section of the popular renewable energy industry. The furore looks worse than it is.

But there were other problems that suggest it will take more than good words, good intentions and increased funding for this Government to deliver on its promise of a dynamic renewable energy industry. Labor forgot to provide for the geothermal industry in this budget. While these companies have been promised $50 million by Canberra, the money is needed now to offset some of the high cost of drilling wells 5km deep to tap hot-rock energy. These wells can cost between $10 million and $15 million each, and two or three are needed to get a single pilot plant going.

Like mining or gas exploration, it's an expensive business to get started. Most hot-rocks companies have listed on the ASX to raise the equity needed and many have gone back to shareholders to ask for more or signed up joint ventures with major energy companies. But letting the market do all the work can be risky. The Geodynamics group is the most advanced in the field and is already circulating steam at its trial site in northeast South Australia. Origin Energy came in as a joint venture partner last year, but is now the subject of a possible takeover by British energy giant BG Group. But they want the gas, not the hot rocks. If the bid succeeds, there is no guarantee they are likely to share the same enthusiasm for the project.

The Government's political vulnerability over whether it can live up to its hype on clean energy rhetoric is only a small skirmish compared to the backlash that awaits them in July. That's when Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, armed with the draft Garnaut review and Treasury modelling, will release the Government's green paper setting the terms of a national emissions trading scheme.

It will be the most delicate of balancing acts, trying to preserve the engine room of the economy and the million jobs in trade-exposed, energy-intense industries while being seen to act decisively on climate change. It's a contest of high petrol prices and inflation versus environmental reputation and credibility.

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