Abbott 'teaches' Turnbull on penalty rates

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has again publicly fronted up to Malcolm Turnbull, this time over the government's stance on penalty rate cuts.

It comes after the Fair Work Commission last week recommended Sunday rates be pared back for retail and hospitality workers.

"Against Labor's pitch of 'high wages' versus 'low wages', we need to pitch 'high wages' versus 'no wages'," Mr Abbott told The Australian in an interview.

The government has being trying to position the FWC decision as a pro-jobs, arguing businesses will hire more workers as their wages bills decrease.

But Labor is trying to pin the upcoming cuts to Sunday worker's pay on the government and wants Mr Turnbull to oppose them.

"The issue is not higher wages versus lower wages," Mr Abbott said. "It's about making it possible for more businesses to stay open because if the business is shut no one gets paid anything."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday said the transition to the new rates should be done in "a way that ensures that take-home pay is as far as possible maintained".

SOURCE






Face cover ban for Victorian protests

Victoria will introduce laws banning face coverings at protests as authorities warn "idiots" not to try to disrupt the end of the Moomba festival.

Police made 53 arrests at the festival on Saturday night and Attorney-General Martin Pakula says they will be ready again if there was trouble as the event wrapped up.

"There seems to be a small band of idiots who want to chance their arm," Mr Pakula told reporters on Monday.

"All I can say to those people is Victoria Police is ready for you, they demonstrated that on Saturday night, and no doubt they'll demonstrate it again if anyone is stupid enough to try it on."

Moomba descended into violent riots last year as groups of youths battled each other in Melbourne's streets.

That incident - and other political protests that turned violent - has prompted the state to propose laws banning face coverings at protests.

Mr Pakula said the laws were meant to be ready earlier, but had been complex to draft.

They will give police the power to arrest people with covered faces if they believe the coverings are for avoiding detection or to prevent the use of capsicum spray.

Mr Pakula said the laws will be introduced into Parliament next week.

SOURCE




Bill Leak: doublespeak at freethinker trial

On Friday, March 10, 2017, Australian painter, cartoonist and avant-garde freethinker Bill Leak died of a suspected heart attack. He was 61 years old.

In the two years before his death, jihadists and the political establishment inflicted horrific stress on him because he refused to surrender his creative genius and free mind to the colourless, artless overlords of political correctness.

In 2015, Leak was forced to flee into a safe house with his family after jihadists threatened to kill him. His thought crime was drawing a cartoon of Mohammed in the wake of militant Islamists slaughtering cartoonists at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.

In 2016, Leak was accused under the PC censors’ favourite weapon, section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, for offending someone somewhere.

Members of a state-protected minority chose to take offence at a cartoon.

It was offensive to those offended by the truth that some men are alcoholics, some alcoholics neglect their children and some ­alcoholic men who neglect their children are indigenous.

In his submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights into Freedom of Speech in Australia, Leak said: “I was put through two months of ­incredible stress by the (Australian Human Rights) Commission’s investigation. The first complainant … didn’t have to justify anything she did. No one asked her any questions and it didn’t cost her a cent … the tortuous process (threw) my life into a state of utter chaos and it’s not over yet.

“Three months after the cartoon was published, two more complaints were received and ­accepted by the Commission ... So now, two months after being notified of the first complaint and four months after the publication of the cartoon, the possibility that I may yet be required to defend myself in court still hovers, like a dark cloud, over my life.

“This in itself is just another part of the punishment I’ve been subjected to for daring to shine the spotlight on the truth.”

Three months later, still suffering under the immense stress ­inflicted by 18C backers, he died.

Section 18C is an act of violence against those who tell the truth. It is, as the slow torture of Bill Leak revealed, a totalitarian tool fashioned by bullies determined to punish creative geniuses who refuse to toe the PC party line.

It is a censor’s hammer used to bludgeon artists for thinking and speaking freely in ways that entertain truth, delight dissidents and expose PC mediocrities for their inconspicuous talent.

Bill Leak did not repent. He held truth above spin, free thought above correct thought and beauty before duty to the PC party line.

He was a thoroughly unreconstructed artist; he said freedom meant freedom to think and speak and create. He was born male and white! (Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!)

SOURCE





Power shortage: playing politics only prolongs energy disaster

PAUL KELLY

Australians now live with one of the great public-corporate policy failures in decades as the nation once touted as an energy superpower is brought to its knees with spiralling power prices, shortages and system unreliability — as the long and unresolved issue of climate change is overtaken by an energy emergency.

There is no easy fix to this crisis. Indeed, Australia faces multiple problems in meeting multiple objectives around gas shortages, renewable energy policy blunders, energy unreliability, the absence of price signals to achieve emissions reductions, the Paris climate change targets and growing uncompetitiveness hurting jobs, industry and investment.

Malcolm Turnbull’s switch after last year’s South Australia blackouts to a new agenda based on energy security and reliability is vindicated but of little compensation. The nation has spent six months learning about the difficulties of feeding renewables into the power system only to now discover gas production cannot meet demand, the latter danger having been warned about for years.

Cast the net wide for blame. There are no innocent parties. Begin with the obsessive climate change and ideological posturing by politicians, the failures by public servants, regulators and advisers to foresee unintended consequences, the utter inadequacy of the federal-state system and the ongoing shambles of conflicting energy policies across competing jurisdictions.

The costs will be borne by households, businesses and jobs. Forget any notion that this crisis will lead to bipartisanship. That won’t happen — energy policy is highly charged with ideology, cost-of-living and jobs competition. The emerging blame game will be fierce. The more the crisis deepens the more it will dominate both state and national politics. The Coalition, Labor and the Greens are locked in a deepening political struggle where an energy crisis has smashed into the already weakening public “hip-pocket” will on climate change action.

This week the Australian Energy Council, representing electricity and gas businesses, said “sustained” policy failure was driving up electricity prices to “critical” levels and the price impact now “is effectively equivalent to a carbon price in excess of $50 a tonne”. Bluntly declaring “we are running out of power”, the AEC says “ageing power stations keep closing but there is no plan about how they will be replaced”.

The Prime Minister, backed by Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, aspires to a dual task: to limit the factors that threaten jobs and industry, and to mobilise energy as a frontline political issue to discredit Labor. Turnbull is fierce on Labor’s ideological flaws — it rejects coal, bans gas exploration and developments, and has bet the economy on renewables without proper baseload back-up power. His message is that the threat is serious and follows “years of ideological complacency by the Labor Party.” Bill Shorten has joined this battle, saying the energy crisis responsibility resides “solely” with Turnbull, who is delivering higher prices, more pollution and less reliability.

This week Turnbull, facing a crisis in gas production, announced an urgent meeting of gas producers. This comes in the teeth of dire warnings from the regulator about gas shortfalls and ­electricity supply shortfalls threatening NSW, Victoria and South Australia from the summer of 2018-19 onwards.

Turnbull’s task at next week’s meeting is to secure emergency pledges from companies to increase supply in the near term. “They’ve been put on notice,” Turnbull said of the gas companies. “I’ll be demanding from them their explanation as to how they’re going to deliver security for their customers.”

This followed a warning from the Australian Energy Market Operator that, in effect, there is insufficient gas in production to meet demand over the next several years. AEMO says “strategic national planning of gas developments has never been more critical for maintaining domestic energy supply adequacy across both gas and electricity sectors.”

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says: “Without action on gas there will be massive demand destruction that will claim thousands of jobs. High gas prices and tight supply are at the heart of Australia’s unfolding energy crisis. Gas users are being offered prices three times higher than their last contract and five times the historic average, leading them to rethink planned investments. Businesses that were looking to return production from China are now considering further offshoring.”

Gas was supposed to be the essential baseload substitute for declining coal. But an epic ideological blunder for which Australia pays a high price was the decision by the green and environmental lobbies to cut gas out of the plan in favour of their fixation on renewables. This anti-gas campaign was lethal, had multiple dimensions, exploited the arrogant stupidity of the industry and tapped into farmer discontent.

The reality has come home — relying on renewables, as South Australia does, means that the system needs baseload back-up from gas. The political class, completely unaware of the technical and engineering aspect, has been taught a stark lesson. The message is: if you want renewables, then you want gas. The two fit together.

The gas problem springs from three factors — the ludicrous, destructive moratoriums on gas exploration and development in the states, notably NSW and Victoria; the higher costs for gas development; and the consequences of our massive liquefied natural gas exports, with Australia now exporting two-thirds of the gas it produces, leading to higher parity pricing.

AEMO raised the option of LNG exporters redirecting gas to the domestic market. The left will beat the drum for a gas reservation policy. Turnbull says all measures will be considered but warns of sovereign risk in imposing gas reservation policy, given binding contracts and investment decisions.

But Frydenberg has welcomed as “creative” and worthy of consideration the Queensland government’s recent decision on a tenement in which companies can invest, with provision for domestic market gas. Turnbull and Frydenberg are going to hold the feet of the states to the fire — they need to fix their own mess.

The irony is that Australia has massive gas reserves. It is set to become the world’s biggest LNG exporter but is now being poleaxed on a gross supply-demand gas imbalance. AEMO warns in its report that “holistic planning” across the entire energy supply chain is now imperative. Its suggestions for immediate action include a lift in coal-fired generation, higher gas production, the option of LNG producers redirecting a “small portion” of their export production for domestic use, and greater battery storage.

The long run demands a new approach to exploration and development. The craziness of energy policy is exemplified by the Victorian Labor government, with Frydenberg saying: “(Premier) Daniel Andrews has a real case to answer here. He’s got a 40 per cent renewable energy target, he tripled the royalties on coal which in part has led to the closure of ­Hazelwood and now he’s got a moratorium on onshore gas developments. So I don’t know where he expects Victorians … to get their power from.”

The Turnbull government believes the impact of coal-fired Hazelwood’s closure has been underestimated. It provided about 20 per cent of Victoria’s baseload power and is also important to South Australia. The AEMO report says it was assumed that other sources, including gas, will substitute for Hazelwood, yet the future for gas is “highly uncertain.”

But Labor, courtesy of Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen, looks smart. In the face of much criticism, it embraced a national interest test at the last election in which new gas projects would be assessed according to domestic market needs in the national interest. The only conclusion is that the government misread the full impact on the domestic market of the massive LNG export sector.

Turnbull told the Australian Financial Review summit this week that his government’s three core goals remained energy security, affordability and meeting the Paris emissions reduction targets. He continued to rule out a market-oriented emissions intensity scheme that was rejected late last year essentially on political grounds, but which is now backed by a near consensus of interest groups as the main mechanism for emissions reductions.

This looms as a significant political problem for Turnbull. Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler had a field day this week, pointing out that a who’s who of stakeholders now supported Lab­or’s stance on an EIS, including the National Farmers Federation, AGL, EnergyAustralia, BHP, Origin Energy, the Australian Energy Council, the CSIRO, Frontier Economics and most state governments. “This is the scheme that will get investment going again to replace our ageing electricity infrastructure,” he said. “There is an investment strike on right now.”

The stakes are high surrounding the final report into the energy system by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel. This is a report to the Council of Australian Governments. Its recommended position on the EIS will shape the future of the policy and political debate on emissions reductions and achieving the Paris targets.

The government now pushes the idea of a cleaner, efficient coal-fired power station — but there is little financial appetite for such a venture that would have a 50-year life, subject to high risk from conflicting political positions and financial uncertainties. The Australian Energy Council’s head Matthew Warren has dismissed the viability of such a project: “Plans for expansions to coal-fired power stations have been basically shelved over the past decade. We’re now looking at gas and renewables as the mainstay of investments for us, at least for the next 10 to 20 years.”

On renewables, the Turnbull government has made progress on the political and policy risks flowing from Labor’s 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030. The Opposition Leader has walked away from his April 2016 policy to legislate this goal while retaining the commitment overall. There is growing recognition that individual state renewable energy targets should be abolished.

At the West Australian election the Labor Party abandoned its plan for a 50 per cent RET. Coalition oppositions in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland now reject the idea of state targets, opening the way for aggressive political campaigns on the consequences of ambitious renewables targets.

BHP Billiton chief Andrew Mackenzie says: “We have lost $US100 million in this period because of the intermittency of power in South Australia and also we are facing more expensive electricity.” BlueScope’s chief Paul O’Malley says Australia’s mistake had been to focus “on renewables first and everything else second”, adding that “if we continue to talk that way, there will be more blackouts and there will be more jobs leaving Australia”.

While Labor remains pledged to the 50 per cent renewable concept, this debate has got a long way to run. Labor remains in denial about the significance of the South Australian blackouts. As Frydenberg has said, this shows “the vulnerability of a jurisdiction that relies too heavily on intermittent sources of generation such as wind and solar without the necessary storage and back-up”.

The pro-renewables cult has much traction in Australia — as revealed by polls — but the price, reliability and security costs have now come into play. Frydenberg has helped to establish in the public mind that there is a price to pay, and that the power system should not become the zone for “experiments”, as happened in South Australia. For Labor, however, this issue transcends policy because it has a non-negotiable need to protect its left flank from the Greens. For electoral reasons, Labor cannot surrender the “renewables position” to the Greens.

At the same time, there is no prospect of Turnbull and Frydenberg succumbing to the demands of their conservative wing and cutting their own 23.5 per cent renewables target. Most of the industry lobbies want the target kept, given long-run investment needs, and the government points to the necessity of achieving its Paris emissions commitments.

Turnbull argues, again, that state governments have failed, saying he is the first head of government to put storage on the agenda. “If you have a large amount of variable renewable energy, wind and solar, isn’t it obvious that you need storage?” he said at the AFR business summit. “Isn’t it blindingly obvious that you do?”

Australia’s energy grid is being disrupted by consumer preferences, new technology, high costs, ill-judged and ideological govern­ment interventions and politics preceding policy. Every government, federal and state, is now caught up in the mire. No solution is possible short of a degree of commonwealth-state concord, not yet evident. Meanwhile, investment in the sector is too high-risk and the upshot is an “enduring dysfunction” in the system.

It has become a template for the Australian disease — the polarisation of politics that makes agreement among governments and in the national parliament a forlorn project. The bottom line is obvious: politics has been given priority for too long and both sides carry much blame. The crisis has now been called — it is a test for the politicians, the companies and all stakeholders.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG commemorates recently deceased cartoonist Bill Leak and his many battles with political correctness





The Justice Project to uncover systemic flaws in legal redress   
         
Hah! Equal access to law is a chimera.  The middle classes will always be unable to afford it.  If you tried to set up a Legibank as well as a Medibank, the costs would make Medibank look cheap

The Law Council has announced that it is conducting a comprehensive national review into the impediments to justice in Australia, focusing on those facing significant social and economic disadvantage in our community.

The Justice Project will uncover systemic flaws and ensure the path towards equal access to justice is clearly mapped-out. It will report its findings by the end of November this year.

A Steering Committee of eminent Australians, chaired by The Hon Robert French AC, former Chief Justice of the High Court, will oversee the Project.

The President of the Law Council of Australia, Fiona McLeod SC, said that “access to justice is a bedrock principle for our society and a means of protecting, promoting and defending the rule of law and human rights of all people. It is a core tenet of our modern democracy, yet unfortunately there are many who are missing out.

“A person’s formal right to justice and equal treatment before the law is of no value if he or she cannot effectively access the legal system or secure protection of basic rights,” Ms McLeod said.

“Whether it is the pressures upon court resourcing and long backlogs, lack of access to legal advice or representation, or laws and practices that compound unfairness, the inequity experienced by many can have a devastating impact upon their lives.”

The Justice Project will inform its work with a review of the existing research on access to justice issues and explore what is working and why, with constructive, informed recommendations for future action. The Project will seek submissions and involve consultation with individuals and organisations with on the ground experience and focus on case studies that illuminate the key impediments and solutions.

“I am delighted that former High Court Chief Justice Robert French AC, has agreed to chair the Steering Committee, and very grateful for the contribution of our expert Committee members,” Ms McLeod said.

“The review will investigate how these issues affect key groups such as: the elderly, young people, those living in remote areas, the homeless and marginalised and the many in our community who have experienced crisis in their lives, are exploited or face significant discrimination.

“This is a significant undertaking to examine critical issues that need to be urgently addressed.

“We need to ask ourselves whether our idea of Australia as a free and open society, committed to the fair-go, stands up to scrutiny when it comes to access to justice. At the moment this is a very difficult question to answer,” Ms McLeod said.

Media release




Fake News: Whipping up a media frenzy over bizarre “records” before they occur

Australia’s “leading climate scientists” can’t predict the climate but they are very good PR operatives. Here in Perth we’ve had a cool year — for the last twelve months it’s been nearly a whole degree cooler than the average for the last 20 years.

But last weekend in Perth, news stories told us we’d had an “autumn stinker” and wait for it, we might get Perth’s second hottest first eight days of March. Call that a HFEDOM record and write in the Guinness Book of records. It’s a permutation “record” almost as important as the longest distance run by a man holding a table in his teeth. Except it’s not even a record, it’s a news story about a record that “might happen”, but didn’t.

Let’s name Neil Bennett (BOM) and Will Steffen (ANU) as the Propaganda-in-Chiefs dumping meaningless climate-trivia on the people in order to generate FEAR and screw more money from the public.

Straight from the New Climate PRAVDA Manual:

Invent contrived trivial permutations in order to use the word “record”

Don’t bother waiting for real data, use forecasts

If record includes the word “cool”, “cooler”, or “cold”, send to trash.

When wrong, crickets.

So science serves its purpose as a tax revenue generator and source of support for parasitic industries that need government money and government propaganda to keep them alive. (Yes, I’m talking about renewable energy).

The public is hammered with record hot stories, even before they’ve happened in this case, yet there are no BoM announcements or media stories detailing WA’s remarkable run of well below average temps since about April last year.

Last week the Climate Council report on summer mentioned Perth had record rainfall and the second hottest December day on record at 42.4C on 21 December, but they didn’t mention 9 February when Perth had by far its coldest February maximum daily temp since records began in 1897, smashing the previous record by a whopping 1.6C.     

More HERE 





Refugees told they will have to learn English if they want to keep their welfare payments

Refugees may be forced to learn English if they want to keep their welfare payments in a drastic move suggested by a migrant support group.

The Southern Migrant and Refugee Centre (SMRC) has proposed removing 'futile activity testing' and instead linking welfare payments to refugee's presence at English classes, The Daily Telegraph reported.

After arriving in Australia, refugees receive welfare for 13 weeks before they must find work or study - SMRC claims this means refugees often gave up English lessons in case they lose their payments.

Poor English skills can often prevent new arrivals, especially young people, from settling into the Australian community Liberal MP Jason Wood said. 'It is very apparent that the lack of English on arrivals for new migrants makes it extremely difficult,' Mr Wood said. 'Even though 510 hours of English is provided by government, evidence suggests most new arrivals only access about 340 hours.'

Mr Wood is currently a month into a joint parliamentary committee hearing looking in to services for refugees arriving on Australian shores.

For acting chief executive of SMRC Despina Haralambopoulos removing the activity test was an important step. 'The activity test takes away from their capacity to attend English language classes,' Ms Haralambopoulos told the Daily Telegraph.

SOURCE





   
PM pushes for childcare ban for unvaccinated children

Vital to protect newborns

Unvaccinated children will not be allowed into childcare centres or preschool under a tough new proposal put forward by the federal government.

Malcolm Turnbull has written to state and territory leaders demanding they introduce nationally consistent laws to protect children and has vowed to take the policy to the next Council of Australian Governments (COAG), according to The Sunday Telegraph.

The Prime Minister said all parents deserved to know their children were safe when they dropped them off at daycare or preschool.

“All of us desperately want to protect our children and our grandchildren and other people’s children too,” Mr Turnbull told The Telegraph. “If you are don’t vaccinate your child you are not just putting their own life at risk, but you are putting everyone else’s children at risk.”

Children don’t need to be immunised to enrol at daycare in the ACT, SA, WA, Tasmania or the Northern Territory although in NSW, Victoria and Queensland children must be fully immunised or on an approved catch-up program unless an official objection has been lodged.

In his letter to state and territory leaders, Mr Turnbull writes: “At our next COAG meeting I propose we agree that all jurisdictions implement legislation that excludes children who are not vaccinated from attending childcare or preschool, unless they have a medical exemption.

“Vaccination objection is not a valid exemption. We must give parents the confidence that their children will be safe when they attend childcare or preschool. “Parents must understand that if their child is not vaccinated they will be refused attendance or enrolment.”

Last week, Pauline Hanson triggered a furious backlash when she advised parents to “investigate” where to vaccinate their children. The One Nation leader was later forced to retract her remarks after she told ABC’s Insiders program that the government’s no jab, no pay policy was a “dictatorship” and parents should do their own research into vaccinating their child.

Mr Turnbull said leaders must present a united front against the anti-vaccination movement. “It’s not one of those things where you say ‘I am making my own decision, it’s got nothing to do with anybody else,” he said. “It impacts on everybody.”

Bill Shorten back the plan but urged the prime minister to undertake a national educational campaign on the issue.

Mr Shorten applauded Mr Turnbull for standing up to the anti-vaccination brigade, saying he had already written to the prime minister calling for a national campaign. “I think we need to start educating parents ... as opposed to some of the crazier views they can read on the internet,” Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government’s tough “no jab, no pay” policy of withholding family payments to parents of unvaccinated children is being supplemented by an “equally tough” policy of “no jab, no play”.

“We want to work with all of the states and I’m very confident that they’ll come on board,” he told the Seven Network.  “Ultimately it’s about protecting kids against horrendous illnesses that are agonising and potentially in some cases tragic.”

Senior Labor MP Mark Butler said there had been some very damaging public commentary led by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and now the major parties had a responsibility to get the issue back on track. “The AMA says that next to clean water, this is probably the most important public health measure that a country can have,” Mr Butler told ABC TV.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Scientists alarmed after Great Barrier Reef is hit by a SECOND year of coral bleaching

Note that both the GBRMPA and AIMS below have NOT attributed the event to global warming.  Only ratbag outfits like Greenpeace and WWF have done that.  And there is a reason for that circumspection. Cape Grim tells us that CO2 levels have been plateaued on 401ppm since last July (midwinter)  So anything that has happened in the recent summer is NOT due to a rise in CO2.  And NASA/GISS tell us that the December global temperature anomaly is back to .79 -- exactly where it was in 2014 before the recent El Nino event that covered the second half of 2015 and most of 2016.  So there has been no global warming in the recent Southern summer and there was no CO2 rise to cause anything anywhere anyway.  The claim that this summer's bleaching was an effect of global warming is a complete crock for both reasons.  The data could not be clearer on that


Scientists in Australia have revealed unprecedented damage to the Great Barrier Reef, warning 'we are entering uncharted territory'.

Surveys have shown the coral reef is entering its second year of year bleaching for the first time.

Bleaching happens when algae that lives in the coral is expelled due to stress caused by extreme changes in temperatures, turning the coral white and putting it at risk of dying.

The first aerial survey of 2017 has found shocking levels of bleaching in the central part of the reef, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said.

Marine Park Authority director of reef recovery Dr David Wachenfeld said: 'Mass bleaching is occurring on the Great Barrier Reef for the second consecutive year.

'How this event unfolds will depend very much on local weather conditions over the next few weeks.'

He said not all bleached coral would die, and last year revealed bleaching and mortality could be highly variable across the vast marine park, a World Heritage Site which covers an area larger than Italy.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest collection of coral reefs, with 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 mollusc species, and is the habitat of wildlife such as the dugong – sea cow – and the large green turtle.

Conditions on the reef are part of a global coral bleaching event over the past two years, as a result of unusually warm ocean temperatures due to climate change and a strong El Nino weather phenomenon which pushes temperatures up further.

Dr Neal Cantin, from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), said the recurrence of widespread coral bleaching in back-to-back summers indicated there was not enough time since 2016's extreme heat event for the corals to fully recover.

'We are seeing a decrease in the stress tolerance of these corals,' he said. 'This is the first time the Great Barrier Reef has not had a few years between bleaching events to recover.

'Many coral species appear to be more susceptible to bleaching after more than 12 months of sustained above-average ocean temperatures. 'We are now entering uncharted territory.'

John Tanzer, from WWF International, said: 'What is unfolding before our very eyes is the starkest evidence that climate change is already wreaking havoc on the ocean.

'Coral reefs are a beloved natural wonder but less appreciated is that they also directly support the jobs, livelihoods and food supplies of many millions of people. What will happen to these people as large areas of coral die?'

He called for a major lift in action to bring down carbon emissions, and scaled efforts to reduce local pressures on reefs so they have the best chance of withstanding climate change.

Brett Monroe Garner, a conservation photographer and marine biologist documenting the bleaching with Greenpeace, said: 'I've been photographing this area of the reef for several years now and what we're seeing is unprecedented.

'Just a few months ago, these corals were full of colour and life. Now, everywhere you look is white. The corals aren't getting the chance to bounce back from last year's bleaching event. If this is the new normal, we're in trouble.'

SOURCE





Students at Sydney boys' high 'at high risk of Islamic radicalisation' after the school's top student fled to Syria to join ISIS

Students at a boys' high school were 'at high risk of radicalisation' because one of the top pupils fled to Syria to join Islamic state after he graduated.

Parents have told The Australian students at Canterbury Boys High School in southwest Sydney began the government-funded anti-radicalisation program last year - after their 2013 dux Samir Atwani joined Islamic State.

Punchbowl Boys High School was also reportedly identified as needing the specialist program, but the school refused and principal Chris Griffiths with his deputy Joumana Dennaoui were later dismissed.

The Education Department would not confirm which schools were in the program, saying it would breach privacy and operational rules.

Another spokesperson for the department had said the program, School Communities Working Together, was not a 'deradicalisation program' - but a 'proactive program designed to support students'.

The Education Department said it had conducted an 'extensive appraisal of the school's policies, procedures and management'.

The investigation was prompted by its refusal to participate in School Community Working Together, department boss Mark Scott said.

Staff made a series of serious complaints in 2016.

Women teachers had been prevented from participating in official events such as the Year 12 graduation ceremony, it was alleged.

Daily Mail Australia has approached Canterbury Boys High School and the Department of Education for comment.

SOURCE






Penalty rates a challenge for business

Simon Cowan

The government's response to the Fair Work Commission's decision on penalty rates has been weak. The government has appeared indecisive, yet will wear opprobrium for supporting the decision anyway.

That the unions and Labor would try and mount a campaign against these changes was one of the most predictable things in the world: unions in particular long for another relevance boost like the one they received after Workchoices. The government should have had their response prepared.

And to be clear, the penalty rate cut is not merely a whim of the Fair Work Commission: a lot of work has been done over a number of years to build the economic case for the cut -- not the least by the Productivity Commission. As the CIS has noted before in a number of reports, this change is a good one for the economy.

Yet the political case, the public case, must be made for the changes -- not just the economic one. Government has failed to take the lead here, but they are not alone in failing to act. Business has been even weaker in prosecuting the case for change.

The Liberal party has long despaired that business does not actively campaign the way unions do. By and large, business is correct to stay out of politics -- too many businesses to count have suffered financially from taking political positions.

Yet this reticence by business has now gone far beyond staying on the political sidelines. Business is not defending itself against increasingly aggressive attacks by the left. Business was barely heard in supporting positive changes to company taxation and business leaders are again missing in the fight to cut penalty rates.

The business community is supposedly white hot with anger over the failure of Turnbull to prosecute the case for penalty rate cuts. I say supposedly because you would never actually know that from the debate on the issue.

Businesses have tried making themselves invisible in politics and they have tried appeasing the left by embracing 'corporate social responsibility'. Neither approach has placated the politics of envy. Maybe it's time they start fighting for what they believe in.

SOURCE





‘Thousands’ now backing Bernardi

Less than a month after Cory Bernardi quit the Coalition to form his own ultra-conservative party, his membership list is equal to half the number of Liberal Party members in South Australia and two-thirds of ALP members.

The former South Australian Liberal Party senator yesterday formally applied to register his Australian Conservatives.

In his application to the Australian Electoral Commission, Senator Bernardi said his party stood for limited government, personal responsibility, free enterprise and civil society.

Senator Bernardi told the South Australian Press Club yesterday that plans to run candidates at the next state election, due on March 17 next year, were a “work in progress”.

“There are tens of thousands of people who have registered their interest ... I know many of those people are members of other political parties as well, because they are telling us, and there are also thousands upon thousands of people who have paid to become members of Australian Conservatives,” Senator Bernardi said.

“In South Australia, we already have one half the number of members in the Liberal Party, which is pretty good after a month, and about two-thirds of what the Labor Party has, and that’s just in this state. So we are building from a very strong position.”

Contrasting today’s political reality with the Howard era, ­Senator Bernardi said “we’ve had a lost decade of political non-achievement”.

Australian Conservatives represented “a path forward where principles are put before politics and where policies are more important than personalities”.

Senator Bernardi outlined a seven-point plan to “deliver savings, transparency and accountability”. This included no retirement benefits for MPs until they reached preservation age and that benefits of prime ministerial office be taken only after four years were served.

Senator Bernardi said he would introduce a motion on the resumption of parliament for a pay freeze on MPs’ wages until the budget was returned to surplus. Political donations should come only from individuals and be capped, with above the tax-­deductible threshold amounts disclosed in “real time”.

He warned that there was a “co-ordinated global movement, funded by billionaire activists, to influence local politics”.

All MPs and their offices, along with government agencies and departments, should disclose their spending over a nominal level in a publicly searchable national database, he said.

He said he wanted to reduce duplication of federal and state responsibilities and reform the Senate so the executive government was drawn solely from the House of Representatives to “restore the Senate to its primary role as a house of review”.

Senator Bernardi also proposed term limits for all politicians so that “political service would once again become a public service rather than a political career”.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

NSW selective schools cater to the brightest students -- Asians

Amusing.  An Asian writer below is complaining that Asian students ace tests of academic ability.  So much so that schools for the gifted are dominated by Asian students.  How could it be otherwise?  East Asians simply have markedly higher average IQs.  People are just going to have to cope with that.

It's true that Asians "cram" a lot and thus get top exam results but such cramming will not help bring higher scores on an admissions test -- which will largely be an IQ test.

In both Sydney and Melbourne, Asian enrolments make up more than 80 per cent of the school community in virtually all selective schools.


In 2016, selective schools made up eight of the top 10 schools in the Higher School Certificate  leaderboard. This is not surprising, as selective schools are government schools designed to cater for gifted and talented students with superior academic ability and high classroom performance.

Unlike other government schools, they are unzoned, so students can apply regardless of where they live.

But these public schools are increasingly bastions of inequality, rather than simply havens for the gifted and talented.

Figures from the government’s MySchool website show that in NSW, selective high schools are among the most socio-educationally advantaged in the state, surpassing even prestigious private schools.

The levels of advantage within selective schools are perhaps even more stark when we compare the students falling within the top quarter of socio-educational advantage (Q1) with those in the bottom quarter (Q4).

In 2015, an average of 74 per cent of students in Sydney’s selective schools were drawn from the most advantaged quarter, compared to only 2 per cent from the bottom quarter.

More than half (56 per cent) of Sydney’s selective schools had no students at all from the lowest quarter in 2015.

What’s more, this inequality has grown noticeably in just five years, with 2010 figures showing a (slightly) more balanced distribution.

On average 60 per cent of selective school students came from the highest quarter, while 9 per cent were from the lowest.

There are signs that other states are moving towards the NSW model. Victoria now has four selective schools, whose enrolments are similarly polarised, though not to the same extent as in NSW.

As public schools designed to cater for gifted and talented students, selective schools should be accessible to high achievers regardless of family background.

The MySchool figures raise serious questions about how accessible or meritocratic selective schools really are. They have become more inaccessible in recent years, almost completely so to the most disadvantaged groups.

Entry to selective schools is becoming increasingly competitive, with growing evidence that success is reliant on months or years of training through academic tutoring centres. Sometimes this begins in early primary school.

In my research with students and families in selective schools in Sydney, interviewees explained that many tutoring centres offered programs specifically focused on the selective schools test.

This kind of academic tutoring, designed solely to improve students’ test-taking skills, is quite a different phenomenon to the traditional tutoring undertaken by those who might be struggling in a particular subject area.

Academic tutoring is particularly popular among east and south Asian migrants to Australia, who are often accustomed to the practice in their home countries.

As a result, selective schools, as well as being increasingly dominated by the socially advantaged, are also now dominated by students from Language Backgrounds Other Than English.

In both Sydney and Melbourne, these enrolments make up more than 80 per cent of the school community in virtually all selective schools. At James Ruse, the figure was 97 per cent in 2015. I have previously analysed some of the social implications of this ethnic imbalance, from self-segregation in the playground to hostility from Anglo-Australian parents who accuse Asian-Australians of “gaming the system”.

The demographic profile of selective schools therefore reflects Australia’s skilled migration policy, which overwhelmingly selects highly educated, professional migrants.

These middle-class migrants, keen to see their kids do well, but also anxious about their place in a new society, have sometimes been unfairly demonised as “tiger parents”. But their behaviour is a logical response to Australian education policies that increasingly emphasise competition and schooling hierarchies.

Ultimately, most students sitting for the selective schools test this week will be unsuccessful in securing a place. And based on current trends, we can confidently predict who will be successful: the majority will come from the most advantaged groups in our society, often from Asian migrant families. Virtually none will be from the most disadvantaged groups.

Selective schools were set up to provide opportunities to the gifted and talented, not just the wealthy, gifted and talented.

SOURCE





Pick your statistic:  Was recent weather unusually hot?

The authors below have picked statistics that appear to show that recent times in Australia were unusually hot.  As with most Green/Left claims, the key is to look at what they did NOT say.  And it stands out like dog's balls what they have done.  They have discussed summer only.  What about other recent seasons?   Were they unusually hot too?  They probably were in parts but it's the average that matters and the BoM tells us that 2016 was only the 4th hottest year for Australia.  So overall, there is nothing to get heated about.  It's just the usual dishonest propaganda below


​Scientists have confirmed what anyone who lived through the past summer knows to be true - climate change is driving hotter and longer summers that are becoming "the new normal", according to scientists, with worse to come unless tough decisions are made.

The summer of 2016/17 produced not only Sydney's hottest summer on record, Canberra's hottest summer for daytime temperatures and Brisbane's hottest summer in terms of mean temperature, but Queensland's second hottest summer on record and the hottest summer temperatures on record for almost 45 per cent of NSW.

Scientists have called it "the angry summer" as more than 205 records were broken in just 90 days, according to a new report from the Climate Council.

"We are into the latter half of the critical decade, and temperatures are continuing to increase and extreme weather events are worsening. Climate change is increasing the frequency, duration and intensity of heatwaves and warm spells. Hot days and heatwaves, like those experienced in the 2016/17 angry summer, are becoming the new normal, and even more extreme heat is on the way in future unless rapid and deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are achieved around the world," the report warned.

The reports authors, which include Professor Will Steffen, the inaugural director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, warned that Australia will continue to warm up throughout the 21st century and experience increasingly severe impacts.

SOURCE







The ‘absurdity’ of Australia facing a natural gas shortage

It's absurd all right.  But the chief absurdity is that NSW is sitting on huge reserves of gas but will not let anybody drill for it.  Queensland drills for it.  Why not NSW next door?

THERE are warnings today our gas supply could soon fall short, forcing Aussies to swelter through summer. But an expert says it’s “a total failure” we’re in this position.

The idea of a shortage in Australia — the largest gas exporter in the world — is an “absurdity”, according to energy analyst Bruce Robertson of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

“We are swimming in gas, the idea that we cannot provide for our own population is just a total failure of our energy policy,” Mr Robertson told news.com.au.

The Australian Energy Market Operator on Thursday warned of future power supply shortfalls, which could cause blackouts in South Australia, NSW and Victoria unless gas production is boosted and supplied to electricity generators.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will hold meetings with the chief executives of east coast gas companies soon to address what he’s labelled as an “energy crisis”, laying the blame on state governments for not allowing the development of gas resources.

“We are facing an energy crisis in Australia because of these restrictions on gas,” he said in Sydney on Thursday.

But Mr Robertson disagreed and said the problems Australia was facing were due to companies sitting on gas reserves and not releasing enough of their product.

“There’s plenty of gas around, even on the east coast,” he said.

”Companies are sitting on permits, not developing them and restricting supply so they can make a lot of money.”

It’s created the bizarre situation that sees Australian gas being sold in Japan for a wholesale price that is cheaper than the price it’s available for in Australia.

This is despite the fact it costs an estimated $3.70 a gigajoule more for the gas to be shipped there.

Mr Robertson blamed state and federal governments for failing to develop a proper energy policy in Australia to avoid these problems, despite being warned as far back as 2009 that this could happen.

Part of the problem dates back to the approval of three export terminals in the Queensland port town of Gladstone, which allowed companies on the east coast to ship their gas overseas for the first time.

Mr Robertson said a government report Blueprint for Queensland’s LNG Industry published in August 2009 noted that allowing gas to be converted from coal seam gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export, might not deliver enough gas for domestic use.

It advised the Queensland Government, under the leadership of Labor’s Anna Bligh at the time, to ensure there was enough gas available to met domestic demand. It listed options including holding back production in certain areas to supply Australia’s needs.

“There is a real problem that the availability of gas in the ground may not translate into gas supplied to the domestic market,” the paper stated.

Despite this potential problem being flagged, Mr Robertson said the government took a “cavalier” attitude of pushing forward with the project.

He said any other country that allowed a company to dig up its resources and profit from this, would also have ensured its own domestic supply was covered.

“Australia is unique in its sheer stupidity in allowing companies to exploit our resources and not insist they provide for our domestic market,” he said. “We are uniquely stupid.”
The Santos liquefied natural gas plant in Gladstone, Queensland has enabled companies to ship gas from the east coast of Australia overseas. Picture supplied by Santos

The Santos liquefied natural gas plant in Gladstone, Queensland has enabled companies to ship gas from the east coast of Australia overseas. Picture supplied by SantosSource:Supplied

CAN WE FIX THIS?

Mr Robertson said there needed to be transparency around how much gas could be produced by existing reserves, something that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also noted was lacking in its 2016 report.

The ACCC found gas was being removed from the Australian market and shipped overseas instead, leading to uncertainty about future gas supply on the east coast.

Suppliers had also taken advantage of this uncertainty to increase prices.

Mr Robertson said a global glut of gas, which is predicted to continue until 2030, had added to this because companies were under more pressure to make money domestically.

This is helped by the fact there is little competition in Australia so companies can charge higher prices locally.

“The market on the east coast is controlled by a cartel of producers and is restricting supply to the domestic market to drive up the price, and they’ve been very successful at doing this,” he said.

Mr Robertson said this problem could be solved, but required political will to crackdown on the cartel behaviour and force companies to provide information about how much gas they could actually provide.

“The government has to step in and it has to step in forcefully, to ensure the national interest,” he said.

While there’s much discussion of an energy crisis in Australia at the moment, Mr Robertson said it was going to get a whole lot worse.

“People will get made redundant, people will lose their jobs, there will be blackouts. All these things will happen because the government’s let a cartel run riot,” he said.

“The government has got to act and it’s not and there’s no sign they will. And we’ll bumble on in an energy policy void.”

SOURCE






'I was wrong': Pauline Hanson backs down on anti-vaccination comments - after calling government's no jab no play policy a 'dictatorship'

Pauline Hanson has apologised for likening a federal vaccination policy to a dictatorship after previously insisting there was a test for immunisation allergies.

The One Nation leader earned a rebuke from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and doctors on Sunday when she slammed the 'no jab, no pay' policy where family payments of up to $15,000 a year are withheld if parents fail to have their kids immunised.

But on Thursday the Queensland senator offered an apology, explaining she had wrongly believed there was a test that could indicate if a child was allergic to vaccinations.

'Yes, I do apologise if that be the case, I am wrong, alright,' Senator Hanson told Sunrise presenter David Koch  on Thursday. 'I was of the opinion, that I did read, that that was the case. Apparently it's not. 'I have heard a couple of doctors have said that there is no test.'

On Sunday Senator Hanson, whose four children were vaccinated, hit back at ABC Insiders presenter Barrie Cassidy for suggesting vaccinations saved lives.  'That's a dictatorship and I think people have a right to investigate themselves,' she said. 'I hear from so many parents, where are their rights?'

Senator Hanson described the 'no jab, no pay' policy introduced by Tony Abbott's government as an affront to civil liberties.

'What I don't like about it is the blackmailing that's happening with the government - don't do that to people,' the Queensland senator said.

The Prime Minister rebuked her on the same day. 'It is a vital health objective to ensure that everybody is vaccinated,' Mr Turnbull told reporters.

'If parents choose not to vaccinate their children, they are putting their children's health at risk and every other person's children's health at risk too.'

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Sexism is now compulsory?

There is a default assumption that bias in favour of females is not only OK but is actually required

A female principal at a co-educational public school has defended her decision to appoint two boys as head prefects, saying the decision was based on 'merit, not gender'.

Principal Lea Fairfoul-Hucheon decided to ditch the standard custom of appointing a head boy and head girl to the roles at Woodvale Secondary College in Perth, Western Australia.

But speaking ahead of International Women's Day, Chris Sutherland, CEO of Gender Equity, says that the school's judgement of merit may be flawed.

'Merit is a very subjective method. Most organisations say they promote on merit and yet the majority of key roles in nearly all organisations are men, which suggests that something is amiss in the process,' he told The West Australian. 

'I think it doesn't make sense that you would appoint two male heads,' he said.

'It makes far better sense that we should be choosing one boy and one girl to represent the interests and diversity of the school.'

Ms Fairfoul-Hucheon said the decision was based on a student's record of service at school, their school history, interviews, speeches and votes from staff and students.

'The head prefects for 2017 were selected through a nomination and merit selection process and our strongest applicants were two males which is why they were appointed,' she told Daily Mail Australia. 

Despite the criticism they have received, Woodvale Secondary College say both staff and students are happy with the decision, and no formal complaints over the decision have been filed.

'There is a real focus at the school on hearing the voices of the students... and they are happy with the outcome,' Mrs Fairfoul-Hutcheon told Daily Mail Australia. 

It is the first time the school has had two boys fill the prestigious title. 'We have a total of 24 prefects at the school from Years 7-12, 16 of whom are females,' the principal said.

'Not that it matters because they were offered these leadership positions on their merits — and they are all doing a fantastic job,' she added.

SOURCE





Aggressive Leftist government in Victoria on the way out

Interestingly, the slide seems to be because of their corruption, not their policies.  Leftist politicians are notoriously susceptible to money temptations

The Herald Sun has obtained a ReachTEL poll, the first commissioned since an expenses scandal claimed the scalps of the Speaker and deputy speaker, showing that Labor now trails the Coalition 46 to 54 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

The ALP’s statewide primary vote has plummeted to 30.3 per cent, according to the poll.

And Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has overtaken Mr Andrews as preferred premier, 34.7 per cent to 29.6 per cent.

If these voting intentions were replicated at next year’s election, the ALP would lose up to 18 seats, including Mr Andrews’, his deputy James Merlino’s, and a swag of seats along the Frankston rail line.

The poll of 1268 Victorians was conducted on March 2 — a few days after Speaker Telmo Languiller and deputy speaker Don Nardella resigned over their use of taxpayer-funded perks.

Mr Andrews this morning brushed off the figures claiming it was “internal Liberal Party polling” and said it was “clear” where the figures had come from.

Despite refusing to comment on the results he did accept “community expectations have not been met” in regards to the entitlement scandal and promised there would be sweeping changes to the rules. “What is of concern to all of us is the rules (on the second residence allowance) are fundamentally changed.”

Opposition leader Matthew Guy said the poll was not done by the Liberal Party and has “got nothing to do” with them.

One senior source said the polling result for the government was an absolute “disaster”.

The results will send shockwaves through the state Labor caucus, which was rocked on Tuesday by Mr Nardella’s resignation from the parliamentary party in disgrace after he refused the Premier’s demands that he repay $100,000 he claimed from taxpayers while living in the country.

An angry Mr Nardella told reporters at parliament to “f--- off” and “get f---ed”.

Mr Languiller, the MP for Tarneit and the former Speaker, also claimed the controversial “second residence” allowance while living in Queenscliff last year. But he has promised to repay the almost $40,000 claimed.

In just two years the government has lost three ministers, a Speaker, and a deputy speaker, who must now sit as an independent.

Mr Guy said the poll showed “a competitive race in Victoria” but that there was a long way to go before the election. “The two-party preferred is way ahead for the Coalition but let’s keep our feet on the ground. It’s one poll,” he said. “It’s anyone’s game.”

A previous ReachTEL poll conducted by Fairfax in September had Labor holding a 51-49 two-party preferred lead, despite its primary vote plunging from 38 per cent at the 2014 election to 34.6 per cent.

The September survey also found that 50 per cent of people thought the premier was too close to unions, after he gave in to United Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall’s demands over an enterprise bargaining agreement for the Country Fire Authority.

The March 2 poll found that 42 per cent of people think the government’s relationship with Mr Marshall is “too close”, 14 per cent think it’s “about right” and 9.5 per cent think it’s “not close enough”.

SOURCE






Muslim school: Student assault on teacher not reported to police

A student at a Sydney high school that has refused to take part in a deradicalisation program physically assaulted and threatened a teacher last year but the incident went unreported to police, an investigation has uncovered.

NSW Education Department head Mark Scott confirmed yesterday that the school’s ongoing reluctance to implement the state-funded deradicalisation program provided the catalyst for the investigation that culminated in last week’s shock removal of the principal and deputy principal.

The School Communities Working Together program — unveiled in November 2015 in the wake of the Parramatta terror attack in which police worker Curtis Cheng died — was designed to counter violent extremism and anti-social behaviour in schools by providing training and support to help identify students at risk.

It involved schools working closely with community leaders and local police and set out a protocol for schools to report incidents of violent extremist behaviour to the Education Department and police.

“The school was reluctant to have that program take place; they felt it was not necessary,” Mr Scott told 2GB radio yesterday morning. “So at the end of term four we made the determination at a senior level that we really wanted an appraisal of that school.”

The Australian understands that the school’s lack of co-­operation was a significant concern to senior departmental staff, given that a previous audit of its lunchtime prayer group — carried out as part of a statewide audit prompted by revelations that extremist interpretations of Islam were being preached within Epping Boys High School — showed up several red flags, including the failure of organisers to take a roll-call.

Punchbowl, in Sydney’s southwest, has a large cohort of Muslim students and teachers.

As The Australian reported last week, Mr Griffiths and deputy principal Joumana Dennaoui were dumped from their roles in light of the department’s investigation. Both are on leave and Mr Scott declined to say whether they would be redeployed.

Sources close to the school say staff morale plummeted towards the end of last year in response to female teachers being denied ­official roles in the Year 12 presentation and annual awards day.

Since then, a picture has emerged of a school that was increasingly shutting itself off from the ­community.

The school’s relationship with police, which once played an ­active role in helping the school overturn its previous reputation for violence, had soured and police liaison officers had been unable to access the campus for the past 2½ years.

Meanwhile, allegations have emerged about teachers being threatened by students claiming to sympathise with terrorists and of senior staff encouraging the disrespect of authority, with one known to describe police as “pigs”.

The Australian understands that the departmental audit picked up one case in which a non-Muslim teacher was seriously assaulted and threatened but the matter was not reported to police.

Mr Scott said yesterday that some allegations aired about the school, including claims that Mr Griffiths had wished to allow only Muslim students in, were untrue.

He also described claims about female teachers being excluded from official ceremonies as “unsubstantiated”, which is contrary to the accounts of various school and departmental sources.

However, Mr Scott said it was a “serious matter” to remove a principal and deputy principal from a school. “We sent a very senior team in there and found a number of matters that were a concern,” he said.

“There was a significant lack of staff unity and there were a number of policies and procedures that were not being followed. It does seem to have lost its way in recent times and become more isolated from the ­community.”

Parents are understood to have been blindsided by the decision. A petition, started by Ahmed El-Hassan, called for the Education Department to explain the “unfair dismissal”.

A spokesman from the department last night declined to comment on the assault allegations or provide further details on findings from the investigation.

He also declined to say ­whether the deradicalisation ­program would be implemented by the school’s new principal, former juvenile justice educator Robert Patruno.

“The school’s new leadership will implement the recommen­dations from the appraisal,” the spokesman said.

SOURCE






Melbourne set to create female walking signals to create 'street light equality'

Susie O’Brien

PLANS to make the traffic light crossing people gender-neutral is the silliest idea I have ever heard.

It’s political correctness gone mad. First we had restrictions on the word women (because it contains the word men), moves to ban terms like Miss and Mrs, rewriting of classic books and fairy tales to remove gender stereotypes, and now this.

What’s next? Traffic lights that look like those silly family stickers on the back of cars with dogs, cats, tall men and short women and kids with hockey sticks? I mean, we wouldn’t want to leave anyone out, would we?

Haven’t these people at the Committee of Melbourne got anything better to do?

Turning the crossing figures into females won’t create one single job, break down one single barrier or help one single woman.

And yet the Equal Crossings Initiative is proudly kicking off its plans to install 10 female pedestrian figures at one of Melbourne’s busiest intersections. The idea came from the committee’s Future Focus Group and is designed to challenge “unconscious bias”.

I am a woman and a proud feminist who has crossed thousands of roads in my life, but I have to honestly admit I have never seen the crossing men flashing at me and felt left out, subjugated or objectified.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle hit the nail on the head when he suggested such a scheme was more likely to bring about “derision”. Clearly, Doyle is more in touch than the Future Focus Group.

The problem is that if you spend too much time and money obsessing about irrelevant stuff like whether the crossing figures are men or women, then people don’t listen when you talk about things that are really important.

You know, things like the cost of childcare, the gender wage gap, the lack of women running our companies, and the problem both women and men have accessing family-friendly work.

The Future Focus Group says it is committed to developing “the leadership that our city needs” and promoting “creative ways of thinking”.

Some of their ideas are pretty good, such as free trams in the CBD, Open House Melbourne and Eleos Place, a youth homeless crisis accommodation centre.

Putting skirts on traffic light crossing figures isn’t one of these good ideas.

It’s silly and absurd, and makes a mockery of the whole women’s movement.

SOURCE

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is scornful of Melbourne's "female" traffic lights





'You line up a number of Muslims, who is the good one?'

Pauline Hanson slams Sharia law and women who wear burqas as she warns Australia will be overrun by Islam

Pauline Hanson has revealed she is suspicious of all Muslims and has urged women who wear the burqa to leave the country.

The One Nation leader once again criticised Islam and challenged A Current Affair reporter Tracy Grimshaw to point out a 'good Muslim'.

'I believe there are some (Muslims) that want to live a good life and a quiet life,' Senator Hanson said.

'But you tell me - you line up a number of Muslims, who's the good one?'

The outspoken politician reiterated her well-known view on the burqa in the explosive interview with the Channel Nine program. 

'The burqa should absolutely go. This is Australia,' she said.

'The full face covering I think is wrong. If they want to live that way and have their Sharia law, then I suggest they go to a Muslim country.'

The Senator also revealed she believes Muslim immigration has changed suburban Australia for the worse. 

'I hear Australians that have lived nice quiet lives in the suburbs and then they've had Muslims come in there who have changed their suburbs.

'They've built these mosques and they have their cars parked across the driveway or they have rubbish thrown over their fences... It's having an impact on our educational system, in our schools, in swimming baths.

'If these people want to come and live here - respect our laws. Even in court rooms they have no respect for the judges - won't even stand up.'

The Senator said her party's views are resonating with the Australian public. 'People actually want to see One Nation in power. And that's what I'm picking up all the time,' she said.

'The grumbling from the people - they're actually fed up with both sides of politics, whether it be Liberal, Labor or the Nationals, and they certainly don't want the Greens. 'So they've just had a gutful of the whole lot of them. They feel they're not being listened to.

'Australia is going to slide into a third world country if we do not get our act together. That's my opinion.'

SOURCE





Teen terror cells in our midst: recruiters target ‘sleeping colonies’

Iraq’s most senior Australian diplomat has warned of “sleeping ­colonies” of potential terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne and ­extremist recruiters targeting ­teenagers.

Hussain Al-Ameri, Iraq’s ­ambassador to Australia, told The Australian members of the Iraqi community had expressed concerns that local Muslim youth were being offered financial incentives by radical preachers. Those included rewards for wearing Islamic clothing, and ­“encouragement” for young ­people to attend their meetings.

Dr Al-Ameri, a former director of the press and human rights ­department at Iraq’s foreign affairs ministry, said Australian mosques associated with the extreme “Wahhabi Salafi ideology” were being watched by authorities.

“They are active here (in Australia) and they believe in this ­Salafi Wahhabi. This is the ideological background of ISIS,” said Dr Al-Ameri, who was concerned about some Iraqis with Australian citizenship working with Islamic State.

“The world is one village through the internet. Accordingly, the contact between countries is very easy so we have a big concern for such persons or for such groups, because they may affect us indirectly.

“For example, when anyone with Australian citizen(ship) — when he’s coming to Iraq we will say ‘welcome’ — we are not ­expecting that he’s a terrorist. “But maybe he’s a member of a ‘sleeping colony’. And maybe he was brainwashed already because the people who practise brainwashing are already present in Australia, and they are active.”

Anne Aly, a leading counter-radicalisation expert and new Labor MP for the federal seat of Cowan, said she had heard of Indonesian recruiters using money to lure youth, but not in Australia.

“I haven’t come across it in Australia. I’ve come across it in ­Indonesia, for recruitment … so if you come and join you’ll get this much money; not so much here. But it is part and parcel of it all, so those who do go and fight as ‘soldiers’ do get a salary,” Dr Aly told The ­Australian.

Sydney Muslim preacher Sheik Wesam Charkawi said: “I work with a lot of youth and it’s not something I have heard of.’’

As the Islamic State grip on ­territory in Iraq and Syria weakens, anti-terror agencies fear small groups or individuals could pose threats in Australia.

In addition to high-profile raids by the AFP, other targeted individuals had their passports suspended to prevent young Australians travelling overseas for terrorist purposes.

National security agencies ­remain at a heightened state of alert, with the terror threat rated ­“probable”.

In the past three years, several accused terrorists have been identified as having Iraqi backgrounds, including teenager Farhad Jabar who murdered NSW police ­accountant Curtis Cheng in 2015.

Student Omar Al-Kutobi was jailed in December for at least 15 years after pleading guilty to one count of acting “in preparation/planning for a terrorist attack”.

Dr Al-Ameri’s comments came a week after ASIO chief Duncan Lewis warned that terror groups were increasingly radicalising younger Australians, whose ages had “dropped by a decade in the space of a couple of years”.

Mr Lewis said that in 2013, 45 per cent of Sunni Islamist extremists investigated by ASIO were aged between 25-34, while in 2015, 40 per cent of were between 15 and 24.

Dr Aly, founding chair of People against Violent Extremism, said: “They are deliberately targeting younger people because it’s not so much about the religion, it’s more about fighting and being a hero and being a soldier; that’s more the appeal.”

Dr Al-Ameri said Iraqi community members had in recent months told him of young people targeted by radical organisations. “Their target is the teenagers because their mind is easily brainwashed. It is a long-term process starting in steps. This is what I heard in Sydney.”

SOURCE






Reasonable compromise on hate speech law

Malcolm Turnbull is being ­offered a bold reform on race-hate laws that promises to end a ­damaging Coalition impasse over restrictions on free speech, raising the bar for complaints about language that “insults” or “offends” people on the basis of race.

The breakthrough proposal puts “ordinary Australians” at the heart of a tough new test for legal action under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, clearing the ground for talks in federal cabinet about the push to amend the law.

In a new effort to build a consensus for change, the Prime ­Minister has been approached to back the compromise, in order to quash threats to free speech while acting on community calls to ­retain strong sanctions against ­racism.

The plan seeks to insert a “reasonable person” test into the law so that applicants will have to prove the offensive behaviour breaches the standards of ordinary Australians — not just the feelings of a narrow group.

International Development Minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, a conservative whose parents migrated to Australia from Italy, has ­canvassed the proposal with her colleagues as a way to bring the law into line with everyday ­community standards.

“It raises the threshold for ­determining what constitutes ­offensive behaviour based on ­racial hatred: to offend, insult, ­humiliate or intimidate,” Senator Fierravanti-Wells writes in The Australian today.

“The test would be what ordinary Australians think those should be. I believe by adding this test we can obviate much of the negativity we are seeing at the moment and deliver the appropriate balance between freedom of speech and freedom from racial vilification.

“The ‘reasonable Australian’ test is a far higher threshold for ­social debate. It has been an ­essential part of the values that we hold dear to have great resilience and racial tolerance. We do not accept racist and xenophobic speech and we also value freedom of expression, religion and belief.”

The plan builds on the findings of a joint parliamentary committee that last week agreed to overhaul the Australian Human Rights Commission to weed out vexatious complaints but failed to reach common ground on ­reforming section 18C itself.

The Australian has been told Mr Turnbull and senior cabinet ministers are preparing to act swiftly on the report in order to force the commission to speed up its decisions, throw out vexatious complaints and prevent the law being used to threaten free speech.

Coalition MPs are struggling to agree on the best path to change the law after growing concern at the drawn-out complaints against three Queensland University of Technology students over their Facebook posts and a more recent case against The Australian’s cartoonist Bill Leak.

Commission president Gillian Triggs is under fire for letting complaints drag on, with critics warning that “the process ­becomes the punishment” as ­defendants must spend thousands of dollars to argue cases at the commission that later go to court.

In the latest dispute, Professor Triggs faces a likely recall by ­Liberal senators to explain ­“misleading” evidence she gave about Leak’s case last week, when she said neither the cartoonist nor the publisher “made any submission” justifying why the complaint should be dismissed under 18D of the law, which provides an exemption for the media and academia.

Leak’s lawyer, Justin Quill, has produced a letter sent to the commission last October that explicitly cited section 18D as grounds for dismissing the complaint over the cartoonist’s portrayal of an Aboriginal police officer handing over a boy to his beer-drinking father who has forgotten his son’s name.

Last week’s report into the racial hatred laws highlighted the divisions within the Coalition by outlining six options for section 18C, ranging from no change to replacing the words “offend” and “insult” and “humiliate” with the word “harass” instead.

The committee also canvassed changing the objective test from a “reasonable member of the relevant group” to a “reasonable member of the Australian community”.

Victorian Liberal senator James Paterson is backing the new offence of “harass” in order to restrict complaints but fellow committee member and NSW Liberal MP Julian Leeser is opposing change to section 18C on the grounds that changes to the commission’s process would be enough to prevent a repeat of the QUT or Leak cases.

One Liberal who opposes change to 18C told The Australian that the “reasonable person” test would still provide fertile ground for Labor and community groups to campaign against the Coalition with the claim they were making it easier for racists to speak out. “But of all the options it is the least bad,” he said.

Another Liberal who wants sweeping change to section 18C said the compromise would not go far enough for those who wanted to dismantle the limits on free speech.

The debate is expected to go to federal cabinet before being put to the full Coalition party room to decide whether to change the law.

SOURCE






Free speech debate offers Turnbull a free kick at Labor’s expense

Malcolm Turnbull should not shrink from the section 18c fight

The Coalition parties in Canberra are starting to realise that the ­debate over section 18C is not a burden, but a gift.

It is unfolding in a way that will allow the Coalition to wedge Labor and the Greens and portray itself as the only grouping that is prepared to defend the standards of the Australian community.

This has been made possible by the growing push to adopt “the reasonable person” test as the touchstone for liability in section 18C.

Malcolm Turnbull has a perfect free kick all lined up and waiting to be taken. All he needs to do is ­explain that Labor and the Greens — by rejecting any reform of 18C — have also rejected making the standards of the reasonable ­member of the general community the central core of this law.

This is an outrageous insult to the great mass of ordinary Australians, and the Prime Minister should not hesitate to make Labor own it.

Implicit in the do-nothing ­approach of Labor and the Greens is blatant elitism and a deep suspicion about the standards that govern the lives of ordinary, reasonable members of the community.

If Turnbull shrinks from this fight, judges will continue to be prevented from applying community standards when it comes to determining what can and ­cannot be said on the sensitive subject of race.

Australians are not racists. The great mass of society — the reasonable members of the community — are decent people. Their standards should be entrenched in law as a guide for all parts of this ­diverse nation.

Anything less betrays a deep sense of self-loathing that should have no place in a law enacted by the national parliament.

Labor and the Greens are seeking to entrench divisions by giving priority in 18C to standards of ­conduct based on the race, ethnic background or national origin of those who complain.

In the apartheid era, when South Africa enacted laws based on race, colour or national or ethic origin such shameful conduct was called out by Labor for what it was: racism. Labor’s policy now is ludicrous: words, cartoons and newspaper articles that strictly comply with the standards of ordinary members of the community could nevertheless be declared racist.

For Turnbull, a switch to ­community standards as the touchstone for liability should be the first and most important step on the path to reform.

He can take comfort in the fact that those who favour this change include former race discrimination commissioner Irene Moss and former human rights commissioner Sev Ozdowski.

This is not just good politics, it is good law. If the purpose of 18C were to provide guidance for the community on what cannot be said on the subject of race, one consistent standard is the way to achieve clarity.

The elitist posturing of Labor and the Greens has made them vulnerable. The free kick is there. Take it.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Idiots in Uniform. It has happened again

  It is clear that we never learn. Remember the outcome of the Coonabarabran fire some years ago and the culpability if National Parks in that fire.   Well here we go again.   Enough should be enough.


Friends,  please read this and forward it on.  We have to stop idiots standing behind Bureaucrats and killing the Australia that we all love.

You will remember an email that you received from me 6 years ago about “idiots in Uniform”.   That was about to stupidity of Officers from Queensland Transport in the big floods.  Thanks to you all, that email went viral and reached a hundred thousand people.  The media got involved.  The Government got embarrassed.  AND there were  big changes of attitude.    WE NEED TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.

I am at Dunedoo,  NSW, where the biggest fire ever in NSW raged a couple of weeks ago.   Something approximating to 130,000 ACRES OF GOOD FARMING AND GRAZING LAND WAS DECIMATED.  50 FAMILYS INVOLVED WITH MANY LOSING EVERYTHING.  Their houses, sheds, machinery, fencing, and everything else GONE FOREVER.  ESTIMATED THOUSANDS OF CATTLE, SHEEP, DOGS, CATS, AND ALL FORMS OF ANIMALS.

AND THE FIRE WAS THIS BAD SIMPLY BECAUSE THE FARMERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO CONTROL IT.

I had the privilege to, last night, sit with a group of farmers beside the burnt remains of 3 generations of hard work, and the real stories were flowing.  The stories about what they did.  BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHAT THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED TO DO.

This fire could have been.  SHOULD HAVE BEEN, put out the first night.  However, by then the Government Fire Department were involved.  These were the IDIOTS IN UNIFORM.

They had fire trucks full of water and retardant, plenty of men and all the equipment ready.  BUT THEY STOOD AND WATCHED BECAUSE  THEIR BOSS IN THE IVORY TOWER HAD NOT GIVEN THEM THE GO AHEAD.

MEANWHILE, ALL THE FARMERS WERE FIGHTING AND PLOWING AND GRADING FIRE BREAKS.  BUT WHEN THEY WERE READY TO BACK BURN,  THEY WERE TOLD IF YOU LIGHT THAT FIRE, WE WILL HAVE YOU IN JAIL BY MORNING.

And everyone had to stand down and wait for instruction.  And the fire jumped the highway and every other fire break, and raged on.   Wiping out everyone’s life, and generations of hard work.

Luckily, the fire split into fingers and the idiots were not everywhere.  And so there were pockets of farmers who saw it coming and sacrificed their thousands of acres and did back burn.  And eventually the fire got under control as it hit the top of the Great Dividing Range.

Luck for everyone on the coast that these guys made that sacrifice.  The day was one of the worst/hottest ever recorded.  The fire made its own storm.  Nothing remains in this vast area.

The community has been devastated, lives ruined, worlds turned upside down.  But because no person was killed, Government and media have gone home to their comfortable beds and nothing is happening.

BLAZEAID is here with a hundred senior citizens. But where is the ARMY.  If this sort of disaster happened oversees, we would send in the troops along with millions of dollars.

There is no mobile phone coverage in the fire area.  And yet there are portable towers available for sports events and rock concerts.  Why can’t we have one?
                                                                                                                                                          
There are heaps of accommodation units left over from mining camps, but these people have no-where to live on their properties.  And they have to be there to protect them from looters.

And then there is the issue of who is going to pay for all this destruction by Government via red tape and levels of incompetence.

Oh,  that’s right, we have to wait for someone to get killed.  Well, that’s probably going to happen.  There is 5000 kms of fencing gone.  And thousands of cars now on unfenced roads.

And there is no money for the farmers.  Farmers are not responsible to replace road fence that they wanted to save but were stopped by idiots.  Government MUST PAY.    NOW

Apparently, a fire this big must have a coronal inquiry.

The initial cause of the start fire will never be known.   It will not be hard to prove the fire was exasperated by the inefficiency of the fire service.  So, what happens after that?  Sweep it under the carpet?

So folks,   PLEASE PASS THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND PARTICULARLY STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.  WE HAVE TO STOP THE INCOPMETANCE THAT IS GOING TO KILL AUSTRALIA AS WE KNOW IT.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE ON THE SUBJECT, FOLLOW ON FACEBOOK UNDER DINGO FENCING SYSTEMS,

And to refresh on the flood ordeal simply google   “idiots in uniform”    “Gary Briggs”  The media took it on with full front page coverage by Brisbane Courier Mail.  After that the Qld Government had to rescind all fines and change forever the way they will handle future floods.    Then followed the Class Action in relation to idiots in uniform who had to read the manual before opening the dam gates, and the subsequent Brisbane flooding.

To list some of the things needed here.

MOBILE PHONE COVERAGE because to world rotates on phone technology.  We cannot shout when the phone doesn’t work.
GOVERNMENT MONEY FOR HOUSING AND INFRASTRUCTURE
THE ARMY TO CLEAN UP THE MESS.
GOVERNMENT MONEY TO FENCE THE ROADS FIRST, AND THEN THE FARM BOUNDARYS.
TO BE DECLARED A NATIONAL DISASTER.   NOW.  NOT AFTER THE CORONIAL INQUIRY.
LOTS OF MONEY.  Someone mentioned we just sent some more oversees for some disaster.  How about this disaster?

Gary Briggs
Managing Director
Dingo Australia, 9 Owen Street EAST, Dalby, QLD 4405 Australia
(M) 0417 977 451 (E) gary.briggs@dingo.com.au (T) 07 4672 5400 (F) 07 4672 5422 (W) DINGO.COM.AU

Religious freedom is a tricky thing

Rob Forsyth below thinks that Muslims must be allowed to follow their religious dictates even when they clash with normal Australian customs.  And if the Muslim custom does no harm why not allow it?

The answer surely is that we want immigrants from chaotic parts of the world not to bring their dysfunctional beliefs and customs with them.  We want them to learn our ways -- the ways that have made Australia an attractive destination for them. 

And the various attacks on Australians by Jihadis do tell us that imported Muslim attitudes are a serious problem.  We do well to ask Muslims for assimilation as the price for being here. 

Sikh customs, Hindu customs, Chinese customs are all fine and can  reasonably be accommodated -- because they do not bring hostility towards us with them.  It is precisely Islam that is the problem.  Sikhs, Hindus and Chinese do not attack us.  Some Muslims do.  All men are not equal nor are all religions

After all, Muslims can practice all the Muslim customs they like in the many Muslim countries. Why not go to one of those if our customs don't suit them? Malaysia is just to the North of us and it's not a bad place -- thanks to the large Chinese minority there


Two weeks have passed since the controversy over Hurstville Boy's Campus of Georges River College agreeing to a protocol allowing Muslim students not to shake hands with women.

A proper understanding of religious freedom suggests the school did the right thing and its critics are mistaken.  Freedom of religion is not just the freedom to believe but also, in the words of Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),the freedom "to manifest [ ...] religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching." In this case, if there is a way to accommodate the manifestation of the religious views of the young men, why shouldn't it be done?

The views in question may be strange even to mainstream Islam. But religious freedom never depended on the reasonableness of the religion involved. Nor is it any good to assert that giving in at this point is the thin edge of a 'sharia' wedge. Religious freedom is not absolute. It is, as the ICCPR asserts, subject to such limitations that are "necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others." No sharia.

But is it sexist? Maybe, but in itself that is not a reason to deny religious freedom. And having an agreed protocol manages the risk of misunderstanding and substitutes another gesture of respect.

Government schools are essentially secular institutions, but they are not secularist imposing an Australian version of a French hard line laïcité -- a core concept in France's constitution, Article 1 of which states that the country is a secular one.

The School need not be criticised, but like any religion, Islam certainly can be. The right to religious freedom is not the right to be free from criticism or even ridicule. Something often goes wrong when Islam is discussed. The left forget their abhorrence of sexism, and others can lose their passion for freedom.

SOURCE





An ANTI-Muslim hoax?

Below is an excerpt from an article by Michael Brull. Brull is a far-Leftist Jewish Australian and his writings boil with hate.  I have left the abuse and hate out.  I have just excerpted the apparently factual bits of his article below.  So the article now is about half as long as comrade Brull left it

Today Tonight in Adelaide featured yet another report on Muslims.

The story was based primarily around three figures, supposedly representing the important insight of Muslims concerned about Muslims. Two of them were presented as Muslim clerics. One was Mostafa Rachid. The other was Mohammed Tawhidi. And the third figure was Jamal Daoud, presented as a “Sunni community leader”. Daoud’s is called a “leader” presumably on the basis that the TV presenter liked what he was told by Daoud.

The star of the show was Tawhidi, who used his supposed status as a Muslim religious scholar to attack Muslims and Islam. The show opened with him saying that, “When I am worried about what’s happening and what I see from my community and my religion, trust me that there’s something that’s going on.”

Tawhidi made numerous inflammatory statements. He claims there was a plan to increase the population of Muslims in Australia, to buy real estate, and give the streets Islamic names. And those Islamic names would be in memory of those who “massacred and killed people”. And then they’ll ban drinking and anything “un-Islamic”, it’ll be a small Islamic country within Sydney. He also claimed that ISIS hides among refugees fleeing to Europe, some of them disguised as women. Presumably he is opposed to Western countries accepting Muslim refugees.

The journalist was impressed by this rendition, and his “stark warning of a plan to alter Australia forever, to establish a caliphate here right under our noses”. Tawhidi confirmed this theory, saying that the alleged fact that a Muslim imam is worried (him), shows that something must be done.

Tawhidi called for governments to stop the building of mosques and Islamic community centres, and for a government body to be established to investigate everything in relation to the Muslim community.

In response, the online Muslim magazine One Path Network issued a video response to the report, along with a short written summary. Both are refutations of Today Tonight’s report. They showed that the two supposed Muslim scholars have something like zero credibility. As for Tawhidi:

“Little is known about Mr Tawhidi, who claims to be a “Muslim leader” in South Australia. His centre named the “Islamic Association of South Australia” was only set up last year and there is little to no information available about the centre and its attendees.

When One Path Network approached the Australian National Imams Council, ANIC, for comment on the above individual, they stated that Mr Tawhidi was “not recognised as an Imam, Sheikh or Muslim leader”. ANIC is the official representative body of all Imams across Australia and has over 250 members.

The Imams Council of South Australia was also approached for a public comment and they too stated that ” he was not recognised” and “not part of the Islamic leadership in South Australia”.”

And Rachid, the supposed scholar brought on to claim that alcohol and pork are halal? One Path Network reports:

“The other “Imam” used in the segment is known as Mustafa Rashed, and is a known imposter and fraud. He has previously claimed to be the Mufti of Australia, and was exposed by ANIC in 2014 for his fraudulent remarks. He has no known credentials in Islamic Studies and neither does he have a centre in Australia or a following.”

This was followed by a media release by ANIC, the Australian National Imams Council, featured in the video report by One Path. It observed that Tawhidi is “not a recognised Imam, Sheikh or Muslim leader”. The video report, fronted by Malaz Majanni, noted that “Imams for Peace” seems to consist entirely of Tawhidi.

SOURCE






Hug a farmer, they've just saved Australia's economic bacon

Guy Milson has been farming his land six kilometres outside Goulburn for the past 38 years. "People 'round here the call me a newcomer," he said. "They tell me you haven't had time to unpack your bags."

But during four decades on the farm, rarely has Mr Milson seen as season as good as this one - and neither has the rest of Australia.

Agricultural growth surged by an extraordinary 27.6 per cent in 2016, the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics national accounts have revealed, following a record harvest in every state. While agriculture enjoyed a double-digit leap, the traditional driver of the Australian economy - mining - grew by just 4.6 per cent. Retail struggled, and manufacturing and construction went backwards.

Agriculture had 10 times its average contribution to the economy in the three months to December, making up 0.5 per cent of the country's 1.1 per cent growth. It usually contributes just .05 per cent.

"It is a fantastic year for agriculture and it's made a very strong contribution to the Australian economy on the back of a record winter crop," said Trish Gleeson, a commodity analyst at the Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

The farming boom looks set to continue, with export earnings in cotton projected to skyrocket by 56 per cent, wheat 25 per cent and sugar 23 per cent. 

Angus Taylor, Mr Milson's local federal MP, said farmers in his electorate "haven't been as buoyant as this for many many decades, probably my lifetime".

The Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister, Barnaby Joyce, said regional areas had "saved the economy" but not enough Australians appreciated the contribution.

"We are actually making money that actually helps this nation pay its bills," he said this week.

But hurdles remain on the horizon.

Sugar has become a major political issue in cane growing regions on the back of fears the industry might miss out on the wider boom. A pricing gridlock has forced Queensland growers to stock excess harvests despite the bumper crop.

While the last year also saw strong gains for cattle across the country, export earnings this year are forecast to fall for 17 per cent for beef.

Cattle farmers hope the projection will be reversed by a new deal signed this week between Indonesia and Australia to increase the import cattle weight limit from 350 to 450 kilograms.

SOURCE






Australia poised to seize world economic record

Australia is on the cusp of achieving something truly remarkable – not to mention unprecedented in modern world history.

In 26 days, as the clock ticks over to April 1, Australia will likely have bested the Netherlands to lay claim to the title of the longest economic expansion on record, entering our 104th quarter of economic growth without recession.

The Dutch winning streak kicked off in 1982 thanks to the biggest natural gas field in Europe and lasted for 103 quarters before the Netherlands succumbed to the turmoil of the global financial crisis in 2008.

In the first of three significant European elections in coming months, Dutch voters will go to the polls next week and have a strong chance of electing an anti-Islam, far-right politician called Geert Wilders, who has spent the past 13 years living in protective seclusion after death threats from Islamic militarists over this controversial views, including wanting to close all Mosques and comparing the Koran to Mein Kampf.

Meanwhile, back at home, the news that Australia has avoided a technical recession with growth rebounding in the December quarter was greeted with little more than a shrug.

It deserves much more recognition than that.  Australia has just pulled off the Great Escape.  The end of the end of the mining boom is almost here. We made it.  We've escaped the resources curse which has defined our economic history.

Not only will we beat the Dutch, we've beaten the economic curse which bears their name, "Dutch disease".

A 1977 article in the Economist coined the term to describe how large resource booms tend to suck the life out of other parts of the economy, like manufacturing, by raising wage costs and the exchange rate.

Australia has suffered Dutch disease in several periods during our history, most notably in the first 1850s gold rush. In a fascinating speech in 2010, then Reserve Bank deputy governor, Ric Battellino, recalled how that gold rush led to a doubling of shepherds' wages in just three years and contraction in the number of NSW manufacturing firms from 165 to 140.

Indeed, of the five major mining booms that Australia has had, the majority ended in double digit inflationary outbursts.

At the time, Battellino hoped that this most recent China-induced mining boom would be different, thanks to our floating exchange rate, a more flexible labour market and more soundly based frameworks for monetary and fiscal policy. Seven years later, it turns out he was right.

Since the mining investment boom peaked about four years ago, the Aussie dollar has fallen significantly, supporting other exporters. Wages growth has fallen too, which isn't great for workers, but certainly helps us to recover our international competitiveness.

Lower interest rates have also responded to cushion jobs growth in other sectors.

All in all, we've survived the biggest commodity supercycle in our history relatively unscathed. Income growth has been disappointing recently, compared to previous gains, but those gains have not been unwound. Australia today is a vastly richer country than it was before the boom.

According to a recent testimony to Parliament by Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, we are now 90 per cent through the fall in mining investment that has dragged on growth for about four years. While there are no major new investments on the horizon, mining companies have now begun investing again in upkeep of their existing infrastructure.

"Higher prices have given them the confidence to do a bit more sustaining investment – that is a positive development," Dr Lowe told the parliamentary committee. "We hear that in some areas, partly in Western Australia, the higher prices are encouraging people to at least think about exploration again, whereas exploration activity had fallen way off. It is still going to be a headwind for a little while, but not like the headwind we have had for the last four years."

Meanwhile, several other economic winds blow in our favour. Most notably, the skies have opened on our agriculture sector. Unleashing havoc in our cities, the rains have breathed new life into our exports of cotton, wheat and sugar.

And Asia's burgeoning middle classes continue to underpin a boom in education exports, with foreign student numbers only likely to benefit further from America's great intellectual leap backwards.

Lastly, state governments have finally begun to address Australia's yawning infrastructure gap, most notably in Sydney, which has turned into one giant, rain-soaked worksite of late.

Obviously, our economy is not without its challenges.

While activity levels are sound, prices growth has been weak. In theory, booming corporate profits should trickle through to higher wages, but they haven't yet. Business spirits remain dampened by political uncertainty. And there has been a worrying rise in household debt relative to income as low interest rates fuel a house price boom in some capital cities. While the Reserve Bank is likely to stay on the sidelines for most of this year, the next move in interest rates will be up – barring any new international shocks – which will be a major test for our newest indebted households.

Aussies are fond of talking ourselves down. And caution is warranted. But we are about to lay claim to the strongest economic performance in world history.

And that will be worth celebrating.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here