A-G backs silk over Labor campaigning

The swamp defends one of their own.  A politicized judiciary is OK if it's Leftist.  Nobody can see anything wrong about Qld Bar Association president Rebecca Treston QC handing out Leftist propaganda on the streets

Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath has declared her full confidence in state Bar Association president Rebecca Treston QC amid disquiet over the silk campaigning for Labor at the federal election. Ms D'Ath threw her weight behind the first woman to head the state Bar after The Weekend Australian revealed former president Christopher Hughes QC had written to federal Attorney-General Christian Porter dissociating himself from Ms Treston's actions.

Hitting out at Mr Hughes, Ms D'Ath said: "Mr Hughes has not written to the Queensland Attorney-General, who is responsible for making Queensland judicial appointments. "It is regrettable that Mr Hughes has chosen to politicise the matter by writing to the Commonwealth Attorney-General, who has no authority over state appointments."

Ms Treston said she was acting in a personal capacity when she donned a Labor T-shirt and handed how how-to-vote cards for her friend and ALP candidate Ali France before the May 18 federal election. This happened once, for only a few hours, she said. Ms Treston insisted she did not belong to a political party and her position did not preclude her from being "supportive to my friends".

In a shot at the federal government's quasi-judicial appointments in Queensland, Ms D'Ath said the state Labor government's selection process was transparent, unlike the Coalition, which "has no concern with appointing former LNP politicians and staffers" to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

"I have full confidence in Rebecca Treston QC, her leadership of the Bar and in the members of the Bar Association in Queensland," Ms D'Ath said.

Ms Treston's critics have cited her 'responsibilities to advise the state government on judicial appointments and consult over the designation of barristers as Queen's Counsels in arguing that she has compromised the supposedly apolitical standing of the Bar president.

The annual intake of QCs can be contentious because of the valuable stakes: the investiture of silk typically bumps up a barrister's earnings and prospects of advancement, including later appointment to the bench. This year's prospective crop in Queensland is being circulated for comment among Supreme Court judges by Chief Justice Catherine Holmes, who will provide recommendations to Ms D'Ath on who should get silk. An announcement is due by November 20.

Victorian Bar president Matthew Collins QC said he was not aware of rules anywhere in the country preventing the office-bearers of a legal representative body from being actively engaged in political campaigning. Asked whether this was appropriate conduct, Dr Collins said: "My concern would be about whether any conduct had undermined the ability of the office-bearer to engage in a constructive relationship with politicians from whatever side of politics. So it would depend very much on the circumstances."

Ms Treston said she had developed strong working relations with MPs on all sides, and would continue to represent the interests of barristers.

From "The Australian" of 28/10/2019






Chill out: lessons Joe Hockey says the US can learn from Australia

Australia’s Ambassador to the United States Joe Hockey has warned that the values that made America great are under pressure and that no-one should take the US-Australia alliance for granted.

In a blunt and at times emotional speech in New York, Mr Hockey who finishes his term in January, offered some heartfelt advice for the US from his observations in his four year posting.

“Patriotism, respect, freedom and hope are values that are essential for America to continue to be exceptional and they are all under extreme pressure in a world that is increasingly fraught,” Mr Hockey told the annual gala dinner of the American Australian Association on Wall St in New York.

Mr Hockey, who was presented with the AAA’s “Legend Award” for his services to Australia’s most important alliance, gave a speech that was generous towards the US but had a sting in its tail.

“Americans can learn from Australians as well,” the former Federal Treasurer said. “Your infrastructure is terrible. Your banking system is really hard work and I don’t understand your health care system.

“Americans also have to learn to chill and they should think a little bit more about bridging the divide between the haves and have-nots in a society that is broad, diverse and inherently generous,” Mr Hockey said.

His comments came less than a week after Mr Hockey, who enjoys a close relationship with the Trump White House, warned that the US was at risk of permanently abdicating its global leadership role if it continues down the route of trade protectionism.

Mr Hockey told the AAA dinner that the risk for both the US and Australia was that both countries took the relationship for granted.

Mr Hockey was introduced by the Secretary of the US Navy Richard Spencer who lauded the strength of the military relationship between the two nations.

The dinner of around 1000 people then watched a video about Mr Hockey’s time in the US which included tributes from singer Olivia Newton-John, golfers Greg Norman and Jan Stephenson and members of the Friends of Australia Caucus in the US Congress.

The night began with Mr Hockey’s favourite band, Human Nature, making a surprise appearance and singing for him as he walked into the building for the function.

For many months Mr Hockey had been trying to get Human Nature to perform at an Australian embassy function somewhere in the US. But the band, which has a solid regular gig in Las Vegas, was never available.

Hockey wanted them for the AAA gala dinner — but his minders said no they are not available.

Except that they were. Hockey stepped out of his car in the front of Cipriani’s Wall St where the AAA gala dinner was held and as he posed for a formal photo, Human Nature emerged from behind a concrete pillar to sing him a song in front of startled New York commuters. Hockey’s face said it all — he had no idea.

Among those also attending the dinner were former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy and the chief executive of News Corp Robert Thomson.

Mr Hockey, who has been Ambassador since January 2016, has been credited with forging close personal connections with the Trump White House.

He has played an important role in helping navigate Australia’s most important alliance relationship through the turbulent Trump administration with an unpredictable president who has often lashed out at close allies.

Mr Hockey has largely ignored the traditional US State Department channels that ambassadors in Washington have relied upon and has instead sought to forge personal relationships inside the White House itself.

He has developed a close friendship with Mr Trump’s chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and has frequently played golf with both Mulvaney and the president.

During his tenure as ambassador Mr Hockey helped repair an early rift in the relationship when Mr Trump argued with then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull over the refugee deal in a phone call just days into his presidency in early 2017.

Mr Trump lashed out at the deal struck between Mr Turnbull and outgoing president Barack Obama to resettle refugees from Nauru into the United States and accused Mr Turnbull of wanting to export ‘the next Boston bombers’ to the US.

Months later Mr Hockey helped to organise a meeting between the two leaders in New York for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea – a meeting that helped put the relationship back on track.

Mr Hockey has also had to deal with the threat of Australia being hit by Mr Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs which he initially threatened to levy on US allies and rivals alike.

Mr Hockey was part of a successful government-wide lobbying effort to persuade the White House to grant Australia a special exemption from the tariffs.

Mr Hockey’s term ends in January when he will be replaced by former Senator and John Howard’s former chief of staff Arthur Sinodinos.

SOURCE  






The West Australian Government will ban students from using mobile phones in all public schools in a major push to reduce distraction and focus on learning

The ban, announced today by Premier Mark McGowan and Education Minister Sue Ellery, will come into effect from 2020.

The prohibition on phones will take effect during school hours, beginning from the time students arrive until the end of the school day, including before school and during break times.

"We want to create the best possible learning environment for WA kids and our policy will allow students to focus on their school work without the distraction of a mobile phone," Mr McGowan said.

With no phones, life returns to the schoolyard

The "off and away all day" policy comes after consultation with schools such as Ocean Reef High School that already had successful guidelines in place for controlling access to mobile phones.

Principal Karon Brookes said despite initial resistance from some students, the ban immediately reduced disruptions in the classroom and increased interaction in the schoolyard.

"Teachers felt that at every change of lesson, they weren't dealing with students and reminding them, prompting them to put away their phones," she said.

"But we also noticed this growing noise in the yard … students were actually talking, laughing and engaging with each other."
Ms Brookes said the school set up extra activities at recess and lunch breaks to help students get used to the new policy.

One Year 11 student at Ocean Reef Senior High School, ZJ Tan, said the ban had paid dividends. "We are not distracted by notifications, so we are more focused in class and we are aware of what homeworks are given out [and] when assignments are due. So grades have improved," she said.

The ban restricts the use of mobile phones, smart watches, earbuds, tablets and headphones unless students are under the instruction of a staff member.

Students from kindergarten to Year 6 will not be permitted to have mobile phones in their possession during the school day.

Students from Years 7 to 12 must have their phones turned off during school hours and kept off and out of sight until the end of the school day.

Additionally, under the new policy, smart watches must be set to airplane mode.

Mr McGowan said exemptions to the policy would be made for students with special circumstances, including those who needed to monitor a health condition, were under the direct instruction of a teacher for educational purposes or had teacher permission for a specified purpose.

Education Minister Sue Ellery told ABC Radio Perth the ban, which had been trialled at six secondary schools, had been relatively well received. "Most of [the students] said they found it useful to have a break," she said. "Some of them whinged a little bit, but nobody said that it was completely unreasonable."

Ms Ellery said teachers would also be allowed to give students permission to use their phone — for example, to take photos of work on whiteboards or to confirm shifts with employers.

She said while other states pointed to the rise of cyberbullying as motivation for similar bans, that was not the case in WA.

"I don't know that it will do that of itself, because most of that happens actually outside of school hours," she said.

"But if this policy helps kids form the habit of having a break and knowing that the world isn't going to end, the sky isn't going to fall down, if you're not on social media 24/7.
"That will probably help with cyberbullying as well."

Ms Ellery said the response at Ocean Reef Senior High School, one of the schools to have trialled the ban, gave her confidence the change would be a success.

"When they introduced the policy at the start of last school year, they were amazed," she said. "They hadn't anticipated the level of noise in the playground at lunchtime because kids were actually talking to each other."

SOURCE  





$102m to help keep the lights on

The usefulness of interconnetors consists in some suppliers having excess capacity. With all states shutting down traditional generators, that seems to be less and less likely.  It's a poor substitute for new coal or gas-fired generators

An upgrade of the Queensland-NSW Interconnector will be underwritten by Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian in a move to increase competition between generators in the electricity market and drive down wholesale energy prices amid pressure from coal station closures.

The federal and NSW governments will underwrite the project up to $102m to help TransGrid fast-track early works ahead of final approvals by the Australian Energy Regulator.

Ahead of the Liddell coal-fired power station closing in the Hunter Valley in 2023, the Prime Minister said unlocking transmission infrastructure was crucial in ensuring the future of the NSW energy grid. "This is about putting downward pressure on wholesale prices so businesses and households have access to reliable and affordable power," he said.

"Industry needs certainty. They need to know their electricity won't cut out, and their power bill won't suddenly double. "You can't run a business like that, and you can't employ people. That's why we are underwriting this interconnector. It's a practical step to make sure it happens, and it happens quickly."

Support for the interconnector upgrade is separate to the Morrison government underwriting the new generation investments program, which has shortlisted 12 renewable pumped hydro, gas and coal upgrade projects in NSW, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and Victoria.

In mid-2018, the Australian Energy Market Operator released an integrated system plan outlining transmission investments required to preserve long-term affordability and reliability in the national electricity market.

The QNI project, which will provide an extra 190MW of transmission capacity from Queensland to NSW and an upgrade of the Victoria/NSW interconnector provide an extra 170M W. of transmission capacity, were identified as key priorities by the AEMO.

Upgraded interconnectors would increase wholesale market competition in NSW and push down prices. Upgrades would also provide a reliability buffer in NSW, delivering an extra 360MW of supply across the state during peak demand.

Ms Berejiklian said her government committed to the QNI up-grade to "ease cost of living pressures across NSW" and provide "reliable and affordable power to households and businesses".

"Last year, the NSW government announced its transmission infrastructure strategy, which outlined our commitment to accelerate the delivery of key interconnector projects, including the QNI," Ms Berejiklian said.  The joint federal-state agreement, of which the Commonwealth's liability is capped to a maximum of $51m, will see upgrades to the QNI brought forward to late-2021 and help cushion the impact of the Liddell closure.

Regulatory approvals for the QNI project were progressing under the NSW transmission infrastructure strategy but further action would be required to ensure the upgraded QNI was "fully operational by the summer of 2022-23".

Under the arrangement, the federal and state governments
would be liable only for early work costs not yet approved by the AER. TransGrid chief executive Paul Italiano said the underwriting commitment was essential to the "early delivery" of the transmission project: "TransGrid is building the interconnector to ensure a reliable supply of electricity to cus-tomers over the summers ahead and as older, coal-fired generators shut down."

NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean said the project would help "keep the lights on and keep power costs down as the energy market transitions", while federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor said NSW industries required lower energy prices and reliable transmission to protect jobs.

From "The Australian" of 28/10/2019





In defence of the recent Leunig toon



It behoves me to defend Michael Leunig, despite having never met him, nor warming to the whiny tone of his cartoons, and holding a bit of a grudge against him because he didn't support his fellow cartoonist, the late, great Bill Leak, in his hour of need.

Still, we need to stand by Leunig because the bullying handed out to him in the searing world of social media is another assault on free expression. Were he around today, Leak would be in Leunig's corner, showing a solidarity too many spared for him.

Leak was probably helped into his early grave in 2017 because of a nasty and illiberal pile-on over his provocative cartoon about indigenous community dysfunction. He was given the full thought-police treatment under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

In miserable comments soon after Leak's death, Leunig said Leak had probably been "egged on" by others to draw his "cruel" cartoon that was a "terrible mistake". He could hardly have been more insulting, wrong or cowardly.

Still, when Leunig last week dared to suggest that some of us —in his drawing, a mum — might be distracted from the better and more important things in life by our smartphones, all hell broke loose. A social media barrage attacked Leunig for things he did not choose — his age, sex and skin colour — as well as for his cartoon.

On Channel 10's The Project Leunig was denounced as a'"dinosaur" and a "74-year-old dude" who' was "targeting mums" and has "form going after women and mums in particular". We were told it was "time he exited the public sphere for good".

At least Leunig didn't confront an AHRC investigation trying to taint him as sexist or racist. But the vigour and tone of the public shaming was worrying; not seeking to disagree or discuss but to silence, condemn and de-platform.

Lucky for Leunig, some cartoonists are consistent. Leak's old mate, The Daily Telegraph's Warren Brown, defended Leunig from what he called an "extraordinary" overreaction. 'We've all copped it out of the blue," Brown sympathised. "A cartoon is about making people think."

Yep, Leunig gave some readers pause to think. Well played, Warren, Bill would have loved your work, and he would have rung you to say so, not deferred to social media.

From "The Australian" of 28/10/2019

 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

Senator Amanda Stoker exposes our unjust universities

Bettina Arndt

Finally, I am seeing some real action from my campus campaign. I’m just back from meetings with parliamentarians in Canberra, including the outstanding Queensland Senator, Amanda Stoker.

Yesterday Amanda put on a brilliant display, grilling TEQSA, the university regulator, in Senate Estimates committee about the higher education sector’s abysmal failure to protect the rights of the accused in new rape regulations now in operation in universities across Australia.

Watch the bureaucrats squirm when she rightly points out that the regulations contain barely one word about ensuring proper legal rights for accused young men. It is a disgrace that TEQSA has been shown to have cow towed to feminist lobby groups and bullied universities into adjudicating rape on campus, shelving the legal rights of the accused and using lower standards of proof to ensure more convictions.

Remember it was Senator Stoker who put pressure on TEQSA over my Sydney University protest last year, which ultimately led to the French Inquiry and universities now reluctantly introducing voluntary free speech codes.

Now Amanda is promising to help the regulator ensure they address the appalling bias in their own instructions to universities regarding this issue.

I have a team of serious players on board. We have a number of plans of attack to persuade universities to leave the serious crime of sexual assault to be dealt with by our criminal law system, which is designed to offer proper justice to both sides in these cases. I’ll be writing about some of the other fascinating developments in the weeks to come but couldn’t resist sending you the Stoker video today. I’m really keen that we circulate this as widely as possible.

This is a shot across the bows of the feminists who have been had the running on this issue for so long.  And the more people who know about it the better.

Here are the links you can use to view the video and circulate it on social media.

Facebook video:

https://www.facebook.com/thebettinaarndt/videos/3415892945102495/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/thebettinaarndt/status/1187570064368627712?s=20

Email from Bettina Arndt: Bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au





Climate abounds with deception

Chris Kenny

Blatant deception has become endemic in what is an extreme debate on global warming. The alarmists who sneer at so-called climate deniers are, all too often, fact deniers. The ABC and The Guardian Australia have shown when the assessments of climate scientists don't fit their catastrophist narrative, they are prepared to ignore or verbal scientists and attack other media for sharing the information.

Consider a forum at the University of Sydney on "The Business of Making Climate Change" in June that included the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes director Andrew Pitman. Asked about climate and drought, Professor Pitman said this:

"This may not be what you expect to hear but as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought. Now, that may not be what you read in the newspapers and sometimes hear commented but there is no reason a priori why climate change should make the landscape more arid. "And if you look at the Bureau of Meteorology data over the whole of the last 100 years there's no trend in data, there's no drying trend, there's been a drying trend in the last 20 years but there's been no drying trend in the last 100 years and that's an expression of how variable the Australian rainfall climate is."

You will not have heard that comment, in full, on the ABC, nor read it in The Guardian Australia; yet they have run many comments from Greens and Labor politicians saying the drought is linked to climate change. This self-censorship is extraordinary enough because there could hardly be a more relevant and factual contribution from such a reputable source that puts the lie to the political posturing over a crippling drought that is dominating political debate.

But it gets worse. What the ABC's MediaWatch did a fortnight ago, and The Guardian Australia replicated last week, is run cut-down versions of that quote and accuse me and others at Sky News of misrepresenting Professor Pitman. That's right, it is commentators sharing a reputable climate scientist's own words, uncut, that they criticise.

These journalists failed to run the pertinent information but slammed others for running it. Their tenuous justification is a statement from Professor Pitman's centre claiming he should have said "no direct link" rather than "no link". The insertion of the word "direct" into his assessment is mere semantics and changes nothing. Indeed the statement begs the question of how and why this ex post facto qualification came about, not directly from Professor Pitman, but from his centre.

In that June forum Professor Pitman also said the "fundamental" problem in this field of science is that "we don't understand what causes droughts" — again under-scoring the absence of a climate change/drought link. Last week he was reported on the topic again in The Guardian Australia "But the fact that I can't establish something does not make it true or false, it just means I can't establish it."

Astonishingly, the website argued this quote bolstered its claims of misrepresentation when clearly it reaffirms his critical point; there is no link established between our drought and global warming. The evidence is in, no matter how much it is buried, denied and spun away by the ABC and Guardian Australia.

All of Professor Pitman's comments demonstrate that politicians are making a link between global warming and drought that climate scientists have not established. In comparison, some of us at Sky News have run Professor Pitman's comments in full a number of times, drawn our conclusions, asked others to comment and allowed audiences to make their own judgments.

Additionally, I have repeatedly invited Professor Pitman to discuss the issues, live and uncut to air. He shrinks away. We can imagine it is difficult for scientists to have their work pushed and pulled for political point-scoring but they have a public duty to share the facts.

Professor Pitman's work is being grossly misrepresented by the ABC and The Guardian Australia, who argue the opposite to his declared reality. His centre should be clearing the air but is doing the opposite.

The dishonesty of the reporting by Paul Barry's Media Watch, at your expense, is stunning. They cut, trim and misrepresent what has been broadcast on Sky News, fail to ask pertinent questions of Professor Pitman and try to convince the public that his research shows the exact opposite of what he has said repeatedly.

There has seldom been a clearer demonstration of George Orwell's 1984 maxim: "War is Peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength."

The Guardian Australia should be left to its own devices, I suppose, but Ita Buttrose should not sit idly by and allow Media Watch to implement the antithesis ofthe ABC's charter mission.

From "The Australian of 28/10/2019






Police arrest over 40 climate activists outside IMARC conference in Melbourne

More than 40 climate protesters have now been arrested after police doused them with capsicum spray as they clashed outside an international mining conference in Melbourne.

The activists were aiming to shut down the International Mining and Resources Conference at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre which began on Tuesday and is being attended by thousands of global delegates.

Victoria Police Acting Commander Tim Tully said the majority of offences related to failing to obey police direction or intentionally obstructing an emergency service worker.

Two people were arrested in relation to cruelty to animals after they allegedly struck a police horse.

Commander Tully said four police officers have been injured while making arrests with three taken to hospital for injuries including a dislocated finger and minor head injuries.

One woman was taken to hospital after she allegedly was injured by a police horse and a man was treated at the scene for a minor cut to his head.

“The police operation is ongoing,” Commander Tully said. “However Victoria Police would like to state that any action taken by officers this morning has been in response to the protesters’ activity and in accordance with training.”

From 6am, activists from 11 different groups began blocking entry to the conference amid a heavy police presence. Clashes erupted between police and the protesters who held up signs calling for mining to be “shut down” as they tried to push back the police line.

“We have the right to demonstrate, this is not a police state,” the activists chanted. Protesters also blocked Clarendon Street at Southbank.

One police officer received minor injuries during the arrests and was transported to hospital for treatment. A protester was also taken to hospital in a stable condition after she was injured by a police horse.

Capsicum spray was fired into the crowd, with officers yelling at protesters to “get back” as attendees attempted to enter the conference.

The activists picketed at multiple entrances to the centre, chanting “land rights not mining rights, shut IMARC [the conference] down” and “blood on your hands” as they pushed back against a police line.

Just after 7am, police deployed horses to protect the entrance to the conference. Two people were arrested in relation to cruelty to animal offences for assaulting a police horse. These are summary offences.

Protester Emma Black from the Blockade IMARC Activist Alliance said the police tactics had been quite aggressive. “There’s been very little communication from the police when they would like to move us,” she said “They’ve just been storming us, pushing us.”

Ms Black said she had been hit with a police baton on her right arm which was extremely swollen. She said her arms were raised and was trying to get out of the way when the officer hit her. Ms Black said she didn’t witness the alleged attack on a police horse but said she couldn’t understand why the protesters who were generally aligned with animal rights would target a horse.

She said the point of today was to get the message of the protest which was to stand up against “ecocide and for human rights’’.

“It was always going to be impossible for us to shut down the whole thing without having tens of thousands of people,” she said.

More than 7000 delegates from about 100 countries are attending the three-day conference and organisers say the protest action is based on misconceptions about the mining industry.

Among them is Craig Ian McGown, chairman at Pioneer Resources, who said he had a bottle of water emptied over him, had been pushed and forced to walk 40 metres with a woman next to him shouting “shame”.

“I’m just very confused by people having too much time off,” he said. “I’m just in attendance at the conference because my company is involved in major projects that can help the country move forward.”

The conference organisers said in a statement: “There is a misconception that as an industry mining does not operate with sustainable principles in mind”.

Mining was vital for the production of electricity, solar panels, electric car batteries, pacemakers and medical apparatus and public transport, they said. This year the conference will consider the importance of battery minerals, used in the emerging electric car market, and the growing importance of ethical investment for resource companies.

The mining and resources conference is scheduled to run for three days. Protesters plan to disrupt all three days of the conference and will be joined by Victorian Greens Leader Samantha Ratnam on Tuesday and federal Greens MP Adam Bandt on Wednesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack described the protests as “disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful”.

The Extinction Rebellion group ran a week of climate protests early in the month and Victoria Police acting commander Tim Tully predicted on Monday that activists would ramp up their methods this week.

“We expect to see heightened tactics by the protest groups,” he told reporters in Melbourne. “Our intelligence would suggest that the protesters have been planning, and are well co-ordinated, to undertake different tactics to what we saw, or very similar tactics to what we saw, in the recent protest activity.

“We are well prepared to respond.”

Victorian opposition leader Michael O’Brien said people should be allowed to go about their business without being confronted by “constant demonstrations”.

“It’s turning Melbourne into a joke and unless the premier starts giving the police the powers they need to do with it, it’s just going to continue and go on,” he said.

SOURCE  




Union to Labor party: change tack on trade or cash stops

They are dead against further immigration.

The 'CFMEU will not donate another cent to the Labor Party if it continues to support free-trade policies that the union says hurt Australian jobs.'

National construction division boss Dave Noonan also says the party has been overrun by "broken-down Tony Blair spin doctors". who have orchestrated a conflict with his union for political gain.

In a defiant interview with The Weekend Australian at the end of the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union's five-day national conference in Adelaide, Mr Noonan declared his division's besieged Victorian chief, John Setka, an "asset" to the CFMEU who had been treated "unfairly" by Anthony Albanese.

Mr Noonan also backed 'Mr Setka's assessment that Labor was "losing its soul" by signing up to trade deals that allow foreign workers into Australia. He said there were about l.4 million Workers in the country on temporary visas who were being underpaid and driving down wages and conditions for Australians.

He warned that as long as Labor backed 'the government's free-trade deals', it should not expect any more donations from the union, which has handed more than $13m to the ALP since 2000, almost all of it from Mr Setka's Victorian branch.

"We will not be donating to any political party that does not put the interests of Australian workers first," he said "When we think Labor has got it wrong we will call it out. We are certainly not donating any money out of this conference. We are not going to be going out funding politicians who undermine job security. "We don't understand why the Labor Party is going down this path. We were trying to point out to them the level of wage theft that's going on with workers on temporary work visas.

Mr Noonan said Labor was confused about what it stood for as it tried to retain its appeal to blue-collar workers while seeking support from inner-city professional voters. "It's not just about Albo," he said. "The party needs to have a good look at itself. You will never out-green the Greens. They should look to working people — not just blue-collar workers, but in other industries such as IT who are getting underpaid."

His comments cap the end of a CFMEU conference that exploded into life courtesy of Mr Setka and his searing attack on the Federal Opposition Leader on Wednesday. He announced then that he would nor be appealing against his expulsion from the ALP

The Weekend Australian has been told Mr Setka was hailed as a hero by delegates for standing up tothe Labor leader. Mr Noonan confirmed there was strong support for Mr Setka across the CFMEU

Excerpt from "The Weekend Australian" of 26/10/2019





Morrison is on top of Australia's "swamp"

Sharri Markson

John Barilaro made a disturbing admission one Friday evening when he sat down to chat with me on Sky News. He said NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and he, the Deputy Premier, do not run the state of NSW. "Unfortunately one of my frustrations is that the bureaucracy does," he complained.

As he publicly ruminated about whether he should leave his plum job as Deputy Premier, Barilaro expressed his grievance about the public servants that stop projects being built or policies being implemented in the state that is Australia's economic powerhouse.

"A lot of these bureaucrats, and I'm going to admit this, I believe that 12 months leading into the last election in March, mate, they were sitting idle thinking there was going to be a change of government and it's time to square that little ledger up. I want to get on with building projects," Barilaro said in the August interview.

For him to make this admission publicly indicates how high his level of agitation must be behind the scenes. It's quite extraordinary that, in Barilaro's opinion, not even the Premier can get stuff done in NSW, blocked by an obstructionist public service.

It partly explains why Barilaro is weighing up a move to Canberra, should Mike Kelly leave Parliament and spark a by-election in Eden Monaro. But a more important question than Barilaro's political future is, who gives these faceless public servants power?

There is a familiar scenario. A new minister is sworn in, heaving with policy ideas to implement, which they may even speak about in media interviews. But they are quickly put back in their box as the advice from their department comes back that their innovative solutions cannot be implemented, due to one constraint or another.

Scott Morrison faced this as immigration minister when he wanted to turn back the boats. However, he quickly worked out how to drive the agenda using his personal leadership, rather than become a puppet for a department that has seen a revolving door of politicians. It's why one of his earliest moves after being elected Prime Minister was to haul every departmental secretary into the Cabinet room and make it clear who was in charge: Him. Not them.

He laid down the law and said they work for the government and not vice versa. He used an analogy from his rugby coach, which he has since repeated, calling it the bacon and egg principle: the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. He used it to say that accountability to the public ultimately lay on his shoulders, not theirs.

Since then, Martin Parkinson stepped down as secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and there is expected to be another high-profile head of a department leaving in the near future.

Unlike Parkinson, this anticipated resignation is understood to be a case of the department head not being aligned with Morrison's agenda. If a department secretary is not on board, it becomes a clash of cultures.

Before any Home Affairs opponents get their hopes up, the person leaving is not Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo. His position may have been on shaky ground momentarily, as a result of a perception he was trying to do the "pre-election Olympics" as the business of the AFP referral for the media raids, but his role is secure and has the confidence of the PM.

Another public service appointment Morrison is really happy about is the new Treasury Secretary, Dr Steven Kennedy, who was formerly head of the Infrastructure Department. "He's a Labor guy but gets things done," a senior figure remarked.

Morrison has more contact with the heads of department than usual as a result of policy "deep dives" he is conducting in areas he thinks need extra attention like veterans' health, recycling, the drought, the NDIS, taxation and indigenous health. He has done about a dozen since the election and has about eight to go this year.

The sessions involve the relevant minister, backbenchers that have a particular interest in the policy area, the department heads and other senior public services figures. They have a two or three-hour meeting to run through all the problems in the space and discuss what can be done to bring about change.

The only drawback with this hands-on approach of Morrison's is when it comes to a policy area like drought, Morrison's ownership of the drought may be as problematic as Malcolm Turnbull's was of electricity prices.

Electricity prices were considered a state government issue before Turnbull decided he would campaign on lowering prices and solving the energy crisis. It was a decision that ultimately cost him hiS leaderShip.

Now, there are concerns within the Government that Morrison is doing the same thing with the drought; personally taking responsibility for an incredibly complex problem he will not be able to solve.

While it is risky, and has already proved politically damaging for Morrison, Aussie farmers deserve attention from the very top, with the best minds in Government focused on how Australia can set itself up better for the next drought. These farmers deserve more than just bureaucrats, they deserve leaders.

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail of 26/10/2019

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

How the world's Leftist media has reacted to the Uluru climbing ban

With hate, predictably. That the climbers might have been motivated by simple adventure-seeking hasn't occurred to them

We also get a glimpse of that unique leftist logic whereby being denied a privilege (the privilege of climbing the rock at any time) counts s white privilege.  Its like arguing with a madman.  Their seething hatred of the ordinary people doing the climbing trumps all else


Media outlets around the world have reacted to the permanent closure of public access to Australia’s most iconic landmark, Uluru.

Rangers at the sandstone monolith closed the climb — a decade’s old tradition of visitors both local and from around the world — at 4pm Friday, after the ban was unanimously voted on in 2017.

A new sign was set up at the base of the rock, notifying visitors that the climb was now permanently closed, almost 34 years to the day since the Anangu people — the traditional owners of the land — were handed back the title to Uluru.

From today, climbing will be punishable by a $6,300 fine.

The decision to ban the climb has divided Australians and those around the world for months in the lead-up to its closure.

And a final scramble of visitors yesterday hoping to be among the last to climb the rock — after months of thousands trekking to the Red Centre — has been described by a writer for The New York Times as “a reminder that a segment of the population remains resistant to some of the decisions indigenous people make when ownership of land is returned to them.”

“They have absolutely no shame,” one reader wrote on Twitter about the flock of climbers. “This is what white privilege looks like in Australia.”

“The lengthy queue of people waiting for one last crack at violating indigenous rights before the white government finally puts an end to it is pretty depressing,” wrote another commenter on the publication’s website.

While the ban is “a once-unimaginable act of deference to a marginalised population,” writes the piece’s author Jamie Tarabay, it is “a partly symbolic gesture that does nothing to address the myriad social problems endured by indigenous Australians.”

“Many of the Anangu themselves live in a trash-strewn community near the rock that is closed to visitors, a jarring contrast to the exclusive resorts that surround the monolith, where tourists seated at white tablecloths drink sparkling wines and eat canapes as the setting sun turns Uluru a vivid red.”

There a certain parts of Uluru so sacred that the Anangu people don’t want it photographed or even touched, writes Tarabay, yet tourists are welcomed to “tool around its base on camels or Segways, or take art lessons in its shadow.”

The climbers were like “a little ant trail,” tweeted one reader of The Washington Postwho published an article titled, “The last climb up Australia’s majestic Uluru”.

The Outback monolith is sacred to indigenous people, who have long implored visitors not to ascend the rock and have now imposed a ban on climbing it.

The Guardian echoed the sentiment of Central Land Council member Sammy Wilson in a cartoon posted overnight — written in the Pitjantjatjara language of the Anangu people — with the message
English. Uluru is a very important place, it's not Disneyland.

“As a result of Aboriginal people asking white people not to do something, hordes of tourists are hurrying in their thousands to do the exact opposite before time runs out,” the cartoon read.

Readers of the BBC’s coverage on the climbing ban have also reflected the world’s shock at Australian’s attitude toward climbing Uluru.

BBC News (World)

“I am truly embarrassed for these humans,” tweeted one reader, while another said, “It’s 2019, and the cultural white patriarchy still struggle with their greed. I am embarrassed for some of these interviewees — dripping in their own self entitlement and disrespect for the true landowners and spirit.”

It’s now time, Phil Mercer wrote in a piece for the publication, for the Anangu people to “rest and heal.”

“The Anangu believe that in the beginning, the world was unformed and featureless. Ancestral beings emerged from this void and travelled across the land, creating all living species and forms,” Mercer wrote.

“Uluru is the physical evidence of the feats performed by ancestral beings during this creation time.”

Independent media organisation NPR was one of the many to report on the closure. One reader tweeted, “If this was America, we would just add a gift shop on the top of it and continue to discriminate against the natives. Hopefully Australia treats its Natives better than we do here in America.”

“For the rock’s Aboriginal owners, whose tenure here goes back tens of thousands of years, this a momentous decision, one they have dreamed of and worked toward for decades,” wrote Kennedy Warne for National Geographic.

“Imagine the euphoria felt by the Aboriginal owners when the park board voted unanimously to end climbing.”

SOURCE  




Call for demerit points for unions

Senate crossbenchers have urged the Morrison government to soften proposed laws making it easier to ban union officials and deregister unions, calling on the Coalition to consider "extensive changes" including a demerit points scheme for law-breaking officials.

Attorney-General and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said amendments proposed to the Ensuring Integrity Bill by Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick in a Senate inquiry report released on Friday "appear largely workable".

With Labor and the Greens opposed, the government requires four of six crossbench votes when the bill, and the Worker Entitlement Fund bill, are voted on by the Senate in about two weeks.

Senator Patrick said Centre Alliance could not support the Ensuring Integrity Bill in its current form as it was like using a "sledgehammer to crack a nut". While a small number of unions and officials had not respected the law, he said the current bill would likely result in the disqualification of officials and deregistration of unions that were "by and large, involved in good".

Calling for the government to drop the proposed public interest test for union mergers, he said it was Centre Alliance's strong view that law-abiding organisations should be allowed to amalgamate without interference.

He said Mr Porter and employers should not be able to apply to deregister a union or ban an official. "Only an independent and impartial registered organisation commissioner should be permitted to make such an application," he said.

Courts should be given more discretion when considering whether to make an adverse order, while a provision allowing automatic disqualification for convictions in a foreign country should be scrapped.

Senator Patrick said the bill allowed a court application for disqualification of a union official or deregistration of a union to be made for trivial or technical breaches of the law. He said a different approach that addressed minor breaches without disqualification or deregistration must be adopted.

"A demerit points scheme similar to that used for drivers' licences could be adopted," he said. "Under the drivers' licence scheme, minor breaches are penalised but don't give rise to licence cancellation. Significant breaches or repetitive minor breaches could. Like a drivers' licence scheme, the passage of time should see a drop-off of accumulated demerit points.

"If a similar scheme is incorpor-ated, an application to the court under this bill should only be possible once a particular demerit threshold is reached."

Referring to the conduct of construction unions and officials, Senator Patrick said the behaviour had been "by any standard incorrigible, never expressing regret, or contrition; never admitting wrongdoing or accepting fault despite judgments finding evidence to the contrary".

Government members on the Senate committee supported the bill without amendment while Labor and the Greens produced dissenting reports. Mr Porter said the government would "closely examine the suggestions" by Centre Alliance. "I have been engaging with Senator Rex Patrick and, on the face of it, his suggested changes appear largely workable and a resolution is now much closer," Mr Porter said.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed Senator Patrick's comments. "The suggestion, in particular, to amend the bill to mandate consideration of the gravity of the offences by the court has merit," the chamber's deputy director of workplace relations, Tamsin Lawrence, said.

ACTU president Michele O'Neil said unions were concerned the Centre Alliance proposals would fail to address the bill's "extreme and biased nature".

Excerpt from "The Weekend Australian" of 26/10/2019





Conservative alliance targets climate army

The new voice of Australia’s conservative movement has vowed to go after radical left-wing groups in a national campaign against “clim­ate alarmists”, after accusing members of activist group Extinction Rebel­lion of being criminals who pose a menace to society.

Liz Storer, a 36-year-old former Liberal councillor and ministerial adviser, will be announced on Wednesday as the new national director of ­centre-right campaign machine Advance Australia, which has positione­d itself as the political counter to GetUp.

Her appointment comes as GetUp’s national director, Paul Oosting, fronts the National Press Club on Wednesday amid internal inquiries into its failed campaign to unseat a list of targeted conservative MPs at the May election.

But Ms Storer said while GetUp was on her radar, her first campaign­ would be aimed at Extinctio­n Rebellion, which has risen from obscurity to promin­ence in the past week by closing down traffic in the CBDs of Brisbane and Melbourne.

“These people are seriously unhinged­,” Ms Storer said. “They are going to be one of our first campaigns­ … These guys are very strategic but the truth is they are not a climate change action group.

“They may market themselves that way. They are hell bent on deconstructing society as we know it … they operate on a manifesto of delusions based on a rejection of European colonisation and trad­itional values that most mainstream Australians hold dear.

“They are a menace to society … We saw last week the Victorian police saying they had to stop ­normal policing to deal with them. ER are proving to be the real crim­inals …. Gluing themselves to streets (and) hanging from ­bridges.”

Ms Storer, who has a masters degree in human rights and was elected to the suburban Perth council of Gosnells before becoming an adviser to conservative federal Coalition senator and assist­ant minister Zed Seselja, said the militant advance of climate activism had not been effectively ­challenged and that Advance Australia’s mission was to be the voice of “mainstream Australia”.

It would also run counter campaigns against MPs with “radical agendas” and run lobbying and public campaigns against state governments over activism in the education system.

“A mate of mine called me this morning to tell me his daughter had texted him from school to tell him that her teacher said a third of their class would be dead by 2050 because of climate change,” Ms Storer said. “Climate anxiety is becoming­ a real thing.”

While Advance Australia is heavily outgunned by established groups such as GetUp, it quickly raised $2.5m in donations with a 45,000-strong supporter base in its first 12 months of operation since being formed in November last year with the backing of prominent businessmen including Maurice Newman and James Power of the Queensland brewing dynasty.

“GetUp are a well-oiled mach­ine and we are in our infancy,” Ms Storer said. “But we intend to even the score. There is clout in the silent­ majority … we saw that at the May election.”

GetUp’s Mr Oosting, who ran the left-wing group’s failed election campaign strategy to unseat a rump of conservative MPs, will deliver a speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday titled Politics Belongs to Everyone.

GetUp, which launched internal and external reviews after the May 18 election, has been targeted by Scott Morrison and Coalition frontbenchers, who have accused the political activist group of being a front for Labor and the Greens.

A prominent Liberal Party ­figure said the group had struggled to gain traction but claimed the appointmen­t of Ms Storer signalled a significant gear shift in the conservative­ movement’s battle against the left-wing lobby. “I do love kicking doors,” Ms Storer said.

SOURCE  





Outcomes-based school funding easier said than done

There’s good reason to support government rhetoric about becoming more ‘outcomes-driven’. Who doesn’t want “an ongoing focus on value for money” as proposed by the NSW Government’s approach?

Momentum has been gathering to correct the misplaced perspective that sees education issues exclusively in terms of inputs (namely, how much money is being pumped in), to one based on outcomes.

This flips the conventional wisdom that funding should be decided simply according to the students coming into a school, to one based on what schools are actually doing for their students.

The evidence of today’s unwise and ineffective spending is seen in the ongoing decline in student achievement.

However, introducing new outcomes-based school funding reform is proving to be easier said than done.

Buoyed by the NSW Education Minister’s promise to “ensure that we match education funding to outcomes”, an ambitious parliamentary inquiry was established earlier this year to investigate “measurement and outcomes-based funding for schools.”

This is a natural extension to the NSW Treasurer’s bold plans for “shifting to a focus on outcomes” when it comes to public finances more broadly. At the same time, the NSW Productivity Commission has prioritised lifting school performance and education outcomes in its quest to lift the state’s productivity.

Teachers and school leaders want what’s best for their students, but current funding arrangements don’t support these aims.

For instance, a school receives additional funding for enrolling more students, particularly those suffering from disadvantage, but there are no implications — such as financial incentives —  nor accompanying checks on, how well, or poorly, these students are served.

An outcomes-based funding approach would benefit all students because schools and educators would have clear incentives to improve teaching and learning practices.

Yet, before the committee had the opportunity to hold hearings into reform, the policy approach became muddled, with the Education Department suggesting that any change would merely be “a different financial practice” and that “there will be no change to the way schools are funded and operated.”

A reasonable observer might then ask: if there is no change to the funding and operation of schools, what, and how, are educational outcomes expected to improve?

For genuine outcomes-based funding, the OECD suggests applying financial consequences for over- or under-achievement of performance objectives, which should be supported by performance management. Yet, recent evidence has highlighted that performance management is all but non-existent in NSW schools — which goes some way to explain the poor educational outcomes being experienced.

It’s true that there are pre-existing commitments to so-called ‘needs-based’ school funding — that is, funding is supposed to be redistributed for equity purposes. But ensuring that schools deliver outcomes for students, and deliver better value for money, cannot be considered mutually exclusive to needs-based principles.

It is hard to see that a change in the accounting treatment of corporate departmental line items could have any impact on educational outcomes. It would seem that what’s on the table could be more of an accounting change rather than accountability one.

But a change in accounting treatment is no substitute for educational reform. The NSW government should not permit another opportunity to go by to introduce genuine school funding reform that cares about how money is spent, not just how much.

SOURCE  






Sydney University academics free to criticise under free speech charter

Sydney University intends to protect the right of staff to criticise the institution as part of its response to a national review of free speech in higher education.

The university's academic board will next month consider reforms to the Charter of Academic Freedom that would bring it into line with a free speech code proposed by former chief justice Robert French.

The reforms include clarifying that professional staff were free to express their "lawful opinions" about the university, and there were no restrictions on staff making public comment on any issue in their personal capacity.

It also recommends free protest should be permitted on university land, but should not be exercised in a way that prevents the free speech of others, causes property damage or physical risk to others.

The univeristy's report, written by academics in consultation with staff and student unions, also recommends the charter be renamed the Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom.

Sydney University was the stage for one of the controversies that prompted the Morrison government to launch the review, when protesters tried to stop commentator Bettina Arndt from speaking at a campus event.

Another was a furore over James Cook University's decision to sack marine physicist Peter Ridd after he criticised colleagues, including a coral researcher at his own university, who he described as having no "clue about the weather".

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

Sydney university abolishing its chair in Australian literature

Literature has an important role in enriching people's lives. I greatly enjoyed my own literary studies of long ago. And formal literary studies have an undoubted role in introducing people to works they might not otherwise come to know. So this decision seems like a step in the wrong direction to me. I personally think that taxpayer-funded education should primarily be vocationally focused but it would be a bleak system that did not also have some role for personal development.

So what's behind this decision? It's pretty clearly a part of the Leftist attack on patriotism. The Left want us all to become undifferentiated internationalists. It's only a slight revision of the old aim to create a "New Soviet Man". The corrupt United Nations is the great multicolored hope of the Left. Mr Trump strikes at their very heart

There is a lot of distinctively Australian literature and I think a lot of it is pretty good -- Patrick White and Kath Walker excepted. It introduces us to times and places in Australia that we would not usually come to know about otherwise.


Publisher Michael Heyward has launched an attack on the University of Sydney, describing the sandstone institution's decision to cut off funding for its Australian literature chair as a "shocking betrayal of readers and writers" that "reveals a contempt for books"

The university recently said it had withdrawn internal funding for the chair; the oldest and most prestigious of its type in AUstralia, while it searched for external funding for the role.

The move, which follows the retirement of the university's fourth professor of Australian literature, Robert Dixon, shocked many as the chair was the nation's first dedicated professorship of Australian literature when it was set up 57 years ago.

Heyward, managing director of Melbourne publishing house Text Publishing, said withdrawal of university funds from the historically important role was a case of Sydney joining the "philistine ranks" of other universities, whose Australian literature offerings had traditionally been "paltry".

"In the sorry history of the teaching of Australian literature in our universities, Sydney has been the outlier since 1962 when its chair was founded by public subscription," he said "Now it has joined the philistine ranks of its fellow institutions.

"Not even the Australian National University has a chair in Australian literature. What kind of country can't bear to teach its own literature? What kind of university has no curiosity about the writers who have shaped our imaginations, and have informed how we think?"

Heyward, whose company publishes local and international authors as well Australian classics, said "our universities are increasingly cut off from Australia's dynamic literary life, from our festivals and from our bookstores and from the readers who keep them alive".

Elizabeth Webby, a former professor of Australian literature at Sydney University, called the defunding of the role "very disappointing", warning that if external funding wasn't found and the chair was abandoned, it would leave just one Ozlit chair for academics nationwide, at the University of Western Australia.

"The only (full-time) chair that actually involves an academic doing courses in Australian literature is at UWA, which is government-funded," she said, The UWA chair was established after The Australian exposed how, in 2006, there was just one full-time Australian literature chair still operating -- the Sydney role now under threat

The University of Melbourne has had an externally funded professorship of Australian literature since 2015, reserved for authors rather than academics.

Paul Giles, Sydney University's Challis Professor of English, said the withdrawal of university funds from the chair was caused, in part, by falling student enrolments in Ozlit subjects and fewer research grants going to the humanities. He said the university still employed three fUll-time Ozlit specialists and two part-time lecturers, but admitted that the university had yet to begin its search for external funds

From "The Weekend Australian" of 26/10/2019






It's not "men" who are to blame for domestic violence

A big study has shown that it's a few repeat offenders from poor communities who do most of the violence. The feminists are dead wrong. No demographic is a powerful predictor but the most relevant demographic is income, not sex

A recent watershed moment that sank to the bottom of the sea was a landmark study by the Australian Institute of Criminology that examined 39 quantitative studies of domestic violence over the past decade or so, entitled simply “Domestic violence offenders, prior offending and reoffending in Australia”.

Astonishingly, given the amount of publicity and so-called “research” this life or death issue has received in recent years, the study noted in its opening statement: “To our knowledge, there has been no attempt to develop a comprehensive understanding of what characterises domestic violence offenders and offending across Australia.”

In an effort to actually tackle this problem, it combed through almost 3000 records and more than 300 papers from almost every conceivable agency and source, painstakingly eliminating those that were not scientifically sound, such as sources more than 30 years old, those not from Australia and those based on non-hard data, such as focus groups and interviews.

The evidence from this comprehensive, fact-based and tragically unprecedented analysis was clear and overwhelming. There was a massive concentration of domestic violence in disadvantaged and indigenous communities and that alcohol was also a driving factor.

Perhaps most significantly, despite the prevailing narrative that domestic violence is a simple male versus female issue, it found that in fact it was a tiny minority of men who were responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of abuse.

“There is growing recognition that domestic violence offending is concentrated among a relatively small group of offenders or couples,” the AIC found.

One 2016 study it cited “found that a very small minority of repeat offenders (2 per cent) were responsible for half of all harm (50 per cent)” and another 2017 Northern Territory study “found that eight per cent of couples accounted for 27 per cent of the harm associated with domestic violence”.

The conclusion was unequivocal: “First, a very large proportion of offenders involved in domestic violence incidents attended by police, and who then move through the justice system, are recidivist offenders.”

Moreover, these were concentrated in the poorest and most long-suffering communities, as the AIC found and stated again and again.

“The likelihood of domestic violence reoffending appears to be higher in more socio-economically disadvantaged communities,” the report said.

And again: “Those in highly disadvantaged areas were also at a greater risk of violent domestic violence reoffending compared with those in the areas of least disadvantage.”

And once more: “Perpetrators of physical violence were found to have higher levels of unemployment (a 2007 study) and were more likely to be from more disadvantaged areas (another study from 2016).”

It literally could not be clearer.

And yet only four of the 39 studies the AIC analysed even looked at the socio-economic status of offenders — compared to 21 that focused on gender. Apparently most of the academic research over the past decade is either oblivious or wilfully blind to the most critical factor in this scourge.

By contrast, I and precious few others have been crazybrave enough to publicly draw attention to the fact that poorest communities are hardest hit by domestic violence. And it is a matter of public record that whenever I have said or written precisely what the evidence shows I have been summarily crucified by self-proclaimed progressives, including suggestions that I am a closet abuser myself, that I should be bashed or defiled and veiled threats from activists saying they knew where I lived or went to the supermarket.

Meanwhile these same so-called progressives are happy to consign poor and indigenous women to their deaths in their darkly narcissistic campaign to argue that they are no more at risk than upper-middle class professionals because it is simply men that are the problem, not broken communities. This is the deadliest of lies.

As a result you won’t see or hear these progressive gender warriors championing the findings of this most comprehensive and belatedly groundbreaking study, because they know they are condemned by the truth.

If they had any decency they would hang their heads in shame for abandoning the most vulnerable women in our society for the sake of a few retweets and an undergraduate ideological war. But the fact is they have no decency, nor any shame.

Still, I promised a happy story and so it is. Because, as the outrage subsides and the evidence rolls in, it will become evermore clear that the social media arbiters of social justice are mindless hypocrites far more obsessed with their own pontification than the real problems besetting society — not to mention wholly unaware of what those problems even are.

And as the outrage is constantly disproved and defrocked, not only does the emperor have no clothes but the emperor has been stripsearched at Splendour and found to be carrying not so much as a disco biscuit up the jexy.

The truth will out, the truth will prevail, and the truth will put the horseshit in the pail.

SOURCE  





Qantas chairman rejects activists' demands over illegal immigration

QANTAS Airways chairman Richard Goyder says the high-profile airline is being singled out by activists who are trying to use it to change government policy around asylum seekers.

The comments were made at the Flying Kangaroo annual meeting which was again dominated by attempts to get the airline to stop carrying asylum seekers who were being forcibly transferred or deported by the government.

A resolution by activist shareholder group the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility to get the company to review its policies in this area failed to win share-holder approval. The resolution attracted a yes vote of 23.5 per cent, up from the 6.4 per cent support a similar resolution put to last year's meeting gained. The ACCR said the result was the largest support vote for a human rights resolution ever put to an Australian company. [It's a human right to enter another country illegally?]

Mr Goyder said other airlines had not attracted the same sort of attention from the ACCR as Qantas. "The ACCR, for all its good things, is using the Qantas brand to try to change government policy," he told the meeting yesterday. "I'd encourage ACCR to take up this cause with the Federal Government, and I'd like to reiterate the directors recognise the complexity of Australian immigration policy and recognise the courts are the best places to make decisions on the rights of asylum seekers, not airlines."

Mr Goyder acknowledged some parties had accused Qantas of hypocrisy for taking a stand on social issues like gender diversity, indigenous reconciliation and marriage equality but not taking up charge on asylum seekers. He rejected the suggestion, saying the airline was not duty bound to speak up on all social issues.

"We are pleased to be part of broader conversations on social and economic issues," he said. "But it's absurd to suggest that because a company speaks up on some issues, it is therefore duty-bound to speak up on all issues." Chief executive Alan Joyce said if Qantas agreed to stop transporting asylum seekers, it could disadvantage those in need of medical assistance, or transfers between detention centres due to overcrowding.

"How can the airlines be the judge on each of these individual cases?" Mr Joyce said. "You're asking us to do an impossible task and we could do more damage by not carrying these people."

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail of 26/10/2019





Household recycling nightmare.  Italy is a warning

I have seen the future of household recycling; it wasn’t a dream — it’s a nightmare.

A five-coloured rainbow of daily rubbish duties for the householder; constant sorting in the basement; living under the threat of having your garbage left behind because you failed to follow the rules; being bossed about by a council worker in hi-vis rejecting your rubbish; rules that your garbage must be in transparent plastic to allow inspection, or costly biodegradable bags for organic waste; and colour coding that is an immutable law unto itself.

In addition to daily duties for household waste there are the supplementary collection days for old clothing and large items and garden waste that can take months to organise.

Last Monday’s report from Infrastructure Victoria that sees a future for Melburnians separating materials into organics, plastics, paper and cardboard, glass, metals and “regular” waste is part of a global shift to recycling and sorting by the householder to make the rubbish handlers’ job easier.

Scott Morrison has adopted a personal campaign to encourage recycling as an industry, to cut waste, reduce landfill and help the environment.

But the prime ministerial vision is at an industrial level. On his visit to the US he attended the opening of Anthony Pratt’s cardboard factory in Ohio, which is recycling waste paper, and the largest recycling plant in North America, also Australian-owned, where glass, rubber and plastic are turned into building materials.

This is a vastly different view of recycling than the idea that households have up to six bins to sort a family’s waste.

I have lived it in a mountain village in Italy — what evolved was a complicated, increasingly costly and endlessly time-consuming rubbish collection system.

Ten years ago there was a weekly garbage collection for everything. Then the commune — the council — introduced large communal bins to take bottles and paper for recycling as the system of waste management changed across Italy. (The irony being this is a country where corruption and inefficiency would regularly create mountains of garbage on the streets of Naples and the illegal dumping into the sea of everything from toxic waste to radioactive materials.)

Because the collection of our garbage was often delayed, the communal bins filled with all sorts of waste so the council moved to control garbage by increasing household sorting.

This summer in the little mountain village in the Abruzzi — and across Italy — there will be five separate rubbish bins; every household must put out or bring in a rubbish bin every day of the week and spend every evening sorting the rubbish to avoid contamination that would see collectors leave it behind.

There are five categories of rubbish, each with their own colour-coded bin, which must have its own designated bin-liner of a specified type.

The categories are organic (a five-litre brown bin and biodegradable bag); glass (a 10-litre bin and green transparent plastic bag); paper and cardboard (10-litre blue bin with transparent bag); plastic and metal (10-litre yellow bin with transparent bag) and; “secco”, loosely described as “hard” rubbish (a five-litre grey bin with a transparent bag).

Of course, all bins can’t be collected on the same day. Each is collected on a set day of the week.

But because organic waste has to be collected more often, the collection days shift and you must keep a daily calendar. No bin is collected on Sunday but you need to put one out Sunday night.

Typically there are three organic — food scraps from the kitchen — collections a week, with two as close to the weekend as possible but never guaranteed. There is also a sorting issue: plastic trays from the supermarket that have had meat in them can be placed in the organic bag, as can kitchen paper towels. But nonetheless, there’s a risk it will be deemed incorrect and left on your doorstep.

Likewise, glass and plastic collections are in transparent bags so they can be inspected to ensure there is no sheet glass or unwashed containers.

My neighbours this summer, up from Rome for their annual holiday, had their rubbish rejected three days in a row because they used black plastic bags. The garbage man told them that I was “from Australia” and even I knew the rules.

The real problem is “secco” such as CDs, DVDs and toothpaste tubes, but there is a limit to how many CDs you are throwing out and our village simply shrugs its shoulders and says “secco” is for “too hard” waste. It ends up the rubbish of the rubbish.

Apartment dwellers without a basement are cursed; they must store five bins or are given keys to small communal bins appropriately coloured and locked.

The cumulative result of rejected rubbish, a lack of public bins, confusion over categories and a reluctance to store putrid rubbish is that sneaky piles of trash appear around the place, and in the rural areas woodstoves and fires have the distinct smell of burning plastic.

My wife reckons I’m obsessed but I think it’s a modern recycling equivalent of fear of missing out — missing out on having our stinky rubbish removed.

SOURCE  





Andrews dabbles in foreign policy to state’s detriment

Victoria began in 1851 as a colony of the United Kingdom. On January 1, 1901, it became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It did not have a foreign policy in either capacity.

Nor did Australia during its early decades. On September 3, 1939, prime minister Robert Menzies declared war on Nazi Germany. His message was that “Great Britain has declared war upon” Germany and “as a result, Australia is also at war”.

This was an accurate statement. It is not clear precisely when Australia developed a complete independence from Britain. But this occurred on or after the passing of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act received royal assent in October 1942.

Through the years since Federation, the powers of the commonwealth government have increased at the expense of state governments. However, no state has queried the right of the commonwealth government to determine Australian foreign and defence policies. That has been ­regarded as a constitutional ­responsibility of the commonwealth.

Until this week, that is, when Victoria’s left-wing Labor premier Daniel Andrews appeared to do precisely this. Last Wednesday, it was announced that the Victorian government had signed a framework agreement with China’s ­National Development and Reform Commission.

This is a manifestation of what China refers to as its Belt and Road Initiative. It amounts to China interacting with governments in ­respect to infrastructure, innovation (high-end manufacturing and technology) and aged care along with trade development and market access.

Under the plan, a joint working group will be established to oversee future co-operation that And­rews and NDRC vice-chairman Ning Jizhe will chair. The framework agreement is not legally binding but is regarded by ­Andrews as an example of the strength of the relationship between the two entities.

It remains to be seen whether the framework agreement between Victoria and China is a good idea that will have a positive outcome. Certainly it has been criticised by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who raised two questions: “Why does he (Andrews) believe this is in our national interest; why does he believe it’s in Victoria’s interest?”

At this early stage, the framework agreement is of little consequence, except for the symbolism involved.

In the Victorian government’s media release on Wednesday, three quotes were provided attributable to Andrews. The intent of one was clear, namely: “We don’t see China as our good customers, we see them as our good friends.”

This can only be read as a criticism of contemporary Australian foreign policy with respect to China in general — and of Scott Morrison in particular. Just before the May 18 election, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying the US was a “friend” while referring to China as a “customer”.

Morrison’s position was a reasonable one. He was running the line developed by former prime minister John Howard — namely that Australia can have a good relationship with both ­nations without weakening our historical links with the US.

Morrison put it this way when asked about trade tensions between the US and China: “You don’t have to pick sides; you don’t have to walk away from the relationships that you have.”

Again a sensible point. China trades with Australia because it wants to purchase our high-quality goods and services at market prices within a legal system that works.

There was no reason for ­Andrews to sneer at the Prime Minister’s response. In any event, he would be advised to realise that many nations of the Indo-Pacific region are wary of embracing China — among others, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore and India.

Foreign policy in Australia is the preserve of the commonwealth government; in particular, that of the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Marise Payne. Yet Andrews regarded Beijing as a suitable base from which to criticise the Morrison government’s policy towards China.

If Andrews wants to determine foreign policy from government, there’s always the option of running for a seat in the commonwealth parliament. It’s impossible to imagine a provincial leader of the Communist Party of China criticising President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy while on an official visit to, say, Canberra.

It’s not as if Andrews is without reason for self-criticism back home. In July, Sky News ran a two-part documentary titled Lawyer X: The Untold Story. Last Monday, ABC television’s Four Corners followed up the story of Lawyer X (Nicola Gobbo) with a program ­titled Reprehensible Conduct. It’s the (now) familiar story, which Victoria Police tried to bury, about how it engaged Gobbo to spill the beans on many of the clients she was engaged to defend in her capacity as a defence counsel — thus perverting the course of justice.

Without question, this is one of the greatest scandals in Australian legal history. Certainly Victoria Police were attempting to end the gangland murders in Melbourne that ran from about 1999 to about 2010. But you can’t pervert the law to defend the law.

The matter is subject to investigation by the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants headed by the former Queensland chief justice Margaret McMurdo. It is expected that Victoria Police commissioner Graham Ashton, and Simon Overland (one of his predecessors) will give evidence. Both men held senior roles in Victoria Police at the time of what we now know to be the Lawyer X scandal.

And here’s the problem. Overland left the Victoria Police some time ago. However, Ashton currently heads the organisation that is under investigation by the royal commission. An extraordinary situation — with which Andrews is apparently content.

Interviewed on Four Corners, Gavin Silbert QC (a former Victorian chief prosecutor) said those in Victoria Police who knew of the Lawyer X affair “were guilty of terrible breaches of duty and extraordinarily unethical behaviour”. Silbert added that he was “absolutely surprised” that Ashton has “lasted so long” and that anyone in the Victoria Police hierarchy who sanctioned the Lawyer X operatives “should have gone” by now.

It would seem that Andrews is more focused on lecturing the Prime Minister on China than starting the task of reforming Victoria Police.

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

Political bias in the Qld. judiciary

This is a disgrace. Treston QC should be unseated

Australia's first law officer, Attorney-General Christian Porter, has been pulled into political infighting among some of Queensland's top barristers, triggered by the actions of the state Bar association president to don a Labor T-shirt and campaign for an ALP candidate at the federal electidn.

Rebecca Treston QC was so pleased with her efforts in May she tweeted a photo of herself pressing Labor how-to-vote material on Home Affairs Mini'ster Peter Dutton at a polling station in his tightly fought Brisbane seat.

The past president of the Queensland Bar Association, Christopher Hughes QC, has written to Mr Porter dissociating himself from Ms Treston, the first woman to head the organisation, and to assure Mr Porter it remained non-partisan.

The position is supposed to be apolitical because the president of the Bar has a formal role in advising the Queensland government on appointing judges and also helps draw up the list of Queensland Bar Association barristers to be designated Queen's Counsel, the most-travelled path to a seat on the bench. The emergence of the row, during the annual jockeying by junior barristers for silk, will raise further questions about the claimed politicisation of the judiciary in Queensland.

Former premier Campbell Newman has said the state's courts are stacked with Labor-appointed "left-wingers" who administer justice "from that perspective". Mr Dutton said: "The community doesn't respect weak magistrates and judges, and neither do criminals. "Appointing members of the Labor Party who are quasi-social workers to the judiciary is never going to end well."

Ms Treston insisted in a written statement she had taken only a "few hours" to help friend Ali France campaign as the labor candidate challenging Mr Dutton in his seat of Dickson. The contest had been tipped to go down to the wire, but instead was won relatively comfortably by the senior LNP minister.

Stressing she had been acting in a "personal capacity", Ms Treston said she was not then nor now a member of any political party. "My role as the president of the Bar Association of Queensland, in which I seek to represent the interests of barristers across our state, is an important one," she said. "In that role I haVe developed strong working relationships with elected members of parliament of different sides of politics. "Those relationships helped me provide' input from Queensland barristers on important legal issues. I will continue to do so. "The role does not preclude me, however, from remaining supportive to my friends."

Writing to Mr Porter in what he said was his personal capacity, Mr Hughes said he respected Ms Treston's right to be involved in the political process, and while president of the Bar in 2017 his position was this should neither qualify nor disqualify a candidate for judicial appointment

But it was important the Attorney-General understood that Ms Treston, in exercising her "obvious personal and" political persuasions", did not represent the barristers of Queensland.

Mr Hughes declined to be interviewed or to comment when approached this week.

Another senior advocate cited concern that Ms Treston's open backing of a Labor candidate could affect her standing with Mr Porter when he was presiding over the planned merger of the Family and Federal Circuit courts, a hot issue for lawyers.

Mr Porter said the "privileged place" held by judges extended to senior members of legal associations and they needed to ensure they were free, and seen to be free, "from any situation which could give rise to a real or perceived conflict of interest with their professional roles".

Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts, who sits with Ms Treston on the Judicial Appointments Advisory Panel that shortlists candidate judges and magistrates for the state attorney-general, who takes a recommendation to cabinet, said the decision should be taken out of the hands of politicians and vested in an independent judicial commission. [of Leftists]

From "The Weekend Australian" of 26/10/2019







The university degrees you SHOULDN'T be studying if you want to land a job after graduating - and the ones that are almost certain to get you hired

Thousands of graduates are facing an uphill battle to get a job after university, a new report has revealed.

The study by the Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work found it was those with medicine and teaching degrees who have the best prospects after graduation.

By contrast, low levels of private and public research in Australia have restricted demand for graduates specialising in science, technology, engineering and maths.

THE DEGREES THAT WILL LAND YOU A JOB THE QUICKEST

The percentage of graduates who find work in the first four months:

Medicine 94.9 per cent

Teacher education 83.3 per cent

Engineering 83.1 per cent

Nursing 78.7 per cent

Business and management 77.9 per cent

Law and paralegal studies 77.2 per cent

Computing and information systems 73.2 per cent

Science and mathematics 64.6 per cent

Humanities and social sciences 64.3 per cent

Communications 60.5 per cent

Creative arts 52.2 per cent

Source: Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching 2018, four months post-graduation for undergraduate degrees


Survey data from 2018 showed 94.9 per cent of those with degrees in medicine were in full-time work within four months of graduation.

The median salary for medicine graduates when they first enter the workforce is about $70,000 a year. 

Teacher education degrees, where graduates start on an average of $63,500, had a 83.3 per cent success rate of finding work quickly. 

The report said jobs with a human connection would continue to be ready in supply.

'This is especially true in human, caring and public services - which have been strong sources of new job-creation in recent years,' researchers said.

Other industries which have experienced high demand for skilled graduates are nursing, business and management and law.

Science and mathematics came in at eighth on the list at 64.6 per cent.

The data showed a clear split in success rate between those holding vocational and generalist degrees.

Humanities communications and creative arts students, considered to be studying a generalist qualification, had as little as a 52.2 per cent chance of landing a full-time job in the four-month window. 

Data presented in the study also showed health care's share of the job market has grown the most - by five per cent since 1986.

Lead researchers Alison Pennington and Jim Stanford argued rather than taking away jobs, the rise of technology was actually 'freeing up' jobs for humans.

They said the rise of social media and digital technology industries has led to the creation of new roles not previously possible.

'The future of work will be marked by an increased role for jobs where technology complements human labour, and "frees up" humans to undertake more abstract, cognitive and emotional labour,' the report said.

Researchers said problem-solving, leadership and people management skills will all be important qualities in the future of the Australian working world. 

SOURCE  






Carbon fears put heat on festivals

I must say that I see no loss for Australia in a pack of gullible Leftists deciding not to visit us

International artists and writers are snubbing Australia as a journey too far, turning down expenses-paid invitations from leading festivals and events because of their desire to reduce carbon emissions.

While artists in Europe and North America can opt for rail over air travel to minimise their carbon footprint, the prospect of long, fossil fuel-burning flights to Australia means some are simply refining to come. The Swedish buzzword newly circulating among Australian arts groups is flygskam, or "flight shame" — a taboo on polluting the atmosphere with jet travel.

Adelaide Writers Week director Jo Dyer said three authors recently had turned down invitations, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Eliza Griswold, who declined on environmental grounds.
British natural history writer Robert Macfarlane reportedly will not fly to Australia because of his carbon footprint, and another writer had accepted an invitation to Adelaide but then had a "crisis of conscience".

While there may be other reasons why authors decide not to travel, Dyer said, "a number of authors this year are saying that they do not want to expand their carbon footprints".

Jonathan Holloway, a former director of the Melbourne and Perth festivals, could not name specific instances of artists refusing to travel but said: "I am sure it has been a factor for some people." "I think there has been a sea change about travel ... and people are considering the environmental impacts of what they do," he said.

The Adelaide Festival's co-artistic director, Rachel Healy, mentioned renowned Canadian,. choreographer Crystal Pite as an artist who was sensitive about reducing her carbon footprint. Pite's agent, Jim Smith, said Pite continued to use air travel but her company, Kidd Pivot, considered the financial and carbon impacts of its touring activity.

"The company is trying to raise awareness that there is a need to work collaboratively in terms of touring a production, to ensure that carbon footprint of the tour is being considered," Smith said.

Dyer, formerly chief executive of the Sydney Writers Festival, said concern about reducing carbon emissions had emerged as a potential new barrier to Australia's cultural dialogue with the world.

From "The Weekend Australian" of 26/10/2019






Recycled water to be tapped if rains fail

Good for the bottled water industry

Another failed wet season could force southeast Queensland dam authorities to again consider introducing recycled water to boost the region's drinking supply. Southeast Queensland is on the brink of drought, with the water level in Brisbane's major dam, Wivenhoe, dropping to less than half, its loWest in a decade, and the region's dams slipping to a combined total of 61.6 per cent

Authorities are ready to switch the Gold Coast's desalination plant to full capacity to supplement drinking water should dam levels hit 60 per cent, forecast to happen next month. Formal water restrictions will kick in if levels slump to 50 per cent, predicted to occur as early as May if this summer is dry.

And if there's no significant summer rain, in March authorities will consider whether to start the two-year process to recommission southeast Queensland's recycled-water treatment plants.

The trigger to introduce recycled water — wastewater or sewage disinfected and treated to become purified drinking water —into the region's drinking supply is when dam levels hit 40 per cent

In 2006, in the depths of the Millennium Drought, residents of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, controversially rejected plans by the local council to introduce a recycled water scheme. But community attitudes to recycled water may have softened, and the parched northern NSW town of Tenterfield is investigating the option.

Mike Foster, spokesman for the Queensland government's bulk water supply authority, Seawater, told The Weekend Australian that on current modelling, if no signifi-cant rain occurred, dam levels in southeast Queensland could hit 40 per cent in two years. "We will watch very carefully over this summer to see where our levels go," Mr Foster said. "If we happen to have a poor summer, there'll be a decision point, probably about March next year ... do we now need to consider starting the remobilisation process (of the recycled water plants).

"Our plan is predicated (on) if we get down to about 40 per cent, we'll need the Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme, and the three plants that make up that scheme, we'll need the three to be fully operational by the time we hit that 40 per cent"

The recycled water scheme was put into care-and-maintenance mode in 2013, and needs significant work to get ready. But Mr Foster said the region was not at risk of running out of water because of the $6bn spent by Peter Beattie's Labor government on building water grid infrastructure — including the Gold Coast desalination plant and the Western Corridor scheme -- in response to the Millennium Drought water crisis. "The water grid, without overstating it, has been a godsend," he said.

Mr Foster said initial fears about the Gold Coast plant were unfounded. "There was a bit of an image about that plant that it was a white elephant, a rust bucket, and it's not working," he said. "Nothing could be further from the truth, it's a cracking asset. "If we do find ourselves headed into an extended dry, it'll be ready to do what it was ultimately designed to do, which is supplement our drinking water when our dams are under pressure." At full capacity, the plant can produce 133 million litres of water a day. Southeast Queensland's average daily usage is about 850 million litres a day.

Residents won't immediately pay extra for water if the desalination plant is cranked up next month, but any extra cost will be considered when the Queensland Competition Authority again reviews bulk water prices in 2021.

From "The Weekend Australian" of 26/10/2019





Butcher targeted by militant vegans trying to cripple his small business explains why they actually HELPED him - as he trolls them with a VERY witty comeback online

Militant vegans trying to ruin a small butcher shop by protesting outside actually helped the business by giving it publicity, the owner has told Daily Mail Australia.

Protesters lined up outside Tenderwest Meats in Perth's Belmont Forum on Sunday and shouted at passing customers with a megaphone. 'They never wanted to die for you,' the group's leader yelled while his followers held up signs showing animals in slaughterhouses.

The group was trying to stop people buying and eating meat - but the protest  backfired.  'In terms of publicity the protest has been much better for me than it has been for them,' said Mike Fielder who owns and runs the small, independent shop.

'Since the protest I have received hundreds of messages of support,' he added.

The protesters posted a video of their stunt on the Facebook group Direct Action Everywhere - and Mr Fielder chimed in with a sarcastic response.

He commented on the post with a picture of some pork cooking in an oven, and wrote: 'Here's a piece of the very same pork cooking for my dinner right now. 'Please let me know when you're coming again and I'll put more on for you. Cheers.'

Explaining why he decided to fight back, he told Daily Mail Australia: 'I just thought I'd troll them a little bit.

'They are coming for me because I'm a small, independent business and an easy target. 'I don't have lawyers or large finances behind me so they target me instead of a big company like Coles or Woolies.

'But they are totally misguided - everything I sell is free range and of the highest quality.' 

Mr Fielder said the protesters had come for him once before. On that occasion he knew they were coming and put up cloths to cover the meat displayed in the windows.

'That took the wind out of their sails and they left pretty quickly, he said. 'But this time they ambushed me and they got to make their little scene.'

During the protest, the group's leader, wearing a white T-shirt, told customers: 'We are here to shine a light on an inherently cruel industry.' 'They never wanted to participate in this, they never wanted to die for you,' the leader said of the animals killed.

'They died in a gas chamber at six months old - and all they died for is for your simple meal, your simple pleasure, needlessly.'

Personifying the animals, the leader added: 'There are thousands of babies just around this city being driven to a slaughterhouse.

'Animals do not have to die for us to survive - we don't have to be doing this.'

The leader then shouted 'it's not food' and the protesters chanted back in unison 'it's violence'.

He yelled: 'What do we want? and his supporters replied 'animal liberation'. 'When do we want it?' he asked, before the vegans replied 'now.'

The video was taken by an activist who narrated the action. She called the display cabinets a 'display of death' and said the butchers 'have no shame in what they do.' The protesters then laid flowers under the display cabinets to 'remember' the animals.

'We are here to bring light to the lie that animals can be killed and exploited and somehow this is humane,' said the narrator. 

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