Kerri-Anne Kennerley accused of racism

TV host Kerri-Anne Kennerley spoke the plain truth about life in Aboriginal communities but was accused of racism for saying it.  She asked  a critic of Australia day "whether any of the protesters had “been out to the Outback, where children, babies, five-year-olds are being raped? Their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped. What have you done?”

Interestingly, the rejoinder below admits all that but says that Aborigines have been hard done by in other ways.  The things the critic lists, however, mostly trace back to Aboriginal irresponsibility. For instance, they are not given welfare payments in cash because they tend to spend the money on booze and leave their children to go hungry or be fed by others.


Dear Kerri-Anne Kennerley,

I must say, I have always enjoyed seeing your warm face on TV but your Studio 10 segment yesterday confirmed something I was unaware of — Yumi Stynes called it — you sound like a racist.

So just in case you ever read this, let’s start by debunking your word vomit.

I in no way am de-legitimising sexual assault and violence in Aboriginal communities. Of course it occurs in indigenous communities as it does in the wider community.

However, when it comes to indigenous people, I can’t get past the fact that people like you perceive violence as something ingrained in Aboriginal culture.

Violence is a part of Australian culture. To prescribe it as a characteristic of one race is narrow-minded and rooted in the racist ideology that labelled Aboriginal people “savages”.

After all in Australia, one woman a week and one man a month are murdered by current or former partners.

Now, let’s get back to statistics. According to the federal government’s report Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia 2018, 14 per cent of indigenous women experienced physical violence in 2014-2015 with 28 per cent of those women reporting “their most recent incident was perpetrated by a cohabiting partner”.

“In 2014–15, indigenous women were 32 times as likely to be hospitalised due to family violence as non-indigenous women, while indigenous men were 23 times as likely to be hospitalised as non-indigenous men,” the report said.

“In 2015–16, indigenous children were seven times as likely to be the subject of substantiated child abuse or neglect as non-indigenous children.”

I agree, these statistics are grim, however society holds this assumption that all violence upon indigenous people is perpetrated by other indigenous people.

The fact is, 74 per cent of married indigenous people are married to a non-indigenous person. Don’t you think holding the assumption that indigenous women only have indigenous partners is more than a little ludicrous and probably racist?

As for indigenous children suffering child abuse and neglect, we must remember: Indigenous children are removed from their homes at an alarming rate and in many cases are placed into non-indigenous homes, where they also suffer violence.

Maybe people should do more research into statistics before making a correlation between culture, race and violence.

Kerri-Anne, what do I say on this? I’m kind of speechless but here it goes: Do you honestly think Aboriginal people exist in this bubble in the outback?

The largest Aboriginal population exists just one hour away from your eastern suburbs home, in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, and trust me, we are suffering too.

The media may report we are being raped but we are also being incarcerated for not paying parking fines, we are dying up to 20 years younger than non-indigenous people, we are being targeted by police, we are dying in custody, we aren’t being employed, we aren’t being allowed to participate in a cash economy, our autonomy is being taken away from us, we are micromanaged in our government jobs, we are committing suicide at alarming rates because our peoples feel hopeless.

How can you be so offended at being called a racist? Imagine being called an Abo, petrol-sniffer, government bludger, 75 IQ, pretty for an Aboriginal?

It sucks being called a racist but what is worse is experiencing racism.

It’s exacerbated when we realise the government is on your side when they reinforce this “unconscious bias” BS, which ultimately protects you and not us, the people who suffer as a result of your ignorance.

Those 50,000 “Invasion Day” protesters in Sydney who you imply are idle and lazy, were protesting much more than changing the date.

People have been protesting before Australia Day was even Australia Day for a future for indigenous people which seems to be much more than what you are doing.

SOURCE 







Palmer’s $7m ad blitz falling on deaf ears

Clive Palmer’s record-breaking political advertising blitz has fallen flat where it counts most, with Newspoll showing his party is running next to last in the north Queensland seat he is eyeing to return to parliament.

Conducted exclusively for The Australian, the first survey of ­voters in the ultra-marginal Townsville electorate of Herbert since Mr Palmer announced he would stand there for the United Australia Party finds support for both the ALP and Liberal National Party continues to lag, the opening he seeks to exploit.

Neither major party could muster more than 32 per cent of the primary vote, leaving Labor a nose in front, 51-49, when preferences were factored in.

The Palmer party is on 8 per cent, behind Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party, each on 9 per cent, and one point ahead of the Greens on 7 per cent.

This will be a disappointing return for Mr Palmer after his hefty advertising outlay in Townsville, part of a national campaign that has cost the rich-listed businessman more than $7 million in the past four months.

Half of that unprecedented spend has taken place since January 1.

Newspoll’s finding that one-in-three Townsville voters plumped for a minor party sends a powerful message at a time when dis­illusionment with mainstream politics continues to erode support for Labor and the Liberal-­Nationals Coalition in the regions.

In Herbert, neither of the ­majors can win without preferences from One Nation, KAP or UAP, underlining the capacity of right-wing populists to disrupt the established two-party order.

The collapse of the QNI plant in 2016 that threw nearly 800 ­locals out of work casts a long shadow.

Not only did the short-­changing of the sacked workers of their entitlements shred what was left of Mr Palmer’s reputation — it had already been tarnished by a stormy term in federal parliament at the helm of the short-lived Palmer United Party — the hit to the local economy continues to show in the city’s high unemployment rate. This stood at 8.7 per cent as of the June quarter, three points above the national average.

Since announcing he would run for Herbert, Mr Palmer has flooded the Townsville airwaves with high-rotation ads blaming Queensland Nickel’s liquidators for the refinery going under and spruiking his new party, UAP.

But Newspoll shows the electorate’s perception of him remains largely unfavourable. Nearly two-thirds of the 509 voters surveyed last Thursday, 65 per cent, had a negative view of Mr Palmer, against 24 per cent with a positive opinion. Only 8 per cent of local voters were undecided.

The emergence of UAP seems to have hit One Nation hardest, carving 4.5 points off its 2016 result of 13.5 per cent in the Townsville seat.

KAP is up 2.1 points, equalling One Nation on 9 per cent, continuing the Katter party’s revival in north Queensland after a solid showing at the past state election.

On these numbers, Ms O’Toole would be narrowly returned on Greens preferences and those leaking from the populist parties, though a rerun of the vote swap that KAP and One Nation had in 2017 would make this more problematic for Labor.

As the Coalition’s standard bearer in Queensland, the LNP will be alarmed by the slide in its primary vote in Herbert, from the 35.5 per cent on which it lost the seat in 2016 to 32 per cent.

Labor’s vote is up slightly, from 30.5 per cent at the last election to 32 per cent.

For either One Nation, KAP or Mr Palmer’s UAP to stand any chance of a breakthrough win, they would have to push their primary vote above 20 per cent and capitalise on further suppression of the major parties’ vote.

This happened at the 2017 Queensland election in the state seat of Hinchinbrook, which takes in Townsville’s northern beaches suburbs. KAP’s Nick Dametto got up on a third-placed primary vote of 20.9 per cent, leapfrogging One Nation (22 per cent) and the LNP incumbent (30.1 per cent) on preferences. Labor finished fourth on a primary vote of 19 per cent.

But, as Newspoll reveals, Mr Palmer’s entry has cannibalised the “protest” vote on the Right.

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When the police are useless: White youths armed with baseball bats confront African teens after a train station mugging

A gang of white youths armed with baseball bats have allegedly targeted a group of African teenagers as part of a revenge attack for an earlier bashing.

The two groups clashed at Wyndham Vale train station, in Melbourne's south-west, on Monday afternoon despite the presence of a cameraman. The stand-off, witnessed by The Herald Sun, reportedly involved two feuding groups of young men but did not result in violence.

It's understood the teenagers were searching for a gang of 30 African youths who allegedly beat and then robbed two teenagers on Sunday.

According to a witness who watched the ugly confrontation unfold, the group of boys surrounded an African youth and insisted he was involved in the earlier robbery.

He continued to deny their claims, eventually calling his friends over for backup as tensions escalated.

The two young boys who were set upon by a gang at the same station less than 24 hours earlier claimed they did nothing to warrant the attack.

Xavier, 14, and Ricky, 17, were waiting for a bus home at the station when the younger was allegedly robbed of a bank card, iPhone and $1,000 gold necklace by the gang.

While Xavier was assaulted, Ricky, who is a black belt in Taekwondo, fought back -despite one of the assailants warning him 'don't get lippy or you'll get bashed'. 'They were just saying like empty out your pockets, give us your stuff, Ricky told 9News. 

Towards the end of the attack, in which both boys are believed to have sustained minor injuries, two Protection Service Officers from the station appeared in the vicinity. However, instead of immediately assisting, both Xavier and his father allege the officers refrained from trying to stop the attack and instead called the police. 

Mr Ferrari, Xavier's father, has said he's since spoken to the officers where they reasoned they were outnumbered by the gang. 'I don't think it's a good enough excuse, they are trained to deal with those situations. 'I want the possessions returned, but mostly I want the people caught,' said.

Police have since released a statement defending the actions of the two officers and confirming an investigation into the attack is underway.

'The pair have approached Protective Services Officers, who were patrolling at nearby Wyndham Vale Railway Station, to report the incident. 'When this occurred, the large group of youths have split into small groups and run from the area,' the statement read.

'The PSOs, who stayed with the victims, have called for back-up and provided descriptions of the offenders for police who conducted patrols of the surrounding areas,' it concluded. 

Transit Crime Investigation Unit detectives are still investigating the incident.

Police are currently looking for one suspect who has an African appearance and is thought to be aged between 14 and 16.

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Hope for PM yet

Scott Morrison has begun the unofficial election campaign with an improvement in Newspoll that neither he nor his colleagues had been expecting.

For the past two years the Coalition has been the living embodiment of Sod’s Law, which loosely states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong and at the worst possible time with the worst of consequences.

This has naturally fed into a communal belief, shared even by Liberal MPs and officials, that the government was in for a hiding come May.

The first Newspoll of 2019, however, gives the Prime Minister reason to believe that all is not lost yet.

Not that anyone of lucid thought on the Coalition side could get overly excited.

The improvement represents the theoretical difference between losing 21 seats and 14 seats, which if averaged over the past year would appear to be business as usual for the Coalition.

But there is an underlying message in the results for Bill Shorten as well: it is a warning against complacency.

The three-point slide in Labor’s primary vote will be of some concern to Shorten as the government ramps up its attack on Labor’s negative gearing and dividend imputation policies.

Morrison believes that these two policies represent a significant vulnerability in Labor’s economic argument. The poll results may be a reflection that they could be starting to bite.

Equally, voters simply may have been paying absolutely no attention over the break and have yet to be reminded how much they dislike the government.

There will be great temptation on the opposition side to dismiss the poll as “post-summer poll bounce” mythology when the truth is that governments in recent times have gone backwards over summer as often as they have picked up a bounce.

Morrison will rightly be buoyed and perhaps surprised by these results.

SOURCE 

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here