A weird view of Australia from hate-filled Leftists

To obtain a glimpse of two different views of Australia start at Circular Quay where the First Fleet came ashore in January 1788. The crowd is invariably busy on weekdays and relaxed at the weekend. It's usually a fun place to be and, right now, the newspapers on sale there toast the successes of the young Australian men and women at the Beijing Olympics. However, not very far away, alternative views prevail.

The 16th Biennale of Sydney is under way. A major venue is the Museum of Contemporary Art. The artwork on the MCA proclaims such messages as "200 Years Of White Lies". This suggests that the history of European settlement in Australia is based on wilful calumny. It also indicates that left-wing alienation is alive and well and on show in contemporary Australia. The biennale is funded by grants from the Australian and overseas participating governments - in addition to corporate support. All the governments backing this festival of contemporary art are democracies. The theme is "Revolution - Forms That Turn".

Step inside the MCA and there, hanging from the ceiling, is an artwork titled A civilizacao occidental e crista (Western Christian Civilisation) by the Argentinian Leon Ferrari - depicting a crucified Christ attached to a US F-107 fighter aircraft. This is presented as a critique of Western civilisation. But what about the double standard involved? It is impossible to imagine the MCA would show an artwork which showed the prophet Muhammad attached to, say, an Iranian missile.

Move to level three and there is a collection of fine photographs by Yevgeniy Fiks of various places where members of the Communist Party of Australia have worked and met in Sydney since the early 1920s. This work essentially praises the party and such communist operatives as Eric Aarons and Rupert Lockwood. There is no mention of the fact that, up to the 1960s, CPA functionaries were allied to Lenin, Stalin and their heirs in Moscow and were committed to overthrowing Western democracies and replacing them with communist totalitarian regimes.

One photo at the MCA depicts a CPA building which was raided by police in 1940. Reference is made to the fact that the Communist Party was banned in the early years of World War II. But no reason is given, perhaps to prevent embarrassment. So let's state the facts. The party was banned circa 1940 because it supported the (then) pact between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union and, consequently, opposed the Allied war effort. The CPA only began to support the war effort in mid 1941 when Germany unilaterally broke the Nazi-Soviet pact and invaded the Soviet Union.

Not far from the MCA, the British-born Nigel Jamieson's play Gallipoli is showing at the Sydney Theatre. This is yet another version of the familiar left-wing interpretation of World War I. The theme is set early in the first act. It is 1914 and Imperial Germany's leader Kaiser Wilhelm wants to invade Belgium. Jamieson's solution? Let him. And France? Well, according to the playwright, that seems OK, too. As long as the Allies, including Australia, do not go to war to support Belgium and France. Or to oppose Germany and its Ottoman Empire ally.

Last month Jamieson told the journalist Elissa Blake that his straw-bale bush house is "pretty much carbon neutral" and contains a compost toilet. How about that? In any event, there were emissions aplenty in Gallipoli, as the playwright-director sought to re-create the conditions of the Dardanelles campaign in 1915. Technically, the play is a great success. But its message is the familiar they-all-died-in-vain line. Sure, the Dardanelles campaign was a military debacle. But it was devised with the best of intentions - namely, to help reduce the killing on the Western Front.

The only real hero of Gallipoli is the Turkish military commander Ataturk. Jamieson maintains that in 1915 Australia decided "to invade a Muslim country who posed no threat to us". He attempts, unsuccessfully, to draw comparisons with Australia's involvement in the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq nine decades later. Even to the extent of (gratuitously) showing a photo of a military funeral for one of the Australian fallen from a recent conflict. Jamieson seems unaware that Australia joined others in invading the Ottoman Empire in 1915 because it was an ally of Imperial Germany. That's all. Moreover, he does not seem to know that very few, if any, German historians today would support his interpretation as to why World War I began.

The prevailing criticism of the West and Western democracies - on show at the MCA and in Gallipoli - is also evident in the initial response in the media to the conflict between Russia and Georgia. Quite a few journalists, particularly on the ABC, were quick to blame the Western ally Georgia and/or the United States. For example, on Radio National's Late Night Live its presenter Phillip Adams and his left-wing regular guest Bruce Shapiro pointed the finger at the US for Russia's evident aggression in the Caucasus. It's as simple as that, apparently.

The contrast between the views of the alienated intelligentsia and the majority of Australians are seldom more evident than at times of international events. Witness the hyperbolic claim by Germaine Greer in her essay On Rage that "Australians are now becoming aware of the dire plight of their island continent, and the utter bleakness of its future". Witness Barrie Kosky's bizarre assertion on the 7.30 Report that "the absolute soul" of democratic Austria can be located in the basement where Josef Fritzl allegedly imprisoned and raped his daughter. And rejoice that most Australians following the Games are oblivious to such alienated nonsense.

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Firemen sent to a talk shop, leaving fire engine unmanned

There's no limit to the stupidity and irresponsibility of bureaucracies

FIREFIGHTERS have accused the State Government of risking lives by plundering rostered crews to make up a shortfall for corporate training. Queensland Firefighters Union secretary Mark Walker yesterday described the situation as "outrageous and dangerous" after the Maroochydore station's high-rise fire engine was left idle when its crew was sent to Brisbane to meet paid corporate obligations. Crews from the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast were all being affected.

LNP spokesman on emergency services Ted Malone said the practice was "worse than mismanagement". "The Department of Emergency Services is risking people's lives by taking firefighters off the front line to do corporate training which is not high in urgency," Mr Malone said.

One firefighter with more than 10 years' experience said yesterday that the community was being "ripped off" by the situation and he felt he was letting his workmates down as well.

Mr Walker said that because two Sunshine Coast firefighters were called to Brisbane to conduct corporate training yesterday the whole northern region, from Caloundra to Bundaberg, was left without high-rise fire-fighting capability. If a fire had broken out in a high-rise building a truck would have had to be sent up from Brisbane or there would have been a scramble to locate firefighters on their days off - meaning delays of several hours. Mr Walker said the situation had arisen because of stalled pay negotiations between the Government and the state's 2000 career firefighters. The Queensland Fire Service has a commercial arm that contracts firefighters to outside businesses to provide services such as training, usually employing them on their days off.

Queensland Fire Service Commissioner Lee Johnson said yesterday that operational overtime was authorised at Maroochydore to enable the station to be fully staffed. "In this particular case, of the two officers deployed to the Whyte Island Training Centre, only one was able to be replaced by a day worker, despite all attempts to find a replacement for the second officer on overtime," he said. "Contingency plans are in place in the event of unexpected leave. This entails contacting available trained staff and seeking support from neighbouring areas."

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Prominent conservative says Oz must go nuclear

AUSTRALIA must embrace nuclear power to cut greenhouse gases, argues a Liberal [Party] frontbencher who warns coal-fired power generation is deadlier. In the strongest pro-nuclear remarks since former prime minister John Howard left politics, Coalition trade spokesman Ian Macfarlane says Australia "must get real" on nuclear energy to tackle climate change. "If we are serious about reducing global greenhouse emissions, the nuclear option is one we cannot ignore," the Queensland Liberal MP will say in a speech tonight.

Mr Macfarlane's comments will be seized on by the Rudd Government, which believes the Coalition harbours a secret plan to resurrect Mr Howard's nuclear framework. They will not be welcomed by sections of the Liberal Party - including senior frontbenchers - who also believe nuclear is political poison.

In a mining speech in Brisbane tonight, Mr Macfarlane will argue the Government "must include" nuclear in any future base-load energy mix. He will argue that nuclear must be "among the first options worthy of consideration" as Australia decides the best way to tackle climate change. "The biggest gains in cutting greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in the shortest possible time and at the lowest cost and least economic risk will come from nuclear power," Mr Macfarlane will say. "It's a black and white answer. Or should I say black and yellow answer. Clean coal and yellowcake - we must include nuclear in our future base-load clean energy mix."

The Coalition's position on nuclear power has been confused since the election, when Labor ran an effective scare campaign on the prospect of 25 nuclear reactors. Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson appeared to shift position on the volatile issue in December - but some other frontbenchers believe nuclear should remain on the table. Other Liberal MPs, such as Opposition defence spokesman Nick Minchin, are very cool towards nuclear power, believing it is politically unpopular.

Mr Macfarlane says deaths from nuclear power generation "are less than half a percent of the total" of deaths attributed to the coal-fired power sector.

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The germy one's rant is racist, says black academic

Grievance is all the germy one is good at

Marcia Langton has delivered a stinging rebuke to Germaine Greer, describing her views as outdated and simplistic and condemning the feminist for a "cleverly disguised" racist attack on Aboriginal people.

Writing in The Australian today, Professor Langton dismisses Greer's claims that Aboriginal men suffer a rage they "can't get over" and urges the expat academic and author to read more history. "Taken as a whole, her arguments are racist," says Professor Langton, the chair of Australian indigenous studies at Melbourne University. "They are also just plain wrong."

Greer says in her provocative essay published this month, On Rage, that the loss of land, women, language and culture over 200 years has caused a rage among indigenous men that is at the core of problems in Aboriginal communities. She also asserts that indigenous women who supported last year's intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities will be seen as colluding "with the enemy".

But Professor Langton - herself a target of Greer's criticism - says most Aboriginal women who have fallen victim to the "anarchy and violence" endemic in some communities have welcomed the intervention. "What the children who have been victims of violence and abuse will make of all of this in the future, we cannot know," she writes. "But they will surely wonder why a feminist of such fame as Greer has come to the defence of those who destroyed their innocence and damaged their sense of self."

Professor Langton accuses Greer and her publisher of "attention-seeking" behaviour, distracting from genuine efforts to ensure a dignified future for indigenous children. This goal does not interest Greer in the least, she says. Professor Langton also backs the views of Cape York indigenous leader Noel Pearson and Perth-based indigenous human rights lawyer Hannah McGlade, who say perpetrators of violence should take responsibility for their actions. "We are not in the mood for failed leftist excuses for the rising levels of homicide, femicide and suicide," Professor Langton writes.

"Dr Greer's panoply of protest slogans deployed as social theory was dismissed long ago by the research and policy community as incapable of explaining the present day levels of huge disparities in life expectancy, morbidity and mortality rates and other socio-economic indicators. "While the 'burden of history' is acknowledged in much of this work, the everyday suffering in communities at risk is caused by a multiplicity of factors ... all more complicated than Dr Greer would have us understand."

Greer's essay has been criticised by the first Aborigine elected to the NSW parliament, Fair Trading Minister Linda Burney, who asked how the British-based academic was qualified to make her assumptions. "I think it's quite presumptuous to say that you know what is happening in the minds of Aboriginal men," Ms Burney told The Australian.

Greer was in no mood to discuss her claims when approached by The Australian at the launch of the essay in Sydney last week. But she told the ABC's Lateline program that the rage she identified among Aboriginal men could lead to the "annihilation of black communities". "All I'm saying is that unless we deal with the pathology that underlies it we won't get anywhere," she said. "We won't actually stop the violence. We may even cause it to escalate."

At the launch of the essay, former NSW premier Bob Carr endorsed Greer's work as "one of the most powerful pamphlets ever written in Australia". He added: "I had hoped there would be some hope at the end of Germaine Greer's essay."

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