Don't shrink Australia's ocean sanctuaries, scientists urge ministers

On "environmental" grounds, the previous Labor party government banned fishing in so much of Australian coastal waters that there are now few areas open to fishermen.  So despite its enormous expanse of coastal waters, Australia has to import a lot of the fish it needs.  There has to be compromise but when did you ever hear a Greenie compromise?

Australia’s leading marine scientists are appealing to the federal government to reject a review expected to recommend a significant reduction in the size of ocean sanctuaries and an expansion of areas permitted for commercial fishing.

Tony Abbott announced the review of the boundaries of Labor’s marine parks, counted by the former government as one of its greatest environmental achievements, during the 2013 election campaign, and said he would scrap the just-finished management plans so that the fishing industry could be given a greater say.

The leading scientists understand the review, now finally completed, recommends a sizeable reduction in some areas previously designated as closed to fishing and trawling, particularly in the Coral Sea, and say it has ignored expert scientific advice.

“If the government winds back what was already just partial environmental protection it would be terrible for the environment and send a terrible message to the world,” said West Australian marine science professor Jessica Meeuwig.

“We have no faith in this process. They haven’t spoken to marine scientists, despite our best efforts. They spent a lot of time talking to the extractive industries. If Malcolm Turnbull is serious about being guided by science and by evidence he will reject recommendations to reduce marine sanctuary zones,” she said.

Meeuwig is one of 10 leading marine researchers who have formed the Ocean Science Council of Australia and have published benchmarks against which the review should be judged, including:

    No further diminishment of marine national park zoning in bioregions and key ecological features should occur as these are already significantly under-represented in the 2012 plans

    The international standard for ocean protection of a minimum of 30% of each marine habitat in highly protected no-take marine national parks should be met;

    Very large marine national parks such as that proposed for the Coral Sea should be preserved

“We have seen little evidence that the review process has focused on scientific evidence, rather it appears to have largely been an exercise in appeasing stakeholders with extractive interests,” the OSCA members state in the analysis report.

“We further note that there has been no formal consultation with OSCA despite our significant capacity to provide input to a scientific review.”

Osca’s members also include Hugh Possingham, the director of the Australian Research Council Centre for environmental decisions at the University of Queensland and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute and professor of marine science at the University of Queensland.

After fierce lobbying from recreational and commercial fishers and colleagues, Abbott announced the review during a visit to a fishing trade show on the Gold Coast, saying the Coalition would not “lock up the oceans.”

“We know that the biggest supporter of environmentally responsible fishing practices is the fishing industry – because they do not want to harm the very environment that is providing them with a living,” the Coalition said in its policy statement.

“Australians aren’t just proud fishers, they are smart fishers – and they know that Labor’s marine park lockouts are about managing the Greens, not managing the environment.”

Labor always rejected concerns by the fishing industry that it was “locking up oceans”, saying less than 2% of commercial fisheries’ catches would be affected by the new protected areas and recreational fishers would not be affected at all because the parks were hundreds of kilometres offshore and therefore well out of reach of a fisherman in a tinnie.

After a long period of consultation, Labor announced its decision to protect more than 2.3m sq km of ocean in marine parks in late 2012, offering $100m in compensation to the fishing industry.

Environmental groups declared a historic victory, but fishers and charter operators began a furious campaign against the move, strongly backed by some Liberal and National party MPs.

The then environment minister Tony Burke said the marine parks would protect “some incredible marine environments, including the Perth Canyon in the south-west and the stunning reefs of the Coral Sea, and this announcement cements Australia’s position as a world leader on environmental protection’’.

Restrictions on fishing in the reserves varies from a total ban to a trawling ban, to areas where recreational catch and release are permitted.

Announcing the panels conducting the review in 2014 environment minister Greg Hunt said it would be based on science and aimed to “restore community confidence” in the marine reserve system.

“Unlike the previous government, we are committed to getting the management plans and the balance of zoning right, so we have asked the expert panels to consider what management arrangements will best protect our marine environment and accommodate the many activities that Australians love to enjoy in our oceans,” he said.

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Cindy Prior case: right to cause offence deserves a defence

Racist woman accuses others of racism

QUT administration officer Cindy Prior has filed a case against students and professors and an equity director.

To coin a phrase from one of my erudite readers, just when you thought we had reached peak stupidity, along comes another reminder that basic freedoms in this country are sidelined by our laws.

As Hedley Thomas reported in The Australian on Thursday, Cindy Prior, an administration officer employed in an indigenous unit at the Queensland University of Technology, is suing students, academics and others under section 18C of the federal Racial Discrimination Act. Section 18C makes it illegal to say anything which is “reasonably likely … to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people” because of their “race, colour or national or ethnic origin”.

In May 2013, three students wandered into the QUT’s Oodgeroo Unit, where Prior works, looking to use a computer. Prior asked them whether they were indigenous. She says the students said they weren’t and she told them the room was “an indigenous space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait students”. She asked them to leave.

Later that day one student, Alex Wood, posted on Facebook: “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation.” Another student, Jackson Powell, wrote on Facebook: “I wonder where the white supremacist computer lab is.” A post attributed to another student, Calum Thwaites, said: “ITT niggers.” Thwaites denies he had anything to do with the post.

Another student, Kyran Findlater, wrote on Facebook: “My Student and Amenity fees are going to furbish rooms in the university where inequality reigns supreme? I believe if we have to pay to support these sorts of places, there should at least be more created for general purpose use, but again, how do these sorts of facilities ­support interaction and community within QUT? All this does is ­encourage separation and inequality.”

Prior says she went home on May 29, 2013, feeling sick and stressed. She says she didn’t feel safe and was worried about being verbally or physically assaulted. She is suing the students under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

She has also levelled allegations in the case against two academics, Anita Lee Hong and Sharon Hayes, as well as equity director Mary Kelly. She is seeking $247,570.52 because she claims she was racially vilified and suffered “offence, embarrassment, humiliation and psychiatric injury.”

Hayes is accused of saying “it seems a bit silly” to kick someone out of an indigenous computer lab for not being indigenous when the computers were not being used. Kelly, who reviewed the matter soon afterwards, told Prior the students had taken down the material. After being advised by Prior that she would complain to the Australian Human Rights Commission, Kelly allegedly said: “With the small amount of contact I’ve had with the students, it is clear that these students aren’t racist.

“They were just being nasty. There is no white supremacy group at QUT. Check out what racial vilification is before you jump in. They’re not going to come into your office with a baseball bat.”

Sure enough, last August the AHRC sent the case to a federal court, finding no reasonable prospect of conciliation.

You can hardly blame Prior for slogging it out in the courts. The law — section 18C — invites her to put her alleged pain ahead of freedom of expression.

And the deceptively labelled Human Rights Commission is there to usher the case into court, bypassing the most basic human right — to speak freely.

Josephine Cashman, an indigenous lawyer and businesswoman who chairs the safe communities committee of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, believes the case being brought by Prior is misguided.

Cashman, a lawyer in NSW, is also highly critical of the way the AHRC has handled this complaint.

“In NSW you need to have reasonable prospects of success to lodge a claim in the civil jurisdiction,” she says. “The (A)HRC aren’t executing their role properly. This is going to create a lot of animosity that we particularly don’t need in Australia — and particularly in indigenous Australia.”

She says this case should never have been sent to a court. “The level of harm from three posts, ­seriously — our court system would be in chaos if this was general practice.

“If you have a disagreement with someone, particularly young students, try to talk to them, to re-educate them so they can become supporters of the indigenous cause. Don’t go straight to the most extreme measure,” Cashman says. People need to take personal responsibility and stop playing the victim card. The people who really do need support miss out.”

The free speech implications of Prior’s case are equally horrifying.

Defamation laws rightly exist to protect people’s reputation. But section 18C is a direct hit on words that merely hurt someone’s feelings. Cementing feelings into our laws has ousted the right to speak freely. And the damage to our basic liberties is immeasurable.

In 2011, columnist Andrew Bolt was found guilty of breaching section 18C for expressing his views on how people identify as indigenous. Late last year, Martine Delaney, Greens candidate for the federal seat of Franklin, complained to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission that pamphlets produced by Hobart’s Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteous defending marriage were offensive and breached the state Anti-Discrimination Act 1998. The commission agreed that the Archbishop has a case to answer.

Laws that encourage us to take offence infantilise us. Laws that encourage free speech make us robust and resilient, force us to think more clearly in the face of disagreement, even offensive disagreement.

Good ideas don’t flourish in an echo chamber. A germ of a good idea grows stronger, not weaker, from free-ranging debate. Stupid ideas disintegrate under the weight of reason. That process will necessarily offend some. But speech is only truly free if it includes the right to offend.

Feelings are also curtailing the freedom to be funny. In a recent video for The Big Think, an online ideas forum, British comedian John Cleese said he has been advised not to perform at universities because his jokes would be seen as cruel. Cleese pointed out that “the whole point about humour, the whole point about comedy … is that all comedy is critical ... If you start to say, ‘We mustn’t — we mustn’t criticise or offend them’, then humour is gone. With ­humour goes a sense of proportion. And then as far as I’m concerned, you’re living in 1984.”

Cleese, known for his hilarious capers as part of Monty Python and in Fawlty Towers, quoted psychologist Robin Skynner as saying that “if people can’t control their own emotions, then they need to start controlling other people’s behaviour”.

There’s nothing funny about that. To return freedom of speech to its rightful place as an empowering virtue, rather than an offending vice, we need to remove emotions from our laws. Let’s start with a small but important step and reform section 18C.

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Cory Bernardi urges Julie Bishop not to endorse 'dysfunctional' Kevin Rudd for UN top job

South Australian Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has urged the Foreign Minister not to endorse a "dysfunctional", "vengeful", "unstable", "megalomaniac" like former prime minister Kevin Rudd for the United Nations top job.

It comes amid speculation Mr Rudd will nominate to become the next secretary-general, despite it being revealed former prime minister Tony Abbott gave a commitment to his New Zealand counterpart John Key that Australia would support his predecessor Helen Clark.

Senator Bernardi penned the strongly worded letter to Julie Bishop on Wednesday.

"With the best interests of the United Nations and Australia's international credibility in kind, I sincerely hope that these reports are not accurate," Senator Bernardi wrote.
Why inflict Rudd on the UN?

Everyone knows how dysfunctional Kevin Rudd's leadership style was, so why would senior Coalition members consider backing his bid to become Secretary General of the UN? Daryle McCann writes.

"As prime minister, Mr Rudd brought an unprecedented level of dysfunction and chaos to Australian politics and to the position of prime minister."

Senator Bernardi was not afraid to use strong language to press his point to Ms Bishop.

"His own colleagues have described him as a 'megalomaniac', 'vengeful', 'unstable' and 'a bastard' with a 'vicious temper' who put 'his own self-interest ahead of … the country as a whole'," Senator Bernardi wrote.  "Similar sentiments were expressed by many of our Coalition colleagues on multiple occasions over many years.

"It is my considered view that our own supporters and many others in the Australian public would be very disappointed if we endorsed such a person for this significant role.

"Would you be kind enough to advise me if the Government is seriously considering this course of action and if so, please provide me with the rationale for such a position."

Ms Bishop said it would be up to Cabinet to decide which candidate to back.

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Parents need more choice in schooling, says new report

Australia's three school sectors – government, independent and Catholic – have far more in common than generally believed, with diversity within the sectors often exceeding the differences between them.

That's the finding of a report, One School Does Not Fit All,  by the Centre for Independent Studies. The report said there is a wide variety of schools in each sector, with diverse student populations.

"Broad-brush comparisons between the school sectors based on average results are not useful, either for policy decisions or for parents choosing a school," said the report, which was co-authored by Jennifer Buckingham and Trisha Jha.

"There is substantial overlap in the student populations in each sector – none exclusively serves any particular demographic."

One finding is that the majority of independent schools do not conform to the private school stereotype of being well funded compared to government schools.

The report said 83 per cent of government schools, 94 per cent of Catholic schools and 76 per cent of independent schools have total funding levels below $20,000 per student per year (in 2013).

And independent schools, like government and Catholic schools, are bunched around the per-student incomes of between $10,000 and $15,000 a year. Only 7 per cent of independent schools were very wealthy, with per-student incomes over $30,000 a year.

However independent schools are clearly better off in one respect: hardly any independent schools had per-student incomes (from both public and private sources) below $10,000, a year, while about 20 per cent of government and Catholic schools are in this category.

"There is no such thing as a typical government, Catholic or independent school," the report said.

"Some government schools more closely resemble high-fee independent schools in terms of their student demographic and level of resourcing than a public school in the next suburb."

SCHOOL FOR THE EXPELLED

Dr Buckingham said there were many independent schools that did not conform to the picture people had of these schools. One example is the Berry Street School in Victoria, which caters to children who have been expelled or excluded from mainstream education.

"Very often the Berry Street School is their last option for gaining a secondary education," the report said. The school deals with poor literacy and numeracy by devoting about half the teaching time to these areas, and follows the "no excuses" approach, which attracts controversy but has produced results in some US charter schools.

Berry School uses explicit instruction methods, and believes that "students who are struggling need more support and structure, not greater flexibility," the CIS report said.

Dr Buckingham and Ms Jha also believe that governments should promote further diversity and choice in schooling by developing charter schools and exploring home-schooling options.

Charter schools – which are well-established in the US and other countries – receive government funding equivalent to public schools, but operate independently of the government system and are generally not religious.

The report says that introducing charter schools in Australia would offer more secular schooling options for parents beyond the existing public school system.

"Choice is currently restricted for families who can't afford non-government school fees, or those who do not want a religious education or who do not subscribe to alternative educational philosophies. The majority of non-government schools fit into one of these two categories," the report said.

Similarly it says that lack of consistent government support limits home schooling as an option in Australia.

"The ease with which home-schoolers can access government distance education courses varies across states and territories," it says.

Over 12,000 students were registered as being home-schooled in 2012. However, the report urges more research in this area to discover how effective home schooling is and how many unregistered students are being home schooled.

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Again: Armed police remove ship's defiant Australian crew, escort replacements aboard

Armed police have removed the Australian crew of the bulk alumina carrier, CSL Melbourne, and escorted aboard a foreign crew to sail the ship out of Australian waters.

A large contingent of police raided the ship in Newcastle, NSW, at 8.45am Friday, telling the five Australian crew members they must leave their vessel immediately.

"About 18 police came on board and ordered us to leave," said crew member Jason Donnellan.  "It was very intimidating. I'd estimate they were about 50 police altogether, with lots of them on the wharf, in paddy wagons and in two boats circling the ship.

"We asked if we could take our bags, but they said they would be brought off the ship afterwards.  "I can't believe this — a company using police to get rid of Australian workers."

A NSW police spokeswoman said officers boarded the vessel after being invited by the ship's captain to assist with the safe removal of the crew.  "The five men left the ship without incident at the invitation of the captain," she said.  "No persons were arrested or detained."

The seafarers had been protesting over their imminent dismissal by occupying the vessel and refusing to sail to Singapore.

It is the second time in a month that Australian seamen have been forcibly removed from ships hauling alumina on Australian coastal routes, and replaced by low-paid foreign seafarers.

At 1am on January 13, about 30 security guards boarded Alcoa's ship, the MV Portland, which was berthed in the west Victorian harbour of Portland, and removed the five Australian crew members who were sleeping on the vessel.

They were immediately replaced by a foreign crew which sailed the MV Portland to Singapore where it is to be sold.

The CSL Melbourne was chartered by Pacific Aluminium, a wholly-owned Rio Tinto subsidiary.

It has been hauling alumina from Gladstone in Queensland to Newcastle for smelting at the nearby Tomago Aluminium plant.

The shipping company that owns CSL Melbourne plans to transfer it to international operations out of Singapore, and replace it with a foreign-flagged ship with foreign crew members, which the Maritime Union of Australia says are paid as little as $2 an hour.

Both Alcoa and Pacific Aluminium have recently gained "temporary coastal licences" from the Federal Government, allowing them to replace their ships with foreign-flagged vessels and foreign crews.

This is despite the Senate late last year denying proposed legislation to open Australia's coastal routes to foreign ships.

A spokesman for the Canadian-owned shipping company, CSL, said the five crew members were peacefully escorted from the vessel on Friday morning, and that the CSL Melbourne would now depart for Singapore.

He said the crew was removed after refusing to comply with orders made by the Fair Work Commission and the Federal Court this week for each worker to end the unlawful industrial action.

The union has expressed outrage at the use of police and security officers to remove Australian seafarers from their workplace, which it called a disturbing trend.

"This is a disgraceful episode in Australian history, when the forces of the state and the police can move on Australian workers, throw them off their legitimate place of work and replace them with labour that will be paid $2 an hour," assistant union secretary Warren Smith said.

"We are going to throw everything at a campaign for justice for Australian workers and justice for Australian seafarers."

The maritime union has launched heated political attacks over the recent sackings of Australian seafarers. It is pressing the federal government to support local jobs and revoke special licences that permit the use of low-paid foreign crews on domestic shipping routes, which Labor and the unions have branded "WorkChoices on water".

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, leading the push for coastal shipping reform, said the "temporary coastal licences" that permit the use of foreign-crewed ships for domestic voyages were part of Labor's shipping rules introduced in 2012.

He said the special licences could be issued in the event that no Australian operators were seeking to carry the cargo, "and that's exactly what happened in this situation".

Mr Truss said the Australian shipping had been left uncompetitive by the previous government.

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Australia should do more for Aborigines?  If so how?

The self-righteous bleat below is an editorial from the Left-leaning Melbourne "Age".  It exhibits all the brains of a flea.  It shows no awareness of Aboriginal life or of the unending stream of government efforts that have been made to better the lot of Aborigines.  I would be surprised if the writer had ever set foot in a black's camp. I have.  I grew up with Aborigines around the place.  They were in my Primary school and down the end of the street where I lived. 

So the writer below has only his self-righteousness to put forward. He puts forward not a single suggestion about what to do to help Aborigines.  He doesn't know what has happened and has no idea what should happen.  He is just a brainless Leftist fool 

The best he can do is end up with an unsubstantiated accusation.  He speaks of "The disadvantage foisted on Indigenous Australians by ignorance or prejudice."  Where is his evidence that the poor situation of Aborigines is due to "ignorance or prejudice".  He has none.  It's just a verbal fart.

There are many ethnic groups in Australia and many of them came here when there was indeed prejudice against them.  My mother's father told her when she was young that he would cut her off if she married an Italian.  So did that hold Italians back?  Hardly.  Not long ago, Australia's most populous State -- NSW -- was run by second generation Italians and Greeks -- the Iemma administration.  And they were put there by the NSW voters.

And note that most Italians who migrated to Australia in the early to mid 20th century were poor peasant people trying to escape poverty.  They were by most criteria very "disadvantaged" people.  But they thrived in Australia, as they did in the USA. In one generation they leapt to prosperity.

And look at the Jews.  Can any group ever have been more hated than the Jews?  If you want to talk about prejudice and discrimination, look at the experience of the Jews.  Yet Jews ride high wherever they are.  Israel even prospers despite constant attacks on it by Muslims.

Plainly, there is no systematic disadvantage inflicted on anyone by prejudice and discrimination.  One could more plausibly argue that it spurs people on to a high level of achievement.

So our brainless Lefty editor is plain WRONG in his explanation  of Aboriginal backwardness.  That leaves Aborigines responsible for themselves.  Self-responsibility?  What a horrible thought to a Leftist!  The State is their solution to everything. 

Over 40,000 years, Aborigines evolved to lead a hunter-gatherer life and they are superbly adapted to that life.  They are NOT however adapted to modern life and nothing will make them that.  There are however some ways that they can be helped. 

I see it in the contrast between elderly Aborigines and young Aborigines.  The older ones are much better adapted to white society.  They lead reasonably clean, orderly and sober lives while the young ones are plagued by every conceivable problem.  Why?  Because when the older ones were growing up, the Aboriginal settlements were run by missionaries.  And Aborigines are a very spiritual people so religion has a big effect on them.  It gave the missionaries the leverage to teach Aborigines habits that would be to their advantage.

But there is no political will to bring back the missionaries so is there anything else to be done?  Just about everything that could be tried has been tried by successive State and Federal governments of all political stripes so there is really only one possibility left:  Better policing. 

The casual violence towards women and children by Aboriginal males is horrific. I have seen it.  But if the women had somewhere to run to in their settlements, many could escape that violence.  Most settlements already have a police presence but it is woefully inadequate.  More cops are what is needed but I am quite sure that would not suit our brainless Leftist editor.  Where would he get a warm glow out of that?


If you are yet to take the 8½ minutes to watch journalist Stan Grant speak on the topic of "racism destroying the Australian dream," make the time. His words are searing, a much-needed jolt to national complacency towards Aboriginal Australia, and a powerful statement of reality, both historical and present day.

But more than words, the accompanying passion – Grant's face and tone deeply imbued with sorrow, anger, hope and regret from personal experience as an Indigenous man – points to the emotional toll of unfinished business on the first people of this country. We must all strive to better acknowledge this suffering, even if it remains a lived experience most people can never truly understand.

Grant's speech, delivered in October, won prominence last week when released as an online video during a traditional time of introspection, both for the community and in our personal lives.

The new year is often a moment when people choose to take stock of goals, to resolve a fresh beginning, or rededicate themselves to cherished dreams. The symbols of nationhood are put on overt display just as languid summer weeks are about to be swamped by the reality of busy lives. As if to warm up dozing political muscles, we have developed a habit of adorning Australia Day with a ritual debate about changing the flag and becoming a republic.

But Grant's speech challenges the country to do more. Much more. His is a reminder that the personal and national experience is deeply intertwined for Indigenous Australians. The "Invasion Day" protests to mark the anniversary of the arrival of white settlers are illustrative, but cannot alone convey the discrimination felt each and every day in the Indigenous community.

"My people die young in this country," Grant reminds us. "We die 10 years younger than average Australians and we are far from free. We are fewer than 3 per cent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 per cent, a quarter of those Australians locked up in our prisons .hs.hs. If you are a juvenile, it is worse, it is 50 per cent."

Statistics that alone are distressing, but in what stands as a national shame, Grant observes "an Indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school." What a indictment on the supposed ethos of a fair go.

Australia can do and must do better. The steep difference in Victoria, where Indigenous children are more than 12 times as likely as non-Indigenous children to be placed in state care is another indicator of woeful disadvantage. We have become far too comfortable with pledges to "close the gap" that the action necessary to make this a reality is rarely a priority.

Complacency also marks our debate about the place of Indigenous culture in our national story. We have become fixated on a slogan, "recognition", too often ignoring the concepts many Aborigines would prefer be debated, such as "self-determination", "sovereignty" and "treaty".

It is not that the proposal to change the constitution to acknowledge Indigenous culture is without merit. But the country must properly decide what such a change is meant to achieve. Megan Davis, a legal professor and member of the Prime Minister's Expert Panel on recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the constitution, has warned the idea has become mired in "bipartisan stage-managed process". We should be aspiring to more than piecemeal reform, but justice.

Like Grant's speech, Davis' essay "Listening but not hearing", published in the latest edition of Griffith Review, is a further reminder the country can grow from a frank, and importantly, inclusive debate about the life of Indigenous Australians. The disadvantage foisted on Indigenous Australians by ignorance or prejudice is holding the nation back. To do better, the voices of the Aboriginal community must be listened to, and heard.

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A Win in court for Australia’s Migrant-Detention Policy

The high court ruled the government’s practice of holding asylum-seekers on Nauru was both legal and constitutional

Australia’s high court has rejected a challenge to the country’s practice of holding asylum-seekers at a camp on Nauru, the Pacific island nation, a decision that paves the way for the return of more than 250 people—including dozens of babies—who are now in Australia.

At issue is a case brought by the Human Rights Law Center (HRLC) on behalf of a Bangladeshi woman who entered Australia by sea. She was detained by Australian officials and taken to Nauru, which along with Manus Island, part of Papua New Guinea, is where Australia processes its asylum-seekers. The woman was returned to Australia for medical treatment during the late stages of her pregnancy, but appealed her return to Nauru. Lawyers for the woman challenged Australia’s right to detain people on foreign soil. On Wednesday, the court said the government’s actions were both legal and constitutional.

The decision paves the way for the return of about 267 people, including 37 babies born in Australia, to the detention center on Nauru.

HRLC and other immigrant-rights groups say the conditions on Nauru are poor, citing women who say they have been sexually assaulted at the detention center on the island.

“The legality is one thing, the morality is another. Ripping kids out of primary schools and sending them to be indefinitely warehoused on a tiny remote island is wrong,” Daniel Webb, the HRLC’s director of legal advocacy, said in a statement. “We now look to the Prime Minister to step in and do the right thing and let them stay so these families can start to rebuild their lives.”

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia’s tough stance, which is supported by the opposition, not only secures the country’s borders, but also saves lives by preventing drownings.

“Our commitment today is simply this: The people smugglers will not prevail over our sovereignty. Our borders are secure,” he told Parliament on Wednesday. “The line has to be drawn somewhere and it is drawn at our border.”

In a statement, UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, said the court’s decision shifts the international legal obligations for refugees from Australia to its poorer neighbor Nauru.

“The current offshore immigration network is a system in crisis and is creating crisis for affected children and families,” the organization said.

Under Australian law, those asylum-seekers who are granted refugee status are either settled in Nauru or Papua New Guinea—not Australia. They also have an option of going to Cambodia, under a deal worked out between the two countries.

At present, more than 1,400 people are being detained on Nauru and Manus as they await their claims to be processed. The average length of their detention is 445 days.

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Europe must copy Australia and stop the refugee boats

Britain needs the former Australian Prime Minister to help tackle the migrant crisis, and should give him a peerage to make it worth his while
           
The Australian Liberal Party has already done one great service for David Cameron: finding, funding and preserving Sir Lynton Crosby. The knighthood alone symbolises the debt the Conservatives owe Crosby for their first majority in nearly a quarter of a century. Now it is time for the Prime Minister to return the favour to the Liberals by giving a peerage to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

There are three good reasons for this. First, it would relieve the current Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, of his single biggest political management problem - the continued presence of a former leader on his back benches. If recent Australian political history tells us anything it is that former leaders - particularly when deposed - often attempt to return to leadership in the most spectacular fashion.  Outplacement really needs to mean outplacement.

Second, and this is a critical part of solving Turnbull's headache, Abbott would not disdain membership of the House of Lords. He was born in London and his respect for the United Kingdom stretched to him giving a eulogy to Margaret Thatcher after her death.

The third, and best, reason is that once back in the UK, Tony Abbott could tell Britain and the European Union how to "stop the boats" - and we do need to learn how to do that.

There is a bluntness about the phrase "stop the boats" that sounds coarse to European ears. And the harshness and the brutality of its articulation as a proposition by Abbott is a tone which is absent from our mainstream politics, but not from our politics as a whole. Anger, and indeed confusion, dominate and at times define our political discourse.

But it is an anger exploited and channeled by populist parties of the Left and Right - it finds no home in the mainstream. But it needs to.

The trajectory of European policy on refugees and asylum seekers has been a masterclass in how a very human, in fact humane, and emotional response has led inexorably to human misery. No one with a heart can have failed to be exhilarated when Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders to refugees.

The sight of a German Chancellor posing for selfies with refugees was in one way a symbol of a very different Europe. But in the world of people smuggling and human trafficking, it was received very differently. Angela Merkel was - inadvertently - the poster girl for their exploitation and exacerbation of human misery.

For once you signal that Europe is open for refugees then you no longer control your borders - they are managed by criminal gangs.

There's an Indonesian phrase for this incentive for people smugglers - "sugar on the table". And so we return to Tony Abbott. Australia has faced a similar challenge from people smugglers. The same desperate families. The same criminal gangs.

The same risk to life - a one-in-twenty chance of death if you boarded a boat in Indonesia. That's why there was bi-partisan agreement to end the trafficking and why there is strong Australian support for the policy of the Navy turning back boats. When boats are scuttled by smugglers then "passengers" are rescued - but they don't come to Australia.

They go to refugee camps off shore. They don't, in popular parlance, "jump the queue". The result has been an end to the trade in lives.

The contrast with Europe could not be starker. The winter is ending. More boats are coming - and people are still drowning. There are predictions of over a million refugees coming into the EU this year. Whether or not the number is sustainable economically that number is unsustainable politically. And the larger the traffic, the greater the number of deaths.

Stopping the boats on its own is not the whole of the solution. But it is a start. Ending the inhuman trade requires and end to the conflict that dislocates and a solution to the poverty that drives Africans north across the Mediterranean.

But the push factor can be ended and the loss of life can cease. It can be done - Tony Abbott knows how.

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Climate science on chopping block as CSIRO braces for shake-up

Global warming research to be re-oriented towards mitigation

The CSIRO's climate science divisions are expected to be pared back as part of a massive shake-up of the organisation.

The ABC understands cuts are expected to be made within the Oceans and Atmosphere and Land and Water divisions and up to 350 positions in the organisation will change.

The organisation will attempt to redeploy as many staff as possible into emerging areas such as data science, but there are likely to be redundancies in the process.

CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall said the changes would see the organisation move away from measuring and monitoring climate change, to instead focus on how to adapt to it.

"It's inevitable that people who are gifted at measuring and modelling climate may not be the same people who are gifted at figuring out what to do about it how to mitigate it," he said.

"Some of the climate scientists will be able to make that transition and some won't."

Dr Marshall said the shake-up was about renewal for the organisation and addressing the low turnover rates of staff.

"On the good side that means people love working for CSIRO but on the bad side most companies have much higher turnover than we do," he said.

The good thing about turnover is it creates a career path for junior scientists to aspire to.

In a statement, a spokesman for Science Minister Christopher Pyne said:  "This is an operational decision of the CSIRO.   After an extensive review, the management of the CSIRO have stated the need to re-organise the organisation to better fulfil its mission as outlined in its strategic plan"

In 2014, the Federal Government slashed more than $110 million from the organisation's budget, prompting national protests.

But scientists became far more optimistic when the Prime Minister launched the National Innovation and Science Agenda in December last year.

Malcolm Turnbull committed $90 million to the CSIRO to support increased commercialisation of research.

He also announced $75 million of funding to a CSIRO business unit known as Data61, which will focus research on areas such as cybersecurity and robotics.

At the time, Science Minister Christopher Pyne said organisations like the CSIRO were "among the best in the world".

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PCGolden Girls Of The ADF

Even Agatha Christie couldn’t come up with this.  A plot which includes a man who demands to be called a woman; abusive conduct; hush money; Australian Of The Year nominations; anti-Australian Navy Captain; reward for misconduct; Army chief’s hypocrisy and a Defence Minister’s unhinged compliment.

In my humble opinion, of the two women hailed as the ADF’s ‘Golden Girls’, many might very well view one of them as a vindictive, abusive pretend-woman and the other an anti-Australian Muslim, both of whom appear epic failures when judged by past military standards.

Malcolm “Call Me Cate” McGregor was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Australian Army when he decided to be known as a woman. He didn’t undergo any surgery that would complete the transformation. Oh no, he simply started wearing dresses and demanded that he be recognised as a woman. The warm, fuzzy, tolerant and inclusive PC indoctrinated ADF chiefs fell all over themselves complying with his demands.

Let’s get to the truth about “Call Me Cate”. He admits that he has male chromosomes and says he is not a woman but he feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body so there—a woman is born. He was one who appeared to be cheering on the sacking of Major Bernard Gaynor by that other ADF PC-driven, David Hurley. McGregor couldn’t leave it at that and launched an extraordinary attack on Bernard Gaynor’s father who McGregor claimed had defective DNA.  Laughable really. Here is a bloke who thinks he is a woman criticising someone else’s DNA? Fair dinkum!

It may not have been because of this but after Lieutenant Colonel McGregor was “counselled”, McGregor was transferred to the RAAF and immediately rewarded with a substantial promotion to Group Captain and nominated to be Australian Of The Yea, while Gaynor Snr was further ridiculed by the ADF command because he refused to see McGregor as a woman. He was offered $25,000 to keep his mouth shut.

To understand part two of the ADF Golden Girls saga we take a look at the double standards and gross hypocrisy of retired Army Chief David Morrison as explained by Bernard Gaynor: “In other words, the former Chief of Army gained accolades for ‘respecting women’ by reading the words of a person who thinks that men can be just as female as the ladies. He then talked tough about ruthlessly ridding the Army of abusers, only to do nothing about the abuser who was standing right next to him – McGregor – who, shortly after writing that speech, decided to abuse my father.”

Captain Mona Shindy, RAN, Muslim. Mona Shindy for two years had control of an official Twitter account, @NavyIslamic, and during that time abused the privilege by using such account as her personal political pro-Islamic advertising agent.

Looking at the account it appears that Mona Shindy enjoyed complete independence in her role as RAN Islamic advisor and used the account as a personal billboard to broadcast the word of Islam either with the tacit approval of the brass or while they were drunk at the helm.

In March 2015 Captain Shindy gave a presentation to the Royal United Services Institute of New South Wales which, when avoiding PC speak translated to:

    The media was to blame for Islamic violence.

    Armed Jihad is justified.

    The Hijab is required by the Quran making it Sharia compliant.

    Islamic women aren’t oppressed despite FGM, stoning etc.

    Islamic extremism is our fault.

    The Western world is responsible for Sunni/Shia conflict.

    It is our fault that Muslim youth can’t get ahead in our society.

    If we thought like Muslims instead of Westerners then violence wouldn’t look like terrorism.

    Charlie Hedbo is our fault.

    Let’s just forget about 9/11 and the World Trade Centre.

    There is no problem with Jihad, the problem is us.

    If we were nicer to Muslims then terrorism would go away.

    We need to talk about terrorism but don’t mention Islamic State.

    The government needs to build more Mosques and employ more Imams to promote Islam

    Muslim’s victim mentality is justified.

Furthermore, Captain Shindy used the @NavyIslamic Twitter account to:

    Mock our former PM, Tony Abbott.

    Celebrate Tony Abbott’s knifing.

    Criticise our involvement in the fight against Islamic terrorism.

    Back the Grand Mufti’s flawed response to the Paris Terrorist attack.

   Attacked the ALA political party as being an ill-informed fringe group.

Despite her less than satisfactory conduct and her open anti-Australian political tweets she is to be rewarded by sending her to the Defence Strategic Studies Centre to do a Masters degree in, of all things, politics and policy. Ain’t that a doozy?

Just like the Malcolm “Call Me Cate” McGregor farce, there is an ‘Add Insult To Injury’ clause. Provisional Defence Minister Marise Payne (temporarily on training wheels) says that Captain Shindy is an “outstanding Australian” and that “She has served the country with distinction”. Payne, who is obviously not an big fan of reality, went on to say that the RAN is to continue developing an “effective and engaging” social media strategy and Defence was committed to increasing cultural diversity among serving members to better reflect Australian society.

Government/ADF policy, as confirmed by Marise Payne, is now geared to reward abusive and anti-Australian behaviour with praise for the blatant disregard of regulations while promoting offenders and resorting to bribing complainants to keep their mouth shut.

This means we are to see even more of this politically correct lunacy from the Minister, Defence bureaucrats and the ADF command according to Marise Payne who would be better suited to be Minister of Koolaide Distribution to Politicians.

And all with the full knowledge and consent of (and direction?) of PM Waffler himself.

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Neo-puritans strive to find offence — anywhere

With January 2016 ticked off the calendar, it’s worth reflecting how the past month has provided a window into the mindset of a burgeoning class of sanctimonious neo-puritans.

A few weeks back, West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle was just about run out of the country after an interview with a female sports presenter where he said: “Hopefully, we can win this game and have a drink after. Don’t blush baby.” Social media went nuts. The media, talkback, feminists went equally manic that Gayle would dare to flirt on camera.

The cricketer apologised the very next day. But that made no difference to the remonstrating neo-puritans. The batting legend was ­labelled a sexist and a creep, his club fined him $10,000, Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland said Gayle’s on-camera flirting was “completely out of line and inappropriate”. “It’s very, very public,” Sutherland said.

A few weeks later, NRL player Mitchell Pearce was caught on a smartphone video behaving like a drunken buffoon at a private party. But privacy made no difference to the censorious neo-puritans. Public lapse in judgment? Private indiscretion? The boundaries keep moving. There but for the grace of God go I has become there but for the grace of an iPhone go all of us. Pearce clumsily tried to kiss a woman who quickly rebuffed him. So he stopped. The half-back then simulated a dopey, jokey sex act on a dog. He urinated on a couch. Dumb and dumber.

But in the minds of the neo-­puritans, there is no room for boofheads anymore. Pearce is a villain. End of story. And villains must be publicly shamed. So there’s endless talk of fines and penalties, contracts cancelled, ­careers over, rehab and counselling. Pearce has left the country. I am deeply uncomfortable to find myself on roughly the same side of the argument as Peter FitzSimons.

But here’s where the Red Bandanna and I part ways. The progressive set that FitzSimons surely calls home is to blame for the rise of the holier than thou neo-puritanism that has tried to destroy Pearce. Australia’s self-appointed moral guardians are having a ­heyday doing what they do so often: dividing the world into victims and villains. But can it really be that simple? There is something truly disturbing about the refusal by these self-appointed moralisers to make room for a few boofheads, be they drunk or flirtatious.

To be sure, no one should celebrate stupidity. Pearce behaved badly. He has to account for that. But the obsession to label every misdemeanour or error of judgment as a sure sign of bad character points to a deeper malaise infecting our society. This false ­dichotomy of victims and villains is creating a sterile, puritanical world where even minor mistakes of judgment are pathologised as serious moral misdeeds.

Witness the weird explosion of academic literature and campus chatter about so-called micro-assaults, micro-aggressions, micro-insults, micro-invalidations and so on and so forth. So you’ve picked up a copy of Hustler magazine and looked at a naked woman? That makes you a perpetrator of “micro-insults” — and a villain. Prefer to be colourblind to race so you don’t define people by their colour? That makes you a perpetrator of micro-invalidations — and a villain. You’d think that the very mention of “micro” points to how trifling this all is. Not in the eyes of the neo-naggers, who can find wrongdoing anywhere they look.

And it’s not hard to trace how we ended up in this realm of the utterly ridiculous. The misguided taxonomy between villains and victims was given a fillip once feelings entered the realm of human rights laws. Once an offending word here or an insulting word there attracted the heavy hand of the law, victimhood became a booming business. And given that victimhood works as a political philosophy only if there are villains, it’s not surprising then that Western modernity is stretching at the seams with newfangled classes of victims and villains.

You’re a Catholic archbishop from Tasmania who produces a pamphlet that defends the trad­itional definition of marriage that has not only existed for millennia but remains the law of the land? Most would think this is a complete non-story within a healthy democracy where freedom of speech and religion are basic rights. Wrong. Under the hectoring neo-puritanism, the law allows anyone offended by that pamphlet to claim victimhood status and, hey presto, the archbishop and his church are cast as villains by a human rights bureaucracy only too willing to play along.

We seem to have reached the point where every transgression from the norm now demands either a victim or villain label. There’s no room for plain difference or straight stupidity any more. And the victim/villain ­dichotomy has reached into ­absurd places when Gayle and Pearce were cast as villains even where there were no victims.

Neither Gayle nor Pearce broke any law. The police were not called. There was no harm done, as John Stuart Mill would have concluded.

The 19th century English philosopher best explained the no harm principle when he said “That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

Mill was addressing the importance of individual liberty in the face of state control. These days, the preachy neo-puritans imagine they are the state, imposing their judgments, wrecking reputations and careers because they have identified a villain even where there is no victim. No harm no longer matters to the neo-puritans. The principles that helped drive liberty have been upended.

Last week, the honchos who hand out Australia Day awards tried to further cement the victims and villains narrative into our national psyche when they picked David Morrison as Australian of the Year.

Morrison, a military man, is not regarded as an extraordinary soldier. So why did he get the gong? He gave one famous speech about victims of discrimination (a speech written by his then speechwriter, Cate McGregor, who transitioned from a man to a woman a few years ago).

You might have thought that upon receiving the award, Morrison would defend this great nation, maybe explaining the importance of being committed to Western values such as individual liberty and so on. Wrong again. Morrison’s Australia Day speech was replete with dark talk of victims and villains.

Not surprisingly, those who have fallen for this false dichotomy have bequeathed hero status on Morrison.

Those of us who see through the victim and villain ­baloney see a man of mediocre achievement given an award he didn’t deserve. And his paean to progressive causes is a reminder of how far we have fallen as a proud nation.

The lionisation of Morrison and the concomitant destruction of Pearce suggest it’s high time we did more to keep in check the rapacious colonisation of our communities by the neo-puritans. After all, the freedom to be a boofhead is the other side of the liberty coin.

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A battery for the home comes to Australia

And it ONLY costs $12,000.00 -- so is not for the average Joe.  It would appear to be a modified version of Tesla's car battery so is not new technology.  Lithium-ion batteries are common in consumer electronics.

The Powerwall, a lithium-ion battery system designed to store electricity generated from rooftop solar panels, is widely considered to be a game-changer for the electricity industry. 7.30 has asked consumer group Choice to crunch the numbers. Here's what they found.

While the concept of a home battery storage system is not new to Australians, the Tesla Powerwall unit has been highly anticipated.

The Powerwall is a 7 kilowatt hour (kWh) lithium-ion-battery system that stores electricity generated from rooftop solar panels (or PV panels) during the day so that electricity can be used at night during the peak-usage times.

The system has attracted a cult-like following in recent months after the announcement that Australia would be one of the first countries to have access to it.

The first installations of the Tesla Powerwall are now underway and have a 10-year warranty period.

How does it work?

The battery has a daily cycle, meaning it is designed to charge and discharge each day.

The efficiency of the battery is 92 per cent, so although it has a 7kWh capacity, the Powerwall's working capacity is more like 6.4kWh.

Tesla also has a 10kWh weekly cycle version intended for back-up applications, but it is the 7kWh version you will see in most home installations.

People who already have solar panels will be able to use their own power rather than exporting it to "the grid" — the energy distribution network that carries electricity from power stations to homes and businesses.

One of the Australian providers of the Powerwall, Natural Solar, says that there are only two inverters currently on the market which are compatible with the Powerwall, so most existing solar panel owners will need to obtain a new inverter.

If you do not already have solar panels, the Powerwall can be purchased as part of a complete system that includes solar panels and an inverter.

You will need a solar array large enough to power both your home and charge the Powerwall — for most homes that would mean at least a 4kWh array.

How much does it cost?

If you already have solar panels, the Powerwall and a compatible inverter will cost you between $12,000 and $12,500 depending on which inverter you choose.

Energy companies are selling Powerwall packages for between $13,990 and $16,500 (GST inclusive) and with consideration to rebates for small-scale technology certificates (STCs).

Is the Powerwall big enough to take my house off the grid?

It depends on your energy needs and the number of people in living in your household, but a 7kWh battery is not going to be enough to make most households independent of the electricity grid.

It is possible to install two or more battery units to increase your storage capacity.

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Australia 'well equipped' to deal with Zika

As the devastating impacts of Zika virus hit Latin America, Australia is preparing for a potential outbreak.

Health authorities have linked the virus, which in itself is only a mild disease, to microcephaly - which prevents foetus' brains from developing properly.

There is no vaccine, and if a pregnant woman contracts the disease there is a chance their baby could be born with the rare and debilitating condition.

The same species of mosquito that spreads Zika, Aedes, is also found in Far North Queensland, but health authorities say there is little chance of the area suffering a similar outbreak.

Expert on mosquito-borne viruses Dr Cameron Webb spoke to Sky News about the likelihood of an outbreak in Far North Queensland, and said the state is well equipped to deal with the virus.

'We're very fortunate that the authorities in Far North Queensland have a lot of experience dealing with these small outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases.

'Exactly the same mosquito that spreads dengue fever in Far North Queensland is the species that's spreading Zika virus'.

He said the only threat is if a traveller comes into the area and infects local mosquitoes - but even then it is likely it would be contained.

'Authorities already have strategic framework in place so they can respond, so any outbreak is likely to be very minor.'

However, Dr Webb has warned any women who are pregnant, or who are planning to get pregnant, to avoid regions experiencing the outbreak.

He said if women can't delay their trips they need to take precautions.

'If you are travelling to these areas, if you are a man or a woman, pregnant or not, you should be using mosquito repellants to provide the best protection against these mosquitoes that may be transmitting Zika virus in South and Central America.'

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Politically correct do-gooder doesn't care about the statistics

But the statistics are the facts of the matter.  And the statistics show that domestic violence is mainly a problem of the poorest suburbs and of Aboriginal communities. Firing scattergun rhetoric at the whole community is misconceived and therefore unlikely to help much.  General Morrison is good at emoting but not good at thinking. 

It's all just show-boating. It's just a way of saying:  "Look at how wonderfully caring I am". If the emoters had any serious desire to reduce domestic violence there are clear measures that would help.  No. 1 would be to put more police into Aboriginal communities.  But you will hear no whiper of a suggestion about that.  It would roughly halve the problem but who cares about blacks?  Not the emoters

Australian of the Year David Morrison has dealt a blow those who deny domestic violence is an epidemic, calling it the 'greatest social challenge in this country'.

He appeared on ABC's Q&A on Monday night alongside other panelists, playing down his recent award saying: 'I was the most surprised person probably on the planet when my name was read out'.

However when asked by an audience member whether controversial former Labor leader Mark Latham was right when he claimed in a podcast on Triple M that domestic violence figures were improving, General Morrison pulled no punches.

'It's not about the statistics, it's about the lives that are being taken and damaged,' Morrison said. 'What do you want to do? You want to compare a particular figure from a year to a year?

'We are as a society becoming more aware of - I think - the greatest social challenge that we face and that is domestic violence in this country,' he added.  'And nothing should be said to take our attention from it.

'Get real Australia. We run the risk of being a nation of bystanders comforted by a few statistics. There are people dying and people whose lives are absolutely ruined as a result of domestic violence and what's more, we are all as a society the victim.

That's bull****,' Morrison said.

He also went on to detail the extent to which first response services were stretched and under-funded.

'We are all stretched to deal with this but if we don't deal with it, what is the legacy we leave for those who follow us?'

'There is no level that's okay,' Australia's Local Hero 2016 Catherine Keenan added.  'Even if it has gone down, it is still not okay. It is still something we have to argue about. There are women dying every day. It is something we have to as a society address.'

Gordian Fulde head of Emergency at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney's Kings Cross and Senior Australian of the Year said the statistics are 'soft'.  This is because so many people who go to hospital don't report their abusers or accept counselling, according to Mr Fulde.

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The backlash across Europe to a surging tide of refugees is an opportunity for Australia

Angela Merkel threw open Germany’s doors to refugees half a year ago in a moment of national exuberance. Germans went to the railway stations to welcome exhausted Syrians with flowers.

“If Europe fails on the question of refugees,” said the chancellor, “then it won’t be the Europe we wished for.” The polls showed public opinion on her side. More than a million refugees entered Germany last year.

Merkel, who was born into repressive East Germany and understands the plight of people fleeing tyranny, was confident.

There was some public anxiety, anger. Assaults of refugees flared. The number of arson and other attacks on asylum seeker accommodation soared to 1,005 last year, a fivefold increase on the year before. Merkel appealed for a solution across all of the European Union governments but held firm: “Germany is a strong country,” she said. “We can handle this.”

New Year’s Eve in the German city of Cologne marked a turning point in the debate.

The crowd of about 1,000 men who made co-ordinated sexual assaults on women at Cologne railway station generated 560 formal complaints to the police that night.

An internal police report said: “Women, accompanied or not, literally ran a ‘gauntlet’ through masses of heavily intoxicated men that words cannot describe.”

Most of the assailants, according to a senior German official, Ralph Jaeger, were Arab or North African. Some were newly arrived. One reportedly told the German police: “You can't touch me. I'm Syrian: Merkel wants me here.”

Alan Posener wrote in Britain’s Observer newspaper: “German railway stations were symbols of Willkommenskultur [welcome culture], with crowds welcoming refugees from Syria and elsewhere. Now a station has become a symbol for what some are calling Islamic ‘rape culture’.”

News emerged of similar, co-ordinated attacks on the same night in Austria, Switzerland, Finland and Sweden.

Coming after the Paris terrorist attacks last November conducted mostly by immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, these attacks seemed to vindicate the anti-immigration parties and the far-right demagogues.

A backlash is under way. The polls have reversed. Most Germans now oppose Merkel’s stance, and over 60 per cent say the country has too many refugees already.

The general secretary of Merkel’s own party, the Christian Democratic Union, Peter Tauber, has called for 1000 refugees to be deported every day.

And on the weekend the leader of another German political party said that the police should shoot asylum seekers to stop them entering Germany, if that’s what it takes.

The head of the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, Frauke Petry, said that the police must stop refugees crossing into Germany from Austria: “I don't want this either. But the use of armed force is there as a last resort.”

She was condemned by other political leaders, but her remarks show how the far right is capitalising on public fear and anger. Merkel has taken a tougher line, saying that refugees who break the law will be deported. She now faces rising opposition in her own party and across Europe.

Across the continent, attitudes have hardened, fences have been built, laws toughened. Germany, Austria, France, Sweden and Denmark have all suspended the Schengen zone system of free movement across borders.

Central Europe's response has been harsh - the "Visegrad group" of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic has been unified in opposing any move to liberalise immigration laws. But xenophobic and far-right parties across Europe are on the rise.

The refugee flow, says Merkel, may be Europe’s “next great project”, but it is Europe’s present great crisis.

“It’s always been that nation states have finite boundaries that they defend in some form,” says James Jupp, an immigration expert at Australian National University.

“That’s broken down in the EU, which means that the European community starts to break down.”

But it’s also much wider than a European phenomenon. There is no precedent since World War Two for the number of displaced people in distress and seeking haven.

“We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, said last year.

His commission said that the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of 2014 was 59.5 million, an increase of over 8 million in one year. It compares to 37.5 million a decade earlier.

One way of conceiving the scale of the problem – one in every 122 people on the planet is a refugee in her own country or abroad. “If this were the population of a country, it would be the world's 24th biggest,” the UNHCR said.

Syria is the biggest new source of refugees, but in the last five years 15 wars have started or resumed, eight in Africa, three in the Middle East, plus the Ukraine crisis in Europe and three in Asia – in Kyrgyzstan, and in parts of Myanmar and Pakistan.

In the face of this rising tide of distressed and displaced people, attitudes everywhere are hardening. It’s no coincidence that Donald Trump’s very first policy announcement in declaring his bid for the presidency was his proposal to wall off Mexico.

Australia, by hardening its borders to refugees two years ago, has been largely immune to the latest global upsurge in asylum seekers.

The Coalition’s boat turnback policy was harsh, ugly and effective, so effective that Labor has now adopted it too. Because of this, Australia is now in a position to make measured responses from a position of strength, by gradually increasing its refugee intake and helping alleviate the greatest human suffering since the Second World War.  [Good point.  Australia could take the most endangered refugees:  Middle-East Christians and Yazidis.  Let Muslims look after their own]

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Muslim Brothers arrested in big police raid

Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have these individuals here?

Two brothers accused of standover tactics in Sydney's west have been charged following dramatic scenes that shut down a western Sydney street.

A convoy of police vehicles, including the armoured Bearcat truck, descended on Albert Road at Auburn on Monday afternoon with the focus on a multi-level family home.

Heavily-armed police piled out of the truck and used a megaphone to tell the resident inside to come out with his hands above his head.

Within minutes, Ahmad Abdullah emerged and was handcuffed and placed on his knees on the ground.

Police allege Mr Abdullah, 25, robbed a man of $300 in Guildford on January 10 before going to his home and extorting the man further.

It is alleged the victim had carried out work on the Abdullah home and a dispute stemmed from that.

Mr Abdullah was also the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant for the alleged extortion of a man with cerebral palsy in September, 2013.

It is alleged Mr Abdullah and two others extorted $15,000 cash from the man, who lived in Greystaynes.

Mr Abdullah's brother Mohammad Abdullah, 23, who was arrested at Auburn Police Station on Monday afternoon, has been charged with demand property in company in relation to the January 10 extortion.

At one point Ahmad Abdullah began yelling as police surrounded his home on Monday and Tactical Operations Unit police led him to the other side of the road and made him lay on the footpath.

Two women and children also emerged from the house and sat on the back of the police truck.

The operation played out in full view of a childcare centre across the road.  Many parents were anxiously waiting at the road block at the end of the street for the road to reopen so they could collect their children.

Neighbours say the police have visited the seven-bedroom home, which is currently on the market for $1.5 million, before.

Mr Abdullah was laid with five charges overnight, including take and detain in company with intent to get advantage.

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New figures show one in five children starting school don’t have the skills to learn properly

LITERACY levels of Australian children are worsening in a "slow motion disaster", with new analysis revealing one in five children who started school this year already don’t have the skills to learn properly.

The shock finding is contained in yet-to-be-released work by the Centre for Independent Studies that cements the fact a young child’s vocabulary is one of the most powerful predictors of later school success.

But 20 per cent of students, and 30 per cent from disadvantaged areas, don’t understand enough words when they enter school to be able to learn how to read or follow other subjects properly.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham has seized on the new findings to call on parents to make reading a priority, saying they have to be part of the solution to Australia’s lagging literacy levels that have fallen behind other countries since 2000.

"We’re absolutely at a critical point where we do need to ensure that Australian parents recognise that they all have responsibilities that sit alongside what happens in an early learning context and in a school environment," Senator Birmingham said.

Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Dr Jennifer Buckingham dubbed the slide in literacy as a "slow motion disaster rolling on" and is working on new analysis for a "Five from Five" launch in March of reading resources for parents, schools and governments.

She said children being read to learnt vocabulary; concepts like "under" and "over"; word sounds and exposed them to new words and meanings that spoken language didn’t.

"They have built up this store of knowledge so that then when they learn to read ... it really is just unlocking the codes to words they already know," she said.

"In the same way you immunise your child against infectious disease, the best way to immunise your child against future reading failure is to read to them every day from a very young age," Professor Oberklaid said.

Professor Oberklaid said it was not about "hot housing" or creating "baby Einsteins", but feeding the developing brain.

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Lawyers, doctors and public servants in firing line from rise of the machines

I have been hearing this scare for at least 60 years and it never eventuates.  It is true that some jobs become non-existent through automation but, as long as governments don't meddle, new jobs always open up to use the newly-freed labour.  Human services are where the replacement jobs often are -- from computer programming at the high end to waitresses at the low end.  Sadly, many of the new jobs are in government bureaucracies,  with minimal useful productivity

Machines will end about 40 per cent of today's Australian jobs within two decades and they're coming for middle class occupations, one of the nation's automation experts has warned.

University of Sydney professor of data science and machine learning Hugh Durrant-Whyte said Canberra's public servants would be among those in the firing line.

"All jobs that are primarily analysis are capable of automation," he said.  "Those middle jobs will go, the question is whether these people move up to better policy making, or simply out."

Australia was one of the world's largest users of robotics in the mining, transport and agriculture sectors, but the "hollowing out" of middle-tier white collar roles was just beginning, he said.

"The curious thing about automatisation and particularly computerisation is that the jobs that are going are not the ones at the low end of the market, it's the people in the middle like journalists, doctors, lawyers, assistants, bank tellers," he said.

Professor Durrant-Whyte, who will speak in Canberra next month, said machine learning meant computers could now do everything from write reports, sell insurance and constantly monitor and advise on an individual's health.

The professor, 54, was a co-author of the Australia's Future Workforce? report, published by think tank CEDA last year, which said almost 5 million jobs – 40 per cent of the workforce – faced a high probability of being replaced by technology within 20 years, and another 18 per cent had a medium probability of their roles being eliminated.

The challenge was how to prepare people for the top-tier jobs that would remain and be created, not those at the bottom.

A former chief executive of NICTA, the nation's peak information and communications technology research body, Professor Durrant-Whyte backed the federal government's pushing of coding in Australian schools, and said Canberra was as well-placed as any city to adapt to the coming workforce revolution.

"The most important thing you've got is the ANU, you have the capacity not just to think through but act through these sorts of things through the enormous human capacity [there]," he said.

But the Brit, who spent a decade at Oxford before his move to Sydney, said signing up for science, technology, engineering or mathematics degrees was not an answer in itself, with many of those graduates finding it hard to land a related job.

"I think it's more the issue that we need to ensure those people have the transferable skills to apply that STEM knowledge in other wealth creation activities," he said.

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Changes to Victoria's bush will have to be accepted under global warming: scientists

This is on the whole broadly sensible but it will be used to justify bans on almost all logging. So timber and paper will have to be almost wholly imported and local livelihoods will be affected in many areas

There will be no choice but to accept permanent changes to Victoria's beloved bushland as climate change worsens, some of the state's leading environmental scientists say.

Accepting those changes could force a rethink of how some areas are protected and restored in order to give Victoria's threatened wildlife species the best chances of survival in warmer conditions.

The need to accept change is one of the main findings of a landmark symposium that drew together research on the pressures global warming is placing on Victoria's unique plants and animals, and what might be done to protect them.

The results of the symposium, held last year, have been turned into a series of 10 measures that scientists say should be taken to lessen the climate blow on nature, which will be released online on Monday under the title VicNature 2050.

They include ramping up many traditional conservation efforts, such as eradicating pest threats, stopping habitat clearing, and the protecting of reserves. But there are limits, and another recommendation says, "we will have no choice but to accept more changes in natural areas than we are accustomed to".

"There is no simple answer. But accepting that some things are going to change is something that has not quite got across to a lot of people yet," Professor Ary Hoffmann, from the Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne, told Fairfax Media,.

"There is a mindset that has to shift, that all of a sudden we're not trying to revert things back to a pristine position."

One example raised was whether alpine ash trees should be continued to be reseeded in the Alpine National Park after bushfires, which become more frequent and intense in Victoria under many future climate change scenarios.

To replace dead trees after recent fires, authorities sowed 1800 hectares of alpine ash seeds. But needing 20 years to be fully established, questions were raised at the symposium about whether the same species should be reseeded again if another bushfire wiped the seedlings out.

Professor Hoffmann said that in areas where the alpine ash could still survive it should be protected and restored. But in some places, more fire-resilient tree species might need to be considered in the face of a more frequent fire threat, to ensure continued species habitat.

"We may have to accept the fact there is not much point trying to recreate that environment, and have a debate about what this area should look like so you are still preserving the ecosystem function of those areas," he said.

Evidence presented to the the symposium last year found climate change would by 2050 increase the average temperature of Victoria by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees. This would create similar climate conditions to Wagga Wagga.

Professor Andrew Bennett, an ecologist from La Trobe University and the Arthur Rylah​ Institute, said it was still important to ensure existing natural systems were as robust as possible, such as protection of vegetation and eradicating feral pests, to give threatened species the best chance under climate change.

For instance, he said his group's research had shown Victorian bird species had recovered better from the record-breaking millenium drought in areas with well vegetated streams and riversides as opposed to those which were cleared.

Professor Bennett said he took a cautious approach to adopting new wildlife species to prepare for future climates, and the first step should be trials in already cleared areas.

The "managing Victoria's biodiversity under climate change" symposium was organised by the Victorian National Parks Association, the Royal Society of Victoria and the University of Melbourne.

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Blackface Aboriginal costume dress up criticized

I can't see who is hurt by this. Are Japanese women who blond their hair offensive?  Are black women who straighten their hair offensive?  There's an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so this could be seen as a tribute to blacks

TWO partygoers have been labelled "redneck scumbags" after a controversial photo shared on social media showed them dressed as Aborigines with painted black faces.

Victorian woman and indigenous education worker Sis Austin shared images taken from a party at the weekend after confronting the person who uploaded them to social media.

In one picture two men are dressed as Aborigines with their faces painted black.

Another picture taken from the same party shows a woman with a painted black face, dressed like 2000 Olympic gold medallist Cathy Freeman.

But Daylesford woman Ms Austin ended up on the receiving end and was called a bully and horrible person who should be ashamed of herself for sharing the images.

The two as yet unidentified men had attended an Aussie icon party near Learmonth Football Club in Victoria on Saturday.

The photos were taken by what she calls "people who were her high school friends" and "a few close ones at that".

That changed once she raised the point it was disrespectful to indigenous Australians.

Ms Austin’s post soon went viral and was picked up by high-profile indigenous rapper and Yorta Yorta man Adam Briggs who went on to share the post, and said anyone defending the men can go and "**** themselves".

Briggs described the pair as "redneck scumbags" on Facebook.

But while the hip hop artist ended up getting a lot of support, many jumped to the defence of the men and Briggs ended up on the receiving end himself before shutting them down.

Others also came to Briggs’ defence including hip hop chart toppers The Hilltop Hoods, and indigenous Australian singer/songwriter Thelma Plum who shared the controversial black face image on her social media feeds.

Plum, who called the partygoers "disgusting little boys" also shared their image on her Twitter and Instagram feed, encouraging people to name and shame them.

In an interview with Sky News, the host of the party said the backlash was "political correctness gone wrong" and the men in the photos were his best mates who are "decent Australian blokes".

"People wear Oktoberfest costumes to parties and no one cracks it that they are not German? So what I am saying is I do understand the people who have painted themselves have offended people, although none of them intended that"

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How Australia has come out on top in this currency war

'The fall in the Australian dollar has helped support the recovery and restructure the economy, so it is a good example of how a floating exchange rate should act,' says Amplifying Global FX Capital director Greg Gibbs.

'The fall in the Australian dollar has helped support the recovery and restructure the economy, so it is a good example of how a floating exchange rate should act,' says Amplifying Global FX Capital director Greg Gibbs.

The Australian dollar's plunge to a seven-year low is turning out to be a blessing as China steers its slowing economy away from the heavy industries that helped fuel the country's mining boom.

It's more than four years since a record-high Aussie threatened to destroy manufacturing and hamstring the economy. Instead, the currency's steepest three-year slide since it was floated in 1983 is working its magic -- a weaker local dollar has spurred record tourist arrivals and education income. And it's tempered the drag from iron ore's plunge to unprecedented lows while making the nation home to the world's lowest-cost miners.

Australia stands out in getting the currency boost it needs at a time when economies the world over are grappling with exchange rates considered undesirable. The Aussie is in line with economic fundamentals, after being 25 per cent or more overvalued in 2013. China is struggling to curb yuan declines and Saudi Arabia is burning through reserves to maintain its peg to a strengthening greenback. Policymakers in Europe and Japan have pushed interest rates below zero, risking accusations of competitive devaluations.

"The fall in the Australian dollar has helped support the recovery and restructure the economy, so it is a good example of how a floating exchange rate should act," said Greg Gibbs, director of Amplifying Global FX Capital in Colorado, who has spent over two decades in the currency markets including stints at the Reserve Bank of Australia and with lenders in Sydney, New York, London and Singapore.

RBA governor Glenn Stevens stopped calling for a weaker currency in August and subsequent declines drove the Aussie closer to fair value than at any time since the global financial crisis, according to a measure of purchasing power parity based on producer prices.

Stevens pointed in December to new opportunities for growth as Asia's middle class demands more services, energy and food, filling the economic vacuum left by a contraction in mining investment.

The impact of the Aussie's decline has been particularly apparent in the "sizeable contribution" of services exports to growth, the RBA said in November, acknowledging the labor- intensive sector's role in helping to push unemployment to a two-year low.

The currency has also absorbed much of the impact of a more than 60 per cent slide in prices for iron ore and coal from their 2011 highs. Earnings from goods shipments fell just 14 per cent till November from a peak two years earlier, also aided by rising volumes of Australia's main resources as the mining boom's bounty comes on line.

"In many ways Australia has proven to be unbelievably lucky once again," said Klaus Baader, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong. The Aussie was high when the country needed to import capital goods to build new mines and now it's fallen "very significantly, which helps to contain production costs and it's contributed to making Australia very competitive even at lower prices."

At 9:00am, the Aussie traded at US70.84¢ having fallen 36 per cent from a post-float record of $US1.1081 reached in July 2011 at the height of the mining bonanza. It averaged more than $US1 for three years to the middle of 2013, spurring Stevens to signal the need for currency depreciation -- and to cut interest rates -- to wean the economy off a dependence on resource-sector spending. Forecasters see it at US69¢ cents by year-end.

The Aussie is 1.2 per cent overvalued according to the purchase price parity (PPP) measure. It reached about fair value at the end of September from being about 30 per cent overvalued as recently as three years ago.

While the RBA's battle with foreign-exchange traders appears to have ended, China's has just begun.

China has run down reserves, squeezed traders in Hong Kong with 67 per cent overnight borrowing costs and used state media to warn speculators, including billionaire investor George Soros, to deter bets on rapid yuan depreciation. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, used 16 per cent of its currency stockpile last year to defend the riyal while Mexico's shrank to a two-year low in November amid intervention to bolster the peso.

Australia's transition toward non-mining activity is synchronised with China's move toward consumer-driven growth, opening up opportunities for the nation's most populous states New South Wales and Victoria, which had been at the periphery of the mining boom, Treasurer Scott Morrison said in last month.

The Aussie's drop "makes us far more competitive," he said. "Our economy is broadening, it's diversifying and this is very important. Our economy in the future, and even now, will be less dependent on one market, one commodity, one part of what we do."

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Brisbane could rename historically "racist" Boundary streets

This is just a lot  of meddling nonsense.  As the mayor said, almost no-one in Brisbane would be aware of the history concerned.  It is just an attempt to revise history.  Orwell would understand

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk will consider changing the names of Brisbane's Boundary streets, but only if such a change is embraced by the city's indigenous community.

At least one prominent Aboriginal activist, Sam Watson, has rejected the push, saying Boundary Street in both West End and Spring Hill served as a constant reminder of the horrific treatment of the area's original inhabitants.

The inner-city Boundary streets, on either side of the Brisbane River, were so named due to a racist policy that separated European arrivals from the local Jagera and Turrbal [Aboriginal] populations.

Earlier this month, street signs at West End were changed to "Boundless Street" and, since then, an online petition has been set up to call for such a name change to be made official.

Petitioner Michael Colenso said the names were "outdated" and held Brisbane back from "meaningful progression as a city and peoples committed to truthful and respectful harmony".

Cr Quirk said he understood the sentiment, given the shocking treatment Murris suffered at the hands of early European settlers, and would open a dialogue with local elders about a possible change.

"It's a part of our history that there's not too much pride about, but it is a part of our history nonetheless and a reminder of the prejudices that did used to exist and the limitations of freedom that did used to exist for Aboriginal people in our past," he said.

Cr Quirk said before the street signs came down, he would have to discuss the issue with local elders, with whom he met every six to nine months.

One of those elders, Mr Watson, said he wanted Boundary Street to remain as a reminder of Brisbane's bloody past.  "I think it's important that all people walking through Brisbane and along Boundary Street should be aware of the history of it," he said.

"Mainstream Australia, unfortunately, has this tendency to just keep trying to move on from the more unsavoury aspects of their own history. "That might help everyone's peace of mind and make them sleep a little better at night, but it doesn't change the fact that there are very bloody and very ugly segments of our joint history together that should not be ignored. "It should be customarily acknowledged as part of our genuine, true history."

Labor lord mayoral candidate Rod Harding declined to comment on the issue.

Greens lord mayoral candidate Ben Pennings said any change would have to be driven by the local indigenous community.  "It's really important that Brisbane doesn't forget its local history, even though it might make some of us uncomfortable," he said.  "Unless there's a strong and clear call from local Aboriginal people to change street names, we should leave them as they are.

"If we want to get serious about showing respect for Brisbane's Aboriginal community, we need to start a process for signing meaningful treaties and address the local issues directly affecting Aboriginal people."

Cr Quirk said Brisbane City Council would also have to be mindful of the wider community. "Name changes create significant inconvenience among those people as well, in terms of a change to their house address," he said.  "There's consultation that would have to occur on a number of fronts, but if there is a groundswell view that it ought to be looked at, then we can do that.

"But I think the first step is to see whether there is any genuine appetite from the indigenous community themselves."

Not all Boundary streets or Boundary roads in Brisbane had such racist roots as those in Spring Hill and West End, Cr Quirk said.  The Boundary roads in Coorparoo and Oxley, for example, were so named because they ran along suburban boundaries.

As for the inner-city streets, Cr Quirk said there was still a lot of ignorance about what they actually meant.  "I don't think, in truth, many people in Brisbane really understand what Boundary Street means and its significance in terms of its history," Cr Quirk said.

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General Morrison: War veterans attack 'sickening' Australian of the Year choice

I thought he was a lightweight with strange priorities from the get-go.  With his waffle and piffle he is certainly not very army.  And army men are noting that.  Army people tend to be practical and down to earth, not purveyers of woolly and self-righteous generalizations -- JR

Anger is growing in the veterans' community over the appointment of former Army Chief David Morrison as Australian of the Year.

Some veterans have accused the retired Lieutenant General of turning his back on Defence personnel, and an online petition is now calling on him to consider resigning his new position.

Petition author and former soldier Geoff Shafran said he was appalled to hear General Morrison nominate a republic as a priority after winning his award, but not the welfare of veterans.

"When you can get on at an Australia Day speech and discuss the republic and not allude to veterans' issues when he had, I think it's 13, soldiers who were actually killed overseas while he was Chief of Army, it's just turning your back on these people — the ones who have come back and are suffering mental and physical issues," Mr Shafran said.  "There is something that is really quite sickening about that."

The 20-year Army veteran said his online petition had already attracted hundreds of signatures from others in the ADF community.

"It's essentially calling for the resignation of David Morrison as Australian of the Year and also for him to relinquish the title of General, because he, in my opinion, demonstrated a lack of leadership by not alluding to veterans issues on his pre-Australia Day speech when he at the same time alluded to the republic," he said.

The Defence Force Welfare Association said it had been inundated with correspondence from members who were angry at General Morrison's approach.

"There seems to be a general view that perhaps he's gone too far in his quest for diversity and respect amongst ADF members who perhaps hold different views on lifestyles and religion and those sorts of issues," DFWA president David Jamison said.

"He's perhaps causing division rather than unity within the ADF and the veteran community."

Mr Jamison said he believed it was now time for General Morrison to reach out to his former colleagues in his new position as Australian of the Year.

"He's got to come out and be a champion for veterans and the nation's obligations to its service people and its former service people," he said.

General Morrison released a statement on Saturday morning saying: "As the grandson and son of veterans and a veteran myself, I care deeply about issues affecting the veteran community.

"I have always supported the veteran community and I will continue to do so in my role as Australian of the Year

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China's 'daigou' shoppers leading Australian retail drive

Every day in Australia an unofficial network of Chinese shoppers known as "daigou" buy up tonnes of supplies for friends and family back home.

While baby formula remains their most common purchase, daigou have told Fairfax Media that there is a growing demand for fresh food and, with it, a potential bonanza for farm-gate producers.

Daigou roughly translates as "buying on behalf of" and these shoppers have become notorious for clearing supermarket shelves of baby formula.

One daigou, Sydney-based Sophie He, sends up to 60 tins of baby formula and up to 40 bottles of vitamins to China every week.

Daigou get recommended by word of mouth and gradually build up "trust chains" to buy for more and more people, Melbourne IT consultant Michael Ding says.

And it's a lucrative business. Ms He said she charged her customers 25 per cent of the purchase price.

One Melbourne freight company revealed last year it was sending 20 tonnes of shopping to China every week.

The stock-discussion website HotCopper revealed how profitable working as a daigou can be, with one man claiming to earn $600 a week reselling tins of formula to Chinese customers.

Melbourne-based Vivian Xing uses an app called WeChat to let people know she offers "daigou shopping" services and, for now, is focused on the huge demand for infant formula.

She sends about 20 kilograms of formula a week to people all over China and takes photos of the purchases inside local stores such as Chemist Warehouse or Priceline to prove its authenticity.

Most Chinese don't understand English well enough to order from Australian websites, she says, and they do not trust the online shops set up by A2 or Bellamy's because counterfeiting was rife online.

Australian vitamins are also a big seller, with Ms He doing a steady trade in Swisse, Blackmores and Thompson.

Baby formula and vitamins are Australia's speciality, Ms Xing says, with daigou in Hong Kong and the US providing beauty products and clothing coming from daigou in France. But this is changing, with Chinese ordering more and more clothing and food through daigou in Australia.

Because China's customs clears perishable food quickly, cherries, mangoes and peaches can get to their destination within 72 hours.  Recently Ms He has been buying seafood and Australian-grown fruit from agents who package it up with ice for shipping.

Ms He says she would rather buy directly from the primary producers but Google searches did not reveal any who ship small packages directly to China themselves.

Due to Chinese fears of counterfeit products, particularly in food, daigou want to get as close to the source as possible so they can guarantee provenance.

One Sydney-based woman said she had been sending two-kilogram parcels of cherries for $90, including postage, to her family before Chinese New Year on February 7.

She has struggled to find a direct source of Australian cherries this year and ended up going through an agent she met through friends, she says.

Mr Ding says there would be huge demand for Australian beef, eggs and fresh food if daigou could find reliable direct sources and efficient shipping methods.

And, while Chinese don't trust their local retailers to resell genuine products, they do trust personal connections. And they also trust the daigou's recommendations.

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Is it time to turn your back on university?

This seems to be becoming a widespread view -- not before time

ACCESS to higher education used to be considered one of the things that made Australia great, but as demand drops and degrees become less valued, it seems that era is well and truly over.

University enrolment numbers have flatlined, graduate employment last year hit an all time low and employers are going cold on degrees.

Combine this with climbing first year drop out rates and uncertainty over university fee reforms thanks to a stalling government, it seems like there’s never been a better time to turn your back on university.

The Australian Department of Education and Training’s selected higher education statistics, released earlier this week, showed the overall number of new university increased by only 0.1 per cent.

Universities Australia Chief Executive Belinda Robinson said the results had been "anticipated", indicating growth had plateaued, evened out following a surge of "unmet demand".

In interviews, Ms Robinson suggested the Rudd-Gillard government’s university funding scheme had pushed demand for universities beyond their capacities, and that the current government’s campaign around $100,000 degrees may have helped to reduce demand.

It’s not just students that are backing away from university degrees. Earlier this month, international publishing house Penguin Random House joined the ranks of major consulting firms Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers, dropping degrees as a requirement for job applicants.

In Australia, some smaller employers are shifting away from hiring graduates or university students altogether, believing kids are coming out of university with "no real skills" or simply being taught the wrong things.

In an earlier interview with news.com.au Australia Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive officer Kate Carnell said employers found 20-somethings were more qualified than ever before. Graduates were showing up to work with degrees from universities that were "disconnected with the workforce", she said.

"A number of our members consistently tell us they’re seeing students come out of university or training programs and they might have the academic or theoretical skills, but no skills to work at all. It makes them really hard to employ," she said.

And just as employers are being turned off graduates, students are seeing very little incentives to complete their studies with university graduate salaries going down.

The shift in demand for university education is sending a message to institutions and heralding change for career-seekers and employers.

In an interview with ABC radio, deputy vice chancellor of Deakin University and fellow of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, Beverley Oliver, said tertiary education providers were getting the message, and adjusting their courses to meet new expectations from students and the changing workforce.

"I think the sector has made great changes over the last 15 years, particularly making sure the degree is a signifier of more than just marks and grades," she said.

"I don’t think it’s an indictment, I think it’s a signal and we should use it to improve what we do. We can always improve what we do and of course employers can as well."

Advocates of alternative educational pathways like apprenticeships and workplace learning are cheering at the apparent shift away from reliance on universities.

For those who are continuing to pursue a university education, the federal education minister has a word of advice.

"Australians must think carefully about the courses they enrol in to ensure they are entering a course that they are not only passionate about but that has a job at the end," senator Simon Birmingham said.

While encouraging new figures show those who found work four months out of university had grown slightly on last year’s, about one-third of graduates did not immediately find a job.

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