Australian Politics
Sunday, October 06, 2024
Peta Credlin: Why police must act if anti-Israel protests degenerate into orgies of hate speech
It is a sad reflection on our nation that as we mark the anniversary of the October 7 atrocity that falls tomorrow, more Australians are likely to march in the street to celebrate the terrorists than to mourn its victims. I don’t believe they represent the majority of us, but unless we add our voices to the condemnation of their callous, depraved actions, this cancer inside our country will continue to grow.
Because the appalling truth about modern Australia, revealed by the mass protests against Israel planned for today and tomorrow, is that too many of our citizens no longer value liberal democracy and can’t adequately distinguish between the attacks of terrorists and the legitimate self-defence of a country under existential threat.
There are three factors at work here:
* Large numbers of poorly integrated recent migrants from the Middle East who’ve brought their hatreds with them;
* A generation of young people brainwashed into seeing western civilisation as inherently oppressive and Israel as an outpost of “white privilege” and “settler colonialism”;
* and weak leadership from a Prime Minister who has never stopped being a hard-left student activist and is now frightened of upsetting Islamist voters in western Sydney.
The past year has taught us much about our country and about the world, most of it disheartening. Key in this has been the exposure of enclaves in Sydney and Melbourne where people take our hospitality but reject our values. The appalling sermons in some mosques that inspire new generations to hate others based on religion have no place in this country. Worryingly too, the large number of people with an Australian passport who, for all intents and purposes, live overseas, often on our welfare system, Australians of conviction or convenience? But don’t let that obscure the view from experts that much of this hatred on our streets is homegrown.
On Friday, all the nation’s police forces issued a joint statement that there will be zero tolerance for illegal behaviour or violence at pro-Palestinian protests. They declared that “there are offences that prohibit behaviour that incites, or advocates violence or hatred based on race and religion, including the display of prohibited symbols”. The strong, if belated joint police statement went on: “it is also a serious offence to counsel, promote, encourage, urge, instruct or praise terrorism”.
Sure, a strong (if belated) statement but let’s see police do something to actually enforce these laws. Almost immediately though, that strong sentiment was undercut, with NSW Police approving a Hizb ut-Tahrir protest for Monday, even though this is a banned terrorist group in the UK, because there appeared to be “goodwill” from the organisers.
Should the anti-Israel protests degenerate into the orgies of hate speech and intimidation routinely on display over the past year, the police must do more than they have to date. How is it they could break up freedom protests during the pandemic, using rubber bullets and tear gas, but with terrorist sympathisers, they barely arrest anyone? Indeed, as we saw last year, they even gave them a police escort to the steps of the Opera House where the sails were bathed in the colours of the Israeli flag to mourn 1200 dead?
As a free nation, we simply cannot continue to allow our streets to be controlled, and people’s lives to be disrupted, by thuggish activists who hate our country. On Friday, it was revealed that one of the leaders of recent anti-Israel riots in Melbourne was an Iranian national who describes Australia as a “pathetic tyrannical terrorist regime”. It’s beyond weak that this individual has not already had his visa cancelled and been deported. Just as the Israelis have declared “never again” to the proponents of a new Holocaust, we need to proclaim “ENOUGH!” to everyone showing contempt for our country.
The Albanese government has not once opened its mouth on Israel, since October 7, other than to demand the de-escalation and ceasefires that would expose the Middle East’s only liberal democracy to yet more danger.
The last 12 months have well and truly exposed the West’s folly and moral confusion. In this fight, there is a right and a wrong. As Australians who love this country, we need to speak up in our communities even if we don’t march in the streets like they do and ensure that the strength of the silent majority is felt.
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An inconvenient truth: nuclear energy is cleaner and cheaper
Largely buried by a media that peddles climate alarmism was a key report from the US Department of Energy – yes, from Joe Biden’s officials – debunking the myth that renewables are the cheapest form of emissions-free electricity. The US report completely contradicts Chris Bowen’s constant assertion that the CSIRO’s “levelized cost of electricity” proves that emissions free nuclear power is much more expensive than firmed renewables.
The US report states that “levelized cost of electricity does not capture the full benefits of nuclear as a clean, firm resource. These include the value of an 80-year operating asset, the value of firm generation to provide power during key periods of grid need or when other variable resources are not generating, and the value of clean electricity relative to carbon emitting resources”.
Using modelling based on the experience of California, the report says that the cost, per megawatt-hour of renewables and storage ONLY, ranges from $129 to $150 – while the cost of renewables and storage WITH nuclear is just $80 to $94. In other words, using nuclear makes electricity 37 per cent less expensive.
It was always absurd of the Albanese government to insist that nuclear power is cost-efficient at sea (in our nuclear-powered subs) but prohibitively expensive on land. Now that this authoritative costing has emerged from Biden’s America, its clear that green ideology is the only thing stopping us from repealing the ban on civil nuclear power.
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How we think and talk about our country is evolving
Bernard Salt
Where is the Great Australian Heartland? If it’s defined as the place where most of us grew up and engaged with a local community, and which still commands an affinity of sorts, then it must be suburbia.
The three-bedroom brick veneer, the nature strip, the nuclear family, the car: they’re all essential parts of a Great Australian Heartland that has evolved from the late 20th century.
Sure, the model has changed, diversified, and leaned towards greater sustainability. But at scale, suburbia offers a way of life that is quintessentially Australian. Over time this idea of our suburban heartland has morphed to become more intensive – blocks have contracted, and living arrangements have changed. High-rise living has emerged and won admirers, predominantly among young singles and couples. And yet despite all these pressures suburbia lives on, powering forth, offering the masses access to relatively affordable family-raising space.
To my way of thinking the Australian homeland is a more strategic concept; it relates to the Australian continent, excluding offshore territories. But even within the Australian mainland (including Tassie) there are sensitivities around such concepts.
With Japanese advances during the Second World War, a rumour surfaced that our forces were planning to pull back behind a so-called Brisbane Line in order to defend the south-east corner of the Australian homeland. The rumour was unfounded, of course, but the idea gained popular traction.
Australians tend not to use terms like “motherland” and “fatherland” when referring to the Australian nation. And yet there was a time when similar familial-based terms were used to describe Australia’s place in and relationship to power within the world. In his declaration of war radio address in September 1939, Australia’s then prime minister Robert Menzies spoke in the language of the time, of a family of nations. He also spoke of God in his mercy, of the unconquerable spirit of Man. All concepts that are unlikely to find usage in a political speech today.
Menzies also referred to Germany by the pronoun “her”. We no longer personify nations, and neither do politicians popularly reference God or a single gender when speaking of humanity. The idea of a family of nations being drawn into conflict out of (familial) duty to the motherland has given way to calculated strategic alliances with nations that “share our values”.
There are, of course, other lands that comprise modern-day Australia, or at least lands that deserve greater recognition. Places like the FIFO zones of the interior, and our gas and coal basins perhaps. And then there’s an emerging lifestyle zone radiating from the edges of all capital cities.
I wonder what language we use today to describe what’s important to us will jar eight decades hence? It may not be concepts like God, Man or a nation’s familial duty as it was in the past, but I’m sure that Australians of the 22nd century will, like us and like the Australians of 1939, happily believe that their land, their continent, is the place to be – and, hopefully, that their way of life is worth defending.
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A Sydney father-of-two is trying to recoup $25,000 in legal fees after becoming embroiled in a defamation lawsuit, sparked by a Facebook comment left by a stranger
Andy Leonard, 45, was an administrator of a private Facebook group about surrogate parenting when he was sued for a comment he didn't write in 2023.
The post had named a person in a negative light to its less than 240 followers and had only been viewed by six people, but unbeknownst to Leonard that comment would lead to a legal nightmare.
"I got a letter from this lawyer asking me to take it down which I did immediately, they then asked me to write an apology," he told 9news.com.au.
Leonard abided by the request and wrote an apology clarifying he had no association with the comment, but then received another letter informing him that he was being sued for defamation in Federal Court.
"They sent another letter informing me that my apology had inflamed this person's position," he said.
"They said it had caused this person grievous harm to their business... they said that I should have to pay his legal fees of $15,000 and $50,000 in compensation."
Leonard - who is an actor - took on extra work, maxed out his credit cards and even moved homes to save what he could to cover the legal proceedings.
Eventually, Leonard was able to reach a $3000 out of court settlement with the plaintiff but he wonders why he was held liable in the first place.
"For me taking responsibility for someone else's comment, me being in a single-income family with two kids, there's no way I had that sort of money," he said.
The lawsuit has cost Leonard more than $25,000, he's now started a GoFundMe to recuperate some of the funds.
"It was a real snowball effect for my family as well as not having the financial security," he said.
"I just want to show how ridiculous this whole situation is, that if you're in Australia and a Facebook administrator, that something like this could happen."
Associate lawyer from BlackBay Lawyers, Isabella Orlic, told 9news.com.au a new "innocent dissemination" defence was introduced in NSW and the ACT on July 1.
Orlic said the laws offer better protections for moderators or - "digital intermediaries" - against defamation claims arising from posts published by other people.
"However, administrators cannot rely on the new defence if they simply were not aware of the posts in question," she said.
To rely on the new defence, Facebook administrators must take steps to ensure robust complaints mechanisms are available for users, Orlic explained.
She said they must also regularly monitor and review such complaints, and take timely steps to disable access to content complained about.
"Australia has regularly been referred to as the 'defamation capital of the world' – and for good reason, as our defamation laws are among some of the most stringent," she said.
Orlic said while NSW, the ACT and Victoria were a step ahead in strengthening protections for administrators, defamation laws were lagging behind in Queensland and SA, particularly in WA and the NT.
"The lack of uniform defamation laws between the States and Territories place online communities and moderators at greater risk of liability where potentially defamatory material is published on online forums," Orlic said.
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