The dilemma I faced when my daughter won a private school scholarship


Elana Benjamin

The mother below was probably right in deciding to send her daughter to a State School.  And I say that not because I went to one myself but because of something she does not mention:  It all depends on the school.  Not to put too fine a point on it, a State School in a poor area would probably be disastrous for the daughter of a professional family.  She would be greatly limited by it. But, reading between the lines, Mrs Benjamin is most unlikely to live in a poor area.  And State Schools in a middle class area can be quite good. 

I sent my son to a fairly orderly State school for the second half of his primary years and it certainly didn't hold him back. Can I embarrass myself by once again telling my favourite story from that time?  There was once a schoolwide literacy and numeracy test conducted in his state school.  One would think that the highest scorer on the literacy test would be some kid in 7th grade. But it was not. It was a pesky little 5th grader.  That 5th grader was my son.  So as long as the school is reasonably orderly, ability will out.  I think that Mrs Benjamin's daughter might have an equivalent experience.

So why are schools in poor areas disadvantageous?  Sensitive souls should stop reading at this point because I am going to say something that, according to the Left, make me a white supremacist if not an outright Nazi. They can see a small moustache growing on my upper lip. I am going to mention IQ.

A school in a poor area will be bad in many ways because of the kids there.  As Charles Murray showed long ago, a low IQ is hereditary and has many unpleasant correlates, with poverty prominent among them.  So kids enrolled into a school located in a poor area will mostly be dumb, have less self-restraint  and will be more poorly behaved generally.  They will make life hell for their teachers and give the teachers little time for teaching.

It doesn't have to be that way. I grew up in Innisfail, a small Australian country town and I attended Innisfail State Rural School for my primary schooling.  And I have fond memories of that school and of some of the teachers there.  There was none of the dysfunction that would be expected of that school these days. The school no longer exists so I can safely say that.

So why was Innisfail State Rural School perfectly OK?  Because they had effective discipline back then.  If a kid stepped out of line he got sent to the headmaster for caning.  He would come back much abashed and no longer disruptive.  So lessons could proceed according to plan.  But it's no longer like that. Under Leftist influence, most forms of discipline are now forbidden as "child abuse".  The discipline tools available are few.  So a disruptive dummy kid will just act out and not be effectively restrained, thus derailing any education while that happens.

But Australia is relatively lucky in one way:  We rarely have a substantial African-origin population in a school.  In both Britain and the USA, by contrast, schools in a poor area will very often be quite black. And black students are notoriously disruptive.  As a result, British and American white mothers go to enormous lengths to keep their kids out of such schools.  There is substantial voluntary racial self-segregation so that helps.

But the lesson remains:  A "good" school is good primarily because of the kids who go there and a bad school is bad because of the kids who go there.  One hopes that the school Mrs Benjamin has chosen for her daughter has a student body who tend be like her own family.  She should check. That is what matters


My 11-year-old daughter has been awarded an academic scholarship to a private school. It's only a modest discount, but the scholarship means she'll bypass the snaking waiting list – provided my husband and I can fund the 20 grand a year shortfall. Should we commit to the abyss of private school fees, or choose free education instead at a partially selective state school?

I always assumed my children would go to private school, like I did. Not because my family is wealthy – but because I'd imbibed one of the mantras of my childhood home: Education is the best thing you can give your children, and its implied corollary: The best education is private.

Both my parents gave up their dreams of tertiary study in order to earn much-needed income for their families. Immigrants to Australia in the 1960s, Mum and Dad were textbook in that they worked hard to give my brother and me all the opportunities they'd been denied. They never pushed, but as a sensitive first-born, I absorbed my parents' unspoken hopes and aspirations: I would become a member of a profession and earn a good income, so I'd never have to struggle like they did.

At my academically oriented private school, the importance of education was reinforced. I learnt the lessons of Jewish history, a history filled with centuries of persecution and violent anti-Semitism. The message was clear: you may have to leave your birthplace, your home, your loved ones, but you can never be stripped of your education.

Against this backdrop, it took years for me to make peace with the fact that my two children attend our local public primary school.

They'll go to private for high school, I consoled myself. Yet here we are, our eldest now in year 6, and my husband and I will struggle to afford private school, even with that scholarship our daughter's been offered.

"Many families take a second mortgage to pay school fees," a friend cheerily suggests when I share my dilemma. But we're already drowning in debt, with my husband's salary bequeathed to a long line of greedy beneficiaries (first NAB, followed by Coles).

If we're to send our girl to private school, there's only one sane option: for me to increase my work hours and cash in on the benefits of the law degree I studied so hard for. The degree that was supposed to be my ticket to a good job and a solid income – except that's not quite how it turned out.

I aced the HSC, only to suffer through years of dreary law lectures at university, then advance to a career of well-paid but uninspiring jobs in corporate insurance. Now that I've finally escaped my creativity-starved cubicle, I'm not keen to resume my meaningless climb up the corporate ladder.

And yet I could still command a salary package that would pay the school fees, if I really had to. You can never be stripped of your education.

My husband – concerned I'll end up resenting the school-fee burden – isn't pushing me to resuscitate my career. My strong-willed daughter is unusually easygoing about the decision. "I have friends at both schools so I don't really mind," she says.

My parents, however, weigh in. "Thousands of children go to public school and they turn out fine," says my mother. "Why do you want to put yourselves under so much financial pressure?" adds my father, seemingly oblivious to the irony of his question, given he and Mum did the same for me.

The guilt and expectations are mine alone. As much as I don't subscribe to the "get your kid ahead" hype (I'm in the no-coaching, anti-homework camp), I'm quietly terrified that my daughter's potential will be wasted at the public school. That even in the selective stream, she'll be lost in the crowd. And yet I know that a return to corporate insurance will crush me.

Over many sleepless nights, I wrestle with the bullies in the classroom of my mind. The ones who taunt me, calling me hurtful names: "Selfish. Indulgent. Princess". And the meanest of all – the one who leaves me winded, gasping for air every time: "Lousy mother."

When I finally catch my breath, I confess to my tormentors that although I want the best for my daughter, I have my own dreams too. I cannot sacrifice everything for my precious girl, just so she can retrace my steps on the path from high ATAR, to university, to six-figure-salary but dissatisfied.

I explain that I want to be a positive role-model for my girl, and an unhappy parent is a terrible strain on a family. I point out that not even the privilege of private school will protect my beloved from ordinary outcomes, undesirable peers, disappointment or struggle.

And finally, the bullies back off. So it's decided. My daughter is going to the public school behind our home. She couldn't be more pleased. "I'll be able to sleep in and walk to school in one minute," she gloats.

It's taken me a little longer, but now I'm content. More than my fancy private-school education, it's my family that shaped me. With high school now 25 years in the past, I can no longer remember the mathematical formulae or Shakespearean quotes I once knew so perfectly. The lessons from my childhood home, however, have proved impossible to forget.

SOURCE




What I want you to know about my 'gifted' son

There is an extent below to which Wendy Wisner blames her problems with her son on his being "gifted" so I think I should note that his problems are unlikely to be from that cause. He sounds more like being somewhere on the autism spectrum. Autistics often have eerie abilities in limited areas, particularly in mathematics.

All the studies show that high IQ people are usually better off in all sorts of ways, from being better looking, for having more stable marriages to living longer. 

But since stories tend to be more persuasive than statistics, let me mention my own son.  He did well in various educational tasks, including getting a first class honours degree in mathematics, and took to computer programming like a duck to water. He is now a well-paid IT professional. So was he a difficult kid?  Far from it.  He was a placid baby, and a relaxed and unproblematical child. He does have one addiction -- to flavoured milk, which he battles manfully.  And he has a pretty lady of admirable character in his life.  High IQ people are the ones who come closest to "having it all"


I don't like the term "gifted." It seems too exclusive a term, and doesn't encompass the breadth of talents that children can have. My son isn't especially gifted in sports, visual art, dance or public speaking. He's gifted in all things academic. He's brainy. And his giftedness doesn't always feel like something to brag about. In fact, some of my real parenting struggles are related to the way his brain is wired.

But I feel so alone, like I can't share this with other parents.

From birth, my son had an intensity about him that made him different from most kids. When he was happy, he was ecstatic, but when he was upset, he was prone to epic tantrums. Even as a young toddler, he argued with a voracity that was biting, complex and unrelenting.

I think it's normal to lack self-confidence as a new parent. But almost a decade into parenting my gifted son, I still often feel completely and utterly lost. I wonder: Is he normal? Is it really supposed to be this difficult? Does he need more intellectual stimulation? Does he need less?

And I wonder about me, his mother. How on earth will I muster enough patience every day to deal with his willfulness, his outspoken personality and unrelenting energy? How can I create appropriate boundaries without squashing his unique abilities? How can I help create a life for him that nurtures his innate gifts but also gives him the ability to function normally and be happy?

Like many gifted children, my son reached milestones at a different rate than his peers. He began reading when he was 3. At 4, he was multiplying and doing long division. We didn't push these things on him. He begged for more knowledge, more information.

When he was in pre-K, he took the New York City Gifted and Talented Exam to see if he was eligible to attend one of our city's coveted gifted programs - and also because we were curious to see how he would score. He not only tested as "gifted" but received the highest possible score on the exam.

And yet, at the same time that he excelled in his young academic pursuits, he was slow to meet other milestones (toilet training, independent sleep and certain fine motor skills). This is what experts call "asynchronous development," and while my son certainly has accomplished all his toddler milestones by now, he still lags behind in some developmental areas where his peers seem to excel.

It should probably be noted that gifted children share many of the same characteristics as children diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, including an absorbing interest in a particular topic, and an uncanny ability to hyperfocus.

While many children are diagnosed with both - often called "twice exceptional" - this is not the case with my son. He does not exhibit the socialising difficulties that are the hallmark of Asperger's. He is very social, makes friends easily and doesn't have trouble expressing his feelings.

We decided early on in his education that we wanted him to have as normal a childhood as possible. Even though he gained admission to some of the city's top gifted programs, when we found out how competitive the programs were, and how much extra work the kids are given at such young ages, we decided not to send him to any of them. Instead, we enrolled him in our small neighbourhood school.

This plan has worked out well for the past few years. His teachers give him extra challenges when he finishes the regular class work, and he has plenty of time to pursue his own brainy interests outside of school. He certainly spends a fair share of his free time playing video games, but he also has also learned how to code and create video games himself.

I can't predict what his life will be like. I certainly want him to be successful, but I also know that he has an intensity that can make life difficult sometimes. As his mum, I worry. I worry that he will start to find school annoying or stressful. I worry that his seriousness and impetuousness will make him seem aloof or unfriendly. I worry that his profound drive for perfection will leave him feeling frustrated and disappointed.

And yet, I know I have little control over any of this, and that all I can do is love him unconditionally, guide him to make good decisions and then trust that things will work out the way they are supposed to in the end.

I want my son to know that wherever life takes him, I will always admire him deeply. I'm his biggest fan. And I'm thrilled to watch him grow up to see where his dazzling mind takes him.

SOURCE






Defiant tribunal welcomes fake jetset refugees

People-smugglers are out of business in Australia. Boats laden with asylum-seekers have stopped ­arriving. Yet Australia’s immigration system is under challenge from within.

Polls late last year point to large numbers of Australians wanting an end to Muslim migration, anywhere from a third to half those surveyed depending on the poll. The irony is that mislabelled “progressives” — Labor, the Greens, refugee activists, immigration lawyers, judges and other decision-makers doling out their own deluded, short-term version of compassion — are responsible for undermining support for ­migration to this country.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal is made up of judges, lawyers and others with “expert” knowledge. Some of these AAT members are front and centre in the emasculation of support for Australia’s immigration system. Not even the AAT’s judicial-inspired prolix prose can hide the fact the tribunal has agreed that many asylum-seekers have deliberately lied on visa applications. In simple language, that makes them fake refugees. Yet, over and over again, the AAT has decided to reinstate a visa that has been cancelled by the Immigration Min­ister’s delegate.

Consider these recent cases (specific details cannot be revealed for legal reasons).

The first has already been reported. Asylum-seeker “A” arrived by boat in 2011 and was granted a protection visa the following year claiming it was not safe for him to return to Iran. Once granted a visa, A returned to Iran three times, including to marry under Islamic law. The AAT decided that, even though A kept returning to the country in relation to which he claimed fear of persecution, he was entitled to a protection visa.

The second case, not reported until now, causes more than a raised eyebrow of disbelief. Asylum-seeker “B” claimed to be a stateless Faili Kurd, not an Iranian citizen, in fear for his life in Iran. B travelled to Indonesia by plane on what he claimed to be a false Iranian passport. B’s lie came to light when, after he received a protection visa, he applied for a new Iranian passport in Australia and travelled home for a visit. B admitted to the AAT that he told lies on his visa application. He admitted he was an Iranian citizen and that he had a valid Iranian passport, which he destroyed on the advice of people-smugglers in Indonesia.

Despite the lies, B claimed his wife’s conversion to Christianity gave rise to a non-refoulement ­ob­ligation not to return him to Iran. B’s wife claimed a long interest in the Christian faith. The AAT said her religious conversion was not genuine: her conversion to Christianity happened only after the couple were notified that their protection visas were being cancelled for false information. The AAT concluded B had provided incorrect information and had failed to comply with the ­Mig­ration Act. Then the AAT decided, because the couple had children while in Australia, it was in the children’s best interests for the AAT to reinstate B’s protection visa.

In the year to April, the AAT overturned 4389 — or 39 per cent — of visa decisions made by the minister’s delegate. Cold numbers tell only part of the story. Consider this case, which has a certain familiar flavour: asylum-seeker “C” claimed in his protection visa application that he was stateless, was not an Iranian citizen, that he had travelled to Indonesia on a false passport and that a people-smuggler had taken that passport.

C arrived in Australia by boat with no identity documents. Except that C later applied for and received an Iranian passport, which he used to enter and leave Iran once he had a protection visa. The AAT found the inaccurate information C provided undermined the integrity of Australia’s migration program — yet, once again, the AAT reinstated C’s protection visa.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is right to shake his head at these decisions. Consider another case. Asylum-seeker D claimed to be a stateless Faili Kurd, not an Iranian citizen, used a false passport to travel to Indonesia and claimed he feared for his safety if returned to Iran. Once D received a protection visa, D obtained a valid Iranian passport, suggesting Iranian citizenship, and travelled to Iran for a visit. The AAT found that D had lied on the visa application, that a protection visa would not have been granted if accurate information had been provided. Yet, the AAT reinstated D’s visa, overturning the cancellation.

Notice the pattern of lies from asylum-seekers? Notice the pattern of decisions from the AAT? It’s a bit rich for the AAT to say asylum-seekers providing false information in visa applications undermine the integrity of Australia’s migration program, only to then reinstate liars’ visas.

The combination of fake refugees and misguided AAT members is a double whammy that undermines the integrity of our migration system.

It’s boringly predictable for the Law Council to slap down the Immigration Minister for being critical of some AAT decisions. No judge, lawyer or other person with apparent special expertise on the AAT is above criticism in a democracy. Outgoing AAT president Duncan Kerr says AAT members are simply applying the law. But which law? Explicit provisions in the Migration Act about providing inaccurate information in a visa application are given short shrift. The unfortunate ­directive to asylum-seekers emerging from AAT decisions is fake it ’til you make it.

The shy members of the AAT can expect increased curiosity about their decisions. Last week in Senate estimates, Immigration Department boss Mike Pezzullo released dynamite information: 335 visa holders are being considered for cancellation. He also set out the scale of previous rorts: since 2014, 278 protection visas have been cancelled. Two-thirds of the cancellations arose from evidence of people travelling back to countries in relation to which persecution was claimed. Another third related to people providing incorrect or false information.

Bleeding-heart faux compassionistas, be they in Labor, the Greens or on the AAT, should try to better understand our history. As a migrant nation, Australia has shown strong support for high rates of immigration and a generous humanitarian intake of refugees per capita.

Support for immigration from Australians is most stable and secure when the Australian government, not repugnant people-smugglers piling people into unsafe boats, determines our ­migration policy.

Profiling Dutton in Fairfax Media newspapers last weekend, Jane Cadzow wrote that “he can sometimes sound like an anti-immigration minister”. Except that it’s not anti-immigration to point out that Australia faces unprecedented security threats from terrorists, extremists and criminals who seek to exploit migration pathways to citizenship for their own ends.

It’s not anti-IMMIGRATION to deport criminals. It’s not anti-immigrant to point out that some asylum-seekers are quick to complete welfare forms but rather slow making visa applications. And it’s not anti-immigration to shake your head at decisions by the AAT that undermine the integrity of our migration system.

SOURCE





Peter Dutton seeks stronger powers over citizenship decisions

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would be given stronger powers to override independent judicial decisions on citizenship applications under new laws to be introduced to Parliament in the next fortnight.

Mr Dutton said the Administrative Appeals Tribunal currently has the ability to make decisions against Australia's national interest by ignoring his department's advice and overturning government deportation orders.

The government will introduce new citizenship laws this week and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says they'll focus on English language competency and more thorough background checks.
The Greens have labelled the move a power grab by Mr Dutton and said the "draconian measure" aimed to undermine multicultural Australia.

But the Immigration Minister argued the changes would merely address an "anomaly" and allow him to deny citizenship to people with a criminal record.

"The important point here is that this aligns the current treatment of a visa cancellation and a reinstatement by the AAT. At the moment, that doesn't exist under the citizenship law," he said on Monday.

He said people could still appeal the decision at the Federal Court and High Court.

The government has criticised the AAT for overturning some of its decisions, including on a case where Iranian refugees reportedly travelled back to their former country for a holiday.

On Monday, former prime minister Tony Abbott said the AAT lacked common sense and tribunal members "that make bizarre decisions shouldn't have their contracts renewed".

Greens immigration spokesman Nick McKim said Mr Dutton was trying to "make himself judge, jury and jailer" under "unfair" citizenship changes.

"Peter Dutton has repeatedly shown he cannot follow the current laws - now he wants to get rid of the right of the courts to correct his unlawful decision."

Fairfax Media has revealed that public feedback on changes to the citizenship test - also set to be introduced to Parliament in coming days - will not be made public, a departure from regular processes.

Mr Dutton and Mr McKim have framed the measures as a test for Labor.

The opposition has not yet indicated whether it will offer its support, but citizenship spokesman Tony Burke has promised the party will "deal responsibly with any sensible proposal".

Without the Greens, the government needs either Labor or 10 votes from the 12-strong Senate crossbench.

SOURCE






Must not say that Muslims get kid glove treatment

In an exchange on Australia's Left-leaning ABC TV, conservative commentator Gerard Henderson mentioned several instances of Violent Muslims being given parole and then going on to kill. He suggested that they would not normally have ben given parole but were given it out of political correctness. 

This was objectionable to other participants in the show and his suggestion was regarded as refuted when ONE example (Bayley/Meagher) of a non-Muslim killing while on parole was brought up.  Since Henderson was not arguing that ONLY Muslims were wrongly released, that was not in fact a conclusive reply. 

It may also be worth noting that the case of Adrian Ernest Bayley and Jill Meagher was in 2012, after which bail laws were tightened.  I have deleted a few rather frantic value judgments below


"Insiders" host Barrie Cassidy was discussing Australian parole restrictions with the show’s panel, following the revelation that Yacqub Khayre was on parole.

Khayre killed a man and took a woman hostage in the up-market Melbourne suburb of Brighton last week and Islamic State claimed he was one of the group’s soldiers.

Political commentator and author Gerard Henderson then launched into a tirade about why he was on parole and implied it was because of the killer’s religion.

“(Man) Monis, the terrorist in Sydney, why did he get bail? I think he got bail because he dressed as an Imam and pretended he was a persecuted Muslim and he got bail despite the fact he was on very serious charges,” Mr Henderson said.

“On charge of 40 sexual assaults. If his name had been Gerard Henderson he wouldn’t have got bail. This guy in Victoria (Khayre) much the same.

“The idea of parole as I understand from my legal studies is it encourages prisoners to behave. “(Khayre) as I understand it, committed crimes in prison, engaged in one or two arson attempts within prison. If his name had been Gerard Henderson he wouldn’t have got out on parole, he would’ve served a full term.

“Why did he get out? Because he presented as a Muslim, as an African, because he presented as a persecuted person.”

Fellow panellist and political journalist, Karen Middleton, said to Mr Henderson: “I think that’s going a bit far isn’t it?” and Cassidy asked Mr Henderson if he believed this was the attitude of parole boards across the country.

“I’m not generalising about parole boards across the country, I don’t know anything about parole boards across the country,” Mr Henderson said.

Mr Cassidy was perplexed and said “but you’re saying there’s a pro-Muslim bias in favour”.

Mr Henderson then referred back to Man Monis, who took customers and staff hostage inside Sydney’s Lindt Cafe.

“How do you explain Monis?” Mr Henderson said. “Everyone virtually in Australia concedes he shouldn’t have got bail. Everyone can see this guy in Melbourne (Khayre) shouldn’t have got parole, now why did they get them?”

Mr Cassidy then suggested it wasn’t just a case of Muslims getting parole in Australia who then went on to commit murder.

“The same happened with white Christians in this country, they were given bail when they shouldn’t have been given bail and they went out and committed murders so I don’t see how it’s ...” Mr Cassidy said.

He was interrupted by Mr Henderson who said “just a minute. If that were the case I’d condemn it but who were the white Christians in Australia who were given bail and went out and committed murders?”.

Referring to Melbourne ABC worker Ms Meagher, who was murdered by Bayley while he was on parole, Mr Cassidy said “there’s one very close to the ABC”.

“Who committed a murder?” Mr Henderson said.

Mr Cassidy replied, “no an ABC employee” before Ms Middleton interrupted “he’s talking about the Jill Meagher case”.

Viewers reacted to the awkward exchange on Twitter with one saying Mr Henderson had a “bigoted viewpoint”.

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

Minimum Wage hikes don't cost jobs (?)

As the article below says, this is a contentious subject with evidence either way. The law of supply and demand is very much an 'iron' law, one incapable of repeal.  So increasing the price of labour must reduce the demand for it. And labour costs are a major part of costs for most businesses so the effect should be pretty obvious.

That is however in a "ceteris paribus" situation and other things are not always equal. A very old observation on the matter -- going back to Henry Ford and persuasively argued in modern times by Ron Unz -- is that workers are also buyers so giving them more money means that they will spend more and thus increase demand -- which will in turn increase the income of businesses, thus enabling them to pay their workers the mandated rise. That is something of a perpetual motion argument but is probably partly true.

A less adventurous argument is that large pay rises tend to be granted in periods of prosperity so the empoyer can afford them and all that happens is that the balance of returns to labour and capital is restored.

The least persuasive argument is that higher wages tend to incentivize higher productivity, thus enabling the boss to pay more.  That may happen but only in isolated instances, one would think.

Australia is in a very different situation to the United States.  Minimum wages are almost always set nationally in Australia, whereas American minima can be set Federally, Statewide or even on a municipal basis.  And high municipal minima do tend to spark evasion in the USA.  Businesses simply move out of town to where the set wages are lower.  Seattle appears to be an example of that. So the law of supply and demand is as reliably present as ever in the matter of minimum wages. 

So, from that example, my conclusion is that offsetting effects are probably large in Australia but unregulated wages would probably still generate higher levels of employment


What was it thinking? On Tuesday, the normally hard-hearted Fair Work Commission drove up the cost of labour 3.3 per cent. From July 1 the full-time minimum wage jumps from $34,975 to $36,135 – that's an extra $22 a week, the biggest increase in ages.

It will spread far beyond the lowest-paid. The Commission believes that 23 per cent of Australian workers, almost 1 in 4, will benefit from the flow-on increase to awards. And it'll spread further, to enterprise agreements that need to compete with awards.

It'll cost jobs. There are "experts" who say so. "It's just got to be reducing employment, it's just got to be," said one, quoted in the Financial Review. Business will be forced to "reduce costs through cutting jobs or other investments," said another, in The Australian.

You'd think so. If a business' costs go up and its income doesn't, it'll have to cut back. It makes sense.

Just as it makes sense to think that lower class sizes improve educational outcomes.  They ought to. But while that's obviously true in extreme cases (if class sizes or wages were increased tenfold, it would hurt), normal-size adjustments, of the kind that are usually made, seem to have no effect whatsoever. And these are some of the most intensively studied questions in economics.

I'll leave class sizes for another day. On wages, the commissioners said those studies had "fortified" its view that modest and regular wage increases "do not result in disemployment effects".

The latest, and most damning, is a seven decade-study released in May by the United States National Employment Law Project entitled Raise Wages, Kill Jobs?

"If the claims of minimum wage opponents are akin to saying 'the sky is falling', this report is an effort to check whether the sky did indeed fall," the authors say.

They examined each of the 22 increases in the US federal minimum wage between 1938 and 2009 to determine whether either employment or hours worked had dropped in the year that followed.

"The results were clear: these basic economic indicators show no correlation between federal minimum wage increases and lower employment levels, even in the industries that are most impacted by higher minimum wages," they reported.

We find it hard to believe that modest wage increases don't cost jobs, because they ought to.

"To the contrary, in the substantial majority of instances (68 per cent) overall employment increased after a federal minimum-wage increase. In the most substantially affected industries, the rates were even higher: in the leisure and hospitality sector employment rose 82 per cent of the time following a federal wage increase, and in the retail sector it was 73 per cent of the time."

"Moreover, the small minority of instances in which employment declined, all occurred during periods of recession or near recession. That pattern strongly suggests that the few instances of such declines are better explained by the business cycle than by the minimum wage."

They go on to observe that their findings aren't really surprising. Study after study has found the same thing.

We find it hard to believe that modest wage increases don't cost jobs, because they ought to. Where's the employer going to find the money? But cutting jobs can cost money, and the money can come from higher prices and from getting more out of each worker, so-called productivity growth. Of late productivity has been growing faster than wages, so the commission's decision puts things back into balance.

And partly because when workers are paid more, they stay more and become better workers, and even become better ambassadors for the businesses that employ them. And because, occasionally, wage increases are really big. When they are big enough, low wage workers become higher wage workers and spend more, especially in shops and food outlets, the kind of industries that are likely to employ them.

There's just a chance the commission knows what it's doing.

SOURCE






Awards council drops 'Australian of the Year finalist' line from Egyptian con-woman

The National Australia Day Council appears to be mainly a Leftist do-gooder outfit not in close touch with reality. They even honoured false-prophet Tim Flannery once.  This latest episode is more evidence that their awards are idiosyncratic and not to be taken seriously

The organisation behind the Australian of the Year awards has watered down its biography of accused fraudster Eman Sharobeem in an apparent move to distance the disgraced finalist from its flagship awards.

The National Australia Day Council this week dropped a reference to Ms Sharobeem being an Australian of the Year finalist from an official profile on its website after questions from Fairfax Media.

Fairfax Media approached the National Australia Day Council about the impact of a corruption investigation into Ms Sharobeem and whether the council had reviewed vetting procedures on nominees.

In response, the council issued a statement, saying it would defer a response until after the Independent Commission Against Corruption finished an inquiry into allegations the former head of two publicly-funded community organisations defrauded taxpayers of more than $600,000, including spending on personal goods such as Botox, jewellery and a Mercedes.

But the council also sought to ring-fence its highest awards from the taint of its former ambassador, asserting she was part of a lesser category as a "NSW Local Hero category finalist in the Australian of the Year Awards" and not an Australian of the Year finalist.

Fairfax Media questioned the claim, directing a spokeswoman to the Australia Day council's own website on Wednesday morning. It described the one-time high-flying ambassador for the organisation as a "finalist for Australian Of The Year 2015". A screenshot was saved at 11:20am.

Shortly before 5pm, another council spokesman, Damian Tunney, emailed Fairfax, dismissing questions about the council describing her as an Australian of the Year finalist, stating the profile "uses the phrase 'finalist in the Local Hero category for the Australian Of The Year Awards in 2015…'".

A check of the website against the earlier screenshot revealed the content had been changed after Fairfax Media's inquiry.

Asked why the page was changed, Mr Tunney said "that the website has been updated since your enquiry this morning that highlighted the ambiguity".

While the council showed tremendous haste changing the description of Ms Sharobeem's award, it has not removed the title "Dr" nor claims of previous jobs in her professional biography that have been dismantled by the ICAC and Fairfax Media stories over the past four months.

The council has not responded to questions about whether it vetted her background before she was shortlisted as a category finalist and made an awards ambassador. Nor has it responded to questions about what evidence it had to support calling Ms Sharobeem "Dr".

Fairfax Media has revealed that Ms Sharobeem has had her assets frozen by the powerful NSW Crime Commission, the existence of a secret ICAC investigation and that her claims to have two PhDs and be a practising psychologist cannot be substantiated.

In the wake of the revelations, the ICAC began public hearings last month. Ms Sharobeem conceded to the commission she never studied for a PhD but maintains she received an honorary doctorate in Egypt but cannot provide evidence for it because of a fire during the Arab Spring uprising.

Ms Sharobeem, who was chief executive of the Immigrant Womens Health Services for 11 years until 2015, was photographed receiving a citation as a finalist in the awards by then Premier Mike Baird. Her award contributed to a media profile that helped gain her a series of government-related advisory bodies. The ICAC is inquiring into her use of false qualifications to obtain those positions.

After she left the IWHS she was offered a job at broadcaster SBS which she left around the time of the asset freeze in February.

Ms Sharobeem, who endured a torrid five days of evidence in the witness box last month before being excused on health grounds, is due to return to the witness box for a further three days beginning Tuesday.

Other witnesses still to appear include her sons Richard and Charlie, who are alleged recipients of her fraudulent largesse, and her husband Haiman Hammo, who is alleged to have received a Mercedes partly funded by the taxpayer.

SOURCE






New footage reveals sheer violence of Andrew Bolt attack outside Melbourne restaurant

Alarming new footage shows commentator Andrew Bolt being assaulted on the streets of Melbourne in what he says is an example of how dangerous the city has become for conservatives.

The video, posted on social media on Thursday morning, shows a hooded man approaching Bolt from behind and throwing a substance at his head, initiating a brawl in broad daylight on busy Lygon Street.

The ensuing scuffle sees Bolt pushed into a pole and then falling over chairs and tables outside a restaurant. He fights back fiercely, kicking and punching his two assailants in the face and groin before they give up and start to walk away.

An unknown man shouts "what are you doing?" and "go away" as the brawl concludes.

The assault took place on Tuesday at the launch of The Art of the Impossible, a book on Donald Trump and the 2016 US presidential election campaign by RMIT associate professor Steve Kates.

On Tuesday night Victoria Police confirmed it was investigating the "incident" and was searching for three men: the two assailants plus a third man who was wielding a camera and "appeared to be filming or taking photos".

Police confirmed Bolt was hit with a mixture of shaving cream and glitter.

Speaking to Fairfax Media on Thursday morning, Bolt said he was sick of being targeted for his conservative beliefs and would pursue his attackers for justice and demand a charitable donation.

"I'm not a brawler," he said. "I had one bruised knuckle and I don't care a stuff about it. I had a suit ruined and I want every cent of that paid back. And I want a hefty donation to a charity of my choice."

Melbourne Antifa, a loose collection of left-wing activists united behind "anti-fascist action", appeared to claim a role in the incident, posting on Facebook that "some of our family in solidarity were attacked by Andrew Bolt while they were protesting today".

The group argued Bolt should be imprisoned for his "violent, horrendous language".

Bolt told Fairfax Media the attack was the latest in a long line of threats to the safety of himself, his family and other conservatives in his home city.

"I am sick of people trying to intimidate me, trying to threaten me," he said. "I'm sick of the threats on my life and my reputation. I'm sick of being sued and bullied and I'm not going to take it. I'm just not going to take it.

"We should be free to have a debate and to walk down the street without fear of being attacked.

"The right to free speech has to be better protected – everywhere but particularly in Melbourne. It is ridiculous how dangerous it is for conservatives in this town to speak out.

"If you don't like what I say just prove me wrong. Don't threaten me, don't threaten my house, don't threaten my family, don't abuse me – just argue with me. "It must be a question of the principle and not the side."

SOURCE






Official Australian report says "renewable" power must be backed up by other generators for when renewables don't deliver

Huge costs coming, possibly big enough to derail much more take-up of "renewables"

After widespread power blackouts last summer, the long-awaited Finkel review of the electricity market has put energy security and stability centre stage, with a raft of technical recommendations put to the Council of Australian Governments meeting on Friday. But tackling the more complex issue of how to move beyond the existing renewable energy target remains on the backburner.

A key recommendation is for an Energy Security Board to be established, reflecting the need to ensure widespread blackouts are avoided with the shift to renewable energy as coal-fired power stations are shut down.

But the recommendation has triggered immediate concerns that "going easy" on pushing power generators to cut emissions will place greater pressure on other parts of industry, and the transport sector, to make tougher cuts to their emissions.

In particular, failing to endorse a move beyond the existing target of reducing emissions, by 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030, misses an important opportunity. To do so, Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel argued, "may have consequences for security, cost and reliability".

"This will set expectations and help to guide investment decisions in the electricity sector by providing an anchor point for Australia's long-term emissions trajectory."

As a result, by pushing for a so-called "clean energy target"  rather than a more rigorous means of cutting emissions such as with an energy intensity scheme, the recommendation won the immediate backing of the energy utilities.

"While we have advocated for an emissions intensity scheme (EIS), ... a clean energy target is a viable policy option and will unleash the necessary new investment in the national electricity market," AGL said, pointing out the review had found the resource costs of such a scheme were relatively similar to both business-as-usual and an EIS.

The clean energy target would be "technologically neutral", the report noted, while also helping to lower long-term emissions. "For example, a mix of wind, solar and coal generation would be equally acceptable as a mix of wind, solar and gas generation as long as the emissions reduction trajectory is achieved."

Both a clean energy target and an emissions intensity scheme "are credible emissions reduction mechanisms because they minimise costs for consumers, are flexible and adaptable, and satisfy security and reliability criteria", the review found. "Both mechanisms ... deliver better price outcomes than business as usual."

However a clean energy target "could build directly on the experience of the renewable energy target" and avoid the need for new trading rules and further complexity and hence be implemented comparatively painlessly.

Energy Action's director of innovation and sustainability, Paul Bannister, said the decision to opt for a clean energy target was "pragmatic" since it may more easily win political support, rather than an energy intensity scheme.

"But this is always open to meddling," he said, warning of the potential for political intervention in the future.

Similarly, while the review has backed the emergence of so-called "micro-grids" any change could be some time off since a review of the relevant regulations will not begin for a year.

"The development of a functioning smart grid where energy users can sell demand reductions and surplus on-site generation in a free-market environment is central to the necessary reforms," Energy Action's Mr Bannister said. "This is essential to ensure a least-cost outcome for energy users and the economy as a whole."

The chief executive of Origin Energy, Frank Calabria, said he hoped the Finkel review "will pave the way for a more co-ordinated national approach to energy and climate policy".

"The important work now begins as industry and governments work together to translate recommendations into actions.

"Getting Australia's energy and climate change policy settings right is crucial to attracting the investment required to maintain a secure and affordable supply of energy to Australian homes and businesses, as we continue the transition to a low-carbon economy."

The release of the Finkel review into the electricity system comes as electricity consumers are bracing for another round of "sticker shock" from surging electricity bills.  Prices in the ACT are rising around 20 per cent, while AGL announced on Friday it would raise charges in NSW by 16 per cent from July 1 and by 18 per cent in South Australia for all households on so-called standing offers, as the surge in wholesale prices flows through to consumers.

Yet while the Finkel review was touted as providing a road map to lower electricity prices, the report failed to indicate how this will be achieved, since it has made it clear substantial new investment will be needed in the long-distance transmission  network, for example, with the cost burden to be borne by all consumers.

Central to the report is boosting the role of renewables and it backs new renewable energy projects having backup systems to help improve their reliability and smooth some of the "intermittency" that has plagued the electricity market.

"It's about time," one energy trader said. "Intermittency is the key issue with renewables. It is not unusual these days to see wind providing 40 per cent of all output. But it is not there at peak demand times, when it is needed.

"This has placed an additional cost on consumers and the other generators. So really, it is 'about time' additional renewables had some sort of back up."

Craig Memery of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre warned this will force consumers to pay "more than they should in the long run".

"Requiring new renewable energy operators to invest in energy storage technologies or come up with other ways of addressing their variable output is expensive and unnecessary," he said. "Placing additional obligations on renewable energy generators runs the risk of using less cost-efficient approaches, which translates to higher costs for consumers."

But higher charges are unavoidable with the need to build more transmission lines to accommodate more renewable energy plants.

"There is a lot of infrastructure spending coming," warned Gavin Dufty, policy officer with the St Vincent de Paul Society. "That raises the issue of who pays for it and how it is allocated – and that's quite regressive", referring to the fact that the cost will more likely fall heaviest on households and businesses who can't afford to install solar systems, and the like.

"If you go on a big infrastructure spend, households and small businesses will pay – but you need to allocate that cost in line with people's ability to pay. System security doesn't come cheap. This transition is costly. It is one of the biggest infrastructure challenges we've got – this is big dollars, and will wash through onto the household bill."

The Finkel review warned that newer renewable power generators "will likely be smaller in scale but more numerous than coal-fired generators, so a more co-ordinated approach to transmission planning is required". As part of this, it wants "a long-term, integrated grid plan ... to establish an optimal transmission network design to enable the connection of new renewable energy resources".

"Co-ordination of generation and transmission investment so that networks connect the areas with the best renewable energy resources, at an efficient scale, will be a critical challenge. Transmission businesses need to be incentivised to build the network infrastructure required for the future of the [national energy market], but not to build unnecessarily."

As BusinessDay reported when the federal government first unveiled its plan to boost capacity of the Snowy Hydro scheme in early March, the headline cost of $1.5 billion-$2 billion would double once the need for upgraded transmission links was taken into account, which was confirmed earlier this month in Senate estimates hearings.

And it has gone unnoticed that on the back of the plan by the Victorian government to lift to 40 per cent the supply of electricity sourced from renewable energy within the next decade, plans are already afoot for as much as 5000 megawatts of new renewable projects in western Victoria alone, of which Australian Energy Markets Operator reckons 3000 megawatts will probably be built. But if the AEMO forecast proves to be conservative and the full 5000 MW is built, that would be more than enough to replace three times the capacity of the recently shuttered Hazelwood power station (1600 megawatts), and more than Loy Yang A (2200Mw) and Loy Yang B (1600Mw) combined.

According to AEMO, this will need heavy spending on the transmission network throughout that part of the state to get the power to market, with private estimates that the cost could run to several billion dollars. And unless the network companies are paid to build those links, that renewable energy won't find a home.

"Without network investments to improve [network] strength, the 3000 megawatts of new renewable generation may still be constrained or disconnected," AEMO warned in a recent report, "even after investments to improve network thermal capacity have been carried out."

"Adding 4000 or 5000 megawatts would need a major transmission upgrade of $3 billion-$4 billion," one senior power industry figure said. "There appears to be a 'cargo-cult' mentality taking hold – build it [the network] and they will come. By going about this process the way it has, via a  so-called 'regulatory investment test for transmission' this will push up consumers' bills, since they will have to foot the cost of the expansion and the ongoing cost of operating it.

"There is an existing approach under the electricity market rules which allows for 'scale efficient' network expansion. Under this approach, the builder of the additional generation capacity pays for the network upgrade, which is only fair since it will profit from the move.

"By adopting the approach put out there by AEMO for this network upgrade, this will add to the bills of all electricity users. These upgrades should only proceed if paid for by the generator."

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

Australian climate skeptics use Socrates to question global warming



AN ad published in a major newspaper purports to prove climate change isn’t real using a hypothetical conversation with Socrates. The Climate Study Group says it researches ‘climate truths’. I have deleted some opinionated adjectives below.

I can see no substance in the criticisms below.  The argument is straightforward:  High CO2 in the past was not bad so why is it bad now?  Life thrived mightily in an era when CO2 levels were much higher than now so why is life threatened now, amid much lower levels of CO2?  Is not raised CO2 good for life rather than threatening to life?  Is not a small rise in CO2 likely to be beneficial on balance?

It is true that there were no humans in the Carboniferous but there were plenty of dinosaurs with respiratory systems very similar to ours.  And our metabolism is in fact more flexible than theirs so we are better at adapting.  So we should thrive amid raised CO2 as well


A GROUP that claims to study “climate truths” is behind a newspaper ad that uses ancient philosopher Socrates to try and prove climate change isn’t real.

The paid advertisement ran in The Australian newspaper, published by NewsCorp, which also publishes news.com.au, on Friday has shocked both scientists and philosophers as it tries to link the two disciplines to prove CO2 and fossil fuels have nothing to do with global warming.

The quarter-page advertisement features a large image of Socrates and showcases a “hypothetical conversation” between the philosopher and a fictional “strong believer in climate change”, dubbed Mr Smith.

The conversation sees Socrates question Mr Smith’s unwavering belief about emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels which were formed before and during the carboniferous period.

In the imaginary exchange, Socrates questions whether there was evidence of global warming prior to this period, and makes some other “philosophical inquiries”, which are then claimed to “reveal the truth with compelling logic and facts which refute longheld belief”. Mr Smith is led to finally “understand the truth” and ultimately reject climate change.

Social media users have slammed the add, and Reddit commentators have called it just plain weird. Actual experts are outraged too.

Deakin University senior philosophy lecturer Patrick Stokes said aside from scientific conjecture, the philosophical side of the group’s argument was dangerously flawed.

“The reason that climate change denialists like Socrates is they are wedding to a brave individual exposing the corrupt elite,” he said. “The problem is of course that science doesn’t work the way Socratic questioning works. The idea that you come along and lob a couple of Socratic questions and explode it all just doesn’t hold water.”

Mr Stokes said there were “glaring fallacies” in the argument, and argued that Socrates would have been “quite affronted” by the ad. He said on Twitter: “Whoever wrote this: Socrates would have kicked your arse, and rightly so.”

Melbourne University climate scientist Andrew King said the advert put forward “a nonsensical ill-founded argument”.

“Essentially their argument is the CO2 was higher in the past and that the carbon is from a natural source,” Dr King said. “One obvious criticism is that the Carboniferous Period (being 300 million years ago) is a poor analog for the climate of today. It was warmer but lifeforms were also very different with nothing similar to humans.

“Human life is adapted to the climate we have today. If the climate was much warmer, as in the Carboniferous period, we’d be in a lot of trouble! Really?  Our present tropics are many degrees warmer than Europe but people still thrive there, including high birthrates.  And warming up Siberia would be very congenial.  The man is talking rubbish

“They also talk about the lack of “dangerous global warming” in the Carboniferous period, but, in a large part, the problems that result from global warming are caused by the absolute temperature as opposed to the rate of change of temperature.” But that is what the skeptics are arguing

Dr King also argued it was unfair to invoke Socrates. He said that having been dead for a long time he wasn’t around to give his own opinion.

News.com.au spoke to the convener of The Climate Study Group, who described the organisation as “a group that studies the climate truths”.

The man asked to remain anonymous for fear of hate mail, but has previously publicly identified himself as the leader of the organisation in government submissions and articles.

He said he did not wish to discuss the advertisement or the research behind it any further.

The same organisation came under fire for another unusual advertisement that took a similar format and was published in the same paper in August 2015.

In an advertorial entitled “Psychology and the new climate alarm”, the climate-denial collective sought to use psychological research to prove there was no evidence that CO2 had affected climate.

See here for details of the 2015 advert

The Australian Psychology Society attacked the group, saying it was “disturbed to see psychology being used to mislead the public” and claimed the publisher had ignored a “huge body of scientific evidence”. Like what?

The same band of climate deniers has also been behind bizarre research papers and submissions to the Prime Minister, Foreign Affairs Minister, and Minister for the Environment, using its own research to back up allegations that economists were being alarmist due to their psychological makeup and that an ice age is the most urgent environmental threat.

SOURCE





Pauline Hanson slams Islamic Council's push for taxpayer-funded 'safe spaces' for young Muslims to make 'frank' comments

Pauline Hanson has rubbished suggestions from the Islamic Council of Victoria that Muslim youths should be provided with taxpayer-funded 'safe spaces' to make 'inflammatory' and 'frank' comments out of the public eye.

The One Nation leader said she was 'totally against' the proposal, which is an effort by Muslim leaders to tackle the growing problem of radicalised youth in Australia.

'What a load of rubbish! How much more money have we got to put in to this to make them feel good about themselves?,' she told Samantha Armytage on Sunrise.

Ms Hanson went on to say the federal government needed to ban Muslims from 'certain extremist countries' coming into Australia.

'The ones who are coming back from overseas fighting shouldn't be allowed back in the country. I don't want these people in this country,' she said. 'They are spreading their hate and their evil towards others that are possibly turning to radicalisation.'

In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into freedom of religion, Islamic leaders have demanded government funding for anti-terrorism and anti-extremism should be used to create the religious sanctuaries.

'To create safe spaces urgently needed by Muslim youth to meet and talk about a range of issues in emotional terms, where they can be frank and even use words, which in a public space would sound inflammatory,' the submission reads.

'That they cannot express irony, humour, anger or joy in words and facial expressions that would make them a target for 'surveillance' is a cause for despondency leading to mental health issues among many.'

The Council also points out the inability for Muslim adherents to safely practice their religion without feeling subject to surveillance is a 'human rights issue'.

'There are human rights issues which restrict Muslim's in Victoria and nationally to enjoy the same human right to freedom of religion or belief that other Australians currently enjoy,' it said.

The submission calls on the government to advocate higher research and programs to address the rise of other non-Muslim extremism in Australia such as far-right groups.

Ms Hanson rejected claims from the Islamic Council that Melbourne siege gunman Yacqub Khayres could have been influenced by drugs and mental health problems rather than extremist Muslim ideologies.

'Let's deal with the whole facts. A lot of people in our society have mental issues and are on drugs,' she said. 'In towns like this, I am travelling out to the bush again, they have a big problem with ice and drugs and depression throughout our country. People do not talk to violence and murder other people.

Following Melbourne's deadly siege on Monday which killed one innocent man, Victoria's state government will discuss radical new anti-terrorism measures, the Herald Sun reports.

The ice-addicted gunman was shot dead along with innocent receptionist Kai Hao, 36, in a bloody siege for which the militant group claimed responsibility.

Despite police labelling it a suspected terror attack, the state's peak Muslim body warned against inflaming tensions and branded the gunman 'confused.' The council said while there are debates over the gunman's motive, it was clear had a long criminal record and a trail of violence.

'We understand that the police are investigating this as a potential terrorist attack but note that the perpetrator himself appeared to be confused as to who he was acting on behalf, claiming allegiance to both ISIS and AlQaeda, known enemies.'

'Whether this act was inspired by an evil warped ideology or was in fact the actions of a deranged violent individual, this does not change the reality that a horrendous crime was committed in which an innocent person was killed, a woman was held hostage, and police officers' lives were put at risk.'

They warned against provoking tensions with the Muslim and Somali communities, which could promote further attacks.

'What we must avoid is sensationalising or somehow attributing unwarranted significance to these criminals because it exacerbates prevailing fears and tensions and potentially encourages copycat behaviour.'

'We would also like to express our support to the Somali community who will be unfairly vilified because of the actions of this one man. They have made, and continue to make, an invaluable contribution to Victorian society.'

A review into Khayre's prison and parole management has been ordered as the government revealed up to 22 Victorians a year are undergoing anti-radicalisation programs.

The state's Corrections Minister Gayle Tierney repeatedly refused to answer questions in parliament about Khayre because she has ordered the review.

But she did reveal the Islamic Council of Victoria is currently working with up to 22 people undertaking anti-radicalisation programs.

'In the last state budget there was an allocation of $6.385 million over four years for anti-radicalisation programs, ' Ms Tierney told the Legislative Council on Tuesday.

'The Islamic Council of Victoria is contracted to deliver the program and is currently working with up to 22 prisoners and people in the community each year.'

SOURCE





Police left powerless to stop speeding offenders exploiting no-pursuit laws with more than 110 evading arrest every week - as cops call for an end to the 'failed policy'

Another stupid policy maintained by a Leftist government

Union chiefs have called for Queensland's no pursuit policy to be scrapped after the latest police statistics revealed a sharp increase in drivers evading officers.

In the last year Queensland Police statistics obtained between March 2016 and April 2017 indicated that 5,871 police evasion offences were recorded, breaking down to nearly 113 offences weekly.

Those figures show a staggering 29 percent increase on the previous year's figure of 4,554 and has prompted Queensland Police Union boss Ian Leavers to urge the Palaszczuk Government to abolish the no pursuit policy giving cops the freedom to chase.

Police chiefs have defended the law suggesting public safety must come first and have highlighted the lack of fatalities from pursuits as a key factor for the policy to stand    +3
Police chiefs have defended the law suggesting public safety must come first and have highlighted the lack of fatalities from pursuits as a key factor for the policy to stand

Mr Leavers ripped into the policy, suggesting it was the wrong course of action to take with the current situation impractical.

'These stats which have risen more than threefold over the last year clearly show the current 'no pursuits policy' for police is a dismal failure and should be consigned to the wastepaper bin,' Mr Leavers told The Courier Mail.

Mr Leaver believes that public knowledge of the policy gives an element of freedom to drivers who can flee from officers at will, knowing they won't be chased.

He also pointed to the trust placed in police officers to use firearms at their discretion, suggesting the same legislation should be in place for pursuits.

The current pursuit policy was introduced in 2012 after a coroner suggested a restricted rule following a series of fatal crashes in Queensland.

The legislation states that pursuits are 'inherently dangerous' and are only permitted on the strict basis that those fleeing are an 'imminent threat to life' or have been involved in or threatened a murder.

If caught evading officers on two separate occasions, the police have the authority to confiscate any vehicle with it being forfeited to the state.

Road Policing Assistant Commissioner Mike Keating confirmed the raise yet indicated it was down to, and most importantly, the public's safety coming first.

'It's an increase but it's an increase where we are managing the risks to the general public which is our responsibility,' he revealed.

A concerning statistic is that only 1,573 charges were laid of the 5,871 police evasions recorded.

Mr Keating suggested however that factors such as drivers offending multiple times were to blame for wavering statistics.

Amidst the growing concern with the policy, Police Minister Mark Ryan pointed out that one key positive to take from the rule was the lack of fatalities connected to police pursuits.

'Since the introduction of the current policy six years ago there have been no deaths associated with police pursuits,' Mr Ryan noted.

SOURCE






‘The Southern Cross is becoming the new Swastika’: New documentary examines ‘hijacking’ of national icon

In the form of the Eureka flag, the Southern cross has mostly in the past been a symbol used by the far Left -- so maybe we should not get very bothered by who uses it

WARWICK Thornton was basking in the success of his award-winning feature film Samson and Delilah in 2010, when one simple remark prompted widespread national outrage. “I’m concerned the Southern Cross is becoming the new Swastika,” he said.

Like many Australians, the Alice Springs-raised Mr Thornton could see parallels between the hijacking of the two symbols for the extreme nationalist cause.

The Swastika, a Sanskrit symbol for good fortune, is now synonymous with death in the west, after being adopted as the symbol of Germany’s murderous Nazi Party in the 1930s.

Similarly, the Southern Cross has been adopted in Australia by the extreme right-wing as a symbol of bigotry, hatred and nationalist pride, though obviously not to the same, murderous extreme.

The Southern Cross, along with the Australian flag, is the favoured symbol of groups such the anti-Muslim Reclaim Australia and United Patriots Front movements. Simply put, Mr Thornton said, the Southern Cross has been “hijacked by dickheads”.

Seven years on, the 2010 Australian of the Year nominee has made the symbolism of the Southern Cross the subject of a new documentary, We Don’t Need a Map, screening as part of the Sydney Film Festival.

Mr Thornton told ABC Radio National’s Awaye program the vehement reaction to his 2010 comparison of the Southern Cross and the Swastika took him by surprise. “People got very upset, and that scared the hell out of me,” he told the program. “I went and hid in the cupboard for a little while, and then over a couple of years, I got angry.”

The result was We Don’t Need a Map, a kind of Australian road trip that examines the spiritual importance of the five constellations to the country’s indigenous people and how, among nationalist groups, the Southern Cross morphed into a symbol bearing such potent power.

“This is the story of the hijacking of an Australian icon,” goes the promotional slogan.

Mr Thornton is hoping to prompt a national discussion about the symbol, though perhaps one a little more measured than the one that followed his comments seven years ago.

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

Global university rankings: one Australian university makes the top 20

The good performance of ANU is no big surprise.  It is Australia's most lavishly funded Uni.  It basically can afford any faculty members it wants.  Still, Australia is a small community on the world stage so to rank so highly out of thousands of universities worldwide is a considerable  achievement

It may be worth noting what the QS rankings are based on.  They are reputational rankings.  They tell us how highly a university is thought of.  That is important information but rankings of academic output are possibly more important.  The Leiden ranking is notable for the latter.  Several Australian universities get into the top 50 according to Leiden but the ANU is not among them.  It is way down at 191.  That does suggest the the high reputation of the ANU might not be fully deserved

By contrast, the fact that University of Sydney, University of Melbourne and University of Queensland score highly in both sets of rankings is persuasive. It indicates a deserved high reputation for them.  As I am a graduate of two of those three I am pleased about that. I think it is clear that the teaching there is world-class


One Australian university is among the world's top 20 universities and five are in the top 50, according to a major global ranking that shows Australian universities have made overall improvements in all measures, including teaching, employability and research.

The University of Sydney was the only Australian university to drop down the list, slipping four places from 46, while six of Australia's top universities improved in their rank from last year.

Australian National University is the highest ranked in the country at 20th place in the 2018 QS World University Rankings.

It is followed by the University of Melbourne, ranked at 41, the University of New South Wales at 45, the University of Queensland at 47 and the University of Sydney at 50.

Belinda Robinson, chief executive of peak sector body Universities Australia, said the ranking is especially important to international students choosing a university.

"Global rankings are a major factor for many international students in deciding where to study, so they're also very important to the $22.4 billion a year that international students bring into Australia's economy," Ms Robinson said.

"These impressive rises underscore the global competitiveness of Australia's universities and the excellent quality of our education and research on the world stage."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the top ranked university in the world for the sixth consecutive year, followed by Stanford University, Harvard University, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, University College London, Imperial College London, the University of Chicago and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

MIT has been described as "the nucleus of an unrivalled innovation ecosystem" by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, the education analysis firm behind the ranking, which notes that companies created by the university's alumni have a combined revenue of $2 trillion, the equivalent of the world's 11th largest economy.

Despite the ongoing dominance of US and UK universities in the top 10, QS Quacquarelli Symonds also notes that many other universities from those countries are now being outperformed by "the best of Australia, Russia, China, Singapore and India – among others".

SOURCE





Why up to half of all Australian teachers are quitting within five years

As a former High School teacher I cannot relate to the "cri de coeur" below at all.  I had no time pressures whatever. I just taught from the textbook and got my students excellent results that way.  But I concede that it may be different in Primary School

Everyone remembers the nerves on their first day of school, but Margaret Gordon had it especially tough. The 22-year-old was made to stand up in front of the entire assembly at her school on the NSW Central Coast and introduced by the principal as "Miss Gordon, who has just graduated from Sydney University".

Ten minutes later, the new primary school teacher was shown to a classroom full of year 2 students.

"It just felt like the workload snowballed," Miss Gordon, now 25, said. "Early on, I was at school by 8 every morning and I'd leave hopefully by 6pm when the cleaners kick you out, and weekends would just be planning and gathering resources.

"There would maybe be a little bit of time in there for grocery shopping."

She has since learnt to manage the workload and recovered her weekends, but for many of her fellow early career teachers the transition from study to work never becomes any easier.

Up to half of all Australian teachers are leaving the profession in the first five years, and new research conducted by the Hunter Institute of Mental Health suggests the problem could be in the way the school day is structured.

Of the 453 teachers surveyed across NSW, two-thirds identified time management and having too much work as their biggest challenge, and more than half said they wanted more time for collaboration, mentoring and planning.

"One of the things identified is that teachers feel their time is limited and there are high demands on how they use that time," the study's program manager and principal investigator Gavin Hazel said.

Nicole Calnan, a membership and training officer at the NSW Teachers Federation, said: "It's one of the few positions where we expect teachers to produce the same results from their students in their first year as someone with 15 years of experience.

"We need to make sure that if we do expect that, they have support and more time within the school day for professional learning and collaboration with other teachers."

Ms Calnan said countries like Finland, which have fewer required hours of direct instruction, provide a successful model of how teachers could be given more time outside the classroom during school hours.

Australian primary teachers must provide a total of 6060 hours of direct instruction across K-6 classes every year, compared to their counterparts in Finland who are required to provide 3794 hours of direct instruction, according to the latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on classroom instruction. The average number of required direct instruction hours across OECD countries is 4553.

"Their teaching day is structured differently," Ms Calnan said. "Face-to-face instruction time isn't as great as other countries, which means teachers have greater time for lesson preparation and students have more time for social interaction.

And obviously Finnish students still perform very well."

Ms Calnan said improving career experiences for new teachers would require a greater policy focus on teacher wellbeing, instead of only looking at how students are performing.

"[This] research is a welcome addition to our understanding of what early career teachers are facing," she said. "That hasn't been a priority for political parties."

Ms Gordon, who also represents the NSW Teachers Federation, said she has been lucky to have a good mentor in the teacher next door and her principal, but her experience stands in contrast to that of many of her friends from university.

"One school can be a vastly different experience from the one next door," Ms Gordon said.

"Some people have said the executive at their school were not supporting them or putting pressure on them; other people have talked about parents' expectations being too high. "You pretty much sign a contract and off you go.

"I think there needs to be more of a structured induction with different focuses on things like your wellbeing and how important it is to get sleep."

SOURCE




QUT racism case: Bankruptcy notice to litigious whiner delayed

Two students trying to recoup legal costs against a Queensland University of Technology staffer who unsuccessfully tried to sue them over what she claimed were racist social media posts have been unable to serve her with a bankruptcy notice.

Barrister Tony Morris, who is representing the students, on Wednesday said efforts to serve the notice on Cindy Prior in person had so far failed.  "People at her house kept saying she wasn't there," Mr Morris said outside the Federal Court in Brisbane.

The students, Calum Thwaites and Jackson Powell, are trying to claw back $10,780 in legal costs awarded to them after Ms Prior's racial discrimination lawsuit was thrown out last year.

Ms Prior had attempted to sue Mr Thwaites, Mr Powell and a third student Alex Wood, along with the university, for $250,000 under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The controversial section makes it unlawful for anyone to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" another person or group on the grounds of race, colour or ethnicity.

Ms Prior had argued in court documents she was unable to continue working face- to-face with white people following a series of allegedly racist Facebook comments posted after Mr Wood and two other students were asked to leave an indigenous-only computer lab at QUT in 2013.

The case was dismissed by Justice John Dowsett in November and he later ordered Ms Prior pay the students' legal costs.

Ms Prior didn't appear on Wednesday when the court ordered the bankruptcy notice could be served via email, SMS, post and delivery to her WA address.

Mr Morris said the delay in serving the notice would only increase the court costs.

Outside court, Mr Thwaites said he was hoping the matter would soon end and he could get on with life. "It's just an unnecessary addition to the process," he said.

The matter returns to court on July 19.

SOURCE




'We've had enough of being nice, it's not working': Mark Latham slams the 'delusional' wisdom of being civil to Muslims

A man who almost became Australia's prime minister has slammed the conventional wisdom of being nice to Muslims in the hope they will tip police off about a potential terrorist attack.

Former Labor leader Mark Latham says the public is sick of having to 'be nice' in the wake of terrorist attacks this week in London and Melbourne.

'The public opinion now is at a real tipping point, a real tipping point where we've had enough of being nice. It's not working,' he told his Mark Latham's Outsiders program on Wednesday night.

'The evidence suggests the 'be nice' faction is in a state of delusion and they're not facing up to the realistic issues. 'We need to form a realistic faction. Be realistic about the problem of radical Islamic terrorism and confront it head on.'

Mr Latham said the idea that terrorists weren't real Muslims needed to be challenged, after Somali-born refugee Yacqub Khayre killed a man at a serviced apartment in Melbourne during a Monday night siege which ISIS claimed responsibility for.

'The 'be nice' do gooders in the debate basically say that terrorism of this kind, they're not really Muslim, this is not really a reflection of Islam and you don't want to antagonise these communities because it will make them more dangerous, more radical and the security agencies worry about losing informants inside Islamic communities to tip them off about potential dangerous events,' he said.

Mr Latham, who has recently joined the libertarian Liberal Democrats, said the London Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan's declaration that London was the world's safest global cities was an example of the 'be nice' approach failing.

It came after three knife-wielding Islamist terrorists killed eight people in London on Saturday night.

'How can you talk about London as a safe city after people have been run down by these terrorists on London Bridge after the same terrorists have rushed into restaurants in Borough Markets with knives trying to murder people?,' Mr Latham asked.

'There's nothing safe about London in those circumstances. This bloke is an absolute imbecile and I don't blame Donald Trump for a moment for getting stuck right into him.'

He also added Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation director-general Duncan Lewis to the 'be nice faction' list for telling a Senate committee there was no link between refugees and terrorism.

'How delusional can you be?,' Mr Latham asked. 'The 'be nice' faction is completely out of touch with reality. 'We need to have a hard-edged, vigorous response to Islamic terrorism.'

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 comments on the Leftist attack on Andrew Bolt





MPs urged to provide energy certainty

There is a poll result referred to below which should be taken with a grain of salt.  The most pro-Warmist statement was read out first to respondents, with more skeptical statements  being read later.  That tends to generate a primacy effect, with subsequent responses tailored to the initial one.  Good survey practice would have been to present the three statements in random order but there is no mention of them doing that in their methodology section.  It's another example of how to lie with statistics -- a Greenie artform

Australia's treasurer has urged MPs to put aside ideological differences and embrace an energy policy in the interests of giving investors certainty.

Scott Morrison, who earlier in the year waved a lump of coal around during question time, said on Wednesday for far too long parliament has not come together to resolve energy issues.

Policy uncertainty had turned into a big risk for investors.

"There's a very big national interest here and it's for all parliamentarians I think to focus on that regardless of which party they're in or what ideological perspective they have on this issue," Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

"Until we can get to that certain place on energy policy, then we really are putting a lot at risk."

Renewables attracted record levels of investment in 2016 but that came off the back of several sluggish years while the Abbott government reviewed and cut the renewable energy target.

Chief Scientist Alan Finkel will brief the prime minister and state leaders on his review of the national energy sector at a meeting in Hobart on Friday.

He's widely expected to recommend a low emissions target - similar to the existing renewable energy target but taking a technology-neutral approach by mandating a percentage of power each year be generated from sources below a certain emissions level.

The approach is firming as the new focus of federal climate policy with the Nationals flagging support and Labor not ruling it out.

Energy experts say the LET would be a "third-best solution".

"This mechanism is well behind an emissions intensity scheme and an economy-wide price on carbon, and won't discriminate against really dirty coal over more efficient coal," ANU Energy Change Institute director Ken Baldwin said.

However, his colleague Paul Burke said it was a smart alternative given the government had already ruled out any mechanisms that price carbon pollution.

"Solar and wind power are increasingly cheap, and an LET would help to ensure that the required investment takes place to replace retiring fossil-fuel generators," he said.

Greens energy spokesman Adam Bandt said reports Dr Finkel could recommend rule changes to mandate new renewable projects have storage attached were troubling and could lock storage companies out of participating in the market in their own right.

It would be better to create a new energy storage target or have other non-market incentives to integrate storage, he said.

A Lowy Institute poll, released on Wednesday, found four in five Australians thought the government should focus on renewables, even if they needed more investment to make the system more reliable.

Nearly three in five ranked climate change as a "critical threat" to Australia over the next decade.

SOURCE





Political violence against conservative broadcaster backfires when "protesters" get some of their own back

CONTROVERSIAL columnist and TV personality Andrew Bolt has “clobbered” a group of masked protesters who set upon him in Melbourne yesterday.

On his TV program last night, Bolt explained how he was about to launch a book on US President Donald Trump at a restaurant in Carlton, in the city’s inner north, when a woman asked to take a selfie with him.

Before they could take the photo, two masked protesters set upon Bolt, spraying his face and suit with what he described as “sticky liquid with glitter and dye”.

The protesters may have got more than they bargained for because Bolt quickly retaliated, punching one of the attackers repeatedly.

“Bad luck for them, of course; I don’t do running and hiding,” he told his viewers on his Sky News program The Bolt Report on Tuesday night.

The conservative columnist screened security camera footage of the altercation on his show, freezing on the faces of each of his attackers as well as a third man who filmed the ambush.

“Police are now looking for this young man, who will have a big bruise on the left side of his face and another bruise between his legs, for which I apologise, I guess, but I don’t really fight nice if I’m pushed too far.”

On his popular blog, Bolt described the protesters as members of the “fascist Left”.

“Watch the fascist Left attack me and get clobbered. Luckily the cameras do not capture me kicking one between the legs. I cannot have my children see me acting like a thug,” he wrote.

Bolt was at Il Gambero restaurant in Lygon St to launch the book The Art of the Impossible: A Blog History of the Election of Donald J Trump by economics academic Steve Kates.

Bolt encouraged anyone who recognised the attackers to phone North Melbourne police on 03 8379 0800.

SOURCE





BOOK LAUNCH of The Tyranny of Tolerance, by Peter Kurti

From the Centre for Independent Studies, Greg Lindsay writes:

It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of Connor Court Publishing, to invite you to the release of The Tyranny of Tolerance by Peter Kurti. I am delighted to announce that we are holding launch events in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne over the coming weeks.

Kurti exposes a grand deception: the tolerance and diversity brigade cannot tolerate diversity of thought. — Nick Cater

It was a confident expectation for more than a century that religion — its beliefs, doctrines and institutions — would atrophy in the face of growing secularisation. But not only has traditional Christianity survived in liberal western societies; other faiths, most conspicuously Islam, have increasingly become a perceptible presence. This evolution gives rise to many questions about the place of religion in liberal democratic society.

Register Free; Sydney, 22 June with remarks by The Hon. J Dyson Heydon AC

Register Free; Brisbane, 28 June with remarks by Professor James Allan

Register Soon; Melbourne, July with remarks by Dr Jennifer Oriel

Please register via cis.org.au/events or via email to office@cis.org.au or by calling Sydney 9438 4377.

The Reverend Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow co-ordinating the Religion and Civil Society program at The Centre for Independent Studies. The program examines the implications of a liberal approach to religion in civil society and investigates the capacity of that society to maintain freedom for expression of religious values.






In defence of grammar pedantry: 'Grammonds' should be celebrated, not vilified

By Roslyn Petelin, University of Queensland

This week, the financial press reported the downfall of a high-profile grammar pedant, Professor Paul Romer, the World Bank's chief economist, who was hoist(ed) on his own pedantic petard.

He is being replaced as head of the bank's research arm after he demanded that his colleagues write succinct, clear, direct emails, presentations and reports in the active voice with a low proportion of "and's".

Professor Romer will remain the bank's chief economist.

In fact, he had threatened not to publish the bank's central publication, World Development Report, "if the frequency of 'and' exceeded 2.6 per cent".

He had also cancelled a regular publication that he believed had no clear purpose.

Why, you may ask, did the economists who work in the World Bank's research department take exception to these strictures? Who wouldn't want the corporate report that was a flagship publication of the bank to be narrow and "penetrate deeply like a knife"?

Professor Romer's 600 colleagues, that's who. But why? It seems that, while he was encouraging his staff to avoid their customary convoluted "bankspeak" and consider their readers, he failed to follow his own advice. He was apparently curt, abrasive and combative. The troops refused to fall into line and he was ousted.

Such a shame, Professor Romer, because we need more pruning of the muddy prose that is endemic in so many institutions, particularly banks.

We can only imagine how Australia's four big banks are readying themselves to obfuscate their documents in response to the recent budget measures.

The various shades of pedantry

There are two kinds of people in this world: pedants and everybody else.

Pedantry isn't confined to grammar, of course. Pedantry can be found in architecture, cooking (for example, Julian Barnes's lovely little book The Pedant in the Kitchen), geometry, music, philosophy, politics and science.

Think Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, the most popular show on American television.

It depends on what kind of pedant you are.

Do you practise your pedantry privately by just "thinking" corrections at other people when they write "bunker" instead of "hunker" down?

Or do you practise your pedantry publicly and thereby subject yourself to taunts of "peevish prescriptivist", "nit-picking, hair-splitting pedant", or the more arcane and colourful "pettifogging pedant"?

This sort of abuse rained on Bryan Henderson, the American software engineer who had removed 47,000 instances of "comprised of" from Wikipedia by the end of 2015.

BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman was quoted in The Guardian in 2014 as saying:

"People who care about grammar are regularly characterised as pedants. I say those who don't care about it shouldn't be surprised if we pay no attention to anything they say — if indeed they are aware of what they're trying to say."
Pedants anonymous

I am a fervent believer that grammar provides writers with analytical tools to choose and combine words felicitously into English sentences to a set of professional standards that serve utilitarian needs and provide intellectual pleasure.

However, aware from long experience that it's rare to be thanked for pointing out a solecism that has made me wince, I attempt to shield the newly minted graduates of my grammar course at The University of Queensland from the potential consequences of sharing their knowledge with those less grammatically alert.

To this end, I lead a discussion about their stance on grammar in the final class of the semester.

Things you were taught at school that are wrong

What if you were told there are lots of so-called grammar rules that we've probably been getting wrong in our English classrooms for years?

Anne Curzan, a grammar maven who contributes to the Lingua Franca blog on The Chronicle of Higher Education, favours "grammando"; but I prefer the much less warlike "grammond" (modelled on gourmand, "one who has a refined palate for grammar and savours it at its best).

That "linguifier" Stephen Fry begs us to abandon our pedantry, but he confines his admonition to non-professional contexts and admits that "it's hard not to wince when someone aspirates the word 'aitch' and uses the genteelism of yourself and myself instead of you and me."

He says that "context, convention, and circumstance are all".

And this is what Professor Romer forgot. What we need to abandon is not pedantry. After all, its etymological origins are in teaching. It is peevish, condescending, and competitive pedantry that is the culprit.

We could take a lesson from the Bristol engineer who has for 13 years used his specially designed long-handled apostrophiser and step-ladder to remove aberrant apostrophes and plant missing ones on buildings in Bristol and managed to remain anonymous.

The wonderful parodist Craig Brown's solution may be an even better choice:

"It's always pleasant to go carol-singing, or carols-singing, with the Pedants' Association, formerly the Pedants Association, originally the Pedant's Association," he said.

"I first joined 10 years ago with the long-term aim of attracting the requisite number of votes in order to change its title to The Association of Pedants, thus rendering the apostrophe redundant."

I'll leave the uses and abuses of "and" aside for another day.

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