ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is amazed that the Labor part conference has completely ignored the financial situation.






Facebook REFUSES to shut down 'racist' 'Humans of Sunnybank' group which mimics Asian accents and labels the Brisbane community 'dog meat eaters'

Ethnic self-segregation is a common thing and the Brisbane suburbs of Sunnybank and Sunnybank Hills seem to have been adopted by East Asians, mainly Han Chinese.  And the Asian presence really is amazing at times.  I remember standing in a queue outside a popular Japanese restaurant there with my son -- and noting that my son and I were the only exception in a sea of black hair around us. We were taller than most of them so we could see that sea.

I was actually pleased by that.  Asians are a lot more peaceful and patient than we Anglo-Australians are.  My son and I in fact were not patient.  We decided not to wait and went to another less popular restaurant instead.

And there is no doubt that the food in the area is great value.  My son and I often go to a Japanese fast-food joint there called "Mos burgers".

Because they tend to be exemplary citizens by any standard, there is in general very little hostility to Asians in Australia these days.  There are a lot of them and they fit in seamlessly. Just this morning on an outing I saw a Chinese lady rush up to an  old-Australian lady and give her a big hug.  They were obviously old friends. And I know of no physical attacks on Asians aside from what emanates from our small African sub-population.

The sort of negative comment about Asians that you get from old-Australians is mild criticism and the site objected to below is in that mould.  It is clearly jocular. With their history of persecution elsewhere, it is understandable that the site makes overseas Chinese nervous but all it is likely to lead to is laughs

Far-Leftists like The Matildas of course believe that all Australians (except them?) are deeply racist.  It's an article of faith for them.  But they are just projecting.  They see their own hate-filled personalities in everybody else. It's called, "Judging others by yourself" and is a well-worn fallacy. Every single article on "New Matilda" is full of rage so the hate is there in plain sight

An advocacy group have called on Facebook to take down a ‘xenophobic’ page that they believe perpetuates ‘incorrect stereotypes’ about the Asian community in a Brisbane suburb.

The group Global Asians for Action and Social Change (GAASC) have slammed the ‘Humans of Sunnybank’ page for posting ‘harmful and offensive’ images that ‘insult the English language abilities’ of Asian migrants and ‘falsely’ portray the community as dog meat eaters.

The page, which has amassed 16,000 followers, is loosely based on the popular blog Humans of New York and has published more than 60 images, accompanied by captions that 'crudely mimic' an Asian accent.

GAASC said this is a clear attempt to ‘create an atmosphere of xenophobia’.

‘Unlike the ground breaking Humans of New York which showed faces which build New York as a cosmopolitan destination and shares enriching human interest stories, Humans of Sunnybank instead insults and offends by using various incorrect and offensive stereotypes regarding Asian people, and posts it in a fashion that promotes continued racism,’ GAASC said in a statement.

According to GAASC, Sunnybank is home to almost 3,000 residents of Asian heritage, making up approximately 35 per cent of the region's population.

The page, which predominantly use stock images of Asian people, claims to use 'genuine first-hand interviews' to paint a picture of the culturally diverse suburb- 'one story at a time'. 

Others play on the stereotype that Asian people are bad drivers

One posts uses a stock image of seven Asian men squatting in a circle, a common practice in Vietnam.

The caption reads: ‘Wei, Brother Chow, I see you shaking.. You going to give up so easiry? Do the squat is wery important! We no skip the leg day in Sunnybank. Even the white boy can do better than you!’

Another used a stock image of an elderly man who appears to be driving a car.

The caption reads: ‘Before I come Australia, I no learn to use car. So I have 8 try for pass driving test. But my wife even worse, one day she do a 15-point turn to get out from garage. That’s why she only allow to drive Toyota Camry. She go to Market Square a lot, please be careful, don’t crash her.’

Erin Chew, a founder of GAASC, reported the page to Facebook administrators for ‘promoting hate speech’, however it was found the page did not violate Facebook’s community standards.

The posts are written in broken English which Erin Chew said encourages racist stereotyping

Ms Chew said Facebook needs to have a ‘deeper evaluation of its community standards’ if they want to become a ‘more responsible and conscientious global citizen.'

She said the social media giant should understand the difference between allowing free speech and allowing a group to use its platform to racially vilify another.

'I understand about freedom of speech and expression, and I believe in that, but at the same time there has to be a limit when it starts to offend a race or community,' Ms Chew told Daily Mail Australia. 'You can have artistic expression but this is just in poor taste.'

A spokesperson from Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission told Daily Mail Australia that some of the material that features on the 'Humans of Sunnybank' Facebook group would be considered vilification under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991.

'The Act states that a person must not, by a public act, incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or group of persons on the ground of the race, religion, sexuality or gender identity of the person or members of the group.'

She said anyone who believes they have been subjected to 'unlawful vilification' can lodge a formal complaint to the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland.

'They would need to provide the identity of the person who they allege has vilified them, rather than just naming the Facebook page. This can sometimes be difficult.'

She said the only other alternative is to continue lobbying Facebook to have the page shut down.

GAASC have started a change.org petition demanding Facebook to remove the page from its site.

Ms Chew said she plans to lodge a formal complaint with Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland and the Australian Human Rights Commission on Friday.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Facebook and the administrators of 'Humans of Sunnybank' however neither were available for comment at the time of publication.

SOURCE







ALP conference 2015: big on promises, short on financial reality

Labor under Bill Shorten seeks to win the next election by re-fighting the climate change issue with a renewable energy spearhead, pledging a fairer nation and using progressive identity politics — yet its fatal flaw is economic policy.

It is an extraordinary situation. Labor intends to recontest the battles of the Rudd-Gillard era, asylum-seeker boats being the likely exception.

Rather than reform itself because of the Rudd-Gillard experience, Labor has decided it was essentially right. It will ask the Australian public to think again and this time vote down Tony Abbott.

The ALP will prioritise climate change action via higher prices, operate in lock-step with the trade unions, flirt with quasi-protectionist economics, downplay market-based reforms and champion a litany of progressive causes: female equality, same-sex marriage, indigenous recognition and the republic.

At a time when Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens warns that Australian growth is falling to permanently lower levels — the implication being that stalled economic reform has diminished living standards — Labor offers phony words and hollow policy.

It is locked into the old politics and mistakes, playing to its loyalists and institutional interests.

Shorten is a weak leader trying to look strong. He is conspicuously devoid of policy strength. The lesson of Shorten’s leadership, illustrated by his speech yesterday, is the limits of leadership. Nearly everything he does is about adaptation to Labor power realities, ideological orthodoxies, trade unions and polling. He is driven to defy party sentiment on asylum-seeker boats for only one reason: the current policy is a veto on election victory.

These tactics overall should deliver Labor a formidable election campaign. It will be competitive. But Shorten’s latest ploy, the 50 per cent renewables electricity target by 2030, reveals all the problems.

This is plain irresponsible policy. It means Labor has no interest in the most cost-effective method of tackling emissions across the next 15 years.

It has no interest in trying to combat climate change consistent with a competitive growth economy. Labor can duck and weave but it cannot escape financial reality: the cost of renewables remains vastly more expensive than fossil fuels.

Anyone with half a political brain sees through this ploy. Because Shorten knows he must fight on climate change and because he knows pricing carbon risks another “carbon tax” scare, he wants to redefine the contest to “who loves renewables the most”.

Abbott’s ineptitude invites such easy exploitation.

The upshot is that Shorten has shifted much of Labor’s policy response on to the single most ineffective and high-cost mechanism.

He will punish Australian households and businesses with high costs in the interests of his own political convenience and vote-buying. It is the essence of trashing the public interest for party political gain.

At least when Abbott was being irresponsible he merely promised to abolish a tax.

In his speech yesterday, Shorten’s election vision was “more solar panels on Australian rooftops” and more farmers “putting wind turbines on their land”.

It sounds like a joke from a satire program. Sadly, it’s not. The party faithful, evidently, think this is terrific. It is the latest example of how far Labor has sunk.

Shorten pretends he’s being bold. In fact, he’s being weak. Expect that the carbon pricing commitment via an emissions trading scheme will be downgraded. Instead of Labor relying on carbon pricing with the renewable energy target becoming less necessary, Labor seems to be moving in the opposite direction. This is Shorten Labor: 100 per cent political expediency and defective policy.

He pretends this will create investor confidence. What nonsense. Investors will know that renewable energy policy is a volatile political war. The proof is the fact the Coalition and Labor cut a compromise a few weeks ago for a 23 per cent RET and Labor has turned that upside down.

In a re-run of history, the climate change lobby, vested interests and much of the political media will applaud Shorten — meanwhile, the Australian public, concerned about climate change but sceptical of costs, will be far harder to persuade than Labor believes. At this point, Labor has no details, no modelling, no analysis. Its self-obsession is revealing.

A fight over renewables is exactly the wrong fight Australia now needs for good policy. It is being staged solely for politics. The need is to reduce the overall carbon footprint by the most cost-efficient method (obviously including renewables) but both sides now have highly dubious policies.

If the Abbott government has the brain and skill to publish a credible study of the massive income transfer this policy involves from the Australian public to the renewable sector then it will ­destroy the policy.

Is Labor actually pledged to the 50 per cent target? Who knows? Shorten called it an “aim”. This implies it is qualified, but qualified ­according to what conditions? Is such a policy feasible? What are its economic consequences? What are the costs? What business and industry groups did Labor consult about such a long-run distortion of financial resources?

None of these questions is ­answered. It is folly for Shorten to conceal the holes in his 50 per cent pledge with phony “bring it on” bravado. Labor has had 20 months since the last election to prepare a structured policy and, to this point, it has failed to produce any such model.

As for Abbott, his mistake has been monumental: his scepticism towards renewables has been projected as prejudice rather than founded in rational policy.

Indeed, his inability to explain himself on renewables has been a free kick to Labor. But Shorten, in turn, has now tried to make too much of the political opportunity Abbott has given him.

Just as carbon policy was pivotal in ruining the economic standing of the Gillard government, so Shorten embraces the same risks. The combined signals Labor sends on economic policy are damaging and point to policy regression.

There was no mention in Shorten’s speech of the core reality — that Australia faces a growth slowdown, that living standards growth is being reduced, that the budget faces a challenge on both the tax and spending side, and that new measures are needed to ­improve productivity.

Is reality too unpalatable for the Labor Party? More to the point, is the platform agenda and party ethos singularly out of touch with the challenges that would face a new ALP government?

Shorten says higher taxes are a sign of Abbott’s failure. Pardon? Labor tax policies so far involve tightening superannuation concessions at the top end, a new tax on multinationals with the ALP premiers, as their preferred choice, backing a hefty increase in the personal income tax burden via the Medicare levy to fund future health costs.

It is true Shorten pledges to cut tax for small business but Labor’s overall thrust is unmistakable: its strong preference, facing a budget deficit and pressure on core ­services, is for the adjustment to be made via taxation rises.

Shorten says Labor believes in free trade and new markets. Pardon? The ALP conference endorsed yesterday a strong union-driven campaign against the Australia-China free trade agreement on the grounds that it will see Aussie jobs lost to the new Chinese workers coming into this country.

Michael O’Connor, from the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, said the FTA “smashes our labour market”.

Opposition trade spokeswoman Penny Wong is now pledged to improve the agreement, a high-risk ­exercise.

There is no sign the government will seek changes. Labor needs to be careful of these tactics, preserve its flexibility and avoid being trapped in a situation where it has condemned the agreement but cannot change it.

Shorten’s speech signalled his symbolic priorities. His first pledge was to indigenous recognition in the Constitution. His second ­declaration was to trade union ­fidelity. Shorten sang from the Julia Gillard songbook.

After a week that saw many iconic ALP figures call for fundamental reform of the Labor-union relationship, Shorten lauded the unions, mocked the royal commission into union governance and, by implication, repudiated the calls for internal reform.

In truth, Shorten’s position is becoming more dependent on the trade unions, a repeat of Gillard’s situation, and anyone who thinks this won’t have policy conse­quences is a fool.

Shorten depicted his policy on renewables as creating the “jobs of the future” and claimed that it meant “cutting power bills for ­consumers”.

This claim arises because the electricity generation market is currently oversupplied and more renewables will add to supply and reduce prices. That is true.

It avoids, however, the bigger reality that the higher cost of renewables compared with fossil fuels means a higher cost structure that consumers will have to meet.

Labor has switched priorities — it has moved from using price to decarbonise the economy to a massive prioritising of renewables without proper regard for costs involved and the consequences for households and business.

This runs against the real interests of workers, families and capital. It will extract, over time, a fearful toll on Labor.

Meanwhile, try not to be ­deafened by the guaranteed ­applause.

SOURCE






Another thug union doesn't want Chinese competition

ETU joining the CMFEU.  Similar union agitation birthed the White Australia policy in 1901. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

More than a thousand union and community members will protest against the China Australia Free Trade Agreement tomorrow morning at a rally outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, ahead of the opening of the ALP National Conference.

Electrical Trades Union national secretary Allen Hicks, who will speak at the rally alongside academics, and representatives of GetUp, the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said opposing negative elements of this agreement did not make unions anti-trade.

“The China Australia Free Trade Agreement removes the mandatory skills testing that currently ensures overseas workers in high-risk trades are able to perform their tasks to Australian safety standards,” Mr Hicks said.

“It also removes the requirement for labour market testing, meaning employers will no longer need to advertise jobs in Australia before they advertise them in China.

“Many of these workers, who are entirely dependent on their employer for their residence in Australia, will be at risk of exploitation, with bosses demanding they cut corners on safety, work inhumane hours, or sign contracts that are illegal under Australian law.

“The Immigration Department’s own figures show that less than seven percent of the businesses that use the 457 visa scheme are monitored, but even among that small number a third have been found to be breaching their obligations.

“Perhaps most worryingly, the ChAFTA deal removes the ability of future Australian Governments to legislate in the interests of the public, providing foreign companies with the right to sue if new laws impact on their profits.”

Press release






Leftist fool

Australians have had a gutful of refugees so this will b e a big vote-loser

Labor leader Bill Shorten is reportedly expected to reach out to the left of his divided party today by promising to double Australia's refugee intake.

Mr Shorten recently pledged to adopt the Coalition policy on "turning back the boats" of asylum seekers.

The move has angered some factions within his party, and his olive branch at the ALP conference in Melbourne is reportedly an attempt to mend the rift.

The new pledge is likely to cost Australians $450 million, News Corp has reported.

The conference is also expected to debate same-sex marriage with some delegates seeking a binding vote on Labor MPs before a cross-party bill being presented to the parliament next month.

Lunchtime rallies are planned involving refugee advocates and same-sex marriage supporters.

Also on the sidelines, Australian of the Year Rosie Batty will lead a panel discussion on preventing family violence.

SOURCE





Muslim critic Kim Vuga on ABC TV

Vuga hosts a Facebook page called "Stop The Boat People" and in promos for the SBS show she declares "Australia is under attack. We already have the terrorists here. We are already living amongst the enemy."

Asked by panel co-host Natarsha Belling if she would say she was a racist, she said she was not. "I believe that we actually need to change the term and the definition." Vuga also said she believed in equality.

The Project ran big promotions for Vuga's appearance tantalising viewers with the possibility that she could be "the most racist woman in Australia".

In one teaser co-host and Fairfax writer Waleed Aly said: "Staunchly anti-refugee and anti-Muslim. I can't wait." Yet, Aly didn't ask Vuga anything, letting Meshel Laurie, Natarsha Belling and Lehmo handle the interview.

She was asked whether she believed Australia was "under attack from refugees", and she said "we are under attack by terrorists ... let in by Labor." She brought up Martin Place gunman Man Monis, saying that he "definitely didn't have any mental health problems. He had over 14,000 followers and a lot of them were in Australia." This led to a confusing exchange about Muslim-Australians and mental health problems with Laurie.

Talking about what she got out of Go Back From Where You Came From — 25 days with five other participants exploring the refugee experience — Vuga said it strengthened her existing convictions.

 Vuga said she felt guilty when she left Kurdish fighters in Syria behind. "I believe we need to have more boots on the ground over there."  And that's when Waleed Aly finally got his say: "Kim, thank you very much for joining us tonight."



Vuga lives in Townsville and describes herself as a freelance journalist.

SOURCE