Nobody else will mention this.  You will read it only here

Read the story below and ask yourself what is wrong with the school concerned.  ZEG read the report and concluded it was a case of general breakdown of discipline.  That's a part of the story but he failed to allow for how heavily our news is censored.  I have read very similar reports about certain schools in Britain so I knew immediately what the problem was.  I give the answer following the article below

TEACHERS at a western Sydney school have described a culture of fear and violence with students threatening them with rape and murder.

Following revelations that students at Granville Boys High School were trading knives “for protection” more teachers have broken ranks to speak to the Parramatta Advertiser, saying threats and intimidation are routine.

One teacher, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said some staff — male and female — walked to their cars in groups for safety, because of concerns students would carry out their threats.

“They make threats, they say they’ll kill us, they’ll bash us. They say things like, ‘I’ll meet you down a dark alley and rape you’; ‘Wait ’til I see you after school, Miss’. And it’s males and females that they say that to, it’s not just the female (staff),” she said.

Granville Boys High School promotes its ‘Safe Respectful Learners’ motto out the front of

Granville Boys High School promotes its ‘Safe Respectful Learners’ motto out the front of the school. Picture: Stephen Cooper Source: News Corp Australia

It is understood that despite a knife amnesty carried out by the school in June, students are still carrying blades with some calling themselves “street pharmacists”.

It is claimed they have methamphetamines or “ice” and pills at school.

“They’re carrying knives (and) we have no control over them — what’s to stop them from killing one of us?” a female teacher said.

Of 20 students interviewed by the Advertiser, 14 said they were aware of at least one other student who had brought a knife to school. Four said they knew students who had brought drugs to school.

The school has been credited with taking steps to rebuild its reputation and the environment for students, including the establishment of a before-class cafe run by students following the 2011 stabbing of a student in a schoolyard brawl.

A NSW Department of Education spokesman said possession of any illegal substance or implement was not tolerated in NSW public schools.

The spokesman said since recent reports of a knife amnesty, no teacher at the school had raised weapons issues with the principal.  “No question of personal safety involving the behaviour of students has been raised with the principal by any staff member,” he said.

NSW Teachers’ Federation president Maurie Mulheron called on the Department of Education to investigate the claims. “Any concerns that have been raised where safety is compromised, we expect the department to investigate the allegation,” Mr Mulheron said.

In a video leaked to the Advertiser that was filmed on school equipment and screened with executive approval at the school’s 2013 Year 12 formal, students can be seen making religious slurs.

The students are heard ordering a “McJesus and holy water” at a McDonald’s drive-through — as well as fighting and degrading the school.

In an email to principal Linda O’Brien, sent to all staff from a teacher, the “insensitive” nature of the video was raised.

“I am writing to you all about a segment of the video which made reference to the Jesus and holy water (sic)”, the email read.

“Students may not understand the significance of this, but as a teacher we have the responsibility to teach the right thing to our students. This is a public school and this sort of insensitive comment should be avoided.”

A NSW Department of Education spokesman said Ms O’Brien “was on leave during the production and screening of a video produced by students.”  The spokesman said Ms O’Brien had not seen the video.

TIMELINE OF TERROR

2008 — A group of five Granville Boys High School students run through Merrylands High School brandishing baseball bats and machetes, leaving 18 students and one teacher in hospital

2011 — A GBHS student, 16, is stabbed six times in the stomach in a schoolyard fight between two other students, 14 and 15

Police at Granville Boys High School where a 16-year-old student received multiple stab w

Police at Granville Boys High School where a 16-year-old student received multiple stab wounds during a schoolyard fight four years ago. Source: News Limited

2013 — A video produced on school equipment containing religious slurs — ordering a “McJesus and holy water” at a McDonald’s drive-through — and depicting fighting, is screened at an end-of-year formal to more than 100 parents, staff and students

June 2015 — Two students suspended for carrying knives at school. A leaked email says students are “trading” blades between each other for “safety” and the school holds a knife amnesty

SOURCE

Did you pick it up?  The Education Dept. is in denial for a very good reason.  I knew immediately what to look for so went straight to the school website.  We read there:  Ninety-nine per cent of students are from a non-English speaking background. 

To be blunt, it is just Muslims being Muslims and showing their usual contempt for the rest of us. Their religion teaches them that contempt.  Start reading the Koran at Surah 9 if you doubt it






Christianity a good force in Australia

BOOK REVIEW of "Post God Nation?" by Roy Williams

Roy Williams has, in Post God Nation?, accumulated a substantial body of wide-ranging research to support his deeply felt conviction that Australia, and the world more broadly, has benefited from Christian teachings and action far more than is usually acknowledged. In Williams' view, the benefits radically outstrip past and current human errors. What's more, much of the good we take for granted in Australia is, he argues, a direct result of lived Christian values and endeavour.

His purpose in writing this book - and in undertaking the research to support it - rests with a hope that Australia could become a more meaningfully religious country, by which he means a more meaningfully Christian country. He explicitly respects other faiths. Christianity, though, is the religion he loves and privileges. "Imagine," he writes in his concluding chapter, "if Australia were looked upon by the world not merely as the luckiest country on Earth, but also as the most righteous. A truly Christian beacon of faith, hope and love. .That would be real, deserved 'national security'."

In that same visionary chapter Williams asserts that, "Christian believers are rather more likely than unbelievers to abstain from the worst excesses [of inhumane or unethical] behaviour and indulgences". Many readers, and I am one of them, will read this with considerable sadness. Williams may even share that sadness because he freely takes to task contemporary Christians who fail their espoused values. Among them are some familiar political leaders. But we needn't accept this as inevitable: "Church leaders should take every opportunity to stare down relevant politicians and decision-makers, and ask the toughest moral questions."

A more morally courageous Australia would be immensely desirable. Williams brackets, vigorously and correctly, leadership as well as community attitudes to foreign aid, the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, and climate change. There he states unequivocally: "Christian attitudes to these issues should be shaped by certain core biblical principles." He includes the famous quote from Luke 12:48: "From those to whom much is given, much will be expected." Indeed.

For that chapter alone, as well as for the array of historical and social analyses that precede it, this book adds substantially to our understanding of religion as a continuing social force that could arguably bring something greater than humanist secular values alone can achieve. Williams usefully includes short portraits of Christians he regards as positive influences in shaping our political and cultural landscapes. With that, he is openly striving to "save" religion as ". an ideological framework that is neither 'right wing' nor 'left wing'", but is also "a potentially precious source of emotional sustenance and ambition; and a form of community attachment that . is unique and valuable".

Much of this is admirable. In fact, for readers who share Williams' views of Christianity as not only the majority faith but also the most ethically developed one, these arguments and the research that supports them will be welcome and persuasive. Few could deny that we would live in a far happier, safer world if Christians lived Christ's sublime teachings, especially when it comes to considering the wellbeing of others above one's own, sharing resources with neighbours (global and otherwise), valuing all lives equally, forgiving wrongdoings and, especially, unconditionally committing to peacemaking and social justice.

Nonetheless, despite the seriousness and honesty of Williams' intentions, I have some reservations. One is personal: that the richly unfolding interiority of a faith commitment rarely appears on these pages. For me, that's what gives life its deepest truth and meaning. I wish it had been more nakedly glimpsed here. More generally, in arguing so strenuously for the good that the Christian institutions and faithful have achieved, I couldn't help but feel that Williams underplays the myriad of ways in which, in the name of Christianity, distinctly un-Christian values have damaged or destroyed lives.

Women, people of every colour other than white, gays, non-Christians: all have been radically harmed by misogyny, racism, homophobia, religious ignorance and prejudice (and forced conversions) endorsed by Christian institutions and the men who run them. Some of this continues. Williams certainly acknowledges this, as well as recent revelations of child and sexual abuse, yet seems not to fully appreciate the soul-wrenching harm done, even between different expressions of Christianity in the name of "authority" and "heresy".

Readers may also question whether he sufficiently values or understands the depth of ethical teachings in other faiths. Within Buddhism, for example, teachings on free will and the power to choose, as well as the value of life, compassion, peacemaking and the unity of all beings have reached a level of sophistication and practice that Christian institutions and leaders could well learn from. Our chances have never been better to benefit from the accumulated wisdom of all faiths, and particularly from what they share. That, too, offers a fine and renewing vision of hope.

SOURCE






Pauline Hanson on Lorna Jane employment controversy: ‘I’m paying the wages, I have the right to ask for who I want’

Pauline is a great one for old-fashioned common-sense.  I don't agree with everything she says (I am quite Sinophilic, for instance) but, as a Queenslander, I had the three occasions to vote for her -- and I voted for every time



PAULINE Hanson has thrown her support behind embattled fitness queen Lorna Jane Clarkson, saying employers should be able to advertise for whom they want when filling positions.

The women’s fitness fashion entrepreneur is facing a possible backlash from female consumers after specifying the dress size and waist measurement of a prospective new receptionist in an employment advertisement.

Appearing on Sunrise this morning with broadcaster Derryn Hinch, Ms Hanson was fired up over the issue.

“If you’re employing people you should be able to advertise for who you want, whether it be male of remale, fat or thin ... because you are the one paying the wages, you know what works for your business,” she said.

The former MP and political firebrand drew on her pre-parliamentary career as the owner of a fish and chip shop in Ipswich, saying she wanted to advertise for female employees only but was told she could not do so.

“I wanted females ... because it was for only a few hours a day. A man is usually the breadwinner of the family, and I just wanted those mums for a few hours a week who would work in the shop.”

“I rang up and said I’d like a female, and they said you can’t (specify) female and I said ‘But I’m paying the wages, that’s who I want to work in my shop’, so I said ‘Please put in the ad

The One Nation founder admitted she did eventually employ a 15-year-old young man, but the experience sounds as if it may have been traumatic for both parties.  “I put him on. He couldn’t sweep the floor, I had to teach him how to mop, he burnt himself ... he actually cut himself,” she said.

“If you have to advertise for whoever to apply for the jobs, not only are they wasting your time, when you know exactly who you want, you are wasting that person’s time and it deflates their confidence.”

“You don’t get a woman for a man’s job ... digging tenches when you know they’re absolutely hopeless at it.”

Hinch attempted to stir some controversy during the segment, arguing that enabling employers to ask for who they wanted in job advertisements would open the door to discrimination.

“In the fish and chip shop you might have said ‘I don’t want black people’; you can’t do that,” Hinch said.

“Oh rubbish Derryn. you had no right to bring that up,” a clearly irate Hanson replied, before claiming that discrimination existed in Australia because Aboriginal people could apply for jobs that were set aside for Aboriginals only.

The segment was brought to a swift close at that point.

SOURCE






Vote change to shift Labor’s power to the Left

Labor’s Left faction will win control of the party’s powerful national executive for the first time in decades if the national conference this month endorses a push to empower the president and two vice-presidents to vote at meetings.

This would see the Left faction dominate the party’s supreme administrative body for the first time since the 1960s and 70s, when it often challenged Gough Whitlam’s authority.

Bill Shorten, from the Right faction, will strongly resist the move.

The push from within the Left to win control of the national executive comes as an assessment of 400 delegates to the conference estimates that no faction has an absolute majority but the Right commands the largest group.

But the Right is likely to lose one member of the executive to the Left when elections take place at the conference. Currently the Right has 11 members of the executive and the Left 10. Mr Shorten exercises a vote as leader at meetings, which gives the Right a majority.

It is expected the Left-Right split on the executive post-conference will be 10-all with Mr Shorten’s vote enough to maintain the Right’s authority. But if the president and two vice-presidents are empowered to vote, the numbers will shift to 12-all and the president will then have a casting vote, tilting the power balance to the Left.

Federal Labor frontbencher Mark Butler, from the Left, was elected president last month. His casting vote will hand power to the Left. West Australian barrister Tim Hammond, from the Right, was elected senior vice-president. Victorian minister Jane Garrett, from the Left, was elected vice-president.

Currently the party’s member-elected president and two vice-presidents do not have the authority to vote at meetings. But at last week’s national rules committee meeting, the Left faction put forward a formal proposal to allow the president and vice-presidents to vote.

The Australian has obtained a document presented to the meeting by Australian Manufacturing Workers Union NSW secretary Tim Ayres. He is a prominent Left union and faction leader who sits on the rules committee and the national executive.

While the NSW Left supports the rule change, other elements of the national Left are not yet fully signed up to the reform. It is possible that if the Left can’t agree on the rule change prior to conference, it will be jettisoned. Left delegates will meet this weekend at the Trades Hall in Sydney to discuss their position on a range of policy and structural issues.

The party’s national executive is an extremely powerful body. Only the conference is able to hear appeals and rule on its decisions. The plenary powers of executive allow it to intervene to overrule a decision made by a state branch of the party.

The executive has authority over policy as it can interpret the party’s constitution, platform and conference decisions. This could bolster the Left’s influence on controversial issues such as asylum-seeker policy.

It can also exercise plenary powers to intervene in preselections and direct members of parliament. It convenes conferences, appoints committees and hears and decides on appeals from any affiliated organisation or party member.

The Left faction has not controlled the executive outright since the 1960s — then named the federal executive — but it has been able to win control periodically on issues when aligning with the now defunct centre grouping in the 1970s and early 80s.

SOURCE