Restoring the presumption of innocence -- particularly for men

Bettina Arndt

For a nation that used to pride itself on hosting festivals of ‘dangerous ideas’, there has certainly been a ridiculous amount of protest and outrage regarding the innocuous-sounding Restoring the Presumption of Innocence conference.

It seems no one is allowed to talk publicly about how a vital legal principle – the presumption of innocence – has been undermined by the sisterhood’s long and successful ideological effort to tilt the justice system in favour of alleged victims.

Bruce Lehrmann and his ‘trial by media’ was originally intended as the headline act, but this promoted a petition calling on the local council to prevent the discussion going forward ‘before it causes any further harm or damage to the victim survivor community’. A recent judgment against Lehrmann meant he had to withdraw from the event to continue his legal battle.

The conference lives on, having been moved to August 31.

If you believe in the presumption of innocence and would like to hear law professors, criminal lawyers, political commentators, and other experts speak to the issue, you can book your tickets here.

It will be held in Rushcutters Bay, but it says a great deal about the childish nature of progressive culture that the exact details of the location and the identities of some of the well-known speakers are being kept secret until closer to the event.

Welcome to Australia, where silence is guaranteed by the incessant harassment of cancel culture.

Considering Restoring the Presumption of Innocence will present evidence from eminently qualified academics, experts, statisticians, criminal lawyers, and doctors – it is absurd that activists would attempt to close it down.

Mind you, it’s easy to see why activists are nervous.

The truth about our justice system is a can of worms and there is plenty of evidence that something is going very wrong.

In the last year, six NSW District Court judges have spoken out about rape cases being pushed through to trial supported by insufficient evidence – leading to the Crown Prosecution office conducting an audit of all current sexual assault cases. In addition, there are plenty of outrageous stories that have made it to the press in recent years that do not pass ‘the pub test’ when it comes to public expectations of innocence, guilt, and evidence.

With the presumption of innocence under siege, it is the right time for a proper public discussion about what is going on here. Luckily there are many in the community concerned about the silencing of debate about these pivotal issues.

Restoring the Presumption of Innocence is being hosted by Australians for Science and Freedom, an organisation founded by concerned doctors, lawyers, and academics who objected to the government’s response to the pandemic. Readers may have been to other events hosted by them that centre around liberty and medical freedom. Now, they focus on broader goals, including encouraging ‘better institutions that embed respect for freedom and scientific approaches for society’s problems’.

The event is sponsored by Mothers of Sons, which is an organisation I helped to establish some years ago in which I brought together mothers wishing to expose the injustice suffered by their sons within the criminal and family courts. A number of the Mothers of Sons family members will be speaking at the conference, revealing the devastating impact that false allegations of sexual assault can have on the entire family – including a lasting financial and emotional cost.

There will also be some exciting mystery speakers – including a celebrity who has had his life destroyed by a #MeToo accusation.

False allegations are a key theme of this forum. A recent YouGov survey found that Australia has one of the highest rates of false allegations in the world, mostly related to family law disputes. Across the country, our police and our courts are drowning in unproven domestic violence accusations which, in NSW alone, take up 50-70 per cent of police time and 60 per cent of local court time.

Lawyers are now bracing for a tsunami of fresh allegations with the introduction of ‘coercive control’ into law for NSW (and Queensland to follow). Many lawyers believe this will open the floodgate for women to allege a partner has been emotionally controlling. Such an accusation may be enough to see him put in prison. Coercive control, as a criminal offence, is difficult to define, impossible to prove, and many believe it was designed as a weapon to be used against men.

The NSW government has launched a massive campaign on the topic, including publishing a list of those ‘most at risk’ from coercive control:

Funny that. This list cautions almost everyone, except ordinary, heterosexual blokes – ‘cisgender’ men, as the government literature calls them. Instead, these men are typecast as being overwhelmingly likely to be the perpetrators. Which is odd, considering the Australian Bureau of Statistics has acknowledged that men are just as likely as women to be victims of emotional abuse – defined using many of the same behaviours now listed as coercive control.

The government has released a flood of video material explaining coercive control where men are invariably featured as perpetrators. Yet the Restoring the Presumption of Innocence conference will hear from Australian men who have already fallen victim to coercive control within domestic relationships. These men were selected from nearly 1,000 local men who took part in the large international survey on male victims of coercive control run by the University of Central Lancashire. Their experiences represent the truth that our governments are so determined to bury.

There’ll be other truth-tellers at the conference, presenting evidence about all sorts of politically incorrect subjects – like research that shows false rape allegations are far more common than often claimed. And the international literature clearly demonstrating that most family violence involves both male and female perpetrators. And the data showing children are more at risk when dad is removed from the home.

Plenty to inform anyone with an interest in how social engineering is now unfairly targeting men and denying them fair treatment under the law. Yet conference organisers are keen to also attract parents of young men who are particularly vulnerable to false allegations. Many parents assume that they can keep their sons out of trouble by raising a good young man who treats women with respect and follows the rules on consent. It never occurs to them that he is still vulnerable if he is unlucky enough to get involved with a woman who becomes angry if he doesn’t want to become her boyfriend or has sex she later regrets.

This vital one-day conference will tell it as it is. Forewarned is forearmed.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/07/restoring-the-presumption-of-innocence/

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A pilot plant for Net Zero: Let’s use Canberra as the test case for green insanity

Viv Forbes

Both solar and wind energy have fatal flaws – solar stops when the sun goes down or if a cloud blocks the sun; wind fails if the wind is too strong or too weak. But every day we hear of some fantastic and expensive plan to keep the lights on when these unreliable energy twins stop working.

The latest thought bubble from Mr Bowen (the Australian Minister for Generating Blackouts) is for him to be able to drain the energy from electric car batteries to back up a failing grid. He suggests that batteries could also power the house or sell energy into the grid. (No doubt the government is already scheming on how to use smart technology to prevent homeowners from charging their own batteries when flicker power is fading.)

Bowen’s sole sensible comment was ‘electric cars are batteries on wheels’.

Batteries do not generate power. And when they are flat, they do not store power. Fancy trying to keep the lights on while recharging all those batteries with flicker-power; and imagine discovering your Tesla battery is flat when you need your car some frosty morning. You have just performed a public service – the power in your batteries was drained to cook suburban breakfasts and keep the early trains running!

People who bought an electric car for quiet mobility will suddenly find they were financing a cog in Bowen’s Blackout Insurance Plan.

Australia is an energy island – there are no handy extension cords to French nuclear power, Scandinavian hydro, Icelandic geothermal, or American natural gas. Maybe if we ever get that long extension cord from Darwin to Singapore we can organise a sub-station in Indonesia and import reliable coal-powered electricity from them?

Australia has abundant coal, gas, and uranium resources but exploiting these natural assets is demonised and blocked by red/green tape and law-fare. Most of our petroleum products are imported and we have a tiny stockpile of refined fuels. To undertake extensive oil and gas exploration in Australia we would need infinite patience, many lawyers, and very deep pockets.

So, like drunken teenagers in a stolen car on the wrong side of the road, we accelerate towards the green energy mirage – Net Zero by 2030.

We need to see a Net Zero pilot plant operating before we follow Pied Piper Bowen down this risky road. And we need to know the full cost.

Mr Bowen should declare Canberra the site of a Net Zero Pilot Plant. This city-state is ideally suited to host such a demonstration plant – it has well-defined boundaries with significant rural, urban, and industrial areas; its population and local politicians strongly support the green energy agenda; and every federal politician and Cabinet Minister visits regularly and can monitor progress of this important experiment.

Mr Bowen should be in charge and he should start by declaring a deadline of 2027 to stop all usage of coal, gas, and diesel electricity or heating within the Australian Capital Territory. To demonstrate the bona fides of this pilot plant it should be legislated now that all power lines bringing coal and gas power into the ACT should be cut no later than December 2026.

Most Canberra residents are well paid so he should mandate that the roof of every residence or factory must be covered with solar panels, with battery-powered cars in the garage and backup batteries on every veranda.

Canberra also has plenty of hills to host wind turbines – they could also replace that massive flagpole on Parliament House with a large wind turbine. (They should also insist that the wind companies fund a permanent veterinary station nearby to treat injured birds and bats.)

There is also a lot of green space and parkland in ACT – these can host their quota of solar panels, all angled correctly to maximise collections from the far northern sun. Moving the massive and controversial Wallaroo Solar Factory planned for the Yass Valley into nearby ACT will kick-start Canberra’s green revolution. Pet goats must be encouraged to keep the grass tidy under all those panels.

Burning gas or wood within ACT should be banned – Mr Bowen could get Twiggy to build a floating green hydrogen generator on Lake Burley Griffin. This will provide locally-generated green fuel to use in their cars, taxis, barbecues, and lawnmowers.

Greens blame cattle for global warming – so there should be no beef products on sale in ACT – loyal Canberrans will surely welcome the chance to test a diet of mealworms, grass-fed goat meat, sun-dried sourdough, and almond milk. This will bring a personal green focus to the Net Zero crusade.

Canberra will need to streamline their approvals processes for all this green land use change. With Net Zero at stake we cannot allow eternal objections such as those which caused a 13-year delay for extensions to the Acland Coal Mine in Queensland. Just a brief notice in the classified ads in the Canberra Times should suffice in this race to save the planet.

Any Canberra residents who are sceptical that this green energy pilot plant will operate successfully should be free to import a small modular nuclear reactor for their suburb. Or move to Queensland.

The whole Anglosphere has been led into a green energy swamp – our enemies cannot believe their luck.

Hopefully, the trio of Trump, Farage, and Dutton will lead us back to safe ground before the Bowen blackouts arrive.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/07/a-pilot-plant-for-net-zero/

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The VERY surprising name - once touted as a future Prime Minister - rumoured to be among exodus from Team Albo

Linda Burney and Brendan O'Connor to quit politics But Jason Clare has also been suspiciously quiet...

Anthony Albanese reshuffling his frontbench may be akin to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

While HMAS Labor isn't guaranteed to sink, plenty of its senior ministers are contemplating grabbing life rafts and bailing on their political careers.

Longtime Labor hands, Indigenous Affairs minister Linda Burney and skills minister Brendan O'Connor, both announced their retirement on Thursday morning.

But there is also speculation that education minister Jason Clare could make it a triumvirate of cabinet ministers who pull the pin.

Such pre-election announcements would force major changes to Albo's ministry, giving him the chance to also reshuffle the likes of Clare O'Neil and Andrew Giles out of the home affairs and immigration portfolios, where they have presided over bungles and failures.

Meanwhile those looking to fight on and contest the next election are already hitting the campaign hustings, in sharp contrast to some who are not - a lead indicator of who is staying and who is going.

Western Sydney MPs Tony Burke and Ed Husic have started posting examples of their local community work on social media, not something either Cabinet minister has done in recent months.

Clare's community presence remains visibly absent, adding to speculation that he might be a surprise departure at just 52 years of age.

The official Labor Party campaign spokesperson from the last election, Clare holds the seat of Blaxland once held by former PM Paul Keating.

Long touted as a future Labor leader himself, Clare’s political career hasn’t met the lofty expectations many had for him.

Sources close to Clare say that if he does leave politics now it is because he sees himself as still young enough to embark on a second career outside of politics. Perhaps in the private sector.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13669811/PETER-VAN-ONSELEN-surprising-touted-future-Prime-Minister-rumoured-quitting-Team-Albo-PM-plans-major-shake-up.html

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Fast-food plea: hold the penalties

The Australian Industry Group will use the Fair Work review of part-time employment to push for a new clause in the fast-food and retail awards that would remove automatic access to overtime payments if a part-timer worked more hours than initially agreed.

Under the proposal, the clause could only be activated by agreement between the employer and employee. Employers said the current restrictions in the two awards meant they often had to employ casuals or labour hire in place of part-timers, and the new clause would give extra pay to part-timers if they were happy to work additional hours.

Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox said most awards contained clauses governing part-time employment that were far too complex and restrictive, with employers forced to engage staff as casual workers rather than on a permanent part-time basis.

“Ai Group has proposed that awards be varied to make it easier for employers to offer part-time workers additional hours without facing the need to pay penalty rates, where an employee agrees,” he told The Australian.

“The practical reality is that many part-time employees would value the opportunity to earn ­additional income from working extra hours from time to time, where an employer can offer it.”

He said the “sensible” change would greatly increase permanent employment opportunities across a range of industries.

“We can’t allow union mania for rigid workplace rules and regulation to undermine a legitimate form of employment that has worked well for employers and employees for decades,” he said.

“At a time of a cost-of-living crisis, the ability to provide ­additional work when it is available to the part-time workforce without major additional costs and restrictions should be a priority for the workplace relations system.”

ACTU president Michele O’Neil hit back at the employer claims, saying unions would ­oppose the business lobby push.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/fastfood-plea-hold-the-penalties/news-story/252912b87e1ae0733e1b828a7160c8cf

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http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

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