Another one of Australia's charming Muslim citizens



A PARAMEDIC was threatened and assaulted as she tried to treat a crash patient, a court heard yesterday. Police allege Ali Mobayad, 30, was involved in a verbal altercation with paramedic Karen Matthews outside Berala Public School as she was treating a patient who was injured in a car accident.

Documents tendered to Burwood Local Court yesterday revealed that the Auburn man double parked in a school zone - the only charge he pleaded guilty to - before allegedly getting out of his car and pounding on the Rapid Response vehicle's driver-side window and "threatening" the 37-year-old paramedic.

It is alleged Mobayad then began yelling and swearing at the ambulance officer before assaulting her just after 3pm on March 7. Court documents stated the alleged offences "caused a real fear of actual physical violence" and prevented Ms Matthews from "executing her duties as a paramedic".

The court heard the accused left the scene, but was arrested [on Yarram Road, Lidcombe] shortly after 4.30pm. He was charged with negligent driving, menacing driving, common assault and hindering an ambulance officer by act of violence - all of which he has denied and pleaded not guilty to yesterday.

Outside court, Mobayad became irate after he spotted The Daily Telegraph waiting with cameras. "You see this face - if you use that image you will never see the end of this," he said. "I don't care what happens to me, I'll kill you if you use that photo ... you f ... ing idiot."

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The Jewish Agency makes a special deal for Australia

The Australian Jewish community is mostly in Melbourne and Zionist sentiment is very strong among them -- with many Australian Jews emigrating to Israel, despite the relative safety of Australia

Australia will be the only Western country where the Jewish Agency will retain a fulltime Israel immigration emissary, despite the organization’s recent decision to replace all such employees with officials dealing with a broad spectrum of issues.

“It was decided that in Australia we keep the classic model, because Australia is a little bit different from other countries in the world,” the Agency’s director of English-speaking countries, Yehuda Katz, told Anglo File this week.

“First of all, they had an amazing increase in aliyah of almost 50 percent between 2009 and 2010,” he said in reference to the jump in immigration to Israel. “Secondly, in Australia we have a unique partnership with the Zionist Federation. We work hand in hand in the encouragement of aliyah and [other activities].”

Last month, a Jewish Agency spokesman told Anglo File there no longer would be in Australia a designated immigration emissary, known as an aliyah shaliach. “It doesn’t make sense anymore, from our perspective, that one shaliach offers educational programs and a different shaliach works on aliyah,” he had said, before learning of a special agreement the Australian Zionist Federation had made with the agency.

The venerable institution recently embarked on a new strategic plan that shifts its focus from promoting immigration to strengthening Jewish identity, including replacing aliyah shlichim with “multifunctional” emissaries.

“From many years of experience, we have found that dedicated aliyah shlichim make a big difference in not just making the aliyah preparation much easier, but also in promoting aliyah, establishing aliyah groups in the Zionist youth movements and giving people the confidence to take the very big step of moving to Israel,” AZF President Philip Chester told Anglo File this week. The Agency’s new strategic plan aside, “all of our [Agency] shlichim have plenty to do with their own movements, communities, etc. without also having to be responsible for aliyah,” he said.

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Greens leader reprimands Green Senator for Israel boycott stance

She's a nasty old Trot (Trotskyite; Marxist; middle-class hater) from way back. Bob Brown thinks that the media should not have mentioned her hatred of Israel. They actually went easy on her. There's lots more they could have told about her



Greens leader Bob Brown has reprimanded fellow Green and Senator-elect, Lee Rhiannon, for advocating a trade boycott against Israel. He said the NSW Greens lost votes in the recent NSW election by not concentrating on the basic issues of transport, education, health and renewable energy.

The Greens were hoping to win up to three Lower House seats and gain the balance of power in the Upper House, but have fallen far short of that. They are likely to win only Balmain in the Legislative Assembly and retain four seats in the Legislative Council.

Senator Brown also accused the Australian newspaper - which he described as the "hate media" - as having an anti-Green agenda by "playing the issue up". The newspaper said Ms Rhiannon had "expressed regret" that the Greens did not campaign harder on the Israel boycott.

"The NSW Greens have taken to having their own shade of foreign policy - that's up to them. It was a mistake. I differ with Lee on that and she knows that," Senator Brown said. "I think the policy deliberations by [the NSW Greens] were wrong - and they know that."

He said the Greens recognise the right to sovereignty of both Israel and Palestinian territories - a mainstream position.

"It was damaging to the Greens campaign and the hate media was able to play this issue up," Senator Brown said. "I've had a good, robust discussion with Lee. "She and I, not for the first time, have engaged in a very frank discussion about the way the NSW election went."

Ms Rhiannon will take up her seat in the Senate on July 1.

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Tony Abbott calls for welfare crackdown

YOUNG people who stay unemployed when jobs are available should be denied the dole, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott today argues in a major policy outline.

The long-term unemployed should have their $244 weekly unemployment benefits quarantined to ensure it was spent on essentials as part of a national program.

Mr Abbott today said most people on the dole spend 90 to 100 per cent of their benefits on essentials, but "occasionally people aren't fair dinkum, can't manage their income".

An Abbott government also would push more people with lower-level disabilities into jobs and make it compulsory for the under-50 unemployed under tightened welfare laws.

Mr Abbott today insisted his proposals were not "a radical right wing solution" but made it clear he wanted to put pressure on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to move further to the right than she might want.

The Government will use the May Budget to introduce its own welfare-to-work programs and Mr Abbott is getting in first to establish a policy contrast, and to push the Government towards tougher restrictions.

"The government vowed to retain Work for the Dole at the 2007 election but has since deliberately allowed it to decay," said Mr Abbott in a speech prepared for today.

"Since its introduction in 1997, more than 600,000 people have participated in Work for the Dole gaining the discipline and dignity of performing useful work while developing the life skills so critical to obtaining and keeping a real job.

"Since 2007, Work for the Dole participation has fallen by 60 per cent to less than 10,000.

"Work for the Dole should be the default option for everyone under 50 who has been on unemployment benefits for more than six months. Reasonably fit working age people should be working, preferably for a wage but if not, for the dole."

He says the quarantining of welfare income was a justified interference in people’s lives because taxpayers had a right to insist that their money was not wasted.

"I originally proposed this while Shadow Minister for Family and Community Services in May 2008," said Mr Abbott.

"Last year, as part of normalizing the intervention, the government introduced automatic welfare quarantine for all long-term unemployment beneficiaries in the Northern Territory.

"This is right in the Territory so can hardly be wrong elsewhere.

"Ensuring that at least 50 per cent of welfare income is spent on the necessities of life should be a help rather than a hindrance for unemployed people. It would also have the advantage of discouraging people who might be 'working the system'."

Mr Abbott says the hung Parliament of Britain had not stopped the UK Government from reforming the disability pension with a more targeted payment for people whose disabilities might not be permanent.

"Australian disability pension numbers are set to pass 800,000 this year at an annual cost of $13 billion," he says.

"That’s about 220,000 more working age people on the disability pension than on unemployment benefits. With just over one per cent of disability pensioners moving back into the workforce every year and with nearly 60 per cent of recipients having potentially treatable mental health or muscular-skeletal conditions, a reform of this type should be considered here.

"What’s needed is a more sophisticated benefit structure that distinguishes between disabilities that are likely to be lasting and those that could be temporary and that provides more encouragement for people with some capacity for work.

"Better directing disability payments could help to part-fund much greater assistance to people with very serious disabilities as proposed in the Productivity Commission’s recent draft report into disability care."

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Coalition seeks debate on Industrial Relations laws

THE Coalition is pushing for a renewed debate on workplace reform after government business adviser and Australia Industry Group chief, Heather Ridout, called for an overhaul of the Fair Work Act.

Ms Ridout ran through the failings of the current workplace laws in a comprehensive speech yesterday in which she called for changes to drive productivity and workplace flexibility.

Opposition workplace relations spokesman Senator Eric Abetz seized upon the critique today, calling for a broader political debate on Labor's industrial relations laws.

"I agree with Heather Ridout that there needs to be a sensible debate about productivity and whether or not Labor's workplace laws are delivering to the Australian people what Julia Gillard and Labor promised," he told The Australian Online.

"This is a startling admission when Labor's key industrial relations and business adviser says Labor's Fair Work Laws don't increase productivity, particularly in circumstances where the Australian public was told that the cornerstone of Labor's new IR laws was to increase productivity."

Opposition Tony Abbott has previously asked business to lead the way on making the case for industrial relations changes before the Coalition would take up the fight.

South Australian Liberal MP Jamie Briggs said Ms Ridout's comments changed the tenor of the debate on workplace reform and were evidence that businesses believed Julia Gillard's reforms had gone too far. He backed Senator Abetz's call for a debate.

"She (Ms Ridout) has been closely associated with the changes and she did work with Julia Gillard closely," he said.

"So, for her to now comment like this is extremely significant. It's a massive change in her perspective. And a massive change in this debate.

"Julia Gillard's laws are significantly flawed and they are going to cause real damage to our economy if they're not fixed.

"They hand far too much power to unelected third parties in the bargaining process and they risk, at a time of Labor shortages, forcing up wage based inflation and putting increased pressure on interest rates."

In her speech, Ms Ridout called for the industrial relations debate to move beyond recriminations over the Howard government's Work Choices legislation.

She said there were many positive aspects of the Howard government's workplace relations laws retained by Labor, and it was unreasonable to characterise them as wholly unfair.

She identified problem areas with the Far Work system introduced by Ms Gillard.

"On the basis of the accumulating anecdotal evidence from our membership, there is a very strong case to suggest that the Fair Work Act is not encouraging productivity improvements and is hampering the ability of companies to restructure and to maintain flexible workforces," she said.

A spokesman for the Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans said the government would continue to work with unions and industry to drive productivity growth.

"Published data indicates that the Fair Work Act is working well and delivering record levels of agreement making, moderate wages growth, low unemployment; and low levels of industrial disputation," he said.

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Note: I have two other blogs covering Australian news. They are more specialized so are not updated daily but there are updates on both most weeks. See QANTAS/Jetstar for news on Qantas failings and Australian police news for news on police misbehaviour. Quite a bit up recently