'Divisive and unrealistic': Anti-racism ad from Human Rights Commission showing white businessman shutting African woman out of lift sparks outrage online

This is just race hate: Hate of white people by Leftists in the HRC. Much to the frustration of the Left, Australia is a very laid  back place and people are treated by the way they behave themselves without regard to race. Different races go about their lives every day without any racial friction.  In my entire life I have seen nothing like the nonsense described below.  But I do EVERY DAY see large numbers of interactions between people of different races that are perfectly civil


A new anti-racism campaign launched by the Human Rights Commission has sparked outrage online. One of the 30 second videos, titled 'Elevator - Racism. It stops with me', has been heavily criticised, with people calling it 'divisive and unrealistic'.

Conservative radio and television broadcaster Paul Murray posted a link to the video on his Facebook page.

Murray's caption read: 'Not a sketch, not a joke. THIS is what HRC thinks 'White Men' do in lifts. What rubbish!

The video shows a white businessman in a suit politely letting a white woman enter a lift in an office building before him.

Then he spots a woman of African background running for the same lift, but instead of giving her the same treatment he tries to stop her from entering.

The horrified white woman steps out of the lift, and both of them stare at the businessman in disgust as the words 'Racism. It stops with me' appear.

Social media users were scathing in their responses to the video.  'I am angry that tax dollars have been wasted on such puerile, infantile rubbish,' wrote one person.

'In over 25 years in the workforce working with people of many ethnicities I rarely see anything like this. In fact I feel the HRC discriminate against white males.'

'Maybe she works in his office and every day she steals his yoghurt from the fridge that he specifically writes his name on, so he didn't want to hold the lift for her? Now he looks like the bad guy!' wrote another.

Others wrote they have never experienced being in a situation like the one portrayed in the ad.

'I'm dark skinned and this has NEVER EVER happened to me in my 45 years. The divisiveness from this mob is truly breathtaking,' said a female commenter.

'As a brown skinned female who is 52 years old, I have never experienced any form of racism in my life,' said another.

'It's like the progressives need to invent problems because they can't find any real ones.

The Human Rights Commission said the videos 'depict casual racism in the workplace and the provision of goods and services'.

Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said the videos, called Community Service Announcements, will be broadcast on national TV.

'Racism frequently occurs at work and while people are doing everyday things such as catching a bus, riding a train, or flagging a taxi,' Dr Soutphommasane said.

'This might come as a surprise to Australians who tend to think that racism is a thing of the past. But independent research and the experiences of many people tells us otherwise.

'We'd like to get people thinking about what they can do to help put a stop to racism.

'We hope these CSAs help create a culture where people are able to identify racism and have the confidence to respond appropriately and safely,' he said.

The elevator video, along with a similar one showing a racist taxi driver, will be shown on free-to-air television over the next two months.

The HRC said a woman of African background was chosen because independent research has found 'people with an African background frequently experience racism at work or while using public services such as transport'.

SOURCE





Thousands turn out across Australia to protest against Carmichael coal mine after controversial $16 billion project was given the green light

This is a long-planned Greenie activity.  The problems they are protesting about are imaginary.  It is just a way of getting publicity for themselves.  There is nothing spontaneous or grass-roots about it

Thousands of people gathered across Australia to protest a coal mine in North Queensland on Saturday.

Protesters in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and the Gold Coast rallied against Indian company Adani's plans for the mine in the Galilee Basin.

The protests were part of Stop Adani group's 'big day of protest', with 45 rallies across the nation.

The $16 billion coal mine was given the green light earlier this year, with pre-planning construction set to begin next month.

Organisers believe around 1500 people attended a protest on Bondi Beach, using their bodies to spell out '#StopAdani' on the sand.

Protesters in Melbourne's Princes Park followed suit, with many also running through 'Stop Adani' flags wearing 'Team Reef' shirts.

A further 2,000 protesters packed the Melbourne park carrying placards which read 'Protect our Future'.

The rallies also featured protesters wearing over-sized masks of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Adani founder Gautam Adani.

Nine hundred people are believed to have taken part in a Newtown rally, while protesters took to the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra with large banners against the coal mine.

CEO of 350.org, a group that opposes new coal, oil and gas projects, Blair Palese, said both governments were not listening to the public.

'While the Queensland and Federal governments remain staunch supporters of this dirty mine, new polling shows the Australian community is angry that $1 billion of public money could be handed to Adani for a mine which will wreck the climate and the Reef,' he told The Sydney Morning Herald.

'Voters are clear. They believe the Queensland government should stick to its promise and block the $1 billion loan to billionaire Adani for his private rail line.'

A ReachTEL poll, released on Saturday by the Stop Adani movement, shows 56 per cent of Australians oppose the coal project.

The construction of the mine, if it is given a green light, will be the largest in Australia.

Opponents to the mine believe it will damage the already ravaged Great Barrier Reef and bring environmental harm to the area.

Both State and Federal governments have defended the proposed mine, which promises to bring much-needed jobs back to far North Queensland.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said while the mine will help many families seeking employment, Adani will be held to 'the toughest environmental conditions'.

'You only have to travel to regional Queensland to understand what this project means to thousands of families out there that will be employed through this project,' she said.

'At the end of the day we have the toughest environmental conditions attached to that mine.' 

SOURCE





Now we have slower internet than KENYA: Australian broadband speeds are worse than African and former Soviet nations

And all because of Kevin Rudd. Australias's former Leftist Prime Minister. Fibre broadband was the only idea he had so he launched a hugely expensive white elephant despite many warnings of problems with it.  It is his baby.  Australia already had two perfectly good cable networks which cost the taxpayer nothing and had long ago been paid for

Australian broadband speeds are slower than Africa and former Soviet nations, research has found.  The country's internet speed is behind Kenya, and former Soviet nations including Latvia and Lithuania.

The news comes after it was revealed the NBN network cost taxpayers a whopping $49 billion since it was rolled out eight years ago, Bloomberg reports.

Australia's average speed was recorded at 10.01 mbps, seven megabits behind the USA which was ranked at 13th with 17.2mbps, the Akamai State of the Internet report found.

According to Bloomberg, thousands of customers who switched to the network have complained about the slow download speeds.

Telecommunication ombudsman received a total of 7,512 of complaints from June to December last year, which was double than the same corresponding period in 2015.

However, the network has defended the increase in complaints adding that it was because the number of people using the service had risen.

Retailers have also joined the bandwagon and complained that they were slapped with higher fees when subscribing to the network.

A Sydney-based telecommunication expert Paul Budde told Bloomberg: 'We are really an example of how not to do it.' 'We have ended up with the worst possible solution.'

A NBN spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'The citing of Kenya underlines how misleading the Akamai rankings can be, Kenya has fixed broadband penetration to only around 10 percent of its population - principally served with FTTP (fiber to the premises).

'We are providing broadband to 100 percent of the Australian population.

'This means that a small number of people get very high speeds whilst others get nothing at all and yet their overall ranking is higher as only the small number of high speed lines get measured,' the spokesperson said.

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Media release: "Jobs announcement smoke and mirrors, Great Barrier Reef is what matters"

Imogen Zethoven has been a Greenie stirrer almost forever so can be relied on to tell only one side of the story.  She does a lot of that below with her remarks on reef bleaching etc.  A real zinger is "Coal kills coral".  I'd like to see evidence of that


QUEENSLANDERS are being urged not lose sight of what really matters: protecting our Great Barrier Reef and all those who rely on it, in the wake of another public promise by giant coal corporation Adani.

According to media reports, Adani plans to announce an intention to set up fly-in fly-out worker hubs in Townsville and Rockhampton despite not yet having secured finance for its destructive and controversial Carmichael mine.

Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) Fight For Our Reef Campaign Director Imogen Zethoven said the priority of the state and federal governments should be on protecting our Great Barrier Reef and the 64,000 workers who depend on its health, not propping up a billion-dollar international company intent on damaging it further.

“We are experiencing record temperatures, year upon year. We’ve witnessed mass coral bleachings, both this year and last. Coal kills coral – it’s as simple as that. If this mega-mine goes ahead it will produce billions of tonnes of pollution, which will only worsen what is already a critical situation for our iconic Reef.

“It’s not too late to protect our beautiful Reef, but we must give up the fantasy that we can keep mining and burning coal with no consequences.”

Ms Zethoven said switching to renewable energy and storage would deliver clean, cheap and reliable power while creating long, term sustainable jobs for the regions.

“North Queensland is already at the heart of Australia’s renewables boom – this is the future of our great state, not coal. Australians want and deserve local jobs that are long-term, secure, and which don’t cost the earth.”

The Great Barrier Reef generates $6 billion each year and sustains 64,000 jobs.

From: fightforourreef.org.au

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

Baby Crocs Face Climate Change Crunch

As far as I can see, Craig Franklin is an attention-seeking crook.  A study by him is reported below.  No reference is given to the underlying research report so it would appear to be unpublished.  It should  be unpublishable in the light of his previous work, which contradicts his conclusions below.

In his 2015 article "Diving in a warming world: the thermal sensitivity and plasticity of diving performance in juvenile estuarine crocodiles", we read:  "Maximal dive performances, however, were found to be thermally insensitive across the temperature range of 28–35°C".  Come again?  28–35°C is the temperature range he studied below  and the central claim of the article is that crocs can't stay underwater for long if the water is hot

And in his 2013 article we need only to note the heading:  "Hatchling crocodiles maintain a plateau of thermal independence for activity, but at what cost?"

He certainly owes the public an explanation if not a retraction.  Why did it need a psychologist to call this Warmist galoot out?

And, anyway, there must be at least 100,000 crocs in Australian  waters. No-one would miss them if there were fewer of them


Climate change could make a meal of baby crocs, with warmer water slashing the amount of time they can hide underwater to avoid being eaten.

Juvenile crocs rely on so-called fright-dives to escape their natural predators including birds of prey, large fish, freshwater turtles, and larger crocs.

But a new study shows that in warmer water - an inevitable result of climate change - their defensive dives are shortened by half.

University of Queensland researcher Craig Franklin says that could threaten survival rates as the climate continues to warm.

His study exposed baby crocs to current river temperatures of about 28 degrees, and also to temperatures of about 34 degrees, expected by the end of the century.

He worked out that as crocs get warmer, they consume oxygen faster as their metabolism increases.

That halves the length of time they can spend hiding underwater, forcing them to surface more quickly to take another breath.

Crocs conditioned to existing temperatures could stay submerged for 18.5 minutes, and over an hour if they felt particularly harassed.

But those used to the warmer water could only stay under for nine minutes, and a maximum of 28 minutes if they felt very threatened.

Crocs conditioned to the warmer water were unable to lower their metabolism, burning through oxygen faster and forcing them to the surface.

"(We) are concerned that crocodile youngsters will become more vulnerable to predators as they are likely to have to surface more frequently if the temperature continues rising," Prof Franklin and his research associate Essie Rodgers warn.

The study involved saltwater crocs, a species that already has a very high juvenile mortality rate.

Young hatchlings are often eaten, even with their longer defensive dives, and very few make it to adulthood.

Saltwater crocs were widely hunted across northern Australia until the 1960s. Since the 1970s they've been protected, and numbers have recovered but the species is still listed as vulnerable in Queensland.

SOURCE





Yes activist caught jostling No protesters

A Greens activist who launched legal action against the No campaign for linking her image to ­“violent political extremism” jostled with protesters and tried to shut down a rally against the Safe Schools program.

Jill Moran, who ran for the Greens at last year’s ACT elections, shouted “shame” and “Safe Schools saves lives” as she attempted to disrupt the Jericho rally on August 12, organised by the Christian Democratic Party in Canberra.

Footage of the rally, captured by Christian protesters and the Ten Network, shows gay rights activists shouting down opponents of Safe Schools.

Ms Moran, a Canberra-based public servant, said footage showing her lunging forward with her leg as someone tried to take away her rainbow flag was not directed at any particular individual.

“I was not lunging at him directly, which is why I turned my back,” she told The Australian. “It’s unfortunate that he tried to steal my flag, and then did successfully steal my flag, which was returned to me by the police.”

Footage of the rally can be seen in the video below.

Ms Moran’s image, and those of other protesters at the event, was used in a September 16 media statement issued by the Coalition for Marriage ahead of its formal campaign launch, but she was not identified by name.

The image showed her carrying a rainbow flag and wearing a white shirt next to a statement saying: “Tonight a test for the extremists of the ‘Yes’ campaign.”

Slater & Gordon — which on Wednesday confirmed it was a “corporate supporter of the Australian Marriage Equality organisation” — has taken on Ms Moran’s case on a pro bono basis after she argued the use of her image without her consent was defamatory.

“We’ve issued a concerns notice requesting Jill’s photo be removed and an apology and correction issued. Defamation legislation sets out a 28-day response period for such requests,” lawyer Phil Johnston said.

The No campaign is still considering its response.

The Australian has been told it is the first and only defamation case brought against the Coalition for Marriage since the $122 million postal survey was announced.

Ms Moran told The Australian: “I don’t have a problem with the photograph itself. What I have a problem with is the photo’s association with the words ‘extremist’, ‘violent’ and ‘bullying’ — and characterising me that way.

“As a public servant, I’m expected to follow the APS code of conduct and ideas that I’m extremist or violent could have ramifications for my ... future employment in the public service.”

Ms Moran confirmed to The Australian she had deleted a tweet posted on the day of the rally in which she joked about “smashing” heterosexual primacy.

“Beauty tips for when the plebiscite makes you break out in stress pimples: 1. Notice 2. Shrug 3. Go back to smashing the heteropatriachy,” the tweet said.

Ms Moran said she deleted the tweet because she was receiving unwanted push-back from “internet trolls”. “I would say that only an act of violence would justify calling me violent,” she said.

The Coalition for Marriage issued a statement on Wednesday denying that “anyone has been defamed”. “An image of Yes activists deliberately and brazenly disrupting a peaceful anti-Safe Schools event in Canberra was shared with our media release,” the statement said. “There are many photos and videos publicly available that confirm what happened that day.”

SOURCE





W.A.: Marion Council moves against making changes to its Australia Day celebrations

A PUSH to lobby the Federal Government to change the date of Australia Day has been scuttled by Marion councillors.

Cr Bruce Hull’s move, which if supported also would have also seen Marion abandon citizenship ceremonies on January 26, was not supported by any of the other 10 councillors in the chamber at a meeting on Wednesday night.

Cr Hull told the meeting January 26 was the wrong day to celebrate Australia Day, because it marked the British invasion of Aboriginal land. “Others say we should leave this to the Federal Government but they don’t celebrate Australia Day functions – we do,” he said.

He has previously said he was taking a stand on the issue because Australia Day was a “day of sorrow” for many in the community.

Cr Hull’s move followed a June National General Assembly of Local Government, at which councils voted to consider efforts to lobby the Government to change the date of Australia Day.

But Mayor Kris Hanna told the meeting “the fact that the Australian Local Government Association has taken it up ... just discredits them in the eyes of the community”.

He said the debate over Australia Day was a federal political issue. “Local councils should be focused on improving the lives of their local communities rather than on national politics,” Mr Hanna said.

He said Marion Council’s citizenship ceremony and citizen of the year awards will go ahead as planned on January 26.

The council had received 114 emails and letters from locals wanting to have their say on Cr Hull’s idea, with 105 of those were against the move.

Exeter man Robert Miller, an Aboriginal elder, told the meeting the tradition of celebrating Australia Day as a nation was quite recent.

“The Day of Mourning is only three years younger than Australia Day as we know it,” he said. He suggested the anniversary of the abolition of the White Australia Policy would be a better day to mark Australia Day.

Assistant Immigration Minister Alex Hawke recently wrote to Marion, saying citizenship ceremonies should not be used “as a forum to protest the practice of celebrating Australia Day on January 26”.

He threatened to strip the council of its authority to conduct ceremonies, if it did choose to stage a protest.

All states and territories have marked January 26 as Australia Day since 1935, but it has only been consistently celebrated as a public holiday since 1994.

Marion was the first in Adelaide to vote on the issue, after Yarra and Darebin councils in Victoria in August voted to scrap their Australia Day ceremonies.

SOURCE




Victorian Leftists Fund Gay Gaming App

Australia’s most regressive leader Daniel Andrews’ never ceases to amaze with the social engineering programs and projects he funds, meanwhile leaving the actual business of running the state far behind. But this time he may have outdone himself yesterday announcing that his government would be funding an absurd LGBT project.

Andrews eagerly announcing that his government would be commissioning the creation of gaming app which will have the player in the role of an LGBT person facing perceived homophobia. Think of it as a mobile version of his government’s Safe Schools program, it already has young students role playing being in same sex relationships, now Andrews wants young people to role play being gay on their smartphones.

The gaming app will be developed in partnership with Victoria University and the Victorian AIDS Council, which despite its name that gives the impression it is about sexual health is just another LGBT lobby group. Their homepage immediately asks people to support marriage equality and the focus of its activities is clearly geared towards the LGBT agenda.

The way this gaming app is funded is that the Andrews Government has a Combatting Homophobia initiative. It is a joint program through the state governments arts funding program Creative Victoria and the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s Equality Branch. This elaborate funding approach gives you an idea of the layers of bureaucracy in place to fund such an obscene project.

This app should be viewed as insult to the intelligence of Victorians that their government views them apparently as so hateful and bigoted to gay people that they need a government funded gaming app to counter their ingrained homophobia. Most ordinary people when learning about the existence of such app will most likely laugh at its absurdity, that is until they find out they paid for it.

This gaming app will apparently be released in late 2018 which interestingly enough is just in time for the Victorian State Election. Hopefully its release will be a reminder to voters that for the past 4 years they have had a Premier who is more interested in virtue signalling on social justice issues, at the taxpayers’ expense of course, rather than delivering infrastructure for Victoria or controlling Melbourne’s crime wave.

Let’s also hope that Victoria soon has a government which will end this gravy train of funding for vanity projects, indulgences in identity politics and social justice madness. This will have the double effect of saving Victorians some money and getting government’s focus back where it should be.

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 Las Vegas shootings





'Really awful': 50-degree days possible for Sydney, Melbourne, as warming worsens

Possible?  Possible?  So is Armageddon and the conversion of the Jews.  Below are just prophecies based on models that have never got a prophecy right yet.  One wonders why they continue to bother.  Below are just prophecies based on models that have never got a prophecy right yet.  One wonders why they continue to bother

Sydney and Melbourne can expect summer days when the mercury climbs to 50 degrees within a couple of decades if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, new research has found.

The study, led by Sophie Lewis at the Australian National University, analysed new models being prepared for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to examine the difference between a 1.5- and 2-degree warming limit compared with pre-industrial times.

At the upper end of the range – which would amount to a 1.1-degree rise from current global warming levels – NSW's record extremes would increase 3.8 degrees compared with existing records. Those in Victoria would rise by 2.3 degrees, the simulations showed.

For Sydney and Melbourne, populations could swelter in 50-degree weather even if the 2-degree global warming limit agreed in the 2015 Paris accord were achieved, according to the research co-authored by Andrew King from Melbourne University and published Wednesday in Geophysical Research Letters.

"If we warm average temperatures, we shift the whole distribution of temperatures, and we see a really large percentage increase in the extremes," Dr Lewis told Fairfax Media.

"What seems like a small increase in average temperatures, say 1 degree, can lead to a two- or three-fold acceleration in the severity of the extremes."

Under a high carbon emissions scenario, 50-degree days could arrive "as early as the 2040s", Dr Lewis said, adding that even with a concerted reduction in pollution, those temperatures could be reached by about 2060.

SOURCE





Farmer bombarded with vile and graphic abuse after posting photo of herself with same-sex marriage ballot

A farmer who opposes gay marriage has been bombarded with abusive Facebook messages and death threats for posting an image of herself with a postal vote ballot.

Kirralie Smith, from northern New South Wales, was advised to stand in front of a train by one abusive man who also wished she would get AIDS, the disease which has killed millions of gay men since the 1980s.

Ms Smith said the abuse made her feel 'violated' and the content - including graphic hardcore pornography - is beyond anything she could have imagined.

'I did expect some haters to respond but I was unprepared for the barrage of hate, vulgar messages and threats I received,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I notice that lesbians such as Christine Forster posed for such photos with her partner. Did they cop the same level of vitriol and hatred for doing so?'

The level of vitriol has left Ms Smith questioning why she should be forced to deal with such hateful responses to a simple photograph.

'Do I just have to suck this up? Are people really entitled to behave in such a manner when all I did was post a legal and acceptable option when participating in this postal survey?' she said.

I am not breaking any laws. I am upholding a current law. I am using my democratic right to exercise my choice. Why should I be subject to such horrid remarks and images for doing so?'

In addition to the hateful messages, insults and death threats, some social media users even sent offensive images.

One such image is from a hardcore pornographic film and depicts two men involved in a sex act.

'You're a piece of s***,' 'I really hope you get hit by a bus,' 'You need a bullet,' and 'I wish nothing but bad for you and your family,' are some of the other messages.

Ms Smith was told to 'Eat a d***,' called a 'homophobic b****,' a 'nasty nasty cow,' a 'f***wit,' and told to 'Rot in hell.'

The avalanche of abuse comes after weeks of accusations from the 'no' campaign that a fringe element of the 'yes' side are shutting down debate with abuse and violence.

Last week a priest was spat at while walking down the street in Brisbane and called 'a f***ing no voter'.

After former prime minister Tony Abbott was headbutted by an anarchist DJ wearing a Yes badge, activists started using 'Headbutt homophobes' banners at rallies.

Dr Francisco Perales at the University of Queensland suggested opponents of same-sex marriage are less intelligent.

Lecturers Catherine Greenhill and Diana Combe at the University of New South Wales have told maths students not to use the word marriage.

A 'yes' voter was caught on film in Chatswood in Sydney's north racially abusing 'no' campaigners.

Students at the University of Sydney clashed when a 'no' campaign rally turned violent after 'yes' campaign counter-protesters turned up.

Just days later a gay man was viciously heckled at a similar rally at the University of Queensland and accused of 'internalised homophobia'.

A Coalition for Marriage event was disrupted by protesters who stormed the venue and blocked the stage with a banner saying 'Burn churches not queers'.

Vandals attacked a church in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, spray-painting it with 'Vote Yes' slogans.

Gay anarchists took over the former headquarters of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and scrawled hateful anti-police slurs on the walls.

'Sometimes find myself wondering if I'd hate-f**k all the anti-gay MPs in parliament if it meant they got the homophobia out of their system,' wrote openly-gay comedian and Safe Schools author Benjamin Law to his 77,000 Twitter followers.

A Canberra woman was fired for saying 'It's okay to vote no' on Facebook, with her boss Madlin Sims calling it 'homophobic hate speech'.

Dr Pansy Lai - who appeared in the first Coalition of Marriage advertisement - was targeted by a petition seeking to have her stripped of her medical licence.

The most recent Sky News ReachTel poll of 5,000 people found 64 per cent have voted 'yes', 15.5 per cent have voted 'no' and 21 per cent are yet to vote.

SOURCE





Same-sex marriage vote: Chris Hayes seeks safeguards for religious freedoms

Labor MP Chris Hayes has spoken out to defend those who fear same-sex marriage could curb ­religious freedoms, arguing that the issue of protection must be ­addressed to ensure “laws do not violate one’s genuinely held ­beliefs and conscience”.

Mr Hayes, the chief opposition whip, said he “appreciated” ­arguments that enacting same-sex marriage could “impact on ­religious freedoms, teaching of doctrine, and the functioning of faith-based organisations such as schools, aged-care and welfare agencies.”

“These are legitimate concerns and matters I believe have to be addressed,” he said. “It is not just the issue of same-sex marriage that may impinge on religious freedom. Therefore, I believe steps should be taken to protect ­religious liberty.”

Mr Hayes’ statement — which endorses concerns raised by John Howard — was provided to The Australian as an update from ­Australian Bureau of Statistics ­indicated nearly 60 per cent of ­eligible Australians had already voted in Malcolm Turnbull’s $122 million postal poll.

The first of a series of weekly estimates confirmed that as of Friday, September 29, the ABS had received 9.2 million survey forms, or 57.5 per cent of those mailed out — although many more Aus­tralians would have since posted their ballots.

Mathias Cormann, the government minister responsible for the survey, said the update showed people were “enthusiastically embracing the opportunity to have their say on whether the law should be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry.”

“By any measure, 57.5 per cent five weeks out from the deadline for survey forms to be returned is very credible,” he said. “I am very confident that the ultimate outcome of the survey will have great authority.”

Mr Hayes’s statement confirmed his ongoing opposition to same-sex marriage and followed the public comments of Tasmanian Labor senator Helen Polley — another No voter — who claimed she had been urged by senior ALP figures to pretend to support a change to the Marriage Act against her conscience.

“I have been accused of not having an open mind on this matter and some have said I am just doing the bidding of the church.

“I am not sure how you can have an open mind when it comes to the matter of personal beliefs,” Mr Hayes said.

“I have always felt it is better for children growing up with the love and support of a mother and father.”

Mr Hayes, a Catholic, said he understood the love same-sex couples had for their children and would “never cast aspersions on them, their families, or belittle the love they share”. While he has not campaigned for the No case, Mr Hayes said if the result were in favour of change, he would “not act to frustrate or delay the passage of legislation to give effect to the community’s decision.”

Activist group GetUp! yesterday said most ­people were voting Yes in the survey, pointing to a ReachTel poll of almost 5000 Australians that shows that 64 per cent of those ­surveyed had voted for change.

Executive director of the Equality Campaign Tiernan Brady said the ABS update was “really good in terms of turnout” and a million more forms were in the post on their way to the ABS.

Spokesman for the Coalition for Marriage Lyle Shelton said: “The high turnout demonstrates that the Australian public understand the gravity of the decision before us, and that they know it has consequences for everyone.”

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Even if you think it’s all a load of bull, you have a farmer to thank for our unique language

RECENTLY I wrote of a time when Australia rode on the sheep’s back. And now, in the midst of the Melbourne Show, it’s timely to look at how much of our language rides on agriculture’s back.

You’d be surprised how many of our everyday sayings have their origins on the farm — and how often we use them.

Gone bananas, pecking order and bee’s knees are terms with a direct link to the farm.

’Til the cows come home, final straw and feeling clucky are on high rotation, with little thought to their agricultural heritage.

There’s a bull in a china shop, get on your goat, cool as a cucumber and cream of the crop. We all know exactly what each means and all came from the paddock. We hear on the grapevine not to put all our eggs in one basket and, that old chestnut, ensure all our ducks are in a row.

We feel penned in, piggyback on others and we reap what we sow — particularly if you sow your wild oats. We hit the hay, go for a roll in the hay (see wild oats), search for a needle in a haystack and make hay while the sun shines.

We fly cattle class, conduct a straw poll and invariably don’t play for sheep stations, which is lucky because it’s rarely a level playing field.

Some words and terms fit nicely into particular scenarios. Finance, for instance, has plenty to work with. Investors feel bullish when the stock market is on a bull run. Conversely, they feel sheepish if they get fleeced by the market.

Farm words and footy are like peas in a pod.

The players run down the race on to the field (or, in the 1990s, Pagan’s Paddock) wearing a guernsey a jersey or, once upon a time, a woolly jumper.

The Gold Coast Suns are rarely within a bull’s roar of the other team, often lambs to the slaughter because their forwards couldn’t hit a barn door. (Or as a mate said the other day: “They couldn’t get a kick in a cowshed.”)

Joel Selwood is known to butter up the umpires and milk free kicks, while we all assumed Patrick Dangerfield was a sacred cow and the apple of the umpire’s eye until he was rubbed out for a dangerous tackle. At least it wasn’t a chicken-wing.

The Tigers hope to rule the roost tomorrow to bring home the bacon, having upset the Adelaide apple cart.

Meanwhile, Buckley kept his job because he “ain’t got the cattle”, so wasn’t to blame, and Fev is still running around like a headless chook for country and suburban clubs. Mad Monday sees players carrying on like a pork chop, while there’s been a lot of players known to have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock.

And it spreads beyond footy.

We have a pig in a poke, red rag to a bull, apple of my eye and going against the grain.

Say cheese, have an apple a day to keep the doctor away and, in a nutshell, you’re either a bad egg or a good egg. Eventually we will be put out to pasture and before long there will be a visit from the grim reaper when we kick the bucket (the popular view is that the bucket in this expression is a yoke that harnessed pigs before they were slaughtered).

Finally, you could think this column is a cock-and-bull story, is corny and that you are pig-sick of it.

But even if you think it’s all a load of bull, you have a farmer to thank for our unique language.

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

Bureaucratic resistance to development of the Ord

For years, nobody has been able to make the Ord work so when a Chinese company thinks it can you would think that nothing would be too much trouble.  Think again

Five years ago, when little-known Chinese property developer Shanghai Zhongfu won the sought-after right to lease and double the area of farmland in the remote Ord irrigation area, it was seen as a bold move by the West Australian government.

The Chinese company’s $700 million winning bid, beating others with cattle, cotton and ­sandalwood tree aspirations, was to clear 14,000ha of dry scrub country on the broad Ord River plains to turn into rippling fields of irrigated sugar cane, much of it funded by the Australian taxpayer.

Next would follow a futuristic $400m sugar-based ethanol processing plant at Kununurra, hundreds of jobs and an upgraded and rejuvenated port at nearby Wyndham from where the biofuel would be shipped back to a renewable ­energy-hungry China.

It’s a dream that has not exactly come to pass.

Today just 3000ha of rough cattle country has been transformed by Shanghai Zhongfu, trading locally as Kimberley Agricultural Investment, into beautiful loamy fields, at a cost to the Chinese investor of more than $100m. The crops are not wall-to-wall sugar but a patchwork quilt of chia, quinoa, corn, chickpeas, sorghum and mungbeans.

There is no big factory employing dozens of locals. Just a modest $5m grain-cleaning plant is on the drawing board.

Instead of smooth progress, there is deep-seated bickering between the Chinese company and the WA government over lease documents, clearing approvals, land titles and the terms of the original 50-year deal.

There is disquiet, too, that KAI last year spent another $100m buying the adjacent vast Carlton Hill cattle station and seems hellbent on accelerating its cropping plans there before investing more time and money on its leased Ord stage two land.

Yet in the small town of ­Kununurra, the Chinese newcomer is regarded as a welcomed and wonderful addition to its agricultural scene and the wider local community of 5000 people.

Its arrival is seen as adding much-needed scale to the farming district and its money has provided 55 direct jobs, poured thousands of dollars into the coffers of local ­contractors, stimulated an innovative joint venture investment into new crop research trials and sponsored dozens of community events.

KAI also has bought the biggest resort hotel in town, the Kununurra Country Club, and established its own farm machinery dealership and servicing business because specialist mechanics and machinery parts for the big cropping and land clearing equipment it owns were so hard to find.

KAI plans to build a $40m cotton processing gin and a distillery to turn local Ord sorghum into a new brand of China’s favourite baijiu white spirit, the most widely consumed alcoholic drink in the world.

True to its word, there has been no influx of Chinese employees or workers, other than the company’s much loved local resident chief executive, Jianzhong Yin.

Managing director Jim Engelke is a long-time Kununurra local and one of the town’s most ­admired leaders.

Carefully watching all the twists and turns of Shanghai Zhongfu’s progress in the Ord valley is the Australian government and its Chinese counterpart, and many large agribusiness ­investors and companies in both nations.

The economic success of the relatively small farming patch of the Ord irrigation scheme — and therefore KAI — is seen as essential to the opening up and public funding of more dams, irrigation projects and wider agricultural development across Australia’s underdeveloped north, already identified as a federal government priority.

More directly, the decision to allow the Chinese company to play such a crucial role in the development of Kununurra and the Ord valley’s farming future — which won public support at the time because the land was leased, not sold, by the WA government — has been heralded as a model for further large-scale foreign involvement in Australian agriculture, especially where foreign entities are the beneficiaries of Australian taxpayer-funded infrastructure.

East Kimberley Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Jill Williams believes on both ­levels KAI has worked miracles in the Ord valley, often against the odds.

She believes the Chinese business, headed by self-made billionaire Pui Ngai Wu, has achieved and invested much more than any other Australian company bidding for the Ord stage two expansion tender back in 2012 would have by this time.

“We are so lucky to have a company like KAI that has the ­capacity, the dollars and the vision to achieve what they have in the Ord already and what they still plan to do; it has made a huge difference up here,” says Williams.

“You would think (the state and federal government) would be jumping through hoops down there to clear the way and help investors like KAI get on with what they are doing — developing, expanding, value-adding and providing jobs — yet they are being stymied by processes, delays and bureaucracy at every turn.”

It is clear WA’s Labor government is not as convinced as Wil­liams that the Chinese in the Ord experiment entered into by its Liberal predecessor in 2012 is working ideally yet.

Shanghai Zhongfu got a “very good deal”, according to WA ­Agriculture and Regional Development Minister Alannah Mac­Tiernan.

Paying a peppercorn rent, rumoured to be $1 a year, 100 per cent Chinese-owned KAI was offered a 50-year land lease on the Ord stage two expansion land, which was already supplied with irrigation channels, water, roads and negotiated native title exemption courtesy of $315m of WA taxpayer funds and $195m from the federal government.

It was a deal not without criticism at the time.

MacTiernan’s Labor colleague Paul Papalia, then opposition agricultural spokesman, questioned why public dollars were funding a Chinese company’s bottom line, when KAI had no agricultural experience.

Palia said the plan had always been for at least half the new Ord cropping area to be offered to small mum-and-dad Australian farmers and asked why that intent had been abandoned.

Last week, The Australian revealed that the WA government has never handed over the tenure and title documents to the leased Ord stage two farming land, despite KAI having spent $150m developing and farming its first tranche of new cropping pad­docks.

Engelke says without land title documents, no other investor would have even started converting cattle blocks into fertile cropping paddocks, let alone kept on pouring money into the project.

“Everyone knows we need tenure — no sane person could argue otherwise — and so this sort of ­bizarre behaviour doesn’t instil confidence in investors like Mr Wu or for our bankers,” he says.

“It also shows why the development of Australia’s north is so slow — inching forward at such a glacial pace — because while there is no shortage of people interested in trying to make it happen, it really is confined to wealthy individuals like Twiggy Forrest, Gina Rinehart or Mr Wu who have a passion for it because no one else would be prepared to take the risk.”

Williams remains incredulous that something as basic as land title has been withheld from KAI after five years of total commitment to the Kununurra town and the Ord community.

“They are Australia’s biggest squatters, all because of small-minded bureaucrats,” says Wil­liams. “People down south (Perth) and in the east (Canberra) don’t understand this country, the seasons, and the dynamic up here; yes, we need some regulation but it has to be timely, transparent and with deadlines so people can decide in advance if they can work with, or it is all too hard.”

But MacTiernan decries KAI for failing to tell the whole story. She says the land tenure documents have been withheld because the Chinese company has proved nigh on impossible to work with, demanding concessions and a relaxation of its agreed Ord development conditions at every turn.

She believes focus has been lost since KAI bought Carlton Hill Station and is moving fast to clear and develop 10,000ha to 15,000ha of river flats there, under its plans for cotton growing and cattle fattening.

“We have been very encouraging of KAI and it is very pleasing to see their investment in, and acceptance by, the (Ord valley) community,” says MacTiernan. .

“But in 2012 they entered into a development agreement that came with a whole range of conditions and requirements that have now been frequently watered down and options added in recognition of their role and commitment; but now it is time they focused and go into this (original) development agreement signed.”

MacTiernan says what crop is grown in the Ord by KAI — whether it is sugar, chia, sorghum or cotton — does not matter and is not the cause of contention.

Instead, she says, it has been the Chinese company’s continual pressure to scrap company ­guarantees, reduce bond commitments and convert some government leasehold land to KAI freehold and to extend the 50-year lease to an automatic rollover in 2062 that has strained the relationship.

But Jianzhong believes differently. He blames anti-Chinese sentiment. “The politicians say they are supportive but in the bureaucracy they seem to hold the old ideology (that is anti-Chinese) and so while they are polite, all the approvals are very slow or nothing happens,” Jianzhong says.

“We have invested so much money and developed so much land but there is still suspicion about what we are doing; I see (the delays) as a sign that we are welcome in Kununurra; we are not welcomed by wider Australia; and we are not yet treated the same as Australian farmers.”

The impasse infuriates Agribusiness Australia chief executive Tim Burrow, who fears the same problems will beset or discourage other potential foreign investors in northern Australia when the Ord’s emergence as a productive and profitable food bowl — with the help of Chinese investment — should be a shining light for Australian agriculture.

“I don’t understand what it is that makes people think that agribusiness operations are fair game,” Burrow says. “No other sector of the economy would put up with this level of impost. Governments cannot continue to oppress the most vital, ­vibrant and innovative sector of the economy with this yoke of having to comply with unnecessary pettifogging rules, regulations, red tape and bureaucratic inefficiencies.”

SOURCE






'Male and female' and 'penis and vagina' banned from being used in schools so transgender children feel more comfortable

What a lot of confused nondsense

Gender terms like 'male' and 'female' could be stripped from Australian classrooms as a way to make transgender children more comfortable.

In a move to make classrooms more gender neutral, body parts could be described by their function rather than their traditional names, according to The Australian.

Terms including 'penis and vagina' could be swapped for 'sperm and eggs' and 'erectile tissue' could be used to describe the penis and clitoris if schools were to begin teaching sex education classes with a focus on gender neutrality.

A report discussing sex education policies in New Zealand in the Journal of Sex Education has discussed how LGBQTI could influence sex education.

The report by Damien Riggs and Clare Bartholomaeus of Flinders University in South Australia calls for gender neutrality that looks further than a 'male with a penis and female with a vagina'.

It comes a month after two NSW catholic high school students, who identify as males, won the battle to wear boys' uniforms despite being born female.

The Trinity Catholic College allowed the students to use unisex toilets and change their names on the school roll.

The college is also reportedly considering a 'gender neutral uniform' for the entire school.

As an associate professor in social work, Mr Riggs told the publication gender neutralising sex education could be difficult to understand but it opened up the discussion between parents and children without them getting 'tripped up with the language'.

Mr Riggs said neutralising classrooms would reduce unwanted pregnancies and reduce children 'being coerced into having sex they didn't want to have, including transgender kids'. 

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Despite Greenie prophecies of doom, the Great Barrier Reef is bouncing back from its recent stresses

Researchers have observed signs of new life in some of the worst affected areas of coral bleaching of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

The corals of the Great Barrier Reef have undergone two successive bleaching events, in 2016 and earlier this year, raising experts' concerns about the capacity for reefs to survive under global-warming induced events.

But after a coral reef survey in September, researchers found tiny sacs of white eggs in bleached coral reefs, raising new hope for the reefs after the recent bleaching events, which affected close to two thirds of the Great Barrier Reef.

The tiny coral eggs were found in coral reefs between Townsville and Cairns, by researchers with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).

Dr Neal Cantin and project leader Dr Line Bay, who are part of the coral bleaching response team, were surprised to discover early signs of new life.

Dr Cantin says they'd returned to assess the mortality and survivorship from the central sector of the Great Barrier Reef.

'We travelled to 14 reefs between Townsville and Cairns, including Fitzroy Island where we saw surviving coral producing eggs, which was not expected at all,' Dr Cantin said.

'Previous studies have shown a two to three year delay in reproduction after severe bleaching but at most of the reefs we are finding colonies of Acropora (branching hard coral) colonies with early signs of egg development in shallow waters, 3m to 6m deep.'

Dr Bay said that the researchers took samples from six different coral species across inshore and offshore environments to help them understand how water quality may also affect bleaching susceptibility and recovery.

While the researchers still have to analyze the data, the reaf bserved significant recovery, particularly on the inshore reefs.

'The majority of coral colonies on the inshore reefs have regained their color and the growth of some colonies was so good they had overgrown our original research tags,' Dr Bay said.

However, the news was not all good. 'Some of the more sensitive corals are now rare even in areas where they had been abundant in March,' Dr Bay said.

Dr Cantin says that fertilization of the tiny eggs happens during the annual spawning event, which is due on the full moon of December 5, and the AIMS research team will test whether the eggs are able to be fertilized. "There is concern the eggs may not be able to successfully fertilize and develop into coral larvae,' Dr Cantin said. 'The eggs are now white, and just before the spawning event they should turn pink when they are preparing for the spawning.'

Dr Cantin says each coral could produce eight to 12 eggs per polyp in colonies of thousands of connected polyps.

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Tony Abbott accuses Gosford priest of Peter Dutton ‘sly smear’

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has accused outspoken Anglican priest Rod Bower of “smearing’’ Immigration Minister Peter Dutton after he posted “Dutton is a sodomite” on social media.

Father Bower said the definition of sodomy was not about homosexuality. “The sin of Sodom is greatly misunderstood by those who usually choose to do so, it has nothing to do with homosexuality, it is all about hospitality, or more to the point lack there of, and particularly about the condition of the heart that leads to inhospitable behaviour,” Fr Bower said in a Facebook post last week.

Mr Abbott said. it was a “sly smear by the sounds of it”.  He said it was surprising that “someone who wants us to love one another would be putting out that sort of message”.

“Fair enough he obviously has pretty left wing political views. He’s entitled, even as a clergymen, to have left-wing political views, but you’d think a spirit of charity would pervade all he does certainly things that he does in a considered way should have a spirit of charity that seems to be missing,” Mr Abbott said.

Reverend Bradly Billings, the assistant archbishop at the Anglican diocese of Melbourne, replied to Fr Bower’s post and said it had “no place” on a church notice board.

“How does this advance the gospel and the standing of the Anglican Church in the community? What will passers-by think? Without the accompanying exegesis of a complex passage in Genesis on this page, the sign will look and sound like a very personal slur on a government minister.”

“As much as your audience here will applaud it, what will be read as an ad hominem attack, and language like this about person however strong our disagreement with that person may be, have no place on a church notice board,” Reverend Billings said.

Fr Bower then defended the sign and said it was only posted for social media, and was not displayed on his church in Gosford’s sign. “This particular sign was posted only for social media where there is the accompanying commentary and is not on the roadside sign.”

“I recognise that we come from very different theological standpoints, but thank god for the breadth and depth of Anglicanism that can accommodate us both.”

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

Couple sue SBS for defamation after broadcaster described their Colonial-themed restaurant as 'offensive' and profiteering from the Empire's 'bloody history'

Pure Leftist hate leading to clear defamation

The former owners of a British Empire-themed restaurant are suing SBS over a report calling their eatery 'offensive' and implying they were racist.

Mark and Angela Kennedy, whose British Colonial Co in Brisbane closed in January, filed a claim in the Southport District Court seeking aggravated damages.

The couple alleged the segment by SBS Viceland last September, which said the restaurant 'celebrated bad taste', caused them hurt, embarrassment and loss.

They alleged it implied they 'supported the bloody history of colonisation' and 'have sought financial gain at the expense of the suffering of others', according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.

British Colonial Co opened in June 2016, marketed as: 'Inspired by the stylish days of the empirical push into the developing cultures of the world, with the promise of adventure and modern refinement in a safari setting'.

It was later changed to: 'A refined and modern dining experience with the adventure of east meets west in a plantation style, club setting.'

The SBS report followed several days of social media backlash accusing it of 'gross racism' among other things, that was reported by other media outlets.

'The restaurant glorifies a colonial past as something beautiful, luxurious, exotic, when in fact colonisation was none of those things,' it said.

'If you ask any indigenous person what colonisation is they will say death, disease and genocide?'

The Kennedy's alleged the report implied they 'supported the bloody history of colonisation' and 'have sought financial gain at the expense of the suffering of others'.

They claimed it conveyed imputations they were racist, support racism, were bigots, bad people, unconscionable, culturally insensitive, stupid, ignorant, disreputable, disingenuous, and trivialised suffering.

The couple's claim also referenced two follow-up SBS online articles reporting on the backlash, and an opinion piece describing it as 'very much deserved'.

'Do I think the owners are racist monsters? No. Is it widely culturally insensitive and, additionally extremely strange? Yep, that one,' they claim it said.

They claimed the piece also accused them of 'having food and decor inspired by the bloody occupation of other cultures by the British Empire'.

Another article said: 'Trivialising suffering for frivolous reasons like making money or having a laugh is a fairly awful thing to do.'

A fourth alleged defamatory publication was posting it on the SBS Comedy Facebook page.

The Kennedys claimed SBS' reporting opened them to 'public ridicule, hatred and contempt', and gravely injured their character and reputation.

They demand aggravated damages because the reports were 'extravagant and sensational', and want a judge-only trial.

SBS has not yet lodged a defence. Daily Mail Australia attempted to contact the broadcaster for comment.

SOURCE






'Just pretend to back Yes': What a Labor senator was told when she told her boss that she didn't believe in same-sex marriage

Leftist trust in lies again

A Labor senator has revealed she was urged to 'pretend to back' the yes campaign so as to align with her party's stance.

Tasmanian MP Helen Polley, who chose to vote no in the $122 million same-sex marriage survey, said senior staff members told her to change her public position, according to The Australian.

While she would not name the people responsible, Senator Polley said she was told her view could cost Labor votes in the next election.

'I’ve been told that I could be responsible for losing the next federal election,' she said.

Senator Polley, who was voting a a 'conscience vote' based on her Christian belief, said she had received pressure from friends, colleagues and Labor MPs. 'I’ve had all sorts of propositions put to me... But I have to be true to the people who elected me,' she said.

The Labor MP also added that she agreed with her party's stance that a postal plebiscite should not have occurred and that it was fraught with problems.

It comes as Opposition Leader Bill Shorten attended a rally in support of the 'yes' vote in Melbourne on Sunday, urging supporters not to be disheartened.

SOURCE




Must not say that men and women are different

Australia: Pidapipo Gelateria has deleted an Instagram post launching gendered ice-cream flavours after coming under fire on social media. The cult gelateria, which has stores in Carlton and Windsor, is owned by Lisa Valmorbida whose family also owns 130 year old grocery store King & Godfree in Carlton.

Pidapipo launched the gendered flavours in a collaboration with online fashion retailers Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter.

"Here are two gelato popsicles we've created. One for men and one for women. For men? Salted caramel with milk chocolate & malt crumb. For women? Strawberry rose with white choc & raspberry dust. Even better together."

The post was deleted after attracting negative comments on social media including "so tone deaf" and "OF COURSE the women get a pink fruity one. I'm shocked the men's isn't rum or some s---".

Melbourne University School of Social and Political Sciences lecturer, Dr Lauren Rosewarne, says the gendering of ice-cream is unnecessary. "[But], it's perfectly in line with a long history of the gendering of bizarre products like pens and razors which have been gendered purely for marketing reasons," she says. "In the context of cuisine, the rise of 'dude food' is probably the best example of this."

Rosewarne also questions the flavours chosen. "The linking of sweet and floral flavours to women and salty and dark flavours to men is harmless but is also reliant on old-fashioned stereotypes that really don't have a place in the world of ice-cream," she says. "The marketing strategy thus comes across as a little old hat, rather than modern or savvy."​

A spokesperson for Pidapipo told Fairfax Media the gelateria was engaged to design gelato that represented the Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter brands for a spring fashion event.

"We removed an Instagram post about the event because it was creating confusion as to the intent of the creative collaboration," the spokesperson said. "We love creating delicious gelato to be enjoyed by everyone and if the collaboration gave the wrong impression we are sorry."

SOURCE






South Australian dairy farmers are exploring becoming independent of state's high-cost "green" power grid

SURGING power prices are pushing South Australian dairy farmers such as James and Robyn Mann to go off-grid. The Manns’ electricity costs have more than doubled in five years, from about $200,000 per annum to $500,000. “It is a pain in the backside,” Mr Mann said.

Due to the high prices, the family will this summer switch to diesel power to run their 116-stand rotary dairy and 14 irrigation centre pivots at Wye in the lower south east of South Australia.

And, as a longer-term measure, they are investigating the economics of installing an on-farm energy solar-diesel-­battery energy generator entirely independent of the mains power grid.

The Manns are among Australia’s top 10 dairy producers, in terms of volume, milking up to 2300 cows and producing 19-21 million litres annually.

Their move comes as South Australia’s dairy lobby has calculated the state’s dairy farmers paid about 40 per cent more for power than their Victorian neighbours last season. And it was the peak times that hurt the most.

Mr Mann said during the past summer’s irrigation times, electricity costs “suddenly became 20 per cent of your milk cheque for some months and that just doesn’t work”. “We have to be mindful about when power becomes expensive, so we’re investigating options to become less reliant on the grid,” he said.

“Its embryonic, but information we have is saying we could get a payback within five years of (setting up a system on-farm) not connected to the grid, a combination of solar, diesel and batteries. “We’ll work out which way we want to go in the next few months; I don’t know yet if we’ll do it.”

Regardless of the outcome of these investigations, Mr Mann said he was planning on switching to diesel to run his dairy and irrigation pivots this summer.

His dairy has had a diesel back-up system, which has been used intermittently as the reliability of the mains power has fallen in the past five years.

The cost of running diesel-powered irrigation pivots, compared with mains electricity powered pivots, were “line ball” last year, Mr Mann said. “Power has just gone up again so I suspect this year diesel will be cheaper,” he said.

“It doesn’t look like there will be much relief on power prices coming and that is likely to get worse.”

South Australian Dairyfarmers Association chief executive Andrew Curtis said comparing SA dairy farmers’ electricity prices to those in Victoria’s Dairy Farm Monitor report last season showed SA dairy farmers paid about 40 per cent more per kilogram of milk solids.

He suspected this could rise to 45 per cent more this season, as all power prices were increasing and SA has the “highest prices in the world”.

Mr Curtis said irrigation had traditionally been the largest user of power on SA dairy farms with more farmers now turning to diesel generators as the cost was comparable for modern efficient generators and they could rely on them.

In the past year he said there had been up to 40 dairy farmers who had lost power four-to-six times, with the power out long enough to affect at least one milking, he said.

The cost of power to a dairy farm business is creeping up, with many farmers reporting a doubling in costs in the past year, Mr Curtis said.

He said SA did not have the base-load power generation of other states and this was predominantly due to a mix of power sources, with more than half of its power coming from renewable sources.

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 Federal Police launches a new recruitment drive – but only WOMEN can apply

What a howl there would be if the advertisement were "men only".  Why must people be hired on the basis of what they have between their legs?

Men wishing to join the Australian Federal Police need not apply - for the next few months at least. The AFP's Acting Commissioner Leanne Close is hoping 1,000 women apply to become federal police officers during the next recruitment round.

But she argued the exclusion of men, as part of the force's first-ever women's-only recruitment round, was not sexist with women making up just 22 per cent of sworn AFP officers.

'What we are not doing is recruiting enough women to reach the targets that we want by 2021 … so we are actively marketing out there to really target those women who would be keen for a great, challenging and really diverse career,' she told a graduation ceremony attended by the ABC.

The AFP wants female representation to jump to 35 per cent by 2021 and is working to employ 600 more women during the next four years.

The women's-only recruitment round, from now until Christmas, will relate to entry-level positions.

The AFP told the ABC women made up just one-third of its staff and a quarter of senior leaders. 

The gender-biased recruitment policy was announced on Thursday the AFP's latest graduation round, of which more than half were women.

Australia has only had one female police commissioner, with Christine Nixon leading Victoria's police force from 2001 to 2009. The senior police commander came under fire in 2010 when a royal commission into the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires found out she was having dinner during a disaster that killed 173 people.

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Victoria, NSW to be penalised for outlawing fracking under Grants Commission plan

States that fail to permit coal seam gas mining would be penalised under a fresh proposal from the Grants Commission to change the method of distributing goods and services tax revenue.

The adjustment would hurt Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, each of whom has complete or partial bans on coal seam gas exploration or development or has a moratorium on fracking.

The gas crisis has been averted, but state governments in NSW and Victoria are to blame for forcing their residents to pay more, says Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The proposal, in a position paper prepared for the commission's review of the principles behind the GST distribution, is to treat royalties from coal seam gas in the same way as taxes on gambling. It would apply from 2020.

States that choose not to allow poker machines and collect poker machine revenue are regarded as having voluntarily forgone income and not compensated for earning less than the states that do.

The commission wants to consider whether "similar considerations arise in certain potential mineral and energy developments".

"In these circumstances, the commission could take the view that all states that have coal seam gas have the opportunity to exploit it and whether they do or not solely reflects policy choice," the position paper says.

The change would also apply to uranium. The commission says until now it hasn't needed to consider the question because neither coal seam gas nor uranium royalties have been big enough "to result in a material assessment".

Victoria imposed a moratorium on coal seam gas exploration in 2012. NSW banned all activity within 2 kilometres of residential areas in 2013. The Victorian decision was taken by the Coalition government of Ted Baillieu. The NSW decision was taken by the Coalition government of Barry O'Farrell.

The Baird government in NSW temporarily froze new exploration in 2015 while implementing a report designed to ensure the safety of coal seam gas mining by the NSW chief scientist Mary O'Kane.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull attacked Victoria's position on Thursday, saying the only obstacle to getting Victorian gas out of the ground was the Labor government.

"The idea that Victorians are going to have to pay the cost of shipping gas from the Middle East or from Louisiana or from north-west Australia because they have a government that is not prepared to access the gas resources in Victoria is extraordinary," he said.  "It is a shocking indictment of Daniel Andrews and his government. There is plenty of gas in Victoria, onshore gas in Victoria."

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas ridiculed the Grants Commission position paper on Friday, saying Victoria would not be "held to ransom or bullied by an inept government that blames everyone else but itself for its own incompetence". "If Scott Morrison wants to know how to grow an economy and manage debt he should follow Victoria's lead."

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet​ said unlike other states, NSW did not have a ban on coal seam gas. "We believe states should make the most of what they have. When it comes to GST distribution, NSW is sick of subsidising inefficient and non-reforming states," he said.

A proposal by Santos to mine coal seam gas in the Pilliga Forest on the North West Plains is before the NSW Planning Assessment Commission.

The Andrews government said this week that it is "proud" of its permanent ban on fracking in Victoria, which became law in March.

The ban is supported by the Coalition, but the political agreement does not extend to the Andrews government's moratorium on conventional onshore exploration. The moratorium is due to expire in June 2020. In the lead-up, the government has asked scientist Amanda Caples to inquire into the "risks, benefits and impacts of onshore conventional gas".

SOURCE





Rugby league bans gay pride flags, 'yes' and 'no' signs from the grand final

NRL and AFL policies

The NRL has scrapped political messages being displayed in the crowd at the game’s showcase event, with rainbow flags and ‘yes’ or ‘no’ signs being barred from the grand final.

Sunday night’s clash between the favoured Melbourne Storm and the underdog North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium in Sydney will be free of any messages related to the ongoing same-sex marriage postal survey.

Anything which may ‘upset other patrons’ will not be allowed in the stadium, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The official policy from ANZ Stadium says any unauthorised political images or logos will cause punters to be refused entry into the venue.

Security will be making compulsory bag checks at the stadium.

Meanwhile sport and politics continue to mix, as an ad supporting the marriage status quo will run during Sunday night’s game despite being banned from being broadcast during the AFL grand final.

The advertisement was not run during Richmond’s victory over Adelaide on Saturday as it was too rude, according to Sky News.

The ad features abusive messages the Coalition for Marriage says it has received since the plebiscite began. The statements include comments such as ‘I genuinely hope someone kicks your teeth in’, ‘homophobic maggots’ and ‘homophobic bigot’.

It was banned because of the earlier ball-up time of the AFL grand final, while the NRL decider is scheduled to kick off at 8.30pm.

The ad is allowed to go to air after 7.30pm.

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What's happened to the University?

Jeremy Sammut

Many people are likely to have had a lightbulb moment that made them realise our universities are in trouble.

Over the past year, I have commented in many media stories about a range of social engineering initiatives across everything from early childhood education to corporate Australia pushing the 'diversity agenda' in matters of race, gender and sexuality.

What has struck me is that the ideological agendas being promoted aim to shape, set and enforce the boundaries of acceptable -- as opposed to offensive racist, patriarchial or homo- or trans-phobic thought and speech.

This has brought home to me the extent to which the precepts of postmodernism -- which were taking hold in universities when I was an undergraduate -- have entered mainstream society.
The postmodernism revolves around the idea that language used by the dominant culture or discourse creates social reality and oppresses certain victim groups. It follows that marginalised groups are liberated by restricting or regulating freedom of thought and speech around a range of issues that are simply no longer up for debate and discussion and dissent.

Yet debate discussion and dissent are the foundations of the freedom of enquiry that universities should stand for as bastions of intellectual freedom -- but not in the post-modern academy.

According to Sydney University's latest 'Unlearn' marketing campaign, students will not be pursuing enlightenment while studying for their degrees, but de-construction by being "taught how to unlearn...and, challenge the established, demolish social norms and build new ones in their place."

The 'Unlearning' university promises not an education in how the world really works based on reason, logic, and rational analysis; it promises an indoctrination in how academic ideologues with a one-trick agenda demand it should work.

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

Child institutional abuse probe’s approach under fire

Under influence from an unscientific nut

The $500 million royal commission into institutional child abuse is promoting “ethically dubious” and potentially harmful ideas about the counselling of sexual abuse victims and the reliability of their testimony, senior experts in the field have warned.

Several leading national and international researchers say the long-running inquiry has adopted a misguided victim-advocacy role and published misleading, inaccurate research that could potentially undermine the $4 billion redress scheme for abuse victims.

Richard Bryant, director of the Westmead Trauma Stress Clinic, said the royal commission ­appeared to be advocating counselling practices that were potentially dangerous and contradicted guidelines endorsed by the ­National Health and Medical ­Research Council.

His concerns were echoed by several experts in psychology, including emeritus professor Don Thomson, chairman of the ethical guidelines committee of the Australian Psychological Society, and Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California Irvine, an internationally renowned memory researcher who described some of the ideas endorsed by the commission as “brain babble”.

Harlene Hayne, vice-chancellor of the University of Otago in New Zealand, said one of the commission’s recent reports contained “a level of error that would probably cause you to fail an undergraduate memory course”.

The criticisms centre on two royal commission reports, one on the proposed compensation scheme, the other examining the effects of childhood trauma on memory.

The compensation report draws extensively on the advice of Cathy Kezelman, president of the victim-advocacy organisation the Blue Knot Foundation and co-author of a 120-page counselling guide that advocates “trauma-­informed care”, an approach the royal commission adopted. Its central idea is that counsellors focus on their clients’ underlying trauma rather than their presenting symptoms.

Dr Kezelman is a former GP who underwent psychotherapy in her 40s and developed multiple personalities while recovering “repressed memories” of being raped and tortured as a child by her father and a pedophile cult led by her grandmother.

She cites her nine years of psycho­therapy as an example of trauma-informed care, and has forged a close relationship with the royal commission, which praised the clinical expertise of her organisation in its report and suggested trauma-informed care could play a valuable role in the compensation scheme.

In today’s Weekend Australian Magazine, Dr Kezelman’s brother, Claude Imhoff, an emergency physician, refutes his sister’s story of pedophilia, saying he lodged a formal complaint against her psychologist in 2012, arguing that her treatment triggered “false memories” of abuse and caused immeasurable harm to her and his family.

The issue of whether people can entirely forget incidents of childhood abuse and then recover repressed memories of them years later has split the psychotherapy professions in recent decades, with many experts arguing there is no empirical evidence to support a phenomenon. Professor Bryant said the trauma-informed approach advocated by Dr Kezelman directly contradict best-practice guidelines endorsed by the NHMRC, which encourage counsellors to focus on treating symptoms.

He said her counselling guidelines advocate ethically dubious and potentially dangerous therapy techniques such as helping clients retrieve “implicit memories” that are hidden from consciousness, a technique that caused a rash of false and bizarre reports of child abuse in the 1980s and 90s.

“Does the royal commission really want to advocate policies that are contrary to the NHMRC?” he asked. “If funds are going to be made available for people who have been damaged, I think it would be ethically irresponsible, and would further compound the damage to the victims, if the system promoted or even ­allowed psychological services that are not evidence-based.”

Professor Loftus described aspects of the guidelines as “brain babble”, saying if they were widely adopted, “I foresee a world of hurt in Australia’s future”.

Dr Kezelman defended the guidelines, saying they had been endorsed by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of ­Psychiatrists and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. The chairman of the RANZCP’s faculty of psychotherapy, Michael Daubney, said current counselling methods often did not meet the complex needs of people who had suffered extensive interpersonal abuse in childhood, a gap that trauma-­informed care could fill.

The royal commission report stipulates it is not advocating any particular counselling model for the compensation scheme, but recommended Dr Kezelman’s organisation be involved in ­accrediting counsellors for the scheme: she now sits on the advisory panel devising it.

The inquiry’s chairman, judge Peter McClellan, has described her as an “old friend” of the commission and appeared with her at conferences and media events, including one scheduled for today when Dr Kezelman will introduce the judge’s speech to a psychotherapy conference in Sydney.

The other royal commission report to have attracted strong criticism is a 185-page review of the effects of childhood abuse on memory, which states among its findings that young children are not highly suggestible and do not appear to be more susceptible to misinformation than adults.

Professor Thomson said these assertions are contradicted by decades of research, a view supported by Professor Hayne and Deirdre Brown, from Victoria University of Wellington, two leading child psychology researchers.

Professor Hayne described the report as sloppy, inaccurate and potentially harmful to the cause of abuse victims. She was concerned a government inquiry was promoting such an erroneous, falsely optimistic view of children’s reliability, potentially undermining years of study into their vulnerabilities as witnesses. “Maybe they misguidedly have the view that this is an advocacy exercise,” she said. “I can see how this report could be misused and would lead to greater harm to children, if it leads to the belief they don’t have special needs as witnesses.”

The lead author of the report, Jane Goodman-Delahunty of Charles Sturt University, said she was aware some researchers contested its findings but these reflected robust recent research showing children were not as suggestible as earlier studies had reported. She said one aim of the report was to highlight ways to ­address the high incidence of ­“potentially wrongful acquittals” in child sex abuse cases, although it acknowledges the import­ance of careful, non-­suggestive questioning of children.

In a prepared statement, the royal commission said it had commissioned a large number of research reports, and the report co-authored by Professor Goodman-Delahunty reflected the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the commission itself.

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Another reason to abolish 18C. Consider this vexatious complaint’s threat to free speech

When the legal affairs editor of this paper, Chris Merritt, sent a carefully worded reply on March 9 to an email he had received two days earlier, that should have been the end of a matter involving what can fairly be described as a mild-mannered response to abusive hate mail.

Instead, the relevant series of emails is about to become the latest chapter in the story of Australia’s notorious anti-free-speech law, section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Attempting to single out any one element of this case for special treatment is a difficult task, but it is a laughable indictment of this dreadful law that Merritt, Janet Albrechtsen and Hedley Thomas (to whom some of the original emails were sent) are defendants in this case, rather than plaintiffs.

The reason this is so perplexing is that it was the original recipients who were vilified on grounds of “race, colour, or national or ethnic origin”, not the sender.

And yet the plaintiff is Sokhom Prins — the author of emails referring to writers at The Australian as members of a “WHITE RACIST POSSE”.


Ms Prins.  She is a Cambodian who survived the Pol Pot horror and who now lives in Australia.  She describes Australia on her Twitter account as a "great country, pity about the people".  Racist?

I have always thought the use of capital letters really lends an air of credibility to the written word. It is very effective use of language by Prins.

In a rare display of sensible judgment, the Australian Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint when it first came across the desk of the bureaucrats whose job it is to decide whether feelings have been sufficiently hurt to usher the complaint through a convoluted series of supervised discussions between the complainant and the alleged offender.

In the letter to Prins explaining the commission’s reasons for dismissing the complaint, officer Jodie Ball stated: “The information you have provided to the commission is confusing and not easy to understand … The commission has spent considerable time trying to make sense of your correspondence.”

That is a lawyerly way of explaining that the Prins document was more of a rant than a carefully considered, quasi-legal statement of complaint.

Despite having been dismissed at the first hurdle, the complaint has now been advanced by Prins to the Federal Circuit Court.

Of course, if you are unable to express your complaint in clear enough language that others can understand, it is pretty unlikely that your claim will be successful. So Prins’s demands for the removal of the offending column (Merritt’s email response to Prins was published in this paper) and $1.6 million in damages are more than likely to be rebuffed by the court.

But the dismissal of this complaint should not be seen as validation of section 18C.

Even if the matter is withdrawn by Prins tomorrow, there have still been significant costs incurred by the defendants.

The time and energy already expended on this case will never be recovered.

And the money spent engaging lawyers is unlikely to be recouped, even if the court makes a costs order against a complainant.

Many of those who are in favour of the state dictating the limits of public discussion via the operation of section 18C will no doubt point to the marginal amendments that were made to the administration of the law earlier this year.

One of those changes was a new requirement that if a case had previously been dismissed by the Human Rights Commission for being “trivial, vexatious, frivolous, misconceived, or lacking in substance”, it could only advance to the Federal Circuit Court with leave of the court.

But Prins filed her complaint before those changes came into ­effect. Some will therefore argue that the new regime will not allow for a vexatious complaint to drag on as this one has.

But that relies on the Human Rights Commission dismissing cases such as this for being vexatious. And while it might seem obvious to the casual observer that complaints of this kind meet that requirement, this is not common practice for the AHRC. That a case may be dismissed for a reason other than being vexatious would not be ­unusual.

Fifty of 55 complaints under the Racial Discrimination Act in 2015-16 were dismissed because there was “no reasonable prospect of conciliation”. Just three dismissals in the last year fell under the vexatious category, with another two complaints dismissed for other reasons.

The upshot is that the procedural amendments made by parliament will knock out only a tiny proportion of complaints, without providing sufficient protection for free speech.

This latest example bolsters the argument for the repeal of section 18C.

Newspapers, journalists, columnists and students at university will not be free to express themselves until this dangerous law is removed in its entirety from the commonwealth’s statute books.

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Mum infuriated by absurd letter home from preschool

LET’S just say this preschool has some unrealistic expectations about three-year-old children. They didn’t go down well.  One suspects that the authors of the letter are not themselves parents

A mum has shared a baffling newsletter sent home from her child’s preschool with US based parenting site Scary Mommy, Kidspot reports.

Why so baffling? Well, it appears that the staff of the preschool have some pretty unrealistic expectations of a group of three and four-year-olds.

“We made it through a really tough first month with tears, attitudes, unwillingness, not listening, not obeying the rules and especially, too much talking and not enough sitting in seats when asked to,” the October 2017 newsletter of this particular establishment reads.

“We work on this every day at school, but we need help from home, too. We realise kids don’t want to sit and would rather talk and play when they want to; but that’s not how school works.

“Preschool is preparation to go on to ‘big’ school and these things are important there, too. We simply can’t say that our kids don’t like colouring and sitting still because Kindergarten and first grade have a lot of colouring. Please, work five or 10 minutes each day with your child on this and you’ll see improvement. We have seen improvement with several kids already.

“We realise it’s a fast-paced world and parents work, but the adults in the house have to be in charge and help the kids to understand this. Please, talk to your child about the importance of sharing, not fighting, keeping their hands to themselves, and learning to get along with each other. Remind them that once we pick up the toys that we don’t get them back out again, because we are done playing and going on to learning fun things.”

WHAT’S REALISTIC TO EXPECT FROM A PRESCHOOLER?

We checked what’s expected behaviour of a preschooler over at Raising Children - an expert parenting advice site supported by the Australian Government and the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne — and it’s fair to say, mums have good reason to find this newsletter infuriating.

As children settle into a new environment at a preschool, some tears and separation anxiety is very normal behaviour. Many children at age three are still having tantrums and a good preschool will have effective management strategies to help children communicate their feelings in a more positive way.

Preschoolers have short attention spans — around 30 minutes — so sitting still and listening for long periods of time is simply not a realistic expectation for a group of three and four-year olds.

Children at this age are still learning to follow instructions. They’re easily distractable. It is very normal to have to remind children of rules and expectations several times. After all, that’s how they learn.

Not to mention that unstructured play is shown again and again to be essential to early childhood development.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

Angela Hanscom, an paediatric occupational therapist and expert on the important of play for young children, has written repeatedly about the dangers of an ever-increasing push to structured settings in preschool environments in the US. (It’s worth pointing out that in Australia, play-based education is at the heart of most early childhood curricula.)

“It is through active free play outdoors where children start to build many of the foundational life skills they need in order to be successful for years to come,” she writes in the Washington Post.

“In fact, it is before the age of seven years — ages traditionally known as ‘pre-academic’ — when children desperately need to have a multitude of whole-body sensory experiences on a daily basis in order to develop strong bodies and minds.”

She goes on to explain how dangerous it is to kerb children’s free play.

“If children are not given enough natural movement and play experiences, they start their academic careers with a disadvantage. They are more likely to be clumsy, have difficulty paying attention, trouble controlling their emotions, utilise poor problem-solving methods, and demonstrate difficulties with social interactions.”

All of that makes you wonder, just exactly what is this preschool trying to achieve?

SOURCE






Making a point? Activists wearing giant blow up hands emblazoned with Australian flags storm Melbourne council meeting demanding they don't ban Australia Day

Far right protesters dressed in bright blue Lycra waving inflatable Australia flag hands stormed a Melbourne council meeting over Australia Day date changes.

A handful of people draped in Australian flags waving anti-Nazi signs were protesting against Moreland Council's decision to change the date of Australia Day celebrations.

Moreland City Council voted to scrap Australia Day celebrations almost two weeks ago, making them the third Melbourne council to make the controversial move.

The council meeting was interrupted Wednesday evening and a video posted to Facebook shows one man in the gallery being forced to cover his ears because of the noise.

Sombrero wearing protesters carried slogans plastered on black signs including 'no Nazi councils' and 'stop division'.

Protest organiser Neil Erikson posted a video to Facebook saying they 'hit' the council meeting. 'We just burst in there, they closed down their whole meeting,' Mr Erikson said.

The video received more than 8000 views in the three hours it was online and many people commented in support of the protesters. 

Greens Councillor Natalie Abboud shared that she was 'so proud' of the council and gallery who experienced the protest Wednesday evening and thanked them for their 'bravery and patience'.

'Men in Lycra won't stop us from hearing community submissions to the Draft Local Law tonight,' Ms Abboud wrote on Facebook.

'I hope I never have to see a professor with his hands over his ears again.'

However, Mr Erikson is no novice when it comes to storming council meetings in protest.

Mr Erikson stormed Yarra City Council's meetings in protest of them changing Australia Day earlier in September

The 32-year-old interrupted a Yarra City Council meeting early September, just hours after he was found guilty for his role in staging a mock beheading to protest a Bendigo mosque.

The group of protesters were also opposing Yarra City Council's decision to ban Australia 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