Several Indigenous leaders back Kerri-Anne Kennerley in racism row

Stynes herself can be pretty offensive -- once claiming that physically fit men are brainless.  She seems to think that being half Japanese makes her an authority on racism

Indigenous leaders have weighed in to support TV veteran Kerri-Anne Kennerley after she was ­accused of being a “racist” during an on-air spat over an “Invasion Day” debate.

“We have reached a point of political correctness in this country where people cannot talk about difficult issues for fear of being ­accused of racism,” Health Minister Ken Wyatt told The Australian last night.

A panellist on the Ten Network’s Studio 10 morning show, Yumi Stynes, labelled Kennerley “racist” after she asked why ­Australia Day protesters weren’t doing more for indigenous communities in the outback.

“Babies and five-year-olds are being raped … their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped. “What have you done? Zippo,” Kennerley said on Monday.

About 30 protesters gathered outside Ten’s Sydney headquarters yesterday to demand the Hall of Fame winner be sacked and brandishing derogatory ­banners with slogans such as “KAK is ­racist” and “Kerri-Anne KKKennerley”.

Mr Wyatt last night defended Kennerley’s comments, saying that while her delivery may have been “clunky”, she was right in saying that not enough was being done for ­Aboriginal women and children in remote communities. “We have got incidents happening in remote communities and in town camps that should not be happening,’’ he said.

“I’ve seen Aboriginal women bear the scars of domestic abuse,” Mr Wyatt said. “Let’s tackle those things first before we worry about Invasion Day.”

He said he had not seen mass marches in the streets for the four-year-old Aboriginal girl raped in Tennant Creek last year, nor for the more than 180 Aboriginal children sexually abused in and around the Pilbara town of ­Roebourne.

That child abuse investigation, unprecedented in scale in Western Australia, is ongoing. “I’ve not seen anybody stand up and say it is totally wrong,” Mr Wyatt said.

Warren Mundine praised Kennerley for opening up a much-needed discussion about social problems in remote Aboriginal communities, saying it was “stupid” to label her a racist for doing so.

“I know exactly where Kennerley was coming from and many indigenous people are in the same boat,” Mr Mundine told The Daily Telegraph. “We are sick and tired of all this whingeing when we want to confront the real issues that are being dealt with in communities.”

Mr Mundine said there are “more than a hundred” issues that are more pressing for indigenous communities. “Suicide, jobs, economic development, getting kids to school, health stuff — it all comes well in front of changing the date.”

Alice Springs indigenous councillor Jacinta Price applauded Kennerley for “telling the truth”. “The really dangerous racism is turning a blind eye to the facts of the matter, so that Aboriginal women, children, yes and even men, continue to suffer horrific lives,” Ms Price says.

“The protesters and virtue-signallers, who are mostly white, claim to have the well being of our people at heart. They all sprout the same rhetoric. They use trigger words like ‘white privilege’ without acknowledging the huge privileges they have in comparison to the most marginalised of Aboriginal people.’’

Ten producers tried to hose down the on-set tensions yesterday by inviting two indigenous commentators on to the show to debate the issues.

Stynes failed to appear on the program yesterday, declaring on her Instagram post she would not be fronting because she had “decided to give myself the day off".

Kennerley and Stynes both declined to comment to The Australian yesterday, opting instead for a live radio “intervention” staged by celebrity hosts Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS radio 1065.

The awkward rapprochement opened with Stynes insisting there was no “bad blood” between the two women.

But she proceeded to hurl insults at Kennerley again. “She’s been around forever right, she’s like a cockroach, she can’t be extinguished,” said Stynes, whose father is a fifth-generation Australian and her mother Japanese. “I don’t think either of us give much of a shit really … it’s more about the ideas.”

Kennerley ended the awkward radio three-way by admitting she was still “highly offended and hurt” by the racist slur, but was “probably way too sensitive”.

But Stynes got in the last dig. saying: “You know what I love? White people telling me about racism.”

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Accountant admits beating his wife, 32, to death and burying her in a shallow grave in the backyard of the home they shared with their two young children

Another of our charming Muslim residents

An accountant has admitted battering his wife to death and burying her body in the backyard of their family home.

Ahmed Dawood Seedat faced Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court, in Perth, via a video link from prison, earlier today, and pleaded guilty to murdering the mother of his children.

Seedat brutally bashed his wife, Fahima Yusuf, to death in a horrific attack that took place in August 31, last year.

Seedat, from Carlisle, a Perth suburb, then buried his wife’s remains in a shallow grave in the back garden of the property the couple shared with their two children, aged two and five.

At the time, Ms Yusuf’s father alerted the emergency services to her disappearance after he couldn't contact her.

Police then conducted a search to find Ms Yusuf, who was 32 at the time, which led to the discovery of the body in the garden.

Today, defence lawyer Jonathan Davies claimed there was ‘complex matters in the background of the relationship’, and implored the court to commission a psychological report on his client.

The court agreed, and a report is being prepared ahead of Seedat’s hearing in May.

Seedat, who is thought to have over 13 years’ experience in accountancy, is also facing charges for allegedly fleecing his clients of more than $6 million.

He is alleged to have conned over 20 people out of the vast amount of cash, after they had trusted him to invest the money on their behalf.

The allegations first arose after Seedat was charged with his wife’s murder in September. It’s thought he’ll face court for the separate allegations next month.

According to The West Australian, it’s believed the company Seedat worked for was unaware of his alleged illegal activities.

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‘Arrogant’ Labor not listening to voters’ concerns: Frydenberg

Josh Frydenberg has attacked opposition Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen as “arrogant” for saying retirees who don’t like Labor’s dividend imputation crackdown are “entitled to vote against us”.

The Treasurer said Labor was not listening to the concerns of self-funded retirees who would lose income under Labor’s plans to axe cash refunds for franking credits. “Labor has arrogantly told over one million Australians to vote against Labor,” Mr Frydenberg said.

“What they have failed to do is to listen to their concerns, their deep concerns that we are hearing and seeing from Australians all around the country. “People who have simply saved for their own retirement, people who are not necessarily rich. “People who have taken personal responsibility to save for their retirement. Australians’ retirement savings should be protected, not raided, as Labor is promising to do.”

Mr Bowen this morning batted back a case study from an ABC radio listener, who complained Labor planned to cut their income by $5000 but give a tax cut on people earning $125,000. “I earn less that half that for my super in shares,” the listener said.

Mr Bowen responded by asking people to imagine a system where “every shareholder in the country was a retired person who did not pay income tax and we refunded all the company tax”.

Mr Bowen said the Commonwealth spent more on cash refunds for franking credits than on public schools and the Australian Federal Police.

“I say to your listener: if they feel very strongly about this, if they feel that this is something which should impact on their vote they are of course perfectly entitled to vote against us,” Mr Bowen said.

“We’ve had the courage to tell them our plans unlike the Liberals who … tried to put up (the) Medicare levy without getting a mandate to engage in all sorts of tax rises without bothering to tell the Australian people before an election. “What we’re doing is being been very clear about our plans.”

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Australia's energy crisis: Heatwave-struck residents are hit with a $1.1BILLION power bill over just two days as temperatures soared towards 50C

Heatwave-struck residents across two Australian states were hit with a $1.1 billion bill for just 48 hours' worth of energy last week.

As temperatures climbed to well over 40C last week in Victoria and South Australia, residents racked up a $944million bill for Thursday and a further $178 million bill for Friday, according to The Australian.

The figures come from an analysis of consumer demand and spot market prices, which energy experts said were at a 20-year high of over $3300/MWh (megawatt hour) and climbed to $14,500/MWh for about five hours.

Although electricity prices are worked out in advance through hedging contracts, experts have said that consumers will feel the effects of the price spike in the long term.

'When retailers need to contract, the generators know they will be petrified, and they are more likely to achieve higher prices than they otherwise would,' Victorian Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain told the publication.

In the last decade electricity prices for consumers have risen 117 per cent, more than four times the average price rise for other services, according to the ABC.

The Grattan Institute think tank released a report in 2018 saying three main factors were to blame for the rise: major power plants closing due to high maintenance costs, rises in the price of gas and coal, and the market being 'gamed' by energy generators.   

Resources Minister Matt Canavan said more investment in power generation was needed to bring costs down. 'The underlying tightness of the market in these southern states risks more of these pure price setting days. The high price of power on these days alone justifies investment in reliable sources of power, such as coal-fired power,' he said.

The heatwave last week caused blackouts in 200,000 Victorian homes as residents rushed to switch on their air-conditioners and the hot weather put stress on infrastructure with transformers overheating.

Three coal-fired power units also failed, which prompted the market operator to order the blackouts at 12pm on Friday as a load-shedding measure.

Electricity prices are unlikely to drop anytime in the near future as experts warn the price of gas remains high and building new generation plants, using existing fossil fuels or renewables, is expensive and the cost will be passed on to consumers. 

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Victoria Police makes  big payout in  brutality case

The biggest disgrace is that it took so long to get to this result.  Police are very protective of their own -- even when they are in the wrong

Victoria Police have made a confidential payout of more than $500,000 to settle a case involving an ex-policewoman who was handcuffed, stripped of her underwear, stomped on and kicked by fellow officers in a police station.

The confidential payment was made more than two years after police initially and wrongly declared that there was insufficient evidence to charge police who allegedly assaulted Yvonne Berry.

The payment is one the highest made in Victoria to settle a brutality case, lawyers said, and comes after a policeman was convicted late last year for assaulting Ms Berry.

Since the initial incorrect finding that police had no case to answer was issued in early 2016 by a senior internal affairs officer, Ms Berry's ordeal has served as a case study for those calling for reform of Victoria’s police complaint system.

The system faced fresh scrutiny last week after The Age exposed several other brutality cases, which included complaints from alleged victims about the difficulty of making a complaint—and the fear of being improperly charged-- and concern that the complaint system is biased.

Ms Berry endured these same fears even though she had spent several years working as an internal affairs officer inside the police complaints system.

In a previous interview with The Age, she described the trauma of being charged with resisting arrest after her brutality complaint was dismissed.

Her charges were quietly withdrawn and her police brutality complaint revived after the intervention of Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission in 2016.

The revelation of Ms Berry’s payout comes with growing calls from legal groups, academics and a joint parliamentary committee about the need to overhaul the police complaints system by ensuring IBAC investigates more of the serious complaints issued against police.

Currently, IBAC mostly performs an auditing function that involves reviewing the police handling of complaints. It investigates only the most serious of cases.

Legal groups said the minister responsible for IBAC, Gavin Jennings, has been receptive to calls for change and supported the work of the parliamentary committee.

The Andrews government is yet to unveil what, if any, reforms it will introduce but is facing growing community concern that the force has proven itself incapable of effective self-regulation.

Several police brutality scandals, the informer 3838 affair - set to be the subject of a royal commission- and the resignation of disgraced internal affairs chief Brett Guerin, have all raised questions about the ability of the force to investigate itself.

In addition to Ms Berry’s payout - believed to be $470,000 in personal compensation and an additional $50,000 in legal fees - policeman Steven Repac was in November found guilty by a jury of assaulting Ms Berry.

Ms Berry declined to comment on her payout, saying she was bound by a confidentiality clause. She has previously said she initially had no choice but to sue the police force after she was told no officers would be held to account for her ordeal in the Ballarat police cells.

Ms Berry, who had mental health problems due to her work as an internal affairs officer and dealing with the horrific aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, was arrested on January 15, 2015 after she was found drunk and incoherent by a Ballarat resident.

In the early stages of her 16 hours in police custody, the CCTV recorded her in a police cell attempting to use a broken drinking fountain before gesturing to the camera for water. She then drank from the cell's toilet.

After becoming agitated and demanding a blanket, her cell door was opened and Ms Berry pushed past, swiping an officer's lanyard. After being handcuffed, Ms Berry was then dragged on the floor to a cell. A male officer pulled down her underwear, apparently searching for the missing lanyard.

Senior Constable Repac then stood on Ms Berry's feet and ankles. Next, he stomped on her ankle and was also filmed kicking Ms Berry. When Ms Berry later told her story to The Age, she described being “stressed, demoralised, and thinking I'm in Guantanamo Bay. This isn't Ballarat ... it can't be".

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 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